Brownish Black will be joined by musical guests On the Stairs, The Way Downs and DJ Seoul Brother Number 1. Doors open at 8 p.m.

Check out the start of Mos Def's amazing concert at the Roseland April 16, 2011.

Portland hip hop artists are dropping some free samples of their music for weekend listening. And I looked for some other videos -- perhaps not new, but not old -- that will liven up your Friday.
Support your local artists and check them out.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) _ Grammy Award winners Chaka Khan and Jennifer Hudson are joining the 2011 lineup for the Essence Music Festival, which will be held over the Fourth of July holiday weekend in New Orleans.
Festival officials said Tuesday they've also added Kem, Marsha Ambrosius, New Edition, Hal Linton, Eric Benet, Doug E. Fresh, Naughty By Nature and Vanessa Bell Armstrong to the roster of artists scheduled to perform in the Louisiana Superdome.

Illmaculate and G_Force have just released their new album "The Green Tape" for free to download.
Visit http://www.freshselects.net/illmaculate-x-g_force-the-green-tape to get it.
The album is a track-by-track reworking of Al Green's 2008 hit album "Lay It Down" which was produced by ?uestlove and James Poyser of The Roots.

This weekend, the Soul'd Out Music Festival will conclude with a performance by pianist and jazz master Ellis Marsalis, the man responsible for the Marsalis family jazz legacy that includes sons Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason. Last week, The Skanner News spoke with the pianist from his home in New Orleans.
Ellis, now retired from teaching at the University of New Orleans, still plays a weekly show in New Orleans, but says that his performances during this tour will likely be his last away from Louisiana

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Laurdine Patrick was born on July 31, 1956 in Chicago where he and his elder sister, Rhonda, were raised by their mother, Emily "Mae" Wintersmith, in the home of their maternal grandparents after she was abandoned by her husband. Their absentee father, the late Pat Patrick, was a legendary jazz saxophonist who recorded and performed with everybody from Duke Ellington to Miles Davis to Thelonious Monk to Sun Ra...

ATLANTA (AP) -- With a blond streak running up his uncombed Afro, rapper Wiz Khalifa leans back in his chair seemingly without a care in the world, as the aroma of marijuana rises from his gray sweater.
This is a snapshot of rap's newest sensation.
"Weed is just my thing," says the 23-year-old, whose latest album, "Rolling Papers," debuted this week at No. 2 on the album charts with more than 198,000 copies sold, putting him right behind Britney Spears.

Ma Rainey, in real life, was a ground breaker. She was part of the first generation of female Black recording artists. Her legend was so great that in 1982, playwright August Wilson further immortalized the blues singer in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom."
Still riding the critical praise of last year's "Radio Golf," The Portland Playhouse will begin its run of "Ma Rainey" this weekend to sold-out audiences.

Comedian/actor/deejay/author Steve Harvey spawned a veritable cottage industry of Black love advice books when he published "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man" back in 2009. But none of those imitators which have come along since has matched the success of that runaway #1 best-seller. However, he now has serious competition in "The Strawberry Letter" which was coincidentally written by Shirley Strawberry, co-host of Steve's nationally-syndicated radio program.