![]() ![]() A track from Beyonce’s Lemonade is followed by Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” songs born out of mainstream Black artists’ return to conscious conversations about the Black American experience. As I drink my fancy Old-Fashioned and order a fried chicken sandwich, Tribe drips right into more songs I know by Outkast, Jay-Z, and Frank Ocean. ![]() The song is “The Space Program,” from A Tribe Called Quest’s 2016 album, We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service, which spans Trump, gentrification, immigration, and the loss of Phife Dawg. Now that hip-hop is no longer seen as a threat, it’s become the default ambiance in the kinds of high-end spaces that include few Black people. But I’m hot and hungry and the restaurant smells like what I’ve selfishly been looking for I’m down South and I want to eat Southern food. In the open kitchen I see the only other Black person there, a brother working over the stove. Everyone’s white: the patrons, the hostess, the bartenders. A handful of patrons sit at the bar and at a smattering of tables. It’s Sunday afternoon and Toups South, a restaurant serving “regional southern cuisine” in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans, is mostly empty. What the eye see? What the ears hear? What the nose smell? Instinctively, I scan my surroundings, stretching every sense around the corners of the room until it feels safe. The Surprising Saddest Part of Catching the Long Island Serial KillerĪway from home, I walk into unfamiliar spaces with my shoulders hunched and tight. The World’s Greatest Pro Wrestler Has One of the Best Gimmicks in Years The Famous “Runaway Train” Music Video “Saved” 21 Kids. Billionaires Are Holding a Gun to the Culture Industry’s Head ![]()
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