culture

Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, on Tuesday voiced strong criticism of a potential U.S. strike in Syria, according to the Huffington Post. He issued a stern challenge to the U.S. to deal with gun violence at home before venturing abroad to help other countries. “The United States has no choice but…

Under pressure from online critics, a 30-year-old Tallahassee, Fla., man deleted GhettoTracker.com, his crowd-sourcing experiment “in travel guide segregation,” Gawker reports. Users who navigate to the site receive the following message: “This site is gone. It’s not worth the trouble.” In an effort to save face after the GhettoTracker uproar, the creator put up Good Part…

Kenny Leon is arguably Broadway’s great black hope. The theater director has garnered a reputation for bringing black stories center stage, directing Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and works by August Wilson, including Gem of the Ocean and Fences. For Leon’s next act, the director will tell a different story about black America,…

This past Saturday, Kanye West entertained the friends and family of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the wedding of Nazarbayev’s grandson. But according to the Wall Street Journal, the Human Rights Foundation, an international human rights group, says that an artist as charitable as West should have declined the money and the offer.  “Kanye West is…

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, drummer for the hip-hop band The Roots, which tours around the world and is the house band on NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, is easily recognizable. He’s a large guy — wide and of above-average height. Then, of course, there’s his trademark Afro, which sprouts like an antenna from the back…

(The Root) — “I’ve been dating this guy for five months now. He is very nice, but I have never met his parents. It seems that there is always an excuse why we can’t see them. I guess I’m being paranoid, but I’m not sure he wants his folks to meet me, since I’m a…

(Special to The Root) — This is an excerpt from Vladimir Alexandrov’s recent book The Black Russian, which tells the true story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, the son of former slaves in Mississippi who became a millionaire entrepreneur in czarist Moscow and the “Sultan of Jazz” in Constantinople. (For more on Thomas’ incredible story, check…

The Huffington Post is reporting that one of the highlights of Bishop T.D. Jakes’ MegaFest last weekend in Dallas came when Tyler Perry attended Sunday service at the Potter’s House, Jakes’ church. During the service, Perry announced a $1 million donation toward Jakes’ developing youth center. Perry then gave an inspiring speech, placed a hand…

Federal Judge Shira A. Scheindlin on Wednesday named a community facilitator to aid a court-appointed monitor in modifying the New York City Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy, the Daily News reports. The community facilitator, Nicholas Turner, president of the Vera Institute of Justice, will help police monitor Peter Zimroth develop reforms to the policy, which…

Britt Julious, writing at WBEZ91.5, explains her own disconnect with Essence magazine and how she thinks it could appeal to a younger audience: by bringing its brand of storytelling online. When I think of the appeal of print, I think of packaged storytelling. The value in this form is the tangibleness of the magazine itself.…