By last Sunday’s Olympic Closing Ceremonies, I was so ready for that flame to be extinguished and the Games to be over and done with. I hate to admit it, but I had grown tired of the Olympic coverage. It went about five days too long and the spoilers didn’t help motivate me to watch a competition in which I already knew who won gold. I certainly could’ve done without the synchronized swimming, the diving– Read more...

Friday before last we awoke to the news of the massacre in Aurora, Colorado. Even though my heart was breaking for the senseless murders, I like many of us who identify as Black, held my breath and hoped and prayed that the killer was not Black. That he or she did not look like me. Later I found out, after perusing quite a few blogs and Twitter feeds that many Muslims had the same anxious Read more...

Kehinde Wiley’s “An Economy of Grace is a study of poise, flyness, beauty, class, glamour and Blackness. And today it will all come to a close.

The women– Homegirls. Ena, Treisha, Shanatavia, Dacia. Brooklyn. Fulton Mall-shopping, Beyonce loving, mothers who take pride in a good manicure. Their poses are based on historical portraits of “society women” by Jacques-Louis David, Thomas Gainsborough and John Singer Sargent. Their clothes– long luxurious gowns reminiscent of neo-classical French romanticism. Read more...

Brooklyn-based artist Mickalene Thomas is best known for her photographs and her elaborate Read more...

It’s Friday. Flyaspora Friday here at theHotness and we thought we’d titillate your senses with a little fine art. I love these two portraits because they reappropriate what is considered classical, high art and dips them low in a point a view and representation that goes against the grain yet supports the woman I see in the mirror every day. Awol Erizku’s “Girl With A Bamboo Earring” reimagines Johannes Vermeer’s famous “Girl with a Pearl Read more...

“Base what you’re doing on something constructive that has to do with all of us (African-Americans/ Black folk) and not just on money and buying things.” -Elizabeth Catlett Mora

“Art is only important to the extent that it aids in the liberation of our people.” –Elizabeth Catlett Mora

April 29, 2011. It was a beautiful spring Friday and I was at Columbia University attending “Towards An Intellectual History of Black Women”– this no nonsense, spectacular Read more...

Seriously, where does the time go? I can’t believe it’s the last day of Black History Month already! Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to post like I really would have liked, but on this Leap Day and in celebration of BHM I must big-up Naomi Campbell as she conjures rock-n-roll icon, Tina Turner, for her “Private Dancer” V Magazine pictorial.  The legs, the hair, the fringed dresses serve up Nut Bush in the most Read more...

Talk about being “out with the old and in with the new.” Well the ladies over at Ebony Magazine have revamped the magazine and are about to launch their new website any day. For now they tease us with their stunning Tumblr that is “in with the new AND old.” Featuring magazine covers and ads from the ‘50’s – ‘80’s, the photos are not only nostalgia-inducing, they are powerful and without a doubt Black like Read more...

Black Gold of The Sun. Indian Gold. Ghetto Gold.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
She is Oyá, Yemayá and definitely Oshún.
Lakshmi and Kali.
Not Venus de Milo.
She is the mahogany, chocolate, amber glow of Black Power.
She is delicate and kick ass. Narrow hips and big ass.
She is Mumbai, Dubai and Bed Stuy.
She is Rum Raisin shellacked lips.
Afro-Sheen.
Afro-Queen.
Afro-Asiatic.
She smells like Chai.
Nagchampa.
A Mississippi Masala Mozambiquen Maroon.
She Read more...

Shingai Elizabeth Maria Shoniwa: Lead singer & bassist of The Noisettes; English of Zimbabwean descent; Virgo; Joined Amnesty International’s “Make Some Noise” to raise awareness of conflict in Darfur; A twin.

For more photos of Shingai go HERE Read more...