Month: August 2020

Nearly two decades after the slaying of Run-DMC star Jam Master Jay, federal prosecutors said Monday they have solved one of New York City’s most enduring mysteries, charging two men from his neighborhood with murder and suggesting that the hip-hop artist — celebrated for his anti-drug stance — was ambushed over a cocaine deal.
The suspects were identified in court papers as Ronald Washington, 56, who is currently serving a federal prison sentence stemming from a string of robberies while on the run from police after Jay’s 2002 death, and Karl Jordan Jr., 36, who is also charged with engaging in a cocaine distribution conspiracy in 2017.
Jason “Jay” Mizell, known professionally as Jam Master Jay, formed Run-DMC with Joseph “Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniel in the early 1980s. Together, they helped take hip-hop mainstream with hits like “It’s Tricky” and the Aerosmith remake collaboration “Walk This Way.”
Jay’s death, following the long unsolved slayings of rappers Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996 and Christopher “Biggie Smalls” Wallace in Los Angeles in 1997, shook the hip-hop world. Chuck D of Public Enemy compared his death to that of John Lennon. More than $60,000 in rewards was offered, but witnesses refused to come forward and the case languished.
“This is a case about a murder that for nearly two decades had gone unanswered,” Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme said at a news conference announcing the charges. “Today, we begin to answer that question of who killed Jason Mizell, and why, and we’re confident that we can prove those charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Washington, who had reportedly been living on a couch at Jay’s home in the days before the killing, was publicly named as a possible suspect or witness as far back as 2007. Prosecutors allege he waved a handgun and ordered another person at the recording studio to lie on the ground while Jordan shot Jay in the head Oct. 30, 2002.
According to prosecutors, Jay would bring in bulk amounts of cocaine to sell retail and was killed as retribution for cutting Washington out of a plan to distribute 10 kilograms in Maryland.
“They walked in and murdered him in cold blood,” DuCharme said.
A message seeking comment was left with a publicist for Run-DMC. The group performed anti-drug concerts, established scholarships and held voter registration drives at its live shows. In Hollis, the Queens neighborhood where he grew up, Jay was seen as a role model. Friends were puzzled by his death, thinking him an unlikely target for violence.
If convicted, Washington and Jordan each face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison, or the death penalty. Prosecutors said in court papers that Attorney General William Barr had not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty.
Jordan pleaded not guilty at an arraigned held Monday by teleconference because of coronavirus-related precautions. His lawyer declined comment. Washington, who is imprisoned in Kentucky, will be arraigned later this week, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors have asked that both be jailed pending trial.
The 37-year-old Jay was shot once in the head with a .40-caliber bullet by a masked assailant at his studio in Hollis. Police identified at least four people in the studio with Jay when he was killed, including the two armed gunmen.
At Jay’s funeral, McDaniels remembered his friend and fellow Run-DMC star as “the embodiment of hip-hop.” He was also a husband and a father of three children.
“Jam Master Jay was not a thug,” McDaniels said. “Jam Master Jay was not a gangster. Jam Master Jay was a unique individual.”
Prosecutors, though, now say Jay had been bringing cocaine into the New York area since 1996.
At the time, Jay’s acquaintance with Washington — a repeat offender with convictions dating in 1982 — worried and upset his family.
Before ending up on Jay’s couch, Washington served prison time for grand larceny, assault, criminal use of a firearm, heroin possession and other charges. He was been linked to the 1995 fatal shooting of Randy Walker, a close associate of the late Tupac Shakur.
Afterward, prosecutors said, Washington hopped from motel-to-motel and robbed businesses including supermarkets and a Burger King while detectives pursued him in connection with Jay’s killing. He remained at large for nearly three months until police on Long Island nabbed him for robbing a motel.
Last month, as prosecutors were preparing to seek a grand jury indictment against him for Jay’s death, Washington filed a handwritten petition asking to immediately be released to home confinement, arguing his medical history put him at risk for complications from coronavirus. Federal prosecutors responded by asking for more time to respond, delaying any decision until after Washington was charged.
Jordan, just a teenager when Jay was killed, was declared a juvenile delinquent after a 1999 robbery arrest and had a firearm case dismissed when the complaining witness refused to cooperate with law enforcement. In recent years, prosecutors said, he’s been caught on audio and video surveillance six times selling cocaine to an undercover federal agent.
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Apple Music is launching several new radio shows hosted by A-list musical acts, including Snoop Dogg, Shania Twain and Carrie Underwood.
The streaming service announced that it will debut two new radio stations Tuesday: Apple Music Hits, focused on popular songs of the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s, as well as Apple Music Country, dedicated to the country music genre. Both channels will have daily on-air hosts but will also include several shows hosted by well-known musicians.
Apple Music Hits will include shows hosted by Snoop Dogg, Twain, Alanis Morissette, Backstreet Boys, Meghan Trainor, Ciara, blink-182’s Mark Hoppus and Huey Lewis.
More than a dozen country acts will debut shows on Apple Music Country, including Underwood, Luke Combs, Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, Rissi Palmer, Morgan Wallen, Kelsea Ballerini, Breland, Dierks Bentley, Jimmie Allen and “This Is Us” actress and singer Chrissy Metz.
Apple Music also announced Tuesday that its popular Beats 1 radio station — featuring shows hosted by Billie Eilish, Elton John and Lil Wayne — will be renamed to Apple Music 1. It will launch new shows hosted by Nile Rodgers, J Balvin, Young M.A and other acts.
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Federal prosecutors urged a judge Monday to accept deals that call for “Full House” actor Lori Loughlin to spend two months in prison and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, to serve five months for paying half a million dollars to bribe their daughters’ way into college. Ahead of the famous couple’s scheduled sentencing hearings Friday, prosecutors said in court filings that the proposed prison terms are comparable to the sentences other prominent parents charged in the case have received, while accounting for Loughlin and Giannulli’s “repeated and deliberate conduct” and their “decision to allow their children to become complicit in crime.”  Prosecutors called Giannulli “the more active participant in the scheme,” while they said Loughlin “took a less active role, but was nonetheless fully complicit.” The famous couple pleaded guilty in May to paying $500,000 to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as crew recruits even though neither girl was a rower. The defense had insisted for more than a year that they believed their payments were legitimate donations and accused prosecutors of hiding crucial evidence that could prove the couple’s innocence because it would undermine their case. The judge said at their plea hearings that he would decide whether to accept or reject the deals after considering the presentencing report, a document that contains background on defendants and helps guide sentencing decisions. Unlike most plea agreements, in which the judge remains free to decide the sentence, Loughlin and Giannulli’s were built into their deals so if the judge accepts the agreements, he cannot change the prison term.  FILE – William “Rick” Singer founder of the Edge College & Career Network, departs federal court in Boston on March 12, 2019, after he pleaded guilty to charges in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal.Loughlin and Giannulli have not publicly commented since their arrest last year in the case authorities call “Operation Varsity Blues.” The scheme, led by admissions consultant Rick Singer, involved including top businessmen, lawyers and others prominent parents paying huge sums to have people take entrance exams on behalf of their kids or get them into school as fake recruits, authorities said. Under the plea deal, Giannulli has also agreed to pay a $250,000 fine and perform 250 hours of community service. Loughlin would pay a $150,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service. Prosecutors say they funneled money through a sham charity operated by Singer to get their two daughters admitted to USC. Singer, who has also pleaded guilty, began cooperating with investigators in September 2018 and secretly recorded his phone calls with parents to build the case against them. Giannulli “engaged more frequently with Singer, directed the bribe payments to USC and Singer, and personally confronted his daughter’s high school counselor to prevent the scheme from being discovered, brazenly lying about his daughter’s athletic abilities,” prosecutors told the judge.  In that instance, Giannulli angrily confronted the counselor after after the counselor began questioning the girls’ involvement in crew, prosecutors said. Giannulli demanded that the counselor explain what he was telling USC about his daughters and asked the counselor why he was “trying to ruin or get in the way of their opportunities,” the counselor wrote in notes detailed in court documents.  After the couple successfully bribed their younger daughter’s way into USC, Singer forward them an email saying she was let in because of her “potential to make a significant contribution to the intercollegiate athletic program,” prosecutors wrote. Loughlin responded: “This is wonderful news! (high-five emoji),” according to court filings. Others parents who’ve been sent to prison for participating in the scam include “Desperate Housewives” actress Felicity Huffman. She served nearly two weeks behind bars late last year after she admitted to paying $15,000 to have someone correct her daughter’s entrance exam answers. 
 
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Beyonce’s musical film, “Black is King,” is gaining global fans and critics for its portrayal of African culture.  In South Africa, where several scenes in the 85-minute feature were filmed, many say it’s more than just a movie.  VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Johannesburg.
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“Black is King” stunned Beyonce fans when it dropped suddenly last month.  The visual album, which was filmed last year in the U.S., South Africa, West Africa and Europe, is based on music from her album “The Lion King: The Gift” and features an array of African artists, musicians and dancers. Like all Beyonce products, this album has its detractors. Some accuse the Houston native of cultural appropriation for using African aesthetics.But in South Africa, where she filmed many of the scenes, those involved in the production were rapturous. Sibusiso Mathebula worked on some Johannesburg-based scenes as part of his film studies. He spoke to VOA via Google Hangouts from his hometown, Middelburg. “I’m really really honored to have become part of the crew that put together this film. I really love the film,” he said. ” It went into a lot of things that we haven’t been told in our in our schools about Black history. When I saw the film, that’s when I started to see that the stories and the attires and the outfits that she was putting and that whole scene, really represented something deeper than what people were expecting.”Reaction is coming slowly from the continent because the film’s distributor, Disney Plus, is not widely available here. But South Africa’s largest cable distributor aired the film days after it debuted in late July, and is making it available on demand for premium subscribers. Beyonce fan Kgosi Motsoane, who founded a project to tell queer narratives in Africa, says he believes the African diaspora – which includes Black Americans – has every right to reference and use what some may see as “African” culture. He told VOA via Google Hangouts he loved the film, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a few critiques.”Like, there are areas where I thought that “Black is King’ could have been improved. For example, as a queer person I would have loved to see more — I know she worked with a lot of queer people — but I would have liked to see that representation on camera,” he said. “But ultimately, like, there was no representation of transwomen there. There was no representation of, you know, of like, butch lesbians, of non- … it’s just like, a lot of those types of expressions in like the women experience, were quite sort of … silenced in a way.”And, Motsoane says, it’s important, especially now, to elevate the power and position of Black women — especially after as U.S. Democratic Senator Kamala Harris became the first Black woman vice-presidential pick.  “You have a pop star who has the biggest platform in the world and is using it to sort of push Black politics. And then you have this vice president candidate that is a Black woman, taking space,” he said. “It’s really interesting to see these things happen now, considering how when we understand the politics, Black women have always been on the lowest sort of like strata of social hierarchy. And to have them occupy these really key, critical, profoundly influential platforms, that is really heartening and it’s encouraging. But also, I cannot think of a better time that we need something like this to happen.”Mathebula agrees, and says Beyonce’s film inspired him to work on his own project that will help tell more African stories. On one thing, her African supporters agree: If Black is King, Beyonce is the Queen. So whether you’re in Accra or Atlanta, they say: bow down. 
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The only Black designer belonging to Italy’s influential fashion council is demanding a “long overdue cultural reform” from her colleagues under the slogan: Do Black Lives Matter in Italy?
The conversation has gotten off to a rocky start.
Stella Jean, a Haitian-Italian designer born and raised in Rome, launched her appeal this summer. She asked the Italian National Fashion Chamber and the global powerhouses steering it, including Prada, Ferragamo and Zegna, to back their social media pledges supporting the Black Lives Matter movement  with concrete, transparent commitments toward greater racial diversity.
In response, Jean received a letter from the council president saying that addressing racial disparity within Italian fashion was not within the body’s area of responsibility, despite the fact that members had backed a diversity manifesto in December. According to the letter, such initiatives “pertain instead to parliament, the government or any other bodies.”
Exasperated, Jean has decided not to preview a runway collection at Milan Fashion Week until “they demonstrate awareness of the problem.”
”When you talk with them, they have no bad intentions, I know them. But they say something like ‘What are you talking about, Stella? We have never heard about racism in Italy. It is not an Italian story, it is about the U.S., the U.K., other countries. Not Italy,”’ Jean told The Associated Press. “My response is: ‘Why do you see all these people filling squares from the north to the south of this country for Black Lives Matter, this entire generation of invisible new Italians?”
Soccer, another important Italian cultural institution, recognized that Italy has a problem with racism and worked to eliminate it.
Racially charged gaffes by Italian fashion houses have been well-documented, from Gucci’s Blackface sweater to Prada’s Little Black Sambo bag charm to Dolce&Gabbana videos that were seen by many as mocking Asians. This summer, Marni, another major fashion house, apologized after being called out for its images of a Black man with chains around his ankles.
Jean and the co-author of her appeal, Milan-based U.S. designer Edward Buchanan, said in interviews that the issue is deeper than just culturally insensitive designs. But they say those gaffes highlight the lack of diversity in Italian fashion houses and the “pervasive racism and prejudice” in the industry despite ”significant funds allocated to provide sensitive training.”
“These ‘mistakes’ can be better recognized, labeled and addressed as ‘decisions,'” Jean asserts.
Their push is to open doors to Black Italians who would like to work in fashion but don’t see themselves represented and don’t see a way in. They also are demanding data on Black personnel employed in decision-making roles in fashion houses — not models or marketing staff who they say “are sadly more often than not displayed for show.”
”We want to send a resume to a headhunter and not have it shut down because you are a Black designer,” Buchanan said.
In their appeal, they spoke for dozens more whose names did not appear but include Italian and Italy-based Black creators like Michelle Ngonmo, who launched an AFRO Fashion Week Milano on her own after failing to get the backing of the fashion industry, and Louis Pisano, a writer and influencer who has worked in Italian fashion for a decade. Pisano cites incidents like having his fashion show invitations scrutinized while white influencers are waved into events.
Many more “are hesitant to speak out for fear of a professional lynching,” Jean said.
A frequent refrain from Black creatives in Italian fashion is that they are often the only person of color in the workplace. They also see their opportunities and access limited by their skin color.
Buchanan, the designer of his own luxury knitwear label, Sansovino 6, started out in Italy more than 25 years ago launching ready-to-wear at Bottega Veneta, and has worked with Calvin Klein and Donna Karan. Now when he is called for consulting jobs, it is exclusively for streetwear or urban brands, despite his luxury credentials. Meanwhile, white colleagues with similar resumes now hold creative director positions at major brands.
”I am absolutely happy with the scale of my career. But I can say honestly that opportunity has not come to me because of the color of my skin,” Buchanan said.
Stella chafes at the Africa Hub, which promoted five brands during Milan Fashion Week in February. She says it gave a market space but no runway visibility to brands including Ghana-based Studio 189, co-founded by Rosario Dawson and Abrima Erwiah, which has previously shown at New York Fashion Week.
“Why do we need a special area like you are visiting a safari?” Jean asked.
The president of Italy’s fashion council, Carlo Capasa, defended the Africa Hub, saying it was set up alongside a section to support China, which was mostly missing from Milan Fashion Week due to the coronavirus pandemic, and some young Italian brands. The only Black designer to present a runway show at Milan that round, which Jean skipped, was the British brand A-COLD-WALL.
Capasa told AP that the council would produce data on diversity inside fashion houses, and that a progress report on the diversity manifesto would be made in December. He said the global Black Lives Matter protests had created a sense of urgency behind diversity pledges but added that “making deep cultural changes requires time,” citing the need for multi-year programs “to include all minorities.”
“What happens inside a fashion house mirrors the social construction of the country. Italy is different from the United States,” Capasa said. “In every country, inclusion and diversity assumes a slightly different meaning.”
Jean emphasized that she is trying to prompt change from within as the only Black designer to belong to the council since its formation in 1958. Her eponymous brand, rooted in multiculturalism, has grown steadily since her Milan runway debut seven years ago.
While she won’t show in September, she has asked Capasa to host a Black Lives Matter event to kick off “the immediate launch of a long-overdue fashion cultural reform.”
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