Cree Summer Talks Love, Pirates & The Blues
A flashback flashdance! Yesterday my iPod shuffled up two songs, almost back to back, by Cree Summer– “Miss Moon” and “Deliciously Down.” This random play had me twirling and gyrating in my living room and got me thinking hard about this sister who still has folks buzzing about her music, her style and her brilliant voiceover career even though most folk ain’t seen hide nor lusciously curly hair from this very private Cancerian. Cree clearly Read more...
Brass: A Recessionista’s New Gold
Gold, referred to as “tears of the Sun” by the Incas, is perhaps the oldest metal known to us earthlings and I just love this precious metal like no other. It’s shimmer. It’s depth. It’s richness. It all makes that part of my gut that’s connected to beauty and spirit just razzle dazzle with a rush of excitement. Oh and then there’s its connection to Ancient Egypt and Nubia where gold was considered the skin Read more...
Bahamadia, Hip Hop & Me
Next Wednesday, May 2nd, I have the honor of moderating “Nice With Hers”— a conversation (plus fab intro by ebony.com’s Jamilah Lemieux) with Karen Good, Kierna Mayo, and dream hampton — some of the fearless female journalists who wrote the narrative of how the world came to know hip hop, culture, fashion, and itself at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, USA. I’m thrilled, nervous and totally consumed with what Read more...
The 5 Women That Should’ve Been in Vanity Fair
As usual another magazine comes out with their “Hottest,” “Sexiest” and “Best Of” Issue featuring the flavors of the month in popular culture. And of course, the panorama of pale faces is yet another reminder that people of color are a second, if not third, thought in mainstream media’s eyes. So when I saw the Vanity Fair TV Issue, and did not see one brown face on the cover I wasn’t outraged or even surprised. Read more...
Mona Lisa Ain’t Never Looked This Good!
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...
My Birthday Wish List 2012
Celebrating my birthday, as an adult, has become a mixed bag affair. Sometimes I think as we mature, the birthday partying and whooping it up gets a bit tired. We’re not kids anymore and all that fussing about birthday cake ain’t grown-n-sexy unless you’re talking about blowing out the kind of candles Rihanna sings about in her current hit. But it is the day on which we were born and not to go all Chucky Read more...
Elizabeth Catlett: Liberation Through Art
“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...
Trayvon Martin: One Bullet; A Million Hoods
Dear Trayvon,
What more can I say to you that hasn’t already been said about what transpired a month ago this past Monday night? I am beside myself with rage and heartbreak. Just when I think I cannot possibly get any angrier or more frustrated, I watch the news and see these cold-hearted media pimps trying to disparage your rep with lies and matters totally unrelated to what happened to you on the street that Read more...
Naomi Campbell: Private Dancer
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...
Their Whitney; Our Nippy
“I’ll never change all my colors for you.” –Whitney Houston
It’s taken me an entire week to write this post. The shock I had when Michael Jackson died pales in comparison to how stunned I felt last Saturday evening when I heard about Whitney’s passing. I’m still so stunned. Shook. Unlike MJ, I, like so many other Black girls, saw myself in Whitney. I saw my potential in and through Whitney and her success. She Read more...