Like Father, Like Son: Bronny James To Rock The Same No. 6 Jersey As His All-Star Dad
Bronny James was named after his NBA father, LeBron James, and his high school career was scrutinized just like his father’s was. After scoring NIL deals with companies his father is associated with, such as Nike and Beats By Dre, and taking up the same sport, he has decided to wear the same number his father currently wears, No. 6.
In May 2023, Bronny announced he would be attending the University of Southern California, and at the time, the school posted a photo of him in his uniform sporting the No. 8.
Sports Illustrated reported the meaning LeBron gave for wearing his beloved six. The future Hall of Famer wore No. 23 for the Cavaliers because of his love for his idol, Micheal Jordan, who wore that number when he played with the Chicago Bulls. Yet, when he went to the Miami Heat for the 2010–11 season, he switched to No. 6.
“Why I wear number six, there’s multiple reasons,” James said, “One, because 23 is one of my favorite numbers as well, so two times three is six. … Also, my first son was born on October 6. … My youngest son [Bryce] is June 14th, the sixth month of the year. Six has always been with me ever since I was a kid for some reason, especially when it relates to my family.”
Bronny is a 6-foot-3 guard who played basketball for Sierra Canyon School in California and is considered one of the top guards in the country based on ESPN 100, placing him at No. 19 for the class of 2023.
Shortly after Bronny committed to joining the basketball team at USC, another NBA legend’s son, DJ Rodman, the son of Dennis Rodman, took to Instagram to announce that he would be heading to USC also to play basketball.
Patti LaBelle ‘Honored’ To Perform Tina Turner Tribute At BET Awards
Patti LaBelle will honor the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Tina Turner, in a tribute performance at the 2023 BET Awards.
Rolling Stoneannounced the news that the Godmother of Soul will commemorate her late industry friend and fellow legend in a set paying homage to the life and music of Turner.
The BET Awards released a statement confirming the performance, stating that renditions of the acclaimed singer’s songs will “capture the essence of Turner’s unparalleled legacy.”
After Turner’s death on May 24, 2023, LaBelle expressed her adoration and gratitude for the rock legend in a heartfelt social media post.
“Tina, the world will forever be grateful for your voice, your fearlessness, and your grace,” shared the “You Are My Friend” singer.
Tina, the world will forever be grateful for your voice, your fearlessness, and your grace! You truly are the Queen of Rock & Roll and your spirit will reign forever! Rest in eternal peace and love! ❤️#TinaTurnerpic.twitter.com/SeNcMAe9IU
While there is no further word on other artists who may share the stage with LaBelle for the tribute, the 79-year-old is more than up for the task.
“Tina was a trailblazer and someone I have a tremendous amount of respect for because of all that she overcame and all that she accomplished,” stated the Grammy Hall of Famer.
“She was and is everything! And I am honored that I am able to pay tribute to her in this way.”
While the two singers have different voices and sounds, LaBelle and Turner’s incredible artistry has cemented both of them as Black music icons in their respective takes on soul, rock, and R&B.
The BET Awards will not only pay homage to the rock icon but also continue its yearlong celebration of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary. It will include additional performances from Glorilla, Coco Jones, and Lil Uzi Vert, with Busta Rhymes being bestowed the Lifetime Achievement Award at the event.
The ceremony takes place on Sunday, June 25, 2023, at 8 p.m. in Los Angeles, and available to watch live on BET, Comedy Central, Logo, MTV, and VH1.
Does the NBA Have a Colorism Issue? Twitter Starts Conversation About Current Draft Class
Colorism was the topic of conversation during Thursday night’s 2023 NBA Draft.
Influencer and host Scottie Beam retweeted a video of the 2023 NBA draft class posted by sports commentator Taylor Rooks with the caption “Biracial girlllllll.” The caption references a parody song that frequently circulates on Twitter timelines of a man paying homage to biracial women.
Several Twitter followers joined in on the conversation, alluding Beam was pointing out the lack of dark-skinned players drafted this year. “My mom has been pointing out that’s all that’s in the NBA nowadays,” one user tweeted. Another said, “Light skin don’t make them biracial,” and a tweeter with the handle @IamGregordeee, said he calls it “the #NewBeigeOrder.”
According to statistics from Statista, as of 2022, a little over 71% of players in the NBA identify as African American, while 8% are two or more races. The conversation about colorism in the Black community is a touchy subject as some feel it should be kept alive, and others think it’s time to wrap it up. “Only WE look for this in everything,” a Twitter user wrote. “Commercials, movies, cookouts, neighborhoods, restaurants lol. We’ve been doing this colorism game for decades. It will never end. I’m convinced.”
The biracial topic has been studied for years as celebrities and athletes have spoken out about how they deal. In 2018, NBA Boston Celtics player Blake Griffin spoke about his biracial upbringing. Growing up in Oklahoma, Griffin said he was “too young to really understand” all the stares and comments he and his family would receive. As he got older, Griffin said there was less of a need to address the comments. “I also think there is a huge movement of people like me who don’t feel the need to answer that,” Griffin said. “That’s what’s special.”
On an episode of BET’s College Hill: Celebrity Edition, Joseline Hernandez and Amber Rose got into a physical fight after Rose admitted to not feeling comfortable as a biracial woman. “I don’t fit in white spaces, and I don’t fit in Black spaces either,” Rose said. “If I were to say something that is not appealing to a Black person, I would then be white in that moment.” Yet another colorism-related moment in pop culture this week similar to the NBA’s “issue.”
Kanye West Denies Gap’s $2 Million Damages Lawsuit Against Him
Ye, the artist formally known as Kanye West, has denied all accusations of wrongdoing brought against him by Gap, his former business partner. According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline on June 23, 2023, Ye is demanding that the company pay his legal fees incurred during their court case and immediately drop the lawsuit against him.
Gap filed against Ye after being sued by Art Center, which owns property in downtown Los Angeles and leased a building to the retailer. As a stipulation of the yearly contract, Art Center required a $104,000 monthly rent and an agreement that the company would not make any alterations to the building without Art Center’s explicit permission. In October 2022, Art Center accused Gap of completing “numerous, significant, unapproved modifications,” thus breaching their contract.
In response, Gap filed a counterclaim against its ex-business partner West, claiming it was he who breached the contract by altering the building, and that under its agreement with West, Gap could not be held liable for lawsuits resulting from Yeezy’s actions.
The suit read, “The performance of the work not only breached the Strategic Agreement, but the manner of preparing for and performing the work caused the need for the repairs and restoration alleged in the complaint.”
In response, Ye adamantly denied responsibility for any of it, claiming, “Gap’s claims fail because the June 25, 2020, Strategic Agreement between Gap and Yeezy Supply (Strategic Agreement”) is invalid or voidable.”
The Donda rapper continued to call Gap out for failing to fill its contractual obligations with him while they were partnered.
“Many of the modifications complained of were, in fact, beneficial to the Premises, and all were carried out for the benefit of the Strategic Agreement with Gap,” read his statement. “Gap must have anticipated that modifications such as were made to the Premises are typical for this type of business. If anything, the property was improved by Cross-Defendants such as building an ADA ramp.”
According to Radar Online, Ye was certain he never would’ve partnered with Gap in the first place if he had been aware that it had “[signed] a lease requiring no modifications to the property used for a pop-up store.”
He reiterated that he shouldn’t be held financially liable for any of the nearly $2 million in damages that Gap owes Art Center.
Philadelphia Teen Barred From Attending Graduation After Being Shot 10 Times
Dashawn Walker is a high school graduate and gun violence survivor. Though he has mostly recovered physically, the 18-year-old remains anguished following his ordeal, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
On February 21, 2023, the then-17-year-old was walking home from school in North Philadelphia when a man exited his vehicle and shot him 10 times. The recovery was grueling—a dozen surgeries that left Walker hospitalized for months. He had to complete his senior year at the Mathematics, Civics, and Sciences Charter School virtually. Despite these challenges, Walker hoped to walk alongside his classmates at graduation. However, this never happened.
Veronica Joyner is the chief administrator of his school. She personally interviewed Walker in the admissions process and, when she found out about his attack, became worried for the student. Soon, however, her concern morphed into fear.
After discovering that Walker was targeted, Joyner and the school board decided to exclude the teenager from all in-person activities, including graduation. This decision stemmed from Joyner’s fear that Walker’s shooter could attack him again, this time at school.
Walker’s assailant was identified as 20-year-old Micah Roane. Though he resides in the same neighborhood as the teenager, the two have never interacted, Walker saids. The teen insisted that the pair never had any previous conversation or altercation. Captain James Kearney of the Philadelphia Police Department shared that Walker “seemed like a good kid” with no prior run-ins with the law; prosecutors also confirmed that he was not involved in any street violence.
“I was the victim, and I felt like I was the problem,” said Walker.
Walker attempted to reason with Joyner to no avail. “My heart goes out to Dashawn, but I didn’t create the situation. My actions didn’t involve me in something that got me shot,” Joyner told the Inquirer.
She claimed that Walker should be satisfied that the school helped him graduate and that prom and graduation ceremonies are privileges, not rights.
Over the years, Joyner has made headlines. The Education Law Center filed a lawsuit against the charter school earlier this year involving a girl who had an argument with her classmates. That same organization filed another lawsuit in 2019, alleging that the school rejected a 6-year-old’s admission because she required services for ADHD,according tothe Philadelphia ChalkBeat. Joyner was also listed in a 2008 employment discrimination lawsuit from a former instructor at the school.
After the shooting, Walker was informed by several of his friends that Joyner kept commenting about how he could afford designer items, insinuating that he participates in illicit activities. Despite denying such comments, in an interview, she did question where his family earned the money for his prom suit, which cost upward of $1,000.
Joyner has much to boast about regarding her charter school’s achievements, including their recent mock trial international champions, 6ABC Philadelphia reports. But, regardless of its success, her recent actions mar an already significant event not just for students but the city, given the district’s recent initiative. Suffering from considerably high drop-out rates and unsatisfactory graduation rates, Philadelphia’s Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. announced a plan to improve academic performance within the school district and boost success rates, according to Pennsylvania Capital Star.
Still, there is a bright spot in Walker’s future. He plans to attend Shippensburg University and major in either business or health care. He also hopes to start a support group for other victims of gun violence. Walker is beginning a new chapter in his life. Though he can’t change the past and there is no guarantee that he can ever change Joyner’s mind, he wants to make a difference.
Meet the Black Scholar Who Has Spent 30 Years Researching Inventors of Color
Keith C. Holmes has spent over 30 years researching inventors of color. His company, Global Black Inventor Research Projects, Inc., which he launched in Brooklyn and now has branches on six continents, provides a canopy under which students of all ages can expand their perspectives on African creativity and spark their own inventive genius.
In 2008, Holmes published Black Inventors: Crafting Over 200 Years of Success, a book highlighting the innovative accomplishments of Black men and women from six continents and more than 70 countries. One of the book’s focal points is the pioneering work of Henry E. Baker, an African American who attended the United States Naval Academy and worked as a copyist with the United States Patent Office in the early 20th century. Baker was interested to know how many men and women of color in the world had filed for patents.
While Western countries have a system of filing patents, not all inventions are registered in patent offices. In fact, every society and civilization has developed its own ideas and inventions with or without patents. So Baker sent more than 2,500 letters to lawyers across the United States to learn if people of color had filed for patents. He received a number of responses from people who scoffed at and ridiculed the idea of black men and women inventing anything. Undaunted and undeterred, Baker continued his inquiries and ultimately received a number of letters documenting more than a thousand inventions by Black men and women from Canada, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the United States.
For Holmes himself, it all started in 1988, when he attended the International African Arts Festival in Brooklyn and a book called Black Inventors in America by McKinley Burt caught his eye. After buying and reading the book, he was so fascinated and enlightened by its contents that he considered purchasing additional copies and selling them.
Instead, his mentor and his family encouraged him to write his own book about Black inventors. Holmes initially laughed the idea off, but, still intrigued by Black Inventors in America, eventually took their advice and embarked on a research journey that took over 20 years to complete. His research proves that the invention bug did not only burrow into the African American imagination but also into that of Africans in the diaspora.
For more information about Holmes’ book and his other efforts to promote the accomplishments of Black inventors, visit GlobalBlackInventor.com.
Samuel L. Jackson Isn’t Here For Artificial Intelligence Replacing Him In Films
Artificial intelligence has been on many people’s minds in recent months due to platforms like ChatGPT and music producers utilizing voices from deceased artists. Many fear the troubles that can happen with the technology, and actor Samuel L. Jackson has stated he is not a fan of it in an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
When questioned about another esteemed actor, Tom Hanks expressing his fears about artificial intelligence, Jackson seemed perplexed that people are just now questioning the latest technology that has been around for some time.
“People just started worrying about that? I asked about that a long time ago. The first time I got scanned for George Lucas [for The Phantom Menace], I was like, “What’s this for?” George and I are good friends, so we kind of had a laugh about it because I thought he was doing it because he had all those old guys in Episode I, and if something happened to them, he still wanted to put ’em in the movie.”
He has experienced the use of AI during his filming in the Marvel movies he has been involved with over the years.
“Ever since I’ve been in the Marvel Universe, every time you change costumes in a Marvel movie, they scan you. Ever since I did Captain Marvel, and they did the Lola project where they de-aged me and everything else, it’s like, ‘Well, I guess they can do this anytime they want to do it if they really want to!’
Jackson gives up-and-coming actors advice regarding accepting it when negotiating their contracts with film companies.
“It could be something to worry about. Future actors should do what I always do when I get a contract, and it has the words “in perpetuity” and “known and unknown” on it: I cross that shit out. It’s my way of saying, “No, I do not approve of this.”
You can catch the actor portraying Fury in the Disney + series Secret Invasion out now.
Gun-Toting White Man Chases Down Black Woman In Road Rage Attack
A horn-honking road rage encounter in Texas almost turned deadly for a Black woman who was chased by a white male with a firearm.
The victim, a resident of northeast Harris County, said that the suspect, identified as Kevin Roth, 30, was behind her at a red light on Tuesday, June 20 when he started honking once the light turned green, ABC 13 reported. The woman honked back, and that’s when she said Roth brandished his gun, followed her car, and rear-ended her.
“That’s when I just took off, speeding to a gas station to a public area, because I had already seen that gun in the car,” the victim said.
“So I didn’t want to just pull over like a regular car accident.”
A Texas man honked at a woman when the light turned green. When she honked back, he brandished his gun, pointing it at her, shouting racist slurs.
Surveillance shows the terrifying moments Roth followed the woman into the Phillips 66 gas station on Atascocita and Wilson in Humble, Texas, pointing his gun at her several times as she runs away.
The victim said that when she tried to leave, Roth attempted to take her keys and prevent her from leaving the parking lot. He also hit the back of her car again and shouted racial slurs at her.
“I honestly didn’t think he would pull a gun out in public and chase me,” she said. “He was like, ‘Get on the ground right now!’ He could have shot me.”
“He was aiming a gun. I could tell he was kind of scared himself. He was shaking his hand. That’s why I was scared,” she continued. “‘I’m scared because you’re scared.’ He could have done anything to me just out of fear.”
Police responded within 10 minutes and took Roth’s gun away. He has since been chargedwith aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
“My heart was just racing. When the police got there, I was just like in tears,” the victim said.
It’s A Wrap For Cooking At Home Consumers Are Spending More Money Eating Out Post-Covid
The days of home cooking and experimenting with creative meals are over, thanks to the disappearance of COVID restrictions.
The percentage of people spending money on eating out versus eating at home has swelled to 53.2%, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, FINURAH reported.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis in the U.S. supported the USDA’s findings. According to FINURAH, the BEA reported spending at restaurants and food-service providers, not including grocery stores, has returned to normal. Eating out is back in style like COVID never happened. According to FINURAH, the USDA recorded that 48.3% of people bought “food away from home” in 2020. That year it marked the start of the pandemic. The difference in the rate of people eating out between 2022 and 2020 was nearly 5% (4.9%).
When COVIDrestrictions began to shift, people were free to go outside. Hashtags on social media like #WeOutside were not the only means of turning up. FINURAH also reported more people spent more money on alcoholic beverages as COVID restrictions slowed. Spending on alcoholic beverages went up by 13.4% from February 2020 to February 2021. Meanwhile, spending on “food away from home” increased by 6.9% during this period.
In 2020, grocery stores were the place to be. One reason was that grocery stores were the spots you could see other people as long as you maintained a six-feet distance. The other reason was survival. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) published an analysis that revealed COVID resulted in more people buying food from grocery stores than eating out. FINURAH reported the “grocery boom” came to an end last year.
Does the end of the COVID home cooking era mean we should forget all the creative ways to prepare dinner from social media posts? While eating out may seem reasonable with work returning to normal, some recipes are just too delicious to say goodbye to. For example, the Detroit-Style Pepperoni and Pickled Pepper Pan Pizza, try saying that ten times fast! HuffPost reported this pizza recipe as one of the top 10 most-liked recipes on its Instagram during lockdown.
Bill Gates Goes Up For Afrobeats After Meeting Burns Boy In Nigeria
Afrobeats is so on top of what’s hot at the moment that even billionaire business magnate Bill Gates had to give the genre a shoutout.
The Microsoft co-founder was in Nigeria on Wednesday, June 21, speaking with students and young leaders at the “Advancing Africa: Unleashing the Power of Youth in Science and Innovation” summit where he took time to praise the country’s dominance in today’s popular music.
“Of course, being here in Nigeria, I can’t help but mention the amazing creativity that goes on here,” Gates sad. “Afrobeats from Nigeria are popular everywhere.”
With Gates having a 20-year-old daughter named Pheobe, Gates was well aware of the chart-topping Afrobeats stars like Davido and Wizkid, as well as Burna Boy and Rema, whom his daughter was “jealous” he would get to meet.
“When my daughter Phoebe heard I was coming to Nigeria, she said, ‘You’re lucky to go see Burna Boy and Rema.’ So, I had to look them up… because I’m so ‘hip,'” he said jokingly.
“But I also remember, the last time I was here, I did get to see Davido and Wizkid perform and I was quite impressed with that. So, my kids think I’ve come to a very hip place.”
Afro beats in Nigeria are popular everywhere ;BILL GATES.
MY DAUGHTER said you are lucky, you can see the likes of burna boy, rema etc.. pic.twitter.com/rFqgjyT4GR
— Portharcourt_daily (@Portharcourtda1) June 21, 2023
Elsewhere during his speech, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation co-chair encouraged Nigerian students to pursue careers in health, education, and finance after sharing his experience with technology and explaining how knowledge of the sciences can greatly aid communities locally and worldwide.
“You have the incredible potential to drive this country forward,” Gates told the students.
The event Gates was speaking at was co-hosted by the Co-Creation Hub Nigeria and Lagos Business School and held at Lagos State, Channels TV reports. Its purpose was to gather scholars and industry leaders to share insights on how science and innovation can bring more positive change and contribute to a brighter future for Africa.
