Category Archives: Music

Cake! Cake! Cake! Cake!: Let’s Take 2Chainz to School

At the Crunk Feminist Collective, there are educators among us who teach in unsafe classrooms, around uncomfortable kitchen tables, in crumbling youth centers, and between warring crowds on police-barricaded streets. We teach because we believe that offering a lens and the language to critically engage the world are fundamental to changing the world.  It seems to be a lofty charge, but we are anchored by it especially when we spend thankless, countless hours preparing the “perfect” lesson plan and notes to incite and inspire young folks. Today, I am bringing the classroom to the blog. From a horsefly’s golden bum …Read more »

Coming Out Stories: On Frank Ocean

By Summer McDonald Original Published at The Black Youth Project I’ve spent the last week treading in the liquid of a queer-flavored ambivalence, trying to determine why the Anderson Cooper and Frank Ocean coming out announcements mean less to me than other people. I have seen enough episodes of Coming Out Stories and foolishly subjected myself and my partner to the awkward anti-climax of telling my father about my sexuality to know that helping folks who somehow don’t know how to use context clues with declarations of same-gender-lovingness is supposed to make one feel liberated, free, authentic. I know that my role …Read more »

Thinking of Happiness and Black Female Bodies

So over the past few weeks there has been much controversy over “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” Flaming Lips video that was edited and released without the knowledge/approval of the featured artist, Erykah Badu.  Honestly, I have mixed emotions about the video, liking some parts and disturbed by others.  Full disclosure: I found the “Window Seat” video to be a very powerful statement.  I felt it viscerally, I was both anxious and fearful of the backlash and envious of what I perceived to be free-spiritedness and freedom of Badu’s actions. But for this recent one I’m still …Read more »

a praise song for mamas: cfc mother’s day mix

I am invested in sepia mamas. My mother lines my eyelids and floats my dreams. She sits on the right hand of the throne she abdicated to all I might become. “Mama gonna work it out,” Martin versioned at his best. Her frame, I shouldn’t calcify. And I’ll leave her flesh be. I know they all can’t be spirit walkers, miracle workers, love lighters but my life tells me so. And just surviving the ‘buking and scorning is worth sainthood. Much more is our mothers’ legacy though, my life, but one humble example. As these years have gone by, I …Read more »

This is How it Works

You’ve probably already heard about Brian McKnight’s desire to release an “adult” mixtape. Now, brother McKnight has recently claimed that this shamtastery was a parody of the hypersexualized R&B songs that are par for the course. Okay, boo.  You might need to start back at one.  Something tells me that Forever Knight was not lampooning the sexism and misogyny of much contemporary music, but instead trying to titillate desensitized listeners who find Trey Songz’ lyricism subtle. Look, if I’m going to take instructions from 90s R&B stars I’d rather listen to TLC. So, I had a couple of lolz at Brian’s …Read more »

Feminist Care Packages: Healing Love for Hard Times

“Thrown away where? The world is round.” - Luciente This month we’d hoped to talk about love and relationships but a lot of terrible things have been happening in the world. Whitney died. Too Short gave some terrible advice. So did Not So Very Smart brothas. and there’s a thread in these narratives about black women and girls bringing things on to themselves when really the deadly combination of heteronormative masculinity is to blame. The binaristic gendered scripts we set up for people are killing us. Literally. The conversations that blame feminine people for the violence they experience but some how miss the role that masculine of center people have in …Read more »

Tu(r)ning to Black Love

This past week, I found myself swept in an emotional whirlwind witnessing Whitney’s homegoing while remembering that she was not even in the ground before the Fox-affiliated shock jocks called her a babbling idiot, bag lady, and a crack ho that should have died years ago. From AM talk radio to morning cable television, a Fox News anchor “jokingly” told Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) to “step away from the crack pipe” to squash her criticism of a racist conservative right.  And right as I prepared myself for the first Valentine’s Day unhitched in years, I heard more misogynoir (i.e., hatred …Read more »

Love Overflow: A Red Reflection (and a Trigger Warning… SMH)

It’s early on Valentine’s Day, an invented holiday by U.S. greeting card companies (for real, look it up!). I just learned about Too Short’s “Fatherly Advice” to young boys about how to “turn girls out” in a video for XXL. While this is not shocking for Too Short, it also speaks to the culture we live in, where encouraging boys to rape girls is not something that automatically trips the “do not post/publish” kill switch. This is not a question of individuals’ values, as the hastily drafted XXL apology suggests, but indicative of a culture so steeped in misogynoir (Black women hatred) …Read more »

Don Cornelius, Indelible Soul

Don Cornelius, creator of the television show Soul Train, changed the media entertainment landscape forever. Yesterday,  the Los Angeles County Coroner confirmed that Cornelius had died from a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head. He was 75. Soul Train is one of the longest-running syndicated shows in television history. Created by Cornelius after he returned from Marine service in Korea and studied broadcasting, the show aimed to serve as a national platform for Black artists. Through it, Cornelius brought us exposure to musicians like James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson and left a bright and brilliant mark on the 70s and …Read more »

Tonight! Join a conversation on the State of the Union!

CF Eesha here, y’all.  Tonight is the President’s State of the Union address to Congress. If the election season so far is any indication, we know that amidst the politicians and the pundits there’s very little time for real talk. This is one of the most important elections in recent history : there is a war on poor people; we need a deep investigation of the way corporations reign with impugnity; and  we need to call out the racism and sexism that permeate our society. So… TONIGHT,  live at 7:30 p.m. ET,  Jan. 24th at www.baracktalk.com.   You can submit questions …Read more »

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