Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations. | | | | The man that introduced me to Hip-Hop... "Big Bank Hank" of the the Sugar Hill Gang.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.”
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| | rantnrave:// I like to say I'm a child of HIP-HOP. Ever since I was 9 years old in 1980. That special day when my bus driver's son joined the trip to school up in the BRONX. His name was "BIG BANK HANK" and he was part of one of rap's early trios, THE SUGARHILL GANG. Now many "hip-hop headz" will debate how good or bad they were, but that was my first introduction to rap. And I loved it. And I still love it. Hip-Hop now is the center of the music business. It has influenced everything from music to racial relations to clothing to politics to youth culture to television and films and on and on. And it still does. Many of the images created during its rise are iconic. The music videos, yes, but also photography. My girlfriend works at a division of the ANNENBERG FOUNDATION, so last night she took me to THE ANNENBERG SPACE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY to see the first museum-scale visual history of Hip-Hop: CONTACT HIGH. "Curated by VIKKI TOBAK, based on the bestselling book of the same name, and with creative direction by FAB 5 FREDDY." My head was going to fall off. Literally a walk through the last 40 years. I saw rappers, film directors and others with their jaws dropped. Some you'll recognize (BIGGIE with crown) and some will be new to you. To think this was an art form created in my lifetime and is now dominant. If you're in LA (and I assume it will travel), it is an absolute must see. And to boot, they are selling 12-inch vinyl of classics and tons of great books on the subject. Literally, run, don't walk. I loved every image, inch, rhyme, scratch and beat... It's been called the game of kings—and more than a few presidents—and it's Scotland's greatest contribution to the world after the raincoat. From JACK NICKLAUS's historic '86 MASTERS win to TIGER's first hole-in-one and beyond, these oral histories will keep you in the fairway every time. We take a look at some epic moments in REDEF SportsSET: "Fore! Golf Oral Histories"... While the MILKEN GLOBAL CONFERENCE gets going next week in LA, I'm going to drop by my friend ADAM WINNICK's sold out institutional crypto conference (there is a waitlist though), MEDICI LA 19. I'm not a crypto guy. I know nothing. I'm not smart enough, drool starts rolling down the corner of my mouth. My head goes blank. I understand none of it. But all my smart (and dopey) friends are into it and I saw the program and psyched to see a great mix of entrepreneurs, policymakers, and investors from inside and outside crypto. His opening remarks from last year compared crypto and junk bonds. I'm just going to listen... I’ll be in ORLANDO on MONDAY APRIL 29TH with my pal ANNA MASON to kick off REVOLUTION's RISE OF THE REST's Road Trip 8.0 with STEVE CASE. Psyched to get on the bus, hear the startup pitches and Steve and I will be doing a fun “fireside chat" before the winner is announced. ROTR invests "catalytic capital in the most promising seed-stage companies located outside of SILICON VALLEY, NEW YORK CITY and BOSTON." And because I'm a manchild, I'm flying in a day early to go to UNIVERSAL and DISNEY WORLD. Just because... MusicREDEF's MATTY KARAS was at the opening on the 2019 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL to see ROGER ROSS WILLIAMS' documentary about the APOLLO THEATER. "Music is never just about music, and "THE APOLLO" is, at heart, a film about the connection between a theater and its community." Check out what else he has to say about it... Happy Birthday to RAFAT ALI, CHRIS SCIANNI, and STEFAN GERARD. Belated to ADAM SILVER, KEVIN MAYER, LINDA KRANTZ, LLOYD NATHAN, and JOE BELFIORE. | | | - Jason Hirschhorn, curator |
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 | Wired |
| On a brisk day in March 2016, Stephen Allwine walked into a Wendy's in Minneapolis. The smell of old fryer grease hung in the air as he searched for a man wearing dark jeans and a blue jacket. Allwine, who worked as an IT support technician, was lean and nerdy, with wire-rim glasses. | | |
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 | The Baffler |
| Lonely, confused, and horny brands are irritating enough, but Netflix accounts regularly tip over into ugly self-righteousness. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| ‘Kidfluencers’ are earning millions on social media, but who owns that money? | | |
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 | Vox |
| Putin won the political battle, but the war’s outcome is still uncertain. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| The National Hockey League insisted that Todd Ewen’s death wasn’t related to his hockey career. Science suggests otherwise. | | |
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 | Glamour |
| I couldn't stand the culture of silence around infertility-so I opened up about it on Instagram and live TV. | | |
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 | The Verge |
| The original records of Nazi atrocities from the Nuremberg Trials are at risk of being lost, but we have the technology to save them. | | |
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 | POLITICO |
| The GDPR is the world's toughest standard for data privacy. But nearly a year later, its chief enforcer has yet to take a single action against major tech firms like Facebook and Google. | | |
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 | BuzzMachine |
| In journalism, we think our job is to "get the story." We teach the skill of "knowing what a story is." We call ourselves "storytellers." We believe that through stories - or as we also like to say when feeling uppish, "narrative"- we attract and hold attention, impart facts in engaging fashion, and explain the world. | | |
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 | USA TODAY |
| Black Facebook users complain they can't talk about racism without being censored for hate speech. Civil rights groups want Facebook to fix it. | | |
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| Vox |
| Disco, DJs, and the impact of the 12-inch single. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| For a century, the humble paper towel has dominated public toilets. But a new generation of hand dryers has sparked a war for loo supremacy. | | |
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 | Aeon Magazine |
| During the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, Great Britain, France, Portugal and Spain controlled vast territories across the globe through a combination of seapower, economic control and brute force. | | |
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 | Bloomberg Opinion |
| Population trends have shifted ever so slightly in the direction of metropolitan areas with fewer than a million people. | | |
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 | HowStuffWorks |
| The big blacked-out sections of the Mueller report are calling attention to redaction. The process of redaction can be sophisticated or simple. And sometimes, not completely fool-proof. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| As long as social media exists, some amount of horror is bound to slip through the cracks. | | |
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 | Nieman Journalism Lab |
| The paid podcast app may well be doing nothing wrong in its hosting of podcasts from the open web - but nonetheless, what they've been best at thus far is generating pushback. | | |
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 | The Cut |
| Cult expert Janja Lalich explains the draw of Keith Raniere, the leader of the sex cult known as NXIVM. | | |
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 | PSFK |
| Using a hybrid strategy of human-driven and AI curation, Suggesty offers global customers access to lesser-known international designers while enabling lower-than-market prices and premium quality. | | |
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 | Time Magazine |
| How do we deal with accusations of discomfort? | | |
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 | MEL Magazine |
| Why are online white nationalists obsessed with modern architecture? It's all a cover to push a racist and anti-Semitic agenda As the once-magnificent spire of Notre-Dame de Paris burned last week, some on Twitter lamented that the moment marked the end of Western civilization. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Why isn’t anybody listening? | | |
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