My dear friend Jovian Irvin is the founder of International Day of Purpose, a day created to inspire people to celebrate and activate the power of purpose through a focused day of reflection, living with positive intention and sharing stories with the world of how you live on purpose by using the hashtag, #DayofPurpose. DoP is celebrated every year on the Summer
A Collection of the Most Iconic and Impactful Albums by African American Women I was a contributor to Zora Mag’s list of the 100 most iconic albums by African American women, a thoughtful and exhaustive work that spans seven decades and multiple genres, and I’m so proud to have been part of this work, and
Last week, some well-intended soul ranked classic Black sitcoms. My friend Jamal Jimoh and I had multiple issues with the ranking, so we decided to hop on IG live to discuss/revise the list, and invited friends to join us. In the process, we realized there were several more aspects of Black TV and film that
I joined Tuma Bassa from Spotify and NPR music writer Rodney Carmichael on NPR’s 1A to talk about the void #Verzuz was filling for artists and fans during shut down, how it’s helping change our ideas of live entertainment, how they’re shifting music conversations, and what comes next. LISTEN HERE
The night Andre Harrell died, I DM’d my editor at Billboard to tell him that whatever they were going to do for Dre, I was raising my hand. I knew a slew of outlets’ headers would read “… who discovered Sean Combs,” and Dre’s impact was so much bigger than that; larger and farther reaching
As we’ve collectively watched Swizz Beats and Timbaland’s producer battle series grow, there’ve been several teaching moments for how not to kill the vibe and energy that attracts everyone to what has become prime quarantine programming. But the thee-day (really three-week), two-part Teddy Riley vs Babyface battle was a whole dissertation on putting too much
Get Prepared for Sunday’s PLAY A FANTASY VERSION OF THE Epic Producer Battle On Sunday, Timbaland and Swizz present were planning to stage the most legendary match up to date for their short-lived but quickly growing VERZUZ IG live-based producer battle: Kenny “Babyface” Edmunds and Teddy Riley. Two of the biggest contributors to the sound
#MusicSermon’s annual Springtime Music Showdown is still on and poppin’! This year, it’s the BATTLE OF THE REMIXES! We resumed regular #MusicSermon services last weekend with a celebration of the real and true REMIX. Not these somebody-emailed-you-the-track-you-laid-you-verse-and-emailed-it-back joints, but the real and true, change the whole song, change the lyrics, up the energy, put fiftylemn
If you haven’t already, I highly encourage and strongly urge you to watch The Black Godfather, Netflix’s doc on one of the most powerful black men in entertainment, Clarence Avant. It’s not just a music and entertainment doc, though. It’s a primer for a fruitful and impactful life.I won’t go into his whole history here, but the
I’m so excited to announce my/#MusicSermon’s work with Spotify for their amazing celebration of history and the influence of Black music for #BlackHistoryIsNow. I worked with the Spotify team to identify, research and craft six key stories in Black music history for the one-of-a-kind capsule collection. Go browse the lookbook at BLACKHISTORYISNOW.COM to see what artists Joy Miessi and Brandan ‘bmike’ Odums created around The Sacred
Naima Cochrane 