That summer of Kanye is supposed to officially start May 25, which is tomorrow, Friday. Pusha T, aka King Push, formerly of the Clipse and currently GOOD Music’s version of Dylan X5, is slated to drop his seven-track album produced entirely by Kanye West, Daytona, Friday (or maybe at midnight Thursday). And I won’t be…

A month ago at work, a white man physically threatened me. He wanted to know my name so he could report me, so he came close to me and followed me into my work building and repeated his request. His goal was to intimidate, because maybe I intimidated him.

1. It’s a mnemonic device. If you think I WON’T be using this song to teach my kids how to remember the days of the week, then you’re smoking that Friday. In fact, I may (or may not) be already playing this song over and over again when my kids are in the car as I wait for one of them to start quietly mouthing the…

It was much easier to boycott the NFL last season than I anticipated. For one, I underestimated how much I’d enjoy having my Sundays back. Also, my NFL fandom belongs to a team with a racist name that also happens to suck more often than not, so boycotting because the NFL blackballed Colin Kaepernick was as much “Why…

Someone threw some water at sentient box of racist baking soda Tomi Lahren, and the question of whether it was a justifiable act is now apparently such a thing that our loose-bootied-ass president even saw fit to weigh in.

I’m writing this from a hotel room in Washington, D.C. I’m here for a Q&A and book signing with Franchesca Ramsey Wednesday evening, and I’ll also be on Al-Jazeera’s The Stream Wednesday afternoon. Because my day is so busy, I wanted to get here early just so I’d be settled and ready, and my flight from Pittsburgh was…

Editor’s note: This is satire. What is satire, you ask? According to Dictionary.com, satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. Keep that in mind. Thanks.

As it did for so many folks I know, hip-hop changed my life. I don’t mean in the “It saved my life” way, but when I was introduced to hip-hop, I fell hook, line and sinker into the ocean and never came up for air.

Since my daughter was born, I’ve had two very clear objectives: 1) Raise a good human being who goes to Spelman College, and 2) Turn my daughter (and the rest of my kids) into music heads. I want my kids to be the ones who go to school talking about that new Marvin Gaye Here, My Dear album. I want them thinking that…

As the father of a baby person—and also the uncle of some baby people—I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time (for an adult) at Chuck E. Cheese’s in the past three years. Birthday parties, potty-train parties, random Saturdays when you’re babysitting your nephew and don’t have shit else to do—I’ve been there…

Editor’s note: Corey Richardson, the author of We Used to Have Money, Now We Have You! A Dad’s Bedtime Story, is a frequent VSB contributor. 

A few months ago, there was an issue with an H&M shirt, a black boy and a monkey. We were all like, fuck yo’ couch, H&M! And then folks shut a few H&Ms down in South Africa, and then H&M was closing down tons of stores (while opening others), and I think Brick killed a guy.

As I noted yesterday, Becky With the Bold Hands went through the entire gamut of aggrieved white weaponry when she was detained by police officers for attempting to pet a black woman’s dog without permission. Tears, kicks, threats, panic attacks smoothly transitioning into lucid vulgarities—it was like watching…

If you cannot afford to give money, your presence is all that counts. And if you can’t afford to give money, but you do crochet and shit, crochet some shit for them. Crochet your happy, crocheting ass off.

Janet Jackson’s janet. could not have come out at a more critical time in my life. It was the summer of 1993 (the album was released 25 years ago today, May 18), and I was 11 years old going on 12, and puberty was having the time of its life in my body. Since this was still a few years before the internet would be…

The news has lately been inundated with examples of white folks (and even some nonwhite folks) doing the ultimate white-folkin’ of calling the police for no reason on black folks who were doing nothing but existing and living their everyday lives.

On the list of “Headlines I’ve always wished to write but assumed I’d never have the chance to,” “White Person Arrested for Petting a Black Person’s Dog Without Permission” might actually be No. 1, narrowly beating “Zimmerman Stampeded in Pamplona; Remains Yet to Be Found” and “Reparations Approved by Congress on One…

The royal wedding is happening at some point this week. I haven’t been following the news blow by blow, but I know enough to know the main characters. Meghan Markle (who I enjoyed on Suits) is marrying Prince Harry (who is a prince). They look nice together in pictures, like the cover models for a pamphlet about a new…

I was introduced to Summer Lee last year by a mutual friend. We met for drinks in the lobby of the Ace Hotel, and she shared her background (Howard University Law grad who recently moved back to the Pittsburgh area), the work she was currently doing to oust racist members of the Woodland Hills School Board (she…