Mecca

Ralph McDaniels Celebrates 30 Years of Video Music Box

New York is not only the birthplace of hip-hop culture, but the home of the first television program to broadcast rap videos. Video visionary Ralph McDaniels launched "Video Music Box" 30 years ago and now, three decades and a global phenomenon later, the hip-hop nation is ready to celebrate. Among ... More >>

Brother Ali: The Day I Met Dr. Cornel West

By Reed Fischer Talk to Rhymesayers royalty Brother Ali lately and he's likely to sound like he's on the campaign trail. In a sense, he is. On Tuesday, September 18, music fans will have an important decision to make. The right one would be to pick up Ali's fifth album, Mourning in America and Drea ... More >>

Scientology's Homophobia: Even the Church's Token Gay Guy Was Disgusted

One of Scientology's enduring mysteries is that it has attracted Hollywood stars when it has such a reputation for homophobia. The sexual orientation of its top celebrities is always a matter of popular speculation, and even those with the barest understanding of Scientology seem to know that if cel ... More >>

We All Hate Obama -- Hank Williams, Jr., Just Had to Remind Us

After today's news that Paul Ryan is a huge Rage Against the Machine fan, we are continuing into the weird vortex of politics and music. And what a strange place it always tends to be.Yesterday was the Iowa State Fair and, headlining the Midwestern fun of the Buckeye State, Hank Williams, Jr., was o ... More >>

NYU Censors Its Arabian Campus

Scientology Plays Denver's Police Chief Like a Violin

We recently brought you footage of Sacramento's mayor, former NBA player Kevin Johnson, gushing about Scientology at the opening of an "Ideal Org" in that city. Since that fancy new building opened in California's capital, additional celebrations have occurred in places like Orange County and Denve ... More >>

How You Can Help a Film About Kate Bornstein Happen (Plus: Scientology Sunday Funnies!)

Filmmaker Sam Feder has opened Kickstarter funding for a documentary about recent Village Voice cover gal Kate Bornstein. Go to Sam's page to find out how you can help finish the project!

Sunday Funnies: Birmingham Raises the Odds on Ideal Orgs!

Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of ... More >>

Amanda Palmer Loved Kate Bornstein's Memoir So Much, She Crashed the Book Party

Tuesday night, we were invited to play a small part in Kate Bornstein's book party at the experimental theater Dixon Place, to celebrate the release of her memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger. Earlier that day, our cover story about Kate had popped up on the website, and the print version of this ... More >>

Sunday Funnies: Librarians Under Assault!

Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of ... More >>

Scientology Sunday Funnies: Jake and Elwood Want Your Cash!

Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of ... More >>

This is How You Finance an "Ideal Org"

Tuesday morning we included a recruitment video from the Scientology "org" in Orange County, California in our post about Lisa Marie Presley. It was loads of fun, but then our tipsters alerted us last night that it was just the tip of the iceberg. Orange County, in fact, has lots of diverting vide ... More >>

Scientology on the High Seas: Posing as Archaeology Students for the Sardinians

In November we started a new feature here on Fridays: the Voice has obtained hundreds of copies of L. Ron Hubbard's previously unpublished "Orders of the Day," which he gave to crew members as he sailed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Our documents cover the period from late 1968 through 1971, a ... More >>

Scientology on the High Seas: Hubbard Claims Victory Over the U.S. Navy

In November we started a new feature here on Fridays: the Voice has obtained hundreds of copies of L. Ron Hubbard's previously unpublished "Orders of the Day," which he gave to crew members as he sailed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Our documents cover the period from late 1968 through 1971, a ... More >>

Scientology, Deposed? Debbie Cook Goes on the Offensive

On Friday, the Church of Scientology did as promised and filed a motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit against former executive Debbie Cook. The church is asking the Bexar County, Texas district court to see this lawsuit as a simple contract dispute, and one the church deserves to win without g ... More >>

Scientology on the High Seas: Three Major Enemies Scalped!

In November we started a new feature here on Fridays: the Voice has obtained hundreds of copies of L. Ron Hubbard's previously unpublished "Orders of the Day," which he gave to crew members as he sailed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Our documents cover the period from late 1968 through 1971, a ... More >>

DEBBIE COOK COUNTERSUES SCIENTOLOGY: We Have Her Counterclaim, and the Church's Legal Salvos

The Voice has learned that Debbie Cook filed a counterclaim against the Church of Scientology Monday afternoon, the first significant development since her stunning victory against the church in a Texas courtroom on February 10. In her counterclaim, Cook is aiming directly at Scientology's ultimate ... More >>

Scientology's Secret Behind "Ideal Orgs" Revealed At Last

David Miscavige opened yet another "Ideal Org" this weekend, showing up to cut the ribbon at the new Church of Scientology in Florence, Kentucky (servicing the Cincinnati area). As you can see in the photo to the right, Miscavige showed up long enough to open the new building Saturday, which is jus ... More >>

Sundance Film Festival 2012: Detropia

​The first image in Detropia, the excellent new documentary about the decline of Detroit from filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady Jesus Camp, is of a conductor raising his baton to lead an orchestra. It's a clue that what we're about to see is a city symphony film, in the tradition of Man With ... More >>

The Road To Mecca Leads To Broadway

You might know her as the old lady in the Spider-Man movies, but theater aficionados have long treasured Rosemary Harris as the Tony-winning presence from The Lion in Winter, Heartbreak House, two productions of The Royal Family, and too many other classics to mention. At 84, she's at the top of he ... More >>

Scientology and Oiliness: More Renderings from the Super Power Building

Yesterday, we made public a leak of major proportions: we obtained hundreds of new renderings and architectural drawings of Scientology's $100 million "Super Power Building" -- what the church calls "Flag Mecca" -- in Clearwater, Florida. Of all the "perceptics" installations on the building's "su ... More >>

Scientology: Secrets of the Super Power Building

The Voice has obtained hundreds of new renderings of Scientology's Super Power Building in Clearwater, Florida, as well as a comprehensive collection of its architectural drawings. [Go here for our primer: What is Scientology? Update: More renderings of the building's odder features. And we reveal p ... More >>

Brooklyn's Nitty Scott MC Gets A 16-Bar Break On BET

​"Oh, snap, it's the real-life rap Halle Berry..." And lo, with 16 bars rapped over an instrumental spun by underground hip-hop gate-keeper DJ Premier, a new star was born at the BET Hip-Hop Honors earlier this week. Well, maybe—at the very least, the performer in question saw her profil ... More >>

Live: Black Rob Gets Back To Basics At The Apple Store

​ Black Rob Apple Store (SoHo) Wednesday, July 27 Better than: Waiting around the Genius Bar while a new trackpad gets installed in your MacBook. "Things are different now. There are computers. Dudes are going in with the computers", Black Rob proclaimed with a grin. Despite the obvious iro ... More >>

Ten Steps To Shabazz Palaces: Tracing Ishmael Butler's Path Between Digable Planets And The Present

​Back in the early '90s, Ishmael Butler came to rap prominence as Butterfly in the group Digable Planets. These days, he's taken on the moniker Palaceer Lazaro and records as the lead voice in Sub Pop's first hip-hop signing, Shabazz Palaces. It's a metamorphosis that Butler has left deliberat ... More >>

Julian Medina On Why He Loves Jewish Cooking and How to Have a Mexican Hanukkah

Julian Medina makes a mean latke​ These last nights of Hanukkah call for interviewing a chef who celebrates the Festival of Lights. So we rang up Julian Medina, chef of Toloache and Yerba Buena, to learn which side of the dreidel he was on: latke or sufganiyot.

Ground Zero Mosque Haters Go Dutch

Intolerance—imported and domestic—invades a 9/11 anniversary

Matthew Dear and Shed Talk About Their Feelings

Darker emotional arcs from two of techno's leading lights

The Guido Ideal Goes On The Down-Low in Jersey

Celebrating the Solstice with Mama Henes

​"Winter begins in 20 minutes," said "Mama" Donna Henes to a curious onlooker as she set up a blessing circle in the middle of Bowling Green in Manhattan. The self-described urban shaman was preparing for her 35th annual solstice celebration, which glass-is-half-empty types describe as the "s ... More >>

Clip Job: Malcolm X Moving in a New Direction

Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archivesJune 4, 1964, Vol. IX, No. 33Whites Cheer Malcolm X For Blasts at WhitesBy Susan Goodman"It doesn't make me sad at all, if it does exist." This statement came from Malcolm X on the alleged band of karate-trained "blood brothers" reportedly killin ... More >>

Bones' Beat: Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea at the Brooklyn Museum

All images courtesy Brooklyn MuseumGustave Caillebotte, Oarsmen Rowing on the Yerres, 1877 French Impressionism has a remarkable and, it seems, endlessly renewable currency in contemporary museum culture. The recent show of Van Gogh nocturnes at MoMA spawned an agitated, gelatinous daily mob of fan ... More >>

Letters: April 15 Edition

Pete Rock's NY's Finest

An East Coast legend hits harder with horns than Uzis

Bay of Infamy

Novelist Dorothea Dieckmann imagines the mind state of a tortured Guantánamo prisoner

Follow the Bouncer Bald

The trailer's exciting. If that's not your thing, then try Hairspray. It grows on you.

Radical Chic

Black berets and leather coats are out, Ski Iraq tees are in

The (White) Rapper Show: Still Great

Status Ain't Hood Interviews Labtekwon

Half-Truth Serum

Multitasking roots icon disappears in the spotlight

The Big Easy Does It

Temptation awaits in New Orleans

Listings

A Bum Trip Reborn

Blissed Psychedelic Freaks Bequeath Skykissing Guitars to Industrial Autopsy Aesthetes

Home to Harlem

Malcolm X Archive Goes to the Schomburg

Love That Dare Not

Why We Should Support the Right to Marry Plurally

Stuffed

NY’s Prep Stars Are Perpetually Boxed Out

Director of the Pinstriped Pilgrimage

Tony Morante breaks down the big ballyard in the Bronx

Same as the Old Dov

Borough Park Assemblyman Dov Hikind: New and Improved?

Don't Choke

The Sprewell Chronicles

The Hunt for Khallid Abdul Muhammad

The Million Youth March leader breaks his silence about the violent end to his historic rally, the demands for his arrest, and life as a possible fugitive from Giuliani-style justice