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      What Can You Learn from a Celebrity Masterclass on Empathy?

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      Pharrell Williams is joined by a chorus of famous people whose lessons about feeling for others strangely highlight their personal achievements.Each online course from Masterclass begins with the same introduction. Heels click purposefully into a room. A piano lid is confidently opened, a marble slab floured, a knife honed. Lighting pools warmly amid expensive-looking wood. Swells of music coalesce into momentary silence; something of quality is about to start.The instructors in this nave of learning have unequivocally made it in their fields. Margaret Atwood speaks on writing, Frank Gehry on design and architecture, Misty Copeland on ballet. If you want to learn about acting, here is Samuel L. Jackson; if you’re interested in directing, here is Ron Howard. Lately the topics have also edged into softer territory, bathing everyday challenges in celebrity wisdom. Some feel like unboxing videos for admirable personality traits. Anna Wintour had a lockdown hit with a course on “creativity and leadership.” RuPaul’s, on “self-expression and authenticity,” touches on the craft of drag but mostly focuses on concepts like conquering your inner naysayer and cultivating stillness.Into this mix comes Pharrell Williams, pop star, producer, designer, reality-TV judge, guy with a skin-care line. In the first frames of his new course, he slides into a chair dressed in knee-shorts and a shrunken schoolboy blazer, as if to sartorially convey that every student is a teacher. His skin is amazing, his head chiseled into gorgeousness, his gaze unswerving, as if blinking were for the less focused. He is not here to teach us hitmaking, or streetwear design, or even multitasking. He’s here to give a class on empathy.“I think empathy is the most important thing,” he says. “It’s not a natural thing to just literally think of others all the time. It’s just not. You constantly have to challenge yourself to be a little bit more open to what other people are going through.” With that, we’re full steam into a seriously weird offering of 21st-century moral instruction, or self-help, or celebrity branding, or whatever this edutainment golem is — 10 segments in which the pop star will show us how to become more boundlessly compassionate humans.For this job, he has been teamed with a brain trust that includes Cornel West, Roxane Gay, Walter Mosley and Gloria Steinem, among others. All the guests also teach their own, more specific Masterclasses; judging by the wardrobe, they seem to have taken time in their own class shoots to drop some off-the-cuff wisdom on what Williams calls “the art and sport of considering others.” The result feels like a compilation of commodified theory of mind, generously spiked with images of pride flags, Black Lives Matter placards and people in kaffiyehs smiling warmly.Empathy has had a hot ride in America lately. The word saw a nearly fivefold increase as a Google search between the first inauguration of Barack Obama — who defined empathy as being able to “stand in someone else’s shoes” and famously talked of America’s “empathy deficit” — and the summer of 2020, when interest spiked to an all-time high. Now C.E.O.s are being encouraged by organizational psychologists and consultants to cast themselves as “Chief Empathy Officers,” in an attempt to reimagine their offices as places workers might actually desire to return to. The concept seems to have become a cure for any societal ill. A recent HealthDay headline asked, “How to Counter the Anti-Mask Backlash?” and then answered with, you guessed it, “Empathy.” The word has expanded in such fascinating directions that there is a Damien Hirst-designed “Empathy Suite Sky Villa” at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas — the most expensive hotel room in the world, featuring formaldehyde-preserved sea animals and a transparent bar filled with medical waste.Such concepts don’t float through popular culture at random. They come when they are needed most. Interest in mindfulness, for instance, grew as the popularization of the smartphone fractured our focus. Similarly, the rapid rise of empathy — at least as a word you might see inscribed on a river-rock keychain or kitchen poster — paralleled the bifurcations of the Trump presidency. It’s as if the word spent the era expanding into a mantra of secular transcendence, some spirit of better angel, containing all that is good and bonding and human.Much of what’s described seems to climax with personal achievement, rather than anything having to do with others.Williams is one of many celebrities to have jumped into this cultural current. Back in the early 2000s, he started a streetwear label called Billionaire Boys Club, a name shared with a notorious 1980s Ponzi scheme; in 2013, he co-wrote the Robin Thicke hit “Blurred Lines,” which was criticized by feminists for its “rapiness.” Now he sells goods under the brand name Humanrace, “in the belief that taking better care of ourselves can teach us to take better care of each other,” and talks about having his “mind opened up” by reactions to the Thicke song and realizing “how it could make someone feel.” From a branding perspective, his Masterclass makes perfect sense.But from most other perspectives, it’s a strange offering. For one thing, its takeaway tends to be disappointingly self-serving. In his second lesson, Williams describes how his solo hit “Happy” made him a less selfish person — because he’d made a song that made others genuinely happy, and then watched as it became hugely successful. Gloria Steinem talks about starting Ms. Magazine as an act of empathy. The ultramarathon runner and Peloton executive Robin Arzón tells of a sudden diabetes diagnosis that did not stop her from running an important race, and how this inspired other diabetics. Much of what’s described seems to climax with personal achievement, rather than anything having to do with others.Self-actualization is, of course, different from empathy. And while some forms of empathy are surely teachable — there are books, meditations, soup kitchens, hospices and family members that offer great opportunities for empathetic practice — it feels very unlikely that watching impressive people talk about their lives is going to do it. The selling point here seems to be more about comfort and validation. The course is as cozy as reading a picture book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg to a child at bedtime, as righteous as planting an “IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL” sign on an upscale suburban lawn overlooked by security cameras. It presents a cast of thoughtful, optimistic, largely Black and brown figures patting their assembled audience on the back, in effect assuring them that, yes, they are on the right side of history, part of the solution, just for paying to be there.Perhaps the course could be a gateway to action for some, in the same way that watching a baking show might make them hungry for cake. But mainly, what this Masterclass offers is a chance to feel nearer to the people whose shoes we’d already love to be standing in. It has less to say about any of the shoes that might be tougher to imagine walking in, the ones that actually need filling.Source photographs: Screen grabs from MasterclassMireille Silcoff is a writer based in Montreal. A longtime newspaper and magazine columnist, she is also the author of four books, most recently the story collection “Chez l’Arabe.” More

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      Review: In Time for the Holidays, Radiant Praetorius Carols

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      Tenet Vocal Artists marked the 450th anniversary of the German Baroque composer Michael Praetorius’s birth, and the 400th of his death.The German hymn commonly known as “Lo, how a rose, e’er blooming” has long been a beloved Christmas carol. It’s sung by church choirs and high school choruses. Versions have been recorded by Linda Ronstadt and Sting.But we have the early German Baroque composer Michael Praetorius to thank for the original single, so to speak: “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.” The text and hymn melody were first printed together in 1599. But in 1609, Praetorius wrote a tender, four-part setting that plumbed the melody for all its harmonic possibilities, and became the equivalent in its day of a hit tune.On Saturday, at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan, the splendid ensemble Tenet Vocal Artists performed, with 14 exquisite singers and 11 vibrant players of period instruments, a ravishing account of the beautifully direct yet intricate Praetorius version, part of a generous 75-minute concert of this composer’s works.The program — while Jolle Greenleaf is Tenet’s artistic director, this one was led by Jeffrey Grossman, who played organ — honored the fact that this year marks both the 400th anniversary of Praetorius’s death and the 450th anniversary of his birth. (An on-demand video of the concert will be available for a month starting Tuesday at tenet.nyc.)Praetorius was a leading figure of the German Lutheran chorale tradition — the practice of using hymn tunes as components of pieces that often unfold with striking complexity, as in the wondrous “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” which Tenet performed compellingly. On one level this music comes across as a multi-section, chorale-like setting of an alluring melody. But just below the surface the music teems with inner details: flourishes of offbeat counterpoint for the voices, squiggling riffs for the instruments.In the later phase of his career, Praetorius was increasingly influenced by new styles coming out of Italy, including the technique known as “cori spezzati,” in which groups of singers and players were divided into smaller ensembles so that phrases could be bounced back and forth.In this regard Praetorius was indebted to a younger German contemporary, Heinrich Schütz, whom he got to know when they both worked in Dresden. Schütz had studied in Venice for three years with a progenitor of the technique: Giovanni Gabrieli, the composer and organist at St. Mark’s Basilica. In a nod to Schütz’s influence, Tenet began the program with his “Jauchzet dem Herren,” in which mini-phrases are boldly echoed.That Praetorius brought his own take to the technique was amply demonstrated with a performance of four fleet dances for instruments from his collection “Terpsichore,” his only surviving secular music. The interplay went beyond echo effects; sometimes a flourish was tossed from one group to another with an open invitation to elaborate on it. In several of the large-scale choral works, the Tenet singers enhanced the dramatic impact of the cori spezzati passages by positioning themselves well apart from one another in the church.The revelation, for me, was a performance of the lengthy “Vater unser im Himmelreich,” from Praetorius’s 1619 collection “Polyhymnia Caduceatrix” — magnificent music, laid out in multiple sections, with sublime stretches of overlapping counterpoint and plush harmonies that cadence into radiant consonance. Historians point to this score as the German Baroque counterpart to Monteverdi’s seminal Vespers of 1610.Yet some of the more modest fare was just as rewarding, like the setting of what’s familiar today as the carol “Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine.” How often do you get to hear Praetorius’s subtly ingenious and glowing version?Tenet Vocal ArtistsPerformed on Saturday at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Manhattan. More

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      Vicente Fernández, ‘El Rey’ of Mexican Ranchera Music, Is Dead at 81

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      A beloved Mexican singer, Mr. Fernández was known for his powerful operatic range and marathon performances, delivered in a signature charro outfit and intricately embroidered sombrero.Vicente Fernández, the powerful tenor whose songs of love, loss and patriotism inspired by life in rural Mexico endeared him to generations of fans as “El Rey,” the king of traditional ranchera music, died on Sunday morning. He was 81.His death was announced in a post on his official Instagram account, which did not give a cause or say where he died. He had been hospitalized for months after a spinal injury he sustained in August, according to previous posts from the account.Accompanied by his mariachi band, Mr. Fernández brought ranchera music, which emerged from the ranches of Mexico in the 19th century, to the rest of Latin America and beyond. In his signature charro outfit and intricately embroidered sombrero, a celebration of the genre’s countryside origins, he performed at some of the largest venues in the world.He recorded dozens of albums and hundreds of songs over a career that spanned six decades. His enduring popularity was reflected in a series of industry accolades, including a place in the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three Grammy Awards and eight Latin Grammy Awards. He sold tens of millions of copies of his albums and starred in dozens of movies.He was known for giving epic, hourslong concerts, communing directly with his fans and taking swigs from bottles of alcohol that were offered to him. Known fondly as “Chente,” he would tell his audiences that “as long as you keep applauding, your ‘Chente’ won’t stop singing.”Reviewing a 1995 performance at Radio City Music Hall for The New York Times, Jon Pareles wrote that Mr. Fernández “sang with operatic power and melodrama,” flexing his “ardent tenor” to “prodigious crescendos and a vibrato that could register on the Richter scale.”He continued to give marathon performances well into his 70s. At a 2008 concert at Madison Square Garden, Mr. Fernández held court for three hours. A lingering note, delivered in his “lively, if slightly weathered tenor,” could render the audience silent, Jon Caramanica wrote in his review in The Times.Vicente Fernández was born on Feb. 17, 1940, in Huentitán El Alto, in the state of Jalisco in western central Mexico. His father, Ramón Fernández, was a rancher and his mother, Paula Gómez de Fernández, stayed at home to raise their son.He grew up watching matinee movies featuring the Mexican ranchera singer Pedro Infante, an early influence. When he was 8, he received his first guitar and began studying folk music. He left school in the fifth grade and later moved with his family to Tijuana after their cattle business collapsed. He told The Los Angeles Times in 1999 that he took whatever work he could, laying bricks and shining shoes, and even washing dishes.“I’ve always said I got to where I am not by being a great singer, but by being stubborn, by being tenacious, by being pigheaded,” Mr. Fernández said. He gravitated to a public square in Guadalajara called Mariachi Plaza, where he performed for tips, he told The Los Angeles Times. His career took off after he won a competition called La Calandria Musical when he was 19, he said in a 2010 interview with KENS 5 of San Antonio. He moved to Mexico City where he sang at a restaurant and at weddings, and unsuccessfully pitched himself to local record labels.The labels came calling soon after the death in 1966 of Javier Solís, one of the most popular Mexican singers who specialized in bolero and ranchera music. Mr. Fernández then recorded his first albums, including hits like “Volver, Volver,” which elevated him to a level of fame that he had never envisioned, he told KENS 5. Other hits, including “El Rey” and “Lástima que seas ajena,” would follow.“When I started my career, I always had the confidence that I would one day make it, but I never imagined that I would reach the heights at which the public has placed me,” Mr. Fernández said.His public statements occasionally got him into trouble in his later years, such as when he said in a 2019 interview that he had refused a liver transplant because he feared that the donated organ might have come from a gay person or a drug addict. Earlier this year, he apologized after he was seen in a video touching a female fan’s breast without her consent while they posed for a photo.Mr. Fernández married María del Refugio Abarca Villaseñor in 1963. She survives him, as do the couple’s children, Vicente, Gerardo, Alejandra and Alejandro, a Grammy-nominated ranchera performer.Asked if a routine or exercise was a key to his longevity as a performer, Mr. Fernández told KENS that he walked every day for an hour and rode horses when he was home on his ranch. But when he was on tour, he said, “I don’t leave the hotels.”“Still, that keeps me healthy,” he said. “My voice is well rested. When I hear the public’s applause, I don’t know where the voice comes from, but it does for three hours. You’ll have to ask God to find out how he blesses me every time.” More

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      Adele’s ‘30’ Crosses a Million Sales and Holds at No. 1

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      The singer’s first album in six years became the first release to reach that milestone since Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” a year ago. But in 2015, Adele’s “25” sold 3.4 million its first week.Adele holds the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart for a third time this week with “30,” with no major new releases to challenge it.Her first album in six years, “30” had the equivalent of 193,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. That included 58 million streams and 149,000 copies sold as a complete package. “30” has now sold more than one million copies as a full album, the first release to do so since Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” a little over a year ago — though Adele’s last LP, “25,” sold nearly 3.4 million in its first week out in 2015, when Adele withheld the complete album from streaming services.Also this week, Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” holds at No. 2. Polo G’s “Hall of Fame,” which opened at No. 1 back in June, jumped 66 spots to No. 3 thanks to a new version with extra tracks. Michael Bublé’s “Christmas,” a seasonal hit each year since its release a decade ago, is No. 4, and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is No. 5.Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album,” which had a 10-week run at No. 1 at the start of the year and has never dipped further than No. 9 on the chart, holds in sixth place. More

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      Opening Their Eyes to Art and Each Other

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      Talibah Safiya and Bertram Williams Jr. felt a spark while watching a play together in high school, 11 years before their first proper date.When Opera Memphis staged a production of “Porgy and Bess” at the city’s Orpheum Theater in the fall of 2006, there were at least two love stories playing out in the room. One centered on Gershwin’s titular opera characters; the other, two high-school students in the audience.Talibah Safiya and Bertram Williams Jr. were different types of teenagers. Growing up, Ms. Safiya, 30, a self-described “theater nerd,” would walk around her childhood home singing songs from “A Chorus Line,” “Hairspray,” “Chicago” and “Dreamgirls.”Mr. Williams, 32, was two class years ahead of Ms. Safiya at Overton High School, a creative and performing arts school in Memphis that he transferred to after struggling at a conventional school.“I was regularly dealing with truancy issues,” said Mr. Williams, who added that he had yet to develop an interest in creative pursuits when he arrived at Overton. “I was more concerned with keeping up with the latest Jordans, spending time at parties and trying to befriend as many young ladies as I could,” he said.Ms. Safiya said she first noticed Mr. Williams in the hallways. The two were later introduced by a mutual friend, and Ms. Safiya said she then started telling other students that she had a crush on Mr. Williams.“It was definitely a strategy,” Ms. Safiya said.That evening at the Orpheum, during a school trip to the theater, Mr. Williams asked Ms. Safiya to sit next to him.Some couples, recalling an early experience of seeing a film or a play together, might be expected to say something about being unable to focus on the stage or screen, so caught up were they in their budding romance. Not Ms. Safiya and Mr. Williams.For them, what made the “Porgy and Bess” experience special was not only sitting side by side in cramped theater seats, but being moved — and sensing each other be moved — by the performance they were watching.“There’s a song in ‘Porgy and Bess’ where she’s singing, ‘I love you, Porgy, don’t let him take me,’” Ms. Safiya said. She said the song, made her think “about how important feeling protected was as a woman,” and wonder if Mr. Williams “was a protector.’”“That play,” she said, “gave some direction for both of us about how we wanted to spend the rest of our lives.”Mr. Williams said that “there was a kind of triangulation happening” as they watched the performance.In the interest of sustainability, the bride and groom purchased outfits secondhand. He wore a vintage brown suit from the Lucky Exchange store in Atlanta; her yellow floral dress came from Stormy Normy Vintage, a shop on Etsy. Raphael BakerFrom there, the two developed a relationship that oscillated, in perhaps a typically teenage way, between friendship and romance. Mr. Williams had a girlfriend at another school; he and Ms. Safiya never formally dated during this period. But they both agreed they were more than friends. (The two shared a first kiss backstage in their high school theater, during a rehearsal for an adaptation of “Lilies of the Field” that starred Mr. Williams.)“We spent a lot of time talking on the phone and hanging out together in theater class, and skipping lunch to hang out,” Ms. Safiya said.Of their relationship back then, Mr. Williams added, “We were deeply interested in each other’s minds. We think of younger relationships being somewhat shallow, but I remember immediately being so impressed by how original in thought and fashion and existence she was.”In early 2007, while they were still in high school, they performed together in a production at the Hattiloo Theater, which had recently opened and has since become a major repertory house in Memphis. Ms. Safiya said she remembers getting into trouble during this period: She’d make entrances from the wrong side of the stage, having crossed backstage to spend time with Mr. Williams.After Mr. Williams graduated from high school, he enrolled at the University of Memphis, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in economics. He and Ms. Safiya kept in touch, though their relationship remained platonic. They acted together at a local summer theater program, Echoes of Truth, where their performances included a play in which their characters dated.Ms. Safiya and Mr. Williams insist that this was a coincidence. Nevertheless, it gave the two a preview of what officially being a couple might feel like.“We were just walking across the stage holding hands,” Mr. Williams said. “I remember being like, ‘Oh I could get used to this.’”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Then Ms. Safiya left town.After graduating from high school in 2009, she moved to Washington to attend Howard University, where she studied theater education. But they continued to keep in touch as friends.“We would even talk about our other romantic relationships and be able to give really honest advice and reflections to one another,” Ms. Safiya said. “One of the things that has maintained our relationship is that we are friends first.”They stayed in touch when Ms. Safiya left Howard in 2012 and moved to Brooklyn to pursue a career in music in New York, a choice that Mr. Williams said he admired.“I was so inspired by her willingness to go off to New York without a plan, in pursuit of the thing,” he said. “She was chasing her dreams.”After graduating from the University of Memphis, Mr. Williams spent time working for the city of Memphis’s Division of Housing & Community Development, then for an education program at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. He also managed a local jazz club, the Dizzy Bird Lounge, and continued to perform in plays at the Hattiloo Theater.In 2013, when Ms. Safiya started releasing R&B music on Bandcamp and YouTube, Mr. Williams again became more than just her friend: He was also a fan who would seek out her work. From time to time, he would even invite Ms. Safiya to perform at the Dizzy Bird when she returned to Memphis to visit her family.“I’ve got to be honest,” he said. “I was stanning,”Ms. Safiya was surprised to discover that Mr. Williams had been so closely following her music from afar.“I didn’t know if anybody was listening to it — I was pretty sure nobody was, in fact,” she said. “But he would know the words.”About 50 guests, most of them family members, attended the wedding. Raphael BakerIn November 2015, Ms. Safiya returned to Memphis for several months to help her brother and her sister-in-law, who were expecting their first child. The trip gave her and Mr. Williams an opportunity to spend more in-person time together than they had in years, including at a baby shower for her sister-in-law that he hosted.At the time, she was single and he was getting over a breakup.It was on this trip to Memphis, Ms. Safiya said, when she realized she was ready to try something formal with Mr. Williams. But he needed more time. When she returned to New York, though, her mind remained in Memphis, with Mr. Williams.“I was ready to plant myself,” Ms. Safiya said.By the time she decided to leave New York for Memphis, in 2017, so was Mr. Williams.He picked her up at the airport when she moved back and, in the car, they talked about their mutual readiness to build a lasting romance. They made plans to go out on a date — their first proper one since they met.The pair had dinner outside at Ecco on Overton Park, a bistro in Memphis. Of the evening, Mr. Williams said, “There was this kind of chemistry brewing with us in that space that we hadn’t really given ourselves permission to consider or explore for years.”Ms. Safiya added, “It felt like we were clearly walking into a new chapter of our relationship.”They moved in to an apartment together a couple of weeks later, and about a year after that, into their current home in Memphis. Mr. Williams proposed in April 2021, while the couple was filming a music video for a song by Ms. Safiya, who is an independent singer-songwriter in Memphis. Mr. Williams works as an actor based in Memphis; his recent credits include a recurring role in the Starz drama “P-Valley.”The two were married Sept. 5, at Mound City, a former farm that has been converted into an events hall and rental property in Marion, Ark. The couple chose to get married at this location because of its history.“We chose it because it was on land known to be a grave site for Indigenous Americans, and then also some sharecropping and, presumably, slavery,” the bride said. “We knew that land deserved to watch some Black folks experience joy.”David Arnett, a baptist minister and an uncle of the bride, officiated at an outdoor ceremony in front of about 50 guests, most of them family members. It began with a libation ritual inviting the couple’s ancestors into the space and included several a capella performances by friends of the bride and groom, who, after saying their vows, jumped the broom. Masks were available for all guests.In the interest of sustainability, both Ms. Safiya and Mr. Williams purchased outfits secondhand. He wore a vintage brown suit from the Lucky Exchange store in Atlanta; her yellow floral dress came from Stormy Normy Vintage, a shop on Etsy. Both of their outfits incorporated cowboy boots, which the couple bought from the Clothing Warehouse, a boutique in Atlanta.Recently, Mr. Williams said he has noticed a shift in Ms. Safiya. As a performer, he said, she has always had a fierce stage presence — “a warrior queen or a drunken saloon owner cussing at the patrons” — while her offstage persona is marked by “tenderness and awareness and softness.” But in the last six months or so, he said, that line has blurred.“I’m watching those two ways of being really kind of meld into one,” Mr. Williams said.On This DayWhen Sept. 5, 2021Where Mound City in Marion, Ark.The Food The couple’s menu included fried catfish, cornbread dressing, watermelon salad, cabbage and macaroni and cheese.The Souvenirs Guests received little bottles of Tabasco sauce as a party favor.The Truck The day before the wedding, Mr. Williams bought an old, red Ford pickup truck, in keeping with the wedding’s farm theme. He tied Coca-Cola bottles to the back, a trick that he’d seen in movies. But offscreen, the bottles proved less romantic. “They didn’t make a sound,” he said. More

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      Amid Virus Surge, Salzburg Festival Announces Next Summer

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      Classical music’s most storied annual event will return to prepandemic scale, with more than 200 events over six weeks.Austria went into lockdown recently to counter a record number of coronavirus cases. But in Salzburg, where the surge has been sharp, there are plans for a brighter future.On Friday the Salzburg Festival, classical music and opera’s most storied annual event, announced its 2022 summer season — back to prepandemic scale, with more than 200 events over six weeks beginning July 18.A double bill of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” and Orff’s rarely performed “De Temporum Fine Comoedia” will be staged by Romeo Castellucci and conducted by Teodor Currentzis. The soprano Asmik Grigorian will star in all three one-acts of Puccini’s “Il Trittico.” The director Barrie Kosky and the conductor Jakub Hrusa will collaborate on Janacek’s “Kat’a Kabanova.”Cecilia Bartoli will take the main role in Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” and Shirin Neshat’s 2017 production of Verdi’s “Aida” and Lydia Steier’s 2018 staging of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” will get return engagements. There is a rich lineup of spoken drama, orchestra concerts — many featuring the festival’s house band, the Vienna Philharmonic — and recitals, including the usual enviable array of pianists.The season will be the first under Kristina Hammer, the festival’s ne-w president, whose appointment was announced on Nov. 24. A marketing and communications specialist, Hammer follows Helga Rabl-Stadler’s quarter-century tenure, and she joins Markus Hinterhäuser, the artistic director, and Lukas Crepaz, the finance director, in a triumvirate that will continue to negotiate the pandemic, as well as oversee a major renovation of the festival’s theaters..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Hammer’s appointment “is a conscious step taken by the board in order to further internationalize the Salzburg Festival,” Wilfried Haslauer Jr., the region’s governor, said in a statement.Buoyed by government subsidies and sponsorship deals, Salzburg has been able to weather the pandemic, putting on a fairly robust season in 2020 for limited audiences and returning to something akin to normal in 2021. The commemoration of the centennial of the festival, which was established in 1920, ended up being spread over the past two years.The Overture Spirituelle, a week or so of events originally instituted to draw audiences in the quiet period before the operas are running in earnest, comes into its own next summer as truly “a festival in the festival,” Hinterhäuser said in an interview.Some distinguished Overture ensembles include Currentzis’s MusicAeterna; Klangforum Wien; John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists; the Tallis Scholars; and “Messiah” forces led by Jordi Savall. Their performances lead up to the premiere of “Bluebeard” and “De Temporum Fine Comoedia” — a grand, frantically apocalyptic oratorio unveiled at Salzburg in 1973 — and a concert version of Wolfgang Rihm’s 1979 chamber opera “Jakob Lenz.” (Among the other highlights: The actress Isabelle Huppert takes the meaty spoken title role in Honegger’s oratorio “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher.”)Of the six staged operas, two are revivals, and a third (“Barbiere”) will have premiered in June at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, which Bartoli directs. This is an unusually high percentage of rehashes for a festival that prides itself on its ambitious slate of new productions. But Hinterhäuser insisted that both the “Aida” and “Die Zauberflöte” would be substantially rethought versions of shows that were not wholly successful in their original incarnations.“I’m convinced it is the right thing artistically, and from the economic side,” he said.Among the Vienna Philharmonic’s concerts is an ambitious juxtaposition, led by Daniel Barenboim, of the second acts of Saint-Saëns’s “Samson et Dalila” and Wagner’s “Parsifal,” with Elina Garanca, Brandon Jovanovich and Michael Volle singing in both. Amid a broad re-evaluation of touring as the pandemic wears on, the only American ensemble scheduled to appear is the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck, on the final day of the festival, Aug. 31. More

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      Remember Emmet Otter and His Jug Band? They’re Back, and Onstage.

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      The Jim Henson TV special was a hit in 1978. Now its furry creatures return in a new theatrical production in Manhattan, just in time for the holiday season.Paul Williams — yes, that Paul Williams, the rare singer-songwriter to have collaborated with Barbra Streisand, Brian De Palma and Daft Punk — only had a few tips during a rehearsal back in November, but when he spoke, everybody listened. The squirrels, who had been quite rambunctious seconds earlier, focused. George and Melissa Rabbit were all ears.After all, when the guy who wrote the score gives out notes, even woodland animals pay attention.Williams, spry and impish at 81, had dropped by the New Victory Theater in Manhattan to check on the early stages of “Jim Henson’s Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas,” which boasts an onstage menagerie of puppets from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.Paul Williams composed the score of the original TV special from 1977, with echoes of Randy Newman, Alice Cooper and the Carpenters.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesWilliams and Henson went way back, of course: In 1976, the musician was a guest on the eighth episode of “The Muppet Show,” and a few years later he wrote or co-wrote the songs for “The Muppet Movie,” including the Academy Award-nominated “Rainbow Connection.”In between these two projects, Henson asked him to come up with the score for “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas,” an hourlong TV special that aired in America on HBO in 1978.“I was just thrilled to work with Jim,” Williams said. “He sent me the script and the book, and I just sat there and wrote. I think I was kind of being auditioned for ‘The Muppet Movie,’ which was a huge risk for them at the time.”A scene from the 1977 TV special, which employed the kind of madcap wit that had made “The Muppets” so popular.The Jim Henson CompanyBased on an illustrated children’s book by Lillian and Russell Hoban, “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas” starts off with the title character and his mother barely making ends meet by doing small jobs by the river in Frogtown Hollow. So when they hear of a talent show with a $50 cash prize, they separately decide to enter. Emmet plays the washtub bass in a group with his furry friends, and Ma sings, but they face stiff competition, especially from the naughty Riverbottom Nightmare Band, whose members include a stoat, a snake and a weasel. The 75-minute musical production runs Dec. 11-Jan. 2 at the New Victory, with streaming available Dec. 17-Jan. 2.Ma and Emmet Otter from the new production. In the story, they hear of a talent show with a $50 cash prize, and they separately decide to enter.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe puppeteer Jordan Brownlee with Doc Bullfrog.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesYancy Woodchuck with the puppeteer Matt Furtado.Vincent Tullo for The New York Times“What I love about the show, and really appreciate more now that I’m older, is that it has so much heart,” said Christopher Gattelli, who is directing and wrote the book with Timothy Allen McDonald. “At the same time it has that great Muppet madcap wit, those zingers and those really fast takes, and those 30-second acts that are just hilarious. It’s like a ‘Muppet Show’ with a story.”Gattelli and McDonald worked on a first adaptation for Connecticut’s Goodspeed Musicals in 2008, but they went back to the drawing board for this one, which features four puppeteers and eight actors. “There’s more puppet business going on, and that’s music to my ear,” said Cheryl Henson, Jim’s daughter and an investor in the new show. (John Tartaglia, a Tony nominee for “Avenue Q,” is credited for puppet direction.)While Goodspeed used some original figures from the special, they are now in museums and had to be rebuilt for the New Victory..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“But of course they don’t make the same fur anymore,” said Rollie Krewson, who built Wendell Porcupine and Charlie Beaver for the TV show; she is now a master puppet designer and builder at the Creature Shop. “I had to find furs that mimic more what the Emmet actor is wearing. They also wanted a new Ma, and we built a Pa Otter — there had never been one.”Williams at a rehearsal in Long Island City in November. “There are all these little touches in the script, amazing little clues to who the characters are,” he said.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesVincent Tullo for The New York TimesVincent Tullo for The New York TimesDuring that rehearsal in Long Island City, the felt cast often behaved as if it had a life of its own in between scenes. “I consider it a good run if I forget they’re puppets,” Colin Trudell, who plays Emmet, said of his co-stars. “The puppeteers are also improv masters — the things that come out of their mouths in rehearsal really bring the characters alive.”Trudell, who graduated from Texas State University in May, had not seen the TV show when he auditioned for the stage version, and he watched it for the first time before his callback. You can’t blame him for missing out: “Emmet Otter” stayed under the radar for a long time (it is now available for streaming on Amazon and other platforms); and a proper soundtrack did not come out until 2018, so it does not have the following of more famous Henson properties.Its fans, however, are dedicated and loyal, often passing on the “Emmet Otter” tradition from one generation to the next, as happened in Gattelli’s family.A big reason for the show’s cult following is its rare humor and warmth. Without getting preachy, it’s an ode to friendship and family bonds, as well as the idea of community. Sure, you won’t be able to get the song’s riff from your head after hearing the Riverbottom Nightmare Band snarl, “We take what we want/We do anything that we wish/We got no respect/For animal, birdy or fish.”But it’s Ma Otter’s words you’ll remember: “Some say our world is getting too small,” she sings, “I say, with kindness,/There’s room for us all.”Wendell PorcupineVincent Tullo for The New York TimesLady PossumVincent Tullo for The New York TimesWilliams’s numbers for the original show offer an uncanny mélange of 1970s styles, with echoes of Randy Newman, Alice Cooper and the Carpenters. Except when the rollicking Nightmare Band pipes up, the music is filtered through a rootsy Americana vibe that transcends the decades, and was beautifully captured by My Morning Jacket in an aching cover of “Brothers in Our World” on the tribute “Muppets: The Green Album.”“To me, the music is the heart and the soul of this piece,” Henson said. “What works so well is that it’s delivered by these characters that are creatures — it’s a living storybook.”For Williams, those creatures made the assignment feel effortless: He just got the show’s furry (or scaly, as the case may be) subjects.“There are all these little touches in the script, amazing little clues to who the characters are,” he said. “My wife and I use the line all the time when the Riverbottom Nightmare Band has just been totally rude to all the guys in the tree house, and Charlie says, ‘They seem nice.’ It’s that human element that speaks to me,” he continued, “and it speaks to me at a level where it’s the easiest writing I ever get to do.”One thing that did not fit, though, is a conventional, “Jingle Bells”-type number. Though the story takes place around Christmas, there’s no song specifically about the holiday. Williams just did not see a need for it in “Emmet Otter.”“There are two tasks in writing songs for a film or a stage play or whatever,” he said. “One is to illustrate the inner life of the character, and the other one is to advance the story. When you’re done, you go, ‘What’s missing?’ And it never felt like anything was missing.” More

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      Greg Tate, Influential Critic of Black Culture, Dies at 64

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      His writing for The Village Voice and other publications helped elevate hip-hop and street art to the same planes as jazz and Abstract Expressionism.Greg Tate, a journalist and critic whose articles for The Village Voice, Rolling Stone and other publications starting in the 1980s helped elevate hip-hop and street art to the same plane as jazz and Abstract Expressionism, died on Tuesday in New York City. He was 64.His daughter, Chinara Tate, confirmed the death. No cause was given.Mr. Tate exploded onto the New York cultural scene in the early 1980s, soon after graduating from Howard University, when he began contributing freelance music reviews to The Voice. Although he didn’t join the weekly newspaper’s staff until 1987, he almost immediately became its pre-eminent writer on Black music and art, and by extension one of the city’s leading cultural critics.New York at the time was an ebullient chaos of cultures, its downtown scene populated by street artists, struggling writers, disco D.J.s and punk rockers living in cheap apartments and crowding into clubs like Paradise Garage and CBGB. The Village Voice was their bible, and Mr. Tate was very often their guide.His tastes varied widely, as did his style; his whirlwind sentences might string together pop culture, French literary theory and the latest slang. He was equally at home discussing Chuck D or assessing the latest work of the theorist Edward Said, all deployed with a casual candor that left readers wanting more.He quickly graduated from reviews to cultural criticism. Among his most famous articles was “Cult-Nats Meet Freaky Deke,” an incisive attempt, published in The Voice in 1986, to find a middle ground between the austere aesthetics of Black nationalist intellectualism and the emancipatory pandemonium of artists like James Brown.Mr. Tate could be both generous and exacting: He praised Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” as one of the best albums ever made but called the follow-up, “Bad,” one of the worst. He eviscerated Jackson’s “blanched skin and disfigured African features” as the sad, inevitable result of white America’s ongoing appropriation of Black culture.“Jackson was the under-weaned creation of two Black working-class traditions,” Mr. Tate wrote in The Voice in 1987: “That of boys being forced to bypass childhood along the fast track to manhood, and that of rhythm and blues auctioning off the race’s passion for song, dance, sex and spectacle.”But he was less interested in castigation than in celebration and exploration. A single, clear thread ran through all his work: a belief that Black culture was fresh and innovative but at the same time deeply rooted in history, and that its disparate forms could be understood as emanations from a common heritage.“I marvel at hip-hop for the same reasons I marvel at Duke Ellington, Ralph Ellison, Malcolm X and Michael Jordan: a lust for that wanton and wily thing called swing and an ardor for Black artists who make virtuosic use of African-American vernacular,” he wrote in The New York Times in 1994.Mr. Tate’s first book catalyzed a generation of young writers of color with its vivid language, easy erudition and kaleidoscopic range.Mr. Tate’s first book, “Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America,” was published in 1993. A compendium of his articles from The Voice, it catalyzed a generation of young writers of color with its vivid language, easy erudition and kaleidoscopic range.“His best paragraphs throbbed like a party and chattered like a salon,” one of those young critics, Hua Hsu, wrote in 2016 in The New Yorker, where he is now a staff writer. “They were stylishly jam-packed with names and reference points that shouldn’t have got along but did.”Some critics like to remain aloof from their subjects; not Mr. Tate. He palled around with the rapper Fab Five Freddy and the guitarist Vernon Reid, a founder of the band Living Colour, and he went out of his way to promote rising young Black artists, especially women.After a series of meetings in 1985 to discuss the racial disparities in New York’s music scene, he joined Mr. Reid and several others to form the Black Rock Coalition, which promotes Black musicians. Mr. Tate wrote the group’s manifesto.“Rock and roll,” he wrote, “like practically every form of popular music across the globe, is Black music, and we are its heirs. We, too, claim the right of creative freedom and access to American and International airwaves, audiences, markets, resources and compensations, irrespective of genre.”He wrote as both a music fan and a musician; he played guitar, and in 1999 he formed Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, a genre-blending band of indeterminate size. Anywhere from 12 to 40 members might be onstage at a time, with Mr. Tate often playing the role of conductor.He left The Voice in 2005, became a visiting professor at Brown and Columbia and wrote a series of books, including a sequel to “Flyboy” and a critical assessment of Jimi Hendrix. Both the pace and the style of his writing slowed down and became more deliberate as he shifted his attention to visual art and national politics.“When you’re younger, it’s all about expressionism, it’s all about trying to make as much noise as possible,” he told The L.A. Review of Books in 2018. “You realize, after a while, your thoughts are incendiary enough; the language doesn’t have to also be on fire all the time.”Mr. Tate in 2014. After he left The Village Voice in 2005, both the pace and the style of his writing slowed down and became more deliberate.Alan NahigianGregory Stephen Tate was born on Oct. 14, 1957, in Dayton, Ohio. Both his parents, Charles and Florence (Grinner) Tate, were active in the city’s civil rights movement as members of the Congress of Racial Equality, and their home served as a gathering place for fellow organizers.On weekends, as the family cleaned the house, his father would play jazz albums and his mother would play recordings of speeches by Malcolm X, followed by Nina Simone.Mr. Tate’s omnivorous nature emerged early on. His family moved to Washington when he was 13, and among their new friends was the playwright and poet Thulani Davis. In an interview, she remembered Greg coming to her apartment to listen to records and grilling her about music, art and literature. He read Amiri Baraka and Rolling Stone in equal measure.“When he discovered a new sound or set of ideas,” Ms. Davis said, “he would listen to or read them obsessively.”In addition to his daughter, Mr. Tate is survived by a brother, Brian; a sister, Geri Augusto; and a grandson, Nile.He studied journalism and film at Howard, where he also hosted a radio show and began trying his hand at music criticism. Eventually Ms. Davis recommended that he submit something to The Village Voice, whose music editor, Robert Christgau, she knew.Just before moving to New York permanently, Mr. Tate struck up a friendship with Arthur Jafa, another Howard student, who was at the beginning of his own illustrious career as a video artist. A chance encounter outside the Howard library, just before Mr. Tate moved to Harlem, turned into an eight-hour conversation, ranging over Greek drama, avant-garde film and the latest sounds coming out of New York.The two remained close, bouncing ideas off each other and becoming famous for their public gab sessions. When Mr. Jafa needed an essay for an exhibition catalog, Mr. Tate wrote it in a night. On another occasion, Mr. Jafa joined Mr. Tate for an event in Minneapolis, where they ended up talking for 10 hours, becoming a sort of accidental performance art.“He didn’t accept false boundaries,” Mr. Jafa said in an interview. “It’s hard to describe what it’s like having the voice of a generation as your friend.” More