Melvin Gregg talks ‘Snowfall’ role and what he learned from John Singleton

Melvin Gregg has made quite the impact on this season of Snowfall, and theGrio caught up with 30-year-old actor who plays Drew “Manboy” Miller on the hit FX series to find out how he knew that life in front of the camera was his calling.

WATCH: Cast of ‘Snowfall’ reflects biggest lessons learned from John Singleton as show returns for Season 3

Gregg says he can relate to certain elements of his drug-dealing character.

“He’s kind of full of himself in the sense that he’s too confident at times when he shouldn’t be confident, but that’s part of his charm,” Gregg says of his character. “When I approach a character I try to find the parallels between myself and the character and I try to justify what they’re doing. I guess this character is me in another universe…he’s a lot like myself, but we are living under different circumstances so my actions are a little different.”

The Virginia native admitted that he had a little trouble nailing the L.A. accent for the role. He also discussed what he learned from the show’s late, great, co-creator, executive producer, and director, John Singleton, who died in April.

What we learned from John Singleton: Why Black men need to get serious about their health

“It was a blessing to be able to work with him. He was a great guy. I feel like he was a big part of the reason that I got this spot on this show…I don’t really look the part but John is really from that kind of community and I am too so I feel like he kind of saw that in me,” says Gregg. “He saw through the typical tropes of what this character is and he saw something in me that was different that he liked. Having his stamp is reassuring.”

Check out the full video interview above.

 

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Flint, Newark, and the Persistent Crisis of Lead in Water

The lead-contaminated water in Flint and Newark is not unusual, and some experts think they know where the next "next Flint" will be.

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Big Ag Is Sabotaging Progress on Climate Change

Opinion: Grim as the UN’s latest climate report is, it doesn’t confront the dangerous, government-hijacking power of agribusiness.

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Fitbit Premium, Versa 2, Aria Air: Pricing, Specs, Details

The company’s new offerings include two fitness-tracking products, a subscription service for personalized health advice, and lots and lots of partnerships.

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Wendy Williams admits her husband fathered a daughter outside of marriage

Wendy Williams can endure a lot of things, surviving drug abuse and even relapses, but she admits that she can’t be a third or fourth wheel after learning her soon-to-be-ex husband fathered a baby with his mistress.

—Wendy Williams says she wasn’t fooled by ex-husband: She knew he was living a double life—

“Kevin had a major indiscretion that he will have to deal with for the rest of his life. An indiscretion that I will not deal with,” Williams told The New York Times Magazine.

“I never thought that I would be in this position. I’m a very forgiving person, but there’s one thing that I could never be a part of, and that one thing happened.”

This is the steaming hot tea everyone’s been waiting for Williams to confirm – that her husband Kevin Hunter did indeed have a baby girl with another woman who has been identified in reports as Sharina Hudson.

But despite Hunter’s “dirty deeds” Williams defended him saying that while everyone wants her to hang him out to dry, she won’t do it, except behind closed doors.

“He will always be my family, because we have a 19-year-old son, and we were together for 25 years and married for 21. But there was no vacillating. I’m out. That’s all I can say. People want me to hate and scream and talk. I won’t. It bothers me that people say [Williams begins to cry] — it bothers me that people say, “Keep it as clean as you can, because you have a child together.” That’s not the main reason to keep it clean. The main reason I won’t talk badly about Kevin is that he was my first true love. I will not have people talk badly. I talk filthy about him, but that is when I get in my apartment and the door is closed and I am talking to myself in the mirror.”

—Wendy Williams shops tell-all interview as husband Kevin Hunter claims she turned son against him after their fight—

In April, Williams filed for divorce from Hunter, removed him from her show as executive producer and dissolved The Hunter Foundation, the non-profit the embattled couple founded in 2014.

Sounds like Williams had a refuse to lose mentality. We wish her well on her way back to happiness.

The Wendy Williams Show returns for season 11 on Sept. 16.

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Leslie Jones leaving ‘Saturday Night Live’ to pursue exciting new projects

Comedian Leslie Jones is carving out a new path and stepping down from Saturday Night Live after five seasons.

— Leslie Jones blasts Sephora after her makeup artist left a store in tears after being mistreated—

The funny lady has made her mark garnering three Emmy nominations for her hilarious comedy sketches. Jones started as a writer for SNL in 2014 and parlayed her talent into a permanent position.

Jones, however has got some other gigs to focus on like her upcoming Netflix comedy special she’s filming Sept. 10 in Washington, D.C., according to reports.

The highly anticipated special is slated to air in 2020.

Jones will also be starring in The Angry Birds Movie 2 as Zeta an evil villain.

—Leslie Jones calls out Kevin Hart for fake female support—

Eddie Murphy to host SNL for first time in 35 years

While there seems to be a changing of the guard at SNL, an oldie but goodie, comic Eddie Murphy will hit the stage to host for the fist time in 35 years.

On Monday, the NBC comedy show announced that on December 21, Murphy will return as a guest host, something he hasn’t done since 1984, USA Today reports.

Murphy has been making his way back into the limelight and is currently filming a Coming 2 America sequel in Atlanta. He also revealed recently to Jerry Seinfield on a segment of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee that he plans on hitting the standup comedy circuit and getting back into his groove.

SNL returns Sept. 28 at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.

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Why Denying Migrants Flu Shots Is a Dangerous, Foolish Move

Putting folks at higher risk of infectious disease by holding them in cramped, unhygienic camps is a public health travesty. It’s also probably illegal.

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Best Running Clothes for Hot Days: Shorts, Shirts, and Gear

It's incredibly hot this year. If you're going for a run, be sure to wear the right clothes and stay hydrated. Here's how we do it at WIRED.

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Microsoft Surface Pro 6 Deal: $270 Off Right Now

Microsoft's laptop-tablet hybrid is as cheap as we've seen it.

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N'Faly Kouyate says BA responsible for broken kora

N'Faly Kouyate says his African harp was badly damaged after he was made to put it in the hold.

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University removes ad with crime tape around Black student’s neck

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has apologized for an ad that depicts a black criminal justice student with crime scene tape wrapped around her neck.

UWM has taken down the poster ads, designed to promote the criminal justice program after some pushback from alumni, students and others online. Some considered the ad racially offensive.

Student Nate Rosek tells WTMJ-TV that someone should have reconsidered the depiction.

 

The university in a statement said the police tape was a prop used to add interest to the photos. The ad campaign included students of different races and ethnicities.
The school says it did not intend to offend or diminish the impact of violence in the community.

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Now free from legal limbo, Meek Mill eyes prison reform

Rapper Meek Mill pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge Tuesday in a deal that resolves a 2007 arrest that has kept him on probation or in prison for most of his adult life.

The negotiated plea comes after an appeals court threw out his conviction last month over doubts about the arresting officer’s credibility. The 32-year-old rapper, born Robert Williams, is now free of a criminal justice system he hopes to reform.

“I know this has been a long road for you and hopefully this will be the end of it,” Judge Leon Tucker told him.

Williams has called the 12-year ordeal “mentally and emotionally challenging,” but said millions of people face the same issues.

“I know you probably got family members in jail, people going through the same thing as me,” Williams told a small crowd as he left the courthouse. “I will continue to do what I do with the reform movement and help the people that helped me.”

He took up the cause after clashing repeatedly with the trial judge who ordered 10 years of probation and sent him back to prison in 2017 for technical violations. He spent five months locked up before the Pennsylvania Superior Court granted him bail and removed her from the case.

District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office supported Williams’ appeal and said it could not call the former officer to testify after the department found he’d stolen money on duty and lied about it. The officer, Reginald Graham, has denied the allegations.

Still, Krasner could not ignore the fact that Williams acknowledged having a gun, though he denied pointing it at police or selling drugs.

Krasner has overseen an office that has backed more than a dozen exonerations but said this is not that type of case. It is one in which Williams was guilty of a gun crime, but was excessively punished, Krasner said.

“Just as Mr. Williams has evolved in the last 10-plus years, the criminal justice system also needs to evolve,” he said.

Kahsim Buey, 23, listened to his music growing up in North Philadelphia and listened in court Tuesday as he entered his plea. Buey, who spent time in a youth detention center at 14, recently became the first in his family to graduate college and hopes to become a lawyer.

He believes that judges often believe police over defendants.

“Just like the Meek situation. His voice was little at the beginning, but now his voice is big because of the person he is,” Buey said. “I’m very happy for Meek today.”

Buey, a law intern, said he was pulled over by police this month for allegedly running a red light on his bike. The officer searched his drawstring bag for a gun, he said.

“They know our voice is little, so they mess with us,” he said. “That’s why I want to become a lawyer.”

In 2015, a federal jury rejected a lawsuit Williams filed against a Philadelphia police officer over what he called a racially motivated, 10-hour traffic stop that led him to miss the launch party for his 2012 debut album, “Dreams & Nightmares.”

His follow-up albums include the chart-topping “Dreams Worth More Than Money” and last year’s “Championships,” which includes performances from Jay-Z, his mentor, and former girlfriend Nicki Minaj.

On July 24, just hours before the Pennsylvania Superior Court threw out his conviction, Meek Mill and Jay-Z announced they were launching a new label and starting a $50 million criminal justice reform group.

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Beyoncé’s music director on ‘Homecoming’ Emmy nod : ‘It feels good’

In true Beyoncé fashion, when her music director learned he earned his first-ever Emmy nomination for his work on the pioneering project, “HOMECOMING: A Film by Beyoncé,” he was too busy to celebrate — because he was focused on producing the superstar’s next album.

Derek Dixie has worked with Beyoncé for almost a decade, rising through the ranks from assisting the music director to eventually holding the title himself. His first credit as an MD for Beyoncé was her first concert since giving birth to Blue Ivy in 2012, where former first lady Michelle Obama and her daughters Sasha and Malia were among the attendees.
Now, Dixie is competing for outstanding music direction — shared with Beyoncé — at the Emmy Awards, slated for Sept. 22 (the creative arts Emmys, a precursor to the main ceremony, takes place Sept. 14).

“It feels good obviously. I haven’t really digested it completely yet,” Dixie said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Los Angeles. “My family’s looking at me like, ‘Wow, my son is Emmy-nominated, my brother Emmy-nominated, so that part of it is really good. Like, I’ve kind of accomplished something for the home team and for the family.”
When the Emmy nominations were announced in July, Dixie was adding the finishing touches to “The Lion King: The Gift,” released days after the nominations were revealed. The Beyoncé-curated album was inspired by the 2019 film version of “The Lion King,” where the singer voices the character Nala.

Though Dixie came on Beyoncé’s team in music direction, he’s also produced, engineered and arranged songs for the singer.

“Just being on the road all the time, sometimes you might have to record an idea or something and need somebody to hop in there and record something quick. And I had those skills,” said Dixie, who also produced songs on Beyoncé’s epic “Lemonade” album, earning him his first-ever Grammy nomination at the 2017 awards show. “I think it’s segued from the live world into the studio world in my case.”

For “HOMECOMING,” which captured Beyoncé’s brilliant and trailblazing 2018 Coachella performance that highlighted black college culture, Dixie said they planned months ahead of the performance, first by trading ideas over the phone. Then he went into the studio with a small band to churn out more concepts (the final performance included more than 100 performers onstage, including a full marching band, majorette dancers and steppers).

“Once she honed in on the HBCU (historically black colleges and universities) idea … it was a machine after that. It was just months and months of prep work, making it sound authentic,” he said. “She has tons and tons of classic records that when putting the show together, you have to maintain the classic feel of the record but make it feel like you’re in a stadium at homecoming.”

Beyoncé’s Coachella performance marked the first time a black woman headlined the famed festival and made the singer just the third woman to score the gig, behind Bjork and Lady Gaga. And it made history: “HOMECOMING” earned a whopping six Emmy nominations, including four for Beyoncé, giving the 23-time Grammy winner a good chance to snag her first-ever Emmy.

In addition to outstanding music direction, Beyoncé is nominated for outstanding directing for a variety special (shared with Ed Burke), outstanding writing for a variety special and outstanding variety special (pre-recorded), where she is nominated as the film’s performer and executive producer (she shares the nomination with fellow EPs Erinn Williams, Steve Pamon and Burke). “HOMECOMING” also earned nominations for outstanding production design for a variety special and outstanding costumes for variety, nonfiction or reality programming.

“I don’t think you can survive in her circle without being the hardest working person in the room,” Dixie said of working for Beyoncé. “I say, ‘Always be the hardest working person in the room and always hire the hardest working person in the room.’ Because you have to have that because that’s who she is. That’s what she’s going to do.”

“I think it’s a blessing and just like any situation you have your stresses and you have your chaos that exists,” he continued, “but because of who she is as an entertainer and as a person, you kind of find that fuel to keep going one more day.”

And for those who hope to work for Beyoncé one day, he has some advice: “Be ready to work. Yes. That’s it. The glamour part comes later but the work part is definitely real.”

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HBCUs hope gift from NBA star Steph Curry sparks a golf resurgence

Ernie Andrews looks out to the grounds of Washington’s historic Langston Golf Course and shrugs at the fact that fewer young black golfers are coming out to play these days.

As a black man and longtime pro at a place that was once one of the few courses in the U.S. where African Americans were allowed to play, Andrews is hoping a gift from NBA star Stephen Curry to re-establish a golf program at prominent and historically black Howard University is the start of an upward trend.

“This is a great sport, and we have too much tradition as a people trying to get into the sport to lose it now,” Andrews said.

Curry’s gift to Howard in Washington is bringing new attention to golf at historically black colleges and universities and spotlighting the harsh budget constraints that they face in keeping their programs alive.

Black colleges and universities are a crucial pipeline to increasing diversity in golf at a time when few African Americans are playing the sport at the college and professional levels.
Only about 300 of the NCAA’s more than 10,000 college golfers are black, according to association data. And just three African American golfers are on the PGA Tour: Tiger Woods, Harold Varner III and Cameron Champ.

More than half of the collegiate black golfers compete at HBCUs, but those programs are constantly struggling for survival. Only about a quarter of the more than 100 HBCUs have golf teams, said Craig Bowen, president and founder of the Black College Golf Coaches’ Association.

Howard abandoned its golf program in the 1970s before Curry, a two-time NBA MVP who has won three championships with the Golden State Warriors, intervened last week. He donated some of his fortune toward a six-year deal to help the school relaunch its men’s and women’s teams for the 2020-21 academic year.

Jackson State University in Mississippi made history in 2007 by becoming the first HBCU to compete in the NCAA Division I golf tournament. But the university suspended its men and women’s golf teams a decade later when it faced a budget crisis.

Some HBCUs struggle to find black golfers and end up fielding teams with white players, and the programs are among the first to get targeted during budget crunches.

“It’s not football or basketball generating dollars, and they don’t want to go out and spend money and actually have to go out and raise money for golf,” said Bowen, who used to coach golf at Chicago State and Benedict College in South Carolina, which are both HBCUs.
Many believed that Woods’ barrier-shattering ascent that started with his historic 1997 win at the Masters — at a club that once banned black golfers — would usher in a new generation of African American players on the PGA Tour.

But those projections didn’t materialize, in part because of the deep challenges that young African Americans still face when it comes to taking up a sport that requires considerable expense and travel to play at a high level.

“A lot of my golf organizations and clubs are really being challenged in attracting young people,” said Debert Cook, publisher of the African American Golfer’s Digest.

Curry, who has long been known as a passionate golfer, made the announcement about his Howard donation at Langston Golf Course, one of the few U.S. golf courses to allow African Americans when it opened in 1939. The course was home to the Royal Golf Club and the Wake Robin Golf Club, the nation’s first for African American men and women.
African Americans made steady progress in golf after Langston Golf Course was built, culminating with Woods’ domination of the sport in the early 2000s.

In 1964, Althea Gibson, a tennis pioneer who also played golf professionally, became the first black woman to play in the LPGA Tour. And Charlie Sifford joined the PGA Tour in 1961 after years of the organization’s whites-only clause that kept out golfers of color.
Andrews said young golfers still have to fight the perception that it’s “a white man’s” sport. He hopes that a resurgence of HBCU golf will help bring more African American youth into the sport.

Golf is a great way to teach discipline and perseverance, he said, as well as an avenue into the corporate world for students who may not otherwise have a way in.
“We use golf, but the real teaching is about life,” Andrews said.

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Who's Burning the Amazon? Rampant Capitalism

Market forces and the administration of Jair Bolsonaro are supercharging the deforestation that's imperiling the world's biggest tropical rainforest.

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No One's Happy With YouTube's Content Moderation Policies

YouTube faces dueling lawsuits from a conservative group and an LGBTQ+ group, both of which argue that the video site discriminates against them.

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Adel Taarabt could play his first Morocco game in five years

New Morocco coach Vahid Halilhodzic retains Benfica's Adel Taarabt, who has not played for the Atlas Lions since 2014, in his first squad.

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Brain Squad: 'Handsout app helps children go to school'

A group of five Nigerian girls has invented an app that helps less privileged children go to school.

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Watford 3-0 Coventry City: Ismaila Sarr scores on his first Watford start

Club record signing Ismaila Sarr marks his first Watford start with a goal as the Hornets ease past League One Coventry in the EFL Cup.

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Brely Evans talks groundbreaking role on ‘Ambitions’ and repping for real women

Brely Evans has been heating up the small screen on OWN’s addictive drama, Ambitions. theGrio sat down with the actress who plays Rondelle Lancaster to find out why she’s so passionate about the role.

“She is the mother, auntie, best friend, woman in the neighborhood that you want on your team. She is feisty, she is dramatic, she is on fire,” she says.

“She is the voice to the voiceless. She puts her life in front of things she believes in. She is a lover of family and friends. It has been amazing playing this role…she’s a whole person.”

Evans says she relates to her character’s passion for justice and finds herself in similar predicaments in real life as the ones her character navigates on the show.

5 reasons OWN’s sexy new series ‘Ambitions’ is your new guilty pleasure

“When I first read for the role, I knew her,” she explained. “She has a boldness and a big personality and I think that would be me too.”

Brely Evans is well aware that she’s repping for the real-looking women of the world in a way that we’re not used to seeing on television. Her character is curvy, sexy, attractive to men, and her life and storyline doesn’t revolve around her weight.

“I have been getting feedback from people loving Rondelle in a special way and I think it’s because they are getting to see the curvy girl in a whole other light. This is the girl who has men that are attracted to her. This is the girl who can stand up when something needs to be said…This woman is living. Rondelle is getting to show life in real curves and it is a beautiful thing. I’m giving a voice to every day women,” she said.

“I’m gonna get to explore the full rainbow of Rondelle. You guys are going to get to go on a journey with this woman… I get to explore every facet and I’ve never really had that opportunity in other roles I have played,” she continued. “I had to go to some dark places and I had to connect in a way that I haven’t done before.”

She also explained how her role opened her eyes to the real-life issue of gentrification currently affecting the country.

Check out the full interview above.

Watch Ambitions on Tuesdays at 10/9c on OWN.

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