1. At least once a week, 50 Cent does or says a thing that makes you think “Yeah, I see why people want to kill you.” Alexander Hamilton was (spoiler alert) killed by Aaron Burr, but like 17 different people had good reason to kill him too. The homie Bassey put it best: “Not enough people shot him.”

[I shouldn’t have to say this given that this is about the SERIES FINALE, but SPOILER ALERT. ALL THE SPOILERS ARE PRESENT.]

While walking through some mud at Moraine State Park last weekend, I thought about how “mud” is one of those perfect words that fits exactly what it is. Mud looks and acts and feels and smells exactly like something we should call “mud.” It would make no sense if the word for mud was something fancier sounding, like…

“It is weird?” I asked, in a message I copied and pasted to several people through text, on Gchat, and in Facebook Messenger, six weeks ago. The question was a followup to a revelation I also shared with the same people: I’d recently discovered, while finally seriously researching potential therapists—after telling…

Like many folks who haven’t seen the hit stage play Hamilton in person, I relished the opportunity to watch it on Disney+ when it released on July 3, 2020. Even if you don’t care for musicals—or the subject matter of this particular musical—it’s impressive in its expanse and each of the stars of the show provide…

Did Wakanda have housing projects? Payday lenders? A Wakandan Dollar General?

So the NBA bubble thing is weird. And the social justice messaging on the jerseys is dumb. So dumb. SO DUMB. But I am also weird and dumb, and I am fascinated by the uncanny valley of the NBA’s reboot. The crowds are computer-generated avatars! Some people in the gyms are wearing masks and some aren’t, which seems not…

We all have movies that resonate with us. And in those movies, there are usually songs that help flesh out the story that become part of our lives. Today’s list is full of our favorite soundtrack jams.

Since we’ve all been some manner of “at home” since March, one of the most consistent forms of Black entertainment has been Verzuz—not always for the right reasons; doesn’t it seem like forever ago that Teddy Riley was trending?—and the arguments, speculation and unsolicited social media advice offered to…

There are tens of thousands of Americans—nurses and uncles; bus drivers and doctors; aunties and baristas; grad students and my friend—who were killed by COVID-19 because they just weren’t able to escape it. Perhaps their occupation was high-risk. Perhaps they were unable to effectively social distance. Perhaps they…

There are places on TV, in magazines, and on the internet where you can find peer-and-eater-reviewed methods for preparing, cooking, and staging great steaks. Where the people who make the steaks promise that, if you follow their directions, step-by-step, you will have a delicious steak too.

Jagged Edge, easily one of the greatest R&B groups of all time—baby, baby baby, it’s actual and it’s factual—is releasing a new album, A Jagged Love Story, soon. Each member of the group has posted both the album’s cover art and track-listing on their respective IG feeds, noting that the album has been submitted to…

Although we’re pretty much free to use whichever language we wish within the body of a piece here, headlines are different. Most profanity is fine, in the proper context. But proper context or not, the granddaddy (“fuck”) needs approval from our editor-in-chief. Sexually explicit terms are a no-go, and slurs are, too.…

“So,” the moderator asked, during a public (and socially distant) book talk last week—my first time being indoors anywhere other than my house or a grocery store since early March—“what would you change if you wrote that chapter to your daughter today?”

On July 25, 2005, William Ray Norwood, Jr. better known to the world as Ray J, released his classic single, “One Wish.” Whether you agree or not with this next statement doesn’t matter, for its truth is indisputable: “One Wish” is one of the greatest songs of all time of ever.

So this morning after eating the 170,000th honey roasted peanut I’ve eaten since March OH IT WAS SO DELICIOUS THE WAY THE HONEY AND THE ROASTED PEANUT CONVERGED IN MY MOUTH CRUNCHY SWEET TANGY SEXY YES SEXY A HONEY ROASTED PEANUT IS THE SEXIEST NUT WAY SEXIER THAN CASHEWS WHICH HAVE NUT SCOLIOSIS AND ALMONDS WHICH…

We all have our favorites. You know, the songs or artists that you love more than everybody else. The b-sides. The indy circuit jams. The artist with 10 followers. The artist on the rise. Or those jams that you know—with your whole heart—would change or should have changed the world...if only folks really listened.…

I’m Black. I love Popeyes. My Black love for Popeyes is further proven by the fact that I want to put an apostrophe in Popeyes (ya know, like Popeye’s) so badly and I keep having to erase it. Every. Single. Time. Apostrophes were unnecessary? That’s Black love.

Have you ever just been sitting around and thought to yourself, “Self, there were several music groups—both in hip-hop and R&B—that went by a three-letter acronym. Somebody should rank them.”? No? Just me. I’m self. Hello.

There’s been a bit of a debate within The Root on how to cover Talib Kweli’s inexhaustible obsession with Maya Moody.