Adeem Bingham has wrestled for decades with their identity as a Southern, Christian, queer songwriter. Can modern country music make space for them and their experiences?Hannah Bingham understood that the blouse she had bought for her spouse of six years, Adeem Bingham, who was turning 32 in 2020, would be more than a mere garment or birthday present. Deep green silk and speckled with slinking tigers and glaring giraffes, it was Hannah’s tacit blessing for Adeem to explore beyond the bounds of masculinity.“Adeem had expressed an interest in dressing more feminine, but they went in the opposite direction — boots, trucker hats, canvas work jackets,” she said in a phone interview from the couple’s home in Knoxville, Tenn., as their 5-year-old, Isley, cavorted within earshot. “I thought, ‘If you’re not doing this because it might change our relationship, I’m going to help you.’”The blouse proved an instant catalyst. Incandescent red lipstick followed, as did a svelte faux fur coat — another gift. Adeem donned the outfit for family photos on Christmas Eve, and a week later, announced online they were nonbinary. At the time, Adeem the Artist, as they’ve been known since 2016, was finishing a country album, “Cast-Iron Pansexual,” about the complications of being queer — bisexual, nonbinary, trans, whatever — in Appalachia.“That record became therapy, helping me understand and explain myself,” Adeem, 34, said, speaking slowly by phone during one of a series of long interviews. “But I didn’t have in mind to explain my queer experience to straight people. I had in mind to tell my stories to queer people.”“Cast-Iron Pansexual,” though, slipped through the crevices in country’s straight white firmament, which have been widened in the past decade by the likes of Brandi Carlile, Orville Peck, Rissi Palmer and even Lil Nas X. Adeem self-recorded and self-released the LP in a rush to satisfy Patreon subscribers. Galvanized by its surprise success, they returned to a half-finished set of songs that more fully explored the misadventures and intrigues of a lifelong Southern outlier.Those tunes — cut in a proper studio with a band of ringers for the album “White Trash Revelry,” out Friday — sound ready for country radio, with their skywriting ballads swaddled in pedal steel and rollicking tales rooted in honky-tonk rhythms. Adeem culled its cast of tragic figures and hopeful radicals from their own circuitous story.On her radio show, Carlile recently called Adeem “one of the best writers in roots music.” In an interview, B.J. Barham, who fronts the boisterous but sensitive barroom country act American Aquarium, suggested Adeem might be the voice of a country frontier.“People aren’t coming to shows because of a nonbinary singer-songwriter. They’re coming because of songs,” said Barham, who asked Adeem to join him on tour the moment he heard Adeem’s trenchant Toby Keith sendup, “I Wish You Would’ve Been a Cowboy.” “If your songs are as good as Adeem’s, they transcend everything else.”Before the blouse, Adeem struggled with discrete phases of intense doubt about identity, rooted in Southern stereotypes. First came the realization they were a “poor white redneck,” they said, a seventh-generation North Carolinian whose parents had a one-night stand while their mom worked late at a Texaco and married only after realizing she was pregnant. The family were pariahs, accused of spreading lice in a Baptist church and lambasted by an elementary-school teacher for teaching young Adeem to swear.“I was this misfit in the small-town South, really into hip-hop and metal, with long, bleached-blond hair,” Adeem said. “I was beyond that cultural sphere.”When Adeem was 13, the family moved to Syracuse, N.Y. Adeem tried to drop their drawl. “Everybody thought I was stupid no matter what I said,” Adeem recalled by video from their cluttered home studio, gentle waves of a mahogany mullet cascading across a tie-dye hoodie. “I wanted to be cerebral and poetic, words that seemed wholly incompatible with the accent.”“I imagine these songs getting on a playlist beside Luke Bryan,” Adeem said, “articulating a full scope of the country experience.”Justin J Wee for The New York TimesThough their family attended church sporadically in North Carolina, Adeem began to pine for religion in New York, hoping for a kind of literal instruction manual for life. They moved to Tennessee to become a worship pastor, writing and performing songs (in nail polish, no less) that sometimes bordered on heresy. Months later, “hellbent on living life like people in the Scripture,” Adeem shifted to Messianic Judaism.Nothing stuck, so they gave up on God entirely. (“That felt really great,” Adeem said and chuckled. “Big fan of leaving.”) Still, soon after marrying in 2014, Adeem and Hannah decamped to an Episcopal mission in New Jersey, where queer folks, trans friends and people of color prompted Adeem to face the ingrained racism, sexism and shame of their childhood. “I met my first person who used they/them pronouns,” Adeem said. “It put language to so much I struggled with.”Years later, that experience helped Adeem, a new parent back in Tennessee, address gender at last. Adeem’s father had jeered the flashes of femininity, which Adeem cloaked in masculine camouflage, continuing the practice even as they realized they were bisexual, then pansexual.Working on a construction crew in Knoxville, surrounded by casual misogyny, Adeem broke. They listened to Carlile’s “The Mother,” a first-person ode to atypical parenthood, until working up the nerve to walk off the job. A year later, the silk blouse appeared.A poor Southerner, a proselytizing Christian, a performative man: Adeem once thought they could change those models from within before abandoning them altogether, at least temporarily. Country music represented another avenue of progress, one they now have no intention of leaving.Adeem came to country when their parents decided their firstborn should not be singing the Backstreet Boys. Adeem fell hard for Garth Brooks and the genre’s ’90s dynamo women — Deana Carter, Reba McEntire, Mindy McCready. Adeem’s own music later flitted among angular rock and ramshackle folk, but for “Cast-Iron Pansexual” country represented a powerful homecoming. “Using the vernacular of country, I got to showcase my values with the conduit of my oppression,” Adeem said, laughing at how high-minded it all seemed.Where “Cast-Iron Pansexual,” which opened with the winking “I Never Came Out,” indeed felt like a coming-out manifesto, “White Trash Revelry” expresses a worldview built by reconciling past pain with future hope. Adeem addresses the grievances of poor white people they have called kin with empathy and exasperation on “My America.” They mourn American militarism and state-sponsored PTSD on “Middle of a Heart.” They fantasize about a revolution of backwoods leftists on “Run This Town.”“I was this misfit in the small-town South, really into hip-hop and metal, with long, bleached-blond hair,” Adeem said of their childhood.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“I am passionate about not wanting to be the Toby Keith of the left,” Adeem said. “I imagine these songs getting on a playlist beside Luke Bryan, articulating a full scope of the country experience. The stories of queer Appalachians and Black activists in the rural South are part of this culture, too.”There are signs it could happen. To record “White Trash Revelry,” Adeem started a “Redneck Fundraiser,” asking donors for just a dollar, as if it were a community barn-raising. They quickly raised more than $15,000, including cash from the actor Vincent D’Onofrio. For Adeem, the campaign revealed “how many people feel estranged by the culture of country.” They’ve since landed a distribution deal with a big Nashville firm and played a coveted spot at the city’s iconic venue Exit/In during AmericanaFest. “Middle of a Heart,” even before the album was released, netted more than 300,000 streams, a stat that stunned Adeem.“Country should be this giant quilt work of people, of stories that let me see different struggles,” said American Aquarium’s Barham. “Excluding any of those stories, for gender or religion or race, is not country. Folks like Adeem remind you of that.”Adeem seemed less sanguine about the prospect of moving beyond country’s margins, of infiltrating a genre and lifestyle chained to obdurate mores. Still, they beamed talking about widening queer acceptance, despite recent tragedies and political setbacks. Might it be possible for Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry and New York’s Gay Ole Opry, a decade-old showcase of queer country, to one day overlap?“Every part of me thinks there’s no way I’m going to make it in the country industry,” said Adeem, pausing to swig from a giant Dale Earnhardt mug before continuing, drawl intact. “But no part of me thought Brandi Carlile would call me one of the best songwriters in roots music, so I have no idea anymore.” More

Pedro Barrientos, 74, is accused of killing the popular Chilean singer in 1973. In a civil case, Mr. Barrientos was accused of bragging about shooting Mr. Jara twice in the head.A former Chilean Army officer accused of torturing and killing the Chilean folk singer Victor Jara and others during the bloody aftermath of a 1973 military coup was arrested in Florida, officials announced Tuesday.The former officer, Pedro Pablo Barrientos, 74, who moved to Florida in 1990, is wanted in Chile for the extrajudicial murder of Mr. Jara at a Chilean sports stadium. There, Mr. Jara and other dissidents had been detained after the coup on Sept. 11, 1973, that toppled the country’s president, Salvador Allende, and thrust Gen. Augusto Pinochet into power.Federal immigration officials and local law enforcement officers arrested Mr. Barrientos on Oct. 5 during a traffic stop in Deltona, Fla., about 30 miles southwest of Daytona Beach, according to a news release published on Tuesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Mr. Barrientos is in ICE custody, officials said.“Barrientos will now have to answer the charges he’s faced with in Chile for his involvement in torture and extrajudicial killing of Chilean citizens,” John Condon, a special agent with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division in Tampa, said in the news release.Mr. Jara, who has been described as the “Bob Dylan of South America,” was a popular singer who hailed from the Chilean countryside and sang tales of poverty and injustice.He had supported the Allende government and was a member of Chile’s Communist Party when he was arrested at the State Technical University alongside hundreds of students and faculty members.Three days after his arrest, Mr. Jara’s bullet-riddled body was found outside a cemetery alongside those of four other victims. Before he was killed, soldiers smashed his fingers with their rifle butts and mockingly told him that he would never play guitar again.Mr. Barrientos’s arrest comes more than seven years after a federal jury in a civil case found him liable for Mr. Jara’s death and awarded $28 million in damages to the singer’s family, which had brought the case under a federal law that allows the victims of overseas human rights violations to seek redress.A former Chilean soldier testified in court that Mr. Barrientos had bragged about having shot Mr. Jara twice in the head.“He used to show his pistol and say, ‘I killed Víctor Jara with this,’” the soldier, José Navarrete, testified.A federal court revoked Mr. Barrientos’s U.S. citizenship in July based on a sealed complaint brought by the Department of Justice’s immigration litigation office.“The court found that Mr. Barrientos willfully concealed material facts related to his military service in his immigration applications,” the ICE news release said.It was unclear whether extradition proceedings for Mr. Barrientos were underway. The federal authorities could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday night, and it was unclear if Mr. Barrientos had retained a lawyer.Mr. Barrientos was the latest former Chilean official to be arrested in Mr. Jara’s killing. In 2018, eight retired military officers were each sentenced to more than 15 years in prison by a Chilean judge over Mr. Jara’s death. More

A day after his arrest, the music mogul known as Diddy was accused of running a “criminal enterprise” that threatened and abused women. He pleaded not guilty.Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul, was denied bail on Tuesday after pleading not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.In a federal indictment unsealed on Tuesday, Mr. Combs, 54, was described as the boss of a yearslong criminal enterprise that threatened and abused women, coercing them to participate against their will in drug-fueled orgies with male prostitutes and threatening them with violence or the loss of financial support if they refused.The 14-page indictment against Mr. Combs, a producer, record executive and performer who is also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, came a day after he was arrested in a Manhattan hotel room, following an investigation that has been active since at least early this year. Prosecutors said Mr. Combs and his employees engaged in kidnapping, forced labor, arson and bribery, and kept firearms at the ready.In asking a magistrate to deny Mr. Combs’s request to be released on bail, prosecutors argued that he was a threat to the community. One of the prosecutors, Emily A. Johnson, called him a “serial abuser and a serial obstructer,” and said his wealth would make it easy for him to escape undetected. She noted that after Mr. Combs was arrested, law enforcement found what they suspected to be narcotics in his hotel room, in the form of pink powder.Mr. Combs’s lawyers suggested a $50 million bond. But Judge Robyn F. Tarnofsky denied their request, citing Mr. Combs’s anger issues and history of substance abuse, and ordered Mr. Combs detained while he awaits trial.“My concern,” the judge said, “is that this is a crime that happens behind closed doors.”As Mr. Combs walked out of the courtroom, he looked toward his supporters in the room, including his three adult sons, and put his hand on his heart.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The ‘Bodak Yellow’ hitmaker appears to dismiss the allegations, noting that she’s not a producer so if someone has issues with a beat, she suggests the person to ‘take it up with them.’

Feb 6, 2021
AceShowbiz – Cardi B just released a new single “Up” on Thursday, February 4 and it already sparked controversy. On the same day, New Jersey rappers Mir Fontane and Mir Pesos took to Twitter to suggest that the Grammy-winning raptress plagiarized their hook for her new track.
“@iamcardib we want my money,” wrote Mir Pesos on the blue bird app. As for the receipt, Pesos attached a mash-up video of Cardi’s new single with his 2020 song “Stuck” with Mir Fontane. Both songs have rappers rapping, “Up then it’s stuck,” in the chorus in melody and beat that is undeniably similar.
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In response to stealing allegations, Cardi responded in a tweet, “F**k the drama .RUN THE NUMBERS UP !!!” Cardi then posted a clip from August 7 Instagram Live session she had with Megan Thee Stallion in which she previewed “Up”. “AUGUST 7th now go check buddy’s date,” Cardi told Fontane.

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Later, Fontane noted that while the music video for “Stuck” on September 15, 2020, they “previewed ‘STUCK’ on August 6th at the end of this video and recorded it even earlier than that, Respectfully.”
The “Bodak Yellow” hitmaker then appeared to dismiss the allegations. “Naaa im the type of person that avoids problems & court days. If i get inspired by a song I wouldn’t mind giving a percentage or couple of thousand but I never Hurd if this man,” so she told a fan. “I’m glad while I was recording this song in August I was playing wit the hook on this live.”
The wife of Offset further noted that she’s not a producer. If someone has issues with a beat, she suggested the person to “take it up with them.” Unfazed by the accusations, Cardi also revealed that drama “doesn’t even bother me.”

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On a rainy summer night, on a club stage in Woodstock, N.Y., Shawn Mendes was ready for tears. Happy tears, overwhelmed tears. Just some processing-everything-as-it-happens mistiness. “There’s probably a high chance I cry a lot,” he told the small crowd, pressing the backs of his hands to his eyes, and emerging with a grin.It was the first time in over two years that Mendes, the 26-year-old Canadian pop star, had performed in front of an audience, after he abruptly pulled the plug on his career at its pinnacle. In 2022, amid what he called a mental health “breaking point,” he canceled a multimillion-dollar, two-year international tour — over 80 scheduled arena dates — acknowledging that, in that moment, he couldn’t handle it. It was a startling admission, especially for a multiplatinum male artist with a hugely devoted young fan base. If their attention was fickle, he would be gone.In the time since, Mendes — a social media phenom with model looks and a penchant for bare-chestedness, who found immediate chart-topping success as a teenager — stepped almost completely away from music, seeking stability and a life away from the road. Then he slowly winched his way back to songwriting, through the wilds of adulthood. Over rootsy guitar and strings, his struggles are laid bare on his fifth album, “Shawn,” due Nov. 15. “I don’t understand who I am right now,” he whispers on the anguished opening track.“I felt super, super lost,” Shawn Mendes said of the moment two years ago when he called off his tour. “Healing takes time.”Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesHe’s not the type to mask anything. And it took him a long while to feel strong enough to make the record. “I felt super, super lost,” he told me. In Woodstock, he talked of spiraling anxiety, the walls closing in.But in the few months since that gig, Mendes’s stages have been growing exponentially: He blasted through “Nobody Knows,” a new, lovelorn ballad, at the MTV Video Music Awards, ending it in ecstatic guitar peals; and then sang to 100,000 people — in Portuguese — at a festival in Rio de Janeiro. When we met for an interview, at his favorite recording studio in bucolic Rhinebeck, N.Y., where he worked on the new album, he seemed as if he had regained the muscle memory of what it means to be a star. But he wore it lightly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More