From Dailybeast.com:

Jean-Michel Basquiat was young when he reached the apex of his fame and then overdosed on heroin in his downtown New York City studio. But it’s easy to forget just how young: he was an international sensation by the age of 23; by 25 he was a millionaire; by 26 he had a nasty heroin habit and was making what critics were calling “late work,” even then; by 27 he was dead.

Art historians, patrons, and survivors of that 1980s downtown scene have attributed the artist’s rise and cataclysmic fall to a wide variety of factors—from a botched relationship with his father to the fact that Basquiat, despite all his fame, struggled to find lasting acceptance in the high art world (something that has, of course, changed significantly since his death in 1988). Basquiat’s story was told to some extent in Julian Schnabel’s 1996 dramatization, Basquiat, but a new documentary by Tamra Davis (director of such films as Half Baked, Billy Madison, and Britney Spears vehicle Crossroads, and wife of Beastie Boys’ Mike D.) seeks to fill in some of the holes.

Click here to read more

Click here to see gallery of Black literary greats

RELATED:

Black Arts Festival Kicks Off In Atlanta

Detroit Man Turns Misfortune Into Art

From LATimes.com:

A House panel is preparing to accuse Rep. Maxine Waters of at least one ethics violation in her efforts to help a bank with ties to her husband, and the longtime Los Angeles Democrat plans to fight the charges in a House trial, according to a source familiar with the case.

The allegations were presented Friday to Waters, the source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is confidential.

Click here to read more

Click here to see gallery of Top Black Politicians

RELATED:

Obama: Oil Executives Must Stop Ridiculous Blame Game Over Spill

New Black Political Elite Rises In Harlem

From Time.com:

One of the women who took Barack Obama on a tour of the Jeep Grand Cherokee assembly line Friday wore a t-shirt with the president’s image that read “Our Dreams Do Come True.” A few miles away, at the Hamtramck General Motors plant, workers brought in red-white-and-blue pom poms to celebrate his arrival. “It’s the savior of the company,” joked Dave NotariaOne of the women who took Barack Obama on a tour of the Jeep Grand Cherokee assembly line Friday wore a t-shirt with the president’s image that read “Our Dreams Do Come True.” A few miles away, at the Hamtramck General Motors plant, workers brought in red-white-and-blue pom poms to celebrate his arrival. “It’s the savior of the company,” joked Dave Notarianni, an electrician of 38 years for GM. “Barack, our boss.”

In terms of raw star power, it’s hard to top the U.S. President in an American auto factory these days. Not only is Obama, by dint of his job, the majority shareholder in GM and a major investor in Chrysler, he is quite literally both companies’ savior. “You did! You did! You did!” shouted the enthusiastic throng at GM, when Obama recounted his own decision to invest $60 billion in taxpayer money to prevent the dissolution of the two companies last year.

Click here to read more

Click here to see gallery of Obama’s first 100 days

RELATED:

Loss of Auto Industry Slams Detroit’s Middle Class

The Blame Game Does Obama Get Blamed More Than Past Presidents?

Montana Fishburne, the 19-year-old daughter of famed stage and screen actor Laurence Fishburne, has decided to take a more naked approach toward what she hopes will be a successful acting career — starring in her own sex tape. She is slated to release said sex tape through Vivid Entertainment Aug. 18. According to the New York Daily News, Montana does not want to try the traditional method of Hollywood success, of trying to make a name for herself via the acting roles she takes on, instead opting for making a name for herself via the Kim Kardashian route to fame.

In a press release, Montana Fishburne stated: “I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape by Vivid. I’m hoping the same magic will work for me. I’m impatient about getting well-known and having more opportunities and this seemed like a great way to get started on it.”

Click here to read more

Click here to view photos:

RELATED:

Obama Checks Out Peformance Of Fishburne’s “Thurgood Marshall”

More Women Considering Stripping In Struggling Economy

From CNNMoney.com:

African-American workers continue to earn far less than whites, according to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Furthermore, little progress has been made over the years to close the income gap. At a per-capita income of $18,054 in 2008, African-American earnings were just 57.9% that of whites’ $28,502. That was a slight improvement over 2007 when black income was just 56.4%, but down from 2005, when it was 59.3%.

Click here to read more

Click here to view photos:

RELATED:

BART Will Pay Oscar Grant’s Daughter $1.5 Million For Fatal Shooting

Paying College Athletes: Lawsuit May Force Pay For Play

The bedtime story is one of the most sacred of childhood rituals. We curl up on our parents’ laps, snuggle up with our blankets and velveteen bunnies, as we listen, follow along with our fingertips, and eventually sound out the words of our favorite stories.

A famous publisher and author of children’s books, Emilie Buchwald, said that “children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” We know this to be true, because for generations, this is how we learned and taught our own children to read. When it was illegal to teach Black people how to read in this country, our forefathers and foremothers got their hands on books, by any means necessary, so that their children might learn to read and have a better life. How will the next and future generations adapt to this world of iPads, electronic media, and, yes, even blogs like the one you’re reading?

A while back, I was doing a reading at a library in Alexandria, VA. The parents were really into my reading, I thought was doing a pretty good job, it seemed as if I’d engaged the children. But not long after I finished, a fifth grader ran up to me and said, “Ms. Charisse, your books are cool and all, but can I get them on my iPhone?!” Children don’t know a world without the Internet. Their brains are changing to keep up with the times, and the times are changing fast.

E-books are not going away. Earlier this month, Amazon announced a hard but not surprising fact – eBook are outselling hard cover books. Days later industry experts confirmed the same stats from major publishers. Electronic publishing brings up a lot of interesting considerations and possible changes: how will media change the way children learn? How will children change the way adults publish and produce new technologies? What does all this mean for the future of children’s books, which currently aren’t even available on the Kindle? Once the technology catches up with itself and with our needs, what about the costs? Will everyone be able to afford a Kindle? Will everyone be able to afford the e-books, or will they be available for free, just like at the public library? And, what will happen to the libraries? Will the digital divide grow wider at the same rate as the technology, leaving those who cannot afford to keep up in the dust? Will the book, as we know it, become obsolete?

We are just beginning to explore these newfound technologies, assessing their capabilities and challenging their limitations as well as our own. Our classrooms have gone from chalkboards, to dry erase boards, to smart boards, in order to help our children keep up with the speed of our own technological evolution. As a parent, anything that furthers my children’s education, increasing their imagination and chances of future success is something to which I can happily subscribe. As an author of children’s books, however, I cannot help but wonder about the fate of my own imagination and future successes.

I think, what matters now, is that we remember the words of Frederick Douglass: “once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Whether we teach or learn on a paper page or multi-pixel screen, the lessons are what really matters.

RELATED:

Top Ten Comic Book Heroes Of All-Time

BOOK: Oprah Called Herself A Prostitute

From LATimes.com:

Reporting from Washington — If Ronald Reagan was the classic Teflon president, Barack Obama is made of Velcro.

Through two terms, Reagan eluded much of the responsibility for recession and foreign policy scandal. In less than two years, Obama has become ensnared in blame.

Hoping to better insulate Obama, White House aides have sought to give other Cabinet officials a higher profile and additional public exposure. They are also crafting new ways to explain the president’s policies to a skeptical public

Click here to read more

Click here to see gallery of Obama from infancy to presidency

RELATED:

Obama Defends Education Reform

Obama Mired in New Black Panther Party Scandal

This nationwide heatwave has just proved to be a bit more bearable.

I chase the sun – literally. I find patches of light in a yard covered in shade to sit in, despite it being feet away from a group of friends. I make the most out of my hour-long lunches by turning them into outdoor tanning sessions. And I sneak into my father’s pool whenever he leaves for the weekend, making sure to have food, drink, and literature nearby, so as to never give myself a reason to exit.

Unfortunately though, I also have “mixed-girl” hair. And while that’s not a bad thing, it can be when mixed with chlorine. My Caribbean roots (Puerto Rican and Bajan) have provided me with ringlets that truly have a mind of their own. Once I think I’ve found a perfect product, my hair stops reacting positively to it, becomes immune to its once effective nature, and goes back to being unmanageable.

Hair Problems Solved: Combat Premature Balding

Curly hair, no matter what race you are, tends to be more coarse, dry, and in desperate need of moisturization. So adding such a powerful oxidant like chlorine, the same used for bleach and disinfectants, only furthers the negative aspects of curls.

More than half my time spent in the pool is me trying not to get my hair wet. Only because I know the following days will be a hassle. Split ends, broken combs, deep conditioning, and a very slowww process of finally drying.

TRISWIM hair products doesn’t speed up the process of my air drying, but it does do a good job of not making my hair feel like a frizzy, thirsty, baked mess. The sales point says that after the shampoo washes the chemicals out of my strands, it restores them by adding Aloe Vera, and Vitamins A & E. While that may not be something I would’ve recognized by the blind eye, it’s definitely something I can feel. My hair feels stripped, but in a good way, so much so that if I a rub my finger back and forth against my scalp with a bit of pressure, it’ll make the “squeaky clean” sound. And I can apply the conditioner right after without feeling compelled to leave it in for a half hour while sitting under a heat cap. TRIMSWIM conditioner can do the job without that. It is advised that you rinse with cold water which took a bit of getting used to, but the aftereffect – a subtle but sexy sheen and citrusy smell – is worth it.

GALLERY: 8 Non-Traditional Summer Sunscreens

In an essay given to newsone.com via email, Kevin Powell, who is running for a Congressional seat for the 10th Congressional District (encompassing Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Heights, Brownsville, Canarsie, East New York and Ocean Hill, as well as parts of Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Williamsburg) outlined what he claims are tactics by his opponent, Congressman Edolphus “Ed” Towns to avoid a public campaign. Powell says Towns is using an obscure loophole to try to undermine his campaign and take him to court this Monday, August 2, 2010.

Two weeks ago Towns avoided a public debate with him, Powell said in a phone interview with newsone.com:

“He didn’t show up for the debate at Bethany Baptist Church,” says Powell. “He did the same thing in 1998, 2000, and 2006. It’s a formula that many black elected officials use. As long as they remain relatively invisible and have a loyal base they can count on to get votes, they can get away with it.”

Congressman Edolphus Towns did not return a request to be interviewed by newsone.com by press time.

See essay below:

By Kevin Powell

We need to talk about democracy in America. We need real dialogue, real elections, real ideas. Right here in Brooklyn, New York (New York’s largest borough and America’s 4th largest city if we were our own city), we’ve been talking about HIV/AIDS death rates, New York’s draconian application of “stop and frisk,” and how to create an education system designed to give all children the math and science skills we need to conquer cancer. We’re talking housing, green spaces, war and peace, access to healthy food, government corruption, and jobs. We’re talking. We’re trying. We’re working. That is why I am running for Congress this year. I believe in the possibilities of us all, if we work to our fullest potential, if opportunities are there, if we come together as human beings who genuinely care about America, and our world.

The only person as far as I can see who refuses to join this conversation is my opponent, Congressman Edolphus “Ed” Towns of Brooklyn, New York’s 10th Congressional District. He has failed to show up at public debates. He’s failed to show his face in whole neighborhoods for decades. He’s failed to offer much of anything in Congress, sponsoring a grand total of 6 bills in 27 years (that’s a rate of 0.22 bills per year).

By almost any measure, that’s failure. But on Monday morning, Mr. Towns will fail one more time as he tries to have our Congressional campaign removed from the ballot in a New York State Court for a failure to provide adequate signatures and a claim that I don’t live in the 10th Congressional District.

For the record, we provided six times the necessary signatures expecting a challenge at the Board of Elections. Our volunteers worked tirelessly to collect them, which anyone who has ever been involved in a campaign knows is incredibly tough work. We crossed every “t” and dotted every “i” with the assistance of people who know every inch of election law. Are some of them invalid? Yes. That always happens, through no fault of our volunteers. That’s why we secured six times what was required by the Board of Elections.

The Board of Elections also happens to be where you challenge someone’s signatures. We know because just this week we challenged a third candidate who failed to present even the minimum number required, assuming all of his were valid. We also believed this individual to be a spoiler candidate (to take votes from me) for Congressman Towns, a technique he has used in past elections when he felt his reign over huge chunks of Brooklyn threatened.

But Mr. Towns did not challenge our signatures at the Board of Elections. In fact, he named them as a co-party in his court action, claiming they were involved in a vast conspiracy to get us on the ballot. On Monday morning, August 2nd, they are on our side of this absurd fishing expedition on behalf of the Congressman.

And fishing expedition it is. One of my attorneys, Aaron Golembiewski (also our Policy Director), walked directly into Congressman Towns’ attorney’s office on Thursday, July 29th, demanding to know what this motion was really about. The attorney, Bernard Alter, is the same lawyer who, in 2000, claimed he was working on behalf Congressman Towns, and allegedly demanded $140,000 from a civil court judge who asked him to help run her re-election campaign. But when the judge, who was running unopposed, warned Mr. Alter that the demand amounted to a “bribe,” Mr. Towns’ team allegedly encouraged a relatively unknown lawyer to challenge this judge:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-08-22/news/140-000-for-a-judgeship/

Apparently no wiser than he was in 2000, here are Mr. Alter’s responses to Mr. Golembiewski’s questions: “Well, we don’t really know if we have anything just yet. We’re working this weekend to figure it out” is telling. Mr. Alter also complimented our campaign on having “quite an operation” and wanted to discuss Congressman Charlie Rangel, whose unethical behavior we recently compared to Congressman Towns’. Why the Congressman surrounds himself with such people is becoming clearer every day. Congressman Rangel is not the only New York representative with serious ethical lapses. Mr. Towns is right there with, ranging from his retaining this kind of lawyer, to earlier this year when he tried to steer $5 million in tax-payer money to a shaky non-profit with an abandoned building as its address.

So we know Mr. Towns is scared. Only a scared incumbent would drag his opponent and the Board of Elections into court to try to remove his opponent from the ballot. Only a scared incumbent would bypass the Board of Elections knowing we had six times the necessary signatures. Only a scared incumbent would serve me papers at my home in the district and then claim I do not live in the district.

And only a scared incumbent is hoping a judge will buy into his Monday morning fishing expedition to essentially eliminate the possibility of the people having a choice for Congress in our Democratic Primary Election on Tuesday, September 14, 2010.

Because that’s what Congressman Ed Towns is at age 76, and after 27 long and very mediocre years in office: a scared incumbent.

So rather than talk about HIV/AIDS death rates, civil liberties, education, housing, green spaces, war, access to healthy food, government corruption, jobs, and how we can he best serve the people of Brooklyn and the United States of America, Congressman Ed Towns has gone fishin’.

And he’s going to fail. Again.

Kevin Powell is a 2010 Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in Brooklyn, New York’s 10th Congressional district. He can be reached at www.kevinpowell.net

Hip-Hop star Wyclef Jean will announce his bid for the President of Haiti, a source has confirmed with AllHipHop.com exclusively.

Sources close to Wyclef confirmed with AllHipHop.com that the rapper will announce his bid for the country’s highest office next Thursday, on August 5th.

The 37-year-old was born in Haiti, but immigrated to the United States at the age of 9-years-old, when he landed in Brooklyn, before settling in South Orange, New Jersey.

Click Here For More

RELATED STORIES

Wyclef Jean Preparing To Run For Haitian Presidency

Wyclef Jean Gets Honorary Doctorate Degree