IT’S ALL POLITICAL

2 Jul

‘Woke Foods’, 1st Dominican Vegan Food Business in NYC

IT'S ALL POLITICAL, WOMEN

by Katherine Hernandez | Medium With Anthony Santos’ bachata mix playing on her iPhone, 26-year-old Dominican Chef Ysanet Batista sways her hips back and forth as she stirs vegetables in a caldero. The freshly washed produce sizzles in hot oil as Santos croons in the background. Wrapped in an apron, Batista shifts from left to right in her small Washington Heights kitchen, contemplating what to add next to the pot. “She’s like a mad scientist, tasting a little bit of this...

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1 Jul

Rocking the Stasi

IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC

Image copyright, GETTY IMAGES Image copyright, ALAMYDie Toten Hosen in 1989 When music captures the spirit of freedom it can cross any border. In 1961, Communist East Germany built a wall across Berlin, and tried to seal itself off from the West. But new research shows how concrete, barbed wire and a huge effort by the secret police, the Stasi, failed to silence the seductive beat of rock and roll and punk. The rise of Beatlemania in the 1960s brought a scathing response from Walter...

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27 Jun

An Interactive Map of Black Londoners 1800-1900

IT'S ALL POLITICAL

The Equiano Centre at University College of London's Dept. of Geography This unique initiative has been established to create a focus for academic and community scholars and research students of all levels to come together and debate emerging and new ideas, theories and research methods around subjects such as Black History in Britain, and theories of race, racism and anti-racism. Black Londoners 1800-1900 Our knowledge of the black presence in Victorian London is still seriously under researched. Information on the lives of...

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19 Jun

Brian Eno Meets Yanis Varoufakis

IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC

by Brian Eno and Yanis Varoufakis for the Guardian The British musician and producer Brian Eno meets Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister for Greece’s Syriza government, at Eno’s recording studio in west London. Both are stylish, shaven-headed men famous for their radical ideas. Eno, 67, started out playing synth and wearing leopardskin shirts in the 1970s with Roxy Music and went on to produce, among others, David Bowie and Talking Heads. Varoufakis, 54, who turns up in his trademark leather jacket, describes himself as a libertarian Marxist and has...

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10 May

How Punk & Reggae Fought Back Against Racism in the 70s

IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC, SUBCULTURE/LIFESTYLE

RAR carnival against the nazis, leeds, 1981 I was just reminiscing about this movement; there's no real equivalent today, and it's needed more than ever here in the US and around the world. I'd like to help change that. by Stuart Brumfitt | i-D Vice Syd Shelton’s photographs capture the Rock Against Racism movement that confronted racism in 70's and 80's Britain. When Syd Shelton returned to London in 1977 after fours years living in Australia, he was shocked at how much things had changed. "The recession...

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28 Dec

Born Beautiful: Tracey Morgan, First Black Transgender Model

FASHION/STYLE, IT'S ALL POLITICAL

by Jada Yuan and Aaron Wong (Photographs by Peter Hapak, Styling by Diana Tsui) The Cut Tracey’s model card from the Grace Del Marco agency, 1991, before she changed the spelling of her name. Tracey “Africa” Norman always knew that the question wasn’t if she’d be found out, but how long she could go undetected. To be black and from Newark in the mid-1970s and get plucked from a model casting call for Italian Vogue by Irving Penn — it was the kind of success story that was unheard of, especially for someone...

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20 Dec

Black British Artists to Be Written Into Art History

ARTS, IT'S ALL POLITICAL

Sonia Boyce to create database of works by artists of African and Asian descent held in UK public collections by Anny Shaw The Art Newspaper The British artist Sonia Boyce aims to rewrite the history of art by creating the first database of works by black artists held in UK public collections. Over the next three years a team of artists and researchers at the University of the Arts London will trawl museums and galleries across the country hunting for works by...

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26 Nov

‘The Prophecy’: Senegal’s Trash Transformed Into Haute Couture Art

ARTS, FASHION/STYLE, IT'S ALL POLITICAL

Fabrice Monteiro, “The Prophecy #1” (2013) (image via Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, © Mariane Ibrahim) by Carey Dunne Hyperallergenic In The Prophecy, a striking series by Dakar-based photographer Fabrice Monteiro, majestic alien creatures wear hoop skirts and headdresses made from soda cans, garbage bags, fishing nets, tortoise shells, and the odd baby doll. It isn’t just fashion photography at its most theatrical and cinematic: There’s a vivid environmentalist message here, though it doesn’t look like any anti-pollution campaign you’ve ever seen. To visualize the pollution problem that plagues Senegal, Monteiro collaborated with fashion designer Doulsy and the Ecofund Organization to...

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26 Nov

Thanksgiving…

IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC

...as perfectly expressed by the brilliant Eugene McDaniels. Earlier known as Gene McDaniels, he had hits like "100 Pounds of Clay", wrote classics like Roberta Flack 's "Feel Like Makin' Love" and channeled iconic masterpieces like protest song "Compared to What", best interpreted by Eddie Harris' and Les McCann's magic moment in time at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1969. Very big on social commentary through his music, this track from his 1971 album "Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse" was light years was ahead of its time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFNzifsV9KM...

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18 Nov

70s Anti-Graffiti Educational Film

ARTS, IT'S ALL POLITICAL

BLINDINGLY. BAD. MUSIC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zWCk8ANdS4...

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18 Sep

Death, the 1st Punk Band Are Now In The Smithsonian

IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC

David Hackney, a founding member of Death (courtesy Smithsonian) by Ally Schweitzer, bandwidth.wamu.org In the early 1970s, years before punk rock exploded in the U.S., three brothers from Detroit started a band called Death. David Hackney and his siblings Bobby and Dannis played blistering rock, a faster version of The Who and MC5. It all sprouted from David’s imagination — he loved rock music, though his family and neighbors didn’t understand why three young black men would want to play it. Death turned out to be a hard...

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25 Aug

JLove Calderon’s Documentary ‘From Gangs to Gardens’

IT'S ALL POLITICAL

by Blacks Going Vegan Filmmaker JLove Calderon recently released an exciting new documentary entitled ‘From Gangs To Gardens’ which chronicles Ietef Vita’s progression from gang member to organic urban gardener, heading up the Eastside Growers Collective. “I am more than what you see” ~Ietef Vita Vita is a hip hop yogi, educator, midwife, emcee, deejay, youth advocate, and seeker of self sustainable life. He started the garden project to heal his neighborhood. “In order for us to see environmental improvement we must begin with the health of...

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25 Aug

Industry First: 8 September Magazine Covers Feature Black Women

IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MULTIMEDIA

by Taryn Finley Huffington Post Black Voices Serena Williams, Beyoncé, Misty Copeland, Queen Latifah, Ciara, Kerry Washington, Willow Smith and Amandla Stenberg are serving all of the black girl magic on their respective covers. For print publications, the September issue is among the most highly-regarded issues of the year and is usually the industry's most anticipated release. For at least eight black celebrated women to be recognized on its covers during magazines' most significant month is not just special, it's monumental. Though these...

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29 May

When White Gamers Are Assigned Black Avatars

BRAINIAC, IT'S ALL POLITICAL

The Web is not a post-racial utopia. by Megan Condis Aljazeera America Rust, a 2013 indie survival game from Facepunch Studios, plays like a cross between Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto. Players find themselves “born” into a mysterious wilderness, naked and alone, forced to forage for resources and to craft clothing, supplies and shelter for themselves. They must contend with starvation, hypothermia and animal attacks, but by far the most dangerous threat comes from other players who roam the island. When the game was first opened up,...

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18 Feb

Pussy Riot Release Eric Garner Protest Song “I Can’t Breathe” w/Nick Zinner & Richard Hell

IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC, WOMEN

Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina, left, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova at a news conference in Berlin on Feb. 9. (Markus Schreiber/AP) NME Newsdesk Pussy Riot have released their first English language song – a protest song featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner on bass and Richard Hell reading Eric Garner's final words. ...

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5 Feb

Maasai Cricket Warriors: A Kenyan Tribal Cricket Team Saving Their People

IT'S ALL POLITICAL

...and absolutely beautiful by HINT Fashion Magazine Semi-nomadic and cattle-dependent, the Maasai face catastrophic peril on nearly every front. They've experienced the ravages of HIV/AIDS, and the loss of land and livestock to outside threats. Meanwhile, they continue to suffer the entrenched practices of female genital mutilation and child marriage. The villagers' safety, livelihood, and very existence hang in the balance. So while the cricket players are out to win, they're also on a mission to bring education and equality to the tribe, and...

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