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Boo’d Up
Color me happy that the 2018 Grammy Awards nominated “Boo’d Up” in the categories of Song of the year and R&B song of the year. Honestly, Ella Mai should’ve been nominated in the best new artist category. The voters also recognized the talent of H.E.R. for album of the year, best new artist, best R&B album, song and performance. Another fave of mine, Maren Morris, is up for Record of the Year for “The Middle.”
Kendrick Lamar and Sza have also been nominated in the same category for “All the Stars” (from the movie Black Panther) along with Donald Glover’s “This is America.” It will be exciting to see which tune the voters choose.
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The Power of Three
This is my take on the dramatic “Power of Three” promos that are popular right now:
The black witches I’ve created in their “Power of Three” pose. It also shows their different styles:
I create these promos as a way to advertise an ebook prior to its release:
The bat animation is from GIPHY.
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Penny Lover
Yay! Penny Dreadful is kinda sorta coming back!
Creator/executive producer John Logan has announced Penny Dreadful: City of Angels will be set in 1930s Los Angeles. Here’s hoping several actors from the original series will return, like fine as hell Josh Hartnett as wolfman Ethan Chandler:
Per John Logan: “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels will have a social consciousness and historical awareness that we chose not to explore in the Penny Dreadful London storylines,” Logan said. “We will now be grappling with specific historical and real world political, religious, social and racial issues. In 1938, Los Angeles was facing some hard questions about its future and its soul. Our characters must do the same. There are no easy answers. There are only powerful questions and arresting moral challenges. As always in the world of Penny Dreadful, there are no heroes or villains in this world, only protagonists and antagonists; complicated and conflicted characters living on the fulcrum of moral choice.”
Link: https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/penny-dreadful-city-of-angels-showtime-1203017159/
Eva Green was magnificent as the tortured Vanessa Ives in the original series, which ran from 2014 to 2016 on Showtime.
Here’s hoping Sembene, played by Danny Sapani gets a second life. I also enjoyed Timothy Dalton as Sir Malcolm Murrary, Rory Kinnear as Frankinstein/John Clare, Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray, Billie Piper as Lily/Brona, but especially Russell Simon Beale as Ferdinand Lyle.
My own supernaturals:
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Brujería y magia negra
More witchcraft and black magic gifs, featuring paranormals of color:
I enjoy creating character promos in-between writing and editing my ebooks:
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Witch Lit 101
Or what I now call how I had to do some serious research on witch folklore, specifically on black witches. I’ll just add that the female witches I’ve created all have history spanning lives, in addition to supernatural soulmates.
I’ve also created new marketing promos for my upcoming black witches series:
Lilith, Pagan and Ondine will also be featured in the ebook Long Ago and Far Away
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That Old Black Magic
They’re three very different witches with three very different paranormal males in their lives:
Lilith is an older witch in love with a younger vampire named Yuri:
Karnage is a Shíxiàng guǐ (Gargoyle in Chinese)
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Crazy Rich (and hot) Asians
Gonna see Crazy Rich Asians this weekend. In the meantime I’ve been bingeing on one of my favorite action movies, Ninja Assassin
This movie features the beautiful and talented Naomie Harris as its leading lady, and musical superstar RAIN as the male lead. South Korean born Rain is the ninja Raizo, and the film contains an awesome nod to the past with legendary martial artist and film star Shô Kosugi
The Trivago guy (actor Tim Williams) is also an extra in the film (the task force officer who lets Mika give Raizo a drink of water) during the scene below:
“Oh Mika, Mika. I like you more and more” – Rain, from Ninja Assassin
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Black Beauty: “Flexin’ in my Complexion”
Please, please support Flexin’ in my Complexion, the brainchild and creation of a then ten year old (now eleven) entrepreneur Kheris Rogers:
“Kheris Rogers can’t forget the grade school humiliation. During an assignment where the students had to draw themselves, the teacher handed the shy dark-skinned girl a black crayon instead of a brown one.
“I was the darkest of all of them,” the stunning 11 year old recalls of her classmates. “But they were all African-American.”
Rogers had earlier transferred from another school to escape the incessant bullying. It didn’t work. Her complexion set her apart, a label she couldn’t shed.
But now Rogers owns her label, literally. Her clothing line is called “Flexin’ In My Complexion.” The brand has caught fire among some big celebrities. . . ”
Read the full article by Elizabeth Elkin and Ben Burnstein on CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/20/health/sisters-anti-bullying-clothing-line-trnd/
Kheris turned this into a teachable moment. Now her clothing line is taking off!
Oscar winner Lupita N’Yongo is also proudly “Flexin’ In My Complexion.”
If any reader isn’t convinced that this issue is real, please read this speech by Lupita in 2014: http://wikkidsexycool.com/2014/03/06/waiting-on-the-world-to-change/
What Kheris experienced was intra-racism. Black on black bullying due to her dark skin. For others, it can be because they’re not dark (or their outward appearance, such as their hair and features don’t appear “black”, and thus, some will claim that they’re not black enough).
Colorism isn’t limited to women. Males are affected also. I won’t post his before and after photos here, but baseball great Sammy Sosa is an example of how colorism can even affect someone with Sosa’s stature.
Now, for a bit of history. Ranking black individuals is nothing new, and in America, it was practiced during slavery (lighter slaves with more white looking features worked in the Master’s home, while darker slaves usually worked in the fields). There’s the “brown paper bag test” that was used during segregation (skin color checked against a paper bag) and also a poem that went like this:
If you’re white, you’re all right
In you’re brown, stick around
If you’re black, get back . . .
Ebony Magazine article from 2000: https://preview.tinyurl.com/y8e9odhu