Andrea Lewis is a talented singer/songwriter/actress (but not necessarily in that order) out of Toronto who is definitely on the rise. You may have seen her on Degrassi: The Next Generation (yes, with Drake) but she has also appeared in Down in the Delta,The Natalie Cole Story and more.
These days, Andrea has been working more on her music. She currently has an album out entitled, 5 4 3 2 1, that is funky, soulful and fresh. She has been touring the world and basically just having fun while living out her dreams. She also has a sketch comedy website entitled Those Girls Are Wild, where she shows that pretty girls don’t have to be prissy, prim, proper and uptight all the time, and that it’s ok to be down to Earth and have fun (life is better that way).
Speaking of fun and being down to Earth, she took some time out of her busy schedule on a trip to New York (back in February) to meet up with me in Brooklyn! We met up at a cool Mediterranean spot called Miriam. I kicked it with Andrea and some of her friends from T-Dot and let me just say, we had a ball. But anyway, watch the video after the jump and get to know her for yourself.
Check out this new webseries, What Would A Man Do. The premise is that a group of women chat about relationship issues but they enlist the insight of men, instead of shooting in the dark. Right now they’re up to episode 7 so I guess you can say that I’m late posting. But anyway, check out episodes 6 and 7 below, where the ladies discuss the art of hollering. What’s the right approach? Should women go after men?
Episode 6 (Featuring Low Key of YouHeardThatNew.com)
My former intern, Amanda Koger, is working on a documentary about what it’s like to be plus size in Chicago. What you are about to watch is a seven minute piece that examines some of the stereotypes that are placed on overweight people.
“I wanted to focus on the lives of women because they are the ones who are looked upon as these sexual beings but once their image doesn’t line up with the media’s view of sexy then they are tossed aside,” says Koger. This video is just a starter to a larger project that she is working on.
Children’s fairytales of yore are the stuff that jaded adults are made of, especially women. As children we’re fed that beautiful princess being rescued by Prince Charming and living happily ever after garbage and then we grow up and get slapped repeatedly by harsh reality checks, but I digress. I didn’t mean for that to sound as cynical as it did because the point of this post is to big up the latest Disney Princesses I’ve encountered…
I decided to bring this series back. I’m starting over from the beginning.
Here’s the backstory: I transferred my blog from Blogspot to WordPress earlier this year and for some reason my blogger posts don’t want to budge automatically. What I mean by that is, on my WordPress backend, there’s a function that allows you to transfer blogs seamlessly but it’s not working for my blog. I can’t figure it out and neither can any of the tech savvy web designers that I’ve asked so the only other option is to transfer them manually. I featured about 80 movies so manual just isn’t going to happen. Besides, there are some things I’d do differently and I never get enough of all things Blaxploitation and neither can you ( I was surprised by how much love this series got) so here’s the post the started it all…
They get so many props for this. Check out this cute Afro’d puppet singing about why she loves her natural hair and the various cool styles like twists, braids, puffs, etc that she can put it in.
I love you even more Sesame Street writers and producers. Great job!
I’m live at the Joy Daily Show and we’re discussing Bishop Long and the public attacking celebrities. Does the public enjoy attacking public figures? What gives? Watch as we get to the bottom of this and RETWEET!!!!! Get involved send me your comments and concerns: @GangStarrGirl.
This is the creepiest doll commercial ever (it’s from the 60s). Basically, it’s a doll that has human characteristics, like hair that actually “grows.” According to the commercial voice over guy, these homosapien-like qualities were made possible by a voodoo witch doctor named Captain Oogie who can transfer human souls into dolls. Lastly, the dolls are technically human children and should not be subjected to normal doll treatment for ethical reasons. It gets worse, just watch until the end (and promptly get the chills).
I have a confession. [Insert Stewie Griffin voice here] God help me if you tell anybody, I shall rip off your eye lids off and sprinkle lemon juice on your retinas! But yeah, the secret is…
Cdot The Catalyst is a dope lyricist who I’ve been chatting with on Twitter and iChat since last year. She’s cool, uber smart, talented, and well, definitely under exposed. We’ve had so many great talks and I love her irreverence and snark so much that I wanted her to submit this piece explaining her identity as a “femcee.” (I was supposed to post this months ago as part of a project that I never really got off the ground but that’s another story). Check out C Dot The Catalyst as she breaks down her disdain for the “f word” (femcee) and why Nicki Minaj gives her hope…
Apparently the tweets is watchin’ and reading my mind because I noticed a trending topic that read #becauseofnickiminaj…now aside from reading the obvious comments about chipmunk voices, Barbie personas and butt pads, I had my own response. “because of Nicki Minaj…I might have a chance.” My name is Charity Clay and I’m a woman and an emcee. I have difficulties with the term femcee because it implies that the term emcee is normalized to be a guy and I don’t think mic skills have a gender. I consider myself to be a lyricist and only measure myself by who I consider to be the best, but I digress. I was talking about how the popularity of Nicki Minaj is a good thing for us women in hip-hop who consider ourselves to be emcees. Now one would assume that my claim to be a lyricist would indicate some desire to reject the Nicki Minajes of the world because of the belief that they are destroying the purity of hip-hop but I have a different perspective on the situation. Read the rest of this entry »
BET premiered My Mic Sounds Nice: The Truth About Women in Hip-Hop last night and it was good, really good. I was actually surprised at how good it was. The filmmakers did a superb job conveying the tremendous impact of those of the xx variety on the culture. I didn’t learn anything new but it was informative enough for people who may have needed that lesson.
However, there wasn’t much of a solution presented. They tried at the end but most of the people they interviewed had a very industry way of thinking ie, shallow and narrow-minded.
“For me to try to find another Lauryn Hill is like for me to try to find another Jay-Z. That’s not happening. It’s like you don’t find those things those things find us,” said Kevin Liles.
