Peace and blessings everyone! Welcome to Issue 9 of THE GAME NEWSLETTER! The dopest new newsletter on the planet! Have you SUBSCRIBED as yet? If yes, please encourage others to SUBSCRIBE too. If no, please take a second to SUBSCRIBE, then continue on reading this issue. Please.

And what an issue it is! We have Ezekiel Hunt, Esmé Zodrow-MacDonald, Jeannine Etter, and Gil Griffin all riffing on their game and life obsessions, each from their very unique perspectives. I mean, where else would you find pieces about, say, Dungeons & Dragons and The New York Times daily crossword puzzle in the same publication?

Then there are equally excellent pieces by Toni Blackman, Michael A. Gonzales, Jennifer Delgado, and Darrell M. McNeil covering, yes, everything from hip-hop cyphers to a jazz journey, to the life-changing “game” of pilates, to the conundrum of a child trying to fit into childhood games.

And last, but certainly not least, is the mighty and dynamic visionary, Alexys Feaster, filling the Leaderboard section with powerful thoughts on the word game, leadership, making things happen, and who she admires, honors, respects.

This is THE GAME. It is yours. ENJOY!

Kevin Powell, The Game Editorial Director, is a GRAMMY-nominated poet, humanitarian, author of 17 books, filmmaker, and writer of a forthcoming biography of Tupac Shakur. Please follow him on all social media platforms by typing poet kevin powell

Every game has rules—whether it’s chess, soccer, or the intricate dance of the freestyle rap Cypher. In hip hop culture, emceeing has often been likened to martial arts. Practice, discipline, and respect are the foundations of both. My work with the Freestyle Union Cypher Workshop, born in Washington, D.C. in the mid-’90s, grew directly out of this understanding. It laid the groundwork for all the facilitation and creative activation I do today with corporate professionals, university communities, and sacred spaces.

In the Cypher, the circle is more than physical—it’s symbolic. It’s a shared space where voices meet, ideas flow, and minds sharpen. But to create that space, there must be structure. In my study of Ornette Coleman and the free jazz movement, and my time as a competitive speaker on the speech team, I learned that constraints don’t limit creativity. They amplify it. There are techniques to mastering freestyle, and structure provides a container for impact. With intention and clear boundaries, the Cypher becomes not just a jam session, but a transformational experience.

Early on, I resisted rules until elder poet Mwile Askahri reminded me: “If you want to raise the vibe, you must raise the bar.” He understood that young artists—girls, boys, all gender identities—were watching how we showed up. So we agreed on ground rules that honored dignity, respect, and the collective energy of the circle.

One essential agreement was simple: no derogatory language toward women. At the time, it was radical. Words carry weight. They shape culture. They reflect how we value one another. This wasn’t censorship. It was intentional community building. We were crafting a space where creativity could breathe freely, without tearing others down.

Another core principle was freestyle over written rhymes. The Cypher is about thinking on your feet, listening deeply, and responding authentically. When pre-written bars enter the circle, the immediacy of exchange diminishes and taints play.

And while traditional rap battles are a celebrated art form, they weren’t allowed in the Cypher workshop. Battling focuses on others; our Cypher encourages each person to compete with themselves, to push deeper into craft, presence, and connection.

Today, we might call these ground rules community agreements, expanding them to explicitly represent inclusivity and respect for all identities. The game of life, the rap game, and the Cypher all teach us this: we don’t always need competition, we can become great in collaboration.

Toni Blackman is the first official U.S. Hip Hop Ambassador, performing artist, and writer, and the creator of Rhyme Like a Girl, Freestyle Union, and a globally practiced Cypher pedagogy. Based between Dakar, Senegal and Brooklyn, New York, her work has shaped Hip Hop education, theater and community organizing around the world.

Recently I wrote about jazz saxophonist Jesse Powell, a long gone sideman who once worked with Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and others until retiring in the early 1970s to open a candy store in Harlem. While I’ve been a music journalist for 40 years, it took me a while to gather the confidence to write that story, because unlike the genres I usually write about (soul, rap and rock) I continue to place jazz on a pedestal. 

Introduced to the music when I was 12, I always viewed jazz folks as more serious and studious. As I later learned, a great jazz album can send your mind soaring through the clouds on wings of fire. Though I didn’t grow-up in a jazzy household, I’ve been blessed with mentors who helped shape my taste. 

The first was Uncle Carl. God forbid anyone touched his vinyl collection or snazzy stereo, but he was always ready to share the aural beauty of classic Miles Davis sides; my favorites was the exotic Sketches of Spain and wild child Bitches Brew. 

Meanwhile, mom shared a story about how Uncle Carl once took her to the Village Vanguard to see eccentric pianist Thelonious Monk. Considering that her taste was more aligned with Johnny Mathis pop, I wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t impressed. “All I remember was this man in a dirty coat walking in circles on stage before finally sitting down at the piano.” However, for me Monk became another favorite as I embraced his off-beat style on “’Round Midnight” and “Don’t Blame Me.” 

Mr. Lee, mom’s boyfriend after we relocated from Harlem to Baltimore in 1978, was another mentor. An overweight chain smoker who’s Cadillac leaned to the left, Mr. Lee always had jazz blaring. “That’s Charlie Parker,” he would say over the sax sounds squawking from the radio speakers, pointing as though I could see the moon-faced bopper.  

In later years former Village Voice scribe Don Palmer, schooled me on the fierce free jazz luminaries Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler while also allowing me to go through his hundreds of albums to read the liner notes written by Amiri Baraka, A.B. Spellman and Nat Hentoff. 

Fifty years after being introduced to the music,  I’m simultaneously a novice and elitist who can often be heard preaching and mentoring the jazz gospel to a younger person hoping to expand their musical wings and soar higher.

Michael A. Gonzales has written essays for CrimeReads, Oldster, The Evergreen Review, Wire UK, The Paris Review and Lit Hub. His short fiction has appeared in The Oxford American, Killens Review of Arts & Letters, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Obsidian. He lives in Baltimore. 

Learning the game of Pilates is one of my favorite life lessons. It’s changed the way I move, physically and otherwise; made me slow down when I want to rush; think about proper form, over finishing; and allowed me to understand why taking on only what you can handle is how to win any game. 

I’ve been going to the same studio for 3 ½ years, with the same instructor, who is very aware that I believe she’s changed my life. I’d purchased a Peloton bike a year before, and despite various heath conditions I’d endured (including one requiring emergency surgery), I figured Pilates wouldn’t be that hard. I’m grateful for how wrong I was. 

When you are fat, your weight and size automatically get mentioned when you do anything that involves fitness or nutrition, even when you don’t ask for it, especially when you don’t ask for it. 

When I mentioned my desire to lose weight, Jill said something like, “I’ll let you deal with weight-loss part, but I’ll help you build muscle, so that you can burn more calories, so that you move better.” 

That’s when I started to comprehend that real game was to build muscle instead of going hard.  Back then, I was doing an hour of cycling and 45 minutes on the elliptical machine. I hated it, it felt like my punishment for being fat was doing exercise that made me miserable. 

After almost 2 years of Peloton, elliptical and Pilates, I reached a weight and size that is healthiest for me. I gained strength and improved my posture, which is what Jill vowed to help me with during that first session. 

Falling in love with this form of exercise allowed me to appreciate my body and all it’s done for me. I’ve learned stability, the beauty of breathing deeply, of relaxing and focusing, and the joy of feeling new muscles appear. Now, I enjoy a brisk thirty-minute walk, over an hour of the most difficult spin class.

Jill can still look at me and tell when I need to use a stronger spring or if I’m better off going lighter. At my ripe age of 47, I’ve finally learned that it’s okay to do less, while steadily working to do more. Because of Pilates, I’ve learned that the most important game to win is with, not against, myself.  

Jenn Delgado is an entertainment news producer originally from California who moved to the east coast nearly fifteen years ago. She enjoys pop culture, reading a good book and watching true crime shows.

“You chucked, McNeill!”

Those words grated like sandpaper against the chalkboard of my grammar-school brain. As an introverted kid, sheltered by private school, I didn’t hang out with the kids in my Bed-Stuy neighborhood. I kept to myself, my mind racing in all creative directions—drawing, writing, reading—wherever my imagination dragged me. 

I had zero imagination for sports.

Chubby, bespectacled, spastic, no skill nor affinity for any game—the rare times I got picked, I’d invariably commit some egregious error that disadvantaged my team. Which, given children’s utter lack of filter, would bring those acid words: “You chucked, McNeill!” “Chucked,” meaning tossed from the team, the game, sometimes even the whole-ass playground. I started many games but finished few. What I lacked in talent, I tried to make up in earnestness. That was no consolation for my peers, who only saw consistency: basketball, football, softball, handball—I sucked at them all. 

It took time to process that sports, like creative endeavors, takes PRACTICE to get good. Most kids played every day: after school, during recess and all day on weekends. The best played in leagues, with aspirations of going pro. I would’ve settled for basic competence. So, after I got into my dream school (High School of Music & Art), I decided to work on my game. Basketball was most accessible—all you need is a ball and a park court (New York City has over 2,000), and you can play alone. I wasn’t all-in like my homies—I was still an artist needing time to do artist things—so I practiced just enough hoops to not be a complete liability. Games like “Utah,” and “21” (basically every-man-for-himself scrimmages) honed skills for team games: two-on-two through five-on-five. I was happy working my way up to mediocrity.

While busy in college, I squeezed in a little hoops time. In my final year, I started weight-lifting, calisthenics and running (which I despised), to build strength, stamina and endurance. Upon graduating, I juggled day jobs, writing and music gigs, producing (music, radio, TV and grassroots theater), workouts, basketball, and playing softball with the WBAI-FM team and got pretty good.

I built a decent career as a writer, musician, and producer, while keeping in half-decent shape. I only wish I could tell my eleven-year-old self: “It gets better. You won’t get chucked forever…”

And perhaps a middle finger for past haters…

Brooklyn-born Darrell M. McNeill is a producer, musician, composer, arranger, and journalist. He is Director of Operations for the Black Rock Coalition. His first book, The Isley Brothers: 3+3, was published by Bloomsbury for its 33 1/3 series.

After a long day, there are few sounds more joyful than the loading screen of your favorite video game. Like the rising flow of a ribbon of smoke, you zoom outside of yourself and take control of a playable character, ready to immerse yourself in a different world. 

In 2018, I remember opening up Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, a gift from my grandmother, whose favorite show at the time was another apocalyptic western we enjoyed together. RDR2, however, is not about the fall of civilization or undead hordes—it characterizes a different kind of survival—desperately trying to live free amidst the cataclysmic expansion of industrial capitalism. The brazen robberies and uncountable acts of violence in the game mirror those committed during the so-called “Industrial Revolution.” For you, the player, the years between 1899 and 1911 could more aptly be described as a counterrevolution, as you and your gang of anarchists see your world—an untamed life on the American frontier—coming to an end. 

You start the game on the run from authorities in the middle of a blizzard. Over time, you bounce from camp to camp, from snowy western mountains to vast central plains, southern swamps, and rocky hills along the eastern seawall. As a player, you become immersed in these vast, wild terrains as the ceaseless forces of industrial civilization—particularly the Pinkerton Detective Agency—close in on you and your gang of misfits, trying to live free in a world ensnared by the appetites and anxieties of a new species of man—the industrial elite. 

Objectively, it’s a shooter (no shortage of that in American media). The most frissonous moments feature fogs of gun smoke and piles of dead bodies. One mission has you shoulder to shoulder with an indigenous tribe riding in to attack an oil field built on expropriated land. Another ends with you and your comrades casually walking away from a burning plantation house, after ending a long line of slave owners, to settle a score.

But even with these spectacular highlights, it’s the moments in between the explosions, when the game gets slow and quiet, that set it apart. Pan around while on a trail ride and take in forested mountains and a lake teeming with wildlife and fish; take a moment to sit by the fire at your camp, as members of your gang tell wild stories and call you up for a game of poker or dominoes. For some, these moments are avoidable background noise amidst the escalating chaos of the main story, but for others, they are a resonant reminder to slow down and appreciate the subtleties of life. Even as the world around us remains volatile and the future uncertain, there’s redemption to be found in our most interior experiences.

Ezekiel Hunt is a writer from the Crenshaw District, Los Angeles. He is an alum of Prairie View A&M University’s Toni Morrison Writing Masterclass and the Columbia University Publishing Program.

Who doesn’t love playing dolls with friends?

This is the statement I use when trying to explain my love of D&D, aka Dungeons & Dragons, to those not yet versed in its delights. Setting aside the fact that any number of people do not in fact love playing dolls with friends, I feel it’s an apt descriptor of the particular joy of sitting down to play a ttrpg (for the uninitiated among our readership: this stands for “table top role-playing game”). It’s a sales pitch I find myself making more and more frequently lately, as D&D is undeniably having a day in the sun. In recent years, the game best known for fostering images of gangly teen boys in 80s style basements hunched over sheets of paper as they roll dice and fight wizards has now become what one might even call “hip.” We have seen, over roughly the last decade, a veritable explosion of growth in the popularity of D&D not just as a game to play but, crucially, as something people want to watch other people play. While it's hardly the NFL, the demand for “real-play” D&D (and other ttrpg) shows has soared, and with it the awareness of the game in the wider cultural consciousness. Thus, a game long relegated, at least in the popular imagination, to nerd basement status has, in no small part due to the acute interest of a notable demographic of weird homosexuals, soared into the limelight. (And readers, before taking offense at the turn of phrase please be aware that the author of this piece is themself a weird homosexual).

For those among our readership who have never so much as stepped foot in a gaming store, let your resident weird homosexual elaborate on what a game of D&D entails; at its core you find a group of people who you like enough to do amateur improv with, sit them around a table (or a virtual table if, like me, your friends are scattered across the continental United States), get a bunch of weird shaped dice and a bunch of confusing seeming character sheets, and the master of ceremonies aka the dm/gm (short for dungeon master/game master, yes its nerdy as hell) takes you and your merry band of misfits on an adventure. Despite the name, the adventure doesn't even need to be in a  dungeon, or involve dragons (Although why hold back? Treat yourself, live a little, make your friends fight a dragon). 

Now to clarify, when I  say find people you like “enough,” what I really mean is you better find people you like a LOT, because who you have at the table is just as important as the type of story your dm is trying to tell, and D&D can be a surprisingly vulnerable game. After all, many of us adult humans in the world have probably faced the inevitable crushing of whimsy and rise of burning self-consciousness that “growing up” often entails, and role-playing requires an unlearning of that self-conscious shame. It takes some courage to get over the initial hurdle of pretending to be an elf, but truly great D&D can’t happen without everyone collectively agreeing that there is no embarrassment allowed. We’re all playing pretend here; do a character voice, give your character an edgy backstory, shoot magic out of your hands in make-believe land, who’s going to tell you not to? In the year of our lord 2025, a bit of whimsy can go a long way. After all, if we're all here living under, and seeking to find ways to fight against, the terrifying rising tide of fascism, what harm is there in blowing off steam by pretending to be a woman made out of mist who hunts vampires? The world is resplendent with very real villains in very real positions of power, and unfortunately they aren’t so easily taken out as a vampire lord. So isn't it a little cathartic to blow off some steam by getting to play in a world where the villains, even as insurmountable and powerful as they may be played, are within reach? 

For those of us moving through the world trying to find ways to resist while also struggling not to cave under the crushing weight of our broken sense of justice, it can be satisfying as hell to let loose in the realm of make-believe and get out some of that rage. To use a phrase that borders on ironic given D&D’s old claim to fame as a boogeyman for the 1980s Satanic Panic movement, I’d say a good session of Dungeons & Dragons is verifiably good for the soul. So hey, get out there, get your friends, convince them to pick up some dice and let go of their holdups about doing a funny voice. I promise you, it’s fun. And if you decide to make your character an evil overlord-killing elf princess with a tragic backstory, who’s to stop you? Certainly not me. If anything, I’ll be cheering you on from the bleachers

Esmé Zodrow-MacDonald is a historian and writer living in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

The “Black Card” is an invisible, unspoken passport to cultural legitimacy. Its “stamps” say that you have traveled through the necessary portals of Black American collective identity and have been adopted  into the family, culturally. A few “Black Card” markers are knowing the electric slide (bonus points for the wobble or cubic shuffle), a few lines from movies like The Color Purple or Black Panther, and “Before I Let Go” by Frankie Beverly and Maze. It’s collard greens, black-eyed peas and cornbread. It’s handshakes and head nods. And at the cookout where such meals are served and line dances observed, it’s knowing the social games of spades and dominoes. 

Growing up in a Black family, I knew the movie references, songs and dances, but spades and dominoes came late in life as I scrambled to play catch-up and keep my “Black Card” up-to-date. Spades had always seemed distant to me although I’d been a part of Black groups that would have spades game nights that I’d awkwardly (and shamefully) bypass. And at Black cultural events, men slapping bones seemed out of my league, too. Although I haven’t mastered the art of trash-talking and exaggerated bone-slapping, I have learned the basics to become a decent participant in my cultural family’s lineage. 

As a spiritual person interested in my Black American culture, spades and dominoes were necessary self-imposed rites of passage. The history, the rules, the score-keeping, the strategy-development all gave me a deeper connection to  the richness of my heritage. Numbers games initially played by the enslaved who, although unable to read and write, needed to count. Those who were unable to play the games of or with the White folks, so they remixed games and made them their own. It is chitterlings. It’s Sunday morning shouting in church. It’s Black punctuation and pronunciation. The alchemy of those who held onto their humanity. 

Now my newly stamped “Black Card” passport allows me to visit any Black community in the United States and speak a language that transcends dialect or regional slang. It is a language that speaks to a commonality, a sameness. The universal language of numbers representing ONE.

Jeannine Etter is a writer, editor, audio producer, and event coordinator from Oakland, California, now residing in Atlanta. She’s written dozens of articles, and is the development editor of eight books on HipHop, spirituality and relationships.

It’s just past 2 a.m. Sunday, November 16, 2025.

A debilitating, wee-hours brain-ache is causing an excruciatingly sleepless night.

The not-knowing is killing me. 

What’s a five-letter synonym for “scope”? How do you say, “very quickly,” in eight letters? What’s a four-letter “Paris possessive”?  Who is actor Millie Bobby Brown? What’s her character’s name in a show I’ve never watched?

The doomsday clock ticks toward a mental apocalypse. If I don’t find those answers by 8:59 p.m. Pacific Time Sunday night — the end of the 24-hour window — my consecrated, consecutive New York Times daily crossword solve streak of 1,156 days, dating back to September 16, 2022, dies an ignominious death. 

Words are my serenity. My world. Failure would smolder in my soul like toxic smoke until January 19, 2029, the time it would take to re-start and equal this streak.

I’m an obsessed cruciverbalist — a 14-letter word for “crossword puzzle enthusiast” — and downloading on my tablet and solving the Times grid, its Games section’s intellectual holy grail — is my daily ritual. My self-imposed honor code forbids a sacrilegious unholy trinity: asking for hints, Googling, or the lowest desecration, surrendering. 

According to my iPad’s digital timer and archives, just over five hours is the longest it’s ever taken me to solve a puzzle. I’ve now toiled for over seven. I reluctantly decide to sleep.

At 6 a.m., I awake. On a mission. 

I’ve filled all the squares, but the countless combinations of the bedeviling few letters don’t align as correct. If and when they do, my iPad screen freezes for a millisecond, goes white, then “ticks over,” flashing a congratulatory message with a gold, filled-in grid icon, signaling sweet victory.

In my latest, countless conjectures, I enter “AMBIT,” which I’ve never heard of, for the scope synonym, then tap out, “IN A TRICE” for “very quickly.” 

One letter left to re-completion.

After another bout of self-doubt, I choose. “L,” across, to form “ALUI” for the French possessive, and down, to intersect with “ENOLA,” for Brown’s acting role.  

I deeply inhale. 

I hit “L.”

Suddenly, my screen — and heart — freezes. 

Gasp!

A white screen. A millisecond later, the glorious, golden grid glows!

The Angelic Choir crescendoes. Rapturous relief and joy reverberates.

“Congratulations!” the message shouts. “You finished a Sunday Puzzle in 8:21:21.”

Apocalypse averted. 

The streak lives. 

I exhale. 

I live to solve another day.

Gil Griffin is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer, editor, and nonfiction author. His New York Times Daily Crossword solve streak, as of this writing, stands at 1,186 days—through Mon. Dec. 15, 2025—and counting.