Gary Clark Jr. shared his thoughts on the ongoing racial tensions in America with a powerful video message on Sunday (May 31). Simply captioned “Thoughts,” the nearly 10-minute black-and-white clip finds the Grammy winner addressing the death of George Floyd and the history of racism in this country. He also pointedly called on his white colleagues in the music industry to do better as allies to the black community. “I’ve been quiet a few days cause I don’t know what to say … but I’m tired. I don’t have any more words,” he began. “I said everything I needed to say on a record, I think. Expressed myself, did all kinds of press and ended up being that guy in the little box on whatever news program talking about this s–t. ...
The R&B star also challenged major labels and streaming services to “go big and public” with their donations. The Weeknd is urging his nearly 23 million followers to follow his lead in donating to nonprofit organizations committed to racial equality. On Monday (June 1), the star detailed receipts of $500,000 in donations he split between Black Lives Matter Global Network, Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp and National Bail Out. “Keep supporting our brothers and sisters out there risking everything to push for actual change for our black lives,” he captioned the Instagram slideshow. “Urging everyone with big pockets to give and give big and if you have less please give what you can even if it’s a small amount.” In a follow-up post t...
The music industry is taking a day to reflect on Tuesday (June 2) as part of Black Out Tuesday/#TheShowMustBePaused, an industry-wide effort to “disconnect from work and reconnect with our community.” In conjunction with the day of reflection — which was coordinated by Atlantic Records executives Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang in reaction to the police-involved killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and others — the Movement 4 Black Lives, a coalition of 100 black-led organizations, is calling for five days of action, each focused on a specific set of demands. “It feels important to really move the needle on how we’re relating right now and call for very specific national asks that people can drill down at a local level in response to persisten...
The singer was on the scene, providing first aid assistance to injured protestors. On Monday (June 1), Halsey shared a number of powerful images of her experience on the ground at Black Lives Matter protests in Los Angeles. “It’s become very clear to me that some of you need to see what I’ve seen,” she captioned a slideshow of videos and photos featuring peaceful protestors being tear-gassed and shot at by police. “It’s easy from the comfort of your home to watch looting and rioting on television and condone the violent measures being taken by forces. But what you don’t see is innocent peaceful protestors being shot at and tear gassed and physically assaulted relentlessly. “You think it’s not happening, it’s only the ‘thugs’ and the ‘riots,’ ...
On Monday afternoon, Donald Trump emerged from his underground bunker and made his first public comments on the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests filling city streets. Well, sort of. Trump only made a passing reference to Floyd’s death, and he failed to mention police brutality, institutional racism, and other societal issues that have allowed such tragedies to become commonplace in America. Instead, Trump threatened to illegally unleash the United States Military on American citizens. Then, after police gassed peaceful protestors, Trump walked to a nearby church for a bizarre photo shoot. The whole thing was one of the more disturbing moments in the three-and-a-half year history of Trump’s presidency, which is really saying something. But there’s at least one person w...
Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State, Sir John Ngbede has attributed the overwhelming victory of his party in last Saturday’s council polls in the state to the preparedness of the party for the election. Recall that the PDP cleared all the chairmanship seats in all the 23 local government areas as well as all the councillorship positions in all the 276 council wards of the state in the election. Ngbede who spoke to newsmen in his office on Monday said, “the PDP won the elections because we have been campaigning while other parties were busy going to court.” He explained that the party’s victory was a form of compensation for what the PDP government under the leadership of Governor Samuel Ortom is doing in the state. Reacting to the non participation of the All Prog...
Chrissy Teigen announced her own weekend plans as Donald Trump’s “MAGA Night” trended on Twitter Saturday (May 30). Following Trump’s tweet — “The professionally managed so-called ‘protesters’ at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. They were just there to cause trouble. The @SecretService handled them easily. Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE??? — and the hashtag that resulted, Teigen said she will be donating $200,000 to help bail out arrested protesters around the country. “In celebration of whatever the f— maga night is, I am committed to donating $100,000 to the bail outs of protestors across the country,” Teigen wrote, while husband John Legend retweeted her upda...
Beyoncé and Rihanna have both issued statements regarding the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests taking place in cities across the US. “We need justice for George Floyd,” Beyoncé said in a video message posted to Instagram on Friday night. “We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight. We’re broken and we’re disgusted. We cannot normalize this pain.” “I’m not only speaking to people of color. If you’re white, black, brown, or anything in-between, I’m sure you feel hopeless about the racism going on in America right now,” Beyoncé continued. “No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away.” Beyoncé went on to encourage her fans to sign a series of petitions demanding more charges be brought against&nbs...
Anger over the murder of George Floyd boiled over into the streets of America on Friday night. In cities across America, protestors confronted police, leading to tense, often violent scenes which played out live on television. In fact, in Atlanta, one of the more harrowing clashes took place inside the lobby of CNN’s headquarters, as officers struggled to push back protestors seeking to enter the building. During a press conference alongside Atlanta’s mayor on Friday night, Killer Mike made an impassioned plea to residents of Atlanta asking them to not vandalize their city while also expressing rage over the circumstances that led to the evening’s events. “We have to be better than burning down our own homes because if we lose Atlanta, what else we got?” Killer Mike asked. “It is your...
Twitter has taken the unprecedented step of flagging a tweet from Donald Trump, saying it violated the platform’s rules against glorifying violence. Early Friday morning, as protests boiled over in Minneapolis over the murder of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, by police, Trump sent out an especially incendiary tweet threatening violence against protestors. “These thugs are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” Trump tweeted. Just spoke to [Minnesota] Governor Tim Waltz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the lotting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” Twitter subsequently added a warning label to Trump’s tweet, which prevented users from viewing it without first reading a brief ...
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) alarms that with the volume of foreign loans being accumulated by President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC), our nation and her people have been placed on the international auction market. The party said President Buhari’s moves to take a fresh $5.513 billion (N2.1 trillion) loan in addition to an earlier $22.79 billion (N8.5trillion), the size of 2020 budget, without operable repayment plans, will totally compromise the fiscal integrity of our nation and open her up for economic annexation by foreign creditors. This is in addition to N850 billion from the capital market. It is more alarming that the Buhari government, in this fiscal year, cannot muster the capacity to harness the huge resources available in our country to generat...