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Hamilton Spectator
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
How Festival of Friends booked Sugarhill Gang
General manager Robert Rakoczy was on a layover from a vacation in Spain when he got the email confirming Sugarhill Gang would perform at Festival of Friends this year. But to add to his excitement, Rakoczy would soon receive another call from the agent asking if there was enough in the budget to add American rappers Melle Mel and Scorpio from The Furious Five, known for the legendary song 'The Message.' Since Sugarhill Gang was one of the first acts he booked, there was, he said. 'I was like 'Are you kidding me? I have Sugarhill Gang, but now I can add Grandmaster Flash's guys?'' said Rakoczy. They are hip hop legend drops in the bucket of performances set for Friday to Sunday , all viewed for free, at Gage Park (1000 Main St. E.) . Sister Sledge perform on the second day of Festival of Friends, Saturday, Aug. 2. Girl group Sister Sledge ('We Are Family'), Canadian country singer Brett Kissel, Canadian indie rock-folk artists Dan Mangan and the returning Hamilton rock band The Trews exemplify the festival's diverse lineups that continue to span across eras and genres. The event has featured Tanya Tucker ('Delta Dawn') and Village People ('YMCA') in 2024, Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas in 2013 and Don McLean ('American Pie') in 2007. Getting Village People proved fruitful, as Rakoczy worked through the same agent to get Sugarhill Gang. After sorting through availabilities, receiving the final OK was thrilling, he said, but not unexpected. Rakoczy landed on Sister Sledge once he decided to follow an '80s theme. Booking them required some more discussion, with him negotiating accommodation for a growing number of bands. 'What gets the attention, what brings people to the park, what gets them excited is giving them something different,' said Rakoczy. 'If we want to grow, we have to expand and we have to include more people in the festival.' Despite the famous performances featured at the festival, it remains free, and Rakozcy said thanks is owed to the sponsors. The festival takes about $600,000 to run, about 10 per cent of which Rakoczy said goes to wages. More than half goes to setting up the stage and paying for performers. Tim Hortons, the presenting sponsor, and Second Shop are 90 per cent of the sponsorship money, he said. 'If you were to sum it up, it's money, timing and reputation of the festival,' said Rakoczy. Rakoczy's first concert was at Festival of Friends in 1979. He then brought his child to the festival in 1993. He hopes attendees can continue to show the same loyalty to the festival to keep it going. 'I think the key to that is to stick to our roots, while still expanding,' said Rakoczy. Even before the weekend, Rakoczy is thinking about next year's Festival of Friends, which will be its 50th anniversary. He said it will be the biggest Hamilton has seen. 'This is what gets me excited about the festival is like the next thing, what's next year? Can we do bigger, can we do more?' For the full lineup, timings and more information, go to . Weekend planner: Festival of Friends, Lucky Lion Night Market, Cardinals game this weekend Rock artist Kurt Tweedle plays Cat and Fiddle ( 174 John St. S. ) on Saturday Aug. 2 from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. The event celebrates Tweedle's birthday, featuring a 'hot sauce challenge,' and other artists, such as Dean Fulton, Carl De Souza and Marlon Nicolle. Entry is pay what you can. An all-Canadian band of musicians perform a special concert to honour American singer-songerwriter and pianist Ray Charles. Shawn and Ed Brewing Co. ( 65 Hatt St. ) hosts the show on Friday Aug. 1 at 8 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m. Regular seats are $25, plus tax and a service fee, and guaranteed seats with backs are $27.50, plus tax and a service fee. Go to for more. Grab seats to Folk and Feelings before the 80 available tickets are gone. Juno Award-winner Frank Fiction hosts the live and intimate acoustic concert at the Crown and Press Gallery and Cafe ( 303 Ottawa St. N. ) on Thursday, Aug. 7 at 7:30 p.m. Fiction is also the co-founder of the gallery and café. Singer Eric Brandon plays the event after touring with country star Owen Riegling. Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Go to for tickets. Hamilton Public Library hosts another Noon Hour Concert on Friday Aug. 1 at its central branch ( 55 York Blvd. ). From noon to 1 p.m., singer and queer activist Lyla Miklos and pianist Juanita Maldonado share music, stories and images to honour Two Spirit and LGBTQIA-plus communities. Visit for more. Jazz Up Your Night at Synonym Shop ( 328 James St. N. ) returns Friday. One set plays from 7 to 8:15 p.m., followed by another from 8:45 to 10 p.m. The free event starts right after Happy Hour on tap beer, from 4 to 6 p.m. Lulu Lamontagne shares the stage with Sunshine Express, Hamilton-based The Checkerboards, and band Megasmegma on Wednesday Aug. 6. at Mills Hardware ( 95 King St. E. ) Advance tickets are $15, plus tax and fees. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Mattmac and City Builders perform at the venue on Thursday, Aug. 7, at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m. Advance tickets are $20, plus tax and fees. Go to for tickets. Start off August at Slye Fox ( 4057 New St. ) with John Restas on Friday Aug. 1 and Paul Mallard on Saturday Aug. 2 , both at 8:30 p.m. Brad Hailz returns to the Burlington venue on Thursday, Aug. 7 at 6 p.m. All the performances are free to watch. Cheyenne Bholla is a reporter at The Hamilton Spectator. cbholla@
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
OneFour on prison, police and their long-awaited debut: ‘We wouldn't be who we are today if we didn't go through that'
As evidence of what's changed for the Australian hip-hop act OneFour, the group's Jerome 'J Emz' Misa points to the blue sky behind him. 'Right now I'm going for a midday walk – I never used to do this back in the days!' the rapper laughs, his Zoom screen shaky as he puffs through the streets of western Sydney. 'Physically and mentally, I feel like there's been a lot of positive changes.' For one, while OneFour made their name as the first in Australia to embrace drill, a Chicago-born genre that tells often-nihilistic tales of street violence, J Emz no longer identifies as a driller. 'I'm an artist and a musician – and [my music] comes from that perspective,' he says. The group, who grew up together in Mount Druitt, were teenagers when they first started making music in a local youth centre. They're now in their mid-to-late-20s and have had 'a lot of time to reflect' on where young adulthood in one of Sydney's most disadvantaged postcodes took them. 'If you're Polynesian, you grow up in church, and you have certain principles and morals that you live by, that you're taught by parents,' J Emz says. 'But what we all had to go through in the street went against those principles or morals.' What they went through has been well documented. In 2019, the same year the group enjoyed breakthrough success with their single The Message, OneFour hit two major setbacks. First, three of the group's members were jailed over a violent pub brawl. Second, their lyrics were taken by New South Wales police as evidence the group were engaged in gang warfare. Strike Force Raptor, a specialised police squad created to tackle outlaw motorcycle gangs, made it their mission to stop OneFour from ever performing in Sydney – and have, so far, more or less succeeded. Despite the group's repeated denials of involvement in gang violence, the police have cancelled their tours, barred them from entering the Aria awards on the night they were nominated, and arrived with metal detectors and undercover officers to the premiere of their 2023 Netflix documentary. What should have been the start of a brilliant career sputtered and stalled, and maintaining momentum has been an issue. But it hasn't stopped them becoming heroes. As local hip-hop manager and tastemaker Christopher Kevin Au puts it: 'With OneFour, people are buying into much more than the music – they're attached to the story. The trajectory of OneFour has seen them become the ultimate underdog tale.' Now, OneFour are chewing over their journey on their long delayed debut album, Look At Me Now. 'The album is based on a story of overcoming the obstacles that we've had to experience, growing from the people we were when we first started making music to the people we are today,' J Emz says. 'Look at us now – and look at where we are with our careers now.' Today, OneFour are arguably the biggest act in Australian hip-hop (bar their friend and collaborator the Kid Laroi), with several multi-platinum singles to their name. While they have always been proudly independent, the group recently struck a distribution deal with Sony Music subsidiary The Orchard, lending them more institutional backing than they've ever had. It's at Sony's Sydney office that I meet three of the band's four core members for an initial group interview: J Emz, Dahcell 'Celly' Ramos and Spencer 'Spenny' Magalog. There have been some lineup shifts in recent years. As of 2023, all members of the band are now out of prison, though Salec 'Lekks' Su'a, who was born in Samoa but holds New Zealand citizenship, was deported to New Zealand after finishing his sentence. Last year the group's longtime manager stepped down from his role, and original member Pio 'YP' Misa (younger brother of J Emz) left to join the priesthood, a decision he discussed in a tearful Nine News interview. A condition of this interview was that YP's departure not be discussed, and with some awkward topics to skirt around, there is sometimes a stiffness in our conversation. But one thing the group is happy to talk about is the album. Look At Me Now packs plenty that will feel familiar to OneFour fans – eshay slang, gunshot samples, quintessentially Australian references to Coles, Penrith Panthers and Honda Civics, and pithy lines like 'They put money on our heads / We call that shit an op shop' (a reference to a recent alleged murder plot). But there's also a new introspection to many of the tracks. 'We show a different side of ourselves – we get a bit vulnerable,' J Emz says. That includes Phone Call, the group's first love song, featuring the R&B singer Mabel. But other tracks tackle big topics like the environments that raise us, how easy it can be to get caught up in the system, and what it means to pull yourself out of one sort of life and into another. There are bars about the young kids let down by our schools and the friends who've been sucked in by drugs and landed in prison. On the album opener Change, J Emz implores young listeners to learn from his mistakes; elsewhere, Spenny raps about waking up in cold sweats from the memories of things he's done. J Emz says he doesn't want to be a role model for anyone ('I don't want that spotlight'), but he's aware there is a younger generation who look up to OneFour, not just as hitmakers but as representatives of Mount Druitt and Pasifika people on the world stage. When I talked to fellow Mount Druitt hip-hop act Kapulet in 2020, he described the group's influence on the young people of their neighbourhood: 'Before, everyone used to want to be footy players. Now everyone wants to be a musician.' 'We know our music goes a long way, and it reaches a lot of people,' says J Emz. 'So when it came to the album itself, I feel like it is the right thing to do … to be that positive role model.' OneFour say the album is 'for those who want more' from life, and hope it motivates their listeners. They're disappointed they won't get to share it live with fans in their home town; while the group is set to visit the rest of the country as part of their album tour, a Sydney show still isn't possible: 'We've tried,' J Emz says. Instead, the group staged a listening party at a secret location in western Sydney on Thursday, where the album was played over a soundsystem. To date, the only times they've been able to perform in their home city are in festivals or supporting act slots. In their war against OneFour, NSW police have often hit venues hosting the band with prohibitive user-pays police bills that effectively force the gig's cancellation. Guardian Australia understands that the group's Sydney show with the Kid Laroi in November only went ahead after the payment of a six-figure police bill, funding several riot squads, horseback patrols, plus police at the perimeter of the show and at Parramatta station. In fact, across a seven-year career, OneFour have only played about 20 shows – a number any other artist would do within six months of an album tour. The official police line is that they fear 'antisocial behaviour' should OneFour be allowed to perform, which is exasperating for the band. 'We haven't had any major incidents involved with our shows,' says J Emz. 'Everything's gone safely. It's tough when you've been doing it for years, and it's just a matter of them [the police] just letting go of whatever they got against us.' It doesn't feel coincidental that this extraordinary level of police intervention has been exercised against a group of Pasifika men; for their part, NSW police have described their own actions as 'lawfully harassing' the band. When I ask the usually chatty J Emz if it feels like discrimination, he has only one word in answer, which arrives to the awkward laughter of his bandmates: 'Yes.' But OneFour are surprisingly positive about what they have gone through and what's to come. 'We wouldn't be who we are today if we didn't go through that stuff, if it was just a walk in the park,' says J Emz. 'I feel like that's why people resonate with our music and find it so authentic.' OneFour are, J Emz feels, 'a living example of what's possible with music'. Spenny agrees: 'Without music I would have ended up on a different path, a whole different lifestyle … music for me, changed me – and basically saved my life.' Now, he just wants people – and the police – to understand what most other artists don't have to spell out: 'We're musicians. We love our craft, and we're just trying to get our story out to the world.' Look At Me Now is out 13 June (Sony Music). OneFour are touring Australia from 21 June.
Time of India
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
WWE Smackdown results: Andrade defeats Carmelo Hayes and Jacob Fatu to book Money in the Bank Ladder Match spot
Andrade has officially qualified for the 2025 Money in the Bank ladder match. He scored a big win on SmackDown by pinning Carmelo Hayes in a wild triple-threat match that also featured Jacob Fatu. The match kicked off with all three Superstars flying into action. Andrade and Fatu briefly worked together before turning on each other. Hayes tried to stay in the mix but was knocked aside several times. On the outside, Fatu ran over The Miz with a brutal hip attack into the barricade just before the first commercial break. Andrade takes advantage of Solo Sikoa and JC Mateo's interference WHAT A MATCH! 👏@AndradeElIdolo is heading to #MITB! 🪜#SmackDown Back in the ring, Andrade landed a Spanish Fly, and Hayes connected with a Codebreaker. Fatu tried to end things with a double jump moonsault, but Andrade broke up the pin. Solo Sikoa and JC Mateo walked to the ringside as the match heated up. Fatu delivered another big moonsault on Hayes but looked toward Sikoa and Mateo for approval instead of going for the win. That gave Andrade his chance. As Jimmy Uso ran down to take out Mateo, Hayes got back in the ring and landed a Codebreaker on Fatu. But Andrade was one step ahead. He grabbed Hayes and smashed him with The Message, his spinning back elbow, to get the three count and punch his ticket to Los Angeles. With this victory, Andrade joins LA Knight, Penta, Seth Rollins, and Solo Sikoa in the Men's Money in the Bank 2025 ladder match. It was a win that proved timing is everything, and Andrade picked his moment perfectly.
Irish Independent
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Rick O'Shea: One of America's smartest political minds makes a brave admission about Israel
Ta-Nehisi Coates admits he has a problem with an article he wrote in 2014 in The Message, while Seán Hewitt's Open, Heaven feels like a classic and What a Time to be Alive by Jenny Mustard will appeal to Sally Rooney fans Today at 21:30 Don't ever let anyone tell you that turning 50 is hard; turning 50 is a doddle. For me, it involved an eight-month series of arm-chancing trips to New York, Portugal and Iceland after I made sad puppy eyes at my impossibly lovely and soft-hearted wife. This week I turned 52, an age that is so unremarkable it seems pointless to mention it, let alone celebrate it. That has never stopped me before. I went to London and thoroughly enjoyed Conor McPherson's new play The Brightening Air at the Old Vic, was baffled but sort of entertained anyway by Here We Are, Stephen Sondheim's last musical – or half a musical if you want to be accurate – at the National Theatre, and I finally got to see the joyfully fun and incredibly complicated staging of My Neighbour Totoro.
Iraqi News
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Iraqi News
Babylon International Festival of World Cultures and Arts Kicks Off
Babylon - INA The 12th edition of the Babylon International Festival of World Cultures and Arts kicked off this Saturday evening in the ancient city of Babylon. Under the slogan "We Are All Babylonians," the festival was held under the patronage of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, with a high-profile cultural and artistic presence, as well as official and diplomatic figures from around the world. This event restores this land's historical charm and renewed cultural luster. The festival program began with a red carpet welcome for guests, where artists, intellectuals, and guests from inside and outside Iraq lined up, led by a group of prominent figures in the fields of culture, arts, and media. During the opening ceremony, artist Munir al-Maasiri, one of the stars of the famous historical film "The Message," was honored in a symbolic gesture expressing deep appreciation for his creative legacy and his place in the memory of Arab and international art. This was followed by the official opening of the festival, which began with the playing of the Iraqi national anthem, followed by official speeches by representatives of the government, the festival administration, and the ambassadors of the participating countries. The ceremony honored the winner of the "Babylon International Cultural Cities Award," which went to Katara Cultural Village in Qatar, in recognition of its pioneering contributions to supporting the Arab cultural scene and establishing a renewed approach to promoting dialogue between civilizations. The opening ceremony featured international musical performances featuring bands from Spain, Turkey, and Switzerland, as well as the Iraqi Oud Orchestra led by musician Mustafa Zayer. The festival also featured poetry and visual arts performances, as well as book and photography exhibitions, which continued throughout the festival. The festival continues until April 19, with the participation of more than 400 artists, writers, and creatives from Iraq and around the world, presenting a mosaic of international, Arab, and Iraqi art. This cultural event has become an annual tradition, reflecting Iraq's renewed spirit and its vibrant presence in the memory of human art.
