theblackbottom

Interview by ANDREW GOLDMAN
Published: September 21, 2012
You once wrote that Michael Jackson stopped working with you because he felt threatened by the credit you were getting for his music. Considering he was never able to repeat the success he had with “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad,” how much credit do you deserve?
Well, What [...]

Michigan Radio
By KATE WELLS
They called it the “Black Eden.”
From the 1920’s to 60’s, tens of thousands of African Americans poured into the resort town of Idlewild, Michigan. They came to escape steaming summers in segregated cities, and to see some of the greatest musicians of the age.

As Idlewild’s centennial summer comes to a close, 90-year-old [...]

In just a few short years, SuperDre has brought her unique sound and contagious stage energy to packed dance floors and events across the nation.

Releasing her funky, minimal techno sound on her boutique label, Bass Candi, SuperDre thrives in the live environment delivering most of her sets on turntables along with midi controllers, an art [...]

By : Alexandra Zawia
At the Locarno Film Festival to pick up the Golden Leopard Honor Award, the singer and actor also talks about his fears of a Fourth Reich and why Mitt Romney shouldn’t be president.
Harry Belafonte, at 85, is as active and activist as ever. At the Locarno Film Festival, despite walking with [...]

Source: ABFF
Once upon a time in a faraway land, Hollywood executives and artists at the forefront of Black image making gathered in the hills of Acapulco, magically creating what is now known as one of the “premier film festivals in the world – the ABFF”
Five years later, the festival set up a [...]

David Alan Grier was nominated for a Tony Award, Broadway’s highest award for actors in a drama or musical. Grier is a Detroit native, a graduate of Cass Tech High School, as well as the University of Michigan. Grier has had an illustrious career on stage, film, and in television.
We recommend highly that readers [...]

Noah Stewart’s musical development started in Harlem where he studied classical music at The Harlem School of the Arts. At age 12, his choir teacher encouraged him to pursue a music career; he began doing voice-overs for Sesame Street and television school specials, and won first place in the New England Music Competition in Boston. [...]

Source: Gallerist NY
And her name’s DJ Venus X. Why not follow her on Twitter? She’s already got a profile in The New York Times style section. The piece opens with a scene from the after party for Terry Richardson’s exhibition at Half Gallery, “Mom & Dad.” Quoth Richard Phillips:  “It was one [...]

Source: New York Times
Jamaa Fanaka, a filmmaker who had considerable success in 1979 with “Penitentiary,” a feature-length movie he made while still in film school, but who claimed to have been blacklisted afterward for raising questions about the dearth of jobs for black directors in Hollywood, died on April 1 in Los [...]

Once You Learn How To Read, You Will Be Forever Free~Frederick Douglass

REVIEW Diane Brady grew up in Scotland and Canada before moving to Nairobi to begin her career as a journalist. She now writes for Bloomberg Businessweek in New York City, where she lives with her husband and three children. This is her first book.

REVIEW [...]