Jill Scott, Regina Hall and Eve will be on a race to the alter for their upcoming Lifetime movie.
The network announced this week that it will be producing a romantic comedy aimed at black women titled With This Ring, Shadow And Act reports. The story centers on three girlfriends that make a pact to get married within a year after another one of their friends ties the knot!
With all of the biopics that Lifetime will be rolling out, we’re shocked they still know how to make anything else. There’s no word on who will play the bride just yet, but we’re interested to see who takes on the role.
Gabrielle Union has been attached to the project, but she probably won’t be appearing on screen. She’s signed on as an executive producer for With This Ring alongside Tracey Edmonds and Sheila Ducksworth.
Production for With This Ring, which is being directed by Nzingha Stewart, is slated to begin next month.
article by Sonya Eskridge via hellobeautiful.com
Good Black News
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Organizers say a $75 million International African American Museum will be built beside the Charleston harbor where tens of thousands of slaves first set foot in the United States.
Charleston Mayor Joe Riley announced Tuesday that the museum will be built near where a wharf once stood in the South Carolina city where the Civil War began. During the late 1770s and early 1800s, tens of thousands of slaves crossed the wharf entering the nation. Riley says there is no better site for the museum. The location is on the waterfront, just down and across the street from the original site planned for the museum.
The project was first announced 13 years ago. Riley says construction on the 42,000-square-foot museum could begin in early 2016 with completion in 2018.
article via newsone.com
Bill Cosby could be returning to the network with a new comedy as soon as next summer. The series, described as a “classic, extended-family sitcom” with Cosby as the patriarch, is currently in the writing stage, NBC executives said at Sunday’s session of the summer TV critics’ tour. It was first announced in January.
Cosby, 77, has a long history with NBC, including his seminal “The Cosby Show,” which became a smash hit 30 years ago and helped rescue a network then at the bottom of the ratings. It ran for eight seasons.
After that, Cosby headlined a sitcom at CBS, among other series. If the new Cosby project isn’t ready for next summer, it could be a contender for fall 2015.
The upcoming Cosby venture will use multi-cameras and be filmed in front of a studio audience, a format that has lost ground at NBC, where single-camera comedies like “30 Rock,” ”The Office” and ‘Parks and Recreation” have thrived. NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt said the network is trying to bring back this classic “multi” form, which goes back to “I Love Lucy” and the earliest days of network television (and which is going strong at CBS with shows like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Mike & Molly.”)
“There’s been a generation of writers and producers who have gone away from multi-cam, and we are trying to revitalize (that form),” Greenblatt said. “There was such cachet with ’30 Rock’ and ‘The Office,’ which reinforced single-camera as the ‘better’ form, and I hope we can balance the scales a little.”
article via nydailynews.com
Danae Mines is an 11-year veteran with the FDNY and is one of New York City’s few female firefighters. Next March, Mines will also be the first woman the first woman featured in the FDNY Calendar of Heroes, even though she was initially told the calendar honor was only for men.
“I was told that it was all guys,” Mines, who is assigned to Engine Co. 60 in the South Bronx, told the Daily News. “They said if I made it in the calendar, I would look like a pinup girl.”
But that didn’t stop her from attending an open call and breaking the gender barriers. “I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me I couldn’t do what I wanted to do,” she said. “I was determined.”
Mines was surrounded by 100 men at the audition, and admits to feeling intimidated. “I was a little scared,” said Mines. “I was the only female.”
Mines’ dreams of becoming a firefighter began when she was just 10 years old after one of the city’s Bravest visited her school to talk about the job. But her family told her that she should consider another career, because only men joined the FDNY. “I had absolutely no support from my family when I wanted to come on the job,” she said.
Mines became an EMT and, despite her family’s requests, accepted a promotion to become a firefighter in 2003. And she hasn’t been able to stop her relatives from gloating about her ever since. “Once I graduated (from the Fire Academy), it was the complete opposite,” she said. “They could not stop bragging.”
Despite being one of 41 women firefighters in the department, Mines said she’s faced with no more challenges than any other man on the job. Mines didn’t end up looking like a pin-up model, as you can tell from the photo. The proceeds from the calendar goes directly to the FDNY Foundation to promote fire safety education for city residents, as well as new equipment for the firehouses. But Mines said she had a bigger reason in doing the calendar.
“I wanted my picture in the calendar so that young girls and young women can see me and know that they can do this job,” she said.
article via clutchmagonline.com
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3bc9lS3rg&w=560&h=315]
At GBN, we love positive messages… and boy is this a lovely one. 
The video for nine-time Grammy Award winner John Legend‘s latest release “You & I (Nobody in the World)” is without question our video of the week, and definitely worth your time. Thanks, Mr. Legend!
Unlocking the Truth, a heavy metal band comprised of three 8th-graders from Brooklyn, has been signed to a two-album recording contract with Sony. The deal comes with a $60,000 up-front advance and an option for four additional LPs.
The band, made up of guitarist Malcolm Brickhouse, 13, bassist Alec Atkins, 13, and drummer Jarad Dawkins, 12, was founded in 2007 and has been riding the lightning to metal fame thanks to a steady run of heavy-beyond-their-years busking in Times Square and Washington Square Park. Now the Daily News reports that the boys have finalized a deal with Sony that could net them as much as $1.7 million over a possible six albums.
“What started out as play dates went to Times Square and now this. It’s been one great thing after another,” Dawkins’s mother, Tabatha, told the News. The boys competed in the Apollo Theater’s amateur night (under the name Tears of Blood, no less) and have unleashed their middle-school riffage at venues like Webster Hall and the Coachella music festival. Unlocking the Truth is currently touring the country as a part of the Vans Warped Tour and recently took time off from pre-algebra class to open for Gun N Roses in Las Vegas.
Having scored the deal as minors, the 8th graders’ Sony contract had to be approved and filed in Manhattan Supreme Court. The deal is remarkable on account of more than just the band’s age, band manager Alan Sacks affirmed. “Sacks says the boys have a chance of becoming the new face of rock because they are unique — black artists excelling in heavy metal, a genre typically dominated by white musicians,” the Post writes.
Watch Brickhouse, Atkins, and Dawkins shred Times Square below:
article via gothamist.com
Tracy Morgan is going to continue on his road to recovery at home now that he’s been released from rehab.
A month after suffering critical injuries from a six-car pile-up that killed his friend James McNair, MTV News reports that the “30 Rock” star left the facility where he’d been healing on Saturday morning.
Tracy, who was wheelchair-bound yesterday, went home just as news of his lawsuit of againt Wal-Mart got out. “In regards to the reports of a lawsuit, I can confirm that Tracy, along with the other victims of this horrific accident, have filed suit,” the comedian’s rep said in a statement.
Now that Tracy’s well enough to head home, his caretakers don’t plan to slack off in their duties to get him back to his old self. “Tracy has been released from the rehabilitation center and will continue his recovery efforts at home with an aggressive outpatient program,” the statement read.
Nearly every detail of Tracy’s accident, and the resulting fallout, have been followed closely by media outlets. Now, he’s hoping to get a little peace and quiet.
“He asked me to pass along his sincerest gratitude to everyone who has helped him get to this point,” Tracy’s rep said. “He would also appreciate some privacy during this crucial point in his recovery.”
article by Sonya Eskridge via hellobeautiful.com
According to usatoday.com, the National Basketball Association has hired longtime marketing executive Pamela El as its chief marketing officer, two years after she was named one of the 100 most influential women in advertising
El will join the league on Aug. 18 and be responsible for brand development and will oversee marketing and advertising for the NBA, WNBA and NBA Development League. El has worked 30 years in marketing, most recently with State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.
“Having personally worked with Pam for many years on the NBA’s partnership with State Farm, she will be a huge addition as we work to build our brand on a global scale,” NBA Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum said in an e-mailed release.
The NBA had $5.5 billion in revenue last season. The league’s international presence includes games and programming in 215 countries and territories, according to the release.
El was named to Advertising Age’s 100 Most Influential Women in Advertising in 2012 after she helped State Farm through its first logo refresh in nearly 60 years. She has also served on the board for the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and the LeBron James Family Foundation.
“I love the competitiveness of the game and admire the league’s world-class teams and passionate global fan base,” El said in the release.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson and Lesa Lakin (follow @lakinhutcherson)
Missed Bey and Jay in concert? Not to worry, you can watch them on HBO. Beyoncé and Jay Z will perform over 40 songs for their first HBO concert event, the premium cable network announced Thursday. HBO will tape the pair’s September 12 and 13 performances in Paris, the only international stop on their “On the Run” Tour.
The event builds on the power couple’s extensive partnership with HBO. The 17-time Grammy winner is currently appearing on HBO in Beyoncé: X10, a ten-episode miniseries featuring 2-minute clips from concert performances every sunday night. In February 2013, HBO aired the Beyoncé documentary, Life Is But a Dream. Jay Z’s Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film also premiered on the cable network in August 2013.
“Orange Is the New Black” actress Laverne Cox knows her Emmy history. The self-described awards-show junkie even went online last night, checking out her Emmy chances on a predictions website, and went to bed thinking she didn’t have much of a chance of landing a nomination.
“I went to sleep and I let it go,” says Cox, a transgender actress who plays transgender inmate Sophia Burset on the Netflix show. “I said, ‘OK, God, I think the show’s going to be nominated. And that’s amazing.’ And I closed my eyes and let it go.”
Eight hours later, Cox woke up to discover she’d become the first openly transgender woman nominated for an Emmy award. Cox herself makes the distinction “openly trans,” as she says she knows of another transgender woman who won an Emmy years ago, but was not out. That minor qualification aside, she’s “over the moon, effervescent and every cliche that’s related to super-happy” about her “game-changing” Emmy nomination in the guest actress comedy category.
“Oh, my god, it’s going to take me awhile to get used to saying ‘Emmy-nominated actress,'” Cox said in a phone call from New York, where “Orange” is in production for its third season. “I only quit my restaurant job a year ago, so let me tell you, this is pretty good.”