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On the night of Jan. 26, 2014, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk leapt onto the stage at Staples Center to accept the Grammy for album of the year.
Even though the French electronic duo’s faces were hidden behind white and gold robot masks, they couldn’t hide their elation as they waved back to cheers from Jay-Z, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. Their album “Random Access Memories” and its smash single “Get Lucky” were crowning achievements in a career of immaculately produced dance music, played at pop-star scale.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the flatlands of L.A., far from the limos and gowns at Staples Center, Eddie Johns bedded down for the night.
Amber Ruffin and Tarik Davis argue that the Derek Chauvin verdict is nothing to sing about
Screenshot: The Amber Ruffin Show
Amber Ruffin knows how to work her sunny persona. When someone as seemingly chipper and silly as Ruffin makes a serious-as-life-or-death joke, the juxtaposition can cut very deep, as a pair of very different segments on Friday’s
Amber Ruffin Show showed. In one, Ruffin just dropped all pretense of smiling through the day’s pain, deploying the old “even a broken clock” metaphor in addressing the still-shocking fact that former Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin is actually going to jail after being convicted on all three counts in the caught-on-video murder of Black man George Floyd.
We heard that somebody had been stabbed and somehow the police were involved.
I was trying to finish off what I was doing to get to the venue. But that brought me down to a real low thinking oh, my gosh, what s going to happen now?
I heard that David was stopped by the police. His best man called me to say we re trying to get him out. They were going on his stag do. He was almost arrested, which, thank goodness, his best man had the presence of mind to divert him away from.
There was loads of police activity going on; it was there every few steps you took. You’d see the police vans drive up Brixton Road or Railton Road. Then you d see the doors swing open and the police coming out. They’d get boys in the van. And we heard stories that some of them were beaten up in those vans.
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When Valerie June arrived, she ignited conversations for the daring, easy way she mixed folk, soul, and Appalachian old-time music. The Memphis singer-songwriter and guitarist flaunted the fiddle and the nasal projection of Appalachian balladry on her 2013 label debut,
Pushinâ Against a Stone, but they were also overshadowed at times between Richard Swiftâs Wurlitzer and producer Dan Auerbachâs hi-fi touch. Tracing the gnarled roots of Appalachian music might lead you to Scotland or to Mississippi, depending, and June only wishes to further tangle those lines, while never fully abandoning the songcraft traditions that represent home to her.
The singer finds her voice again and shows her potential as a musician with her long-awaited debut album Life Support following the hard lessons she learned in the industry.