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“We all know Michael Jackson, but the human is in Michael,” Antoine Fuqua said, explaining the intentional choice behind the biopic’s title.
When you hear the name Michael Jackson, there are a plethora of words, songs, and memories that come to mind for any given person. However, what do you think of when you just hear Michael? 
That shift is exactly why director Antoine Fuqua and producer Graham King decided to name their upcoming biopic about the King of Pop, “Michael.” 
“This is what I love—when I talked to Graham about what we’re gonna call it, and he said ‘just Michael,’” Fuqua shared during a panel discussion in Berlin. “We all know Michael Jackson, but, like, the human is in Michael… that’s the human.” 
“The superhero, Michael, we know who that is, so we wanted to get you as close as you can to being at a Michael Jackson concert, but also getting to know him in a different way,” the director added. “As a human being and a movie we can do that because we can feel even closer, because now you feel like you have a sense of who he is.” 
Michael feels more like a love letter to the person behind the icon, and less like your traditional biopic. For those who grew up with his music as the soundtrack to their lives, it’s an emotionally resonant homecoming. For younger audiences just now discovering his genius, it’s a powerful introduction to the man behind the myth.
Peeling back the curtains and giving fans a glimpse into the star’s life behind the scenes is what makes the film work, according to Nia Long, who plays Katherine Jackson. And also, the perspective it’s told from.
“We’re telling the story through Michael’s eyes,” she said
“When I watched the film for the first time, I learned things about Michael that I didn’t know. I didn’t know that he meditated in practice manifestation, and he had a real sense of spirituality itself,” Long continued. “So I think for me, it’s the quiet moments that I identified with as a person, not even as an actor, but just as a human being. And it’s in those moments that we have self-discovery.” 
That word, “quiet,” kept surfacing throughout the “Bringing Michael to the Screen” panel in Berlin. For a man whose life was anything but, it turns out the still spaces in between are where his truest self lived.
“It was the quiet moments in between when you get to know who Michael was and see some of his insecurities,” Fuqua shared. 
Colman Domingo, who takes on the weighty role of Joseph Jackson, told theGrio he approached the patriarch by searching for what he called his “secret spaces of vulnerability.” And the entire cast seemed to share a similar level of commitment when discussing their roles in the film, from Long and Domingo to Keilyn Durrell Jones, who plays Jackson’s bodyguard, Bill Bray. 
“I think there was a huge spiritual presence on this film, and it felt right,” Long reflected. “And you don’t always have words to explain it, but when things start to just fall in place, magically, you know that you’re on the path to something special.”
And that something special lingers long after the credits roll, as viewers are reminded that behind one of the greatest entertainers the world has ever known was a man still figuring himself out, just like the rest of us.
As Long put it: “For a man who was such a huge star, the fandom, the accolades, he taught us to remember, to be quiet and to spend time with self, because that’s [what’s] most important, that’s actually when you can manifest any type of greatness you desire. And so his legacy is a reminder of that, that we are capable of doing whatever we want to do. You have to take the time, you have to have the patience, you have to take the quiet moments, but most importantly, the discipline.” 
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April 19, 2026
The golf club will host a gala and golf tournament to reflect on its enduring legacy.
A Black women-founded golf club in Cincinnati is teeing off for a significant milestone.
The Les Birdies Golf Club is celebrating its 50th anniversary as it embarks on another era of trailblazing programming. Its members will gather on the greens for the event, which celebrates its history and continued purpose.
Its golfers remember how the founding members created a lane that encouraged inclusivity in the sport. Given the exclusive nature of other golf clubs, Les Birdies offered Black women a new way to practice their own swings in 1976.
“We were not welcome in many places, and the golf course was not an exception,” recalled Jackie Parker, the club’s membership chair, to WCPO.
Through the gumption of Theresa Bassette, Barbara Cooksey, Mamie Lewis, Kathleen Tolbert, and more, these Black women golfers decided to play by their own rules. Remarking on this enduring legacy, Les Birdies will commemorate a half-century of service with a 50th anniversary gala.
Through the gumption of Theresa Bassette, Barbara Cooksey, Mamie Lewis, Kathleen Tolbert and more, these Black women golfers decided to play by their own rules. Remarking on this enduring legacy, Les Birdies will commemorate a half century of service with a 50th anniversary gala.
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The gala will reflect on Les Birdies’ dedication to making the sport accessible to Black women golfers. While the group has expanded over generations, its work goes beyond the golf course.
Although teaching Black women the art of the swing is a part of their programming, Les Birdies has fostered a mentorship program and sisterhood. With members of all ages, they have launched tutoring services, scholarship opportunities, and more for women and girls throughout the Cincinnati area.
Alongside a gala, this commemorative year will also feature a 50th Anniversary golf tournament. At the July 18 event, golfers also will “[play] it forward” for the next generation to change the look of golf.
 “What began on the course grew into a powerful platform for impact—supporting students through scholarship tournaments, engaging youth through outreach programs, and building meaningful community partnerships,” described the Les Birdies golf club. “Through these efforts, the club has helped young people pursue higher education and introduced countless youth to the game of golf.”
RELATED CONTENT: Eastside Golf Apparel Brand Hosts ‘Community Days’ To Get More Black People Teeing Up

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April 19, 2026
Ameka Coleman, founder of Strands of Faith, has been named U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Person of the Year for Mississippi.

Ameka Coleman, founder of Strands of Faith, has been named the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Person of the Year for Mississippi.

As part of this honor, Coleman will travel to Washington, D.C., on May 4 to represent Mississippi during National Small Business Week, where business leaders from across the nation will be recognized for their impact, innovation, and contributions to their communities, according to a press release published in Black News.
Coleman founded Strands of Faith with a vision to create high-quality hair care products designed to support healthy hair while encouraging confidence, self-care, belief, and faith. What began as a personal journey has grown into a thriving, bootstrapped brand that has reached customers nationwide.
Built without outside funding, Strands of Faith has evolved into a multiple seven-figure business, reflecting Coleman’s commitment to discipline, consistency, and long-term growth. Her journey as a first-generation founder has been defined by learning in real time, overcoming challenges, and building a sustainable brand from the ground up.

“This recognition represents years of persistence and faith in the process,” said Coleman. “It’s an honor to represent Mississippi on a national stage and to highlight what’s possible when you take the leap of faith to follow your dreams.”
In addition to leading a growing brand, Coleman remains committed to giving back and supporting both future and established entrepreneurs, using her platform to share insight, encouragement, and real-world lessons from her journey.
National Small Business Week, held May 3–9, celebrates the critical role small businesses play in driving economic growth and strengthening communities across the United States.
RELATED CONTENT: Small Businesses Hit With ‘Big Beautiful’ Bills Of Their Own Due To Trump’s Economic Policies

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The railway construction route was modified to preserve these heritage sites at El Venado in Mexico’s Hidalgo state Photos: Gerardo Peña, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia
Specialists from Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) announced this week that they have recorded 16 petroglyphs and cave paintings dating from prehistory and the Mesoamerican Postclassic period (AD900-AD1521) located on two cliffs near the Tula River and the La Requena Dam, in the state of Hidalgo.
The discovery comes on the heels of other recent discoveries of Mesoamerican and colonial-era sites and artefacts during archaeological salvage work associated with planning a new 232km passenger rail line between Mexico City and Querétaro. Earlier this month, INAH revealed the discovery of a 1,000-year-old Toltec altar nearby, at the Tula Chico site.
The site of the most recent rock art discovery is one of four active excavations along the Querétaro route, where construction began in April 2025, with current progress at around 10% of the total project. In October 2025, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo announced a change to the railway route to preserve this heritage site, given the impossibility of relocating the paintings to a museum.
The site was registered in the 1970s as part of the Tula Archaeological Project, when a painted element depicting a deer was found, and it has since been called El Venado. In a statement, an INAH spokesperson said: “The location of the artwork suggests a mythical-religious purpose, perhaps related to astronomical or calendrical phenomena.”
The figures found in what INAH describes as a rock shelter are striking. They include one carrying what appears to be a macana (a type of club) with a headdress and goggles reminiscent of Tláloc, the Aztec god of rains, storms and fertility, who is often associated with caves and springs.
In the same rock shelter, the institute identified the stylised image of an anthropomorphic figure rendered in red, as well as an image resembling a snake or lightning bolt. The paintings were made with mineral or vegetable pigments, while the petroglyphs were made using pointillism. According to INAH, some of the artworks are more than 4,000 years old.
Archaeologists in the salvage team say the paintings are in good condition. They estimate that those of pre-Hispanic origin are possibly related to the final stage of Tula, the great Toltec capital that left vast remains full of monuments and artistic treasures.
Among the figures found near the Tula River are a representation of a deer and a figure with fangs, antennae, a breastplate and goggles, similar to those of Tláloc, with bird-like legs, reminiscent of representations made by the Mogollon culture, which inhabited the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, and whose art has been found at sites in Puebla.
A figure with an anthropomorphic face and hair, with four legs resembling those of a bird or the hooves of a horse, that likely dates from the time of contact with the Spanish, was also identified. While the paintings and petroglyphs were only recently identified officially, according to INHA, they had previously known the region’s local communities.
According to José-Miguel Perez Gomez, an expert on Latin American rock art, the discovery represents “a transformative milestone for Mexican archaeology and rock art studies”.
The findings are exceptionally significant, he tells The Art Newspaper, because of its “vast chronological span, documenting human activity from over 4,000 years ago through the Mesoamerican Postclassic and into the early colonial period. By providing a continuous record of cultural evolution,” he says, “the site allows researchers to analyse the transition of symbolic languages and artistic techniques within a single geographic context.”
Perez Gomez adds that the site’s iconography “suggests deep-rooted cultural exchanges between central Mexico and the Mogollon cultures of the north. Located near the Tula River, the site functions as a lithic archive of ritual life and environmental interaction. This discovery not only enriches our understanding of regional pre-Hispanic heritage but also reinforces the Tula Valley’s status as a critical corridor for long-term cultural synthesis and spiritual expression.”
Highway road work has uncovered an ancient civilisation’s ceremonial centrepiece
Recent excavations at a site in the state of Tamaulipas included analysis of large earthen mounds that were used for burials and everyday activities
Archaeologists discovered the site during salvage operations for the new Mexico City-Querétaro passenger rail line
Objects ranging from the 1st century to the 15th century were handed over at the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles earlier this month

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© Todd Gray; photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA/Kristina Simonsen
Even before planning began for the David Geffen Galleries, LACMA’s chief executive and director, Michael Govan, had been encouraging curators to think beyond traditional departmental lines. A series of collection-based exhibitions demonstrated the possibilities of hanging contemporary photography beside ancient textiles, or Latin American sculptures with South Asian design objects.
“What was apparent was the values and gains that came from breaking down silos,” says Britt Salvesen, the head of the museum’s departments of photography and prints and drawings. The new curvilinear building provides the opportunity to collapse rigid categories and implicit hierarchies. Rather than replicate the 19th-century Beaux-Arts model, in which rooms were confined to a single discipline, culture or era, LACMA’s 45 curators were invited to reconsider how the museum’s holdings might communicate across multiple sightlines and adjacencies, animating new connections and questioning fixed notions of history.
“I don’t see it as flattening so much as I see it as an enlivening,” says Leah Lehmbeck, the head of the departments of European painting and sculpture and American art. “It only makes it richer when you include the other media that were being made at the time, because artists weren’t working in a vacuum: they were looking around and trying different things.”
A structuring principle that was first proposed by the museum’s junior curators—using bodies of water as curatorial nodes—emerged as a powerful way to enliven the collection. In the galleries, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans serve as conduits foregrounding how water has, for centuries, been the medium through which objects, ideas and people have circulated. Here are seven key works that serve as anchor points amid the drift.
The Los Angeles-born artist Todd Gray is best known for his monumental assemblages of framed photographs that interrogate dominant Western art-historical narratives. This 27ft-long sculpture, commissioned by LACMA for one of the entrances to the new galleries, establishes the installation’s terms of engagement. Within overlapping gilded and wooden frames of varying shapes and sizes is a range of portraits (among them the Pasadena-born science-fiction writer Octavia Butler), landscapes, museum interiors and architectural details. Conceived for a spot facing a row of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Wilshire Boulevard, the images were printed using UV-cured aluminium technology developed for commercial signage, allowing them to withstand sustained exposure to natural light. The work’s merging of multiple times, places and aesthetics foreshadows the curatorial principles that organise the galleries. Its siting between galleries devoted to African and Latin American art draws a transatlantic connection. Gray was the first artist outside the institution to hear about the oceanic framework. His response has stayed with the curators: “You’ve got the critique, but you haven’t sacrificed the beauty.”
Elsewhere, Reiko Sudō’s glimmering, plated chrome curtains, designed to prevent direct exposure while still allowing diffuse light to pass through the translucent weave, protect more sensitive works. Described by the curators as works of art in their own right, the curtains will feature in Sudō’s LACMA retrospective this autumn.
Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA/Jonathan Urban
One of a handful of known examples worldwide, this densely embroidered shawl maps the city of Srinagar under Mughal rule with fastidious care. The Jhelum River structures the composition; bridges, a central mosque and a palace are all labelled in Kashmiri script, while animals, bathers, religious congregants and athletes animate the surface. Worked in fine stitches that mimic twill-tapestry weave, the image appears on both sides. The shawl is a recent acquisition and on view at LACMA for the first time, alongside other textiles that trace how Kashmiri garments travelled westward throughout the 19th century to become luxury fashion accessories in Europe. Curator Sharon Takeda describes textiles, from costumes to quilts, as connective threads running across the permanent collection galleries and even into the museum’s new restaurant, where a large-scale woven commission by Sarah Rosalena (see p6) continues the material conversation.
© 2026 Ruth Awawa Lanier Inc; photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA
Ruth Asawa’s tied-and-looped-wire sculpture, more than eight feet tall, hangs in In This Light, a Pacific Ocean-inspired gallery dedicated to the interplay between light and shade. As natural light filters into the north-facing space, the sculpture’s diaphanous, cascading forms cast intricate shadows across the concrete, causing the work to register simultaneously as a physical object and an immaterial projection. Asawa, born in California in 1926 to Japanese immigrant parents, was unjustly interned, along with her family, during the Second World War. She later studied under the pioneering modernist Josef Albers at Black Mountain College and developed her signature crocheted wire technique after learning basketry from local artisans in Mexico. She turned the inexpensive, industrial material, which is evocative of entrapment, into a means of describing interior and exterior space as a single continuous plane. The sculpture shares the space with other works that leverage surface illumination and transparency, including pieces by Larry Bell and Roni Horn. LACMA’s decorative arts and design curator Bobbye Tigerman hopes the gallery will encourage slow looking and return visits to see it in different seasons and times of day.
© El Anatsui; photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA
In the Atlantic section, the Ghana-born, Nigeria-based artist El Anatsui’s Fading Scroll hangs beside a Ghanaian prestige cloth, drawing attention to the ways the contemporary artist both extends and subverts inherited craft techniques. Substituting the thread and yarn that his father used to weave Ewe Kente cloth, Anatsui uses copper wire to stitch together discarded materials. Fading Scroll is composed of thousands of unfolded bottle caps that together give the illusion of a shimmering, metallic tapestry. Its rows of reflective gold, blue, yellow and red tones can be arranged and draped differently for each installation. The commercial detritus is not incidental: for centuries, European traders exchanged textiles and alcohol in West Africa for gold and enslaved peoples. “My work can represent links in the evolving narrative of memory and identity,” the artist has said, an observation that resonates with the installation’s representation of the Atlantic Ocean as a place of ongoing negotiation, rupture and resolution.
© 2026 Banco de México/Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo: Museum Associates/LACMA
One of LACMA’s earliest acquisitions, Diego Rivera’s Flower Day, introduces visitors to a wide selection of objects by Indigenous artists from across the Americas and 20th-century works by Latin American artists who integrated early mythologies into their portrayals of modern subjects. In the earth-toned oil painting, a flower vendor obscured beneath a massive basket of paper-white calla lilies bows before two kneeling women. Rendered in block-like volumes, the figures recall Mesoamerican sculptures, such as Goddess with Temple Headdress (1325-1521), on view nearby. The calla lilies themselves are transoceanic: native to southern Africa, the flowers arrived in Mexico by way of European trade routes and were so thoroughly absorbed into the country’s visual culture that they became an emblem of Indigenous identity. Sharon Takeda, head of the departments of costume and textiles and Japanese art, says the building’s poured grey concrete walls can alter the perception of both the pigments and compositions. “You look inward,” she says, “instead of toward the outline or the frame, which entirely changes its appearance.”
Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA
A copy of a Greek original, the larger-than-life marble Athena—with a helmet adorned with a sphinx and griffin, a snake-fringed aegis and a breastplate with a Medusa medallion—presides over a section of the Mediterranean Sea galleries organised around cosmologies across the ancient world. The deity’s likeness is transfigured across the featured artefacts: from a Greek vase to a Roman bust to a Macedonian coin. Nearby, a case of miniature Isis and Aphrodite statuettes foregrounds resonances between Egyptian and Greek traditions, upending the strict curatorial divisions that have typically kept them separate. Extending the lineage further, Lehmbeck says that the goddess of wisdom and war can be approached from three sightlines within the gallery,
and seen from theIris and Gerald B. Cantor Sculpture Garden below, where Auguste Rodin’s antiquity-inflected bronzes stand. At night, her commanding figure stands illuminated, an enduring presence outside of space and time.
Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA
The light in 17th-century Flemish painter Clara Peeters’s still life appears to emanate from within the oil paint. The gleaming silver surfaces of the salt cellar and banquet tray bend light back toward the bisected artichoke and glossy cherries. The thick curls of butter stacked on a patterned plate glow against the dark carmine ground. Her ontbijtje, or breakfast piece, documents global exchange as much as Dutch prosperity: the blue Chinese porcelain records the reach of the Dutch East India Company’s trade routes, while the salt speaks to northern European commerce moving in similar currents. Peeters was among the few women working professionally as painters anywhere in Europe at the time, navigating a guild system that excluded her from membership and formal training. The placement of her work in an Atlantic gallery encourages visitors to read her virtuosity within the art-historical tradition that constrained her and the economic system that filled her radiant compositions with a wide range of luxury items.
Virginia Vezzi’s “Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria” is one of the 112 pieces acquired during the museum’s annual Collectors Committee Weekend
Ten works are added to the permanent collection, including a striking slavery themed installation by Betye Saar and the museum’s first sculpture by Ruth Asawa
A vast concrete beauty that has been 20 years in the making is opening on 19 April, aiming to serve the local community and provide a welcoming focal point for the Los Angeles area
Museums were never “encyclopaedic”—nor should they be, Michael Conforti says

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“Romantic Homicide” singer d4vd has been arrested in connection with the murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, marking a major turning point in a case that began in September 2025.
“Romantic Homicide” singer d4vd has been arrested in connection with the murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, marking a major turning point in a case that began in September 2025.
In a statement released April 16, the LAPD confirmed that d4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, was taken into custody by detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division. He is currently being held without bail as prosecutors review the case.
According to NBC News, the singer was arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with Hernandez’s death. Her decomposed body was discovered last year in the trunk of an abandoned Tesla linked to him.
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Police said the case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on Monday. The DA’s office also confirmed Thursday that its major crimes division will conduct a full review.
Attorneys for the entertainer said they are prepared to “vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
“Let us be clear — the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death,” attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter said in a statement Thursday night after his arrest. “There has been no indictment returned by any grand jury in this case and no criminal complaint filed. David has only been detained under suspicion.”
The arrest represents a significant development in an investigation that began on Sept. 8, 2025, when authorities discovered human remains inside the front trunk of a Tesla registered to d4vd.
The victim was later identified as Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a 14-year-old who had been reported missing from Lake Elsinore, California, after she was last seen in April 2024. Officers responded to the scene after reports of a foul odor coming from the vehicle. Inside the trunk, they found a black cadaver bag containing a decomposed head and torso, according to court filings tied to a grand jury investigation. A second bag contained additional dismembered remains, NBC News reported.
It remains unclear how Celeste died. The medical examiner’s office said last year that it could not release details about her cause and manner of death due to a security hold requested by law enforcement.
Authorities have confirmed that d4vd and the victim were in a relationship prior to her disappearance, and the two reportedly had matching “Shhh…” tattoos on their fingers, according to BOSSIP.
In the months following the discovery, d4vd canceled his Withered World Tour and stepped away from public appearances. A spokesperson said at the time that he was aware of the situation and was “fully cooperating with the authorities.”

In January, new developments indicated prosecutors were moving closer to a formal indictment. According to NBC Los Angeles, Neo Langston, a 23-year-old associate of the singer, was arrested Jan. 22 in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, on an out-of-state warrant after failing to appear as a witness in Los Angeles proceedings. Authorities have not confirmed whether Langston’s arrest is directly connected to the grand jury investigation into Celeste’s killing, though the possibility is being examined. Jail records show he was held on an unspecified warrant.
Law enforcement sources said the arrest is tied to the ongoing grand jury probe connected to the investigation that began in November 2025. Notably, in December 2025, the president of d4vd’s touring company, Robert Morgenroth, testified before the grand jury about what was known internally and why authorities were not alerted sooner after the body was discovered in the singer’s vehicle. According to TMZ, after his grand jury testimony, Morgenroth was allegedly heard telling his lawyer outside the courtroom why he did not call police when the news of Celeste’s death broke:
“I said I feel like I didn’t have the responsibility to do that, and just wanted to continue with the tour,” he allegedly said, according to the outlet.
The investigation is still ongoing.
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Why Did It Take So Long To Arrest d4vd? was originally published on newsone.com

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Tyrese still wants all the smoke after Tank “cheated” in their Verzuz, claims he’s owed royalties for the viral “Turtleneck” shade released on streaming platforms.
Tyrese’s friendly feud from Verzuz is far from finished because he’s still tight about that “Turtleneck” and claims Tank “cheated” with his celebrity cameos. “They jumped Jody!” the “Shame” singer said, rehashing the R&B battle.
The Verzuz may be over, but the brotherly beef is not! Cryrese still has fresh “Turtleneck” tears that he can only dry with a royalty check for Tank’s improvised insult. Tyrese is spilling the tea about what went down behind the scenes, who really won Verzuz, and where he stands with Tank as they seemingly plan more music.
In an interview on The Ebro Laura Rosenberg Show, Tyrese talked his upcoming performance on Saturday, April 18 for the R&B Music Experience: The Legacy Series and how he got cheated on the Verzuz stage. He told Ebro the the contentious concert was supposed to be like a boxing match, 1-o-1 and going hit for hit. Instead, Tyrese joked that he that he got packed out by Tank and friends.
“I came into it as Tyrese versus Tank. I had one feature, and when my feature came out, he was rapping. I didn’t even have nobody to come out and sing with me,” he said.
Ebro asked if that was cheating and Tyrese swiftly said, “He did. They jumped Jody. You’re insecure if you feel the need to have 17 n****s to come out,” he jokingly continued.
The Baby Boy actor said he disclosed to Tank that Chingy was his only guest and admitted he played himself by showing his hand. Meanwhile, the “When We” wonder had a stacked deck of celebs with J. Valentine, LeToya Luckett, Jamie Foxx, and Trey Songz That was just the beginning of the soulful shenanigans!
Check out how Tyrese decided to wear that “Turtleneck,” why he wants royalties for the song, and where he stands with Tank after the flip!
Going into the Verzuz, Ebro noted that Tank leans heavily on preparation and professionalism while Tyrese lets his undeniable talent do that talking. The “Sweet Lady” singer didn’t roll deep to the performance but he did come dressed to impress… and inspire a now-infamous song. Tank warned that he came prepared to win by any means, including his fashion game.
Tyrese said Tank teased in an interview, “Oh, if he thinks this is about the music, wait till he see what I’m about to put on.” Not to be outdone, the “Lately” star showed up and showed out with multiple wardrobe changes, including a white tuxedo for the finale and that infamous turtleneck.
“In my mind, Ebro, outside of what he was coming there to do singing-wise, I was like, ‘Yo, this n**** about to turn this s**t into a fashion show,’” he said. “So, that’s why I showed up with that s**t on,” Tyrese explained.
Despite leaning into his polished prep for a competitive edge, Tank took it over the top when he improvised a song to roast the fashionable flex. Now, Tyrese swears he’s entitled to compensation as the musical muse for the song Tank later released on streaming platforms.
“I inspired the song,” Tyrese said. “He seen the turtleneck, and then he just came up with the song on the spot, so he gonna have to run that.”
Even with the unresolved “Turtleneck” tension, both singers are set to share another stage on Saturday. Tyrese doubled down on the headliner hijinks by joking that Tank will open for him because he has an earlier set during the R&B Music Experience: The Legacy Series show.
Watch Tyrese’s full interview on The Ebro Laura Rosenberg Show below.
If they’re still dragging it, that TGT reunion is about to get even more awkward!
See what Tyrese said about where he stands with Tank and TGT since Verzuz after the flip!
On The Breakfast Club, Tyrese revealed that Tank switched up on him after their soulful showdown.
“I’m gonna tell y’all what happened. Tank is out here completely gassed! He think he won just on him talking s**t about my turtleneck. He don’t understand that he has not went viral on any of the songs that he sung, he out here Kim Burrell-ing n***as,” he joked, imitating Tank’s never-ending runs.
“And none of that s**t went viral! If you want to go viral, you might want to sing about the headliner’s turtleneck! So none of your catalog went viral? Your band members is up there looking sad as a motherf**ker like they lost after song #2!” Tyrese said.
As hilarious as the Verzuz performance was, Tyrese teased that he has even more behind-the-scenes stunts and shade on his Patreon. “It’s all exposed!” he said.
DJ Envy gave the singer a taste of his own medicine by asking about Tyrese and Tank both opening for Genuwine at the R&B Music Experience: The Legacy Series show. The Ts in TGT take the stage first at UBS arena on April 18.
Tyrese hit the UNO reverse by dragging Envy’s outfit, which just happened to include… a turtleneck! The whole TBC team was down to clown because they all had on turtlenecks to troll the Fast & Furious fave.
Despite the supergroup’s possible reunion, Tyrese immediately shut down any talk of them performing together. Yikes! When asked how he and Tank switch from “competition mode” to “brotherhood onstage,” it seems like the post-Verzuz vibes are still negative.
“I got love for Tank, I just really feel shocked at his conduct. I’m serious! I was really shocked at the levels that he took it to,” Tyrese admitted.
Envy and Charlamagne insisted that it must all be that sibling rivalry energy, but he wasn’t laughing it off.
Loren LoRosa noted Tank’s recent interview comments that the group should have included Avant instead of Tyrese.
“See what I’m saying? He mean’t that s**t. A ‘ha-ha’ after doesn’t make the joke not real,” he insisted.
Welp, we’ll have to catch the upcoming R&B Music Experience: The Legacy Series performance to see if these group members are ready to rumble or reunite. Do you think TGT titans are ready to clash again or do Tyrese and Tank play all day?
The post Hurtleneck Hilarity! Tyrese Wants Royalties From Tank’s ‘Turtleneck’ Tune, Claims Churchy Crooner Cheated At Verzuz: ‘They Jumped Jody’ appeared first on Bossip.
Hurtleneck Hilarity! Tyrese Wants Royalties From Tank’s ‘Turtleneck’ Tune, Claims Churchy Crooner Cheated At Verzuz: ‘They Jumped Jody’ was originally published on bossip.com

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The incident marks the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since January 2024. Shamar Elkins also shot his wife and another woman.
A Louisiana man killed eight children in a domestic violence shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana, on Sunday, authorities said. He then carjacked a vehicle before being fatally shot by police.
Police identified the gunman as Shamar Elkins, 31, who carried out the shooting across three homes early Sunday, authorities said.
Officers with the Shreveport Police Department responded to the 300 block of West 79th Street just after 6 a.m. after reports of a domestic violence dispute, police said, per NBC News.
The gunman reportedly shot a woman at a home near Harrison Street before heading to another on West 79th Street, where he killed all of the children, police said.
Elkins was the father of seven of the eight children killed, authorities said. The eighth child, who was not his, was shot and killed on the roof of the home while trying to escape. Another child jumped off the roof and survived.
Two women, identified as Elkins’ wife, the mother of seven of the children, and his girlfriend, were also shot and suffered serious injuries, Shreveport Police Cpl. Chris Bordelon said. A teenager was also injured and has non-life-threatening injuries, police said, according to NBC News and CNN.
The children who were killed were between the ages of 1 and 12, police said. Among the child victims, three were boys, and five were girls.
Elkins then fled the scene and carjacked a person at gunpoint before leading police in a car chase. Shreveport police officers later shot and killed him in Bossier Parish, according to police. Authorities confirmed that he was the only suspect involved in the deadly shooting, per NBC News and CNN.
A total of 10 people were shot. Another child, a 13-year-old boy, survived after escaping from the roof and is expected to be okay, according to NBC News and KSLA.
Police are still investigating a motive in the shooting.
“I just don’t know what to say. My heart is just taken aback,” Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said, according to NBC News. “I just cannot begin to imagine how such an event can occur.”
“We know it’s domestic in nature, we know his wife is involved and she is the mother of at least seven of the children, with the eighth being a family friend,” Bordelon said, per NBC News.
According to Crystal Brown, the cousin of one of the wounded women, Elkins was in the midst of separating from his wife and due in court on Monday, reports KLS TV.
The incident marks the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since January 2024, CNN reported.
City councilwoman Tabatha H. Taylor was visibly emotional late Sunday as she spoke about the shooting.
“I’m going to ask the community, along with prayer, with every mental health consultant, counselor, that is out here: This family and this community needs you,” she said, per CNN. “I need you. Because how do we get through this?”
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The Cuban artist Carmen Herrera designed the scenography for Wayne McGregor’s Untitled, 2023; “There’s something really interesting about how she balances line, shape, colour, symmetry and asymmetry in precarious ways,” he says Andrej Uspenski; © 2023 Royal Opera House
The history of ballet is a history of collaboration. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of Wayne McGregor. Sit among the audience at any of his performances and you’ll find yourself not just surrounded by dance devotees, but by people from the worlds of art, fashion, music and beyond. As much as they come for McGregor’s choreography, they are there for scores by Max Richter and Thomas Adès; set designs by Tacita Dean and Olafur Eliasson; and for costumes by Gareth Pugh and Grace Wales Bonner. In the case of a brand-new work premiering at the Royal Opera House as part of McGregor’s Alchemies mixed bill (from 18 April to 6 May), the young British fashion designer Saul Nash will be an attraction.
Wayne McGregor’s ballet Untitled, 2023 featured costumes designed by Daniel Lee, Burberry’s creative director Photo: © 2023 Alice Pennefather
Alchemies brings together two previous works by McGregor: Yugen, which first premiered in 2018, and Untitled, 2023. The new piece, which unites McGregor and Nash, is still unnamed at the time of writing.
Nash founded his eponymous label in 2018, having spent many years as a dancer himself. He quickly became known for his sleek spin on sportswear (his aesthetic has been described by Dazed as “tracksuits for the thinking man”), and is now based in Milan, where he presents on the menswear schedule.
“I have been following Saul Nash’s career for quite some time,” McGregor says. “He is a designer–dancer and a dancer’s designer. He works with incredible technical fabrics that are cut for motion and he intimately understands the human form in flow.”
Saul Nash switched from dancing to designing, launching his label in 2018 Photo: © IK ALDAMA
For McGregor, Nash’s designs stuck closely to the history of dance costume. “I began by modernising what had previously been done for dance—particularly ballet,” Nash says. “This approach connects Wayne’s dynamic choreography with the cutting and codes of my own design approach.”
When Marie Taglioni donned a tutu for the 1832 premiere of La Sylphide, she did so with the intention of allowing her intricate footwork to be seen in full. Quickly, the short, stiff skirt became the defining garment of ballet’s Romantic era. In the early 20th century Sergei Diaghilev, with his revolutionary company the Ballets Russes, became known for bold, confrontational design, perhaps best exemplified by the riots that greeted the premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, where Nicholas Roerich’s sets and revealing male costumes proved as unsettling as Stravinsky’s searingly modern score.
Pablo Picasso’s collaboration with the Ballets Russes included his largest ever work, a gargantuan backdrop for the 1924 production of Le Train Bleu, now on prominent display at the V&A East Storehouse in East London. Meanwhile, Oskar Schlemmer’s influential Triadic Ballet translated the ethos of the Bauhaus into angular movements and avant-garde costumes. By the mid-century, couturiers including Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain and Yves Saint Laurent had all turned their hands to designing for dance.
For Yugen, Wayne McGregor worked with the Iranian British designer Shirin Guild, who dressed the company in simple, blood-red costumes Photo: Andrej Uspenski; © 2018 Royal Opera House
For Yugen, McGregor chose to work with Bernstein’s choral masterpiece, Chichester Psalms. The company, dressed in blood-red costumes designed by the Iranian British designer Shirin Guild, performed in a set designed by the British ceramicist and writer Edmund de Waal. McGregor says he was drawn to De Waal for his liturgical upbringing; his father was a priest who served as the dean of Canterbury. If anyone could grasp the resonance of the psalms, and translate them into a visual language, he says, it would be someone who had grown up hearing them every day. For Guild, it was through her longstanding connection to De Waal—they had known one another for over 20 years—that the creative team coalesced. Her costumes are loose and fluid, composed of simple vests and drop-crotch trousers that move easily with the body. In a standout pas de deux, the dancers Sarah Lamb and Calvin Richardson intertwine, as Guild’s garments flow softly around the body.
De Waal’s set is spare, punctuated by tall, vitrine-like structures that glow and dim. “I wondered if it was possible to create something for the dancer that was a place of refuge and pause,” De Waal wrote in an essay for The Telegraph about designing the work. Perhaps referencing the shelves that typically house his porcelain vessels, De Waal has talked about days spent working with McGregor in his studio—“picking things up, playing with clay”—while McGregor “pushed and gently tested” his practice beyond territory he had previously explored.
For Untitled, 2023, it was the abstract canvases of the Cuban American artist Carmen Herrera that provided the direct inspiration for Wayne McGregor’s choreography. Herrera also collaborated with McGregor on the ballet’s set—marking one of her final artistic works before her death at 106 in 2022. “There’s something really interesting about how she balances line, shape, colour, symmetry and asymmetry in precarious ways,” McGregor says. “It’s really analogous with dance-making.”
The set for the piece is empty, save for a single object: a right-angled form that cuts into the space, like a Tetris block fallen from the rafters. Lucy Carter’s lighting animates washes over it throughout, conveying an inanimate object with something approaching emotion: solitary, static and yet alive. The Royal Opera House sent a scale replica of the main stage to Herrera in New York, who sent back a scheme in just a week.
Herrera’s distinctive lines and colours are echoed in the costumes designed by Daniel Lee, the creative director of Burberry. Green-and-white planes bisect the skin-tight leotards, as if Herrera’s canvases have leapt from the wall and wrapped themselves around the dancers.
Yugen‘s set was designed by the British ceramicist and writer Edmund de Waal Andrej Uspenski; © 2023 Royal Opera House
McGregor’s connection to Lee goes back to the designer’s time as the creative director at Bottega Veneta. Then, McGregor was often spotted wearing Lee’s designs to take the final bow. When Lee moved to Burberry, it was natural that they should collaborate. “I was thinking about it even when he was at Bottega Veneta and how he took a heritage brand and subverted it, but always using the craft of the brand as the point of departure,” McGregor said in 2023. “That’s kind of how I work in ballet.”
From 18 April, audiences at the Royal Opera House will see these works reprised alongside the new collaboration with Saul Nash in a mixed bill that pays tribute to the art of collaboration and to a process that, when all goes well, feels just like alchemy.
• Wayne McGregor: Alchemies, Royal Opera House, London, 18 April-6 May
The dance piece choreographed by Wayne McGregor includes a set designed by Olafur Eliasson and music by Jamie xx
Biennale Danza director Wayne McGregor has given the 16th international festival of contemporary dance the title of “Boundary-less” to reflect the current state of global flux
The work, which is travelling to London’s Somerset House in October, comprises a panoramic installation featuring a 12k LED, 26-million-pixel screen

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Caitlyn Jenner is the perfect example of white privilege, MAGA buyer’s remorse, and the lie of selective solidarity.
The cover that sparked this piece was almost too perfect: Caitlyn Jenner says her passport has the wrong gender, but she is still MAGA.
That is not just a contradiction. That is the whole lesson.
In a recent Newsweek report on Jenner’s comments to Tomi Lahren, Jenner said she asked Donald Trump for help after renewing her passport and receiving one marked “M,” even while insisting, “I love him.” That sentence alone tells us everything we need to know about this moment. 
Caitlyn Jenner’s public frustration is not simply a story about hypocrisy. It is a story about entitlement. It is a story about what happens when someone believes they can inhabit a marginalized identity while still holding on to the logic of the power that made them. 
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For years, Jenner has represented a particular kind of conservative trans politics. Not one rooted in collective liberation, but one rooted in distance: distance from the most vulnerable trans people, distance from any structural analysis of race and power, distance from the idea that patriarchy, white supremacy, and state violence are connected rather than occasional inconveniences. The bet behind that politics has always been simple. If you are respectable enough, rich enough, famous enough, grateful enough, and above all, white enough, maybe the machine will spare you. 
Jenner has spent years publicly aligning herself with right-wing positions on trans life, including opposition to trans women in women’s sports; in a recent Them interview write-up, she even called herself a “hypocrite” for accepting Glamour’s Woman of the Year award while now advocating against trans women’s inclusion. 
Maybe that sounds harsh. But oppression does not work the way people like Caitlyn Jenner imagine it does. It is not a set of isolated inconveniences that can be aimed neatly at the people you think deserve it. It is a system. And once you legitimize that system, you do not get to control where it goes next.
That is why this moment matters beyond one woman, one passport, or one humiliating headline. The State Department’s current passport policy says it will issue passports only with an “M” or “F” marker matching a person’s sex at birth. That policy was able to move forward after the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request for a stay in Trump v. Orr, allowing enforcement to continue while the litigation proceeds. This was not a misunderstanding. It was not a bureaucratic accident. It was the point. 
And I think there is an even deeper truth inside this moment that people keep circling without naming directly. Caitlyn Jenner does not just want to exist in her trans identity. She wants to exist in her trans identity while preserving the privileges and instincts of white male power.
That is the contradiction.
We have language in our communities for cis women who are deeply male-centered, women who have to do ongoing work to unlearn patriarchy and their investments in the power that harms them. So why would we imagine that a trans woman, especially a white trans woman who spent decades being socialized inside whiteness and male power, would be exempt from that work? Transition does not automatically make someone politically clear. It does not automatically make someone accountable. It does not automatically strip away the attachments, expectations, and entitlement that came from being formed inside white masculinity. The truth is, for some white trans women, womanhood is evolving without an equally serious dismantling of the power arrangements that once centered them.
That unmaking has to be chosen.
And that is where Jenner, and many public white trans figures like her, tell on themselves. They want recognition as women, but they do not want to fully relinquish the worldview that told them they should still be centered, still be protected, still be heard first, still be spared. They want the dignity of a marginalized identity without the political and moral work of disentangling themselves from the supremacy that shaped them. So when the state finally turns its logic on them, they experience it not as a predictable outcome of the politics they endorsed, but as a personal betrayal.
That is privilege at work.
Privilege not only protects you from harm, but it also teaches you to misunderstand harm. It teaches you to experience structural violence as a customer service problem. It teaches you to think the issue is not that the system is built to dehumanize, but that the system somehow mishandled your particular case. It teaches you to believe your loyalty should have purchased a different outcome. That is why Jenner’s reaction reads less like political clarity and more like MAGA buyer’s remorse. Buyer’s remorse says: I did not know the thing I supported would affect me this way. Political clarity says: I should never have supported a structure built on other people’s disposability in the first place.
Those are not the same revelation.
And that is why I do not hear Jenner’s complaint as irony. I hear it as a bargain failing in public.
But if we leave this at “Caitlyn Jenner is a hypocrite,” we miss the bigger lesson. The bigger lesson is about whose faces people use to build their understanding of trans life in the first place.
Too many people build their epistemology of transness through white trans visibility. They look at white trans women, white nonbinary people, white influencers, white media figures, and assume that what they are seeing is the trans experience. 
But whiteness distorts every story it enters. It distorts who gets read as sympathetic. It distorts who gets grace. It distorts who gets treated as a complex individual and who gets flattened into a stereotype. It distorts who gets to fail in public and still be seen as redeemable.
And when that distorted lens becomes the public’s understanding of trans life, Black trans people are forced to answer for a framework we did not build.
Because Black trans women are not simply white trans narratives with darker skin. Yes, there are complicated conversations to be had about male socialization and access to privilege. But Blackness is never a footnote in this country. In the body of a Black trans woman, anti-Blackness is often the first site of punishment, suspicion, and containment. 
By the time the world is done reading us as Black and trans and feminine, whatever abstract theory people have about privilege has already collided with the reality that Blackness structures the whole encounter. That is why the point about oppression not functioning in silos lands so hard: people who think they can isolate one issue from the rest fundamentally misunderstand how power works.
That is also why this conversation matters so much for Black communities.
I want Black people, especially, to build a deeper understanding of trans life through Black trans people. Not because every disagreement will disappear. Not because confusion will evaporate overnight. Not because one shared identity automatically resolves every tension. But because shared Blackness can create a different kind of ethical opening. Even in uncertainty, even in disagreement, even in the places where language is still catching up, I want our people to at least see our Blackness clearly enough that community remains possible.
That matters to me.
Because if your first and loudest exposure to transness is through white trans spectacle, through people who are still bargaining with whiteness and clinging to power, you will come away with a broken profile of what trans life is. You will mistake access for vulnerability. You will mistake platform for truth. You will mistake white grievance for the whole story.
And it is not the whole story.
The whole story includes the very real danger of being forced to carry documents that do not match how you live in the world. Advocates for Trans Equality explains that accurate identification is central to safety and daily life, and that incorrect IDs can expose trans people to denial of employment, housing, and benefits, as well as harassment and physical violence. The ACLU’s challenge to the passport policy in Orr v. Trump makes a similar point, arguing that the policy can forcibly out trans, nonbinary, and intersex people while the case continues through the courts. So no, this was never a cosmetic issue. It was always about control, exposure, and state power. 
That is why selective solidarity has always been a lie.
You cannot bless the policing of gender in sports, schools, healthcare, the military, and public life, then act stunned when that same policing reaches your own paperwork. You cannot be indifferent to children in cages, to poor trans women trying to survive, to Black trans women navigating both transphobia and anti-Blackness, and then suddenly demand moral urgency when the bureaucracy humiliates you personally. You cannot spend years helping tell the public that some people are excessive, disposable, embarrassing, or too much, then act surprised when the category widens. The January 20, 2025 White House executive order on “biological truth” and the administration’s later order targeting trans participation in women’s sports made clear that this project was never limited to one symbol or one form. It was always expansive. 
Oppression always widens.
That is the warning inside Caitlyn Jenner’s passport complaint. Not just that she was hypocritical, but that she believed her whiteness, wealth, fame, and old relationship to male power would let her manage a system that was never built to be managed. Only survived, if at all. And certainly not survived alone.
So yes, take the M, Cait.
Not because humiliation is justice. Not because cruelty is something I celebrate. But because there has to be a moment where people like Caitlyn Jenner sit fully with the meaning of the world they helped sanitize. Sit with the fact that the violence was never accidental. Sit with the fact that buyer’s remorse is not innocence. Sit with the fact that transition without political transformation can still leave supremacy intact.
And for the rest of us, especially for Black people trying to make sense of trans life in a culture full of distortion, maybe the lesson is this: stop letting white trans exceptionalism teach you what transness means. Look harder at Black trans life. Build your understanding there. Start there. Let our lives complicate the shortcuts this country keeps handing you.
It will not make everything simple.
But it will make the picture more honest. And honesty is where real community begins.
SEE ALSO:
The Supreme Court’s Passport Decision Isn’t About Gender
What ‘Down Low’ Discourse Keeps Us From Seeing About Harmful Men

Take The ‘M,’ Caitlyn. You Earned It was originally published on newsone.com

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For nearly 30 years, Taraji P. Henson has been a powerhouse in the entertainment industry. From her Oscar-nominated turn in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to her culture-shifting performance as Cookie Lyon on Empire, her talent is undeniable. However, in a series of recent, deeply candid interviews, the 55-year-old actress has pulled back the curtain on the systemic mistreatment that women—particularly women of color— experience in Hollywood.
Appearing on Hoda Kotb’s Making Space podcast in April 2026, Henson reflected on the moment she first realized that the path to success is different for men and women. The realization traces back to her 2001 movie breakthrough in John Singleton’s Baby Boy. While the film launched both her and her co-star Tyrese Gibson into the public eye, their career trajectories could not have been more different.
Henson discussed the hype surrounding the release of Baby Boy, with industry insiders predicting she would catapult to stardom overnight. According to Variety, her intuition told her otherwise. She sensed that while the industry would open its doors for her male co-star, she would have to fight harder. Her instincts proved correct. Shortly after their debut, Gibson secured roles in two of the biggest action franchises in cinema history: Transformers and Fast & Furious.
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“I still have not booked my franchise film,” Henson told Kotb. “Been in the game almost 30 years. No franchise film.”
While Henson has lent her voice to animated hits like Minions: The Rise of Gru and had a supporting role in 2010’s The Karate Kid, she emphasized the lack of a sizable, live-action role in a major blockbuster machine. She clarified that this observation isn’t rooted in bitterness toward Tyrese, but rather a cold assessment of the politics involved in casting and industry investment. For Henson, the fact that a male lead can transition into multi-billion-dollar franchises while a female lead with an Oscar nomination remains on the sidelines is an example of Hollywood’s gender bias.
This ongoing struggle for recognition and fair compensation reached a boiling point last year. In May 2025, Henson revealed to Variety that she had become so frustrated by the industry machine that she took a month-long sabbatical to Bali. The actress admitted that the constant battle for prominent roles and pay equity was making her bitter, a trait she refused to let define her. By relocating for 30 days, she was able to refresh her perspective.
The reset allowed her to pivot her focus toward her own entrepreneurial ventures, such as her beauty brand, TPH. Henson expressed that she no longer wants to rely solely on Hollywood for stability, especially when that check represents only a fraction of what her male peers or even less-experienced white counterparts are earning. This sentiment echoed her viral 2023 interview during The Color Purple press tour, where she broke down in tears, exhausted by the cycle of having to start from the bottom every time she hits a new career milestone.
Despite the frustrations, Henson is refusing to let the industry’s limitations dictate her worth. She has spent years being understanding while being paid less than her value, but she has officially retired that approach.
Henson is currently channeling her creative energy into the theater, gearing up for her highly anticipated Broadway debut opposite Cedric the Entertainer in a revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.

Taraji P. Henson Calls Out Hollywood Double Standards: ‘I Still Haven’t Booked A Franchise’ In 30 Years, But Co-Star Tyrese ‘Booked Two’ was originally published on bossip.com

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April 18, 2026
Blavity is coming to your TV through a new partnership with OTTera.
 Blavity Media Group (BMG), the online platform for Black culture and millennial‑driven content, is expanding into connected TV advertising through a new partnership with OTTera.
The partnership adds connected TV (CTV) placements to BMG’s portfolio for the first time. Through OTTera’s network, advertisers can now distribute ads across more than 600 live streaming platforms and 2,000 FAST channels, expanding its reach to nearly 100 million users on platforms including Samsung, Vizio, Hisense, Sony, and Roku. 
Additionally, the partnership will bring sports content to the BMG platform, leveraging OTTera’s FAST channel portfolio of live and on-demand programming.
Morgan DeBaun, the CEO and founder of Blavity, underscored how the partnership will broaden the company’s reach.
“Black culture has never been confined to one screen, and neither should the brands that want to show up authentically for our audience. This partnership with OTTera means that for the first time, a brand can walk into BMG and leave with a campaign that reaches Black America from their morning scroll to their living room couch. That is a first in Black media, and we built it,” said DeBaun in a statement. 
Blavity Media Group reaches over 32 million monthly users across its various brands, including Blavity, AfroTech, 21Ninety, Travel Noire, Home & Texture, and Shadow & Act.
“Blavity has built a cultural engine that brands trust, and this partnership extends that power into connected TV at scale. Together, we’re creating a new standard—where reaching Black audiences isn’t fragmented across platforms, but unified across every screen,” said Stephen Hodge, CEO and co-founder of OTTera.
OTTer has experience working with Black-owned media platforms. The company has partnered with AfroLandTV, a streaming service that offers Nollywood films and shows from across the African continent, and the  Remy Network, a streaming platform owned by rapper Remy Ma. 
The partnership with Blavity Media Group marks OTTera’s largest partnership with a Black-owned media company to date.
Last month, BMG announced a new partnership with The Gathering Spot (THG), the private social club for Black business professionals. The partnership aims to connect brands with influential Black business professionals. 
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Learn the cyber safety basics that can help you avoid fake delivery alerts, toll scams, and account warnings. Read now to protect your phone and your money.
Cyber safety begins with knowing that the most dangerous link on your phone isn’t from a stranger, assuming the number they’re contacting belongs to the person they’re looking for, it’s from a number you don’t recognize that sounds exactly like USPS, your bank, or the IRS. The FTC confirmed that in 2024, consumers reported $470 million in losses from text message scams, more than five times the 2020 total. 
People in low-income communities can face heightened exposure to these scams due to existing financial access gaps and distrust of institutions. When a scammer posing as a bank or government agency sends a threatening message about your account, the pressure to respond quickly feels real. Knowing what to do when it comes to cyber security threats is the single most effective defense available.
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Cyber safety is your ability to use connected devices, such as your phone, laptop, or apps, without handing over your personal information, money, or account access to criminals operating behind convincing-looking messages and websites. Most people think that type of cyber crime is something that just happens to corporations or tech companies.
The reality is that the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center receives more than 3,000 complaints every day from ordinary people who got hit through email, text messages, and social media.
Text-based attacks have a specific name: smishing, which blends “SMS” and “phishing.” Smishing is now the fastest-growing form of consumer fraud in the U.S., according to the FTC, and it works because mobile users are more likely to trust a text than an email and less likely to scrutinize a shortened link on a small screen.
These scams follow predictable patterns, such as fake package delivery notifications claiming your shipment failed and asking you to click a link to reschedule, fake toll alerts saying you owe a small amount and include a link to pay, or even scams like bank account warnings claiming suspicious activity and asking you to verify your credentials immediately. All of them count on urgency, as they want you to click before you think.
The FBI has warned that smishing campaigns can move rapidly from state to state. A toll scam that targeted one region rolled to new states within weeks, collecting financial and personal data from people who assumed the message was legitimate because it referenced a real toll service by name. Scammers can scrape that detail easily and leave you in a vulnerable position. 
The most reliable protection against smishing is to create a habit, not depend on an app. When you receive an unexpected text with a link, the correct move is to go directly to the company’s official website or app rather than touching the link in the message. If your bank genuinely needs to reach you, the same information will be waiting inside your account app when you log in independently. 
The FBI recommends never clicking links in unsolicited texts and always looking up official contact information rather than using what the suspicious message provides. The second step is the one people skip most often. Scammers count on you using their number or their link to “verify,” but that verification goes directly to them, not any real company.
If you must, two-factor authentication on your email and financial accounts adds a critical layer that stops most credential-theft attacks even if a scammer does get access to your password. Enable it everywhere it’s available, and use an authenticator app rather than SMS codes where possible, since a SIM swap attack can route your text-based codes to a scammer’s device.
Clicking a bad link can deliver more than a phishing page. Some links install malware that locks your device or encrypts your files and demands you to pay to restore access. This sort of ransomware affects individuals and small businesses at rates most people don’t realize. 
Understanding Ransomware Recovery matters if you’ve already had a device compromised, because paying a ransom doesn’t guarantee your data returns and often marks you as a target for repeat attacks.
Good cyber safety practice reduces your attack surface without requiring technical expertise. Never reply to a suspicious text, even to ask the sender to stop; responses confirm that your number is active and invite more contact.
Forward suspicious texts to 7726 (SPAM) to report them to your carrier, and file a complaint with the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov if you’ve been targeted or lost any money.
Also, keep your phone’s operating system up to date. Carriers and manufacturers patch security vulnerabilities regularly, and staying current closes doors that older software leaves open. An unpatched device is significantly more vulnerable to malware delivered through bad links.
Look for urgency, unexpected requests, vague sender information, and links that don’t match the company’s actual domain. Legitimate businesses don’t text you to ask for passwords or account verification through a link. When in doubt, go to the official website directly rather than engaging with the message at all.
You should try to disconnect from Wi-Fi and mobile data immediately. You also need to change the passwords for any accounts you used to enter credentials, run a security scan on your device, and contact your bank if you entered any financial information. Report the incident to the FTC through reportfraud.ftc.gov. 
Cyber safety requires consistent habits, knowing what to look out for, and a willingness to slow down when a message creates a sense of urgency. The $470 million lost to text scams in 2024 came from people who were busy, distracted, or trusting. Protecting yourself means protecting your money, identity, and your family’s financial security.
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April 18, 2026
‘ I’ll be performing live with Clark Atlanta and Morehouse Drumline,’ T.I. posted on social media.
On April 18, the “Rubber Band Man,” T.I., will be taking the field for Atlanta United’s HBCU Night at his hometown’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The evnt stats at 7 p.m. ET.
The recording artist filmed a video clip for sports and Hip-Hop fans and invited them to take in his performance at the Georgia venue.
“T.I., the king, here, letting you know, April 18th, you can catch me at the Mercedes-Benz Dome, man. You know what I’m saying? The stadium. It’s going to be HBCU Night, and I’ll be performing live with Clark Atlanta and Morehouse Drumline.”
“So, hey, I suggest you get your ticket right now, man. It’s going all the way down. 
A-Town, you know what’s happening.”
A post shared by TIP (@tip)
Atlanta United FC will play Nashville SC.
Providing the musical backdrop for the game will be CAU’s “Mighty Marching Panthers” Marching Band and Morehouse’s “House of Funk” Marching Band throughout the night, as they will also back the Atlanta rapper during his show, where he is expected to perform many of his hits, HBCU Gameday reports.
Before the game even starts, the bands will join the Supporters March from Lot 17 and be in the Supporters Section before joining T.I. for the halftime show.
In addition to T.I.’s performance, Atlanta will be treated to the voice of FlyGuy DC, also an alumnus of Clark Atlanta. For the first time, he will be the in-game host for Atlanta United. Before the game, he will be joining club host Joe Freihofer on the pre-match show.
A post shared by Fly Guy DC The G.O.A.T. (@iamflyguydc)
A panel, “ATL UTD HBCU Night: Conversations & Careers in Sports Panel presented by Truist,” has also been planned and it will feature prominent HBCU alumni.
The discussion will be moderated by Vern Gwynn, vice president of Workplace Banking Financial Empowerment at Truist, and will feature a dynamic panel of industry leaders and creatives, including Keenan Litmon, co-owner of Cam Kirk Studios; Porchia Marie, ATL community marketing manager at Foot Locker; Taylor Polidore Williams, actress in “Beauty in Black,” Netflix’s #1 most-watched show; Ardelia Austin, senior manager of Entertainment & Live Events; and Ivy Scott, Atlanta United’s Integrated marketing operations director.
Tickets can still be purchased by using this link.
RELATED CONTENT: Winston-Salem State University’s Red Sea of Sound Marching Band Will Perform At LA Clippers-San Antonio Spurs Game
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Gus Casely-Hayford, the director of the new V&A East Museum in east London © Lewis Vorn
The V&A brand is expanding with the launch of the long-awaited V&A East Museum in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, this month. Its director, Gus Casely-Hayford, is promising “a fresh look at contemporary culture through the V&A’s global collections”.
The new five-storey building, due to open on 18 April, joins the V&A East Storehouse, which opened in 2025, and will sit alongside venues for the BBC, Sadler’s Wells East and London College of Fashion, which together make up the East Bank cultural quarter. The V&A East Storehouse, which opened last May, has already drawn more than 500,000 visitors. The original Victoria and Albert Museum was founded on Pall Mall in 1852 and moved to South Kensington in 1857.
Casely-Hayford declines to give a visitor figure target for the first year of V&A East but points out that research conducted in the first six months of opening showed that more than 31% of visitors to V&A East Storehouse were between the ages of 16 and 35, more than 45% of UK audiences were from minority ethnic groups, and 55% of visitors were Londoners.
British artist Thomas J. Price’s 18ft bronze sculpture A Place Beyond (2026) greets visitors on the forecourt of the museum David Parry/PA Media Assignments
The new museum, Casely-Hayford says, is for “everyone”; he describes how his team has focused on creating open and public spaces and programming that meets the needs of younger audiences, those living, working and studying in the four Olympic boroughs (Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest), as well as people who “may not have felt comfortable in museums previously”.
“At V&A East, and across our two sites, we’re deeply embedded in our local communities,” Casely-Hayford says. “We’re locally rooted with a global outlook. We’ve created our sites with and for our audiences and have spoken to and consulted with over 30,000 local people and creatives through education and career initiatives, preopening events and activities, working in partnership with organisations and collectives across east London.”
Every aspect of the new institution has been developed in collaboration with the V&A East Youth Collective, a paid consultation programme for young people living, working and studying across east London. “Our V&A East Youth Collective community has helped shape everything from the design and content of V&A East Museum’s Why We Make galleries and our shops, to ticket prices, the V&A East brand, creative commissions, staff uniforms, co-productions with local artists and creatives, and much more,” Casely-Hayford says.
Entrance to V&A East Museum’s Why We Make galleries © David Parry for the V&A
The Why We Make galleries feature more than 500 objects from across the V&A’s collection, highlighting themes from representation to wellbeing, justice and environmental action. “The gallery themes are topical and based on what our audiences told us that mattered to them: identity, representation, health and wellbeing, and how we all have a responsibility to create a more sustainable future for everyone,” Casely-Hayford says.
The section “Breaking Boundaries”, for instance, examines how creatives have tried to push disciplines in new directions, helping break down barriers of gender, race and class; it features radical ballet costumes by the performance artist Leigh Bowery and his creative collaborator, corset maker Mr Pearl.
V&A East will also launch a rolling six-month commissions programme called New Work, debuting pieces by artists including Tania Bruguera of Cuba, who has made a stained-glass installation, Carrie Mae Weems and the Turner Prize-nominated artist Rene Matić. A major sculptural installation by Thomas J. Price depicting a Black woman will greet visitors at the entrance (the next series of creative commissions will be revealed later this year).
Still from Carrie Mae Weems’ V&A East New Work commission, The Long Goodbye. On view in the Film Room inside V&A East Museum’s Why We Make galleries © David Parry for the V&A
The museum opens with the exhibition The Music Is Black: A British Story (18 April-3 January 2027), charting the influence of Black British music from 1900 to the present day through music trailblazers such as Winifred Atwell, Janet Kay, Stormzy and Little Simz. The show also highlights the impact of the Windrush generation and explores Caribbean influences on the UK music scene.
In addition, the exhibition includes works from important Black British artists such as Sonia Boyce, Tam Joseph, Vicky Lindo, and Bill Brookes and Frank Bowling. Sokari Douglas Camp’s recent sculpture Red Coats and Flags (2023) traces connections between African musical masquerades, Caribbean carnival traditions and carnival celebrations around Britain.
“This is our soundtrack, the music that over the course of the last century helped to shape our nation,” Casely-Hayford says. “You could say this is a story of diversity but that would be to not give it its due … this is our shared story, eloquently, exquisitely crafted into poetry. I hope it is an example of how culture has and can draw us together, build links across time and geography that are meaningful and lasting.”
Inside V&A East Museum’s inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story © David Parry for the V&A
In 2020, Casely-Hayford wrote an influential opinion piece in The Art Newspaper about tackling inequality in the arts following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, saying: “I still find it hard to fathom that we have never formally and robustly confronted our colonial past.” His aim, he added, was to “build a sector that embraces and benefits from the glorious diversity of our nation”.
He reinforced this message last year, telling The Guardian that V&A East will be “unapologetically diverse”. Whether museums today can satisfy all audiences is debatable, but Casely-Hayford stresses that “we are proud to celebrate the cultural and demographic complexity of the people we serve. It is what we were created to do.”
When asked about the most challenging ethical issue museums face today, Casely-Hayford says: “Being funded through public subsidy in a time when resource is tighter than in recent memory, we must demonstrate how we offer distinct and important value to our audiences.” V&A East is free to access with charges for temporary exhibitions.
The museum is launching as debate intensifies around whether national UK museums, which offer free entry to all, should start charging visitors, especially foreign tourists. “We believe it’s fundamental that access to the UK’s national collections and institutions remains free; we don’t want to put up barriers or make accessing museums prohibitive,” he says.
Outside V&A East Museum’s Why We Make galleries © Hufton+Crow
Asked about funding in general, Casely-Hayford points out that the V&A overall is partially funded by the UK government alongside income generated from across its venues. “To supplement income that will be generated by the V&A and other sources of funding, an uplift to our ongoing grant in aid was agreed in 2020-21 as part of the business case approved by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport,” he says. This extra sum of £9m sustains the programme of exhibitions, events and education work across all the V&A museums, as well as maintaining collections and permanent galleries and displays.
According to figures provided by the Greater London Authority (GLA), London’s governing body, the total cost of V&A East is £115m. The GLA has meanwhile committed to cover operational funding gaps of up to £12m over 15 years for both the V&A Storehouse East and the new museum, if required.
V&A East Museum does not have a separate collection—displays are drawn from the V&A’s overarching collection—nor its own acquisition budget, adds Casely-Hayford. “Acquiring items for display at our two V&A East sites, and that speak to V&A East’s vision and mission, is a strategic collecting priority for the V&A.” New acquisitions include Yinka Ilori’s Captain Hook armchair from the series If Chairs Could Talk (2015).
• The Music is Black: A British Story, V&A East, 18 April-3 January 2027
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The British cultural historian will take up his role at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new branch in the spring
The institution will join venues for the BBC, Sadler’s Wells East and London College of Fashion in the new East Bank cultural quarter

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