Latest news with #Fugees
3 days ago
- Business
Mark Cuban and Wyclef Jean to headline Global Citizen's first Detroit summit on the future of cities
NEW YORK -- Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Grammy-winning musician Wyclef Jean of the Fugees and James Beard Award-winning chef Marcus Samuelsson will headline Global Citizen's summer conference on urban revitalization in Detroit, the international anti-poverty nonprofit announced Thursday. Global Citizen is bringing its conference series to a U.S. location outside New York for the first time — and, with Detroit as its host, to a place not-so-long-ago considered the poster child for urban blight as the auto industry's decline pushed the midwestern city toward bankruptcy. The July 10 summit promises to drive commitments to sustainable development amid population shifts and technological advancements that are disrupting cities worldwide. 'That's such an important priority for me and for the organization because that's a place that's analyzing the future of cities. And what do cities mean and how do we invest in cities?' Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans told the Associated Press last month. "So, Global Citizen NOW: Detroit is going to be a huge part of our strategy.' The nonprofit aims to spotlight Detroit as an example of how investments in young adults spur economic prosperity, accessible infrastructure and food security. Presenting the conference is Bedrock, a real estate firm at the forefront of Detroit's redevelopment that's been buying up properties downtown and renovating many of them for years. With its blend of media personalities, athletes and artists, this edition resembles previous lineups that sought to rally audiences against poverty through recognizable cultural figures. It's also key to Evans' goal of growing the movement to 50 million 'global citizens' taking the platform's recommended actions by 2029. Global Citizen is expanding its footprint this year with additional sessions scheduled in Brazil, Spain and South Africa. Before the conference, Global Citizen plans a July 8 community service event around food access and youth empowerment as well as a free block party promoting Detroit nonprofits. The week's programming will end with live music at Jack White's Third Man Records, intended to celebrate what Global Citizen called 'Detroit's rich musical legacy and the power of culture to drive social change.' The city's contributions include the mainstream success of Motown Records, techno music, rap artists such as Eminem and a garage rock scene that birthed the White Stripes. Jean noted the city's pulse is "unmatched when it comes to music.' 'This ain't just about shining a light, it's about walking hand in hand with each other to get out the dark times,' Jean said in a statement. 'Real issues, real voices, real change.'
Washington Post
3 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Mark Cuban and Wyclef Jean to headline Global Citizen's first Detroit summit on the future of cities
NEW YORK — Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban , Grammy-winning musician Wyclef Jean of the Fugees and James Beard Award-winning chef Marcus Samuelsson will headline Global Citizen's summer conference on urban revitalization in Detroit, the international anti-poverty nonprofit announced Thursday. Global Citizen is bringing its conference series to a U.S. location outside New York for the first time — and, with Detroit as its host, to a place not-so-long-ago considered the poster child for urban blight as the auto industry's decline pushed the midwestern city toward bankruptcy . The July 10 summit promises to drive commitments to sustainable development amid population shifts and technological advancements that are disrupting cities worldwide.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Clubs Rake in Record Fees as Pardon-Seekers Flock to President's Resorts
Membership is booming at President Donald Trump's private clubs despite record-high fees as business leaders, investors, and people seeking pardons flock to the resorts. Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, now charges $1 million to join, up from $500,000 during his first term, The Wall Street Journal reported. The entry fee for the Trump golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, went up from $75,000 to $125,000, and another club near Mar-a-Lago now costs $300,000. The price hikes don't seem to be a deterrent, though, as the clubs have become a hub for all sorts of lobbying, the Journal reported. In addition to cryptocurrency executives pushing for deregulation and business leaders seeking exceptions to the president's tariffs, advocates for people convicted of crimes are using the clubs to try to get access to the president and request pardons. In February, several guests at an event at Mar-a-Lago jockeyed to get on Trump's radar for pardons, according to the Journal. Among them was the Fugees' Pras Michel, who was convicted in 2024 of conspiracy and corruption. The rapper's team has been requesting a pardon since January, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Michel's reps told the Journal that he was at Mar-a-Lago as a guest and wasn't there in connection with the pardon. The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment. But since pardoning about 1,500 January 6 rioters on his first day in office, Trump's pardons have become highly sought-after. In January, he also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the Silk Road online black market. The site generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of illegal goods and services, including drugs like heroin and cocaine, earning Ulbricht $13 million worth of cryptocurrency in commissions. The president also pardoned Hunter Biden's former business associate, Devon Archer, who was convicted of defrauding a Native American tribe as part of a $60 million development bond scheme, and Trevor Milton, a Trump donor who was convicted of fraud. In March, Trump even announced a posthumous pardon for Pete Rose, who was convicted of falsifying tax records and was banned from Major League Baseball for gambling on games as an active player and manager. Those pardons have led other high-profile defendants and their supporters to suck up to the president in a bid for clemency. The convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly hoping for a pardon, as is Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd. Joining Trump's clubs is one way allies of pardon-seekers can try to get close to the president, according to the Journal. Before Trump's inauguration in January, the then-president-elect marveled at how many people he could bring to Mar-a-Lago, an unnamed source told the newspaper. When he realized how 'hot' the club would be, he decided to return every weekend. Now, customers are constantly asking lobbyists how they can get into the club—which is near capacity—to try and meet the president. When he's there, Trump sits at a table in the middle of the dining room that's separated from the other diners by a crimson velvet rope hanging on gold stands. Guests typically cannot approach the table, but they clap when Trump comes in, and sometimes he calls them over to the table or climbs over the rope to greet people. He has also encouraged people to join him as he walks around the patio, according to the Journal.
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Ready or not, here she comes: Lauryn Hill's 20 best songs – ranked!
The closest their debut album Blunted on Reality came to a crossover hit, Nappy Heads is almost unrecognisable as the work of Fugees, who went on to sell millions of records. But it's an of-its-era joy nonetheless, with a boom-bap rhythm and horns sampled from jazzy 70s funk. More people should know Social Drugs – driven by acoustic guitar, it's what a studio album along the lines of Hill's MTV Unplugged performance might have sounded like. The fact that they don't is because she only released it on her website: for $15, fans could play the track three times only. To say Hill's attitude to releasing new material has been scattershot since the early 00s is an understatement: Black Rage, which reworks The Sound of Music classic My Favourite Things into an anguished response to the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, originally slipped out on the internet during a tour with Nas in 2012 before being released online in 2014. Now only available on YouTube, it's spare and fantastic. Often overlooked among The Score's plethora of hit singles, Zealots works on every level: its use of a sample from the Flamingos' doo-wop version of I Only Have Eyes For You is inspired, every verse is on point, and the moment Hill announces her arrival with a bold burst of singing is a thing of swaggering magnificence. The first sign that The Score was a quantum leap from Fugees' debut, Fu-Gee-La's beat was intended for Fat Joe before Wyclef Jean began rapping over it during studio downtime. The track's hard yet humid sound – making full use of what Rolling Stone called the 'sweet heat' of Hill's vocals – went on to define the album. Nostalgic light relief amid The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill's sagas of heartbreak and betrayal: the delightful Every Ghetto, Every City sets Hill's retelling of her childhood in New Jersey to a breezy clavinet-driven backing that sounds as if it could have fallen off one of Stevie Wonder's early 70s albums, but never feels like retro pastiche. A slow seller on release, lost among a glut of conscious rap, the album Blunted on Reality remains overlooked. If you want evidence that Fugees had something really special in Hill, check out Some Seek Stardom: it's more hyperactive than her familiar style, but her performance here is still wildly impressive. The original, on Blunted on Reality, is fine stuff, but the heavier beat of the remix foregrounds Hill's contributions to startling effect. Her opening verse, delivered in a flow audibly influenced by Jamaican reggae DJs, is a masterpiece of dextrous conscious rapping. Hill's MTV Unplugged album met with a mixed response on release, but its reputation has grown with time, particularly the nine-minute confessional I Gotta Find Peace of Mind: it's been sampled by A$AP Rocky, claimed as a pivotal influence by Doechii and Jorja Smith and even analysed by theologians. Ostensibly by the loose collective of which Fugees were a part, there's no doubt who the star of the show is: moreover, The Sweetest Thing's lovely melody and acoustic guitar-led arrangement signposted the direction of Hill's solo debut. If you want something less laid-back, Salaam Remi's funk-sample-driven remix is great too. Fugees' final hit – from the soundtrack of the 1996 Muhammad Ali documentary When We Were Kings – feels forgotten nearly 30 years on, which is a shame. The backing extracts some brooding menace from Abba's The Name of the Game, while Hill's contributions leave you in no doubt about which member's solo career was going to soar. The jewel of Hill's MTV Unplugged performance, a ferocious spoken word/rap hybrid dealing with systemic racism that gained further attention when Kanye West attempted to sample the brief sung chorus on his massive-selling All Falls Down: Hill refused permission, so West had it re-recorded – to striking effect – by Syleena Johnson. Featuring a young and then-unknown John Legend on piano, Everything is Everything's irresistible string sample makes its lyrics about social injustice feel weirdly optimistic. The chorus is a killer, but don't overlook her rapping, which is smart and multilayered, the sound of Ms Hill going in hard. A guest appearance that has a genuinely transformative effect: between Hill's vocal, a snappy rap and a remix that strips the original – from 1977's Exodus – of all its instrumentation and shifts the rhythm towards hip-hop, it feels infinitely more like her work than that of Bob Marley. It's also gorgeous. Their straight cover of the old Roberta Flack track was the huge hit, but this remix – actually their first pass at the song – is the one to hear. Only the hook remains (with altered lyrics), with the rest given over to spectacular rap verses: less commercial, far more powerful. Lost Ones' all-out verbal assault on Hill's former bandmate and lover Wyclef Jean is all the more stinging because, for all its biblical imprecations, it never feels angry, just coldly contemptuous. It's the sound of a woman who's understandably aware that the music she's now making is so great, it's going to ensure she comes out on top. Yes, the interpolation from the Delfonics' soft-soul classic is a killer hook – and it's doubtless what made it a UK No 1 – but the real meat of Ready or Not is in the rhymes, most particularly Hill's braggadocious verse: 'While you imitating Al Capone / I'll be Nina Simone / and defecating on your microphone.' To Zion features a vocal so powerful and captivating that it completely overshadows guest Carlos Santana's elaborate guitar playing. It's the story of Hill's first pregnancy told in impassioned, authentically moving style: she dismissed advice to have an abortion from those worried about the impact it would have on her career. Subsequently sampled by Cardi B and Drake, and covered by Beyoncé, Ex-Factor uses lush and classy soul in the service of Miseducation's emotional nadir: a potent, heart-rending depiction of a toxic relationship that keeps flaring into life despite her best intentions. Its guitar solo-strafed climax is particularly magnificent. Over the last 20 years, Lauryn Hill's fans have endured a lot: tours cancelled without refunds, gigs that start hours late. That they keep the faith regardless is down to the fact she can still bring it – and to the sheer quality of her debut solo album. Its crowning glory, the party-starting but lyrically wary Doo-Wop (That Thing), is the sound of a woman who could apparently do it all – rap, sing, produce and write songs deeply rooted in Black music history that still sounded fresh and new, that made you dance and made you think at the same time. And, who knows? She may yet do it all again.
Daily Mail
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
She's a '90s hip hop icon with eight Grammy Awards, one groundbreaking album and close family ties to reggae legend Bob Marley - but can YOU guess who she is?
Ready Or Not, this nineties hip-hop legend was gonna find a photo opportunity and take it quickly while attending one of numerous Met Gala after-parties in New York City on Monday evening. Famed for her husky vocal delivery, she was among celebrity guests at Manhattan venue Zero Bond as British fashion designer Stella McCartney and beauty mogul Charlotte Tilbury hosted a late night party in partnership with gin brand Bombay Sapphire. While many of her fellow guests knew The Score, the enigmatic star looked vastly different from her pioneering musical past as she enjoyed a rare public appearance following Mondy evening's Met Gala extravaganza. Posing for photos alongside party hosts Stella and Charlotte, she proved she still has The Ex- Factor despite a notable step away from the mainstream music industry following the release of her Grammy-Award winning debut album in 1997. These days it is her children, rising stars Selah and YG Marley, who are claiming plaudits as they attempt to forge their own paths in the music industry. And if the surname sounds familiar, that's because their father is Rohan Marley - son of legendary late reggae artist Bob Marley. But can you guess who she is? Ready Or Not, this nineties hip-hop legend was gonna find a photo opportunity and take it quickly while attending one of numerous Met Gala after-parties in New York City on Monday That's right - it's Lauryn Hill! The hugely talented star commanded attention in a burgundy trouser suit and matching leather coat while enjoying her latest night out on Monday evening. Alongside former bandmates Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel, Hill became a household name with New Jersey based hip hop act Fugees after initially starting her career as an actress. The band released debut album Blunted On Reality to critical acclaim in 1994, but it was sophomore album The Score that turned them into global stars following its release three years later. Containing hit singles Ready Or Not and Killing Me Softly with His Song - the latter a cover of the 1972 single from Lori Lieberman - the album subsequently earned the band two Grammys, making her the first woman to win the award for a Best Rap album. Hill would win further critical acclaim with the release of her conceptual debut solo album, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, in 1998. It's enormous success, chartingh at number one in the United States, made her the first female rapper to top the Billboard Hot 100. The following year, she set another record by becoming the first female rapper to feature on the cover of Time magazine. Lauryn Hill commanded attention in a burgundy trouser suit and matching leather coat while enjoying her latest night out on Monday evening (Right in 1996) To date, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill is still regarded as one of the defining urban albums of the 1990s and helped boost the artist's Grammy haul to an impressive eight in total. Her two children with reggae artist Rohan Marley - from whom she separated in 2009 - are now developing their own careers in the music and fashion industries. In 2024, Hill and her Fugees bandmates disappointed fans by cancelling the US leg of their tour just three days before the first show that August. In a following statement, Hill wrote: 'With difficulty the decision was made to pull down our upcoming North American tour dates,' she wrote, clarifying that 'The shows in the UK and Europe ARE MOVING FORWARD as planned.' Although the artist has developed a reputation over the years for canceling performances and having tardy start times, she attributed a recent spate of cancellations to a medical issue. Demand for UK and European shows may have been greater due to scarcity, as Hill reminded her fans that people in those regions 'not only haven't seen the Miseducation Anniversary performance yet, they also haven't seen the Fugees perform together in over 25 years!' Hill emphasized that 'no one' was 'more disappointed about not being able to perform' than her as she praised the experience of performing as a 'profound exchange of energy and emotion that excites me every time.' 'Every show is a piece of my expression and testament to our connection and shared love for music,' she added.
