Archive » The Game

This page contains 37 entries posted under the "The Game" category.

Wednesday February 22

What The Game's Been Missing: Church Voice

 

I, along with Black Twitter and the white folks who watch CNN, tuned into watch Whitney Houston's homegoing last Saturday and was pleasantly surprised at how "ordinary" it seemed for a pop icon. Outside of the incredibly high-profile stars in...

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Wednesday February 15

What The Game's Been Missing: People Having A Seat

 

The past few weeks have hit the black music world particularly hard with the loss of Etta James, Don Cornelius, and Whitney Houston in rapid succession. On top of that, the biggest celebration in music, the GRAMMYs, took place just...

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Wednesday February 08

What The Game's Been Missing: 'Soul Train'

 

The loss of icon Don Cornelius last week at beginning of Black History Month shook many in the music and entertainment industry to the core. Brother Questlove revealed how critical Soul Train was in his own growth as an artist,...

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Wednesday February 01

What The Game's Been Missing: Soul Karaoke

 

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend a party that had all the elements of perfection: a mature crowd that was willing to dance, good (live) music, good (spun) music, some alcohol, and great friends. Of course I'm...

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Wednesday January 18

What The Game's Been Missing: Bodyroll Music

 

The BodyRoll, defined by Urban Dictionary as "a dance move in which the entire body goes through a wavelike motion focusing on the hips," goes hand and hand with black music. As artistic movement it ranks up there with Alvin...

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Wednesday January 04

What The Game's Been Missing: A Breakout Reggae Jam

 

I was out of the country for the holidays, in a place where the weather was hotter than the space between Jennifer Hudson's scalp and lacefront. The air was beautiful, the people were beautiful, even the food was beautiful. Eighty-five...

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Wednesday December 28

What The Game's Been Missing: The Keytar

 

The end is nigh, y'all. According to the ancient Mayan scrolls, Ms. Cleo, Negrodamus, and three mo' white folks, the world is supposed to end in 2012. The signs have been cropping up all throughout 2011 -- an earthquake that...

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Wednesday December 21

What The Game's Been Missing: Concept Albums

 

Two thousand years ago, the greatest story ever told took place in the little town of Bethlehem. In a narrative fit for Maury, a young woman named Mary, pregnant by someone other than her fiancé (Joseph you are NOT the...

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Wednesday December 14

What The Game's Been Missing: A Hip-Hop Soul Christmas Carol

 

Ah, the glories of the holiday program! I guarantee you that nothing makes my mother's heart melt more than the treasured holiday program at my elementary school. To her it represents the true spirit of the season, distilled in the...

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Wednesday December 07

What The Game's Not Been Missing: Mad Music

 

If you didn't already know, SoulBounce is the leading authority on all things soul and R&B related, or so we've heard. Our very own Kimberly Hines, better known as Butta, was interviewed and quoted in a recent CNN article, "Where is the...

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Wednesday November 30

What The Game's Been Missing: Commercials

 

I don't watch TV that much anymore. And when I do, I skip straight to the good stuff. I DVR Love and Hip Hop. I wait until a season of Dexter is over and then watch it on Netflix. Instead...

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Wednesday November 23

What The Game's Been Missing: Thanksgiving Songs

 

A brisk chill has beset the hood, the golden and rouged leaves of maple trees play in dappled autumn light. Back at home Big Mama is putting the finishing touches on the sweet potato pie, and Uncle Junebug is (unsuccessfully)...

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Wednesday November 16

Who The Game's Been Missing: D'Angelo

 

I remember it like it was yesterday. Everyone talked about him and that video ad nauseum. Mainly women like my mother and aunties on the phone, at work, in the beauty shop, in the supermarket. There were excited whispers of...

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Wednesday November 09

Who The Game's Gonna Be Missing: Heavy D

 

Nobody makes it out alive. It's an inescapable fact of life and its greatest paradox as well; when you think about it, the only guaranteed part of life is our sure departure. What you do in between is your own...

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Wednesday November 02

What The Game's Been Missing: Slow Dancing

 

This past weekend I listened to one of my favorite public radio shows, This American Life. Every week they run a roughly one-hour show based on some theme. Last week's show focused on, of all things, middle school. The drama,...

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Wednesday October 26

What The Game's Been Missing: Show Etiquette

 

The venue is dark. Hundreds of bodies are pressed against each other in anticipation of the show of a lifetime. You are there with a friend and don't really know what to expect, you just jumped at the chance for...

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Wednesday October 19

What The Game's Been Missing: Television Theme Songs

 

Good people, I'm going to get to the meat of it right now. The game is missing something so small that it's hard to recognize its absence -- a dangerous thing in the musical world. Television theme songs. Like seriously....

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Wednesday October 12

What The Game's Been Missing: Dancing Rappers

 

Apparently the best part of last night's EBT BET Hip Hop Awards '11 was at the end of the show, when the only slightly-overweight lover Heavy D broke it down with a four-minute medley of his certified jams. And since...

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Wednesday October 05

What The Game's Been Missing: Privacy

 

We live in a new day. No longer can celebrities (or you, for that matter) tip toe under the cover of darkness to commit misdeeds, or have shadow families, or have a drug problem, or be imperfect in any way....

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Wednesday September 28

What The Game's Been Missing: Venues

 

While reminiscing on the Harlem Renaissance last week, I told Butta about Bricktop, a similarly freckle-faced and red-haired dynamo who owned her own jazz spot in France during that era. All the poppin' artists of the jazz age frequented Bricktop's...

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Wednesday September 21

What The Game's Been Missing: A Movement

 

As I write this piece, everyone I know is retweeting, re-posting, and petitioning to get the word out about the Troy Davis case and why they believe it is a gross miscarriage of justice (for more information you can click...

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Wednesday September 14

What The Game's Been Missing: Wedding Songs

 

A couple of weekends ago I attended one of the most beautiful wedding ceremonies I have ever been to. No, it didn't have angels with harps hanging from the ceiling like a scene out of a Tyler Perry fantasy movie....

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Wednesday September 07

What The Game's Been Missing: Cameos On Television Shows

 

In today's current climate of endless reality shows, it struck me that there are few quality situational comedies on television today that accurately reflect the lives of people of color. (No, House of Payne and Meet the Browns don't count....

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Wednesday August 31

What The Game's Been Missing: The Art Of Begging

 

Can you feel it in the air? The mornings are a little cooler, pretty soon the leaves will begin to turn colors, and the geese will fly south. People will start wearing camel instead of tan, boots will become appropriate...

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Wednesday August 24

What The Game's Been Missing: Soundtracks For Life

 

Don't judge me, but I saw Love Jones for the first time the other night. (Hey, I said don't judge me!!) Because Dionne Farris' song "Hopeless" annoyed me to no end, I had never gotten around to watching the movie,...

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Wednesday August 17

What The Game's Been Missing: Girl Groups

 

Beyond the hustle and bustle of endless status updates and tweets, beyond the din of every individual artist's new single, and even beyond the aggressive grind of the solo singer trying to "get on," there is a glorious, glorious sound....

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Wednesday August 10

What The Game's Been Missing: A Workout Plan

 

Fearful of the "late-twenties spread" (and being a Southern woman, this is hard to fend off), I have been making a concerted effort to do better, eat healthier, sleep longer, drink more water, and be more active. So last week,...

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Wednesday August 03

What The Game's Been Missing: Neo-Soul Video Vixens

 

Music videos are part and parcel of the game, and unlike many aspects of the industry, they have gotten better with age (see: Exhibits A, B, and C). Thanks to technological advances, everything from production quality to set design to...

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Wednesday July 27

What The Game's Been Missing: Cover Art

 

My mother has blessed me with many things. They include a slight gap; flightiness; a certain degree of charm; a dangerous set of curves; and general aura of creativity. Oh -- and her record collection. Of all these things I...

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Wednesday July 20

What The Game's Been Missing: Unattractive Artists

 

My 80-year-old grandmother, a Mississippi native, always uses the most colorful language to describe the world around her. Words like "vegetables" became "veggibles," and her turns of phrase included gems such as, "you don't believe fat means greasy." My all-time...

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Wednesday July 06

What The Game's Not Been Missing: Jheri Curls

 

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." -- Edmund Burke There are certain things that need not be revisited. Phenomena that we wish would go away, that we want to sweep under the rug. However, staying silent...

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Wednesday June 29

What The Game's Been Missing: Duets

 

While watching the EBT BET Awards this past Sunday, one performance in particular stood out to me as especially riveting to watch: Alexander O'Neal and Cherrelle's "Saturday Love." It's easy to assume that the spectacle of two geriatric mature adults...

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Wednesday June 22

What The Game's Been Missing: The Summer Jam

 

Summer jams are to June, July, and August what water is to fish. DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's "Summertime" wasn't a hit for no reason. Every year that song comes on the radio and every year it is...

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Wednesday June 15

What The Game's Been Missing: The Quiet Storm

 

It's been a long day. You got to work early and stayed late slaving over a presentation for your client, who promptly let you know that it wasn't "up to snuff." The man you share cubicle space with smells like...

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Wednesday June 08

What The Game's Been Missing: Wardrobe

 

The best part of Soul Train wasn't Don Cornelius' deep, gravelly voice or often deadpan delivery. Nor was it the funky music that rocked the bodies of the black and brown folks that showed up every week to get their...

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Wednesday May 25

What The Game's Been Missing: Spoken Monologues

 

Music is like sex. You have to ease into it. And like sex, the best music is made when you and the musician have a little time to get to know each other. Too often, artists are forced to have...

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Wednesday May 18

What The Game's Been Missing: Male Groups

 

Something is missing in R&B and soul music today. It's not quality content; there are more than enough talented performers out there if you look hard enough to find them. It's not good looks either, because anyone with a stylist...

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