Very Smart Brothas
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America Wasn’t Ready for Get Out’s Too Depressing (and Too Realistic) Alternate Ending. Neither Was I
A year after I first watched it—and a day after watching it again on HBO (which seems to have a networkwide mandate to show it 17 times a week now)—the part of Get Out that fucks with me the most is that after Chris discovers Rose’s collection of selfies with the black people she’s lured…
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5 Things It’s Nearly Impossible to Do While Working From Home With Little Kids Around
The Washington, D.C., area is under a high-wind warning. There are winds gusting at up to 60 miles per hour. In the alley behind my house, trash cans are littered about, making it entirely impassable. A neighbor’s trash can hit my SECOND-floor window while bouncing into my neighbor’s yard. Let that marinate for a minute.…
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Is Beyoncé Taking Shots at Tiffany Haddish on ‘Top Off’?
A song called “Top Off,” featuring Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Future and DJ Khaled, dropped at 6 a.m. Along with encouraging Maybach owners to take the tops off of their cars, I think the only reason this song even exists is that Future probably felt really, really, really sad about that Jay-Z line from “Kill Jay-Z” (“In…
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10 Lies and Misconceptions About the Hood That We Need to Stop Spreading and Believing
Today, East Liberty—a neighborhood in Pittsburgh’s East End—is a hypergentrified concentration of boutique hotels, upscale retail, luxury lofts and “’90s-style hip-hop fried chicken” restaurants. The redevelopment has been so dramatic, the name of the neighborhood has changed. Some now call it Eastside—a colonizing portmanteau of East Liberty and the neighboring (and predominantly white) Shadyside. This…
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I Just Found Out That Cats Would Kill Us if They Were Bigger. I Replied, ‘No Shit’
I love cats. You could even call me a cat person. Have you looked at pictures of cats online? It’s riveting shit. I know some cat ladies. I’ve even been called “cat daddy” before. At the beginning of the Teedra Moses song “You’ll Never Find,” off of her Complex Simplicity album, the opening line is,…
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Raphael Saadiq Talks to VSB About Being Nominated for an Oscar, His Musical Legacy and Exercising to Wu-Tang Clan
A lot of eyes in the black community will be on this Sunday’s 90th Academy Awards. Thanks to films Get Out and Mudbound, several black folks are in the running for a coveted Oscar on the movie industry’s biggest night. One such nominee is the song “Mighty River” from the Mudbound soundtrack, which is up…
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The Trump White House Is Love & Hip Hop for Terrible White People (and Ben Carson)
Remember way, way, way, way, way back when Love & Hip Hop: New York was centered on Peter Gunz and his revolving sister wives? And way, way, way, way, way back before then, when Erica Mena was still on the show and hurling wine flutes like ninja stars at Rich Dollaz’ neck? And way, way,…
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Unpopular Black History Opinion: Jackie Robinson May Have Been an Opp
During Black History Month, there are a few obligatory staples and customs that all black kids in America come to expect: the Black History Month assembly where a vivacious and chubby child recites Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech or Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” with the cadence of a LisaRaye performance; brief…
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Where’s the Best Place You’ve Ever Taken a Dump?
Everyone has a story about the worst place they were forced to take a shit. Since I was taught that being black means you have to be twice as good, I have two: 1. When I was 10, my uncles Danny and Mike were in town, and my parents, my uncles and I all went…
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Am I Actually a Southerner? An Examination
I was recently profiled for AL.com, the digital outlet for three of Alabama’s largest newspapers: the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times and Mobile’s Press-Register. During the course of the interview, Roy Johnson, the story’s author, noted that it was interesting that I identified as a Southerner, considering my transient background: It’s intriguing that Jackson so…