The heart of the city of Houston — the 610 loop — and the greater Houston area has several neighborhoods that have helped carve culture, create identity and sustain history. One of the neighborhoods that single-handedly put Houston on the map as a focal point of the LGBTQ community is Montrose. In 1911, Montrose was a...
The blending of foods has been appearing everywhere — from swanky restaurants to city roaming food trucks. But, how much of this “fusion food” is real, and how much of it is just dressed up fries? Fusion food, at its core, is the blending of two or more cultures’ foods and styles to make something different and new....
Houston has been an up-and-coming city for years. It had the oil boom, railroads, the bayou and continues to be a pioneer for energy. Amid its exponential growth, like other cities, housing has been integral. Due to the need for housing (along with poor race relations) there are delegated and sanctuary places in...
Character Study: Madison Spencer May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. On the topic of social justice, progression and activism in reference to all other minorities, the Asian culture seems to be quiet and almost nonexistent in comparison. They had their social movement in the 60s and 70s (like many other...
Kendrick Lamar released his highly anticipated third studio album this past Good Friday. Before everyone gets upset, I’m not counting “Untitled Unmastered.” Lamar is one of the few artists that causes massive hype whenever he drops something, yet no one knows where he’s going to go next. This 14-track record is a...
Black women were the first people in whom I saw the concept of strength, beauty, intelligence and poise. As members of the black feminist movement, they are both underrepresented and misrepresented. Being raised by my mother and grandmother, I naturally formed some of the strongest bonds with black women, and that...
Writer, comedian and now director, Jordan Peele, shifted the genre of horror and pop culture as a whole for his directorial debut. While creating a horror sub-genre he also catered to a fan base that isn’t typically represented in horror films, unless they are subsequently dying first: the black guy. This type of...
From the years of 2008 to 2010, Kanye West released two seemingly opposite albums, “808’s & Heartbreak” and “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” Both projects use relationships as the thesis, but deal with them completely differently sonically and structurally. Upon release, 808’s was not commercially acclaimed by his...
This is the first part of an in-depth, three-part series, “An Album Conversation,” that discusses Kanye West’s albums and the events that inspired them. Kanye West, a complete auteur of music. His catalog spans across seven solo projects. After the releases of his first three projects, which I will now call “ The School...
On October 7th Netflix released a documentary, “13th” made by “Selma” director Ava DuVernay. On the surface, the film is about the 13th amendment, which states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United...
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