Screenshot of video

Photo via xoNecole

By Lydia Anglin

Once upon a time, there was a baby naturalista who used to sit in front of the mirror every night, with her arms held high for over 45 minutes, trying to complete the perfect twist out.

As she huffed and puffed, she wished for a fairy godmother who could end her misery and just grant her poppin' curls at the flick of a wand. But, this naturalista eventually came to her senses and realized: ain't nobody got time for that.

Amara La Negra scrubbing the hell out of her man's shower via IG

By Veronica Wells

Amara La Negra caused quite a stir this week, when she used her Instagram account to send an interesting message. Aside from the fact she was cleaning the bathroom in a bodycon, the image became controversial because of caption:

Diddy & fam via the gram

By Kaila Kea

When I saw Lena Waithe recently, sporting her new do on the red carpet, my first thought was, “Oh shit, she looks like a straight up dude.”

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Ciara, Russell Wilson and Ciara's Son

By Brenda Alexander

Coming into a relationship with children can add layers of difficulties. A mother and child are a packaged deal, so when you date her, you essentially date her kid(s) also. The reality is, there are risks associated with dating a woman with children. And, if you decide to go steady, those risks turn into obligations. There is an expectation that once a man becomes seriously involved that he should take an active role in her children’s lives both emotionally and even financially. But how much should a man contribute financially to his girlfriend’s children? That’s the question and debate that was sparked after this social media post.

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Chile.

By Erickka Sy Savané

When news reporter Dana Whyte of Michigan recently took to her twitter account to profess that she had worn her her natural hair on-camera for the first time, ending an internal struggle that had plagued her since the beginning of her career, I thought, "Whoa, baby, we still got work to do!"

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By Kaila Kea

For many women of color, working hard is nothing new. Balancing love, life, and career is natural to you. In fact, you don’t know how to walk away from a challenge without giving it your all. Although this sense of determination can serve us well, it can also drive us toward career envy.

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Slim Thug & The Wilson's

By Ta-ning Connai

We haven't heard from Slim Thug since he spit rhymes on Beyonce's “Check On It” way back in 2006. And based on the rapper’s recent backlash he’s incurred, he’s probably wishing we weren't hearing from him now.

During a radio interview last week, the Houston native was asked if he thought a girl could date a good guy after having dated bad boys for a while. And that's when he decided, for no reason at all, to drag Ciara and her husband ‘cross the living room floor! He basically said that Ciara had a thing for street dudes and since she ended up with Russell Wilson, it must be all about the dough. He called Wilson corny, a square, lame and not cool...meanwhile, he just bought a pair of Russell's Nike shoes! Yo Slim, you had the nerve to tell the world you’re an undercover fan? But the worst part was when Slim said Ciara ain't changed and can’t adapt to a good man 😲.

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Photo via Hollywood Life

Photo of Jare Ijalana by Bamuyiwa

By Erickka Sy Savané

By now many of you have seen the now viral photo of beautiful 5 year-old Nigerian girl, Jare Ijalana, recently anointed, 'The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.' To see her sweet, angelic face is to instantly fall in love. To see the wig and full-on makeup on a girl so young has many asking, is it too much though?

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50 and Floyd during happier times

By Brenda Alexander

Former BFF’s Floyd Mayweather and 50 Cent’s beef doesn’t seem to be dying down any time soon. They’ve been exposing each other’s skeletons on Instagram for weeks. So far, they’ve thrown shots at Floyd’s illiteracy, 50 as an absentee father, Floyd as a woman beater, 50’s a rat, neither of them having any street cred and they are both broke. And that's the PG-13 version.

Screenshot via Refinery 29 IG Video

By Brenda Alexander

“I need to find something for my hair to lay my edges down before this TV interview tomorrow. I cannot be on camera with fuzzy edges,” I say to my aunt, who looked at me in shock before she proceeded to preach about my edges and camera time being unrelated. She then scolded me about what I felt was a need to appear "presentable," considering I donned faux locs, a hairstyle that many consider the opposite of societal norms. And, I never opt to tame my edges any other time. Surely, in her eyes, that was contradictory. To her, not only was my intelligence enough to handle the interview, but I was beautiful regardless of how rough I thought my edges looked.

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Ms. Lauryn Hill Courtesy Photo via TheMiamiTimes

I was in fifth grade when Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation was released. I don’t think I could overstate what that album meant to me. It changed the game for me (I would learn later, so many other young, Black women.)

A year later, during a family reunion—where we ended up in Vegas— I saw that Lauryn Hill was performing there, the day after we would have already left. I stood there on the strip, staring at that illuminated marquee, somehow knowing that I was missing something magical, some once in a lifetime event. As you know, Lauryn Hill is still performing her classic album. But if I wanted to hear what I fell in love with, the best chance of that would have been in 1999.

Photo taken by Ta-ning Connai in her Santa Monica neighborhood

As soon as we think we've recovered from Kanye’s last outrageous stunt...SURPRISE!....he hits us with another dose of untapped foolishness! He recently poured out some pretty glowing feelings about the POTUS and I suppose he had to ignore Trump’s racist, misogynistic and morally decayed views in order to esteem him that way. The suck up continued with words like “brother,” “love,” and “dragon energy” (huh???) followed by a pic of Kanye sporting a Make America Great Again cap (again). But this isn't a person simply exerting the right to his opinion or political views, as his wife Kim tried to defend. Sadly, his comments point to his slow, but deliberate path towards “white is right, black is whack” (a phrase going back to the 70’s), and that alone is more disheartening than who he would cast his vote for.

Crystal Renay, son & Ne-Yo

By Brenda Alexander

In a time where mom’s are becoming moguls from sharing their children’s hair routine to their thousands of mommy subscribers on Youtube and Instagram, I so thought we were beyond the era of coined terms like “Hawaiian silky,” “good,” and anything else in that word family to describe our kid’s hair in its natural state. That was until Neyo’s wife Crystal Renay Smith shared this photo begging her 363k followers for tips on taming her son’s mane as a last resort because according to her, he wasn’t “blessed with mommy’s Hawaiian silky” texture. My oh my how far she’s set our Wakandan pride back.

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By Kanisha Parks

Lurking in the comment sections / dropping shade left and right
Mad at the world / always ready to fight.
They think they run the hair scene / their way or none
Natural Hair Nazis / mad since day one.

Seriously, cheesy poetry aside: Natural Hair Nazism is real and thriving. It’s unfortunate, really, because ultimately, it really is just hair. But Natural Hair Nazis take this hair thing to a wholeee other level. While being natural for seven years, I heard the term “Natural Hair Nazi” thrown around pretty consistently but since returning relaxed, the term instantly became personal. I never knew how much women cared about other women’s hair!

What’s more is, Natural Hair Nazis don’t just discriminate against relaxed ladies—they get mad at the hair choices of other naturals too! They feel as though “being natural” should be conducted a certain way, and anything contrary to their opinion of what it means to be natural is frowned upon.
So the question is (and be real)—are you a Natural Hair Nazi? Let’s find out!

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