(ThyBlackMan.com) Closing out this month of celebrating Black Music, I would like to do some sankofa sharing of some essential sensitivities and thoughts about the meaning and magic of Black music. Although we celebrate June as Black Music Month, every day and hour is an open space for making and ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Donald Trump has been the greatest, most clear-eyed and most transformative foreign policy president of my lifetime. But Trump is also the famed businessman who wrote “The Art of the Deal” four decades ago. There has therefore always been the risk that the president’s novel and often unorthodox approach ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) June is Black Music Month, and for anybody who loves R&B the old way, that means more than playlists and quick social media posts. It means remembering where the sound came from, who carried it, and why certain records still feel alive after the needle leaves the vinyl. Earth, ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) This Juneteenth I will stand at the Hermitage and help celebrate Black music. The Hermitage was Andrew Jackson’s plantation, outside Nashville. I want to be honest about how strange that is. I am descended from slaves and from the men who owned and abused them. The men who denied ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) In April 2026, the Supreme Court dismantled a significant component of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Republican-controlled legislatures in the South quickly got to work redrawing congressional districts to comply with the new ruling. For Black communities who had long fought for the ability to elect candidates of ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Are you prepared? Prepared for what you ask? The inevitable of course! Understanding what is inevitable (an unavoidable thing that is certain to happen), will help us address what it is we all have to deal with – Challenges! Challenges are a part of life. There is no escaping ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) It is clear that playing quarterback in the National Football League is the most challenging position in all of sports. The speed and athleticism on an NFL field heightens the challenges of consistently driving an offense down the field against complex NFL defenses designed to confuse and disrupt today’s ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) How is it that the “Saxophone Colossus” Sonny Rollins lived to 95? Aren’t jazz musicians supposed to die at tragically early ages? Actually, that’s a myth that Rollins and others proved flawed. It’s true that Bix Beiderbecke, king of the cornet, was gone at 28, Charlie Parker at 34, ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Loser: The American People Americans were unhappy prior to the Israeli-US War on Iran. They had witnessed unbelievable chaos, confusion, distrust, alienation and divisiveness within the nation. Still, they viewed their nation as a friendly nation and not a bully. After the war started, sitting in their cars paying ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) America once worried about an imperial presidency. Now we have an imperial presidency merged with a family business. And somehow, too many Americans are shrugging. Perhaps that shrug is less agreement than exhaustion. Americans are tired — tired of the scandals, the outrage cycles, the endless circus where every ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Californians will face two competing tax measures this November. The first is the Billionaire Tax Act, a onetime, 5% levy on the accumulated net worth of the state’s richest residents. Lesser known is the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act, which would draw constitutional lines around what Sacramento can ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Sometimes a joke can tell you more about America than a serious speech ever could, and this whole Kevin Hart roast situation got a lot of Black folks sitting back wondering where comedy really ends once Black pain enters the room. Yeah, roasts are supposed to get disrespectful. Everybody ...