I needed this. That’s what I told myself as I walked into the Park Avenue Armory on Wednesday, June 6, to see the premiere of performance artist Nick Cave’s newest installation: The Let Go.

Rappers are definitely the real rock stars of our era.

This Monday, The Root separated from our associate editor, Kirsten West Savali, because of an editorial-standards issue.

It really doesn’t take much with me.

There are no acceptance speeches at the Pulitzers. You get your prize. You pose for your photo and you politely exit the stage. Yet there was definitely something different about this year’s award luncheon at Columbia University’s Low Library on Wednesday, where hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar strolled in about 30 or 40…

First things first: When it comes to Queen Sugar and director Ava DuVernay, I’m a total fan. I am biased. I am prejudiced. I am not objective at all. I love the show she created, which is beautiful and heartfelt. I love the actors who were cast to star in it, who are charming and talented. I love that DuVernay has…

Editor’s note: Until recently, mental health and illness were taboo subjects in the black community. But thanks to the efforts of those brave enough to speak on it, that’s changing. In that vein, The Root team is taking this week during Mental Health Awareness Month to write about how mental health has touched our…

Editor’s note: Welcome to The Root’s Sunday series highlighting the best in black fiction writers: It’s Lit! Each week we’ll feature a new story across all genres—from Afrofuturism to those stories that will bring a tear to your eye.

“He needs someone to treat him like the teacher treated Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker,” I said.

There are probably a few ways to read the wondrous musical Once on This Island, which originally debuted in 1990 and was revived on Broadway in New York City in December 2017.

So I’m at All Star Code’s fifth-anniversary event at the High Line Hotel in New York City on Wednesday, and one of the program’s students, Alex Reyes, asks me if I know how the video game “Pong” works.

I thought I knew how to bathe.

First things first, I have a lot of hair.

In the nine years of BET Networks’ Leading Women Defined summit, Jeanine Liburd, chief marketing and communications officer at BET, had never seen anything like this.

If I am lucky enough to make it to 93, I want to be a fly 93 just like Harlem’s own, the legend, actress Cicely Tyson.

Did you miss Ghost and Tommy and Tasha and the gang? (Not Kanan, though; no one misses Kanan.) I know I did. Well, they, and the hit Starz show Power, are all coming back on Sunday, July 1, at 9 p.m.

Editor’s note: Thank you to everyone who participated; we got enough volunteers. Also, apologies to our non-18-to-35 readers! The firm conducting the survey was specifically interested in that age group, but that doesn’t mean if you’re over 35 we don’t love you. We love you! We read all your comments, and we all…

I’m back, Antisocialites!

When writer-director Jordan Peele won his Best Original Screenplay Oscar for 2017’s biggest hit, Get Out, I cheered. When cast members of 2018’s biggest hit so far, Marvel’s Black Panther, walked the red carpet at the 90th Academy Awards, I swooned. And when I looked out at the sea of (mostly) white people attending…

We shouldn’t need a Women’s History Month.