“Judas and the Black Messiah” Director Shaka King on Fred Hampton, the Black Panthers and COINTELPRO

A highly anticipated new feature film, “Judas and the Black Messiah,” tells the story of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and William O’Neal, the FBI informant who infiltrated the Illinois Black Panther Party to collect information that ultimately led to Hampton’s killing in 1969 by law enforcement officers. Shaka King, the film’s director and co-writer, says focusing on Hampton and O’Neal was a way “to make 'The Departed' inside the world of COINTELPRO,” referring to the decades-long illegal FBI program to undermine Black and radical political organizations.

Read More
Greg FordeComment
The 5 Most Uplifting Tiny Desk Concerts

We've hosted roughly 900 Tiny Desk concerts, so it's a challenge to pick just five to match any superlative you can name. But "Most Uplifting"? ... look, it's basically impossible, OK? But for the purposes of this list, let's stick mostly to delicious, fantastic spectacle:

Read More
Greg FordeComment