Uncategorized
-
Lil' Wayne's World
Dear Mr. Wayne, I am such a fan. Really. But I am getting ahead of myself. Male groupies are kind of embarrassing … What I mean to say is that I find your move to a more singing, spoken word form of rap very, very exciting. For example, from “A Milli” on “Tha Carter III”:…
-
Negrito Please
I recently spent some time in Mexico, where it seemed that every surface was covered by ads for Bimbo, a wildly popular baked goods company. In a country where tortillas and pan dulce reign supreme, Bimbo’s success in peddling packaged breads and sweets to the masses is no small feat. In fact, the company even…
-
Check Yourself
Let me relate one of my most unpleasant dining experiences. ABoston journalist was passing through Los Angeles for a night and hoping to see as many of her LA-based friends as possible. To help keep things sane, one of her local buddies organized a group dinner so she could see everyone at once. The evening…
-
Double Take
My son, Liam Kojo Johnson, entered the world pink and screaming, slate blue eyes squeezed shut. Peach fuzz covered his perfectly shaped head, a place-holder for the blonde hair that would soon grow there. His twin sister, Chloe Adjoa, came in peace. She was the color of gingerbread, with jet-black hair. Her calm, stoic face…
-
The Ugly Truth
Thanks to the digging of The Atlantic Monthly’s Joshua Green, we now have a sense of what a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been like. And, Lord knows, it would not have been pretty. The most eye-catching detail to emerge from The Atlantic’s reporting, thus far, is the battle plan devised by Clinton’s chief strategist…
-
The Yummy Sound of Earfood
Trumpeter Roy Hargrove has beaten the odds. Hargrove hit the New York City jazz scene in the late ’80s amid of a blaze of hype calling him the new trumpet star. Blazes of hype were somewhat common in the jazz world then, as a succession of young, good-looking musicians seemed to take turns being flavor…
-
Grae's Anatomy
Sometimes when the planets align and all the stars have found their height, there is a second when the world slows to a crawl and your ears stand at attention, and in that moment it all makes sense. Jean Grae caught that second like a firefly and stuck it a Mason jar when she hooked…
-
Why Russia Can't Be Ignored
The international conflict between Russia and Georgia over the status of Georgia’s breakaway territory of South Ossetia rightly brought about hand-wringing from a war-weary international community. The crisis has already caused a humanitarian catastrophe in which thousands have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced in and around South Ossetia. The idea of…
-
What Camp Obama Has in Common With the Bushies
Allow me to apologize up-front for not drinking the Obama-aid. I like the reed-thin, caramel-colored, left-handed-jump-shot-having senator from Illinois and will probably vote for him, especially given the alternative. But I have had it with the Obama minions who decry any criticism, even policy-based, of him or his campaign. I don’t buy that “anything off-message…
-
A Handbook for Haters
Now that the presidential campaign is entering the homestretch and Barack Obama’s formal nomination at the Democratic Party’s national convention is just weeks away, it’s time to issue a primer for those older “black leaders” who still can’t seem to bear Obama’s ascendance. We already have a “Greatest Generation.” We don’t need a Hater Generation—a group so…