Music
American Rapper Macklemore Says He Canceled Dubai Show Over UAE Arming Sudan Paramilitary Forces
DUBAI, UAE — Macklemore, an American rapper, has canceled an impending October show in Dubai due to the UAE’s suspected support for the paramilitary army fighting government soldiers in Sudan.
Macklemore’s revelation focused on the UAE’s participation in the conflict gripping the African nation. While the UAE has frequently denied providing the Rapid Support Forces and assisting their leader, Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, UN specialists reported “credible” evidence in January that the Emirates transferred weaponry to the RSF multiple times per week from northern Chad.
Sudan descended into anarchy in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary commanders flared up in the capital, Khartoum, and extended to other regions, especially Darfur. According to estimates, over 18,800 people have died in the conflict, and more than 10 million have fled their homes. Hundreds of thousands face hunger.
American Rapper Macklemore Says He Canceled Dubai Show Over UAE Arming Sudan Paramilitary Forces
At a tense U.N. Security Council meeting in June, Sudan’s fragile government accused the UAE of supporting the RSF, prompting an Emirati diplomat to tell his counterpart to cease “grandstanding.” The UAE has participated in continuing peace efforts to halt the fighting.
The Emirati Foreign Ministry and Dubai Media Office had no immediate comment on Macklemore’s public remark Sunday. Last week, organizers said that the performance had been canceled and that refunds would be paid, but they did not explain why.
In a Saturday Instagram post, Grammy winner Macklemore claimed he had a series of people “asking me to cancel the show in solidarity with the people of Sudan and to boycott doing business in the UAE for the role they are playing in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis.”
Macklemore claimed he reconsidered the concert in part because of his previous outspoken support for Palestinians during the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip. He recently began performing a song called “Hind’s Hall,” in memory of Hind Rajab, a young girl slain in Gaza in a shooting that Palestinians blamed on Israeli forces opening fire on a civilian car.
“I know that this will probably jeopardise my future shows in the area, and I truly hate letting any of my fans down,” he said. “I was also quite excited. But, until the UAE stops arming and funding the RSF, I will not perform there.”
He said, “I have no judgement against other artists who perform in the UAE.” But I do ask my peers who are slated to perform in Dubai: “What could we achieve if we used our platforms to mobilise collective liberation?”
The RSF was founded by Janjaweed fighters under former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who governed the country for three decades before being deposed in a popular rebellion in 2019. The International Criminal Court wants him on charges of genocide and other crimes committed during the Darfur conflict in the 2000s.
American Rapper Macklemore Says He Canceled Dubai Show Over UAE Arming Sudan Paramilitary Forces
Dubai, home to long-haul carrier Emirates, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, and other tourist attractions, has long attempted to attract A-list musicians to the city-state’s new stadium and other venues. However, performers have already highlighted the difficulty of performing in the UAE, a hereditarily administered federation of seven sheikhdoms where speech is strictly regulated.
That includes American comedian Dave Chappelle, who made headlines in Abu Dhabi in May when he referred to the Israel-Hamas conflict as a “genocide” while simultaneously mocking the UAE’s extensive surveillance infrastructure.
Macklemore, a 41-year-old rapper born Benjamin Hammond Haggerty in Kent, Washington, received a Grammy Award in 2014 for his breakout single “Thrift Shop.”
SOURCE | AP
Music
Phil Lesh, Founding Member Of Grateful Dead And Influential Bassist, Dies At 84
Los Angeles — Phil Lesh, an 84-year-old classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter who discovered his real calling as a founding member of the Grateful Dead by reimagining the position of rock bass guitar, died Friday.
Lesh’s death was confirmed via his Instagram account. Lesh was the eldest and one of the most enduring members of the band that helped define the acid rock sound originating from San Francisco in the 1960s.
“Phil Lesh, the bassist and founding member of the Grateful Dead, died peacefully this morning. He was surrounded by his family and filled with affection. According to the Instagram message, Phil gave enormous delight to everyone around him and left a legacy of music and love.
The message did not specify the cause of death, and attempts to contact spokespeople for more information were not immediately successful. Lesh had already survived prostate and bladder cancer, as well as a liver transplant in 1998 due to the devastating effects of a hepatitis C infection and years of excessive drinking.
Lesh died two days after MusiCares named the Grateful Dead their Persons of the Year. MusiCares, which assists music professionals needing financial or other support, mentioned Lesh’s Unbroken Chain Foundation, among other charity projects. The Dead will be honored in January at a fundraiser dinner in Los Angeles before the Grammy Awards.
Although he kept a low public profile, rarely giving interviews or speaking in front of an audience, fans and fellow band members recognized Lesh as an important member of the Grateful Dead, whose thundering lines on the six-string electric bass provided a brilliant counterpoint to lead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s soaring solos and anchored the band’s famous marathon jam sessions.
Phil Lesh, Founding Member Of Grateful Dead And Influential Bassist, Dies At 84
“When Phil’s happening, the band’s happening,” Garcia famously said.
Drummer Mickey Hart described him as the group’s intellectual, bringing a classical composer’s attitude and skills to a five-chord rock ‘n’ roll outfit.
Lesh credited Garcia for training him to play the bass in the unconventional lead-guitar style for which he would become famous, combining thundering arpeggios with fragments of spontaneously arranged symphonic passages.
A fellow bass player, Rob Wasserman, once stated that Lesh’s style distinguished him from every other bassist he knew. While most others were willing to keep time and play the occasional solo, Wasserman said Lesh was good and confident enough to lead his bandmates through a song’s melody.
“He happens to play bass but he’s more like a horn player, doing all those arpeggios — and he has that counterpoint going all the time,” he told me.
Lesh began his long musical journey as a classically trained violinist, taking third-grade lessons. He began playing the trumpet at 14 and rose to second chair in California’s Oakland Symphony Orchestra while still in his teens.
In 1965, however, he had mostly abandoned both instruments and was working as a sound engineer for a tiny radio station when Garcia approached him to play bass in The Warlocks, a young rock band.
When Lesh informed Garcia that he didn’t play bass, the musician inquired, “Didn’t you used to play violin?” When he responded yes, Garcia said, “There you go, man.”
Lesh sat down for a seven-hour lesson with Garcia, armed with a cheap four-string instrument purchased by his girlfriend, and followed the latter’s advice to tune his instrument’s strings an octave lower than Garcia’s guitar’s four bottom strings. Then Garcia let him go, allowing Lesh to establish the spontaneous playing style he would keep for the rest of his life.
Lesh and Garcia frequently exchanged leads, sometimes spontaneously, and the band as a whole frequently broke into long experimental, jazz-influenced jams during concerts. As a result, even well-known Grateful Dead tunes like “Truckin'” or “Sugar Magnolia” rarely sounded the same twice in a row, which drew faithful fans back to each show.
“It’s always fluid, we just pretty much figure it out on the fly,” Lesh said, chuckling, in a rare 2009 interview with The Associated Press. “You can’t set those things in stone in the rehearsal room.”
Phillip Chapman Lesh was born on March 15, 1940, in Berkeley, California, as the sole child of Frank Lesh, an office equipment repairman, and his wife, Barbara.
In later years, he claimed that listening to New York Philharmonic broadcasts on his grandmother’s radio sparked his interest in music. One of his earliest memories was listening to the famous German composer Bruno Walter conduct the orchestra through Brahms’ First Symphony.
He frequently listed composers such as Bach and Edgard Varèse and jazz legends such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis as his musical influences.
By the time he arrived at the College of San Mateo, Lesh had transitioned from classical music to cool jazz. He eventually became the first trumpet player in the school’s big band and composed several orchestral compositions for the ensemble to perform.
Soon after Lesh began playing bass, The Warlocks changed their name to the Grateful Dead, and Lesh began to captivate audiences with his agility. Crowds congregated in what became known as “The Phil Zone” just before his stage location.
Phil Lesh, Founding Member Of Grateful Dead And Influential Bassist, Dies At 84
Although Lesh was never a prolific songwriter, he did compose music for and occasionally sang some of the band’s most popular songs. These included the lively country song “Pride of Cucamonga,” the jazz-influenced “Unbroken Chain,” and the hauntingly beautiful “Box of Rain.”
Lesh wrote the latter on guitar as a gift for his dying father. He said that after hearing the instrumental recording, Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter contacted him the next day with a lyric sheet. That sheet, he claimed, included “some of the most moving and heartfelt lyrics I’ve ever had the good fortune to sing.”
The song was frequently played at the end of the band’s shows.
After the group disbanded following Garcia’s death in 1995, Lesh frequently skipped performances with the other members.
He participated in a 2009 Grateful Dead tour and again in 2015 for a handful of “Fare Thee Well” shows commemorating both the band’s 50th anniversary and Lesh’s final performance with the others.
However, he continued to perform frequently with a revolving band of musicians he dubbed Phil Lesh and Friends.
In later years, he mainly performed at Terrapin Crossroads, a restaurant and nightclub he founded near his Northern California home in 2012 and named after the Grateful Dead song and album “Terrapin Station.”
Lesh is survived by his wife, Jill, and two kids, Brian and Grahame.
SOURCE | AP
Music
One Direction Singer Liam Payne Found Dead In Buenos Aires, Local Media Reports
Former One Direction singer Liam Payne died outside a hotel in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires on Wednesday, according to local media.
The 31-year-old British musician fell from the building’s third story.
According to officials, leading local newspapers La Nacion and Clarin reported that police were dispatched to the hotel in the capital’s beautiful Palermo neighborhood in response to an emergency call describing “an aggressive man who may be under the influence of drugs and alcohol.”
According to news sources, ambulance workers confirmed the singer’s death after finding him in an inside hotel patio.
One Direction Singer Liam Payne Found Dead In Buenos Aires, Local Media Reports
Liam Payne rocketed to global popularity as a member of the now-defunct pop band One Direction, alongside Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson.
The boy band formed after finishing third on the British edition of the X Factor music competition show in 2010, however, the group disbanded in 2016 as its members pursued various pursuits, including individual careers.
SOURCE | Reuters
Music
Former Ozzy Osbourne Guitarist Jake E. Lee Shot 6 Times In Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS — Jake E. Lee, Ozzy Osbourne’s former guitarist, was shot and injured many times in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning.
According to an emailed statement from Las Vegas police, the victim was shot around 2:40 a.m. Tuesday and taken to the hospital for treatment. There have been no arrests, and the police department said the investigation into the incident, which occurred in a suburb about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the Strip, is still ongoing.
Former Ozzy Osbourne Guitarist Jake E. Lee Shot Multiple Times In Las Vegas
“No further comments will be made while the incident is being investigated by the police.” “Jake and his family appreciate your respect for their privacy at this time,” the message stated.
Amanda Cagan, the representative, said the incident occurred as Lee was walking his dog.
“By the grace of God, no major organs were hit, he’s fully responsive, and expected to make a full recovery,” Tim Heyne, manager for Lee’s rock band Red Dragon Cartel, told The Associated Press.
Former Ozzy Osbourne Guitarist Jake E. Lee Shot Multiple Times In Las Vegas
Jake, 67, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and reared in San Diego. He played guitar in various bands on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip during the 1980s glam metal movement, including an early version of Ratt.
He joined Ozzy Osbourne’s band in 1982 and stayed until 1987, appearing on albums such as 1983’s “Bark at the Moon.” He later played in the metal band Badlands and released two solo albums. He most recently led the Red Dragon Cartel.
SOURCE | AP
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