48 Search results for "neo soul"

The deaths of Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse were two traumatic events in my life. What’s interesting however, is that I’ve never met them, let alone have even a superficial conversation with them. Yet, there’s something about the artist-fan relationship that makes us feel so connected to practical strangers that we shed a tear when […]

There was a time when a Neo Soul/alternative Hip Hop movement was a visual, popular alternative to the violence, misogyny, and materialism of mainstream Hip Hop. This article is a love letter to that glorious movement, and an explanation as to why it faded away.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkPy4yq7EJo Dear, Womyn at Irving Park wearing Bert’s Bees, Over a year ago one of the greatest times of my life came to a close. But closure hasn’t delivered until a year and 8 months later (now).  I had the time of my life riding around Lakeview with someone I adored, listening to sexy beast […]

First and foremost I would like to apologize to my neighbors in my dormitory. At any given time you may have heard a loud “brrrrr” and wondered what it was. No, it was not me complaining about the brutal Chicago cold (it has actually been a temperate winter). More importantly, we have central heating. You […]

By Juahl Ganaway Zeinabu irene Davis’s 1999 film Compensation functions as both an homage to early Black cinema and a speculative intervention into its absences. Compensation refuses to let material survival determine the boundaries of Black film history. The film is told through twin narratives, one set in 1910s Chicago and the other in the […]

In the United States, police kill over 1,000 and injure more than 51,000 people each year, with evidence suggesting that these figures could be underreported by as much as 55%. In addition to these numbers being substantially higher than other developed nations, unfortunately, they are also plagued by biases and systematic failures which disproportionately affect […]

By Brittani McNeill By now, we’ve all seen the news about Jay-Z’s new partnership with the NFL. The rap mogul, through a deal between the league and his company Roc Nation, will serve as an advisor, helping to select music for NFL events, including the Super Bowl, and lead conversations about “social justice.”

by Jamila Dawn Mitchell I’m writing this because I need to feel wanted. That’s it. It may sound selfish to most. To a psychologist, though, this makes sense. Most things we do are done in spite of our desire to want to be loved. The sense of belonging is the essence of our humanity and […]

CW: Mention of child loss Everything is a cult. All flesh is bound to shift. Religion is a cloak, pockmarked with heartache, torture, and selfishness. These are the facts of my world, its edges stacked on top of each other and topped with salty syrup. Life is an ever revolving door of orange desert sand […]

There aren’t enough accessible therapists to go around. I met this reality after an Ifa divination that I got while I was in Cuba, and my dreams for an entire year afterward, told me that I needed to focus on my mental health. My ancestors were LOUD about the mental work that I needed to […]

by Janyce Glasper Hannah Bledsoe loved Linda Crawford. Yet Hannah desperately needed a quiet, isolated place to paint alone. One simply could not crash on a college friend’s couch forever. She found salvation in the good neighborhood— a drafty basement converted into a studio apartment. The tightly jarred windows and cracked ceilings poorly congealed together […]

by Donnie Moreland “Art museums are nothing more than haunted houses.” In Demetrius’s head, the words spun like a tired wheel, as he walked the corners of the room. Like a drum, Marcus’s voice bounced as though he were still alive. “Art museums are nothing more than haunted houses. All museums are, really. But there […]