Editorial
Be Like Mike: How Michael Jordan Built His Iconic Brand
It’s been over 20 years since Michael Jordan won his final championship. A Basketball Hall-of-Famer, six-time MVP, and the leader of two three-peats, Jordan remains a larger than life figure from the way he soared to his superstar status. To imagine a world in which the icon never existed is to wonder what would have happened if Bugs Bunny finally did take that left to Albuquerque. With the airing of ESPN’s 10-part docuseries The Last Dance—which recounts the Chicago Bulls’ final title run with MJ—fans have been reminded of the basketball-great’s importance and brilliance on the court. However, another enthralling component to the weekly event is his Airness’ significance as a global icon off-the-court Need proof? Log onto Twitter while The Last Dance is airing. The only trending topics on...
Jay-Z, Roc Nation Send Letter Demanding Justice For Ahmaud Arbery
Source: Sean Rayford / Getty The cold-blooded murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia has angered the culture. Seeing the jig since it took months for his killers to be arrested, Jay-Z and several Roc Nation artists have penned a letter to Georgia officials demanding justice. By now you should at least be aware of the details. The 25-year old Arbery was simpy jogging in Satilla Shores, Georgia when he was stalked and killed by a father and son duo, and maybe more since there just happened to be video. It wasn’t until said footage was leaked, and a national uproar, that the perpetrators were arrested and it took another day or so before they were even charged with murder and aggravated assault. Team Roc has penned an open letter addressed to Georgia elected officials demanding that this case isn...
Five TV Cameos That Made a Generation Love Little Richard
There’s no overstating the significance that the late Richard Penniman (better known as Little Richard) had on rock and roll and contemporary musical genres of all stripes. Alongside other luminaries like Chuck Berry and James Brown, Little Richard helped define the very essence of rock music: the soul, the flair, the attitude. From how he attacked the piano and made it a stand-up instrument to some of the rawest, most iconic vocalizations in recorded history to the slick suits and electric costumes to the challenging of gender norms, so many of those to follow owe the man a tremendous debt. And by “so many,” we mean almost everyone. Sadly, a lot of our younger readers might not know Little Richard. My generation was lucky. While our parents perhaps failed to explain the legacy behind the ...
Georgia, Man: Shannon Brown Arrested For Licking Off Shots At Homebuyers, Allegedly
Source: Dylan Buell / Getty Former NBA player Shannon Brown was arrested last week for shooting at two people in what’s being reported as a case of a real estate visit gone wrong. But there has to be much more to this story. TMZ Sports detailed the jig. TMZ Sports has confirmed … 34-year-old Brown — who won two titles with Kobe Bryant‘s Lakers in 2009 and 2010 — allegedly pulled a firearm on two people in his Georgia home on May 2. A Tyrone Police Department spokesperson says the alleged victims called at around 9:45 PM … claiming earlier in the day, Brown had fired rounds at them in a “for sale” home mixup. The police spokesperson says the two individuals claim they were out searching for houses in the Tyrone, GA area … when they saw one with a “For Sale” sign on it. Officers sa...
Police Arrest & Charge White Men Who Murdered Ahmaud Arbery For Jogging
Source: Sean Rayford / Getty The death of 24-year-old Black man Ahmaud Arbery in a small Georgia town this past February was something of a mystery as the white men who carried out the crime managed to duck any legal consequences. After video footage of the incident surfaced, state officials arrested and charged the father and son duo for killing Arbery in cold blood. As reported by several outlets, including WSB in Atlanta, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations examined video footage of the exchange between Arbery and Gregory and Travis McMichael. Arbery was jogging in the small coastal town of Brunswick in southeast Georgia when the father and son took it upon themselves to carry out vigilante justice based on a hunch that Arbery fit the description of a man accused of committing cr...
How Kraftwerk and David Bowie Paved the Way for Music As We Know It Today
In 1976, David Bowie introduced his bravest new world yet. Zig-zagging across Europe and North America to promote his 10th studio album, Station to Station, he set the scene, night after night, with spliced footage from Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou. It was a strange yet enthralling scene for fans, but had the artist, then known as The Thin White Duke, had his way, four motionless Germans would have graced the stage instead. The request, of course, was made, but a firm yet friendly “nein danke” from Kraftwerk later led musical history to opt for another course. Midway through the Station to Station live run, also known as the “Isolar Tour”, Kraftwerk co-founders Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider met with Bowie at their Kling Klang Studio in their h...
Jerry Seinfeld’s Five Best Bits in Netflix’s 23 Hours to Kill
Jerry Seinfeld has left the car, put down the coffee, and returned to the stage. Yes, the blockbuster comic is back in his natural setting for Netflix’s 23 Hours to Kill, his first original special since — believe it or not — 1998’s I’m Telling You for the Last Time. This time around, he’s traded Broadway for the legendary Beacon Theatre, where he delivered a set chock full of all the kind of observational humor that has us revisiting his landmark series on repeat. It’s a pretty good run. Pretty, pretty, pretty good. Because part of the joy of Seinfeld is taking his observations to heart and fraudulently sharing them as your own, we’ve culled together the five best bits from the special below, all for your thieving leisure. Just be sure to say ’em with Jerry’s inflection. Some white sneaks...
Mobb Deep’s The Infamous Samples Sounds from a Rich Cultural Heritage
The Opus: The Infamous is currently ongoing, and you can subscribe now. To celebrate the new season, stream Mobb Deep’s iconic album via all major streaming services. You can also enter to win a copy of The Infamous on vinyl — signed by rapper Havoc himself. Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS Follow on Facebook | Podchaser If they’d never released another album after 1995’s The Infamous, Albert “Prodigy” Johnson and Kejuan “Havoc” Muchita of Mobb Deep would still reign as hip-hop visionaries 25 years later. Heavy on realism and scant on hope, the record stands as one of the most unflinching documents of hip-hop’s East Coast Renaissance. As our own Okla Jones put it in a recent retrospective, “The indelible legacy of [The Infamous] will be that it helped shift the co...
Reno 911! and the Thin Blue Line Between Satire and Cruelty
In a world where micro-streaming service Quibi was watched by anyone except exhausted culture writers assigned to cover it, their relaunch of the mockumentary sketch show Reno 911! would take up at least a couple days’ worth of exhaustive Twitter culture war discourse. For what it’s worth, the cast of the acclaimed Comedy Central show are all back and haven’t missed a step, sliding back into their roles as if no time has passed. Unfortunately, that same sense of nostalgic comfort is also the show’s greatest weakness; for better and for worse, the show (and its sense of humor) hasn’t changed a whit since it went off the air in 2009. In the Bush-era heyday of Reno 911!, the show perfectly fit that South Park peak of edgy, subversive humor. The sketch-based, improv-heavy nature...
