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      Derek Khan, Onetime Stylist for Hip-Hop Stars, Dies at 63

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThose We’ve LostDerek Khan, Onetime Stylist for Hip-Hop Stars, Dies at 63He was an architect of the over-the-top look known as “ghetto fabulous.” Later, unable to support his own lavish lifestyle, he fell from grace.The fashion stylist Derek Khan at his home in Dubai in 2008. He presided over the marriage of pop music and high fashion that began in the 1990s. Credit…Daryl Visscher for The New York TimesFeb. 28, 2021, 12:36 p.m. ETDerek Khan, a celebrated fashion stylist to hip-hop and R&B stars like Salt-N-Pepa, Pink and Lauryn Hill who later fell far from those glittering heights, died on Feb. 15 at a hospital in Dubai. He was 63.The cause was complications of Covid-19, said Beverly Paige, a former vice president of publicity at the Island Def Jam Music Group.Mr. Khan, a diminutive man with outsize charm and a high-wattage smile, presided over the marriage of pop music and high fashion that began in the 1990s. A creator of the over-the-top look known as “ghetto fabulous,” he persuaded rap stars to shed the street wear they were known for, dressing them in Fendi, Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana and bedazzling them with jewels from Harry Winston, Piaget and Van Cleef & Arpels.When he was the in-house stylist for Motown, he was known as “Dolce” around the office, Andre Harrell, once the chief executive of that label — and a hip-hop star maker as founder of Uptown Records — told The New York Times in 2003. Mr. Khan swathed Mary J. Blige in yards of white fur (accessorized with Fendi sunglasses and a Rolls-Royce) for the cover of her album “Share My World.” He introduced Pink to Chanel, and he oversaw Lauryn Hill’s haute bohemian look for her debut album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” which made her a Vogue darling.He was a visual impresario of a cultural shift in the music business that put hip-hop front and center and made its stars into mainstream fashion avatars.In the mid-1990s Ms. Paige of Island Records hired him to overhaul the look of the three young women who made up Salt-N-Pepa: Cheryl James, Sandra Denton and Diedra Roper, otherwise known as DJ Spinderella. The group was already wildly popular and would soon win a Grammy. Out went the eight-ball jackets and door-knocker earrings, which Mr. Khan, once a salesman at luxury boutiques, exchanged for Yves Saint Laurent tuxedos and ropes of diamonds.“We were just regular kids shopping at Rainbow on Jamaica Avenue, and then Derek came along with his over-the-top way and said, ‘You don’t know who you are. It’s time to step it up,’” Ms. James said in an interview. “The music is important, but how you show up is important, too. He taught us to show up in the room.”Salt-N-Pepa (from left, Cheryl James, Sandra Denton and Diedra Roper) after winning a Grammy Award in 1995. “We were just regular kids,” Ms. James said, “and then Derek came along with his over-the-top way and said, ‘You don’t know who you are. It’s time to step it up.’” Credit… Philippe Aimar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBy the turn of the millennium, Mr. Khan was one of the most sought-after stylists in the business. And he was living as extravagantly as the acts whose images he was amplifying — hosting enormous dinners at Mr. Chow, flying first class and treating himself to $1,000 jars of Crème de la Mer face cream.And then the bottom fell out of the music business. Music sharing platforms like Napster drained revenue from album sales. Music videos lost their luster. At the same time, artists who once doted on Mr. Khan found a new cadre of stylists to bedazzle them, and up-and-coming young artists had their own favorites.Unable to sustain the lavish lifestyle he had built, Mr. Khan developed a dangerous habit: He borrowed jewels from Harry Winston and others, as he had long done, but instead of adorning his clients, he pawned the baubles for cash.“After that first pawning I said I would never do it again,” Mr. Khan told The Times. “But then something would come up and I would need money, and then it snowballed.”The rapper Lil’ Kim, as styled by Mr. Khan in a Chanel outfit, at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 2002.Credit…Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesAs the young fashion editor of Vibe magazine in the early 1990s, the stylist Stefan Campbell watched Mr. Khan’s dizzying rise. “As generous and creative as Derek was, he was straddling many worlds that he wanted to impress,” Mr. Campbell recalled. “He was introducing his young hip-hop clients to a whole new world of glamour, and he had to seem ‘of it.’ And in that world, generosity was expensive.”Mr. Khan’s world came crashing down in 2003, when he was sent to prison for defrauding the jewelers. After he was released in 2005, he was immediately deported to his native Trinidad.Then, in yet another reversal of fortune, Mr. Khan remade himself two years later in Dubai, initially embraced by a city where living large is a religion. His engaging smile beamed from the pages of lifestyle magazines there, and he signed a deal to design a line of jewelry.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Rapper’s Arrest Awakens Rage in Spanish Youth Chafing in Pandemic

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeWatch: ‘WandaVision’Travel: More SustainablyFreeze: Homemade TreatsCheck Out: Podcasters’ Favorite PodcastsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRapper’s Arrest Awakens Rage in Spanish Youth Chafing in PandemicNearly two weeks of sometimes violent demonstrations have turned into a collective outcry from young adults who see bleak futures and precious time lost to lockdowns.Protesters marching in support of Pablo Hasél, a controversial Spanish rapper, in Barcelona this week. Credit…Felipe Dana/Associated PressFeb. 27, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETLeer en españolBARCELONA — It had all the markings of a free speech showdown: Pablo Hasél, a controversial Spanish rapper, had barricaded himself on a university campus to avoid a nine-month jail sentence on charges that he had glorified terrorism and denigrated the monarchy. While students surrounded him, police in riot gear moved in; Mr. Hasél raised his fist in defiance as he was taken away.But Oriol Pi, a 21-year-old in Barcelona, saw something more as he watched the events unfold last week on Twitter. He thought of the job he had as an events manager before the pandemic, and how he was laid off after the lockdowns. He thought of the curfew and the mask mandates that he felt were unnecessary for young people. He thought of how his parents’ generation had faced nothing like it.And he thought it was time for Spain’s youth to take to the streets.“My mother thinks this is about Pablo Hasél, but it’s not just that,” said Mr. Pi, who joined the protests that broke out in Barcelona last week. “Everything just exploded. It’s a whole collection of so many things which you have to understand.”“Everything just exploded. It’s a whole collection of so many things which you have to understand,” said Oriol Pi, 21, of the youth demonstrations taking place across Spain. Credit…Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesFor nine nights, this seaside city’s streets, long quiet from pandemic curfews, have erupted in sometimes violent demonstrations that have spread to Madrid and other Spanish hubs. What began as a protest over Mr. Hasél’s prosecution has become a collective outcry by a generation that sees not just a lost future for itself, but also a present that has been robbed, years and experiences it will never get back, even when the pandemic is gone.The frustration of young people stemming from the pandemic is not limited to Spain alone. Across Europe, university life has been deeply curtailed or turned on its head by the limitations of virtual classes.Social isolation is as endemic as the contagion itself. Anxiety and depression have reached alarming rates among young people nearly everywhere, mental health experts and studies have found. The police and mostly young protesters have also clashed in other parts of Europe, including last month in Amsterdam.“It’s not the same now for a person who is 60 — or a 50-year-old with life experience and everything completely organized — as it is for a person who is 18 now and has the feeling that every hour they lose to this pandemic, it’s like losing their entire life,” said Enric Juliana, an opinion columnist with La Vanguardia, Barcelona’s leading newspaper.Barcelona was once a city of music festivals on the beach and all-night bars, leaving few better places in Europe to be young. But the crisis, which devastated tourism and shrank the national economy by 11 percent last year, was a catastrophe for Spain’s young adults.Police officers during clashes following a protest condemning the arrest of Mr. Hasél in Barcelona on Tuesday.Credit…Emilio Morenatti/Associated PressIt is an instance of déjà vu for those who also lived through the financial crisis of 2008, which took one of its heaviest tolls in Spain. Like then, young people have had to move back into the homes of their parents, with entry-level jobs being among the first to vanish.But unlike past economic downturns, the pandemic cut much deeper. It hit at a time when unemployment for people under age 25 was already high in Spain at 30 percent. Now 40 percent of Spain’s youth are unemployed, the highest rate in Europe, according to European Union statistics.For someone like Mr. Pi, the arrest of the rapper Mr. Hasél, and his rage-against-the-machine defiance, has become a symbol of the frustration of Spain’s young people.“I loved that the man left with his fist in the air,” said Mr. Pi, who said he hadn’t heard of the rapper before Spain brought charges against him. “It’s about fighting for your freedom, and he did it to the very last minute.”The case of Mr. Hasél, whose real name is Pablo Rivadulla Duró, is also igniting a debate about free speech and Spain’s efforts to limit it.The authorities charged Mr. Hasél under a law that allows for prison sentences for certain kinds of incendiary statements. Mr. Hasél, known as a provocateur as much as a rapper, had accused the Spanish police of brutality, compared judges to Nazis and even celebrated ETA, a Basque separatist group that folded two years ago after decades of bloody terrorist campaigns that left around 850 people dead.In 2018, a Spanish court sentenced him to two years in prison, though that was later reduced to nine months. The prosecution focused on his Twitter posts and a song he had written about former King Juan Carlos, whom Mr. Hasél had called a “Mafioso,” among other insults. (The former king abdicated in 2014, and decamped Spain entirely last summer for the United Arab Emirates amid a corruption scandal.)“What he’s said at trial is that they put him in prison for saying the truth, because what he says about the king, aside from all the insults, is exactly what happened,” said Fèlix Colomer, a 27-year-old documentary filmmaker who got to know Mr. Hasél while exploring a project about his trial.Fèlix Colomer and his partner, Valeria, at their home in Barcelona on Friday. On some nights, Mr. Colomer has led the Barcelona protests.Credit…Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesMr. Colomer, who on certain nights has led the Barcelona protesters, noted that others have been prosecuted in Spain for social media comments, a troubling sign for Spain’s democracy, in his view. A Spanish rapper known as Valtònyc fled to Belgium in 2018 after getting a prison sentence for his lyrics that a court found glorified terrorism and insulted the monarchy — charges similar to those Mr. Hasél faces.Yet some feel Mr. Hasél crossed a line in his lyrics. José Ignacio Torreblanca, a political science professor at the National Distance Education University in Madrid, said while the law’s use troubled him, Mr. Hasél was not the right figure to build a youth movement around.“He’s no Joan Baez, he’s actively justifying and promoting violence. This is clear in his songs. He says things like, ‘I wish a bomb explodes under your car,’” said Mr. Torreblanca, referring to a song by Mr. Hasél that called for the assassination of a Basque government official and another that said a mayor in Catalonia “deserved a bullet.”Amid public pressure that was growing even before the protests, the Justice Ministry said on Monday that it planned to change the country’s criminal code to reduce sentences related to the kinds of speech violations for which Mr. Hasél was sentenced.But for Nahuel Pérez, a 23-year-old who works in Barcelona taking care of the mentally disabled, freedom for Mr. Hasél is only the start of his concerns.Since arriving in Barcelona five years ago from his hometown on the resort island of Ibiza, Mr. Pérez said, he hasn’t found a job with a salary high enough to cover the cost of living. To save money on rent, he recently moved into an apartment with four other roommates. The close quarters meant social distancing was impossible.Nahuel Pérez, left, with his roommates in their apartment in Barcelona on Friday. “The youth of this country are in a pretty deplorable state,” Mr. Pérez said.Credit…Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“The youth of this country are in a pretty deplorable state,” he said.After Mr. Hasél was arrested at the university, Mr. Pi, who had seen the news on Twitter, began to see people announcing protests on the messaging app Telegram. He told his mother he wanted to go to the demonstrations, but she didn’t seem to quite understand why.“I’m not going to go look for you at the police station,” is what she told him, Mr. Pi said.He thought about what it must have been like for his mother at his age.There was no pandemic. Spain was booming. She was a teacher and married in her 20s to another professional, Mr. Pi’s father. The two found a house and raised a family.Mr. Pi, by contrast, is an adult still living with his mother.“Our parents got all the good fruit and here’s what we’re facing: There’s no fruit in the tree anymore, because they took the best of it,” said Mr. Pi. “Everything that was the good life, the best of Spain — there’s none of that left for us.”When he’s not at the protests, Mr. Pi spends his days working as a hall monitor in a nearby school that operates a mix of online and socially distanced in-person classes.It’s not the career he wanted — not a career at all, he says — but it pays the bills, and lets him talk to high school students to get their outlook on the situation in Spain.He doesn’t mince words about what lies ahead for them.“These are the people who will be me in ten years,” he said. “I think they’re hearing something that no one has ever told them. I would have listened if someone had come to me when I was 12 and said: ‘Listen, you’re going to have to struggle for your future.’”Roser Toll Pifarré contributed reporting from Barcelona, and Raphael Minder from Madrid.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      History Meets the Present on the ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ Album

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s PickHistory Meets the Present on the ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ AlbumThe songs inspired by Shaka King’s film about the 1969 police killing of the Illinois Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton mostly don’t appear in the movie, but they expand its story.“Judas and the Black Messiah” arrived with an ambitious soundtrack stocked with songs featuring a soulful, somber and retro aesthetic.Credit…Glen Wilson/Warner BrosFeb. 24, 2021, 12:10 p.m. ETJudas and the Black Messiah: The Inspired AlbumNYT Critic’s PickA movie’s message doesn’t have to end with the closing credits. Black filmmakers and musicians have been making the most of “inspired by” albums that are anything but afterthoughts; they boldly extrapolate from the story told onscreen. “Black Panther,” “The Lion King” and now “Judas and the Black Messiah” — the director Shaka King’s film about the 1969 police killing of the Illinois Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton — arrived with companion albums that connect fantasy and history to their repercussions in the here and now.“Judas and the Black Messiah: The Inspired Album” overflows with music and ideas: 22 tracks, many of them collaborative. With Hit-Boy as one of the executive producers (and the rapper on a track of his own), the album gathers past and current hip-hop hitmakers, with Nas, Jay-Z and the Roots’ Black Thought alongside Pooh Shiesty, Polo G, Lil Durk and BJ the Chicago Kid.Although the album is a compilation from dozens of rappers, singers, producers and songwriters, it has a coherent sound: soulful, somber and retro like the film’s closing song, H.E.R.’s “Fight for You,” which is steeped in Marvin Gaye’s mournful determination. Much of the album looks back toward 1990s hip-hop: relying on instruments and samples of full bands, laced with melodic hooks and firmly enunciating the lyrics.H.E.R. provides the movie’s closing song, “Fight for You.”Credit…Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressSome tracks directly address the film’s particulars. The album opens with an appearance by Fred Hampton Jr. in “Cointelpro/Dec. 4”: memorializing his father, reminding listers about Cointelpro (the F.B.I.’s illegal covert 1960s Counterintelligence Program aimed at civil rights groups and other perceived subversives) and firmly connecting political oratory to hip-hop; the track ends with a loop of the elder Hampton proclaiming, “I am a revolutionary!”Rakim’s “Black Messiah” delivers a terse, magisterial biography of Hampton over samples of a 1967 soul single, Them Two’s “Am I a Good Man.” In “Somethin’ Ain’t Right,” over bluesy guitar chords, Masego sings about corruption and Rapsody vows, “Cointelpro got the target on me/But we don’t stand down till the people all free.”But the focus inevitably widens to encompass the present. Polo G’s “Last Man Standing” — with bleak piano chords and a shivery vocal sample — bitterly connects thoughts of Hampton and the Black Panthers to deep-seated systemic racism, police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement. Smino and Saba collaborate on “Plead the .45th,” sketching paranoia and resentment in brisk, jazzy phrases. Black Thought’s “Welcome to America,” with gritty vocal choruses from C.S. Armstrong and flashes of a gospel choir, is a vehement reminder of centuries of exploitation, remembering “every lost body crossed, tarred, feathered and tossed” and insisting, “This American cloth has never been soft/while history was running its course.”Memorial and news flash combine in “What It Feels Like” by Nipsey Hussle — who was killed in 2019 — and Jay-Z, a hip-hop march with foreboding piano, horn-section chords and hovering choral vocals. The song warns that success turns Blacks into targets: “You get successful, then it get stressful,” Hussle rapped. Then Jay-Z’s verse pivots from similar ideas — “You know they hate when you become more than they expect” — to the inadequate police response to the insurrection on Jan. 6: “You let them crackers storm your Capitol, put they feet up on your desk/And yet you talkin’ tough to me, I lost all my little respect.” Jay-Z was born December 4, 1969, the day Hampton was killed in a police raid. The history sounds personal.Various Artists“Judas and the Black Messiah: The Inspired Album”(Six Course Music Group/RCA)AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘This Is the Life’ Review: A Valuable Part of Hip-Hop History

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘This Is the Life’ Review: A Valuable Part of Hip-Hop HistoryAva DuVernay’s 2008 documentary, now streaming on Netflix, is a personal love letter to a slice of Los Angeles’s 1990s hip-hop scene.Medusa is one of the hip-hop artists featured in Ava DuVernay’s 2008 documentary “This Is the Life.”Credit…ArrayFeb. 23, 2021This Is the LifeNYT Critic’s PickDirected by Ava DuVernayDocumentary1h 37mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Ava DuVernay’s 2008 debut feature, the documentary “This Is the Life,” is a refreshing portrait of a 1990s California hip-hop subculture that thrived separately from gangsta rap. DuVernay’s documentary, now available to stream on Netflix, is a personal project. She performed as part of the rap duo Figures of Speech at the Good Life Cafe — a South Central Los Angeles health food cafe that became a mecca for the underground rap community.Throughout the ’90s, the modest space’s open-mic nights fostered a bevy of young, raw, untainted lyrical voices telling stories of everyday life in L.A. DuVernay combines performer interviews with VHS footage and audio clips of their shows to retell a magical period in the hip-hop scene.In its intertitle graphics and visual typography, “This Is the Life” often mirrors VH1’s “Behind the Music” documentaries. When staging her interviews, however, DuVernay imprints unique compositions onto the familiar music-doc style by using the respondents’ spacious surroundings to frame them. To paint the cafe’s milieu, she identifies the institute’s stalwarts, such as supportive fans lovingly referred to as “Jean in the front row” and “Big Al.” Not only does DuVernay feature the cafe’s Black male M.C.’s like Abstract Rude and Chillin Villain Empire, she underscores the white, Latino and female artists who also appeared on the Good Life stage.[embedded content]The venue’s traditions are also outlined: No leaving gum on the floor; no leaning on the paintings; avoid the phrase “wiggidy wiggidy” in freestyles; and no profanity — meant to ensure a clean space and substantive rhymes. Audiences at the Good Life wanted to hear idiosyncratic freestylers using distinct techniques to tell unique stories. Rappers who failed to meet crowd expectations, in scenes akin to an amateur nightat the Apollo, were booed off the stage. In recalling the night the rapper Fat Joe bombed at the cafe, DuVernay creatively soundtracks the audio from the event over a time lapse of a chalk artist sketching the scene.Word of mouth inspired record deals for some Good Life performers. Jurassic 5, for instance, became gold record-certified in Britain. By 1994, the cafe had built such a reputation that artists like Ice Cube and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony came to listen. And it is claimed (by the rapper Abstract Rude) that those artists incorporated the underground style into their work. When DuVernay plays the Good Life M.C. Myka Nyne’s verse on Freestyle Fellowship’s “Mary” (1993) next to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s “Tha Crossroads” (1996), it’s a difficult assertion to dispute.Outside of the film’s director, however, few from the Good Life became household names. But in the illuminating “This Is the Life,” DuVernay not only fills in an important formative gap in California’s hip-hop history, she displays the inventive eye that would later lead to her future cinematic successes.This Is the LifeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Jay-Z Sells Half of Ace of Spades Champagne to LVMH

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJay-Z and LVMH, Two of the World’s Biggest Brands, Go Into BusinessLVMH will acquire half of Armand de Brignac, Jay-Z’s Champagne line known as Ace of Spades.Feb. 22, 2021, 6:55 a.m. ETBeyoncé and Jay-Z way back in 2015.Credit…Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesWhen Jay-Z clicked into a video call last week with Philippe Schaus, the chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s drinks business, the Zoom backgrounds told the story.Jay-Z spoke from a partly covered terrace of his Los Angeles home, wearing a casual sweater, accessorized by the outdoor living room and greenery around him. Mr. Schaus was in his office in Paris, wearing a suit, accessorized by shelves of elaborate drinks bottles behind him.The topic: the news that LVMH would acquire half of Armand de Brignac, Jay-Z’s bubbly brand. (Most people call it Ace of Spades, after its bottle’s branding.)The deal gives Jay-Z the organizational support and distribution power of a global drinks “machine,” as Mr. Schaus called it, while LVMH gets the cool clout and lifestyle marketing savvy of a pace-setting Black cultural leader at a time when the luxury sector’s racism is under particular scrutiny.Neither side would disclose the financial terms of the transaction. But if Jay-Z’s lyrics can be considered appropriate journalistic sourcing (it’s very probable they shouldn’t be), half of Armand de Brignac was valued in 2018 at $250 million. “I’m 50 percent of D’Ussé and it’s debt-free, 100 percent of Ace of Spades, worth half a B,” Jay-Z rapped on “What’s Free,” the Meek Mill track. (D’Ussé is the cognac brand that Jay-Z owns with Bacardi.)They were, however, more than happy to talk about their new relationship.“We were always looking to grow this brand,” said Jay-Z, “and this happened very naturally.”Mr. Schaus, who manages a Champagne portfolio for Moët Hennessy that includes Dom Pérignon and Krug, gushed right back. “In your understanding of the world of tomorrow, we believe you created a new consumer for Champagne,” he said, beaming at Jay-Z through the computer.Jay-Z in the presence of Moët (and Robert De Niro) at a gala in 2016.Credit…Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesIt’s not the most obvious time to invest in Champagne, amid a health pandemic that has kept bottle-service dance-club partying to a minimum in a world with little to celebrate. But then, LVMH is not just buying a new drinks brand: It’s buying cultural know-how and entree into markets not traditionally served by some of its brands.“We have to catch up somehow,” said Mr. Schaus on the Zoom call. “So this relationship will inject us with some better understanding of the market of tomorrow.”LVMH first attempted to access “the market of tomorrow” in 2019 when it teamed up with Rihanna to create the Fenty high fashion line — which was also, as it happened, when it first met Jay-Z. (Rihanna is represented by the management arm of Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s entertainment and sports company.) Though operations of Rihanna’s line were suspended less than two weeks ago, the Champagne partnership signals a strengthening of larger ties to the greater Jay-Z universe.The Ace of Spades deal was initially discussed in the summer of 2019, when Jay-Z hosted a lunch at his house for Bernard Arnault, LVMH’s founder and chairman, and Alexandre Arnault.The younger Mr. Arnault is the third of Bernard Arnault’s five children. He is, at 28, an increasingly visible force at LVMH. He became chief executive of Rimowa, the LVMH-owned German luggage brand, in 2017 at only 24; was the family member who accompanied his father when President Trump cut the ribbon on a new Louis Vuitton factory in Texas; and was recently named executive vice president of product and communications at Tiffany, which LVMH acquired in a $15.8 billion deal last year.He and Jay-Z are good friends who speak on the phone once a month or more. “I’ll send him a photo of something going on with me or he’ll send me a photo,” Jay-Z said. “It’s super natural, super chill. I view him as a person of high integrity. Always keeps his word, very punctual. These are some of the qualities I have myself.”Alexandre Arnault at his apartment in Paris in 2018.Credit…Julien Mignot for The New York TimesJay-Z at his office in Los Angeles in 2020.Credit…Renell Medrano for The New York TimesThe investment from LVMH, which has an all-white leadership team, gives Jay-Z an increased presence in an old, elite, European industry.“Just the idea of this partnership is a signal to a more diverse way of looking at things,” Jay-Z said of LVMH.“We have a long way to go,” Mr. Schaus said.Jay-Z’s cultural and business connection to Champagne is longstanding. He had been a fan of Cristal, helping to elevate it to an aspirational brand among hip-hop fans. But then, in 2006, an executive with Cristal’s parent company made comments to The Economist about the rap world’s patronage: “We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business,” he said.Jay-Z called for a boycott of Cristal and, that same year, he bought Armand de Brignac with a partner. He rebranded the product Ace of Spades, redesigned the bottles, and marketed it as a key element of the Jay-Z lifestyle, with a reveal in the “Show Me What You Got” video. He kept the brand mentions alive in 2014’s “We Made It Freestyle,” the year he purchased the remainder of the line.Though Champagne as a business suffered during the pandemic, Jay-Z said the market has recovered from its initial sharp drop-off in revenue and shipments in 2020, and has settled at a deficit of 20 percent.Both businessmen hope the “superluxury” sector may be first to recover, said Mr. Schaus. A bottle of Ace of Spaces can set you back between $300 to $64,999, for a 30-liter Midas bottle.Wealthy people have been affected the least in the current climate, Mr. Schaus said, and “will go back to enjoying and showing their pride in what they are and what they have achieved.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Prince Markie Dee, Founding Member of Rap Trio Fat Boys, Dies at 52

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPrince Markie Dee, Founding Member of Rap Trio Fat Boys, Dies at 52The group’s lighthearted rhymes and winning comedic approach helped speed hip-hop’s absorption into pop culture.From left: Prince Markie Dee, the Human Beat Box and Kool Rock-Ski of Fat Boys. “Wipeout,” the group’s collaboration with the Beach Boys, was their biggest hit.Credit…David Corio/Redferns, via Getty ImagesJon Caramanica and Feb. 19, 2021Prince Markie Dee, who as a member of the trio Fat Boys released some of hip-hop’s most commercially successful albums of the 1980s and helped speed the genre’s absorption into pop culture, died on Thursday in Miami. He was 52.His death was confirmed by Rock the Bells, a SiriusXM station where he had been a host. No cause was given.In the mid-1980s, Fat Boys were among hip-hop’s best known groups; their 1987 album “Crushin’” went platinum and featured a collaboration with the Beach Boys, “Wipeout,” that was their biggest hit, reaching No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. That year, the group starred in a full-length comedy, “Disorderlies.”Hip-hop was just beginning to become accepted into the mainstream of American pop culture, and the group’s lighthearted rhymes, accessible dance routines and winning comedic approach made them effective ambassadors on hits including “Jailhouse Rap,” “Stick ’Em” and “Can You Feel It.” Some of their songs were about food and played on their image as harmless heavyweights.Prince Markie Dee was born Mark Anthony Morales on Feb. 19, 1968. He formed the Disco 3 in the early 1980s along with Darren (the Human Beat Box) Robinson and Damon (Kool Rock Ski) Wimbley, friends from the East New York section of Brooklyn. They won a 1983 talent show at Radio City Music Hall and were signed to a management contract by the show’s promoter, who suggested they change their name to Fat Boys.Their size became their gimmick, their calling card and their accelerator. Their manager once organized a promotional contest in which fans could guess the group’s collective weight.The group released seven full length albums; in addition to their platinum “Crushin’,” three went gold. In 1984, Fat Boys appeared on the Fresh Fest tour, the first hip-hop arena tour. Four years later, the group recorded a new version of “The Twist” with Chubby Checker. The trio also appeared in the films “Krush Groove” and “Knights of the City” before breaking up in the early 1990s. Mr. Robinson died in 1995 at age 28 after he fell off a chair while rapping for friends and lost consciousness.Mark Anthony Morales also hosted “The Prince Markie Dee Show” on LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells channel on SiriusXM radio.Credit…Robin Marchant/Getty ImagesPrince Markie Dee released a pair of solo albums in the 1990s, the first of which spawned the hit single “Typical Reasons (Swing My Way).” At the same time, he was beginning to work as a songwriter and producer for Uptown Records, collaborating with Father MC and Mary J. Blige. He helped write and produce Ms. Blige’s 1992 breakout hit “Real Love” and worked on her debut album, “What’s the 411?” He also worked on songs and remixes for Destiny’s Child, Mariah Carey and others.Information about survivors was not immediately available.Later in his career, Mr. Morales was a radio personality at WMIB-FM and WEDR-FM in Miami and on SiriusXM. But he was best known for being one of the Fat Boys when the group’s songs were seemingly everywhere.“I would be walking and all of a sudden I would hear music ricochet off the walls,” the rapper Fat Joe wrote on Instagram, recalling how Fat Boys’ beatboxing — “huh huh huh ha huh” — was “the first song they would play at the block party to summon you to appear.”He called Mr. Morales “a great guy, a legend and pioneer.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Dawn Richard Honors New Orleans Second Lines, and 7 More New Songs

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistDawn Richard Honors New Orleans Second Lines, and 7 More New SongsHear tracks by 24kGoldn, Amythyst Kiah, Lil Yachty and others.Dawn Richard’s new single “Bussifame” is a preview of her April album “Second Line.” Credit…Alexander Le’JoJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Feb. 19, 2021, 10:53 a.m. ETEvery Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Dawn Richard, ‘Bussifame’[embedded content]Dawn Richard gives “Bussifame” four syllables — as in “Bust it for me” — when she chants it in her new single, a preview of her April album “Second Line.” The video, released on Mardi Gras, opens with someone dancing to a (sadly uncredited) New Orleans brass band’s second-line beat. Then the track itself begins, with Richard and her dancers wearing pointy, futuristic costumes outside the giant graffiti on a derelict former Holiday Inn. “Feet move with the beat/Bussifame, second line,” she chants, huskily, in an electronic track that’s closer to house than to second line, but just keeps adding levels of perky syncopation. JON PARELESAmythyst Kiah, ‘Black Myself’“Black Myself” starts out as a blunt catalog of stereotyping and discrimination — “You better lock the doors as I walk by/’Cause I’m Black myself — before affirming Black solidarity and self-determination in its final verse. The song was already a bluesy stomp when Amythyst Kiah first recorded it with the folky all-star alliance Our Native Daughters; now she revisits it with a fuller studio production, reinforcing its distorted guitar with more effects, more layers and a bigger beat, adding extra clout. PARELESMichael Wimberly, featuring Theresa Thomason, ‘Madiba’Over a stuttering bass line, plinking balafon and wah-wah-drenched guitar, the gospel vocalist Theresa Thomason offers an unflinching tribute to Nelson Mandela, lingering on the struggles he endured and vowing to carry his legacy forward. “Always looking left, always looking right/Always defending the people’s truth/We’ll never forget you,” she sings. The song comes from “Afrofuturism,” the latest album by the percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Michael Wimberly, who recorded it with a diverse group of musicians from across the world. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO24kGoldn, ‘3, 2, 1’24kGoldn’s version of hip-hop is, in essence, pop-punk coated with just the faintest layer of R&B — which is to say, exceedingly pop. His latest single, which arrives while “Mood,” his recent No. 1 with Iann Dior, is still at No. 5 on the Hot 100, is taut, angsty and extremely efficient, a fait accompli of hybrid pop. JON CARAMANICALil Yachty featuring Kodak Black, ‘Hit Bout It’Lil Yachty, KrispyLife Kidd, RMC Mike, Babyface Ray, Rio Da Yung OG, DC2Trill and Icewear Vezzo, ‘Royal Rumble’Three or so years ago, you would not have pegged Lil Yachty as destined to be one of hip-hop’s more versatile talents. And yet here he is, fast rapping over a nervous beat on “Hit Bout It,” a strong duet with the fresh-out-of-jail Kodak Black. That comes less than two weeks after “Royal Rumble,” a posse cut of (mostly) great Michigan rappers full of the non sequitur tough talk that’s been defining that scene for the last couple of years, and which Yachty has an affinity (if not quite aptitude) for. Focus instead on great verses from the stalwart Icewear Vezzo and the up-and-comer Babyface Ray. CARAMANICAMahalia featuring Rico Nasty, ‘Jealous’A sample of flamenco guitar curls through the insinuating, two-chord track of “Jealous” as the English singer Mahalia and the Maryland rapper-singer Rico Nasty casually demolish male pride. “Im’a do what I want to baby/I won’t be stuck without you baby,” they nonchalantly explain, as Mahalia flaunts her wardrobe, her car, her “crew” and her indifference. “Unless you got that heart then you can’t come my way,” she sings, staccato and unconcerned. PARELESChris Pattishall, ‘Taurus’For his debut album, the rising pianist Chris Pattishall reached back 75 years to revisit Mary Lou Williams’s 12-part “Zodiac Suite.” The result is neither overly nostalgic nor newfangled and gimmicky. Pattishall’s “Zodiac” is a startling achievement precisely because of how deeply — and personally — this old material seems to resonate with him. Pattishall has said that he is particularly drawn to Williams because of the way she seemed to hopscotch between atmospheres and registers within individual compositions, without sacrificing a sense of narrative. That’s borne out on his album’s very first track, “Taurus” (Williams’s own star sign), which starts with a passage of ruminative piano before a quick acceleration, with Pattishall leading his quintet into a swirling, bluesy refrain. RUSSONELLOAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More