Soapbox Cincinnati »» State of the Arts

31 08 2011

Check out my article about the Arts Centers in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, including  Kennedy Heights Arts CenterBaker-Hunt Art and Cultural CenterThe Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, the Clifton Cultural Arts Center and parProjects.

The online magazine was emailed to subscribers yesterday soon after it was published on the Web. You can also find it here.

Here’s a little sneak peak:

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Concert Benefits DJ Kool Herc, Focuses on Health Care

24 02 2011

Friday, February 18, three of the city’s leading DJs performed at a benefit concert for hip-hop music pioneer DJ Kool Herc.  DJ Pillo, Apryl Reign and Mista Rare Groove headlined the affair at Main Event in downtown Cincinnati. The event was the second collaboration between the three artists as par of a regular show they have begun called “Selectas Choice.”

With the aid of both turntables and laptops, the DJs kept their audience dancing as they spun and scratched records all night from 10pm until after 4am. The set list drew from a variety of hip-hop, R&B and soul musicians including A Tribe Called Quest, Prince, Salt-N-Pepa, Cee Lo and the Jackson 5. Both the music and the cause attracted a lively crowd that included a few influential names in the Cincinnati hip-hop scene like musician Marvin Hawkins, author Kathy Y. Wilson and radio personality Perry Simmons.

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Tweeting from DJ Kool Herc Benefit Concert

19 02 2011

Friday night DJ Pillo, Mista Rare Groove and April Reign — three of Cincinnati’s premier DJs — performed at Main Event for their second “Selectas Choice” concert. This time they donated the proceeds to help hip-hop legend DJ Kool Herc, also known as Clive Campbell. The benefit concert was part of a nation-wide effort to raise money for his recent medical expenses.

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Cincinnati Magazine »» The Dynamo of OTR: Cedric Michael Cox

6 10 2010

Check out my article about visual artist Cedric Michael Cox featured in this week’s issue of Cincinnati Magazine!

The magazine hit shelves this month and is available all over the Cincinnati area. You can also find it online here.

October 2010 cover of Cincinnati Magazine

The cover of the October 2010 issue of Cincinnati Magazine.

Here’s a little sneak peak:

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Cedric Michael Cox is wide awake as he trots down the stairs of the Kennedy Heights Arts Center. He was up most of the previous night, preparing for an exhibition at the Weston Art Gallery, but the hours spent in his Over-the-Rhine studio don’t show. The 34-year-old seems as fresh and feisty as the kids waiting for him in the classroom of the old mansion on Montgomery Road.

Cox is managing 11 kids—three white, the rest black, like him. In blue jeans, with his dreadlocks loosely pulled behind his head, he doesn’t look like much of an authoritarian. With his easygoing smile and the fact that, at five-foot-one, he’s shorter than some of the preteens enrolled in “Camp Create,” you might mistake him for a cool older brother. But the kids know who’s in charge…

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CityBeat »» Back to Bass-ics: Bootsy Collins’ online Funk U

9 07 2010

Check out my article about Bootsy Collinsonline Funk University, featured in this week’s issue of CityBeat!

It’s available all over Cincinnati, wherever fine alt weeklies are sold — and by “sold,” I mean handed out for free.

Here’s a tiny sneak peek:

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The eternal sunshine of their spotless minds: the Tea Party’s selective memory

5 07 2010

Why don’t we see too many brown faces at Tea Party rallies? (According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, only 8 percent of Tea Party supporters are non-white, compared to 21 percent of all respondents.)

I think the the conspicuous whiteness might have something to do with the Tea Party’s sense of amnesia.

What I mean is that their approach to history is reminiscent of Hollywood amnesia. It’s sort of like that Jim Carrey movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

For an example, take the July 4 fireworks show at Ault Park here in Cincinnati…

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To boldly split infinitives where they have never been split before…

8 04 2010

“A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.”

Princess Irulan, from Frank Herbert’s Dune

This blog has been a long time in coming. One question had to be answered before I started. How can I write about big things (truth, justice, democracy, religion, etc.) and still make this fun for me to publish and others to read? I have little interest in reading blogs that are merely personal diaries, and even less interest in writing one.

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“Hailing frequencies open”

17 05 2009
Zoe Saldana as Uhura

Production still of Zoe Saldana as Uhura in director J. J. Abrams' 2009 film, Star Trek. Courtesy of Wikipedia. Property of Spyglass Entertainment, Bad Robot Productions and Paramount Pictures.

So I finally saw the latest Star Trek film — the one directed by J.J. Abrams — and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The writing was solid, the visuals were nothing to sneeze at, and the acting was superb. Zachary Quinto‘s portrayal of Spock would make it worth seeing all by itself.
And yet, I walked out of Cincinnati’s Esquire theater tonight feeling like a guy with a Vulcan father and a human mother — conflicted.




A Little Journalistic Advice From Bruce Lee

7 04 2009

Originally published by the UC Association of Black Journalists.

A statue of Bruce Lee displayed on Hong Kong's Avenue of Stars.

A statue of Bruce Lee displayed on Hong Kong's Avenue of Stars. CC image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Bruce Lee? What’s he got to do with journalism? It’ll make sense. I promise.

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Obama Inauguration Coverage

6 02 2009

Versions of this were originally published by The News Record and the UC Association of Black Journalists.

Check out UCABJ Vice President Geoffrey Dobbins’s inauguration report at The News Record’s Web site.

Here are some images from the celebration Dobbins and Terron Austin attended: The Root Inaugural Ball

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Inauguration Report: UC Journalism student recounts unforgettable inauguration experience through personal narrative

Geoffrey Dobbins | The News Record

Published: Tuesday, January 27, 2009

WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, Jan. 20, Barack Obama took the oath as the 44th President of the United States. I took the opportunity to join the millions of people who traveled to Washington, D.C. that week for the event.

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