interview
Sam Bankman-Fried reveals the circumstances behind Bahamian withdrawals
FTX’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has divulged what really went on in the days before it filed for bankruptcy when the exchange selectively reopened withdrawals — only for Bahamian users. In a telephone interview with crypto blogger Tiffany Fong, dated Nov. 16, Bankman-Fried claims to have made the decision to reopen withdrawals to Bahamian citizens as he did not want himself, nor the exchange, to be in a country “with a lot of angry people in it.” “The reason I did it was it was critical to the exchange being able to have a future because that’s where I am right now, and you do not want to be in a country with a lot of angry people in it and you do not want your company to be incorporated in a country with a lot of angry people in it,” he said. Bankman-Fried claims he gave Bahamian...
Inside Perry Farrell’s Enduring Mission to Popularize Stateside Warehouse Culture
Losing a million dollars will teach a man a few things. Just ask Perry Farrell. Farrell has maintained just the right combination of DIY attitude and an appetite for controlled chaos to continue effectuating his lifelong ambitions in music—but it hasn’t always been sunshine and roses for the legendary rocker. Today the Jane’s Addiction frontman is planting the seeds of a promising global event series, “Heaven After Dark.” While the event itself has the makings of a hit, Farrell needed to apply decades of experience and intangibles to make it so. Ahead of the upcoming “Heaven After Dark” takeover of Los Angeles’ Catch One in early December 2022, Farrell caught up with EDM.com for a candid interview wherein he shared his view on...
After ‘Embracing the Darkness’ & Confronting K-Pop Concerns, VERIVERY See Breakout Hit ‘Tap Tap’ as ‘A Fresh Start’
While making your debut into the K-pop industry is a battle in and of itself, carving your place in it is another conversation entirely that VERIVERY found required a series of experimenting and ultimately confronting harsh realities about themselves and their futures. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news After VERIVERY hit the K-pop scene in early 2018 with their feel-good, throwback-pop single “Ring Ring Ring,” the K-pop boy band dipped into singles that spanned into hard-hitting EDM, smooth-groove R&B, experimental electronica and more. The septet always had international expansion top of mind with a DIY mindset being hands-on with music they felt was relatable beyond core K-pop fans and creatively directing and editing some of their ...
The travel that changed me: Mark Vanhoenacker
As a commercial pilot and best-selling author, Mark Vanhoenacker has seen the world from a rare perspective. Here, he tells us about life in cockpit Growing up in the small town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Mark Vanhoenacker spun the illuminated globe in his bedroom and dreamt of distant cities. Streets unspooled, towers shone and anonymous crowds bustled in cities where Mark could be anyone – perhaps even himself. Now, as a commercial airline pilot, Mark has spent nearly two decades criss-crossing the planet, touching down in the cities he imagined as a child. Mark revisits these cities month after month and year after year, and has seen them grow and change in a way few of us ever will. Mark first wrote about his experiences in the best-selling Skyfaring, followed by How to Land a...
Music Is the Drug: A Deep Dive Into Substance-Free Raving With “The Sober Raver”
From non-alcoholic cocktail bars to substance-free music festivals, there has never been an era for sober raving quite like this one. To most people, ecstasy, LSD and vodka Red Bulls are practically synonymous with the “EDM” acronym. But over the last few years, a cohort of sober concert-goers have slowly brought their lifestyle to the mainstream, like the organizers of a “detox” music festival in Colorado and Electric Forest’s Camp Traction Sober Group Camp, which caters to those who want to get high off the music alone. Chelsie Cahoon has partied hard—and sober—since her late teens. Now she owns a clothing brand called Music Is The Drug and hopes to continue bringing awareness and acceptance to all corners of dance music culture, one t-shirt...
Nicki Minaj Talks Motherhood and More For ‘Interview’ With Jada Pinkett Smith
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Arturo Holmes/MG22 / Getty Nicki Minaj is a legend and a superstar. She is also a mother and by some recent accounts a bully to the many female rappers who have come in her wake. She sat down with Red Table Talk host, Jada Pinkett Smith for Interview Magazine to talk about these issues and more. The “Super Freaky Girl” rapper shared that she had delayed returning to work after the birth of her son with husband Kenneth Petty. The baby was born in September 2020 and she said that she experienced “real bad separation anxiety.” Nicki Minaj notes that a lot of that anxiety derived from her own childhood when her mother left her with relatives in Trinidad to pursue job opportunities in the United States. “So I’m reliving all of those things now beca...
The travel that changed me: Melanie White
In a new memoir, former yacht chef Melanie White examines the dark side of luxury travel. Here, she explains why her story had to be told At age 22, Melanie White is flying high. Good grades at school? Check. Reliable university degree? Check. Steady graduate job? Check. Her feet are firmly planted on the ground until she finds herself plunged into the superyacht industry – despite having been on a boat only three times in her life. Melanie White As a yacht chef, Melanie must devise, develop and deliver fine dining menus for some of the wealthiest people on the planet, all while learning how to run, sail and race a multi-million-pound yacht on the job. She is forced to adapt to a wholly unnatural life, largely confined to a crammed galley and bunk bed with live-in colleagues. Amid the...
How Bebe Rexha and David Guetta’s Complex Bond Creates “Incredible Chemistry”
Siblings fight but—much more importantly—they love each other. That dynamic is at the core of what makes Bebe Rexha and David Guetta such a dominant duo. Rexha and Guetta have an intuitive bond as musicians, the sort of innate ebb and flow typically reserved for lifelong friends. That level of compatibility can cause friction, but the tension is eclipsed by cohesion. The pair have repeatedly churned out smash songs together: “Say My Name” (with J. Balvin), “Hey Mama” (with Nicki Minaj) and, most recently, “I’m Good (Blue).” The chemistry between Rexha and Guetta is world-class, but their journey has been rocky at times. Rexha’s name was originally left off the marquee for “Hey Mama,” a song that—unbeknownst to the general public—w...
How SLANDER “Thrive” by Leaning On Each Other
SLANDER know first-hand how invaluable a good co-pilot is. The duo of Derek Andersen and Scott Land recently released their debut studio album, Thrive. Released on September 22nd, the record is a culmination of a decade of touring in tandem, co-producing songs and putting their creative heads together. It’s a formula that has brought SLANDER no shortage of success. In fact, brief deviations from their shared journey have been uncomfortable and unwelcome. “When we’re performing, we can lean on each other,” Andersen tells EDM.com. “I think that’s super huge. We’ve both done a couple of solo shows over the course of this journey. Personally, I remember doing a show. Scott was having surgery and I think it was in Thailand a couple of years ago for 25,0...
Why Attendees of This Fiji Music Festival Leave the Island With “Feelings They Can’t Quite Articulate”
Whether it’s to a faraway beach or your couch for a weeklong Netflix bender, we all take vacations. But when was the last time you went somewhere that actually changed your life? This year will see the eighth edition of the dance music festival Your Paradise on Fiji’s Mamanuca Islands, a volcanic archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean typically frequented by digital nomads and affluent honeymooners. One of the world’s top destination fests, it’s more akin to a scene out of Nearest to Heaven than a rave. Your Paradise, which returns December 10-16, is what happens when daydreams shed their quixotic layers and become reality. Just a few of the sights and sounds you’ll experience at the festival include breezy beach yoga sessions, sun-kissed Catamaran rides ...
Digging Into UK Hip-Hop Inspired ‘Jungle’ Series With Creators Junior Okoli & Chas Appeti
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Prime Video / Primeprime Jungle, the new drama series premiering this week on Prime Video, vividly showcases U.K. Hip-Hop and London street life in a new and unique aura. Hip-Hop Wired got the chance to interview the duo behind the project. Source: Prime Video / Prime As Hip-Hop further becomes a more embedded part of global culture, storytellers are utilizing it to create new projects that will redefine and shape complex narratives reflecting urban life. The United Kingdom is no different, with Netflix’s Top Boy as a recent example. A new series from Amazon Studios, Jungle is making its debut this week depicting the taut intricacies of inner city life in London, but in a visually arresting way with a plot and cast to match. The six-episode scri...
NGHTMRE’s “DRMVRSE” Album Is a Hallucinogenic Matrix: “We’re About to Send You On the Craziest Trip of Your Life”
No blue pill or red pill can replicate the mind-bending matrix of NGHTMRE‘s DRMVRSE. NGHTMRE released his long-awaited debut studio album on September 9th after eight years of cranking out hits such as “REDLIGHT” and “GUD VIBRATIONS.” The album is just one bright star in the deep expanse of DRMVRSE. The cinematic project is a methodical piece of fiction with music, animation and narrative components—and that’s just scratching the planet’s surface. DRMVRSE tells the story of a fictional NeuroTech company that discovers a sonic frequency called “Unsound,” leading users through gateways to other physical planes of existence. A DMT-dose of portal-jumping and epic battles are the status quo inside NGHTMRE’s playground. “It s...
