Very Smart Brothas
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10 Things That Do Not Belong on Pizza
I’m not a foodie. I have no aspirations to be referred to as somebody with a, hmm, awesome (?) palate. I don’t know what you call people with distinguished (?) palates. I had to look up how to properly spell palate right there. I eat what pleases me and will order it over and over…
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10 Best Christmas Hip-Hop Songs, Ranked
From the Temptations’ “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” to John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” to Oscar Peterson’s “White Christmas,” black folks have contributed to the sonic landscape of the Christmas holiday in unforgettable fashion. Since Christmas parties are a universal part of the season and because hip-hop is the music of…
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I Paid Attention to the Cotton Fields of Alabama for the 1st Time
I’m a Southerner. Like most of my fellow military brats, I spent a considerable amount of my youth growing up in Europe (in my case, Frankfurt, Germany), but I was raised by two black Southerners—my father and stepmother—and during the summers, I split time between Michigan (where my birth mother lives; I hate making these…
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Snitches, Ranked
10. Cypher (The Matrix) 9. Darth Susan from accounting 8. Kobe Bryant 7. Frank Lucas (American Gangster and real life) 6. Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero (The Sopranos) 5. Michael Flynn 4. Henry Hill (Goodfellas and real life) 3. Pookie (New Jack City) 2. Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano 1. Judas
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Snitches, Roaches, Criminals and Rats: Yup, the Trump White House Is Definitely a Trap House
I, for one, cannot wait until 10 years from now when the best books about what’s happening in the White House today are released. Of course, whether those books are written and published and we buy and read them depends on whether the planet is still actually here, which is a bit of a toss-up…
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‘Babies Are Life Hacks for Introverts’ and More I’ve Learned in the 2 Years I’ve Been a Dad
The second “Holy shit!” moment my daughter induced came when we first brought her home from the hospital. It’s really surreal and impossible how tiny babies are when they’re first born—it just doesn’t make any sense for something so small to have all the parts that make a human a human—and I remember thinking as…
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The Problem(s) With Joyner Lucas’ ‘I’m Not Racist,’ Explained
Joyner Lucas is an American rapper from Worcester, Massachusetts currently signed to Atlantic Records. He garnered widespread exposure and critical praise after the release of his single “Ross Capicchioni” in 2015. In 2017, he released his fourth mixtape (and first on a major label), 508-507-2209. Joyner gained national attention when he appeared on the 2015…
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I Went to the Jay-Z 4:44 Tour Stop in Washington, DC. Here’s What Happened
1. Jay performed for roughly two hours. And I could have danced and rapped along for two more hours, easy. Obviously this is not news to anybody, but that man’s catalog is STACKED. He ran through a few records from Reasonable Doubt (he did “Can I Live” to give a shoutout to D.C. drug kingpin…
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5 Life Hacks for Black People Who Want to Leverage White Guilt to Make White People Uncomfortable at Work
We all already know that America is a haven for white supremacy: a 400-year-old greenhouse for white privilege where the vegetation is watered by white tears and casserole juice. Fortunately, there’s space within this forest of whiteness to cheat the game a little bit and use the guilt some of them feel for being historically…
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10 R&B Groups That Should (or Should Have) Release(d) Christmas Albums
On Black Friday, Dru Hill shared a little yuletide joy in the form of a Christmas album, lazily creatively titled Christmas in Baltimore. It’s a surprisingly good listen as holiday music goes, considering that several songs are ONLY Christmas songs because they mention the word “holiday.” They’re Christmas songs in the way that Outkast’s “Player’s…