A Midwestern museum known for mid-century design may have found the next big art world star.

Tunde Olaniran is a musician, filmmaker and artist who grew up in Flint, Michigan. Their first show,Made A Universe, just opened at the Cranbrook Art Museum near Detroit.

Made a Universe is partly a short movie, and partly an exhibition of what looks like pieces of its set: artifacts of furniture, old cars and unpaid bills that combine science fiction and social realism. It exuberantly –and pointedly — combines tropes from horror movies and TikTok videos to comment on serious issues such as environmental injustice and the carceral state.

Olaniran, who’s 35, is a planet of a person – the type other people orbit around. “This is the first film I’ve written and directed, really,” Olaniran says, who also plays the main character. “Tunde is a version of me, who is an artist, who lives in a Flint-esque place who like me is very obsessed with comic books.”

Olaniran comes from a working-class family with a grandfather who built cars on Flint’s assembly lines, a dad who immigrated from Nigeria and a mom who worked for labor unions and influenced the main storyline in Made A Universe, about a teenage boy named Leon.

“Leon is based on a person who lived in my neighborhood and robbed us continually,” Olaniran explains. “And I think the way my mom raised me was really to think, what is the structure that they’re living in and would lead them to make these kinds of choices?

In the movie Made A Universe, Leon is abducted. He vanishes through a mysterious portal. But in real life, Olaniran says, Leon was killed.

“Senseless does not even begin to describe it,” they say, adding that the movie fulfilled a deep, fantastical longing for a different kind of ending for the young man. “What if the person I knew did not have to die the way they did?”

Tunde the character searches for Leon in the movie that might remind viewers at various points of Get Out and A Wrinkle in Time. Leon’s been imprisoned by an affectless bureaucrat, standing in for a state that’s allowed Flint’s water to be poisoned for nearly a decade. Something subversive, outrageous and defiantly local about the film also evokes early John Waters, who made all of his movies in Baltimore: Olanian’s cast and crew are all based in Flint and Detroit.

Olaniran never formally trained as a filmmaker. They studied anthropology at the University of Michigan-Flint, played music in bars and worked for Planned Parenthood as a sex educator.

“I would teach adults with developmental disabilities,” they say. “So, how do you teach about consent? How do you teach someone basic anatomy who maybe grew up in a group home?”

This work, Olaniran says, ended up as incredibly helpful training for a career as an artist. “What do you do with someone’s attention if you get it at all? What are you doing in their minds?”

Something unique and brilliant, says Laura Mott, chief curator at the Cranbook Art Museum. “I really want Tunde to be a household name,” she says. “I really believe they’re one of the most talented people I’ve ever met in my life.”

Mott helped the artist raise about $250,000 to make the movie and introduced Olaniran to celebrity cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The two collaborated on a recording, and Ma is on the credits for the film.

Yo-Yo Ma and Tunde Olaniran blend classical music, hip-hop and R&B on “Doorway.” YouTube

In one scene of Made A Universe, Tunde unexpectedly lands in a drab billing processing office with several Flint women whose poisoned water has been shut off because they could not pay for it. One of them begs the stone-faced woman working behind the desk for help. For a minute, it seems that she might soften. But in this science fiction scenario, she’s suddenly taken over by the malign voice of a broken system, pitiless and predatory. It’s terrifying.

But then something beautiful happens. Tunde and the other women begin to sing. They sing open a portal in the universe.

“Our energy is transforming it and pushing against the edges of it,” Olaniran says.

Tunde and the woman from the billing processing office rescue Leon. They even rescue the woman trapped behind the desk. Made A Universe convincingly tells a story about the power of art. But Olaniran, the product of a city once known for working class collectivity, says that’s only part of the message.

“If we connect,” they say, “What power does that generate instead of separately trying to escape?”

Tunde Olaniran’s Made a Universe will be on display through September at the Cranbrook Art Museum. Curator Laura Mott says other museums have expressed interest in bringing the show across the country.

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/30/1113829988/artist-tunde-olanirans-made-a-universe-opens-a-portal-at-a-detroit-museum

Fani Taifa Willis^[1] (FAH-nee,^[1] born October 27, 1971) is an American attorney from the state of Georgia. She is the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, which contains most of Atlanta.^[2] She is the first woman to hold the office of Fulton County district attorney.^[3]

Biography

Willis graduated from Howard University and Emory University School of Law.^[3] She spent 16 years as a prosecutor in the Fulton County district attorney‘s office. Her most prominent case was her prosecution of the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal. In 2018, she went into private practice.^[4] That year, she ran for a seat on the Fulton County Superior Court, and lost.^[5] In 2020, Willis was elected district attorney for Fulton County, defeating Paul Howard, a six-term incumbent and her former boss.^[6][7]

2020 election influence investigation

On February 10, 2021, Willis launched a criminal investigation into a telephone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other attempts by Donald Trump to influence Georgia election officials, including the governor and the attorney general, to “find” enough votes to override Joe Biden‘s win in that state and thus undo Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election .^[8][9][10] In January 2022, she requested a special grand jury to consider charges of election interference by Trump and his allies.^[11][12] A 26-member special grand jury was given investigative authority and subpoena power and tasked with submitting a report to the judge and Willis on whether a crime was committed.^[13]

On July 5, 2022, the judge approved a subpoena for members of Trump’s legal team—Rudy Giuliani, Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell—along with Senator Lindsey Graham and former Capitol Hill counsel Jacki Pick Deason.^[14] On August 4, the grand jury subpoenaed Governor Brian Kemp.^[15] Giuliani was told on August 15, two days before he testified before the special grand jury, that he was a target of the investigation.^{[16][17][18][19]} A federal judge upheld the subpoena for Graham, stating he must testify^[20] on August 23,^[21] but an appeals court granted him a delay.^[22] Ellis is believed to have testified on August 25.^[23] Eastman testified on August 31.^[24] In early September, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas ruled that Deason (who lives in Texas) need not testify. Because the Fulton County special grand jury cannot indict, neither can it compel testimony, the appeals court argued.^[25]

Willis has sent target letters to people she is investigating related to the fake electors plot. These include three Republican officials — State Senator Burt Jones, State Senator Brandon Beach, and David Shafer, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party^[26] — and the 16 people who falsely presented themselves as electors.^[27] However, she was told by a judge she could not target Jones due to a conflict of interest.^[28]

In August 2022, Sidney Powell was asked to appear due to her involvement in arranging for the collection of data from the voting machines and systems at the county’s elections office in rural Coffee County in January 2021.^[29]

Atlanta gang indictments

In May 2022, Willis’ office indicted Young Thug for 56 counts of gang-related crimes under Georgia’s RICO statute and felony charges for possession of illicit firearms and drugs that were allegedly discovered after a search warrant was executed. The rapper has been held in Cobb County jail since his arrest.^[30]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fani_Willis

When Boyah J. Farah arrived in the United States as a teenager, he expected the country to be paradise. And for a while it was – when he rode his bike down the quiet streets of his Boston-suburb, past smiling neighbors with their perfectly manicured lawns. “I really thought that God favored America,” he said.

But try as he might to hold on to that image, the reality of American racism eventually began to surface cracks in Farah’s fantasy. Slowly but surely, he began to understand that as a Black American, his life wouldn’t play out like the Hollywood movies he had grown up with. He would be forced into a different sort of role.

In his new memoir, America Made Me a Black Man, Farah tells the story of what American blackness has meant to him, from his childhood in Somalia to his adolescence and early adulthood in the Northeast, to the moment as an adult that he decided to return to Somalia after decades spent away.

The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

---

You grew up in Somalia, in the Nugaal Valley. And you’ve described that time as the happiest of your life. So tell me a little bit about your childhood.

That particular time in the valley, it was just, like, freedom. You know, I’m a nomad. Culturally, nomads put freedom above everything else. Life is not a life unless you have freedom. And I feel like my childhood in the valley with ayeyo, my grandmother, it was basically, you know, running in the rain. Drinking goat milk straight from the goats. It was just full of freedom and full of joy. After that, my life has been nothing but turmoil and despair. I’ve been on the run ever since. At least, that’s what I feel like.

Talk about what happened. What brought you from Somalia to the U.S. in 1989?

My father – God bless the dead – died. And then after that, war came like a drifting wind. It gathered like a twister. It basically turned my childhood into dust. My mother and younger siblings and I were living in Mogadishu at the time. And civil war is the worst thing that can happen to mankind, because it’s cousins fighting cousins. Basically, Somali families that ate together, that lived together for centuries, were now fighting each other. We’d see tragedy after tragedy – competing tragedies. And so we had to walk out of that place into anywhere safe. So we went to Kenya, to a refugee camp in Mombasa, and then we came to America.

When you were growing up, what did you know about the U.S.? What was your perception of it?

To go to America was to reach for the stars, and to be an American was like running naked in the rain. You know what I mean? It was just beautiful. In the refugee camp, I remember one time I had malaria and it was gruesome. People were dying. In my family, two people died, seven days apart. And I was next because I had malaria. And I remember begging God, ‘please, God, just don’t let me die until I get to America.’ You know, if you’re going to kill me, kill me in America. That’s how much I adored America.

Where were your images of America coming from?

Movies. Movies, TV, everything. America projects itself all over the world as heaven. So all the refugee kids, they want to reach that heaven. And I was one of them. I couldn’t wait.

In your book, you talked about the fact that there was the image of America in movies, but then there was the image of Black America, and those things were often pretty different. What was your perception of Black Americans before you came?

Well, Black Americans were projected in a way that’s unfavorable. And therefore when you come to America, you want to avoid anyone Black. Because that’s what you “knew” about them: thugs, lazy people, drug dealers. Those were the images that were spread to us. So coming here, I remember taking a bus from Bedford to Alewife and seeing a couple of Black people in the back. And I was like, I don’t want to be near them – even though I had nothing to fear, I had nothing anyway, as some poor kid from Africa. But at the same time, my head was filled with a lot of pictures that were lies.

Is there a particular moment where you felt like the fantasy you had of the U.S. was fractured for the first time?

Yes. In high school I met Miss Parker [who worked at the school library]. And she’s telling me that in America, I’m an African American. “You’re no longer African. You better get used to it.” And if you haven’t seen that, now you’re going to see it. You know, it was like my first warning.

And I remember she gave me African American literature, including Malcolm X’s book. And so I used to bike every single day to the library, and read, and try to know America from the books.

And [around that time] I remember biking to a sub place to get pizza. My favorite thing to eat was pizza. And I remember the guy [who worked there] just saying, straight up, “[If you try anything,] I’m gonna call the police on you.” I still bought the pizza. But at the same time, even though I was still naive and trying to give America a chance, at that particular moment, I knew that he could easily call the police. And so I remember and I didn’t even eat the pizza inside the shop. I ate it outside next to my bike. So there were a lot of those little things that were telling me, something else is coming on the way.

It seems like throughout the book you are regularly encountering people – Black people, like Miss Parker – who are trying to help you understand different things about what it will mean to be Black in the U.S. And at different stages of your life you had very different perceptions of that. So today, how would you define blackness?

Black people were my first teachers about America – authentic teachers about America. And how do I define it? The same way I define myself. I’m an American now. You know, I know exactly what awaits an African child, an African American child, a Black child in America. I know exactly what awaits them. Because I’ve seen it. And so I feel the pain. I feel the struggle. I’m part of the struggle.

You write about certain things that were surprising to you as someone who was experiencing them for the first time – encounters with the police, discrimnation at work, subpar medical care. It seemed like there were moments when something was more painful for you than for certain Black friends because of the shock of it. Other people had accepted that certain things were going to happen to them as a result of being Black that you weren’t used to. Do you still feel like there are things that you’re not willing to accept?

Oh, yeah. I am my father’s son. I carry his culture and his nomadic lifestyle. I’m an American nomad. You know what that means is freedom is number one – for me to be free until death is very important to me. So certain things I resist and resist and resist. But America does not allow that. It’s hard to resist and still remain an American with a job.

In this culture, there’s a hierarchy and it’s systematic. It’s not about individuals. It’s a system-driven culture of oppression. This big machine of racism is systematic. So I still try to respect and honor my departed father’s culture of being free, but it’s very hard. You have to capitulate so you don’t get shot by a cop. When a cop stops me, I can’t ask him questions or challenge him. He can easily take my life. So I still have to capitulate. But inside of me, I want to honor that freedom. And I want all of us to honor our freedom as human beings, equal to everyone else.

You’ve talked a lot about the struggles. What’s your favorite thing about being Black?

Culture. I think in the book I call it the people with rhythm, style, beauty. I mean, what would America be without Black culture? I used to think Muhammad Ali was Somali. I never thought he was American. He was that popular. And also, I thought Michael Jackson was Somali, you know? Stevie Wonder! I mean, the soft power of American projection throughout the world is Black culture. And once again, my wish is for the United States to recognize that and reciprocate that love. Black people love this country. We want America to reciprocate that love.

You said earlier that you’re an American nomad. Is there any part of the U.S. that feels like home to you?

The American highways. Driving on the American highways, it almost feels like that childhood freedom in the Valley. You know, with a song that you like. Roll the windows down. If you’ve got a sunroof, open that. And drive. I’ve always found therapy doing that. I love driving across the country in America and seeing different scenes. America is beautiful, and I really want America to be as beautiful as the American highways in the way it treats its African children. When I say African children, I mean American born, African children – Black people. I want them to feel that freedom of a highway.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/16/1123112941/q-a-author-boyah-j-farah-reflects-on-being-black-in-america

Susie King Taylor, teacher and nurse, achieved many firsts in a lifetime of overcoming adversity and helping elevate others out of slavery. As the author of Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers, she was the only African American woman to publish a memoir of her wartime experiences. 

Susie Baker was born into slavery near Savannah, Georgia in 1848. Despite Georgia’s harsh laws against the formal education of African Americans, she attended two secret schools taught by black women. Her literacy proved invaluable not only to her but to other African Americans she educated during the war. She became free at the age of 14 when her uncle led her out to a federal gunboat plying the waters near Confederate-held Fort Pulaski.

Baker and thousands of other African American refugees found themselves seeking safety behind Union lines on the South Carolina Sea Islands. She soon attached herself to the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first black regiment in the US Army. First organized by Major General David Hunter, the military governor Rufus Saxton would become the driving force behind the unit’s creation.

Taylor originally worked as the regimental laundress and throughout the war would perform the essential duties of cooking and washing. However, her literacy proved most useful and enabled her to serve as the reading instructor for the regiment of former slaves. The unit’s white abolitionist colonel, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, later wrote of his men, “Their love of the spelling-book is perfectly inexhaustible.” 

Taylor married Sergeant Edward King of the First South Carolina in 1862. Together they remained with the unit until it was mustered out of service in 1866. Postwar, the Kings moved to Savannah, Georgia. She hoped to continue her teaching career and opened a private school for the children of freedmen. Unfortunately, her husband died the same year, and a public school opening caused her private school to fail. By 1868, Taylor was forced to find work as a domestic servant. 

She moved to Boston in 1872 where she married Russell Taylor in 1879. She devoted much of the rest of her life to work with the Woman’s Relief Corps, a national organization for female Civil War veterans. She died in 1912, ten years after publishing her memoir.

https://www.nps.gov/people/susie-king-taylor.htm

Dreyton McDonald knows he’s not a regular kid and he likes it that way.

“I guess you can say, I’m a businessman, ma’am,” the 12-year-old politely told NPR.

And he has been for several years now.

At age 9, he said his father, Dominic McDonald, approached him with a proposition: “My dad told me to choose between selling doughnuts or selling snow cones and I didn’t want to sell doughnuts,” he explained.

With that, the elder McDonald was off to buy his son a 14-by-8-foot trailer that’s been converted into a mobile snow cone shop called Ice Ice Dreyton. On weekends, the trailer is set up at parks and special events across Ocala, Fla., where Dreyton and his dad live.

“I drive and I set up the generator but really, he’s the one calling the shots. He does everything else,” McDonald said.

That means Dreyton is responsible, not just for making the snow cones, but also choosing which flavors to offer — Dreamsicle and cotton candy are his favorites — luring in customers, and handling all of the money.

When asked what his favorite part of the job is, Dreyton said, “Making sure the customers are satisfied with their snow cones and are satisfied with the payment they made.”

For his father, who runs a massage therapy business, part of the inspiration for the snow cone shop was to help Dreyton feel connected to Ocala, where he moved after McDonald got full custody of him. But it also came out of need.

“I’m a single dad,” McDonald said. “It’s hard to get by … and I wanted him to learn he also has to contribute.”

It helps that it also keeps his son occupied in a constructive way.

“I wanted something to keep him and his peers out of trouble,” McDonald said. “It’s a way they can make money so they can buy themselves things they need or want, like school clothes or toys or games, shoes, whatever. And, if I can help him and his peers do that, that means I’m helping other families and that’s what I’m about.”

Dreyton said that he likes being in charge and having his friends work alongside him.

“I think I’m a good boss,” he said after some consideration, before adding, “That’s what my friends say.”

He also likes the independence of it all.

“It feels good to know I have my own money and that I can buy things I want but also my dad is saving money for me,” he said, in one of his more talkative moments.

McDonald is storing the lion’s share of the profits for Dreyton’s college tuition or a new business venture he may want to take on in the future. So far, there are a couple thousand dollars in the bank and by the time the now-7th grader graduates from high school, there will be significantly more, he added.

That’s not to say McDonald doesn’t allow his son the occasional indulgence.

Dreyton recently splurged on a new school wardrobe and a coveted pair of Nike Air Jordans.

“They were $150!” Dreyton said gleefully. It’s the most expensive purchase he’s ever made.

Dreyton would work more if he could, he said. But with school work and basketball practice, he’s limited to weekends and the rare school night special event where he gets to sling “snow cones that make people happy.”

He’s definitely caught the entrepreneurial bug from his father, he said. The two now talk about someday opening up a storefront that his dad would run during the day and he would take over at night. And he hopes to someday expand beyond shaved ice.

“I’m taking cooking in school this year so maybe I’ll learn some recipes and I can start selling food, too,” he said.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/13/1122558915/florida-boy-snow-cone-business-ice-ice-dreyton-ocala

Photo courtesy of Farah Sosa.

Nectali ‘Sumo Hair’ Díaz, L.A.’s Tropical Music Visionary and Activist for Afro Mexico, Dies Tragically at 42

Javier Cabral·August 4, 2022

FeaturedObituaryPeople

On the early morning of July 30th, the birdsong echoing through the swaying palm trees in the concrete jungle known as Los Angeles was somber as friends, fans, and family woke up to the devastating news that prolific, self-taught Afro-diasporic DJ Nectali “Sumohair” Diaz left this earth. 

He died tragically in an e-scooter accident in downtown Los Angeles. His longtime friend and fellow DJ, Diego Guerrero, confirmed his death. Nectali was a beloved son, brother, uncle, friend, collaborator, artist, educator, and inspiration to many who crossed paths with him and experienced his bold spirit. He was the embodiment of a cultural revolution and a multifaceted human. 

He is survived by his mother, Magdalena Duran Galarza, and father, Laurentino Díaz Salvador, and his “musical soulmate,” Fabi Reyna, the other half of his emerging musical project, Reyna Tropical.  

Born in Arcelia, in La Costa Chica region in Guerrero on November 16, 1979, Diaz used his DIY approach to music production, graphic visuals, and video design to uplift his native country’s marginalized Afro-Mexican community. He dreamed of one day publishing a book about this underrepresented area in Mexico. 

Nectali’s infinite passion for tropical culture lives on in the countless tracks he produced throughout the last decade of his career and for his breakout band. His untimely death is felt far and wide, from his hometown community of Long Beach, where he was raised, all the way to Latin America’s tropical music scene, a tight-knit community that revered him for his ability to create innovative, extremely catchy beats by weaving together atmospheric sounds of birds chirping and Afro-Indigenous instruments. 

Nectali’s band gained an international audience after touring around the country with Colombian megastars Bomba Estereo last year, and opening for Monsieur Periné at The Ford Theater in Hollywood on Sunday, July 24th, 2022—in what would sadly be Diaz’s last show. A few months prior, Reyna Tropical sold out a hometown show they headlined at the Paramount Theater in Boyle Heights. Their memorable performances featured colorful video projections that Nectali created, offering abstract and radical depictions of Indigeneity, queerness, Afro-diasporic identities, activism, and dancing. This gesture, along with lyrics celebrating all these themes, attracted people from all backgrounds but was especially revered by BIPOC and LGBTQ communities around the world.    

Nectali was raised in Long Beach in the 90s, a humbling urban coastal environment in Los Ángeles County that shaped his street smarts and barrio-rooted approach to music and life. He graduated from Lakewood High School, where he was a champion wrestler. His academic and athletic legacy lives on through his niece, Leslie Díaz, who is also a league champion in cross country running in Long Beach. 

Nectali was a self-described “rude boy” (a devout fan of ska music) since his teenage years. This is when he picked up an upright bass, contributing to L.A.’s thriving Latino ska scene by starting a band and activating backyards. His adoration for reggae and rocksteady was a direct inspiration for his musical career. His love for dub was unwavering throughout his life, attending as many shows as he could. He loved getting in the pit and rushed to help and pick up fellow skankers who would fall. This passion persisted all the way to his final hours in this realm, attending a ska show to see Raskahuele, Steady 45s, and Cafe con Tequila hours before his accident.  

The image of his bright, omnipresent, brightly colored beanie, his deep dimples, and what his friends lovingly called his “babyface” will stay etched in all who knew him.

After high school, Diaz picked up the craft of hairdressing, which led him to move to New York to study at the prestigious Sassoon Academy. Before committing to music full-time last year, he had a successful career as a hairdresser in L.A. He eventually also became a teacher of the craft, teaching a generation of L.A. hairdressers his confident, but unconceited haircutting style. His students referred to Nectali as “Mr. Díaz.” Even as his musical career picked up, self-managing Reyna Tropical’s tours and sound production, he still carved out time to cut his friends’ hair upon request. Those hairdressing sessions with friends at his home studio doubled as therapy to have meaningful deep conversations about family, relationships and overcoming mental obstacles as a creative professional. 

Nectali was proudly stubborn in his habits and notorious for being down for whatever. The image of his bright, omnipresent, brightly colored beanie, his deep dimples, and what his friends lovingly called his “babyface” will stay etched in all who knew him. If having lunch with him, he would take you to his favorite under-the-radar street vendors, which he loved to support. He loved eating Puebla-style smoked lamb barbacoa tacos or ceviche tostadas, and brown-bagging cold Mexican tallboys to wash it down. If having dinner, he would take you to his favorite low-key Korean spot to have spicy wings and salmon sashimi. He drank coffee all day long.

He was an OG gamer who collected retro gaming consoles and arcade cabinets at home. He particularly loved playing Street Fighter 2 and was masterful at hadoken fireballs. He kept in touch with childhood friends from Long Beach but made hundreds of new friends around the world online through their devotion to music. He met Fabi Reyna, as part of Red Bull Music Academy’s Bass Camp at Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2017—chosen as two of 20 up-and-coming producers and musicians from around the country. It was there that they bonded over their love for the tropical diaspora and began experimenting with their unique writing process: a process inclusive of pure improvisation consisting of a four-hour session per song aimed at capturing the moment and the environment.  

Rest In Peace, Sumo Hair. Your próxima estación is esperanza.

In 2013, Nectali co-starred in a KCET Artbound documentary for his pioneering work in L.A.’s electro-cumbia scene, along with Diego Guerrero and Eduardo Gómez, his close Long Beach-raised friends and DJs that formed Metralleta de Oro. 

But DJing wasn’t enough for him.

“We loved spinning vinyl, but Nectali loved creating his own sound, ” Guerrero tells L.A. TACO.  

Earlier this year, Nectali posted a screenshot on his Instagram account notifying him that his favorite artist, someone he was directly inspired by, Manu Chao, listened to Reyna Tropical and liked it. 

“Wow! the only kind of validation I ever needed,” he posted in his caption.   

Hundreds of Nectali’s fans around the world have been posting their memories and condolences to their tropical music star, all of which are being shared on Reyna Tropical’s Instagram account. His bandmate, Fabi, has announced that she will keep Reyna Tropical going because that is what Nectali would want her to do.

“I am going to make sure his vision, art, and music live and get distributed as far as my body has the capacity for in this lifetime. And as long as you are all open to receiving it,” she says.  

Reyna Tropical is performing at a music festival this Saturday, August 6th, in Chicago. 

The funeral services for Nectali will be held at Forest Lawn cemetery in Long Beach, the same resting grounds where his favorite singer also from Long Beach, Nate Dogg, is buried.      

Rest In Peace, Nectali Diaz. Your próxima estación is esperanza.

https://www.lataco.com/nectali-diaz-dead-reyna-tropical-sumo-hair/?fbclid=IwAR0zF-UHppCPfYsBqZ_mZb6IdPER6ZlvuUu8DSsuB09Bb8awu0bh8bm7Df4

Bronx native, New York based drummer Lucianna Padmore has been praised by Modern Drummer magazine for “Deep grooves and serious fusion chops.” Lucianna’s versatile drumming is featured with artists in the Jazz, Hip-Hop, Funk, Rock, Pop and Fusion genres. An alumnus of LaGuardia High School for Music and the Performing Arts and the New School University, she has received awards from Jazz at Lincoln Center and BMI for her jazz improvisation. 

As an educator, she is active in drum instruction and jazz outreach in the N.Y. Tri-State area and abroad.Lucianna’s current live performance projects include residencies in and around the Tri- state area with the John Smith Trio, A member of HotJazz Jumpers,Drummer for Singer Songwriter Alyson Murray,Bertha Hope’s Nu Trio and Quintet As well as leading her own Quartet.

Lucianna Is working on various compositions of her own. In which she has just independently released a single entitled Life Long Love Affair featuring the incredible saxophonist Mr.Gerald Albright on Alto saxophone. LIfe Long Love Affair is now available for purchase on all major digital platforms. 

​

Lucianna is featured in the book “Sticks and Skins”, Endorses Soul-Tone Cymbals and plays her signature Scorpion 3A drumsticks.

https://www.luciannapadmore.com/

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a singer, songwriter, and guitarist of gospel, jazz, blues, and rock-and-roll.  She was born on March 20, 1915 near Cotton Plant, Arkansas to Katie (née Harper) Bell Nubin and Willis B. Atkins.  Her mother, a mandolin-playing evangelist in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), toured with P.W. McGhee’s revivals in the Southeast before moving with her daughter to Chicago in 1921.  There, mother and daughter performed together at the Fortieth Street Church of God in Christ (now Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ).  She also toured as a teenager with her mother as a COGIC evangelist across the country.

On November 17, 1934, at the age of 19, Rosetta Atkins married Pastor Thomas J. Thorpe, a COGIC minister.  She toured with him and her mother until 1938.  By October 1938, she had separated from her husband, moved to New York, and begun working at the Cotton Club.  She remained there until 1940.

Tharpe made her first gospel recordings for the Decca label on October 31, 1938.  Two months later on December 23, 1938 she performed at Carnegie Hall in John Hammond’s first “From Spirituals to Swing” concert, and again at the second one of 1939.

Between 1938 and 1941, she performed at various venues around New York, including the Paramount Theater, the Savoy Ballroom, and the Apollo Theater with bandleaders Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan.

During World War II, she recorded V-Discs for the Armed Forces Radio Service and appeared in the Service’s variety radio show, Jubilee.  In 1943, she spent six months in Los Angeles working first with the Lucky Millinder Orchestra and later as a soloist.  During the year she divorced Tharpe and married Foch Pershing Allen, whom she divorced in 1947. Later that year, she began working with Marie Knight of Newark, New Jersey.

On July 3, 1951, Tharpe married her third husband, Russell Morrison, in a ceremony at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. before twenty thousand people.  Two years later, she recorded her first blues album with Marie Knight.  She first toured Europe between November 1957 and April 1958.  By the late 1960s, Tharpe had acquired a growing non-black audience, appearing, for example, at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1967.

She also toured Europe in 1964, 1966, and in 1970, where she fell ill in Switzerland while touring with the American Folk, Blues, and Gospel Caravan.  She returned to America and then suffered a stroke due to her diabetes.  Shortly afterwards, her leg was amputated.  Sister Rosetta Tharpe died of a second stroke on October 9, 1973 at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Rosetta Atkins [Sister Rosetta] Tharpe (1915-1973)

Kwame Onwuachi (/ˈkwɑːmi ənˈwɑːtʃi/)^[1] is an American chef based in Los Angeles, CA.^[2] He was a contestant on Top Chef (season 13) in 2015. He has been recognized by Food & Wine magazine, Esquire magazine, and the James Beard Foundation as “Rising Star Chef of the year.”

Early life

Onwuachi was born on Long Island, New York, and grew up in The Bronx. At the age of 10, he was sent to live with his grandfather in Nigeria for two years.^[3]

Education and career

Onwuachi was expelled from several schools for behavioral issues and eventually graduated from Bronx Leadership Academy high school . He enrolled at the University of Bridgeport, from which he was expelled after several months for dealing and using illegal drugs. He then moved to live with his mother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was hired to cook on a boat serving crews cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.^[3][4][5]

He returned to New York City in 2010, waiting tables at Tom Colicchio‘s Craft before opening his own catering business, Onwuachi’s Coterie Catering. In 2012, Onwuachi enrolled at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. During culinary school, Onwuachi worked an externship at Per Se, and after graduation he worked as a line cook at Eleven Madison Park. In 2015, he was a contestant on Top Chef (season 13).^[4][3][6]

In November 2016, Onwuachi opened his own restaurant in a converted townhouse in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C., called the Shaw Bijou, serving a 13-course tasting menu. The reviews were mixed, and critics questioned whether it was worth the price. After two months, Onwuachi scaled back the menu and reduced prices, but the primary investor closed the restaurant in January 2017.^[3][7]

In late 2017, Onwuachi was hired to open a restaurant in the new InterContinental Hotel on D.C.’s Southwest Waterfront. He named it “Kith and Kin”, serving Afro-Caribbean cuisine influenced by his family ties to Louisiana, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Nigeria. The restaurant received positive reviews from the Washington Post and the Michelin Guide.^[8][9] In July 2020, Onwuachi resigned his position at Kith/Kin.^[10]

In 2019, Onwuachi published a memoir, Notes from a Young Black Chef, with Joshua David Stein.^[11] The book tells the story of his childhood in New York and Nigeria, and the opening of the Shaw Bijou.^[5] A followup cookbook, My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef was published in May 2022.^[12]

Food & Wine magazine named Onwuachi one of its Best New Chefs in 2019.^[13] At the 2019 James Beard Awards, Onwuachi was named Rising Star Chef of the Year.^[14] Esquire named Onwuachi its Chef of the Year for 2019, identifying Kith/Kin as one of the Best New Restaurants in America.^[15]

In February 2021, Onwuachi joined Food & Wine magazine as Executive Producer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Onwuachi

Matthew MacKenzie “Mack” Robinson (July 18, 1914 – March 12, 2000) was an American track and field athlete. He is best known for winning a silver medal in the 1936 Summer Olympics, where he broke the Olympic record in the 200 meters but still finished behind Jesse Owens (like Jesse Owens, Robinson was an African-American). He was the older brother of Baseball Hall of Fame member Jackie Robinson.^[1]

Early life

Mack was born in Cairo, Georgia, in 1914. He and his siblings were left fatherless at an early age, leaving their mother, Mallie Robinson, as the sole support of the children. She performed in a variety of manual labor tasks, and moved with her children to Pasadena, California, while the children were still young. At the start of middle school Mack was diagnosed with a heart murmur that got worse with age, and was advised to only play non-contact sports. He remained in town for school, and set national junior college records in the 100 meter, 200 meter, and long jump at Pasadena Junior College.^[2][3]

1936 Olympics

He placed second in the 200 meters at the United States Olympic Trials in 1936, earning himself a place on the Olympic team.^[4]: 80 He went on to win the silver medal at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, finishing 0.4 seconds behind Jesse Owens. In 2016, the 1936 Olympic journey of the eighteen Black American athletes, including Robinson, was documented in the film Olympic Pride, American Prejudice.^[5]

Later career and life

Mack Robinson attended the University of Oregon, graduating in 1941. With Oregon he won numerous titles in NCAA, AAU and Pacific Coast Conference track meets. He has been honored as being one of the most distinguished graduates of the University of Oregon and is a member of the University of Oregon Hall of Fame and the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.

For a time in the early 1970s, Mack was a park director of Lemon Grove Park, a park in the East Hollywood part of the City of Los Angeles.

Later in life, he was known for leading the fight against street crime in his home town of Pasadena. The Pasadena Robinson Memorial, dedicated to both Matthew and Jackie, was dedicated in 1997. The memorial statue of Jackie Robinson by sculptor Richard H. Ellis at UCLA Bruins baseball team’s home Jackie Robinson Stadium,^[6] was installed by the efforts of Jackie’s brother, Mack.^[7]

Several locations are named in honor of Matthew Robinson. In addition to the Pasadena Robinson Memorial, the stadium of Pasadena City College was dedicated to him in 2000. That same year, the United States Postal Service approved naming the new post office in Pasadena the Matthew ‘Mack’ Robinson Post Office Building.^[8]

Robinson died of complications from diabetes, kidney failure, and pneumonia, on March 12, 2000, at a hospital in Pasadena, California; he was 85.^[9] He is interred at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum, Altadena, California.

Matthew MacKenzie “Mack” Robinson (July 18, 1914 – March 12, 2000) was an American track and field athlete. He is best known for winning a silver medal in the 1936 Summer Olympics, where he broke the Olympic record in the 200 meters but still finished behind Jesse Owens (like Jesse Owens, Robinson was an African-American). He was the older brother of Baseball Hall of Fame member Jackie Robinson.^[1]

Early life

Mack was born in Cairo, Georgia, in 1914. He and his siblings were left fatherless at an early age, leaving their mother, Mallie Robinson, as the sole support of the children. She performed in a variety of manual labor tasks, and moved with her children to Pasadena, California, while the children were still young. At the start of middle school Mack was diagnosed with a heart murmur that got worse with age, and was advised to only play non-contact sports. He remained in town for school, and set national junior college records in the 100 meter, 200 meter, and long jump at Pasadena Junior College.^[2][3]

1936 Olympics

He placed second in the 200 meters at the United States Olympic Trials in 1936, earning himself a place on the Olympic team.^[4]: 80 He went on to win the silver medal at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, finishing 0.4 seconds behind Jesse Owens. In 2016, the 1936 Olympic journey of the eighteen Black American athletes, including Robinson, was documented in the film Olympic Pride, American Prejudice.^[5]

Later career and life

Mack Robinson attended the University of Oregon, graduating in 1941. With Oregon he won numerous titles in NCAA, AAU and Pacific Coast Conference track meets. He has been honored as being one of the most distinguished graduates of the University of Oregon and is a member of the University of Oregon Hall of Fame and the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.

For a time in the early 1970s, Mack was a park director of Lemon Grove Park, a park in the East Hollywood part of the City of Los Angeles.

Later in life, he was known for leading the fight against street crime in his home town of Pasadena. The Pasadena Robinson Memorial, dedicated to both Matthew and Jackie, was dedicated in 1997. The memorial statue of Jackie Robinson by sculptor Richard H. Ellis at UCLA Bruins baseball team’s home Jackie Robinson Stadium,^[6] was installed by the efforts of Jackie’s brother, Mack.^[7]

Several locations are named in honor of Matthew Robinson. In addition to the Pasadena Robinson Memorial, the stadium of Pasadena City College was dedicated to him in 2000. That same year, the United States Postal Service approved naming the new post office in Pasadena the Matthew ‘Mack’ Robinson Post Office Building.^[8]

Robinson died of complications from diabetes, kidney failure, and pneumonia, on March 12, 2000, at a hospital in Pasadena, California; he was 85.^[9] He is interred at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum, Altadena, California.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Robinson_(athlete)