I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Esperanza Spalding and her new album, Radio Music Society—specifically, her song “Black Gold,” and the beautifully poignant short film she made to accompany it. The song is a love letter to beautiful brown babies—a delicious paean to the self-esteem of African American children. ...

With all the heart-wrenching, mind-blowing crazy surrounding brown children this month—the uproar over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a teacher’s demand that her sole black student read a Langston Hughes poem “blacker,” the FDA’s approval of chemically-treated, dog food-grade pink slime meat in our children’s school lunches, the revelation ...

In this week’s episode of T.I. and Tiny’s The Family Hustle, hip hop’s favorite TV parents get the shake down from their littlest kids, King and Major, who make clear they want to make some cash money, dollar bills like their famous rapper dad. But rather than hand stacks to ...

When my girls were babies, I used to nurse and rock them to sleep to the sweet sounds of Tony Bennett, Stevie Wonder, Kathleen Battle and the elements known as Earth, Wind & Fire. But the album that stays with me is Louis Armstrong’s Disney Songs The Satchmo Way—particularly his ...