Angelo Ragaza

For the front page of the July 10, 2008 business section of The New York Times, Ragaza interviewed Nigerian newspaper mogul Nduka Obaigbena (far left), who is corralling stars like Jay-Z, Naomi Campbell (left) and Mary J. Blige—along with political icons like Henry Kissinger—to rehabilitate his country's image in the wake of sudden economic growth. Click here to read article.

To profile the Queen of Neo-Soul in the May 2008 issue of Vibe, Ragaza traveled to Lagos, Nigeria where Badu was performing. At the interview, her brother Kerwin strapped a video camera over his shoulder, which felt like a grenade-launcher at Ragaza's back. By the end of the interview, she trusted him enough to leave him alone in her suite to listen to her new album, New Amerykah, while she hit the streets to distribute T-shirts to kids. On an earlier trip to Nigeria in 2003, Badu made a pilgrimage to the Osun River to visit the Yoruban shrines, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. “The stones were as old as the great pyramids,” she said. “The water was cluttered with plastic cups and paper and things. Some people that were with me were like, ‘Don’t get in that water!’” But Badu cleared out some of the refuse, and then she got in. Read or forward full-text article.

Why (and how) are opera singers losing weight? Why have opera singers traditionally been, as Ragaza wrote, "fat, coddled and inert"? To find this out for the November 1999 issue of Vogue, he worked out with mezzo Denyce Graves in New York and baritone Rodney Gilfry in LA. Nine years after the piece appeared, he wonders about the phenomenon of telegenic opera singers. Yes, they're slim, but so are their voices. Ragaza understands performing arts companies struggle to capture young audiences, who are more attuned to visuals. Yet he always leaves a performance these days feeling like he's had a meal without meat. He missed the performing days of big-boned, stand-and-deliver singers like Monserrat Caballe, Birgit Nilsson, Joan Sutherland, and Renata Tebaldi. For them, dramatic values were secondary to blowing the roof off. Would they have found work in today's operatic world? Read or forward full-text article.

This piece drew a record number of impressions when it appeared on Forbes.com in January 2001. Maybe people were feeling stressed out. Or having a Cast Away moment. At any rate, Ragaza's editor assigned a rash of other private island pieces in the ensuing years. Read or forward full-text article.

Ragaza wrote this My Turn for the February 8, 1999 issue of Newsweek, because he wanted to ask: Why was the publishing world whiter than a ski trail at dawn? Why did Asian Americans, 60 percent more likely to have a bachelor's degree than their melanin-challenged pals, earn 12 percent less? At the time, Asians were marginalized and dismissed in ways too embarrassing to recount. A LOT has changed. Asian Americans now run magazines and grace covers (fat consolation now that print is going the way of the dodo), win governorships and have their turn in the spotlight on TV dramas, reality shows and sports broadcasts. But back then, the column prompted a strong reaction—one thousand letters to the editor, almost all negative. One critic called it a "snot-nosed rant." To this day, the column is required reading on high school/college ethnic/social studies syllabi around the world. Read or forward full-text article.

When Ragaza reported this piece for the October 2001 issue of Vibe, Alicia Key's debut had just dropped; he hadn't heard of her. He'd had other pre-supernova encounters—sat with Dr. David Ho in his office three years before he became Time's Man of the Year, breakfasted with Vin Diesel (Ragaza found him rather jumpy) before he became ubiquitous. But Keys remains the one to beat. She had an inner light, an eloquence and an ability to make anyone who came in contact with her feel important. They spent a couple of hours together, toured Hell's Kitchen in a town car—she showed Ragaza where she grew up and went to school, just blocks from where he was living at the time—and she took him to Rocket Studios where, with her band, she performed three songs for him. Life is good sometimes. Read or forward full-text article.