CityLink unveils new bus wrap for Juneteenth

PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — In Celebration of Juneteenth, CityLink unveiled a new bus wrap Monday.

The wrap was designed by local artist Brenda Pagan and Is in partnership with the Peoria Guild of Black Artists. The design on bus 2245 celebrates black culture and diversity in Peoria.

The bus highlights many Peoria landmarks, including the Twin Towers, the Scottish Rite Theatre and St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Pagan designed the bus in only two weeks and got her first look Monday morning at the unveiling.

“This is my first day seeing it in person and that’s really rewarding. I hope it brings a sense of joy and peace,” Pagan said.

Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when the last enslaved people in the United States learned they were free.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Corinne Bailey Rae To Release New Album ‘Black Rainbows’ In September 2023

New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae confirms her years-in-the-making Black Rainbows project. Inspired by the objects and artworks collected by Theaster Gates at the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago, the work includes a collection of songs, a book Refraction/Reflection of the Arts Bank photographed by Koto Bolofo, live performances, visuals, lectures and exhibitions—a bold move from her previous work. The album Black Rainbows is due for release September 15 via Thirty Tigers.

The first single, ‘New York Transit Queen’, which The Observer have described as “an exciting post-punk glam thrash… like Santigold dismantling Blur’s Song 2″ is out now.

“I knew when I walked through those doors that my life had changed forever,” says Bailey Rae. “Engaging with these archives and encountering Theaster Gates and his practice has changed how I think about myself as an artist and what the possibilities of my work can be. This music has come through seeing. Seeing has been like hearing, for me. While I was looking, songs/sounds appeared.”

Wide ranging in its themes, Black Rainbows’ subjects are drawn from encounters with objects in the Arts Bank, a curated collection of Black archives comprising books, sculpture, records, furniture and problematic objects from America’s past.

From the rock hewn churches of Ethiopia to the journeys of Black Pioneers westward, from Miss New York Transit 1957 to how the sunset appears from Harriet Jacobs’ loophole, Black Rainbows explores Black femininity, Spell Work, Inner Space/Outer Space, time collapse, ancestors and music as a vessel for transcendence.

In continued homage to African American art, Bailey Rae chose Amanda Williams and Koto Bolofo for the art direction and photography, respectively, of the project. Amanda Williams was recently honored as a 2022 Macarthur Fellow, with her work exhibited at highly acclaimed museums across the country notably New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

In similar excellence, Koto Bolofo was awarded the 2022 Lucie Award for Achievement in Advertising in Photography, with his editorials featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ and many others.

In celebration of the new project, Bailey Rae is performing select shows across the US this autumn, with a number of shows in Spain and three very special performances in London’s Ladbroke Hall at the end of October.

CORINNE BAILEY RAE LIVE:
September 5—Long Island, NY—Staller Center for the Arts @ Stony Brook University
September 6—Washington, DC—Lincoln Theatre
September 8—Philadelphia, PA—Theatre of Living Arts
September 9—New Haven, CT—Schwarzman Center at Yale University
September 10—New York, NY—The National Jazz Museum in Harlem
September 12—Cincinnati, OH—Memorial Hall
September 14—Chicago, IL—Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at University of Chicago
September 17—Nashville, TN—CMA Theater
September 19—Charleston, SC—Charleston Music Hall
September 20—Durham, NC—Carolina Theatre
September 22—Sugar Hill, GA—The Eagle Theater at Sugar Hill
September 24—Birmingham, AL—Alys Stephens Center at University of Alabama
September 26—New Orleans, LA—Orpheum Theater
September 29—Austin, TX—The Paramount Theatre
October 1—Houston, TX—Stafford Centre
October 3—Dallas, TX—Texas Theatre
October 5—Santa Fe, NM—Lensic Performing Arts Center
October 7—Marfa, TX—Saint George Hall

UK / SPAIN TOUR DATES:
October 25—London, UK—Ladbroke Hall
October 26—London, UK—Ladbroke Hall
October 28—London, UK—Ladbroke Hall
October 31—Madrid, Spain—Teatro Pavón
November 1—Barcelona, Spain—Studio P62
November 3—Seville, Spain—Cartuja Centre

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

A Strange Loop, the Pulitzer-Winning Musical About a Gay

Following a hugely successful Broadway run, A Strange Loop has now arrived in London. Here, playwright Michael R Jackson talks about the inspirations behind the show

June 19, 2023

Michael R Jackson knows exactly how to sell A Strange Loop, his award-winning musical that is coming to London following a hugely successful Broadway run.I always describe it as a musical about a young fat Black gay musical theatre writer named Usher who works as an usher on Broadway,” Jordan begins. “And he’s writing a musical about a young fat Black gay musical theatre writer named Usher who works as an usher on Broadway. Who is writing a musical about a young Black gay musical theatre writer named Usher who works as an usher on Broadway …” Deep breath. “Ad infinitum,” Jordan continues with a smile, “as it cycles through his own self-hatred.”

Jackson started writing A Strange Loop nearly 20 years ago when he actually was working as an usher on a Broadway show – namely, Disney’s The Lion King. Because of this, he was convinced that his own show was too audacious, too risqué and, well, too gay for Broadway. After all, A Strange Loop opens with a song that promises “truth-telling and butt-fucking”, and then delivers exactly that. “I’d seen Broadway up close for so long and I was like, ‘There’s no way in hell that this musical is gonna get anywhere near it – period,’” he says. “I had decided the most I could maybe get was a respectable off-Broadway production.”

A Strange Loop has since obliterated his expectations. After premiering off-Broadway in 2019, it won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Then, having acquired an astonishing roll call of producers including Billy Porter, RuPaul and Alan Cumming – all “lovely ambassadors” for the show, Jackson says – it transferred to Broadway in 2022 and became the most-nominated show at the Tony Awards. On the night, it won two top prizes: Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical. 

Despite being embraced by the mainstream theatre world, Jackson says he still feels like an outsider. “Because a lot of strides have been made by queer people over the last 20 years, there’s now less of a counterculture, which is where this [show] sort of sprang from,” he says. “And ultimately, I would characterise myself in many ways as a countercultural artist. And so to be recognised by, like, ‘the establishment’, I feel a little bit of a dissonance a lot of the time. But I just have to live with that dissonance.”

When A Strange Loop became a stage sensation, Jackson found himself having to point out that the show isn’t strictly autobiographical. “I refer to the piece as self-referential, which is to say that I did draw from personal experience to write it,” he says. “But it’s not as simple as apples to apples in the way events from my life are [portrayed] in the show.” The song Inwood Daddy, a coruscating take-down of racialised fetishisation by white gay guys, is rooted in truth but not ripped from his diary. “That was drawn from an experience I had in my twenties, where I hooked up with this older white man who turned the situation into a racialised experience that I wasn’t looking for,” Jackson says. “But that’s as far as it goes: the song is not exactly what happened in my personal situation.”

Jackson is under no illusion about why A Strange Loop has sometimes been misconstrued as his life story. “On a basic level, it’s just easier to do that – you don’t have to think as much,” he says. “But I also think there’s another component to it, [which is] that it’s easier to think that Black artists are just sort of suffering on the page or the stage.” He believes this reductive presumption is really a denial of Black creativity. “It’s saying our natural inclination is just to open up a vein and bleed,” he says. “We’re not really making anything; we’re just existing for your consumption.”

A Strange Loop is “much more complex than that”, Jackson says, partly as a result of its lengthy genesis. It started out as a monologue before he decided that Usher could write mash-ups of his own songs with alt-rock bangers by Liz Phair, one of Jackson’s favourite artists. A Strange Loop is named after Strange Loop?, the final track from her seminal 1993 album Exile in Guyville. But when Phair denied him permission to use her compositions, Jackson regrouped and wrote his own. He came up with the idea to have Usher surrounded by a chorus of six ‘Thoughts’ who “contextualise the story” after he saw an older theatre-goer who wanted a booster cushion call out “Usher! Usher!” The Thoughts assume a variety of roles during the show, morphing from “theatre patrons who are bothering Usher” to the character’s coolly critical parents.

In London, Usher will be played by Kyle Ramar Freeman, who understudied the role on Broadway, with six British actors – Sharlene Hector, Nathan Armarkwei-Laryea, Yeukayi Ushe, Tendai Humphrey Sitima, Danny Bailey and Eddie Elliott – as the Thoughts. “I hope people leave the show thinking about themselves, because that’s ultimately what it’s about: someone thinking about themselves,” Jackson says. “I hope that people see Usher’s story, and Usher’s story about Usher’s story, and that gives them a moment to reflect on their own story.”

A Strange Loop is playing at the Barbican Theatre in London until 9 September 2023. 

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

‘These relationships weren’t made by sending beats, they had to be built. We had to meet and like each other, go through ups and downs.’

MBW’s World’s Greatest Producers series sees us interview – and celebrate – some of the outstanding talents working in studios across the decades. This time out we talk to one of the best and most successful R&B record-makers of the last 20 years, Bryan-Michael Cox. World’s Greatest Producers is supported by Hipgnosis Song Management.


Music Business Worldwide World's Greatest Producers with Hipgnosis Songs Fund

At an age when most kids are dreaming of being an astronaut or a professional athlete, Bryan-Michael Cox declared his intention to become a top producer.

He’d just watched I Love Quincy, a 1984 documentary about the original super-producer’s work on Michael Jackson’s Thriller. But, rather than aspire to Jackson’s game-changing superstardom, Cox decided Q’s behind-the-scenes role was the dream job to aim for.

“I remember being obsessed with that documentary,” Cox smiles today. “The idea of being a producer was born during that process. I didn’t quite understand what a producer was, but I knew that it was important… And once I was like, ‘This is what I want to do’, I aggressively went after it.”

Of course, it’s one thing to aspire to a job, and quite another to actually turn that thought into a successful career. But the title of this MBW series rather gives it away: over the intervening 40-odd years, Cox has become one of the most successful music producers and songwriters the industry has ever seen, leaving his fingerprints all over such blockbuster albums as Usher’s Confessions, Mariah Carey’s The Emancipation Of Mimi, Mary J. Blige’s The Breakthrough and Justin Bieber’s My World 2.0, to name but a handful of the recordings and artists to benefit from his Midas touch.

An R&B specialist, his old-school, hands-on production style has been behind over 100 million record sales, while the man also known as B. Cox has scored a remarkable 10 Grammys and been named SESAC [137 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/sesac/”>SESAC Songwriter of the Year no less than nine times.

Mary J. Blige’s Be Without You – which he also co-wrote – has been named the No.1 R&B Song of All-Time by the Billboard [1,044 articles]” href=”https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/billboard/”>Billboard charts and he even broke The Beatles’ record for having his name on the Hot 100 chart for the most consecutive weeks.

As he looks back over his incredible career, you get the sense that maybe this was always destined to happen. After all, growing up in Houston, Texas, Cox was in High School with Beyoncé (she was a freshman, he was a senior) and many other talented musicians, including jazz star Robert Glasper (Cox’s most recent Grammy was for his production work on Glasper’s Best R&B Album Black Radio III).

And school didn’t just hone his talent-spotting skills, Cox did some early sessions with Destiny’s Child – later returning to produce them once both were established stars – and it was DC’s success that inspired him to believe he could turn his own dream into reality.

In pursuit of that dream, he moved to Atlanta for college and interned at Noontime, co-founded by Cox’s manager Christopher Hicks. Noontime gave him the chance to get in the studio and, mentored by the likes of Jazze Pha, Teddy Bishop and Jeffery ‘J.Dub’ Walker, began to learn his craft.

He met Brian and Brandon Casey from R&B group Jagged Edge and, together with long-term collaborator Jermaine Dupri, he helped turn them into superstars with 1999’s J.E. Heartbreak album. “It’s been kind of a blur since,” he quips.

What is, clear, however, is that Cox remains as hungry as ever. He recently joined Atlanta-based, Matt Pincus’ MUSIC-backed record label/management company LVRN (aka Love Renaissance) as SVP of A&R and executive producer. There, he’ll develop the roster – which already includes the heavy-hitting likes of 6lack and Summer Walker – and serve as exec producer on in-house projects.

He’s enjoying exec life but, as he calls in from a sweltering Atlanta to talk MBW through his life and times and his ambitious plans for the new gig, it’s clear that production remains Bryan-Michael Cox’s first love.

You suspect that Quincy Jones – a man who famously once declared, ‘Excellence isn’t an act, it’s a habit’ – would be proud…


WHEN YOU WERE AT SCHOOL WITH BEYONCÉ, DID YOU THINK SHE’D BE A FUTURE SUPERSTAR?

Absolutely. Everybody knew it. And she wasn’t carrying on like, ‘Oh, I’m a star’. She was extremely humble with it. There were other girls in the school acting like they were going to be stars, all crazy, pretentious and stuck-up, but Beyoncé was a sweetheart.

You knew she was going to be a star; everybody knew. I credit Mathew [Knowles] and Destiny’s Child for really making it real for me. [Working with them] was the power that charged me up to get me moving.


YOU HAD A LOT OF SUCCESS VERY EARLY ON IN YOUR PRODUCTION CAREER – WAS THAT DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH?

Early on it was cool, but when the big, big records and the big, big money started coming, everybody’s perception of you changes. That’s when it got a little difficult. You have growing pains with your friends and about what people think you should be doing for them. I learned some valuable lessons during that period.


WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM WORKING WITH JERMAINE DUPRI?

The biggest lesson I learned is that the song is a conversation. Before I started working with Jermaine, I felt like songs came from an imaginary place. But when we wrote [Usher’s] U Got It Bad, it was hours of us talking before. I was wondering what we were doing, why we hadn’t started making the track or writing yet. Then we finished the conversation and I realized, Oh snap, we were writing the song right there!

As a producer, what I learned from him was, simplicity is the best way to go. Before, I would make great instrumentals, but I couldn’t get a songwriter to write to none of them, because I had so much going on in the track. Jermaine stripped down a lot of things that I’d present to him and they became hits.


USHER’S CONFESSIONS ALBUM IS CERTIFIED DIAMOND IN THE US. WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE PART OF ENORMOUS SUCCESS LIKE THAT?

Well, for us, it was a continuation of [previous album] 8701. That was my first time working with Usher and Jermaine’s second album with him, so when it was time to do Confessions, there was an unsaid confidence that all three of us had going into it. You’re in the studio and it’s on, you’re just making music and if it feels good to you, it feels good to him and it feels good to Usher, you put it out.

Once it’s a classic it’s like, Oh shit, this is a classic – but you only confirm that when the record’s a hit! You can aspire to make the biggest album ever but, in that space, we were just what I call ‘tapped in’.


YOU THEN WORKED WITH MARIAH CAREY ON THE EQUALLY ENORMOUS THE EMANCIPATION OF MIMI

Yeah, it’s been an amazing journey. Emancipation was a culmination of a few albums that we worked on with her, that energy. We worked on a couple of albums previously – Rainbow, Charmbracelet. So, by the time we got to Emancipation, we were comfortable. We’re having a good time, Mariah’s flying down, she’s bringing the wine and the vibes, she has ideas.

Writing with Mariah Carey is like pure joy, it’s fun. Mariah is just full of life and personality in the studio, she’s always got great ideas and I remember Emancipation being really fun. We always have fun with Mariah, but in that particular era, we were having a good time! It’s not always like that, but there are certain artists I can name where, if we go in the studio, we’re going to click. Me and Jagged Edge or Monica, us and Mariah… It’s going to happen fast, we’re going to find the groove at some point because we know each other so well.


NOT MANY PRODUCERS GET TIME TO BUILD THAT SORT OF RAPPORT THESE DAYS…

Yeah, these relationships weren’t made by sending beats, they had to be built. We had to meet and like each other, go through ups and downs. There are some relationships I’ve had with artists previously that haven’t stuck, even when we had big records. Some things stick, some things don’t, that’s the beauty of the music business I came up in versus now, where it’s just sending packs. The artist and producer, or writer and producer rarely even connect and you can hear it in the music.


WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE MODERN TREND TO HAVE MULTIPLE CO-WRITERS AND CO-PRODUCERS ON EACH TRACK?

There have always been people in the room. It’s just about everybody knowing their role. The way that the creators make their records now, that’s how they were taught, that’s the space they live in. Some of these records have 10 writers on them. But they’re big smashes, so I don’t knock it.


YOU’VE ALWAYS SEEMED TO RELY LESS ON TECHNOLOGY THAN SOME PRODUCERS – WHY IS THAT?

Tech is our friend, but tech is a tool. That’s the way I view it, I don’t view it as ‘the thing’.

“No disrespect to how people make records now, but I’m a musician; I play for real.”

No disrespect to how people make records now, but I’m a musician; I play for real. I can hear what I want to play, so I’d rather do it versus finding loops and dragging and dropping. I do that sometimes too, but I always build around the loop, I don’t just let the loop be the record. I enjoy the process, that’s the best part of my day.


ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT AI’S POTENTIAL IMPACT ON PRODUCTION?

We’re going to have to get some regulations on it. Now you have to worry about somebody taking your voice. I’m into tech and that type of stuff – there’s always a dangerous side to innovation, but I’m not really looking at it as a threat. I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate it into what we’re doing, from a music perspective and a label perspective. Because it’s here and, once it’s here, we’re never going to be the same again, it’s not going back. So how do we utilize it and incorporate it into what we do, how can we benefit from it? Those are the questions that I have about it. There are definitely some opportunities there, we’ve just got to tap in.


IS IT A VERY DIFFERENT PROCESS WHEN YOU WORK WITH A SUPERSTAR AS OPPOSED TO A NEW ARTIST?

It’s no different. Established artists who are masters at their craft open themselves up to being directed. Working with Usher is crazy, because he sings ridiculously [well] and he’ll still take direction. He’ll ask you, ‘Is that cool?’ Of course it’s cool, you’re singing your ass off! So, it’s the same, because they want to continue to be masters and the young ones want to master their craft.


Justin-Bieber

CAN YOU TELL WHICH NEW ARTISTS WILL BECOME SUPERSTARS?

It’s work ethic. With Chris Brown, we went to the studio, but it was the questions he asked, the intuitiveness and interest in what we were doing that made me say, ‘Oh, this kid wants to know everything’.

Same thing with Justin Bieber – he was around me when he was a kid and he was super-talented, he could play the piano, play the guitar. When I started producing him, he’d pull a chair up right next to me while I was creating a track and he would ask me every question: ‘Why did you do that? What made you do that? Is that how you do that? What chord progression is that? Can you teach it to me?’ That’s what made me be like, ‘Oh, this little guy really gets it’.

Those are the things that make me say, ‘OK, it’s more than just ‘I want to be famous, this is really a passion for them’.


CAN YOU STILL UNEARTH AND BREAK NEW SUPERSTARS AT LVRN?

Yes. I’m part of a generation where that’s all I knew: bringing that wisdom and knowledge into this new generation and helping them with that perspective, and them helping me understand strategy, marketing rollout and the landscape of what young artists are doing now to make hit records – it’s the perfect marriage.

We’re developing artists like Äyanna, a Jamaican girl from London who’s an amazing pop/R&B artist. We believe in the concept of artist development and that is the number one thing that I was attracted to coming into this situation, being able to help create new stars.


IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT TODAY’S MUSIC INDUSTRY, RIGHT HERE AND NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

it would be the blatant separation of genres. And what I mean by that is, the business aspect of it. Even though we’re doing well, Black artists are getting rich and Black creatives are doing their thing, there’s still a crazy difference in how our artists get treated as they grow older and grow up, versus some of the pop artists – in terms of the grace that [white] artists have and Black artists don’t have.

“A lot of the top executives who are running the business and running the world, I feel like they feel we are disposable and replaceable. And we’re not, we are the culture – we are the reason why y’all got hundreds of millions of dollars.”

It’s better now, because the world is different, it’s changing every day. But I just don’t like how record companies handle Black artists. A lot of the top executives who are running the business and running the world, I feel like they feel we are disposable and replaceable. And we’re not, we are the culture – we are the reason why y’all got hundreds of millions of dollars.

If a white artist and Usher both give you the same exact same R&B-sounding record, but you service this guy’s record to pop radio and you only service Usher to Urban AC, he’s already disadvantaged – and Usher has sold more records than this guy 10 times over. Quit with the bullshit. Let’s treat everybody with the same respect.

 Music Business Worldwide

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Bostonians celebrate Juneteenth with joyful parade, other events

Boston celebrated Juneteenth with flag raisings, parades and numerous other events throughout the city on Monday.

The holiday marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed, two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

The day started in Boston with an event at the JFK Library in Dorchester at 10:30 a.m., followed by a flag-raising ceremony at the historic Dillaway-Thomas House at noon, and then after that, the main event — the second annual Juneteenth Parade. The mile-and-a-half route began at Roxbury Heritage Park and continued past the Roxbury Library at Nubian, down to Nubian Square, then onto Walnut Avenue before ending at the National Center for Afro-American Artists.

Event organizers invited everyone to show up to the parade to honor the legacies of martyrs, heroes and ancestors by lifting up photos and names along the parade route.

At the historic Dillaway-Thomas house, the city raised a Juneteenth flag, designed by Ben Haith.

“It feels like a reward. It’s like I was here for many years, through difficult time and to see everybody here like this, I have a lot to take back with me,” said Haith.

Events are planned around Greater Boston on Monday to celebrate the Juneteenth holiday.

For Sheila Gunn, this red, white and blue flag represents freedom.

“It’s about us and it’s for us. We weren’t really a part of the July 4th Independence day celebration. at that time, we were not free to celebrate,” said Gunn. “This celebration, Juneteenth, is about freedom so I’m here to celebrate.”

Roxbury celebrated with a parade beginning at the Dillaway-Thomas house and passing through Nubian Square, by the Malcom X house to the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.

The event’s first Miss Juneteenth, 19-year-old Choice McCarty, took part in the parade.

“To celebrate my Blackness and my heritage it’s a beautiful honor,” said McCarty, who wore an African-style dress and a tiara on her natural hair.

The parade was joyful with performance from a local youth dance group and a live band.

Reflecting on the nation’s history, Gunn said she is hopeful.

“My hope is really about the younger generation. I see them as the answer to changing the situation that we’re in today, said Gunn. “I see this younger generation as being the catalyst for making the change for the better.”

The historic date has been celebrated for years, but it was only two years ago that the federal government officially recognized Juneteenth as a holiday.

“We need to make sure we get this history in the schools, we need to know the truth, we need to teach our children and the next generation the truth so that they know how to proceed and move forward from here,” said Angie Dickerson, who participated in the parade.

The theme of this year’s Juneteenth celebration is “Honoring our Martyrs and Heroes.” The event displayed posters of Black Historical figures such as Crispus Attucks and Rosa Parks. The Juneteenth Committee also recognized two young people for their civic engagement in the community.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey led a separate flag-raising ceremony at the State House at 10:45 a.m.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge explores founder’s slavery links

An exhibition by the Fitzwilliam Museum will explore Cambridge’s connections to enslavement and exploitation for the first time, both in the university and the city.

Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance features works made in west Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Europe, and interrogates the ways Atlantic enslavement and the Black Atlantic shaped the University of Cambridge’s collections.

Historic pieces will be exhibited in dialogue with works by modern and contemporary black artists including Donald Locke, Barbara Walker, Keith Piper, Alberta Whittle and Jacqueline Bishop.

Between 1400 and 1900, people resisting colonial slavery in the Americas produced new cultures known as the Black Atlantic, the museum said.

By asking questions about how Atlantic enslavement and the Black Atlantic shaped the university’s collections, the museum said it has made new discoveries about Cambridge’s own connection to colonialism.

The exhibition begins by looking at the early history of the Fitzwilliam Museum and its founder, Viscount Richard Fitzwilliam (1745-1816). A student at Cambridge, Fitzwilliam left a large sum of money and an extensive art collection to the university upon his death, founding the museum that bears his name.

It is revealed how a significant part of Fitzwilliam’s wealth and art collection was inherited from his grandfather Matthew Decker, a prominent Dutch-born British merchant and financier who in 1700 helped to establish the South Sea Company, which obtained exclusive rights to traffic African people to the Spanish colonial Americas.

The show’s first section, Glimpses of the World Before Transatlantic Enslavement, will highlight the independent histories of west Africa, the Caribbean and Europe, with highlights including rare pre-1500 tools and ceremonial stone objects from the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and Jan Jansz Mostaert’s Portrait of an African Man, which is believed to be the earliest individual portrait of a black person in European art.

Section two, Cambridge Wealth from Atlantic Enslavement, reveals how the profits of enslavement filtered into everyday life in Britain, and how European colonies passed laws that created racial categories to justify enslavement and promote anti-black racism.

Examples of historical race-based pseudoscience, some developed by academics at Cambridge, will be displayed alongside reflective pieces by contemporary artists, curators, activists and academics.

Fashion, Consumption, Racism and Resistance looks at how products harvested by enslaved people – from mahogany, ivory and turtle shell to coffee, sugar cane and tobacco – became fashionable materials for European luxury goods and central to everyday consumption in Britain.

And the final chapter, Plantations: Production and Resistance, highlights the contribution of Indigenous, enslaved and free black people to major scientific discoveries and botanical knowledge, which were brought back to Britain. Among the works included is John Tyley’s drawing of a young man sitting under a breadfruit tree – a rare example of a historic and named black artist depicting a black subject.

The exhibition, which opens in September, is the first in a series of planned shows and interventions at the Fitzwilliam Museum between 2023 and 2026.

Luke Syson, the museum’s director, said the exhibition was “an important moment in the history of the Fitzwilliam”.

He added: “Reflecting on the origins of our museum, the exhibition situates us within an enormous transatlantic story of exploitation and enslavement, one whose legacy is in many ways as pervasive and insidious today as it was in the seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth century.”

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Juneteenth at SoFi Stadium: The Kinsey Collection

The Kinsey African American Art and History Collection at SoFi Stadium is an important location to learn about Juneteenth. Described as ”our country’s second Independence Day”, by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, it has long been celebrated in the African American community, although this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans.

The Encyclopedia Britannica explains, in 1863, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared more than three million slaves living in the Confederate states to be free. More than two years would pass, however, before the news reached African Americans living in Texas. It was not until Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, that the state’s residents finally learned that slavery had been abolished. The former slaves immediately began to celebrate with prayer, feasting, song, and dance.

The Kinsey Collection illustrates that history and more with newly added pieces of fine art and historical artifacts that celebrate the untold stories of African American brilliance. The Kinsey African American Art and History Collection is the inspired work of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, and their son Khalil, and is considered one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind. Curated by Khalil Kinsey and historian Larry Earl, the exhibition focuses on the lives, and accomplishments from the 16th century through the years of slavery and emancipation to the civil rights movement and modern-day.

Experience more than 100,000 square feet of masterful works of art, sculptures, photographs, rare books, and letters on display for a limited time. Please note that photography is strictly prohibited.

For ticket information visit, SofiStadium.com/Kinsey

If you have questions, please feel free to contact Gayle Anderson at 323 460 5732, email Gayle at Gayle.Anderson@KTLA.com, Facebook: Gayle Anderson, Instagram: KTLAChannel5Gayle or Twitter: KTLA5Gayle.

Gayle Anderson reports for the KTLA 5 News on June 19, 2023.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Protesters bus across Florida with a message: “Stay woke”

TALLAHASSEE — A single word has propelled much of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policies and presidential campaign: “Woke.”

“Florida is where woke goes to die,” the governor has touted repeatedly.

The word’s been used in recent years by conservatives to refer to values and initiatives they deem progressive. It’s been a staple for DeSantis, even appearing in legislation he signed last year: the “Stop WOKE Act,” which restricts how race is discussed in schools, colleges and workplaces.

Rev. Dr. R.B. Holmes Jr., pastor of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, at a press conference for the "Stay Woke Rolling Votercade" in Tallahassee on Monday, June 19, 2023.

But advocates gathered in Tallahassee on Monday, Juneteenth, to bash the governor’s use of the term and fight the policies that have sprung from it.

“Don’t you know we serve a woke Lord?” said Rev. Dr. R.B. Holmes Jr., pastor of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, at a press conference. “The opposite of ‘woke’ is sleep. And, once you start sleeping, you will give in to these policies.”

Holmes, who has vocally criticized the governor for multiple years, hosted the press conference in his church, after stormy weather kept it from proceeding as planned outside the Florida Capitol. Many of those gathered left as soon as the press conference wrapped up, headed to their next stop.

"Stay Woke Rolling Votercade" stops in Tallahassee on Monday, June 19, 2023.

Tallahassee marked just the second of 15 cities that will be visited this week by a mobile protest dubbed the “Stay Woke Rolling Votercade.” Organized by the Washington, D.C-based Transformative Justice Coalition alongside multiple partnering advocacy organizations, including the Florida NAACP, the activists kicked off in Jacksonville on Monday morning and are going as far as Miami.

They’re doing more than press conferences, evidenced by the sign behind the podium in Tallahassee, reading, “FREE TO INCLUSIVE HOMES… BANNED BOOKS.” Banned book giveaways are following the protesters, who’re traveling in a bus bearing a huge picture of the late politician and civil rights activist John Lewis beside the words, “Make Good Trouble VOTE.” They’ve also planned marches, voter registration drives and other events meant to combat DeSantis’ policies.

Jeremy Redfern, the governor’s press secretary, mocked the activists on Twitter, asking why the picture of Lewis was at the back of the bus.

Redfern criticized a media request sent by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida and encouraged the reporter to get the advocacy groups to provide evidence on the record that DeSantis signed laws that targeted people of color and the LGBTQ community.

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Barbara Arnwine, president and founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition, said the protesters were Floridians and “people from out of the state who are upset about how [DeSantis] has exported this nonsense to their states.”

“People are literally standing up in state legislatures saying they’re adopting legislation that is anti-Black, anti-freedom, because of DeSantis,” Arnwine said. “They say, ‘We’re following Florida’s example.’ They’re saying it openly. We’ve got to stop it.”

Barbara Arnwine, president and founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition, in Tallahassee on Monday, June 19, 2023, for the "Stay Woke Rolling Votercade."

The “Stop WOKE Act” is partially blocked by the courts pending an appeals court decision, but many other DeSantis policies remain in place.

There’s the law that has led school districts across Florida to pull or purge books from their libraries. There’s the rejection of the new Advanced Placement course on African American Studies. There’s the Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics. That law was expanded by a bill from the 2023 legislative session, which saw a cascade of controversial legislation, from abortion and illegal immigration restrictions to legislation targeting drags shows, the LGBTQ community and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“It’s an attack on all of us, because the First Amendment applies to every single human being,” Arnwine said. “If you allow for them to come for me in the morning, they’ll come for you in the afternoon.”

DeSantis and woke

DeSantis’ focus on “woke” has pervaded his policies and persisted into his campaign for the White House. And, by all indications, it would be a pillar of his possible presidency (though he is currently being walloped by former President Donald Trump in the Republican primary polls).

“We can’t let our country descend into some type of dumpster fire of woke ideology — and that’s not going to happen on my watch,” DeSantis recently said on the campaign trail.

But Black Americans have used the term “woke” since at least the early-to-mid 20th century to mean being alert to racial and social injustice. And Black artists and entertainers have continued to insert the phrase in their music for political causes.

"Stay Woke Rolling Votercade" stops in Tallahassee on Monday, June 19, 2023.

“We’ve been woke for decades, almost a century of promoting wokeness,” Arnwine said. “And so this new attempt to try subvert our history, to subvert our racial justice fight, we’re never going to give into it.”

And so the “Stay woke” activists moved onto their third stop of 15, leaving Tallahassee for Gainesville, where they held a Juneteenth reception and concert.

Contributed: USA TODAY‘s Mabinty Quarshie. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule is based in Tallahassee, Fla. He can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com. Twitter: @DouglasSoule.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Washburn alumna steps into role of cultivating culture

TOPEKA — The reverberation of feet powerfully striking the floor echoes off the walls as Tonyce Jackson watches dancers stomp a beat filled with a century of culture, moving in unison to a music of their own making.

The dance was part of the Top City Step Team’s Wednesday practice. Jackson began coaching the team in the fall of 2022 for Topeka High School and is trying to rebuild the team, now independent from the school, as it moves into the community.

“She is a really good coach and I don’t think we would be able to move on from past things without Tonyce,” said Dasaya Matlock, senior dancer. “Because if it wasn’t for her, I don’t think a lot of people (would have) stuck through with it, or been able to be where we are now as a community.”

YWCA Northeast Kansas is bringing attention to representation in music and people like Jackson who preserve culture through music during the third week of its Racial Justice Challenge, a monthlong series of online resources focusing on different topics affecting minority groups. The first two weeks of the challenge focused on housing and people with disabilities. The last week of the challenge will examine mental health. Kansas Reflector is a community partner in the challenge.

Stepping, a dance rooted in Black culture that incorporates the entire body to create rhythm and percussion, is uplifting for dancers and builds leadership and confidence, Jackson said. The members of the team, all high school aged, experience camaraderie as a group and have the freedom to make up their own moves and teach each other what they’ve created.

Jackson joined the THS step team her sophomore year, graduating as a member. She said after graduating, the members would still stay in touch and miss each other, and she wants future children to have the same opportunity.

“If not at Topeka High, we need to keep it,” Jackson said. “We just need to keep that alive, because it’s not where we are, it’s what the step team brings that I think is important.”

The team sometimes uses music to empower their dance.

“You don’t need music every time, but it is used, and when it’s used, it’s used for a reason, and that’s important,” she said. “And so because of the rich history that comes from African American music and where step comes from, it’s all intertwined. You can’t pull it apart, or you’ll be like rewriting history.”

Tonyce Jackson, coach of the Top City Step Team, laughs with a member of the team during their practice Wednesday at the YWCA. (Sam Bailey/Kansas Reflector)

Jackson also works as a dispatcher at the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office. A lifelong Topeka resident, she graduated from Washburn University in 2022 with a bachelor’s in integrated studies, focused on criminal justice and psychology. She recently registered for the LSAT, hoping to earn her law degree, probably also through Washburn.

Jackson said she always wanted to do activism and advocacy work in order to fight for civil rights with all marginalized groups, especially Black people.

“The youngest I remember doing any type of advocating and activism was in middle school with Trayvon Martin, and I was wandering around the middle schools with my hoodie and my Arizona tea and skittles,” she said.

During the YWCA discussion panel that kicked-off the Racial Justice Challenge, Jackson said language is incredibly important and read through lyrics of popular songs and broke down the importance of the words used.

Throughout history, white artists have performed music created by Black artists. Jackson said Black music has brought a lot of culture into America and it is important for people to have good conversations about cultural appreciation versus appropriation.

Michael Bell, president of the Tennessee Town Neighborhood Improvement Association, said during the discussion panel that he has a personal love of music and listed artists who use music for political activism. He also spoke about the 1995 Angela Bassett and Whitney Houston movie “Waiting to Exhale.”

“That title, ‘Waiting to Exhale,’ I think says a lot about the Black experience musically in this nation — the Black experience generally and musically,” Bell said. “You inhale, but then you’re in trouble if you don’t exhale. Music has been our exhale. It is amazing to me, the heights that we’ve reached musically, given the lows that greet us every morning when we wake up in this nation. It is just the most inspiring thing I think that there is.”

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Central Florida theatre company celebrates Juneteenth with performances, art exhibit

Central Florida theatre company celebrates Juneteenth with performances, art exhibit

MEANWHILE, JUNETEENTH HONORS THE DAY ENSLAVED PEOPLE IN GALVESTON, TEXAS, FINALLY FOUND OUT THAT THEY WERE FREE TWO YEARS AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. AND ALL THIS WEEKEND, WE’VE SEEN CENTRAL FLORIDA SHOWING OUT FOR JUNETEENTH. SHE WAS HAILED CRUMBLE HOME. SHOWS US HOW PEOPLE MARKED THE FREEDOM DAY. TODAY, FIVE MORE, MORE AT THOUSANDS OF FREEDOM. A CELEBRATION OF JUNETEENTH, BLACK THEATER GIRL MAGIC. IT WAS A WAY FOR THE ARTS COMMUNITY TO CELEBRATE HONOR THE DAY. IT’S KIND OF OUR LOVE TO THE BLACK ARTS COMMUNITY HERE WE HAVE PERFORMANCES MUSICAL PERFORMANCES, SPOKEN WORD DANCE, AFRICAN DRUMS. ON TOP OF THE PERFORMANCES, THERE’S ALSO THIS ART EXHIBIT, AND THERE’S SPACE FOR VENDORS. THIS IS REALLY ABOUT CONNECTING THE COMMUNITY WITH BLACK ARTS. ON JUNETEENTH AS A WAY TO NOT JUST CELEBRATE, BUT STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH AND REMEMBER THOSE. THIS HOLIDAY HONORS. AND EARLIER IN THE DAY, I ETOUFFEE PEOPLE CAME IN ORLANDO’S BARNETT PARK. THERE WAS KICKBALL, FOOD AND A PLACE TO GATHER ALL PUT TOGETHER THE CITY OF LIFE MINISTRIES CHURCH IN PINE HILLS. AND NOW WE ACTUALLY HAVE A DAY FOR US TO BE ABLE TO SAY WE ARE APPRECIATED, WE ARE LOVED, AND BE ABLE TO BRING ALL FAMILIES FROM, DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES, NOT JUST BLACK, BUT FROM EVERY TO COME TOGETHER AND SAY, HEY, WE LOVE EACH OTHER, WE CARE FOR EACH OTHER. LET’S DO IT. IN ORLANDO, HALEY CRUMBLE HOME WESH 2 NEWS AND BLACK THEATER GIRL MAGIC HOSTS THEIR JUNETEENTH CELEBRATIONS EVERY IF YOU WANT TO GO NEXT YEAR.

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Central Florida theatre company celebrates Juneteenth with performances, art exhibit

At Facets of Freedom: A Celebration of Juneteenth from Black Theatre Girl Magic, it was a way for the arts community to celebrate and honor the day. “This is kind of our love letter to the Black arts community here,” said Mandi Jo John, the executive director of Black Theatre Girl Magic. “We have performances, musical performances, spoken word, dance, African drums.” On top of the performances, there was also an art exhibit and a vendor space. “This is really about connecting the community with Black arts on Juneteenth as a way to not just celebrate, but stand in solidarity with and remember those who this holiday honors,” John said. This year’s performance was held at the Renaissance Theatre. Black Theatre Girl Magic holds the Juneteenth event every year.You can find more information on their organization here.Top headlines: NHC says Tropical Storm Bret has formed in Atlantic Terrifying bodycam video shows Florida deputy, motorist sucked into drainage pipe Police searching for ‘armed and dangerous’ Florida man accused of murder

At Facets of Freedom: A Celebration of Juneteenth from Black Theatre Girl Magic, it was a way for the arts community to celebrate and honor the day.

“This is kind of our love letter to the Black arts community here,” said Mandi Jo John, the executive director of Black Theatre Girl Magic. “We have performances, musical performances, spoken word, dance, African drums.”

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On top of the performances, there was also an art exhibit and a vendor space.

“This is really about connecting the community with Black arts on Juneteenth as a way to not just celebrate, but stand in solidarity with and remember those who this holiday honors,” John said.

This year’s performance was held at the Renaissance Theatre. Black Theatre Girl Magic holds the Juneteenth event every year.

You can find more information on their organization here.

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RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment