06/12/20
TRENDS THIS WEEK
☞ YouTube: All Sports Golf Battle
☞ Letterboxd: 13th
☞ TikTok: #blackvoices
☞ Spotify: Rockstar - DaBaby
☞ Netflix: 13 Reasons Why
☞ Twitter: #UngodlyHour
LIFE & CULTURE
Chloe x Halle’s new album Ungodly Hour dropped last night! These sisters are incredibly talented and made their new album entirely in their garage. Their idea of a garage band is def different than mine was growing up...
The Grammys are renaming their Urban Contemporary category to 'Best Progressive R&B Album’. The redefinition of this category, according to the Academy, is "intended to highlight albums that include the more progressive elements of R&B and may include samples and elements of hip-hop, rap, dance, and electronic music."
Join Boots Riley, director of SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, for a conversation on arts, politics, and revolution, hosted by Haymarket Books on June 15 at 2:00 PM PST. Get tickets here.
The internet blew up after JK Rowling released a lengthy essay in response to backlash to this tweet. Many of the Harry Potter series cast members responded, including Daniel Radcliffe, who wrote an essay for The Trevor Project.
Oh, and don't miss Spike Lee's newest film DA 5 BLOODS, starring Chadwick Boseman, out today on Netflix. Also new today is Judd Apatow's THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND, starring Pete Davidson. The movie has the dopest poster I've seen in a looong time.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Tik Tok: @whatchugotforme
Rising comedian Sarah Cooper was featured in the LA Times and just signed with WME following several viral impersonations of President Trump reminding us all that laughter is the best medicine (and that he can’t quote the Bible).
The #ShareTheMicNow campaign launched this week to center black women’s voices, work, and experiences, and to form relationships among Black and white women. The campaign reached over 300 million people with 40 pairs of women participating. Here are a few sample features:
Bozoma Saint John, one of the campaign organizers, business woman, and CMO at Endeavor, swapped with Kourtney Karashian...see the posts here.
Austin Channing Brown - Author of best-selling book “I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness”, speaker, and producer of the web series, The Next Question took over via Brene Brown’s account...see the posts here.
Melina Abdullah - Chair of the Pan-African studies department at California State University, Los Angeles and Co-founder of the Los Angeles Black Lives Matter chapter swapped with Chelsea Handler...see the posts here.
TECH
Now you can get insight to how monetization works on Youtube. The new BTS look gives creators and users some more clarity at what types of videos allow ads. There’s still a lot of gray areas but this monetization guideline from Youtube provides some answers.
Apple has secured a patent for socially distant group selfies. It will allow you to snap a single-person selfie and then crop multiple photos together to become one image - and so now you won’t have to physically be with your friends for that group photo. Could be cool? Maybe?
COMEDY
Last night, Netflix surprise-dropped Dave Chappelle's new comedy special for free on their YouTube channel "Netflix is a Joke". Chappelle dives deep into topics of police brutality and Floyd’s death in the set. The special was filmed on June 6 in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with coronavirus-era social distancing guidelines in place for attendees, including face masks and temperature checks.
Also, hitting you guys with a throwback this week...F. Gary Gray’s FRIDAY is a true classic. The hilarious yet heartwarming comedy centers around one Friday in South Central LA, where two best friends (played by Ice Cube and Chris Tucker) try to come up with the money to pay off a crazy drug dealer. The themes and moral battles presented in this film are only a glimpse of what we deal with in our own realities. It teaches us to stand up for what we believe in and to always have your family’s back. But more than anything...it's SO funny.
VIDEO GAME
THE Playstation 5 IS HERE!
Check out the live streamed event here. We’re getting a whole new system with an advanced controller that will take gaming to the next level! Their flagship game will be a sequel to the highest selling superhero video game of all time, but this time it will star Miles Morales beneath the mask! Take a peek at the trailer here.
COMIC
ARTEMIS AND ASSASSIN by Stephani Phillips
What happens when a time-traveling assassin and a spy from 1944 try to kill each other?
For a price, a top-secret assassination organization will travel through time and interfere with watershed moments. Trained as the agency’s top assassin, Maya is sent to kill Virginia Hall, the deadliest spy of WWII. Charged with carrying important plans about the invasion of Normandy to the allied troops, Virginia’s death would have a cataclysmic effect on WWII as we know it.
This a great new series that has time traveling and spies two of my favorite things. There is a great revisionist history vibe to it that makes a fun compelling ride for sci-fi and espionage lovers.
THEATRE
This week the American theater community rallied around an open letter entitled “Dear White American Theater.” The letter criticized the American theater industry for its prioritization of white audiences, its predominantly white leadership, and its tokenism of theatermakers of color. You can read more about it here. The letter has led many playwrights of color to speak openly on Twitter about their negative experiences in MFA programs and in working with nonprofit theaters.
PODCAST
THE EZRA KLEIN SHOW: WHY TA-NEHISI COATES IS HOPEFUL - Winner of the 2020 Webby and People's Voice awards for best interview podcast. Ezra Klein brings you far-reaching conversations about hard problems, big ideas, illuminating theories, and cutting-edge research. This is his interview with National Book Award-winner Ta-Nehisi Coates.
They talk about hope and discuss how this moment differs from 1968, the tension between “law” and “order,” the contested legacy of MLK, Trump's view of the presidency, police abolition, why we need to renegotiate the idea of “the public,” how the consensus on criminal justice has shifted, what Joe Biden represents, the proper role of the state, how we conceptualize the role of violence in movements, the poetry Coates recommends, and much more.
SHORT FILMS
THREE BROTHERS by Spike Lee. This film intercuts the deaths of Eric Garner and George Floyd with the death of Radio Raheem from 1989's DO THE RIGHT THING. Radio Raheem's murder was based off the 1983 killing of NYC graffiti artist Michael Stewart. A chilling reminder that issues of police brutality are not new and it's going to take systemic change to fix them.
Be kind, stay healthy, and as always, stay creative. ツ
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