I'm not trying to play with 'the American Dream.' I'm a Brazilian girl, doing what I like.
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Thursday April 14, 2022
REDEF
Anitta at FTX Arena, Miami, Oct. 1, 2021.
(John Parra/Getty Images)
quote of the day
I'm not trying to play with 'the American Dream.' I'm a Brazilian girl, doing what I like.
- Anitta, whose fifth album, "Versions of Me," came out Tuesday on Warner
rantnrave://
Uptown

This is the most promising new festival announcement to come over the transom in a long time: QUESTLOVE's SUMMER OF SOUL has inspired the creation of the HARLEM FESTIVAL OF CULTURE, which will be held for the first time next year in the same park that hosted the 1969 HARLEM CULTURAL FESTIVAL at the center of the Oscar-winning documentary. Magazine editor MUSA JACKSON, who was at the 1969 fest and is featured in the movie, is organizing the revival/renewal with event producer YVONNE MCNAIR and Harlem community developer NIKOA EVANS. Like all great historical documentaries, "Summer of Soul" says as much about the time in which it was made—today, that is—as it does about the era whose history it's telling. Returning to the same soil to create a new musical story may be an even better sequel than the one Questlove has occasionally hinted at by noting how many hours of 1969 footage are still lying around unseen. The organizers are promising a multi-day music fest along with music, film and community events throughout the year. It should be noted that the other major New York fest of the summer of '69, the one that got all the media attention for the next half century, spawned a series of underwhelming, even disastrous, sequels. It turned out that "hey let's see if we can do this again" wasn't much of an organizing principle. "Summer of Soul" is a movie about community, politics, race, cultural memory and the power of music to tell a community's story and to carry it across time. Keep documenting, acknowledging and nurturing all of that, and the Harlem Festival of Culture has the potential to be something special.

Firestarter

The UK government has enacted a "temporary exceptional measure" eliminating one of the bigger headaches for British artists trying to tour Europe this summer, which, it can't be emphasized enough, the UK government created in the first place by negotiating a hasty, chaotic breakup with the Continent. This is good news in the same way it's good when the firefighters who set your house on fire come back to put it out. At least they came back. The government in this case is suspending "cabotage" rules that require UK truckers to return home after making three stops in Europe (and vice versa for European truckers)—inconvenient when a band is touring more than three cities, obviously—and that generally make it hard for trucks based on either side of the newly hardened border to operate on the other side. Live music and trucking execs expressed relief while noting numerous other headaches remain, including, for example, that the suspended rules apply only to truckers based in the UK, not to those based in Europe. "Everyone relies on trucks," British agent CRAIG STANLEY told Billboard. Truck regulations aren't the only obstacles for bands who want to play Paris or Madrid or Vienna, of course. Might more temporary exceptional measures make their way onto the legislative docket? Or, better, permanent ones?

Rest in Peace

Comedian, actor and insurance duck GILBERT GOTTFRIED, seen here in 3rd Bass' "The Gas Face," "Wordz of Wizdom" and "Portrait of the Artist as a Hood" videos.

- Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator
boys don't cry
Rest of World
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SoundOn represents ByteDance’s latest foray into the music industry.
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Billboard
With European Tours in the Balance, UK Suspends Post-Brexit Rules for Music Truckers
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While only a temporary solution, the move will help larger U.K. operators that had to split their fleets and set up sister bases on EU soil.
Los Angeles Times
Alongside Harry and Billie, top Mexican regional acts share spotlight at Coachella 2022
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The New York Times
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Complex
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Billboard
CMT and the Modern Awards Show: Multiplatform, Multiday and Hard to Quantify
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The transition to multiplatform arguably took flight in the early 2010s, when viewers began watching live while keeping up with snarky commentary on Twitter.
Austin Chronicle
Meet Me at Waterloo Records: Playing, Shopping, and Encountering Life-Changing Moments at the Heart of Austin Music
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faking love
KQED
'I Ain't Leaving Without My 40 Acres': How Musicians Have Called for Reparations
By Chloe Veltman
As California's Reparations Task Force continues to push for reparations legislation, musicians in the Bay Area and across the country are using their art to further the cause.
The New York Times
Ambient Music Isn’t a Backdrop. It’s an Invitation to Suspend Time.
By Isabelia Herrera
In the face of crisis, our critic turned to music that demanded that she relinquish control.
VICE
Yuleum Is Korean Hip-Hop’s Next Big Thing. He’s 12 Years Old
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Music vs podcasts in Spotify: the functionality gap
By G.C. Stein
It should not be a surprise that Spotify tends to favor podcasts over music on its app interface, but we can highlight how drastic the disparity is.
Variety
Billie Eilish’s Longtime Agent Tom Windish on Booking Coachella, Touring Post-COVID and Working at Wasserman
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CBC
How Canada helped shape pop-punk
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While the genre started in California, Canadian acts were essential to its foundation in the '90s and '00s.
The Sydney Morning Herald
Peter Garrett’s only regret in politics: I wish I’d got in earlier and stayed longer
By Peter FitzSimons
"We were not so much focused on the nightclubs," the Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor minister says. "We were focused on the core of the country and what was going on.:
Complex
Uncle Waffles, Amapiano Princess, On Her Rise To DJ Superstardom
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We caught up with Uncle Waffles to discuss internet trolls, that “surreal” Drake follow on Instagram, the future of Amapiano, and much more.
The Independent
‘Screaming girls are kind of terrifying’: An oral history of Hanson’s ‘MMMBop’
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what we're into
Music of the day
“Girl From Rio”
Anitta
"Let me tell you about a different Rio." From "Versions of Me."
Video of the day
“Live at Rock in Rio 2019”
Anitta
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