Clarissa Brooks

SZA’s 2017 Top Dawg Entertainment release of her debut album, CTRL, shifted the foreground of contemporary R&B and remains in the lexicon of classic albums that withstands the test of time and context. No matter where you are in life, hearing SZA’s late grandmother, Norma, utter the words, “Also you black heffa, yeah you, you stand your ground/ ‘Cause I feel the same way/ If you don’t like me, you don’t have to fool with me,” cleanses the soul.
It is easy to say that music is a portal through...

From June 9, 2020, until her death four days later, Oluwatoyin Salau was most likely alone and terrified. She was facing the end of her life, but she had met this kind of death before. Her life in its darkest pockets had told her that she was not worth finding. But across town, other Black girls, the ones who had clothed her, housed her, and deep conditioned her hair just a few days before, were looking for her, desperately wanting to remind Toyin that she was somebody worth saving.
Ashley La...

by clarissa brooks
photos by cam kirk
styling by bobby wesley
The measure of a man holds a lot of mythology. From ideas of character to valor and all methods of thinking around purpose, it can mean everything and nothing all at once. For Gunna, a man with the leading rap album in the country, his mythology begins and ends with the promises he has made to himself and the people he holds close.
We meet Gunna, dressed head-to-toe in cream knit cashmere alongside a small entourage, wrapping up a ...

In late 2021, Moses Sumney released Blackalachia, an hour-long concert film and accompanying live album recorded in the midst of the 2020 summer of uprising. Sumney filmed his feature-length directorial debut in two days with a full crew in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, creating an in-depth exploration of intimacy and vibrancy that leaves those watching unable to see where the lines of majestic nature and performance depart. In the film, we initially encounte...

Before their single “Material Girl” became a bonafide TikTok phenomenon, the rising Florida rapper Saucy Santana spent his time as the makeup artist to the Miami rap duo City Girls. Their professional relationship quickly blossomed into a friendship and creative partnership, and it’s not hard to see why. Like the Miami girls that gave us quotable classics like “Pussy Talk,” Saucy Santana is a natural social media star, often appearing in Instagram Live clips and generating micro-trends, like ...

On August 31, 1999, Lawrence Lombardi set off a pipe bomb on the campus of Florida A&M University; less than a month later, on September 22, he set off another and much larger bomb in FAMU’s Perry Paige Hall, causing damage to the historically Black campus, but no fatalities. The fear and anxiety of those attacks are still in the hearts of the students and faculty who live with the terror they endured.
White supremacy is sharpest when it can destroy all sense of safety and autonomy. The lates...

What is disco, if not a call for yearning? What is gospel, if not a call for redemption? What is praise, if not a call back home? It is in Step II’s murky waters of gospel, Blackness, queerness and Black performance that we find Sylvester, a legend of other worlds.
The deepest corners of the late 1970s New York City club scene birthed a new genre of music that would shift the lives of queer people globally, but for a young boy from Crenshaw with an undeniable falsetto, it would be the beginni...

OPINION: Four burgeoning Black women writers tell theGrio how the works of the Black feminist scholar inspire them to be their best selves.
In the wake of the loss of renowned author, Black feminist scholar and activist bell hooks, theGrio gathered four burgeoning Black women writers to ask how her work, life and scholarship affected them in the present. Our question to this collective was simple:
What does bell hooks work ask of you?
Breya Johnson: Reordering myself
bell hooks’ work makes ma...

One writer's personal reflections on what the brilliant author/filmmaker taught her about living wholly in her Blackness, queerness, and womanhood.
The esteemed author, feminist scholar, critic, and activist bell hooks passed away on Wednesday. As the news spread, the world slowed down to collectively mourn the life of a Black woman, a sister of many minds, and a genius who didn't wait for the world to name her as such It is not an overstatement to say that Black feminism in its current form ...

On Monday, Howard University announced that after the longest student protest in the school’s history, the administration had finally reached an agreement with student organizers. The news followed more than a month of student demonstrations against unlivable housing conditions on campus, including a number of students who set up tents in front of the school’s Blackburn student center. Others posted disturbing evidence of their living conditions to social media: footage of mold growing rampan...

“How can we fathom a social life that tends toward death, that enacts a kind of being-toward-death, and which, because of such tendency and enactment, maintains a terribly beautiful vitality?”
— Fred Moten, “The Case of Blackness”
What do you do when you are the underdog’s underdog? When you are the last counted and forever erased in a legacy of Black social music that carries your DNA? What do you call yourself in a world that has shown you nothing but strife, gut-wrenching joy and sullen gr...

The ‘curse’ of Friendship Baptist Church is known throughout the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Since the church was removed from its former Mitchell St and Northside Dr locations and relocated, it has been the excuse for lacklustre sports teams and burned interstate bridges. Friendship Baptist, along with Mt. Vernon Baptist, founded in 1862 by former slaves, was the foundation of multiple HBCUs (historically black colleges or universities) in the city. It is where the Mercedes-Benz Stadium is loc...

Last month, Bill Cosby was released from prison after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 sexual-assault conviction, citing a prosecutorial error. The overwhelming response was one of shock and dismay: Over the past few decades, Cosby has been accused of drugging and assaulting dozens of women. Among those celebrating his release, though, was the actress Phylicia Rashad, who played Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show. In response to the news, Rashad tweeted: “FINALLY!!!! A terribl...

At his leisure, the musician Mavi plays with space and time. The 21-year-old rapper from Charlotte, North Carolina sees storytelling as a way to speak his truth while he’s alive. His latest EP End of the Earth was released to critical praise and marked a significant step towards what could be a major sophomore album from the rising star. The EP’s cover art takes after Shel Silverstein’s Where The Sidewalk Ends, and the metaphor tracks. End of the Earth features Mavi’s sharpest lyrical skill m...

The 20-year-old rising rapper discusses their latest The Leo Sun Sets EP, making music videos with diverse representation, and not wanting to be a role model.
This week, them. is profiling emergent LGBTQ+ musicians whose forward-thinking work has established them as Artists to Watch. Read more from the series here.
Serena Isioma is a self-proclaimed “nonbinary rockstar” with unbridled Leo sun energy to match. True to their sign, the rapper exudes star power so effortlessly it seems like a mus...