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☆ Courtney Love thinks Taylor Swift is ‘not important’ and has some thoughts about Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey and Madonna, too
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-16 | by ( Lisa Respers France | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Courtney Love has a new radio show about women in music, but she is not much of a fan of several of the biggest female artists of our time. But some contemporary artists, including Taylor Swift, are not to Love’s liking. “Taylor is not important,” Love said of Swift. “She might be a safe space for girls, and she’s probably the Madonna of now, but she’s not interesting as an artist.”Love used to be an admirer of Lana Del Rey’s music but that changed. “I haven’t liked Lana since she covered a John Denver song, and I think she should really take seven years off.” Love said.

Persons: CNN — Courtney Love, “ Courtney Love’s, Patti Smith, Nina Simone, PJ Harvey, Debbie Harry, Julie London, Joni Mitchell, Taylor Swift, “ Taylor, ” Love, Swift, she’s, ”, Lana Del Rey’s, Lana, John Denver, “, Madonna, ‘, Susan, ’ Organizations: CNN, BBC Radio, Spotify Locations: London, New York

☆ Reports of Cabaret’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Elysa Gardner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Cabaret has been integral to New York nightlife for more than a century, but every so often, reports of its death — however exaggerated — cause a stir. Recently on a brisk afternoon, she arrived at a loft in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, for a confab with four other veterans of the cabaret scene. Tammy Lang, 57 — who has earned a devoted following through her titular comedic persona as Tammy Faye Starlite, an evangelical country crooner, and through her homages to Marianne Faithfull and Nico — perched beside her on a sofa. Horne holds court Mondays at the East Village’s Club Cumming, playing piano for singalongs that stretch into the wee hours. Such late revelry is less common than it used to be, pointed out Sidney Myer, 73, who, as longtime booking manager of Don’t Tell Mama near Times Square, has nurtured careers for decades and is a performer himself.

Persons: Natalie Douglas, “, —, ” Douglas, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Tammy Lang, Tammy Faye Starlite, Marianne Faithfull, Nico —, Jennifer Ashley Tepper, Lance Horne, Liza Minnelli, Kylie Minogue, Horne, East Village’s Club Cumming, Sidney Myer Organizations: Birdland, Broadway, East Village’s Club, Times Locations: New York, Los Angeles, Brooklyn

☆ ‘Sunset Baby’ Review: Don’t Let Nina Be Misunderstood
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Juan A. Ramírez | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Dominique Morisseau’s characters are, as the post-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon once described himself, often paralyzed “at the crossroads between nothingness and infinity.” Her plays craft realistic depictions of marginalized people inextricably caught in the tide of history. In her 2013 piece “Sunset Baby,” receiving a potent revival at Signature Theater, Morisseau lays bare both a romantic relationship and a father-daughter drama while also exploring the effects of revolution, the deferment of dreams and the bind of being a Black woman in America. The play’s complexities find their avatar in its hardened protagonist, Nina (Moses Ingram, making a strong New York stage debut). As a drug dealer and (as conjured by the costume designer Emilio Sosa’s tiny dress and thigh-high boots) a honey pot eking out a living in Brooklyn, Nina’s life is a far cry from the dreams envisioned by her Black revolutionary parents, who named her after the singer-activist Nina Simone. After the death of her mother, Ashanti X, from a slow, ugly slide into addiction, Nina’s estranged father, Kenyatta Shakur (Russell Hornsby), reappears to collect a stash of letters her mother had written to him while he was a political prisoner.

Persons: Dominique Morisseau’s, Frantz Fanon, “, ”, Morisseau, Moses Ingram, Emilio Sosa’s, Nina Simone, Nina’s, Kenyatta Shakur, Russell Hornsby Locations: America, New York, Brooklyn, Ashanti

☆ ‘Perfect Days’ Review: Hanging On
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Alissa Wilkinson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Pay attention to the shadows in “Perfect Days.” Pay attention also to the trees, to the ways Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) looks at them. Hirayama cleans Tokyo’s public toilets for a living, rising before dawn to gently water the seedlings he grows in his home and then drive off to begin his shift. He keeps to a simple routine, the kind so carefully constructed you start to wonder if it’s a bulwark against chaos. They are anchors in time, companions throughout his days, riches rounding out his life. When he brings a book to the bar on the weekend, the proprietor tells him admiringly that he’s such an intellectual.

Persons: Koji Yakusho, Hirayama, Van Morrison, Nina Simone —, stashed, ”

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Filmmaker Yance Ford was in a “Sundance haze” when he took a meeting with Netflix following the premiere of “Strong Island” in 2017. “Strong Island” would go on to get an Oscar nomination, too, as would its Sundance and Netflix peer “Icarus,” which would win best documentary in 2018. “Netflix understood what ‘Strong Island’ was doing and what it could say to a big, broad audience.”Ten years after “The Square,” an acquisition that put Netflix documentaries on the map, the streamer is back at the 40th Sundance Film Festival with an eye towards acquisitions and two very different originals. “We really were the new kids on the block trying to persuade filmmakers that having the reach of the platform was something that was really important,” Del Deo said. “I think it's going to put a lot of smiles on people,” Del Deo said.

Persons: Yance Ford, “, Miss Simone, ” Liz Garbus, Nina Simone, Ford, ” Ford, ’, ”, Bao Nguyen’s, ” Adam Del Deo, Lisa Nishimura, Del Deo, It’s, “ Crip, they’ve, Garbus, John Legend, ” Garbus, ” “, Simone ”, Harry, Meghan ”, Nishimura, Jon Batiste, Barbie ”, —, Lionel Richie, Harry Belafonte, Bruce Springsteen, Smokey Robinson, Cyndi Lauper, Dionne Warwick, Huey Lewis, ” Del Deo, Nguyen, it’s, ” Nguyen Organizations: Netflix, Sundance, Associated Press, Toronto, Eccles Locations: CITY , Utah, America, Park City , Utah, Brazil, France, Garbus, “, Telluride, Vietnam

It is the ideal way to celebrate the musician and civil rights activist, and the ideal gift for a music fan of any walk. Cost: $135SAY CHEESE: This one might give an audiophile a heart attack, but that doesn't make it any less adorable. The “Turntable Cheese Board" from Uncommon Goods is exactly what it sounds like — a cheese board designed to look like the most expensive, slick turntable, featuring a slate platter and hidden slicer in the one arm. Cost: $78HEAR IT LOUD: There's never a wrong time to upgrade headphones — in fact, it makes for a great gift. Cost: $47K-POP COOL: Far too often, holiday gift guides — even those specifically catering to music enthusiasts — fail to account for dedicated, artist-specific fandoms.

Persons: It'll, SIMONE, Nina Simone, Simon, Marc Masters, Harry Styles, Styles, ”, “, It's, Sony's, Barbra Streisand, ” She'd, Jimmy Fallon, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Streisand, ” Streisand, I’m, Lol Tolhurst, Tim Burton, Edgar Allan Poe’s, Mary, Emily Brontë, Questlove, Tariq Trotter, a.k.a Organizations: ANGELES, Philips, Doubleday, Associated Press, Division, Bauhaus, Los Tigres Del, Grupo Frontera Locations: They're, longhand, Austin , Texas, Los Angeles, Los Tigres Del Norte, Banda

NEW YORK (AP) — A dozen years ago, Barkley L. Hendricks, the pioneering portrait artist known for vivid, stylish paintings of Black men and women, stood outside the Frick Collection in Manhattan, known for its works by European Old Masters. Still, curators say, he'd likely have never imagined that in 2023, he’d be the first artist of color to have a solo show at the 88-year-old Frick. What is more unusual is that a museum focusing on the 14th through 19th centuries would devote a show to a contemporary portraitist like Hendricks. His sunglasses reflect the buildings outside Hendricks' studio, and even contain a tiny reflection of the artist himself. “Slick” features the artist in a white suit against a white background, wearing a cap of African design.

Persons: Barkley, Hendricks, Rembrandt, “, he’d, Frick, ”, Antwaun Sargent, ” It’s, Van Dyck, Van Eyck, Aimee Ng, ” Ng, Frick Madison, Angela Davis —, Kathy Williams, Nina Simone, Kehinde Wiley, Barack Obama, Barkley Hendricks, “ Woody, Alvin Ailey, Woodruff Wilson, Steve ”, Sargent, ” Hendricks, ” Sargent, Susan, Donald Formey, Ng, Formey, ‘, “ Slick ” Organizations: Frick, European Old, Polaroid, Beaux, Pennsylvania Academy, Fine Arts, Connecticut College, ” Locations: Manhattan, Van, Velásquez, New York, New York City, Jan, Philadelphia, ”, Europe

☆ Ja’Tovia Gary Sets Her Sights on Love
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Yasmina Price | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Gary keeps several altars in her work space and sits with them daily. She has also become an avid reader of romance novels, which she keeps stacked around her studio. “I’m definitely fixing my sights — not just in a creative or professional sense but also in a personal sense — on love, in really trying to be heart centered and spirit led,” she says. Gary also takes seriously the tensions of desire and power that exist in those novels. In a pivotal clip from “The Giverny Suite,” Nina Simone muses on the anguishes of love during her spellbinding performance at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival.

Persons: Gary, “, ”, She’s, ” Nina Simone, Malcolm X Organizations: Jazz, West 116th Locations: Harlem, West

☆ Why Nina Simone Was Always Ahead of Her Time
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Salamishah Tillet | More About Salamishah Tillet | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Nina Simone was always ahead of her time. “They say you’re mean and evil/Don’t know what to do,” Simone sang. “And that’s the reason that he’s gone/And left you black-and-blue.”I’ve been intrigued by “Blues for Mama” since I first heard it on Simone’s 1967 album “Nina Simone Sings the Blues.” And now, thanks to Verve Records’ recent issue of the previously unreleased recording of her Newport performance — packaged as the album “You’ve Got to Learn” — we have an even earlier version of the song out in the world. “Blues for Mama” signified a new moment. Rather than accept the abuse and the negative rumors, Nina tells Mama to set the record straight: “It wasn’t you that caused his bitter fate.”

Persons: Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln, ”, Simone, “, Mama, ” Simone, he’s, I’ve, “ Blues, Mama ”, Nina Organizations: Mama, Newport Jazz Festival, Verve Records Locations: Newport

CNN —Beyoncé appeared to skip over Lizzo’s name as she performed “Break My Soul (Queen’s Remix)” at a concert in Boston on Tuesday, following the news that Lizzo is being sued by three former dancers alleging harassment and hostile work environment. Normally, Lizzo’s name appears in the lyrics of “Break My Soul (Queen’s Remix),” alongside the likes of Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill and Nicki Minaj, as part of Beyoncé’s song celebrating black women in the entertainment industry. Lizzo is facing a lawsuit from three former dancers. Lizzo had posted a video of herself on Instagram in June watching the same set at a previous show on Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour, saying, “I think of what we all mean to people and how cyclical it is. We are all so infinitesimally and maximally connected and significant.

Persons: CNN — Beyoncé, Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill, Nicki Minaj, Paras Griffin, Lizzo, “, ” Organizations: CNN, Los Angeles Superior Court, ” CNN, Lizzo Locations: Boston, Los Angeles

Just a week after performing at the historically Black Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., supporting James Meredith’s March Against Fear, Nina Simone was on fire as she strode onstage to play for a very different audience at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 2, 1966. Her interactions with the bourgeois New Englanders at Newport were hardly warm: In the middle of an acid-rinsed version of “Blues for Mama,” she dismisses them — “I guess you ain’t ready for that” — and later she hushes them: “Shut up, shut up.” But she pours every ounce of vitriol she’s got into the performance, especially on “Mississippi Goddam.” She’d first released the song in 1964, and two years later it felt as topical as ever. Meredith had just been shot while marching across Mississippi, and unrest was overtaking redlined Black neighborhoods across the country. At Newport, she amends one of the verses to address the oppression of Los Angeles’s Black community: “Alabama’s got me so upset/And Watts has made me lose my rest/Everybody knows about Mississippi, goddamn!” The entire Newport performance is now available for the first time as an album titled “You’ve Got to Learn.” It’s spellbinding, heartbreaking stuff, reminding us just how much Simone would still be lamenting today. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Persons: James Meredith’s, Nina Simone, strode, ”, —, she’s, ” She’d, Meredith, “ Alabama’s, Watts, It’s spellbinding, Simone, GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO Organizations: Black Tougaloo College, Newport Jazz Festival, Englanders Locations: Jackson, Miss, Newport, “, Mississippi

☆ Hardcore Punk Is Looking (and Sounding) Different Now
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Hank Shteamer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The Zulu drummer and vocalist Christine Cadette, 23, cited Paramore’s Hayley Williams as a key inspiration. A typical sight was “some suburban punk white kid, talking about a breakup.” As Cartagena, 30, put it, “I just wanted more.”That “more” has arrived in waves during the past decade. The short-lived but hugely impactful G.L.O.S.S., from Olympia, Wash., brought a vociferous trans-feminist perspective to hardcore. “Zulu is not about aggression and all that; it’s about love.”For Cartagena, Lei’s buoyant performance style is a welcoming beacon. “I say they have the best moves of any frontperson onstage — just, like, sliding and moon walking and just moving their shoulders,” they said.

Persons: Christine Cadette, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, ”, “, there’s, it’s, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, Alesia Miller, ” Lei, Black, ” Cadette, — Organizations: Scout, ” Locations: Scout Cartagena, Cartagena, Olympia, Wash

☆ Looking for Freedom, Isaac Julien Comes Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Elizabeth Fullerton | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Freedom ripples as an undercurrent through the works of the British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien. For four decades, he has produced boundary-stretching works addressing racism, homophobia, migration and colonialism, from experimental documentaries to lavish multiscreen installations; in all of them an activist spirit is counterbalanced with opulent imagery and sound. Now, a major exhibition at Tate Britain, in London, is the culmination of a trajectory that began on the margins, with films for television and cinema, and evolved into something more elaborate that belongs in a gallery setting. The show, called “What Freedom Is to Me” and running through Aug. 20, is the largest exhibition of the artist’s work ever staged in his home country. The title comes from a quote by the singer Nina Simone in a 1968 interview: “I will tell you what freedom is to me: No fear.”

☆ Angelo Badalamenti, ‘Twin Peaks’ composer, dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Scottie Andrew | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Angelo Badalamenti, the composer behind several beloved soundtracks, including David Lynch’s cult hit “Twin Peaks,” has died at 85. Badalamenti and Lynch worked together for decadesBefore he was a film composer, the Brooklyn-born Badalamenti was a musical jack-of-all-trades. “I tried to make the music have a haunting feeling,” Badalamenti said in 2019 of his “Twin Peaks” score. Film writer Scott Tobias remembered the immediate impact of watching “Twin Peaks” for the first time and recognizing it was something special. “One of the greatest.”Kyle MacLachlan, who played the unusual, coffee-loving Agent Dale Cooper on “Twin Peaks,” called Badalamenti a “brilliant and talented maestro who was a master at setting a mood.

☆ Meet Afghanistan's fearless Gen Z influencers, who are blowing up on TikTok and have more Instagram followers than the president
▼ + stars: | 2021-03-05 | by ( Ali Latifi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

A group of women in Afghanistan are breaking through as Gen Z influencers on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. More Afghans are online, and dozens of Afghan women have 50,000 or more followers on at least one social platform. A generation of Afghan women in their 20s have mastered the art of living their lives on social media. The 26-year-old posts several times a day, and she has more followers on Instagram than the country's president, Ashraf Ghani. Ayeda Shadab photographed at the ancient Citadel in Herat, Afghanistan.

Chiar și în 2020, încă se poate vorbi despre rasism și extremism în lumea în care trăim. În continuare, vezi cinci selecții de filme și seriale care povestesc nedreptățile cu care se confruntă oamenii de culoare, potrivit playtech.ro. Just MercyFilmul spune povestea reală a tânărului avocat de culoare Bryan Stevenson și bătălia sa istorică pentru justiție. După ce a absolvit Harvardul, Bryan se îndreaptă spre Alabama pentru a-i apăra pe cei condamnați pe nedrept sau pe cei care nu sunt reprezentați corespunzător. Documentarul se concentrează în special pe încarcerarea în masă și înfățișarea oamenilor negri ca infractori și prezintă filmări de arhivă, interviuri și mărturii ale activiștilor, ale politicienilor și ale bărbaților și femeilor care au fost încarcerați.

Persons: George Floyd, Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Bryan, Walter McMillian, Statele Unite ., Documentarul, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nina Simone, Jean - Paul Sartre, Derek Vinyard, Cameron, Danny, Derek înșfacă, Derek Organizations: Central Park, 13th Locations: Minneapolis, Central, Manhattan, Harvardul, Alabama, Statele Unite, nazist

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