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Chicago represent!Musician and poet Jamila Woods (HEAVN) and Chance the Rapper (Coloring Book) are both making their city proud with their new venture!The two collaborated on Woods' HEAVN on the track "LSD," a nickname Chicagoans like Woods and Chance use for the Lake Shore Drive, a highway that runs along the city's lakefront.Now the two are ready to work together again, and with students from their hometown. Today, the artists put out an open call for young filmmakers currently enrolled in Chicago's public schools, asking for their help in creating a music video for "LSD."The two are collaborating in a call out to Chicago public high school students to help make their new music video.“A lot of people get Chicago wrong,” Woods said via a press release when the song dropped. “I’ve developed this protective feeling about how we’re portrayed, and at the same time I’m acutely aware of the issues we face and the root causes of these issues.”Chance and Woods are pretty much collaboration family at this point, as Woods has been prominently featured on his songs "Blessings" and "Sunday Candy."Woods was also featured on Macklemore’s "White Privilege II" last year.Both artists are no strangers to community-building in Chicago, especially in regards to arts in the city’s education sector. Woods is the associate artistic director of Young Chicago Authors, which offers art and poetry programs to students, and Chance famously donated $1 million dollars earlier this year to the city to support arts and after-school programming.Shout-out to Chance the Rapper and Jamila Woods for this dope project! A true way to give back to young creators who otherwise wouldn’t have the...

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In a match made in heaven, Rihanna delivered a speech to the graduating class of Parsons School of Design last night.As a dominant force in the fashion world herself, she was the perfect choice to address the students of the art, fashion and design school. In addition to her commencement speech, RiRi announced the winners of an initiative between Parsons and Donna Karan, who will be flown to Haiti to work with local designers on a line for Rihanna's Clara Lionel Foundation."You should be celebrated for every aspect of your growth and your growing pains," Rihanna said. "You should be celebrated for your creativity, for your fearlessness, your persistence and your determination ... for being different, for not being given enough credit. For not having to use eye cream."Never a stranger to appropriately honoring the theme of an event, Rihanna slayed in a custom design by Parsons alum Matthew Dolan. Dolan has dressed the singer in his signature oversize silhouettes several times."We often tear our youth down when we should be building them up. You are all the next generation. We need to invest in you. At the end of the day, our future is in their hands," Rihanna continued.Well said, Queen RiRi!Check out the full speech...

The Black Lives Matter movement is getting its well-deserved accolades!The Guardian reports that the founders of Black Lives Matter movement will be awarded this year’s Sydney Peace Prize. They will receive the award at a Sydney Peace Foundation dinner in November. They’ll also be delivering a special lecture on peace at a public ceremony.Syndey University in Australia has offered the award since 1998; similar to the Nobel Peace Prize, the Australian prize is awarded to those who promote human rights using nonviolence as a means of combating injustice. Until now, the prize has only gone to an individual peacemaker; the movement's trio will be the first group to receive the award.Black Lives Matter was founded by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi following the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman. Ever since then, the organization has evolved into an entire movement, becoming a global crusader against injustice.The election of Donald Trump as president has further escalated their mission, and recently, the group helped bailout thirty black mothers from jail for Mother’s Day, as we reported.  “This movement resonates around the globe and here in Australia, where we have become inured to the high incarceration rates and deaths in custody of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” Pat Dodson, the West Australian Laborer senator and the 2008 recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize, told The Guardian. “It’s as if their lives do not matter.”“We’re not just about hitting the streets or direct action … it’s a humanizing project,” said co-founder Cullors. “We’re trying to re-imagine humanity and bring us to a place where we can decide how we want to be in relation to each other versus criminalizing our neighbors or being punitive towards them.”Congrats to the BLM...

Have you ever looked at a piece of art and wondered how it was made? All the things the artist was thinking, all the things that led to the work being created?If you’ve ever seen Corey Fells’ photography project 100 Womxn and wondered that, well, you’re in luck — the artist recently sat down with Blavity and told us all about it. If you haven’t seen it, let us explain: 100 Womxn consists of 100 photographs of ladies that live in Fells’ native Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each photograph was shot before a field of ivy that dries up and dies as the series progresses. The women are from all walks of life; each contributed something about themselves to go along with their portraits. Here’s a few choice shots for your viewing pleasure:How did these photographs come to be, you ask?“I wanted to have my photos mean something … that’s the reason why I came up with this 100 Womxn project,” Fells told us. “I just didn’t want a cool-looking photo, I wanted to have the photo mean something and also be a piece of art.” Exactly what the photos mean is something that’s very personal for Fells. He sees this project as the first element of a grander one called Pookie, named after his late mother. He wants to explore her legacy and her impact on him, wants to wrestle with her loss and to honor her through this work. Family, as that description of Pookie might suggest, is a big part of Fells’ life — in fact, his family is what started him shooting.It all began when his brother bought a nice Canon “and he wanted me to be his personal photographer because he loved fashion, and he couldn’t take his own photos.”At first his brother served as both model and art director. But as Fells gained confidence behind the lens, things changed. “We went out and we shot very often, and it got to the point where I told him, ‘We should have this type of idea, we should do this,’ and he just told me point blank, period, ‘This is my camera and we’re not going do anything with that.’ And he honestly and boldly told me I should get my own camera, and I can do whatever I want with my own camera. So that’s what I did.” Fells was sure his ideas were valid. There was just one problem: cameras are expensive. But the budding photographer wasn’t going to let that stop him. “The next semester, I used my refund check to purchase my first camera instead of buying books.”The gamble paid off. More than four years later, Fells is a professional photographer.Of late, Fells says his desire to give his images depth have led him to a spectrum of classic works. As he began to develop 100 Womxn, Fells’ search for depth and meaning saw him revising Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. He’d originally read the book because of — you guessed it — his mother.“That was one of my mom’s favorite[s],” he said. Upon re-reading it, Fells realized, “It kind of resembles what is going on within the millennial culture now with women.” Specifically, he felt the novel’s main character, Janie Crawford, had a trajectory and outlook that matched that of modern women.Crawford, Fells said, “Continued to move on as to where she was able to find happiness within herself and confidence within herself to be able to be okay with being by herself. And so I feel that’s extremely what a lot of women are doing.”Citing women as diverse as Rihanna and Hillary Clinton, Fells said that he feels that women are impacting society and shaping culture more so than ever before.  His mother, too, was a woman in the Crawford mold. 100 Womxn was created to showcase women like her, with the goal of proclaiming to the world that “there’s a new era, there’s a new style, there’s a new execution to showing the world and repeating to the world that women are making ripples in society.”Too, Fells found that the project served as an exploration of the way grief shaped him. “Growing up, my mom was my best friend and she was pretty much my main guidance. Someone that taught me so much that also provided so much to me.” When his mother died when he was 16, Fells says, “I was left with somewhat of a void.”How did he try to fill that void?With other women.“It’s pretty much a continuation of the Oedipus complex,” Fells said he realized after a long period of reflection.“When I lost my mother, someone that was very dear to me, I pretty much was looking to fill that void … so what I did with that was pretty much date a lot of women that carried characteristics or attributes that reminded me of my mother ... I would date a girl because she had dimples just like my mom, or I would date a girl because she had a smile that just reminded me of my mom. So that nostalgic feel allowed me to feel connected.”Fells believes his experience is not at all uncommon. “I feel like we all do that … we have a connection to the opposite sex that’s very dominant in out lives.” 100 Womxn, then, is also a way of exploring that connection.Still, Fells is careful. The presence of the male gaze has been an issue in the art world for some time. 100 Womxn, Fells explains, isn’t about feeding Oedipal desire; it is about him feeling his way through that connection and understanding what gives women their power. “Me taking photos of 100 different women,” Fells said, “I’m not explicitly telling these women’s stories: they’re the ones telling me their stories and I’m just presenting it to the world. With that, I feel that my perspective is more of an appreciation.”The artist, too, made an effort to strengthen his series’ focus on women and on the raw power of their impact by removing his gender from the work. “For instance, in the word "100 Womxn," I have an “x” to take out the “e” in the word “women,” because I didn’t want it to have any type of connection to men or myself at all.”If you’d like to have a look at the series for yourself, to look these 100 women in the eyes, to contemplate the connection between the sexes, the impact of women on our society and come to understand Fells’ beautiful relationship with his mother, you may be in luck.In October, Fells' Pookie will become a traveling show, hitting Milwaukee, Chicago and New York. Type it into your calendars now so you don’t forget, and keep an eye on Fells’ website for more...

When we’re in debt, “we walk a tightrope and live in apprehension of impending disaster. It exhausts us. We come to feel defeated and hopeless,” writes Jerrold Mundis, author of How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt and Live Prosperously. It’s true that this is where most of us end up. When I was living in debt, at first, I didn’t mind living the way I was living. Most of the people I knew were living the same way.In fact, most people are living paycheck to paycheck. Most people haven’t made life goals. Most people don’t have a financial snapshot. Most people are just surviving. But as Mundis warns, that existence is fragile and can easily overwhelm. It’s even worse because we live in a culture that distracts you from you. Advertising is really designed to take your attention off of you and keep you focused on things that you don’t need or just can’t afford. Advertisers make it easy for us to live in chaos because we’re constantly looking at other people’s dresses, other people’s cars, other people’s items, instead of focusing on our own needs and wants.Let’s bring the focus back to you. What are your life goals? Write them down. It’s been well researched and documented that those who have written goals are more likely to be successful than those who do not have written goals. Written goals are best when they emerge from our innermost dreams, yet we have to be flexible enough to edit and amend these goals when necessary.When writing your goals, try to block out the noise of other people’s expectations. The biggest mistake one can make is to write a goal based upon the expectations of others. Too many people live and die pursuing dreams that others have for them. This is the time when it’s necessary to focus on yourself. If you have a relationship with God, rely upon it. What has God called you to do in your life? What desires has God put in your heart? True, God may change your plans, one of the best reasons to remain flexible, but you can’t go wrong if you’re open to God.Once you know your goals, you need to have a strategy for accomplishing them. Financial freedom is not money management; financial freedom is life management. We’re managing our lives and using money to pursue our goals. Many people make the mistake of having a mental picture of what success looks like without envisioning the strategy or specific actions it will take to achieve success.The first time I started a business, I used the money I had won from a small lawsuit. My partner and I went out and rented a nice office, bought furniture and hired a nice assistant to work in the office. The business location was good, the products were nice and the product prices were competitive. Interestingly, we went out of business in six months! Our downfall was the result of placing our emphasis on the wrong things.Businesses succeed when the emphasis is placed on doing business. That means contacting customers, selling products and minimizing overheads. We were completely focused on optics (how we looked) rather than operations (how we functioned).In the Christian bible, Gideon had an army that looked very good and appeared ready for battle. But how they looked was not going to determine the outcome of their battle. Gideon needed to re-size his troops in order to be prepared to win the battle that was laid before him. His biggest problem was that he had an over reliance on physical strength and an under appreciation for the spiritual nature of this fight. I believe every pursuit that we undertake has to be positioned to connect with God’s will. If we want to win simply to win, we risk being irrelevant as it relates to God’s agenda. But when our efforts are designed to let others know that God gave us our victory, then we can de-emphasize our plans and surrender to God’s plans. Gideon surrendered to God’s plan and won the battle.When you’re battling with debt, it’s time to do a deep dive. Be prepared to come up for air in a humble state of surrender. Get organized by tracking spending, list your income and bills, establish at least one banking relationship, and secure all of your financial documents and records. Next, you’ll be ready to list and analyze your needs and wants. You’ll be at a turning point where you’re ready to align your needs and wants with the strategy that will help you reach your life goals.Saying yes to no debt is challenging work, but it will get you off that tightrope and, possibly, save your...

Will Rachel Lindsay find true love or will this turn into a test case on reactions to interracial dating in a Trump era? Will this season address race? What will the dialogue be when Rachel Lindsay is brought to meet the parents of a white or non-black contestant? Should we expect to see underlying microaggressions to surface from contestants? Will a dialogue unfold between Black contestants and white contestants on dating a Black woman?In February, ABC announced Rachel Lindsay, 31, would be the first Black woman to lead the new season of The Bachelorette — the network’s most popular dating series. Fourteen years later from the start of the franchise and after mounting pressure for the show to have more diversity in its contestants, mainstream media is now graced with a Black woman as the Bachelorette and to no surprise, the reactions so far have been a mixed bag of elation, confusion, and hatred to say the least.For me, the news of a black Bachelorette was cause for celebration. But I immediately felt concerned about whether the show will indirectly address the role race plays in gender and relationship dynamics in today’s dating market. Will watching a Black woman embark on a journey to find love with men of varying races generate conversations about interracial relationships in a constructive manner? Will stereotypes and The Bachelorette’s white standards of beauty give way to bigotry and attacks on Rachel Lindsay’s skin-color and character?In my search surrounding the many questions, thoughts and responses a black Bachelorette may unearth, I also wondered what her probability of finding love or a healthy relationship would be by the conclusion of the season. What barriers stand in the way of a successful, black woman over 30 being in a committed, healthy relationship that leads to marriage?Let me begin by admitting that I’m not a big viewer of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette franchise. A show that has been on-air since 2003 with 33 seasons; and in the typical fashion of mainstream American television, a Black contestant has never won or made it close to winning their chance at love with the Bachelor or Bachelorette. It then came as a complete surprise to hear that on Season 21 of The Bachelor that a contestant named Rachel Lindsay was the first Black woman to ever receive the first impression rose in the history of the show.All I could think in that moment was, she actually had a shot of winning and finding love. And although making it to the final three, Rachel Lindsay was unexpectedly eliminated but not before word spread that she would be tapped as the leading woman in the upcoming season.Now, I already know what a lot of you are thinking while reading this: why do we always have to bring up race? Race is embedded in the very DNA of our society. When it comes to race, the past is always the present. Even in dialogues such as these on love and romance, race finds its way into the fold because it has everything to do with the power and privileges one brings to the relationship. Although a 2013 Gallup Poll showed 87% of Americans favor marriage between blacks and whites, up from 4% in 1958, we still see interracial relationships in mainstream media continues to spark visceral bigotry.Race was at the forefront of the last season of The Bachelor with Nick Viall when he was brought to Rachel Lindsay’s home to be introduced to her family. As many can relate with a Black mother, she was the first to address the elephant in the room and asked if Nick had ever dated a Black woman before. Nick tells her mother that this was his first serious relationship with a Black woman and that he has very strong feelings for who she is as a person and not because of her race.Why do white people cling to this idea of colorblindness? In Michael Eric Dyson’s proclaimed novel, “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America”, Dyson states “one of the greatest privileges of whiteness is not to see color, not to see race, and not to pay a price for ignoring it, expect, of course, when you are called out on it.” Nick Viall’s troubling statement further personified the problem with separating race and love. It’s derived from a fear of acknowledging race and the privilege that comes from ignoring persistent discrimination. But as society has shown, especially now in a Trump-era, discrimination endures, operating through economic, social and institutional practices that seep into the very orifices of a relationship.In order to unpack Nick Viall’s statement and understand why it was rooted in colorblindness, or as some may perceive it as ignorance, we first have to understand what Nick sees when he looks at Rachel. There is no denying that media shapes our culture, views, and ideologies and for many exposes us to races that we don’t encounter on a daily basis. Although labeled “reality television”, many consume these shows and allow them to become the foundation for their opinions on how groups of people act or look before interacting with them or sometimes without ever interacting with them at all.Like many black millennials, my introduction to reality television dating shows was with the Vh1 hit show Flavor of Love and I Love New York. At the time of my desire to watch these shows, I never understood how unsettling it was to see the worst stereotypes exploited onto Black women who were contestants vying for love with Hip-Hop rapper Flavor Flav. Labeled as a “modern-day minstrel show”, Flavor of Love portrayed Black women has aggressive, ignorant and promiscuous.Despite the overwhelmingly false narrative that persists today in many reality television shows that portray Black women as either gold diggers, loud or boujee — Rachel Lindsay is considered different. Not only beautiful and attractive — she is educated and is a civil defense litigation attorney. She scores tens across the board for being an educated, successful Black woman that comes from a middle-class, well-off Black family. Equally as important, during her run as a contestant on The Bachelor her demeanor was described as calm, less attention-seeking, and more confident and charming.Black bodies in America continue to be marginalized and subjected to negative stereotypes that box us into false narratives, forcibly requiring our bodies to move through these social spaces that put white people at ease. We can all agree that she would not have made it far in the competition, nor considered to be the Bachelorette, if she was intimidating or labeled “ghetto” — chances are she would not even have made it onto the show from the very beginning.This warped virtual reality where a Black woman is under the gaze of white men, I fear may create spaces where some contestants will perpetuate fascination with being with a Black woman and project false stereotypes on her to further validate how they perceive Black women to be. Despite her appearance and pre-determined characteristics from the past season, Rachel Lindsay will be navigating to try and not fall into the already established stereotypes of Black women being labeled as loose or aggressive.For Rachel, being placed in the position of desire by men, it may become a steady juggling act of trying to not get boxed in by white contestants who see this as an opportunity to hypersexualize or to indulge in a curiosity with a Black woman. Meanwhile, she is just trying to be herself. This juggling act that Blacks must perform is the makings of double consciousness in a single Black body. Our identities are divided. Rachel will constantly be looking at herself through the eyes of men and how their assumptions may project themselves onto her self-established being. This white gaze is unsettling if it is rooted in destructive stereotypes.In the end, I’ll be tuning into this season of The Bachelorette and rooting for a Black woman to find love and not be disregarded by men of varying races. Although confined to the structures of The Bachelorette “reality television world”, it will be worthwhile to watch a Black woman being placed in a position of power where she is desired as the one woman with multiple options. Given our society’s “man shortage” putting Black women at a disadvantage of finding a partner, that is equally educated, financially stable and not in a concurrent relationship, watching her find love will be a breath of fresh air.Rachel Lindsay is given a platform that can either prove to be toxic or generate meaningful conversations on how race coincides with gender and relationship dynamics. Millions of viewers will be watching.It’s time to brace ourselves for reality.Updates: The Bachelorette has just released the names of the contestants and their bios for this season. As predicted this will be the most diverse contestant line-up in the history of the franchise. The racial break-down is 11 Blacks, 17 Whites, 1 Latino and 2 Asians…interesting.Also, Rachel Lindsay has made an announcement that following the conclusion of the season she is now...