The Root

Seven weeks after the start of the Wendy show’s 13th season, how’s she doin’? Well, Wendy Williams says her journey to health—and back to the famed purple chair on her eponymous talk show—is “taking longer than we expected.”

Dr. Marcus Jones was chosen to be the 20th president of Northwestern State University of Louisiana, but something makes him stand out from the first 19 campus leaders.Read more...

When Pastor Ezekiel Ndikumana immigrated from Burundi in East Africa, surely the last thing on his agenda was stopping another church shooting as the pastor of the Nashville Light Mission Pentecostal Church in Tennessee.Read more...

The Justice Department is finally going to investigate the place that God forgot.

The Las Vegas Raiders have to be reconsidering whether somebody in Oakland put a hex on the team when they left town.Read more...

Don’t call it a misdemeanor, call it a milestone. Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott is a star in her own right, but now she can also claim a star on of the most famous mile-long strips in the world: the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Read more...

White supremacists killed Joshua Halsey 123 years ago, but his legacy continues to live through the efforts of his descendants, historians and activists.Read more...

Former NBA All-Star Grant Hill and his wife, R&B royalty Tamia, never struck me as the types to sit ringside while chanting Hustle & Flow’s “Whoop That Trick,” but there’s a strong possibility that’s exactly what happened during their daughter Myla’s MMA debut.

Being a baby is probably hard. You can’t use words to effectively communicate so you have to use a mix of cries, Obama-sized hopes and the baby version of prayers to see even the most minimal of desires through. For instance, if you’re a baby and you’re hungry you have to just cry that thing out until somebody…Read more...

It would be nice to live in a world where women were protected, the Washington Wizards made it to the NBA Finals, and Arizona Iced Teas actually cost .99 cents. But that would be a dream, since the way the Eastern Conference is set up the Wizards don’t have a chance, capitalism won’t let Arizona Iced Tea be great and…Read more...

To date, 14-year-old John Hilgert has been the youngest reported fatality resulting from Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival on November 5. But among the critically injured is a boy reportedly fighting for his life in Houston after being trampled during the chaos.Read more...

Exactly one month ago, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson had surgery to repair a ruptured tendon and a comminuted fracture-dislocation in his middle finger. And to my shock and awe, Seattle’s season didn’t immediately descend from the sky while engulfed in smoldering flames.Read more...

Following his surprise appearance at Travis Scott’s Astroworld late Friday night, during which eight people were killed and hundreds were more injured in what has been characterized as a “crowd surge,” Drake has broken his silence. The “Take Care” rapper, who has been named along with Scott, Live Nation and several…Read more...

On the same night that Steph Curry became the oldest player in NBA history to drop 50 points and dish 10 dimes—relax, people, he’s only 33 years old—Nikola Jokic became the first player to almost get his ass beat on national TV by Jimmy Butler.

On Sunday night, Twitter timelines were set ablaze with commentary, critiques, and a whole bunch of other thoughts following the latest episode of Insecure.

Dear Aaron Rodgers,

Kevin Strickland has been fighting for his freedom for 43 years.Read more...

What happens when a beloved Oscar, Tony, Obie, Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, BET, and NAACP Award-winning actress (to name a few), meets a forever beloved, bestselling author first lady? Okay, Viola Davis and Michelle Obama have met before—in fact, they’re quite friendly—but never quite like this. As …Read more...

Jesus, be a fence. It was just last month that Nick Cannon claimed to be exploring celibacy during an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast, telling hosts N.O.R.E. & DJ EFN: “I’m chilling out. I’m kinda stepping away, getting focused, going within, getting my celibacy on...I’m gonna see if I can make it to 2022.”Read more...

In under four minutes, Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded a medic Gaige Grosskreutz on Aug. 25, 2020. Rittenhouse traveled about 20 miles from his home in Antioch, Illinois to attend the protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which was in response to the police shooting death of…Read more...

After channeling my inner Pharrell Williams by successfully eluding Father Time for decades, I’ve spent a vast majority of this pandemic making up for lost time. At any given moment, my ankle will throw a temper tantrum any time I have the audacity to leave my couch; my sciatica makes standing still an unbearable…Read more...

On the first day of trial for the three men who chased and killed unarmed Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery, body camera footage from a responding Glynn County Police officer, William Duggan, showed the aftermath of the shooting. Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones held her head in her hands and wept. She had avoided the…Read more...

Your favorite Bible-toting product placer is back in the news this week. Founder of Christian mobile app “Sprinkle of Jesus” and owner of hair and skincare brand The Curl Bible has now been sued by the office of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro for allegedly scamming the same community she claims to empower,…Read more...

A snowflake has fled the country.

While the rest of us spent our Sunday devouring lemon pepper chicken wings and wishing we could run a marathon, 28-year-old Peres Jepchirchir was preoccupied with actually winning the New York City Marathon, per CNN.Read more...

What the world needs now is more Dionne Warwick; especially during a weekend marred by the deaths of eight people and dozens more hospitalized in a “crowd surge” incident at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival late Friday night. The senseless tragedy cast an understandable pall over the subsequent weekend; one in which…Read more...

Every Monday, Very Smart Brothas Senior Editor Panama Jackson and Contributing Freelance Writer Shanelle Genai break down the latest episode of season 5 of HBO’s cultural flashpoint show, Insecure. Okay?! Spoilers ahead.

A history quiz is causing tons of outrage after one of the questions was shared to social media.

Y’all already know what time it is, so let’s get to it.Read more...

This past Friday brought us the highly anticipated follow up to Summer Walker’s 2019 album, ‘Over It,’ and Black Twitter is drowning out the final embers of Hot Girl Summer with their tears.Read more...

Police in Houston have launched a criminal investigation as they try to solve the mystery of how eight people ended up dead and others injured at a sold-out concert on Saturday.Read more...

They may not be your common cast of characters on the Shark Tank, but these venture capitalists are faces we’d love to see on screen. Our favorite leading man, Michael B. Jordan, and tennis superstar, also known as the sister in our head, have recently teamed up to offer an unheard of opportunity to HBCU…Read more...

During the height of AMC’s Mad Men season, The Root debuted a Mad Men Black People Counter which tracked the number of Black faces on the show from week to week. Though the show was fictional, what isn’t fictitious is the

This week while promoting her new BET+ series, Sacrifice, actress Paula Patton sat down to chat with SiriusXM’s Urban View The Clay Cane Show about the reprisal of her role as entertainment lawyer Daniella Hernandez.

Here’s the latest reminder that if you’re ever tempted to quote Martin Luther King Jr. to defend your own behavior, don’t.

Jay-Z was born on the streets of Brooklyn in the late 60s. He sold drugs, rose to the heights of the entertainment business, and even got the hottest chick in the game to wear his chain. Decades removed from his tenement building in Marcy Projects, Jay still finds a way to give back to his community, however he can.

She ended it with “I said what I said.”Read more...

I knew shit had hit the fan before I ever pressed play on the latest episode of Drink Champs, the popular podcast/YouTube series hosted by rapper Nore and DJ EFN that features celebs and artists for multi-hour sitdowns to talk about everything and nothing and features lots of clapping (unless the guests request…Read more...

Jean Michel-Basquiat’s impact on art and popular culture is the stuff of legend. Although he was only 27 when he died of a heroin overdose, this former graffiti artist was known for his colorful abstract paintings, unorthodox hairstyle, and friendships with pop artists Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. He developed a…Read more...

The TPCU (Tyler Perry Cinematic Universe) has, to date, been distinguished by a few constants: bad wigs, a bevy of Black talent, a message! (or many), and plenty of melodrama, penned by Perry himself. In fact, Perry has long taken pride in the fact that he is the primary writer on all of the shows produced by Tyler…Read more...

OK, OK. Enough is enough.Read more...

Virginia’s gubernatorial race was the most watched election of the 2021 cycle, but the woman who won the number-two spot in Richmond is getting her share of the attention — as a proxy in arguments over which political party is more racist.

For some reason, and I’m not sure we will ever understand why, a juror in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial decided he had jokes. And here’s the sad thing, his comedic moment was about the shooting of Jacob Blake.Read more...

Halloween may now be in our rearview, but witches are about to have a moment. On Friday, Variety reported that Cynthia Erivo has joined the cast of Universal’s upcoming adaptation of the long-running, Tony-winning Broadway hit Wicked, under the helm of In the Heights and Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu. Erivo…Read more...

Can a person be canceled if they never really went away? In the immediate aftermath of DaBaby’s homophobic, sexist and aggressively ignorant outburst at Rolling Loud Miami in July of this year, the rapper lost a series of major bookings—among them New York’s Governors Ball, Chicago’s Lollapalooza, and Austin City…Read more...

Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed wanted his old job back but things didn’t quite go as planned. Reed, who ran Atlanta for two terms between 2010 and 2018, missed the cut for inclusion in a runoff election, coming in third in the Nov. 2 general election behind current City Council President Felicia Moore and councilman…Read more...

Well, that escalated quickly.

Good morning, everyone!

Should the British royal family be involved in American politics? Presumably, no—in fact, they’re not supposed to be overtly political at all. But when an American woman marries into the monarchy, subsequently steps down as working royal, decamps with her family to her home state, and stops living off the royal dime?…Read more...

Kid Cudi is pretty fucking brave.Read more...