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      With Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs in Jail, He Faces Another Lawsuit

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      The latest lawsuit includes accusations of drugging and coerced sex as recently as this year. Mr. Combs’s lawyers have said the claims are attempts to obtain quick settlements.A woman filed a lawsuit against the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs on Friday alleging that he repeatedly coerced her into forced sexual encounters over a period of several years, in part by compelling her to take drugs that caused her to fall unconscious.The suit, which was brought in state court in New York by an anonymous plaintiff who describes herself as a business owner and a model, recalls a relationship that continued on and off between 2021 and this year, in which Mr. Combs and his employees would arrange for her to travel to his homes.“Combs would make her ‘perform a show’ for him and would ply her with alcohol and substances until she passed out — she would wake up with bruising and injuries but with no recollection of how she sustained her injuries,” the lawsuit says.Representatives for Mr. Combs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The latest complaint against Mr. Combs comes as he faces federal racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges; he has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers have adamantly denied the charges, accusing prosecutors of manipulating sexual encounters between consenting adults into a sex trafficking case.As he awaits trial, detained in a Brooklyn jail, the civil suits against Mr. Combs have continued to grow. The lawsuit is the eighth filed over the past year by a woman accusing him of sexual assault; three other lawsuits have made allegations of sexual misconduct. Mr. Combs’s lawyers have been seeking dismissals of the other suits in court and have described them as false claims cobbled together to try to secure a financial settlement from Mr. Combs.The newest lawsuit said the plaintiff, who lives in Florida, met Mr. Combs overseas in 2020 and began seeing him regularly in 2021. Drivers would pick her up, the suit says, and she would be taken to his homes in Los Angeles, New York and Florida.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lady Gaga’s ‘Joker,’ and a Tour of Musical Clowning

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      Clowns, harlequins, jokers and Pierrots have served as the main characters in countless songs over the years, but they’re rarely there to conjure cheap laughs.Dear listeners,Today — after announcing it just a few days ago — Lady Gaga released “Harlequin,” a companion album to the forthcoming film “Joker: Folie à Deux,” in which she stars as the troubled Harleen Quinzel. Fans clamoring for the next “Bad Romance” will have to wait a little longer: She’s promised that her next album, slated for release in February 2025, will be her return to pop. In the meantime, “Harlequin” is a satisfying showcase for the jazzier and more traditional side of Gaga — and another example of music’s continued obsession with clowns.Clowns, harlequins, jokers and Pierrots have served as the main characters in countless songs over the years, but they’re rarely there to conjure cheap laughs. More often, the musical clown is a tragic figure, whether he’s shedding tears like Smokey Robinson or hanging his head like the titular fool in an Everly Brothers classic. Gaga’s “Harlequin” fits into this lineage in its own way: There’s a manic brightness to many of her performances (which include standards like “Smile” and “Get Happy”) that barely conceals an underlying darkness and despair.Today’s playlist is a brief tour through the musical history of clowning, sans the abrasive sounds of Insane Clown Posse. (My apologies; I’m just not a Juggalo.) It contains one of my favorite tracks from Lady Gaga’s new album, along with material from Jenny Lewis, Emeli Sandé and a certain timeless ballad written by Stephen Sondheim. On the off chance you’re one of those people who is afraid of clowns, I sincerely hope it does not inspire any nightmares.Just like Pagliacci did,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Lady Gaga: “The Joker”One of the most striking tracks on “Harlequin” is this rendition of “The Joker” — no, not the Steve Miller Band song, but a showstopping number from the 1964 musical “The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd.” (It’s been covered by quite a few artists over the years, perhaps most memorably the great Shirley Bassey.) Gaga can of course nail a theatrical tune like this in her sleep, but she brings a fresh energy to “The Joker” by giving it a kind of rock operatic arrangement, complete with electric guitar and a punkish growl in her voice. “Perfect Illusion” apologists, our moment has once again arrived.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Cure’s First Fresh Music in 16 Years, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Lady Gaga, Rosalía, Stevie Nicks and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.The Cure, ‘Alone’“This is the end of every song we sing,” Robert Smith laments in the stately, dire, seven-minute “Alone.” It’s the first preview of “Songs of a Lost World,” the Cure’s first studio album since 2008, which is due Nov. 1. The first half of the track is instrumental, establishing a lugubrious pace with thick, sustained chords punctuated by slamming drums. It sets up Smith to deliver a threnody for just about everything: not just music but love, nature, hope, dreams, even the stars. “Where did it go?” Smith wonders amid the emptiness.Stevie Nicks, ‘The Lighthouse’Stevie Nicks has re-emerged, righteous and adamant, with “The Lighthouse,” a post-Dobbs call for action on women’s rights. “You better learn how to fight,” she sings. What starts as a dirge — “All the rights that you had yesterday are taken away” — quickly snowballs into a march, a latter-day sequel to “Stand Back” that insists on standing up instead.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Katy Perry’s ‘143’ Is Bad. Her Timing Is Worse.

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      The pop singer’s latest LP, “143,” has been gleefully panned, but its musical faults aren’t as remarkable as Perry’s failure to read the current cultural moment.Less than 24 hours after its release last Friday, Katy Perry’s seventh studio album, “143,” had already earned a place in pop musical infamy.It debuted on Metacritic, a website that collects and quantifies music reviews, with a score of 35 out of 100, becoming the site’s lowest-rated album since 2011 and the worst-reviewed album by a female artist in its 23-year history. Seemingly the kindest thing any critic said about “143” was that it “falls short of total catastrophe.” Online, dunking on Perry became a semiprofessional sport, as representatives of rival stan armies posted about her supposed downfall with irrepressible glee.But is “143” really that bad? It certainly lacks the sparkle, personality and campy wit that characterized “Teenage Dream,” Perry’s blockbuster 2010 album. (Along with Michael Jackson’s “Bad,” “Teenage Dream” is the only album to spawn five No. 1 hits.) But none of the songs on “143” are as ostentatiously awful as some of Perry’s previous failures, like, say, “Bon Appétit,” the Migos-assisted nadir of her 2017 album, “Witness,” or the track from her 2013 release, “Prism,” on which she sang about a night out doing (gulp) “Mariah Carey-oke.” The defining qualities of “143” are its blandness, anonymity and deadeyed seriousness — rather surprising for a woman whose 2022 Las Vegas residency, “Play,” found her singing beside a 16-foot toilet.Unfortunately, dull, uninspired pop albums come out all the time, and plenty of Perry’s pop star peers have also recently had to reckon with diminishing sales. It was highly unlikely that a new album was going to launch Perry, who in recent years has been appearing as a judge on “American Idol,” back to pop’s epicenter. Despite a lead single (the anthemic synth-pop number “Never Really Over”) far superior to anything on “143,” Perry’s 2020 album, “Smile,” failed to make much of an impression. But it also did not prompt the outsized scorn and schadenfreude that has accompanied her latest release.I can’t say I’ll be putting “143” in heavy rotation, but I also do not think it is the worst album I have heard since 2011, nor the most odious collection of music made by a woman in over two decades. (It is also not a total commercial failure, projected to debut with around 40,000 units sold in its first week.) The album’s anodyne jams might not tell us much about Katy Perry, but the Great Flop of “143” says a lot about the way pop is consumed, evaluated and discussed in this particular moment, when music is just one part of the package. Listeners are more aware than ever how the cotton candy is made, debating the merits of various figures who were once tucked behind the curtain: producers, writers and in some cases even managers and publicists. In a time when an album’s promotion and rollout strategy are often scrutinized as heavily as its content, Perry was already doomed to fail.A mediocre album from a pop star past her commercial peak, “143” probably would have come and gone without much notice were its rollout not prone to so many cringe-inducing gaffes, like the controversy surrounding the music video for the blithe, house-inflected single “Lifetimes,” which prompted a government investigation for filming on a UNESCO World Heritage nature reserve off the coast of Spain.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Found Guilty in Shooting Death of Rapper Young Dolph

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      The man, Justin Johnson, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for the fatal 2021 shooting of Young Dolph, who was gunned down outside a Memphis cookie shop in broad daylight.A man was found guilty on Thursday and sentenced to life in prison in the 2021 shooting death of Young Dolph, an emerging Memphis rapper who was regarded as one of hip-hop’s most promising artists.The man, Justin Johnson, was accused of shooting Young Dolph, 36, outside a cookie shop in the rapper’s hometown, Memphis, in November 2021. The Associated Press reported that a co-defendant in the case had testified that Young Dolph’s killing was tied to a battle between rival record labels.After just four hours of deliberation, a jury found Mr. Johnson guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and of being a felon in possession of a firearm, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.In a statement, Steve Mulroy, the district attorney of Shelby County, said the case had generated “extra public interest because Young Dolph was a prominent and beloved member of the community.”“We will continue to fight hard to make sure that all of those responsible for his death are brought to justice,” Mr. Mulroy said.Justin Johnson in court in Memphis on Thursday.Pool photo by Mark WeberWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nick Gravenites, Mainstay of the San Francisco Rock Scene, Dies at 85

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      A blues devotee from Chicago, he tasted fame in the late 1960s with the Electric Flag, a band that made its debut at Monterey but proved short-lived.Nick Gravenites, a Chicago-bred blues vocalist and guitarist who rose to prominence during the explosion of psychedelia in San Francisco in the 1960s as a founder of the hard-driving blues-rock band the Electric Flag and as a songwriter for Janis Joplin and others, died on Sept. 18 in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 85.His son Tim Gravenites said he died in an assisted-living facility, where he was being treated for dementia and diabetes.Mr. Gravenites grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where he was part of a cadre of “white misfit kids,” as he put it on his website, who honed their craft watching Chicago blues masters like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf in local clubs. His colleagues included the singer and harmonica player Paul Butterfield and the guitarists Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop; all four of them would go on to help fuel the white blues-rock boom that began in the 1960s.“Being a ‘bluesman’ is the total blues life,” Mr. Gravenites said in a 2005 interview with Sound Waves, a Connecticut lifestyle magazine. “It has to do with philosophy.”“The life in general doesn’t ask much from you in terms of personality,” he continued. “It doesn’t ask that you be a genius, or a saint.” Many bluesmen, he added, fell far short of sainthood: “They just ask that you be able to play the stuff. That’s all.”Mr. Gravenites sang with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. From left: Mr. Butterfield, Jerome Arnold, Mr. Gravenites, Sam Lay, Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield.David Gahr/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lhasa’s Music Captivated Audiences Everywhere but Here

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      At Pop Montreal, tribute concerts on Sept. 29 and 30 will honor the memory of Lhasa de Sela, the American-born multilingual singer-songwriter.Montreal’s wide-ranging music scene has been one of its calling cards for decades, with border-crossing success stories like the ambitious rock band Arcade Fire, the arty electro-pop artist Grimes and the renowned post-rock modernists Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Yet one of the musicians most beloved there is the spellbinding Lhasa de Sela, who wrote and sang in English, French and Spanish, but remains largely unknown in the United States.She was usually referred to simply as Lhasa, and before she died of breast cancer in 2010 at 37, she became a platinum-selling recording artist in Canada, with genre-busting albums that synthesized Romani music, Mexican rancheras, Portuguese fados, Americana, chansons française and South American ballads, marrying them with mystical, romantic and intensely personal lyrics.In Europe, where Lhasa was a mainstay of the festival circuit, and lived in Marseilles for several years, she became a star on the strength of her intimate performances. But in the United States, where she was born and spent most of her childhood, Lhasa’s multilingual recordings proved too much of a marketing challenge for her American record companies, even after she toured with Sarah McLachlan’s traveling festival, Lilith Fair.Feist, Calexico, Juana Molina, Silvana Estrada and many other stars will perform in the tribute concerts that will cap this year’s Pop Montreal festival on Sept. 29 and 30. Their homage underscores an enduring love affair between a city and an artist who made just three otherworldly albums, including a last, self-titled album, all in English, that she hoped would finally establish her in her home country.Bia Krieger, the Brazilian-born, Montreal-based singer who was a friend of Lhasa’s, said, “Iconic is the right word” to describe her. “There’s a circle of people here that cherish her.”Lhasa is now even woven into the landscape of her old neighborhood, Mile End, which is anchored at its southern end by a huge mural of the singer created by a local artist, Annie Hamel, and, on the north by Parc Lhasa de Sela, a children’s playground the city erected in her memory.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      NewJeans’s Complaints Against Hybe Brings Scrutiny to K-Pop’s New Releases

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      The breakout girl group went public with complaints against its parent company, Hybe, which has just released a new TV series and film about the control it exerts over stars.A huge part of the success of NewJeans — the most creatively promising new K-pop act of the past two years — has been its music videos: stylistically sophisticated, vividly colorful, palpably joyful. Starting with music that deploys top-shelf songwriting buoyed by production savvy about global microtrends, the group developed a singular aesthetic to go with it, drawing equally from high fashion, lived-in nostalgia and contemporary cuteness.So it was striking when, a couple of weeks ago, the group released a video performance unlike any that preceded it. In a live broadcast on a burner YouTube account, the group’s five members — Danielle, Haerin, Hanni, Hyein and Minji — spoke for almost 30 minutes about their dissatisfaction with their parent company, Hybe. They particularly focused on how it had de-emphasized the role of the group’s executive producer, Min Hee-jin, in their work.Here was a group putting its external image and its internal leverage at risk to argue for their creative lives. It is an infrequent scenario at this level in K-pop, a genre and business in which careful choreography — of music, visuals and star behavior — is crucial to the power of the art.This livestream, of course, was as art directed as any of the group’s technicolor music videos. The members dressed largely in black, speaking softly in an anonymous office. Out in the world, NewJeans is vibrant, dynamic and approachably fun; in this clip, which some fans speculated was secretly orchestrated by Min, the members were reduced to spiritless cogs, as if trapped and suffocated by the corporation itself.Min Hee-jin, NewJeans’ executive producer, called a news conference in April to dispute accusations of corporate malfeasance by her employer, Hybe.Chung Sung-Jun/Getty ImagesFor almost as long as K-pop has been a global force, it has been an exemplar of the controversial virtues of top-down control. American pop labels essentially abandoned this mode more than a decade ago, following the boy band and Britney-Christina era. The influence of social media in creating bottom-up hits and stars has all but invalidated the label-knows-best mode of creation. But K-pop’s commitment to that ethic persists, and has made exactitude into an artistic virtue.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More