Source: WENN.com / WENN

T.I has had his fair share of run-ins with the law before and during his career and now he is devoting himself to lending a helping hand to prison reform.  The Grammy-nominated rapper is now a member of a task force under Atlanta mayor Keisha Bottoms to repurpose the Atlanta City Detention Center.

“It is a top priority of the Mayor Bottoms to put this underutilized facility to more productive use as a multi-faceted use center for wellness and healing, skills-building, economic mobility, and crime prevention for people, families and communities impacted by the history of over-incarceration,” reads a press release.

The Atlanta Detention Center is a $56 million facility with 1,300 beds but the amount of detainees being held there has declined significantly.  It is also operating on a $33 million budget and has over 360 employees. Since the detention center is underused and over budgeted, the task force will finding a new purpose for the center.

Tip is a part of a 25-member task force that will meet with an advisory group, Atlanta’s Police Chief Erika Shields and Fulton County’s District Attorney Paul Howard to form new ideas about how else the center can be used and present it to Mayor Bottoms. Love & Hip Hop Atlanta’s Scrapp DeLeon is also a member of the task force. DeLeon was recently released from prison after being convicted on drug trafficking-related charges.

T.I is no stranger to lending his voice and input to criminal justice issues. He also partnered with Ebenezer Baptist Church for Freedom Day Bailout and participated in an expungement campaign.

Source: Derrick Salters/WENN.com / WENN

Michelle Obama didn’t hold anything back during a candid sitdown with Gayle King over the weekend at Essence Fest. Besides discussing healthy living and her memoir Becoming, the former FLOTUS also spoke about looking forward to having a house without teenagers soon.

“Barack’s like ‘You seem so much less  stressed,’ and I’m like, duh! Not only were we parenting teenagers, but every Saturday night you had to worry about whether your kid is gonna end up on Page Six,” Obama told King. “Now we’re rediscovering each other. I’m looking over and going ‘Hey…you, where have you been for 21 years?!’”

King even asked the Chitown native about her take on having great sex at every age, which she said she isn’t opposed to at all.

“Yes. I support that principle,” she laughed. “I mean, come on Gayle! What I’m ‘sposed to say to that? ‘No, I take issue with that?’ Yes, Gayle, the answer is yes!”

Mrs. Obama also gave invaluable advice on how to find the right partner. She said the most important factor in sustaining a healthy relationship is equality.

“Equality is not just measured in terms of the wallet. Equality is in terms of the value that they carry. Honesty is the beginning, the middle, and the end. I wouldn’t want to be bothered with someone I couldn’t trust on a day-to-day basis. It’s not just about how much money they make or title. Someone could have the right salary, but the wrong heart.”

Not only did drop some gems, she looked stunning! She rocked her natural curls and slayed in a navy blue, belted, shimmery jumpsuit.

View this post on Instagram

What a great night here in New Orleans celebrating 25 years of#EssenceFest and #BlackGirlMagic. Thanks to @GayleKing for sitting down with me to talk about all things #IAmBecoming, relationships and just how hard it is as women to put ourselves first.

A post shared by Michelle Obama (@michelleobama) on Jul 6, 2019 at 10:28pm PDT

A rich family living in a big Malibu mansion, affairs galore, bad business deals, prodigal sons; A House Divided has it all.

But perhaps the brightest light at the end of the tunnel is Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs in a starring role.

With A House Divided, writer Dan Garcia officially moves from daytime to primetime with this new Urban Movie Channel (UBC) soap. Divided is the second outing for Garcia, whose web series, Bronx SIU was nominated for a Daytime Emmy.

Despite regularly working through the decades, star Hilton-Jacobs is probably best remembered by an earlier generation, trivia buffs, or re-run watchers as one of the stars of the 1970s sitcom, Welcome Back Kotter. In the six-episode season, Jacobs plays Cameron Sanders, the now-elder of the Sanders clan, an old California-rich African-American banking family whose lineage goes back to an enterprising freed woman in 1800s Los Angeles.

To all appearances, Cameron (in the first episode the character says he prefers to be called Cameron instead of Mr. Sanders because it makes him feel he’s still in his thirties) appears to be a driven businessman. But in the reveal, he’s more of a middle-aged son still looking for approval from his father (David McKnight).

Jacob’s years of acting experience pays off here as he fits well into the polished older man role and emotes just the right mix of world-weariness, male ego, and vulnerability.

We learn very early on that he is cheating on his wife and that the girlfriend (Demetria McKinney) doesn’t just want him but the whole empire and, in typical soap-opera style, will stop at nothing to get it.

The show may lose some viewers in the first episode as dialogue is not only a bit cliche but clunky. For example, Kathleen Bradley-Reed is the grande dame of the clan and (Hilton’s not-so-cuckolded wife) doesn’t quite pull off the bougie b*tch role. Nor is there enough true menace in her demeanor or dialogue delivery to scare anyone off her husband.

Meanwhile their older son (Brad James) is just partying, sleeping around, and abusing substances every day, but we’re supposed to believe that no one really notices all that much. Or, maybe the Sanders are such sophisticated parents that they just want him to be “himself” as Jacob’s Cameron says in one scene.

Actress and reality star Paula Jai Parker (Hustle and Flow, Hollywood Divas) is the “daddy’s girl” daughter,  freshly returned from Paris. This is never forgotten as the phrase is mentioned at least two or three times in the first three episodes.

While the elephant in the room is that Jai Parker may be too close to Jacob’s age to play his real-life daughter, this is a TV series. She pulls it off by downplaying the makeup and adopting a boho rich-girl persona. In fact, her spoiled, entitled Stephanie is on full display as she indulges in an affair with a married man (Gichi Gamba) and even goes so far as to ask him why he is still with the “dumb” woman.

Yet, she has a soft side, and, as time goes on, she may be the only person able to talk some sense into her weak-willed father.

A second son (Steph Santana) seems more concerned with getting away from his feuding family and losing himself in the world of basketball.

This little house of cards may soon topple as the SEC and FBI are on the case regarding some unscrupulous (are there ever any other kind in a primetime soap?) business dealings between the Sanders bank and a Nigerian businessman (Art Evans).

Evans, a veteran character actor who has played in everything—from an engineer (Die Hard 2) to a blues guitarist in an early biopic about LeadBelly—manages to make his turn as an arrogant, old-time, white-collar crook thoroughly engaging.

Other actors rounding out the cast include Taja V. Simpson (late of Lethal Weapon), as the family lawyer, Jimmy Walker Jr. (Black Dynamite)  in an uncredited role, singer Terry Dexter as an insecure wife, and newcomer Dominique DuVernay (no relation to Ava) playing a sexy Creole housekeeper.

Watching A House Divided and other shows such as the recent Robin Givens drama, Ambitions, reminds one of the classic primetime soaps such as Dynasty (old and redux), Dallas, and Falcon Crest. Like them, these shows are filled with pretty people, unreal plot twists, murder, and mayhem. Unlike them, viewers can stream these shows all at once and not wait until next week.

Also, there’s none of that “one or two Black actors who don’t appear until the second or third season.” Twenty-first-century TV that provides the cheap thrills of the fantasy 1% wrecking each other’s lives hasn’t changed, but it’s really good to see more POC.

A House Divided starts streaming at www.UMC.tv on Thursday, July 12, 2019.

The post ‘A House Divided’: 1970s Star Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs Is Back in Plot-Filled Potboiler appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.