Gholar has a provided missive for a new way to write about the creative life, art-making and (most specifically) Black women navigating those historically troubled waters for all talents. … More “I allow myself creative freedom to make whatever kind of art I feel like in the moment…” – Tiffany Gholar
Originally posted on Chicago Review of Books:
Kalisha Buckhanon doesn’t have a smart phone. Her first advice to new writers is to get rid of it. She writes on an old desktop computer without internet for the same reason she likes being a writer in Chicago — it allows her to get work done. And…
After performing at countless New York City rite-of-passage venues and now with the band Cross Culture, she continues her fusion of soul, R & B and classic hip-hop with a new single: “Searching for Love.” Yes- people still put on the music in backyards, pools, basements and garages to just dance. No occasion is necessary. But given we’ve arrived to Labor Day much faster than I realized one summer could pass, this weekend is a perfect one for “Searching for Love.” Enjoy our conversation about this latest Nemiss song. … More Nemiss, “Searching for Love,” Summer Sounds…
Gholar’s display of glorious art and life-giving paintings, completed across five years, come with grown woman commentary about what it took to see each piece through. In wisdom, she snakes the darkest corners of life- grief, breakups, economic peril- in a chronology of change and chaos where blank canvas was the steadiest hold. … More Tiffany Gholar Tells the Truth
Develyn Biagas: a longtime educator and youth advocate now working on her PhD, with a specialty focus area of African-American girls and the school to prison pipeline. She also works in young adult literature and plans to publish her first Young Adult novel soon. I am happy girls she works with now have someone like her to look up to. … More Happy to share a Woman of Power, Develyn Biagas
Every time I have declared the internet a graver impediment than asset to arts and culture, something comes along to renew my faith I will be wrong. That something came out of inspiration to commemorate Juneteenth with a listen to a live performance of Tyehimba Jess’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection OLIO, transformed to an original production of Audible. … More If you missed it at the Minetta Lane Theater, then listen to OLIO LIVE online.
Emmett, Trayvon, Markeis, Kalief, Oscar, Tamir, Aiyana, Stephon, Botham, Sandra, Amadou, Eleanor, Terence, Philando, Alton, Walter, Sharmel, Miriam, Tony, Jordan, Rumain, Rekia, Laquan, Eric, Michael… … More “You are not gonna silence me.” -Senator Stephanie Flowers on racist Stand Your Ground “rights”
In honor of her birthday and Black History Month, read a prescient excerpt from Toni Morrison’s 2008 letter to Barack Obama. … More What Toni wrote to Obama…
You’d be correct to expect this story of a young Renaissance woman’s fantasy trip, to live like her iconic Black American idols, to be sexy and to weave in Josephine Baker. The novel’s heroine goes to Paris in search of Baldwin and finds jazz, interracial love and the freelance hustler life… … More Black Girls in Paris, Harlem and more…
The ultimate power of evil is diversion, devouring, annihilation and blacking out of what is good. This is all our faults, not Kelly’s. How many more men are out here for us to listen to, most of them much better vocalists than Kelly, and more romantic lyricists as well? … More No Excuses: 20 Black Male Soul Singers to Stream Besides R. Kelly
