Category Archive: Lifestyle

Olugbenga Agboola: Digital Dash’n through Africa

Olubenga Agboola was a nervous wreck as he left Uber headquarters in San Francisco back in 2016. He spent the next couple of sleepless nights on edge, pacing back and forth as he faced lingering doubts about whether his company Flutterwave would become the next payment processor for Uber in Africa. Not a soul in the room that he pitched this idea to had even heard of Flutterwave. Even though he was unsure if his company had the right capital and skillsets, it didn’t seem to matter. A few days later, Uber signed on and Agboola was left with a heavy sigh of relief. 

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Garrett Bradley: The Black Experience Meets Hollywood

The year is 1913 and three suitors are competing for the hand of the local beauty. Mobile partygoers are dancing the famous “cakewalk” as legendary Entertainer Bert Williams and Actress Odessa Warren Grey are dressed up for a date at the park, which includes a ride on the merry-go-round. This positive depiction of life as a middle-class black person in the film "Lime Kiln Club Field Day" serves as one of the very few silent black and white films which featured an all-Black cast with story elements that challenged the negative, evil depictions of Blacks in a majority of white produced films of that time. Over 100 years later, filmmaker Garrett Bradley has chosen to incorporate footage from this unreleased film into her multichannel video installation titled “America.”

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Chef Tavius Parker: The Flick of the Wrist

A trip to Benihana is always sensationally action-packed. Between the onion volcanoes and the fiery tricks, you’re bound to leave both full and entertained but that usually comes after you've given the chef a standing ovation. Hibachi is normally uniform no matter where you go. You get your rice, veggies, meats and of course-a show. Most people would be scared to go against the grain and add a twist to this tradition, but when it comes to Chef Tavius Parker and his signature Hibachi Pasta, he’s proven that a blacktop grill and a bowl of pasta can certainly meet somewhere in the middle. 

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Tamika Mallory: A New Age of Activism

It’s been almost ten months since George Floyd was murdered as a result of four police officers' blatant disregard for yet another black man's life. It’s been almost a year since the shooting death of 25-year old Ahmaud Arbery by neighbors who felt that him jogging in his own neighborhood was suspicious. It’s been over a year since Breonna Taylor was shot to death by police officers while she slept in her Kentucky home. In all three of these instances and many more which have not made headlines, no charges were initially filed. This did not sit right with black America nor did it appease activist Tamika Mallory who’s managed to articulate the pain that black people are feeling in such a way that it leaves her audience jaw dropped every single time she speaks.

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