Celebrity Coverage
Mickey Guyton: Intentional consumerism of black country music isn’t just needed by Beyoncé
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 24: Mickey Guyton speaks on stage during Act II Black Music Action Coalition: A Conversation Around “Three Chords and the Real Truth” featuring Mickey Guyton at Live Nation on April 24, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Unique Nicole/Getty Images for Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC))
Country singer Mickey Guyton was moved to tears by the number of black faces within the audience at a Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC) event in Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
“I’ve been in Nashville for a very long time and my main thing is to welcome everyone to country music; it’s great that you’re finally here,” Guyton told the intimate audience. “We fought and worked hard to make people realize that black country music was popular. We’ve been working on this for years. I know you’re here now, but this is pre-2020, so I’m trying not to cry seeing you all here and the hard work we’ve done.”
BMAC President and CEO Willie “Prophet” Stigers kicked off the event focused on the historic exclusion of Black talent from country music despite the genre’s origins with a conversation with Guyton, who spoke in regards to the realities of the Nashville music scene and the role everyone can play in making it more inclusive. by streaming music from black country artists and attending their performances.
“We have been here before in 2020, in 2017 once we founded the ACM Diversity Task Force [Academy of Country Music Awards] and I’m attempting to work out the best way to bring country music to Black people and folks of color. They are closing the door on DEI, and if we do not speak about it and be intentional about our consumerism, we’re done. We’re actually done,” said Guyton, who spoke in regards to the personal toll of her years of efforts.
“I’m still recovering from quite a bit of the things that were said to me after I was attempting to fight for equality in country music. Nothing more nothing less. I didn’t let you know who to vote for. I have never told you anything aside from to provide people a likelihood not because of anything, but because they’re talented and deserve the identical opportunities, and that comes at a price.
Guyton’s words echoed those of BMAC co-founder Caron Veazey, who spoke in regards to the formation of BMAC after the 2020 deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and the way the organization’s goal of rooting out racism within the music industry has turn out to be harder inside 4 years because the industry committed to improving.
“It’s not making the headlines like it was in 2020 and we knew this day was coming,” Veazey said. “DEI is being dismantled all over the place. So our job is, in some ways, tougher now than it was in 2020, and BMAC now has a good greater responsibility. We need everyone’s help, everyone’s attention, everyone’s support and partnership to proceed our mission and really make a difference.”
Guyton and Stigers emphasize that support on this moment is about not overlooking the eye Beyoncé’s album delivered to each Black country artists and racism within the country music industry.
“When this Beyoncé moment is over and all her country fans are done with their boots and spurs, these Black country artists that you see and like their posts, we will still be here,” Guyton said. “We are still mostly in white spaces. I’m still the one black person in lots of mostly white spaces on boards, attempting to help make decisions and at fundraisers. It is incredibly crucial for every of you, black, white or otherwise, to point out these corporations the monetary value of black art.
To further overcome the obstacles faced by Black country music artists – like Tanner Adell and Tiera Kennedy, who were dropped from their labels before appearing on the song “Blackbird” – Dr. Jada Watson, director of musicology on the University of Ottawa, broke down in regards to the origins of segregation within the music industry and its specific impact on the country genre.
“The recording industry was racially segregated when it was founded in the 1920s – Hillbilly Music and Race Records – and those records became the classification categories under which music was recorded and then sold,” Dr. Watson said in the course of the Grammy Awards panel. -winning artist and songwriter INK, explaining that the identical categories later expanded to radio, then the Billboard charts, and now digital streaming platforms (DSPs).
“Every decision made in connection with building infrastructure and promoting music on the market was related to racial segregation and is 100% still valid,” she added. “If you think that your DSPs are different, they don’t seem to be. Because the identical R&B and country classifications that exist today have their roots within the segregated industry of the Twenties.
Dr. Watson explained that by the numbers, over the past 22 years, songs by Black women have accounted for lower than 1% of airplay on country music radio. “We talk about 0.03% quite often. In 2023, Black women’s songs had 0.02% airplay, so when “Texas Hold ‘Em” came out, it was an opportunity for me, because it has such a global audience, for the format to pick up the song and for the industry to build around possibilities. It hit no. It’s going to start to decline on March 23, and I’m really concerned about that,” said Dr. Watson, who noted that if you add “Texas Hold ‘Em” to the mix of Black women’s songs currently on the air, that number increases to just 0.24%. “So we’re still not in a good place.”
Highlighting Guyton’s remark earlier within the evening in regards to the impact that might be made, “If every Beyoncé fan streamed our song at least once,” Dr. Watson said it isn’t enough to easily like and follow Black country music artists on social media or on the platform’s streaming platform.
“It’s one thing to browse and imitate, it’s another thing, as Mickey said, to keep listening, streaming, coming back, listening to new songs, listening to old songs, because the conversion rate is negative right now,” he says. he said. “On one hand, that’s fine because the follower count continues to grow, but things will plateau once Beyoncé gets to Act III, so Mickey’s advice was the best advice for me. In fact, stream them regularly, stay with them, follow them, go to their shows and buy their merch.”
Regardless of how long the road to equality for Black artists in all musical genres is, each Guyton and BMAC said they refuse to stop trying.
“Our goal at BMAC is non-existence,” Stigers said, stating that disbanding the organization would actually mean eradicating racism within the music industry.
Talking in regards to the journey ahead, Guyton added: “We may not see the real change we want to see in our lifetime, but what awaits us right here gives me so much hope.”
Celebrity Coverage
Tara Davis -woodhall on her hair trip and showing on a representation of textures with a pigeon – the essence
Patrick Khachfe/Getty Images
The average American publishes 4.8 hours a day on their phone. Meanwhile, 90 percent of black people live in a household with smartphones, i.e. Six percent of the higher than the total US population. But despite almost 4,000 emoji coded in our phone, most of the black ones have Difficulties to get hold of emoji which exactly represent our hair.
Calling for change, athletes Tara Davis-Woodhall He works with #CodemyCrown, a Crown Coalition campaign led by Dove and Rise365 To put pressure on the Unicode consortium to include emoji depicting Afros, Braids, Cornrows and Locs. Like the game industry, Black Beauty is poorly represented by technology with such platforms Idor And my leading integration of the crown with the digital world.
“8 out of 10 black people in the USA fights to find Emoji that reflect their hairstyle,” says Davis-Woodhall. “I wasn’t surprised, just disappointed.” Wearing hair relaxed to College, the athlete says that her relationship with her hair was about assimilation, which is capable of likely be attributed to the lack of representation.
“Growing up in white society, black hair is too much work and is not seen so beautifully,” he says. “I’ve always tried to straighten my hair.” But when she was natural in college, she understood the beauty in our texture of the hair. In March, for the first time, she published Afro on Instagram along with a blow and braids, all of which could thoroughly be styles absent in the Emoji Apple library.
Nowadays, “I change hairstyles every month,” he says, now leaning to sewing. However, he says that finding a routine will likely be like finding emoji: harder than it should. “I’m trying to protect my omission as much as possible,” he says. “In fact, this is impossible when you do so many shoots and try to keep your hair as tame as possible.”
Banking about deep treatments and oils, finding time in her tight schedule to take care of her hair is an act of self -care. This and opening pores on her skin and scalp in a long, hot bath at night. “I work on the skin, I work on the skin of the body, making sure that I remain moisturized and exfoliated,” he says. “I give myself a little more time because I feel that I give [most of my] Time for other people. “
Now, back to the track season in full bloom, finding styles which could withstand blood, sweat and tears of an Olympic athlete is one other obstacle. But one thing is for certain, he hopes that Emoji represents the emotions he puts in each. “The beauty of our hair is that you can have options and wear everything you mean.”
William Gottlieb/Redferns
When Billie Holiday entered the stage, not only her voice turned her head – it was her presence. Known as Lady Day, she embodied the timeless type of beauty that cannot be reproduced – only worship. More than an icon of jazz, Holiday was a plan: her appearance, its mastery and its unrestricted elegance are still inspired by generations of black women who understand that beauty concerns the soul, as in style.
In the Nineteen Forties, the singer was known for wearing a deep, dark lipstick, which made her hair decorated with gardenia relatively more. Her eyebrows have contained throughout the least times been thrown out and eyelashes? Flirts, feathery and unforgettable. Sometimes she liked to take care of cool and canopy with packaging, contained throughout the least times emanating this sort of glam. In 1939, she added to the photo session, gardens in full bloom-nevertheless it surely’s eyelashes and it is a soft look, to which we’re still attracted.
Quickly until 1947, when the legend hit the stage on the Downbeat Club Manhattan. No foundation, no powder – just daring lipstick, natural leather and star power.
Until 1957, Billie modified every little thing to her performance to Newport Jazz Festival, leaving Gardenias behind, but keeping a characteristic red lip. And because of all this she never avoided the camera. New head shots, latest corners – because my love is contained throughout the least times in style.
In honor of the late icon we rejoice some of the most unforgettable moments of beauty Billie Holiday.
Celebrity Coverage
Hannah John -kamen on Thunderbolts* and always remains ready to get close – essence
Killer Action Role on television, science fiction Odyssey Outlaws and Hyper-Dystopian Stories are stuffed with the movie Hannah John-Kamen as a performer with strength in her emotional performance on the screen. A 35-yr-old English actress known for her roles in movies similar to Andas, just like the television program, Likeand is ready to bring her to her because she had large roles supporting in lots of successful franchises. He represents his role Ghost (Ava Starr) in Marvel. Directed by Jake Schreier, The Asterisk within the title of the film is an actual show Way Marvel, and the filmmaker intended to be this story to be the departure of Disney franchise and resign how very different it’s from the more shiny repertoire of Marvel’s movies.
“Jake’s lens of this film was very, tonally specific”, he describes John-Kamen through the conversation. “It was like creating an independent film in the Marvel universe – Jake had a level of sensitivity and nurturing this story.” Re-reembodiment John-Kamena Ava Starr as a spirit, a killer for employment, is a key paria of the newly formed group, which was later recognized within the film as Thunderbolts, the name developed by the character of David Harbor, Aleksiej Andreovitch (Red Guardian).
The family roots of John-Kamen reach her Nigerian father and Norwegian mother, who performed significantly different works as a criminal psychologist and fashion model. With her established experience in Performance’s art, she was able to introduce her history of upbringing in a house stuffed with beauty and brains in her roles on the screen. The English contractor doesn’t stop his roles on television and film and cooperated with the maestros cinema, similar to Steven Spielberg (), and now Jake Schreier. “It’s quite difficult, because when you filter abroad, you revolve with a time difference that is easier to say than to do,” says John-Kamen. “In this world it can be a lonely lifestyle that concerns the spirit, and I grounded, taking breath and seeing my loved ones, friends and hugging my dog.”
Florence Pugh leads as Yelena Belova, a self -sighted super agent who suffers from disturbing episodes that recreate memories of the past that persecute her. The unusual childhood injury Belova led her to becoming a one who acts probably the most alone. Belova and Starr are a fortress behind Anti Hero Alliance of the Thunderbolts. They are the one women in a six -person organization who meets with controversial forces. “He, very, controls himself, his body and making decisions very much,” the John-Kamen explores. “She is Fort Knox and is a lonely wolf.”
The unusual moments of the comedy from the forged, which incorporates Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Pullman and many others, does so related and feel more human than OR. Without having shiny superpowers, which make up lightning, they’re forced to face their reality without pursuing fandoms and public support. In the film Arch Nemesis Thunderbolt is the vengeful figure of Louis-Dreyfus, Valentina Allegra de Fountaine-infiltrating director who tries to manipulate and remove the Marvel Hero team.
During the 2 -hour journey, which makes up the history of Thunderbolt’s origin, the audience experiences the way in which these qualified warriors are still fighting for the worst problems. Ava Starr remains under the radar for many of the film because he has more sequences than words. “Her guard is very elevated,” says John-Kamen. Ava Starr appears when Yelena Belova needs her most to save the world overtaken by darkness. The character of Lewis Pullman, Robert “Bob” Reynolds, is armed against Thunderbolts, and his arch symbolizes how our minds may be as powerful because the uncomfortable villain.
Schreier’s approach to this film within the Marvel series was to enlarge greater than outside, removes all glamorous aesthetics that makes the heroes so aspirative. Even in Thunderbolts marketing, a wheat box standing in the course of the box is caught to satirize the trail of superheroes created within the Marvel cinema. Each anti -hero character stands in front of its own internal battles created by the trauma and wounded within the script by Eric Pearson. “We really laughed between shots,” Hannah warns me, talking in regards to the heavier features of the film. “I really created this beautiful family in this cast.”
In general, it is a story that follows wounded individuals who learn to treat. Along the way in which, they establish a family bond and support system. In 2025, when people can feel more disconnected, the narrative of Thunderbolts hits the home harder, watching the characters construct sufficient confidence and mental Harta to stand in themselves and their newly discovered friends. “I think that at the end of this movie I want you to hug a loved one or make sure someone feels safe and informed him that they do not have to boldly smile,” John-Kamen says.
