It makes me sad, angry and bewildered every time I see a black person littering, just blatantly tossing down with impunity and careless disregard for their surroundings the remnants of their ghetto diets and their ghetto lifestyles  

Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati’s Black Pearl Sings! is a play come as a warning shot foretelling the modern-day recording industry (such as it is) and its sad history of theft by corporate henchmen. More obviously and tellingly, the play is also a dance of race relations, race politics and the sometimes heartbreaking history of relationships between black and white women.   

How is this still even on the table in 2012? Why hasn’t unprotected sex among blacks — the population with the highest HIV numbers — been more closely associated with self-esteem, because you must not love yourself if you let someone push up unprotected.  

Talking about race is always a dodgy premise, but Carolina Chocolate Drops and their music practically encourage such discussions. “It's a very strong statement to say that you're a black string band musician,” said Drops' Dom Flemons in an interview with Fairfield Weekly. “That helps people open up the article or what-not and then they get to find out a whole part of the Folk music history that they might not have known before.”