article via thegrio.com
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are serious about seeing women succeed in Hollywood. The couple just donated $30,000 to New York University’s film school as part of a foundation project designed to help female filmmakers and to finance student television projects.
“Will and Jada Smith have a strong desire and commitment to the education of tomorrow’s storytellers, and we’re thrilled that they have decided to support some of out standout students and programs,” said Joe Pichirallo, chair of Tisch’s undergraduate film and TV department.
The money will go to finance two student-created television pilots and will also go toward the Fusion Film Festival, which supports up to five female filmmakers whose work is submitted to the festival.
Posts published in “Festivals, Camps & Concerts”
article by Taylor Lewis via essence.com
It’s four months out from this year’s ESSENCE Festival in New Orleans, and ESSENCE has just revealed its first look at the 2016 lineup.
For the 22nd year, ESSENCE Fest is bringing sure-to-be-lit nighttime concerts featuring more than 30 of today’s hottest hip-hop and R&B stars. This year’s lineup is a mix of old and new: soul and R&B, hip hop and pop—from Kendrick Lamar to Mariah Carey to Maxwell to Lion Babe.
“The ESSENCE Festival is back in New Orleans with an extraordinary roster of the biggest names and best performers in entertainment—from global music icons to the industry’s rising stars,” said ESSENCE President Michelle Ebanks. “We are welcoming Mariah Carey, Kendrick Lamar and Maxwell to headline the Superdome main stage. In addition, we will be embracing newcomers like Leon Bridges, Jeremih, Lion Babe, Dej Loaf and The Internet, as well as fan favorite Charlie Wilson for the ultimate cultural experience in New Orleans this July 4th weekend.”
Click through to see a full list of performers, and be sure to check back for updates.
Get your tickets here.
To read original article, go to: http://www.essence.com/2016/03/01/2016-essence-festival-lineup-revealed-kendrick-mariah-maxwell-oh-my
REMEMBER when musicians became superstars because of their talent?
Prince may be the last of his kind.
Australia is the surprise first global leg of his Piano and a Microphone solo tour, a tour which didn’t exist a month ago but will be talked about for years.
Armed just with a piano and that immense talent, Prince put on the kind of concert you just don’t expect to see from a superstar. It was spontaneous and intimate. It was like a private piano party, just with 2,000 people watching. It was pure Prince.
His first Melbourne show at the State Theatre was particularly emotionally charged — Prince admitting he’d just found out about the death of Denise Matthews, aka Vanity, his ex-girlfriend from the early ‘80s and protégé when she fronted the band Vanity 6.
“Someone dear to us has passed away, I’m gonna dedicate this song to her,” Prince said before playing a touching version of “Little Red Corvette” with a touch of “Dirty Mind” — songs from the era when they were together.
Prince reworked his classic “The Ladder” to replace the name ‘Electra’ with ‘Vanity’ — so the lyrics ran “This Prince, he had a subject named Vanity who loved him with a passion, uncontested.”
After an encore Prince returned to the stage noting “I am new to this playing alone. I thank you all for being so patient. I’m trying to stay focused, it’s a little heavy for me tonight. Just keep jamming … She knows about this one.” That introduced a truly incredible version of “The Beautiful Ones,” another song from the Vanity era (she was the original choice for lead in the “Purple Rain” movie), the song ending with Prince changing “my knees” for “Denise … Denise”.
Unusually chatty and candid, he continued going off script. “Can I tell you a story about Vanity? Or should I tell you a story about Denise? Her and I used to love each other deeply. She loved me for the artist I was, I loved her for the artist she was trying to be. She and I would fight. She was very headstrong ’cause she knew she was the finest woman in the world. She never missed an opportunity to tell you that.”
Prince then opened up about a fight where he threatened to throw Vanity in the pool. She said “You can’t throw me in the pool, you’re too little.” He then asked his six foot bodyguard Chick to do the dirty work for him. “I probably shouldn’t be telling this story,“ he said, “but she’d want us to celebrate her life and not mourn her.”
To read more, go to: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/prince-pays-tribute-to-late-girlfriend-vanity-in-first-show-on-australian-solo-tour/news-story/d80310448ef160275398c7f36d2f221d
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
Something tells me we will soon have to invent a new way to say “slay,” because if the boss moves perpetrated in the last two days by Beyoncé have shown us anything, they’ve shown us she has every intention of erecting on top of the foundation she laid with 2013’s “Beyoncé” an impenetrable Fortress of Slayage where the word will soon retire itself (because really, where else has it to go?).
To recap, not only did Queen Bey the day before the Super Bowl drop her “Formation” video – which the internet is still feverishly and giddily unpacking – she performed it at halftime, paid homage to the Black Panthers in the Bay Area on their 50th anniversary during the 50th Super Bowl, paid homage to Malcolm X with her squad’s literal formation, and then claimed the commercial space right after halftime to announce her Formation World Tour, which kicks off April 27 in Miami. Phew! No wonder “slay” is ready for a permanent vacation.
According to usatoday.com, the Formation World Tour will be hitting cities nationwide including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia. It ends June 12 in Hershey, Penn., before a string of European dates get underway June 28. Tickets go on sale beginning Tuesday for American Express and Beyhive fan club members, and to the general public starting Feb. 16. [Tour dates listed below.]
Beyoncé last toured the USA with her husband, rapper Jay Z, on the six-week On the Run Tour in summer 2014, which was filmed for a HBO special. The Formation World Tour is her first solo jaunt since the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour in 2013.
article by Angela Bronner Helm via theroot.com
Jay Z’s fledgling music streaming platform Tidal is donating $1.5 million to Black Lives Matter and several other local and national social justice organizations from money raised at an October concert, reports Mic.
The announcement was made on Friday, the same day Trayvon Martin would have turned 21 years old. The Trayvon Martin Foundation will receive a portion of the monies.
Tidal raised the funds at its Tidal X: 10/20 charity concert at Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Barclay Center. The live-streamed show featured Jay, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Meek Mill, Usher, T.I. and Damian Marley, among others.
The October concert was billed as a fundraiser for the New World Foundation, which will distribute the funds.
The nonprofits that will share the bounty include national organizations such as Opportunity Agenda, and Sankofa.org, as well as local grassroots groups such as Hands Up United, in Ferguson, Mo.; Dream Defenders in Tallahassee, Fla.; the Black Youth Project 100 in Chicago; the Baltimore Justice Fund; the Ohio Students Association and Million Hoodies and the Justice League in New York City.
Donations will also be given to organizations created by the families of victims of police brutality, including the Trayvon Martin Foundation, the Michael O.D. Brown We Love Ours Sons and Daughters Foundation and the Oscar Grant Foundation.
Read more at Mic.
UPDATE, 7:45 PM: It’s a double win for The Birth Of A Nation tonight at the Sundance Film Festival Awards. First the Nate Parker-directed, written and starring film won the U.S Dramatic Audience Award and now it has scored the prestigious U.S. Dramatic Jury Award.
“Sundance is like a great summer camp experience,” said a clearly humbled Parker onstage. “This has been like the greatest moment of my career,” he added. “It just means so much.” 
This is the fourth year in a row that the same film has won both the U.S. Audience and Jury awards. Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale, which was renamed Fruitvale Station upon wide release won both awards in 2013, Whiplash won in 2014 and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl won last year.
PREVIOUS, 7:10 PM: After an emotional and acclaimed debut screening on January 25 and a record breaking $17.5 million pick-up by Fox Searchlight the very next morning, The Birth of a Nation sealed its Sundance Film Festival tonight with yet another big win. The Nate Parker directed and starring passion project about Nat Turner’s 19th century slave uprising took the Audience Award for U.S Dramatic Saturday night in Park City.
Thank you Lord, Thank you Sundance,” said Parker taking the stage with the film’s producers Jason Michael Berman, Aaron Gilbert, Brenda Gilbert and EP Ryan Ahrens. “I’ve seen first hand that people are open to the idea of change and the fact that this is happening means everything to me, “ Parker added of the issues raised in the film and the reaction it’s received. “Thank you to everyone who voted for the film, he also said to big applause. “I share this with you.” The film is also in the running for the U.S. Dramatic Jury Award at Sundance this year.
Made for under $10 million by the Red Tails actor with the likes of San Antonio Spurs’ star Tony Parker coming in as an EP, the visceral Nation depicts the horror of the system of slavery and the 48-hour revolt Turner instigated in 1831 in Virginia. And Yes, in this time of the diversity and #OscarsSoWhite discussion that Hollywood is engaged in unfortunately again, if you feel you recognize the name, it’s because Parker re-appropriated the title of the infamous 1915 film by D.W. Griffith that helped reinvigorate the KKK in America.
With Parker as Turner and Armie Hammer, Gabrielle Union, Penelope Ann Miller, Aja Naomi King and Chike Okonkwo co-starring, the film saw multiple standing ovations and tears streaming down the faces of patrons at its packed Eccles Theatre premiere. Within minutes, potential buyers were working the phones in the lobby and an all night bidding war between Netflix, Sony Pictures, the Weinstein Company, Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios and others broke out.
In the end, it was Fox Searchlight that Parker, his producers and WME went with. “Ultimately with Searchlight I felt a connection and a humanity on just a human level, not to say that it wasn’t there with the others, but there was a relationship and a synergy with respect to what impact we wanted it have on the world – a global approach,” Parker told me on the morning of January 26 just hours after the deal was done.
A global approach for a pic that now has its first but likely not last award in hand.
article by Dominic Patten and Patrick Hipes via deadline.com
It’s not every couple who has a feature film made about their first date. Then again, not every couple is the Obamas.
Southside with You, directed by Richard Tanne and starring Tika Sumpter and newcomer Parker Sawyers, details the Obamas’ multilayered first date (despite Michelle’s insistence that it was, most certainly, not a date) as the couple traverses through Chicago, going to the Chicago Art Institute, the movie theater and finally, an ice cream parlor.
Though the flick doesn’t have a release date yet, it recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where critics gave it two very enthusiastic thumbs up, calling it a classic romance story. Check out some of the outstanding reviews below.
From Variety: “Despite its unassuming modesty of scale, budget and commercial potential, “Southside With You” stands as something unique, even audacious in American independent movies: a fact-based presidential “prequel” that seeks to present two iconic world figures as convincing and relatable romantic leads.”
From The Hollywood Reporter: “The result makes you realize how few realistic and three-dimensional date movies have been made in an era of throbbing hook-up encounters and R-rated horny teen gross-outs.”
From Mashable: “If you’d never heard the name Barack Obama, Southside With You could stand alone as a sweet, mature drama with layers of social and racial issues, family dynamics and, yes — romance.”
From MTV: “It’s hard to distance Barack and Michelle from their historical legacies, but Tanne’s nuanced approach succeeds at making this film about the tempestuous beginning, not the happily ever after.”
From The Daily Beast: “A first kiss so hot it made theatergoers at Sundance melt in the aisles.”
We can’t wait to catch this one in theaters.
article by Taylor Lewis via essence.com
Prince approached the piano, a purple baby grand. He landed a single chord, resonant and bassy. He stood. He walked away.
As we could have guessed, Prince’s first-ever (first ever?) solo show last night at Paisley Park, his home compound in suburban Minnesota, was no simple, straightforward affair. The 57-year-old funk-pop wizard approached the performance as a challenge, an opportunity to prove that he could deliver a full Prince show without much of anything we expect from a full Prince show: No powerhouse band, no impossibly lithe dancing, no masterful guitar fireworks. Just, as the show’s official title put it, “Piano & a Microphone.” And a lot of Prince. Maybe more Prince than he’s ever shared before.
Prince framed the evening as an autobiographical struggle, the story of how he mastered the piano and emerged from the shadow of his father, a jazz pianist. The set moved chronologically (with a few exceptions) through the first decade of Prince’s career, including at least one song from each of his first 10 albums. Familiar melodies splintered into virtuosic cascades for a dreamlike effect, as though Prince was remembering the birth of his career in real time.
The night began with some introductory psychodrama. Elegantly casual in his mauve pajamas, that enormous afro dominating his slim frame, Prince took a stage decorated sparsely with candles, befogged by a smoke machine, his personal glyph looming from behind, illuminated by kaleidoscopic patterns. His voice was doused in heavy echo as he expressed the dreams and doubts of a child who sneaks down without permission to play his father’s piano. “I can’t play piano like my dad. How does dad do that?” he wondered, while attempting improvisations that, at one point, suggested Thelonious Monk teaching himself the theme to Batman.
Then it got sexy. Prince’s fingers were everywhere during “Baby,” a ballad from his 1978 debut For You that served as foreplay to the full-body workouts “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and “Dirty Mind” before the ecstatic squeals of “Do Me, Baby” provided the climax. Multiple climaxes, even.
Prince moved between songs fluidly. He introduced the moving ballad “Free” by celebrating “the freedom to say no,” later interrupting the song to wipe a tear and briefly mourn David Bowie: “I only met him once. He was nice to me. He seemed like he was nice to everybody.” Before we knew it, he was in the middle of a gorgeous take on a longtime Prince favorite, Joni Mitchell‘s “A Case of You,” which transformed into a bluesy vamp that Prince used as a lesson in musicology. “The space between the notes — that’s the good part,” he said. “How long the space is — that’s how funky it is or how funky it ain’t.” And just like that, he was was moaning the spiritual lament “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”
The intimate setting was ideal for falsetto-wrenched ballads like “Sometimes It Snows in April” and “The Breakdown,” one of a handful of newer songs inserted into the set. But Prince never forgot that the piano is a rhythm instrument. If the old-time boogie-woogie masters didn’t need drums to rock a party, well, neither did Prince. He remade “Paisley Park” as a bluesy, gutbucket romp, and his pumping left hand recalled Ray Charles, a debt he made clear when he ripped into the soul legend’s “Unchain My Heart,” a song he recalled playing with his father.
“I thought I would never be able to play like my dad,” he said. “And he never missed an opportunity to remind me of it.” But Prince’s playing belied his modesty. His florid right-hand runs had a little of the theatricality of Liberace in them, but with more tasteful jazz inflections as well. Paying tribute to his past collaborators Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, he credited Lisa with introducing him to the complex chording of jazzman Bill Evans then played the harpsichord part she wrote for “Raspberry Beret.” “That’s the whole song, right?”
A+E Networks and iHeartMedia are simultaneously airing “Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America” on Friday, November 20 at 8PM ET/PT. The sold-out concert was recorded at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA on Wednesday, November 18th, and the two-hour special event will air across the entire A+E Networks portfolio in more than 130 territories globally, including A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime, H2, LMN and FYI, as well as on more than 130 iHeartMedia broadcast radio stations nationwide and the iHeartRadio digital platform. Additionally, AOL has joined in the simulcast making the historic special event available to anyone with internet access across the globe on AOL.com.
Artists Aloe Blacc, Andra Day, Nick Jonas, Tom Morello, Smokey Robinson and Big Sean join the previously announced performers including Zac Brown Band, Eric Church, Jamie Foxx, Rhiannon Giddens, Tori Kelly, John Legend, Miguel, Pink, Jill Scott, Ed Sheeran, Sia, Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Pharrell Williams. LL Cool J, Marshall Faulk, Morgan Freeman, George Lopez, Mario Lopez, Nicki Minaj, Kurt Warner and Nick Young are among the presenters joining the telecast.
Alicia Keys has joined John Legend and Pharrell on extraordinary journeys to Baltimore, Ferguson and Charleston, where they met with a diverse group of residents in communities at the center of the national conversation on racial inequality and violence. Joined by NPR’s Michele Norris with John Legend in Ferguson, award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien with Pharrell Williams in Charleston and ABC News’ Byron Pitts in Baltimore, these visits included intimate discussions and special private performances by each for those most effected. These incredibly moving, heart wrenching and eye-opening moments will be featured throughout the two-hour concert, as well as in the one-hour special, “Shining a Light: Conversations on Race in America,” airing immediately following the concert on A&E Network and AOL.com at 10pm ET/PT.
To see Alicia Keys perform Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We Will All Be Free”, watch below:
https://youtu.be/vqt2OHsAFiU
The concert will kick off A+E Networks’ campaign to confront issues of race, and promote unity and progress on racial equity, inspired by the response of the Mother Emanuel family members in Charleston and others working for reconciliation and change around the country.
The concert and the ancillary programming will help raise money for the Fund for Progress on Race in America powered by United Way Worldwide (ShiningALightConcert.com). The fund will provide grant funding to individuals and organizations fostering understanding, eliminating bias, as well as provide support to Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church and the broader A.M.E. denomination. The fund will support efforts to address racism and bias through public policy change, individual innovation, and community mobilization.
Tickets for the concert on November 18 sold out within 3 hours of the on-sale date raising more than $150,000 to benefit the Fund for Progress on Race in America powered by The United Way Worldwide.
To see a clip of John Legend’s performance of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” from the event, watch below:
https://youtu.be/F4PLzIrzI6k
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
Model Maria Borges strutted her teeny-weeny-afro down the runway at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show and we were here for every second of it! This was a huge moment for kinky curls, and Borges relished in the spotlight.
“For me, it is huge! I’m glad I’m doing it, you know? And they chose me to make history. I have no words to explain. It’s so good for me, and to be able to inspire the other girls everywhere as well!” she revealed in an exclusive interview with XONecole.
It’s a big moment, since tight curled tresses have always been under scrutiny for not complying with Euro-centric beauty standards. Borges working the main stage in one of the sexiest, most watched televised fashion shows, definitely gives natural hair the attention it deserves.
This isn’t the first VS show for Borges who has previously rocked the runway in fabulous weave-a-licious looks, but there was something special about taking the stage in her mama-made glory.
‘Starting February of this year, I cut my hair and I’ve been wearing it like this since. Before, I was using my natural hair mixed with extensions. Black is beautiful! I have to embrace my worth and that’s it! For me, I think I look more beautiful with short hair. I feel sexy, beautiful and powerful. All the good things!’ the Angolan beauty gushed.
article by Keyaira Kelly via hellobeautiful.com