theblackbottom

NPR
When NPR Books invited audience members to nominate and vote for their favorite Young Adult novels, more than 75,000 responded. The extraordinary outpouring speaks of the passion connecting the books section and its followers.
But in that response also lie the seeds of a defect, for lack of a better term, in the poll. The resulting [...]

Revolutionary ART Presents: Say it Loud!: Supporting Black & Brown Artists in Michigan
Doors at 6:00pm, 18+, $3 suggested donation
All proceeds will go to Heartside Art Gallery http://www.facebook.com/HeartsideGalleryAndStudio
Networking & Dialogue begins at 6:00pm Ends at 8:00pm
Hosted by Rev ART Founders: Johannah Jelks & Georgia Taylor

Music will Be Provided By- Michigan Black Expo URBRadio
Rev art Break out [...]

Emberly Vick, otherwise known as Emberly “The Writer,” admits that she passively ignored relentless urges to write for years. Still, whether explaining a concept or conceptualizing herself, she was clearly ordained to write at an early age.
Excelling in state writing tests in elementary, “TheWriter” never considered writing, not even as a hobby, until college. After [...]

By: Rapid Growth Media
Joseph Charles McIntosh | Thursday, April 05, 2012
There has been a continuous, if broken, poetry scene in Grand Rapids for nearly 20 years. It started notably with the beatnik/Bohemian Rainbow Collective in the late 80s and early 90s. It was revived by host Greg Bliss at the eclectic, anarchic poetry slam scene [...]

Aricka M. Foreman is a Cave Canem Fellow and educator. An English major at Wayne State University, she was the recipient of the Hatch Award, as well as the Loughead-Eldredge and Burke-Sheill scholarships. Her work has appeared in The Drunken Boat, Torch Poetry: A Journal for African American Women, Minnesota Review, Union Station Magazine, Bestiary [...]

By:Tommy Allen Rapid Growth Media
G-Sync
Grand Rapids hip-hop scene has evolved and morphed many times as players in the promotion, creation and showcasing of this musical format have moved all over the decades.
But one thing is certain: this from-the-street musical format would be hard-pressed to find a more fitting example of the power contained within to [...]

Source: The Guardian
Nigerian-American novelist Nnedi Okorafor has beaten a host of big names to win the World Fantasy award for her novel set in a post-apocalyptic Saharan Africa.
Who Fears Death is the story of Onyesonwu – her name means “who fears death” in Igbo – a woman with great magical powers who was conceived when [...]

The headline “The Unlikely Rise of the Anti-Obama: Yes We Cain!” anchors the cover of the latest Newsweek like the punch line for one of Jay Leno’s jokes.
It may have been scrounged from the bottom of a barrel of puns, but it fits perfectly the droll political fortunes of Herman Cain — the Redd Foxx [...]

By Doug Coombe
Khalid El-Hakim’s got a good sense of humor. Who else would purchase an “Original Boys in the Hood” bumper sticker featuring three Ku Klux Klansmen from a rather shocked vendor at a Saline, Mich., flea market?
The guy’s humor belies his greater mission. Over the last 10 years, the Detroit Lions Academy Social Studies [...]

By: THE YBF
Ahead of today’s African American Literary Awards in Harlem, Common went back to his hometown of Chicago last night to party it up. Pics and video inside of the sexy rapper signing his new BEST SELLING book and toasting it up.Common’s new memoir One Day It’ll All Make Sense hit shelves last [...]