In front of a packed crowd on AEW Dynamite, Jade Cargill, rocking her white hair in glossy black gear, was preparing to fly like her favorite X-Men superhero, Storm. After weeks of competing in a fierce, 12-woman tournament for the 10 pounds of gold, she was just minutes away from winning it all.
DMV Diamonds Women’s Flag Football Prepares for Its Long-Awaited Return /
In a plush corner nearly fifty meters away from the home plate at Banneker Recreation Center’s baseball field, four orange cones sit between a football player and the rest of her teammates. The women are in the middle of practice and doing their version of the popular “Oklahoma” drill, which was originally designed to test the aggressiveness of a team through close-quarters contact. The drill ends only if the ball carrier is tackled or driven out of bounds.
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Social media and big money mean celebrity boxing is here to stay /
Will the “sweet science” of boxing remain on the decline while celebrity fights like we witnessed – and will see again soon – gain in popularity?
Growing up in Landover, Maryland, I lived a few minutes away from where Martin Lawrence – the comedian and a local AAU boxer – once resided, and my parents loved the sport. Every Saturday, my family would watch bouts, including Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield and Roy Jones vs. Bernard Hopkins. When we went to North Carolina, my dad had me and my siblings throw hands with our cousins on a small porch the size of a ring behind my grandparents’ house. Those early days cultivated my interest in the sweet science.
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The Club Sounds of “Natural Phenomena” Are Inspired by Ayesha’s Travels /
Using percussion, sampled sounds, and echoed bells, and working in genres ranging from EDM to hip-hop and Baile funk (she just calls it “Genre X”), Ayesha Chugh’s music tells a story of diaspora. Her latest, Natural Phenomena, continues that tradition, drawing on her experiences living in different parts of the world.
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South African Dance Producer SKinniez Carries on His Father’s Legacy /
The South African producer Harold Galeta—better known to his fans as SKinniez—was only a few years into his career when he joined Kamasi Washington on stage at the 2017 Cape Town Jazz Festival to play the drum set…with his fingers. “It was a meet and greet,” Galeta recalls. “They were asking people in the audience who could play the drums, so I put my hand up and Kamasi says, ‘You, come to the stage!’” There was, unfortunately, a complication: “I didn’t have sticks with me!” he laughs. “I ended up using my fingers to play with the drumset. At the very last minute, when the song is really going off, somebody runs to the stage and hands me drumsticks. I’m like ‘Guys, come on.’”
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Culture shock lingers along divided line in Ferguson /
FERGUSON – Bridgette Gordon-Billingsley sells her beauty products at the Ferguson Farmers Market. She lives in the Old Jamestown area of north St. Louis County, but she lived in Ferguson for about eight years, until 2014. Though Billingsley continues to sell her products at the market, there’s a huge change in the tone of her experience there compared with what it was before the shooting of Michael Brown (and its aftermath) took place that year.
“The market, pre-Mike Brown, was just good times. There was a lot of tra\c, and it was busy,” she said. “Post Mike Brown, it wasn’t the same vibe.”
The Ferguson Farmers Market is held every Saturday on South Florissant Road, in an area less than 10 minutes away from West Florissant Avenue and, more speci`cally, the Can`eld Green apartments, where Brown was shot on Aug. 9th, 2014. Five years later, there’s a clear divide between the two areas that lingers as they continue to rebuild what was lost `ve years ago.