Rebecca Bodenheimer

Touched what I never touched before
Seen what I never seen before
Woke up and seen the sun sky high, sky high.
Goodie MOB’s “Black Ice” is a lyrical wet dream for hip-hop nerds....

(CNN)I loved my maternal grandmother fiercely. When my daughter was born this year, I gave her the middle name "Hilda," my grandma's given name, although my whole family called her "Tutu."
My grandparents fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and their first stop in the US was Honolulu, where they ...

Monday night's Primetime Emmys were the first since the Harvey Weinstein expose broke last fall. It was the first of the post-#MeToo period.
Given that the Television Academy received some flak for choosing two men to host the show ...

Last November, BuzzFeed News writer and media studies scholar Anne Helen Petersen did what she’s known for and what she’s paid to do: She profiled a celebrity, taking a critical deep dive into their fame. This one was about Armie Hammer, who was in the spotlight for his turn in Call Me by Your Name. However, Hammer’s fans saw it as a “hit piece,” and the actor himself reacted defensively, calling Petersen’s perspective “bitter AF.”

My mom constantly reminds me that the only thing she forced me to do as a kid was learn Spanish.
She always recognized the significance of California’s demographics and where they were headed. Sure enough, by high school, I was in AP Spanish and basically fluent. Both my parents spoke Spanish and worked with Latino communities.

(CNN)Beyoncé and Serena Williams have once again proven that they are icons -- but this time, it's not for the reasons you might think. I'm not referring to their legendary professional accomplishments, but rather to their willingness to speak out publicly to counteract the pervasive fat-shaming that surrounds women's postpartum bodies.

How to Avoid Misrepresenting Cuba: Lessons for Travel Writers

For the Oakland-bred soul group Tony! Toni! Toné!, 2018 is a momentous year. It's the 30th anniversary of the group's first album, Who?, and the 25th anniversary of its most successful album, Sons of Soul. Tony! Toni! Toné! is widely considered to be one of the forefathers of neo-soul, a genre that emerged in the mid-1990s with the brilliant debut albums of D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Maxwell, among others.

As the longest-running soap opera on American television, “General Hospital” has been spent the last few years tackling the genre’s status quo.
Recently, we’ve seen storylines including a gay marriage (Lucas and Brad, also an interracial couple) and a character coming out as bisexual (Kristina, played by Lexi Ainsworth).

There’s a certain irony in the fact that a musician considered to be one of the pioneers of neo-soul, Raphael Saadiq, has rejected the label as merely a marketing ploy. “Neo-soul is disrespectful for me because you’re calling something new soul,” he said in a 2002 interview. “When did it stop? It never stopped. I understand it for marketing reasons…But people who really love music cannot respect that because it’s not new soul. You either have soul or you don’t.”

Toward the end of the most recent episode of the FX drama The Americans, which aired May 2, the married Soviet spies Elizabeth and Philip Jennings — played by real-life couple Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys — are once again at odds over whether the risks of their work are worth it. Elizabeth tells Philip she is going to Chicago to extract a fellow spy in trouble; she will risk anything for the cause she believes in, the Soviet Union.

(CNN)Imagine you've spent a significant portion of your adult life, say five to eight years, working toward the career you've always wanted -- possibly even going into debt to do it, because the average wages are never sufficient to cover your cost of living.

Just as many predicted after Bruno Mars won Album of the Year at this year’s Grammys, the cultural appropriation debate made the rounds again on Twitter last month (this isn’t a new debate). This time it was a video that went viral where a young woman, Seren Sensei, offered several reasons for considering Mars a cultural appropriator who doesn’t deserve the accolades he’s received.

Some Republican ideologues are grasping at straws to try and impugn the character of Emma Gonzalez, the fiercely outspoken young woman who has become a leading voice of the gun control movement since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.