A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled on Wednesday, June 7, posthumously honoring slain rapper Tupac Shakur for a five-year career in which he sold more than 75 million records and received six Grammy nominations.
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, D Smoke talked about the pressure of finding success outside “Rhythm + Flow,” how being a teacher matured his lyrics and his thoughts on why Grammy voters nominated him and other 35-and-up rappers in the best rap album category.
A lot of things have changed in Los Angeles over the past two decades but one thing that’s been constant is the presence of street gangs and the violence they inflict. Shootings take place pretty much every day in Los Angeles. They’ve never stopped. People get shot–some live, some don’t. What stopped was the local news reporting on them.
Some are touting ‘The Hate U Give,’ as “the first Black Lives Matter movie.” Red flags should have gone up the moment we learned that Fox, recently acquired by Disney, was behind the film with a massive public relations budget, footing the bill for hundreds of advance screenings with celebrity guests, marketing swag, and heavy media saturation – especially in Black markets. We might also wonder about the choice to have Audrey Wells, a White screenwriter whose credits include “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “The Truth About Cats and Dogs,” adapt an urban Black novel for the screen.
Fans had the chance to see the actor in a different light as he portrayed Treach, the lead rapper of the acclaimed hip hop group Naughty by Nature, in “All Eyez on Me.”
On January 25, 1980, Bob Johnson launched Black Entertainment Television (BET). The network originally broadcasted for two hours a week as a block programming on Nickelodeon. It wasn’t until 1983 when BET became a full-fledged channel, where the lineup consisted of mostly music videos and reruns of popular Black sitcoms.
The group N.W.A. highly anticipated biopic, Straight Outta Compton, is a wonderful depiction of the group’s togetherness, troubles, and success.
Straight Outta Compton was such a wonderful success that it made $60.2 million opening weekend, according to Associated Press, making it the biggest opening for a musical biopic ever.