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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial: Takeaways From Defense’s Closing Arguments

    Mr. Combs’s lead lawyer made a final appeal to the jury, arguing in often sarcastic tones that the government’s evidence contradicted its case against the hip-hop mogul.Sean Combs’s lawyer made a final appeal to the jury at his racketeering and sex trafficking trial in New York on Friday, arguing in often sarcastic tones that the government’s evidence contradicted its case against the hip-hop mogul.The lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, portrayed his client as a deeply flawed man who led a swinger’s lifestyle, had a drug problem and sometimes physically assaulted his girlfriends. But he argued government’s accusation that Mr. Combs was a sex trafficker or the ringleader of a racketeering organization was “badly exaggerated.”“He did what he did,” Mr. Agnifilo said. “But he’s going to fight to the death to defend himself from what he didn’t do.”Here are some takeaways from the defense’s closing argument.The defense focused on consent, credibility and overreach.Friday’s summation was the most substantive argument made to date by the defense, which called no witnesses during the trial and declined to put Mr. Combs on the stand.Mr. Agnifilo devoted long stretches of his four-hour closing argument to highlighting testimony, texts and video evidence, that he said demonstrated that Casandra Ventura and “Jane,” who testified under a pseudonym, consensually participated in the marathon sex parties that are central to the government’s claim that the women were sex trafficked.“You want to call it swingers, you want to call it threesomes,” he said, “whatever you want to call it, that is what it is — that’s what the evidence shows.”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

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    In court, Combs has adopted an easygoing, subdued demeanor.

    Sean Combs’s lawyer made a final appeal to the jury at his racketeering and sex trafficking trial in New York on Friday, arguing in often sarcastic tones that the government’s evidence contradicted its case against the hip-hop mogul.The lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, portrayed his client as a deeply flawed man who led a swinger’s lifestyle, had a drug problem and sometimes physically assaulted his girlfriends. But he argued government’s accusation that Mr. Combs was a sex trafficker or the ringleader of a racketeering organization was “badly exaggerated.”“He did what he did,” Mr. Agnifilo said. “But he’s going to fight to the death to defend himself from what he didn’t do.”Here are some takeaways from the defense’s closing argument.The defense focused on consent, credibility and overreach.Friday’s summation was the most substantive argument made to date by the defense, which called no witnesses during the trial and declined to put Mr. Combs on the stand.Mr. Agnifilo devoted long stretches of his four-hour closing argument to highlighting testimony, texts and video evidence, that he said demonstrated that Casandra Ventura and “Jane,” who testified under a pseudonym, consensually participated in the marathon sex parties that are central to the government’s claim that the women were sex trafficked.“You want to call it swingers, you want to call it threesomes,” he said, “whatever you want to call it, that is what it is — that’s what the evidence shows.”Mr. Agnifilo cast doubt on the credibility of some of the government’s witnesses, taking particular aim at Capricorn Clark, a former assistant to Mr. Combs who testified that she had been kidnapped twice at his direction. In one of those instances, she said, Mr. Combs was in possession of a gun, a statement that the defense said was not supported by other witnesses.At one point, Mr. Agnifilo suggested that the racketeering charge was an overreach and that Mr. Combs had been targeted by the government because the case began with a lawsuit, not anyone making a report to law enforcement. “He’s indicted by himself,” Mr. Agnifilo said, noting that no witnesses testified to being part of such an enterprise.The prosecution later objected, arguing that Mr. Agnifilo’s suggestion that Mr. Combs had been targeted was improperly made in front of the jury. Judge Arun Subramanian agreed and told jurors that the decision-making of the government or a grand jury on whether to charge a defendant was “none of your concern.”The defense offered an alternative view of the infamous video of a hotel assault.Mr. Agnifilo presented an alternative narrative for a critical piece of evidence in the case: a security-camera video that showed Mr. Combs beating Ms. Ventura in a hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.The jury has seen this footage numerous times during the seven-week trial, and witnesses described it from multiple angles, as well as what happened before and after the attack. The video also shaped public opinion of the case after CNN aired a version of it last year, prompting Mr. Combs to apologize, calling his behavior “inexcusable.”The government contends the video shows Mr. Combs beating Ms. Ventura when she tried to leave a marathon sex session with a male prostitute. That would be evidence he had physically compelled her to participate, a key element in proving sex trafficking.One of the sexual encounters took place at the InterContinental Century City hotel in Los Angeles. Video of Mr. Combs dragging Ms. Ventura down a hallway has been cited as part of the abusive conduct.Hunter Kerhart for The New York TimesBut Mr. Agnifilo characterized the attack as flowing from a quarrel over a phone, not punishment for leaving the “freak-off.” Early in the video, Ms. Ventura is seen walking down a hallway with a phone in her right hand, heading toward an elevator bank. Later, after Mr. Combs attacks her, he appears to retrieve the phone from her and walks back to the room with it.A gap in the time code on the video, Mr. Agnifilo said, suggests that Ms. Ventura went back in their hotel room for three minutes and 42 seconds before a security guard arrived. “The point is,” Mr. Agnifilo said, “the room is not a scary place.”Mr. Combs’s family was a focal point.Mr. Agnifilo pointed out that six of the music mogul’s seven children were in the courtroom to offer support — “the seventh being an infant.” Mr. Combs’s mother, Janice, a frequent presence at the trial, was also in the gallery.“You should know that,” ​M​r. Agnifilo told the jury. “You should know who he is,” he added, “the man takes care of people — that’s what’s in the evidence.”Wrapping his closing statement, Mr. Agnifilo returned to Mr. Combs’s family ties to add stakes to his potential acquittal. “He sits there innocent,” he said of his client. “Return him to his family who have been waiting for him.”Mr. Combs’s sons, Christian​ Combs and Justin​ Combs, arriving at court in Manhattan on Friday.John Lamparski/Getty ImagesOn Friday morning, one of Mr. Combs’s sons, Christian​ Combs, released new music under the name King Combs. The seven-song EP includes a track with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, called “Diddy Free.”On it, King Combs, 27, raps about those who “try to play the victim” and states “[expletive] the world, critics and the witness.” Later, he says: “this Bible might come in handy / this rifle might come in handy” and repeats a chorus on which he promises not to sleep “’til we see Diddy free.”​A​nother of Mr. Combs’s sons, Justin​ Combs, arrived at court wearing a shirt that read “Free Sean Combs” ​on Friday, but a court officer quickly tapped him on the shoulder — those kinds of visible messages of support are not allowed. He left the courtroom and the message was not visible when he returned.Mr. Agnifilo’s closing was marked by animated, often sarcastic, statements.Mr. Agnifilo, who opened his closing argument with a warning to the jurors that he likes to pace while he talks, used an energetic delivery to hammer home the defense’s skepticism of the government’s case. Speaking forcefully, gesticulating and pacing, he reacted to the idea that Mr. Combs was in charge of a racketeering enterprise: “Are you kidding me?”His demeanor loosened as he continued, and at one point Mr. Agnifilo made a reference to the 50th anniversary of “Jaws” and its quotable line “We’re going to need a bigger boat,” while poking fun at the investigators in the case: “We need a bigger roll of crime-scene tape!” Regarding the lubricant found in the raids of Mr. Combs’s homes, Mr. Agnifilo also gave a passionate “Whoo!” reminiscent of Al Pacino onscreen.In the first 30 minutes of his summation, Mr. Agnifilo appealed to the jury’s emotions, throwing in personal asides, laugh lines and detailed characterizations of the witnesses in colloquial terms, working to keep them engaged while broadly brushing away the legitimacy of the charges.At other times, his mockery was more direct. In referring to Ms. Ventura’s brief relationship with the rapper Kid Cudi, the defense lawyer became especially animated: “Cassie’s keeping it gangster!” he said, arguing that she was brazenly lying to both men, with no apparent fear of Mr. Combs.“I’m getting myself a burner phone,” Mr. Agnifilo said, imagining Ms. Ventura’s mind-set at the time. “Whooooaaaa — a burner phone!” the lawyer added. “Someone’s got a burner phone!” More

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    Jack Kleinsinger, Impresario Behind a Marathon Jazz Series, Dies at 88

    A lawyer by day, he created Highlights in Jazz, bringing together artists both famous and unknown in more than 300 concerts over 50 years.Jack Kleinsinger, a lawyer by day who in his evening hours indulged his passion for music by creating and running Highlights in Jazz, one of New York’s longest-running concert series, for which he arranged and hosted more than 300 shows over a 50-year run, died on June 11 at his home in Manhattan. He was 88.His cousin, Elizabeth Elliot, said the cause was complications of a fall.Mr. Kleinsinger spent 30 years as a government lawyer, first for New York City and then, from 1970 to 1991, as an assistant attorney general for the State of New York.But his real life began after he punched out every afternoon. Seven times a year, he presented Highlights in Jazz, a roaming concert series that featured some of the country’s best musicians playing alongside a host of promising young artists.Beginning in 1973, at a time when interest in jazz was at its ebb and nightclubs were shutting down, Mr. Kleinsinger nonetheless drew packed crowds. His shows often sold out; any tickets he didn’t sell, he donated to performing-arts high schools around the city.Mr. Kleinsinger’s first shows, in 1973, were such a hit that he immediately began planning. He ended up presenting concerts in various venues around Manhattan.Tribeca Performing Arts CenterHe could count on a core audience of about 350, many of whom took pride in attending virtually every one of his shows. He built on that base with a mailing list of 5,000, which he curated by hand.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

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    Prestige Podcast Company Pineapple Street Studios Shuts Down

    The studio was a model podcast startup of the 2010s. But Audacy, its owner, has struggled to turn a profit.Pineapple Street Studios, the maker of prestigious narrative podcasts that helped shape the post- “Serial” era of the industry, is shutting down.Audacy, the radio station owner that acquired the studio in 2019, announced the move on Thursday and said it was part of a strategic shift away from branded podcasts and toward more “promising growth areas for our podcasting business.”The roughly 30 members of the staff were notified Thursday afternoon.Founded in 2016 by Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky, Pineapple quickly established itself as a home for shows hosted by prominent celebrities — at the time a novelty in the medium — like Hillary Clinton and Lena Dunham. Simultaneously, it produced a string of ambitious, limited-run documentary series, including “Missing Richard Simmons,” “Heavens Gate” and “Welcome to Your Fantasy,” which received widespread acclaim.Pineapple was in many ways a model podcast startup of the 2010s — a time when the blockbuster success of “Serial,” the true crime investigation from producers of “This American Life,” triggered a rush of investment and innovation in the industry. (Serial Productions was acquired by The New York Times in 2020.) Pineapple sold adaptation rights for several of its shows to film and television companies. And it built a large roster of companion podcasts for popular TV series like “House of the Dragon,” “The Last of Us” and “Severance.” The radio station owner, formerly known as Entercom, filed for bankruptcy in 2024, citing a steep decline in advertising revenue. Its assets were sold to the Fund for Policy Reform, a nonprofit group controlled by the billionaire George Soros. Shortly thereafter, Audacy laid off about 25 percent of Pineapple’s staff and wound down another of its production studios, Cadence13.The downturn in advertising that began amid spiking inflation in 2023 has had broad repercussions across the industry. Many companies have pulled back investment in the style of highly produced podcasts for which Pineapple was known, turning instead toward lower-overhead chat shows. A spokesman said Audacy will continue to make podcasts under its Audacy Podcasts brand, which is behind titles like “We Can Do Hard Things” with Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle and “Fly on the Wall With Dana Carvey and David Spade.” More

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    Jonathan Mayers, a Founder of the Bonnaroo Music Festival, Dies at 51

    He helped bring crowds of music fans to a remote Tennessee cow farm with Bonnaroo, and to San Francisco with the Outside Lands festival.Jonathan Mayers, a founder of the Bonnaroo music festival, a star-studded annual extravaganza held on a poplar-dotted Tennessee farm, and Outside Lands, a three-day musical gathering in the foggy mists of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco that has been called a love letter to its host city, has died. He was 51.His death was confirmed in a social media post by Outside Lands. The post did not say where he died or cite a cause.Mr. Mayers grew up outside New York City and, after graduating from Tulane University in New Orleans in 1995, got his start on that city’s storied music scene. He worked with Tipitina’s, the nationally famous music venue, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, known as Jazz Fest.In 1996, he joined Rick Farman, Kerry Black and Richard Goodstone to found Superfly, a music promotion company. Their first concert, in New Orleans, featured the Meters, the venerable funk band; the saxophonist Maceo Parker; and the Rebirth Brass Band.Bonnaroo started in 2002, the result of Superfly’s partnership with Ashley Capps, of the concert promotion company AC Entertainment, and Coran Capshaw, the founder of Red Light, a music management and promotion company. The festival’s name, inspired by the Dr. John song “Desitively Bonnaroo,” meaning roughly “a really good time” or “good stuff” in Louisiana slang.Ben Harper performed on the second day of the first Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tenn., in June 2002.Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesWe 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

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    Tech C.E.O. Pays $400,000 to Conduct the Toronto Symphony

    Mandle Cheung, a 78-year-old amateur conductor, led a performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony over the objections of some musicians.The musicians of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra took their seats at Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday for a performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. Then a stage door swung open, and out walked the conductor.He was not a world-renowned maestro or even a trained musician. The man who walked out, wearing a crisp white shirt and taking the podium, was Mandle Cheung, a 78-year-old technology executive who had paid the Toronto Symphony nearly $400,000 to lead it for one night.Cheung, a lifelong fan of classical music who played in a harmonica band in high school and has dabbled in conducting, persuaded the orchestra to allow him to act out his long-held dream of leading a top ensemble.“I had watched the videos and heard the recordings,” Cheung, the chairman and chief executive of ComputerTalk Technology in Toronto, said in an interview. “I had seen the magic of the guy standing in front of the orchestra with a stick. So I said, ‘Why can’t I do it, too?’”He added: “I can afford to do it, that’s the main thing. So when it came across my mind, I said, ‘Hey, maybe I should give it a try.’”“I had seen the magic of the guy standing in front of the orchestra with a stick,” Cheung said. “So I said, ‘Why can’t I do it, too?’”Allan CabralWe 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

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    The defense offers an alternative view of the video of the 2016 hotel assault.

    Sean Combs’s lawyer made a final appeal to the jury at his racketeering and sex trafficking trial in New York on Friday, arguing in often sarcastic tones that the government’s evidence contradicted its case against the hip-hop mogul.The lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, portrayed his client as a deeply flawed man who led a swinger’s lifestyle, had a drug problem and sometimes physically assaulted his girlfriends. But he argued government’s accusation that Mr. Combs was a sex trafficker or the ringleader of a racketeering organization was “badly exaggerated.”“He did what he did,” Mr. Agnifilo said. “But he’s going to fight to the death to defend himself from what he didn’t do.”Here are some takeaways from the defense’s closing argument.The defense focused on consent, credibility and overreach.Friday’s summation was the most substantive argument made to date by the defense, which called no witnesses during the trial and declined to put Mr. Combs on the stand.Mr. Agnifilo devoted long stretches of his four-hour closing argument to highlighting testimony, texts and video evidence, that he said demonstrated that Casandra Ventura and “Jane,” who testified under a pseudonym, consensually participated in the marathon sex parties that are central to the government’s claim that the women were sex trafficked.“You want to call it swingers, you want to call it threesomes,” he said, “whatever you want to call it, that is what it is — that’s what the evidence shows.”Mr. Agnifilo cast doubt on the credibility of some of the government’s witnesses, taking particular aim at Capricorn Clark, a former assistant to Mr. Combs who testified that she had been kidnapped twice at his direction. In one of those instances, she said, Mr. Combs was in possession of a gun, a statement that the defense said was not supported by other witnesses.At one point, Mr. Agnifilo suggested that the racketeering charge was an overreach and that Mr. Combs had been targeted by the government because the case began with a lawsuit, not anyone making a report to law enforcement. “He’s indicted by himself,” Mr. Agnifilo said, noting that no witnesses testified to being part of such an enterprise.The prosecution later objected, arguing that Mr. Agnifilo’s suggestion that Mr. Combs had been targeted was improperly made in front of the jury. Judge Arun Subramanian agreed and told jurors that the decision-making of the government or a grand jury on whether to charge a defendant was “none of your concern.”The defense offered an alternative view of the infamous video of a hotel assault.Mr. Agnifilo presented an alternative narrative for a critical piece of evidence in the case: a security-camera video that showed Mr. Combs beating Ms. Ventura in a hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.The jury has seen this footage numerous times during the seven-week trial, and witnesses described it from multiple angles, as well as what happened before and after the attack. The video also shaped public opinion of the case after CNN aired a version of it last year, prompting Mr. Combs to apologize, calling his behavior “inexcusable.”The government contends the video shows Mr. Combs beating Ms. Ventura when she tried to leave a marathon sex session with a male prostitute. That would be evidence he had physically compelled her to participate, a key element in proving sex trafficking.One of the sexual encounters took place at the InterContinental Century City hotel in Los Angeles. Video of Mr. Combs dragging Ms. Ventura down a hallway has been cited as part of the abusive conduct.Hunter Kerhart for The New York TimesBut Mr. Agnifilo characterized the attack as flowing from a quarrel over a phone, not punishment for leaving the “freak-off.” Early in the video, Ms. Ventura is seen walking down a hallway with a phone in her right hand, heading toward an elevator bank. Later, after Mr. Combs attacks her, he appears to retrieve the phone from her and walks back to the room with it.A gap in the time code on the video, Mr. Agnifilo said, suggests that Ms. Ventura went back in their hotel room for three minutes and 42 seconds before a security guard arrived. “The point is,” Mr. Agnifilo said, “the room is not a scary place.”Mr. Combs’s family was a focal point.Mr. Agnifilo pointed out that six of the music mogul’s seven children were in the courtroom to offer support — “the seventh being an infant.” Mr. Combs’s mother, Janice, a frequent presence at the trial, was also in the gallery.“You should know that,” ​M​r. Agnifilo told the jury. “You should know who he is,” he added, “the man takes care of people — that’s what’s in the evidence.”Wrapping his closing statement, Mr. Agnifilo returned to Mr. Combs’s family ties to add stakes to his potential acquittal. “He sits there innocent,” he said of his client. “Return him to his family who have been waiting for him.”Mr. Combs’s sons, Christian​ Combs and Justin​ Combs, arriving at court in Manhattan on Friday.John Lamparski/Getty ImagesOn Friday morning, one of Mr. Combs’s sons, Christian​ Combs, released new music under the name King Combs. The seven-song EP includes a track with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, called “Diddy Free.”On it, King Combs, 27, raps about those who “try to play the victim” and states “[expletive] the world, critics and the witness.” Later, he says: “this Bible might come in handy / this rifle might come in handy” and repeats a chorus on which he promises not to sleep “’til we see Diddy free.”​A​nother of Mr. Combs’s sons, Justin​ Combs, arrived at court wearing a shirt that read “Free Sean Combs” ​on Friday, but a court officer quickly tapped him on the shoulder — those kinds of visible messages of support are not allowed. He left the courtroom and the message was not visible when he returned.Mr. Agnifilo’s closing was marked by animated, often sarcastic, statements.Mr. Agnifilo, who opened his closing argument with a warning to the jurors that he likes to pace while he talks, used an energetic delivery to hammer home the defense’s skepticism of the government’s case. Speaking forcefully, gesticulating and pacing, he reacted to the idea that Mr. Combs was in charge of a racketeering enterprise: “Are you kidding me?”His demeanor loosened as he continued, and at one point Mr. Agnifilo made a reference to the 50th anniversary of “Jaws” and its quotable line “We’re going to need a bigger boat,” while poking fun at the investigators in the case: “We need a bigger roll of crime-scene tape!” Regarding the lubricant found in the raids of Mr. Combs’s homes, Mr. Agnifilo also gave a passionate “Whoo!” reminiscent of Al Pacino onscreen.In the first 30 minutes of his summation, Mr. Agnifilo appealed to the jury’s emotions, throwing in personal asides, laugh lines and detailed characterizations of the witnesses in colloquial terms, working to keep them engaged while broadly brushing away the legitimacy of the charges.At other times, his mockery was more direct. In referring to Ms. Ventura’s brief relationship with the rapper Kid Cudi, the defense lawyer became especially animated: “Cassie’s keeping it gangster!” he said, arguing that she was brazenly lying to both men, with no apparent fear of Mr. Combs.“I’m getting myself a burner phone,” Mr. Agnifilo said, imagining Ms. Ventura’s mind-set at the time. “Whooooaaaa — a burner phone!” the lawyer added. “Someone’s got a burner phone!” More

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    Sean Combs’s Son and Kanye West Release New Song, ‘Diddy Free’

    The track, which also features North West, includes a chorus where the rapper known as King Combs promises not to sleep “’til we see Diddy free.”Marketing prowess may run in the family.On the day Sean Combs’s defense was set to present its closing argument to jurors, the music mogul’s son Christian, who raps as King Combs, released a long-teased set of seven new songs, including one track called “Diddy Free.”The song, credited to King Combs and Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, includes lyrics about those who “try to play the victim” and states plainly “[expletive] the world, critics and the witness.” Later, King Combs, 27, raps, “this Bible might come in handy / this rifle might come in handy” with a chorus that promises not to sleep “’til we see Diddy free.”A previous demo version of the song by Ye — without King Combs — had leaked online last month. The superstar rapper and producer, who has become a pariah in the music industry for his persistent, button-pushing antisemitism, has been the highest-profile celebrity to offer public support for Mr. Combs, who is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. Earlier this month, he briefly appeared at the Manhattan courthouse where the trial is being held in a show of solidarity.Ye is credited as the executive producer of King Combs’s new music, the “Never Stop” EP, which uses a photo that appears to depict the dilapidated headquarters for Bad Boy Worldwide, Mr. Combs’s entertainment company, as its cover art. The EP also includes a featured appearance by North West, Ye’s eldest daughter with his former wife, Kim Kardashian. Her appearance on an earlier version of the song had, according to Ye, been a source of contention between the two parents.King Combs was among the six of Mr. Combs’s seven children who appeared in court to support the mogul on Friday. (The seventh, Mr. Combs’s lawyer pointed out, is an infant.) He wore a jacket that includes an illustration of his late mother, Kim Porter, who died in 2018 and has been evoked at trial as Mr. Combs’s “soul mate.”“You always told me to chase my dreams and be a go-getter,” King Combs raps on another track, titled “Kim.”“In this studio right now, I feel alone in it.” More