As the idiot known as the president continues to defend the tiki-torched, “alt-right,” neo-Nazi, white supremacist orgy that went down in Charlottesville, Va., resulting in one person’s death and several injuries, social media’s blood pressure has gone way up, with millions posting outrage.

Jada Pinkett Smith’s outrage over the Tupac Shakur film All Eyez on Me has not subsided one bit. During an appearance Wednesday on The Ryan Cameron Morning Show With Wanda Smith on Atlanta radio’s V-103, while promoting her latest film, Girls Trip, with co-star Regina Hall and producer Will Packer, Pinkett Smith had a…

Snowfall is proof that, more than 25 years after breaking through with his Oscar-nominated debut film, Boyz n the Hood, John Singleton hasn’t forgotten his roots or, most importantly, his responsibility.

To say that a Tupac biopic has been a long time coming is an understatement. Perhaps few know that as well as Demetrius Shipp Jr., the icon’s “blink twice” doppelgänger who was originally cast in the role in 2011 and waited through a handful of directors, including John Singleton and Carl Franklin, before Benny Boom,…

Twenty-five years ago, longtime cinematographer Ernest Dickerson made a deep impression with his directorial debut, Juice, a hip-hop-era film noir revolving around four teenage boys growing up in Harlem at a time when crack and violence were first emerging as devastating norms for urban youths. Juice, released Jan.…

Thirty years ago, “Take It Lyte” and the more popular “I Cram to Understand U” were how most hip-hop lovers were introduced to MC Lyte. By the time her album Lyte as a Rock dropped the next year, in 1988, there was no debating whether MC Lyte was a bona fide emcee. She was actually an elite one.

Comedian W. Kamau Bell gives a lot of credit to Chris Rock for taking a big chance on him in 2012 by executive-producing his first show, Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell, on FX. “He basically gave me my career,” Bell said to The Root. “He might say differently: ‘You would have made it some other way.’ But, yes, he…

It’s hard to explain American Gods, Starz’s bold new series, to most. Steeped in fantasy, mythology and Americana, American Gods explores immigrants and the gods and spirits they brought with them in a unique fashion.

Footage of four Los Angeles Police Department officers beating Rodney King kicked off Spike Lee’s great 1992 film, Malcolm X, months after the Los Angeles riots had died down. Now, 25 years later, he has directed Roger Guenveur Smith’s one-man show, Rodney King. Interestingly, Rodney King premieres on Netflix the day…

Who can tell your family’s story? That’s one of the key issues the book and now HBO film, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, raises. It’s one that Henrietta Lacks’ son Lawrence and his son, Ron, have been asking for some time now.

In 1992, Los Angeles erupted in violent opposition to the not guilty verdict for four police officers captured on video brutally beating Rodney King within an inch of his life. Twenty-five years later, there is no shortage of documentaries examining the Los Angeles riots.

OK, those Rebel commercials on BET haven’t exactly moved you, even if this show is intended to fill the void left by the midseason finale of Being Mary Jane. Because it’s 2017 and black TV isn’t as sparse as it once was, you still have those Netflix Dave Chappelle comedy specials to get to, not to mention countless…

When Muhammad Ali Jr. was first detained by immigration officials at the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., airport as he traveled back from Jamaica with his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, toward the end of February, initially, the son of the legendary boxer wasn’t so quick to blame President Donald Trump’s misguided Muslim travel…

Oscar Grant. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Freddie Gray. Anthony Hill. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. These are just a few names from a much longer list of black men who have died at the hands of law enforcement in less than a decade. So when the new Fox show Shots Fired ran early trailers zoning in on a black cop,…

Nick Cannon looked relaxed as he hosted a listening party for his music artist ItsaMovie, a 20-year-old Atlanta-area native, Tuesday night at M Bar, located on historic Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. Despite reports of his health challenges, Cannon, who just became a dad again to a third child, a son named Golden, looked…

Tonight’s 89th annual Academy Awards will be very different from last year’s broadcast or even the year before. In 2015 and 2016, there were no black actors or actors of color nominated in any acting categories. One of the reasons activist April Reign was so successful in launching her #OscarsSoWhite movement in…

Some people’s lives are bigger than they are; that was certainly the case with Maya Angelou. This “phenomenal woman” packed in a lot of living even for someone blessed with a relatively long journey of 86 years. That’s what’s most clear in the first-ever documentary on her life, Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, airing…

Since being launched into the hip-hop stratosphere by Outkast on their 2001 single “The Whole World,” Killer Mike has been a fixture on the Southern hip-hop landscape. However, during the presidential election, he became a national political presence after backing Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton.

If there’s one thing 24 fans know, it’s that things don’t always go as planned. And that was certainly the case for the debut of 24: Legacy, Fox’s reboot of its game-changing series 24, after Super Bowl LI.

Even if you aren’t the biggest sports fan, you may have heard of Michael Smith and Jemele Hill. His & Hers, which began as a podcast conceived and hosted by Smith and Hill, proved so popular that in 2014 it replaced the ESPN2 show Numbers Never Lie, which Smith began co-hosting with Charissa Thompson in 2011.