More from Ronda Racha Penrice
Daisy Edgar-Jones and Will Poulter on the “Hopeful” Depiction of Queer Life in 1950s America in ‘On Swift Horses’
Daisy Edgar-Jones cites admiration as her first draw to the buzzy TIFF film On Swift Horses. “I loved the producers behind the film. I love Call Me By Your Name and Nomadland so I was so excited about them taking this project on,” she says of Peter Spears and Mollye Asher while seated alongside her co-star Will Poulter in the […]
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How ‘Fight Night’ Is Showing Its Appreciation for Atlanta and HBCUs Even Before Its Premiere
“Atlanta Influences Everything” is a popular motto and movement capturing where the Southern city stands today. But Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthplace wasn’t always what it symbolizes now. Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, the Will Packer-produced limited series for Peacock bowing Sept. 6 and starring Kevin Hart with Samuel L. Jackson headlining an all-star cast, explores how a […]
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‘Reasonable Doubt’ Boss on How Season 2 Takes a Quieter Approach
[This story contains spoilers from season two’s first two episodes of Reasonable Doubt.] Reasonable Doubt escaped the post-Hollywood strikes cancellation that impacted several other freshmen shows. Now in its second season, hotshot L.A. defense attorney Jax Stewart (Emayatzy Corinealdi) has lost a bit of her fire from last season. After being kidnapped and nearly killed by […]
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How ‘Gracie’s Corner’ Brought Black Rhythms to Preschool Content, With Help From Snoop Dogg and Big Freedia
The animated educational series Gracie’s Corner does numbers many kids’ shows would envy. Its YouTube channel boasts four million subscribers, with 100 million-plus monthly views and over 2.1 billion lifetime views. But to judge its success simply by its ratings is missing the point, say husband-and-wife creators Javoris “Jay” Hollingsworth and Arlene Gordon-Hollingsworth (new additions to this year’s Kids Entertainment Power […]
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Megan Thee Stallion Dances, Raps and Stumps for Vice President Kamala Harris in Lively Rally
Dressed in “hot girl” attire while bouncing and twerking to her hits, Megan Thee Stallion stumped for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign during a boisterous rally that featured fellow rapper Quavo as well as Stacey Abrams on Tuesday in Atlanta. “We’re about to make history!” shouted Megan Thee Stallion while rapping her Grammy-winning hit […]
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Kamala Harris Focuses on Key Campaign Talking Points at Essence Festival, While Rep. Maxine Waters Shows Fiery Support for Biden
Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t directly address the fallout from President Joe Biden’s poor performance during his live CNN Presidential Debate with former president Donald Trump over a week ago when she spoke during an interview at the 30th Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans Saturday evening. Nor did she address Biden’s sit-down conversation with ABC […]
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‘Clipped’ Boss on If the Sterlings Paid for Their Sins, Why LeVar Burton Was in the Sauna and How Barbara Walters Helped Shelly Sterling
[This story contains spoilers from the FX limited series Clipped.] Adapting true narratives is often a tricky proposition. And it gets even trickier when it’s as unbelievable and unprecedented as the fallout from 80-year-old Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s viral racist comments against Black people back in 2014 — just as Instagram and Twitter […]
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The Ladies of ‘Clipped’ on Playing V. Stiviano, Shelly Sterling and Re-Creating the Iconic Barbara Walters Interviews
FX on Hulu’s limited series Clipped is certainly a surprise watch of the summer. Based on the viral Los Angeles Clippers scandal a decade ago, Clipped, the screen adaptation of the hit ESPN 30 for 30 podcast The Sterling Affairs, takes a fly-on-the-wall approach (similar to HBO’s now-canceled Lakers series Winning Time, but with a lot more fireworks) to dive into […]
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Jussie Smollett Debuts New Feature, Denzel Washington Hints at Break From Acting at American Black Film Festival
Jussie Smollett declared he was weary of trying to explain away his past troubles while Denzel Washington foreshadowed an impending break from being in front of the camera during the just-wrapped American Black Film Festival, which also brought out stars including Issa Rae, Kenya Barris and Kerry Washington. The festival, held in Miami Beach’s South […]
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How ‘The Ms. Pat Show’ Heals Lingering Wounds in Season 4
Ms. Pat could never be June Cleaver. Nor does she have to be. That point is made in the very first episode of The Ms. Pat Show’s recently released eight-episode fourth season. During her signature stand-up routine kicking off each episode of the BET+ series (the comedy is based on its star’s stand-up material), Patricia […]
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Yara Shahidi Reflects on Closing Out ‘Grown-ish’
Taking cues from The Cosby Show’s iconic spinoff A Different World but updated for some 30 years later, Grown-ish, the Black-ish spawn premiered on Freeform in January 2018 by following Yara Shahidi’s Zoey Johnson, Dre (Anthony Anderson) and Bow’s (Tracee Ellis Ross) firstborn, to college. Similar to its predecessor, Grown-ish tackled many controversial topics, including […]
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‘BMF’ Showrunner, Stars and 50 Cent Share Insight on Season 4 After Finale
During a recent Emmys FYC conversation in Atlanta with BMF showrunner Heather Zuhlke, stars Demetrius “Lil Meech” Flenory Jr., Da’Vinchi, Michole Briana White and Russell Hornsby — who respectively play Big Meech, Terry, and Flenory matriarch and patriarch Lucille and Charles — and executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, who had been less active with […]
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