Screw Cupid
“I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy.” ~Anais Nin
If life is like a box of chocolates, then why do we get so crazy over gifting and receiving chocolates on Valentine’s Day? Because like Christmas and Easter, Valentine’s Day is yet another marketing scheme developed by the confectionery industry to get our Read more...
GROOVES: Sade
Like many grown bootied women I know, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve had a major crush on Sade since her 1984 debut. Needless to say, I could NOT wait for February 8th to arrive. On Tuesday night I happily skipped out of my office to Giant Step’s Listening Party at the Royalton and then made a b-line for Best Buy early on Wednesday morning to cop her new joint, Soldier of Love– her Read more...
GROOVES: Hot Grrrls Cool Music 2010
(erykah badu, corinne bailey rae, janelle monae)
I’m so excited about the music that’s dropping in 2010! I really feel like, more so now than ever, the ladies are going to smash this year wide open, which after Sunday night’s Grammy Awards, I couldn’t be more pleased.
The Grammy’s, even though promoted as a Ladies Night, really played strongly for the fellas. Maxwell and Eminem ripped that sucka silly on just some old school Read more...
Wyclef Responds!
The same day I sent out a blast about my recent post Yelé Haiti, I received a note from a reader who asked if I had seen this? I had not seen the tax papers or even heard the accusations about Wyclef Jean’s non-profit NGO. But as soon as I read it I quickly responded:
Read more...Oh no I didn’t …so disappointing. Well I hope he does right now in the face of
Yéle Haiti!
The word yéle is actually a Creole word, and the right way to say it is lee-lay. And yéle means to scream. So when I say yéle, it means I’m screaming for freedom. Freedom of the mind. –Wyclef Jean
I was feeling a lil lousy yesterday—tired of the stress of work, feeling overwhelmed and non-motivated, and then I read tweets by a man named Troy who lives in Port Au Prince. He talked of sleeping Read more...
Janelle Monae + Cindi Mayweather
I love surprises and couldn’t be more thrilled when my homey Greg told me he got us on the list to see Janelle Monae perform at a sci-fi event about time travel at The Greene Space in Soho. I was giddier than a pubescent girl on opening night for Twilight. I’m a sci-fi head that gets totally turned out by all manner of time travel whether it be the wormhole adventures of Farscape or the Read more...
Tamar-kali: Afro-Punk’s Pink Side
Tamar-kali describes her music as “Hardcore Geechee Goddess Warrior Soul.” I simply think it’s bad-ass. Featured in Afro-Punk, James Spooner’s marvelous documentary about Black folk who punk-rock and up jumped the boogie to another level via Fishbone, Betty Davis and Bad Brains, Tamar-kali quickly became a face of a movement she’d fronted locally in NYC for over 15 years in bands like Song of Seven and Funkface.
What I love so much about Read more...
Precious: Bigger, Blacker & Deffer!
I went to see Precious on opening weekend. Word was, Precious takes its cues from this book that makes Oz and The Wire look like spin-offs of The Magic Garden. I’ve never read Push, the book by poet Sapphire that the film is based but I was already nervous, anxious, horrified and so excited about the premise and promise of this flick. You see I believe a lil’ shock therapy is necessary to keep Read more...
Mfon Essien: Photographer/Black Body Hero
After attending this panel and feeling like I got gypped out of a discussion about our own, as well as, society’s perceptions of Black female bodies I haven’t been able to shut-up. What with the unapolegetically full-figured, ebon beauty Gabourey Sidibe on the cover of NY Times Mag and Precious opening in theaters this weekend; with South African runner Caster Semenya on suicide watch after being photographed nude with her legs in stirrups by the Read more...
From Hottentot Venus To The White House
Last Saturday’s dreary grayness did not stop me and about 100 women from attending NY Open Center’s panel, “From Hottentot Venus To The White House: Black Women On Beauty & Bodies.” The panelists were Veronica Webb (Super+Role Model), Tricia Rose (Chair, Africana Studies @Brown U.), Susan Akkad (SVP Corporate Marketing/Diversity for Estee Lauder) with Michaela angela Davis (Cultural Critic) moderating.
I settled in with style maven Sharon Pendana sitting on my left and Ngozi Odita Read more...