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      in Music

      Smokey Robinson Faces Criminal Investigation After Assault Allegations

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      The Motown legend, who was accused in a lawsuit earlier this month of sexually assaulting four former housekeepers, is being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has opened a criminal investigation into the Motown legend Smokey Robinson, who was accused in a civil suit this month of sexually assaulting four women, the department said Thursday.Mr. Robinson, 85, was sued earlier this month by four former housekeepers, who accused him of abusing them dozens of times over the years. His lawyer has denied the accusations. Now he is the subject of a criminal investigation.“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau is actively investigating criminal allegations involving William Robinson a.k.a. ‘Smokey Robinson,’” Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement. “The investigation is in the early stages, and we have no further comment.”The civil suit, filed in Los Angeles, identified the accusers only as Jane Does 1 through 4. They accused Mr. Robinson of raping them repeatedly over the years while they were employed cleaning several of his homes. The suit claimed that Mr. Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, has known about his sexual misconduct but failed to protect the women.Mr. Robinson’s lawyer, Christopher Frost, said in a statement that the unnamed plaintiffs had “filed a police report only after they filed a $50 million lawsuit,” which he said that the police would be required to investigate.“We feel confident that a determination will be made that Mr. Robinson did nothing wrong, and that this is a desperate attempt to prejudice public opinion and make even more of a media circus than the plaintiffs were previously able to create,” Mr. Frost said in a statement. “The record will ultimately demonstrate that this is nothing more than a manufactured lawsuit intended to tarnish the good names of Smokey and Frances Robinson, for no other reason than unadulterated avarice.”The lawyers for the plaintiffs, John Harris and Herbert Hayden, said in a statement that they were pleased to learn that the sheriff’s department had “opened a criminal investigation into our clients’ claims of sexual assault against Smokey Robinson.”“Our clients intend to fully cooperate with L.A.S.D.’s ongoing investigation in the pursuit of seeking justice for themselves and others that may have been similarly assaulted by him,” they said in the statement. More

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      in Music

      Can Eurovision Avoid Politics in Neutral Switzerland?

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      The competition is run by an opaque Swiss organization that wants to sidestep controversies that could spoil the fun.At the Eurovision Song Contest, one rule stands above all others: no politics.That order is enforced by the competition’s organizer, the European Broadcasting Union, an opaque federation of nearly 70 public service broadcasters, based in Geneva. It scrutinizes performers’ lyrics, their outfits and even their stage props in hopes of bringing some Swiss neutrality to the contest and avoiding anything controversial that could spoil the fun.Yet when the Eurovision final takes place this Saturday on the European Broadcasting Union’s home turf in Basel, Switzerland, politics will still be bubbling in the background, even if the organizers manage to keep such topics off the stage. At a time when the effects of Israel’s war in Gaza are still rippling through cultural life, and Russia and Belarus are pariahs because of the invasion of Ukraine, the question of who gets to compete in Eurovision brings politics to the fore. And the question of what is actually political can be slippery, and one for which the European Broadcasting Union sometimes lacks a consistent answer.In recent weeks, broadcasters in Spain, Ireland and Slovenia have called for a debate on Israel’s participation, rehashing a furor that threatened to overshadow last year’s competition. Before the last final, in Malmo, Sweden, some Eurovision performers signed petitions and made statements calling for Israel’s exclusion because of its actions in Gaza. Some crowd members booed Israel’s singer during the final, though others cheered. Yuval Raphael, representing Israel, at a Eurovision rehearsal in Basel. Broadcasters in Spain, Ireland and Slovenia have called for a debate on Israel’s participation.Alma Bengtsson/EBUEurovision officials responded with a line that the competition has clung to at previous moments of tension: Eurovision, it said, is a contest between broadcasters, not nations. That means a government’s actions should have no bearing on the contest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares131 Views

      in Movies

      Nora Aunor, Singer-Actress Called ‘the Superstar’ in Philippines, Dies at 71

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      And her fans were called Noranians for their devotion to a performer who had enthralled her country — onscreen and on the concert stage — since she was a teenager.Nora Aunor, a powerful Filipina actress and singer who for nearly 60 years captivated audiences — her devoted fans were called Noranians — earning the nickname “the Superstar,” died on April 16 in the city of Pasig, near Manila. She was 71.Her death, in a hospital, was announced by her family. The cause was acute respiratory failure after an angioplasty, according to news media reports.“Over the decades, she built a career that shaped the very soul of our culture,” her son Ian de Leon said at a news conference.Ms. Aunor was known widely for her petite stature, expressive eyes, which could convey a breadth of emotions, and a somewhat darker skin than was commonplace in Filipino show business when she was starting out.Movie stars in the country then were “usually mixed race, with prominent Spanish or Caucasian and American looks, some of whom were children of American G.I.s,” said José B. Capino, the author of “Martial Law Melodrama” (2020), about the visionary Filipino director Lino Brocka.Ms. Aunor’s movie career began in the 1960s with teeny-bopper films and romcoms but graduated to serious fare like “Bona,” a 1980 drama directed by Mr. Brocka in which she portrayed the title character, a middle-class teenager obsessed with a handsome, narcissistic bit player in movies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares90 Views

      in Television

      Why Tot Celebrity Ms. Rachel Waded Into the Gaza Debate

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      Facing criticism, Rachel Accurso defends making the plight of children in Gaza a primary focus on her social media feeds.With her pink headband, denim overalls and permanent smile, Ms. Rachel has become a mainstay in the households of preschool-aged children who are drawn to her good cheer and singalongs. Parents revere her pedagogical practicing of skills like waving, clapping and pronouncing consonants.The former music teacher’s YouTube videos became such a sensation — 14 million subscribers, one billion views — that in January, Netflix began licensing episodes.Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, at times presents a different side of herself on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where the content is geared less toward toddlers and more toward their parents. There her millions of followers will also find impassioned videos touching on current events. These focus on the push for universal child care and geopolitical crises that have led to suffering children — above all, the ongoing war in Gaza.In March, for instance, Accurso posted a video of two children watching a Ms. Rachel video amid rubble. The caption read: “My friends Celine and Silia in what used to be their home in Gaza. They deserve to live in a warm, safe home again.”On Monday, Accurso posted to her Instagram account photos of a meeting she said she had last week with Rahaf, a 3-year-old girl from Gaza who lost her legs in an airstrike, and the child’s mother. The meeting was arranged through the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.Last week, Accurso posted to Instagram pictures of meeting with Rahaf, a 3-year-old fan from Gaza who lost her legs to an airstrike.MsRachelWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares170 Views

      in Theater

      With This ‘Gypsy’ Song, Audra McDonald Makes You Rethink the Broadway Show

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      Eight times a week at the Majestic Theater in Manhattan, the entire, harrowing arc of a classic tragedy is delivered in 4½ minutes that are as exhilarating as they are upsetting. All the textbook components of tragedy according to Aristotle are vigorously at work here: self-delusion and self-knowledge, pity and terror, and the sense that what is happening is somehow both unexpected and inevitable.And all of this — right down to that climatic, rushing release called catharsis — is provided, near the end of a delectably tuneful show, by a lone woman performing a single song in what is generally regarded as the cheeriest of theatrical forms, the American musical. Yet by that number’s conclusion, Audra McDonald, the Tony-nominated star of George C. Wolfe’s Broadway revival of “Gypsy,” has the flayed-skinless appearance of a figure in a Francis Bacon portrait.And while most hardcore lovers of musicals have surely heard this song before, they are likely to sense that something new is happening here — something harsher, rawer, more wondering and ultimately more devastating. An old standard is providing fresh and unsettling revelations, while an unconventionally cast, mold-cracking performer is shedding surprising light and shadow on one of the best-known characters in the genre. No wonder that audience members leave the Majestic looking as if they had just been sucker punched.A visit to the show in late March inspired the Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty to call McDonald’s interpretation of the song “if not a religious experience, then a spiritually transfiguring one.” And a friend of mine, who is not generally a fan of musicals, emailed me after a Wednesday matinee that she “was so gutted by that number that when I walked out of the theater I really didn’t know where I was or which direction to turn.”“Rose’s Turn”Audra McDonald sings on the cast album for “Gypsy.”Such is the experience of watching McDonald sing “Rose’s Turn” in “Gypsy,” the 1959 story by Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne about one very determined stage mother named Rose in the dying days of vaudeville. It’s the kind of number that makes you entirely rethink both the show you’ve been watching — one you may have felt you knew all too well — and its central character.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares140 Views

      in Music

      Johnny Rodriguez, Country Music Star, Dies at 73

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      He was best known for the 1970s hits “I Just Can’t Get Her Out of My Mind” and “Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico,” and as the first popular Mexican American country artist.Johnny Rodriguez, who became the first Mexican American country music star with a string of hits, died on Friday. He was 73.His daughter, Aubry Rodriguez, announced his death on social media on Saturday. The post did not cite a cause of death.Mr. Rodriguez rose to fame in the 1970s and was best known for the hits “Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico” and “You Always Come Back (to Hurting Me).” He released six singles that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, and nine others reached the Top 10.In 2007, Mr. Rodriguez was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame, which described him as the “greatest and most memorable Chicano Country singer of all time.”Juan Raoul Davis Rodriguez was born on Dec. 10, 1951, in Sabinal, Texas, around 65 miles west of San Antonio. A list of survivors was not immediately available.Mr. Rodriguez, the second youngest of 10 children, started playing guitar at the age of 7 when his older brother, Andres, bought him one. Their father died of cancer when Mr. Rodriguez was 16, around the same time Mr. Rodriguez formed a band, and Andres died the next year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares143 Views

      in Music

      25 Ways to Get in on Dance Music’s Renaissance

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      Dance music is experiencing another boom period, and this time the music is traveling faster and farther than ever, thanks to new streaming platforms and more fans getting access to making (and vibing to) an even broader slate of sounds. Here’s how to get involved.5 Ways to Club AnywhereBoiler RoomWhat began in 2010 as a single livestream called Boiler Room, with a webcam taped to a D.J. booth, has become not just a global proving ground but a rite of passage, and a catchall term for a format that’s changed the course of dance music.Start here: Kaytranda’s devilishly chaotic, often hilarious 2013 Montreal session; a fun hour of soulful dance music that foreshadows big things to come for the artist and the format alike.The Lot RadioStarted in 2016 on a triangle-shaped patch of gravel in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the Lot has drawn a wide range of top-tier talent to D.J. inside its sticker-covered booth (or as Charli XCX did last summer, dance on top of it).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares174 Views

      in Music

      After Allegations, Smokey Robinson Show Goes On as Planned

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      The 85-year-old Motown star performed for an adoring crowd and made no mention of the claims against him at his first concert since being named in a lawsuit.By the time Smokey Robinson performed “Cruisin’” near the end of his concert at the Beau Rivage Theater on Friday night, the mutual admiration was in full display between the Motown icon and a revering audience of nearly 1,600 people, with no mention made of the sexual assault allegations levied against him this week.Mr. Robinson had long discarded the jacket from the sparkling green suit and the tie he had begun the night with.“Do you know what you volunteered for?” he asked one woman he invited onstage.“We’ll be right back,” Mr. Robinson said when she answered that she had freely agreed to join him in front of the audience, and he took a few steps pretending to accompany her backstage. He then implored her to get the audience to sing “Cruisin’” lyrics with them.Mr. Robinson, 85, smiled widely throughout a festive set, dancing suggestively while performing many of his landmark songs as part of a tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of his album “A Quiet Storm” and the release of a new album, “What the World Needs Now.”He proceeded with the concert just days after four women who worked as housekeepers for Mr. Robinson claimed in a lawsuit that he had repeatedly sexually abused them for years at his homes in California and Nevada. Three of the women did not report the allegations sooner over fear of their immigration status, the lawsuit states.The suit argues that Mr. Robinson created a hostile work environment and demanded they work long hours without receiving minimum wage. It also claims that Mr. Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, knew of the assaults but did not to stop them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More