The wife of Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob has reportedly received death threats after she decided, using her own free will, to crane her neck across Queen Beyoncé’s air space to speak with her majesty’s husband, who apparently does something in music.

Last month, the 92nd Scripps National Spelling Bee somehow concluded in a historic eight-way tie. Its eight winners dominated five consecutive perfect rounds and spelled 47 consecutive words correctly in order to emerge as co-champions.Read more...

Editor’s Note: Senior Writer Michael Harriot is on vacation, so this week’s Clapback Mailbag was prepared in advance. If anyone on The Root’s staff has pissed white people off in the last few days, we promise to respond to their concerns in a timely manner.Read more...

Let’s just give you all the punchline first: Dear people who live in Atlanta, I made it from Morehouse College’s campus bookstore to my actual gate at Hartsfield-Jackson in under 40 minutes, while gassing up my rental car and dropping it off to the facility in between. Also, I have receipts to prove it. Seems…Read more...

Rihanna and her billionaire boo Hassan Jameel have gotten an early start on their summer of love, it seems! The pair were recently spotted by photographers off the Amalfi Coast¸—a luxe Italian destination I was first introduced to by another billionaire, Jay-Z, when he rapped about that shit in 2006. (And there you…Read more...

I came to know this song by way of one of the greatest groups ever assembled: Immature. The trio of Marques “Batman” Houston, Jerome “Romeo” Jones and Kelton “LDB” Kessee recorded “Feel the Funk” in 1995 for the white-savior extraordinaire film Dangerous Minds soundtrack (it was also included on their 1995 album, We…Read more...

Bio-Oil | $15 | Ulta or AmazonRead more...

Everyone who is anyone in Hollywood gathered to celebrate your favorite actor’s favorite actor Denzel Washington at the 47th AFI Life Achievement Award gala, presented by the American Film Institute, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Thursday night.Read more...

Principal Temesghen Asmerom described it as a “technical difficulty” to the students, staff, and family members who had gathered together for the Emmett J. Conrad High School graduation in Dallas last Saturday.Read more...

On Wednesday, the body of Chanel Scurlock—a transgender black woman—was discovered in a field in Lumberton, N.C. shortly after midnight. She was 23.Read more...

When it heats up outside and the sun shines on you, making that melanin glow even more, you know it’s officially that time—cookout season.

Ever since Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a “heartbeat” bill that prohibits abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, Hollywood studios such as Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. have expressed an unwillingness to continue filming in the state should the draconian legislation be implemented.Read more...

Book deals and streaming deals, oh my!Read more...

Back on May 15, we announced that as a way to engage the online VSB community with the in-person monthly book club meeting, we’d post an open thread on the day of the actual book club meeting for those who aren’t in D.C. or who would rather have a convo about the book online. Well, today is the day of the book club…Read more...

When it comes to acknowledging that the athletically minded can come in all shapes, sizes and abilities, it’s really not that hard to just do it.Read more...

“The most transparent way is the truth.”

When it comes to looking ahead to the 2020 presidential election, many black voters aren’t focused on race, gender or who can out-progessive who. They’re focused on ousting Donald Trump from the White House.

It’s just 9 miles between Chicago’s predominantly white and wealthy Streeterville neighborhood and the predominantly black and poor Englewood in the city’s South Side, but the gulf of difference in life expectancies between the two represents the largest such gap in the nation.

In a case of #MeToo at the judicial level, a Chicago judge abused his power with a series of women with whom he came into contact on the job, including asking a court reporter “how much money” it would take for her to have sex with him, trying to kiss a police officer, and making sexually disparaging remarks about a…Read more...

New York City’s police commissioner apologized Thursday for the “discriminatory and oppressive” police raid 50 years ago on the Stonewall Inn that inspired what became the modern gay pride movement.

As I write this, there is still a debate waging in one of our comments sections over whether filmmaker Ava DuVernay is obligated to embrace the term “auntie” or not (for the record, we think everyone should embrace whatever term they want). But as #MeToo creator Tarana Burke revealed on Tuesday night, DuVernay took an…Read more...

Less than a week ‘til we’re back with the Bordelons!

Kyle Lowry was on fire Wednesday when he helped his Toronto Raptors dismantle a hobbled Golden State Warriors team in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, 123-109.

With All Boys Aren’t Blue, George Johnson is the latest at-bat in what is shaping up to be a burgeoning, yet bountiful genre, that of black queer men coming of age. Yet, unlike Darnell Moore’s No Ashes in the Fire or Michael Arceneaux’s I Can’t Date Jesus, or DeRay Mckesson’s On The Other Side of Freedom, Johnson is…Read more...

Robert “R.” Kelly appeared at a brief hearing at Cook County Court in Chicago on Thursday for an arraignment regarding the 11 additional sex-related felony charges against him. The 52-year-old artist pleaded not guilty to the charges.Read more...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democrats during a meeting Tuesday night that President Donald Trump’s impeachment isn’t as high on her list as seeing President Donald Trump in prison.

Oddisee is one of the hardest working artists in music. And I say music, and not just hip-hop, because his catalog is so expansive that it’s unfair to limit him to the genre he’s most well known for. And that’s if you’re familiar at all. Oddisee seems to live in that interesting space of being supremely highly…Read more...

For almost 50 years, go-go has been the unofficial music of Washington, D.C. The former hallmark of Saturday nights in the metro area (also known as the DMV), go-go forebears like Chuck Brown and Rare Essence, and later acts like E.U., Backyard Band, and Mambo Sauce provided the soundtrack to family reunions,…Read more...

Amazon already sells pretty much all the clothes you need, but now, they’re selling clothes you didn’t even know you needed, because they didn’t previously exist. The retail giant’s new fashion endeavor, The Drop, just, uh, dropped its ever collection of relatively affordable streetwear in collaboration with style…Read more...

The Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. preserves one of the first free black communities in America. Weeksville was formed in 1838 by African-American longshoreman James Weeks, 11 years after New York abolished slavery. It became a self-sustained community where black people were able to live, thrive and…Read more...

In 1971, when Wilbert Jones was just 19 years old, he was arrested and charged with kidnapping a nurse at gunpoint from the parking lot of a hospital in Baton Rouge, La., and raping her behind a building.Read more...

Ja Rule can clearly stand the heat and won’t get out the kitchen, because he is standing firm on Fyre Festival being a great idea.Read more...

When it comes to an iconic music artist such as Michael Jackson and the controversies that surrounded him, you can never really leave Neverland.Read more...

*wink wink*Read more...

There’s always room for fresh voices and the African American Film Critics Association and Revolt TV seem to agree.

Paul Pierce’s nickname is “The Truth.”

On Wednesday night, the City of Chicago released two 911 calls from the night Jussie Smollett was allegedly attacked. The calls, which came from a person claiming to be employed by Smollett, claimed that the former Empire actor was “jumped” by some guys, who then put a noose around Smollet’s neck. The caller also…Read more...

There is grace, and then, there is the kind of grace that unconditional, enduring love requires; the kind of love Tayari Jones’ Celestial and Roy are struggling to keep alive in her celebrated novel, An American Marriage.Read more...

Late spring is a wonderful time for a garden party. And what better location than the iconic James Beard House in New York City—a place revered by food and cocktail aficionados. That’s where the Iconoclast Dinner Experience (IDE) will host its annual Taste of the Iconoclast Dinner on Saturday.

Angélique Kidjo is an African icon. A musical masterclass. A woman of the world.

Yes, life comes at you fast ... but not as fast as a celebrity drop.

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I don’t neatly fit into many of the cultural lines set before me—much like many black millennials. It’s almost derivative to say I love anime in an age where black people’s love of anime now spans generations. I grew up listening to Paramore and Van Hunt and Yo-Yo Ma. It’s now Ben Howard and Valis Alps and Gunna (how…Read more...

RTIC Soft Pack 20 | $87 | AmazonRead more...

In a case that may have implications for race-based affirmative action and other similar remedies offered to address centuries of racial discrimination in this nation, Native American tribes have banded together against a white couple over who should have custody of a Native American child.

Photos from the Ebony magazine archives detailing some 70 years of African American life and history, including images of Emmett Till, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Coretta Scott King and so many more, are scheduled to be auctioned off next month in Chicago.

The man jailed in connection to the death of 4-year-old Maleah Davis is protesting his innocence from the confines of his Texas jail cell.

The top prosecutor in Coffee County, Tenn., a man charged with protecting the rights and enforcing the law on behalf of all the people in his jurisdiction, apparently has no intention of doing so when it comes to LGBTQ victims of domestic violence.

So, it seems we owe Ava DuVernay an apology.Read more...

On June 2, 2002, The Wire, one of the greatest shows known to man, animal and whatever lies atop President Tang’s head, premiered on HBO. “Timeless” is a word that tends to be tossed around quite liberally, but The Wire is one of the few works of art that truly earns this description.Read more...