He was so handsome, so incredibly talented. He had so much potential left, and a career that could have continued on for so much longer — if only. Who did it bigger or better than Marvin Gaye? I have a hard time thinking of any contemporary artist that’s even in his league.

Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. grew up in a very religious home. From all accounts, his father preached in a strict sect of the Seventh-day Adventist Church called the House of God, which blended Orthodox Judaism with Pentecostalism. Young Marvin sang in his father’s church, and played instruments in the choir.

After a brief stint in the Air Force (he was discharged for not following orders), he started a career at the fledgling Motown Records, changing his name to separate his identity from his father’s, and also in homage to Sam Cooke, who had also added an “e” on to his last name.

When Marvin Gaye first emerged, he sang in doo wop groups that had minor hits. He played drums on early Motown hits like Please Mr. Postman and Fingertips part 2, Stevie Wonder’s first hit. He co-wrote Dancing in the Street. He practically pleaded with record company execs to become a singer in his own right. Appropriately enough, his first solo hit was Stubborn Kind of Fellow.

His early successes were lovey-dovey dance songs performed to screaming fans, like Hitch Hike. In those days, the Motown singers were like a family. So many of Marvin Gaye’s earliest tracks feature backing vocals by the likes of The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, and The Temptations. Marvin’s good looks and smooth singing style made him a desirable duet partner, and he sang with many of Motown’s best. His collaborations with the stunningly beautiful Tammi Terrell stand among his most lasting hits. The Onion Song, Your Precious Love, and of course, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough — click there for an early music video with the two in their mid-Sixties heyday. Tammi was just amazing, beautiful and talented. In 1967, Marvin Gaye was performing on stage with her when she collapsed in his arms. She was later diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her health deteriorated as Motown released more of their hits, Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing, and You’re All I Need To Get By. She succumbed to the illness in 1970. They say Marvin Gaye never recovered from her death.

That was the beginning of a downward spiral that led to a great deal of introspection for Marvin Gaye.

His marriage to Anna Gordy was crumbling, and he felt frustrated by his musical expectations, singing silly love songs in the midst of personal turmoil and worldwide political upheaval. He recorded What’s Going On on June 1, 1970. Berry Gordy called it uncommercial, and refused to release it. Marvin Gaye refused to record any more songs until he did. And we all know how that ended.

What’s Going On became one of Marvin Gaye’s career highlights, and put him in an entirely new direction. He might not be considered the legend that he is, were it not for What’s Going On. It’s a song that is truly timeless and tragic. “Father, father; We don’t need to escalate. You see, war is not the answer, For only love can conquer hate.” As long as there is strife in the world, that song will never die. Same goes for Mercy Mercy Me, and Inner City Blues. Those songs will live forever, and they’re just as fresh today as they were thirty-odd years ago.

For the remainder of the decade, Marvin continued on as a hit making machine. Trouble Man, Let’s Get It On, his duets with Diana Ross — Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart). I Want You. Got To Give It Up In the Seventies, Marvin Gaye seemed unstoppable, and the variety of his lyrical and musical range inspired legions of artists to follow. But personal demons threatened to devour him whole. Divorce, drug addiction, depression, record label conflicts, and the taxman led Marvin to flee. By 1979 he was living in a bread van in Hawaii.

During his self-imposed exile, he moved to Europe and recorded In Our Lifetime?, an album that proved to be his last with Motown. From his new residence in Belgium, he signed with Columbia Records to release his final album, 1982’s Midnight Love, which spawned the hit “Sexual Healing.” Marvin Gaye’s last two big public performances were the National Anthem at the 1983 NBA All Star Game, and What’s Going On at the Motown 25 celebration in 1983. After that, he moved back into his parents house to get his head straight.

If you’ve seen the E True Hollywood Story, you already know. Marvin Gaye’s last year was filled with threats of suicide, premonitions of his death, and finally – one day before his forty-fifth birthday, he was murdered by his father, the Minister. They say it was an argument over misplaced business documents. His father was then discovered to have a brain tumor, and because of that, his charges were reduced from first-degree murder to five years probation. He lived out the rest of his years in a home, and died of pneumonia in 1998.

Marvin Gaye’s life was certainly cinematic, but there have been hurdles en route to making a Marvin Gaye biopic — many of which have to do with music licensing. Law & Order’s Jesse L. Martin will play a late-period Marvin in Lauren Goodman’s biopic, Sexual Healing, which reveals the last three tortured years of his life and uses the music from Marvin’s Columbia Records period.

This was a tough Lost One to write, because the circumstances of Marvin Gaye’s death make me almost angry. It makes me feel robbed. That such a great talent was snuffed out… over what? When I contemplate the overall picture of his life, such a feeling of loss washes over me. If only he’d kicked his habit and found true love, after singing so many songs about it. If only he didn’t go back to his parents’ house. If only the weight of his foreshadowing didn’t turn out to be so crushingly true. If only.

This video clip is an excerpt from Real Thing: In Performance 1964-1981.

Who are the successors to Marvin Gaye’s throne? Many lay claims, but few fit the bill. One artist who seems to be following his trajectory — both in the good and bad ways — is D’Angelo. He’s an incredibly talented gentleman who seems to be struggling to find his way, and I’m waiting with baited breath for his next album. (Really Love is really hot. What a great, soothing, summertime barbecue jam).

It’s been more than twenty years, and we still miss you, Marvin.

I’ve been on a hardcore Aretha Franklin kick all week long. I think it actually started on Sunday morning, when I caught the tail end of Ain’t No Way being piped through the speakers at my grocery store. I instantly forgot what kind of bread I needed and got caught up in the melody. Ain’t No Way is quite possibly my favorite Aretha song. No wait, it’s I Never Loved a Man. Or maybe it’s Dr. Feelgood. There’s so many songs to choose from!

I love older clips of Aretha Franklin because in her earlier days, she showcased her powerful voice to great advantage without getting into the kind of melisma overkill that I get so annoyed by these days. (Click here for an example of that. Now compare that rendition to this one, and you’ll see what I mean). I also love old Aretha Franklin clips, because her look has evolved so much. Now she rocks the kind of mane n’ tail weaves that every other R&B singer does. Back in the day, Aretha was working the TWA with style. And so did all her backup singers! This video of her singing Natural Woman really made me feel it. Had to share.

That clip will break your heart a little — she slides seamlessly into I Say A Little Prayer before it ends abruptly. But if you’re still yearning for more Aretha, you need to treat yourself to a copy of Live at Fillmore West. It’s hard to find a live album that  is that perfect, that captures that kind of spirit. All you need to do is listen to the audio of Spirit in the Dark with Ray Charles to know that album’s a classic. What’s your favorite Aretha Franklin song, bellas and fellas?

I got a comment on my site recently that made me feel like I was in a glass case of emotions.

“I really enjoy your blog but lately it seems like it has turned into a product blog. It seems like every week some company sends you some product in exchange for you ooohing and awwwing over it and recommending that your readers try it. Don’t get me wrong, I love hair stuff but it just seems like the blog has lost some of that “organic” straight from the hip type thing. It seems that everything you review is your new “best thing ever/holy grail!” product. So much hair stuff is marketed to black women to “fix” our tresses, that sometimes it gets to be too much. Of course, I’m sure most people here will disagree with me but I wanted to put it out there.”

Here are the four stages I went through upon reading that comment.

1. Shock and anger — “I think the last thing Afrobella is, is just another product blog! I work hard to make this site different from all the other beauty sites. I don’t agree with her at all!”

2. Doubt and insecurity — “OMG, what if she’s right? I have done a lot of positive reviews recently, and I’ve tried to be less mean and make my criticism a lot more constructive in recent months. And I do get sent products for review more often than I did when I first started. Good Lord, have I sold out already? My site isn’t even a year old yet, how can that be? Doesn’t selling out mean that you’re making money?”

3. A sense of urgency – “Well, I better do a negative beauty product review right away to prove her wrong! Quick, to the drawer of abandoned products!”

4. Acceptance and dismissal — “Y’know, not everyone’s going to love me 100% of the time, so whatevs. My real life has been eating away my Afrobella time these days, so I’ll just get around to this when I get around to it.”

It’s been over a week now, and just like I’ve come to terms with the conclusion of the Sopranos (click here if you feel me), I am finally ready to deal with this comment like a grown up afrobella should.

You are somewhat correct, my fellow bella, and thanks for speaking your piece. When I started Afrobella back in August of last year, I was just an assistant at my job. I had a backlog of crappy hair products I was itching to vent about, and an idealistic vision of a blogazine that was personal but about beauty products, somehow. But since I started Afrobella, I got a promotion. Now my job keeps me insanely busy. My morning routine — wake up, stretch, dream up a topic to write before I go to work — has changed completely. Now I spend my weekend doing most of my Afrobella stuff, and I pretty much plan out a week’s worth of posts in advance. Because if I don’t, I’ll wind up not writing something every day because I barely have the time right now. So the “straight-from-the-hip” feeling may have vanished because of my schedule, and sadly, there’s nothing I can do about that right now.

Also, my stock has risen in the beauty product-producing community. Whereas before I couldn’t convince someone to mail me a free sample of anything, somewhere along the line, companies started getting my address and sending me stuff. As a product junkie, of course I love that! My response has been to rave about the stuff I really really love, while also mentioning that not all of the products worked well for me. (a perfect example is my recent Elasta QP giveaway. Love the Mango Butter and the DPR-11, but if I let that Intense Conditioner touch my tresses, I come out of the shower looking like Buckwheat). Or I’ll do a very constructive negative review, as I did for Carol’s Daughter Khoret Amen, which made my hair smell funky like an old batch of collard greens. But I need to find a happy balance.

I think part of Afrobella’s unique charm is that I try to write the kinds of very honest product reviews that you don’t usually see in magazines or on other beauty blogs. But somewhere along my path, I’ve struggled to balance music and culture with beauty stuff, which is the genesis and the central focus of this site. I apologize for that. It’s time to stop being polite, and start getting real. I haven’t done a Never Again post in a long time, so I’ll rectify that now. Here are some hair moisturizing products I’ve avoided reviewing because of the high TBS factor.

Ellin LaVar Textures NourishOil Intense Dry Oil Care for Hair and Scalp. I was so psyched when the Ellin Lavar display first hit store shelves at my local CVS. An entire line of high end drugstore products for naturally curly, wavy, or kinky hair? Sign me up! The ingredients even looked alright — Brazil Nut Oil, Pequi Oil, Capuacu Seed Butter, and Maracuja Passion Fruit stand among the exotic additions. The recommended use of this product also attracted me — it’s advised to use it as a nighttime leave-in. From the Ellin LaVar website, “Simply apply to any problem areas of your hair or scalp and cover in plastic wrap while you rest. When you wake, apply OptiMoist before you wet your hair, rinse and follow up with ReconstructMasque and SatinSoft. Your hair has never been softer or shinier!” Upon multiple attempts with this stuff, all it’s made softer and shinier is my pillowcase. Yes, I put on plastic wrap over my head as I slept (and of course the husband just loves that), but inevitably, sleepy tossing and turning + plastic cap + big naturally curly hair = sometime in the night, my plastic cap will slip off. And then I’m left with a pillowcase that looks like a reject from the Soul Glo commercial. Or like Billy Ocean slept over.

Saturated bed linens aside, I had other issues with this product. First of all, the way this bottle is designed leaves A LOT to be desired. I guess the intention was to give the consumer options — there’s actually a caution on the back of the bottle, “product dispenses quickly.” You can either remove the cap completely, which reveals a weird pointy tip with three available holes for this stuff to pour through. Or you can poke a hole in the cap. After spilling oil all down my neck, I opted to poke a hole in the cap. Besides all of THAT, it didn’t do what it promised. The oil just sat on the surface of my hair, but didn’t penetrate the hair itself, so my tresses were shiny, stringy, and overslick but not truly moisturized. I’m thinking this probably works great for straightened hairstyles, moreso than natural curls. At $7.99 it won’t break the bank, but I was disappointed and won’t repurchase.

Maryam’s Soap Nook Japanese Camelia Botanical Hair Oil. I notice on the website this is being called “body and bath oil,” but my bottle is labeled “hair oil.” I haven’t tried it for body oil yet, and here’s why. I just can’t get with the smell. It’s funky and a bit musty and sweet, like an old lady’s bedroom. It just lingers on my hair after I use it, and I actually had to wash it out of my hair the last time I gave this a try. It’s not like, the funk of 40,000 years, but scent is very important to me when it comes to hair products — I don’t need an unpleasant cloud following me around all day. I’ve loved many of Maryam’s other products — her soaps, body washes, and whipped shea butter are amazing. But for this stuff as hair oil, I gotta say the nay-no.

On the opposite end of the hair oil spectrum, there’s Oscar Blandi olio de jasmine. The smell is heaven sent. It’s just incredible. I love jasmine ANYTHING, so I was really expecting this to be the most incredible hair oil ever. (did I mention that it costs $35 for a teeny 1.69 oz bottle?) I came to this product with high expectations, and I was left with a lasting disappointment. This stuff is clearly meant for bellas with straightened hair, or naturally straight hair. It felt gloppy, and did nothing for my hair beyond making it smell amazing. It actually made my hair feel coarser, if that’s even possible. Didn’t like it, can’t recommend it. But if you’ve got chemically treated locks that are straight and need some glamorous shine, this could work wonders for you.

Want a bonus review? Here’s a quickie. Harlem is filled with street entrepreneurs, each hawking a remarkably similar display of products. Incense, shea butter, and a variety of natural soaps are readily available along 125th St. When I was there in March, I absolutely had to stock up on these soaps. I got the Nubian Heritage Coconut & Papaya soap with Vanilla Beans. I opened it right there on the street, and it smelled amazing! I noticed the soap was studded with what looked like natural coconut extracts, but that didn’t bother me. I enjoy a mildly exfoliating soap, and the price was right. But let me warn you — that coconut soap probably shouldn’t be used as an all-over body soap. I have never seen such big chunks of stuff in a beauty product before. I’m talking big pointy pieces of coconut bark that just scratched me, instead of gently exfoliating my skin. So if you’d rather avoid splinters in your most tender areas, avoid this soap like the plague, or use as a hand soap only. The Ivorian Cocoa Butter soap with Milk Chocolate and Hazelnuts also smells amazing, and will be less likely to hurt you in the shower.

Have you tried a product that just left you cold, bellas? Tell me all about it! And if you want to offer criticism, or give me advice on keeping it real, e mail me at bella@afrobella.com.

I’m a bit of a news junkie. I think it all started immediately after 9/11 — being in America when that happened really impacted upon me, and gave me this burning desire to know what was going on in the world at any given moment. To this day, I stay glued to the 24 hour news networks. I wake up to Robin & Company on Headline News, at night I like to watch Brian Williams, and — allow me to completely out myself politically — I watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann just about every night.

Mind you, I’m not always on the same page with Olbermann’s views, but I find the show immensely entertaining. I love how he pronounces Bill O’Reilly’s name. I love how regular correspondent Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly talks — when he gets excited, he’s like a southern Don Knotts. I love Oddball and Worst Person in the World, and I even love when Keith Olbermann is out of the office. Because then the brilliant and lovely Alison Stewart gets to sit in.

Back in MTV’s Nineties heyday, Alison Stewart was part of the MTV News crew. I miss that aspect of MTV the most — perhaps the ratings on The Week in Rock would never have been able to compete with those of My Super Sweet Sixteen or the endless repeats of Pimp My Ride that seem to be on every weekend nowadays, but I really miss having a weekly music news show on the channel. It gave the program an edutainment edge that is almost completely lacking nowdays, save for the work of Sway, Suchin Pak, and Gideon Yago (and yes,Kurt Loder still works at MTV — click here for an amazing clip from his earliest days in 1988, when he was still fresh-faced and bright eyed. I’ll always love the Loder).

Alison Stewart came to MTV in 1991, and I remember her being very involved in MTV’s 1992 Choose or Lose campaign. Even though I was a young teen living in Trinidad at the time, that election seemed so compelling and interesting. Clinton versus old man Bush versus Ross Perot was a fascinating political fight to the finish, and I find it interesting that all these years later, the same two names still are vying to run the country. Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush… Political dynasties die hard, I suppose.

I distinctly remember Alison Stewart being a part of that exciting time in young people’s journalism, because she inspired me to blaze my own trail. Seeing a young, bright, go-getting reporter type who had such a fresh look – a mane of fabulous, free-form curls, and a complexion that stood apart from the then-typical reporters on American television, struck a chord with this little Caribbean girl.

She won a Peabody for her efforts at MTV, and left the network in 1996. Post-MTV, I lost track of Alison Stewart. According to her Wikipedia page, she went to CBS and jumped around from program to program, reporting for 48 Hours and my beloved CBS News Sunday Morning. (that show makes you feel like you’re sitting in a rocking chair on a porch and watching the sunrise. It’s slow, steady stories about the most random and interesting topics. I love it, and if that makes me a dork, so be it).

Following a brief stint with ABC, Alison made the move to MSNBC and it seems that she’s found her feet. She hosts The Most, a news show that I’ve never seen because it airs at noon daily, when this chica’s stuck in an office cube. But on occasional evenings when Olbermann’s out, Alison gets to show her claws and speak out against the issues the Countdown staff are shedding light on. If you don’t like your news opinionated, if you angrily use terms like “the liberal media,” or if you are a Bill O’ Reilly fan, you’ll probably hate me for posting the following clip. But I’m gonna, and here’s hoping our possible political differences won’t drive you away from Afrobella forever.

Alison Stewart is about to make yet another career change — she’s in the process of creating a 24-hour multimedia news service on NPR, and she will be co-hosting a morning drive show. Hooray! The Bryant Park Project sounds fresh, interesting, and engaging, just like Alison Stewart is. I’m looking forward to tuning in, and finding a news source that speaks directly to listeners like me.

Congratulations, Alison! You’re Afrobella of the Week!

I spotted this cartoon over at Racialicious. It was drawn by Keith Knight of the K Chronicles, and I immediately identified with it, especially with the third panel, and the one immediately under it. Except where I come from, it’s not just about not being into hip hop. It’s also about not being into soca, reggae, and dancehall. And if you’re not totally immersed in those genres, you might be considered an “oreo.” Yes, that word has been used to describe me in years past. And I love the cookies, but I hate the insinuation.

Listening to alternative forms of music besides the genre you were bred to love, doesn’t make you any less or more anything. (neither does speaking properly, wearing funky outfits, or being studious).

I’ve always had diverse musical influences. I grew up listening to classic country because of my dad — Willie Nelson was on regular rotation in my house when I was a three year old. When I was little, like nine or ten, I’d sneak downstairs after bedtime to watch Headbanger’s Ball on MTV. (This is pre-cable. For my Trinis, this was back in the days when TTT channel 13 and 14 would switch over to MTV late at night. Anyone remember that?)

In high school, besides listening to the expected calypso, reggae, and hip hop; I was also a total grungehead (complete with a Soundgarden calendar in my bedroom), who wept when Kurt Cobain died, and was totally obsessed with jazz age crooners, Sixties psychedelia, Stevie Wonder, Simon and Garfunkel and The Beatles. Musically speaking, I did not fit in with most of my peer group, and I’m quite sure lots of my classmates thought I was pretty weird. But you know what? I’m old enough now to realize that being “weird” has a way of working itself out. Being weird is cool, and it’s ok, and maybe, just maybe, the people who make you feel weird about being weird are in fact the weirdos. So think about that for a second and let your freak flag fly, high school weirdos! One day, you will rule the world.

The diversity of my musical taste continues to pay off in mysterious ways. In fact, one day you might just see your girl appear one one of those musical trivia shows like The World Series of Pop Culture. I think I’m that good. Just last week, I helped my brother answer a random Eighties trivia question when he called me up, all tipsy at his favorite bar. (The question was, who sang “Sunglasses at Night?” Click here for the right answer).

Once, in college a perpetual super senior kind-of acquainta-friend who had a crush on a major rap star with a taste for eccentric fashion, was going to meet up with him at a hotel on South Beach. She wanted to impress him, so she paid me money to make her the perfect mix CD to impress said rapper with. Through helping her pick songs, I realized that a.) she had never heard of Simon and Garfunkle. Or Paul Simon, even. And FYI, Paul Simon is amazing. Click here for a beautiful live version of Under African Skies with Miriam Makeba. And b.) She thought Billie Holiday was a man. This was no green teenager, homegirl was at least twenty five at the time. And she’d never heard a Billie Holiday song in her life. I played Good Morning Heartache for her, and she recognized it from Old Dirty Bastard’s cover version. (which for the record, I also enjoy). But still, damn. It’s BILLIE. You gotta feel her.

Making the CD with her made me sad. There are some people who just don’t really love music, they don’t feel it inside of them when they hear a special song. They’d rather watch TV than listen to a CD, they’d prefer to go to a movie rather than a concert. I never could understand that. I’ve always been totally musically obsessed, I need it like oxygen, and I’m always listening out for something fresh and new and alive, that makes me want to rattle my speakers. 7 times out of 10 it might be, but if it isn’t a reggae, hip hop, or R&B song, that’s cool too. I think having an open and widespread musical knowledge goes hand in hand with generally being a well-rounded person. So if you don’t listen to much besides the quote-unquote urban genres, explore our shared musical history and listen to some jazz, or feel the blues. Or try something new with me today. We’re gonna go a little out there, but trust me, it’ll be cool.

One of my new favorite speaker-rattlers is by the White Stripes. I think Jack White is a genius. (and yes, I’m aware that he’s dissed hip hop. For the record, I don’t think that makes him a racist. He’s a big fan of Son House, and I don’t think anyone who loves the blues as much as he does could then be racist. Just my opinion.)

I love the White Stripes’ style, the simple urgency of their sound, their inspired covers of ancient blues and country classics, and the fact that they basically wear the colors of the Trinidadian flag as their uniform. I’ve been a fan since White Blood Cells and I’m seriously looking forward to copping their new album. If the title track’s any indication, it’s going to be awesome.

They take a strong political stance in “Icky Thump”, and I can’t help but applaud it. “White Americans, what? Nothing better to do? Why don’t you kick yourself out, you’re an immigrant too! Who’s using who? What should we do? Well you can’t be a pimp and a prostitute, too.” Oooh, Lou Dobbs ain’t gonna like that one bit. But I love when a band expresses a view on issues. I’m feeling the thump. Hope you do too.

This goes out to that one black kid, or that one outsider who doesn’t feel like they fit into what they’re expected to fit into. Be who you are and don’t let external pressure change you. There are more of us than you may think!

Happy Friday, everyone!

My most sincere apologies on the lateness of this story. It’s been almost a month since Stepha Henry went missing. But still, I gotta speak my piece, and I hope that by continuing to discuss these issues, we continue to raise her profile and keep hope for her recovery alive.

How many times do we have to hear the same kind of tragic stories bubbling through the grapevine before there is change? Stepha Henry is just the latest black woman to go missing, and the disparity in the news coverage her story has recieved compared to other missing women is both tragic and troubling.

It seems that you have to possess specific physical characteristics to get mainstream media attention in general, much moreso if you’re a missing person. First of all, you have to be female. Missing men hardly ever get news coverage. Under 30, for sure. Pretty, definitely. White, certainly. Preferably blonde, and if you’re pregnant, jackpot. Wikipedia calls it the missing white woman syndrome. Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin refers to it as the Missing Pretty Girl Syndrome, a term I disagree with because the underlying insinuation is that black women aren’t considered pretty.

The syndrome was lampooned in The Daily Show’s America the Book as an equation:
Minutes of Coverage = Family Income * (Abductee Cuteness/Skin Color)2 + Length of Abduction * Media Savvy of Grieving Parents.

I don’t say this in any means to take away from the current mainstream media missing white woman — Jessie Davis, and I sincerely hope that she too is found safely. But even a simple Google News search reveals an undeniable difference in how much attention her story is getting in relation to Stepha Henry’s.

I feel especially close to Stepha’s story, because we have a lot in common. She’s a bright, smart, ambitious Trini, who came to Miami to attend a reggae concert (I can only imagine it was the Best of the Best concert that I was dying to attend, if only to see Barrington Levy again). The weekend that Stepha spent with her auntie in Miami Gardens, I was spending in Doral with my visiting relatives. After the concert she went up to Broward county, to either Sunrise or Fort Lauderdale — America’s Most Wanted says to Club Peppers, other sources call it Peppers Cafe. From that point, the story gets murky.

We know that Stepha left the club with a man in a four-door Acura Integra that police have been searching for. According to this Nancy Grace transcript, Miami-Dade Police Department detective Nelda Fonticella says that she was in the vehicle at some point in the evening, but the driver is not a person of interest at this time. Establishing a timeline has been difficult, and because of the volume of out-of-town visitors in the city that weekend, it’s even harder to get answers or clues in the search for Stepha.

And where other missing women have gotten heavy news coverage — Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, and Natalee Holloway come most immediately to mind — there are any number of missing women of color who never get the attention that their stories deserve.

Tamika Huston’s remains were found more than a year after she was first reported missing. Latoyia Figueroa’s story parallelled Laci Peterson’s, but never got the press attention. Her body was eventually discovered and the father of her unborn child was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder. Leslie Marva Adams, missing since October 2005. Thirteen year old Reyna Alvarado-Carerra, who was abducted days before Natalee Holloway, never found.

I pray that Stepha Henry’s fate isn’t anything like the other missing women of color I’ve mentioned. I hope she is found soon, and that she is alive and okay. It’s been almost a month since her parents last heard from her, EURweb reports that her parents are here in Miami and her mother plans to stay until she knows what happened to her.

Read more about Stepha at Project Jason. Anyone with information should call Miami-Dade Det. Brigette Robert at 305-418-7200 or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.