Entertainment

ABOVE PHOTO:  Meshach Taylor  (AP Photo / Tammie Arroyo) By Frazier Moore Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Meshach Taylor, who played a lovable ex-convict surrounded by boisterous Southern belles on the sitcom “Designing Women” and appeared in numerous other TV and film roles, died of cancer at age 67, his agent said Sunday. Taylor died…

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ABOVE PHOTO: Brian Bradley, AKA Astro arrives at the 43rd NAACP Image Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on February 17, 2012 in Los Angeles, CA.  (Photo by Helga Esteb-Shutterstock)   Interview with Kam Williams Brian “Astro” Bradley was born on August 26, 1996 in Brownsville, Brooklyn where he started rapping as at an early age. At…

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ABOVE PHOTO: The Roots Other Festival Details July 4th concert will feature performances by The Roots, Ed Sheeran, Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Hudson, Aloe Blacc, Ariana Grande and Vicci Martinez This summer, Philadelphia will once again prove that the City of Brotherly Love is the only place to be on the Fourth of July. Today, Mayor…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  This CD cover image released by Epic shows “Xscape,” a release by Michael Jackson. Five years after Jackson’s untimely death at age 50, the singer remains a pop culture powerhouse, proving to be just as big a moneymaker in death as in life. He’s graced the stage at the Billboard Music Awards via…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Halle Berry (as Molly Woods) and Pierce Gagnon as her son Ethan Woods in a scene from ‘Extant.’  (Photo: Robert Voets/CBS ©2014 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved) Oscar winner Halle Berry stars as an astronant whose experience in space drastically alters her life on earth Academy Award winner Halle Berry will star…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Ruby Dee  (Shutterstock) associated press NEW YORK — For Ruby Dee, acting and activism were not contradictory things. They were inseparable and they were intertwined. The African-American actress who earned lead roles in movies and on Broadway also spent her entire life fighting against injustice, even emceeing the 1963 March on Washington and…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Mack Wilds Clear Channel Communities, the community engagement brand of Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, and Power 99 FM, Philadelphia’s Hip Hop and R&B radio station, has announced the dates for its annual “Peace on the Street Jams,” a series of antiviolence activities designed to promote peace and provide communities with the necessary…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Andre Holland (l) plays Dr. Algernon Edwards and Clive Owen plays Dr. John Thackeray in ‘The Knick.”    By Tambay A. Obenson shadow and act.com Director Steven Soderbergh may not be retiring after all; rather. Instead, he might just be reconsidering the medium in which he works, switching from feature filmmaking for the…

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ABOVE PHOTO: Mary Mary  (AP Photo/John Bazemore)   Jazz icons Al Jarreau and David Sanborn will perform at the Dell Music Center for the first time during the 2014 Essence of Entertainment concert series, a star-studded summer of concerts with artists including Roberta Flack, The O’Jays, Fantasia and Larry Graham.  Returning to the Dell for…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Marvin Sapp   An exhilarating array of original, artistic programming will link the arts with civil rights history as the Mann continues the Philadelphia Freedom Festival, it began February.  The Philadelphia Freedom Festival is a seven–‐month endeavor to commemorate the life and legacy of Octavius V. Catto, a 19th–‐century Philadelphian and African–‐American civil…

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