Tag: Celebrity Gossip

Residents are invited to a Juneteenth celebration at the Somerset County Courthouse next week, where a late local hero who played a role in the Civil Rights Movement will be honored.

The county is hosting the celebration on June 19 in honor of the day that the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas learned that they had been freed under the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. The celebration will include a featured panel with local African American families, exhibits by local Black-owned businesses, soul food and more.

Commissioner Director Shanel Y. Robinson will host the panel discussion with African American families.

“As the first African American to lead the Somerset County Board of County Commissioners, I am thrilled to emcee our third annual Juneteenth celebration,” Robinson said in a statement. “By celebrating Juneteenth, we acknowledge our past while keeping an eye towards our shared future.”

In addition to the panel, the dance group Soul Steps will perform the dance form of “stepping”, which blends percussive movement, audience engagement and hip hop. African American art will also be on display by the artist Raven George, and there will be a children’s dance performance by Zawadi African Dance & Drum.

The commissioners will also be honoring the late Tillie Mae Bryant, who worked in the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office for 25 years. Bryant marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and was arrested for her efforts in the Civil Rights Movement. She also worked with Congressman John Lewis and took part in lunch counter sit-ins. She will be posthumously awarded with the Juneteenth Leadership Award.

Email: sdimaggio@gannettnj.com

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

The youngest artist to have a piece of work acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Benjamin Wigfall is finally getting his close up, 72 years later.

The VMFA will present, starting June 17, the first comprehensive exhibition of works by the “beloved” Richmond-born painter and printmaker, alongside a career-spanning retrospective of Whitfield Lovell, another abstract African-American artist with lasting ties to the city. The neighboring exhibits will share one ticket price, but the styles of the art couldn’t be more dissimilar. The common thread between these artists isn’t process or approach but a strong, palpable sense of time and place.

“They are of different generations and didn’t know each other. But there’s a shared sense of community in their work,” says Sarah Eckhardt, VMFA’s associate curator of modern and contemporary art. She co-curated “Benjamin Wigfall and Communications Village” with Dr. Drew Thompson, associate professor of visual studies and Black culture at Bard graduate center.

The Wigfall exhibit will showcase more than 40 pieces of art – paintings, carvings, montages, assemblages, sound recordings – from the earliest student days of the artist, who passed away in 2017, to later printmaking work, as well as sketchbooks and working materials donated by his family. The exhibition charts his career in Virginia in the 1950s to his founding of a neighborhood printmaking studio, Communications Village, in Kingston, New York.

Born and raised in Church Hill, Wigfall was, by all accounts, a tenacious persuader. The Armstrong High student showed talent in drawing early on, but Armstrong didn’t have an art teacher. “He campaigned to get one and they hired that teacher, Stafford Evans, whose name he would bring up the rest of his life,” says Eckhardt. “The second half of senior year Evans brought him to the Virginia Museum for art classes which were segregated at the time. He was really too old. The classes went up to twelve years old and he was seventeen.”

It was at the VMFA that the budding artist, initially interested in portraiture, first saw a work of abstract art. “To get to the portraits, I had to pass by this thing on the wall, which was by [Lyonel] Feininger,” he told the VMFA’s Tosha Grantham in a 2003 interview. “It was just a bunch of prisms and lines and so forth. And then one day, catching the bus, the bus turned and there was a reflection in its windows of the windows of the buildings and so forth … suddenly it was flickering and I understood the Feininger painting.”

He called this a discovery. “It changed his life,” Eckhardt says. “This happened in 1948, the first time that the VMFA started showing modern art. After this, abstraction would become his visual language for the rest of his life.”

Three years after the revelation, his oil painting, “Chimneys,” won a VMFA juried prize and was purchased by the museum for its collection. The work was inspired by the smokestacks Wigfall observed at sunset as he walked from school along the old Marshall Street viaduct– often alongside best friend, future governor L. Douglas Wilder. At 20, he became the youngest artist to be so honored, and – as far as the museum knows – still holds that distinction.

Eckhardt says that Wigfall was “beloved” at VMFA, and was awarded two VMFA fellowships, as well as an anonymous one. “Because he had two in a row and the museum had never given a third, it was anonymous. I think they really wanted to support him.”

For his fellowships, he attended Hampton University, then Hampton Institute, and ended up teaching there after a stint studying at the Yale School of Design. In 1963, he took a position at the State University of New York at New Paltz, eventually becoming a professor of printmaking. “He really falls off the radar at that point,” Eckhardt says. “There’s a shift around 1970 when printmaking becomes his primary medium.”

As the exhibit shows, the artist put his energy into building Communications Village, a creative arts facility that trained and employed local youth, most of them African American, as printer’s assistants. Wigfall renovated an abandoned mule barn in Kingston’s working-class Ponckhockie district to house the space, originally slated to be his studio. “To Wigfall, an artist’s main purpose was to bring art to broader communities,” writes Laurie Fendrich, emerita of fine arts at Hofstra University. “He regarded himself primarily as a teacher and mentor, especially for Black artists, and declined to prioritize his own studio work.”

“It was one of the most rewarding times in my life,” the man himself recalled. “We became a kind of community think-tank and somehow [it came out] that I was a community organizer. I didn’t come there to be a community organizer, I was just doing stuff that flowed naturally from being at that place.”

The works of Whitfield Lovell

In the neighboring gallery, “Whitfield Lovell: Passages” presents a series of sensory experiences rooted in enhanced historical portraiture and remembrance. The works, according to the VMFA, “convey the notion of a journey, or ‘passage,’ between fates of bondage, freedom, and socioeconomic independence.”

“I wouldn’t say that there is much that connects Wigfall and Lovell, but in terms of community, Lovell is very specific about the places he references,” says Alexis Assam, the museum’s Regenia A. Perry assistant curator of global contemporary art. Organized by the American Federation of Arts, “Passages” is the most comprehensive exhibit to date of Lovell’s work.

Among its offerings, the retrospective features “Visitation: The Richmond Project,” which tells the story of the city’s Jackson Ward neighborhood. It was created when Lovell, 63, won a residency from the Hand Workshop, now the Visual Arts Center of Virginia. “It’s the first time that the piece has come back to Richmond since it was shown in 2001,” Assam says.

Lovell, who won a McArthur Genius grant in 2007, has become internationally famous for his elaborate installations, which prominently feature detailed Conte crayon drawings rendered from vintage photographs of anonymous African Americans.

Photography has been important to his art and to his life. “My earliest memories of looking at images was looking at photographs,” the artist recalled in 2017. “My father took so many that we had shoeboxes full of photos. I helped my father in his darkroom from the time I was five. I watched the images come to life in the solution … I see my past, my childhood, in black and white.”

Born in the Bronx area of New York, Lovell has been focused on telling Black stories that have been lost or untold. To help illustrate those stories, he reproduces the images found on photos discovered in thrift stores and archives, and places the art amidst found objects and recreated atmospheres; the result is a meticulously recreated tableaux that involves all of the senses.

“Visitation” is an installation in five parts that concentrates on the people in Jackson Ward who started the first major entrepreneurial African American community. It includes meditations on the Civil War and the neighborhood healer, culminating in the recreation of a ’50s-era Jackson Ward parlor room. “While you hear the names and addresses of the Jackson Ward residents who were in the NAACP charter at the time, you are smelling the room and seeing Richmond newspapers from the time period, along with cups and cigarette butts,” says Assam. To research the piece, Lovell searched the archives of the Valentine and Black History Museum and was assisted by VCU students, who helped him to amass period bric-a-brac.

The exhibit will also feature another large-scale work, “Deep River,” which recreates a campsite just across the river in Chattanooga, Tennessee called Camp Contraband, where slaves on the run would hide. Lovell builds a living landscape to surround his drawings of African-American faces, using the sounds of lapping waves, textured light and the smell of the ground. “In the center of the exhibit is a mound of dirt,” Assam says, “that’s where you’ll find things you’d find in an abandoned camp, like a bible or cooking utensils.”

It’s history you can feel, she adds. “He wants to show that the struggle for freedom is something ongoing that we all go through.”

In anticipation of the exhibit’s June 17 opening, Whitfield Lovell will give an artist lecture at VMFA on June 14 and Sarah Eckhardt will host a curator’s talk on June 15.

“Benjamin Wigfall and Communications Village” and “Whitfield Lovell: Passages” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts June 17-Sept. 10, 2023. $8-$12. Whitfield Lovell will give an artist talk on “Passages” at the museum on Wednesday, June 14. $6:30 p.m. $8. Sarah Eckhardt will give a curator’s talk on “Benjamin Wigfall” on Thursday, June 15. $8. 6:30 p.m. For more information, go to vmfa.museum

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

New York, NY (Top40 Charts) CMA Fest, the largest and longest-running Country Music festival in the world, marked its milestone 50th anniversary in Nashville this past weekend, Thursday, June 8 through Sunday, June 11. With four straight days celebrating record-breaking milestones, the golden anniversary of the legendary festival delivered everything Country Music fans could want and more!

“What a weekend! As we’ve spent the past year reflecting on this milestone celebration, one theme has persisted—the incredible connection between Country Music fans and the artists,” says Sarah Trahern, CMA Chief Executive Officer.

“It’s magical because it still matters after all these years. From first timers to legends, so many artists started as fans—some as far back as Fan Fair. Almost every artist who performs during the festival has had their own experience as a fan, so for many of them, taking the stage at CMA Fest is a full circle moment. We only get the chance to celebrate our 50th anniversary once, and to do so in such an impactful way has meant the world to us. Thank you, Country Music!”

From sunup to sundown, there was no denying the energy of more than 90,000 estimated daily attendees, a 12% growth over 2022. The stadium alone saw a 10% increase in attendance year over year. Fans from all 50 states and a record-breaking 51 countries filled Music City in anticipation of seeing more than 300 acts taking part in CMA Fest.

Officially kicking off on Thursday morning with the Grammy award-winning Tennessee State University Aristocrat of Bands, followed by reigning CMA New Artist of the Year Lainey Wilson taking the Chevy Riverfront Stage, CMA Fest brought an eclectic mix of music to downtown Nashville throughout the entire weekend.

In addition to the Chevy Riverfront Stage, free outdoor daytime activity included performances at the Dr Pepper Amp Stage, Chevy Vibes Stage, Maui Jim Reverb Stage and, making its return this year, the Hard Rock Stage. Fans also experienced one-of-a-kind programming at Fan Fair X inside Music City Center, along with several brand activations and partners that took over Lower Broadway.

Fans packed the house at Nissan Stadium each night and, in true CMA Fest tradition, there was no shortage of surprise collaborations. Luke Combs welcomed Vince Gill for a powerful performance of “One More Last Chance,” while Carly Pearce brought Jo Dee Messina to the stage for an exciting rendition of “I’m Alright.”

Elle King and Tanya Tucker joined Lainey Wilson for an electric performance of “Texas (When I Die).” The roar of the crowd was deafening as Cody Johnson surprised fans, welcoming Reba McEntire to the stage during “Whoever’s In New England.”

The collaborations continued during Miranda Lambert’s set as she performed “If You Were Mine,” alongside Leon Bridges, lit up the stage with Elle King for “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home),” and brought out Avril Lavigne for an energizing medley of Lambert’s “Kerosene” and Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi.” HARDY welcomed Wilson for a stirring performance of “wait in the truck,” while Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson joined the singer for an energizing performance of “One Beer.”

Additional Nissan Stadium highlights throughout the weekend included Jordan Davis who brought fans to their feet during “What My World Spins Around” and “Buy Dirt.” Darius Rucker surprised the audience with two acoustic performances of “Fires Don’t Start Themselves” and “Wagon Wheel.” Fans danced to Tyler Hubbard’s “5 Foot 9” and “Dancing in the Country” as well as Dan + Shay’s “Tequila.”

The audience erupted as Jelly Roll surprised fans with performances of “Need A Favor” and “Son of a Sinner.” Keith Urban brought the house down with “Long Hot Summer” and “Somebody Like You.” Jason Aldean performed fan-favorites “Dirt Road Anthem” and “She’s Country,” capping his set with “Hicktown.”

Little Big Town had fans swaying in their seats to “Boondocks” and “Pontoon,” while Old Dominion brought the house down with electrifying performances of “Memory Lane” and “Snapback.” Jon Pardi also hit the stage, performing “Last Night Lonely” and “Your Heart or Mine.” Closing the night on Saturday, Eric Church performed “Bad Mother Trucker” and “Drink In My Hand.”

On Sunday, Alabama surprised audiences with “Mountain Music” and a medley of “Dixieland Delight” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” in addition to being presented the CMA Pinnacle Award by “CMA Fest” co-hosts Dierks Bentley and Elle King. Ashley McBryde hit the stage to perform “Brenda Put Your Bra On” as well as “One Night Standards,” while Bentley’s performance got fans on their feet for “Drunk On A Plane” and “5-1-5-0.” Tim McGraw performed fan-favorites “Something Like That” and “Real Good Man” while Luke Bryan closed out the 50th celebration of CMA Fest with entertaining performances of “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” and “Rain Is A Good Thing.”

Additional performers at Nissan Stadium included opening acts Messina, Tucker, Tracy Lawrence and Josh Turner, as well as performances from the Platform Stage in the center of the stadium, featuring Ashley Cooke, Dalton Dover, Megan Moroney, Ian Munsick, RVSHVD, Nate Smith, Alana Springsteen, and Hailey Whitters. King Calaway also welcomed the Nissan Stadium crowd Thursday night performing the National Anthem.

The Nighttime Concert at Ascend Amphitheater also returned for a fifth year, with a packed crowd on Friday night. The party kicked off with headliner The Cadillac Three bringing the energy with special guest Little Big Town. Additional acts taking the stage included Boy Named Banjo, Randy Rogers Band, Elvie Shane and Tenille Townes.

Throughout the four-day event, fans enjoyed more than 200,000 square feet of air-conditioned fun at Fan Fair X inside Music City Center where artists participated in meet-and-greets and programming on two indoor stages, including the CMA Close Up Stage, which hosted the popular Artist of the Day sessions featuring Bentley on Thursday, McEntire on Friday, Brothers Osborne on Saturday and Wynonna Judd on Sunday. Other standout programming included two separate segments of a live taping of the Country Heat Weekly podcast on Amazon Music with Jelly Roll and Tucker.

ERNEST hosted a writer’s round, “Erns Cadillac Music” with songwriters Cody Lohden, Chandler Walters and Rhys Rutherford while the “Color Me Country” writer’s round featured Rissi Palmer with special guests Willie Jones, Charly Lowry, Dzaki Sukarno and Julie Williams.

“The Red Carpet and Beyond,” hosted by Daniel Musto and Lani Lupton featured Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman where they discussed their fashion influences. “OPRY NEXTSTAGE: Country’s Rising Sound” featured Chapel Hart, Cooke and Conner Smith.

Fan Fair X hosted daily performances on the Spotlight Stage from nearly 50 artists performing to full audiences. Country Music trio Chapel Hart, along with Blanco Brown, Adam Doleac, Tiera Kennedy, Kimberly Perry, Mason Ramsey, Randy Travis, Sam Williams, Bailey Zimmerman and dozens of other artists participated in the much-anticipated meet-and-greets with excited fans.

CMA hosted “Country Proud” Friday morning on the Hard Rock Stage with performances by Angie K, Brooke Eden, Chris Housman, Adam Mac and Shelly Fairchild. And on Sunday, CMA welcomed the Black Excellence Brunch, held at the National Museum of African American Music and featuring notable Black artists and industry leaders while honoring BMI Executive Director, Creative, Shannon Sanders.

CMA’s international presence remained strong as ever at CMA Fest this year, with 23 performances by artists from multiple countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The festival featured international hosts Justin Thomson, (Kix Country Radio/iHeart Australia) on the Maui Jim Reverb Stage and Shannon Ella (Pure Country Canada/iHeart Canada) on the CMA Close Up Stage.

CMA also welcomed industry to Nashville during its annual international reception, which included attendees from the organization’s international task forces as well as international promoters, media outlets and artists representing nine different territories (US, CAN, UK, AU, RE, NZ, SWE, GER, FR).

Unlike other festivals, CMA Fest acts donate their time to perform so ticket proceeds can directly benefit high-quality music education initiatives across the country through the CMA Foundation. This year, CMA will donate $2.5 million to the CMA Foundation.

Throughout the weekend, the CMA Foundation was incorporated into CMA Fest programming. To kick off the festivities on Thursday morning, ninth grade student Ariah McEwen joined the Tennessee State University’s Aristocrat of Bands marching band to perform the National Anthem on the Chevy Riverfront Stage.

On Friday, the CMA Foundation presented the Voices of Tomorrow on the CMA Close Up Stage at Fan Fair X inside Music City Center with Nashville-area Notes for Notes students—Andrew Garrett, Mikquala Skelton and Landon Wall—performing alongside Neon Union. Sunday was full of heartfelt moments as theater students from Page High School in Williamson County took on the CMA Close Up Stage to perform songs from the hit Dolly Parton musical “9 to 5.”

The segment was hosted by CMA Music Teacher of Excellence, Dajuana Hammonds and featured a celebrity Q&A with Chrissy Metz between songs. And for a heartwarming finale performance, students from Metro Nashville Public Schools joined McGraw on the Main Stage at Nissan Stadium to sing “Humble and Kind” to close out Sunday night. Four of CMA’s Music Teachers of Excellence recipients—Alicia Engram, Jacqueline Hanna, Ann Marie Morris and Danielle Taylor—joined in to conduct the student ensemble.

Other special events and activations across the CMA Fest footprint included CELSIUS-sponsored “Fitness at Fest,” a sold-out high-intensity workout with celebrity fitness trainer Erin Oprea and TRUMAV trainer Wirth Campbell with special guests Kaitlyn Bristowe, Cooke and Madeline Edwards. The event took place on both Friday and Saturday mornings at the Maui Jim Reverb Stage with all proceeds benefiting the CMA Foundation.

Young professional music industry leadership group, SOLID hosted a “Music Market Auction” inside Fan Fair X with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the CMA Foundation, while Friendly Arctic and Strung also donated a portion of their proceeds back to the CMA Foundation. CMA Fest also featured a celebrity dunk tank helmed by Country artists Restless Road on Broadway, with proceeds going back to the CMA Foundation. Select merch items benefiting the CMA Foundation are still available for purchase at CMAfest.com/shop-for-good.

Musically Fed, an organization that fights to end hunger by working with the music industry to distribute excess food from touring shows and events, donated food from various catering locations during CMA Fest, ultimately delivering the excess to Nashville Rescue Mission, Room In The Inn, Safe Haven Family Shelter, Operation Stand Down Tennessee, and Matthew 25.

Next year’s CMA Fest will take place in Nashville Thursday, June 6 through Sunday, June 9, 2024. Sign up for CMA Country Connection emails at CMAfest.com to be the first to know about ticket on-sale dates.

“CMA Fest,” the three-hour primetime television special hosted by Bentley, King and Wilson, airs Wednesday, July 19 at 8/7c on ABC.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Country musician Jimmie Allen is being sued for sexual assault by a second woman, who claims he secretly filmed the alleged incident at a Las Vegas hotel room.

The new lawsuit comes less than a month since the rising country star was accused of alleged sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, sex trafficking and emotional distress by his former manager, who also claimed she was filmed against her will.

The lawsuit filed Friday in Tennessee federal court alleges that the “Best Shot” and “Warrior” singer sexually assaulted another woman at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas last summer and secretly recorded the encounter. She is seeking a judgment against Allen, along with an unspecified amount in monetary damages and legal fees.

The filing has apparently led Allen’s record label BBR Music to drop him as an “active artist” on its roster after it suspended him in the wake of the earlier allegations from his manager, according to Variety. The label said Friday that it has “dissolved its relationship” with Allen.

The second woman — identified as “Jane Doe 2” in the legal documents obtained Friday by the Los Angeles Times — alleges that in May 2022, she was approached at a Nashville airport by the musician’s bodyguard, Charles Hurd, who is also being sued, along with his employer, Aadyn’s Dad Touring.

Jane Doe 2 alleges that Hurd followed her into the airport and asked if she knew who Allen was, told her that he was a country musician and that Allen wanted her phone number, suggesting they hang out in Nashville later that evening. She said that after a fun evening, Allen allegedly told her he’d be leaving for a tour but would keep in touch.

In the following months, Jane Doe 2 alleges that she and Allen shared daily texts and FaceTime calls. Allen allegedly proclaimed his love for her and shared visions of their future together. According to the suit, he also repeatedly said he was separated from his wife and told Jane Doe 2 that she would be a good stepmother for his children.

The suit states that the alleged assault took place in July 2022. Jane Doe 2 claims that she was invited to meet Allen in Las Vegas and was assured she would have her own hotel room, per her request. The country musician also introduced her as his girlfriend, and his bodyguard showed her his two firearms and told her he was an air marshal, which made her feel safe, she alleges.

When the three of them went to hang out in Allen’s suite at the Cosmopolitan, she was told that her own room was being prepared and that Hurd’s room was next door, she says. Hurd then allegedly excused himself, leaving Jane Doe 2 alone with Allen.

According to the legal documents, Allen then instructed Jane Doe 2 to wait on the balcony, and he disappeared into the room where she assumed he was setting up some kind of romantic surprise. Per the suit, at no point did Allen disclose that he was planning to film their sexual encounter. While Jane Doe 2 states she did consent to sex, she alleges she repeatedly informed Allen that she was not on birth control and asked him to please pull out during intercourse, which she states he agreed to.

As the alleged sexual encounter transpired, she asked Allen again to pull out but says that he refused and told her he wanted to get her pregnant. Then he “passed out on the bed,” the lawsuit says.

Jane Doe 2 states that she was so distressed that Allen had refused her repeated requests that she got up to leave, desperate to find a separate hotel room and purchase a Plan B pill. The suit claims that as she walked past the closet to leave, an interior light switched on, catching her attention. That is when she discovered that Allen had set up his cellphone to record the alleged sexual encounter.

She stopped the recording and deleted the video, and when she couldn’t delete it from the “recently deleted” folder without Allen’s passcode, she tried to wake him, but he wouldn’t stir, so she took his phone with her and left, crying, shaking and in a panic, the lawsuit said.

“With nowhere to go,” she called her friends from her personal cellphone and sobbed that she wasn’t safe and needed to get away from Allen.

“Her friend Jill Doe called a different hotel, disclosed the assault, and the hotel arranged for a room,” according to the suit. Upon returning home, she took Allen’s phone to her local police department and reported the assault and the surreptitious recording.

The local police department told her they would report the incident to the Metropolitan Police Department.

Allen’s attorney did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment regarding the lawsuit filed Friday.

Last month, Allen denied any wrongdoing when The Times reached out for comment regarding the lawsuit filed by his former manager.

“It is deeply troubling and hurtful that someone I counted as one of my closest friends, colleagues and confidants would make allegations that have no truth to them whatsoever,” Allen told The Times in response to the first suit. “I acknowledge that we had a sexual relationship — one that lasted for nearly two years. During that time, she never once accused me of any wrongdoing, and she spoke of our relationship and friendship as being something she wanted to continue indefinitely.”

Allen said that his manager hired a lawyer to reach out for money after things ended between them, which led him to question her motives.

Elizabeth Fegan, the attorney representing Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, said “that is categorically not true” in a statement to The Times.

Fegan also said that a payout was never requested; however, on Friday, she confirmed that both Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 are seeking unspecified monetary damages in the lawsuits, which will be decided by the court.

Since the first case was filed last month, Fegan’s law firm has heard from others who share similar experiences with Allen, she said.

“Jane Doe 2’s filing demonstrates to me that there is a vivid, distinct pattern of behavior. We intend to show it’s a pattern of deceit, manipulation, and ultimately of force,” Fegan said Friday in an email. “The law is clear — anyone who has given consent in sexual activity has the right and the ability to revoke consent at any time. Just as no means no, stop means stop. If one participant doesn’t stop, it is sexual assault.”

Allen, who auditioned for the 10th season of “American Idol” in 2011 but was cut before the live rounds, has been slowly climbing the country music ladder over the last decade. In 2021, he won the CMA Award for new artist of the year, becoming the second Black artist ever to land the honor.

In April, Allen and wife, Alexis Gale, announced via social media that they were calling it quits after three years of marriage, but they also revealed that Gale was pregnant with their third child. A week after the first lawsuit was filed, Allen released a statement on social media addressing what he called an “affair” and seemingly blaming the music industry for his behavior.

“I want to publicly apologize to my wife Alexis for humiliating her with my affair. I’m embarrassed that my choices have brought shame on her. That’s something that she did not deserve at all,” he said, adding that he wanted to apologize for being a poor example of a man to his children.

“The business takes so much from you. It’s full of temptations that can cripple you and ruin everything you’ve built. I’m ashamed that I wasn’t strong enough to withstand them. I will no longer be a victim of my weaknesses.”

Fallout came swiftly for the Grammy-nominated country musician. Aside from being dropped by his record label, he was terminated by his publicist, United Talent Agency severed ties with him, he was removed from Sunday’s CMA Fest lineup in Nashville and he was dropped as the commencement speaker at Delaware State University’s graduation ceremony.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

• Juneteenth preview
• Iowa City

Iowa City’s Juneteenth celebrations will feature performances by Black artists, educational opportunities, and a fashion show as part of a week-long series of free public events throughout the area.

Juneteenth recognizes the end of slavery in the United States. June 19 was recently established as a federal holiday after President Joe Biden signed a bill passed by Congress in 2021.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Grander informed the Galveston, Texas, community of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the last enslaved people in the United States more than two years after the proclamation.

Iowa City’s main Juneteenth celebration begins Friday with a resource fair at 4 p.m. in Blackhawk Mini Park. Soul food will be provided by Johnson County Supervisor Royceann Porter, who opened her own restaurant in March, beginning at 5 p.m.

The community can then participate in Black performances in the city’s Pedestrian Mall, beginning with a fashion show by Iowa City’s Wright House of Fashion at 5:30 p.m. The evening’s musical performances feature local artist Isaac Jordan at 6:30 p.m. and the Chicago-based group Aniba and the Sol Starz at 8 p.m.

Jordan is excited to perform during Black Music Month in front of the local Black community, he told the Press-Citizen.

“First and foremost, I’m a Black, queer artist. So Black music has always been a part of my life from day one because it is part of who I am,” Jordan said. “I almost have a duty to be able to put on a proper celebratory show for Juneteenth because it is a celebration of some systemic freedom.”

The Cedar Rapids native grew up listening to Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Michael Jackson, all of whom he described as “boundary pushers.” Their music resonated with him from a young age and helped inspire and lead him to become the artist he is today.

Jordan, who performed at Iowa City’s pride celebration last year, said he welcomes a chance to deeply connect with the audience again.

“When you have specific elements of music in your set, when you perform, it might not connect with everybody in the audience because that’s not who they are,” Jordan said. “With a more black audience, with an audience of color, you will get that [connection] more often and it’s so much more rewarding to be the representation for your people and to see in real-time the impact that has.”

He believes it’s important to inspire Black and queer youth by demonstrating that they can achieve their goals and that there are individuals like them who have succeeded.

“I would give so much to be able to be a child, a Black child, a Black queer child, and to see who I am being represented in the purest way through music,” Jordan said.

While he’s looking forward to performing most, Jordan said he’s also grateful to take in the rest of the Juneteenth celebration in a place that cares about representation and education.

“I’m excited to experience the Juneteenth celebration in Iowa City for the first time not just as a performer but also as another human being,” he said.

Area celebrations and educational opportunities are available throughout the week

Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague believes a week-long celebration allows individuals to better understand Juneteenth’s significance.

“As a Black man, I think it’s important for us to recognize what Juneteenth actually means and why it is celebrated,” Teague said. “My ancestors were still enslaved and this is a day that really did speak to their freedom. What that really means on a level for our entire nation was that this was a significant event where everyone within our nation was deemed to be free.”

University of Iowa professor Leslie Schwalm will provide a one-hour educational session on Wednesday, June 14 focused on how the destruction of slavery shaped the lives of Black Americans in the United States. The session is on Zoom and begins at noon. 

On Thursday, the St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Coralville will hold a Juneteenth prayer service at 6 p.m.

The Englert Theatre will welcome a performance of Charlie and the Wolf on Sunday, June 18, a “witty and whimsical” children’s opera that showcases a fictional meeting between Black jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker and famed composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The opera “celebrates uniqueness and reminds us that everyone is playing with the same notes,” its website says.

A Juneteenth and Father’s Day family picnic will also be held in Iowa City’s Wetherby Park on Sunday as part of the festivities. The event will feature 3-on-3 basketball, a DJ, and more, according to the city’s page.

The city’s celebrations of Juneteenth conclude on June 20 with a virtual discussion of the book “How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.” The Iowa City Public Library will host the session over Zoom, which begins at 6 p.m.

Iowa City has been a major supporter of Juneteenth for several years.

Teague spearheaded the city council’s official declaration of Juneteenth as a city holiday in December of 2020, before Biden’s federal declaration.

“It really does say a lot about our community, about acknowledgment and inclusivity, to recognize this holiday,” Teague said. “And it also gives us time to come together and celebrate as a community.”

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

“Warriors in the Community” is a radio segment that features short, insightful interviews with key figures from Wayne State University about the many ways in which the university and its programs make a positive impact on the metro area and on the lives of Detroiters. In a recent interview, Marquita Chamblee, Ph.D., Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at Wayne State University shared insights about the approaching Juneteenth holiday celebrations sponsored by the university.

Juneteenth is also referred to as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day. It commemorates the day on June 19th, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of the Civil War and slavery in the United States. It took over two years for the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to reach enslaved people in Texas.

Celebrating Juneteenth is important because it reminds us of some of the darker elements of our history, but also the tragedy of slavery and the resilience and celebration that came as a result of the emancipation. Wayne State University acknowledges and celebrates Juneteenth as an opportunity to celebrate Black culture and achievements, and to recognize the continuing struggles for equity, justice, and freedom.

Wayne State University is sponsoring various Juneteenth events. Professor Ronald Williams of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will deliver the keynote speech on Juneteenth Black Struggle, Black Freedom, and Black Restitution on June 13th. On June 14th, an arts showcase featuring Black art will take place, followed by a panel event by the Organization of Black Alumni on June 15th. These events will lead up to the closing ceremony on June 20th, where the flag will be lowered with a big picnic celebration in honor of the holiday.

The Wayne State University Office of Communications serves as the university’s primary liaison between the news media and its many programs, departments, and initiatives. The university understands the importance of delivering a rapid response to media inquiries and providing reporters with relevant experts and spokespeople. For more Wayne State News, please visit us online at today.wayne.edu/wwj and join us next Monday at the same time for more warriors in the community.

Credit: today.wayne.edu

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RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment