Fetty Wap’s Drug Sentence, A Major SCOTUS Ruling, Ed Sheeran’s Latest Win & More of the Week’s Biggest Legal Stories

This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.

This week: Lawyers for Fetty Wap battle with prosecutors ahead of his sentencing over federal drug charges; the Supreme Court issues a major copyright ruling on Andy Warhol’s images of Prince; Ed Sheeran wins another lawsuit over “Let’s Get It On”; and much more.

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THE BIG STORY: Fetty Wap Faces Drug Sentencing

With Fetty Wap facing sentencing this week for his conviction on federal drug charges, the rapper’s lawyers and prosecutors are battling over how much prison time he should receive and in the process, they’ve dipped into one of music’s biggest legal controversies.

Attorneys for the rapper, who pleaded guilty in August to participating in “a multimillion-dollar bicoastal drug distribution organization,” asked a judge last week to sentence him to just five years the minimum under the law. They say he only turned to crime to support family members as his touring income dried up during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But prosecutors quickly fired back with a darker story: Of a successful musician who had already earned millions but chose to “supplement his income” by selling “drugs he knew would ruin lives.” And notably, they cited Fetty’s music itself, claiming he should receive a harsher punishment in part because he used his songs to “glamorize the drug trade.”

“Before his arrest, the defendant became famous singing about his experience cooking crack cocaine, selling drugs and making substantial money from those illegal endeavors,” prosecutors wrote. “Young people who admire the defendant and are considering selling drugs need to be sent a message.”

If you’ve been following music law for the past year, you’ll know that’s a controversial move.

After a high-profile gang indictment against Young Thug in Atlanta, the use of rap lyrics in criminal cases has come under increasing scrutiny. Critics say references to drugs and violence are stock elements of hip-hop and should not be treated literally — and that by doing so, prosecutors infringe on free speech and sway courts with unfair evidence, with predictably disproportionate harm inflicted on Black artists.

Lawmakers in California recently enacted a law that sharply restricts the practice, and legislators in New York seem poised to pass a similar bill later this year. A federal bill to limit when lyrics can be used in cases like the one against Fetty Wap was re-introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last month but faces a less clear path to passage than the state-level measures.

To get the full story, including the actual legal documents filed by both sides, go read our full articles on the sentencing recommendations from Fetty Wap and from prosecutors.

Other top stories…

SCOTUS RULES ON WARHOL & FAIR USE – Ruling on a case that record labels and publishers called “critical to the American music industry,” the U.S. Supreme Court said that Andy Warhol did not make “fair use” of a photographer’s copyrights when he used her images of Prince to create one of his distinctive screen prints. The ruling essentially maintained the status quo for music companies, who feared that a decision for Warhol could have disrupted industry practices for sampling, or possibly given legal cover for AI companies to use copyrighted songs.

JIMI HENDRIX DISPUTES HEADS TO UK – A transatlantic legal battle between Jimi Hendrix’s estate and his former bandmates — over control of the rights to music created by the trio’s Jimi Hendrix Experience — is going to be fought primarily in London for now, after a U.S. federal judge ruled that she would defer to the British courts.

ED SHEERAN WINS AGAIN – Less than two weeks after Ed Sheeran won a blockbuster jury trial over whether his “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” a federal judge dismissed a second, closely-related copyright case accusing him of copying the same iconic song.

YOUTUBE WON’T FACE CLASS ACTION – A federal judge dealt a major blow to a lawsuit that claims YouTube enables piracy by restricting access to copyright tools like Content ID, refusing to allow the case to proceed as a class action that could have included tens of thousands of rightsholders.

FACIAL-RECOGNITION FIGHT CONTINUES – The owner of Madison Square Garden Entertainment filed a new legal action demanding access to the phone records of a New York state liquor investigator, opening a new front in a sprawling legal war over the use of facial recognition technology to ban lawyers from venues.

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Mrs & Ms Canada 2023 will be held on July 16,2023 in Toronto

Mrs & Ms Canada 2023 will be held on July 16,2023 in Toronto – African American News Today – EIN Presswire

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Art After Dark: Artist and designer Yinka Ilori talks art and cinema

I

n the latest episode of Art After Dark, Nancy Durrant is joined by multidisciplinary artist and designer Yinka Ilori.

They explore Royal Academy’s exhibition Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers, discovering Black artists from the Southeastern United States who created some of the most spectacular and ingenious works of the last century.

Made from the materials available locally – like clay, driftwood, roots, soil, recycled and cast-off objects – the 64 works date from the mid 20th century to today. Many respond to issues that are locally significant, but global in nature: from economic inequality, oppression and social marginalisation, to sexuality, the influence of place and ancestral memory.

A short walk from the RA, Yinka takes a trip down memory lane at Picturehouse Central at Piccadilly Circus, before a quick drink at Franco’s, one of the capital’s oldest Italian restaurants.

For more ideas on what to see and do in London, visit artoflondon.co.uk

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Black Business Profile: Lauren Lacy showcases the beauty in Black excellence with denim through her art

Starting out as a children’s book illustrator, Denim artist and designer Lauren Lacy, began her Atlanta-based business Miss Lacy Studios in 2007 and her denim brand, MLS Denim in 2018.

If she had to describe her company, Lacy said Miss Lacy Studios/MLS Denim is a place where imagination and creativity come together. Her job as an artist, she said, is to bring her client’s ideas to life in a one-of-a-kind way.

“Whether I am creating a denim portrait, a children’s book, a one-of-a-kind denim jacket, a mixed media painting (the list goes on and on) I do it to the best of my ability and will go above and beyond to make sure what I create brings a smile (or happy tears) to my client’s face(s),” she said.

Malcolm X in Denim. Photo courtesy of MLSDenim

Additionally, Lacy was also at the Natural Hair Show event back in April where she talked with the Atlanta Voice about her work and passion.

Lacy said her art is considered “mix medium” where she paints with acrylic, but then applying denim accents on top of them. She also creates jewelry using pleather and sometimes denim.

She also said denim has always been a love of hers and she’s been doing denim for about a year and a half now but has been drawing since she was two years old.

Prior to starting denim, Lacy was a children’s book illustrator because she went to Savannah College of Art and Design to be a comic book artist.

“I started out distressing denim, creating denim jackets, and repurposing denim as well, so it kind of transitioned into creating this because I love fashion, but I’m also a children’s book illustrator, so creating characters come natural to me and I wanted to celebrate Black women as well,” she said. “I love the fact that I get to experiment with different skin tones, hairstyles, different hair textures, doing the head wraps, the locs, the flowers, the butterflies, I’m just happy I get to experiment.”

To check out and purchase Lacy’s work, visit https://www.etsy.com/shop/MLSDenim. Also follow Lacey via Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/misslacystudios/. You can also find Lacy on YouTube.

Beyoncé-Black Is King in Denim. Photo courtesy of MLSDenim

The Atlanta Voice: Why did you decide to start your business?

Lauren Lacey: So, I started my business during the recession under Bush. My friends and I DID NOT graduate at the best time, so the only opportunities we were able to obtain were contract, temp and freelance. It was because of the lack of opportunities that I began my career as a freelance illustrator/graphic designer and artist.

AV: Was there a moment that inspired you to start this business?

LL: I would not really say there was a time that “inspired” me…it was more about “Hey I need to pay my bills and get some income coming in, so let’s go!” LOL.

AV: Is there a mentor in your life that inspired/inspires you as a business owner?

LL: Most definitely! My friend and mentor Jerell Gantt (@imitationbyjerell) has been there with me and for me since Day 1 of my denim artist journey. He is and continues to be so successful in his career as a full-time artist. His drive, work ethic, and commitment to his growth as an artist has truly inspired me to continue my journey of getting better and challenging myself!

AV: You attended the Natural Hair Show back in April where we met. What was the importance for you as a Black artist to attend the show and get your work out there?

LL: The importance of coming to a venue like the Natural Hair Show, especially for artists, is exposure because you never know who you’re going to meet there, and you can gain clients as well. You never know who’s going to refer you to someone else. Last year I did a piece on Malcolm X for a show and the person who bought it knew (Football Coach) Deion Sanders and got permission to do a piece for him. I never thought in a million years that the piece would result in that, so you never know who’s going to be there, a lot of people are incognito. Also, the environment is very warm, very inviting, and supportive because I think a lot of our people don’t see a lot of Black artists a lot, especially Black female artists too. It shocks them.

AV: What are your business goals for the remainder of the year?

LL: My goals are to continue to do as many events as possible showcasing my art, networking with new and hopeful clients, continuing to build my following and number of supporters and get my income in the 5 figures!!!

AV: Any advice to future business owners about taking the plunge?

LL: Oh wow…hmmmm…honestly JUST GO FOR IT!! One of the hangups that I always had before I started a new venture was, I would always overthink EVERYTHING (literally!) And it is because of this that I would sometimes miss opportunities. Nothing is ever going to be truly perfect so stop thinking that you must “wait for the perfect time.” Sometimes the best inventions, creations, and ideas appear and are created at the most non-perfect time.

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If you’re tired of Chrome’s look, there’s a new way to change it

When you open a new tab in a current version of Chrome, there’s a bubble in the bottom right of your window simply labeled “Customize Chrome.” It’s been there for years, but now Google is revamping the process — instead of a card taking up your whole browser window, Chrome’s customization options pop up in a sidebar, giving you a much better view of your browser’s new digs before you commit.

In addition to choosing your colors, you’ll also see the option to update Chrome’s themes here — it’s a much tidier interface than the company offered before. Take a look:

a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>This makes me very happy.
a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Image: Google

The same menu lets you pick from one of several theme collections, including new ones with art Google commissioned from Asian & Pacific Islander, LGBTQ+, Native American, Latino, and Black artists, similar to what Google has done in the past with its Google Doodles that show up on the Google homepage. Having trouble deciding on a theme? There’s a toggle to make it changes on the daily.

a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>Changing themes is just as easy.
a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Image: Google

You can still go grab themes from the Google Web Store if you’d like — there are still countless community-made themes there that offer custom artwork with associated browser colors.

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Battle Rap’s Unwoke Representation Politics

It’s a terrible habit, but, late at night, after everyone in the house has gone to bed, I usually watch anywhere between one and three hours of YouTube content before finally falling asleep. My viewing habits, which alternate among old boxing matches, poker streams, and battle-rap videos, feel pretty retrograde, and I’ve wondered if this has just become my version of fishing or woodworking or whatever other performatively masculine ritual that fathers perform to prove to themselves that they still got it, whatever it may be.

Battle rap, in particular, feels like it falls outside of acceptable tastes. This sentiment isn’t mine alone; battle rappers routinely make fun of one another for being stuck in battle rap. Their embarrassment is somewhat understandable: here is a community of problematic dudes who stand around on a stage and yell insults at one another for an audience of other problematic dudes.

Battle rap’s modern form, which you can find across a variety of scenes—whether King of the Dot, Ultimate Rap League, or Gates of the Garden—and which was memorialized in the 2017 film “Bodied,” is closer to slam poetry than what you might remember from mixtapes in the nineteen-nineties or, perhaps, from “8 Mile,” the 2002 film based on the life of Eminem, who came up in Detroit’s battle-rap scene. (He was also a co-producer on “Bodied.”) In the form’s earlier incarnation, contestants would rap to a beat for about a minute or two and trade rounds; in the iconic final scene of “8 Mile,” for example, Eminem’s raps about Cranbrook, a private school, are accompanied by the instrumental track for Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones, Pt. II.”

Today’s battlers are much more, for lack of a better word, literary. Battles run upward of half an hour and are delivered a cappella; nearly everything is pre-written. References tend to be insular, and are often about the personal lives of other battle rappers. Everything from facial expressions to inflections gets rehearsed beforehand to maximize the effect of each insult. “There is a little bit of ridiculousness to the premise,” Rone, a rapper who works for Barstool Sports, told me. “It’s basically men writing poems about one another that they aggressively shout into each other’s faces.”

Offensive humor is almost always at the forefront. Dumbfoundead, a Korean American rapper from Los Angeles, routinely gets jokes about the “Wuhan flu,” massage parlors, and wonton soup; Dizaster, a Lebanese American, tends to hear about terrorism and cabdrivers. But there are opportunities for rappers to turn the tropes back on themselves. When Dizaster battled a fellow Middle Easterner, he asked, “Where were you when we were taking flying lessons prior to 9/11?” In Dumbfoundead’s recent battle against Rone, who is white, Dumbfoundead delivered the line, “Korean Jesus is home / All these lazy rappers using Asian accents / Finally they leave me a Rone.”

There are unspoken rules that dictate whether something has crossed the line or not: a white rapper, for example, was punched in the face for saying the N-word during a recent battle. “When it’s clearly from someone that’s ignorant or has no taste, we notice that,” Dizaster said. But he also explained that, although the battle-rap community might frown upon jokes that feel like they come out of a place of real hatred, they also will rarely expel someone from the scene or bar them from competition. Instead, he believes that it’s up to the other people in the community to “destroy” the offender, by humiliating them in future battles and eventually driving them out of the scene. Setting clear boundaries of what can and cannot be said, he told me, creates a community of “weak-minded people.”

Babs, a battle-rap veteran and the head of Queen of the Ring, a league that mostly features Black women, noted that some battlers will write up contracts that say certain topics are off limits. But she also sees the value in testing how much an artist can take. “They sign up for it,” Babs said, of the women who compete, who are often subjected to misogynist rants that fixate on their bodies. “I can’t really sympathize with the fact that she doesn’t want to be called fifty type of hos when she knew what she was walking into. Just like with an M.M.A. fighter—how can you feel bad that her arm is broke?”

But the standards for what counts as a creative insult, as opposed to tired stereotyping, aren’t universally agreed upon. “What always pissed me off was the hackish kind of Asian lines that still worked with the crowd,” Dumbfoundead said. “I hated when those got a huge reaction—what I thought was, like, a terrible Asian joke.” Watch any battle involving an Asian, Middle Eastern, or Latino rapper and you’ll hear, alongside some elevated and genuinely hilarious lines, a lot of tired references to kung-fu movies, eating dogs, and Home Depot. The line for jokes about Black rappers tends to be a little bit higher, as one might expect, and white rappers generally get roasted for being nerds, or racists, or whatever else. But the age-old problem in any type of racial verbal warfare still exists in battle rap: there just isn’t a very satisfying slur for white people, at least not one that will shock the audience.

If all this sounds terrible to you, I understand. But these battles also provide a pretty honest view of how identity is talked about in much of America. “I really got a clear understanding of how a lot of other non-Asian people view Asian people,” Dumbfoundead said. “They only knew us for, like, four or five different things, reference me to the same three, like, Asian celebrities, you know, whether it was Bruce Lee, Lucy Liu, or whatnot.” Racist jokes about Asian people and Muslims run rampant in battle rap; homophobic slurs are less ubiquitous than they used to be, but still common. And though the entire culture of battle rap, like all other cultures in this country, comes out of Black art forms, which may afford Black battlers a little bit of a buffer against overtly racist lines, it also tends to elevate white rappers into places of prominence. This was the scene, after all, that created Eminem.

But, even if the point of battle rap is trading increasingly offensive insults, the whole thing functions on a certain system of trust. Dizaster and Dumbfoundead, for example, have known each other for nearly twenty years, which has fostered a sense of familiarity, and also a need to outdo one another. In a battle nearly eight years ago, Dizaster dressed up in monastic robes that he described as “a mishmash of the Dalai Lama and ‘The Last Airbender’ ”; Dumbfoundead blew white powder in Dizaster’s face and called it anthrax. Again, the appeal isn’t so much in the specifics of the gags but in the fact that they can be examined on their merits.

Dizaster told me that battlers are just actors, and that the entire production is just “Broadway.” But the absurd, combative theatre of it still seems to capture something much more real than, say, Hollywood’s push to make diverse television shows and movies, in which no one in the beautiful, perfectly demographically balanced cast says a damn thing about how weird it is that they have found themselves together in a profoundly segregated country.

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42-Year-Old Venus Williams’ Ravishing Louis Vitton Attire Lights up $6,000,000 Fund-Raiser Event as Her Attempts to Preserve Renowned Artist’s Legacy Becomes Huge Success

Venus Williams has already established her legacy in tennis and now she has executed to perfection her plans to successfully preserve the legacy of the renowned music artist, Nina Simone. The tennis legend joined hands with renowned artist Adam Pendleton to collect funds for the renovation of the childhood home of the musical legend, Nina Simone. Acing a confident fashionable look, she outdid her target of accumulating $5 million for the desired project.

A tennis star on the court and a fashionista off of it, Venus Williams looked dapper as she made sure that the auction was a successful event.

Venus Williams aces the Nina Simone preservation project with a stunning look 

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The seven-time Grand Slam champion avidly promoted the launch of the online exhibition. The aim was to collect funds for the Nina Simone project. During the launch, she presented her best self in front of the bidders.

For that, she chose a classic black Louis Vuitton dress with black heels. She flaunted the same on her Instagram story too. Looking stunning as ever, she promoted the exhibition including the beautiful art of various artists. One of them was her idol, Rashid Johnson, who works on post-conceptual black art. Moreover, she also hailed all the artists for boosting her love for art. She stated, “I was just thrilled. I love art it’s my happy place. I could not have been happier than to meet such visionaries!”

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Nina Simone, the late American singer came into the limelight once again when Venus Williams joined an endeavor to preserve her childhood home. The aim was to collect $5 million. However, the ace never fails to disappoint. She ended up amounting fund of almost $6 million.

On the other hand, despite her ardent efforts to make equal pay a reality, she did not take any credit for it. She attributed all of it to her admiration and idolization of legends like Nina Simone.

Williams attributed her contribution to the tennis realm to Nina Simone

Venus Williams is the player who made it a reality to make WTA and ATP players get paid equally at Wimbledon in 2007. And now tennis leads by example.

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via Getty

Venus Williams of the United States celebrates defeating Laura Siegemund of Germany during her third round Women’s Singles match on Day Six of the 2016 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 3, 2016 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)

However, this is something she did not take any credit for. While talking about her admiration for Nina Simone, she credited her inspiration, Simeone, for her initiative to bring equality in the sport. She looks up to her as a role model who broke multiple barriers. Simone’s legacy motivated her to do that in her tennis career as well.

WATCH THIS STORY: Who Is More Successful- Serena or Venus Williams?

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Interestingly, Venus Williams won her first Wimbledon after she made equal pay a reality in 2007.

What do you think of Venus William’s effort to preserve Nina Simeone’s legacy? Let us know in the comments below.

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How Hip-Hop Gave Me a Second Chance at Life

HIP-HOP WAS BORN in the Bronx in the summer of 1973. To celebrate the music’s 50th anniversary“Rolling Stone” will be publishing a series of features, historical pieces, op-eds, and lists throughout this year.

I try to be deliberate about describing it as a “car crash” and resist writing “accident,” because I’m not so sure. I didn’t think I was suicidal, at least not while sober.

I was in Detroit preparing for an academic conference the first time I watched the video for Ab-Soul’s “Do Better.” For my panel on Black Study & Public Pedagogy, I planned to talk about being dope. Specifically, my talk was about Black people as a drug to which America is addicted. This addiction shows itself in many ways. It has constructed categories of legal and illegal depending on who is using, like other drugs. For some, it’s described as abuse, and for others, it’s transactional, or perhaps necessary for some prescribed reason or another. The video was only somewhat related to my presentation, but I had no way to know other than to watch it. It’s all black and white. It begins with the rapper speaking while seated in a chair, wearing his trademark dark sunglasses. Before the music begins, he speaks, “The know-it-all that’s always wrong, but I be claiming I’m advanced. / This my second second chance.”  

The music cues distressing scenes. Ab-Soul is falling, and we eventually see that he has jumped from the top of a building. A little more than halfway through the video, there’s a moment when he’s brought back to life, caught on the brink of leaping from that precipice by the embrace of the hands and arms of people who are apparently close enough to prevent his jump from the ledge. I cried and cried after watching those hands pull him back from the brink of death. Every time I’ve watched it since then, tears still well up in my eyes. After talking to the Detroit audience about being dope, I recommended they all watch the video if or when they had the capacity to do so.

“Do Better” is the first single from Ab-Soul’s 2022 album Herbert, and it’s about, well, doing better. It’s a welcome topic for me, and I’m sure many others will relate to the desire to realign and refocus our energies after all the turmoil we have collectively and individually endured over the past few years.  

I don’t only recommend music during academic presentations. My friends know there’s a rap lyric for every occasion, and I’m always at the ready with a quote or a link to share. It’s my profession now. But before that, it was my passion. In the 50 years of hip-hop – from its purported origins in the Bronx, through my Midwest hometown of Decatur, IL, to the West Coast, and back – there have been songs for all occasions. Some rap songs describe the love we have for our mothers or the neighborhoods we grew up in, the lives we left behind, or – as is often the case – our desires to live the kinds of lives we hear rappers describe. 

As a fan of rap, it hasn’t always just been what a rapper is saying that invited me to bob my head or tethered a song to a moment or a memory. It’s as much about feeling as it is about forethought. The combination of both of these appeals anchored my appreciation of the art form to my academic curiosity. Like lots of my friends, I decided I would be a rapper. In the process of trying to make my rap dream work, I delved as deeply into the archive of hip-hop stories of the past half-century as my doctoral program would allow. Hip-hop had become the way I navigated the world around me, professionally and privately. 

In 2017, I released a rap album titled Owning My Masters: The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions as my Ph.D. dissertation at Clemson University. The album, like my academic presentation in Detroit, is about America’s dependency on Black bodies and Black art, and the country’s attempts, through history and in the present, to regulate Black life. It details how the U.S. treats Black people as products to be sold and traded. Hip-hop helps highlight some of the ways Blackness is arbitrarily legalized and outlawed, our presence, our bodies, and our actions elicit suspicion and surveillance, while, at the same time, reproductions of our bodies and actions are consumed and welcomed in places, like academia, where our presence is restricted, if it’s allowed at all. Licit or illicit, Black folks are dope. Owning My Masters, to my mind, is an uncut dose.

Considering hip-hop’s history of naming societal problems as a way to confront them, I wrote the album to use rap and hip-hop methodologies to highlight America’s past and present, with hopes that in the next 50 years of hip-hop, a rap album dissertation would be considered as traditional as the kinds of written documents most people submit today. It was also a way to show how profoundly hip-hop has shaped my life in ways that aren’t academic.

When I reflect on my life, I often think of the Jay-Z lines from “Murder to Excellence”: “And they say by twenty-one I was supposed to die / So I’m out here celebrating my post-demise.” I appreciate that so many people who listen to rap music might hear the same song and take away different things. It’s almost like no two people ever really experience the same song the same way. We listen and filter what we hear through our own circumstances. 

Jay-Z rapping about surviving everyday American violence might conjure hundreds of different interpretations depending on the experiences people bring into the listening. In “Murder to Excellence,” he’s reflecting on his relatively short life expectancy as a Black man in a violent world, and relishing outliving those expectations. When I think of his lyrics, it’s almost always more personal and separate from that context. I’m usually thinking about the near-death experience that changed my life.

In the video for “Do Better,” it seems Ab-Soul is sharing a near-death experience that changed his life. He jumped off a freeway overpass in his hometown Carson, CA. In an interview with Charlamagne tha God, he talks about the addiction that led to his jump. He says that he’s never attempted suicide while not under the influence. There’s a history of hip-hop songs that deal with substance abuse and mental health that goes as far back as the first commercial recordings. 

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The well-known refrain of the 1982 song, “The Message,” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, is illustrative, “It’s like a jungle sometimes / it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.” The 1991 Geto Boys song “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” plumbs the depths of paranoia and depression described by group members Scarface, Willie D, and Bushwick Bill. MC Lyte’s “Poor Georgie,” a rap yarn about a womanizing young alcoholic who dies tragically, was released in 1991, as well. And there’s Biggie’s “Suicidal Thoughts” from 1994. Tupac opens and closes his 1995 song, “Lord Knows” with, “I smoke a blunt to get the pain out / and if I wasn’t high I’d probably try to blow my brains out.” In 1996, A Tribe Called Quest and Faith Evans released “Stressed Out.”

The entire corpus of DMX might qualify for this list. Along with Jean Grae’s “Keep Livin’” from 2003 where she discusses mental health over the beat to Scarface’s 2002 song, “On My Block.” And Earl Sweatshirt’ “Grief,” released in 2015 on an album titled I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside. The long list of rappers who have made music or otherwise attempted to publicly navigate issues with mental health, substance abuse, and/or suicidal ideation include Kid Kudi, CHIKA, Conway the Machine, Ye, 7xvethegenius, and Mac Miller, one of the many artists who’ve battled substance abuse. Miller was a friend of Ab-Soul, and one of the people he mourns on Herbert and “Do Better.”   

In his interview with Charlamagne, Ab-Soul’s description of his state of mind when he jumped from the overpass resonates with me. Though I would say I felt fine sober, under the influence, I had an excuse to give in to any impulse that came to mind. The song and video for “Do Better” resonate because I’ve been a firsthand witness to addiction and folks I love trying to jump off that figurative ledge. I’ve been there myself and jumped. I’m not an addiction expert. I’m a survivor. Fortunately, I’ve also been caught by the embrace of folks close to me. Tragic losses sometimes leave us with unfathomable guilt and grief. That there are arms and hands – people close enough – to be embraced by is the greatest of gifts. 

All those years ago, I rarely spent any of my free time sober, and the reasons for that were many, including, in part, what felt like incessant heaviness from depression and nonstop tragedy that made the heaviness thick and nearly immovable. 

The way Ab-Soul describes his “incident” is that it happened in a “cinematic” way. He describes blacking out, like blinks, and each time his eyes opened he was farther along his course until he’d jumped off the overpass and was laying on the street. He says he believes a car broke his fall. “No brain damage,” he says, but teeth and bones broken, one leg taking the brunt of the fall, apparently. 

I don’t remember my crash. I remember moments—drinking…laughing…texting…stopping at Walgreens…overwhelming sadness…driving…a yellow traffic light…the impact of my steering wheel on my face…the smell of grass…the sounds of crying…the taste of my blood…numbness…a cold gurney…darkness…silence…and then nothing. 

My face felt mangled. The raised scar beneath the curve of my bottom lip is poorly covered with facial hair. The healed tissue inside my mouth has become the focus of an anxious tic. I catch myself rubbing my tongue back and forth against it when I’m nervous, especially when I’m thinking about the crash. 

My recklessness could’ve caused so much more damage. It was a weekend on the busiest street in town. I can’t help but think of all the worst scenarios—death, of others, and my own. I imagine the seatbelt of the old Lincoln Town Car not pulling me back into my seat, being ejected from the windshield, or sitting just a few more inches to the right on the bench seat and being crushed by the engine. 

I think of my mother having to plan a funeral, write an obituary, and my siblings saying goodbye and wondering what could’ve been done differently. My dad took my youngest brother and sister to the scene of the crash before they went to the hospital that night. Sometime after, my younger brother told me he was angry with me. He wouldn’t speak to me because he thought I died. I think about that, too. 

Nearly as much as I think about those possible outcomes, I think about what I intended to do that evening. I wish I had clarity. It bothers me to not know. It’s difficult to accept the possible reasons. But somewhere amidst the justifying, denying, and poor intellectualizing, I know it was because I was tired. I decided at that moment to let go. I thought I was finished.

I was wrong. 

It wasn’t the first time I’d confronted the toxic combination of substance abuse mixed with ongoing mental health challenges that resulted in an attempt to make it all stop in the most permanent of ways. Unfortunately, the crash wasn’t the last time I felt tired and like I was finished. It is, however, the last time I acted on those thoughts in that way. I’ve written myself onto and off of that ledge so many times trying to make sense of it. I’ve sat in front of many therapists, first by court order, then voluntarily, through rehab and maintenance of sobriety, and ongoing. 

Fifteen years of sobriety have shown me that I may never know for sure what brought me to the ledge, but I do know that I don’t want to jump. When I hear Ab-Soul rapping, seemingly to himself, affirmations as the hook of the song, I hear my voice telling myself the same thing. And I’m encouraged that he’s listening. After the crash, I remember writing furiously, trying to catch all my thoughts and commit them to paper and then make music with them, or to be able to tell someone else that things can be different. Things can be better. 

I think one of the reasons hip-hop – the music, the culture, and the people – have prevailed against all odds, and persist, still, is because of the insistence of its creators to make beautiful art out of some of the ugliest, most difficult, brokenness. This mythos that surrounds rappers is something I’ve witnessed as a fan, as an artist, and as a student of hip-hop. Along with the tales of love for the people and places we’ve loved, left, or maybe hoped to leave, the lives we’ve lived or wanted to live, rappers have consistently reworked trauma, navigated loss, introduced and reintroduced ourselves and our outward personas by percussively narrating pasts, presents, and futures between snares, samples, bass lines and kick drums. And audiences continue to tune in, maybe to listen intently to the words, to subtly sway to the rhythms, or to just bob along to the beat.

Though I didn’t go in-depth about Ab-Soul’s song and video when I was in Detroit talking about Black people being dope, I did discuss the legacies of hip-hop. I find it remarkable to be able to experience the milestone that is hip-hop’s 50th year. I find it remarkable that I’m still here. The Jay-Z lyrics remain an appropriate couplet to describe my life. 

Celebrating my post-demise – my second second chance, as Ab-Soul described it – has included lots of therapy, writing, making music, school, cross-country relocation, learning, teaching, and starting a new career. There’s still been guilt and grief and tragedy, but there has also been joy and laughter and the occasional necessary embrace. 

With Ab-Soul’s addition to the deep archive of rap music that I reference when I need to try to make sense of the world around me, his refrain more closely describes my approach to life after that metaphoric leap: “I gotta do better. I gotta do better. I gotta…”

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A.D. Carson is a rapper, performance artist, and educator from Decatur, Illinois. He received a Ph.D. in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design. His previous works include the albums iv: talking to ghosts and i used to love to dream — a winner of the 2021 Research Award for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities from the University of Virginia and a Category Winner (Best eProduct) of a Prose Award from the Association of American Publishers in 2021.

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Tate Britain rehang: a masterclass in how to refresh a museum

I

t’s a decade since Tate Britain rehung all its galleries. In a 126-year-old museum that houses a collection of 500 years of British art that is, of course, a relative drop in the ocean. But in terms of attitudes to art and its history, and how museums display it, I can’t imagine there has ever been a 10-year period that has witnessed a more seismic shift.

The historic canon is being exploded, meaning more women and artists of colour are gaining due prominence. And the sitters, landscapes and patrons behind the art are also being newly explored. It’s not enough anymore to look at paintings of the rich and powerful of the past without examining the context that supported them, or to see a country house and its estate and not ponder why and how they were built. Art always emerges from particular social and cultural conditions, to ignore that seems more absurd than ever.

So these are the driving principles of Tate Britain’s new displays. Officially, there are three themes: Britain and the World, Art and Society, History and the Present. They’ve long been at the core of the gallery’s programming. But never so wholly, or explicitly. It’s done with apposite thoroughness, with a broad overall chronology encompassing thematic rooms. It tells its stories in two ways: through excellent and illuminating texts, and through what the director of Tate Britain Alex Farquharson calls “stealthy interruptions” from artists.

So in a room looking at the 18th-century city, where you see the economic benefits to Britain of the slave trade, is Chair No.35, by Sonia E Barrett, an artist with Jamaican heritage. Smashed, and splayed like a broken body adrift on the sea, it’s a poignant and jarring response to the works nearby. In the same room, between Canaletto and Hogarth, Pablo Bronstein imagines a Molly House, where queer men would socialise and have sex, as if it were able to celebrate its purpose, bedecked with nods to historic gay men, homoerotic art and even emoji innuendos.

Texts about historic works enrich rather than distract from the paintings by informing us about who the sitters were, why they commissioned works, how they could afford them and, often, who they exploited on the way. The power of Gainsborough’s portrait of the Baillie family is in no way diminished by the knowledge that the finery Gainsborough so beautifully describes in this image of familial harmony was underpinned by James Baillie’s wealth from the Grenadan and British Guianan plantations he owned and passed on to his charming children.

Richard Smith, Gift Wrap, 1963

/ Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures Ltd

Visually, the collection is palpably revivified. That’s partly because 70 of the 800 works in the hang — historic works as well as contemporary — have been acquired in the past five years. But the curators have also looked deeper into the collection, finding long-held objects that haven’t seen the light of day for decades.

Yes, most of the most famous works — from Hogarth to Hockney — are here. The Clore Gallery still houses masses of JMW Turner’s paintings, and a John Constable room. There are fantastic displays dedicated to William Blake, Henry Moore and Richard Hamilton. But I was also surprised and delighted in pretty much every room, and I learnt a huge amount.

Women artists are present right from the start: Joan Carlile and Mary Beale in the Stuart period, Angelica Kaufmann in the 18th-century, Henrietta Rae and Dorothy Stanley in the Victorian era, Marlow Moss and Winifred Nicholson next to each other in a space dedicated to International Modernism, and onwards, growing steadily more prominent through the displays until there’s parity in the later 20th and 21st centuries. A solo space given to Annie Swynnerton, campaigner for women’s suffrage and pioneering member of the Royal Academy, would have been unthinkable not long ago. I would celebrate it if could abide her saccharine style.

Damien Hurst, Away from the flock, 1994

/ Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures Ltd

The modern and contemporary spaces are equally unexpected, shaking up standard histories of recent periods. In No Such Thing as Society, the 1980s room, Black Arts linchpins like Ingrid Pollard and Donald Rodney are rightfully as prominent as New British Sculpture artists like Antony Gormley and Tony Cragg. A mini-display of the Young British Artists of the 1990s shows how caricatured that period has already become; great pieces by Mona Hatoum, Sutapa Biswas and Chris Ofili deepen the sense of the art of this period’s political rigour.

The final rooms include marvellous paintings by Mohammed Sami, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, a superb sculpture by Veronica Ryan and a Zineb Sedira film. Perhaps reflecting the brilliant diversity of the contemporary British scene was the easiest of Farquharson and his team’s tasks. That they’ve reflected a greater richness across the rest of the collection, and tell its story so rigorously, is some achievement.

Tate Britain, now open; tate.org.uk

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New consortium hopes to preserve Richland’s Black history

COLUMBIA — Richland County is one of the historically richest in South Carolina, hosting the capital that’s been around since 1786 and boasting the second-most nationally registered historic sites in the state, behind Charleston.

Glenice Pearson sees a large part of the county’s story missing: its African American history.

“These sites are the ones that are most at risk at this time,” she said about Black history.

Pearson, who has been working in historic preservation in South Carolina for decades, announced the launch of a new organization designed to get the community involved with preserving its own history.

That untapped wealth is behind the name of the Rich Land Historic Preservation Consortium, which will focus on educating the public about  conservation and identifying historical Black sites for preservation. In a May 19 press conference launching the organization at Hyatt Park, some 30 consortium members and attendees spoke about the stories they thought were being overlooked.

“This go-between organization really was created to get more out of the people’s voices heard and aired, and then possibly get the people more involved in some of the work,” Pearson said.

Barry Elmore, the consortium’s president, has seen his family history fall to the wayside. His great grandfather George Elmore’s 1946 lawsuit won Black men the right to vote in South Carolina’s Democratic primary.

His civil rights activism opened the door for voting rights, but it cost his family their safety and livelihood. Racist attacks in the wake of the lawsuit forced Elmore’s family to move out of South Carolina and for him to lose his general store in Columbia’s Waverly neighborhood.

Barry would like to see his family history honored in the city. His great grandfather’s store was demolished in 2012, despite the city recognizing it with a historical marker.

“I just want to bring the legacy the light because he made a huge sacrifice,” Barry said. “It cost him his life.”

The consortium is collaborating with Black churches and cemeteries in Columbia that are more than 75 years old to get their history preserved.

Felicia Hopkins, a panelist at the press conference, is an organist at Chappelle Memorial AME Church, one of the oldest Black churches in Waverly.   

“I would like everybody to know how these churches educated our communities spiritually,” Hopkins said. “This is important for our community to know, how Richland County has a very rich, rich, rich history.”

Black history has been carving out space for itself in South Carolina. The University of South Carolina unveiled its first building named after a non-White person last month. The International African American History Museum in Charleston is scheduled to open its doors in June. 

Gaps still exist, causing important moments to fall through the cracks, Pearson said.

Ramon Jackson, a member of the consortium, recently joined the S.C. State Museum to coordinate its African American history programs. While working at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Jackson worked to get important sites on the national historic registry.

He witnessed a building that was part of the South Carolina Green Book, a guide for Black people to stay at safe locations during the Jim Crow Era, defaced of its historic markers by its owner and made ineligible for national funding or recognition.

“We need folks like you to speak out to tell folks how important these spaces are,” he said. “To police those who purchase these historic buildings and let them know the history of these spaces.”

Even when Black history is known, the public isn’t educated on it, Jackson said. The S.C. State Museum lacks African American artifacts and exhibits, but he aims to change that.

“We have not always been an institution that puts the story of African Americans in South Carolina front and center,” he said. “I’m here to tell you, as long as I am there, you have an ally, you have a voice.”

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