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SLAM magazine boldly returns with its iconic cover T-shirts – Andscape

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In the exclusive environment of skilled basketball, where the powerful and zeitgeist stretch their legs because the motion gallops, the cover T-shirt is becoming an increasingly common sight, seen on everyone from Teyana Taylor to Rich Paul. And yes, the players donned the duds.

Shirts are guided by business realities. But nobody could turn a soppy magazine run by a handful of dedicated, sarcastic people right into a cultural shorthand, a secret handshake for basketball fans. Allen Iverson on the cover was not the identical as AI on the cover in a retro Sixers jersey and impressive style.

covers all the time hit in a different way.

Karl-Anthony Towns arrives for a game against the Portland Trail Blazers on January 9 on the Target Center in Minneapolis.

David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images

Even of their sorry state, long-established print magazines tend toward a dignity that has never been ascribed to “The Basketball Bible.” This can be a key reason why it continues to be so popular.

“I always considered myself your friends.” said basketball photographer Jon Lopezwho took photos for the cover of the magazine. “Someone from the neighborhood you grew up with who speaks your language and understands your game language, as opposed to this overachieving character you’ll never get to be around, and you’ll be lucky if I ever get a call from them.”

Long before eighth-graders had highlight tapes and ladies’s basketball hoops began gaining respectability, the publication didn’t stick with the NBA and men’s college hoops, staples of most major sports magazines. Attention was paid to playgrounds and the highschool. Chamique Holdsclaw, then a superstar on the University of Tennessee, was featured on the cover in October 1998. , Dawn Staley said, “truly understands the game and the culture of our game – not just Black culture.”

It began before you broke your back. Dennis Page, founder and publisher of , told journalist Alex Wong that he desired to do for athletes what the cover did for musicians.

Musical artist Teyana Taylor is on the court and cheers on the Sacramento Kings against the San Antonio Spurs during an NBA basketball game on the Golden 1 Center on February 22 in Sacramento.

Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

Rich Paul (left) and Corey Gamble (right) attend the sport between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Lakers on March 4 on the Crypto.Com Arena in Los Angeles.

Jim Poorten/NBAE via Getty Images

When access to player photos was finally granted, he was joyful to relinquish control, said Russ Bengtson, the magazine’s editor-in-chief from 1999 to 2004.

“I think a big part of what makes us great and what makes us great is the trust in the players themselves,” he said. “They are the arbiters of what’s cool, not us. We are the delivery system for this. When I used to be an editor, I won’t think I knew what was cool any higher than Allen Iverson. This meant players didn’t must resort to stiff poses and ‘it’s over’ smiles during official NBA and team photo shoots. They could wear headbands or chains they even swap shirts with their teammates.

Lopez didn’t mention anything in regards to the cover, which does not feel corporate. Former editor-in-chief Tony Gervino told Wong that the turning point was: May 1995 cover with Latrell Sprewell and Tim Hardaway Golden State Warriors, neither of them were smiling.

Travis Kelce (left) and Jason Kelce (right) attend a pre-game with the Boston Celtics against the Philadelphia 76ers during Game 6 of the 2023 NBA Playoffs Eastern Conference Semifinals on May 11, 2023 on the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images

“They were little-known players to the national audience and we wanted to plant our flag as an anti-establishment basketball magazine,” Gervino said. The goal, Bengtson added, was to make the players seem like rap stars.

“It was one of those things that you wanted, no matter what you achieved as a player… you wanted to have a cover,” said Shareef Abdur-Rahim, who granted his wish January 2000 issue. (He was also a part of that iconic 1996 rookie class.) It was greater than just being considered an excellent player. It instilled a certain street authority, “a certain kind of swagger, a coolness in you,” the 2002 All-Star said.

wasn’t your father’s basketball magazine. “My dad read,” Abdur-Rahim said. “I was reading.” Likewise his son. Abdur-Rahim, who serves as president of the G League, said his cover “makes me think I’m the older guy” amongst players.

Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson arrives at the world before their game against the Minnesota Lynx on May 30 on the Target Center in Minneapolis.

Jim Poorten/NBAE via Getty Images

Staley, who won three NCAA championships while coaching the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team, was the primary coach to land the job solo cover. “We have a pretty big ego,” said Staley, a Hall of Fame shortstop, “but you never think you’re big enough to be on the cover.”

Swagger only sells a certain variety of magazines. Even though, as Lopez said, it has adapted to the amusement park hall of cracked mirrors that’s the digital age – “They’re doing a great job of combining print with digital” – magazines must always reinvent themselves. So when Page was visited by Lynn Bloom, director of authentications and archives at Mitchell & Ness, he had an idea: “Don’t you think people would wear T-shirts with covers?”

The partnership made sense. “Their covers are spectacular,” Bloom wrote in an email. “They use the best photographers in the industry, ensuring that the photos are always striking and memorable.” And there may be synergy. “In many cases, the athletes on the cover are wearing jerseys that we now make, so it’s a natural fit.”

The jerseys allow people to “represent both their favorite players and them,” noted Adam Figman, CEO of . But it is a revenue stream and a cross-promotion bonanza. “It’s great that we have found a new way to grow our business,” Figman said in an email. “Media is a tough business and these T-shirt covers have helped us grow significantly.” He notes that the T-shirts have been illegal for years.

When Staley visited her hometown of Philadelphia, the neighborhood boys wore her T-shirt. “It’s such a cool, cultural element,” she said, “that connects or reconnects people who really know you.”

When Bengtson worked on the magazine, the cover was “a very ephemeral thing.” Yes, staff will sweat reading covers and other details, but “those things will disappear after a month or a month and a half.” Although he sells T-shirts featuring today’s stars, “the cover has become part of the player nostalgia” – Vince Carter, Shaquille O’Neal and so forth. Bengtson adds that lots of the photos became “the definitive images of these guys.”

The cover, Figman said, “remains one of the most coveted media properties in the sports and basketball world, and the cover T-shirts are another opportunity for us to show how moving the cover is.”

Does this translate into people buying the difficulty of the magazine?

Musical artist Flea attends a basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder on the Crypto.com Arena on March 4 in Los Angeles.

Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images

“It’s possible, but probably not common,” Figman admits. “I feel it’s more likely that somebody will see another person wearing the shirt on the cover and either think, ‘I want that shirt,’ or ‘I hope my favorite player is on a future cover so I can get that shirt when it is going to occur.”

Although he recently celebrated his thirtieth birthdayvol anniversary and was honored by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, “is still a humble operation,” Bengtson said. “It’s still The Wizard of Oz. You pull away the screen of this extremely professional-looking, glossy magazine, and there’s still only a few people doing it.” Figman stated that the power to remain relevant on the cover is partly attributed to the staff’s “elite understanding of both who’s hot at the moment and who’s next.”

In the everlasting temporary industry, an influential magazine enjoys greater importance. There is one other profit for some former employees. “It’s cool to see that the story lives on in a different format now,” Bengtson said. “It’s cool to see.”

Pete Croatto is the writer of From Hang Time to Prime Time: Business, Entertainment and the Birth of the Modern-day NBA. His articles have also appeared in SLAM, The New York Times, Grantland, Victory Journal, and GQ.com.


This article was originally published on : andscape.com
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More proof that you’re old: Mary J. Blige’s “My Life” album debuted 30 years ago

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mary j blige, mary j blige my life, 90s music,

I actually remember November 1994. I used to be a sophomore in highschool and was still very clumsy and goofy. I hadn’t yet experienced what anyone would call a growth spurt, as evidenced by the very fact that my younger sister (three years younger) was taller than me. At this point in my life, I assumed I used to be destined to be certain I had a terrific personality that would give me a romantic future. I used to be told about one young student who was in love with me, but being 15 and never big, I didn’t really trust in my ability to pursue a dating life. In 1994, I saw myself because the Steve Urkel with no unreachable neighbor.

In 1994, I had a real love: music. I kept buying cassettes and compact discs; there was at all times music around me. Listening to the newest music from anyone and everybody was my hobby. Mary J. Blige was one in every of those artists that I used to be an enormous fan of. I mean, everyone really was. Her album “What’s the 411?” was released in July 1992, so when school began in August, it was one in every of those albums that everyone was talking about. “True Love” and him one other hip-hop remix the most popular songs were on fire and you can start an impromptu jam session in my middle school dining room by simply saying “true love” out loud.

(*30*)

To say that the anticipation for Mary’s second album was enormous can be the understatement of the yr. I still remember being blown away by the music video for the primary single “Be Happy” on MTV and BET’s “Video Soul”. I remember this mainly because I used to be so frightened about Mary’s life standing on those rocks. Of course she survived the video session, but I used to be very concerned for her safety. I could not imagine life without Mary. I purchased this single and mainly burned a hole in it.

Then got here the monster single “I’m Goin’ Down.” The remake of Rose Royce’s single from the movie “Car Wash” (titled “I’m Going Down”) had all of the black girls in my highschool able to break up with their boyfriends so that they too could sing about it lost love – teenage hormones cause strange problems. Let me just say this for the record: Mary’s version of this song is totally amazing. Her performance on the album is known; you can hear all the experience through her vocals.

(*30*)

If Mary stopped making music at this point, she would already be a legend, I actually consider that. But this whole album is a radiator from start to complete. Even today, once I hearken to “My Life”, my search ends in failure; “My Life” is largely a consolation at this point in my life. From “You Bring Me Joy” to the title track to the ultimate minute of “I Never Wanna Live Without You,” this album is a portal back in time to a version of me that was interested by what life had to supply. I used to be given the vocal type of Mary J. Blige to soundtrack this journey.

It’s also crazy to think about it this manner: “My Life” got here out at a time in my life once I was already driving a automotive. Sure, I used to be 15, but my father also let me drive himself, my siblings, and my friends wherever we would have liked to go because he got bored with running errands. We just agreed that if I got pulled over, he would not know I used to be taking the automotive. Coincidentally, although I used to be in a position to use the automotive at no cost for a solid yr before I could even apply for a driving license, I failed my driving test the primary time I took it on my sixteenth birthday. You’ve never seen a father more lost and upset in his son than my father was that day. We now call my father’s facial expressions “core memory.”

If you’re reading this because you’ve got seen the words of Mary J. Blige and “My Life,” you then, like me, are in a phase of life where you’re continually reminded that you’re not only getting old, but you might actually be old. I will not be old as hell, but I’m too old to be within the club, you realize?

Fortunately, nonetheless, my journey so far in my life includes a number of the best works of musical art in existence, similar to Mary J. Blige’s 1994 album “My Life.” This album – just like the profession of its lead voice, Mary J. Blige – brings me joy.


Panama Jackson theGrio.com

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Daughter of Trump supporter Hulk Hogan distances herself from family years later following racist tirade from her dad who called her then-black boyfriend the N-word

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Hulk Hogan and his daughter Brooke have never had any problems in public.

The former “Hogan Knows Best” singer and reality star remained by her father’s side even after making a career-ruining sex tape that captured her father cheating on her mother, Linda Hogan, and in addition included a racist tirade a few black man Brooke was dating at the time time.

However, it looks like the “Brooke Knows Best” star has had enough and now decides that overall, it is best for her to maintain a ways between her and her family.

There is renewed interest in Hulk Hogan’s relationship along with his daughter Brooke. (Photos: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images; mizzhogan/Instagram)

Her Instagram name is MizzHogan. However, she is currently known on the Internet under the surname Oleksy, the surname of her husband, former NHL player Steven Oleksy, and she or he doesn’t follow anyone from her family on web sites, including her father, mother and brother Nick Hogan. Instagram. But her father follows her brother.

While neither party has publicly revealed any details, there appears to have been something of a rift between Brooke and her family when many individuals noticed she was absent from her father’s wedding to his third wife, Sky Daily, in September 2023.

Immediately after the wedding, she wrote a message to followers on her website: “As many of you realize, I value my privacy, but unfortunately many media are guessing why I didn’t attend my father’s third wedding. Rather than leave it to speculation, I made a decision it could be higher to wrap all of it up here.

Brooke admitted that “the dynamics of the family unit constantly change over the years.”

“That being said, my family has experienced A LOT of change,” she continued. “With all of this happening in the public eye, I had to learn how to best cope with the changes that were coming, which was difficult to say the least.”

“In my own journey towards healing and happiness, I have chosen to create some distance between myself and my family and focus on the people and things that heal my heart and are consistent with my personal beliefs, goals and values,” she concluded, before finally wishing her dad “healthily”.

Hogan is suing Gawker Media LLC for releasing a 2012 sex tape that appears to feature him and the wife of radio host Bubba the Love Sponge. In the same video, Hogan used the N-word in reference to his daughter Brooke’s then-black boyfriend while admitting he was a “racist.”

“I don’t know if Brooke fucked a black man’s son,” Hulk said in a report published by Radar on the Internet in 2012. “I mean, I haven’t got double standards. I mean, I’m a racist to some extent, motherfucking n-rs. But in terms of nice people and shit and whatever.

He allegedly continued, “I mean, I’d moderately she was going to fuck some n***a than if she was going to marry a 6-foot n***a value 100 million dollars! Like a basketball player! I assume we’re all a bit racist. The fucking king of n—r.

Renewed interest in Hulk and Brooke’s relationship he resurfaced because of Wrestling Inc’s report on the father and daughter, which fans reacted to in the comments of the article.

One person said: “For her to really distance herself from him, maybe more was said and not on the video. Why would you be so strong to defend him only to distance yourself later? It seems there’s more to it. What’s even sadder is that if you say something that’s outside of your personal norm, you’re screwed. People will never just give up. As long as people remember it, it’s always there. Hogan said some stupid things about it and people may not have forgotten by the time this article came out, but now they’re reminded of it again.”

The person continued: “I ponder how much dirt the people writing these articles have and the way they might feel if the public was continually reminded of this?

Coming to Brooke’s defense, a second person added: “Looks like Brooke is getting old. She just decided to live her life and check out to achieve success. Easy to say. Well, she would not have develop into famous if it weren’t for her father. Of course, good point. But most individuals are on this position. Especially when he’s younger, he tries various things. How it’s. He seems to generally enjoy being out of the highlight. Good for her.

A 3rd added: “I hope they will heal the rift that exists between them. “I wouldn’t want to be separated from my son or daughter when they become adults.”

During 2015 sit down on “Entertainment Tonight,” Brooke defended the former skilled wrestler, assuring viewers that her father “wasn’t a racist.”

“I do not support what he said. But he’s my dad. I really like him,” she said in the video. “When you’re angry, when you’re at the worst point in your life and you’re angry at someone, you just choose words that don’t fit the situation just to air out your shorts and that’s all. Because I looked at the transcripts and thought, “Yeah, he’s pissed.” But it’s not him. He’s not a racist.”

Brooke continued, “I feel sorry for the dad, but I also feel sorry for the African-American fans and stuff because they do not know that he didn’t mean it. He takes responsibility for it and knows that he thinks, “I fucked up.” These are the consequences of what is going on.

But this wasn’t her father’s first racist tirade or his first utterance of something that shocked the world. Hogan’s biopic was cut short days after he threatened Vice President Kamala Harris in August at an event in Ohio promoting his “Real American Beer” brand.

“Do you want me to hit someone? Do you want me to punch Kamala Harris? I said, “Do you want me to punch Kamala Harris?” Hogan said to the large audience before mentioning one of his signature wrestling moves. “Do you want me to let go of Kamala’s leg?”

The longtime Donald Trump supporter continued to mock her heritage with hand gestures and mispronounced Harris’ name.


This article was originally published on : atlantablackstar.com
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Boyz II Men brings their untold story to the big screen – Essence

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Denise Truscello/Getty Images

Boyz II Men, the Philadelphia-born vocal group that defined an era with wealthy harmonies and timeless ballads like “End of the Road” and “On Bended Knee,” are finally ready to tell their story on their own terms. The 4-time Grammy Award winner is working on a biographical film that can chronicle their thirty-yr profession, a journey stuffed with chart success, brotherhood and the behind-the-scenes struggles that shaped their music.

He announced the project for the first time can be produced in association with Compelling Pictures and Primary Wave and executive produced by Nathan Morris, Shawn Stockman and Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men. Compelling Pictures also releases an in-depth documentary about the group’s unparalleled dominance in the Nineties and 2000s and its continued relevance today.

“We have been waiting to find the right partners who understand our story and are willing to tell the story,” Nathan Morris shared in a press release. “Denis and Jeff at Compelling Pictures understood us from day one.”

Denis O’Sullivan () and Jeff Kalligheri (), who will produce the biopic, are in preliminary talks with screenwriters and directors to speed up the implementation of the project. The film, containing a wealthy catalog of Boyz II Men’s hits, shows the group’s path from their debut album (1991) to their current status as music icons.

“I grew up a huge Boyz II Men fan and have spent the last few years getting to know and become friends with the boys, and it’s a huge honor to help bring their unique and untold story to the big screen,” said O’Sullivan and Kalligheri. “We are thrilled to showcase the brotherhood and camaraderie, as well as the challenges and conflict, the humor and heartbreak, that accompanied the unparalleled success that Nate, Shawn, Wanya and Mike worked so hard to achieve. We think audiences everywhere will want to sing along to a sexy, fun, aspirational and uplifting celebration of friendship and artistic partnership that has stood the test of time.”

The film’s production team consists of heavyweights. O’Sullivan and Kalligheri were joined by Larry Mestel of Primary Wave, Joe Mulvihill of The Mulvi Group and Jeremy M. Rosen of Roxwell Films. Mulvihill, who has managed the group for greater than 20 years, added: “Having been with them for over 22 years, I have seen the ups and downs and all the deep emotional turmoil among people. I think people will be pleasantly surprised when they see something behind the curtain.”

More than thirty years after their debut, they continue to be the best-selling R&B group of all time, with over 60 million albums sold worldwide. The group recently celebrated one other milestone by headlining a sold-out, three-night run at the Hollywood Bowl – a triumphant return to the venue where they once performed as openers early in their profession. Thanks to hits comparable to “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” and the record-breaking collaboration with Mariah Carey “One Sweet Day”, the group can be remembered by fans for a very long time.

“Boyz II Men are one of the most influential bands of their generation. They are one of the few who transcend genre and format,” Mestel said.

As the production ramps up, fans can expect a soulful and celebratory take a look at the group’s meteoric rise and the bond that united them. As O’Sullivan and Kalligheri joked, it is a story stuffed with “doom-doom-doom-da-da” moments which are each excruciating and uplifting.

From daytime to sold-out arena nights, Boyz II Men’s journey to the big screen can be an eventful one.

This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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