Bellas, I am so tardy to the Melanie Fiona party!

I’ve been watching this beautiful young singer on the rise, but I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention. All of a sudden, my mind connected the dots. The chick I’d seen on VH1 Soul with Questlove, was the vocalist behind that version of Sam Cooke’s Cupid that I heard at Starbucks! And the same artist I’d been reading about on Soulbounce forever! OH! This is Melanie Fiona!

It took me a while, but now I’m head over heels for her sound and her style.

Melanie Fiona hails from Toronto, but — according to Wikipedia – has parents from Guyana. Which perhaps explains the Caribbean influence that comes through loud and clear in her Subway Series. In this awesome clip, she performs her songs “Sad Songs,” “Please Don’t Go” and “Bang Bang” on the streets and in the subway stations of New York City.

So. Amazing. The sounds of steelpan gave me chills – such an amazing and underused instrument.

Melanie’s album, The Bridge, is available for sale right now. Show a real singer some love, if you’re feeling this!

How cool is it to have a first lady who seems so accessible and fun to hang out with? Michelle makes me want to step my hula hoop game up!

Love her!

(first seen via The Feminista Files — check our my girl Erica’s awesome blog!)

Originally posted at BVHairTalk.com.

Can I be real with y’all? I’m kinda sick of Chris Rock’s Good Hair. Raise your hand if you’re with me.

The endless media tour. The premature outrage. The trailer, which showed all of the docucomedy’s best clips. To paraphrase Chris Rock himself, I’m tired, tired, tired of Good Hair.

So I’m gonna conclude writing about it once and for all with this review.

I hate going into a movie when I already know too much about it. And I already knew WAY too much about Good Hair. And to be honest, I didn’t quite understand the controversy and call for boycotting the film. As I said in the Black Voices podcast: it’s important to remember who’s making this movie. It’s Chris Rock, the man who brought us Pootie Tang! The comedian who continually courts controversy. What did we REALLY expect from Chris Rock besides comedy? Social commentary? A historical perspective? Sorry — wrong filmmaker. Wrong film. For more informed views on black hair, see some of the documentaries I mentioned in my previous post, Before Chris Rock’s Good Hair.

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This is the beginning of something new: The Afrobella Review! I know I’ve got a whole category devoted to product reviews, but I’m expanding my repertoire to include films, music, and books that move me. And the whole thing was inspired by this movie.

Precious. You need to go see it.

I tend to avoid sad movies, which is a shame and something I’m trying to change. There’s so much to be learned from movies that bring you down, and often so little to be gained from movies that are pure escapism. I’d always justify it by saying: I watch the news, and that’s sad enough.

But Precious is the kind of film that needs our support. It’s a film that reveals a slice of American life that we too often close our eyes to. Because we don’t want to see.

All of the rumors about Precious are true. It’s unbearably sad. At times it’s hard to watch. If you’ve read Push by Sapphire — upon which this film is based — you already know that.

What you may not know about the film — Mariah Carey is GREAT in it. Lenny Kravitz is unexpected and WONDERFUL. Paula Patton is awesome. And Mo’Nique? Deserves an Academy Award. Seriously. She. Is. That. Good. Scarier than any horror movie villain. Uncomfortably intense. She is broken and damaged and frightening and so, so real.

I don’t know where Mo’Nique found the inspiration for her character. You can see the passion and fury in her eyes, this came from the depths of her soul. And the film’s star — Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe — I honestly hope she doesn’t get typecast by this role. Because she is so incredibly convincing as Precious, that I can understand why she’s giving interviews explaining — “I’m actually not her.”

Gabby Sidibe isn’t Precious, but for sure there are Precious girls out there. I see them every day, here in Chicago. They’re the girls standing in the background while the news anchor reports about yet another murder in their neighborhood. They’re the girls fidgeting anxiously while sitting on the el, or the bus. They’re the girls who are typically shouldering the burdens of poverty in the shadows, while the boys get put in the uncomfortable spotlight. They are the girls who are raising the next generation.
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Thanks to all of you who have sent me that Newsweek article by Allison Samuels about Zahara Jolie Pitt and “the politics of uncombed hair.”

I know y’all already know how I feel, but I wrote about it for BVHairTalk in a post titled I’m on Team Zahara! Just so everyone else knows.

Baby Z looks fine to me!

Is it weird to quote yourself? Oh well:

“Sometimes when I read posts on gossip blogs about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s children, I’m left feeling lost and alone in the universe.

Small wonder I got a dose of kiddie hair relaxer at age 7 — I didn’t exactly make myself easy to handle.
When I see Baby Z — and the same goes for her sister, Shiloh — I see two happy, loved, very independent-minded little girls, and an indulgent mother who allows them to express their own style.”

“I disagree with the conclusion of that Newsweek article: “…there will come a day when this beautiful little African girl will understand what it means to be an African American woman in this society and realize unlike her younger sister, hers is not a wash-and-go world.” That sentence revealed more about the author than she may have realized. For some African American women, the expectation isn’t that hair needs to be tamed into submission. For many natural hair bloggers and our readers, this world is whatever we want it to be. I’m comfortable and happy with a wash-and-go style, and I dare you to look at a natural-hair Web site like Le Coil and tell me those women look unkempt or “a hot mess.”

So there you have it, and for further reading allow me to recommend Roslyn Holcomb’s take, and Gina of What About Our Daughters, who titles her post Leave Zahara Alone!

Cosign THAT.

I’d love to hear your opinions on this, seeing as any photograph of this four year old child will invariably be torn to shreds by writers, bloggers, and commenters who apparently are all experts on black hair styling. Is Baby Z under a different kind of scrutiny than other celebrity kids her age? What are your feelings on that? And if you have advice for Brad and Angelina about her hair, what would it be?

By now you may have heard the news — Playboy is shaking things up and featuring Marge Simpson on the magazine’s cover, to commemorate 20 years of The Simpsons. But did you know that the provocative cover was meant to be an homage?

Yes indeed — Marge Simpson’s pose pays tribute to the October 1971 issue featuring Darine Stern, the first black woman to pose on a Playboy cover.

From CNN: “We decided to re-create [it] because it’s one of our most iconic covers,” [Playboy editorial director Jimmy] Jellinek said, “and because Marge’s sexy blue beehive immediately made us think of Darine Stern, whose beautiful, voluminous hairdo was front and center on the October 1971 cover.”

Well, I’ve always been a Simpsons fan — but it’s interesting to know that this cover is meant to be another historic first. The first black Playmate, paid tribute to with the first animated Playmate. What will they think of next?