1. “Too Close” Next

Prior to COVID, I’d have all of these speaking gigs and book events all across the country; shit was sweet.

First, oh, the stories you will tell. I awake from a four-hour surgery with an epidural and pain pump full of Fentanyl to sounds of a man dying on the gurney next to me, separated only by a threadbare curtain. Codes blare over the PA system, calling for every available physician to assist while next door, there’s the…

Every now and then you have to reach into your bag for your inner “bad bitch.” Sometimes, that’s what it takes to get the job done. This week’s playlist is chock full of jams to harness the power of that inner “bad bitch.”

“No, I don’t have any bottled water” was my reply, 12 years ago, when two women—one of whom I was dating; the other was her friend—visited my apartment for the first time.

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.