Entertainment
Is GloRilla gospel? Tye Tribbett, Melech Thomas, and the Art of Creating an Appropriate Ministry

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Is it just us, or has the entertainment industry apparently recently gone on a truth-telling tour? The last stop was viral interview in the “Breakfast Club”, where the Grammy Award-winning gospel artist and Pastor Tye Tribbett he made a revealing admission: the current system and structure of the “(black) church sucks.” Tribbett’s assessment that “church” is losing relevance was in response to questions on the perceived decline of celebrity pastors in popular culture. It echoes the warning in his song “Sinking,” Tribbett went on to say, “The church should be about the people, but the church creates people around the church… They don’t serve the people and don’t love the people.”
While there may be undoubtedly some truth in his comments, as one might expect, Tribbett has faced a backlash from such ministers Pastor Mike McClure, Jr., who took to social media to say that the musician must have kept his criticism secret and could have also identified spiritual colleagues working to share the ministry.
However, the query stays: How do most preachers live and preach the gospel in an accessible way?
While many “saints” may reject the concept that the Church is crazy, Tribbett’s words weren’t lost ON Pastor Melech E. M. Thomaswho entered collective chat through footage of one of his sermons showing how he redefines gospel music; music that lifts his spirit. Last Sunday at Payne Memorial AME Church in West BaltimorePastor Thomas preached a sermon it has since gone viral, precisely because he spoke in an idiom and language that strange people recognize, and surprisingly, using the lyrics of someone he proposed, he’s GloRilla’s “new gospel artist” “Tomorrow.”

“I love good gospel music and there is this new gospel artist,” Thomas proclaimed. “Some of you may know her, some of you may not. … She’s from Memphis. Her name is Gloria Hallelujah Woods. Some of you may know her as GloRilla – yes, GloRilla… Well, GloRilla has a song titled “Tomorrow” and makes the following statement that blesses me. He says, “Every day the sun doesn’t shine, but that’s why I love tomorrow.” And I seek advice from some those that life hasn’t been the smoothest for you. But you understand that what Big Mama kept saying was right: “May the weeping last one night, but joy come in the morning.” That every single day just isn’t good. But if I live to see tomorrow, something might change. Well, have a look at your neighbor and say, “Yes, Glo.”
To be clear, this is not only about Thomas quoting a rapper – most black churchgoers know it might probably occur any Sunday. No, the fact is that unlike some of his Baltimore pastoral cohorts who took low cost shots at black women, prostitutes and those around them – even using lyrics like “These Hoes ain’t Loyal” – Thomas handled it and offered it up as holy a piece of art by an artist that many would consider blasphemous attributable to its sexually explicit and adult content.
Speaking with Father Thomas, a colleague and friend, he explained to us why and how he uses hip-hop as a lens to interpret Scripture. “We need to listen to the music our young people listen to,” he said. Like those of us who grew up with hip-hop and other forms of urban youth music – equivalent to go-go, house music, trap and other styles – there’s something to be said for recognizing and repurposing the same styles, expressions and storytelling , which popular artists use to convey messages that could be heard and understood.
As scholars and clergy, we understand that there have at all times been tensions in the community of faith over the use of “world music” to talk to the times. Thomas says he’s inspired by preachers like the Brethren and go-go pastors Tony’s turns AND Bill Lee Communities of Hope, who often are praised for his unconventional approach to ministry. Like Reverend Thomas, Fr. Tony and Bill Lee come from an AME tradition full of preachers in the Black prophetic tradition. From remixing go-go music to starting a church strip club (yes, really), these two brothers in blood and service show that God can use anyone and anything to bring hope, transformation and empowerment – to individuals and communities.
However, Thomas didn’t at all times agree with their culturally appropriate technique. In fact, he confessed that when he was 13, he didn’t like the Lee brothers’ references to hip-hop and go-go music of their sermons. He found their style problematic enough that he spoke to the Reverend Tony Lee to challenge his methodology. At a key point in his mentoring, Lee explained to Thomas that he was preaching in a language people recognized, and Thomas soon began to note the solid ethics and results that resulted.
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If a community of faith desires to stay relevant and forward-looking, there are three elements around which we must always all be open to listening and searching for understanding:
Authenticity and transparency: A community of faith can dare to be authentic and transparent about the real challenges of people’s faith. You can authentically connect along with your community without sacrificing your values. Combating the discomfort of sharing shortcomings could be each enlightening and lasting for audiences seeking to connect.
Adaptability and innovation: As society evolves, the Church should be open to adapting its approach to stay culturally appropriate and effective in meeting the needs of local communities. Tye Tribbett’s critique suggests that the church should embrace innovation and explore a brand new approach to ministry that privileges the well-being and empowerment of individuals over tradition, so-called holiness, and institutional behavior.
Empowerment and service: The faith community should prioritize enabling individuals to actively take part in the work of the Church and serve others in meaningful ways. Tye Tribbett’s emphasis on the essence of the church emphasizes the importance of shifting attention from institutional problems to the overall development and empowerment of its members.
In short, may those of us in spiritual leadership anticipate and be open to more conversations about learn how to engage our communities with messages of hope and learn how to use language and style that stretches us. Let’s attempt to consciously experience moments of introspection and have a good time the moments after we challenge ourselves to grow. We are higher equipped to succeed in latest heights and greater depths after we are willing to listen to from others who use language or share criticism that we may not hear from our inner circles. When we put our egos aside, we are able to trust that the Creator of the Universe will use whoever, each time and whatever is required, regardless of how essential. May we remain open to all ways in which lead us to holistically perfect our theology.

The Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones is a faith leader helping people navigate a dynamic world, as a consultant to varied arts and faith-based organizations and as Professor of Music in Contemporary Societies at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. She is an award-winning creator (Oxford University Press). For more information please visit DrAlisha.com.
Rev. Calvin Taylor Skinner is committed to strengthening frontline communities in Knoxville, Tennessee and the UK. He uses faith and politics to handle energy justice, criminal justice reform, voter education/mobilization, electoral politics, and global issues. He and his wife, Reverend Dr. Alisha Lola Jones, run InSight Initiative, a consulting firm focused on capability constructing and live event production.
Entertainment
Tabitha & Chance Brown celebrates their love with new smells – Essence

Arnold Turner/Getty Images Friday with Tab & Chance
Favorite couple of America, Tabitha and Chance Brown simply dropped something special: their first fragrance collection together. Inspired by their many years with a love history, a new line, Fridays by tab – her business AND Fridays by accident – his businessIt was launched in time for the anniversary. In True Tab and Chance Fashion, the smells are filled with hearts, memory and intentions.
Below Essence he sat with Brown to discuss inspiration, heritage and why their smells are really higher together.
Essence: Congratulations on launching the fragrance collection! What inspired you to create this together?
Tabitha Brown: Thank you! We each loved the smell – we’re an actual junkie of the smell. If you enter our wardrobe, honey, they’re all set in a queue! But besides, we desired to do something unforgettable together. The smell restores moments. You sniff something, and it takes you. So we thought, is there a greater option to rejoice our love – and our anniversary – than to create a fragrance that appears to be a memory?
Chance Brown: I agree with the whole lot that was said. I just really desired to do something with my wife that contributes to our heritage. I like the concept our grandchildren are in a position to say: “My grandparents did it.” I’m on the age by which I give it some thought now – although we wouldn’t have grandchildren yet! But it matters to me.
It’s so thoughtful. Can everyone describe their smell in three words?
TB: Warm. Brown sugar. Embrace. I comprehend it’s technically 4 words, however it’s a climate! I wanted something sweet and comforting – like a warm hug. People say it smells like a hug, and that is what I used to be searching for after that.
CB: For me: male, sexy and long -lasting. I love when the smell continues, even after leaving the room. This is the impact I wanted.
Were there any moments in your relationship that influenced the smell?
TB: Not specific moments, but much more so the things we each love. I’m a woman with food – you realize it – so I leaned into delicious notes equivalent to vanilla, caramel and chocolate. I even began to check perfumery, mix oils and skim books to essentially understand find out how to construct a smell. I don’t love flowers, but I just wanted a touch mixed with these sweet, edible notes.
CB: I used to be inspired by the smells with which we grew up in black households. You know, oils from a person on the corner or this long -term cologne, which you smell within the church or in Howard Homecoming. These memories are priceless – but I wanted to boost this experience and bottles them. Something that smells and seems luxurious.
The bottle is so unique – you possibly can explain the inspiration of the project and what does it mean for you?
TB: When we sat all the way down to design bottles, we knew that we didn’t want something typical. We wanted sculptures – something that seemed that our love story began within the 90s, so aesthetics is certainly a nod to this era. What’s more, bottles are a physical symbol of our connection. They are forced – adapt to the hug. It’s deliberate. This is our option to say: that is love, it’s unity, it’s art.
CB: Do you realize these black paintings of art from that day – those by which my husband and wife hold on? At least one in all those on the wall had every black household. It was also our inspiration. We desired to bottle this sense. The same sense of pride, intimacy and black love that were in these paintings? This is what this project represents.
TB: If you look fastidiously, you can even see small details. One of the bottles even has waves carved at the highest – he! [laughs] We called him “wave”, so it’s like slightly joke and a love letter at the identical time. And the second bottle? It’s me. Together he tells our story.

So a bottle is greater than a pack – is a sculpture of your history?
TB: Exactly. It is functional, symbolic and delightful. Like black love.
How is the smell in line with your brand, which is rooted in love and authenticity?
TB: This fragrance is us. Who we’re. The journey we had – from our modest beginnings to this new chapter – is there. Represents traditional and non -traditional parts of our history.
CB: Our love story had its ups and downs, like many others. We began with a conventional man as a cop, TAB operating from 9 to five-then the whole lot modified when she chased her dreams and built this beautiful life through acting, content, and now business. This fragrance reflects this journey. She is familiar but fresh. Traditional but new. It smells like nothing you smelled before – however it also smells home.
TB: And when will you arrange our smells together? Phew! This is the following level. That’s what we’re – together.
How do you would like couples who have a look at you to feel when wearing this smell?
TB: I need them to feel: “Oh, I’m great and I’m sexy alone … But with my partner? We are unstoppable. We created this fragrance with the mixture in mind – if you meet, it needs to be elevated. This is what we mean and that is what we would like to represent this smell. We not only sell the product; we share our love through the smell.
We need to bring people closer to the smell – a form that makes you must bend, catch up with, stay under someone’s neck. This is magic. And for our lonely people? Honey, if you pass, we would like their heads to show. Someone will stop you: “Wait a moment … how are you?” This is the facility of an excellent smell – it attracts, connects, tells the story.
In addition to the smell, what do you hope couples take from you to cooperate?
CB: I hope that we are going to encourage marriages to maintain him at home – to construct together, dream together, develop together in business. This journey was fun, educational and deeply satisfying. We learn more about ourselves, supporting one another and construct something with the goal. It will not be all the time easy, however it’s value it. And if we could be an example of the way it looks loud to love and cooperate in business? This is a victory.

Entertainment
Terrence J, Rocsi and AJ look back to 25 years “106 & park”: “This program is the love of my life”

25 years have passed since “106 & Park” first broadcast, and even now lives without rent in our cultural memory. It was not only a music deduction program – it was an area. Safe zone. A scene by which black teenagers saw one another by which rising stars changed into icons, and where the hosts felt like your cooler cousins, who only.
Before Instagram and Tiktok algorithms, the program “106 & park” hosted, where culture moved. It gave us the twenty fifth birthday celebration Beyoncé, the last interview with Aaliyah and sofa moments so legendary that they were immortalized in museums. For many of us, regardless of whether we were aspiring journalists, creative, or just children who absorb all this is not only television – it was a plan. And now, once I ask questions, I can say without hesitation: I used to be shaped by a scene.
Now, when Bet is preparing to bring the “106 & park” aftertaste of the Bet 2025 awards, I sat with three hosts who shaped the golden years of the series – TheRrence J, Rocsi Diaz and Aj Calloway – to discuss her legacy, her influence and love, which still stays a long time.
“This program is the love of my life,” said Terrence J. “What we were able to do … It was the peak of the technology of meeting the culture in which America was then. When I look back at 25 years, I see it in a much different way than five years ago, 10 years ago or when I just left the program.”

Sit with Haniyah Philogene from Thegrio on May 7, 2025 (photo: Haniyah Philogene)
“I’m 50 years old. I started the program when I was 26,” Calloway wondered, the first co -hosted series. “To be living to see how the network recognizes work, it is extremely unique … To be here so that my children can see it, my mother – this (means (means) a lot.”
This feeling of a full circuit is also not lost to diaz. “When I hear 25 years later, it doesn’t seem so because (this) the most important thing and the basis of everything we did after” 106 “and the park.” The basis of our profession is this program. “
Is it a heritage? You can feel it in the way they discuss yourself, memories and what it means to be part of something greater than yourself. Terrence J recalls that he is in the audience during the College route organized by AJ and at no cost, observing in real time, because they created the same “real moments” that everybody remembers-as the last interview of Aaliyah.
Energy.
Fashion.
Times.
Regardless of whether Ginuwine moved around the stage on this unforgettable entrance, or Jay-Z and us standing next to one another after changing one of the most iconic rap beef in history, it seemed greater than life.
But this sort of influence didn’t simply occur overnight. Aj, who helped to put the foundation of the series, admits that he couldn’t imagine what the 106 and the park will occur. “Earlier days weren’t spectacular. It was built with sand, grind and the entire large community.
“There was a moment when no one wanted to give us clothes. I called my friends (because) my friend was the owner of a shoe store … It was all on board that something would happen,” he said, describing how his community went through. “I had a yellow leather suit for the first episode, because that’s all that I was given … to my people.”
Despite this, there was strength on this fight – in making culture before making a culture.
“(106 and Park) was” a small engine that might “, and now it is a cultural phenomenon and is an important, key part of many people (upbringing),” said Diaz.
What they built was greater than a program – it was a family. Behind the cameras, love was just as real as what we saw on the screen. From the crew to the crowd, this energy was incomparable.
“There is nothing like a family experience … camaraderie you have (at)” – added Diaz.
And that is why every few months, like Clockwork, discourse on social media begins to revolve about restarting “106 and park”. But as he sees it, what persons are really missing is greater than only a program, but “cultural importance”.
“They lack that they see us, in our best light, authentically. The stories we have supported by us, we support and I do not think that we have already had many” – he emphasized. “We don’t have many black media that authentically tells black stories and culturally significant moments. So they miss the reality, in my opinion, the authenticity of the hosts are fans of people with whom they interviews.”
Terrence J repeated sentiment. “There are many various places to get what you would like.
“106 & Park” was not only a countdown – it was communion. It was an area that celebrated black joy, creativity and complexity of our conditions. When culture is always changing, the heritage of the series serves as a reminder of what is possible after we tell our own stories, for us, through us, and not using a filter.
And now fans may have the opportunity to experience this magic. On June 9, Bet restores the heritage of “106 & Park” back to the middle stage with a special celebration of anniversaries during the BET 2025 awards.


Haniyah Philogene is a Haitian-American multimedia storyteller and lifestyle and entertainment author covering all things of culture. He sets out with passion for digital media to find latest ways of telling and sharing stories.
(Tagstranslate) 106 and Park
Entertainment
Exclusive: Dorion Renaud on Life After buttah Skin – Essence

Thanks to the kindness of Dalvin Adams
Dorion Renaudfounder Buttah skinHe has been coping with beauty since childhood. Growing up in Texan Barbershop, Renaud worked within the register, interacting with clients and learned how you can be an entrepreneur from an early age.
“I was the child who worked in the front and I thought I was running a business,” says Essence. “Watching people entering and coming out of the hair salon and my father’s beauty really influenced me, which made me look at self -care as a matter so that people feel good.”
It was only in highschool that he began to note problems with skin development, after which in college, even worse. After filling the fact show program of your first yr: “It made me very uncertainly, because it was an era of the blog. It gave” Media, Sandra Rose “.
Between the performance of micro abrasion, face and other skin treatments, he stated that the answer to his skin fears was much easy than aesthetic sessions of a thousand dollars. “You Hunter, who was a stylist Beyoncé at the time, introduced me to the vitamin C serum and I discovered Shea butter on the streets of Harlem,” he says, two ingredients, which he later became skin products in Buttah. “I was a full actor in Los Angeles and I really had to take care of my appearance. My skin was still a problem for me and finally I mastered her.”
After the debut, his skin settled and other people noticed. He reminds that he receives DM from men asking for advice on skincare, before we get to our role within the TV series Bountce. This time with healthy skin. “I wrote a business plan in my wardrobe, only a short, and I said:” I intend to do the subsequent control and arrange a skincare line and see what he’s doing, “says Renaud.
So in 2018 he put on the skin of buttah. “I was influential before influential had an impact on the face,” he says, publishing his routine on the face and skincare online. But these are the celebrities with which he was associated – and invited to the SPA – gave the buggy of the skin a platform.
“At that time I was near Kardashian,” after which I learned quite a bit from them after they raised their brands, he says. Because people respected what they built, his closeness made his brand easy to trust. “All this gave me an influence in the world of skin care.”
But, paradoxically, he didn’t learn about skincare in any respect. “I knew nothing about skin care except that I needed my skin to make it perfect,” he says, and skincare brands offer him free face masses for influential reviews. From the celebrity brand, a deeper market of skin shades floods, from Fenty Skin Rihanna to the laboratory of S’abrina Elby, finding solutions for his skin’s fears and those who looked like him, ultimately became the idea of buttah skin.
“I realized that we didn’t have any products when I went to Macy and when I went to these department stores,” he says, unable to afford such brands as Lumière de Vie, while noticing the shortage of cosmetic products for darker skin. But after inviting Lauren London to arrange the premiere event, when Cassie appeared in her largest campaign, and even Beyoncé publishes her skincare online, Renaud says that their sale has passed through the roof.
Then a pandemic hit. “The production closed and I could only focus on the skin of buttah,” he says. At that point, the eye resulting from the Black Lives Matter movement moved around black brands. “It ended up creating history as the first black man who went to Macy’s with a gender neutral line,” he recalls.
But despite this “night success” Renaud says that at the identical time he was not taken seriously and put in a “black box”. “When you create a box of products and you are the face of a box of products and CEO and founder, you start to feel like a box of products,” he says. “I think it was a challenge for me and learning where to put my ego.”
Now he gets as much as regain his identity. “The decision to leave was more personal than business,” he says, lacking a dream of being an actor. “I haven’t been really present many times and I really wanted happiness and peace in my life. I worked really hard for 5-6 years and I always had a starting plan.”
Although it lies in his personal development, he calls it one of the difficult decisions in his life. “It had nothing to do with what was on paper and everything that is related to the change of my heart,” he says, devoting more time to construct life outside the skincare line. “[I had to] Remember that buttah comes from Dorion Renauda, Dorion Renaud does not come from buttah, “he says.” Sometimes your ceiling will become your floor. “
Using his community as a pillow, Renaud says that he’s most enthusiastic about continuing his acting profession and a brand new brand that can appear next yr. “It will be something that melanated people need. He solves the problem we have been dealing with for a long time,” he points out. “When you get out of faith, it can be terrifying. But when you do this, there is something on the other side.”
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