Tobe Nwigwe Graces First-Ever Digital Cover of Newly Relaunched ‘Ebony’ Mag

Tobe Nwigwe Graces First-Ever Digital Cover of Newly Relaunched ‘Ebony’ Mag

ICONIC EBONY MAGAZINE today relaunched its website with a new look — and a special digital cover featuring Houston rapper Tobe Nwigwe, who graced the cover of CityBook's Music Issue in 2017. Ebony has been a leading voice in Black culture for 75 years.


The cover shoot, featuring Nwigwe and his wife Fat along with their producer LaNell Grant, took place at the Houston Botanical Gardens, which happens to be the setting for Nwigwe's new music video for "Tundah Fivah." The shoot also served as a sneak peek of Nwigwe's new clothing line, Chukwu, as all three subjects donned mint-green attire from the forthcoming release. On set, Houstonians Cary Fagan, who has also collaborated with Solange, and videographer Justin Stewart helped produce.

Inside the digital edition, Nwigwe and Fat, parents to two young daughters, reveal that their third child — whose expected arrival was announced in a viral video a few weeks ago — will be a son. "Surely he'll be just like his daddy," the Nigerian-American rapper told Ebony. Writer Miles Marshall Lewis also got Nwigwe chatting about artistic expression and Black love; other highlights include further exploration of Houston's "burgeoning Black creatives scene" and "how independent artists are becoming the future of the industry."

"In recognizing [our brand's] milestone moment as well as Black Music Month and Father's Day, we wanted to make sure that the June cover encapsulates the celebration of Blackness and innovation," said Marielle Bobo, Editor-in-Chief and Senior Vice President of Programming, in a statement. "Tobe Nwigwe is one of the most exciting artists that we have come across in decades. He is the embodiment of Black creativity and expression, Black unity and the importance of the Black family."

Art + Entertainment

A detail of Konoshima Okoku's 'Tigers,' 1902

THROUGHOUT THE HOT — and hopefully hurricane-free — months of summer, visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston can step through a portal and experience another era with Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, on view through Sept. 15.

Keep Reading Show less

Jacob Hilton a.k.a. Travid Halton

THERE IS A long recorded history of musicians applying their melodic and lyrical gifts to explore the darker corners of human existence and navigate a pathway toward healing and redemption. You have the Blues and Spirituals, of course, which offer transcendence amid tragedy in all of its guises. And then there’s Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours, and Beyoncé’s Lemonade, three wildly divergent examples of the album as a cathartic, psychological, conceptual work meant to be experienced in a single sitting, much like one sits still to read a short story or a novel.

Keep Reading Show less
Art + Entertainment