AMELIE’S 2018 TOP LIST:

Best Music album: Whack World by Tierra Whack. Toys with our newly born short attention-span. A non-male perspective that is not discussing sex, sexual appeal, money or anger. Released with an parallel choreographed video series that illuminates the logic of putting out an album in which every song is exactly 1 minute long.

Best Comedy special: Nanette by Hannah Gatsby. Manages to make you laugh and cry. The meta dialogue includes the mechanics of comedy, the misogyny within art history, and the power of stories. Eases you into a very serious reminder about our humanity.

Best Movie: Black Panther. How could anything else compete. A film that discusses colonialism, Black power internationalism, theft of cultural items by museums, with kickass fight scenes oftentimes featuring tough-ass women.

Best Book: Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston. I actually have not read it yet, but considering it took almost 80 years for it to be released to the public I think it deserves significant respect. Everything Hurston has created is worth reading, even if simply to add context to her better pieces of writing. In addition our society needs a strong slap-up-side-the-head reminder about the realities of slavery.

Best Public Athlete: Serena Williams and Lebron James.  No need to segment by gender, but they each earned even greater respect in what they accomplish by being the best at their sport and public figures with real social awareness and taking action.

Best Meme: 5 year-old Cardi B. I wanted a way to make sure that Cardi B got a place in my list for 2018. The Meme is hilarious and reminds me that all of our awkward childhood photos are incredible. And how sad it is that these newer generations have infinite number of pics documenting their entire life. Our analogue pictures represented the moment when an adult took out a camera, decided it was worth 1 of 24, and then paid to get it put onto paper. But I wanted to make sure Cardi B was on my list because I love her dialogue with a career as a stripper and stripper culture.

Best Journalism Story: A Business With No End. Reveals what happened to Newsweek magazine, explains the newest evolution of capitalism, and reveals how odd it is that religious institutions don’t pay any taxes.