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Love and Hip Hop Atlanta has been laying it on thick with Kirk Frost and Rasheeda since Season 9 began. Initially, it made sense. The premiere episode featured the couple celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary, which we can all agree is a pretty big deal. But after Monday night’s episode, it became pretty clear that they’re really trying to push these two as the happily ever after folks hope for.

From the music (a song called “Real Love”) played while Rasheeda got ready for their date, to the Love Jones inspired motorcycle ride they took and the rooftop candle-lit meal reminiscent of their first date at the Waffle House, we were seeing a side of the couple that was sunshine and rainbows. They’re finally successful in their work, opening businesses rather than focusing on Rasheeda’s rap career these days. They are getting along well. Most importantly, the drama of the past is no longer an issue. It’s nice. But Twitter has made it clear that it’s going to take a lot more than what VH1 is spoon-feeding us for people to forget the many seasons worth of conflict they’ve had to get to the big 2-0.

We don’t need Karlie Redd calling them “couple goals,” or the videos with cast explaining how their love is such a ride-or-die one. We don’t need those things to prove that they’re solid or to erase the years of watching him frolic in hot tubs, swab their baby because he assumed she cheated since that’s what he was doing, or have babies outside of their relationship. They are not relationship goals for all of us because they made it 20 years while the last 10 have been full of stress and embarrassment.

But their love is is perfect for them, and that’s what matters. She loves him despite his flaws, past betrayals, and five other kids, and they’ve managed to work through all of it. If they are truly in a “super amazing place” (as Kirk said) after “We fought really hard to get to this place” (as Rasheeda said), that is lovely. What we think about it bears no consequence because they have to live their lives to make themselves happy, as we all do. All that being said, there’s no need to give us the Kirk and Rasheeda are madly in love spiel to ad nauseam from week to week. If it works for them, let it work for them.

Hit the flip to see all the reactions to the LHHATL Kirk and Rasheeda love fest by hitting the flip.

Black women and our influence on social media goes without saying. From hair aria-label="Influencing In Colors (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.instagram.com/influencingincolor/?hl=en" target="_blank">Influencing In Colors.”

Partnering with the shopping app LIKEtoKNOW.it, the group will chat about diversity in the fashion industry with ESSENCE Assistant Fashion Editor, Nandi Howard tomorrow evening, April 15th at 6PM CT on Zoom. Last month, the group hosted an in person meet-up in Atlanta and was scheduled to appear in New York however, due to Covid-19 the event will take place digitally.

‘IIC destroys the very thought that you have to be exactly the same, agree about everything and view the woman next to you as competition,” Brandy tells ESSENCE. “In a world where it’s typically every woman for herself, IIC represents strength, power, beauty and community.” Her teammate Nicki agreed that IIC also represents fellowship. “Influencing in Color is a movement. To see so many women and women of color go after their dreams is something that has a positive impact on me daily,” she says.

When scrolling on their Instagram page which sits at over 22k followers, the four friends can been posing in their coordinated fits with beaming smiles and melanated beauty. Each have used their corner of the internet to showcase inspiring content, and their influence has resonated in bigger ways.

“Commitment to inclusion and diversity,” their bio reads as the group seeks to provide a positive influence for people of all colors through advocacy, collaboration, and commitment to diversity and inclusivity. “It is a platform for women of color, created by women of color who did not see many opportunities to be represented in the influencer space,” says Megan. “4 black women working together to achieve a common goal all while actually being friends is not something that is spotlighted with women who look like us,” exclaimed Nikki.

These women have seen success as a group under one mission and are partnering with the influencer conglomerate LIKEtoKNOW.it to educate aspiring influencers on how they too can turn content creating into a viable career option.

Tomorrow April 15th, join Influencing In Color and our Assistant Fashion Features editor, Nandi Howard as they chat about the vast influencer community. Register here.

The post Influencing In Colors Partners With LIKEtoKNOW.it appeared first on Essence.

If you have not seen this 50 States of Fright from Quibi, be prepared for spoilers below.

Since quarantine, I have been hearing more and more about this new streaming platform called Quibi. It launched April 6 and has been promoted as “movie-quality shows designed for your phone with new episodes every day.” I’ve been seeing different celebrities showcasing a variety of shows. Chrissy Teigen has a court show, Sophie Turner has a drama/thriller, and Liam Hemsworth has an action show. The platform stands on the fact that these episodes are 10 minutes or less. I don’t know about you, but being drawn into a show for 10 minutes or less seems like a great idea when I want to take a break from work or take a walk on the treadmill since I can’t go outside.

Quibi is fun, and lots of great actors are jumping on board. A show that caught my eye is 50 States of Fright. These episodes will easily capture the attention of those that love the urban legend trope and the horror genre. The series will explore stories based on urban legends from Michigan, Kansas, Oregon, Minnesota, and Florida. It will take viewers deeper into the horrors that lurk just beneath the surface of our country. For those ’90s folks, it reminds me of Tales from the Crypt. This new anthology series will feature a number of well-known actors, including Ming-Na Wen (Agents of Shield), Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek), Asa Butterfield (Sex Education), Travis Fimmel (Vikings), Karen Allen (Indiana Jones), James Ransone (It Chapter Two), Alex Fitzalan (The Society), and Danay Garcia (Fear the Walking Dead).

The first three episodes are titled “The Golden Arm — Michigan.” They are written and directed by Sam Raimi who is also an executive producer on the series. Raimi is no stranger to horror having produced such films as, Don’t Breathe (2016), Poltergeist (2015), The Grudge (2004), Boogeyman (2005), and The Evil Dead (1981), which he also directed. The 50 States of Fright episodes, “The Golden Arm,” sticks to the origin story by keeping the main ideas of a false limb, a death, a robber, and a scary and unsettling ending.

The three episodes follow Dave and his wife Heather. Dave is a hard worker who will do anything for his wife. Heather is a young woman obsessed with being remembered as the most beautiful girl in town. One day Dave asks his wife to assist him with his work. Heather has a terrible accident that results in the loss of one of her arms. Dave is very good at making things, so he makes a prosthetic arm for his wife. She demands that it be made of gold. Dave lovingly obliges. Heather gets sick from the gold and dies, making Dave swear to bury her arm with her. Shortly after her death, Dave starts to struggle financially. The only option he sees as a quick way to make money is to steal the gold arm that he buried with his wife. Upon digging up the arm and stealing it away from Heather’s dead body, Dave is haunted by his wife through the night. She cries out, “Where is my golden arm?” Afraid, Dave gives the arm back to her. But, it is too late and Dave dies as a result of stealing what he promised his wife could have.

The episodes are great lengths. The first one is only five minutes and thirty-seven seconds, and it leaves you on a cliff hanger. The second episode is ten minutes and also provides the panic and suspense of a good scary story. The episodes are short, but they leave you wanting more. It’s fun to see a story dissected into the perfect beginning, middle, and end. You know it’s an urban legend. You know someone is going to get hurt or die. You know there is a lesson to be learned. The thrill comes from seeing good acting with decent effects in a show that gets to the point quickly. You don’t have to watch eight hours of TV to learn the fate of the characters. The effects in “The Golden Arm” were cool to watch. Some of it was a little cheesy, but I don’t think viewers will mind. The point of an urban legend is to tell a story and learn a lesson. Those ideals come through stylishly.

Quibi has a lot to offer in these times when people are looking for something new as they sit in their homes. Boredom comes quickly, and if watching an eight-minute episode distracts from the chaos, I’m here for it. 50 States of Fright is a fun, scary show that takes real folktales and presents them in present-day fashion. They take you away from the mundane, if only for a moment.

Episodes of 50 States of Fright are available Monday, April 13th. You can catch these episodes and more only on Quibi.

The post Quibi: ‘50 States of Fright’ Review  appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.

When Bullying Unravels A Loophole

Growing up as a dark-skinned, black nerd honestly had plenty of difficulties. Outside of the racism from faculty and hearing how “white” I spoke; I often felt isolated from my peers when it came to fashion, core values and entertainment. With Christian, West-Indian American parents who often sheltered you from content that was perceived to be “ungodly,” you didn’t have a huge catalog to choose from. I can say that I have never seen one episode of Degrassi. The most scandalous show I’ve seen on MTV was Silent Library and my range in music was show tunes and Beyonce. So when it came to anything relating to pop culture that was not Pokemon, YugiOh! or the like, I honestly could not tell you.

But, the interesting loop hole in all of this is: I was always in the mood to watch whatever my dad was watching. And as an expert daddy’s girl I can tell you about the wondrous world of adult sitcoms. My father loves his comedy and up to this day you can hear him playing repeats of older comedies like All in The Family, Seinfeld (cringe) and of course a personal favorite In Living Color. Listen, I learned about so many things so from In Living Color. I felt sorry for anyone who tried to cut my ass, because chances are they didn’t survive.

I felt empowered because I felt like I learned a few secrets that kids my age would not have known. I was a miss know-it-all honors student so anything that my father laughed at that I didn’t understand pushed me to research. By the age of 12, I understood why people made fun of hoteps. My curiosity opened a catalog of interesting rebuttals, waiting for the moment someone caught me on the wrong day.

The Wayans family made clap-backs smarter.

I started practicing in the shower. There I felt the freedom of David Alan Grier in sketches like Cephus and Reesie running through my bones. In Living Color brought the representation a black girl needed when the school system kept disenfranchising her blackness. After school, I ran home to laugh at classics like “My Songs are Mindless” and everyone’s favorite scammer Loomis Simmons. I found myself leaning towards sketches that broke down realism.

There was an uncomfortable edge the cast brought to screen where their content felt far enough from reality to feel fake, but close enough to seem possible. My favorite example is in “My Songs are Mindless” where Kim Wayans played upon the ideology of musical incompetence by using Crystal Water’s song as the foundation, in what is arguably one of their greatest musical parodies. She basically released a diss track using Crystal Water’s beat, background dancers, and modified lyrics.

I remember the first time I heard this song. I was about nine and I just finished my homework, so I went to the bedroom where my dad was watching television, to try and finesse the remote from his fingers and turn it to some cartoons. I quickly became distracted when I saw a black woman decked in a black pantsuit. Honestly, the moment I heard “Flintstones” my ears perked up, and a smile spread across my face. When you put a disrespectful lyric on a hot beat do you really need anything else? Back then, I don’t think I understood how seeing a dark skin woman being funny would affect me in the future.

I just saw it as fact. Black women are funny. It wouldn’t register until years down the line that were would be issues with black people, especially black women being included in writers room for comedy.

Watching In Living Color was proof to me that black people invented comedy. There’s this freedom in black bodies that creates a shock value to non-black folk so much that it becomes a culture. In Living Color became part of that legacy that inspired generations of comedians. Watching folks like David Alan Grier helped me feel confident in my awkward. I always knew he was in a sketch by the way I heard my father cackle from down the hall. Time after time I came running wondering what silly thing he did next.

It felt liberating watching black folks be free while I was experiencing bullying at school. Seeing them in sketches that gives humor to suffering in Mr Squeegee made me feel like I had a joy to look forward to. When I think about how black comedians approach the stereotypes that reflect on our own oppression i.e: Mr Squeegee jumping on top of a car for some coins and a sandwich; there is always a lingering metaphor about black survival. There is culture within our suffering which makes our content uncomfortably realistic.

Folks can look at In Living Color and be able to attach some of the characters to a friend or an uncle down the block.

One of my father’s personal favorites, Cephus and Reesie, was a sketch series about a musical duo that often did too much at the wrong time. Seeing their sketches made me think about the musicality that naturally exists in black bodies. It’s beyond the “always on beat” stereotype. Though I’m sure the sketch series was inspired by R&B groups, the sketches reminded me of everyone’s favorite church aunties. They always had an ad lib for the pastors and an extra riff for the organist. The culture behind the black church movements are depicted in different ways; but it always comes down to two consistent things: flashy outfits and quippy ad libs, much like many R&B groups in the 80s and 90s.

Blackness has always proved itself to be extravagant and presents itself in the forefront of pop culture. I’m glad that I came across In Living Color before Saturday Night Live. Proud that I was able to resonate with black comedians before their white counterparts.

My father didn’t know it then, but he was about to raise a performer who would never feel intimidated in front of a white audience. And it all started with seeing a black woman cutting someone’s ass in a pantsuit.

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The post Don’t Try To Cut My Ass, I’ve Watched ‘In Living Color’ appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.