It’s the type of thing you never thought would happen. As unbelievable and earth-shattering as the death of Michael Jackson; as mind-blowing and awesome as the election of Barack Obama. After 25 years, Oprah is going off the air next year.

I feel like the dreams of a million bloggers, including my own, just died. Who among us did not aspire to get an invitation from the O to have their blog featured? If Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Rachel Ray can make whole careers off of a few appearances, surely I, with my witty writing style and trendy language could get just enough to survive on by touching even a tidbit of that Harpo shine. But alas, it shall never be…

There is, however, one person who’s probably pretty excited about Oprah’s exit:

You guessed it, Tyra Banks. With the O out of the way, there’s nothing stopping her from completing her media takeover and inundating us with her imag…er, uh, talents.

And she’s already off to a great start. A recent taping of The Tyra Banks Show featured a tie-in with Black blogging powerhouse and friend of Me&EB Curly Nikki of CurlyNikki.com. Head over to her main site, or follow her on Twitter to find out the exact air date. Already Tyra is working to bring cutting edge talent on her show and fresh content for more youthful audiences. I can’t say whether or not Tyra’s got the potential to be the next Oprah, or whether Nikki could be the next Rachel Ray, but there both on the right track. And in a year, Oprah’s departure will leave a vacuum the size of Chicago in the media world – there’ll be more than enough space and opportunity for everyone.

Congratulations to CN.com on getting an chance for national exposure, good luck to Tyra as she continues to pursue market dominance, and best wishes, gratitude and reverence to Oprah as she moves on, hopefully to continue paving ways and pioneering for all of us.

Just because it’s nice sensual and sexy. Enjoy…

Hip-Hop music is all about the audience sharing the experience of the artist. It’s the real reason you can always catch true Hip-Hop Heads roaming the halls of their job, school, or apartment building reciting the rhymes of their favorite rappers – we’re trying to step in to the world created by the artist’s words. It’s like poetry: you recite the lines and it keeps you in touch with a true part of yourself…or something you want to be true about yourself.

Over the last so many months/years, a lot of rappers have been talking about how happy they are to have so many Haters – people who try to discourage them, or overly criticize them, just because they are being successful. Not that you don’t know what Haters are – you’re Facebook friends and the people you follow on Twitter probably pop off shout-outs to their haters at least twice a week. These comments are usually followed with something about how it’s okay though, because all that hate just motivates them to “get more money.”

It doesn’t work like that for me. I don’t get motivated by the amount of people hating on me, and the desire to prove them wrong doesn’t drive me. I don’t want to thank my haters in award speeches, and I don’t want to give them shout-outs on XM Radio. Typically, I just want them to go away.

I’ve spent the last 10 minutes trying to defend the rude raunchy crazy lyrics of this song in my head before I posted it here…and I can’t. It’s just classic Southern Rap that I was reared on. Enjoy it or don’t. Either way…

Hey Friends,

Sorry I’ve been gone so long. After the wedding was the honeymoon, and after the honeymoon was work. I’ve been trying to get myself back together and think I’m at a place to begin writing and updating again. Last night I had a thought/epiphany that I wanted to share, and it was like, “Damn, guess I need to get back on the blog, huh?”

So here I am. Thanks for all the encouragement to those in the comments and those in the real world. I promise, also, to share some good pics of the wedding and all once the time is right. Thanks again and I hope you keep reading.