New book criticizes black movie roles,
even today
Kam Williams
“‘We Gotta Have It’ represents twenty years of seeing a new generation of Black movies. Before this journey began in 1986, with Spike Lee’s ‘She’s Gotta Have It,’ a Black movie meant one of the increasingly mindless productions starring comedians Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy. Twenty years later — this era of film has created an explosion in the number of people recognized as Black movie stars. At the same time, there has also been a relative explosion of Black Film auteurs — director-producer-writers who, though toiling increasingly in the obscurity of the film festival circuit, have created and brought to the screen a fuller panorama of Black life.
Full story
|
Hip-hop entrepreneur Master P reflects on God, new film
Kam Williams
Born on April 29, 1967, Percy Robert Miller, a.k.a. Master P, the eldest of five children, was raised in a housing project in New Orleans’ Third Ward. After releasing a couple of albums on a small label, in 1994 P got started on the path to being designated one of “America’s 40 Richest People under 40” by Fortune Magazine by releasing the self-produced album “The Ghetto’s Tryin to Kill Me!” on his own label, No Limit Records, right out of the trunk of his car.
When major music companies came calling after they got wind of his success without the benefit of a major distribution deal, P opted to sign with Priority Records in order to maintain complete creative control. By retaining complete ownership of his masters, he was able to become the first hip-hop artist to achieve a net worth in excess of a $100 million, and later $300 million.
Full story
|
Video games linked to addiction, mental illness
Lindsey Tanner
BCHICAGO — The telltale signs are ominous: teens holing up in their rooms, ignoring friends, family, even food and a shower, while grades plummet and belligerence soars.
The culprit isn’t alcohol or drugs: It’s video games, which for certain kids can be as powerfully addictive as heroin, some doctors contend.
In a report prepared for the annual policy meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA), which started last Saturday in Chicago, a leading council of the nation’s largest doctors’ group asked the AMA to lobby for the behavior to be officially classified as a psychiatric disorder and included in the American Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Full story
|
