In the Black Fantastic – Ekow Eshun talks to RTÉ Arena

When In the Black Fantastic exhibited last year in the Hayward Gallery in London, it was lauded as a visionary cultural event, showcasing contemporary and historical black artists’ speculative visions of the future, drawn from mysticism, mythology and history.

That exhibition’s curator, Ekow Eshun, is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. To accompany the exhibition, he has just published a book, In the Black Fantastic, which conjures otherworldly visions out of the everyday Black experience. It also looks at how speculative fictions in Black art deliver new perspectives on race, gender, politics, history, and the body itself, in the 21st century.

Ekow Eshun will be in Ireland to deliver a lecture on In the Black Fantastic at Drogheda’s Highlanes Gallery on Wednesday 8th November 2023.

Listen to more from RTÉ Arena here.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Timbaland apologizes after backlash for Britney…

Timbaland is apologizing for his comments about putting a “muzzle” on Britney Spears.

The 51-year-old music producer received backlash for a comment in which he said the pop star’s ex-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, should “put a muzzle” on Spears following revelations in her new memoir, “The Woman in Me.”

During a conversation at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts on Oct. 29, a clip circulating online features a member of the audience asking Timbaland about his “Cry Me a River” collaboration with Timberlake, which has been in the news amid revelations in Spears’ memoir.

Timbaland has apologized after backlash from comments about Britney Spears.

“She going crazy. I wanted to call and say, ‘JT, you gotta put a muzzle on that girl,'” he said. “But you know what? We live in an age of social media and everybody wanna go viral. I get it, because that’s the way you make money. Go viral.

“I gotta do something to get people’s attention,” he said.

After his comments spread, Timbaland took to TikTok this week to apologize.

“I’m sorry to all the Britney fans, even to her,” he said in a live video. “I’m sorry, because muzzle was – no, you have a voice. You speak what you want to speak. Who am I to tell you what not to speak? And I was wrong for saying that.”

Britney Spearsreveals in new memoir she had abortion while dating Justin Timberlake

“The Woman in Me” debuted on Oct. 24, and includes the shocking revelation in which Spears, 41, claims she became pregnant during her relationship with Timberlake and had an abortion.

“Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young,” she wrote.

Spears and Timberlake dated from 1999 until 2002 in their early adult years.

Clips of Michelle Williams‘ narration of “The Woman in Me” have also taken the spotlight, as listeners are obsessing over the vocal delivery, especially her impression of Timberlake.

At one point, Spears writes about how Timberlake’s former boy band, NSYNC, tried to distinguish themselves from the Backstreet Boys by surrounding themselves with Black artists, so they could be perceived as a group of “white boys (who) loved hip hop.”

“Sometimes, I think they tried too hard to fit in. One day, J and I were in New York going to parts of town I’d never been to before. Walking our way was a guy with a huge blinged-out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards,” Spears writes and Williams reads. “J got all excited and said so loud, ‘Oh yeah, fo’ shiz, fo’ shiz. Ginuwine! What’s up, homie?'”

Contributing: Naledi Ushe, Anthony Robledo

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

CHICAGO (Nov. 7, 2023)—The nonprofit Black Arts & Culture Alliance of Chicago is proud to announce the winners of its 23rd Annual Black Excellence Awards, honored last night in a festive celebration at Black Ensemble Theater.

CHICAGO (Nov. 7, 2023)—The nonprofit Black Arts & Culture Alliance of Chicago is proud to announce the winners of its 23rd Annual Black Excellence Awards, honored last night in a festive celebration at Black Ensemble Theater. The Awards were established in 2001 to honor the outstanding artistic accomplishments of Black artists across genres including theater, dance, music, film, literature, visual art and digital media.

This year’s Black Excellence Awards were hosted by Melissa Duprey and Christopher Chase Carter, and included performances from Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young, Sam Thousand and The Soul Vortex, Forward Momentum Chicago, Perceptions Theatre and DJ Rae Chardonnay.

Additionally, the Black Arts & Culture Alliance honored the inaugural class of the Chicago Black Arts Hall of Fame, presented by the Alliance with support from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Pillars of Chicago’s Black arts community were inducted into the hall of fame for their vision, legacy and lasting impact, including Jackie Taylor, Chuck Smith, Ron OJ Parson, Pemon Rami, Abena Joan Brown, Okoro Harold Johnson, Useni Perkins and Joan Gray.

For more information about the Black Arts & Culture Alliance of Chicago, visit bacachi.org .

Nominees and Winners of the 2023 Black Excellence Awards

DANCE

Outstanding Dance Production

Praize Production, Inc., Call Her by Name (winner)

South Chicago Dance Theater, Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley

Red Clay Dance Company, Rest. Rise. Move. Nourish. Heal.

Outstanding Choreography

Tracey Franklin, Freedom at Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre (winner)

Joel Hall, Widows at Joel Hall Dancers & Center

Era Footwork Crew, Broken Heart at Era Footwork Crew

Taylor Edwards, Brandy Ford, Joshua Hopkins, and Trevon Lawrence, Deep Inside at Chicago Multicultural Dance & Hiplet Ballerinas

Starinah Dixon, Beautiful Love at M.A.D.D. Rhythms

Idy Ciss, Liberte’ at Muntu Dance Theatre

Special Recognition: Outstanding Dance Production

Refraction at Hubbard Street Dance (winner)

Special Recognition: Outstanding Producer

The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project (winner)

THEATER

Outstanding Theater Production

Black Ensemble Theater, Reasons: A Tribute to Earth, Wind and Fire (winner)

Black Ensemble Theater, Blue Heaven

Black Ensemble Theater, The Real Housewives of Motown

Theater 47, Imitation of Life

Congo Square Theatre, How Blood Go

MPAACT, Ezekiel’s Wheel

Perceptions Theatre, Panther Women

Outstanding Director

John Ruffin, Imitation of Life at Theater 47 (winner)

Tiffany Fulson, How Blood Go at Congo Square Theatre

Lauren Lundy, Ezekiel’s Wheel at MPAACT

Daryl Brooks, Reasons: A Tribute to Earth, Wind, and Fire at Black Ensemble Theater

Daryl Brooks, Blue Heaven at Black Ensemble Theater

Michelle Bester, The Real Housewives of Motown at Black Ensemble Theater

John Ruffin, Imitation of Life at Theater 47

Myesha-Tiara, Panther Women at Perceptions Theatre

Outstanding Actor

Darren Jones, Ezekiel’s Wheel at MPAACT (winner)

Aaron Reese Boseman, Blue Heaven at Black Ensemble Theater

Christian Bufford, Reasons: A Tribute to Earth, Wind, and Fire at Black Ensemble Theater

KC Lee, Imitation of Life at Theater 47

Trequon Tate, The Real Housewives of Motown at Black Ensemble

Marcus D. Moore, How Blood Go at Congo Square Theatre

Outstanding Actress

Jyreika Guest, How Blood Go at Congo Square Theatre (winner)

Miciah Latham , Blue Heaven at Black Ensemble Theater

Keya Trammell, Reasons: A Tribute to Earth, Wind, and Fire at Black Ensemble Theater

Fania Bourn, Imitation of Life at Theater 47

De’Jah Perkins, The Real Housewives of Motown at Black Ensemble Theater

Britt Edwards, The Real Housewives of Motown at Black Ensemble Theater

Melanie McCullough, The Real Housewives of Motown at Black Ensemble Theater

Yolonda Ross, How Blood Go at Congo Square Theatre

Noelle Klyce, Ezekiel’s Wheel at MPAACT

Special Recognition – Producing Advocate, Theater: Outstanding Performer

Gabrielle Lott-Rogers, Boulevard of Bold Dreams at Timeline Theater (winner)

TayLar, Arsenic and Old Lace at Court Theatre

Celeste Williams, Arsenic and Old Lace at Court Theatre

Tracey Bonner, Toni Stone at Goodman Theatre

Sydney Charles, Last Night and the Night Before at Steppenwolf Theatre

Ayanna Bria Bakari, Last Night and the Night Before at Steppenwolf Theatre

Karen Aldridge, Is God Is at A Red Orchid Theatre

Special Recognition – Producing Advocate, Theater: Outstanding Director

Marti Goebl, Is God Is at A Red Orchid Theatre (winner)

Ron OJ Parson, Trouble In Mind at Timeline Theatre

Malkia Stampley, Boulevard of Bold Dreams at Timeline Theatre

Valerie Curtis-Newton, Last Night and the Night Before at Steppenwolf Theatre

MUSIC

Outstanding Jazz Musician

Yvonne Gage (winner)

Bruce A Henry

Phil Seed

Outstanding R&B Musician

Jimmy Burns Band (winner)

Yana Renea

Sam Thousand

FILM/DIGITAL MEDIA

Outstanding Film Direction

Marquis Simmons, Broke Down Drone (winner)

McKenzie Chinn, A Real One

Addison Belhomme, A Thin Line Between Black and White

Patrick Wimp, Mr. Abbott

Outstanding Film

Hindsight, Kimberly M. Vaughn | Suburban Blvck Girl Production (winner)

The Pulpit, Tosin Morohunfola

The Come Up, LaTaryion Perry | MissedTurn Productions

Almost 30, Shandrea Funnye

Broke Down Drone, Willie “Roc” Round

LITERATURE

Outstanding Non-Fiction Work

Lowell Thompson, Images of America: African Americans in Chicago (winner)

Holle Thee Maxwell, Freebase Ain’t Free

Jelahn McCoy & Cynthia McCoy Scott The Real McCoy

Andre L., Is the Black Man Falling

Outstanding Fiction Work

Damone Bester, Mendel: Sometimes Ya Gotta Run for Your Life (winner)

Tracy Clark, Broken Places

Danny Gardener, A Negro and an Ofay

Outstanding Poetry Work

Growing Concerns Poetry Collective, First You Need A Body (winner)

avery r. young, Neck Bone

Harold R. Greene III, Black Roses

Jamila Woods, Black Girl Magic

VISUAL ARTS

Outstanding Visual Artist

Maxwell Emcays, Englewood Public Unveiling (winner)

Quinton Foreman, Homecoming: Black Craft & Design in Chicago

Alan Emerson Hicks, Diasporal Rhythms

Outstanding Exhibition

All Children Draw, Blanc Gallery (winner)

Black Light Cinema, Southside Community Art

Exhibits with Candice Hunter and George Crump, Faie Gallery

ADDITIONAL SPECIAL RECOGNITIONS

Special Recognition: Black Arts Advocate

Vincent E. Williams — Black Theatre Alliance Awards

Special Recognition: Black Arts Advocate

Erin Harkey — Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Commissioner

Special Recognition: Black Arts Advocate

avery r. young — Chicago Poet Laureate

CHICAGO BLACK ARTS HALL OF FAME CLASS OF 2023

The Black Arts & Culture Alliance of Chicago, in partnership with the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, is pleased to announce the inaugural Chicago Black Arts Hall of Fame, recognizing the work of Black artists, administrators, and advocates who have and continue to pave the way for the next generation of Black Chicago artists. The following pillars of Chicago’s Black arts community were honored as the first class of inductees:

Abena Joan Brown

Joan Gray

Okoro Harold Johnson

Ron OJ Parson

Useni Perkins

Pemon Rami

Chuck Smith

Jackie Taylor

About the Black Arts & Culture Alliance of Chicago

The Black Arts & Culture Alliance of Chicago is a nonprofit service organization dedicated to supporting and promoting Black excellence within the performing, visual, literary, technical and design art forms. The Alliance works to increase the stability, visibility, marketability and sustainability of the Black arts and culture sector. Founded in 1997 as the African American Arts Alliance by a group of Chicago’s leading Black artists and arts organizations, the Alliance promotes the continued development of organizations and individual artists as well as highlighting their accomplishments through its annual Black Excellence Awards. For more information, visit bacachi.org .

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Smaller performances are a ‘gateway’ to Pittsburgh’s opera offerings

Pittsburgh has a long history with opera. Theater has been part of the city’s cultural scene since the Fort Pitt days. Pittsburgh Opera as a formal organization has been around since 1939, and other organizations, including Pittsburgh Festival Opera, have been around for decades. Meanwhile, renovations continue at the National Opera House, once a safe haven for Black artists and celebrities.

It hardly needs to be said that opera as an artform isn’t the pop-culture mainstay it was during the Baroque Era. However, Pittsburgh is surprisingly rich in ways to enjoy the bombastic vocals, theatricality, and elevated stagecraft opera offers — and that’s true whether you want a Baroque-style evening out at the Benedum or simply want to enjoy an aria while you sip beer in sweatpants.

“Every opera has a right-sized venue,” Pittsburgh Opera’s marketing director Chris Cox tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “Shows that we do in [the Bitz Opera Factory] would feel sparse in a place as huge as the Benedum.”

While Pittsburgh Opera has a full slate of large-scale shows, including Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, which opens Sat., Nov. 11, the company has also been offering smaller and, often, more experimental productions in other venues, a practice that predates the COVID-19 pandemic. Cox says there’s a wealth of contemporary opera that makes more sense in a smaller space.

Pittsburgh Opera’s Bitz Opera Factory is small enough that “even the farthest-back seat is still just mere feet from performers,” Cox says. “It can be very powerful, visceral, and in your face.” Performances in the Bitz also give audiences a close look at the emerging talent of the company’s resident artists.

Opera singers face quite a bit of competition when it comes to getting singing roles, or even opportunities to practice. Smaller-scale performances not only give the public an opportunity to experience their talents in a variety of venues; they also provide artists with a space to sing, iterate, practice, and reach new audiences.

Aria412 is another organization that has provided space for numerous Pittsburgh-based vocalists to bring their talents to more intimate settings. The company began in 2017 with performances in the Hotel Indigo bar and, following the end of COVID-19 lockdowns, relaunched with monthly performances at Hop Farm Brewing. Aria412 recently received 501(c)(3) tax exemption and plans to stage larger productions in 2024.

“Basically, we do opera, musical theater, and some pop songs, and it’s all based around a theme,” Aria412 co-founder Desiree Soteres tells City Paper. “We always use Pittsburgh-based singers and give them opportunities to perform, try out new repertoire, and be in front of a live audience.”

Soteres says their performers run the gamut from recent graduates to seasoned musicians. All are paid for their work. She’s hopeful that Aria412 can serve as an introduction to opera for the uninitiated: “We have people [in our audience] who have never been to see opera. They might be brought by a friend, and the [opera] bug bites them, and the next thing you know, they’re going to the Benedum to see a full-scale opera.”

<a href="https://media1.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/imager/u/original/24887261/microopera_1_700x527.jpg" rel="contentImg_gal-24887255" title="Photo by Louise van Mook/Aria412" data-caption="   Photo by Louise van Mook/Aria412” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”> click to enlarge Smaller performances are a 'gateway' to Pittsburgh's opera offerings

Photo by Louise van Mook/Aria412

In addition to their “gateway” approach, Aria412 gives Soteres and her co-producers the flexibility to plan what they want outside of the constraints of a libretto. The company is responsive to audience feedback, noting which songs are hits and planning nights around themes that allow for variety — the most recent iteration was Tryptophantasia, an autumnal medley loosely centered on Thanksgiving food and travel and named after the soporific chemical in turkey.“We also did a ‘twisted concert,’ where people sang repertoire that’s not in their voice type. The singers were very interested in that,” Soteres says. “We’re always listening to what people want to hear and just going wherever it takes us.”Next up for the company is the second edition of a James Bond-themed night called Goldsinger 2, which Soteres says will feature a mix of Bond theme music and songs from areas where Bond films have taken place. Aria412 also has a March Madness event planned to coincide with next year’s NCAA basketball tournaments and a theme night centered on astrology. It’s clear the company is having fun, but ultimately, Soteres says their prime directive is keeping things local.“Our biggest mission is making opera for everyone and using local talent,” she says. “It’s about Pittsburgh, by Pittsburgh, and for Pittsburgh.”For other companies, smaller-scale performances are a matter of necessity — Pittsburgh Festival Opera (PFO) has scaled back its plans following anemic attendance during their 2022 season. The company is now “reinventing itself” to focus on a recital series and educational programming while it ramps back up to hiring new staff members. PFO’s next show, a rescheduled concert by Hungarian soprano Csilla Boross, will be a one-off in Carnegie’s renovated library and music hall on Dec. 1.Whether it’s solo performances, experimental productions, or Wagnerian epics, more opera is good opera, Chris Cox tells CP. That’s as true for the singers as it is for set, costume, and lighting designers. He says Pittsburgh Opera has always focused on variety and meeting audiences where they are.“There are plenty of folks who, when they’re at their first opera … are looking forward to a reason to dress up, go out to dinner, and make a whole night out of it,” he says. “Other people prefer something that’s a little more intimate, maybe something that’s a little shorter or more contemporary.” Cox cites upcoming productions of Iphigénie en Tauride, a Greek tragedy staged at the CAPA Theater, and Proving Up, an adaptation of a Karen Russell novel staged at the Bitz, as examples of the latter.“Whatever your personal preference might be,” Cox says, “we offer something for you.” RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Best Practices: Artist Uman Courts a Constant State of Evolution in Her Paintings

Toward the end of a 3-hour visit one afternoon this past August, Uman stood in a corner of her multiroom studio in Albany, New York, mixing oil paints in a small wooden box. She’d been working for weeks on an eight-foot-square canvas painted with a vibrant red background and a central white orb meant to denote a looming streetlamp. That day, she stepped forward and began adding raspberry globs of paint to the left side of the canvas.

“I might cover this up,” Uman said. “That’s sometimes how it goes. You work for weeks and weeks, and then you cover it up and you start again. I don’t mind that. I have done paintings with three paintings underneath, and the fourth one, over the rest, is the best one.”

She walked over to another canvas, the same brush in hand. The painting was still wet from a previous day’s work, so when Uman mixed her raspberry shade with the white already on that canvas, it turned a brilliant lilac. “I don’t think about it,” she said. “I just do it.”

View of a wooden box holding a mixture of paints. At left are several paintbrushes.

Brushes and a wooden paint box in Uman’s studio.

Neither painting was headed to a forthcoming exhibition. She’d just had a show in the spring at Nicola Vassell Gallery in New York, but she wasn’t keen to stop working. During the summer months, she said, she maintains a strict 9-to-5 schedule three days a week. “It’s better than sitting and not doing anything at all,” she explained.

Although Uman’s schedule is rigid, her process is not. She often listens to house music as she works, in particular a radio station from New Orleans, though this isn’t a hard and fast rule—some series have also been produced to the sounds of Aretha Franklin and Janelle Monáe. And sometimes, with the help of an assistant, Uman rotates a canvas, allowing her to work on different areas of it. As she progresses, the canvas will return to its starting orientation, which she always remembers based on small details known only to her. (One of her paintings was hung upside-down a couple years ago because she didn’t indicate which way was up. “It looked great, but when I told them, they flipped it back, so it didn’t really make a difference,” she said.)

Several canvases line the walls of a studio. In front are tables filled with different types of art supples.

Finished canvases share space with fresh works that she has yet to complete.

All around this room and the other spaces in Uman’s studio, dozens of canvases lie waiting. Some paintings in progress leaned against the walls, while others sat on wheeled wooden contraptions resembling supersize easels. She works primarily in a square format, ranging from 4 feet to 9 feet, though she has recently been experimenting with horizontal canvases stretching 12 feet wide. Some are primed in a monochrome that will ultimately be painted over, others are left raw, to be painted solely in black gesso. In total, there were more than 100 canvases in the 8,000-square-foot studio, which includes robust storage space and a woodshop for custom framing.

Part of the reason Uman has so many paintings around is that her output is relentless. She is honest about not every canvas being perfect. “I still have failures with paintings,” she said. “They don’t all come out good, but I’m able to think, Oh, I’ll make another one. When I make a beautiful painting so ugly, I say, ‘Oh my God, what did you do?’ And then I just say, ‘Keep going. You can turn this around.’ A lot of the time, it works for me.” She compared the act of finishing a painting to her childhood piano lessons and “that thrill of being able to complete a small verse in a song.”

Drawings with one having a handprint in purple.

Drawings in Uman’s studio.

Though she doodled endlessly in her youth, Uman didn’t think she would be an artist until her 20s, which led her to move to New York. She was born in Somalia in 1980 and spent time in Kenya early on. Her family moved permanently to Kenya in 1989 at the outbreak of the Somali Civil War. She relocated to Denmark as a teenager to live with family there, and a few years later, visited an aunt in Vienna who took her to art museums. She has not returned to Africa since she left, partly for safety, because she is a trans woman: “It’s a fantasy to think that I would go back and have rights,” she said.

Shortly after moving to New York, Uman met Annatina Miescher, a psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital who focused on art therapy. Uman considers Miescher a close friend and mentor, both in life and in art. “She was somebody who opened a channel that I couldn’t possibly have opened myself,” Uman said. “I think that it’s always been inside me, and I just didn’t know how to bring it out.”

Through Miescher, Uman met the late painter and critic Rene Ricard, an early champion of artists like Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Ricard encouraged her to keep at her painting. “He made me feel like I’m actually doing something,” she said.

During the early 2000s, Uman often sold her art on the street, usually in Union Square. It wasn’t until 2012, though, that she was included in group shows at the taste-making gallery Ramiken Crucible on the Lower East Side of New York and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. Then in 2015, she had her first solo show at the esteemed New York alternative space White Columns.

Several paintings stand along the walls of a studio, with a table at center left.

The walls of the main room in Uman’s studio are lined with her large-scale paintings, some of which are still in progress. 

By that point she had already moved to Upstate New York, having relocated in 2010. Though her studio is not far from the Albany-Rensselaer Amtrak station, Uman lives about an hour-and-a-half west, near Cooperstown. “I’ve been here for a long time, before the pandemic-people came,” she said.

Her partner’s desire to live Upstate prompted the move. Financially, it made sense too. But Uman also said she’s not interested in the art world networking that often helps artists in major hubs achieve greater success. “I have everything I need. I’m not in that world, and the friends I have made over the years have come through mutual admiration and respect,” she said.

For this reason, and because Uman did not attend art school, some critics have labeled her a self-taught or outsider artist, which has historically been applied primarily to artists of color, Black artists in particular. “It’s a term,” she said sardonically. “I don’t care how people define me or my work. They can put me in a box and say, ‘You’re self-taught. You have to stay right in that corner. You’re not welcome in our club, our museum, our alumni group. You’re not welcome, period.’ That’s fine. I’m just doing my job. This is my work. I’m not even trying to be part of that club. But guess what? They found me and put my piece next to yours. We’re showing in the same place.”

She continued, “I know I’m not for everyone, and I’m definitely OK with that. I don’t want to please America or the world. I like that people don’t get my work. It makes me feel like I’m ahead of my time.”

UMAN -ARTIST

Finished canvases share space with fresh works that she has yet to complete. One seen above is lit by a tall lamppost that Uman had shipped to her studio from San Francisco.

Nicola Vassell dedicated her gallery booth at the 2022 Independent art fair to an Uman solo presentation, greatly increasing the artist’s exposure and recognition, and attracting collectors like Rebecca and Martin Eisenberg. Uman tries not to let success affect her work. “It’s very different when you paint knowing that you’re going to sell,” she said. “I miss that feeling of not having any expectations. It’s different—2020 was this year of just not knowing where it’s going. The paintings were full of everything: naivete, sweetness, whimsy.”

She has, however, had to grow more decisive when it comes to finishing her paintings. “Years ago, I could sit with a canvas for a year or two, and then I could just put it away,” she said. “That’s a very pleasurable thing to have a canvas in your studio for a very long time. I find pleasure in even just adding one little, tiny dot of color.” (Most of her studio’s fixtures have been painted with grids of dots, from the doors and sinks to some of the couches.)

As her practice has evolved, her recent canvases have grown looser and more playful—bolder, even—but they never lose their ability to enthrall the viewer. They toe the line between abstraction and figuration: a mix of circles, triangles, spirals, waves, leaves, dots, and clouds, along with more humanistic traits, like eyes, hands, tails, mouths, and movement. “The ones that don’t look like self-portraits are self-portraits,” she said. “In a sense, everything I do is biographical on the canvas.”

UMAN -ARTIST

Uman pauses for a quick chat while touching up a large painting as house music plays in the studio.

At a certain point, she decided that she wanted her canvases to mix both the figurative and the abstract: “I stopped fighting it, and now I’m just like, Let’s go, let’s do them both and not restrict myself,” she said. “It’s like playing music. I can play this instrument: use a brush, mix color. I have a good idea of what balances what through instinct, through years of practice, not through education.”

In her art, above all else, Uman prizes experimentation. She wants her practice to be in a state of “constant evolution” in which she can“push it even further.”

“I don’t like being stuck,” she said. “We have to experiment till death. I don’t want you to see me at 53, 10 years from now, and I’m still doing similar stuff.” 

A version of this article appears in the 2023 ARTnews Top 200 Collectors issue.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Timbaland apologises after saying Justin Timberlake should ‘muzzle’ pop star over memoir

Music producer Timbaland has apologised for saying his frequent collaborator Justin Timberlake should “muzzle” his ex-girlfriend Britney Spears after the publication of her memoir The Woman in Me.

Timbaland made the comments on 29 October in conversation with fellow producer 9th Wonder at a talk event at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, with the comments later circulating online. When an audience member mentioned the memoir, Timbaland said: “She’s going crazy, right? I wanted to call and say, ‘JT, man, you gotta put a muzzle on that girl.’” He used a jocular tone, but demeaning language caused outrage among Spears fans.

He also suggested that Spears had written the memoir, which outlines frequently traumatising events including a years-long conservatorship that controlled every aspect of her life, to “go viral”.

“We live in an age of social media and […] everybody wanna go viral,” he said. “I get it ’cause that’s the way you make money, go viral – I gotta do something that gets people’s attention.”

During a live stream on TikTok, Timbaland has since apologised “to the Britney fans, and her. You know about respecting women – hell yeah.”

In The Woman in Me, Spears writes at length about her relationship with Timberlake, whom she dated between 1999 and 2002. She reveals she had an abortion, writing: “If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.” She wrote of their eventual breakup: “As much as Justin hurt me, there was a huge foundation of love, and when he left me I was devastated … I could barely speak for months. Whenever anyone asked me about him, all I could do was cry. I don’t know if I was clinically in shock, but it felt that way.”

Copies of The Woman in Me on sale.
Copies of The Woman in Me on sale last month. Photograph: Carlos Álvarez/Getty Images

She also writes about an encounter between the R&B singer Ginuwine and Timberlake when he was in boyband ‘NSync. “‘NSync hung out with Black artists. Sometimes I thought they tried too hard to fit in. One day J and I were in New York, going to parts of town I had never been to before. Walking our way was a guy with a huge, blinged-out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards. J got all excited and said so loud, ‘Oh yeah, fo’ shiz fo’ shiz, Ginuwine, what’s up homie?’” Read by Michelle Williams for the audiobook, the segment has been widely shared online.

Timbaland produced four songs on Justin Timberlake’s solo debut Justified, including hit ballad Cry Me a River – whose video underlined the song’s barely veiled references to Spears.

Their collaboration continued, with Timbaland producing the majority of second album FutureSex/LoveSounds and the entirety of third album The 20/20 Experience. Timberlake guested on Timbaland solo tracks such as the hit Give It to Me and the Timbaland-produced Madonna single 4 Minutes; they also worked together on three tracks for Timberlake’s most recent album, 2018’s Man of the Woods.

Elsewhere in the Kennedy Center conversation, 9th Wonder joked: “I don’t think our white brothers and sisters in the audience know that Justin Timberlake belongs to us now,” referring to African Americans. “You know what? That’s true,” Timbaland replied. “He was a Memphis kid who had a lot of soul. His mom raised him around a lot of Motown … he from Memphis, the Stax,” referring to the city’s soul music label.

“Country is country – there’s no difference between white and black, we all do the same things, we all like soul food … his mom and his family, you would have thought they were black, the way they were moving, the music Justin grew up on. And when he went solo he was another one who knew what he wanted and how he wanted to be.”

Speaking about Cry Me a River, Timbaland said: “That was the turning point, like: me and him alike … Sometimes there’s certain people, they give you something that make you say, I always got to go back to this guy.”

The Woman in Me meanwhile sold 1.1m copies in the US in its first week of publication, and topped the UK bestseller chart with 91,000 copies. Spears thanked her fans for the book’s success, saying: “I poured my heart and soul into my memoir, and I am grateful to my fans and readers around the world for their unwavering support.”

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Gaskin: Addressing bias in Boston’s creative economy

The creative economy provides an entrepreneurial opportunity for Black artists. It also contributes to economic development and quality-of-life improvements in neighborhoods. After attending a reception at the Boston Society of Architects, I learned that there was a relationship between public art and economic development.

This inspired me to look at a webpage produced by the Boston Arts Commission (BAC) that mapped the location of public art in Boston.  There were hundreds of “red dots” marking the locations of public art in downtown Boston, but in Grove Hall there was one lonely red dot for a painted utility box. Although the map missed several pieces of public art in Grove Hall such as the iconic clock tower and murals, the point was clear: the private sector and the City of Boston had under-invested in public art in Grove Hall and other communities of color, rendering them public art deserts.

City-supported public art should be found in every neighborhood, as every neighborhood pays taxes. Foundations, who always get more quality applications for the available funds, need to do targeted outreach and provide the support to get quality applications from the BPIOC community. Corporations could use the sponsorship of public art by and or for artists of color as part of their community relations and goodwill efforts.

The lack of public art by and for people of color stems from systemic discrimination. The barriers begin early, with children of color often attending public schools that have drastically cut funding for arts education. Like athletes, artists need to practice, and practice requires resources for materials and skill-building instruction.

Artists of color quickly discover that the professional arts community is a closed system. Qualifying to bid on a public art project often requires a track record of creating public art, which besides being a paradox also assumes a level of resources beyond the means of most artists. After all, creating art, public or otherwise, requires materials and often rent for studio space in addition to living space. With Boston’s housing shortage, there is a dearth of artists’ housing and affordable studio space. Then there’s learning the system, obtaining permits, navigating the process, and connecting with the network of funders and decision-makers. All this takes time and money.

The artists who can afford to work within this system often have master’s degrees and teach art for a steady source of income. But few artists of color fit this profile, so the number who have enough money and time to produce public art is extremely limited.

After working for years to perfect their craft, Black artists face major challenges getting their work exhibited, displayed, and promoted. I have noticed a dramatic difference in the media’s coverage of Black versus white artists. Many publications tend to view exhibitions by white artists as being of interest to the general public, whereas they see exhibitions by Black artists as being of interest primarily to the Black community and a small group of whites, and thus not a good fit for their audience.

A 2019 study of 18 major museums in the United States found that 85.4% of the works in their collections were by white artists and 87.4% by men. Work by African American artists made up only 1.2% of the collections, the lowest percentage for any group.

The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York is dedicated to photography. The museum houses a collection of over 400,000 photographs, yet a mere 140 are by Black photographers. Of the more than 14,000 photographers represented, only 22 are Black. Not even renowned Harlem photographer James Van Der Zee made the cut.

Archy LaSalle, a fine art photographer and the founder of Where Are All The Black People At has had success working with museums, board members, directors and curators to include more work by Black artists in their permanent collections. Awareness has been growing, but often action is more difficult as it involves significant change and this can be particularly challenging for larger art institutions and boards who are wedded to the past.

LaSalle maintains that support from outside these institutions and the pressure from supporters will make a greater difference.

The Boston Creates plan promotes diversity in the arts, but it doesn’t regard artists as entrepreneurs who need to get paid for their work in order to survive. You have to do more than appreciate diversity, you have to invest in it. Let’s face it: Boston has not done a good job of buying goods and services from Black businesses, and the same is true when it comes to commissioning work from Black artists.

There needs to be a strategy that complements the Boston Creates report that outlines not just an appreciation of diversity, but a plan to make it happen. Elements of the strategy should include:

Artists Housing: Increase investments in artists’ housing, live-work space and studio space,

City Controlled Foundations: Have the Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund and the George B. Henderson Foundation increase outreach and support of Black artists. Have them review their policies and procedures through the lens of equity to see how they could increase the diversity of the projects they fund.

Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture Clearing House: All requests for proposals for art or design work from the city should inform the Mayor’s Office, so they can inform all of those on their mailing list. This would make it easier for artists to learn of opportunities from a single point of contact. This is especially true for commissioned work.

Community Preservation Act: Is there a way this resource can increase the support of Black artists?

Address Public Art Deserts in the City: with increased funding or targeted efforts.

School and After School Support: Getting more art into the classrooms.

To achieve true diversity in the arts, the city, foundations, and art patrons must do more to enable artists of color to participate in the arts community and the creative economy as contributors and entrepreneurs.

Ed Gaskin is Executive Director of Greater Grove Hall Main Streets and founder of Sunday Celebrations. 

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Taylor Swift Played Her Cards Better Than We Could Have Imagined

This week, Taylor Swift’s 1989 debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard 200. And it didn’t just top the chart; her album scored the biggest debut since Adele’s 25 released in 2015.

This is an odd milestone considering that Swift released 1989 in October 2014—surely you recall the album’s ubiquitous millennial pop anthems “Blank Space,” “Bad Blood,” and “Shake It Off.” But that was the old 1989. The new 1989—the album that last week outperformed the streaming figures of the original release in the same period by more than 1,300 percent—is 1989 (Taylor’s Version). This is the latest of several such rerecordings, each debuting at no. 1 and each marketed as “Taylor’s Version,” hinting at the underlying vendetta that prompted dueling versions of these albums in the first place: Scooter Braun’s purchase of Big Machine for over $300 million in a secretive deal with the record label’s founder, Scott Borchetta, that incurred the wildly productive wrath of Swift.

Swift, Borchetta, and Braun have something of a convoluted history that’s crucial to understanding this whole mess. Swift previously tried—and failed—to buy her master recordings, as Borchetta preferred to price her masters into the terms of a new recording contract with Big Machine—terms Swift rejected. Swift says she assumed Borchetta would sell her back catalog once she left Big Machine for Universal Music Group. The issue is Braun, specifically. Swift says he brought her to tears with his “incessant, manipulative bullying” on more than one occasion, citing, for instance, his involvement in her humiliating feud with Kanye West. She’s also criticized Borchetta for orchestrating the deal despite knowing her history with Braun. Swift described her earlier music as being “beholden to men who had no part in creating it.”

Over a year after the acquisition, Braun sold the master rights of Swift’s first six albums to the investment firm Shamrock Capital, but—according to Swift—Braun still continues to profit from the recordings per the terms of the sale. So, Swift, possibly inspired by a tweet from Kelly Clarkson, began to rerecord and rerelease those six albums produced under Big Machine to reclaim her back catalog and excise Braun from her musical legacy. This was at once a deeply personal feud and a broader crusade for musicians’ rights. Taylor’s Versions were a peculiar gambit, the realization of a strategy devised a couple of decades earlier by Prince in his notorious campaign against Warner Bros. in the 1990s.

Prince released 17 albums under Warner Bros., spanning 18 years, before getting into an infamous mess of “irreconcilable differences” with the record label that launched his career at age 18. It was a classic clash between artist and executive over creative control. Prince wanted to release music and play shows at his discretion, and he wanted to own the master recordings of his music. Warner Bros., of course, wanted to maintain control of his back catalog and throttle his output so that he wouldn’t effectively be competing with himself in retail.

Prince was one of the biggest stars on the planet, but he was still significantly less powerful than Warner Bros. So he spent the mid-1990s trying to get out of his record deal with the label in rather spectacular fashion. He churned out a few albums to fulfill his remaining six-album contract. He furthermore changed his stage name to the unpronounceable glyph referred to in copyright as “Love Symbol #2,” and he started performing with “SLAVE” written across his cheek, in protest of Warner. This was all quite iconic and high-minded and, in Prince’s own terms, emancipatory. Here was a rock virtuoso struggling against the crudest forces in the commercialization of his art specifically, and perhaps Black art especially, but also art in general; Prince was willing to throw his career into chaos and disorder for more than a decade to win his freedom, realize his vision, and make his point.

As righteous and legendary as Prince vs. Warner was … it didn’t really go well for Prince. He never had a clear endgame and ultimately couldn’t overcome the power of the major labels. He got away from Warner Bros. only to spend the next decade in a similarly contentious relationship with Sony (via Columbia Records) while also struggling to adapt to the musical and technological transformations of the early 21st century. Prince won ownership of his masters rather belatedly, and unexpectedly, in April 2014—just a couple of years before his untimely death—when he re-signed with Warner.

Prince was an enigmatic funk god who couldn’t have been any clearer, from the very start of his career, in expressing his disdain for the music business. He’s found an unlikely heir to his activism against the industry in Swift, who has written far more optimistically about the music business than Prince ever would have but who was similarly denied the opportunity to buy her masters.

It sounded clever enough for Swift to take a cue from Prince and rerecord each of her earlier albums when she first announced the effort. And perhaps the success of these rereleases seems self-evident in retrospect—we are, after all, talking about Taylor Swift. But initially, it also sounded very time intensive and potentially pointless, as these rerecordings would have to coexist with the original albums, which, depending on how the rerecordings turned out, may well have maintained their status as the definitive versions. You could imagine that this yearslong project might have culminated in a largely abstract victory over Braun that mostly just made a mess of Swift’s catalog while also stalling her production of new songs. This more pessimistic outlook on such a project might’ve proved true for any number of other artists—maybe even Prince. But Swift really is that influential, and she really has managed to market her versions in a way that makes these old albums feel like new releases. Swift’s obviously been a superstar for several years now, but she’s only recently become something even grander—a multigenerational phenomenon on track to becoming the most popular artist in the history of streaming music. This height of her fame is also the height of her leverage in dealing with Braun.

Swift released the first of these albums, in a massively successful debut, a couple of years before the start of her ongoing Eras Tour. But the Eras Tour was her endgame. It’s billed as a historical survey of her career (rather than a promotion of her latest album, Midnights), and that’s the ideal framing for her efforts to rerecord her old material. The Eras Tour is the second-highest-grossing concert series of all time, after Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road, and it spawned the second-highest-grossing concert documentary at the box office, after Michael Jackson’s This Is It. The Eras Tour, with its cross-generational framing, has obviously bolstered Taylor’s Versions. It’s actually bolstered her whole catalog, pre– and post–Big Machine—last week, the no. 1 song in the country was “Cruel Summer,” a 4-year-old single from Lover. But the tour has most crucially validated Taylor’s Versions, which have sapped the original recordings’ streams and credibly become the definitive releases. Billboard reports a recent push from record companies to greatly extend the eligibility for rerecordings from just a few years after the original release (as in Swift’s case) to “an unprecedented 10, 15 or even 30 years … after departing their record companies,” in order “to prohibit this sort of thing from happening again.”

Prince saw an industry defined by so many prohibitions, an industry determined to make him a perpetual victim of the fine print. A year before his death, during the promotion of his final album, Prince hosted a rare press conference in Paisley Park. There, he once again characterized recording contracts as “slavery” and categorically cautioned artists: “Don’t sign.” Swift hasn’t been radicalized against the major labels to this extent; she seems content with her contract terms at UMG. (“Thankfully, I am now signed to a label that believes I should own anything I create,” Swift writes of her current deal with UMG.) Swift seems to have studied Prince and learned some invaluable lessons. She read the fine print, and she made it work for her. But what about the rest of the industry—the countless artists well short of $2 billion in North American ticket sales? What about the new acts reading these new contracts? What’s their endgame?

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Timbaland Comes Under Fire For Britney Spears ‘Muzzle’ Comments

Timbaland has come under fire after saying Britney Spears should have a muzzle put on her following recent comments she made about Justin Timberlake‘s alleged blaccent.

The comment was made amid a conversation with 9th Wonder while on stage at ‘Sound Architects: A Producer Conversation with Timbaland’ last week at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

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When a fan asked about Britney recently alleging that the *NSYNC singer forced her to get an abortion and that he used a blaccent when talking to Ginuwine, Timbo defended his boy.

“She going crazy, bruh,” he said. “I wanted to call JT and say ‘Man! You should have put a muzzle on that girl, man!’”

You can view the clip below:

Reactions from fans were unsavory to say the least.

“I’m glad britney is speaking up, their reactions are just proving that everything she said is true,” one person wrote, while another said: “Timbaland is the one who needs a muzzle. We didn’t forget about his gross Aaliyah comments. He’s still upset Britney didn’t want to work with him. A nasty man.”

One fan proclaimed they would no longer be streaming Timbaland’s music, while another asked: “Why do men feel like they can silence woman, he’s a weirdo.”

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In an excerpt of the audio book version of Britney Spears’ new memoir The Woman In Me, actor Michelle Williams narrates the pop star’s account of the reported interaction while doing her best impression of Timberlake’s alleged “blaccent.”

“His band NSYNC was what people called back then ‘so pimp,’” Williams began. “They were white boys but they loved Hip Hop. To me, that’s what separated them from the Backstreet Boys, who seemed very consciously to position themselves as a white group. *NSYNC hung out with Black artists.”

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She continued: “Sometimes, I think they tried too hard to fit in. One day, J and I were in New York going to parts of town I’d never been to before. Walking our way was a guy with a huge blinged-out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards. J got all excited and said so loud, ‘Oh yeah, fo shizz, fo shizz. Ginuwine! What’s up, homie?’

“After Ginuwine walked away, Felicia [Britney’s former assistant] did an impression of J. ‘Oh yeah, fo shizz, fo shizz. Ginuwine!’ J wasn’t even embarrassed. He just took it and looked at her like, ‘Okay, fuck you, Felicia.’”

Timbaland Flamed For Trying To ‘Remake’ Aaliyah With ‘Nonsense Singer’ Anna Margo

Timbaland Flamed For Trying To ‘Remake’ Aaliyah With ‘Nonsense Singer’ Anna Margo

While Timberlake has been facing backlash over to alleged incident, Kandi Burruss has since come to his defense.

“I don’t want anybody to, like, down Justin because you’ve got to remember the times that we were going through at the time,” she told Page Six at BravoCon 2023. “That era of pop and R&B, it was a lot of boy bands that did, like, urban music, urban routines and dancing, the whole image. That was in at the time, and nobody was passing judgment.”

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She continued: “I just feel like that was young Justin. Leave him alone, y’all,” she said. “He was a really, really good guy.”

Justin Timberlake has not yet responded to his ex’s claims.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Timbaland says Justin Timberlake should have put a ‘muzzle’ on ‘crazy’ Britney Spears

If there was ever any doubt where mega-producer Timbaland stands regarding the ongoing public beef between Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, let it be clear: He sides with Timberlake.

In a snippet from an Oct. 29 conversation at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Timbaland was asked during an audience Q&A how he felt about Timberlake’s single “Cry Me a River” — supposedly inspired by the singer’s relationship with Spears — being in the spotlight again due to the popularity of the “Oops!… I Did It Again” singer’s memoir.

“Man, she’s going crazy, right?” the Grammy-winning producer responded, while the audience broke out in laughter. “I wanted to call and say, ‘JT, man, you gotta put a muzzle on that girl.’”

Timbaland added that he understood Spears’ impetus to include details about her romance with Timberlake, attributing it to the everlasting desire for internet virality.

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”We live in an age of social media and viral, everybody wanna go viral,” he said. “I get it ’cause that’s the way you make money, go viral — I gotta do something that gets people’s attention.”

Though the live audience laughed heartily, the reaction on social media and elsewhere to Timbaland’s comments was not great.

“Wow this is disgusting.. does he even realize what that poor girl has been through?” one commenter said on YouTube.

“Timbaland saying that Justin Timberlake should have put a ‘muzzle’ on Britney is actually INSANE considering Britney has been treated like a caged animal for the past 13 years,” a user posted on X, formerly Twitter.

“Imagine in 2023 saying a woman should have a muzzle put on her for speaking her truth, ESPECIALLY after 13 years of abuse & silence,” another X user posted. “Timbaland is such a misogynistic piece of s—. I’m so grossed out right now.”

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Spears and Timberlake started dating in 1999 when she was 17 and he was 18, while both of them rose to the top of the pop music world. After breaking up in 2002, Spears was blamed for the end of their romance by powerful media figures, including veteran journalist Diane Sawyer, who confronted the pop star about Timberlake in a high-profile 2003 interview that brought the “Lucky” singer to tears.

In “The Woman in Me,” Spears wrote that she became pregnant while dating the NSYNC frontman during their high-profile, turn-of-the-century romance, and that he insisted she undergo an abortion because he was not ready to be a father.

“[A]s much as Justin hurt me, there was a huge foundation of love, and when he left me I was devastated,” Spears wrote. “When I say devastated, I mean I could barely speak for months. Whenever anyone asked me about him, all I could do was cry. I don’t know if I was clinically in shock, but it felt that way.”

Timberlake was further scrutinized online after the release of Spears’ memoir when a clip of actor Michelle Williams’ audiobook narration of the “Rock Your Body” vocalist went viral.

In one scene, Spears wrote about the former boy-band member trying to impress singer Ginuwine in New York City, and Williams narrated what he said using Timberlake’s alleged “blaccent.” Social media called the snippet “the greatest clip of audio since Watergate.”

“His band *NSYNC was back then what people called ‘so pimp.’ They were white boys but they loved hip-hop. To me, that’s what separated them from the Backstreet Boys, who seemed very consciously to position themselves as a white group,” Spears wrote in her memoir. “*NSYNC hung out with Black artists. Sometimes I thought they tried too hard to fit in.

“One day J and I were in New York, going to parts of town I had never been to before. Walking our way was a guy with a huge, blinged-out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards. J got all excited and said so loud, ‘Oh yeah, fo’ shiz fo’ shiz, Ginuwine, what’s up homie?’ After Ginuwine walked away, [Spears’ longtime assistant] Felicia did an impression of J … J wasn’t even embarrassed. He just took it and looked at her like, ‘OK, f— you Fe.’”

Times staff writers Nardine Saad, Emily St. Martin and Jonah Valdez contributed to this report.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment