Music

Twitter, Once a Threat to Titans, Now Belongs to One

But by the early 2010s, it had grown into a global water cooler where millions of people went to make sense of the world around them. Its rapid-fire, 140-character bursts made it a valuable tool for those wanting to steer a conversation, attract attention to a cause or simply peer into the kaleidoscope of human thought.

On any given day, Twitter was the place to: talk about the news, complain about airline food, flirt with strangers, announce an earthquake, yell at your senator, cheer for your sports teams, post nudes, make dumb jokes, ruin your own reputation, ruin somebody else’s reputation, document police brutality, argue about anime, fall for a cryptocurrency scam, start a music career, procrastinate, follow the stock market, issue a public apology, share scientific papers, discuss “Game of Thrones,” find skillet chicken recipes.

And while it was never the biggest social media platform, or the most profitable, Twitter did seem to level the playing field in a way other apps didn’t.

But as Twitter and other social networks grew, powerful people found that these apps could help them extend their power in new ways. Authoritarians discovered they could use them to crack down on dissent. Extremists learned they could stir up hateful mobs to drive women and people of color offline. Celebrities and influencers realized that the crazier you acted, the more attention you got, and dialed up their behavior accordingly. A foundational belief of social media’s pioneers — that simply giving people the tools to express themselves would create a fairer and more connected society — began to look hopelessly naïve.

And when Donald J. Trump rode a wave of retweets to the White House in 2016, and used his Twitter account as president to spread conspiracy theories, wage culture wars, undermine public health and threaten nuclear war, the idea that the app was a gift to the downtrodden became even harder to argue.

Since 2016, Twitter has tried to clean up its mess, putting into effect new rules on misinformation and hate speech and barring some high-profile trolls. Those changes made the platform safer and less chaotic, but they also alienated users who were uncomfortable with how powerful Twitter itself had become.

These users chafed at the company’s content moderation decisions, like the one made to permanently suspend Mr. Trump’s account after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. They accused the platform’s leaders of bowing to a censorious mob. And some users grew nostalgic for the messier, more freewheeling Twitter they’d loved.

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Who Gets the Last Word on Steve Jobs? He Might.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis meticulously curated the memory of her husband after he was assassinated, reimagining President John F. Kennedy as a fallen King Arthur in a modern-day Camelot.

Now some historians wonder if Laurene Powell Jobs is also trying to frame the legacy of her late husband, Steve Jobs, a complicated and transformational figure who was shadowed by his flaws as a father and belligerence as a boss.

Last month, Ms. Powell Jobs introduced the Steve Jobs Archive. It aspires to reinvent the personal archive much as Mr. Jobs, in his years running Apple, remade music with the iPod and communication with the iPhone.

Rather than offering up a repository of personal correspondence, notes and items for public research and inquiry, as other influential figures have done, Ms. Powell Jobs, who did not respond to requests for comments, said at a conference last month that the Steve Jobs Archive would be devoted to “ideas.” Those ideas are primarily Mr. Jobs’s philosophies about life and work.

Harvard Business School’s 25 greatest business leaders of the 20th century left behind personal archives that are open to the public in libraries or museums, including Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Asa Candler, who built Coca-Cola.

Other iconic business founders such as Walt Disney, Sam Walton and Ray Kroc entrusted their papers to the companies they built, allowing those collections to become the cornerstone of corporate archives.

Walt Disney Company, make personal correspondence, notes, speeches and other items available to authors for research.

“We don’t censor,” said Becky Cline, director of the Walt Disney archives. “We just vet.”

The new Jobs archive debuted with a minimalist website containing eight pieces of video, audio and writing that express what the archive calls Mr. Jobs’s “driving motivations in his own words.” The items, three-quarters of which were already public, can be accessed by clicking through maxims made famous by Mr. Jobs, including “make something wonderful and put it out there” and “pursue different paths.”

The next steps for the archive are shrouded in the kind of mystery associated with the way Mr. Jobs ran Apple. About all that’s been publicly disclosed is that Ms. Powell Jobs hired a documentary filmmaker to gather hundreds of oral histories about Mr. Jobs from former colleagues. Where that material will be stored and who will have access to it has not been revealed.

She married Mr. Jobs in 1991, two years after meeting him as a graduate student at Stanford. Since his death, she has used her estimated $16 billion fortune to fund the Emerson Collective, a philanthropic and commercial operation that owns The Atlantic magazine and funds an organization trying to reduce gun violence in Chicago.

During his life, Mr. Jobs admired and encouraged historians to preserve the history of his Silicon Valley predecessors such as Robert Noyce, who co-founded the chip maker Intel. But he put little value on his own history, and Apple has seldom commemorated product anniversaries, saying it focuses on the future, not the past.

Stanford spent years cataloging items such as photos of a barefoot Mr. Jobs at work, advertising campaigns and an Apple II computer. That material can be reviewed by students and researchers interested in learning more about the company.

Silicon Valley leaders have a tradition of leaving their material with Stanford, which has collections of letters, slides and notes from William Hewlett, who founded Hewlett-Packard, and Andy Grove, the former chief executive of Intel.

Mr. Lowood said that he uses the Silicon Valley archives to teach students about the value of discovery. “Unlike a book, which is the gospel and all true, a mix of materials in a box introduces uncertainty,” he said.

After Mr. Jobs’ death in 2011, Mr. Isaacson, the author, published a biography of Mr. Jobs. Some at Apple complained that the book, a best seller, misrepresented Mr. Jobs and commercialized his death.

Mr. Isaacson declined to comment about those complaints.

Four years later, the book became the basis for a film. The 2015 movie, written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Michael Fassbender, focused on Mr. Jobs being ousted from Apple and denying paternity of his eldest daughter.

according to emails made public after a hack of Sony Pictures, which held rights to the film. She and others who were close to Mr. Jobs thought any movie based on the book would be inaccurate.

“I was outraged, and he was my friend,” said Mike Slade, a marketing executive who worked as an adviser to Mr. Jobs from 1998 to 2004. “I can’t imagine how outraged Laurene was.”

In November 2015, a month after the movie’s release, Ms. Powell Jobs had representatives register the Steve Jobs Archive as a limited liability company in Delaware and California. She later hired the documentary filmmaker, Davis Guggenheim, to gather oral histories about Mr. Jobs from former colleagues and friends. She also hired Ms. Berlin, who was Stanford’s project historian for its Apple archives, to be the Jobs Archive’s executive director.

Mr. Guggenheim gathered material about Mr. Jobs while also working on a Netflix documentary about Bill Gates, “Inside Bill’s Brain.” Mr. Slade, who worked for both Mr. Jobs and Mr. Gates, said he sat for an interview about one executive, stopped to change shirts and returned to discuss the other one.

Ms. Berlin assisted Ms. Powell Jobs in gathering material. They collected items such as audio of interviews done by reporters and early company records, including a 1976 document that Mr. Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, called their declaration of independence. It outlined what the company would stand for, said Regis McKenna, who unearthed the document in his personal collection gathered during his decades as a pioneer of Silicon Valley marketing and adviser to Mr. Jobs.

Ms. Powell Jobs also assembled a group of advisers to inform what the archive would be, including Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive; Jony Ive, Apple’s former chief design officer; and Bob Iger, the former chief executive of Walt Disney and a former Apple board member.

Mr. Cook, Mr. Ive and Mr. Iger declined to comment.

Apple, which has its own corporate archive and archivist, is a contributor to the Jobs effort, said Ms. Berlin, who declined to say how she works with the company to gain access to material left by Mr. Jobs.

The archive’s resulting website opens with an email that Mr. Jobs sent himself at Apple. It reads like a journal entry, outlining all the things that he depends on others to provide, from the food he eats to the music he enjoys.

“I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being,” he wrote.

The email is followed by a previously undisclosed audio clip from a 1984 interview that Mr. Jobs did with Michael Moritz, the journalist turned venture capitalist at Sequoia. During it, Mr. Jobs says that refinement comes from mistakes, a platitude that captures how Apple used trial and error to develop devices.

“It was just lying in the drawer gathering dust,” Mr. Moritz said of the recording.

It’s clear to those who have contributed material that the archive is about safeguarding Mr. Jobs’s legacy. It’s a goal that many of them support.

“There’s so much distortion about who Steve was,” Mr. McKenna said. “There needed to be something more factual.”

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TV Shows And Movies Are Contributing To Youth Sex Education

Sex has always been portrayed in TV, movies and shows, but it’s changed over time to educate people about sex.

In a time when sex education varies between different states and local school districts, TV shows and films are filling in the gaps for some teens and young adults.

In 2018, a Healthline survey of more than 1,000 Americans found that only 33% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 reported having some form of sex education in school.

And a 2020 study from the Journal of LGBT Youth found that a majority of gay and lesbian college students “expressed that their formal sex education was lacking and that they sought out or received information from other informal sources to supplement their learning.”

Those informal resources included internet forums, popular films, music and TV shows.

When it comes to television, teen dramas like the long-running series “Degrassi” has been paving the way.

Since 1987, when “Degrassi Junior High” first debuted, the franchise about students at a Canadian junior high and high school has highlighted the issues of teen pregnancy, abortion, STDs and sexual assault. In 1992, the U.S. Department of Education even developed a sex education curriculum that used episodes of “Degrassi” as starting points for classroom discussion.

“Degrassi” now spans five different series across three generations of viewers and represents teens and families of various cultures, as well as varying sexual and gender identities. Its newest iteration is slated to debut on HBO Max in 2023.

As “Degrassi” served almost like the blueprint for sex education in teen dramas, a series for older viewers, ABC’s “How To Get Away With Murder,” made history with its own advocacy for safe sexual health within the LGBTQ community.

The series centers on a group of law school students and their professor. And in 2018, it became the first network primetime series to highlight pre-exposure prophylaxis, more commonly known as “PrEP,” a medication that reduces the risk of spreading HIV.

The series’ discussion of PrEP, as well as the representation of a character living with HIV, was praised by organizations like GLAAD and Greater Than AIDS for the way it educated audiences without stigmatizing the issue.

“How To Get Away With Murder” ended in 2020, but sex education in TV has continued.

Today’s teen dramas like Netflix’s new “Heartbreak High” or the critically acclaimed and aptly named “Sex Education” are poking fun at the limitations of real-life sex education in schools, while advocating for honest and informative conversations about sex, consent, body positivity and healthy relationships.

“Sex Education” tells the story of the son of a sex therapist who gives relationship advice to his peers. Both critics and health experts have praised the show for its informative humor and nuance about the realities of sex. The fourth and final season of the series is expected to be released next year.

: newsy.com

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Cardi B Pleads Guilty, Resolving Case Over NYC Club Brawls

By Associated Press
September 16, 2022

The 29-year-old Grammy-winning rapper agreed to a conditional discharge just as her case was about to go to trial.

Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B resolved a yearslong criminal case stemming from a pair of brawls at New York City strip clubs by pleading guilty Thursday in a deal that requires her to perform 15 days of community service.

The 29-year-old “WAP” singer agreed to a conditional discharge just as her case was about to go to trial, saying in a statement: “Part of growing up and maturing is being accountable for your actions.”

Cardi B, a New York City native whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges stemming from the August 2018 fights. Ten other counts, including two felonies, were dismissed. Two co-defendants also pleaded guilty.

According to prosecutors, Cardi B and her entourage were targeting employees of Angels Strip Club in Flushing, Queens, over an apparent personal dispute.

In one fight, chairs, bottles and hookah pipes were thrown as the group argued with a bartender. She and another employee had minor injuries.

“No one is above the law,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. “In pleading guilty today, Ms. Belcalis Almanzar and two co-defendants have accepted responsibility for their actions. This Office is satisfied with the resolution, which includes appropriate community service.”

In 2019, Cardi B rejected a plea deal that would have given her a conditional discharge. Prosecutors then presented the case to a grand jury and obtained an indictment that included the two felony charges.

“I’ve made some bad decisions in my past that I am not afraid to face and own up to,” said Cardi B, adding that she wanted to set a good example for her two children.

“These moments don’t define me and they are not reflective of who I am now,” she added. “I’m looking forward to moving past this situation with my family and friends and getting back to the things I love the most — the music and my fans.”

Cardi B’s chart-topping hits include “I Like It” and the Maroon 5 collaboration “Girls Like You.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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How The Power Of Music Is Helping Patients With Alzheimer’s

An adult care center for people with dementia uses music as therapy for families, patients, and caregivers.

It’s been said that music is healing, and for Peter Midgely and his daughter Debbie Caramella, music is family.

“He made us all play instruments — all six kids,” said Caramella.

The father and daughter make their way to practice with the Sentimental Journey Singers weekly, a chorus of people with memory loss and their loved ones.

A second sister joined us via zoom.

DEBBIE CARAMELLA: Dad wasn’t your first job delivering papers? And what did you do with your money?” Didn’t you pay for your own..

PETER MIDGELY: Pay for piano lessons.

CARAMELLA: That’s right.

For the trio, rehearsals are about more than family time.

Mary Ann East, is the director of Arts for Life, Encore Creativity for Older Adults.

“There’s even parts of the brain that are strictly for music and they tend to be untouched by cognitive change, or at least not touched right away,” said East.

It’s something that’s been observed with musician Tony Bennett, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

The group of singers rehearse at Insight Memory Care, an adult center in Virginia dedicated to memory loss patients.

“When you get a diagnosis, families go, what the heck do I do now? We’re trying to meet them at that space,” said Anita Irvin, the executive director at Insight Memory Care Center.

For people with dementia, it isn’t just about music, but finding that thing that makes each person spark.

“This is actually participant artwork here. So this is stuff that is done by our participants that we like to kind of highlight what they’ve been successful at doing through art,” said Irvin.

It’s also about exercise and just plain camaraderie.

“I find that physical movement, you would say they’re minor, but for seniors, they’re major,” said James Brophy, a client at Insight Memory Care Center.

As with any diagnosis, the impact goes beyond the patient, to family members and caregivers.

Melissa Long, is the director of education and support at Insight Memory Care Center.

“The guilt that they’re not doing enough. The frustration that they get that this isn’t the person they’ve been with their whole life,” said Long.

“One of the most devastating times that can happen to a caregiver is the day that that person doesn’t know who they are,” said Beth Kallmyer, the VP of care and support at the Alzheimer’s Association.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association caregivers of patients with dementia are more likely to suffer from higher levels of stress and anxiety than non-caregivers.

“It’s helpful to remember that it’s a disease. The person has no control over it, but still it’s very devastating to family members,” said Kallmyer.

While there’s no cure for diseases like Alzheimer’s, experts encourage caregivers to focus on the little victories. And while there’s no clear-cut evidence that isolation speeds disease progression.

“There is there’s some evidence showing that social engagement, using your brain to do different things, having a purpose is remains really important,” said Kallmyer.

CARAMELLA: It’s beneficial to have physical activity, mental activity and social activity every day. What do you think dad? Does this cover those things?

MIDGELY: It does.

CARAMELLA: It does. All of it.

Newsy’s mental health initiative “America’s Breakdown: Confronting Our Mental Health Crisis” brings you deeply personal and thoughtfully told stories on the state of mental health care in the U.S. Click here to learn more.

: newsy.com

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Call Center Technology Could Remove Accents From Customer Service

By Newsy Staff
September 14, 2022

New AI technology for call centers can essentially remove foreign accents on phone calls, but does this perpetuate discrimination issues?

When calling customer service and actually reaching a real human, it’s likely people end up speaking to someone outside of the U.S. about a domestic issue.

It’s no secret many companies outsource their customer service to call centers around the globe. Sometimes, it’s the representative’s accent that lets the customer know they aren’t stateside.

But one startup has plans to hide foreign accent completely.

It’s a controversial idea, creating a new debate around accents: On the one hand, this could help protect workers from discrimination. On the other hand, skeptics argue it could actually exacerbate existing problems with discrimination.

Accent training for call centers is already standard procedure. Workers are usually trained in a number of different English-speaking accents. The BBC reported on one company that trained workers both in their speaking accents and in understanding accents, like New Yorker, Jamaican and even Medieval English accents.

One of the apparent benefits of using tech that neutralizes accents means it could save companies from a rigorous training process. The other major goal is protecting workers from discrimination.

One of the founders of Sanas, who is a former call center worker, told the Guardian, “I built this technology for the agents, because I don’t want him or her to go through what I went through.”

Unsurprisingly, call centers are magnets for all kinds of accent discrimination from callers. Accents are a huge factor in how we perceive identity and form prejudices. They can be associated with cultural background, nationality or even class and education.

Some research has shown accents can play an even more important role in how humans judge based on looks and how humans respond to non-native accents differently: In one study, native English speakers rated recordings of different accents saying statements like “Ants don’t sleep,” but the results showed the English speakers rated the statements said with the heaviest accents as the least true. In other words, they trusted them less.

It might be easy to point to studies like this as evidence that accent bias is just unavoidable, but experts say it seems more like the other way around: Stereotypes are what shape how we respond to certain accents in the first place.

Some studies show that native U.S. English speakers trust British accents more than Indian accents, regardless of how strong it is, or that Mexican and Greek accents were seen as “less intelligent or professional” than people using standard U.S. English.

This isn’t just the U.S. Many countries in Europe, like Sweden or Denmark, have dialects referred to as “street language” or “street dialects.” But these are often used by immigrant communities and are seen as “less refined.”

Some language experts suggest exposure to more accents can actually help combat harmful stereotypes, which circles back to why some critics have raised eyebrows at the call center technology.

It can seem like erasing accents and identity might be a step backwards to some, but not for others like call center workers, who might find some relief in technology like this.

: newsy.com

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‘Succession,’ ‘Ted Lasso’ Top Emmys; 1st-Time Winners Shine

Television’s biggest stars gathered to celebrate their achievements at the 2022 Emmy Awards, hosted by Kenan Thompson.

“Succession” and “Ted Lasso” topped the Emmy Awards on Monday, in a ceremony that touted the influence of TV and extended honors to global sensation “Squid Game” and winners who delivered messages of empowerment.

The evening’s uplifting tone, as voiced especially by Zendaya, Lizzo and Sheryl Lee Ralph, was in contrast to the darkness that pervaded the storytelling of best drama series winner “Succession” and even comedy series victor “Ted Lasso.”

“Thanks for making such a safe space to make this very difficult show,” said Zendaya, claiming her second best drama actress award for “Euphoria,” about a group of teens’ tough coming-of-age.

“My greatest wish for ‘Euphoria’ was that it could help heal people. Thank you for everyone who has shared your story with me. I carry them with me, and I carry them with” Rue, her character, Zendaya said.

“Succession,” about a media empire run by a grasping and cutthroat family, split drama series honors with “Squid Game,” the bold South Korean-set drama about the idle rich turning the poor into entertainment fodder.

Lee Jung-jae of “Squid Game,” who played the show’s moral center, became the first Asian to win the Emmy for best drama series actor.

“Thank you for making realistic problems we all face come to life so creatively on the screen,” Lee said to “Squid Game” creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, who earned the Emmy for best drama series directing. In Korean, Lee thanked the audience in his native country for watching.

Backstage, Hwang said this was “a major moment for us,” and Lee said he expected the awards to open doors for other Asian actors.

Jason Sudeikis and Jean Smart collected back-to-back acting trophies, but several new Emmy winners were minted, with Lizzo and Quinta Brunson and Sheryl Lee Ralph of “Abbott Elementary” collecting trophies.

Brunson, who created and stars in the freshman series, won the Emmy for comedy series writing. ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” also nominated for best comedy, is a rare bright spot for network broadcasting in the age of streaming and cable dominance.

Sudeikis won his second consecutive trophy for playing the unlikely U.S. coach of a British soccer team in the comedy “Ted Lasso,” with Smart matching that haul for her role as a veteran comedian in “Hacks.”

Sudeikis gave a rare awards show shoutout to TV consumers: “Thanks to the people who watch this show and dig it as much as we dig making it.”

There was a ripple of reaction in the theater when “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong mentioned Britain’s new king, Charles III, in accepting the show’s trophy, the cast standing alongside him.

“Big week for successions, new king in the U.K., this for us. Evidently a little bit more voting involved in our winning than Prince Charles,” Armstrong said. “I’m not saying we’re more legitimate in our position than he is. We’ll leave that up to other people.”

Ralph stopped the Emmy Awards show by accepting the best supporting actress comedy award for “Abbott Elementary” with a brief but rousing song of affirmation.

“I am an endangered species, but I sing no victim song. I am a woman, I am an artist and I know where my voice belongs,” she belted out. She then encouraged anyone doubting their dream “I am here to tell you this is what believing looks like.”

The audience, including Lizzo and many of television’s biggest stars, leapt to their feet to cheer on Ralph.

When Lizzo herself accepted the award for best-competition series trophy for “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” she offered another emotional pep talk.

“When I was a little girl, all I wanted to see was me in the media. Someone fat like me, Black like me, beautiful like me,” the music artist said.

There were also cheers for presenter Selma Blair, who has discussed her multiple sclerosis diagnosis publicly and who used a cane on stage.

“Ted Lasso” co-star Brett Goldstein, won comedy supporting actors, while Matthew Macfadyen of “Succession” and Julia Garner of “Ozark” earned drama series supporting actor honors.

“It’s such a pleasure and privilege for me to play this bonkers gift of a role in this wonderful show,” Macfadyen said in accepting the trophy for his role as a scheming member of a media empire family.

Garner was among the winners who took advantage of covering all bases by thanking her husband and others in an on-screen message.

“The White Lotus” collected several honors, including best limited or anthology series.

The achievements of “Squid Game,” “Abbott Elementary” and a few other shows didn’t change the relative lack of diversity in this year’s nominations, which included significantly fewer people of color than in 2021.

Host Kenan Thompson kicked off the Emmys with a tribute to TV, dismissing TikTok as “tiny vertical television,” and a musical number saluting series’ theme songs from “Friends” to “The Brady Bunch” to “Game of Thrones.”

Once the music stopped, Thompson provided a mic-drop moment — announcing Oprah Winfrey as the first presenter. Winfrey strutted onto the stage holding an Emmy statuette, declaring the night “a party!” The night’s first award went to Michael Keaton for his role in “Dopesick.” Winfrey and Keaton hugged before she handed him his trophy.

“It means something,” Keaton said of the award for playing a caring doctor ensnared with his patients by addiction. He went on to recall the “magic” of being introduced to TV when his dad won a set at a raffle and thanked his parents for not mocking his youthful attempts at acting.

Amanda Seyfried earned the limited-series lead actress trophy for “The Dropout,” in which she played ill-fated Silicon Valley whiz kid Elizabeth Holmes. She thanked a list of family and colleagues and even her dog, Finn.

Murray Bartlett won the best supporting actor award for “The White Lotus,” a tragicomedy set in a Hawaii resort. Jennifer Coolidge, who won best supporting actress honors for the show, delighted the audience by shimmying to the music intended to cut off her acceptance speech.

The award for best variety talk show went to “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” with stand-up special “Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel” winning for best writing for a comedy special.

“Good night, everybody. I’ma go home. I’m not like a sore winner, but I’m going to go home because I can’t top this right now,” an overcome Carmichael told the audience.

Glamour was back with some metallic sparkle and lots of bright color as an otherworldly Britt Lower, Old Hollywood Elle Fanning and their fellow stars posed for photographers.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Some Musicians Play Through Mental Health Issues From Industry

Seventy-three percent of independent musicians have battled stress, anxiety and depression, according to a Record Union report.

Behind the glamour of concerts and tours is a mental health crisis in the music industry, and several musicians are speaking out to lessen the stigma.

Joe Trohman is the co-founder and lead guitarist of Fall Out Boy, one of the biggest pop punk bands of the past two decades.

“Touring is a lonely job,” he said. “There’s so much time spent alone. I think people glamorize the idea of touring. Sure, the shows are fantastic. But that’s like an hour out of the day, maybe two. It feels great. I mean, it’s incredible. We’ve worked very hard to get to that point and we’re very grateful for it. But that’s surrounded by ten hours of nothing.”

In Trohman’s new memoir, “None of this Rocks,” he speaks openly about his struggles with depression and substance abuse. And he hopes his honesty can help lessen the stigma surrounding mental health.

“It came out of the pandemic,” he said. “It came out of just being lonely and not having other people to talk to and wanting to talk to other people about my depression and my recent diagnosis of bipolar type two.”

Seventy-three percent of independent musicians have battled stress, anxiety and depression, according to a 2019 report from the Record Union. And experts say that’s due to the isolation of touring, the stress of financial instability, substance abuse and the lack of quality mental health care in the music industry.

A 2018 report from the Music Industry Research Association found that nearly 12% of musicians reported having suicidal thoughts, which is four times the general population. That struggle was highlighted in 2017 by the high-profile suicides of musicians like Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington.

“It further hits home regarding musicians that have committed suicide in recent years, like Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington,” Trohman said. “Cornell, specifically, was someone that just didn’t seem like — from the outside — didn’t seem like he had it. He was so busy, so active doing Soundgarden — again, never really seemed like he’s skipping a beat. And I’m not saying anybody failed those guys … But like, I think if there were more conversations, again, and there were more resources, maybe they would have gotten some help.”

There’s a sense of urgency now within the music industry to help musicians access mental health support.

Organizations like Backline.Care and campaigns like Music Minds Matter are connecting music industry professionals — including artists, managers, crews and their families — to a network of care providers and online support groups. In 2022, as many musicians returned to the stage, the Music Minds Matter phone service saw a 34% increase in calls.

“One conversation sparks another and that becomes larger and larger,” Trohman continued. “I don’t have any airs about whether or not I’m going to be able to do that. But if I can help, you know, one drop in the bucket is better than zero.”

If you need to talk to someone, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or text “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

: newsy.com

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Rapper Lecrae, Hip-Hop Contestants Bring Hope To Inmates

In the latest story in Newsy’s American Heart series, participants were asked to compose original song lyrics and a title to one of three beats.

A very special contest spearheaded by Grammy award-winning rapper Lecrae to bring hope to incarcerated people in our country, their families and their communities is the focus of one of Newsy’s American Heart series segments. In the series, Newsy looks for and amplifies the best in America.

Participants in this special contest were asked to compose original song lyrics and a title to one of three beats. They got them over technology and then they sat down and they came up with it. The winning track, “I Think” was composed by Carmela Mose, also known as Good, who is currently serving time at the Central California Women’s Facility. Her track was chosen from hundreds of submissions around the country. Rapper Lecrae met Carmela to record the song on site with the help of technology company Securus.

You can check out more of my work w. @SecurusTech & Carmela: https://t.co/VWaSIYlAiv & go download the song: https://t.co/1jRhm4OaOq. All proceeds from the song will be donated to @prisonfellowshp pic.twitter.com/fsKDizg0o8

— Lecrae (@lecrae) August 31, 2022

NEWSY TONIGHT’S CHANCE SEALES: Joining me now are two people very intimately involved with this project: Dave Abel is the president and CEO of Securus Technologies and with him, Grammy award-winning artist Lecrae. Lecrae, good to have you. Let’s start with you. You’re lending your name, passion, followers, your presence to this first-ever original hip-hop track contest. What hooked you about this? What got you excited?

LECRAE: Well, you know, I’ve been involved with the corrections community for years and Securus gave me the opportunity to kind of broaden my access to people behind those walls and you know, just to be able to deliver hope through music to over half a million incarcerated people was a very fulfilling and important aspect of my life and so it’s important to me and my history and my story.

SEALES: Hope. Yeah, I mean, in churches or in the crowds that you play to, I’m sure people are there and they’re excited. Hope is not a word generally associated with a penitentiary. That seems like a really unique opportunity.

LECRAE: It is, man. It’s a really unique opportunity. The reality is that there are people behind those walls who are family members of folks like you and I. Some have made some mistakes; some may be there for different reasons that are questionable, but at the end of the day, they’re still human beings and they have a voice and often times their voice is not heard. So, we’re providing them with an opportunity to be heard, to be seen and to participate in an aspect of society that demonstrates that rehabilitation and restoration is possible.

SEALES: Dave, this is kind of a novel idea. Plenty of prisons have reading programs or you can become a paralegal or something of that sort. I know you work with new technology to keep people who are incarcerated connected to the outside world every day. But rap music — Why rap music?

DAVE ABEL: Well, music, in general, has the ability to be able to inspire. It has the ability to be able to connect people. It allows people to be able to express their feelings and emotions in a way that, throughout history, has helped to be able to create better rehabilitation through prisons. Go back to Johnny Cash, recording a song by Glen Shirley on “Live at Folsom Prison.” There’s a long history of artists collaborating in prisons and with incarcerated individuals to help to be able to express positive outcomes for individuals who are incarcerated.

SEALES: Lecrae, the winner of the contest is Carmela Mose, who is 37 years old. She’s of Mexican and Samoan descent, I believe. She’s serving time in the Central California Women’s Facility. There were tons of submissions. It got whittled down to 25, and then she was ultimately chosen. As an artist, as a philanthropist who really cares about not just, you know, prison populations, but the hearts and souls who are there. What spoke to you about her?

LECRAE: Carmela Mose is just a phenomenal person in general. Ms. Mose, a.k.a. Good, which is her rapper name — Good just represents a voice that would otherwise have been silenced. She’s talking about things in her lyrics, you know, from the submissions we saw, she was talking about such profound and ingenious things in a creative way that I was like, “Wow, how in the world has this voice not been heard?” And so, to get the opportunity to give her a voice to speak to the world is actually a gift to me.

SEALES: Dave, your company Securus is more of a tech company than it is a music company. Why did you decide, when speaking with your board and speaking with your fellow employees, that “This was something we want to put our resources behind.”

ABEL: Our company is focused on being able to get a tablet in the hand of every incarcerated individual in the United States. We deploy technology that helps rehabilitative justice and we were watching all around the industry and it was an absolute no-brainer to work with Lecrae. He has spoken for years, not only in his lyrics, but in his public statements, about the need to reinvest in the community of people who are incarcerated and help to be able to create better outcomes. So, in partnering with Lecrae and being able to use our technology, we felt that it would be a great outcome for those who participated, for those who submitted lyrics and and frankly, being able to provide resources to the Prison Fellowship Program. We thought it would be a great outcome for everybody involved.

SEALES: In the end, I know that this is not something you just came to in the last few weeks or a year, that this is something you’ve cared about for a long time. If there are themes that you hear, if there are lyrics that speak to you, do you think the broader world should hear? Because we get to hear Carmela, but there are so many more. Anything that you think we need to know as a society?

LECRAE: Yeah, I think that again, you know, I’m the product of somebody who has had family incarcerated, my father being one of them. And you know, when you can humanize folks behind those walls, you also send a message to their children and their family members that they matter as well. And so, giving them a voice on this original hip-hop track contest opens the door for other creative opportunities to showcase the talent and the humanity of people behind it, as well. Often times they’re typecast as you know, just anything other than human. And I think this humanizes them and it helps us to see ourselves in them.

SEALES: Dave, Lecrae has talked about the importance of finding an inspiring hope within every population inside and outside prison walls — connectedness. I know people do better when they reenter society when there’s a connection, a deep connection and I know you work to keep people connected to the outside. Did that seem to be in the same way wavelength here?

ABEL: Absolutely. And study after study shows that individuals that have greater connection with friends and family outside facilities are much more likely to successfully reenter society after their sentence is complete. And we also find that when individuals are sharing music, when they’re sharing stories about songs that they’ve heard or experiences that they’ve had with people on the outside, that it creates a connective bond that also aids towards successful reentry.

SEALES: Lecrae, I was reading up on your Prison Fellowship Program and I loved part of the tag line: “working to bring hope and restoration to the incarcerated, their families and communities impacted by crime and incarceration.” And what does this world need more than hope right now? I think that’s phenomenal. Dave Abel, Lecrae, thank you both for your time and all the work you’re putting in.

ABEL: Thank you.

LECRAE: Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

: newsy.com

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New NIL Benefits Turn College Athletes Into Millionaires

Name, image and likeness deals have taken hold at college campuses across the country, turning some student-athletes into millionaires.

Glance around the parking lot of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center at The Ohio State University this fall and you might come across a $200,000 palace on wheels, the kind of luxury ride more likely to be found in the garages of movie stars, music moguls and titans of business than on a college campus.

That’s assuming Buckeyes quarterback C.J. Stroud hasn’t swapped out his silver Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon for a Bentley or a Porsche, which his name, image and likeness deal with Sarchione Auto Gallery allows him to do every 45 days.

“It’s definitely changed my life for the future,” Stroud said of the several NIL deals to flow his way over the past year, “and I think it’s a jump-start to being a businessman before you get to the NFL, if that’s your path.”

More than a year ago, the NCAA lifted long-standing restrictions on players profiting from their celebrity status, and in some cases it turned elite players such as Stroud and Alabama quarterback Bryce Young into instant millionaires. But the financial benefits for some athletes are being weighed against the possibility that such deals will divide locker rooms, create tension within programs, produce an uneven playing field across college athletics and overwhelm students stretched for time.

“As far as NIL goes in the locker room, you see stuff, but no one ever talks about it,” Oklahoma wide receiver Marvin Mims admitted. “It’s never like, a competition, like, ‘Oh, I got this much more money than you did. I’ve got this deal. You couldn’t get this deal.’ But you do notice the NIL deals that other guys are getting.”

College football has witnessed the biggest impact from NIL legislation, though athletes in all sports have tapped into the sudden cash flow. Of the estimated $1.14 billion that will be poured into the pockets of athletes in Year 2, the NIL platform Opendorse predicts nearly half of it will be spent on the gridiron.

The largest and most prominent deals are going to individual athletes who have successfully leveraged their exceptional ability, potential, influence and exposure: Young’s portfolio is believed to have exceeded $1 million before he ever took a snap for the Crimson Tide, while Alabama teammate Will Anderson signed an NIL deal that allows one of the nation’s best linebackers to drive a $120,000 Porsche Cayenne GTS.

At Texas, running back Bijan Robinson has deals with Raising Cane’s restaurants, C4 Energy drinks and sports streaming platform DAZN, while also forging a partnership with an auto dealership for the use of a Lamborghini. At Notre Dame, tight end Michael Mayer has parlayed his first-round draft stock into deals with clothing brands Levi’s and Rhoback.

They are precisely the types of endorsement contracts, and cozy relationships with boosters and businesses, that once landed players on suspension and programs on probation.

“I feel bad for the older players that didn’t have the opportunity to get money from this, like Braxton Miller, Cardale Jones, Justin (Fields),” Stroud said of the Ohio State quarterbacks who came before him.

“They should have made a killing,” added Stroud, who also works with Value City Furniture, Designer Shoe Warehouse and the trading card company Onyx Authenticated. “It’s just good that players have control now when it comes to money.”

Along with deals signed by individual athletes, collectives have become a major player in the NIL landscape. Some are organized by schools and others by boosters acting on their own, but both distribute money gathered from businesses and donors for everything from endorsements to meet-and-greets and charitable work.

The Foundation, a third-party collective at Ohio State, says it has raised more than $500,000 for Stroud, running back TreVeyon Henderson, wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and cornerback Denzel Burke. Texas Tech boosters have formed The Matador Club collective, which says it is signing all 85 scholarship players and 20 walk-ons to $25,000 contracts this season in return for appearing at club events and doing a certain amount of community service.

“I think we are well into the seven figures with all of our collectives,” said Morgan Frazier, a former gymnast at Florida and now the general counsel for Student Athlete NIL, which operates collectives at Penn State and several other schools.

Asked where the majority of money is going, she replied: “Overall, definitely football.”

It’s almost impossible to determine how much players are earning from NIL deals, in part because reporting rules differ from state to state. The vast majority are relatively modest — perhaps $50 for a tweet or $100 for an autograph signing on platforms such as Cameo, vidsig and Engage. Rarely do deals exceed $1,000.

But for premier position players at marquee programs, with NFL potential and huge social media followings, the money on the table can be life-changing. Twelve college players have a valuation of at least $1 million entering this season, according to On3, a platform that uses an algorithm to factor such things as social media reach to project NIL worth.

More than 50 players have a valuation of at least $500,000, with most of those playing in the SEC and Big Ten.

“Having an opportunity to change other peoples’ lives, that’s what’s cool about NIL,” said Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford, who founded Limitless NIL, which is believed to be the first agency created by an athlete to help other athletes. Its clients include Nittany Lions receiver Ji’Ayir Brown.

The spoils can come at a price. For one thing, players who may have already struggled to juggle classes and study halls with practice and film sessions now must balance meet-and-greets, autograph sessions and other work.

Then there’s the often-combustible locker room atmosphere, where lines have always existed between haves and have nots. In the past, those might have been between walk-ons and scholarship players. Now, they could be between players driving exotic cars or wearing expensive jewelry and those trying to scrape together rent.

“I know it could be a distraction,” Robinson said, when asked what it’s like driving his Lamborghini to practice. “If a teammate would bring it up, I would just joke around, be like, ‘Oh, man, but it’s not like what you’re getting out there right now.’ Just to not make it about yourself, because it’s not about you.

“If you’re not winning,” Robinson said, “none of us can get these NIL deals.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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