Music Summer Walker’s BET Awards Showstopper If you’re an R&B fan and you don’t know Summer Walker, download her 2019 album Over It, right now — and thank me later. Now that we have that sorted out, let me tell you about her BET Awards duet with Usher that proved to be the By Cody • Jun 29, 2020 11:38 am
Music The Performances at the virtual BET Awards The 2020 BET Awards, held virtually, was one of my favourite BET Awards in many years; things may be upside down right now, but Black people continue to shine. Hosted by Amanda Seales, with her usual humour and authenticity, the show promised to be “Black Black” and showcasing the creativity By Melayna • Jun 29, 2020 11:08 am
Music “March March” with The Chicks The artists who used to go by The Dixie Chicks announced a name change yesterday and released a new song. They are now “The Chicks”. The reason being that the word “dixie” is, like “antebellum”, associated with a time in the South when Black people were oppressed. It romanticises an By Lainey • Jun 26, 2020 11:07 am
Music Intro for June 26, 2020 Dear Gossips, “BLACKPINK in your area!” It’s the day Blinks have been waiting for – BLACKPINK summer has officially begun! Stage one of the comeback has kicked off. For those of you still getting familiar with K-pop after fan activism has made mainstream headlines for disrupting white supremacist attempts at By Lainey • Jun 26, 2020 08:51 am
Music Noname, J. Cole, and Toxic Power Dynamics (This is the latest entry to our Long Reads section. For more Long Reads, please visit the Long Reads page.) Last week, through music and tweets, we witnessed what some are calling a rap beef, what others are calling healthy discourse, and what I am calling Black men inserting themselves, By Melayna • Jun 23, 2020 01:25 pm
Music Beyoncé’s “Black Parade” (Lainey: This post has been written by Cody Kreller, our newest contributor. I know Cody from Etalk through his work as a producer. And I had originally planned to introduce Cody later but then Beyoncé dropped a new song, without warning, as she does, and it accelerated our initial rollout. By Cody • Jun 22, 2020 11:24 am
Music Intro for June 22, 2020 Dear Gossips, BTS has never played a concert in Oklahoma. They could sell out any venue in Oklahoma in an hour. But they wouldn’t jeopardise the health and safety of their fans during a global health crisis. Unlike the president of the United States. Speaking of… A couple of By Lainey • Jun 22, 2020 09:41 am
Music Red Carpet for Teyana Taylor As I mentioned a few days ago, the first red carpet in almost four months (five? who can remember anymore?) happened earlier this week for a show I’ve never heard of and I only recognised two names on the guest list: Bai Ling and Ian Ziering. Last night’s By Lainey • Jun 19, 2020 03:07 pm
Music Intro for June 19, 2020 Dear Gossips, The best thing on Twitter yesterday was #Beethoven. By the time I noticed it was trending there were hundreds of thousands of tweets. If you missed it, it started with this thread earlier in the week… https://twitter.com/howtopless/status/1272919623189463040 Which then went viral. And, as By Lainey • Jun 19, 2020 09:00 am
Music BTS’s Lockdown Innovation COVID-19 has disrupted every industry and where the entertainment industry is concerned, even though musicians are in a better position to release new content than those in television and film, it’s the live experience that artists are still trying to figure out and how to make technology work in By Lainey • Jun 16, 2020 02:45 pm
Music Intro for June 16, 2020 Dear Gossips, The other day in What Else? I linked to a story about the band Lady Antebellum and their name change to Lady A. At the time, I said it was a good explanation, considering that the country music audience is so white and they would be alienating their By Lainey • Jun 16, 2020 08:35 am
Music BTS and the Avengers I’m sure you’ve seen it but there was a clip that went viral the other day after Jemele Hill tweeted it and many of you sent it to me because it checks all my boxes. As you know, I’m super into the Avengers. Not too long ago, By Lainey • Jun 08, 2020 04:45 pm
Music Kelly Rowland’s Deepest Cuts I LOVE this new profile of Kelly Rowland by Phillip Picardi for The Cut. A quick note on Phillip – he was part of the Teen Vogue team, alongside the leadership of Elaine Welteroth, that broadened the magazine’s content to include politics and social activism as well as fashion and By Lainey • May 29, 2020 12:33 pm
Music BLACKPINK Summer Begins Now How you doing, Blinks? It’s a big day. Lady Gaga’s new album, Chromatica, drops tomorrow. “Rain On Me”, her first collaboration with Ariana Grande, was released last week. Today we got “Sour Candy”, the song with BLACKPINK. This is a BOP. Gaga promised that Chromatica would be a By Lainey • May 28, 2020 09:36 am
TV Updates Taylor Swift, “Jack leopards & the dolphin club” A cover version of Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” played during last night’s episode of Killing Eve. Taylor has said many times that she loves the show. And she’s friends with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. So, naturally, she was proud to have her song featured: VERY By Lainey • May 25, 2020 11:10 am
Top Reads Gaga + Ariana = “Rain On Me” I liked it as soon as I heard it when I got up this morning. Lady Gaga’s highly anticipated Chromatica drops next week and she and Ariana Grande over the last couple of days have been thirst-building hype for their new song, “Rain On Me”, the first collaboration between By Lainey • May 22, 2020 02:26 pm
