Last night I finally got a chance to attend the 38th-annual Atlanta Film Festival, a week-long event where  buzzy independent films, shorts and movie projects are screened at Atlanta's oldest operating cinema, the Plaza Theatre. I missed quite a few showings I really wanted to see (potty training a toddler makes your social life crappy in more ways than one), but catching the photo-documentary Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People made up for everything I didn't get to see. Here's why you too should see this really cool project when it comes to your town.

Whoever the guys are behind goldybeats.com, they're obviously brilliant. Two producers (if their profile at TED is "legit") are using the popular website and brand--known for its frequently updated catalog of disruptive speeches on technology, entertainment and design--to promote their own website, at which "hip hop and trap instrumentals" are "for sell." Between the incorrect grammar and the sheer bravado of introducing their hustle to these so-called innovators at TED, I've gotta go on and call it genius.

...She floods me with dread. Soaked in soul; she swims in my ice, by the bed.

Today is the annual semi-holiday when everybody goes WorldStarHipHop and watches men injure themselves for money, more money, and the chance to kiss a carved glass football. I'm just as guilty as you for letting that dominate all. But I heard bad news, and it sucks. So let's pause just long enough to say some good words before we go back into celebrating American brutality in the name of competitive "sport."

Warning: This is a loooong read. But it's worth considering. Are you mad at Macklemore?

Big, big shout out to my man Donovan X. Ramsey who put me on to this new blog from some of my favorite members of the rising new black intelligentsia, including Cord Jefferson of Gawker, Issa Rae of Awkward Black Girl, and others. 

You can read more about it here, but definitely check out the blog -- there are some incredibly incredible photos on there that justify the name . I won't be able to join "You Ain't Got The Answers" Trivia Night tonight due to standing obligations, but I'm betting it's going to be particularly black, meaning awesome.

Listen below if you feel as if you really need to before downloading an honest-to-goodness free collection of songs--including new ones--from Q-Tip and Busta Rhymes (or if you've maxed out the disk space on your Dell with one too many Chief Keef mixtapes). 

If you don't like this it just might be too late to save you. 

Download it now from The Abstract & The Dragon. Also, how dope is this artwork?

Here's a rumor that would certainly be sucktastic if it turns out to be true. Art, Beats & Lyrics, the annual traveling show that started in Atlanta and now includes several other major U.S. cities (NY, LA, DC, … St. Louis?), will end after this 2013 show. Without having spoken to my friend Jabari Graham, a promoter who started the show six years ago with Atlanta artist Dubelyoo, I can't confirm it, but I hope that it's either a wickedly clever promotional play or a vicious lie. Either way, at least it looks like we'll have something new from the same team. Yae-yaeeee!

Anyway, here are some pics of amazing art created by ATL residents, throngs of people enjoying free Gentleman Jack cocktails, and two music legends--DJ Quik and Teddy Riley--performing live.

This won't be a long post, partially because it's my first on this site, and mostly because neither of these albums are ground-breakingly good. But they're new albums from Kanye West and Jay-Z, and that matters, because whether you think both LPs are subpar, or they're great, or they're both in the #illuminati or whatever, you care.