Halsey attends An Evening With Halsey at the GRAMMY Museum

Halsey attends An Evening With Halsey at the GRAMMY Museum

Photo: Rebecca Sapp/WireImage for The Recording Academy

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Halsey Launches Fund To Help Amplify And Provide Platform For Black Creators

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The newly announced Black Creators Funding Initiative welcomes Black creatives of all practices
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Jun 12, 2020 - 11:16 am

Halsey has launched the Black Creators Funding Initiative (BCFI), a special initiative that aims "to give funds, resources, and a platform to black creators," the singer wrote in an Instagram post announcing the campaign. 

The ongoing initiative, launched Thursday (June 11), will help Black creators of all practices and creative areas by amplifying their art and providing a platform for their voices and perspectives to be heard. Halsey and her team will fund the initiative entirely. 

"If you're an artist, poet, graphic designer, writer, film maker (sic), music producer, journalist, make up (sic) artist, or creator of any kind, we want to see your work and want to help achieve your goals," the artwork accompanying the BCFI announcement reads. In her Instagram post unveiling the fund, Halsey encouraged her followers to tag their favorite Black creators and use the #BLACKCREATORSFUND hashtag, writing, "Looking for black creators who want to enrich the world with their work."

According to her post, Halsey will promote the artists on her socials "to help launch their platforms" and will "provide resources, information, and points of contact, for as many people as we can."

BCFI will announce the first gifting recipients June 18. 

The biracial pop superstar—her mother is Italian and Hungarian and her father is Black with Irish ancestry—recently joined several protests against police brutality and racial injustice in the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. 

Earlier this month (June 1), Halsey posted photos and videos from protests in Los Angeles where the GRAMMY-nominated singer was seen helping protestors who were hurt while attending the demonstrations. 

"It's easy from the comfort of your home to watch looting and rioting on television and condone the violent measures being taken by forces," she wrote on Instagram. "But what you don't see is innocent peaceful protestors being shot at and tear gassed and physically assaulted relentlessly. You think it's not happening, it's only the 'thugs' and the 'riots', right? The police are keeping you safe right? You're wrong. This is happening everywhere. And innocent people exercising their rights to speech and assembly are facing violence and abuse of power."

Read: Houston Rappers Talk George Floyd's Musical & Community Legacy

On May 27, two days after Floyd's death, Halsey shared an impassioned Instagram post about the slain man in which she encouraged her followers to speak about his killing and the officers involved.

"If you have friends and family who are privileged enough to 'stay away from this kind of news,'" she wrote, "then take that f**king privilege away. Uplift the voices of black members of your community voicing their fear or outrage or grief." 

Want To Support Protesters And Black Lives Matter Groups? Here's How

Common performs at the "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince" in 2020

Common performs at the "Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince" in 2020

Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

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YouTube Announces $100 Million Fund Supporting Black Creators, Confirms Online Fundraiser Hosted By Common And Keke Palmer

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On June 13, the video-sharing platform will premiere a livestream fundraising event, which will include performances from John Legend and Trey Songz as well as discussions with creators, artists, public figures and activists
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Jun 12, 2020 - 3:31 pm

YouTube has announced a $100 million multiyear fund aimed at supporting Black creators and artists on the platform.

In a post shared on the company's official blog, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki outlined the video-sharing platform's larger initiative to support creators and users from the Black community. The announcement is part of the company's midyear update, which also discusses YouTube's COVID-19 and educational initiatives, among other things. 

This Saturday (June 13), starting at 6 p.m. EST, YouTube will premiere the "Bear Witness, Take Action" livestream fundraising event, which Wojcicki describes as "one example of the type of content we'd like to elevate on the platform" via the newly announced initiative.

Produced by YouTube Originals, the online event will "bring together creators, artists, influential public figures and prominent activist voices for roundtable discussions and musical performances," according to the blog post. 

Hosted by three-time GRAMMY winner Common and actress/singer-songwriter Keke Palmer, the digital fundraiser will also include performances from John Legend and Trey Songz, according to Variety. The event will benefit Equal Justice Initiative, which works toward "ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society," according to the organization's website. 

Panelists and guests for "Bear Witness, Take Action" include Ambers Closet, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patrisse Cullors, Tremayne Anchrum, Carmelo Anthony, AyChristeneGames, Danielle Bainbridge, Essang Bassey, Shalom Blac, Asante Blackk, Sterling K. Brown, Wilmer Valderrama and several others. 

"At YouTube, we believe Black lives matter and we all need to do more to dismantle systemic racism," Wojcicki wrote in the blog post. "We join in protest against the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others before them."

"Our platform has been a place where people come together since YouTube first launched 15 years ago," she continued. "And in the midst of uncertainty, creators continue to share stories that might not otherwise be heard while also building online communities."

Read: Halsey Launches Fund To Help Amplify And Provide Platform For Black Creators

For the month of June, the company will also highlight racial justice issues, "including the latest perspectives from the Black community on YouTube alongside historical content, educational videos, and protest coverage," per the blog post, across its Spotlight channel.

"Building on our work over the past several years, we're taking this moment to examine how our policies and products are working for everyone — but specifically for the Black community — and close any gaps," Wojcicki writes. "And more broadly, we will work to ensure Black users, artists, and creators can share their stories and be protected from hateful, white supremacist, and bullying content … There is much work to do to advance racial equity in the long-term, and these efforts will continue in the months and years ahead."

YouTube's initiatives come as several nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice, specifically against Black people and people of color, have continued for more than two weeks in response to the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black U.S. citizens by police.

Head to the YouTube blog to read the company's midyear update in full.

Want To Support Protesters And Black Lives Matter Groups? Here's How

The Charlie Parker Quintet (L-R): Tommy Potter, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Duke Jordan

The Charlie Parker Quintet (L-R): Tommy Potter, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Duke Jordan

 

Photo: William Gottlieb/Redferns/Getty Images

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How The Police Used The Cabaret Card Law To Discriminate Against Black Jazz Artists And Musicians

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Introduced in New York City in 1940, the cabaret card changed the course of jazz history and directly impacted some of the genre's giants like Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and many others
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Jun 11, 2020 - 6:00 am

In the midst of the nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice, specifically against Black people and people of color, the music and entertainment worlds are taking stock of the inherent, decades-long racism baked into their cores. To understand just how we got to where we are today, it's important to trace some of the racist laws and practices that have contributed to create an industry afflicted with racial inequality. 

One such law, in place from 1940 to 1967, impacted the jazz world in New York City, then predominantly composed of Black musicians and artists, for decades, changing the course of jazz history and directly affecting some of the genre's giants like Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and many others. 

Introduced in New York City in 1940, the cabaret card was a form of identification required for all musicians and entertainers to work in a nightclub or similar establishments where alcohol was served, the primary venues jazz musicians relied upon to make a living. The cabaret card was an extension of the New York City Cabaret Law, a law instituted in 1926, during the Prohibition era in the U.S., that banned dancing across the majority of the city's bars and clubs. (The law, itself criticized for targeting largely Black jazz clubs and denounced by opponents as having racist origins, was ultimately repealed in 2017.)

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) administered the cabaret cards, requiring people to go to a police station to get photographed, finger-printed and interviewed in order to receive their permits. They also held the power to revoke the cards, an authority the police would regularly enact on jazz musicians at their whim over things like narcotics charges.

"For musicians, the fates of their careers now lay in the hands of the police," GRAMMY-winning jazz bassist Christian McBride explains in a video short (watch above) from NPR Music's "Jazz Night In America" series, which he hosts.

Read: Black U.K. Music Executives Call For Bias Training, End Of "Urban Music" Term

The introduction of the cabaret card was part of an attempt to "sanitize" New York City's nightlife, Nate Chinen, the award-winning jazz music writer and critic and director of editorial content at New York City jazz public radio station WBGO, writes. In his 2012 feature for JazzTimes on the history and impact of the cabaret card on jazz, Chinen spoke about the cultural and musical implications of the law. 

"As an embodiment of the institutional distrust stirred up by jazz musicians, especially African-Americans, it's a key to our understanding of the odds those musicians faced in civil society," he said of the cabaret card. "The administration of the card, governed by a mysterious and often intransigent bureaucracy, more or less imposed the conditions of a police state in which music-making was cast as a privilege rather than a right. And because it kept some of jazz's most important creative figures from active circulation in the music's chief metropolitan hub, the cabaret card should be understood as an agent of historical disruption, its effects reaching not only lives and careers but also, by extension, the development of the art."

Many Black jazz musicians of the time lost their cabaret cards during the law's nearly 30-year run. In 1947, Billie Holiday had her cabaret card revoked following a drug arrest. Even after serving a year in jail, police refused to reinstate her card, which prevented her from performing in nightclubs for more than a decade. After having his cabaret card revoked three times between 1948 and 1958, Thelonious Monk, facing "chronic unemployability and financial hardship," Chinen writes, was forced to perform out of town in cities without cabaret laws or unbilled within the outskirts of NYC boroughs or even under an alias, Ernie Washington.

While the cabaret card law, which was ultimately abolished in 1967, did create scenarios for ousted jazz musicians to meet and collaborate, its strict restrictions may have impeded the growth of both the genre and its greatest artists. 

"What opportunities were stymied by the cabaret card?" Chinen wonders. "How much sooner might Monk have found recognition, and what would the effect have been on his psyche? What if Miles Davis hadn't lost his card in 1959, after being clubbed outside of Birdland: Might he have found more work for his sextet, fresh off the release of Kind Of Blue? Think of the reputations that moldered, the engagements that never came to pass."

Want To Support Protesters And Black Lives Matter Groups? Here's How 

A demonstrator holds a sign with the image of Breonna Taylor

A demonstrator holds a sign with the image of Breonna Taylor

Photo: Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images

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#SayHerName: Alicia Keys, Lizzo, Janet Jackson, Janelle Monáe And More Honor Breonna Taylor On Her Birthday, Demand Justice

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The music and entertainment worlds are speaking out on behalf of Taylor, a Black medical worker who was killed by white police officers in March
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Jun 5, 2020 - 3:00 pm

Several artists and entertainers are honoring Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker who was killed by white police officers in Louisville, Ky., in March, by speaking out on social media and demanding justice for her killing.

On Friday (June 5), which would have been the slain victim's 27th birthday, Alicia Keys, Lizzo, Janet Jackson, Janelle Monáe, Gary Clark, Jr., Yola and several others took to social media to show their support for Taylor, with many sharing resources and links to petitions calling for the arrests of and charges against the police officers involved in her killing; the police officers in question, who have not been arrested or fired or charged with a crime, are currently placed on administrative leave, The New York Times reports.

In a video post shared on Instagram, Alicia Keys sang "Happy Birthday," inserting Taylor's first name into the song. In the caption accompanying the post, the singer indicated she would be making "more calls today in honor" of Taylor and encouraged her fans to do the same. She also shared links to resources in support of Taylor's case as well as groups like Black Lives Matter. 

"She should be alive to celebrate! But instead no charges have been issued and no arrests have been made with the officers involved," Keys wrote in the post's caption.

Read: Alicia Keys Pens Touching Poem To Her Son  

Lizzo shared a custom image on her Instagram page that asked for people to call several Kentucky officials, including Gov. Andy Beshear and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, and demand for the firing of the police officers involved in Taylor's killing; the post also called for the police officers to be charged with manslaughter and negligence. 

"She should be here," Lizzo said of Taylor in the post's caption. "Instead she was murdered by police in what they're calling a 'clerical error'. They barged into her home without knocking and shot her in her sleep. She worked for us during the covid pandemic, she was an innocent civilian. SAY HER NAME. DEMAND JUSTICE ON HER BIRTHDAY. NO ARRESTS HAVE BEEN MADE."

This week, Lizzo, Lady Gaga and Selena Gomez all opened their social media platforms to Black groups in an initiative aimed at amplifying Black voices and pushing conversations about race relations and progress to the fore.

Who Is Breonna Taylor?

Breonna Taylor was killed March 13 when Louisville police executed a no-knock warrant to crash into her apartment by use of a battering ram, according to The New York Times. The police, who were investigating two suspects believed to be "selling drugs out of a house that was far from Ms. Taylor's home," the newspaper writes, fired several shots into Taylor's apartment; she was struck at least eight times. 

The police officers involved in the incident say they fired inside the home after being fired upon first by Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was subsequently charged with attempted murder of a police officer, The New York Times reports; Walker's charges were dropped last month.

While Taylor's killing occurred months ago, tensions surrounding her death, sparked by the lack of arrests of the officers involved, have been rising across Louisville and Kentucky over the past few weeks.

Last month (May 28), seven people were shot while attending a Louisville protest calling for police accountability in Taylor's killing, The New York Times reports. Two days later (May 30), the city's mayor, Greg Fischer, implemented a dusk-to-dawn curfew and called in the National Guard for future protests surrounding Taylor's killing, according to The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. This week (June 1) in Louisville, the police and the National Guard killed local restaurant owner David McAtee when they confronted curfew violators, according to The New York Times.

Last month (May 21), the FBI opened an investigation into Taylor's killing, while the slain victim's mother, Tamika Palmer, filed a lawsuit against the three officers involved in the incident, accusing them of wrongfully causing her daughter's death, The New York Times reports. 

Nationwide Protests And Online Dialogues

Taylor's killing is part of a larger wave of recent killings of several Black U.S. citizens, including George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others, which have collectively sparked nationwide protests over the past two weeks. 

These recent incidents have also resurfaced tensions and conversations surrounding racial inequality in dealing with police: Majorities of Black and white adults say Black people are treated less fairly than white people in dealing with police and by the criminal justice system as a whole, according to a 2019 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

The ongoing social unrest also comes in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which is killing black and Latino Americans at disproportionately high rates, according to Vox.

Read: The Music Industry Calls For "Black Out Tuesday" In Response To The Death Of George Floyd

Many people online, however, have pointed out that Taylor's killing has not gained the same national attention when compared to the likes of Floyd and Arbery, which has lead social media users to employ the #SayHerName hashtag to spread awareness of her story over the last week. 

On Thursday (June 4), in a tweet mentioning Taylor's killing, Sen. Kamala Harris wrote, "The officers who murdered Breonna Taylor nearly three months ago still have not been charged. We can't forget about Black women in our quest for justice."

In a recent post on The New York Times' In Her Words newsletter and column, gender reporter Alisha Haridasani Gupta wrote, "The exclusion of Breonna Taylor's name is the latest iteration of a longstanding issue: Black women's experiences of police brutality and their tireless contributions to mass social justice movements have almost always been left out of the picture, receiving far less media or political attention."

Below, see some of the artists, entertainers and celebrities who are honoring Breonna Taylor on her birthday today.

Houston Rappers Talk George Floyd's Musical & Community Legacy

Megan Thee Stallion performs on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in 2019

Megan Thee Stallion performs on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in 2019

Photo: Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images

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Megan Thee Stallion Says The Nationwide Black Lives Matter Protests Are "Part Two Of The Civil Rights Movement"

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In a new cover interview with NME, the breakout rapper also discusses the pressures of being a strong Black woman and the unexpected success of her 2020 single, "Savage"
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Jul 3, 2020 - 1:07 pm

Breakout rapper Megan Thee Stallion has called the nationwide protests in the U.S. and the growing Black Lives Matter movement around the world "part two of the civil rights movement." 

In a new interview for a digital cover feature with British music website NME, Megan discussed her role as a celebrity when speaking out against the injustices of the world and how she's learned to use her platform to effect change, as seen on her social media channels. Over the past few weeks, Megan has remained vocal about the heated sociopolitical state of the U.S. She's recently taken to social media to demand justice for George Floyd and has called for the arrest of the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor.

"Sometimes being a public figure," she told NME, "you don't wanna say the wrong thing because you don't want to be insensitive to people or get too opinionated. But I will always say what I feel. I don't speak on things that I don't know about, and I won't speak on things I don't believe in."  

In the interview, she goes on to discuss the pressures of being a strong Black woman and the stereotypes surrounding it.

"Let me tell you, Black women are strong," Megan, who cites her late mother, grandmother and all the other "really good examples of women in my life" as role models, told NME. "We can be going through whatever and still put on a good face. I know there were times that my mother might have been going through things but I never knew, because she wanted me to feel safe and okay."  

Read: Megan Thee Stallion Is The Latest Rap Star On The Rise

Megan also tells NME about the unexpected breakout success of her 2020 single, "Savage," which went viral on TikTok and later secured a remix featuring Beyoncé; the remix, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the U.S., helped raise funds for COVID-19 relief efforts in the singers' hometown of Houston. 

Megan also talked about her recent performance at the virtual 2020 BET Awards, her newfound life as a role model to her fans, and her current and upcoming projects, which include a gig as a judge on HBO's new voguing reality competition TV series, "Legendary." 

From Aretha Franklin To Public Enemy, Here's How Artists Have Amplified Social Justice Movements Through Music