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Niecy Nash-Betts exhilarated the audience when she took to the stage to accept the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her role as Glenda Cleveland in Netflix’s Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
The outspoken actress was her characteristic self with a speech that was both funny and poignant.
After thanking God, her wife, Jessica Betts, Ryan Murphy, the creator of the series, and Evan Peters–her co-star, Nash added, “And you know who I want to thank? I want to thank me.”
“For believing in me and doing what they said I could not do, and I want to say to myself in front of all you beautiful people, ‘Go on girl with your bad self. You did that.’”
The statement received rousing applause from the audience and Nash-Betts added, “Finally, I accept this award on behalf of every Black and brown woman who has gone unheard yet over-policed. Like Glenda Cleveland, like Sandra Bland, like Breonna Taylor. As an artist, my job is to speak truth to power, and baby I’mma do it till the day I die. Mama, I won.”
Nash-Betts portrayed Glenda Cleveland who was Dahmer’s neighbor. It was Cleveland who repeatedly contacted police about Dahmer’s irregular behavior and she was repeatedly ignored as the killer went on to murder more than a dozen men–most of whom were Black and Brown.
According to Huffington Post, Nash-Betts expounded on her remarks in the press room following her win where she stated, “I’m the only one who knows how many nights I cried because I couldn’t be seen for a certain type of role,” she said. “I’m the one who knows what it’s like to go through a divorce on camera and you still have to pull up and show out.”
“And you still have to go home [because] you have children and a whole life. So, I’m proud of myself. I’m proud that I did something that people said I could not do because I believed in me. And sometimes people don’t believe in themselves. I hope my speech was a delicious invitation for people to do just that,” she continued. “Believe in yourself and congratulate yourself. Sometimes you’ve got to encourage – what? Yourself. And that’s why it’s not called ‘mama-esteem,’ ‘them-esteem,’ ‘us-esteem.’ It’s called ‘self-esteem’ — because don’t nobody got to believe it but you.”
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It seems that Deric “D-Dot” Angelettie is living up to his Madd Rapper alter ego with claims that his catalog is better than that of the late, great James “J. Dilla” Yancey.
“I love J Dilla to death, but he can’t see my catalog,” Angelettie said on Math Hoffa’s podcast. My Expert Opinion, as reported by HipHopDX.
D-Dot was a member of The Hitmen—the in-house Bad Boy production team and he crafted hits like“Hypnotize” by The Notorious B.I.G, along with Diddy‘s “It’s All About the Benjamins” and JAY-Z‘s “Where I’m From.”
The producer sounded like one of his old skits when he added, “Put their shit up against mine. My shit is all over the place. Shit I made 27 years ago.”
Dilla fans took to X, formerly Twitter, to sound off about D-Dot’s claims to have a better catalog than the late Detroit legend who produced songs for A Tribe Called Quest, Erykah Badu, Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, and his own group Slum Village.
Another commenter pointed out a misconception that Dilla was only a “backpack” producer, adding, “The best gag I think is to call Dilla “conscious rap” or lofi because the nigga rapped solely about cars, cash, hoes, beats. Slum also. Nigga shit purely. Despite making soulful, soothing joints, the drums told U what time it was.”
Another chimed in, “J Dilla has to be one of the most misunderstood artists ever. He’s constantly portrayed as this conscious backpacker with a rigid idea of what hip-hop is. In reality he was super experimental, loved bounce and funk and rapped about jewelry and Range Rovers.”
Dilla died on February 10, 2006. The producer was also a prolific rapper who emerged from Detroit’s hip-hop underground and quickly became a favorite among the hip-hop elite with his unique drum style.
His music has been celebrated by symphony orchestras, he has been honored with a street, Allée Jay Dee, named after him Montpellier, France and his MPC is in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
A book about his life and his musical stylings was recently published by hip-hop scholar and teacher, Dan Charnas called Dilla Time.
Peep more of D Dot getting schooled, and Dilla praise, in the gallery.
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After a few embattled show experiences, Ms. Lauryn Hill is pausing her anniversary concert tour due to vocal strain and her desire to avoid any lasting effects of the steroid prednisone.
The Grammy-winner took to Instagram to share the news with fans, writing, “As many of you may know, I’ve been battling serious vocal strain for the past month. I made it through each show by taking prescribed prednisone, but this can be detrimental to the body when taken in large amounts over long periods of time,” Hill said. “In order to prevent any long-term negative [effects] on my voice and my body, I need to take time off to allow for real vocal recovery so that I can discontinue the medication completely.”
The tour has hit many major U.S. cities including New York and Los Angeles. The tour was supposed to run through the middle of December.
Hill began her post saying, “I’d like to start this off by saying how much I’ve enjoyed being on the road, and how much I appreciate all of the fans who have come out to celebrate this incredible milestone anniversary and history making reunion with us. Being able to tour this album to sold out crowds after 25 years has been an emotional experience! I’ve loved sharing the stage again with Wyclef and Pras. The Return of the Fugees has been powerful and amazing—those who’ve witnessed it can testify,” Hill said. “The tour itself reminds us the artists, and the audiences alike of earlier, perhaps less complicated times when ‘It could all be so simple…’ or ‘Ready Or Not, here I come!’ were on repeat on the airwaves. Simply put, classic. Classic music, classic performances with audiences who love those classics has been nothing but…wait for it…EPIC. (I almost said classic again!)
When the tour picks back up there are expected to be new tour stops added including some in Europe.
Released in 1998, the singer’s legendary album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill achieved historic commercial success. The now-classic album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling approximately 422,624 copies in its first week and eventually becoming certified 8x Platinum in the United States by the RIAA, according to BET. The album won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
Miseducation remains Hill’s only solo studio album.
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Issa Rae’s hit series Rap Sh!t is returning to MAX.
The Hip-Hop show inspired by the lives of City Girls rappers Yung Miami and JT is coming back for a second season, according to Deadline.
The eight-episode second season will debut with two episodes on August 10, followed by one episode weekly, leading up to the season finale on Thursday, September 21.
The series which made a big splash last year, tells the story of two friends, Shawna (Aida Osman) and Mia (KaMillion), who were estranged after high school but reconnect to form a rap group.
Throughout the series, the girls have been forced to decide if they will stay true to themselves or conform to the demands of the music industry.
Yung Miami and JT are co-executive producers of the series, along with Kevin “Coach K” Lee and Pierre “P” Thomas for Quality Control Films, and Sara Rastogi and Jax Clark for Hoorae Rae’s Audio Everywhere Company, Raedio, handles music supervision for the series.
“We’re so excited to be back this summer!” showrunner Syreeta Singleton told Complex about the second season. “Everything is heightened. The girls are on tour, tensions are high, and they’re quickly finding out how much they’re willing to compromise for success.”
Sarah Aubrey, Max’s Head of Original Content added, “We are so excited to continue this journey with Shawna and Mia and the incredibly fun world of Rap Sh!t.”
Check out the teaser trailer:
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The vaunted Jet magazine is back in action on newsstands, and the cover star for its return is the vegan cuisine entrepreneur Pinky Cole.
The shuttering of the iconic magazine in 2014 with its final printed issue was a blow to many after being an integral part of the culture for 63 years, being first published by John H. Johnson. But it has returned in print form, with the Slutty Vegan founder and CEO, Pinky Cole, gracing its cover.
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“I am so thrilled to be featured on the cover of Jet!” said Cole in a press statement. “Ever since I was a little girl, I grew up reading every inch of every issue that I could get my hands on. Now here I am on the cover and as their iconic ‘Beauty of the Week.’ This moment is so personal and special to me because in many ways, Jet helped shape who I wanted to become and who I am now.”
Cole has been lauded for her role in popularizing plant-based meals in the community, establishing her Slutty Vegan movement in 2018 with the opening of the first of her chain restaurants featuring vegan burgers and other comfort food. In the story accompanying the cover, Cole talks about her affect on the culture and the journey towards the building of her now $100 million dollar empire with chain locations in Alabama and New York in addition to Georgia. She also talks about her Pinky Cole Foundation, which is empowering people of color to pursue their own entrepreneurial dreams.
The president of Jet, Daylon A. Goff, spoke about how the issue and collaboration with Cole stemmed from their first encounter at a concert. “I mentioned that I’m a fan of her movement, and she mentioned that she’s always dreamed of being in Jet,” he said in a press release. “We haven’t printed an issue in several years but we just saw Pinky and everything that she stands for as an opportunity to do something special. We’re really proud of this collector’s legacy issue and can’t wait for people to get their hands on it.”
Currently owned and operated by the Bridgeman family, the publication’s legacy is one that Goff deeply appreciates along with other readers. “Jet is like family, and people tell me frequently that they miss Jet coming to their house every week,” he said. The new issue is available from multiple retailers including Walmart, Target, Walgreens and CVS as well as from Slutty Vegan’s website.
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The Center For Black Literature will focus on the success of Black authors in speculative fiction for this year’s national convention to be held later this month in Brooklyn, New York.
For those fans of Black literature and the tradition of speculative fiction, the upcoming 2023 National Black Writers Conference Biennial Symposium will satisfy their desires. The conference, organized by the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York will be held beginning next Friday (March 31st) and Saturday (April 1st) at the academic institution. The theme of the event this year is Diasporic Visions: Celebrating Black Speculative Fiction.
In accordance with the theme, the three panels slated for the conference will hone in on the various factors of speculative fiction and Afrofuturism employed by Black authors across the diaspora. There will be a slew of notable writers who are attending, which include Tananarive Due, Jewelle Gomez, Tim Fielders, and Christine Taylor-Butler among others. The penultimate event of the conference will be the NBWC Honorees Spotlight, which will be a conversation between authors and the honorees for 2023, Sheree Renée Thomas and Jewell Parker Rhodes. Both women will receive the Octavia E. Butler Award, named after the award-winning late author and pioneer of the genre.
The conference will also feature a selection of other events to take place before the symposium, aimed at students interested in writing speculative fiction from the primary school level to the high school level. Booksellers will also be in attendance on-site and virtually throughout the conference.
The NBWC was first founded by the literary giant John Oliver Killens in 1986 at the City University of New York school and has been held on the last weekend in March since its inception. From that point, it has become a well-regarded event for emerging Black writers and those of note, spanning all generations.
For more information on tickets for the conference, you can check out their website here.
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Celebrated journalist Jemele Hill earnestly dishes about her career, her new memoir and being from Detroit in a recently-published interview.
Jemele Hill is never one to shy away from relating the facts (especially when jabbing former presidents). Fresh off of the release of her new memoir, Uphill, the former ESPN journalist and host isn’t resting on her laurels. In a new interview for NewsOne, she opens up about how the memoir helped her explore her life and career to this point.
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The conversation begins with Hill giving an overall take on how the tour for her memoir went. “Selling a book is so much different than any other thing that I’ve done, selling and promoting a book, I should say,” she began. “So it was pretty intense because I had not only book events but a ton of media appearances to do. So these were some pretty long and arduous days, but it was really rewarding to see upfront and personal, like how people responded to the book and some of the stories that I told in the book.”
Hill also spoke about how being a native of Detroit, Michigan instilled in her a distinct sense of pride and fueled her inner spirit and ambition. “That’s why certainly no one from Detroit is any stranger to having to work hard, having to hustle. It’s just kind of built into our bones.”
She touched upon the struggles that the city has experienced from crime to the crack epidemic and how negative stereotypes made residents more determined and prideful: “And because we knew that’s how people thought of us, it only made us want to put on for the city even harder and love it even harder. So when people meet people from Detroit, the level of pride and affection we have in our city, I feel like it’s different. I know everybody is proud of where they come from, but we probably take it to an annoying level, different level. Detroit is definitely in the building, OK? And we’ll tell you about the entire history of Detroit.”
The 47-year-old also laid bare how working on the memoir highlighted the relationship between her and her mother and helped them navigate lingering rough patches. “But us being able to have that conversation for the memoir, it was very cleansing and freeing for both of us. And me understanding more of some things now about her life, knowing her full story that I didn’t understand then, it helped me have more grace with those actions than at the time I considered to be very damaging and hurtful.”
Be sure to read the full cover story right here.
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Here’s a quick guide to some of the best exhibits and museums displaying fifty years of Hip-Hop culture that we feel you need to check out as soon as you can and more than once if possible.
Hip-Hop enters its fifth decade of existence this year, and celebrations far and wide are taking place. For those who are devotees of the culture, there will be multiple opportunities to honor and celebrate it thanks to exhibitions being held at various museums and other institutions. Here are a few that we feel are the greatest to see again and again.
Universal Hip-Hop Museum
The Universal Hip-Hop Museum was launched in 2015 to be a “permanent place to celebrate the music that has made the Bronx famous around the world”, located a short distance from its birthplace at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. The current public round of programming, the [R]Evolution of Hip Hop Experience, began in 2019 in its space at the Bronx Terminal Market. Visitors can partake in the sights and sounds of numerous artifacts from artists and those close to the culture spanning 50 years as the permanent home is currently being built at the Bronx Point development at 610 Exterior Street. Once completed, it will occupy 52,000 square feet as part of a residential complex. Recently, it received a grant of $5.5 million.
In an interview, UHHM Executive Director Rocky Bucano spoke about the exciting new developments the museum has in store. “We will be opening up a traveling museum that will start here in New York City. The traveling museum will debut in Manhattan, so we’re working on a location now,” he said.
The National Hip-Hop Museum
The National Hip-Hop Museum is located in Washington, D.C. in close proximity to Howard University. It launched from the Listen Video studios owned and operated by DJ BOOM, who has been a fixture of the culture there since the 1990s and was integral to helping launch the first satellite-broadcast radio station devoted to Hip-Hop, The Rhyme while serving as a Director of Production at XM Satellite Radio. The gallery space is located within the studio grounds and is home to one of the largest collections of Hip-Hop memorabilia and artifacts around. The museum holds periodic exhibits and sponsors major events featuring iconic and contemporary Hip-Hop artists.
HipHop: Conscious Unconscious
Fotografiska New York is the host of a sprawling exhibition featuring photography capturing Hip-Hop’s fifty years of existence. The exhibit, curated in part with Sacha Jenkins and Mass Appeal, features stunning photographs dating from the culture’s inception in the Bronx to now. It features photographs taken by renowned artists such as Jamel Shabazz, Campbell Addy, Ernie Paniccioli, and more detailing the strong role of women in the culture, and also contains never-before-seen artifacts.
The exhibit runs until May 21st.
The Culture: Hip-Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
This exhibit is the fruit of a collaborative effort between the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Art Museum, with the aim of giving the public “an opportunity to celebrate the richness of creativity and innovation hip hop has catalyzed by exploring it through social, material, and art historical lenses,” according to the Baltimore museum’s Chief Education Officer Gamynne Guillotte. Covering Hip-Hop from the year 2000, it will feature artwork that shows how the culture has impacted society through changing and reforming narratives on race, sexuality and social justice among other subjects. It will run from April 5th until July 16th in Baltimore, then at the Saint Louis Art Museum from August 25th until January 1st, 2024.
Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: 50 Years of Hip-Hop Style
As it is well-regarded how much of Hip-Hop culture has fashion embedded within it, this new exhibit which is at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City is a welcome addition to the anniversary calendar. Featuring over 100 items ranging from the lauded Adidas tracksuits worn by RUN-DMC to vintage Karl Kani pieces sported by the late Tupac Shakur, the exhibit will also pay homage to urban brands launched by Hip-Hop artists that rose to fame such as Rocawear. The exhibit is currently running until April 23rd.
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In a watershed moment, it appears that both Tyler Perry and Byron Allen are competing to acquire the majority of BET Media Group.
According to reports, Perry has been involved in conversations with executives at Paramount Global with the aim of acquiring a majority stake in the BET Media Group. The operation includes BET and VH1 as well as streaming network BET + and the BET Studios production company. Allen, who is the founder and head of the Allen Media Group, has publicly acknowledged through a spokesperson that he was “interested in buying BET, and he will be pursuing the acquisition of the network.” Representatives for Perry and Paramount Global didn’t respond to press inquiries about the situation.
The 53-year-old Perry enjoys a good relationship with Paramount and BET dating back to 2005 when the latter network funded his first motion picture, Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Since then, he has been in partnership with Paramount on a long-term film deal that began in 2017. The two entities entered into a television partnership deal in May 2020. Both have been lucrative ventures, with Perry releasing several series to popular acclaim including “House of Payne,” “Sisters,” “Ruthless”, and “The Oval”
on BET and BET+.
The 61-year-old Allen and his company have been on a monumental path within the last couple of years, recently acquiring the Black News Channel for $11 million last year and lifting it out of bankruptcy. Allen’s company has also acquired The Weather Channel along with 27 ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliate stations within the past three years with an investment price of $1 billion. Digital outlets TheGrio and HBCU Go are also under the Allen Media Company umbrella.
News of Paramount Global’s potential sale of the BET Media Group was announced this past Monday in an article from the Wall Street Journal. Reports are that the group is looking to make the move to shore up a planned initiative to rebrand the Showtime linear and streaming networks into its own Paramount + network, which was announced earlier this year.
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Michael Rainey Jr. is back as Tariq—the son of James St. Patrick in Season 3 of the hit Starz series Power Book II: Ghost.
The hit show returns to Starz with new episodes on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day.
Tariq is still running wild in the streets and getting deeper and deeper into the underworld. Working alongside Davis MacLean (Method Man) who has stepped out of the courtroom and into a bigger role in Tariq’s life.
Now that Tasha and the rest of his family are in witness protection, Tariq is invoking his father’s behavior something that his grandmother, Estelle–played by Debbi Morgan expresses her concern in the trailer. “I’m not like my dad; I’m smarter than him,” Tariq replies as the camera pans to show Ghost’s grave marker.
Mary J. Blige is back as Monet and she has her sights on Tariq. Who now even has his own “Tommy” by his side, Brayden (Gianni Paolo), and they’re looking to make Wall Street-level money.
While Tariq has his threats on-screen, on social media Rainey and BMF star, Demetrius “Lil Meech” Flenory are engaged in friendly competition to see who sits on the throne of 50 Cent’s Starz universe—sparked by HipHopWired family site CassiusLife.com’s Michael Rainey Jr. cover story no less.
Looks like it’s gonna be a big season, catch up before March 17– Seasons 1 and 2 of Power Book II: Ghost are currently available to stream via Starz.
Check out the trailer below.
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