opinion
IT AIN’T TRICKIN’ IF YA GOT IT
A funny thing happened on the way to the Forbes List: Rap became less Public Enemy and more Cash Money Millionaire.
Andrew Ricketts is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York. He writes about how pop culture shapes and reflects identity and has learned to trust only his mother's love and well-ripened plantains. His essays do best with sunlight and closed comments.
opinion
‘WHAT MY TOMB WILL SAY’
Daniel Dumile took the lesson of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s seminal poem and donned the mask to turn his career into a case study for anyone Black who wants to create without limits.
opinion
WHO’S ZOOMING WHO?
Why are so many fans and writers pulling for a billionaire owner who made a fortune off of cheap labor over a player who’s changed the game? You guessed it: Race.
opinion
MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS
The rapper-son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson joined the invite-only app. Like many talks on the elitist platform, it soon devolved into a messy exchange on race and privilege.
opinion
DOLEZAL DÉJÀ VU
Common to these scams is a willful displacement of Black people in positions of visibility, influence, and power.
opinion
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
Megyn, I’m an alumnus of the elite school you withdrew your sons from. Your phony claim it’s a “woke” bastion now helps explain how it’s remained a cruel place for Black students.
opinion
‘JUST ONE MORE THING’
It’s an open secret that Blackness buys clout on social media. A white pol and troll getting nailed for sock-puppeting as “a black gay guy” is the fun-house mirror version of that.
opinion
SOME DREAM
The era of jingoism and wealth inequality has eclipsed the fertile red clay dreams that drew my Auntie Joy and Aunt Lu to immigrate here.
opinion
QUEENS REIGNS SUPREME?
50 joins Cube and Kanye as middle-age rappers who became sad examples of how hip-hop’s solo acts cling to an outdated, broken code of ethics—one that the president can relate to.
opinion
CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF
YouTube’s trends dominate my professional life managing million-follower accounts, but I wasn’t ready for the infectious influence of its half-baked ideas in my personal network.