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Posts published in “Entertainment”

Angela Bassett to Star in and Produce NBC’s ‘Vanishing Point’

By goodblacknews on November 20, 2012
LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 20: Actress Angela Bassett arrives at Film Independent's 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival Premiere Of AFFRM & Participant Media's 'Middle Of Nowhere' at Regal Cinemas L.A. Live on June 20, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA – JUNE 20: Actress Angela Bassett arrives at Film Independent’s 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival Premiere Of AFFRM & Participant Media’s ‘Middle Of Nowhere’ at Regal Cinemas L.A. Live on June 20, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images)

Academy Award nominated actress Angela Bassett is set to star and co-executive produce a new legal drama on NBC titled Vanishing Point.  According to Deadline, NBC closed a deal for the show that was penned by Source Code writer, Ben Ripley, who will executive produce the drama that is produce by SONY TV alongside SONY TV-based producers Deborah Spera and Maria Grasso.

Snoop Dogg Launches Food Initiative in Jamaica

By goodblacknews on November 15, 2012
Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg is connecting with Jamaica. The music star has announced a partnership with Reed’s Ginger Brew to aid the Mind Gardens Project, his latest non-profit initiative to create sustainable, organic community gardens. The gardens will provide fresh fruits and vegetables to children in Jamaica.

“When I went to Jamaica, we took time to visit these communities in Kingston, and I was deeply affected by the poverty and lack of good food available to the children,” revealed Snoop in a written statement. “No child should go hungry. After all the inspiration Jamaica had provided me, I felt compelled to create a program to give back to the community.”

The project has already begun work in Kingston affecting two major communities, Trench Town and Tivoli Gardens. To find out more about the initiative, visit MindGardens.org or Causes.com/MindGardens.

article by Arielle Loren via bet.com

‘Boyz n the Hood’ Reimagined by Interpretive Dancer Kyle Abraham

By goodblacknews on November 14, 2012

Kyle Abraham.jpg

The thirty-five-year-old choreographer Kyle Abraham has come a long way in just a few years. In 2006, he established his company, Abraham.In.Motion, and since then has produced dances that have earned him awards and critical acclaim. In December, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre will première a work that it commissioned from him. For someone whose career has taken off in such a big way, though, he retains a strong connection to his Pittsburgh roots, and shows great integrity in his dance-making, both of which were evident in his newest work, “Pavement,” which Abraham presented recently at Harlem Stage.

Abraham, who is African-American, went to high school in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, a historically black neighborhood, and in several of his previous works he drew on his experiences there. For “Pavement,” he went back to 1991, to reimagine the film “Boyz n the Hood,” about gangs in South Central Los Angeles, which was released that summer. He used the film as a springboard for examining life in Pittsburgh’s African-American communities in the Hill District and East Liberty Homewood and reflecting on the state of the black American experience in the two decades since its release.

But Abraham’s conception was even more sweeping. He also wanted to look at the history that had preceded the strife represented in “Boyz n the Hood,” and found a pertinent source in “The Souls of Black Folk,” the 1903 book by W. E. B. Du Bois, whose essays became instrumental in African-Americans’ struggle for equality in the twentieth century. Du Bois’s text made no appearance in “Pavement,” but Abraham included a quote from it in the program, which hovered over the dance: “Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as a natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning against ignorance, purity against crime, the ‘higher’ against the ‘lower’ races.” In the light of Du Bois’s words from more than a century ago, the realities as depicted in the film are sobering. From the perspective of 1991, when the ravages of H.I.V., crack addiction, and gang genocide were entrenched, not much seems to have gone right.

Oprah Seeks Trademark for Organic Products Line

By goodblacknews on November 13, 2012
It looks like media mogul Oprah Winfrey is getting into the organic food business. According to online filings for the US Patent and Trademark Organization, several applications for “Oprah’s Organics” were filed late last month. The filings are to use the name for bath soaps, sunscreen, massage oils, hair products — and also for organic salad dressings and frozen vegetables, soups, beverages and snack dips. Applications for “Oprah’s Farm” for a beverage and catering service and “Oprah’s Harvest” were also submitted for this fall. The addresses for the applicant’s include the Wilshire Boulevard addresses of Winfrey’s business and the Chicago address of Winfrey’s Harpo Inc., offices. Winfrey, who launched her own girls’ school in South Africa and has topped Forbes’ list of highest-paid celebrities this year earning an estimated $165 million, already owns hundreds of acres in Maui, which include a large farm and a bed and breakfast. A rep for Winfrey told us: “The trademarks were filed for Oprah’s farm on Maui to enable the farm to grow and distribute produce on Maui and throughout the Hawaiian Islands.”
article via nypost.com

Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney to Adapt and Direct ‘Antony and Cleopatra’

By goodblacknews on November 12, 2012

Tarell Alvin McCraney in 2009.Tarell Alvin McCraney (“The Brothers Size”) will direct and adapt a new production of Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” as part of a collaboration among the Public Theater, GableStage in Miami and the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Public announced on Monday. The play will have its premiere at the Stratford-Upon-Avon home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, where Mr. McCraney is an artistic associate, in November 2013, before being staged in Miami in January 2014 and later that month at the Public.

In addition to directing the production, Mr. McCraney edited the text, reordered the scene structure and relocated the play to “the late 1700s against the backdrop of Saint-Domingue, on the eve of the Haitian Revolution against the French,” according to a news release. Casting will take place in London, New York and Miami, Mr. McCraney’s hometown.

A 2007 graduate of Yale, Mr. McCraney has also written the trilogy “The Brother/Sister Plays,” “Wig Out” and other plays, including “Head of Passes,” which will have its premiere in Chicago next year.

The production will be the latest collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and a New York stage. In 2011 the company had a residency at the Park Avenue Armory as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. In March 2013 its production of “Matilda the Musical,” based on the Roald Dahl children’s book and now running in London, is to begin performances on Broadway.

article by Erik Piepenburg via nytimes.com

WATCH TONIGHT: Terrence Jenkins Replaces Ryan Seacrest on ‘E! News’

By goodblacknews on November 12, 2012

Beginning this evening, “106 & Park’s” Terrence Jenkins will replace Ryan Seacrest as co-host of E! News with Giuliana Rancic. His debut will feature an exclusive interview with Chris Brown.  The move comes as the hour-long show looks to expand beyond celebrity, focusing more broadly on pop culture, politics, fashion and music, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Jenkins, formerly known as Terrence J, will join Rancic on the weekday news desk, working on personality profiles and other reporting for the show.

Keshia Knight Pulliam Helps Raise $1M For Spelman College

By goodblacknews on November 9, 2012

(L-R) Spelman board member Vickie Palmer, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Rosalind G. Brewer, Dr. Beverly Tatum, Millie Smith

Keshia Knight Pulliam helped to raise more than $1 million for her alma mater, reports the YBF blog.  The former “Cosby Show” co-star, who graduated in 2001 with a B.A. in Sociology and a concentration in film, teamed with Spelman College Board Members to host a Fall Fashion Presentation and fundraiser at SAKS in Atlanta.

Among the attendees: Ne-Yo’s fiancee Monyetta Shaw, Spelman College President Dr. Beverly Tatum,  actress LaTanya Richardson and Andrew Young’s wife Carolyn Young.  The luncheon included a champagne toast and live auction.  The money raised will go toward scholarships to benefit Spelman students who are unable to graduate due to financial hardship.

Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2012/11/keshia-knight-pulliam-helps-raise-1m-for-spelman/#vdHu0z8vAhHtUhll.99

 

Rihanna Donates $100,000 to Feed Sandy Victims; Holds Benefit Concert

By goodblacknews on November 9, 2012
Rihanna performs during the 2012 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show at the Lexington Avenue Armory on November 7, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

Rihanna performs during the 2012 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show at the Lexington Avenue Armory on November 7, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

In addition, Rihanna is donating $100,000 to the NYC Food Bank.  “It’s really difficult to see something so tragic going on and not be able to do anything about it,” she said in a recent interview. “There’s nothing you can control, it’s Mother Nature. It’s really sad what happened here.”

article via thegrio.com

R.I.P. R&B and Delfonics Singer Major Harris

By goodblacknews on November 9, 2012

Major Harris, a highly-respected R&B singer out of Philadelphia, is dead at the age of 65.  Harris was known for his role as a member of the Delfonics, and for later achieving success as a solo artist.   Harris passed Friday morning at a hospital in Richmond, VA.  He died from congenitive heart and lung failure.

Harris started his career singing with doo-wop groups in the 1960s in Richmond, some of which included  the Jamels,the Charmers, Frankie Lymon‘s the Teenagers and Nat Turner’s Rebellion.

In 1974, Harris launched a solo career with Atlantic Records, creating a string of hits, including “Love Won’t Let Me Wait.”  His work has been sampled by quite a few contemporary groups, including Wu-Tang Clan, the Fugees and Notorious B.I.G., and resurrected in films like Quentin Tarantino‘s Jackie Brown.  To learn more about his life and music, click here.

Mariah Carey Releases Obama Tribute Song “Bring It On Home” On Soundcloud

By goodblacknews on November 7, 2012
Mariah and Obama 16x9

Mariah Carey is showing the world just how patriotic she can be. Yesterday the “One Sweet Day” singer posted photos of herself at a polling station as she cast her vote for the next U.S. President. Today, Mariah has released “Bring It On Home,”  an inspirational song celebrating Obama’s re-election, joining Stevie Wonder and Will.i.am in the ranks of artists supporting the President through their music.

Mariah’s longtime producer Jermaine Dupri took to Twitter this morning to announce the release of the track. “NEW MARIAH CAREY SONG, SHE WROTE FOR OBAMA,BTW THIS IS THE REAL VERSION,” he wrote.

“Bring It On Home” is a throwback Mariah’s sound from the 90’s, as she is backed up by a choir while belts out the song’s lyrics.  Mariah first performed the song at a fundraiser for Obama during the summer.  Click here to hear the song.

original article by Chris Witherspoon via thegrio.com