Tag: “Sorry to Bother You”

We lost Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin on Aug. 16 (March 25, 1942-Aug. 16, 2018). We also lost Kofi Annan (April 8, 1938, to Aug. 18, 2018), the seventh United Nations Secretary General and the first from Sub-Saharan African to lead the International organization. When we think about Black women and their navigation of public spaces, we remember the recent deaths of Nia Wilson, 18, and Jessica St. Louis, 26, who were not safe when they should have been #safehername.

With our planetary situation worsening – from massive flooding in India to Bangladesh, fire-nados raging out of control from Siberia to California and record high temperatures in Scandinavia and the Arctic, etc. – you and your organization are encouraged to join the worldwide RISE FOR CLIMATE JOBS & JUSTICE on Saturday, 8 September. In our region, the march will convene at the Embarcadero in San Francisco, at 10 a.m. This major people’s mobilization precedes the so-called “Global Climate Summit.”

Boots Riley has a problem with Spike Lee's “BlacKkKlansman,” and he explained why in a three page essay. Besides being the veteran rapper from Oakland’s The Coup, Riley is also a filmmaker who created the movie “Sorry to Bother You,” which, like Spike’s film, has a lot of buzz surrounding it. If you’re familiar with the subject matter of “BlackKkKlansman,” then you know it’s based on the true life story of former Colorado Springs officer Ron Stallworth and how he infiltrated the local Ku Klux Klan through the telephone.

Oakland Coup bandleader and rapper Boots Riley now has a director’s chair. His much talked about and anticipated film titled “Sorry to Bother You” will open in San Francisco Bay Area theaters on Friday, July 6, 2018. He talks with Marcus Lorenzo Penn, M.D., about his music and his hometown Oakland in 2016 at Oakland’s annual Book Festival.

“Sorry to Bother You,” written and directed by Oakland’s resident revolutionary MC, Boots, the front man of the political rap group The Coup, is a hilarious cult classic in the making, set to hit theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area in July. This political comedy is based in the streets of Oakland, but it is refreshingly not a cliché hood story. I loved “Sorry to Bother You” most because although it is a protest film, it’s a comedy.

Congratulations to Gerald Lenoir for carrying the torch and blazing the way for so many social justice issues from HIV/AIDS awareness in the Black community to his recent work in just migration for Pan Africans. Much success on your new work! Farewell to Alona Clifton and much success in Atlanta. Congratulations also to Almaz Negash, founder and director of African Diaspora Network in Silicon Valley for her national recognition and award at the Continental African Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C.