Category Archive » Entertainment
This page contains 11 entries posted under the "Entertainment" category.
REview: Gil Scott-Heron
You could ask a hundred different people what they think about Gil Scott-Heron and get a thousand different answers. As much as I feel a creative connection to the man, the soul that brought us the "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" at the age of 19...I'd probably remain silent.
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What ReNEWal Means to: Salakida
Renewal is wisdom and wide eyed wonder living side by side, the Elder and the Child merged. Renewal is getting your entire groove back, and knowing what to do with it this time!
Because Zora is such a giant in the literary and black arts scenes, my greatest concern was doing justice to her sterling piece of fiction. The irony is that I did the adaptation purely on instinct, without any particular research on how to do an adaptation. I was in film school at the time, and the emphasis there was writing original screenplays. So I did it "flying by the seat of my pants" so to speak.
Okay, so the other day I got word that the DC Black Theatre Festival would be showing a play called-get this- The Ass Chronicles. I'd heard about it before, and would liken it to the Vagina Monologues based on the description, but I wasn't quite sure what to expect. So I contacted Kim West, the publicist for the production and scheduled an interview with the playwright, Empress Joyner. I arrived at rehearsal and was greeted by the wide grin, and welcoming warmth of Empress herself. Empress was full of life, and excited about the interview but her eyes bugged as she saw my video equipment.
Earlier this month, Casey Gane-McCalla, a journalist, rapper, comedian and Facebook friend, declared on his FB status: "I am an Ivy league college educated journalist with no criminal background...still when I hear this song...I think I'm Big Meech." The song that Gane-McCalla refers to is B.M.F, a single from Rick Ross's fourth album, Teflon Don which dropped Tuesday. The song's considered a heater. The summer's hip-hop anthem.
I arrived in LA about five years ago. I thought I had a strategy but it didn't go the way I wanted it to. Yet, it worked out better than I thought. I thought "Puss" was going to get made and that I'd just be in LA taking meetings. Luckily, some of the scripts that I was working on started receiving attention and somehow I started writing professionally. If I would have just came out here to direct, I would have stopped writing. I've been so successful with writing that it should have been part of the original plan.
Recently, the Los Angeles Times, published a somewhat grim article suggesting that black-oriented films without Tyler Perry attached will struggle harder these days to find a studio home. Centered on the success (or lack thereof) of Fox Searchlight, an outlet known for "urban" films like Notorious and I Think I Love My Wife, the article reasons that the weak box office performance of these movies and the recently-released Just Wright is pushing the studio (with the implication that other studios have or will follow) to abandon black-themed films.
Andre Torres doesn't have a background in publishing. But he has passion and perseverance. So much so that he eventually learned how to run a magazine and evolved into the guy at Wax Poetics "who tells people what to do." Translation: He ensures that the Brooklyn-based Wax Poetics brand is fully enforced across everything that the company does.
Ray Charles Robinson, Jr. describes his childhood as a Norman Rockwell painting with African-American faces. As the eldest son of iconic musician, Ray Charles, Robinson Jr. lived a life of privilege. One that was also marred by struggle--his father's drug abuse and extramarital affairs, and Robinson Jr.'s subsequent turn to drugs to escape reality. All the while, a son yearned for a relationship and acceptance from his famous father who died six years ago this month.
Poor Usher?
What's a thirty-one-year-old to do when his sound outgrows an emerging fan base of texters? Does he compete with the Next Big Thing--a younger, flashier, cuter version of himself (currently: Trey Songz) or does he create quality music that reflects his own place in life?
If Ashley Grayson ever gets to "Tyler Perry's level," she vows never to deal with talent again. There are the colorful personalities, the insecurities, the emerging egos, and the conflicting schedules, she explains in the conference room of cable network TV One's Silver Spring office.
Felicia Pride on ReNEWal
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Creative Entreprenuers! Spark Your Fire
THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS is: an e-book meets video transmission of acumen and love. You: are likely sitting on an empir... (read more)
THE MESSAGE Hip-Hop & Literarcy Enrichment Program
Order Your Signed Copy of THE MESSAGE today! Educational institutions around the country--including high schools, out-of... (read more)
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