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      Future Designs the First Lanvin Lab Collection

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      The LatestOn Monday, the French fashion house Lanvin will release its inaugural Lanvin Lab collection with Future, the rapper and producer. Earlier this year, Future was brought on, temporarily, to help design the collection for Lanvin Lab, the brand’s new design arm that will focus on rotating collaborations. More pieces from the unisex ready-to-wear collection, all designed by Future, will debut next year.Denim overalls feature typography from an old Lanvin perfume campaign. Joshua WoodsWhy It Matters: Fashion is strengthening ties with the entertainment industry.Lanvin, which was founded in 1889, has struggled to define its identity since Alber Elbaz was fired in 2015, and has cycled through a number of designers and owners. It is yet to announce a new creative director after Bruno Sialelli, who held the role since 2019, left earlier this year.The collaboration arrives at a moment when the love affair between music and fashion continues to flourish, most notably with Pharrell Williams’s recent appointment as Louis Vuitton men’s creative director. The entertainment industry also bolstered its ties to fashion after François-Henri Pinault, the billionaire and chief executive of the luxury goods company Kering, bought a major stake this year in one of Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies, Creative Artists Agency, through his family office.Future, who is known for his distinctive style and appreciation for luxury clothes, said in an interview that the line “is a perfect fit to introduce me to the fashion world on the next level.” The collaboration was “organic,” he said, because he loved the brand and had always wanted to design.“He was already in the universe of Lanvin as a customer,” said Siddhartha Shukla, Lanvin’s deputy general manager, adding that “it gave rise to a discussion around possibly doing something together.”The first pieces from the upcoming Lanvin Lab collection with Future.Joshua WoodsWhat It Looks Like: The collection is Lanvin with a touch of Future.The first drop includes pieces such as denim overalls, a studded leather jacket and a black bag with gold, feline-shaped hardware.“The vision from the beginning was to make sure we take the brand and make it about us,” Future said, “instead of just making it about me.”That approach can be seen in the collection’s light denim overalls and matching bucket hat, with an ear and neck flap, printed with typography from an old Lanvin perfume campaign . Eagle symbols, featured on a red and yellow blanket and on a pair of sunglasses, symbolized Future’s record label, Freebandz, he said.“I’m always thinking about how to incorporate the street style into fashion,” Future said, adding, “just from the neighborhood, with how people dress, just to bring that into the fashion world, man, that’s special.” (He said he was most excited about the tracksuits.)Mr. Shukla said he believed that Future had the capacity to animate the brand, “in a way that’s very, very personal and that will speak to the millions and millions of people around the world who are attracted to his universe, are attracted to his music, are attracted to his vibe.” More

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      Cassie Settles Lawsuit Accusing Sean Combs of Rape and Abuse

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      The R&B singer Casandra Ventura and the music mogul did not disclose terms of the settlement, which came one day after Ms. Ventura filed an explosive complaint.Sean Combs and the singer Cassie have reached a settlement just one day after she filed an explosive lawsuit accusing the hip-hop mogul of rape and numerous instances of physical abuse.The parties announced on Friday evening that they had reached an agreement to resolve the case, though they disclosed no details about the terms of the settlement.“I have decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control,” Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, said in a statement. “I want to thank my family, fans and lawyers for their unwavering support.”In a statement, Mr. Combs said: “We have decided to resolve this matter amicably. I wish Cassie and her family all the best. Love.”For Mr. Combs, the settlement quickly shuts down what could have been a risky and potentially embarrassing process of legal discovery — in which reams of evidence are made public — and a possible trial. And Ms. Ventura, who has already aired her accusations through a public complaint, avoids a cross-examination by Mr. Combs’s attorneys.In a lawsuit that drew international attention, Ms. Ventura — who signed to Mr. Combs’s Bad Boy label in 2005, when she was 19, and dated him for about a decade — accused Mr. Combs of what she said was years of beatings, controlling behavior and various forms of sexual abuse, including a rape. In response, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Ben Brafman, said, “Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations.”According to Ms. Ventura’s suit, which was filed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Combs assaulted her numerous times, leaving her bloodied and bruised; she said his employees sometimes took her to hotel rooms for days to recover out of the public eye.In one of the suit’s most disturbing allegations, Ms. Ventura said that for years she was forced to participate in sexual encounters with a succession of male prostitutes, as Mr. Combs watched, masturbated and recorded videos. According the suit, Mr. Combs called these events “freak offs,” and they took place in a number of high-end hotels throughout the United States.According to Ms. Ventura’s suit, Mr. Combs controlled nearly every aspect of her life, paying for her homes, car, clothes and other necessities, and even had access to her personal medical records. The suit says Ms. Ventura never went to the police because she feared it “would merely give Mr. Combs another excuse to hurt her.”Mr. Combs, who started Bad Boy in 1993, became one of the most powerful and successful figures in the hip-hop industry, working with stars like the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige, and helping to transform rap music and culture into a global pop phenomenon and a major business.Still, his rise to fame has been dotted with allegations of violence, including that he and his bodyguards beat a rival music executive, Steve Stoute, with a Champagne bottle and other items.Last year, Mr. Combs received a lifetime achievement honor at the BET Awards, and in September he was given the global icon award at MTV’s Video Music Awards.Even with the settlement, however, the damage to Mr. Combs’s reputation and legacy may be substantial. In the day since Ms. Ventura’s suit was filed, past allegations of violence and abuse have been resurfaced, and various musicians have publicly signaled their support for Ms. Ventura.In a statement, Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Ms. Ventura, said: “I am very proud of Ms. Ventura for having the strength to go public with her lawsuit. She ought to be commended for doing so.” More

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      Sean Combs Is Accused by Cassie of Rape and Years of Abuse in Lawsuit

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      In the suit, the singer says Mr. Combs, known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, subjected her to a pattern of control and abuse over about a decade. Mr. Combs “vehemently” denied the allegations.Sean Combs, the producer and music mogul who has been one of the most famous names in hip-hop for decades, was sued in federal court on Thursday by Cassie, an R&B singer once signed to his label, who accused Mr. Combs of rape, and of repeated physical abuse over about a decade.In the suit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura — and who had long been Mr. Combs’s romantic partner — says that not long after she met him in 2005, when she was 19, he began a pattern of control and abuse that included plying her with drugs, beating her and forcing her to have sex with a succession of male prostitutes while he filmed the encounters. In 2018, the suit says, near the end of their relationship, Mr. Combs forced his way into her home and raped her.“After years in silence and darkness,” Ms. Ventura said in a statement, “I am finally ready to tell my story, and to speak up on behalf of myself and for the benefit of other women who face violence and abuse in their relationships.”In response, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Ben Brafman, said: “Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations. For the past six months, Mr. Combs has been subjected to Ms. Ventura’s persistent demand of $30 million, under the threat of writing a damaging book about their relationship, which was unequivocally rejected as blatant blackmail. Despite withdrawing her initial threat, Ms. Ventura has now resorted to filing a lawsuit riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’s reputation and seeking a payday.”Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Ms. Ventura, said the parties had spoken before the suit was filed. “Mr. Combs offered Ms. Ventura eight figures to silence her and prevent the filing of this lawsuit,” he said. “She rejected his efforts.”Ms. Ventura’s case is the latest in a series of sexual assault civil suits filed recently against prominent men in the music industry, including Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, the executive L.A. Reid and Neil Portnow, the former head of the organization behind the Grammy Awards. (Mr. Portnow has denied the accusation; Mr. Tyler and Mr. Reid have not responded.)Mr. Combs, 54, founded Bad Boy in 1993 and became one of the primary figures in the commercialization of hip-hop, working with stars like the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige. His net worth has been estimated as high as $1 billion, and last year Forbes calculated Mr. Combs’s annual earnings at $90 million, attributing that amount largely to his former partnership in a liquor brand, Ciroc, that is owned by the spirits giant Diageo.Mr. Combs, who in his career has variously been known as Puff Daddy, Diddy and Love, may be the most famous music executive of his generation. But the suit depicts Mr. Combs as a violent person who, beyond repeatedly assaulting Ms. Ventura, asked her to carry his gun in her purse, and the suit suggests he was responsible for blowing up the car of a rival suitor. In one incident, the suit says, Mr. Combs dangled a friend of Ms. Ventura’s over a 17th-floor hotel balcony.In naming additional defendants, the court papers assert that others who worked with Mr. Combs had helped him to control Ms. Ventura, at times by threatening her with retribution — like suppressing her music if she did not obey his orders — or by helping to conceal his behavior. The suit, which names Mr. Combs and a number of his associated companies as defendants, seeks unspecified damages.“After years in silence and darkness,” Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, said in a statement, “I am finally ready to tell my story.”Karwai Tang/WireImage, via Getty ImagesAccording to Ms. Ventura’s suit, she was swept into Mr. Combs’s jet-set lifestyle not long after meeting him and signing with Bad Boy, which released her debut album in 2006.But, the suit says, he soon began to assert an extraordinary level of command over her life. In addition to controlling her career, he paid for her car, apartments and clothing, and even had access to her personal medical records. According to the suit, the results from an M.R.I. scan she had — for memory loss, possibly caused by drug use or by a beating she said she suffered from Mr. Combs — went directly to Mr. Combs.Mr. Combs also provided Ms. Ventura with “copious amounts of drugs,” including ecstasy and ketamine, and urged her to take them, the suit says, and often became violent, beating her “multiple times each year.” The suit says Ms. Ventura never went to the police because she feared it “would merely give Mr. Combs another excuse to hurt her.”In one incident in Los Angeles in 2009, the suit says, Mr. Combs became enraged when he saw Ms. Ventura talking to another talent agent, then pushed her into a car and kicked her repeatedly in the face, making her bleed. According to the suit, Mr. Combs then had his staff bring her to a hotel room to recuperate for a week. She asked to go home to her parents, but Mr. Combs refused, the suit says.The suit says that after seeing the violent repercussions of rejecting Mr. Combs, and the extent to which he would isolate her from her support network, “Ms. Ventura felt that saying ‘no’ to Mr. Combs would cost her something — her family, her friends, her career, or even her life.” And though she tried to leave Mr. Combs, the suit says he sent his employees to lure her back.In one incident described in the court papers, Ms. Ventura says that in early 2012, Mr. Combs grew so angry about her dating the rapper Kid Cudi that he said he would blow up the rapper’s car. “Around that time,” the suit says, “Kid Cudi’s car exploded in his driveway.”Through a spokeswoman, Kid Cudi confirmed Ms. Ventura’s account that he had a car that exploded. “This is all true,” he said.A few years into Ms. Ventura’s relationship with Mr. Combs, the suit says, he began coercing her “to engage in a fantasy of his called ‘voyeurism,’” in which she was directed to have sex with a succession of male prostitutes, while Mr. Combs watched, masturbated, took pictures and shot video.According to the suit, Mr. Combs called these encounters “freak offs,” which involved costumes, like masquerade masks and lingerie. They continued for years, taking place at high-end hotels across the United States and in Mr. Combs’s homes. The suit says that he instructed Ms. Ventura to search the websites of escort services to procure male sex workers.Drugs were supplied at these events, which Ms. Ventura’s suit says she took because they “allowed her to disassociate during these horrific encounters.”According to the suit, Ms. Ventura would delete videos from these incidents that had been shot on her phone, but Mr. Combs told her he still had access to those videos, and on a flight once made her watch a video she thought she had deleted.The suit says that as a result of these sexual encounters in different cities, Ms. Ventura was a victim of sex trafficking. The suit also accuses Mr. Combs of sexual battery, sexual assault and violations of New York City’s gender-motivated violence law.Ms. Ventura’s suit includes several accounts of her unsuccessful attempts to escape Mr. Combs’s control.In one example, the suit says that during a “freak off” at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, an intoxicated Mr. Combs punched Ms. Ventura in the face, giving her a black eye. He fell asleep and she tried to leave the room, but Mr. Combs woke up and followed her into the hallway, where he threw glass vases at her, sending glass shattering throughout the corridor, according to the court filing. The hotel’s security cameras captured that incident, but the suit says Mr. Combs paid the hotel $50,000 for the footage.The court filing says that in 2018, after Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura met for dinner, he forced himself into her apartment and raped her while she “repeatedly said ‘no’ and tried to push him away.” After that, the suit says, she left him for good. Ms. Ventura married Alex Fine, a personal trainer, the following year and now has two young children. According to the complaint, her association with Bad Boy ended in 2019.Ms. Ventura’s case, like other recent sexual assault lawsuits, is being brought under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that allows people who say they were victims of sexual abuse to file civil suits after the statute of limitations has expired. The one-year window to bring cases under this law ends next week.That law is cited in Ms. Ventura’s complaint, and in a statement she addressed its importance.“With the expiration of New York’s Adult Survivors Act fast approaching,” she said, “it became clear that this was an opportunity to speak up about the trauma I have experienced and that I will be recovering from for the rest of my life.” More

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      George Brown of Kool & the Gang Dies at 74

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      Mr. Brown kept time for a group that combined funk, disco, R&B and jazz to create some of the most memorable pop songs of the 1970s.George Brown, a founding member and drummer of the group Kool & the Gang, who played on funk, disco and pop hits that featured prominently in movies and have been sampled numerous times, died on Thursday in Long Beach, Calif. He was 74.His death, at a hospital, was confirmed in a statement by the band’s publicist, who said the cause was cancer. Mr. Brown had said publicly that he had lung cancer.Mr. Brown, known as Funky, was a key contributor to several of the band’s biggest hits, including “Ladies Night,” “Jungle Boogie” and the party anthem “Celebration.”In a July interview with NPR, he described Kool & the Gang as “the sound of happiness.”In 1964, Mr. Brown linked up with Ricky Westfield and the brothers Ronald Khalis Bell and Robert “Kool” Bell, as well as other friends — Spike Mickens, Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas and Charles Smith — to form a band that would combine jazz, funk, disco and R&B and create some of the most memorable pop songs of their era.Formed in Jersey City, N.J., the band first played jazz while members attended Lincoln High School. The band performed under several names, including the Jazziacs, but eventually settled on Kool & the Gang in the late 1960s.One of the band’s early names was Kool and the Flames but the group changed the Flames to the Gang to avoid confusion with James Brown’s group, the Famous Flames.Kool & the Gang in the 1970s. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesGeorge Brown was born on Jan. 15, 1949. His father, George Melvin Brown Sr., worked in the coal industry while his mother, Eleanor White Brown, was a maid in Fort Lee, N.J., and also worked as a key puncher.Both made music a constant part of Mr. Brown’s upbringing, Mr. Brown recalled in his memoir released this year, “Too Hot: Kool & the Gang & Me.”Mr. Brown, who took to drumming at a young age, wrote that he saved up from a newspaper delivery route to buy his first drum set.In a 2015 interview with Red Bull Music Academy, Mr. Brown described using butter knives as drum sticks when he first started playing.“Then I went down to a music store on Newark Avenue in Jersey City and took a $3 lesson from a gentleman who used to play with the Shirelles. He said, ‘Hey man, you’re a natural!’” Mr. Brown recalled. “So he gave me ‘Buddy Rich’s 16 Essential Snare Drum Rudiments’ book. I took one more lesson and never went back.”The band was signed by the producer Gene Redd to De-Lite Records 1969.The members were in an early recording session in New York for their instrumental debut album, “Kool and the Gang,” when Mr. Redd encouraged Mr. Brown and Ronald Bell to just “do something.” It led to a freewheeling recording session that produced songs like “Raw Hamburger” and the album opener, “Kool & the Gang.”“It just flowed. And we’re just grooving,” Mr. Brown told The New York Times in an interview last year.George Brown on drums in 1974.Getty ImagesThe sound carried over into the 1970s as the band found fame and added the vocalist J.T. Taylor.Songs like “Jungle Boogie” “Hollywood Swinging” and “Funky Stuff” became Billboard chart staples. “Celebration” — with its cheery chorus “Celebrate good times, come on!” — made it all the way to the top.The group would go on to release dozens of albums, tour worldwide and appeared on the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, which won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978.The group’s songs have frequently appeared on film and television soundtracks, including for “Pulp Fiction” in 1994.In 2015, the band was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Mr. Brown was a producer on an album that the band released this year, called “People Just Want To Have Fun” in anticipation of the group’s 60th anniversary.Kool & the Gang had a broad influence, particularly in hip-hop.According to the website WhoSampled, the band has been sampled in almost 2,000 songs, among the highest of all time. The band’s song “Summer Madness” accounts for 249 samples, by artists including Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige.Ronald Khalis Bell, a singer, songwriter and saxophonist for the band, died in 2020. Mr. Thomas, who played saxophone, died in 2021.Mr. Brown is survived by his wife, Hanh Brown, and five children: Dorian Melvin Brown, Jorge Lewis Brown, Gregory Brown, Jordan Xuan Clarence Brown and Aaron Tien Joseph Brown.Three years ago, Mr. Brown was diagnosed with lung cancer, according to an interview broadcast with the television station KCAL in Los Angeles. After surgery and chemotherapy, Mr. Brown recovered and returned to touring in 2022. But this year, the cancer returned.“I didn’t plan on being in a band known around the world, but I welcomed it when it came,” Mr. Brown wrote in his book. “I didn’t know where the music would lead me, but I knew that if I remained focused and persevered, it would happen as God had intended. And it did.” More

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      A Timeline of Sean Combs’s Rap Career, Dotted by Violence

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      The music mogul, who was accused of sexual abuse by a former romantic partner, fueled the commercial success of rap over a 30-year career dotted by allegations of violence.Sean Combs, the hitmaking hip-hop mogul also known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, was sued this week in federal court by Cassie, an R&B singer who was once signed to his label and who had been his romantic partner. She accused Mr. Combs, 54, of rape, and of physical abuse over about a decade. A lawyer for Mr. Combs said he “vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations.” A key driver of hip-hop’s takeover of mainstream pop, Mr. Combs has had a career in music, fashion and TV for more than 30 years that has been periodically interrupted by run-ins with the law.1991An Ambitious Intern’s Rocky AscentMr. Combs, a relatively unknown 22-year-old radio station intern, co-hosted a celebrity basketball game with the rapper Heavy D. A stampede erupted among the jammed crowd inside the oversold City College of New York gymnasium, killing nine people.A report commissioned by Mayor David N. Dinkins criticized Mr. Combs for allowing inexperienced underlings to plan the event and for tricking ticket buyers about the event’s charitable intentions.“City College is something I deal with every day of my life,” Mr. Combs said in 1998. “But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day.”A year later, as an intern at Uptown Records, Mr. Combs’s production on the remix of Jodeci’s “Come and Talk to Me” helped the single to sell 3 million copies, announcing him as a rising talent. He went on to help produce remixes for Heavy D, the reggae artist Super Cat, and “Real Love” by the R&B singer Mary J. Blige, which introduced the rapper the Notorious B.I.G.The aftermath of a 1991 stampede in which nine people were killed during a celebrity basketball game at City College.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times1994Starting Bad Boy RecordsMr. Combs’s Bad Boy Records, founded a year earlier after his termination from Uptown, scored its first major success, as the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ready to Die” album peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200. The debut drew critical acclaim for its portrayal of “both the excitement of drug dealing and the stress caused by threats from other dealers, robbers, the police and parents,” as The New York Times wrote at the time, and spawned the hit records “Juicy,” “One More Chance” and “Big Poppa.” To date, the album has been certified six-times platinum.His work on Blige’s “My Life” album that year garnered his first Grammy nomination (for best R&B album).1997Missing the Notorious B.I.G.Mr. Combs charted some of the most notable accolades of his career before and after the death of B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, who was killed in a drive-by shooting on March 9, six months after the killing of his rival Tupac Shakur.Opening the year with the release of “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down,” Mr. Combs’s first single as the artist Puff Daddy, the song spent six weeks at No. 1 ahead of the anticipated release of a full-length album. Four months after Wallace’s death, “No Way Out,” credited to Puff Daddy & the Family, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 561,000 copies in its first week and spawning multiple chart-topping singles. The biggest of those, “I’ll Be Missing You,” featured Wallace’s widow, Faith Evans, and the R&B group 112. The requiem, which samples the Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” spent 11 weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The LP earned Combs Grammy wins for best rap album and best rap performance by a duo or group.That year, four of the 10 songs that reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 belonged to Bad Boy Records.1999Arrests for Allegations of Public ViolenceAfter a dispute over the use of footage in a music video, the record producer Steve Stoute claimed Mr. Combs and his bodyguards beat him with a champagne bottle, a telephone, a chair and their fists during an April incident.Mr. Combs faced up to seven years in prison had he been convicted of felony assault. Instead, Mr. Stoute asked the Manhattan district attorney to drop the charges after Mr. Combs publicly apologized. Mr. Combs had said he was upset that Mr. Stoute, an Interscope Records executive, used footage of him being crucified on a cross in the video for the rapper Nas’s “Hate Me Now.”“Puff soaked Interscope offices with champagne bottles on Steve/And Steve thought the drama is on me,” Nas wrote in a 2002 song that immortalized the altercation.That December, an argument broke out at a Manhattan nightclub where Mr. Combs was spending a night out with the actress and singer Jennifer Lopez, his girlfriend at the time.At least two people were injured by gunfire. The details and timeline of the interaction remained muddled throughout a highly publicized trial. The famed attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. defended Mr. Combs and multiple witnesses testified that the music executive had held a gun. Mr. Combs was charged with gun possession and bribery but found not guilty. His one-time protégé, the rapper Shyne, born Jamal Barrow, received a 10-year prison sentence for assault, gun possession and reckless endangerment.2002Making the Band by Making DemandsIn 2002, Mr. Combs took over MTV’s “Making the Band,” a reality show aimed at assembling budding rappers and singers into performing groups. The seasons produced the ensemble acts Da Band and Danity Kane, and portrayed Mr. Combs as a demanding boss, who famously made members walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn to secure him cheesecake.In recent years, multiple band members have spoken out against what they described as mistreatment from Mr. Combs and bad contracts. Da Band’s Freddy P described Mr. Combs as the reason he “hates” life in an Instagram post last year.That summer, Mr. Combs terminated the label’s joint venture with Arista, leaving the deal with full ownership of Bad Boy Records and its back catalog. Despite the label’s run of R&B hits and attempts to find a rap act of the magnitude of the Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy remained its most reliable star.2003Back at No. 1“Shake Ya Tailfeather,” a single from the “Bad Boys II” soundtrack performed by Nelly, Murphy Lee and P. Diddy, as Mr. Combs was then known, hit No. 1 on the Billboard 100 and garnered Mr. Combs’s second Grammy Award for best rap performance by a duo or group (and third overall).2004-2013Building an Empire Beyond MusicMr. Combs expanded his business empire beyond the record industry, earning top men’s wear designer honors from the Council of Fashion Designers of America for his Sean John clothing brand (2004), forging a partnership to release Ciroc vodka (2009) and founding Revolt TV (2013). His portfolio in 2022 is estimated by Forbes to be worth $1 billion.2015Another Arrest on Assault ChargesIn 2015, Mr. Combs was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, making terrorist threats and battery after an altercation with a U.C.L.A. football coach. In a news release, the university described the weapon as a kettlebell. Justin Combs, Mr. Combs’s son, began playing football at the university in 2012.The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said that prosecutors decided against pursuing felony charges after the incident, according to The Washington Post.2023Cassie Accuses Mr. Combs of Rape in LawsuitAmid the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, Mr. Combs was honored for his pioneering role in the expansion of the genre with a citation as a global icon at the MTV Video Music Awards in September, on the heels of being recognized with a lifetime achievement honor at the BET Awards in 2022.In November, Mr. Combs’s “The Love Album: Off the Grid” was nominated for a Grammy for best progressive R&B album.That month, the R&B singer Cassie, who was once signed to Bad Boy and who had a lengthy romantic partnership with Mr. Combs, filed a lawsuit in federal court that accused him of rape, and of repeated physical abuse over about a decade.Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, says in the suit that not long after she met Mr. Combs in 2005, when she was 19, he began a pattern of control and abuse that included plying her with drugs, beating her and forcing her to have sex with a succession of male prostitutes while he filmed the encounters. In 2018, the suit says, near the end of their relationship, Mr. Combs forced his way into her home and raped her.Through a lawyer, Mr. Combs, “vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations.” More

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      7 Great André 3000 Guest Verses

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      He isn’t rapping on his new LP. But he showed his skills on these tracks.Amber Fouts for The New York TimesDear listeners,After announcing a new album just a few days ago, André 3000 has released his solo debut, “New Blue Sun.” Coming nearly two decades into his rap duo Outkast’s long hiatus, the album’s mere existence is surprising enough. But here’s an understatement: It is not what most people were expecting from the man behind hits as disparately brilliant as “Ms. Jackson,” “B.O.B.” and “Hey Ya!,” who is arguably one of the most skilled and beloved rappers of his generation. It’s actually not a rap album at all. It is, in fact, an 88-minute instrumental album of ambient woodwind compositions.Seriously.If you do not believe me, consider the title of the 12-minute opening track, which is at once a mea culpa and a statement of purpose: “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.” And then listen to it, because it’s crystalline and beautiful in a way that recalls Laraaji, Brian Eno and Philip Glass — all cited as influences on the album.“New Blue Sun” is a genuine left turn in an all-too-predictable musical world, and it’s definitely worth spending some quality time with this weekend. But for today’s playlist, I wanted to turn back the clock and consider André’s prowess as a rapper by highlighting some of his greatest guest verses.Since Outkast released its sixth (and seemingly final) studio album, “Idlewild,” in 2006, Big Boi has released three solo albums, while André’s musical output has largely been limited to a smattering of guest verses. But oh, what verses they’ve been.André has played the wise sensei on two era-defining Frank Ocean albums and duetted poetically with his baby’s mother, Erykah Badu. He’s lent some extraterrestrial flair to tracks from superstars like Beyoncé and Drake, and teamed up with underground favorites like Devin the Dude and Killer Mike. His verses still feel like special events, though, because he doesn’t just lend them out to anybody. His co-signs feel personally curated, because they’re still relatively rare.Dré can be funny, poignant, incisive, revealing and obfuscating — often within the span of a single verse. He has a canted and utterly idiosyncratic approach to rhythm; he always seems to hop on the offbeat and then hit the ground running. More than most of his contemporaries, he manages to be both lustful and self-aware about his own lust. He’s an otherworldly ATLien and he’s down to earth. He is cooler than cool. He’s ice-cold.So if an instrumental flute album wasn’t what you were hoping to get from André 3000, give it a moment. And listen to this playlist to appreciate all the razor-sharp bars he’s given us in the meantime.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. UGK featuring Outkast: “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”Regal, occasionally crass and thoroughly tender, this 2007 stone-cold classic is one of hip-hop’s great odes to monogamy. André’s plain-spoken, feelings-forward verse opens the track and sets the tone: “Hate to see y’all frown,” he says of the women with whom he’s broken it off to go exclusive with another, “but I’d rather see her smiling.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Frank Ocean: “Solo (Reprise)”André bursts into the world of Frank Ocean’s 2016 opus “Blonde” in a gust of rapid-fire wordiness. Accompanied by James Blake’s sparse piano, he experiments with some inspired “solo”/“so low” wordplay (“so now I’m so low that I can see under the skirt of an ant”) as his flow careens around corners and suddenly — as if to assert the control he always has over his rhythm — yanks the emergency brake. That it’s the most prominent feature on Ocean’s deeply personal album attests to the respect the younger artist has for 3000’s artistry. (Listen on YouTube)3. Beyoncé featuring André 3000: “Party”On this verse, featured on a single from Beyoncé’s 2011 album “4,” André indulges in some light braggadocio, makes up his own memorable pronunciation of “gyro,” and, approaching his late 30s, expresses ambivalence about his evolving status as an elder statesman of hip-hop: “Kiddo say he looks up to me, this just makes me feel old.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Rick Ross featuring André 3000: “Sixteen”This eight-minute track from Rick Ross’s 2012 album “God Forgives, I Don’t” is a meta-meditation on what happens when “16 ain’t enough” — or how difficult it is to condense one’s life into a standard, 16-bar rap verse. Both Ross and 3000 manage to cram multitudes into their rhymes here. André’s feature in particular is an absolute tour de force, beginning with a vivid flashback to his youth (when he was just “drawin’ LL Cool J album covers with Crayolas on construction paper”) and somehow shifting into another gear toward the end, as he offers some clear-eyed reportage from the other side of one’s childhood dream coming true. (Listen on YouTube)5. Drake featuring Lil Wayne and André 3000: “The Real Her”From way back in 2011, when Drake was still trying to sound like a genuine romantic, André 3000 slid onto this “Take Care” track to show him how it was done, name-dropping Adele and laying his soul bare. “Everybody has an addiction,” he raps with arresting simplicity. “Mine happens to be you.” (Listen on YouTube)6. Devin the Dude: “What a Job”Another meta-ode to a musician’s creative process, this song from Devin the Dude’s gloriously named 2007 album “Waitin’ to Inhale” finds the Houston rapper — along with Snoop Dogg and André 3000 — offering perspective on and gratitude for his chosen profession. André uses part of his verse to make an argument against then-rampant piracy: “If I come to your job, take your corn on the cob,” he asks, “and take a couple kernels off it, that would be all right with you?” (Listen on YouTube)7. Killer Mike and André 3000 featuring Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”André proves he’s still got bars in the present tense on this track from Killer Mike’s 2023 album “Michael,” which just last week scored Grammy nominations for best rap performance and best rap song. Amid some evocative bleeps and bloops, André sounds like an alien visitor beaming in from another galaxy, though his verse is also imbued with plenty of human vulnerability: “Too much that I can’t communicate with all of them,” he raps. “I do wish I had scientists to engineer friends.” Later on, though, he’s more optimistic when considering the future: “Hope I’m 80 when I get my second wind.” We should all hope so, too. (Listen on YouTube)Keep your heart, Three Stacks, keep your heart,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“7 Great André 3000 Guest Verses” track listTrack 1: UGK featuring Outkast, “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”Track 2: Frank Ocean, “Solo (Reprise)”Track 3: Beyoncé featuring André 3000, “Party”Track 4: Rick Ross featuring André 3000, “Sixteen”Track 5: Drake featuring Lil Wayne and André 3000, “The Real Her”Track 6: Devin the Dude, “What a Job”Track 7: Killer Mike and André 3000 featuring Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”Bonus TracksIf you ever find yourself in Brussels (as I did on vacation last week), I cannot recommend highly enough a visit to the Musical Instruments Museum. The M.I.M. boasts a huge collection of instruments new, old and even older, including some wonderful curiosities. I got to see one of Adolphe Sax’s seven-bell trumpets (which was not as successful as one of his other inventions, the saxophone), a notorious glass harmonica and a collection of woodwinds extensive enough to have satisfied André 3000.Also, on this week’s Friday Playlist, we have new music from Drake, Dua Lipa, Julia Holter and more. Listen here. More

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      Doechii Stays Balanced With 24-Hour Spas and a Good Girls Night

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      This 25-year-old rapper is ready for a “new era” inspired by movies and theater. But first: a tour with Doja Cat. Here’s what keeps her on track.Before the 25-year-old rapper and singer Doechii began opening for Doja Cat on the Scarlet Tour last month, she had a high-profile warm-up gig in her hometown, Tampa, Fla., performing before Beyoncé on her Renaissance World Tour.“Just to be in the stadium was incredible, and it was surreal,” Doechii said on a recent call from her Los Angeles home. “I’ve always looked up to her, and I’ve studied her for a really long time, so it was full circle, and I was extremely honored.”The opportunity followed years of hard work as Doechii developed her signature flow, which can be bombastic, nimble or melodic. In 2022, “Persuasive,” a bass-heavy track blending dance music and alternative R&B, became her first major-label single when she signed to a partnership between Top Dawg Entertainment (home of SZA, who appeared on its remix) and Capitol Records. “What It Is,” featuring Kodak Black, cracked Billboard’s Hot 100 chart earlier this year.Now she’s working on a “new era,” she said, inspired by references from movies like “The Wizard of Oz,” her love of Broadway shows like “Wicked” and her penchant for maximalism. “I created this world that I want my fans to live in with me and escape,” she said. “A place to where I can’t be wrong. I can’t be critiqued in this world because it’s my genre and my lane, which is alternative hip-hop.”(The new era will begin next year, when she releases a new album.)Before she hit the road with Doja Cat, Doechii shared what’s keeping her sane, creatively agile and dressed to the nines. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Apple EarPods (With the Cord)AirPods suck. You lose them, they fall out of your ears. Nothing is louder than the O.G. Apple headphones. I have accidentally put my headphones in my pocket, washed and dried them by accident, and they still work. So it’s a staple.2Newport Shorts CigarettesEvery now and then I love a good Newport short. I had a cigarette on the V.M.A. red carpet recently — it’s fashionable in a really toxic way. It’s a great prop and I’ll be using it on tour, but a fake one. Don’t smoke cigarettes, y’all. Don’t do what I do.3Dsquared2 and Early 2000s FashionI’ve been obsessed with trashy couture, or at least that’s how I would define my style. Let’s wear a gown with a trucker hat. Why not? Let’s put on a skirt with some muddy boots and a fancy club bag. I just think it’s just so cool, and Dsquared2 is a brand that I’m just obsessed with.4New York CityNew York really challenges me every time I go there. The energy is literally a brand. And to me, New York just represents fame. It’s like that classic American dream, and I just love that. It’s not a place that I would necessarily want to live again, only because it’s too cold.5GarageBandI still don’t know how to use Pro Tools, still don’t know how to use Ableton, Logic, none of those fancy ones. GarageBand has been there for me. It’s easy and anybody can use it. Any upcoming artists reading this, just know that GarageBand is the program that you should start with, and it’s free.6A Girls NightI don’t know if I would be able to survive without my girlfriends. In the darkest times, a girls night will always pull me out of it. There’s just moments where you have so much clarity over a glass of wine.7Botox and FillerYearly, I’ll do a Botox and filler appointment. It’s like an annual maintenance day, facial, massage, Botox and filler. You come out and you’re a year younger.824-Hour SpasI hate that I’m saying this because now my team is going to know, but sometimes after a show I’ll just sneak off. I’ll leave the hotel and I’ll go and have a secret spa day alone by myself. And it could be two in the morning, but they have them in New York.9Day Partying in MiamiI love a good day party on a boat, a classic South Beach yacht party. We stop, we do jet skis. We did that in Miami recently when I was recording my album. You just chill in the water, drink, smoke and have a good time. I have to have that in my life. It’s necessary.10Nightlife in TampaI would go day party in Miami and night in Tampa because I think that nightlife in Miami gives me more of a Los Angeles vibe. Nightlife in Tampa is more ratchet and just fun and spontaneous. You could pull up to the club in a hoodie and flip-flops and nobody’s going to judge you. It’s not about how you look or who you are. You can be famous and nobody will care. I can just have a good time and be barefoot twerking on the floor and nobody’s going to record me. More

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      12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear

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      Some of the best competitions are the under-the-radar ones. Listen to nominated songs by Bettye LaVette, Molly Tuttle, Tainy and more.The soul survivor Bettye LaVette, who’s up for best contemporary blues album.Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesDear listeners,I’m Jon Pareles, sitting in for Lindsay this week because while she’s on vacation, we couldn’t let the Grammy Awards nominations go by without a playlist.Like a lot of critics, in and out of music, I’m pretty skeptical about awards shows. That’s not just because they rarely agree with my own taste. Awards shows have conflicted agendas and contradictory incentives. They trumpet artistic integrity but crave star power. They claim accountant-verified objectivity but often appear cliquish and stuck in industry bubbles.The one thing that makes me indulge the Grammys is an aspect that infuriates some other Grammy observers: the chronic sprawl of awards categories. There are 94 this year. That’s a lot, but fine: Let a hundred flowers bloom. The Recording Academy is forever trying to trim and adjust those categories, consolidating or renaming or expanding the list. But music keeps eluding them, changing styles and constituencies, while little Grammy voter pools — hopefully specialists, realistically partisans — battle to boost their candidates.It’s complicated, fluid, arbitrary, far from perfect. What, exactly, is “alternative jazz,” one of this year’s new categories? But down in the trenches of concert bookings, “Grammy-winning” can make a bigger difference for someone on a club or college tour than for an act with radio hits and arena gigs. The Grammys can be good for something.I regularly watch the pre-Grammy, non-network, un-prime-time “Grammy Premiere” livestream — just go to live.grammy.com or YouTube — where the unsung majority of Grammy Awards are given out before the prime-time show. They’re dorky and unpolished; some winners read their thank-yous from their cellphones, and they don’t always have designer outfits. But the pre-Grammys also book niche-category performers who tear the roof off, because that’s what happens beyond the controlled sphere of pop. Music can upend everything we expect.Here are a dozen down-category Grammy nominees, who are unlikely to show up in prime time. They’re not necessarily popular — though some were huge hits — or fashionable. They just made recordings worth noticing.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Kylie Minogue: “Padam Padam” (pop dance recording)Kylie Minogue conquered dance floors, yet again, in 2023 with “Padam Padam,” her breezily confident assertion that “I know you wanna take me home.” The title is a heartbeat rhythm, the production uses reverb to play with space, and Minogue sounds quite amenable to a tryst. (Listen on YouTube)2. Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane: “Scientists & Engineers” (rap performance)Multifaceted ideas about creativity — as a calling, a compulsion and a career — unite Killer Mike and his guests in this ambitious, changeable track. Enfolded in restlessly blipping synthesizers and Eryn Allen Kane’s ethereal vocal harmonies, André 3000 and Future muse over past and present before Killer Mike arrives with a closing barrage. (Listen on YouTube)3. Allison Russell: “Eve Was Black” (American roots performance)Racism and misogyny are Allison Russell’s direct targets in “Eve Was Black,” which transforms itself from Appalachian toe-tapper to eerie rocker to jazz excursion to gospel incantation and asks the unflinching question, “Do you hate or do you lust?” (Listen on YouTube)4. Jason Isbell: “Cast Iron Skillet” (American roots song)A tangle of bleak, likely interconnected narratives — murder, death in prison, a family shattered by interracial romance — mingles with homey advice in “Cast Iron Skillet,” a modest-sounding but far-reaching ballad. (Listen on YouTube)5. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway: “El Dorado” (bluegrass album)The songwriter and flatpicking guitar virtuoso Molly Tuttle spins a brisk, minor-key chronicle of the Gold Rush. She sings about desperate characters and wonders, “Was it worth the blood and dirt to dig our lives away?” (Listen on YouTube)6. Bettye LaVette: “Hard to Be a Human” (contemporary blues album)The gritty-voiced, 77-year-old soul survivor Bettye LaVette embraces 1970s-style Nigerian Afrobeat, with its chattering saxophone and curlicued guitars, in “Hard to Be a Human,” as she wonders about humanity’s irredeemable flaws. (Listen on YouTube)7. Blind Boys of Alabama: “Work Until My Days Are Done” (roots gospel album)The Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel institution since the 1940s, bring their vintage-style harmonies to a traditional song that’s more about diligence than worship. The arrangement is a two-parter, an easygoing shuffle that revs up midway through to something like sanctified honky-tonk. (Listen on YouTube)8. Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas: “Lo Siento BB:/” (música urbana)Tainy, the Puerto Rican producer who’s an architect of reggaeton, racked up a billion streams across various platforms with “Lo Siento BB:/” (“Sorry Baby”). Julieta Venegas and Bad Bunny sing about her infatuation and his refusal to commit, juxtaposing cushy electronics and a blunt beat. (Listen on YouTube)9. Natalia Lafourcade: “De Todas las Flores” (Latin rock or alternative album)The Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade’s album “De Todas las Flores’ isn’t remotely rock. It’s richly retro pop that harks back decades, with acoustic instruments and some orchestral arrangements. The title track is a rueful, elegantly nostalgic lament for lost love. (Listen on YouTube)10. Davido featuring Musa Keys: “Unavailable” (African music performance)Davido is from Nigeria, but he has international aims. In “Unavailable,” he infuses Nigerian Afrobeats with a South African style, amapiano, and he’s joined by the South African singer Musa Keys. They’re both playing hard to get. (Listen on YouTube)11. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society: ‘Dymaxion’ (large jazz ensemble album)The composer Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society is an 18-piece big band that stokes suspense with dissonance, pinpoint timing and an arrangement that gets denser and denser throughout most of “Dymaxion.” Even when it eases back, the piece stays ominous. (Listen on YouTube)12. Ólafur Arnalds: “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)” (new age, ambient or chant album)“Woven Song” originally appeared on Ólafur Arnalds’s 2020 album, “Some Kind of Peace,” with an eerie, sliding, untempered vocal. The Polish pianist and singer Hania Rani makes it cozier and more consonant in her “rework,” but the ghost-waltz spirit of the original persists. (Listen on YouTube)And I’d like to thank the Academy …JonThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear” track listTrack 1: Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam”Track 2: Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”Track 3: Allison Russell, “Eve Was Black”Track 4: Jason Isbell, “Cast Iron Skillet”Track 5: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, “El Dorado”Track 6: Bettye LaVette, “Hard to Be a Human”Track 7: Blind Boys of Alabama, “Work Until My Days Are Done”Track 8: Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas, “Lo Siento BB:/”Track 9: Natalia Lafourcade, “De Todas la Flores”Track 10: Davido featuring Musa Keys, “Unavailable”Track 11: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Dymaxion”Track 12: Ólafur Arnalds, “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)”Bonus TracksCaryn the editor here flagging the rest of our Grammy coverage that’s gone live so far today:Ben Sisario’s big look at the field, with a spotlight on the top competitions.Our always-entertaining snubs and surprises, examining which genres were conspicuously absent from the biggest categories, and a delightful showdown between Olivia Rodrigo and the Rolling Stones.The full list of nominees: yes, all 94 categories. Yes, I formatted this myself.An interview with Victoria Monét, who has seven nominations (the second-most), and one for her toddler.And an interview with the indie-rock trio boygenius, who picked up six nods. More