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    How Tupac Shakur Remained a Defining Rap Figure After His Death

    A star during his lifetime, he became an almost mythical figure in the decades since his 1996 killing.Tupac Shakur has been dead for longer than the 25 years he lived. During his lifetime, he rose to levels of stardom matched by few other rappers, rocketing quickly from a Digital Underground backup dancer to a chart-topper and movie star, all while courting controversy with law enforcement and presidential administrations. In the decades since his 1996 murder in Las Vegas, he has endured as one of the genre’s defining figures, in no small part because of the mystery surrounding his death.The Friday arrest of Duane Keith Davis in connection with Shakur’s killing — he was indicted on a murder charge — is a step in solving one of hip-hop’s greatest tragedies and longest mysteries. Nearly two years before his death, Shakur had been ambushed and shot in New York. The assault instigated a visceral feud between Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., a New York rapper who was slain nearly six months after Shakur, forever linking the rivals and the coastal feud that hung over ’90s hip-hop.Shakur’s breadth as a rapper included enduring anthems like “Dear Mama,” “Keep Ya Head Up” and “California Love,” while also featuring songs laced with misogyny and vengeance. He poignantly rapped about social activism and the oppression of Black Americans, which helps his music resonate just as strong today as it did in the ’90s.“His death caused people to really magnify what he was doing musically and when they saw it, they were like, ‘Oh my Lord,’” said Greg Mack, a radio programmer who helped bring hip-hop music into the mainstream on the West Coast. “We didn’t know that’s who we had.”Shakur at the MTV Video Music Awards just days before his death in 1996. ReutersPart of Shakur’s staying power is because his murder investigation stayed open longer than he lived, allowing fans to offer up theories about what may have happened. Almost immediately after his Sept. 13, 1996, death was announced, rumors circulated that Shakur was actually alive and well, recording in solitude on some far-off island. These wild theories continued with regularity over the years.(In one 2011 example, hackers gained access to the PBS website and wrote that Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. were living together in a small New Zealand town. The story spread quickly on social media even after PBS removed it.)Shakur often prophesied an early death in lyrics and interviews. He recorded a trove of music during his lifetime, and much of that material saw the light of day after his death. Over the course of a decade, Shakur’s estate released several albums that culminated with 2006’s “Pac’s Life.”His posthumous output extends beyond his own albums. A holographic image of Shakur memorably performed at 2012’s Coachella festival. Kendrick Lamar used excerpts from a rare 1994 Shakur interview for the two to engage in a conversation on his influential album “To Pimp a Butterfly.” In June, Shakur received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Actors including Anthony Mackie and Demetrius Shipp Jr. have portrayed him in films.More than a dozen documentaries, plays and books have been shot, acted and written to display and dissect Shakur’s short life, including 2003’s “Tupac: Resurrection,” which earned an Academy Award nomination for best documentary feature.This year, the director Allen Hughes released “Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur,” a five-part docuseries that examines Shakur’s relationship with his mother, Afeni Shakur. (Tupac Shakur once assaulted Hughes for firing him from the movie “Menace II Society.”) Next month, Staci Robinson, who knew Shakur in high school, will publish the first estate-approved biography on Shakur, a book she worked on for more than 20 years.“Tupac Shakur no longer belongs to Tupac Shakur,” Neil Strauss of The New York Times wrote in 2001. “Soon he won’t even belong to Afeni Shakur. He will belong to playwrights, filmmakers, novelists, television executives and other modern-day mythmakers. ” That prediction has largely rung true. More

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    Duane Keith Davis Is Charged With Murder in Tupac Shakur Case

    The man, a former gang leader named Duane Keith Davis, has said the four shots that killed the rapper in 1996 came from the vehicle he was riding in.Officers said the investigation into the killing was reinvigorated in 2018 after the self-described gang member, Duane Keith Davis, admitted to multiple media outlets that he was involved.Getty Images/Archive Photos, via Getty ImagesMore than 25 years after the killing of Tupac Shakur became a defining tragedy in hip-hop, a self-described gang member who has repeatedly proclaimed that he participated in the drive-by shooting was indicted on a murder charge, Las Vegas prosecutors said on Friday, reviving a blockbuster investigation that had long stalled.The man, Duane Keith Davis, has said in interviews and a memoir that he was in the front passenger seat of the white Cadillac that pulled up near the vehicle holding Mr. Shakur after a 1996 prizefight between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon in Las Vegas.The 25-year-old rapper was shot four times and died in a hospital less than a week later.A grand jury in Clark County indicted Mr. Davis on one count of murder with use of a deadly weapon, plus a gang enhancement, a prosecutor said in court on Friday. Mr. Davis, whose arrest was earlier reported by The Associated Press, is in custody without bail.Despite plentiful speculation, evidence and reporting across nearly three decades, no charges had ever been filed in the shooting of Mr. Shakur, who was one of the most popular artists of the 1990s, with tracks that brought poetic gravitas to confrontational gangster rap. But talk of the case was revived in July, when the Las Vegas police executed a search warrant at a home in Henderson, Nev., connected to Mr. Davis.Sheriff Kevin McMahill, who leads the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, at a Friday news conference about Duane Keith Davis’s indictment.John Locher/Associated PressMarc DiGiacomo, a chief deputy district attorney in Clark County, said in court on Friday that Mr. Davis was the “on-ground, on-site commander” who “ordered the death” of Mr. Shakur and the attempted murder of Marion Knight, the rap mogul known as Suge, who was driving the car holding the rapper.It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Davis had a lawyer.In his 2019 memoir, Mr. Davis, who goes by the name Keffe D, recounted a gang dispute that escalated after Mr. Shakur and his associates beat up Mr. Davis’s nephew, Orlando Anderson, following the boxing match at the MGM Grand hotel.“Them jumping on my nephew gave us the ultimate green light to do something,” Mr. Davis said in the memoir, “Compton Street Legend.” “Tupac chose the wrong game to play.”According to a copy of the indictment filed in Clark County District Court, prosecutors accused Mr. Davis of obtaining a gun “for the purpose of seeking retribution against” Mr. Shakur and Mr. Knight, and of handing off the weapon either to his nephew or someone else in the Cadillac with “the intent that this crime be committed.” Mr. Davis is the only person in the car who is still alive.Mr. DiGiacomo acknowledged in court that the broad outlines of what had occurred that night were known to the police as far back as 1996.“What was lacking was admissible evidence to establish this chain of events,” the prosecutor said, noting that Mr. Davis then began to describe his role publicly. “He admitted within that book that he did acquire the firearm with the intent to go hunt down Mr. Shakur and Mr. Knight.”At a news conference on Friday, the Las Vegas police confirmed that Mr. Davis’s own words reinvigorated their case, starting with a television appearance he made in 2018. “We knew at this time that this was likely our last time to take a run at this case,” Lt. Jason Johansson of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said.Mr. Davis had avoided directly naming the person who opened fire in recent interviews. But in a taped confession released by a former Los Angeles Police Department detective who investigated Mr. Shakur’s murder, Mr. Davis told the police that it had been Mr. Anderson, his nephew, who was known as Baby Lane.Mr. Anderson was questioned by officers investigating Mr. Shakur’s death but was killed in a shooting in 1998.In his memoir, Mr. Davis, who has also been known as Keefe D, said that after the shooting, the men abandoned the car and walked back to the hotel, picking the vehicle up the next day and taking it back to California. It was cleaned and painted before it was returned to the rental agency days later, Mr. Davis said. By that point it was “too late for any forensics to be accurate and reliable,” he noted.Duane Keith Davis wrote in his memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” that “Tupac chose the wrong game to play.”Immediately after Mr. Shakur’s death, there was a flurry of activity in the investigation. More than 20 people were arrested in connection with shootings that the police said were suspected to be related gang attacks.But as the years went on without any charges, Shakur’s killing — and the death of the Notorious B.I.G., his friend turned rival, six months later — fueled conspiracy theories and accusations that the police had not worked hard enough to bring his killers to justice. The Las Vegas police have cited a lack of cooperation from people close to Mr. Shakur as a reason for the stalled investigation.The killings became the subjects of books, podcasts, TV series and films, further elevating Mr. Shakur — known for albums such as “Me Against the World,” on which he rapped about a life imperiled by violence, and “All Eyez on Me,” one of the genre’s first double albums — to a mythic role in hip-hop.The investigation into the death of the Notorious B.I.G. was revived by the Los Angeles Police Department in the mid-2000s, ultimately leading to a re-examination of the Shakur killing. Greg Kading, one of the detectives involved in the inquiry, later wrote a book that detailed how investigators convinced Mr. Davis to cooperate with them through a proffer agreement, meaning he could not be charged with a crime based on any incriminating statements he might make in those interviews.“I sang because they promised I would not be prosecuted,” Mr. Davis wrote in his memoir.On the night of the shooting, Mr. Shakur had been traveling in a BMW driven by Mr. Knight toward a postfight after-party at Club 662, a new venue backed by their record label, Death Row Records.Mr. Davis, a self-described member of the Crips, wrote in his memoir that he, Mr. Anderson and others had armed themselves and waited in the nightclub parking lot, hoping to confront Mr. Shakur and Mr. Knight, who were associated with the Bloods, about the earlier violence.When the rapper failed to materialize, Mr. Davis said, the group waiting for him left for its hotel, only to encounter Mr. Shakur and Mr. Knight talking to fans at a red light. “As they sat in traffic, we slowly rolled past the long line of luxury cars they had in their caravan, looking into each one until we pulled up to the front vehicle and found who we were seeking,” Mr. Davis wrote.Mr. Davis said Mr. Shakur’s crew had committed “the ultimate disrespect when they kicked and beat down my nephew” — an attack thought to be retribution for an earlier robbery of one of Mr. Shakur’s friends. In his memoir, Davis described the “strict code” of the streets that its participants “live, kill and die by.”“Tupac’s and Biggie’s deaths were direct results of that code violation and the explosive consequences when the powerful worlds of the streets, entertainment and crooked-ass law enforcement collide,” he wrote.Mr. Davis added that he had been considered a “prime suspect” in both killings, and called writing about the events for his book “therapeutic.”Sitting for an interview with a rap chronicler known as DJ Vlad this year, Mr. Davis was asked whether he was concerned that his disclosures could lead to a prosecution. Mr. Davis, who was incarcerated for roughly 15 years, in part because of federal drug charges, said he was not scared of prison.“They want to put me in jail for life?” he said. “That’s just something I got to do.”Joseph B. Treaster More

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    Stream These 9 Movies Before They Leave Netflix in October

    Oscar winners and comedy classics are among the great titles leaving the streaming service for U.S. subscribers next month.Netflix’s venerable DVD wing shut its doors this month, and that’s not all that’s disappearing; Oscar winners, period pieces, genre thrillers and comedy classics are among the titles leaving Netflix in the United States in October. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘The Rental’ (Oct. 1)Stream it here.This horror thriller from the actor and director Dave Franco — written with his co-star and offscreen partner Alison Brie and the indie stalwart Joe Swanberg — may well have benefited from what seemed like unfortunate timing: It was released in July of 2020, to the drive-ins that were the only operating movie theaters in those early days of the pandemic. Plenty of folks were also taking that opportunity to escape their surroundings and hole up in Airbnbs, so this story of two couples on an isolated weekend getaway in a rental home may have landed with more bite than even its skilled filmmakers intended.‘Cliffhanger’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.There’s a bit of a Stallone-assaince in the air, thanks to his streaming hit “Tulsa King,” the return of the “Expendables” franchise and a coming Netflix documentary. So it’s a fine time to revisit one of his best films of a not-so-great era: this 1993 action-adventure, frequently (but accurately) described as “‘Die Hard’ on a Mountain.” Stallone stars as a Rocky Mountain rescue worker who has a stranded climber slip through his fingers and plunge to her death in an intense, terrifying opening sequence. When he faces a supervillain (played with relish by a scenery-chewing John Lithgow) who has hijacked and crashed a plane full of cash, our hero has to rediscover his mettle. The director Renny Harlin stages the copious stunts and set pieces with eye-opening verisimilitude, and Stallone, though typically cast as superhuman brutes, proves adaptable to his John McClane-style Everyman role.‘Collateral’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.With Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” speeding into theaters for Christmas, the time is right to revisit the writer and director’s earlier auto-based action drama. Tom Cruise is calm, cool and chilling as an unnamed killer-for-hire who has a few hours in Los Angeles to take care of several “errands”; Jamie Foxx, at his most charismatic, is the poor cabby unfortunate enough to be hired to shuttle Cruise’s killer around town. Mann’s signatures are all accounted for — pulsing music, electrifying action sequences, smeary nighttime photography, effortless cool — but there are also generous and affecting doses of dark humor and character-driven drama.‘Coming to America’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.Eddie Murphy was the biggest movie star on the planet in 1988, and he could’ve easily continued to crank out fast-talking turns in “Beverly Hills Cop” and “48 HRS.”-style action-comedies for eternity. Instead, he developed and starred in this (comparatively) gentle and funny romantic comedy, playing against type as the soft-spoken Prince Akeem of the fictional African nation of Zamunda, who flees his homeland on the eve of his arranged marriage in order to find a wife he actually loves. He looks in what sounds like the perfect spot: Queens. Murphy is charming, the supporting cast is stacked, and the director John Landis’s ingenious inclination to have Murphy and his co-star Arsenio Hall play multiple roles results in some of the funniest and most quotable scenes of Murphy’s career.‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.When Matthew Broderick popped up as an overprotective parent in the summer comedy “No Hard Feelings,” older viewers couldn’t help but chuckle; this was exactly the kind of affable pushover that his most famous creation, the high school con artist Ferris Bueller, would have eaten for lunch. It remains his defining role, thanks to his affable personality, the straight-to-camera asides that make the viewer a co-conspirator and the wickedly smart dialogue of the writer and director John Hughes. But it’s not just Broderick’s show; Mia Sara charms as his girlfriend, Sloane; Jennifer Grey is a scream as his resentful sister; and best of all, the future “Succession” standout Alan Ruck is a basset hound of teenage ennui as Ferris’s best buddy, Cameron.‘Girl, Interrupted’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.Angelina Jolie won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her scorching turn in this adaptation of the best-selling memoir by Susanna Kaysen, and it was something less than a surprise; it’s the kind of role that’s written to steal the show, a ferocious yet charismatic troublemaker who gets an equal proportion of laugh lines and breakdowns. But there’s much more to recommend here: the sensitive and atmospheric direction by James Mangold (whose varied filmography went on to include “Logan,” “3:10 to Yuma” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”); the heartbreaking supporting work by Brittany Murphy and Whoopi Goldberg; and the especially striking lead performance of Winona Ryder as Kaysen’s avatar, a suicidal neurotic whose time in a Massachusetts mental hospital is both harrowing and healing.‘Pride & Prejudice’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.Viewers who know Matthew Macfadyen only as the ruthless social climber of “Succession” may be shocked by the humanity (and natural British accent) he brings to the role of Mr. Darcy in this delightfully energetic adaptation of the Jane Austen classic. The director Joe Wright (“Atonement”), in his feature film debut, stages it all with verve and wit, and Keira Knightley is marvelous as the plucky and gregarious Elizabeth Bennet. The jaw-dropping supporting cast includes Brenda Blethyn, Judi Dench, Tom Hollander, Jena Malone, Carey Mulligan, Rosamund Pike and Donald Sutherland.‘Reservoir Dogs’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.Few films of the 1990s announced, with the piercing clarity of a schoolyard whistle, the arrival of a startling new talent like this 1992 feature debut of the writer and director Quentin Tarantino. Exploding at that year’s Sundance Film Festival like a stick of dynamite, “Dogs” shook up the previously artsy expectations of independent cinema, thanks to what would become the Tarantino trademarks of stylized violence, pop culture-infused dialogue, incongruent needle drops, scrambled chronology and tough talk from a stacked cast (including Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Tim Roth and Tarantino himself). All would become clichés in the ensuing decade, but “Reservoir Dogs” still sparks with the electricity of a born filmmaker, already working with considerable confidence and skill.‘Steel Magnolias’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.Robert Harling’s adaptation of his modest Off Broadway play set entirely in the beauty parlor of a small Louisiana town was brought to the big screen in 1989 as a big event. The director Herbert Ross (“The Turning Point,” “The Goodbye Girl”) filled his cast with boldfaced names: the Oscar winners Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis; the ’80s icon Daryl Hannah; the force of nature Dolly Parton; and a then-unknown actress named Julia Roberts, who ended up landing, surprisingly enough, the film’s only Academy Award nomination. Despite Ross’s efforts to open it up, “Steel Magnolias” still feels like a filmed play, and that’s to its benefit; the characters are big, the emotions are bigger, and the comic dialogue has the zing of a Southern-fried Neil Simon. 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    Becky G’s Revenge Fantasy, and 11 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by PinkPantheress, the Rolling Stones featuring Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga, and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Becky G featuring Chiquis, ‘Cuidadito’Becky G, an American singer with Mexican roots, has racked up millions of streams with hits in pop styles from across the Americas. On most of her new album, “Esquinas,” she latches onto the rising popularity of regional Mexican music, reviving ballads by Vicente Fernández, the revered Mexican ranchera songwriter, and collaborating with current regional Mexican hitmakers including Peso Pluma, Yahritza y Su Esencia and, on “Cuidadito” (“Be Careful”), the Mexican singer Chiquis. In a bouncy duet, they detail the kind of revenge they’re ready to take on a husband seen with another woman the night before: no breakfast, slashed tires, eviction. Spoiler: It was just a dream, but he’s been warned. JON PARELESDebby Friday, ‘Let U In’The Canadian electronic-pop songwriter Debby Friday, who just won Canada’s Polaris Prize, collaborated with the Australian producer Darcy Baylis on this new single. Over a double-time break beat and calmly pulsing synthesizers, Friday sings about an obsession that keeps her awake, even if the devotion may not be entirely mutual. She wonders, “Is the big heart my only sin?” PARELESPinkPantheress, ‘Mosquito’The latest single from the British pop star PinkPantheress is a sugary confection with a gothic edge. “I just had a dream I was dead, and I only cared ’cause I was taken from you,” she sings in her signature lilt, hopscotching across a skittish beat. Produced with Greg Kurstin, the track retains the dreamy charm of PinkPantheress’s homespun bedroom-pop but adds a glittery sheen. LINDSAY ZOLADZJaja Tresch featuring Coco Argentée and Denis Dino, ‘Nonji Chom’Here’s a burst of sheer jubilation. Jaja Tresch and two fellow Cameroonian singers, Coco Argentée and Denis Dino, trade verses on a track that hurtles along on six-beat rhythms, drawing on bikutsi and other styles original to their country. The lyrics, in the Meta’ language, tell young people to heed their parents and to persevere. As guitars, drums, balafons (marimbas), flutes and whistles all pile into the track, the music soars. PARELESThe Rolling Stones featuring Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”The absolute high point of “Hackney Diamonds,” the first album of new Rolling Stones songs since 2005, is “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.” It starts as a loose, gospelly song that just happens to have Stevie Wonder on keyboards; soon, Lady Gaga arrives to trade vocals with — and spur on — Mick Jagger. Horns come in to push the song to a grand finale, but apparently no one wants to let it end, and what sounds like a spontaneous studio jam lifts the song to another peak. Even in this digital era, it feels analog. PARELESH31R, ‘Right Here’H31R — the duo of the Brooklyn rapper maassai and the New Jersey producer JWords — conjures a sound for when lust conquers rationality on “Right Here.” The rap goes, “I know better/but if you wanna take me I could let ya,” over squishy electric piano chords, sporadic bass-drum hits and some tiny thing that’s just rattling and clanking around the mix. The mood is a tossup: eager but nonchalant, defensive but reckless. PARELESFaye Webster, ‘Lifetime’Turbulent love songs are everywhere; serene ones are much rarer. Faye Webster’s “Lifetime” savors a sense of permanence. The tempo is a very relaxed sway, piano and guitar trade little trickling phrases, and a chamber orchestra offers discreet support as Webster sings in a voice of bemused contentment, envisioning a lifelong connection. PARELESOneohtrix Point Never, ‘Again’There’s an eerie beauty in “Again,” the title track from the latest album by the electronic experimentalist Oneohtrix Point Never. The glitchy, wordless composition progresses through cycles of malfunction and decay — melodies seem to break apart, revealing the ghosts in the machines. If HAL 9000’s death scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey” makes you cry, this one’s for you. ZOLADZMatana Roberts, ‘How Prophetic’Reeds and violin explode in star bursts, over and again. A pair of drummers push ahead with a square-shouldered beat that could easily be lifted from a punk record, or from one of Junior Kimbrough’s electric blues. Alongside them, the alto saxophonist, multimedia artist and self-described “sound quilter” Matana Roberts speaks from the perspective of an ancestor (or maybe many), putting words to the critical consciousness that the women of Robert’s line have carried. “How Prophetic” arrives early on “Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden,” the latest in a series of albums exploring Roberts’s ancestry and inheritance, drawing from a mix of archival material, interviews with relatives and the artist’s imagination. At the end of “How Prophetic,” Roberts recites a refrain which recurs across the album: “My name is your name, our name is their name, we are named, we remember, they forget.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOThe National, ‘Smoke Detector’The National ends “Laugh Track,” its surprise-release second album of 2023, with “Smoke Detector,” an eight-minute live recording that’s a spiral of desperation. The lyrics work through free associations, promises and pleas — “Why don’t you lay here and listen to distant sirens with me?” — while the band circles obsessively through four chords, falling and rising, with its guitars tangling and seething, gnashing and wailing. “You don’t know how much I love you, do you?” Matt Berninger eventually asks, already knowing the sad answer. PARELESAtka, ‘Lenny’Atka is the singer and songwriter Sarah Neumann, who was born in Germany but is now based in London. In “Lenny,” she sings about trying to save a troubled man she still loves: “I need you, I always will,” she insists. She and her producer, Jung Kim from Gang of Youths, use frantically clattering percussion and an occasional sample of church bells to transform what could have been a basic two-chord rocker into an emotional siege. PARELESDarius Jones, ‘Zubot’It takes over two minutes for any prescribed melody to kick in on “Zubot,” as you can see clearly in the accompanying video, which animates Darius Jones’s written score. But by the time his alto saxophone syncs up with James Meger’s bass, playing a zigzagging, key-jumping melody while cellos and violins scrub and scrape around them, each instrument in the group has found a way to define itself. “Zubot” is the second of four movements in Jones’s new album-length suite, “Fluxkit Vancouver (It’s Suite but Sacred),” connected equally to 12-tone modernism and free jazz and the Southern soul saxophone tradition. RUSSONELLO More

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    Aerosmith Postpones Farewell Tour After Steven Tyler Fractures Larynx

    The frontman’s vocal injury is worse than initially thought, the band said in a statement, announcing that the shows would be delayed until 2024.Aerosmith has postponed all of the remaining shows on its farewell tour until 2024 because of a vocal injury suffered by its frontman, Steven Tyler, according to a statement made by the rock band on Facebook.Tyler hurt his vocal cords during the band’s Sept. 9 performance at the UBS Arena in New York. His injury is “more serious than initially thought,” the statement said, involving a fractured larynx in addition to vocal cord damage.The band will honor previously purchased tickets for rescheduled dates of the Peace Out tour and refunds will be available for those unable to attend the new dates, the statement said.“I am heartbroken to not be out there with Aerosmith, my brothers and the incredible Black Crowes, rocking with the best fans in the world,” Tyler said in the statement. “I promise we will be back as soon as we can!” More

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    Legal Arrangement in ‘Blind Side’ Case Is Terminated

    A judge ended a nearly 20-year-old conservatorship that had given a couple broad authority over the affairs of the former N.F.L. player Michael Oher.A probate judge in Memphis ended an unusual legal arrangement on Friday between Michael Oher, a former National Football League player and the subject of the hit movie “The Blind Side,” and the people who took him in when he was a teenager, which had given them broad authority over Mr. Oher’s affairs.Mr. Oher, 37, filed a petition in August to terminate the nearly 20-year-old conservatorship, claiming that he had been tricked into signing away his decision-making powers under the pretense that he would be adopted. The petition stated that Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy, with whom Mr. Oher started staying when he was 16, were given power of attorney and access to his medical records, and that he could not bind himself to any contracts without their approval.The move by the judge was largely expected; the Tuohys had said at the time the petition was filed that they were happy to have the conservatorship end.Based on the book by Michael Lewis, “The Blind Side” is one of the most popular and highest-earning sports movies in American history, grossing more than $300 million upon its release in 2009 and earning Sandra Bullock an Academy Award for her portrayal of Ms. Tuohy. But it has also been criticized for perpetuating stereotypes about Black athletes like Mr. Oher needing help from white, wealthy benefactors like the Tuohys.Mr. Oher is also seeking money that he has said he should have earned from the movie, an injunction preventing the Tuohys from using his name and likeness, and an accounting of all the times that the Tuohys enriched themselves from “the lie of Michael’s adoption,” the petition said.The judge did not dismiss the case. The deputy clerk of the court said that no date had been set for another hearing. Lawyers for Mr. Oher did not immediately return requests for comment. A spokesman for the Tuohys did not respond to a request for comment.The Tuohys have denied wrongdoing. They have said that they sought the conservatorship only so Mr. Oher would be able to attend their alma mater, the University of Mississippi, to play football. The aim, they said, was to appease the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which had been suspicious of the fact that the Tuohys were prominent boosters of the school and had taken Mr. Oher in.In a legal filing on Sept. 14, the Tuohys said that they had never intended to legally adopt Mr. Oher and that they never told Mr. Oher that they would adopt him. In a 2010 book they wrote, however, the Tuohys refer to adopting Mr. Oher, and they have publicly referred to him as their adopted son.Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy took Mr. Oher in when he was 16.Gerald Herbert/Associated PressSandra Bullock won an Academy Award for playing Ms. Tuohy, in the 2009 film “The Blind Side.”Ralph NelsonThe conservatorship was created under unusual circumstances. It was granted despite a finding that Mr. Oher had “no known physical or psychological disabilities.” In Tennessee, a conservatorship is designed to protect an individual “with a disability who lacks capacity to make decisions in one or more important areas.”On Friday, the judge in Memphis, Kathleen Gomes, said that she could not “believe it got done” and that she had never seen a conservatorship granted under such circumstances.The judge in the original petition for the arrangement, Robert Benham, told The New York Times last month that he disputed the idea that a conservatorship could be granted only under such circumstances. But he said he ultimately granted the conservatorship because there was no opposition to the arrangement from the people at the hearing, including the Tuohys, Mr. Oher, the lawyer filing the petition and Denise Oher, Michael’s mother.Ms. Oher said in a recent interview that she didn’t recall a conservatorship being discussed at the hearing. She said that she thought she was present only to approve a name change for Michael, whose birth name was Williams. More

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    The Legend of Gram Parsons, in 12 Songs

    A half-century after his death, listen to some of the singer-songwriter’s most soulful signature tunes, and some tributes and covers by artists he inspired.Harvey L. Silver/Corbis via Getty ImagesDear listeners,For quite some time, I’ve been looking for an excuse to write about an artist whose music means a lot to me: the singer-songwriter Gram Parsons.When I realized that the 50th anniversary of his death was this year — Sept. 19, to be exact — I thought it would be as good a time as any. Only I didn’t want to focus on the tragic and morbid details of Parsons’s death, as so many people have done for the past half-century. (Parsons died of a drug overdose at age 26 in a Joshua Tree motel.) I wanted to use the anniversary of his death, maybe a little paradoxically, as an occasion to argue that it should not be the defining element of his legacy. The music should be.My piece about Parsons was published on Thursday, but I wanted to use today’s Amplifier to delve even deeper into his music. That’s right: This newsletter is a Gramplifier. (I had to. I’m sorry.)A native of Winter Haven, Fla. — and born into a family that made its fortune in the citrus industry — Parsons sought to bridge the divide between the counterculture and the country-music establishment. A Southern boy with a rock ’n’ roll heart, he dreamed of a loftily named, utopian sound he liked to call “cosmic American music,” injecting traditional styles with a bit of the unknown. At his best — in his time with groups like the International Submarine Band, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, as well as in his later solo work — Parsons made that vision a reality. Though he didn’t find much commercial success while he was alive, his influence continues to ripple.Today’s playlist contains some of Parsons’s most soulful signature tunes, as well as some tributes and covers by artists he inspired, like Elvis Costello and, of course, his protégée and duet partner, Emmylou Harris, who has been one of the most persistent torchbearers of Parsons’s legacy.Parsons remains a kind of outlaw figure in the cultural imagination, suggesting an alternative to more complacent country rock, and if you’re unacquainted, discovering his catalog feels like dusting off some dazzling hidden gems. So cue up this playlist and get ready for the return of the grievous angel.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. The International Submarine Band: “Luxury Liner”An early Parsons composition included on the International Submarine Band’s 1968 album “Safe at Home,” “Luxury Liner” is at once a rollicking road song and a tuneful confession of lonesomeness in the tradition of Parsons’s idol Hank Williams. Emmylou Harris would later help popularize the song — as she did with much of Parsons’s material — when she covered it as the title track of her 1976 album. (Listen on YouTube)2. The Byrds: “Hickory Wind”Parsons wrote two songs that appeared on “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” his only album with the Byrds, and one of them, “Hickory Wind,” is among his most enduringly beloved tracks. As the music critic Ben Fong-Torres put it in his 1991 biography of Parsons, named after this very tune, “What made the song so universal was its recognition of one of life’s big questions — Is that all there is? — combined with pleasant evocations of youth and the safety a kid felt being at home among the pines, the oak, and the brush.” (Listen on YouTube)3. The Flying Burrito Brothers: “Hot Burrito #2”The Flying Burrito Brothers — the third band Parsons joined in as many years — melded country music and psychedelic rock seamlessly on their 1969 debut album, “The Gilded Palace of Sin.” “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow was perhaps the band member whose style best demonstrated this fusion: He played pedal steel through a fuzz-box, as though it were an electric guitar. (Listen on YouTube)4. Elvis Costello & the Attractions: “I’m Your Toy”Parsons was a huge inspiration for Elvis Costello’s 1981 country covers album, “Almost Blue,” and on it Costello offered his own renditions of two Parsons songs, including this arresting take on the Flying Burrito Brothers’ goofily titled classic “Hot Burrito #1.” Costello, though, decided to change the song’s name to reference a memorable lyric in the refrain: “I’m your toy, I’m your old boy/But I don’t want no one but you to love me.” (Listen on YouTube)5. The Flying Burrito Brothers: “Sin City”We’re talking Los Angeles here, not Vegas. Perhaps the greatest example of the briefly simpatico songwriting partnership of Parsons and the former Byrd Chris Hillman, this twangy ballad captures the mood of late-60s Southern California burnout in the fiery spirit of the Louvin Brothers. (Listen on YouTube)6. The Flying Burrito Brothers: “Wild Horses”For better and for worse, Parsons spent a lot of time in the late ’60s and early ’70s hanging out with the Rolling Stones, particularly Keith Richards (who admitted to Fong-Torres, “yes, maybe hanging around the Rolling Stones didn’t help him in his attitude towards drugs”). Parsons taught Richards a lot about American country music, though, and many people claim his influence can be heard on “Exile on Main St.” songs like “Sweet Virginia” and “Torn and Frayed.” That exchange could also be reciprocal, though, like when Richards let the Flying Burrito Brothers record his band’s new song “Wild Horses” before the Stones did. (Listen on YouTube)7. Gram Parsons: “Still Feeling Blue”For “GP,” his 1973 debut solo album, Parsons recruited much of his hero Elvis Presley’s red-hot old backing band: the guitarist James Burton, pianist Glen D. Hardin and drummer Ronnie Tutt. They lend an air of experience and polish to Parsons’s own compositions, like the lively country throwback “Still Feeling Blue.” (Listen on YouTube)8. Gram Parsons, “The New Soft Shoe”Ostensibly — if somewhat inscrutably — about the auto pioneer E.L. Cord, “The New Soft Shoe,” another highlight from “GP,” boasts one of the loveliest and most wistful melodies Parsons ever wrote. (Listen on YouTube)9. Gram Parsons, “The Return of the Grievous Angel”At a tour stop in Boston, a young poet named Tom Brown handed Parsons a sheet of vivid lyrics he’d written with Parsons in mind. They became the basis of the laid-back, lived-in “The Return of the Grievous Angel” — destined to become one of Parsons’s signature songs. (Listen on YouTube)10. Emmylou Harris, “Boulder to Birmingham”Emmylou Harris was an unknown folk singer on the Washington, D.C., club circuit when Parsons recruited her to sing backup on his solo records and tour with his band. After his death, she became a solo star in her own right, but she continued to pay tribute to Parsons throughout her career. This wrenching ballad from her major-label debut album, “Pieces of the Sky,” is about her processing the overwhelming grief of Parsons’s loss: “I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham,” she sings in her clarion voice, “if I thought I could see your face.” (Listen on YouTube)11. Gram Parsons: “$1000 Wedding”Here is Parsons at the peak of his powers as a conduit for emotion. Memories of a thwarted wedding and a subsequent bender swirl in an impressionistic recollection, not always told in a linear fashion but emotionally piercing nonetheless. “Supposed to be a funeral,” Parsons sings in a heartbreakingly weary voice. “It’s been a bad, bad day.” (Listen on YouTube)12. Gram Parsons: “In My Hour of Darkness”Each verse in this elegiac song is dedicated to someone in Parsons’s life who had recently passed away: first the actor Brandon deWilde (the young man who “went driving through the night”), then the guitarist Clarence White (“another young man safely strummed his silver-stringed guitar”), and finally the Los Angeles music scene fixture Sid Kaiser (“kind and wise with age”). There’s something haunting about Parsons writing this song so shortly before his own death, and it closes out “Grievous Angel” with both a spiritual warmth and the chill of premonition. (Listen on YouTube)Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Legend of Gram Parsons” track listTrack 1: The International Submarine Band, “Luxury Liner”Track 2: The Byrds, “Hickory Wind”Track 3: The Flying Burrito Brothers, “Hot Burrito #2”Track 4: Elvis Costello & the Attractions, “I’m Your Toy”Track 5: The Flying Burrito Brothers, “Sin City”Track 6: The Flying Burrito Brothers, “Wild Horses”Track 7: Gram Parsons, “Still Feeling Blue”Track 8: Gram Parsons, “The New Soft Shoe”Track 9: Gram Parsons, “The Return of the Grievous Angel”Track 10. Emmylou Harris, “Boulder to Birmingham”Track 11: Gram Parsons, “$1000 Wedding”Track 12: Gram Parsons, “In My Hour of Darkness”Bonus TracksIn 1999, Emmylou Harris helped put together the richly reverent “Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons,” which showcased the breadth of the musicians who were influenced by Parsons — including Wilco, Beck and Sheryl Crow — and demonstrated how Parsons’s songs have echoed across generations. The great folk singer-songwriter Gillian Welch’s stirring take on “Hickory Wind” is one of the album’s finest moments, as is Lucinda Williams’s swaggering “Return of the Grievous Angel,” with backing vocals from the one and only David Crosby. More

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    ‘No One Will Save You,’ ‘Hypnotic’ and More Streaming Science Fiction

    In this month’s selections, extraterrestrials roam and the Earth wanders.‘No One Will Save You’Stream it on Hulu.I watch a lot of films for this column, and it’s the rare one that worms its way into my head the way Brian Duffield’s alien-invasion thriller did. The writer-director pulls off a double challenge: He tells the story almost wordlessly (making you realize just how many movies lazily rely on people speaking to themselves out loud) and creates a dreamlike world in which memories and monsters jostle for power.The camera almost never leaves Brynn (a fantastic Kaitlyn Dever, of “Dopesick” and “Booksmart”), a young woman living alone in a nice big house. She does not appear to have any family or friends, and aside from the fact that she drives a Subaru, you might think the movie is set in the 1950s or ’60s: Brynn uses a clunky landline, for example, and electronics don’t really figure. Even the extraterrestrials look as if they’d been imagined during that time — they have a prominent forehead and opaque eyes, and arrive in saucer-shaped ships. It is clearly a deliberate choice from Duffield but unfortunately I can’t offer my theory about its meaning without spoiling a key reveal. Suffice it to say that appearances can’t be trusted, starting with the fact that the reserved Brynn turns out to be a tough survivor when she is under attack, and concluding with a resolution simultaneously satisfying and unsettling.‘The Wandering Earth II’Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.In Frant Gwo’s “The Wandering Earth” (2019), our planet, propelled by thousands of thrusters, is roaming the universe to escape the sun’s impending explosion and the destruction of the solar system. Oh, and the now-frozen Earth, its remaining population hunkered underground, is linked to a space station guided by a supercomputer named MOSS. How we got to that nutty situation is the subject of this prequel, also directed by Gwo. And there’s a lot to cover because as you might have guessed, turning Earth into a gigantic spaceship is quite the endeavor. (These being productions from China, that country is the force driving the so-called Moving Mountain Project; the movie is no more or less jingoistic than an American equivalent would be.)“The Wandering Earth II” does not skimp on spectacle and awe-inspiring shots, and Andy Lau (“Infernal Affairs”) makes for a welcome addition as a scientist. Most interesting is the rivalry between competing initiatives to save Earth: physically move the planet out of harm’s way or bank on a digital solution by transferring human consciousness onto digital files. We know which one eventually wins out (or does it?) because this is a prequel, yet the process remains absorbing. And MOSS figures in, too.‘t=E/x²’Rent or buy it on Apple TV+.Narratives involving messed-up timelines are so frequent in contemporary science-fiction movies that you have to wonder what this popularity says about us: that we live in constant fear of missing out and need as many options and parallel universes as possible? That we are obsessed with the idea of regret and crave second, third or 10th chances? This month’s entry in the thriving subgenre is Andreas Z Simon’s low-budget movie, from Germany, that is both cryptic and playful.When we meet Merlin (Mario Ganss, an appealing everyman), he is at a computer, editing a scene in which a talking head expounds on the questionable linearity of time and space — elements that, in a way, Merlin can rearrange at a click of his mouse. Out of nowhere, he receives a vinyl LP (and the antique turntable to play it) containing a message that identifies Merlin as a time traveler and gives him instructions: “Kill the clown and rescue the mermaid.” The film has the type of puzzle-box construction that maddens some viewers and energizes others, but there is something compelling about its indie aesthetic — Merlin’s romantic life, in particular, feels lifted from a mumblecore movie.‘Hypnotic’Stream it on Peacock.Watching A-list stars in B movies tends to be great fun. Perhaps because they are free from the pressure of having to earn awards or deliver box-office results — or loosened up by preposterous scripts — they often give unbound, enjoyable performances. Think Adam Driver in “65,” for example, or Ben Affleck in this sci-fi thriller from the excellent craftsman Robert Rodriguez.Affleck plays Danny, a Texas cop with a heavy past and a present complicated by the murderous machinations of one Dellrayne (William Fichtner), a so-called hypnotic who can mesmerize anybody to do his bidding and creates hallucinatory mindscapes of the kind familiar to viewers of “Inception.” Why Danny appears impervious to Dellrayne’s paranormal power is key to a complicated story involving Alice Braga as a mysteriously helpful psychic and a secret government program called the Division that’s working on a nefarious Project Domino.The dense plot is a lot to absorb and the execution is often goofy — members of the Division wear red blazers, like Avis employees with even greater powers than dispensing free upgrades. But Rodriguez keeps the action moving, and the denouement might just make you rewatch the movie from a different perspective.‘The Deal’Stream it on the Roku Channel.Rent or buy it from most major platforms.This film gains if you look at it as being not as much about a dystopian future as about a dystopian past, more specifically one set behind the Iron Curtain of the mid-20th century. (Uncoincidentally, perhaps, the director, Orsi Nagypal, is Hungarian). Callbacks to communist societies abound, starting with the locale: a drab city of brutalist gray high-rises, protected from the outside world — which has been wrecked by a global pandemic — by a forbidding wall. There, Tala (Sumalee Montano) paints propaganda posters in a classic Socialist-Realist style for the authoritarian government. She has taken “the deal,” which gives privileged access to resources in exchange for the recipient being terminated after 20 years.This is a good way to control population when necessities are scarce and there seems to be waiting lists for everything, including lifesaving operations. That last issue becomes a critical problem when Tala’s daughter, Analyn (Emma Fischer), needs to get a kidney transplant. The two women embark on a journey in which they discover, among other things, black-market doctors and how the one percent lives. But the plot is almost besides the point: “The Deal” works best as an accretion of quotidian details about life under an oppressive regime. More