Instagram Inc

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      Britney Spears Has Always Fought Back. By Dancing.

      by

      Before, during and now after the conservatorship that oversaw her life for 13 years, the pop star has used dance to assert her power and connect with her audience.When Britney Spears spoke out in June during a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court, she talked about how those in charge of her conservatorship had strictly governed her life for 13 years, calling the arrangement “abusive.” But she also emphasized one way she had held on to some control.She kept on dancing.She “actually did most of the choreography,” she said, referring to 2018 rehearsals for her later scuttled “Britney: Domination” residency in Las Vegas, “meaning I taught my dancers my new choreography myself.”There was “tons of video” of these rehearsals online, she said, adding: “I wasn’t good — I was great.”It was a powerful way of reminding those listening of the confidence she conveyed as a performer throughout her career. Onstage, Spears maintained control over her body, otherwise the subject of constant scrutiny — about her virginity, her weight, her wardrobe. Through movement, she conjured a world of her own making in which she really was the boss.With her expansive arm gestures, rapid-fire turns and abdominal dexterity, Spears has always used dance to communicate her strength. Brian Friedman, the choreographer responsible for some of Spears’s most famous routines, noted that there was a visible change in her approach to dancing after the conservatorship was put in place in 2008.“I feel like that was her way of being able to be in control of something, because she didn’t have control over so much,” Friedman said in a phone interview. “So by being able to step into the studio and say ‘I don’t want to do this, I want to do this, I’m going to make up my own thing,’ it gave her some kind of power.”When Spears announced “an indefinite work hiatus” in early 2019, she began posting videos of herself dancing to Instagram. Most of these clips show her twirling alone, in a loose, visibly improvised style, on the marble floor of her California home.In the videos, she looks straight at the camera, breaking her gaze only for the occasional turn, or to flip her hair. This isn’t the movement of the practiced stage performer and pop star; it’s more exploratory, as if she were searching for the right step or feeling instead of trying to nail it.Under the conservatorship, Spears’s videos became the subject of debate and speculation. While some fans cheered her on, others were bothered by her lack of polish and level stare. “Does anyone ever feel awkward or uncomfortable watching this?” someone asked in the comments of a post in February.For Spears, though, the point was simple. It’s about “finding my love for dancing again,” she wrote in a March post. In others, she said that she moves like this for up to three hours a day, taping her feet to avoid getting blisters.For dancers and choreographers who have worked with Spears, her Instagram’s focus on dance made sense. “In a period of time when she did not have freedom, that gave her freedom,” Friedman said.Sharing her improvised dance sessions also allowed her to connect directly with fans. Brooke Lipton, who danced with Spears from 2001 to 2008, said in a phone interview that Spears’s “dancing told the world she needed help — without saying anything, because she couldn’t.”If Spears can still show off the occasional fouetté turns, in which she spins on one leg, it’s because of a lifetime training in the dance studio. Lipton, Friedman and others say that Spears matched the range and commitment of professional dancers, with a preternatural knack for picking up choreography on the fly.“She grew up dancing,” said Tania Baron, who started performing at shopping malls with the budding star in 1998. “There are artists who dance certain parts of a show. There are artists who are just natural movers. Then you’ve got people like Britney, who can really dance just like her dancers.”Spears’s care and attention to how she presented herself in movement speak to how she understood her body as a dancer does — as an artistic instrument. Top-level choreographers might have been creating dances for her, but they were also working for other pop stars. The difference, Elizabeth Bergman, a scholar of commercial dance, said in a phone interview, is “the way she’s doing them.”In the years before the conservatorship, Spears carefully chose the choreographers she worked with. Valerie Moise, also known as Raistalla, who danced in Spears’s concerts and videos in 2008 and 2009, points out that these collaborations contributed to the longstanding popularity of jazz funk, known for its defiant, hard-hitting moves.“This is a style that is almost like a culture to her,” Moise said in a phone interview. “It accentuates how she wants to express herself.”And Spears did something more than just continue in the tradition of the pop artists who danced before her.“Of course there was Madonna, and Michael and Janet, and they were fantastic,” Lipton said. “But dance was also evolving at a time when Wade and Brian were stepping up the expectations of what dancers could do,” she added, referring to Spears’s frequent choreographers, Wade Robson and Friedman. Their routines were faster than those of the previous generation, with more movement and action per beat. “Every count was being filled,” Lipton said.When learning routines from choreographers, Spears would speak up when they included steps that did not feel right on her body, sometimes suggesting her own moves instead. “She was very much the boss,” Baron said about Spears at the beginning of her career. “Not in a mean way. But if she didn’t like something, she would make it known.”From an early age, Spears recognized dance as a medium in which presence and artistry can’t be faked. “When you’re dancing, you just can’t do a step, you’ve got to get into it,” she said when she was a 12-year-old star of “The Mickey Mouse Club.”Randy Connor, who choreographed Spears’s routine in the classic “ … Baby One More Time” video, said he believed her ability to convey her feelings with and through her body was a major part of her initial star appeal. “It resonated with so many people because of her conviction in the movement,” he said in a phone interview.Coming up in an industry known for its artifice, Spears used dance as a means of transparency with fans. Everyone knows there is no such thing as dance-syncing.“That was truly how she communicated as an artist,” Friedman said. Even before the start of Spears’s conservatorship, he added, “she couldn’t really say everything she wanted in public, in interviews. But when she danced, it was unapologetic.”Spears’s songs became coming-of-age and coming-out anthems, and learning her moves enabled fans to explore aspects of their identities with the same boldness she projected with her body. Imitating her performances allowed them to “feel the spirit of Britney,” as Jack says on the TV show “Will & Grace,” after doing the shoulder lifts and arm pumps that are part of the routine to “Oops! … I Did It Again.”Lipton emphasizes that Spears chose her steps so that anyone watching could move along with her.“She would do the choreography just a little bit less,” Lipton said. “In a moment where we’re doing all of these turns and slams, she just smiles and points her fingers out, before joining back in. It wasn’t unattainable.”If Spears embraced her strength in movement along with her fans, many commentators did not, often describing her dancing as if it were a ploy used to compensate for lack of talent. Other young female pop stars like Jessica Simpson and Avril Lavigne boasted about not dancing, as if this made them more authentic artists. In 2002, The Associated Press identified a crop of “Anti-Britneys” who supposedly challenged the idea that you have to “cavort in tight clothes to be sexy and successful in pop music.”Friedman says that Spears’s dancing was about her artistry, not manufactured sex appeal.“As Britney’s choreographer for many years, I never set out to make movements to pleasure anyone else,” he said. “It was about how I could make her feel empowered in her body.”In the 2008 documentary “Britney: For the Record,” filmed in the early days of the conservatorship, Spears speaks as if already aware of how important dance would become for her under the control of others.“Dancing is a huge part of me and who I am. It’s like something that my spirit just has to do,” she says. “I’d be dead without dancing.”Arguing for the conservatorship’s termination 13 years later, she identified one of her breaking points as the moment when she was refused the right even to this control over her body. Spears said that at a dance rehearsal in early 2019, after saying that she wanted to modify a step in the choreography, she was informed that she was not cooperating.She declared her response firmly in court: “I can say no to a dance move.” More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      Meg Stalter Rejoices With Dolly Parton and a Loyal Chihuahua

      by

      The comedian talks about banishing the worst of 2021 in Amazon’s “Yearly Departed,” while celebrating the best in real life.Meg Stalter is famously her own biggest fan — if not you, then who? — but even she has been a little awed by her recent success.Her live comedy shows sell out in minutes. She stole scenes in her first acting gig as an ebulliently inept assistant to a talent agent on HBO Max’s “Hacks.”Now she is laying the worst of 2021 to rest. On Dec. 23 she’ll bid farewell to “hot vaxx summer” in a flirty-girl get-up, in the second edition of the Amazon annual special “Yearly Departed.”The hyperchatty Stalter was star-struck by a lineup of fellow comics that included Yvonne Orji, Chelsea Peretti and Dulcé Sloan. Then Jane Fonda walked onto the set to shoot her segment.“No one could talk,” she said. “We were all drooling and I think she thought we were weird because at first we couldn’t speak. And she was like, ‘Is everything OK?’”In a word, very.But after paying her dues in comedy for eight years, Stalter sees her ascent during the pandemic as bittersweet.“Everything is starting to happen now and it’s really strange to be so worried about other people — we’ve experienced so much devastation — and also to stop and be like, ‘How lucky am I to be living my dream right now?’” she said. “I guess that’s what life is. You have to just embrace the good parts, even when it’s scary and hard.”Calling from London, where she was making her British stand-up debut at the Soho Theater, Stalter did an impromptu riff on her own Top 10 of 2021, from Dolly Parton’s inclusiveness to the joy of private karaoke rooms. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Dolly PartonI’ve listened to her every year, but especially this last year. She is the best celebrity because she feels, to me at least, that she just supports everyone. She’s the true meaning of a Christian because she loves God, and then she loves people, and she accepts everyone for who they are — which is what we should have all learned this year, just to love each other and take care of each other.I’m somebody who grew up in church and doesn’t go now. I’m this bisexual person who still believes in God. Dolly doesn’t have any judgment on anyone else’s life, but still keeps some of the beliefs that she grew up with.2. The “Free Britney” MovementMy friends and I are so happy for her. Everyone always knew that she didn’t have control over her life, so it was really powerful and exciting to see her now get control. We’re celebrating — and it’s her birthday today! I bet she’s somewhere strange with her boyfriend, like dancing on a boat.3. TakeoutI’d love to cook more, but I am addicted to ordering takeout or Grubhub or Postmates. In London, I haven’t been able to figure out their ordering food apps. It’s like moving to a different planet.4. Instagram LiveWhen the pandemic started, I did a bunch. Every night I would do a different crazy-themed one. I’d be like, “OK, we’re going to Paris tonight.” And then I’d decorate my apartment with stuff that I could find that made it look like Paris. It was a way for me to connect to other people. I was in New York alone, really scared, and I felt like the only thing keeping me sane was doing that at night.5. High-Waisted JeansThere’s something really classic about wearing a good pair of high-waisted jeans. I like a plain shirt and jeans during the day, and then wearing this beautiful gown at night for a show. That’s really appealing to me. I think both are a little bit of structure that we didn’t have during quarantine, because we were wearing sweatpants.6. Time With FamilyMy family is truly everything to me. When would we ever have spent this much time in the same house as when we quarantined together? It was really lifesaving to be laughing in the same house again.7. “The Office”It’s one of my comfort shows. I watched it a lot this year. It still holds up. The dinner party episode is my favorite. The boss invites people to come to dinner at his house and he’s being very passive-aggressive with his girlfriend. Either people think it’s the funniest episode of TV or they’re like, “I can’t even watch it.” It’s kind of my sense of humor.8. Dining in Restaurants AgainSomething I really was missing in quarantine was the feeling of being at a table with all of your friends and everyone’s laughing and you don’t even remember why and everyone’s talking over each other. It’s exciting that we are experiencing that again slowly. Every hangout feels precious and thrilling.9. Private Karaoke RoomsLast night I did a private karaoke room with a couple of friends, and we had the best time. It felt safe. We just sang for hours. It makes sense for it to be more popular now than it was. My friend was on a trip and he did a solo karaoke room. I don’t know if I would like that or not. I like to be in front of an audience, even if it’s three friends.10. Quarantine AnimalsI feel like everyone should have a pet now. I think it’s lifesaving. I have a Chihuahua who’s 15 years old. She was a family dog, but she came to live with me during quarantine and I am attached to her. Animals are so empathetic and they can tell when you’re sad and they just really calm you down. I’m afraid of when she passes because she’s so old. My sister is begging me to get another animal, but I feel like my dog doesn’t want me to get another dog. She likes to be alone with me. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      Gadsby and Netflix Employees Pressure Executive Over Dave Chappelle Special

      by

      Tensions at Netflix continued to flare on Friday, 10 days after the release of a special by the comedian Dave Chappelle that critics inside and outside the company have described as promoting bigotry against transgender people.Early on Friday, a Netflix star criticized the company and Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive, in a stinging social media post. Later in the day, Netflix said it had fired an employee for sharing documents related to Mr. Chappelle with a reporter, and Mr. Sarandos fielded pointed questions from employees during a companywide virtual meeting.In a rare public rebuke, the Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby upbraided Mr. Sarandos by name for his defense of Mr. Chappelle. Ms. Gadsby, whose 2017 Netflix special, “Nanette,” earned an Emmy and a Peabody Award, is the most prominent entertainer to criticize Mr. Sarandos and Netflix, which she referred to in an Instagram post as an “amoral algorithm cult.”Mr. Sarandos and Netflix’s other co-chief, Reed Hastings, have been unwavering in their support of Mr. Chappelle, who signed a lucrative multiyear deal with the company in 2016 and has won Emmys and Grammys for his Netflix work. In a note this week, Mr. Sarandos countered the arguments of Netflix staff members who had suggested that Mr. Chappelle’s special, “The Closer,” could lead to violence against transgender people, writing that he had the “strong belief that content on-screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.”Mr. Sarandos, who joined Netflix two decades ago and became its co-chief executive last year, also said that the company would go to great lengths to “ensure marginalized communities aren’t defined by a single story.” He cited inclusive Netflix programs like “Sex Education” and “Orange Is the New Black” as well as Ms. Gadsby’s specials, which also include “Douglas,” released in 2020.In her social media post on Friday, Ms. Gadsby, who is a lesbian, objected to the executive’s references to her in his defense of the company and Mr. Chappelle’s special.Hannah Gadsby, whose Netflix specials were critical and popular successes, called the company “amoral” in a social media post on Friday.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Hey Ted Sarandos!” Ms. Gadsby wrote. “Just a quick note to let you know that I would prefer if you didn’t drag my name into your mess. Now I have to deal with even more of the hate and anger that Dave Chappelle’s fans like to unleash on me every time Dave gets 20 million dollars to process his emotionally stunted partial world view.”She continued: “You didn’t pay me nearly enough to deal with the real world consequences of the hate speech dog whistling you refuse to acknowledge, Ted.”Netflix declined to comment on Ms. Gadsby’s remarks.At a virtual company meeting that started at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, Mr. Sarandos replied to a series of tough questions from employees, who asked about Mr. Chappelle’s special and how the company had responded to criticisms of it, according to three people with knowledge of the gathering. The event became emotional when several employees were persistent in their questioning of Mr. Sarandos and his support for someone who they feel engages in hate speech, the people said.After the meeting, Netflix said in a statement that an employee had been fired for sharing internal documents pertaining to Mr. Chappelle with the press.“We have let go of an employee for sharing confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company,” the statement said. “We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix, but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company.”The documents included private financial information regarding Mr. Chappelle’s Netflix specials that were published this week by Bloomberg, according to a person with knowledge of the termination. The documents included the costs for the specials — $24.1 million for “The Closer” and $23.6 million for Mr. Chappelle’s previous special, “Sticks & Stones” — as well as an internal metric that determines the value of the specials relative to their budgets.Such data is available to Netflix staff but rarely made public. The appearance of the statistics in a published article is a further sign of how deep the schism is between some Netflix employees and company leadership.Several organizations, including GLAAD, which monitors the news media and entertainment companies for bias against the L.G.B.T.Q. community, have criticized Mr. Chappelle’s special as transphobic. A group of Netflix workers has planned a walkout for next week in protest.Nicole Sperling More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      Shannen Doherty Reveals Ravages of Breast Cancer in Candid Photos

      by

      The actress, 50, who has Stage 4 cancer, said she posted the photos to help raise awareness about breast cancer prevention.One picture shows the actress Shannen Doherty completely bald, a bloody cotton ball in her nose as she stares straight at the camera, looking almost confrontational.Another is more playful — Ms. Doherty, 50, is in bed wearing Cookie Monster pajamas and a Cookie Monster eye mask. She confesses to how exhausted she is, how the chemotherapy she has had to undergo for Stage 4 breast cancer has left her plagued by bloody noses.“Is it all pretty? NO but it’s truthful and my hope in sharing is that we all become more educated, more familiar with what cancer looks like,” Ms. Doherty wrote on Instagram this week.The images are unsettling to any member of Generation X who remembers her as Brenda Walsh, the feisty, polarizing teenager she played for four years on the hit 1990s show “Beverly Hills, 90210,” which brought her international fame and infamy.Ms. Doherty said she was posting the images as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the hopes that they will jar people into getting mammograms and regular breast exams and help people cut through “the fear and face whatever might be in front of you.”The unvarnished photos align with the frank nature of an actress who never seemed interested in being universally liked and are likely to resonate with a public that is reconsidering how female celebrities were treated in the 1990s and early 2000s, said Kearston Wesner, an associate professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University who teaches celebrity culture.“The photos aren’t touched up,” Professor Wesner said. “They’re not presented in any way than the reality she’s going through. There is some feeling that when she is communicating with you, she is coming from an authentic place.”Ms. Doherty said she learned she had breast cancer in 2015. Since then, she said she has had a mastectomy, as well as radiation and chemotherapy treatment.The photos, which have been viewed about 280,000 times, have elicited comments of sympathy, admiration and praise on her Instagram account, which has more than 1.8 million followers.“Love you Shan,” wrote Ian Ziering, one of her former co-stars on “Beverly Hills, 90210.”“You are a force, Sister!” wrote Kelly Hu, an actress.Ms. Doherty did not often get such adulation when she was younger.In the early 1990s, Ms. Doherty, who was only 19 when she started acting on “90210,” was eviscerated by the press and many in the public who criticized her for smoking in clubs, her tumultuous love life and reports that she was difficult on set.Her character was an outspoken, headstrong and temperamental teenager who had sex with her boyfriend, fought with her friends and rebelled against her father.Brenda Walsh was “relatable in an uncomfortable way,” said Kat Spada, a host of “The Blaze,” a podcast devoted to discussing “90210.”In hindsight, the backlash from fans against the character of Brenda Walsh, and by extension Ms. Doherty, may have been a result of seeing themselves in both women, said Lizzie Leader, the other host of the podcast.“We always ask guests about their ‘90210’ journey and we ask which character they most relate to or identify with,” Ms. Leader said. “Everyone is almost always a Brenda.”But back when the show was airing, some fans became so consumed with vitriol for the character that they began calling for Ms. Doherty to be fired.They formed an “I Hate Brenda” club. MTV News dedicated a three-plus-minute segment to the sentiment, quoting people who mocked her looks and her decision to attend the Republican National Convention in 1992. One clip in the MTV segment showed a group of partygoers hitting a “Brenda piñata.”She left “Beverly Hills, 90210” in 1994, then went on to appear in the 1995 movie “Mallrats” and several television movies and shows. In 2019, she appeared in a brief reboot of the original “90210” called “BH90210.”In an interview with The New York Times in 2008, Ms. Doherty said that the bad publicity around her was often based on exaggerations or “completely false” stories.“I really could care less about it anymore,” she said in the interview. “I have nothing to apologize for. Whatever I did was my growing-up process that I needed to go through, that anybody my age goes through. And however other people may have reacted to that is their issue.”If you were a fan of Ms. Doherty, the headlines hurt, said Professor Wesner, 45, who watched Ms. Doherty grow from a child actor in “Little House on the Prairie” into roles like Heather Duke in the 1988 movie “Heathers,” and Brenda Walsh.“She meant a lot to me,” said Professor Wesner. “I myself was an outspoken girl and I’ve gotten slammed for it, too. For me, seeing someone who was also outspoken and also a ‘difficult woman’ was satisfying.”The coverage of Ms. Doherty was reflective of a time “when publications would attack, would fat shame, would ugly shame, would anorexia shame,” said Stephen Galloway, the dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and a former executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter. “There was no line between taste and vulgarity. It was anything goes.”And it severely damaged Ms. Doherty’s career, he said.Her decision to document the effects of cancer is “a great step toward redemption and meaningfulness” that could help people, said Mr. Galloway, who said he learned about a week ago that he was in the early stages of cancer.He said Ms. Doherty’s openness had made him feel more comfortable talking about his own diagnosis.“I looked at her and I thought, ‘what courage,’” Mr. Galloway said. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      Netflix Chronicles Byron Bay’s ‘Hot Instagrammers.’ Will Paradise Survive?

      by

      Tensions between protecting and capitalizing on the image of the famous Australian beach town have exploded over a new reality show.BYRON BAY, Australia — The moral quandaries of life as an Instagram influencer in the famously idyllic town of Byron Bay are not lost on Ruby Tuesday Matthews.Ms. Matthews, 27, peddles more than vegan moisturizers, probiotic powders and conflict-free diamonds to her 228,000 followers. She is also selling an enviable lifestyle set against the backdrop of her Australian hometown’s crystalline coves and umbrellaed poolsides.It’s part of the image-making that has helped transform Byron Bay — for better or worse — from a sleepy beach town drawing surfers and hippies into a globally renowned destination for the affluent and digitally savvy.“I do kind of have moments where I’m like, ‘Am I exploiting this town that I live in?” Ms. Matthews said recently as she sat at The Farm, a sprawling agritourism enterprise that embodies the town’s wellness ethos. “But at the same time, it’s my job. It puts food on the table for my children.”The tensions between leveraging and protecting Byron Bay’s reputation, always simmering in this age of entrepreneurial social media, exploded last month when Netflix announced plans for a reality show, “Byron Baes,” that will follow “hot Instagrammers living their best lives.”Local residents said the show would be a tawdry misrepresentation of the town and demanded that Netflix cancel the project. One woman started a petition drive that has gathered more than 9,000 signatures and organized a “paddle out” — a surfer’s memorial usually reserved for commemorating deaths — in revolt.Byron Bay is the most expensive place to live in Australia, with a median house price of $1.8 million.Mullumbimby, a town near Byron Bay. The announcement of the new show from Netflix has raised questions about who is entitled to capitalize on the cult of Byron Bay.Several store owners, many of whom have substantial Instagram presences, have refused permits that would allow Netflix to record on their premises. A number of influencers who were approached by the show also said they had decided not to take part. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Verzuz Is One of the Least Toxic Places Online. Here’s Why.

      by

      A musical battle, the hit webcast suggests, is really just a pretext for a party and an occasion to appreciate something.Steve Harvey, the comedian and game-show host, is not prone to understatement, least of all when it comes to bespoke men’s wear. This past Easter Sunday, he appeared on a studio stage wearing a custom satin suit in a violet hue previously unknown to science. Harvey was there to host an episode of the popular webcast Verzuz, a musical competition in which famous artists face off to determine who has the better catalog. The episode was a big one, a showdown of soul legends pitting the Isley Brothers against Earth, Wind & Fire, and Harvey’s words were as loud as his suit: This would be, he announced, “the most epic Verzuz of all time.”Onstage, Ron and Ernie Isley sat facing their counterparts, Earth, Wind & Fire’s Philip Bailey, Verdine White and Ralph Johnson. It was indeed an unusual matchup. Verzuz battles typically feature artists — rappers, R&B singers, influential producers — who have made their name in the past few decades. But Earth, Wind & Fire’s debut album arrived in stores 50 years ago; the Isley Brothers’ first hit, “Shout,” was released in 1959, when Steve Harvey was a toddler. Now 64, he faced the camera to address younger music fans. “Ask your mama about this here music,” he said. “If you don’t know their music, it’s ’cause you don’t know nothing about music. So sit down and learn.”Pop music has always gone hand in hand with strong opinions and heated debates — including the kinds of generational cleavages that inspire finger-wagging lectures. There are times when fans stake personal identities on their favorite records or genres, or sustain fierce debates over rival artists: Beatles or Stones, Michael Jackson or Prince, Nicki or Cardi. Arguing about music may well be as primal a human endeavor as making it. Verzuz is based on this principle. The title evokes a heavyweight bout, and the episodes unfold like a boxing match: Each round presents a track from each artist, with viewers encouraged to pick the victor on a song-by-song basis.The format has links to feisty musical blood sports: jazz’s cutting contests, Jamaican sound clashes, rap battles. But Verzuz has emerged as the warmest and fuzziest musical phenomenon of the past year, one of the internet’s most reliable suppliers of good vibes. Verzuz began on Instagram Live during the early weeks of the pandemic, with a battle between its co-founders, the hip-hop producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz. That first webcast, which stretched for five hours, was a novelty: an odd combination of a Zoom conference call, a D.J. set and a languid late-night hang. Timbaland played one of his hits (Aaliyah’s “One in a Million”), Swizz Beatz answered with one of his (DMX’s “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem”). The scrolling comments filled with emojis and exclamations (“Timbo range too much for swizz”). The interface was wonky and the sound muddy, but the spectacle — musicians glimpsed through laptop cameras, grooving to their own records — was strange and thrilling, a more intimate encounter than showbiz normally permits. In a world that had ground to a halt, the two producers had hit upon a whole new way to stage a concert.Today, pop fandom marinates in online swamps similar to those that breed conspiracy theories and political extremism, with almost comically toxic results.A year later, Verzuz is somewhat spiffed up. It was recently acquired by TrillerNet, the parent company to a TikTok competitor, and has a sponsorship deal with Cîroc vodka and a partnership with Peloton. Competitors no longer stream in from remote locations on jittery Wi-Fi. But the show retains a gonzo charm, and a sense that unscripted weirdness may erupt at any moment. A battle between the dance-hall titans Beenie Man and Bounty Killer, livestreamed from Jamaica, was interrupted by the local police. (“There are 500,000 people watching us right now from all over the world,” Beenie Man told them. “Do you want to be that guy?”) The R&B star Ashanti was forced to stall when her adversary, Keyshia Cole, ran an hour late. The Wu-Tang Clan rappers Ghostface Killah and Raekwon finished off their battle singing and dancing to old disco hits.This shagginess extends to the competition itself. There’s no formal means of determining a Verzuz winner; victory is in the ear of the beholder. Viewers weigh in on social media, and journalists write recaps. But their judgments are, of course, subjective, maybe even beside the point. A musical battle, Verzuz suggests, is really a pretext for a party and an occasion for art appreciation. This has always been true: From the primeval pop hothouse of Tin Pan Alley, where songwriters vied to churn out hits, to today’s pop charts, dominated by hip-hop producers chasing novel sounds, one-upsmanship is often the motor of innovation, an engine of both musical art and commerce. Great songs, beloved albums, groundbreaking styles — all have resulted from musicians’ drive to outshine their colleagues.Competition is also a driving force in music fandom — for better or, often these days, for worse. Today, pop fandom marinates in online swamps similar to those that breed conspiracy theories and political extremism, with almost comically toxic results: Some super fans organize themselves into “armies” that devote disturbing amounts of energy to the coordinated harassment of anyone seen as speaking ill of their favorite stars.Arguing about music may well be as primal a human endeavor as making it.One of the subtler values of Verzuz is that it models a saner, more joyful, more pleasurable kind of musical advocacy and competition — in which trash is talked lovingly, both doled out and received in good humor. Here, too, there are politics of a different kind. Last summer, in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, Verzuz held two “special editions”: a gospel episode titled “The Healing,” featuring the singers Kirk Franklin and Fred Hammond, and a Juneteenth celebration, with Alicia Keys and John Legend. Nearly every artist to appear on Verzuz is Black, and the show makes no concessions to any other audience; non-Black viewers enter its virtual spaces as eavesdroppers on an in-group conversation. The point of these battles is not to choose winners, but to luxuriate in the glories of the Black pop canon, and the community forged by that body of music. The critic Craig Jenkins, writing about a matchup between Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle, rendered a pithy verdict that could be applied to the whole Verzuz enterprise: “Blackness won.”That was true again on Easter Sunday. Despite Steve Harvey’s best efforts to stir up intergenerational beef, the webcast was a showcase of musical continuity across the decades. (In the unlikely event that there were viewers unfamiliar with Earth, Wind & Fire or the Isleys, they would surely have recognized many of the songs, which have been copiously sampled and interpolated by hip-hop artists.) The episode ended in the only way it could have: with members of both groups gathered at the front of the stage, dancing and singing along to Earth, Wind & Fire’s celestial anthem “September,” abandoning all pretense that they were adversaries in musical battle. “Celebrate! Love!” shouted Philip Bailey. “Enjoy! Appreciate!”Source photographs by Raymond Boyd/Getty Images; Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images; Michael Putland/Getty Images.Jody Rosen is a contributing writer for the magazine and the author of “Two Wheels Good: The Bicycle on Planet Earth and Elsewhere,” to be published next year. He last wrote about the musical prodigy Jacob Collier. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      Lady Gaga’s Dog Walker Recalls Being Shot and Cradling ‘Guardian Angel’ Dog

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLady Gaga’s Dog Walker Recalls Being Shot and Cradling ‘Guardian Angel’ DogRyan Fischer wrote on Instagram about his “recovery from a very close call with death.”Ryan Fischer posted this image of himself on Instagram in 2017.Credit…Ben AlfonsoMarch 1, 2021Lady Gaga’s dog walker recounted in a vivid Instagram post on Monday his frantic thoughts in the moments after he was shot in Los Angeles last week by two men who stole two of the singer’s French bulldogs and left him in a pool of blood.Referring to Asia, a third dog owned by the singer, the dog walker, Ryan Fischer, wrote that as “blood poured from my gun shot wound, an angel trotted over and laid next to me. My panicked screams calmed as I looked at her, even though it registered that the blood pooling around her tiny body was my own.”Mr. Fischer, who did not immediately respond to a message on Instagram, wrote that he was “still in recovery from a very close call with death” and “will write and say more later.”The Feb. 24 shooting took place around 9:40 p.m. local time as Mr. Fischer was walking north on Sierra Bonita Avenue in Hollywood, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.As of Monday, the Police Department had not announced an arrest in the case, nor released information about the woman who returned the dogs, unharmed, to the police two days later.“Investigators are still working the case, and the investigation is still ongoing,” Capt. Stacy D. Spell, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an email on Monday. She also referred to a statement the police released last week, saying they would not discuss the woman who returned the dogs, nor the location of where they were found, “due to the active criminal investigation and for her safety.”A report by The Associated Press on Friday quoted Capt. Jonathan Tippett of the department as saying that the woman who took the dogs to the police station appeared to be “uninvolved and unassociated” with the attack.Mr. Fischer’s Instagram posts, which accompanied pictures of him in a hospital bed, included praise for family and friends, as well as for emergency personnel and health care workers: “you literally saved my life and helped me take newborn walks, I can’t thank you enough.”What exactly led to the attack is not clear. Most of what is publicly known comes from surveillance video from a nearby home.On it, Mr. Fischer is seen walking on a sidewalk, which is partly obscured by a fence, as a white car pulls up next to him. Two men exit the car and tussle with Mr. Fischer. He screams repeatedly and moments later, a gunshot is heard. “Help me, I’ve been shot,” Mr. Fischer can be heard saying just after the car drives away. “I’ve been shot. Oh my god.”Mr. Fischer recalled that exact moment, writing on Instagram, “I cradled Asia as best I could, thanked her for all the incredible adventures we’d been on together, apologized that I couldn’t defend her brothers, and then resolved that I would still try to save them… and myself.”“I looked backed at my guardian angel. I smiled at her shaking form, thankful that at least she would be ‘okay,’” he added.When emergency medical workers treated Mr. Fischer, he was cradling the dog, according to KABC-TV, which had a helicopter over the scene.Officer Jeff Lee, also a spokesman for the Police Department, said last week that a semiautomatic handgun was believed used in the attack.The once-stolen dogs are named Koji and Gustav and belong to Lady Gaga, who had offered a $500,000 reward for information about them, a representative for the singer said. Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, announced in 2016 that she had added a black-and-white puppy to her family of dogs, which included two named Koji and Asia.At the time, she named the puppy “cowpig and moopig” before naming it Gustav. She has featured the dogs in her social media posts over the years.In his Instagram post on Monday, Mr. Fischer included a message to Lady Gaga: “your babies are back and the family is whole… we did it!”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Don Letts, Mad Professor Team With Times on Carnival Story

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderBreaking Down the Sounds of Carnival, on Your PhoneThe pandemic has dampened the celebrations worldwide. But a Times special project, which includes an interactive music mixing feature, lets readers get into a party mood.The Notting Hill Carnival in 2019. Although parties over the past year have been canceled, a Times project seeks to keep the Carnival spirit alive this winter. Credit…Peter Summers/Getty ImagesFeb. 19, 2021Updated 10:48 a.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The world could definitely use a party. Unfortunately, because of the coronavirus pandemic, cities around the globe have canceled or curtailed what is annually their biggest bash, Carnival.These celebrations, many of them pre-Lenten, trace back hundreds of years to the Caribbean islands, and the tradition has continued with the Caribbean diaspora in cities like New York (the West Indian American Day Parade), Toronto (Caribana) and London (Notting Hill Carnival).In the chill of February, readers of The New York Times can get a flavor of the sensory richness of these blowouts with Carnival in Winter, a special online package of multimedia experiences about the festivals produced by the Narrative Projects department.Carnival is all about history, community, costumes, food — and music. To immerse readers into the sonic experience, Narrative Projects teamed with the Graphics department and the R.& D. department to create a special effect on Instagram that puts you inside a classic Carnival song. The effect, through the Instagram Spark feature that can be downloaded on phones, uses augmented reality, which lays a computer-generated image or animation over a user’s view of the real world. (Click here from your phone.)In this case, you can hear a Carnival anthem broken down into four musical tracks — and you can “see” the tracks through Carnival-inspired 3-D animations and manipulate the music by moving in your physical space. The effect turns your phone — and living room —  into a virtual mixing board.Picking just one song to represent the music of Carnival — which incorporates soca, calypso, reggae, dub, house and more — is a near impossible task. So, as one of the editors on the project, I reached out to an expert.Don Letts at the Roxy in London in 1977. Recently, he suggested the song that was used in The Times’s interactive feature on Carnival music. Credit…Erica Echenberg/Redferns, via Getty ImagseDon Letts, a 65-year-old filmmaker, broadcaster and musical matchmaker, is an icon of the British music scene. In the 1970s as the D.J. at the Roxy in London, he introduced the club’s punk clientele to reggae, the rising sound from Jamaica, his parents’ homeland. Between his friendship with Bob Marley and his close ties to the fledgling punk scene (he later formed the band Big Audio Dynamite with Mick Jones of the Clash), Letts earned the nickname “The Rebel Dread” for bucking convention and orchestrating cultural collisions that changed the course of popular music.He also has been a regular at the Notting Hill Carnival for over 40 years. In 2009, he directed a documentary, “Carnival!,” on the history and politics of the festival.Asked to name a “typical” Carnival anthem, Mr. Letts at first dismissed the task as impossible. Upon reflection, though, he directed us toward an old friend, the producer Mad Professor, and his 2005 track “Elaine the Osaka Dancer” — “A strange title, I know,” said Mr. Letts — which was written for a performer, Panafricanist, on the Mad Professor’s label. Mad Professor, whose name is Neil Fraser, is himself a well-known name in British music history. He pioneered the emergence of the British dub sound and collaborated with performers like Sade and Massive Attack.Mr. Letts chose “Elaine” because, as he put it: “At Carnival you can stand on a street corner and hear a float going past with steel pans, along with the sound of a Jamaican sound system right around the corner. This song perfectly captures that sound: the collision of calypso and soca with the bass-heavy rhythms of reggae.”If you’re reading this article on a desktop computer or tablet, you can view the AR experience on Instagram by opening your camera on your device and point to this QR code. For those reading on their phones, the link in the story above will call up the effect. Credit… Mad Professor agreed to license the song, so we asked him to break it down into individual instrumental tracks or “stems,” each of which would then be manipulated by the user of the Instagram effect.This process proved to be slightly more analog — and painstaking — than anticipated. At one point, when asked for a progress report, Mad Professor relayed that he was “baking the tapes” — which might sound (or did to me, anyway) like a bit of music producer slang. In fact, it’s a literal description of the process in which analog master tapes are restored by exposing them to a high temperature for hours, reducing humidity that can affect the quality of the tapes.Once the tapes were baked and the stems were procured, our graphics and R. & D. team built the Instagram effect. With the effect, the user can play with the drums, bass, horns and steel pan tracks while seeing commentary from Letts on why each element is crucial to a Carnival song.It’s not the same thing as dancing to steel pans on a simmering street in London’s Notting Hill in the heat of summer. But in a year when Carnival has been canceled nearly everywhere, we hope it gets you as close to that feeling as possible.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More