culture

The game was the stuff of legend. A flu-sickened Michael Jordan, battling fatigue and a 103-degree fever, played spectacularly in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA finals, going for 38 points, seven rebounds, five assists and a game-clinching three-pointer to push his Chicago Bulls past the Utah Jazz. But it was a ball boy, who…

Taking a page straight from her husband’s creative-marketing playbook, Beyoncé released a surprise iTunes exclusive album that no one saw coming late last night.   The album, Beyoncé, features 17 tracks, including songs with Drake, Jay Z, Frank Ocean and the singer’s baby, Blue Ivy. The album had no promotion or early-release single to build…

When Hartford, Conn., police arrived on the scene, they found Shane Oliver lying on the ground. The 20-year-old had been shot twice in the back. One bullet had pierced Oliver’s muscle and bone, perforated his heart and lungs and pushed its way out of the right side of his chest. Two-and-a-half hours later, Oliver—a young…

Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal sits down with Yaba Blay to talk about her new book, (1) Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race. Blay is an assistant professor and co-director of the Africana Studies program at Drexel University.  Her book explores mixed-race identity, what exactly is blackness, what does it mean to be…

By now you’ve seen the cover photo for R. Kelly’s latest, dubiously titled album, Black Panties. Unfortunately, I’ve seen it, too, and as a father of two daughters, I find it extremely difficult to look at that image, knowing his history: accounts from people like his former manager, Barry Hankerson, about Kelly’s proclivity for underage…

Oprah Winfrey is known for succeeding at just about everything she tries: talk show host, actor and, despite a somewhat bumpy start, now as a network owner. But she might just deserve her greatest credit for the one feat she has not tried yet: parenthood. In a revealing interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Winfrey said,…

Ethan Couch, a wealthy teen from the state of Texas, was charged with vehicular manslaughter after he killed four people while he was driving drunk. He was found guilty, but Couch won’t be serving any prison time because he suffers from an affliction called “affluenza.” Affluenza—a hybrid of the words “affluent” and “influenza”—his lawyer argued…