Cover Story
Temujin Kensu has spent 35+ years behind bars for a murder he says he did not commit. His supporters are asking Gov. Whitmer for a pardon.
His pleasant greeting and upbeat energy during an afternoon chat give no hint of a future that involves dying in prison. In fact, the inmate formerly known as Fredrick Freeman answers a telephone call to the conference room where he has been escorted in a manner more resembling a staff member than an accused killer.…
The Mushroom Hub is spreading the gospel of fungi in Midtown Detroit
If you’ve spent any time in Detroit’s Midtown in the past couple of months, you may have noticed a nondescript window sign for The Mushroom Hub on Cass Avenue. For curious fungi lovers who’ve been waiting to find out more about this mystery store, the wait is finally over. The Mushroom Hub is open for…
Anyway, here are photos of Detroit Zoo animals eating Buddy’s Pizza
Everyone loves Detroit-style pizza — including, apparently, the tigers at the Detroit Zoo. On Tuesday, the zoo’s tigers and bears were fed boxes of Buddy’s Pizza, the Detroit-style originator, as part of a promotion ahead of Detroit-style Pizza Day on Thursday, June 23. A grizzly bear at the zoo also appeared to enjoy the treat.…
Icewear Vezzo teams with Pressure Pack to release new cannabis strain
Detroit rapper Icewear Vezzo and Michigan-based cannabis company Pressure Pack have teamed up to release a new strain this weekend. Ice Pack Purple Runtz will be available for purchase on Friday, June 24, and the collaboration will include two products: a pre-roll and flower. The 1.3-gram pre-roll is hand-rolled and includes a glass tip, and…
Trump-endorsed Michigan lawmaker wants to declare Jan. 6 as ‘Remembrance Day’
A Michigan Republican lawmaker is proposing a conspiracy-riddled resolution that would declare Jan. 6 as “Remembrance Day” and blame the violent insurrection on “a few rogue and malicious agitators.” State Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, also claimed in the resolution that COVID-19 is a “manmade virus,” that…
Wiz Khalifa is coming to Grand Rapids to launch his weed brand ‘Khalifa Kush’
We’ll finally be able to get our hands on Wiz Khalifa’s weed come Saturday, June 25. Not his personal stash — his cannabis brand Khalifa Kush will be available in Michigan exclusively at Gage Cannabis locations. The “Black and Yellow” rapper will be making an appearance at the Gage Cannabis Grand Rapids location to promote…
In cross-cultural romance ‘Mississippi Masala,’ chemistry — and hope — abide
Romance proves neither frictionless nor too rosy in 1991’s Mississippi Masala, Mira Nair’s buoyant and freshly restored treatment of two working-class lovers drawn together across cultural lines. But chemistry comes easier, and abides stubbornly once found. In making space for this while leaving little doubt as to its central pair’s connection, the film trades off…
Jack White to play first-ever Flint concert
After kicking off his latest tour in Detroit earlier this spring, musical artist Jack White will return to his native Michigan later this summer to play a concert in Flint — his first ever in Vehicle City. The recently announced show is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 20 at Flint’s Whiting Auditorium — a late addition…
Petition demands justice and accountability for victims of Flint water crisis
A civil rights organization launched a nationwide petition that calls the Flint water crisis a racist “crime against humanity” and demands justice and accountability. The Michigan National Action Network petition comes eight years after Flint, under state emergency management, switched its drinking water supply to the Flint River to save money. The decision created one…
Second annual Obsidian Theatre Festival highlights Black performance artists in Detroit
The second annual Obsidian Theatre Festival is coming back to downtown Detroit to highlight emerging Black voices in performance art. Since last year’s plays were streamed due to the pandemic, this is the first year we can actually enjoy the festival live and in-person. Four plays, two musicals and two performance artists are slated for…
Hip-hop film ‘Chedda Boys’ gets Detroit premiere
Kwende Ried, aka “Street Lord Rook,” has been a hip-hop staple for a quarter of a century in Detroit, who along with the rest of the Street Lord’z set an early foundation for today’s Detroit hip-hop all-stars. Over the past several years Ried has been making the same impact on Detroit’s local film industry through…
The myth of violent, liberal cities
It’s funny how narratives work. After San Francisco voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Washington Post columnist James Hohmann called the vote “the latest wake-up call for Democrats, who have lost the public’s trust on criminal justice and play down voter anxieties about crime at their peril.” New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait, who imagines himself…
Thornetta Davis will peform at Detroit Symphony Orchestra poetry and music night
Detroit spoken word artist La Shaun phoenix Moore will host a night of poetry and music at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Sosnick Court on Friday. Poetry & Music: Nothin’ But the Blues will feature poetry from Emmy award-winning poet Scott Woods and live music by Detroit’s boisterous Queen of the Blues, Thornetta Davis. The event,…
John Oliver mocks Michigan Republican SOS candidate Kristina Karamo for ‘fake moral panics’
TV host John Oliver slammed Michigan Republican secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo on Sunday, calling her a danger to democracy for continuing to peddle false narratives about election fraud. On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, Oliver pointed out that Karamo and several other Republican secretary of state candidates nationwide are peddling election lies as part…
Judge Mathis gets reality TV treatment in E!’s ‘Mathis Family Matters’
From the backstreets of the Herman Gardens projects to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Greg Mathis is a made-in-Detroit story from which TV legends are forged. The former 36th District Court judge’s syndicated, Emmy-winning courtroom series Judge Mathis is entering its 24th season, making him the longest-running male African American television host in history. (Can’t…
Two Detroit rappers are on the 2022 XXL Freshman list and a local pastry chef wins a James Beard Award: The top 10 Metro Times headlines of the week
The theme for this week in news should be “Detroit wins.” Yes, the Detroit Tigers may have had a few losses, but this week our readers were interested in the documentary on Flint’s MC Breed and the Bootleg of Dayton Family that won an Emmy. Our readers were also interested in the Detroit pastry chef…
Library Street Collective takes viewers into artist studios with new web series
Library Street Collective has launched a new video web series called QUEUE which takes viewers into the minds (and studios) of artists. The first episode of QUEUE was released on Friday, June 17, featuring Detroit painter Cydney Camp across five short episodes. You’ll know a Cydney Camp oil painting when you see it. She has a…
10th Starbucks store in Michigan votes to unionize as movement gains more momentum
A Starbucks store in Ypsilanti voted overwhelmingly to form a union Friday, becoming the 10th Starbucks store in Michigan to do so. Baristas at the 3650 Carpenter store voted 15-2 in favor of unionizing, joining a growing labor movement sweeping across the country. Since December, 160 Starbucks in 20 states have voted to unionize, according…
What went wrong in San Francisco?
Last fall, I spent a week in San Francisco, one of my favorite cities. And it was heartbreaking. There were encampments of people who were unhoused every few blocks. There was drug paraphernalia all over the sidewalks. While walking with a friend who lives in the city, I was in deep thought and inadvertently led…
Medical cannabis company asks judge to strike down Detroit’s new recreational marijuana ordinance
A Michigan-based marijuana company is asking a judge to immediately declare that the city of Detroit’s new recreational cannabis ordinance violates state law. House of Dank, which operates four medical marijuana dispensaries in Detroit, sued the city over its revised ordinance on May 11. Now the company’s attorney, Kevin M. Blair of the Honigman law…
Metro Detroit artist Deborah Hecht turns beach trash and found objects into abstract works in ‘Waste Not Want Not’ exhibit
Thousands of balloons, plastic straws, and shotgun shells have washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan near Deborah Hecht’s vacation home. The amount of trash was so disturbing that Hecht decided to make a statement by doing what she does best — making art with things once discarded. The garbage became part of the…
Cooper Raiff’s ‘Cha Cha Real Smooth’ is a shallow attempt at depth
Like recent Oscar Best Picture winner CODA, also produced by Apple TV+, Cooper Raiff’s Cha Cha Real Smooth bodes to net a lot of fans — and for almost exactly the same reasons. Both follow an artsy white person’s coming of age (one about to enter college, one just graduated); both explore the joys and…
Tlaib calls on federal officials to stop whitewashing Middle Eastern Americans on census form
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib is leading a push to get federal officials to include a category on the U.S. Census and other official forms for people of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent. Racial and ethnic classifications haven’t changed in 25 years. Without the category, Arab Americans and others are encouraged to choose the…
Public House teams up with former Street Beet chef for vegan menu revamp
Vegans who’ve been missing the plant-based fast food dupes from Detroit’s Street Beet are in luck. Street Beet co-founder Megan Shaw has teamed up with Ferndale’s Public House to revamp the restaurant’s vegan dinner and brunch menus with the former pop-up’s comfort food spirit. Street Beet was operating out of 3rd Street Bar in Detroit…
Ryan Kelley now leads chaotic GOP gubernatorial race after getting arrested by FBI
Getting arrested by the FBI is usually a death knell for political candidates. But not for Ryan Kelley, a Republican gubernatorial candidate who was arrested by the FBI last week for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. With less than two months before the primary election, Kelley is now leading…
Sublime with Rome to headline Michigan’s Camp Cannabis music fest
Rock band Sublime with Rome has been announced as the headliner of Camp Cannabis, an upcoming music festival in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that is officially licensed for cannabis sales and consumption. The band, which includes bassist Eric Wilson from the California band Sublime, along with vocalist Rome Ramirez, mostly performs songs by Sublime. It was…
Grand Rapids fires cop who fatally shot Patrick Lyoya in back of head
Grand Rapids Police Officer Christopher Schurr, who was charged with second-degree murder for shooting Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head following a traffic stop, has been fired. Schurr chose not to have a discharge hearing to fight for his job, Grand Rapids City Manager Mark Washington said in a statement Wednesday. Grand Rapids…
Duggan unveils plan to help residents facing eviction as state aid about to expire
With Michigan’s COVID-19 rental assistance program about to end, Mayor Mike Duggan on Wednesday announced a three-pronged plan to help Detroiters facing eviction. The state’s COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance (CERA) program expires on June 30. So far, more than $750 million has been distributed to help about 142,000 Michigan residents struggling to pay rent. “The…
Sofa Stories Detroit film series hopes to amplify youth homelessness
Sofa Stories Detroit donated most of the grant money it won from the Knight Foundation to homeless youth in the city. In exchange, young people dealing with homelessness at the Detroit Phoenix Center were paired with a writer who would turn their couch surfing stories into performance art pieces. A series of six monologues based…
Vincent Chin, killed 40 years ago, to be commemorated with events in Detroit this week
On June 19, 1982, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin was celebrating his bachelor party at a Highland Park strip club when two white autoworkers picked a fight with him; one of the men, apparently mistaking Chin for Japanese, said “It’s because of you little motherfuckers that we’re out of work,” referring to the…
Swim-up bars are now legal in Michigan
Swimming up to a bar for a poolside drink sounds like something you’d do on a vacation in Bali, but it’s now possible in Michigan, too. On Tuesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill allowing parks, hotels, and resorts to serve alcohol and food at swim-up bars. The bill went into effect immediately, and we’re…
Retired Detroit cop gets 15 months in prison for accepting bribes
A retired Detroit cop was sentenced to 15 months in prison for accepting bribes, becoming the second public official to be jailed as part of a broadening FBI investigation into corruption in the towing industry. Alonzo Jones, 55, accepted about $3,200 in cash bribes from July 2019 to May 2021 in exchange for falsifying state…
Why progressives need a better conversation about faith
It’s hard not to feel like America is moving backward right now. If it’s not the impending overturn of Roe v. Wade, it’s the inaction on guns, state-level policies intended to demonize LGBTQ+ Americans, or book bans. All of this has roots in a single political phenomenon: The incursion of a totalitarian strain of evangelical…
Homegrown Greek fast-food chain Estia is a hit
With McDonald’s prices edging toward $10 for a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal, you might as well go for fast food that tastes good and gives you fewer calories from fat. A pita wrap at Estia (Greek for “hearth”) is $10.60, though I admit that it does include French fries. Inside. I really enjoyed…
Free Will Astrology (June 15-21)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “The whole point for me is to change as much as possible,” says Aries actor Keira Knightley. What?! Is she serious? Her number one aspiration is to keep transforming and transforming and transforming? I guess I believe her. It’s not an entirely unexpected manifesto coming from an Aries person. But I…
Rising Detroit rock ’n’ roll star Verzell comes into his own
The Fisher Building is bustling with all kinds of energy. Patrons are filing in to see the musical The Band’s Visit, buying beverages, and gazing at the 94 year-old building’s beautiful marble architecture. Meanwhile, Verzell Page is posted up on the main level people-watching, dressed in a paisley shirt, blue slacks, and a leather blazer.…
