Aurelia Butler

“We seem to be going backwards,” the pop superstar warned as he lamented the curtailing of L.G.B.T.Q. rights in the United States, particularly in Florida.The British pop superstar Elton John lamented the “growing swell of anger and homophobia” in the United States and described several laws recently passed in Florida that curtail L.G.B.T.Q. rights as “disgraceful.”“It’s all going pear-shaped in America,” John, a longtime leader for gay rights and visibility, said in an interview published Tuesday in Radio Times, in which he pointed to a rise in violent incidents and recent legislation curtailing rights. “We seem to be going backwards. And that spreads. It’s like a virus that the L.G.B.T.Q.+ movement is suffering.”More than 520 pieces of such legislation have been introduced in over 40 states this year, a record, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group.“I don’t like it at all,” John said, referring to the increasingly hostile climate. “It’s a growing swell of anger and homophobia that’s around America.”John, 76, will headline Glastonbury, Britain’s biggest music festival, on Sunday, as his lengthy final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, heads toward its finale in Stockholm on July 8. The tour, which will have had over 330 dates, began in 2018 but was interrupted by the pandemic as well as John’s hip surgery.As he prepared to perform at Glastonbury, the last British date on the tour, John said that he did not know if the rising anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiment is as prevalent in Britain. “I don’t know if it’s around Britain, because I haven’t been here that much,” he said.But he called the scandal around the prominent British news anchor Phillip Schofield — who recently resigned after admitting he had a relationship with a younger man — “totally homophobic.”“If it was a straight guy in a fling with a young woman, it wouldn’t even make the papers,” John said.In the interview with Radio Times, John said he might eventually be open to doing a residency after his farewell tour ends, “but not in America.” That, his representatives said, is for the same reason that he had decided to stop touring: He wants to spend more time with his husband and children, who live in Britain.Last year, John — who objected to his songs being played at rallies for former President Donald J. Trump — performed at the Biden White House. “I just wish America could be more bipartisan,” John said as he sat at his piano. After his set, President Biden awarded John the National Humanities Medal. More

The country singer’s latest album has topped the Billboard chart for more than half the year.Nearly halfway through the year, Morgan Wallen has spent most of it on top.For the 13th time out of the 25 chart weeks so far in 2023, the country singer’s blockbuster album “One Thing at a Time” sits at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, returning to the highest perch after two weeks at No. 2. “One Thing at a Time” had spent the previous 12 consecutive weeks at No. 1 following its release in March, before being temporarily topped by a new edition of Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” and a CD barrage from the K-pop group Stray Kids.Wallen’s album totaled 112,000 equivalent units in its 15th week of release, including 141 million digital streams and 4,500 in album sales. Its 13 weeks at No. 1 matches dominant albums from the last decade by Bad Bunny (“Un Verano Sin Ti,” 2022), Drake (“Views,” 2016) and the soundtrack for “Frozen” (2014). Adele’s “21” was the last album with more than 13 weeks at No. 1 in 2011 and 2012, Billboard reports.In part because of Wallen’s dominance, this year marks the first time since 1993 that no rap album or single has topped the Billboard charts by this point in the calendar. “A Gift and a Curse,” the new album by the Atlanta rapper Gunna — his first since being released from jail after pleading out of the RICO case that also includes his mentor, Young Thug — will debut on the album chart next week.Rounding out the Top 5 this week are albums by the former One Direction singer Niall Horan, whose “The Show” starts at No. 2 with 81,000 units; a deluxe reissue of “Stick Season” by the pop singer-songwriter Noah Kahan, which totaled 71,000 units at No. 3; Swift’s “Midnights,” at No. 4 with 69,000 units; and the producer Metro Boomin’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” soundtrack, at No. 5 with 54,000 units. “5-Star” by Stray Kids, last week’s No. 1, falls to No. 6. More

Hundreds of time travelers in 1920s-era outfits took ferries to Governors Island earlier this month to attend the two-day Jazz Age Lawn Party, one of New York City’s most curious summer traditions.They wore flapper dresses with feather boas, pinstripe suits with black-and-white wingtips and lots of boater hats, cloche hats and bow ties. Gathered on picnic blankets in a grassy field, they passed the day sipping gin and tonics before dancing to hot jazz performed by the Dreamland Orchestra.A man wearing pink pants and suspenders drank beer from a Mason jar while his young son, also in suspenders, sat on his shoulders. Lines gathered outside a stand that sold newsboy caps and another that offered on-site tintype portraits. A pie contest included the category, “Hobo’s Choice,” which rewarded the confection most likely to be “stolen off a back porch.”The orchestra was conducted by the pencil-mustached bandleader Michael Arenella, who started the event in 2005. “We were pretty much the first event out here,” he said. “It was maybe 50 people then. People are drawn to the Roaring Twenties because there’s a youthfulness to the era. After the war, people were looking to have a good time, after their brush with mortality.”In the edited interviews below, re-enactors on the second day named their Jazz Age fashion heroes and pondered whether they would actually time travel back to the era.Cyrene ReneeModel and playwrightDesiree Rios for The New York TimesIf you could time travel back, would you? I’d go back. I’d be a showgirl at the Cotton Club and be the best dancer there. As much as I love the era, I don’t think life was better, though. There was segregation. Yet despite what we were going through as people of color, we created beautiful dance, music and art.Do you have a Jazz Age fashion hero? Josephine Baker, all day, every day. She was righteous and liberated in her beauty.Inez RobinsonEducatorDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you go back? I can’t romanticize that period, as a person of color, but I’m very drawn to the era’s fashion. As a Harlem native, I have an affinity for the Harlem Renaissance. African Americans were using fashion to carry themselves proudly every single day.Jazz Age fashion hero? Coco Chanel. Her designs introduced gender fluidity. She pioneered the idea you could go both ways.Skip DiatzRetired librarianDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you time travel back? People think of the 1920s as one big party, but it was just good for a few people of certain persuasions. It was also a time of intolerance and prejudice. I’d probably go back just for a weekend. However, this is only one time period I’m involved with as a re-enactor. I did a World War II event the other weekend, and I was at a Revolutionary War event recently in Mount Vernon.Your old-timey fashion hero? Douglas Fairbanks Jr. He was married to Joan Crawford and was the best dressed man in Hollywood.Michael ArenellaBandleaderDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you go back? I’d like to go back, because I relate to the simplicity of that time. Don’t get me wrong, it was a harder life, and lots obviously wasn’t good, but things were simpler then, and I feel we’ve gotten further from that.Jazz Age fashion hero? Gary Cooper. He was just starting out, and he had that elegant swagger. You don’t see elegant swagger in a man these days.LaVerne CameronRetired paralegalDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you time travel back? Yes, because I think people were happier then, though I’d want to arrive before the Great Depression. Women’s liberation was starting and so much of that fashion remains stylish today, from sequins to headbands.Old-timey fashion hero? Carole Lombard. She married Clark Gable and died in a plane crash. She started the blond hair trend.Jesse Rosen and Taylor DunstonScientist and Beauty sales executiveDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you go back?J. R.: I think there are aspects of me that wouldn’t fare so well then, but to experience those parties, I don’t know …. If I could come back, sure, but I’d stay here if it was a one-way ticket.Jazz Age fashion hero?T. D.: I can’t immediately think of one but I feel Tom Ford pulled heavily from this era. His suits are masculine yet use feminine color palettes. He loves a luxurious full lapel with strong shouldering, like the gangsters wore. You could argue the power suit was born in the 1920s and that Ford borrowed from it.Michael AsanteFlight attendantDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you go back? I’d be naïve to say any era was better, but in terms of fashion, I’d like it if everyone still dressed like this. The mobsters in particular, with their red ties and cigars, were really bringing it.Jazz Age fashion hero? I feel Karl Lagerfeld was channeling the Jazz Age. The gloves. The white collar. His white cat, Choupette, in a carrier basket.Charles AnnunziatoEvents coordinatorDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you go back? Probably not. The prohibition era was a time of hardship. Now we can get liquor whenever we want.Jazz Age fashion hero? Bonnie and Clyde. Because they did whatever the hell they wanted.Caroline Shaffer and Marissa KoorsGraphic designer and Book editorDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you go back?C.S.: Absolutely not. I like having the internet and rights as a woman.M.K.: Only with a return trip. I have rights in this era and so do my friends and allies. We also have medicine. I could have gotten the Spanish flu.Jazz Age fashion hero?C.S.: Jean Harlow. She played unremorseful characters, like women who got involved with married men, yet she played them in a surprisingly likable way.M.K.: Elsa Schiaparelli. She took from surrealism and said, ‘What if we put lobsters on our dresses?’ Wearing Schiaparelli was to wear art.Alvin and Marla NichterRetired electrical engineer and Retired fashion image consultantDesiree Rios for The New York TimesWould you go back?M.N.: I think I would have fit right in. It was a ladylike time. A time of gentleman. Girls were girls. Men were men. Wait, could I get in trouble for saying that? What I mean to say is it was a stylish feminine era, which I like.Jazz Age fashion hero?A.N.: My glamorous great-aunt. She was a fashion buyer for the top New York department stores back then. She’d go to Paris to bring back the latest fashions for New Yorkers. I’ve seen pictures of her. She was the bee’s knees. More

A student of both music and history, he entertained audiences in the 1960s and beyond while educating them about a genre whose heyday had ended decades earlier.Max Morath, who stepped out of the 1890s only a lifetime late, and with syncopated piano rhythms and social commentary helped revive the ragtime age on educational television programs, in concert halls and in nightclubs for nearly a half-century, died on Monday at a care facility near his home in Duluth, Minn. He was 96.His wife, Diane Fay Skomars, confirmed the death.Having learned the rudiments of music from his mother, who played a tinkling piano in movie theaters for silent films, Mr. Morath — after false career starts as a radio announcer, newscaster and actor — found his calling in a fascination with ragtime, the uniquely syncopated, “ragged” style whose heyday spanned two decades, roughly from 1897 to 1917.A college-educated student of both music and history, Mr. Morath fell in love with ragtime’s dreamlike, bittersweet sounds. He researched the styles and repertoires of its era. He combed libraries, studied piano rolls and old sheet music, consulted historical societies, read antique magazines and talked to folks old enough to recall the work of the ragtime greats and the milestones of their age.What emerged was a new form of entertainment that combined showmanship with scholarly commentaries on ragtime itself, on its players and fans, and on the etiquette and tastes of a long-vanished age when horses pulled streetcars and women’s suffrage was still just a dream of the future.In a straw boater and sleeve garters, pounding an old upright with a cigar clenched in his teeth, Mr. Morath played Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” Jelly Roll Morton’s “Tiger Rag” and Eubie Blake’s “Charleston Rag.” In those moments he might have been a vaudeville copycat trading on nostalgia. But his mood grew serious — and strangely more engaging — when he paused to tell audiences what they were hearing.“Ragtime is the folk music of the city,” he would explain. “It represents 25 years of a music that’s been overlooked.“Classic ragtime isn’t the honky-tonk music you hear today. That’s just a popular misconception. Nobody has paid the classic ragtime much attention, because of the attitude that folk music had to come from the hills. We were looking in the wrong direction.”Mr. Morath made ragtime come alive again. In the 1890s, he said, people heard it in vaudeville houses or just walking around town. There were newfangled inventions: player pianos, phonographs and nickelodeons. Middle-class homes had upright pianos. Sheet music was booming. Tin Pan Alley, the Manhattan home of the songwriters who dominated popular music, was flourishing.After a few years in clubs and on radio and television in the West and in his native Colorado, Mr. Morath broke through in 1960 at KRMA-TV, Denver’s educational TV station. He wrote and produced “The Ragtime Era,” a series of 12 half-hour shows on the music and history of ragtime and the blues, as well as the origins of musical comedy and Tin Pan Alley, for the 60-station National Educational Television network, the predecessor of PBS.Reviewing that series for The New York Times, Jack Gould wrote: “In an uncommon mixture of earthiness, emphasized by his chewing of a big cigar and wearing of loud vests, and erudition, reflected in his knowledgeable commentary on music and the social forces that influence its expression, he presides over a wonderful rag piano and lets go.”The series was bought by commercial stations, greatly expanding Mr. Morath’s audience. He was soon juggling recording dates, college gigs (some 50 a year), and concert and club bookings. He also crafted another NET series, “The Turn of the Century” (1962): 15 installments that related ragtime music to its social, economic and political period, using lantern slides, photographs and other props.Mr. Morath in 1969. “Ragtime is the folk music of the city,” he said. “It represents 25 years of a music that’s been overlooked.”via Colorado Music ExperienceWith its wider focus — on life in America from 1890 to the 1920s — “The Turn of the Century” was a runaway success. In addition to being seen in syndication on commercial television, it became a one-man theatrical show. Mr. Morath presented it at the Blue Angel and the Village Vanguard in New York, brought it to the Off Broadway Jan Hus Playhouse in 1969 and then toured nationally for many years.“In a two-hour jaunty excursion, Morath gives us a look at the 30-year period that spanned the time of McGuffey’s Reader, women’s suffrage, the grizzly bear dance, Prohibition, legal marijuana and Teddy Roosevelt,” The Washington Post said when Mr. Morath opened at Ford’s Theater in 1970. “It was a time of sweeping changes in the moral climate of our nation, and Morath uses popular music, chiefly ragtime, as the centrifugal force for sorting out the different phases.”As the ragtime revival surged into the 1970s, it was given momentum by the musicologist Joshua Rifkin, who recorded much of Scott Joplin’s work for the Nonesuch label in 1971, and by the success of George Roy Hill’s Oscar-winning film “The Sting” (1973), starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as con artists, which featured Joplin’s “The Entertainer” on the soundtrack.Mr. Morath appeared on “The Bell Telephone Hour,” “Kraft Music Hall,” “Today,” “The Tonight Show” and Arthur Godfrey’s radio and television programs. A series of Morath productions — “The Ragtime Years,” “Living the Ragtime Life,” “The Ragtime Man,” “Ragtime Revisited,” and “Ragtime and Again” — opened Off Broadway and were followed by national tours.“I must have played in 5,000 different places, and many of them were not all that classy,” Mr. Morath said in 2019 in an interview for this obituary. “Mostly they were saloons, and it wasn’t all ragtime either. Some of them were piano bars. When you work a piano bar, you’d better know 1,500 tunes. You’re playing requests. It was Gershwin. Cole Porter. Rodgers and Hart.”Mr. Morath continued touring until he retired in 2007. By then, he had long been known as “Mr. Ragtime,” the unofficial keeper of America’s ragtime legacy.Asked for a favorite memory from his life in music, he reached back to his childhood.“Actually,” he said after a moment’s thought, “it was when I was 7 and I heard my mother play something Joplin wrote, called ‘The Original Rag.’ It was published in Kansas City, and somehow my mother got ahold of it. We had a piano bench full of good stuff, mostly show tunes. But ‘Original Rag’ was my favorite.”Max Edward Morath was born in Colorado Springs on Oct. 1, 1926, the younger of two sons of Frederic Morath, a real estate broker, and Gladys (Ramsell) Morath. When Max was 4, his parents divorced. His mother became society editor of The Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, and his father went to Europe, remarried and spent his days climbing in the Alps and the Pyrenees.Max and his brother, Frederic, attended local public schools. He was active in choir and theater at Colorado Springs High School and, in his senior year, got a job as a radio announcer with KVOR (the call letters stand for Voice of the Rockies). After he graduated in 1944, he paid his way through Colorado College as a pianist and newscaster for the station. He majored in English and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1948.In 1953, he married Norma Loy Tackitt. They had three children before divorcing in 1992. He married Ms. Skomars, an author and photographer, in 1993.In addition to his wife, Mr. Morath is survived by two daughters, Kathryn Morath and Christy Mainthow; a son, Frederic; a stepdaughter, Monette Fay Magrath; five grandchildren; and a great-grandson. His brother died in 2009.In a recording career that began in 1955, Mr. Morath made more than 30 albums, mostly of unaccompanied piano solos, for Epic, RCA Victor, Vanguard and other labels. His original compositions were recorded by the pianist and composer Aaron Robinson and released in 2015 as “Max Morath: The Complete Ragtime Works for Piano.”Mr. Morath wrote an illustrated memoir, “The Road to Ragtime” (1999), and “I Love You Truly: A Biographical Novel Based on the Life of Carrie Jacobs-Bond” (2008), about the first woman to establish a music publishing firm in America. She had been the subject of a paper Mr. Morath wrote for his master’s degree, which he earned at Columbia University in 1996.In 2016, Mr. Morath was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, along with the bandleaders Paul Whiteman and Glenn Miller. “It made me feel really great,” he said. “Of course, they’re both Colorado boys. I felt I was in very good company.”Daniel E. Slotnik contributed reporting. More

Ahora con 86 años, el productor reflexiona sobre su tiempo en la Fania Records, su tempestuosa relación creativa con Eddie Palmieri y su salida de la industria que ama.Harvey Averne comienza casi todos los días con un bialy, un panecillo polaco, y una ensalada de pescado blanco. Ve Morning Joe, juega con su gato, Coco Baby, y recibe llamadas de leyendas de la música latina como Joe Bataan en su ecléctico pero ordenado apartamento de Woodhaven, Queens.Un día bastante húmedo de mediados de marzo, se aconsejaban mutuamente sobre medicamentos recetados. Pero un vistazo al vestíbulo de Averne (decorado con premios, carteles de conciertos, recortes de periódico enmarcados y fotos, entre ellas una con Celia Cruz en un lugar destacado) cuenta una historia muy distinta a la de sus habituales tribulaciones cotidianas a los 86 años. Averne es uno de los últimos gigantes de la música latina: un chico judío del este de Nueva York que participó en el desarrollo de la música latina, desde los borscht belt, los populares centros turísticos de los judíos cercanos a Nueva York donde se tocaba música, hasta el bugalú y la salsa.“Me gusta el ritmo, me gusta el compás”, explica Averne. “No entendía ni una palabra de lo que decían, pero no importa: en la ópera no se entiende ni una palabra”.Como productor, mánager y músico, Averne tiene una larga trayectoria entre bastidores en algunos de los sellos de música latina más importantes de Nueva York. Fue el director de operaciones de la crucial Fania Records, donde produjo o supervisó discos de Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Ralfi Pagan y Ray Barretto. En su propia discográfica, Coco Records, que producía discos de jazz latino y salsa, el trabajo de Averne con el pianista Eddie Palmieri le valió los dos primeros premios Grammy para la música latina.“Era de esas personas que siempre tienen ideas”, afirma Bataan, amigo desde hace mucho tiempo y artista de Fania. “Siempre estaba activo; siempre ha sido ese tipo: el Phil Spector de la música latina”.Nacido en 1936, hijo de primera generación de padres polacos, Averne era el bufón del salón y un buscapleitos cuyos profesores solían mandar a Linden Boulevard a ver crecer las plantas en vez de interrumpir la clase. Lo único que le llamaba la atención era la música.Averne dijo que le encantaba el R&B, pero se dio cuenta de que “cada hotel y cada club tenía una banda latina”. No quería trabajar en una fábrica como su padre; además, en la música, “había muchas chicas”.A los 14 años, Averne dirigía una banda en el hotel Catskills cuando vio a otro empleado tocar la guitarra y cantar en español. Se sintió “hipnotizado”, recordó, y le pidió que le enseñara la canción. Se inspiró tanto que decidió cambió el nombre de su grupo llamado Harvey Averne Trio por el de Arvito and His Latin Rhythms y dio el salto de los escenarios de Catskills al Palladium, donde el grupo de adolescentes actuó como telonero de estrellas como Tito Puente, Machito y Tito Rodríguez.Antes de formar parte del negocio de la música, Averne “hacía mandados para los mafiosos del barrio”, dijo, trabajó en un servicio de pañales y en la venta de fotos familiares y tuvo un exitoso negocio propio de reparaciones domésticas. El astuto olfato para los negocios que desarrolló a lo largo de los años, incluso como director de orquesta adolescente, lo mantuvo a la vanguardia de la creciente y siempre diversificada escena de la música latina.“Harvey es uno de los mejores vendedores que he conocido”, dijo Andy Harlow, quien era un “chico de la banda” para el grupo de adolescentes de Averne, que llevaba los vibráfonos y otros equipos de Harvey a los conciertos y ensayos. “Era muy profesional; a todos siempre les pagaron”.Aunque él mismo no hizo un disco hasta los 30 años, Averne también dejó una marca con sus propias grabaciones y como músico de acordeón y vibráfono. Su sencillo de 1968 “Never Learned to Dance”, con la voz de Kenny Seymour Sr. (anteriormente de Little Anthony and the Imperials), es una gema codiciada que se vende por un promedio de 1300 dólares en el mercado de la música Discogs. “Nunca sentí competencia entre mis discos y los demás”, dijo Averne.Averne llegó a la Fania en 1966, cuando otro judío salsero, Larry Harlow, se lo presentó a Jerry Masucci —un abogado que acababa de fundar el sello discográfico— y los dos compaginaron al instante. Averne recuerda que llegó a la primera reunión en su Cadillac Seville con chofer, y vestido de manera impecable. Masucci no dudó en pedirle que dirigiera su empresa incipiente.El impacto de la Fania en la música latina a mediados de los sesenta es innegable. “Lo volamos todo”, afirmó Averne. El sello fue pionero en el soul latino y el bugalú, una fusión de estilos musicales latinos tradicionales con el R&B y el soul contemporáneos. Una de las producciones favoritas de Averne durante ese periodo fue el LP de bugalú de Barretto de 1968, Acid.“Ray fue uno de los primeros que en verdad vio mi potencial”, dijo Averne del percusionista. “Produje Acid, pero Ray Barretto produjo a Harvey Averne. Fue el artista más preparado con el que trabajé”.Aunque Averne no había trabajado nunca en un sello discográfico, comercializó con dinamismo (y éxito) a sus artistas utilizando las tácticas de venta que perfeccionó en su adolescencia y cuando tenía veintitantos, lo que amplió el atractivo de los miembros de la Fania y de la música latina más allá de la zona triestatal. Bobby Marín, compositor, productor e intérprete que trabajó con la Fania, afirma: “Era un gran portavoz de todos aquellos con los que decidía trabajar”.Averne hizo sonar “Gypsy Woman” de Bataan en WWRL en Nueva York (“cuando no estaba de moda tener música latina en una estación negra”, señaló Bataan) después de un encuentro casual con un DJ en una zapatería italiana, eventualmente desarrollando una relación con el director musical de la estación. Mientras manejaba al cantante Ralfi Pagan, cuya versión de 1971 de “Make It With You” fue un éxito cruzado para la Fania, Averne convenció a Don Cornelius de contratar a Pagan como el raro cuarto acto de Soul Train, convirtiéndolo en uno de los primeros artistas latinos en participar en el programa.Averne dice que rompió con la Fania alrededor de 1970 debido, en parte, a que Pagan firmó un contrato de gestión con Masucci, y no perdió tiempo en planear sus próximos movimientos. Fue nombrado gerente general y vicepresidente ejecutivo de la división de música latina de United Artists —“Donde realmente aprendí a dirigir una verdadera compañía discográfica”, dijo— contratando artistas y desarrollando una distribución más amplia. Durante el mismo período, se convirtió en el líder de gira de la banda Chakachas, un grupo de estudio belga cuyo “Jungle Fever” vendió más de un millón de copias en EE. UU.En 1972, Arverne fundó Coco Records y su primer artista fue Palmieri, un pionero del jazz latino que continúa presentándose en todo el mundo. Sus dos discos más importantes —The Sun of Latin Music y Unfinished Masterpiece— constituyeron un paso monumental para alejarse de la música latina de baile y ampliaron aún más el sonido de la música latina popular.Aunque su colaboración fue un éxito profesional y de crítica, ambos discreparon sobre el sonido, los contratos y los pagos, según Averne. “Unfinished Masterpiece fue una guerra entre Eddie y yo”, dijo Averne. Palmieri, que ahora tiene 86 años, no quiso hacer comentarios.En 1976, cada uno tomó su rumbo y Averne se dedicó a los álbumes de Eydie Gormé y Machito, así como a los discos con Cortijo y Su Combo Original. Sin embargo, para finales de esa década, el sello Coco estaba en la ruina, según Averne, por problemas financieros.Su última incursión en el negocio discográfico fue como socio de la discográfica Prism Records (precursora del sello de hip hop Cold Chillin’ Records), durante la cual conoció a una joven Madonna (dice que aún conserva algunas de sus primeras maquetas).A principios de los ochenta, cuando se terminó su carrera en los sellos discográficos, Averne cayó en un periodo oscuro.“Todo se vino abajo”, dijo. “Durante un par de años ni siquiera contesté el teléfono”.Cuando Carlos Vera, un DJ y entusiasta del bugalú que ha colaborado de cerca con Averne en los últimos años, lo conoció en la década de 2010, “no se estaba cuidando”, dijo, y el joven viajaba desde su casa en el Upper West Side hasta el apartamento de Averne en Queens varios días a la semana. Lo ayudó a renovar su apartamento, organizó sus artículos de época y le ayudó a tener acceso a internet. “Lo presioné para que comiera bien y se cuidara más. Tardé mucho en convencerlo”.Ahora, Averne está de mejor ánimo. “Sigo ganando dinero con la música”, dice. “Sigo teniendo mi propia disquera y he escrito más de 50 canciones”. Pero, sobre todo, está retirado. “Tenía esta sensación de: ‘Harvey, lo lograste. Te lo demostraste a ti mismo’”.Y aunque la mayoría de sus amigos ya no están (entre ellos Larry Harlow que murió en 2021 y el locutor de radio salsero Polito Vega este marzo), Averne dice: “Nunca me he sentido solo. Cuando tenía mucha gente alrededor, no era porque los necesitara. Era porque así lo quería”.“Estoy relajado. Estoy tranquilo”, añadió. Pero “si llegara el proyecto musical adecuado e interesante para mí, lo haría sin dudarlo”. More

Earlier this month, Pharrell Williams was in the men’s atelier on the second floor of Louis Vuitton’s corporate office in Paris, sunglasses on, surveying his new perch.“Listen,” he said conspiratorially. “This window is different.”The window by his desk looks out over the small plaza on the north side of the Pont Neuf, where in just a couple of weeks, his first show as Louis Vuitton men’s creative director would take place. A 50-foot statue of the artist Yayoi Kusama, a Vuitton collaborator, hovered just outside. The rapper Pusha T and the streetwear innovator Nigo were milling about.Since Mr. Williams’s appointment was announced in February, he has spent a great deal of his time here, in this office and in the workshops that abut it, getting accustomed to holding the reins of the huge business he had been put at the creative helm of — the first time a musician has been given such a grand platform in luxury fashion.“I pinch myself every day,” he said. “This is the equivalent of a castle to me. I mean, the Seine River right there — it’s like the moat.”The long path from his childhood in Virginia Beach through hip-hop producer stardom to streetwear design impact to pop music ubiquity to here was very much on his mind. “I’m a Black man — they have given this appointment to a Black man,” he said. “This is the crown jewel of the LVMH portfolio. It’s everything, and I was appointed to rule in this position. So No. 1, a ruler of a position is usually like a king. But a ruler of this position for me is a perpetual student. It’s what I intend to be.”A little bit later in the afternoon, Mr. Williams, 50, slipped off his blazer and slipped on a brown motorcycle jacket in full LV monogram print leather. Emblazoned on the back, in studs, were the words “PUPIL” and “KING.”His appointment to the helm of Vuitton’s men’s business is, depending on your perspective, a full-throated acknowledgment of the power of Black cultural capital on a global stage and a watershed moment in the absorption of hip-hop class politics into luxury fashion. Or it’s a bellwether of challenging times to come for traditionally trained clothing designers who aspire to top posts, and a suggestion that global celebrity moves the needle more than directional design, even for the most successful luxury brands.Either way, Mr. Williams did not apply for the job — he was chosen.In December, Alexandre Arnault, a scion of the LVMH dynasty and a longtime friend, sent Mr. Williams a text: “Please call me. The time has come.”Mr. Williams at the Vuitton men’s atelier with Nigo, the innovative streetwear designer with whom Mr. Williams founded Billionaire Boys Club.Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesMr. Williams thought Mr. Arnault was perhaps going to run some name options by him for the Vuitton job. “I had been pushing somebody else,” he said. “I had been pushing Nigo. My brother, always.”Nigo — the founder of the brands A Bathing Ape and Human Made, the co-founder with Mr. Williams of Billionaire Boys Club and one of the most significant streetwear innovators — had already been named artistic director of Kenzo, another LVMH brand.Instead, Mr. Arnault extended the offer to Mr. Williams. “I had always wanted to work with him, in any way, shape or form since I started working in the group, which is already 10-plus years ago,” Mr. Arnault said. “And it was just never the right time because either the companies were too small to work with someone as big as him, or there were already people in charge, or he was working with Chanel. And stars were so aligned now, finally.”Mr. Williams said, “I’m not calling it fortune — I’m calling it favor.”Hiring Mr. Williams was one of the first decisions overseen by Pietro Beccari, a longtime LVMH executive, who was announced as chairman and chief executive of Louis Vuitton in January. “After Virgil, I couldn’t choose a classical designer,” Mr. Beccari said. “It was important that we found someone having a broader spectrum than being a very fantastic designer, which is great for the industry and we have many of them. But for that particular place, at Louis Vuitton, after Virgil, I thought we needed something more. Something that went beyond just pure design.”Mr. Williams signed the contract on Valentine’s Day and soon relocated his wife and four children and much of his team. “Listen, I miss my house in Miami,” he said. “And my house in Virginia. I really do. But right now, Paris is the center of the earth for me.”Playing the Game, or NotHis skin is as good as you think it is — the additional pressure, or labor, or scrutiny of his new position has left no creases.There was ease in his silhouette, too: a tight black double breasted vintage Vuitton blazer and well-worn white LV Trainer Snow Boots peeking out under bunched-up, flared dark bluejeans embroidered with faces derived from paintings by the Black artist Henry Taylor. The pants — one of a few pieces Mr. Williams has deployed Taylor’s work for — will appear in the spring-summer 2024 collection, which will be shown in Paris on June 20.He requested a tailor to come take a look at the hem of the jeans, which was a smidge too long on one side, and then sauntered over to the main conference table in the room, where he asked some colleagues to pull up images from his first ad campaign. It featured a pregnant Rihanna clutching multiple Louis Vuitton Speedy bags in primary colors, one of the first playful tweaks Mr. Williams is bringing to the company’s heritage. The Speedy, one of Louis Vuitton’s most recognizable designs, dates to 1930 and resembles a doctor’s bag.“I am a creative designer from the perspective of the consumer,” he said. “I didn’t go to Central Saint Martins. But I definitely went in the stores and purchased, and I know what I like.”Mr. Williams’s first ad campaign for Vuitton stars Rihanna, who clutches multiple Speedy bags.Louis VuittonHe told Mr. Beccari something similar. “He said, ‘I don’t feel like a creative director here, I feel like a client,’” Mr. Beccari recalled, adding that he trusted Mr. Williams’s natural instincts despite his never having managed a business of this scale. “I didn’t even have to speak to him about the commercial importance of what he does and the importance in terms of turnover and volume of sales, but just the importance in terms of impact.”Mr. Williams looked at his Rihanna ads the way one might pose after a particularly athletic dunk. He pointed to one and said, “That’s the golden ratio.” For emphasis, he had an associate pull up the same image overlaid with the long golden spiral, the center of it landing directly on Rihanna’s belly.“What I love about this is, it’s the biggest fashion house in the world, and that is a Black woman with child,” Mr. Williams said.Sarah Andelman, the founder of the pioneering Paris retailer Colette, and a collaborator of Mr. Williams’s, said he makes creative choices “not just for the sake of doing things. There is a story and, I would say in French, profondeur, a meaning to what he will do.”Mr. Williams basked in the refracted shine from the screen full of Rihanna images.“I know there’s a game,” he said. “I’m just not here to play it.”Mr. Williams at the men’s atelier. “A ruler of a position is usually like a king,” he said. “But a ruler of this position for me is a perpetual student. It’s what I intend to be.”Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesThe Two-Decade Crash CourseAlmost since the beginning of his career in music, Mr. Williams had found ways to incorporate, and create, fashion. In 2003, he founded Billionaire Boys Club with Nigo, perhaps his closest creative ally in style. Explaining the creative kinship between the two men, Nigo, through an interpreter, said, “The first time I went to Pharrell’s house in Virginia, when I looked in the wardrobe, everything was the same as what I owned.”In 2003, Mr. Williams met Marc Jacobs, then the men’s creative director of Vuitton, who invited him to collaborate on a pair of sunglasses. The result, known as the Millionaires, became a hip-hop luxury staple in the mid-2000s and an updated version of them is still sold today.“He was just so incredibly generous to give me that opportunity when nobody had ever given any of us an opportunity to be creative,” Mr. Williams said of Mr. Jacobs. (The Millionaires were designed by Mr. Williams, with Nigo.)“I thought the way forward for Louis Vuitton was to collaborate with other creatives,” Mr. Jacobs said. “It didn’t matter to me whether they were from music or art or other fashion designers, whether it was Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami or Pharrell.”Back then, when Mr. Williams arrived in Paris, Mr. Jacobs gave him vouchers to shop in the stores. “I was very nouveau riche at that time,” Mr. Williams said, tilting his head down and offering just the tiniest hint of a knowing smirk. Mr. Williams also designed jewelry for Vuitton a few years later.Other collaborations followed: Moncler, G-Star, Moynat, Reebok, a long partnership with Adidas and an almost decade-long affiliation with Chanel and Mr. Williams’s close friend Karl Lagerfeld.Mr. Williams met Marc Jacobs in the early aughts, when Mr. Jacobs was the men’s creative director at Vuitton.Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty ImagesMr. Williams and Karl Lagerfeld shared a close friendship and had a decade-long collaboration at Chanel.Swan Gallet/WWD, via Getty ImagesBut none of those gigs had the complexity, or stakes, of his current assignment.“Over the past several weeks he’s had a crash course in design and how to run a studio and how to manage a team of 40, 50 people and how to take criticism and work with the people at the top because, you know, it’s a blend of creativity and also running a business,” said Matthew Henson, who has been a personal stylist for Mr. Williams for the last couple of years.Mr. Henson is also styling the show, along with Cynthia Lu, Mr. Williams’s former assistant who is now a quiet powerhouse of idiosyncratic streetwear with her brand Cactus Plant Flea Market.When Mr. Williams walks through the studios, his awe for the specialized design teams appears genuine. “Presto, things get turned around so fast,” he said. “I’ve had more resources than I’ve ever had in my entire life. They just don’t miss. Like at all. None. Nobody.”That was something he was prepared for, in part, by conversations he had with Virgil Abloh, after Mr. Abloh was hired for this same job in 2018. In the three years at the helm of Vuitton’s men’s wear before his sudden death in late 2021, Mr. Abloh upended ideas about how a luxury house might function, and what story it might be able to tell in dialogue with those who had long been held at arm’s length from luxury fashion. Just outside the atelier hangs the crucial, defining image from Mr. Abloh’s first ad campaign for Louis Vuitton: a Black toddler draped in a “Wizard of Oz”-themed sweater, one of Mr. Abloh’s first signature pieces.Mr. Williams recalled Mr. Abloh’s awe at the scale and efficiency of the atelier. “He would always talk about how they never say no, which they don’t,” he said. “So that’s a responsibility not to abuse them.”Mr. Williams is now the second consecutive Black American in the role. “Over here, they lift us,” he said. “They appreciate what we do. They see the talent that we have.”Mr. Williams, in 2016, with Virgil Abloh, who as artistic director of Vuitton upended ideas of how a luxury house might function,Amy Sussman/WWD, via Getty ImagesThe Arnault family, he said, understands how crucial the Black American dollar and aesthetic has been to the growth and cachet of Louis Vuitton: “One hundred percent they know it,” he said. “We’ve had some conversations about how important the community is to them, and how being supportive to them is a natural and a prerequisite.”He is looking to expand the house’s brand ambassador program beyond the usual musicians and actors to Black academics, Black authors, a Black astrophysicist, even a Black bass fishing champion.“They have to be supportive of the culture because the culture contributes to the bottom line,” he said.A New HumilityThere are some things that Mr. Williams simply will not say. In public settings, at least, he speaks with the deliberateness of someone who wants no word to be misapprehended. His sunglasses stay on. (“I need something for myself,” he said.) Rhetorically, he returns to familiar narratives and motifs — the seismic changes in his life every 10 years, the eternal quest for learning, the continuing practice of gratitude.“He never speaks the truth of himself, and I hate it,” said Pusha T, who has known Mr. Williams for three decades. “It’s my pet peeve about him. He knows he’s great at things, but he wants that to walk him through the door versus him saying, ‘Hey guys, come on. Let me through.’”Squint hard, though, and you may see the faintest flickers of the mid-2000s Pharrell Williams, a more boisterous and boasty person. A whiff of the old self popped out in a video Mr. Williams posted in late January, backstage at the Kenzo show with Nigo, when he knew he was on the verge of signing his contract. “You know what rhymes with 2023? Money money tree,” he said into his phone camera, nodding intensely. He didn’t lick his lips, but he might as well have.When the appointment was announced, Tyler, the Creator, a longtime acolyte and style guru in his own right, FaceTimed Mr. Williams. “He just has this look he gives me where he kind of just goes like, ‘Yeahhhh, I did that.’ He didn’t say anything,” Tyler said. “And then he gave me the praying hands.”Mr. Williams performing at Roseland in New York in 2004. Rahav Segev for The New York TimesOn his 2006 mixtape “In My Mind: The Prequel,” a dizzying display of Dionysian ostentation, a peacock at the peak of his peacocking, Mr. Williams rapped, “We wanted this life, we salivated like wolves/ Blow a hundred grand on LV leather goods.”Mr. Williams almost flinched at the memory: “I was greeeeeasy on that.”Now, he said, “I promise you I really love being humble.” But luxury fashion is not a business built on humility, and Mr. Williams is keen to make a splash.The theme of his debut show, Mr. Williams said, will be “lovers.” The first inklings of his vision emerged in April, at a Virginia festival that Mr. Williams organizes called Something in the Water, for which Vuitton made merch. It was received coolly.Of potential negative criticism, Mr. Williams pleads equanimity. “I’m a student — students learn,” he said.Mr. Henson said he didn’t think Mr. Williams was expecting any “grace or favor” because of who he is. “He’s expecting even more criticism and harsh critique,” he said.Mr. Williams shrugged. “It’s not where my mind is, just because I think I err on the side of working with master artisans, and we’re just literally working on the details,” he said.Staying CuriousAn afternoon with Mr. Williams in creative director mode is a little bit like playing a first-person shooter. Requests pop in from unexpected directions, at erratic rhythms. Just when things get calm, someone emerges from around a corner with a mood board, or a vintage garment and a swatch of fabric it might be reimagined in. After being shown a hood with a novel but useful zipper, Mr. Williams nodded. “I don’t want anything to be just for aesthetics,” he said. “Everything has to have a real function.”For the second day in a row, he was wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt by Human Made, this time underneath a soft black leather biker jacket, and his flared jeans were in a Damier pattern.A tailor brought out a mock-up of a double-breasted blazer for Mr. Williams to try on. One of the designers asked if he wanted “a very sartorial pocket” added to the design.“Sartorial,” Mr. Williams said. “Do you follow that guy on Instagram? The Sartorialist?”At the Louis Vuitton workshop in the days before his debut collection is unveiled. Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesFor his first collection, he is leaning heavily on the checkerboard Damier print but reworking it in clever ways — digital camo or, in Mr. Williams’s parlance, “damouflage,” and tweaking the colors away from the familiar browns and grays.“Every season it’s going to be a different colorway,” he said, likening the playfulness to Takashi Murakami’s neon monogram print during the Jacobs era. The soles of various shoes will be a modified Damier pattern. On a conference table were a pair of damoflage sweatsuits set aside for his parents (“My dad is a player,” he said.)Mr. Williams, who made waves in 2007 with his oversize purple crocodile Hermès Haut à courroies bag, is most tickled by the opportunity to innovate on the Speedy, which he is remaking in several primary colors, and also in an exaggerated, oversize silhouette. A yellow Speedy in meltingly soft leather sat on the pool table that serves as an impromptu work space in the atelier, almost slumping under its own very light weight.“I want to give you that same experience that you get when you go to Canal Street, a place that has appropriated the house for decades, right?” Mr. Williams said. “Let’s reverse it. Let’s get inspired by the fact that they’ll make some colorways that the house has never made. But then let’s actually make it the finest of leather.”The day before, Mr. Williams had taken a moment to chat about designing a custom look for Naomi Campbell, including a zipped sports bra and zipped miniskirt, all in monogrammed leather (“’60s vibes, go-go”), and debating skirt lengths. “It’ll work, but I don’t know if it’ll be as sexy,” he said.He also surveyed a pair of ship-shaped bag options, one steamer-like, one a bit shorter, and picked from various trim color and font options. “This seems to be the crispiest,” he said, pointing to a white trim. He held one bag in each hand, then handed them to Nigo, who stomped off down the office in a mock model walk.What Nigo did for Mr. Williams two decades ago, Mr. Williams is now doing for those who grew up admiring him.“Me and him have a 20-year difference in age and man, what that does for me at my age is like, oh, it’s still no ceilings,” Tyler said. “To see someone at his age with his milestones, with his résumé, to not only still strive for a new world, stay curious, look for something new and something to challenge himself and let his creativity bleed into something else aside from just a drum pattern. And then actually get it. He not only strived for and did it, but actually nailed it — it means so much to me.”Mr. Williams’s new designs include printed leather jerseys and rugbys, quilted denim, Mao-neck blazers and ghillie camo with LV logo cutouts. He was excited to walk to the back of the studio, where the footwear designers work, and go over some eccentric ideas: Mary Janes and bowling shoes, a stone-encrusted snowboard boot, a design that initially scanned as a soccer sneaker but is actually a hard-bottom shoe. “I ain’t even gonna lie,” he said. “I was trying to do that at Adidas for years.”A little earlier, he was in front of his window, where he’d set up a small studio, and while fiddling with his Keystation 88 — a keyboard and sound controller — he asked his engineer to cue up a new song, tentatively called “Chains ’n Whips,” that he was considering using as part of the show’s soundtrack. Over a fusillade of psych-rock guitar flourishes, Pusha T rapped along to a pointed line in the chorus: “Beat the system with chains and whips!”“That was made in this room,” Mr. Williams said. “We just start walking around and looking out this window and you just see all of this. I mean, we beating this system, bro.” More