January 16, 2020
By Keith L. Alexander
NNPA Newswire
Inside the illuminated MGM National Harbor towering over the Potomac River, the 3,000-seat theater slowly fills with African Americans donned in tuxedos and gowns as Hollywood’s and New York’s top entertainers mix with some of Washington, D.C.’s bourgeoisie including politicians and business leaders. All have gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Urban One Inc., the nation’s largest distributor of news and entertainment aimed solely at Black consumers, which also includes the largest African American owned TV network.
The media company that for decades was known as Radio One Inc. for its stable of radio stations across the country, changed its name in 2017 to Urban One, a new name that reflects, its owners believe, its channeled mission of providing media content to urban audiences via all forms of media through its divisions including radio, television programming with its TV One cable network and now the Internet.
Still at the helm of Urban One is the legendary woman with the mic, camera and now computer keyboard is the company’s founder and chairwoman, Cathy Hughes.
On this night, the 72-year-old energetic and spirited Hughes is also serving as co-host for the 40th anniversary Urban One Honors awards show with comedian Chris Tucker, which is scheduled to air on Hughes’s TV One network Jan. 20.
The show, however, is already running late before it even began. Taping was supposed to begin 20 minutes or so ago. But people are still slowly filling their seats. Then, to a round of staccato applause and without an introduction, Hughes, with her broad smile, walked onto the stage. She apologized for the late start. The staffing at the entrances of the MGM, she said, have been slow in allowing audience members through the doors. “But I’ll take care of this,” she said while putting a finger in the air.
Hughes disappears backstage. And within 10 minutes, as if a dam burst, audience members began rushing into the theater to their seats. Minutes later, the orchestra begins playing and Hughes and Tucker walk on stage arm-in-arm to begin the two-hour show.
No one messes with Cathy Hughes, especially when she is their boss. That’s right, in addition to the various entertainment companies, Urban One also owns nearly seven percent of the $1.4 billion, MGM casino, hotel and resort, a purchase the company made when the resort opened three years ago.
As the nation celebrates the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this month, those who knew King well, say Hughes and Urban One are the epitome of King’s dream.
Dr. Benjamin Chavis, who worked as a youth leader for King in the 1960s, said Hughes was able to break through the historically, White, male-controlled world of media ownership and create her own media company that she uses to not only to reach millions of people around the world to ensure that the voices of African Americans continue to be shared and visible.
“Urban One continues to fulfill Dr. King’s dream,” Chavis said. “The best way to celebrate Black history is to make more history. Cathy Hughes continues to make Black history.” Chavis is now head of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, made up of more than 200 Black-owned newspapers across the country.
The Hughes media story is well known. She began her career in 1969 at an AM radio station in her native Omaha, but left for Washington, D.C. when she was offered a job as a lecturer at Howard University. In 1973, Hughes was named general sales manager of WHUR, Howard’s FM radio station. Two years later, Hughes was promoted to general manager. There she created the late night, slow-jam formatted staple called “The Quiet Storm” a signature sound that expanded to radio stations around the country. In that short time, Hughes had taken annual revenues at the station from $250,000 to more than $3.5 million.
In 1979, Hughes and then-husband, Dewey Hughes, sought financing to purchase their own radio station and were rejected by 32 banks until 1980 when they secured lending to buy WOL-AM, a tiny Washington, D.C. station located in Northeast Washington.
That first station led to the acquisitions of dozens of radio stations around the country. Then in 2004, with her son Alfred C. Liggins III, a Wharton School of Business MBA graduate, as chief executive officer his mother’s company, Radio One branched into television by creating TV One, a cable network reaching more than 40 million African American TV households.
In 2017, TV One changed its name to Urban One after it acquired a collection of Internet media websites, now known as iOne Digital, that focus on news, sports and entertainment stories about and for Black audiences.
Today, Urban One is worth, according to Wall Street estimates based on stock price of about $98 million. The company boasts of reaching 59 million households, 22 million listeners, 40 million video streams, 20 million unique Web visitors. It owns 57 broadcast stations in 15 urban markets, two cable networks and some 80 websites. Hughes works closely with her son who she credits with diversifying Urban One beyond radio and TV.
“This company has a commitment to serving our audience that is evidenced beyond just the mission of making money. It is to build an organization that represents the needs and interests of a community that for the majority of this country’s history, hasn’t had a voice to fight for it,” Liggins, 54, said recently.
Throughout the night, at the star-studded awards at the MGM, the influence that Hughes has garnered over the four decades was repeatedly echoed by those who took the stage.
Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott surrounded on stage by other rap legends, Lil Kim and Da Brat, became emotional during her acceptance speech.
She described Hughes as “bold, fierce, strong, innovative (and) a visionary.” Elliott said a “big” part of her success was due to Urban One. “We are all chosen, but there are certain people chosen to be a vessel,” Elliott said of Hughes.
During his acceptance speech, actor and singer, Jamie Foxx spoke of when he and director and writer, Quentin Tarantino, were making the 2012 “Django Unchained,” they were concerned about the use of the N-word in the film and how audiences would receive the racist word. Foxx told the audience that he told Tarantino “the only person who could help them” ensure audiences would not be put off by the repeated use of the racist word would be Hughes.
So, the two asked Hughes to come to the movie set so she could see the filming and hear the vision behind it. Foxx said they needed Hughes’s “blessing” knowing that her influence with audiences could ultimately make or break the film.
When he took the stage, Broadway, film and TV performer, Billy Porter described how being celebrated by a Black media company in front of a predominately Black audience, was unusual for out, gay Black entertainers. “As a Black, queer man in the world, this is such a special day for me. I never felt welcomed. Today in this space, for the first time in my life, I feel like I am a part of this community,” Porter said grabbing Hughes’s hand as she joined him on stage.
During his acceptance speech, Chance the Rapper described Hughes – or Miss H. as he calls her - as a “trailblazer” and a “maverick” who, he said, “built an entire industry, for us.”
Hughes says she plans to continue to build and rebuild the media industry as the technology changes how Black households receive their information and entertainment.
“Today, we reach 92 percent of Black households,” Hughes added. “We plan to get to 100 percent.”
“If the Black audience that we serve decides that they want to receive our messages via carrier pigeon, then I’m getting ready to go into the bird business. I don’t know what it will take in the future in order to reach that goal. That will depend on what advances occur in technology.”
Urban One’s plan, Hughes says, is to ensure the company will be at the center, the premiere go-to media outlet for Black households.
“It’s important for us to have Black-owned and controlled, particularly in the media, business ventures, nobody is going to tell our stories from our perspective, except us,” she said. “Nobody is going to do that for us. Why should they or would they? It’s our responsibility to do that.”
January 09, 2020
By Brittany K. Jackson
Contributing Writer
Recently, the Sentinel attended the Los Angeles screening of “Just Mercy,” the critically acclaimed film detailing the raw truths and stark biases found in America’s criminal justice system. Starring Black Panther’s Michael B. Jordan and Oscar award-winning actor Jamie Foxx, “Just Mercy” trails the journey of Bryan Stevenson (Jordan), a young Black lawyer and Harvard graduate who makes it his life’s mission to vindicate the wrongfully accused and underrepresented and Walter McMillan (Foxx), a Black man from Alabama, who in 1987, was wrongfully convicted for the notorious murder of an 18-year old girl.
Held at the Cinemark Theater in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw, the star-studded and action-packed event also included appearances from co-stars Karan Kendrick, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Brie Larson, along with special appearances from actors Morris Chestnut and Elise Neal. Laker legend Kobe Bryant and emcee legend, Terrence J also made a grand entrance, serving as the night’s hosts.
In the film, you’ll find that Stevenson and McMillan initially present many polarities, but when their worlds collide, the pair find an unorthodox and sometimes inhumane ways that their plight as Black men and desire for justice is the same.
Jordan, also known for starring in “Fruitvale Station” and “Creed” says the film fits a trajectory that forces communities of color to take ownership of their narrative and use it to embrace change. Jordan says for so long, people of color have felt intimidated, paralyzed and stuck when they speak up for justice and don’t see results. “I feel like Bryan Stevenson’s message, who he is, is fighting for the things that we care about, the things that we’re actively fighting for all the time on social media,” Jordan said.
Jordan says that “through solidarity, through community, demanding answers from broken systems and identifying leaders like Bryan Stevenson,” people of color are in better position to overcome cyclical trauma. “There’s a lot of things that need to happen in order to overcome hundreds and hundreds of years of systemic oppression. We’re in the infancy stages of that, so we’ll see what happens,” Jordan proclaimed.
Bryan Stevenson also agrees with this sentiment, declaring that justice must be met with a higher level of reckoning and accountability in communities of color. “We’re going to have to do something about access to justice,” Stevenson said. “We have a system that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent and that has to change,” he continued.
Stevenson says we must “commit to telling the truth about our history of racial inequality” and that not doing so has “created the smog in the air we’re breathing in.” “We’ve not really talked about the legacy of slavery and its impact on our nation. We haven’t talked about the terrorism and lynching that brought Black people to communities like L.A. and Oakland. We haven’t really dealt with the presumption of dangerousness and guilt that gets assigned to Black people.”
Foxx, who’s committed a lifetime to creating art that speaks truth, such as in the films “Ray” and “Django,” says “‘Just Mercy’ and Bryan Stevenson is so important because it’s real.”
“It’s not fictitious, it’s not a social media campaign; Michael B. Jordan, what he did in ‘Fruitvale Station’ was amazing because that narrative touched us, then he takes that same narrative into ‘Black Panther’ on a bigger stage. He could have done any movie that he wanted to do, instead he did something that was important to us,” Foxx said.
Foxx also encouraged audiences not to get “fatigued” when it comes to the fight for justice.
“Come see this wonderful film, be entertained by it. There are some incredible performances and afterwards, it’s going to make you feel a certain kind of way, you’re going to want to get up and do your thing,” he stated.
Actress Karan Kendrick stars as wife Minnie McMillan in the film and says that in America, “we have somehow normalized the trauma of Black and Brown people” and her goal was to bring the depth of that trauma to the forefront.
“Minnie McMillan is still with us and I thought well, she’ll see this, and what do I want her to feel? For me it was about her feeling seen, and heard and understood and not marginalized, not judged for the choices that she was making; and hopefully embraced as a human being, not as a strong Black woman,” Kendrick said.
“That’s a part of who she is, but as a person she’s had to endure this trauma for herself, for her husband and for her family. Minnie McMillan has every reason to walk away but she chooses to stand,” Kendrick continued.
The Sentinel also caught up with O’Shea Jackson Jr., who portrays a unique role in the film, bound to a jail cell while serving a 30-year sentence on death row. Jackson’s Jr.’s character lends to the attitude of hope, finding solace in a place not intended for freedom, truth or redemption.
When asked what advice he would offer to young men of color who’ve experienced generational cycles of oppression, Jackson Jr. said simply, to strengthen the mind.
“You have to build your knowledge and have a better understanding of things, or you’ll just go into the world blindly. You can’t always go off emotion,” he said.
“The heart can’t get what it wants all the time. If the heart had a good idea, it’d be called the brain,” he uttered jokingly. “You have to look before you leap a little bit and you have to make sure you’re educated on the rules of the game because you won’t even know when you’re losing,” Jackson Jr. concluded.
“Just Mercy” is set to hit theatres nationwide on January 10, 2020. For exclusive interviews with the cast and crew, visit www.lasentinel.net.
January 09, 2020
Associated Press
Leslie Jones is joining the ranks of television game-show hosts.
The former “Saturday Night Live” star will host a new version of “Supermarket Sweep,” which originally aired on ABC from 1965-67.
The show follows three teams of two as they compete using their grocery shopping skills and knowledge of merchandise to win cash prizes.
Revivals aired on other networks in the 1990s and 2000s. The show was adapted for overseas markets and recently relaunched in the United Kingdom.
ABC said Wednesday that production on 10 episodes will begin in the spring. An air date will be announced later.
Jones will be an executive producer. She says she tried out unsuccessfully for the show years ago, and bringing it back to life “is my ultimate redemption story.”
Jones has a Netflix stand-up special “Leslie Jones: Time Machine” airing later this month and has a voice role in the upcoming “Angry Birds 2.”
January 09, 2020
By City News Service
For the second year in a row, next month's Oscar ceremony will be held without a host, the president of ABC Entertainment said today.
“Together with the Academy, we've decided that there will be no traditional host again this year, repeating what worked for us last year -- huge entertainment value, big musical numbers, big comedy and star power,” Karey Burke told reporters at the Television Critics Association meeting in Pasadena.
Nominations for the Feb. 9 Oscars will be announced Monday.
ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are looking to capitalize on a formula that led to an uptick in ratings last year, when the show went host-less following comedian Kevin Hart's decision to drop out of the gig. Hart quit just two days after being named host when some previous homophobic Twitter posts and comments resurfaced.
Instead, last year's show opened with a performance by classic rock band Queen -- thanks to last year's biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which won a best-actor prize for Rami Malek for his role as the band's late frontman, Freddie Mercury.
Following the performance, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph took the stage for a short comedy bit. Overall, the often-long-running ceremony was held to about three hours, and ratings increased by about 12% over the previous year.
Looking ahead to this year's show, Burke said “a lot of incredible elements have already come together that have convinced us that we're going to have an incredibly entertaining show again.”
“Our goal is to present the most entertaining show possible,” she said. “And the producers have already put together a plan for what is proving to be a really entertaining telecast.”