Taylor Crumpton

Chicago

Journalist, Writer and Editor at Freelance

Columnist at TIME

Writer. Columnist: @time. You can read my work in @essence, @thebarbedwiretx, and @opinion. You hear me on @bbcworldservice, @npr + more.

Articles

Beyoncé Shifted Country Music, but She Cannot Save the Industry

1 week ago | autostraddle.com | Taylor Crumpton

On a Thursday afternoon in mid May, Nottoway Plantation, the largest antebellum plantation in the United States, burned to the ground in Louisiana. A few hours later, Beyoncé took to the stage at Soldier Field in Chicago to perform night one of her Cowboy Carter tour.
The ‘Song of the Summer’ Is Dead. Thank God for That

2 weeks ago | time.com | Taylor Crumpton

The “Song of the Summer” feels like a relic of the past. With the absence of music video programs, such as Total Request Live and 106 & Park, and the decline in relevance of televised award shows, like the MTV Video Music Awards, the idea of a pop monoculture has not only ceased to exist but has also resulted in the loss of shared cultural touch points that connect (or sometimes, some might say, thrust upon) millions of Americans.
The ‘Song of the Summer’ Is Dead. Thank God for That

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Taylor Crumpton

Credit - Photo-Illustration by Chloe Dowling for TIME (Source Images: Atstock Productions/Getty Images, Deagreez/Getty Images, Xavier Lorenzo—Getty Images, Tatiana Maksimova—Getty Images, Westend61/Getty Images, vm/Getty Images)The “Song of the Summer” feels like a relic of the past.
College Is for Finding Yourself. 'Overcompensating' Understands That Process Can Be Hell

2 weeks ago | autostraddle.com | Taylor Crumpton

There is no perfect path to queerness. Oftentimes, it is shitty and gross. Not in the grotesqueway the Christian right peddles, but in the ways of adolescence, where the body feels like its own entity, with its own set of controls and values. The performance that once served as your saving grace, an outward expression of heteronormativity feels foreign because of the emergence of something new.
Black Dandyism, the 2025 Met Gala Theme, Grew Out of Southern Churches

1 month ago | thebarbedwire.com | Taylor Crumpton

André Leon Talley is the patron saint of the Met Gala. A Black gay man who grew up in the Jim Crow South, he became one of fashion’s biggest stars.
Fashion as Resistance: The Black Dandy at the Met Gala

1 month ago | capitalbnews.org | Taylor Crumpton

The Black Dandy is a being of its own creation. With its own set of inalienable rights, The Black Dandy exists at the intersections of autonomy and coercion, liberation and enslavement, resistance and compliance. The very nature of The Black Dandy is to be a trickster.
Zach Stafford on the Met Gala, Black Dandyism, and André Leon Talley

1 month ago | autostraddle.com | Taylor Crumpton

If Dandyism is the practice of self refinement through the curation of fashion and apparel, then Black Dandyism is the utilization of fashion and apparel to express and communicate one’s own agency and independence. Whether that be to persuade those in power by the emulation of them, or, to define oneself, according to your own terms, The Black Dandy knows that there can never be enough beauty.
Tanner Adell Is Going Blonde And Going Deeper - Essence

1 month ago | essence.com | Taylor Crumpton

Tanner Adell is in good spirits. Days after a star-studded weekend in Hollywood, where the pop country singer performed her breakout hit “Buckle Bunny” at the GLAAD Awards and presented Megan Moroney with the Rulebreaker Award at Billboard Women in Music, the 24 year old is taking it day by day. In the midst of this, she released “Going Blonde”, the lead single from her forthcoming debut album.
Southern Charm’s Racial Reckoning: Why Black Women Are Always the Ones to Pay the Price - Essence

1 month ago | essence.com | Taylor Crumpton

(Photo by: Jocelyn Prescod/Bravo) 2025 was the year of Southern Charm.
Maybe We Need Recession Pop Right Now

1 month ago | time.com | Taylor Crumpton

Recently, the word on everyone’s mind has been, unfortunately, “recession.” When President Donald Trump was asked about the possibility of the U.S. economy heading into a recession during a March interview with Fox News, the president refused to confirm or deny the possibility but alluded to a period of economic transition. In an interview with CBS News on March 11, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump’s economic plan is “worth it” even if it leads in that direction.