Let me be very clear, I love Belly. I love love it. When Mary J. Blige sang about “Real Love” in 1992, a whole ass six years before Belly would be released to the masses, she had no idea that she was singing my soul’s affinity for Hype Williams’ best music video ever. And what’s not to love? For a person like myself,…

Champion cyclist Marshall “Major” Taylor may not be known to the masses, but he was a pioneer in his sport. He was one of the most recognizable athletes in the world at the turn of the 20th century, having earned seven world records by 1898.

“The only way you are really ever going to be truly content is if you are constantly evolving,” says Kelis in Essence magazine. And she knows a bit about evolution, first hitting our radar in the early aughts as a genre-defying singer-songwriter, and evolving in the years since into a chef, cookbook author and farmer.

Sometime in the ungodly hours after midnight—the hours when men get drunk and send “Hey Bighead, you up?” texts—one of the cinderblock pillars in the upper portion of hip-hop’s foundation released an album.

My first job, about a decade ago in Harlem, was interning at a shelter for domestic violence survivors. Most were lower-income black and Latina women. A colleague and I would organize these makeshift financial sessions, giving these women overviews about how to build credit, manage debt, apply for housing vouchers and…

When I woke up this morning, I planned on writing about (actually, I did write about) what was probably going through Nas’ mind as Kanye continued to go on his alienate-the-black-community Twitter spree. With albums set to release in June by Nas, Cudi, Pusha T and Teyana Taylor, I figured that none of them could be…

Rashaun Williams is a recovering investment banker and current venture capitalist. He worked at Goldman Sachs and other firms for 13 years before moving to the West Coast to get into the tech world. He is a general partner at Manhattan Venture Partners’ All-Star Fund, a late-stage tech company focused on investing in…

I forgot who it was who first told me that Ice Cube never smiles in movies. I think it was a Delta because that’s a very Delta observation to make. But yeah, Ice Cube never smiles in movies.

Last week, Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, frontman for the Roots, tried to break the rapper-nets with a 10-minute freestyle with Funkmaster Flex over the Mobb Deep “Burn” instrumental that even had people who think Kevin Gates is the best rapper of all time impressed.

Perhaps there are bigger fish to fry. Racism is still alive; they just be concealing it, after all. Or more likely, I’m dazed by the fact that Alabama did the unthinkable, entirely thanks to black people, so I’m feeling greedy. Yo no sé.

Nas wants to be able to spend more time with his son, and now he’s taking ex-wife Kelis to court for an official visitation schedule.

I didn’t have $100 for this so-called fight, and I kinda forbade asked my husband not to order it. Therefore, I got my Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight moments from social media. Here are the five things this reporter found the most interesting:

Just days after performing on tour in Las Vegas, Prodigy from the rap group Mobb Deep has died at the age of 42.

President Covfefe will probably hate Nas now (if he didn’t already) after reading an open letter the Queens, N.Y., rapper penned to him.

Nicki Minaj made an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Tuesday and has seemingly confirmed that she is, in fact, dating fellow Queens, N.Y., rapper Nas.

Editor’s note: In Focus is a video series showcasing the new wave of black filmmakers.

Rapper Nas, fresh off the pipin’-hot sales of his black Santa holiday gear, says he will debut a hip (hop) HSTRY clothing line right in time for Black History Month, or the shortest month of the year.

It’s interesting—and somewhat sad—that this decade’s only two meaningful rap beefs have involved attempts to sink the same floating dead body.