After four seasons as host of A Chef’s Life, the PBS documentary series exploring Southern cuisine and its traditions that she cocreated, Vivian Howard is no stranger to risk taking. She knew that adding a food truck to her eight-week East Coast book tour for Deep Run Roots might complicate things, but her sense of […]
Shirlette Ammons
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Remembering Prince
It’s Sunday, and like many of us, I’m still not OK. For the past three days, I’ve woken with the heaviest of hearts, rummaging through social media remembrances and obituaries while revisiting classics, rare performances, ghostwrites, and B-sides. Ask a hundred people their favorite Prince song, and you’ll get two hundred answers. Ask one thousand […]
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Live: The mysterious Miss Lauryn Hill swoops down on Durham
Miss Lauryn Hill, Raury Carolina Theatre, Durham Monday, August 10, 2015 One could argue that hip-hop has not been loyal to Miss Lauryn Hill. After she crafted The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which became the manifesto of an entire hip-hop generation and collected five Grammys, we almost allowed her to dissolve into the depths of […]
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Live: What year is it? Morris Day and the Time, Sheila E. energize Red Hat
Morris Day and the Time, Sheila E. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh Saturday, May 30, 2015 Morris Day is The Uncle of Black Cool. Since alpha-strutting on the scene via Prince in 1981, he’s rocked a goatee-free mustache, the vibrant suits Steve Harvey’s made famous and a smooth palate of lady talk that placed Minneapolis at […]
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Live: Shirlette Ammons revisits the inspiration of Meshell Ndegeocello in Durham
Meshell Ndegeocello Carolina Theatre, Durham Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015 More than two decades ago, a friend gave me a bootleg cassette of Meshell Ndegeocello’s Plantation Lullabies. I had been tinkering with the bass for about six months, and her music was an affirmation, a window into myself. Here’s this little black, bald, bisexual woman endowed […]
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From the road: Purple Velvet International Female Hip-Hop Tour Diary, Vol. 5
We’ve also received housing at each stop. Sometimes it’s a hotel or hostel, but quite often, it’s a band apartment situated atop the venue. The flyest of these accommodations was in Munich, at a spot called Feierwerk. The apartment, like most of the band housing, was outfitted with multiple beds in each room, a kitchen […]
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From the road: Purple Velvet International Female Hip-Hop Tour Diary, Vol. 4
As much as unpredictability is a central part of touring, so is exhaustive driving. If someone were to create a touring pie chart, it’d probably look something like this: So many unplanned incidents can happen—one can lose a valuable part of one’s wardrobe, the sound guy may have trouble getting sound to emanate from your […]
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From the road: Purple Velvet International Female Hip-Hop Tour Diary, Vol. 3
L-Beach and its reputation had long preceded itself. I Googled the festival from home when I found out Purple Velvet would be making a performance pit stop there. L stands for — wait for it — lesbian. The video footage from previous L-Beaches was like if Beverly Hills 90210, Michfest and, The L-Word had a […]
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From the road: Purple Velvet International Female Hip-Hop Tour Diary, Vol. 2
May 6: Swag Jam On Tuesday night, DJ Boogie Dan (one of sookee’s house DJs) takes us to a weekly open mic named “The Swag Jam” at this spot called Badehaus (German for “bath house”). This is our first venture into Berlin’s night scene, which seems to feature venues dense with dirty walls reminiscent of […]
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From the road: Purple Velvet International Female Hip-Hop Tour Diary, Vol. 1
May 4: North Carolina to Neukölln sookee sent along a well-detailed itinerary. I rummage through it as one of many projects designed to outlive an 8 hour layover at EWR. Purple Velvet International Female Hip Hop Tour (featuring 17 stops in 30 days will be the first of its kind to descend upon Germany and […]