AP Photo/Dave Allocca, StarPix

This Black History Month, we celebrate some of pop culture’s most influential movers and shakers who have changed the landscape of the world of entertainment. From the first African-American billionaire to the one of the hardest working men in radio, African-Americans have pioneered various media outlets, some even simultaneously.

Here are only a few of pop culture’s African-American innovators in the areas of music, television and film. We threw in a bonus, above: Michael Jackson. Besides his singing career both with the Jackson 5 and as a solo artist, and his investments across the music industry (including The Beatles portfolio), he invented the moonwalk, a move that continues to mystify and inspire dancers good and bad around the world. Check out this slideshow for more on the late, great MJ.

FayesVision/WENN.com

In a recent interview with the Tom Joyner Morning Show, promoting her new film Twist of Faith, Toni Braxton said she’s thinking about stepping away from music. Naturally, Tom Joyner and the crew were shocked and maybe even a bit upset to hear the news. See how their interview with her went down.

Tom Joyner: What about your new music?

Toni Braxton: I don’t know if I’m going to be doing anymore music, I’ve said that before in the past but I don’t know…

 Tom Joyner: Ever?

 Toni Braxton:… I’m thinking…

 Tom Joyner: What?

 Toni Braxton: I’m thinking, I’m singing in the movie. Ta-Da. Some gospel a little bit.

 Tom Joyner: Why no more music? What are you talking about?

 Toni Braxton: I just don’t know. Maybe I’m mad at music. I don’t know what it is. I can’t, my heart’s not in it right now.

 Sybil Wilkes: You’re not feeling it right now?

 Toni Braxton: No, I’m really not.

Naturally, Tom Joyner assumed that Toni meant that she was over the music industry. That she wasn’t going to release anymore music because it was too hard for her to work with the record companies.

 Tom Joyner: Record companies beating you up?

 Toni Braxton: Not even that. They’re actually calling and I’m like well ‘I don’t know if I want to do another record’ but that’s a blessing I guess but I gotta be in it, I gotta love it and maybe because everything that has happened to me I don’t know.

And then, at the end of the interview, just to make sure he had the facts straight for the blogs to report, Joyner asked her one mo’ ‘gin whether or not she was really leaving it all behind.

Tom Joyner: And the big scoop I think, is, ‘I’m never going to record another song again, ever.’

Toni Braxton: No, I’m not trying to do that.

Tom Joyner: Oh thank you for clearing that up.

Toni Braxton: I’m sorry!

Ok, am I the only one who’s confused right now? What exactly are you saying, Toni? You don’t want to record albums anymore, just random songs here and there? You’d rather focus on your acting career? Is that it? It’s interesting Toni is stepping away from a lot of things these days in favor of new ventures. Her presence has decreased on “Braxton Family Values,” and now she’s mad at music, the very thing we know her for. Interesting, indeed. And though I’m more confused than a little bit, I can’t say that I’m mad at her. If you’ve seen her “Behind the Music,” you know that girlfriend has traveled a rough road in this game. From the money troubles, to making sure that her sister’s got their shine, I can see why anyone would be tired after all of that. And then she has health issues to top it all off! Whew! Maybe she’s just ready to rest, raise her sons and chill. Nothing wrong with that.

What do you think about Toni’s admission? Do you think she’ll retire from music?

Source

Photo by Terrence Jennings/Picture Group via AP IMAGES

Veteran businesswoman Cathy Hughes knows a good deal when she sees one. Hughes’ Radio One has just announced an increased partnership with Tom Joyner’s Reach Media. Radio One’s Syndication One Urban programming now combined with the Reach Media line-up, which includes Tom Joyner, Rickey Smiley, Russ Parr, Yolanda Adams, Reverend Al Sharpton, Warren Ballentine and CoCo Brother, will make it the leading black network radio company. The new programming will start in 2013.

Previously, Radio One acquired a 53 percent stake in Reach Media. Under the new deal, reports EUR, Radio One will increase its ownership stake in Reach Media to 80 percent.

“Radio One has a commitment to be the leader in radio and online programming with compelling entertainment and information for the African-American audience. Combining our assets under Reach Media offers an incredibly broad platform for affiliate stations and advertisers to connect with our loyal audience,” said Radio One CEO and President, Alfred Liggins, in a statement.

The move could help strengthen the state of black radio, which has been on life support for the last few years. Several large, long-running radio networks have fallen, such as New York’s WRKS (98.7 KISS-FM), which after 31 years on the air merged with rival WBLS and ceased operations. Radio One too has seen its fair share of station closings and the selling off of stations.

There is even a coalition of black radio advocates pushing for the FCC to step in to aid the survival of black radio, reports Radio Survivor. “Media consolidation has made it harder for people of color to own radio outlets,” they wrote in a letter to the FCC chairman in June 2012. “African Americans own just 3 percent of all full-power commercial radio stations. And many urban radio stations that purport to serve black audiences air little local programming and are seldom responsive to the needs of their communities.”

How often do you listen to black radio?

Photo by Jeff Daly/Ford/PictureGroup via AP IMAGES

Yesterday, we reported on the tragic story of Ella Edwards, the grieving 61-year-old mom who started a Change.org petition to have her deceased son Jermaine’s $10,800 student loan forgiven. Today, we have a great update to this story: Tom Joyner has pledged to pay the loan on Edwards’ behalf. (Thanks again to our Facebook friend EarthyGirls Trapp for helping us keep an eye on this story.)

Edwards appeared this morning on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show,” telling listeners about her situation. (A transcript of the show is available on BlackAmericaWeb.com.) Edwards said her son died at the age of 24 of what has been deemed natural causes. There had been a life insurance policy (opened in 1986), but he died on March 9, 2009, six days after the final payment on her policy. So the insurance company refused to pay, she said.

Edwards has been paying the debt, but occasionally, the payment is late. She will call the loan administrators — “The National Co-League Trust First Marblehead out of Boston, Massachusetts,” she said – to give them advanced warning, but they still call to collect.

I call and say, if I’m going to be two, if I’m two days late I call them and tell them so they won’t call me, because the calls is so stressful.  If I’m going to pay like, if my payment is due on Wednesday, if I call Wednesday and tell them I’m going to pay Friday, they’ll write that down and they’ll tell me the calls is going to continue until you pay.  And they do. 

Even with the petition, which had collected about 200,000 signatures, Edwards said she wasn’t sure what was going to happen. At that point, Joyner offered to pay the debt.

“Would you stay on the line and give me your account number and all the information, and I’ll pay the $10,800 dollars,” BlackAmericaWeb.com quotes him saying on the air.

Jacque Reid, host of the show’s “Insider Her Story” segment, said Edwards had wanted to be on the show to warn other parents about this sort of thing. “You know, she didn’t want any money, she wanted them to forgive it so she could just go on with her life,” Reid said.

“And I want these parents to know these private loans ain’t nothing to play with,” Edwards added among her final comments. “It will come back. If you lose a child they will drive you crazy. They have been times, I mean, all I can do is fight off not taking my own life, because this stress.”

Source: abcnews.com

From The Grio

President Barack Obama used two words to describe his performance at last week’s debate against Mitt Romney: “too polite.”

The president called into the Tom Joyner Morning Show Wednesday to assess how he did against his Republican challenger and why he didn’t go on the “attack” as some of his supporters would have preferred. The call-in lasted about eight minutes and Obama said that everyone will see “a  little more activity” at the second debate next Tuesday.

Read more at The Grio

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A scene from last year’s parade. Image: AP

The West Indian American Day Parade is underway on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn as we speak. And while the festival is known for delicious food, great music and beautiful costumes, it’s important to point out that it’s a revenue generator as well.

A study conducted by the Empire State Development Corporation finds that the parade generates $86 million for every one million attendees. It’s estimated that three million people will attend the parade this year.

Money for the event comes from New York State grants, sponsors, fundraisers and other sources. This is the 45th anniversary of the event and even though the numbers are down a bit this year, it’s still a big opportunity for businesses. We just saw a bit of live coverage on CBS News with reporters asking food vendors about the biggest sellers (oxtails was one response). The parade is bringing as much cash as excitement.

Separately, this weekend was also the annual Tom Joyner Family Reunion in Kissimmee, FL to celebrate African-American culture. The decade-old event includes music, activities and families from all over the country who make the trip to the party. Vendors selling food, jewelry and gear supporting President Obama are also a big part of the festivities. For coverage, click here.

Everyone enjoy the parade and the rest of this great Labor Day weekend!

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Source: blacksportsonline.com

Before I get into Tom Joyner minding other people’s business, here’s a little background on Tracey Edmonds. She met Babyface in 1990, married him in ’92, filed for divorce from him in 2005, and exchanged wedding vows with Eddie Murphy in 2008. I say all that to say it’s been several years and a couple men since she and Babyface were together, which is why Tom is trippin.’

The morning radio show host stopped by the Wendy Williams show today and while there he was asked for his opinion on Pilar and Deion Sanders’ dwindling relationship, but he was more concerned with how Tracey Edmonds and Babyface fit into the picture. What’s funny is he’s not even concerned about the fact that Deion is still married to Pilar while dating Tracey, he’s wondering how Babyface is handling the relationship. According to The Jasmine Brand:

“Tom said that he was doing a show recently and was backstage with Babyface, Tracey’s ex-husband. According to Tom, Tracey decided to come backstage and say hello, with her new boyfriend, Deion. And from Tom Joyner’s perspective, he felt that it was disrespectful to purposely bring Deion around Babyface.”

Dude they’ve been divorced for seven years now, what was she supposed to do, tell him wait in the hallway? I could see if she was purposely parading Deion around to make Babyface jealous, but I feel like another marriage and all these years later, she’s not on that. Plus Babyface has his own thing going on with his backup dancer/girlfriend/baby mama so why should he care? I’m thinking Tom may be Babyface’s boy and this rubbed him the wrong way, but this is one instance where I don’t think Tracey was being disrespectful.

What do you think?

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Stop the presses and mark the day. On July 1st, media personality Tom Joyner -chief peddler  of the culture of consumerism in the black community-took a break from picking the pockets of black people to blast his former aces Cornel West and Tavis Smiley. And get this, Smiley and West hadn’t even done anything wrong.  That didn’t stop Joyner from holding them responsible – with a straight face no less – for MSNBC contributor Mark Halprin calling President Obama a package on the air.

Those who know the history between Smiley and Joyner know that Tom “buy my cruise tickets” Joyner has been nursing his wounded ego ever since Smiley bolted from his hee-haw show back in 2008.  The problem: Smiley didn’t seal his goodbye with a butt kiss.

Smiley, however, made up for his oversight in a Huffington Post op-ed in which he professed his undying adoration for Joyner and confessed that he “would take a bullet for Tom Joyner.” How ironic is it that the man who affectionately disclosed that he would take a bullet for Joyner is now defending against pot shots from that very same man?

In Joyner’s op-ed, he said of Smiley and West that “these two have done much worse than what Halperin has done because they set the tone for it, opened the door to it, and must take much of the blame for creating a climate that would make a white, professional journalist feel comfortable verbally and vulgarly attacking the first black president of the United States.”

Well this may come as a shocker to Joyner, but privileged white men have called black men much worse before, both in public and private.  Rarely have entitled members of the privileged class shrank from an opportunity to diminish people of color. Does the “N” word ring a bell? The idea that a privileged hack such as Halprin needed the door to be opened by two black men in order for him to feel comfortable insulting another black man is as moronic as it is incongruent. What’s next? Was tribal strife in Africa an invitation to slavery? Did the beef between Nas and Jay-Z spark police brutality?

Joyner thrashes on a bit more to make incompatible ends meet when he concludes that “a well respected journalist” like Halprin wouldn’t have insulted Obama were the stage not already set by West and Smiley. What I wonder is who told the “Fly Jock” that Halprin was ever a “well respected journalist”?  Halprin has always worshiped at the feet of right-wing bottom feeders like Karl Rove and Matt Drudge. He’s a thoughtless self-promoter who spit shines the shoes of the collective republican establishment.  Replace the word republican with democrat and Joyner should see his own reflection.

Truth is, Joyner’s been itching for an opportunity to get back at his homeboys for abandoning ship and curiously, he’s obtuse enough to admit it. In his belated Dear John letter to Smiley, he said he’d previously wrote a blog piece about Smiley but was wanting to pepper it with harsher language before publishing it,  and was waiting for the opportune moment to spring it on his former side-kick.    Hell hath no fury like a hustler scorned.

But Joyner completely eviscerates his own credibility and eliminates in our minds any possibility that he is capable of having an honest exchange when he accused Smiley of “selling books” as his chief goal. This is not to say that Smiley doesn’t have promoting books that he either writes or publishes as his goal. But if it is true that Smiley is a hustler who’s selling out his community, it is just as true that he learned it all at the feet of his mentor Tom Joyner.

On the homepage of Tom Joyner’s marketing company Reach Media, right beside Joyner’s broad watermelon smile, are statistics which boast that Joyner has the ear of 1 in 4 African Americans. Want to market some nonsense to the African American community? Joyner promises to promote it in a way that “drives results”. He’s got your back as long as he gets his cut.

Reach Media demonstrates that Tom Joyner is engaged in a barefaced lie when he pretends to be offended by those, such as Smiley, whose goal it is to profit off the African American community. To the contrary, Joyner was a trailblazer in this regard.

And Joyner’s offense at Smiley and West’s criticisms of the President is equally baseless since neither Smiley nor West have substantially changed their tones since 2008 or used offensive language to describe the President or his policies.

It comes as no surprise that Joyner’s painstakingly contrived outrage comes during the run-up to the 2012 election. Like Al Sharpton, Joyner is a pit bull for the President and an advocate for the administration, and that’s fine. But if Joyner wants to convince naysayers that Obama deserves a second term, he should focus on policy instead of personality. Rehashing beef from 2007 is a smoke screen which doesn’t go far to address the issues raised by Smiley and West. And unless Joyner can do that, he should just go back to selling cruise ship tickets because he’s not adding anything to the national debate that we should be having. I know the man likes to hear himself talk, but this time Joyner is clearly out of his league, and since Smiley isn’t there to spoon feed him political theory and explain it in a way that he can understand, it’s best that he just hush.

Yvette Carnell is a former Capitol Hill Staffer turned political blogger. She currently publishes two blogs, Spatterblog.com and BreakingBrown.com.

Black America’s favorite morning show host Tom Joyner had a few…or more than a few choice words for his former colleague Tavis Smiley and scholar Cornel West.

Joyner wrote that he’s wanted to express something to Smiley for some time now; and ironically, it was Time Magazine’s editor-at-large, Mark Halperin, calling President Obama a “package” on MSNBC that provided the ammunition Joyner needed. He took to Blackamericaweb.com to express his frustrations.

Joyner mentioned that he wanted to be harsh in this post and he didn’t disappoint. He began by referring to Cornel West as Smiley’s “side piece.” And while the rest of the post left Smiley’s sexuality out of it, it was still pretty brutal.

Joyner wrote that not only did Smiley and West “set the tone” for people like Halperin to blatantly disrespect President Obama, they “must take the blame for creating a climate that would make a white professional journalist feel comfortable verbally and vulgarly attacking the first black president of the United States.”

Joyner wrote that while he was appalled by Halperin’s statements, he had no expectations for him like he did for Smiley and West. He once considered both men to be of strong character but wrote that Smiley’s “primary goal became selling books, and later selling out.”

Joyner ended the post by saying that “There’s nothing either can ever do for me or with me again.”

Whew! Strong words, right? And that’s not all. You can read the entire blog post at Blackamericaweb.com. When you’re done come back and let us know what you think about Joyner’s comments.

Did Smiley and West’s comments make it possible for the Halperins of this country to disrespect the president or is he trying to stifle black people from speaking out against President Obama simply because he’s black too?

Let us know what you think.

(The Grio) — Minority enrollment in colleges are dropping due to the rising costs. A new initiative aims at providing black college hopefuls with the opportunity of going to school online.  Nationally syndicated radio broadcaster Tom Joyner is heading the venture called HBCUs Online. Joyner said there is a Tom Joyner Foundation to help keep black students enrolled atHBCUs, but he saw more needed to be done.

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