Depending on the time of day and the angle from which one chooses to assess their gloried runs, or the spiritual damage, the Jackson family saga can seem like either the African-American Dream or the Blackest Greek tragedy ever. Only in Black America – where the nation’s worst intentions battle …

Despite a large body of research documenting cannabis’ effectiveness in treating epilepsy, there has yet to be a cannabis-based anti-seizure medication introduced on the U.S. pharmaceutical market – until this week. On Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a epilepsy drug utilizing plant-derived cannabidiol (CBD), a common non-psychoactive …

In two of the biggest music markets in the world, getting a Number One record is not merely about the quantity of plays and sales now – but the quality of the play.Earlier this year, Billboard, which publishes the definitive album and song charts for the U.S. music industry,revamped its …

Roseanne Barr admitted she “horribly” regretted the racist tweet that resulted in her getting fired from her sitcom reboot. Barr’s remorseful remarks come in a newly released interview recorded shortly after ABC cancelled Roseanne in late May. “I lost everything, and I regretted it before I lost everything,” Barr told …

Dave Matthews applied his acoustic stylings to songs by Cardi B, Migos and Lil Pump in a Tonight Show sketch where the bandleader performed some of trap music’s biggest hits. Framed as one of those Time-Life infomercials, the elaborate premise allowed Matthews to run through snippets of Cardi B’s “Bodak …

Johnny Depp isn’t here yet. Still, his presence is all around the 10,500-square-foot rented mansion at 16 Bishopswood Road in London’s Highgate neighborhood. He is here in the busy hands of Russell, his personal chef working up the Peking duck. He is here in the stogie-size joint left by the …

Maxwell is throwing stones. It’s an unexpectedly violent phrase to describe someone who’s made a career of soothing tensions with soft, intimate songs like 1996’s “Sumthin’ Sumthin” and 1998’s “Matrimony: Maybe You.” But two years after his last studio album, the singer is taking on a decidedly more active, and …

Once upon a time, the main currency of jazz was a soloist’s improvisational flow; today, it’s all about collective vibe. That principle plays out in handsomely chill fashion on the debut from new all-star ensemble R+R=Now, which doubles as a statement of purpose for a new generation of jazzers. If …

Three years ago, when I published a story about Tony Wright, an innocent man incarcerated 25 years for the rape and murder of a woman he never met (“The Trials of Tony Wright: How DNA Exonerated Convicted Murderer“), I wrote that a black man “has a better chance of justice …

Welcome to an R-rated summer funfest … with the substance and staying power of a helium balloon. It’s a trip, at least until the laughing gas sputters and evaporates. Based on a true story (reported in a 2013 article in the Wall Street Journal), this comedy foillows a group of …