Aug 16, 2022P-Valley is Top TierLil Murda is our man now and Uncle Clifford has to deal. Spoiler alert* Don’t come reading this if you haven’t watched the grand fi-fi-fi-finale of P-Valley! *in my Uncle Clifford voice.* Katori Hall’s P-Valley has disrupted our lives in the best way possible with her TV-drama that highlights the…Culture4 min readCulture4 min read
Apr 7, 2021Member-onlyVerzuz, The Platform Black Music CravedBack in February of 2017, in the middle of the night, true music fans were blessed with an Instagram Live that featured Swizz Beatz and Just Blaze in an intimate studio setting surrounded by onlookers. They ran through their extensive catalogs back to back as Swizz talked some of the…Dmx4 min readDmx4 min read
Published in ZORA·Sep 29, 2020Member-onlyTiffany D. Jackson’s Latest Novel Centers the Vulnerability of Black GirlsThe NAACP Image Award-nominated author gets deep in ‘Grown’ — In 2017, right before the release of her debut YA novel Allegedly, Tiffany D. Jackson wrote at a yoga and journaling workshop in New York City that her biggest hopes were for “peace and that people would like her books.” Since then, Jackson has written four books and racked up…Books5 min readBooks5 min read
Jul 24, 2020Member-onlyWhat is safe?For Black women, it seems like a foreign concept. — I want to feel safe. That has been reverberating in my mind lately only to be met with the thought, there’s no such thing as safe for Black women. Not at the hands of those that claim to protect and serve. (Arrest the officers that killed Breonna Taylor.) Not among…Black Women4 min readBlack Women4 min read
Apr 19, 2020Member-onlyA Tale of Two RecessionsI’ll never forget calling to consolidate my student loans and basically getting a recording that said, everything is frozen right now, there’s nothing we can do. That was 2008 and without consolidation, my loan payments would have been something like $400 per month. In 2020, the experience has been very…Economy3 min readEconomy3 min read
Published in ZORA·Apr 1, 2020Member-onlyTerry McMillan Proves That ‘It’s Not All Downhill From Here’Her latest novel is a testament to her commitment to Black women’s lives and to her individual craft — In 1995, my nine-year-old self watched as Whitney Houston, Lelah Rochon, Loretta Devine, and Angela Bassett took the screen in Waiting to Exhale, the eponymous adaptation of Terry McMillan’s 1992 New York Times bestseller. At the time, I had no idea how revolutionary it was to see four Black women…Terry Mcmillan6 min readTerry Mcmillan6 min read
Feb 29, 2020Member-onlyYes, R&B Music is Alive and Well.There just aren’t enough platforms supporting it. — The R&B community has been in a bit of a tizzy since the comments made by Brooklyn rapper Young M.A. that “R&B music just doesn’t feel the same anymore.” In her tweet from Feb. 24th, she stated: “ Music don’t feel the same because we barely have R&B, … R&B…Music5 min readMusic5 min read
Jan 16, 2019Member-onlyIt Could Have Been MeA Realization After Surviving R. Kelly. — There will be a million think pieces about Surviving R. Kelly, the six-part docuseries that aired on Lifetime in early January. But I couldn’t help but think of how easily it could have been me recounting stories of being a young woman just trying to “make it” in the music…Women6 min readWomen6 min read
Oct 1, 2018Navigating Toxicity and The WorkWatching the Season 3 finale of Insecure led me back to the thought I’d been having about toxicity vs. “the work,” of relationships and how do we know the difference? “We had matching luggage and we put in the work.” This statement was in response to Lawrence (Jay Ellis) telling…Relationships6 min readRelationships6 min read
Sep 24, 2018Nappily Ever After & Getting FreeSanaa Lathan played a role that many of us can identify with. — Along with the first kiss, first dates, and fallouts with friends, what seems etched in the minds of Black women is also the first time they cut their hair. In Black culture, there is an attachment to hair that has seemed to last through generations. At times there are tears…Natural Hair6 min readNatural Hair6 min read
