Krave Covers (From The Vault)

All of the Issues That Marcus Scott's material was featured in. In these magazine editorial issues, Scott has written the cover stories as well as additional copy and editorial features. Enjoy.

• Rows 2 (Finesse Mitchell: white backdrop and purple font) through 5 (Lisa Raye: silver backdrop and black font)
• Row 7 (Boris Kodjoe: white backdrop and black font; Travis Winfrey: sea blue backdrop, royal blue font)

Here are a few others you might like: 

  Several articles were written by Marcus Scott.

 

Three of the top stories on the front page were written by Marcus Scott, including several fitness articles that would eventually launch KraveFit.

 Marcus Scott interviews urban film queen Lisa Raye on her divorce to former chief minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands Michael Misick, her film career, her autobiographical work and what would soon become the VH1 hit series, "Single Ladies."

 Several articles were written by Marcus Scott.

Marcus Scott's very first magazine cover, writing on breast cancer in men.  

Four of the top stories on the front page were written by Marcus Scott, including the Black Thomas cover story.

The Last Krave issue with Marcus Scott.

From The Vault (older Atlanta Post/Madame Noire story)

On the May 31, 2011 broadcast of 106 & Park, the BET flagship premiered the promotional music video for the radio raga “Man Down,” the menacing electro-reggae cat-on-the-prowl murder ballad by Rihanna. The fifth consecutive single from her trashy Eurodance opus “Loud,” the latest clip from the Caribbean chanteuse–as directed by frequent collaborator Anthony Mandler–has raised a few eyebrows since its debut.

Set against the beautiful-but-turbulent ‘gully’ side of Kingston, Jamaica, the Barbados-born singer reflects on the compelling story of a young, liberated woman and the rage-and-revenge rampage that follows.

The five-minute clip begins at the climax of the mad scene when a raged-filled Rihanna fires and kills a man who’s walking through a busy train station before the songstress flees the scene of the crime.

Through flashbacks of the previous day, Rihanna is seen riding her bike through Portland Parish, socializing with young men in her neighborhood, and buying fruit from street vendors before wandering into a nightclub where she is pursued by the victim. It’s not until after the “Umbrella” singer exits the dancehall that viewers understand her motives, as he follows her out into the shadows and begins to get violent; leaving her in tears at the end of the struggle.

Mandler really nails the coffin tight with haunting hot-flashes and smoke-simmering throughout and guerilla-style quick cuts of the star alone in her flat, singing alone, contemplating inside a bedroom at dusk. While, the message of the “Man Down” clip is a clear, concise, and powerful message for young women in the “Little Red Riding Hood” fare, should Rihanna be the mouthpiece?

 Years before “Man Down,” Rihanna was the victim of domestic abuse, a scandal that for a short while, damaged the career of R&B song-and-dance man Chris Brown and left headshots of her black and blue face littered throughout the information superhighway. The scars of the incident and the madness that followed fueled the melancholy “Rated R,” which chronicled her relationship with Brown and the healing process. But since then, a more risqué and femme fatale persona has arisen: One that prefers S & M in her boudoir and fingerprints around her neck. Perhaps this is just open-minded statements of a twenty-something’s sexual fantasies, but then again, what messages are these sending to young women? Is physical abuse only permitted when its in the bedroom, and for those who are not into the scene, is there a line between abuse and a little whip-and-chain action?

 While this siren-infused fireball riddim in all of its balls-to-wall bunny-boiling glory is Rihanna’s catchiest, savvy and most infectious single since last year’s “Rude Boy,” the video represents more than just a gut-wrenching PSA on sex abuse; it sort of establishes one of pop’s leading princesses as a victim of her own circumstances and a media plaything. As we know, rape is used as a form of power.

But seeking and finalizing one’s revenge, is a way to get that power back. Alas, if you’ve been the victim as long as she has, is the crime still worth committing and is it possible to establish or get that power back? Inquiring minds would like to know.

-By Marcus Scott

Source: Original Story

From The Vault (older Atlanta Post/Madame Noire story)

 In the age of Twitter, tabloid gossip can spread like wildfire within minutes. Yet it is unusual when the hot topic is CNN weekend prime-time news anchor Don Lemon, who revealed in an interview published yesterday by The New York Times that he is gay.

In late September, the Emmy-winner made a starling confession on national television. During a discussion about Georgia’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church pastor Bishop Eddie Long, who was accused of sexually coercing four male teenage members of his congregation, Lemon announced that that he was a victim of sex abuse by a much older pedophile as a child.

 During the interview, Lemon conversed about his early childhood after showing a video of a lawyer reiterating what one of the alleged victims said about the bishop’s sexual advances. “The things these men were talking about, especially African American men don’t want to talk about…I couldn’t tell my mom that until I was 30 years old,” said Lemon.

With an impressive portfolio that includes stints with WCAU in Philadelphia, WMAQ in Chicago and WNYW in New York City, as well as profiles on NBC Nightly News and Today, the Baton Rouge native is following in the footsteps of many of his other peers in journalism, media and television by releasing his first autobiographical memoir in June.

In the interview with The New York Times, Lemon, 45, shed light on his perspective on why the tell-all, dubbed “Transparent,” will gain notice: “People are going to say: ‘Oh, he was molested as a kid and now he is coming out.’ I get it.”

As horrifically shallow as this confession maybe perceived, it’s a sad fact. Once upon a time even uttering a confession of this gravity meant career suicide. However, with that bold statement, CNN’s baby-faced anchor joined the ranks of only a few news anchors that have come out, which include political commentator Rachel Maddow and MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts, both white personalities. Whether he likes it or not, Lemon has now established himself as the face of the quintessential African-American gay man of prime-time news.

Source: Original Story

From The Vault (older Atlanta Post/Madame Noire story)

On Sunday night, Jamaican reggae fusion artist Sean Kingston was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital after he crashed into a bridge—that linked Miami Beach’s elite Palm Island to the MacArthur Causeway—with a personal watercraft.

According to www.local10.com, the calamity ensued around 6 p.m. After, City of Miami Fire Rescue crews quickened the star and his female passenger to be hospitalized.

TMZ says 21 year-old Kingston and the passenger were rescued from possibly drowning by a Good Samaritan.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Jorge Pino said the two were in severe need of medical attention and were taken to the Ryder Trauma Center, however Pino did not know their conditions.

According to NME, Pino said authorities are investigating the collision, indicating that officials do not believe alcohol played a role in the accident.

According to TMZ, a Epic Records representative, Kingston’s label, and that the “Beautiful Girls” singer was currently stabilized.

-By Marcus Scott

Source: Original Story

Luck Must Be A Lady (old clip from Trace.Tv)

In the world of everything bizarre, a certain electro-pop duchess is looking to blow a few fuses with her new upcoming effort. Lady Gaga, the eccentric and ultramodern diva of princess-cut plastic pop is back to make a statement and no doubt; it will be bigger-than-ever.

 The Lower East Side bon vivant who is still making rounds on her sold-out and highly-successful Monster Ball tour revealed that her upcoming material may in fact be her magnum opus. With her hot-for-teacher masquerade, out-of-this-world costumes and kitsch two-tone bottle blonde hair—Lady Gaga instantly became an overnight sensation. Within weeks of its release, her second studio album “The Fame Monster” wrecked havoc on public radio spawning club-romping epics “Bad Romance” and the notorious “Telephone” to transatlantic praise. In an interview with 2DayFM, the “Paparazzi” star noted that the album will be released by the end of the year and will embrace new ideas previously overlooked. The pop star also noted she is working on her “best work to date,” having already penned the nucleus of the record in her travels around the globe. No worries, the fame-starved vamp will still release jaw-dropping music video clips. However, she has noted the promo for her next single “Alejandro,” will not be the much anticipated sequel to the highly controversial “Telephone.” Maybe we’ll see one her next record? Time will only tell. Written by Marcus Scott

Source: Original Story 

From The Vault (older Atlanta Post/Madame Noire story)

The second season finale of the teen musical soap “Glee” aired, and after a year of neglect from her acne-factory show tune ensemble members, the brassy Mercedes (as played by Amber Riley) developed a relationship with peroxide blond iron man Sam (as played by Chord Overstreet). The buxom bombshell and the trout-mouth jockey have both been in two destined-to-destruct flings, with Mercedes in a shorter-lived one episode pillow talk with sweetheart sociopath reformed juvenile delinquent Puck (as played by Mark Salling). However, the recent pairing seems only a bit glamorized for the show of sultry jazz-hand, fist-pumping show people.

According to Clutch editorial “A Different Type of Brown Girl: Where’s our Liz Lemon?” the show inefficiently converses (and perhaps evades) the topic of race and ethnicity. Granted, the character types do stereotype their character’s quirks based in part on their cultural descent: For Jacob Ben Israel, the over-sexed creepy tabloid-spinning yellow journalist, the audience is presented with the archetypal Woody Allen caricature that can only be described as a hyper-sexualized, but still neurotic, real-life Mort Goldman. Tina and Mike, who have not been truly fleshed-out as well, bicker about their family, prices and their distinctiveness as the only Asian-American couple at McKinley High School. For Barbara Streisand and Bruce Springsteen ersatzes Rachel Berry and Puck, viewers are treated with the debates of faith and conflict over their Jewish identity.

Even if you were to ask the guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury—the virginal ingénue overcoming her crippling mental handicap—she’d probably say that the gospel-infused songbird doesn’t have an identity of her own. Perhaps that’s because Mercedes was written to be exactly what we feared she’d be all along: the feisty, eye-rolling, rubber necking, finger-snapping black girl.
 
That’s what writer Tami Winfrey Harris addressed on her blog “What Tami Said,” and various critics are coming to the same conclusion. At the close of the show’s critically-acclaimed “Born This Way” episode, the glee kids don emblazoned shirts that speak to their individual identities ( for better or worse). Harris notes: “Britney’s read “I’m with stoopid”–a nod to the running gag that is her questionable intellect. Mercedes, the sole regular black character on the show, wore a shirt that said “No weave.” I’m not sure exactly what her insecurity is. Does she hate that she wears a weave? Does she not wear a weave, but thinks she should?” Harris has a point, being the only black regular on the show; writers missed a window of opportunity to provide the perspective of a teenage girl attending a majority white school in the Midwest America. So what is Mercedes?

 For a show that is written with characters designed to be transcendent of race, one can imagine that in this “post-racial” Obama age, it’s no surprise that black actors are still cast to type. In this case, they are either hired as thugs and criminals, servants, comic relief, snarky sidekicks, mother superiors, nurses or brutally honest story-tellers.  Mercedes does not have the culture or the mother hen qualities of Joan from “Girlfriends,” or even the headstrong independence of “Moesha.” In other words, there is no depth and therefore, zero likelihood of becoming a role model to young black women.

-By Marcus Scott

Source: Original Story

From The Vault (older Atlanta Post/Madame Noire story)

In times like these people need a way to relieve the tension of everyday hardships.  So you might say that Chester Gregory and fellow cast members of “Sister Act: The Musical” aren’t just singing and dancing up there – they’re doing a public service.

Inspired by “Sister Act”, the 1992 film starring Whoopi Goldberg, the musical tells the story of Deloris Van Cartier, a disco diva who hides out in a convent when a former lover puts a hit out on her.  Nominated for five Tony Awards, the show comes on the heels of critically acclaimed “Fela!” and “Memphis,” suggesting increasingly firm ground for black ensemble musicals. This is great news for Gregory, a musician with a thing for the stage.

In January, after wrapping up his role as James “Early” Thunder, the coke-fueled R&B lothario in the national tour of “Dreamgirls”, Gregory began rehearsals for “Sister Act.” It was a star turn.  His role as Eddie, the love-gushing police chief and arch nemesis to Deloris’ (played lovingly by Patina Miller) former beau Curtis Shank, won Gregory the “Best Actor” award from Broadway World and raves from the New York Post’s “Best Actor This Year” honors.  Many critics described his presence as under-utilized, a good thing in theatre. Recently nominated for “Outstanding Featured Actor” by the Outer Critics Circle, the showman is still hungry, if not a little off his rocker.

 
“I have a disease called workaholic-ism. I’m addicted to my work, so I just want to crank out as much as I can so I can try to inspire. That’s my goal. That’s my mission as an artist,” Gregory said.  That’s why he’s currently in the studio, tinkering on the follow-up to his debut, “In Search of High Love.”
“Outside of doing eight shows a week, when I leave from doing the show, I often go to the studio late at night around 11 ‘o clock, 12 ‘o clock, to like lunch time, ” he said.  “I just work and song-write and put stuff together.  I’m really excited about it.  I’m with great people — Dot Da Genius, who did “Day ‘n’ Nite” with Kid Cudi, a new band called Wizard, 88-Keys, who did work with Mos Def and various other people too.”

A huge J Dilla fan, Gregory’s debut was a homage to all of his influences.  On his latest, still-untitled effort, he aims for a more unique sound with world-weary emphasis, as opposed to his slow-burning, baby-making start. “No, it’s not going to be an album of showtunes!,” Gregory said.   “We’re going more modern-day Stax recordings. It’s not necessarily doing a throwback album, but I want the authenticity of what those records did,” he said.

- By Marcus Scott

Source: Original Story

From The Vault (Old Artvoice Article from a few years ago!)

Zili Misik, graduates of the Berklee College of Music and a prized world music ensemble from Boston, is a coterie of virtuosos fusing blues, jazz, samba, reggae and neo-soul to create a diasporic world beat sound. Combining unique rhythms of African and Haitian roots with Latin and Jamaican tinges, Zili’s members hail from sundry locales spanning Japan to Trinidad, and as such they’ve been bringing their multi-cultural music across continents for seven years. They play one night only in WNY, at Nietszche’s on Friday (Feb. 15), with support from fellow Bostonian singer-songwriter Tony Brown, and local bands Ramforinkus and Peanut Brittle Satellite, along with Peter Burakowski of the band Shambu. The show starts at 10pm—marcus scott

Source: Original Article

From The Vault (Artvoice article written a few years ago!)

No artist has paved a musical plateau to the stars quite like the critically extolled, playfully exalted South Carolinian jazz luminary James “Blood” Ulmer. With a signature look that recalls the sophistication of funk visionary George Clinton, the grainy soulfulness of B.B. King and a string-snapping sound orchestrating a rock synthesis critics have described as “the missing link between Jimi Hendrix and Wes Montgomery,” Blood has become a kind of pioneering jazz futurist. With the release of his pivotally acclaimed Bad Blood in the City: The Piety Street Sessions (Hyena), Blood has fashioned heart-wrenching vocals and resonating poetics to accompany his real-life political and cultural statements about the devastated city of New Orleans. Garnering Grammy nods, his recent record Birthright—a record adored even by nit-picking, hairsplitting faultfinders—is sure to bedazzle jazz lovers. “Blood’s” intimate one-night only performance as part of the 2007-08 Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz Series is to be heralded by “The Geography of the Blues,” a pre-concert conversation with Jim Santella at 7pm. 

Saturday, February 9 at 8pm. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1285 Elmwood 

Avenue. $22 general, $18 members. 

For reservations call (716) 270-8223 

Source: Original Article