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Vol. 44 | No. 12 | JANUARY 10-16, 2024
EDITORIAL
News & Views
Editor in Chief - Lee DeVito
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42 Dugg ................................ 14
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NEWS & VIEWS Feedback We received comments in response to Joe contributor Russ Bellant’s opinion piece, “The problem with Duggan’s Land Value Tax plan for Detroit.” I have emailed your publication before on similar topics, and I want to say that I appreciate seeing this kind of oppositional coverage of the issues, especially issues that involve Mayor Duggan and his often confusing initiatives or his dishonest motives for promoting them. Too many in the Detroit media scene function as cheerleaders or outright mouthpieces for Duggan, and the people need to know both sides of the issues. —Adam Barrett, email
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Taxes will change most on affect high value vacant land, not small vacant residential lots. LVT would be levied at uniform rates and basis. And rates, not levels, matter to development decisions. And LVT virtues worth noting, too. —James Hohman, @JamesHohman, X I’m not against this plan but I don’t think it’ll have the effect people think it will with land speculators. If I’m an investor from Bloomfield hills. What’s a couple thousands extra? More tax revenue is great but if tax increases from $500 to $1000 that’s not going to motivate speculators to sell. —@joseph.cpp, Instagram Comments may be edited for clarity. Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com.
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NEWS & VIEWS
An Ann Arbor police officer speaks with a homeless man.
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Ann Arbor delays Unarmed Response Program The city of Ann Arbor has canceled its Request for Proposal, or RFP, for an unarmed response program. This was to be the first policing alternative of its kind in the state of Michigan and despite overwhelming support, city staff decided to cancel the RFP in a closed meeting on December 18. According to the city’s website, this was a staff-level decision, which does not require a vote from City Council. The city claims that it intends on reopening the RFP at some point this year and acknowledges the Council’s support of an unarmed response program. The RFP had only one applicant, an Ann Arbor non-profit called CareBased Safety, or CBS. CBS, which grew out of the Coalition for Re-envisioning Our Safety, or CROS— an organization which focuses on community organizing and engagement — submitted a lengthy report for their proposal, one which may not have been given the
focus it needed. “CBS submitted a proposal over 70 pages in length, which met all the requirements of the RFP and was overwhelmingly supported by the city,” Ann Arbor Resident and member of CROS Alex Parks tells Metro Times. “We know that Council had not seen the proposal before the meeting [on December 18].” The proposal has been made public since the RFP was canceled and CBS is looking for feedback from residents. The unarmed response program was not a novel idea for Ann Arbor. Back in 2021, elected officials began looking into what an unarmed response program might look like. Residents were also in favor of the idea, asking the city to dedicate American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funds to such a program. Of the $24.1 million allocated to Ann Arbor, $3.5 million of the ARPA funds were secured for the unarmed response program.
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The city spent over $100,000 on public engagements to determine if residents would be in favor of an unarmed response program, even hiring a Lansing-based consultant company to help determine what the RFP recommendations would look like. “During the community engagement, CROS came up with specific demands of what would be important in an unarmed response program,” Parks says. “Some of those were that the program can be reached by a number that’s not 911, that it’s housed outside the government and separate from the police, and, namely, that it goes through a public RFP process so that there was room for community engagement.” CROS wrote a report on their findings from these public engagements, which was later used by City Administrator Milton Dohoney, Jr. in his own report presented to City Council. Both reports found that there was “broad
conceptual support from the community for a [unarmed response] program.” Last summer, Ann Arbor’s City Council voted unanimously in support of the RFP, with nearly all members asking to be co-sponsors. The RFP opened up in August and interviews with applicants over their proposals were to begin in October. So where did things go wrong? In a recent post on social media, CBS addressed some of the concerns city officials had with the proposal. However, the city has still not released the minutes from their closed session on December 18. “Getting an unarmed response program in Washtenaw County is important because the people need it, have been asking for it for years, and now we have the money for it,” Parks says. “But it’s also important because it’s the first program of its kind in Michigan. In a lot of ways Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County can be leaders in getting these programs off the ground. Other cities are looking toward us and seeing what is possible.” The next City Council meeting is at 7 p.m. on Thursday and CROS and CBS activists are asking residents to get involved. “Above all, we just want the city and staff to change their minds and undo the cancellation,” Parks explains. “We want the minutes released from the closed session as well. We also want them to open up communications with their only applicant and start the negotiations and process that they were supposed to do with the interviews.” What is also concerning is the timing of everything. Although the city claims to be re-opening the RFP this year, the schedule for the program barely fits other constraints. What’s more is that this occurred right before the holidays. “These ARPA funds are time bound and they have to be spent by the end of 2026, and this is a two-year program being proposed,” Parks points out. “It’s the residents’ money and years ago we decided how to spend it and we prioritized unarmed response. I think it’s of note that all of this is happening over the holidays. Ann Arbor is a college town and when things happen over break or over the summer, it’s harder to mobilize support when students are away — especially when they are a group that could benefit a lot from this program.” When asked how people can get involved, Parks notes: “We have email templates people can send to City Council and the City Administrator. They can call in or show up to the City Council meeting on [Thursday].” — Andrew Wright
Student sues Wayne State over allegations of weight discrimination Before his health problems,
David Lopez thrived as an athlete, deriving joy and purpose in team sports. While enrolled at Wayne State University, Lopez realized he wanted to become a gym teacher and football coach. In 2022, he finished all of his classes and just needed to complete his student training requirements to graduate from the physical education kinesiology program and receive a certificate to teach. But over the previous few years, he gained a lot of weight and had diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. He now weighs more than 400 pounds. If he stands for a prolonged period of time, his knees and back hurt, and he becomes fatigued and has trouble breathing. With a legitimate disability, Lopez received an accommodation letter from his doctor so that he could work virtually for some of his student training. The university’s Student Disability Services department also signed off.
But Wayne State University officials wouldn’t allow it, making it impossible for him to graduate with a teaching certificate. In July, Lopez filed a civil rights lawsuit against the university, claiming he was discriminated against because of his weight. He’s seeking $1 million. “They said I didn’t fit the description of what a physical education teacher should be,” Lopez tells Metro Times. “They said I wouldn’t be a good teacher. They didn’t want me to pass. They didn’t want me to graduate. I thought they were going to do something, but I didn’t know they’d take it this far.” Now Lopez is 44 years old and out of work. He feels defeated and embarrassed. He spent thousands of dollars pursuing a degree that is essentially useless without a teaching certificate. Wayne State claims in a court filing that there are no legal protections for weight discrimination against an educational institution and called the lawsuit
“frivolous.” A Wayne County Circuit Court judge set a Jan. 23 hearing to consider the university’s request to toss the lawsuit. Wayne State declined to comment for this story, citing the pending litigation. In an interview, Lopez says Wayne State has repeatedly lied about the circumstances surrounding the case and silenced university officials who have sided with him. He says the university’s ombudsman urged the university to accommodate his requests to avoid a lawsuit and because it was the right thing to do. Now, he says, the ombudsman has been ordered to stop talking to him. In early 2022, Lopez was assigned to Dearborn Public Schools to fulfill his student teaching requirements. The district allowed him to work virtually, but he says Wayne State would not allow it. At the time, Dearborn Public School was offering a virtual physical education class.
Tamara Greene’s daughter claims police killed her mother because of Kilpatrick affair Who killed Tamara Greene?
It’s one of Detroit’s most popular murder mysteries. Nearly 21 years after Greene was killed in a drive-by shooting, her daughter, Ashly Jackson, revived the unsolved mystery in a viral TikTok video posted Thursday. In the video, which has gained more than 3.4 million views, Jackson claims that Detroit police killed her mother, a stripper known as “Strawberry,” after she had an affair with then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. “Things got messy, and the mayor of Detroit’s wife actually assaulted my
mother,” Jackson says. “Instead of paying my mother hush money, the mayor decided to pay off cops in the city to murder my mother.” It’s widely speculated that Greene, who was 27 at the time, was dancing at a fabled 2002 party at the Manoogian Mansion while Kilpatrick was mayor. In 2010, a stripper who says she was at the party claimed that Kilpatrick’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, saw Greene giving the mayor a lap dance and began punching her. Kilpratrick has repeatedly denied that the party took place and has insisted he knew nothing about Greene’s death.
The murder gained national attention in February 2019, when the popular podcast Crimetown covered the mysterious circumstances surrounding Greene’s death. Jackson doesn’t provide a lot of evidence to back up her claim, but she says she worked in the “industry” herself and “met people who knew my mother, seen her around the mayor.” Greene’s family filed a lawsuit against Kilpatrick and the city, but it was dismissed in federal court in 2011 for a lack of evidence. Detroit Police Sgt. Marian Stevenson, the homicide detective on Greene’s case,
Planted Detroit is back with new salads after closing urban farm last year Planted Detroit is looking to make a fresh start this year. The indoor urban farm in Detroit’s Islandview neighborhood has announced its relaunch, including its salad delivery program, with five new salad bowls that can be ordered online. Planted Detroit grows its salad
greens indoors using hydroponics, allowing the farm to provide its fresh produce year-round. It was considered Michigan’s largest vertical farming operation (literally, the greens are grown on shelves) but closed in August. The company cited unsustainable operation costs at the time and was seeking investors to help fund the
business. It first opened its indoor growing facility in 2018 and has had to close twice. This time around, they have several partnerships to handle some of the operations. “New strategic partnerships are the reason Planted Detroit was able to re-open,” Planted Detroit Founder and CEO Tom Adamczyk tells Metro
Lopez says Wayne State’s refusal to allow virtual teaching was an excuse to keep him from getting certified. He pointed out that the university “graduated an entire class that worked virtually” during the pandemic. “They passed an entire class doing the same thing I wanted to do,” Lopez says. In his lawsuit, Lopez is asking to be reinstated into the university’s teaching program. But since he left, Wayne State has changed the requirements for his major by adding additional health courses that Lopez would need to graduate. He says he isn’t going down without a fight. “I’m not going away,” Lopez says. “I’m going to hold them accountable if I have to die doing it. What they did was intentional and premeditated. And it was cruel.” —Steve Neavling
claimed that numerous documents disappeared from the case files. The family’s attorney, Norman Yatooma, also said “six officers who were investigating him or Tammy Greene were all demoted, terminated or otherwise threatened.” “After so many years of trying to fight for justice, I have been a standing lone wolf, and I’ve grown very tired,” Greene said in the video. In January 2021, Kilpatrick was released from prison after serving more than seven years of a 28-year sentence for corruption crimes. Then-President Donald Trump commuted Kilpatrick’s sentence. “So now the man who is responsible for my mother’s murder is living his happily ever after life,” Jackson says. —Steve Neavling
Times via email. “Prior to August 2023, Planted Detroit was 100% vertically integrated: growing, sourcing, packaging, & distributing. During Planted Detroit’s shutdown, which began on August 4th, 2023, our team worked diligently to secure strategic partnerships so that we can focus on being a farm and providing fresh produce to all of Michigan.” JLM Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Lipari Foods in Warren, will assemble the salads, and companies including Carmela Foods, Frog Holler, and La
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Grasso Brothers Produce will handle distribution. The salad toppings and dressings are being provided by Lipari Foods and delivery in metro Detroit is through a partnership with FULFLLD. Adamczyk says the salad greens are still being grown in the same Islandview facility by former employees who were rehired. When the farm closed in August, Planted Detroit laid off over 40 workers, but Adamczyk says
they brought back at least seven staff members so far with plans to bring back more once sales pick up. The farm worked with its partners to redesign its products, so you won’t see any of the old favorites like the Belle Isle or Conner Creek salad. They are now offering “salad bowls” that Adamczyk says have a shelf life of up to 14 days. These include a pearled couscous
salad bowl, spicy avocado bowl, vegan golden sesame bowl, protein fusion bowl, and sweet and savory salad bowl. Most are vegetarian with some gluten-free options available. “We have been able to lower the cost of our salads by leveraging our partners’ cost savings, size, and efficiencies for our non-core business,” he says. “The love and support Planted Detroit has received from
the community is a reason for our comeback! Thank you supporters and believers!” Adamczyk says the salads will be back in Meijer stores soon. The company is supplying events at Eastern Market this month, he adds, and will be assessing getting farmers market stands back, including an Eastern Market booth, in the spring. —Randiah Camille Green
Gretchen Whitmer for president? How about Rashida Tlaib? Andy Levin? A November New York TimesSiena College poll suggests reason for concern among Democrats: According to the survey, President Joe Biden trails Donald Trump by four points in five out of six swing states — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan. However, the poll also made an interesting observation: a hypothetical generic, unnamed Democrat led Trump by eight points. Biden has become one of the most unpopular presidents in modern American history, with voters citing his age (81), propensity for gaffes, and, more recently, his support of Israel’s war on Gaza which has seen more than 22,000 dead as reasons for their low approval. Biden won the White House in 2020 by assembling a coalition of voters, including the progressives, moderates, and even some conservatives, but if this polling is any indication, that coalition could be at risk of fracturing. Despite these warning signs, few Democrats have stepped forward to challenge Biden, and there is hardly much of a primary to speak of, with no debates and little media attention to alternative candidates. If the party would be better led by a different Democrat, no consensus has emerged as far as who that should be. Given Michigan’s prominence as a battleground state, it’s perhaps unsurprising that pundits keep looking here for possible alternatives. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has long been floated as a potential presidential candidate, a rising star who presided over the Great Lakes State’s stunning blue wave since being elected
Amid wavering support for Joe Biden, pundits keep looking to Michigan for other options.
in 2018 and who was even reportedly considered as a running mate for Biden in 2020. But Michigan voters reelected Whitmer in 2022, and expect her to serve through 2027. Another possibility from Michigan comes from writer Hamilton Nolan, who recently pitched “The Rashida Tlaib For President Scenario” in his Substack newsletter How Things Work. In one sense, Tlaib has an advantage — the U.S. Representative from Detroit’s term ends Jan. 3, 2025, just before Inauguration Day. However, Nolan’s reasoning to draft Tlaib is not to win the White House but rather to pull Biden and the party to the left. “I do not believe it would be possible to mount and run a successful primary challenge to Biden at this point,” Nolan acknowledges. “It would be possible, however, for a left wing candidate to launch an independent presidential campaign explicitly designed to suck votes away from Biden in key swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, etc.” While any progressive would work, according to Nolan, Tlaib is the best choice as “the only PalestinianAmerican in Congress, and the loudest and bravest voice speaking out against U.S. policy on Palestine.” The split among Democrats over
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Israel also led In These Times magazine to look to another Michigan candidate as a possible Biden replacement. In an article published last month, author Gabriel Winant nominates Andy Levin, the former Michigan congressman who comes from a family of Democratic leaders — he succeeded his father, former U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, and is nephew of former U.S. Senator Carl Levin. As a Jewish labor leader who has called for conditions to U.S. aid to Israel and advocated for human rights for the Palestinian people, Levin could make a compelling candidate. After redistricting redrew Michigan’s congressional maps, he lost his seat in 2022 to Haley Stevens, a staunch supporter of Israel who the powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC aided with a $4 million campaign. As In These Times sees it, a Levin campaign would be not only for the White House but also against the military-industrial complex. However, despite his political pedigree, Levin is not as widely known as someone like Whitmer or Tlaib, though that might not necessarily be a bad thing. Of course, there is already a former Michigander in the race. Celebrity spiritual leader Marianne Williamson, who once led a Macomb County church and captivated many across the country when she first ran for president in
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2020, was among the first Democrats to campaign against Biden in 2024. According to a November article in The Nation, Williamson is polling against Biden about as well as Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is against Trump, but the Haley campaign has received much more media attention than Williamson’s. Just as she did in 2020, Williamson is once again running on an anti-war platform, even proposing the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace. However, Williamson’s campaign has reportedly been plagued by staff turnover and funding issues. While all signs, unfortunately, point toward a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024, it’s important to remember that nothing is preordained. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson won the largest popular vote in a landslide election against Barry Goldwater, only to see his political capital rapidly erode. Facing low approval ratings amid the Vietnam War, Johnson withdrew from the 1968 campaign in March of that year, with the primary election already underway. Of course, Biden’s coalition could also strengthen, too. Anything could happen, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the Democratic Party looks to Michigan for its next leader. —Lee DeVito
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NEWS & VIEWS Lapointe
Setting the night on fire in Jefferson-Chalmers By Joe Lapointe
Just before Christmas,
the St. Martin neighborhood reunion committee met to plan this September’s picnic event. One member joked: “Are we going to have the Christmas tree burning this year?” That flashback referred to the 1960s and what was then known as Hansen Field, across the street from St. Martin of Tours church and school at Avondale and Drexel on Detroit’s East Side. Of course, we Cadet senior citizens reminisced fondly about trails of dry, green pine needles left in the snow from every alley in the Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood as we pretended back then that the cops and firefighters who lived there didn’t have a clue as to what we were up to every year at the same time. We joked back then that our blaze was so big that astronauts like John Glenn could’ve seen it from outer space. And we wondered: When did that peculiar annual tradition begin? When did it end? Who started it? And did anyone try to continue it? As it turns out the ritual got revived, risen like a phoenix from the ashes in “probably the mid-1990s,” according to Robert Pickard, 69, a lifetime JeffersonChalmers resident who now organizes the collection and burning of hundreds of trees. “We’ve done it for probably about 30 years.” The original fires burned on the softball field across the street from the now-abandoned church, the vanished convent, and the empty lot of the torndown school. But the current Jeff-Chal blaze burns on the soccer field at Mariner Park, a small patch of grass in the extreme southeast corner of the city, on the shore where the Detroit River merges with Lake St. Clair, just a couple hundred yards (or meters) from Canada’s Peche Island. The park — once the site of the demolished Marine Hospital — provided the venue for the origin story of Pickard’s tradition. “I was down here one night with a friend and we burned a joint,” he said. “It was cold. So we burned a tree.” His inspiration came from his 1960s youth, Pickard said, when he attended the blazes at St. Martin, walking from
his home on Marlborough, where he still lives. The Mariner site sits about one mile southeast of St. Martin, bordered by several boat canals. This year’s blaze came last Saturday. Being early winter, it occurred during one of the longest nights of the year. Starting at 5 p.m., Pickard directed a parade of vans, rented trucks, trailers, and cars that schlepped probably 300 trees to be ignited at 9 p.m. across a canal from what used to be called Angel Park, just down the shore from what used to be called Lakewood Park. Pickard said Jefferson-Chalmers doesn’t have as many Christmas trees (or people) as it used to, so his crew scouts for them mostly on curbs in the Grosse Pointes and other East Side suburbs. One year, he said, a Border Patrol cop followed him home to ask about all the dead trees in his backyard. Channel 4, Pickard said, once did an investigation of him for “illegal dumping,” although he said he explained to reporter Karen Drew that it was just temporary and not to worry. Fresh Christmas trees, Pickard added, now cost around $100. “So if we’ve got 300 trees,” he said last weekend, “that’s about $30,000 worth, right?” By lighting time — four hours after sundown on a gray and gloomy day — about 100 cars filled a parking lane and about 250 persons gathered in a wide circle. One man shot fireworks overhead and another blasted classic rock music from a portable stereo as they tried to set the night on fire. Snow flurries fell under a light breeze, swirling and twinkling through the bright bulbs of the park’s lights. Loud cheers erupted whenever a big evergreen landed on top of a 15-foot pile and then exploded with first a little hiss and then a big whoosh. Some of the revelers drank beverages and smoked cigarettes while sitting in lawn chairs on a thin covering of light snow, which melted to muddy slush near the fire. After about 20 minutes of high flames, a red fire truck could be seen in the distance, crossing a little bridge at the foot of Alter Road. Although its lights flashed, no bell or siren sounded. The firefighters
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With flaming Christmas trees, a neighborhood tradition in Detroit burns on. JOE LAPOINTE
parked, observed for a few minutes at a distance, then left. A few minutes later — again with flashers but no sirens — three Detroit police cars entered the park, idled by the curb for a few minutes, then left. A first-time visitor couldn’t help but get the feeling that these were routine runs, although Pickard said he got some grief from civic authorities a few years back when he threw his mother’s sofa into the conflagration and a former firefighter from the ‘hood sat on it in full regalia. One of Pickard’s aides said a freighter ship a few years back cruised by the shore, saw the big bonfire, and turned a big, bright searchlight on the gathering. Discovering it was a festive occasion, the freighter horn blew them a salute. Pickard said he worked 17 years at Cobo Hall and Joe Louis Arena, as they were then known, setting up displays and shows. He is still active as a handyman on the East Side. On Saturday, he bossed a crew of about a dozen. He instructed partiers in safety (no gasoline; no auxiliary fires) and proper assembly of the pile. Pickard must have thrown at least 100 trees onto the pile by himself. But the fireworks guy seemed unsupervised, and that suggested Detroit’s long relationship with smoke and fire, for both good and bad. For instance: Around every Fourth of July and for other holidays to a lesser extent, we buy more fireworks than most people and we leave many neighborhoods
shrouded in acrid smoke. Not everyone does this everywhere. When the Tigers won their last World Series championship in 1984, the enduring image lingering from that celebration was of fans dancing in front of a burning police car. And that’s how we acted while in a good mood. For more than a decade — thank goodness not so much anymore — every “Devil’s Night” saw arsonists torch vacant buildings around the Motor City on the evening before Halloween. Before that, the 1967 riot and rebellion left such images aflame in the national psyche. Hell, even our city motto fights fire with faith. “Speramus Meliora Resurget Cineribus,” it says, which is Latin for “We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes.” That was written in 1805 after a blaze destroyed Detroit when it was a frontier town and before Michigan was a state. It was written by Father Gabriel Richard. Perhaps his spirit may bless our St. Martin reunion, to be held in the daylight hours of Saturday, September 7. For information, consult the St. Martin Neighborhood Reunion website on Facebook or send an email to smhcommittee@gmail. com. Although that gathering also will be held at a waterfront park, the organizers assure the public that no trees, living or dead, will be harmed in this event.
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RAPPER 42 DUGG is sitting inside the lobby of the
Waldorf Astoria hotel in Buckhead, an uppity district north of downtown Atlanta that feels like the suburbs. He’s relaxed and carefree, dressed in khakis, T-shirt, and a gray hoodie. A diamond-encrusted gold chain hangs loosely around his neck, with an emblem of the letters “CBFW” spelled out vertically in diamonds. It’s an acronym for the phrase “Can’t Be Fucked With,” a gift from Atlanta rapper Lil Baby after the 28 year-old Detroit native was released from prison on October 16. Collective Music Group label boss Yo Gotti also gifted Dugg with diamond links and watches, making Dugg’s return to society a homecoming fit for a king. The highlights can be seen in his video “Go Again,” which dropped a week after his release. “It was all cool, it was well appreciated,” he says while nodding his head. Per terms of Dugg’s release, he can only travel for work — concerts, appearances, etc. — so he’s currently calling Atlanta home. “I been had a house out here but I moved out here when I got out of jail,” he says with a shrug. Commonly referred to as the “Beverly Hills of the South,” Buckhead feels identical to Troy, Michigan, as both have median household incomes over $100,000, majority white residents, and a slew of sumptuous restaurants. In fact, directly across the street from the hotel is Lenox Square mall, which is damn near a replica of Troy’s Somerset Collection. If you take a quick 13-minute drive back toward downtown you’ll find Atlanta even has its very own Renaissance Center in the form of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, a 73-story cylinder-shaped building also designed by John C. Portman Jr. While the shared architecture and bourgeois surroundings are notable, Atlanta and Detroit’s kinship is built off of music, prosperity, grind, and respect. SINCE THE EARLY ’90s, Detroit and Atlanta have been hip-hop first cousins. Everybody from legendary Flint artist MC Breed to Detroit all-star emcees Al Nuke and Motsi Ski have helped introduce Detroit swagger to the South by relocating to Atlanta. (Other Detroit hip-hop heavyweights who own residences in Atlanta include Kash Doll and Veeze.) In 2013 Young Jeezy, one of the founders of Atlanta trap, signed Detroit hip-hop group Doughboyz
Cashout to his CTE World record label, and currently Lil Baby is executive producing rapper Tay B’s next album. However, the biggest Detroiter to impact and shift the culture of the Big Peach was none other than Big Meech, the co-founder of the Black Mafia Family organization recently immortalized in the Starz crime drama BMF. “Ain’t no question,” Dugg says, referring to the BMF founder. “They came down here and held it down. A lot of people from the A got love for Detroit because they saw how Meech was playing it. Meech came down here and they embraced him and they’ve been embracing Detroit ever since. He changed the whole culture down here forever.” Born Dion Marquise Hayes, 42 Dugg grew up on the eastside of Detroit on Wayburn and Whittier. He describes himself as a “popular young nigga” who grew up listening to local rappers like Blade Icewood, Doughboyz Cashout, and Peezy. “I had fun. I used to be at all the high school parties, skating. I was that type of muthafucka, always going staking,” he says through a laugh. The partying came to a halt when the one-time Denby High School student was convicted of carjacking and felony firearms possession in 2010. At the tender age of 15 he found himself serving six years in prison. While incarcerated, he made good use of his time by filling multiple notebooks up with bars, rhymes, and lyrics to hip-hop songs. He had not considered himself a rapper before he went in, but says he needed something to cling
to, something to mentally occupy his mind and help pass the time. “I was in the hole, so just doing it to escape and to stop thinking about my circumstances,” he says. In 2017, Dugg was released at 22 years old and decided to test the waters of hip-hop simply to see where it would take him. “Shiiit, I was just trying something, I was just trying rap,” he says humbly. “I didn’t have no real plan to do it. I didn’t have a step-by-step plan, but when I tried it, it stuck.” He first collaborated with fellow emcee 42 Twin on the bangers “Shine Regardless” and “Had Too.” The tracks, produced by Derwynnwho, highlight a younger Dugg still refining his voice and cadence. The content is full of street themes and Detroit grindisms, but Dugg’s potential is evident. Both songs accumulated hundreds of thousands of views and streams each — not mind-blowing numbers, but good enough to build confidence and a foundation. Shortly after, 42 Twin ran into some legal trouble himself, and Dugg decided to pull out some of the notebooks of rhymes he wrote in the hole and see what he could do as an individual artist. “I stepped to the side and started making songs by myself,” he says. “I said, ‘I might as well put out a tape for myself and see what’s going on.’” The year 2018 was a busy one for Detroit hip-hop. Icewear Vezzo had signed to Motown Records, Molly Brazy was an 18 year-old phenom, Sada Baby’s “Bloxk Party” had become a street anthem, and Doughboyz Cashout’s Payroll Giovanni teamed up with Dallas-based producer Cardo for Big Bossin Vol. 2. That summer, Dugg released two projects that elevated him, turning his idols into his music contemporaries. 11242 Wayburn was followed by an additional mixtape, 11242 Wayburn Part 2. Both were largely built on two-and-ahalf minute booming trap monologues, as they rarely had hooks (a style Detroit rappers have become known for). On notable songs “Marcelo Burlon” and
“Free Mine,” Dugg raps through the common street topics of money, girls, and revenge. “Mama I’m Sorry” is a somber and melodic track that stands out because it does have a hook, and Dugg shows a rare side of vulnerability. “Since a youngin’ I been out here just trying to make a killing / Know my momma ain’t that proud of me but she done raised a killa’ / She like, ‘My son been hurting me bad,’ Ma, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sings on the hook. Dugg had an undeniable “it” factor behind the mic because let’s be honest, YouTube is full of Detroit hip-hop artists rapping about the same street motifs as Dugg, with only a portion of the clicks to show for it. An artist has to be able to authentically connect with their intended audience, and Dugg was doing just that. Before year’s end, Dugg found himself on the other end of a phone call with hip-hop heavyweight Yo Gotti. “I was chilling, gambling and shit,” Dugg says. “I had got a call like, ‘Gotti on the phone.’ He was like, ‘I got a show down here [in Detroit], you fucking with it?’ Next day I was there and it was up since.” Yo Gotti, a Memphis, Tennessee-born rapper and CEO of Collective Music Group (CMG), had been a longtime admirer of the Detroit hip-hop scene, finding a kinship in the confident composure and style that Detroiters displayed beyond the music. He found out about Dugg from Detroit producer Helluva, who had been working with Dugg regularly. “I met up with him and he was like, ‘Who’s hot out here?’” Helluva told The Hip Hop Lab in a 2020 interview. “So I was showing him a lot of people but I think I had just started working with Dugg and I was feeling his music a lot. That’s like the first person I showed him, and that stamp went a long way with Yo Gotti.” He invited Dugg to perform at 2018’s “Big Show” at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena, and three months later it was announced that 42 Dugg had signed a record deal to Yo Gotti’s CMG label in collaboration with Lil Baby’s 4PF im-
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Atlanta even has its very own Renaissance Center in the form of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel.
print. On March 9, 2019, during Meek Mill’s stop at Detroit’s Fox Theatre, Yo Gotti brought out a shirtless 42 Dugg and placed a CMG chain around his neck in front of a clamorous crowd. Four days later Dugg dropped his third mixtape, Young and Turnt, which featured the high-powered trap anthem “Dog Food.” “I sent that to Gotti as soon as we did it like, ‘This bitch bangs!’” Dugg says. “I didn’t know the streets were going to go that crazy over it though.” The song starts off dark as Dugg is saying his goodbyes to a fallen friend over tense keys and strings, but by the 30-second mark, a gigantic bassline drops as Dugg raps: “Dog food, young gettin’ fifty, we want all blues / Won’t catch a nigga passin’, bitch, we all shoot / I mean, yeah, I’m a hooper, baby / And I dropped out of school, I was too connected.” The Helluva-produced single was Pitchfork’s “must-hear rap song of the day”, reaching more than 30 million YouTube views. AS 2020 ROLLED in, the COVID-19 pandemic had the world in a choke hold. Tours and festivals were canceled, leaving many music artists searching for alternative ways to stay relevant and make an income. Dugg was one of the few artists that saw his career excel during the lockdown.
KAHN SANTORI DAVISON
“I ain’t telling you how to live yo life. I’m just giving you a soundtrack.” He released his third mixtape Young & Turnt, Vol. 2, dropped a hot 16 bars on Big Sean’s “Friday Night Cypher 2,” and made two appearances on Lil Baby’s quadruple-platinum album My Turn, which pole-vaulted him into a different league. The first was Lil Baby’s “Grace,” which became Dugg’s first charting song. The second, “We Paid,” was Dugg’s first top 10 entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 10. Unlike previous tracks Dugg had scored wins with, “We Paid” wasn’t a high-octane “On the Lodge wit it”-type of song. The Section 8-produced track was slow, syrupy, and more relaxed than Atlanta trap songs tend to be. Lil Baby and 42 Dugg both shined, as they truly carried the beat versus the beat carrying them. “‘Fore I go broke like Joc/ Fuck with that dog like Vick/ Not that rock, that
pit/ Palm Angels down to my sock,” Dugg raps. The song peaked at No. 1 on U.S. Apple Music across all genres and was nominated for a 2020 MTV Video Music Award. By all measures, “We Paid” pushed Dugg to the forefront of hip-hop’s radar; together, “We Paid” and “Grace” accumulated half a billion streams. “Hell naw I didn’t think it would do that,” Dugg admits. “I knew ‘Grace’ was going to be a banger, but ‘We Paid’ was a shock to all of us.” Dugg rode the hot streak well into 2021 with guest appearances on Tyler, the Creator’s Call Me if You Get Lost album and Pop Smoke’s second posthumous album, Faith. He also released his fourth mixtape, Free Dem Boyz (a nod to his friends still imprisoned). The mixtape debuted No. 8 on the Billboard
200 chart, making it Dugg’s highestdebuting mixtape so far. It scored two gold singles: “Maybach,” followed by the street banger “4 Da Gang,” a bassand guitar-driven trap cut featuring harmonizer Roddy Ricch and a cleverly used sample of Scorpions’ “No One Like You.” Dugg calls the project his “favorite.” In 2022 he collaborated with CMG labelmate EST Gee for the Last Ones Left mixtape. The project peaked at No. 7 on Billboard, and 42 Dugg finished 2022 as the eighth-most Shazam’d artist in Detroit. Sonically, Dugg’s squeaky but raspy voice rides perfectly on top of beats that it’s as if he’s using his voice as an instrument itself. The confidence and lyrical nimbleness in his flow has gotten stronger with every release as he switches up pitch and pace as needed. He says when he’s in the studio he punches most of his bars in, but will write a line down or record one on his phone if something hot pops in his head. He also says he doesn’t map anything before he gets to the studio, preferring to hear the beat first and go from there. “I let the beat speak to me. I don’t really be having no topics, but I should start doing that, though,” he admits. “If I thought about topics that would probably be a good process for me.” Overall, the biggest area of improvement for Dugg has been his composition and awareness. He says he listens back to his songs over and over again looking for small ways to improve them, and sometimes will just scrap a song if it doesn’t meet his expectations. “I feel like I’m more detailed,” he says. “I used to rap a lot of my songs with no hooks in them. They say that’s like a Detroit thing, but I’m making sure I got hooks now. I’m focusing on my tempo, ad libs, just catching what’s going on. Sometimes I just like to go in there and catch my flow, I be saying shit and then I listen to it to make sure I put the right shit with it.” AS DUGG’S CAREER was thriving, he continued to be plagued by legal issues. On November 21, 2021 a federal judge sentenced him to three years probation and ordered him to pay a $90,000 fine after surveillance video surfaced of him firing a gun at a firing range in 2019. (Michgian and federal law prohibits convicted felons from possessing or owning firearms under any circumstances.) Less than a month later, Dugg was involved in a minor fight in Las Vegas and arrested for obstruction of law enforcement and battery. This would have major legal ramifications, as Dugg had his proba-
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18 January 10-16, 2024 | metrotimes.com
tion revoked in February of 2022. “It wasn’t my fault,” Dugg says of the Vegas incident. “I guess because it was me, that shit happened. I mean, that shit was just unfortunate, bro. It was just a fucked up thing. It wasn’t my fault, but it was my fault. I feel like I should have had more self-control.” When Dugg speaks on “self-control,” he’s talking directly about this culture in which a stranger or a fan will instigate a physical altercation for social media clout, street cred, or even a civil suit (look no further than Mike Tyson being goaded into punching an airline passenger who now seeks $450,000). Hip-hop is full of stories about rappers being verbally or physically baited into altercations. Dugg doesn’t go into detail about the incident, but acknowledges he just has to be more careful. “It’s all about how you moving, and I was moving loose,” he says. “A muthafucka might think he can afford to do this, he can afford to hit me, shit like that, so you just gotta avoid that type of shit.” Dugg was directed to report to prison by April 12, 2022, but didn’t because he says he was still fighting the sentence. He also maintains that he was never ducking or dodging the authorities, and says reports that there was an actual “manhunt” for him are not true at all. “They capping because I was never hiding,” he says. “I know it wasn’t no manhunt because I did Coachella [Festival], I did all types of shows, I was still living in the same spot, I still had my same phone, and I was staying next to the federal building downtown [in Detroit]. I had a condo there.” On May 4, 2022, Dugg was taken into custody after flying to Willow Run Airport aboard a private jet. While behind bars Yo Gotti went to social media and offered $2 million to any lawyer that could get Dugg out of jail early. Dugg claims that due to the incarceration, he missed out on more than $6 million in performances and opportunities. But what mattered the most, he says, was not being there for his loved ones. “My family, my kids, bro — I couldn’t be there for shit I needed to be there for as far as my kids,” he says. The father of two toddlers, Dugg says fatherhood is just as serious as his music. “[Fatherhood] made me be more responsible. You wanna make sure everything is alright for your kids, you’re really working for them.”
and all the social media in place to further his impact. In a city full of hip-hop all-stars, Dugg makes a case of being Detroit’s MVP as he’s perhaps the closest to taking the baton from Big Sean as Detroit’s most nationally known hiphop artist of this generation. Dugg plans to step up his game even more with the release of his album early next year, and has four emcees signed to his own record label. He also wants his Detroit hip-hop peers to know how important it is to grind the hardest while the spotlight is on the city. Detroit currently has well over two dozen hip-hop artists that are signed to major record labels or have collaboration deals in place. For the last six years Detroit’s hip-hop scene has gotten a hefty amount of mainstream looks from national media outlets and the music industry as a whole. “I be trying to make sure muthafuckas know what type of moment this is,” he says. “Don’t be content just being known in Detroit. Detroit might be it for a lot of people, but it’s a whole other world to this shit and once you get a taste of it, it will make you wanna go harder.” Dugg also uses all his platforms to promote other Detroit hip-hop artists, bringing them on stage when opportunity permits and sharing their music on all his social media platforms. “Muthafuckas be thinking I don’t look out,” he says. “I done posted so many people from Detroit, I don’t know how they could feel like ‘Dugg ain’t taking nobody with him!’ Everybody I posted got a record deal and I posted them all before they had record deals.” Away from music, Dugg says he plans to invest in real estate and detach from negative energy. He also wants to get to a point where he’ll be able to go to schools in Detroit, be transparent, and share parts of his life’s journey with the students. “I just want to tell them my story first and foremost and let them hear what I got going on,” he says. “‘Cause a muthafucka will hear how I rap and they think that’s what it is. But I’m an entertainer, I’m saying shit people wanna hear, but I ain’t telling you how to live yo life. I’m just giving you a soundtrack.” When asked what he wants his legacy to be, Dugg doesn’t mince words. “That I made a whole bunch of money,” he says. “I changed a whole bunch of lives, I freed a lot of people, and I motivated the kids to get money.”
EVEN WITH HIS setbacks, Dugg is still in rarefied air. In the four short years of his music career he has three multi-platinum singles from features, two gold singles of his own, a solo project that charted top 10 on Billboard,
42 Dugg is set to perform at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 19 as part of the “42 Dugg & Friends Welcome Home Party” at Little Caesars Arena; 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313presents.com. Tickets start at $59.
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WHAT’S GOING ON Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. Be sure to check venue website before events for latest information. Add your event to our online calendar: metrotimes.com/ AddEvent.
MUSIC Wednesday, Jan. 10 Ferrario 8 p.m.; Blind Pig, 208 S. 1st St., Ann Arbor; $10. Neu Blume, Ulna, Dick Texas 7 p.m.; Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $10. Woodbridge Pub & The Preservation of Jazz Presents Just Jazz & Blues Every Wednesday Night 7-11 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit. Zakk Sabbath, The Native Howl 6:30 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $30.
Thursday, Jan. 11 Finalbossfight, Dad Caps, Feign, Cult Therapy 8 p.m.; Blind Pig, 208 S. 1st St., Ann Arbor; $10. Queen: From Mercury with Love 8-9 p.m.; Longway Planetarium, 1310 Kearsley St., Flint; $8.
DJ/Dance Friends & Family : An R&B Night w/ DJ KID MCFLY 9 p.m.; Deluxx Flux, 1274 Library St., Detroit,; $5 after 11 p.m.
Friday, Jan. 12 Dame Dash & Freeway X The Black Guns: 365 Tour 9 p.m.; Club Dream, 440 Lafayette Blvd., Detroit; $40. Ani Mari & Co., The North Ingalls Band, The Nuts 8 p.m.; Blind Pig, 208 S. 1st St., Ann Arbor; $10. Holy Profane, Rose St. Germaine, Dang Quixote, Dyzioek 8 p.m.; Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $10. Queen: From Mercury with Love 8-9 p.m.; Longway Planetarium, 1310 Kearsley St., Flint; $8. Blue Rodeo 8 p.m.; Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom, 377 E. Riverside Dr., Windsor; $33-$83. Carry On: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Tribute 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $15. Mid-Michigan Band & Orchestra Festival Concert 7-8:30 p.m.; The Whiting, 1241 E. Kearsley St., Flint; $8-$15. Noah Reid, Wyatt C. Louis 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St.,
Detroit; $39.50.
St., Detroit,; $5 after 11 p.m.
Panic In Hamtramck (day one) with Archthrone, Boreworm, Cullosssus, Fell Ruin, Life of Suppression, Living Dissection, Nethergate 5 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St.,
The Taylor Party: The TS Dance Party - (18+) 8 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $15-$29.50.
Hamtramck; $12-$30. The Reefermen 9 p.m.-midnight; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.
DJ/Dance NO SERVICE w/ HouseParty 9 p.m.; Deluxx Flux, 1274 Library St., Detroit,; $5 after 11 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 13 Boomcat, The Aromas, Sugar Bombs 8 p.m.; Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $10. King Buffalo, REZN 7 p.m.; El Club, 4114 Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $10. Queen: From Mercury with Love 8-9 p.m.; Longway Planetarium, 1310 Kearsley St., Flint; $8. Candlelight: A Tribute to Pink Floyd 8:30-10:30 p.m.; The Detroit Masonic Temple, 500 Temple Street, Detroit; $27.
DISCO LOUNGE – A tribute to the Disco Club Era w/ DJ Eric Kacir 9 p.m.-midnight; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.
Sunday, Jan. 14 Carl Thomas 7:30 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $45-$57. G Jones, Mala, Saka, Sayer 7 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $29.50. Magic Bag Presents: Martin Sexton 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $35-$45. Panic In Hamtramck (day three): with Centenary, Darkeater, Fleshwound, Illusion of Fate, Monolithic Architecture, Phyrxian Sun, Temple of the Fuzz Witch 5 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $12-$30.
Monday, Jan. 15 Live/Concert
Clear Fields, Remnose 8 p.m.-midnight; Reware Vintage, 2965 12 Mile Rd. Suite 200, Berkley; no cover.
Don’t Engage N Road Rage Presents A Live Concert Tribute To A Living Legend, Stevie Wonder 7-9 p.m.; Silver Garden Events Center, 24350 Southfield Rd, Southfield; $25.
COOP’S NIGHTMARE - The Alice Cooper Experience 7 pm; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $15.
Adult Skate Night 8:30-11 p.m.; Lexus Velodrome, 601 Mack Ave., Detroit; $5.
DJ/Dance
Improv
Go Comedy! Improv Theater The AllStar Showdown. Fridays and Saturdays 7:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m. $25. Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Erik Scott with Richard Mathis and Travis Conte. $25. Sunday, 7:30-9 p.m. Planet Ant Theatre Hip-Prov: Improv with a Dash of Hip-Hop. $10, second Wednesday of every month, 7 p.m.
Stand-up Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom Russell Peters: Live. $43-$98. Saturday, 8 p.m. Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts Earthquake, LaVar Walker. $69-$125. Saturday, 7 & 8 p.m. Fox Theatre Chris Tucker: The Legend Tour. $39.50-$79.50. Friday, 8 p.m. Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle DeAnne Smith with Richard Mathis and Trevor Tress. $5. Wednesday, 7:30-9 p.m. The Music Hall Hollywood Casino @ Greektown Presents Ms Pat. $25-$55. Friday, 8 p.m. Sound Board Cedric The Entertainer. $86-$99. Friday, 8 p.m.
Continuing This Week Stand-up Blind Pig Blind Pig Comedy. Mondays, 8 p.m. No cover. The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant Tonight vs Everybody: Thursday Open Mic at The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant. Sign up starts at 10:30 p.m. and the show begins at 11 p.m. $5 suggested donation.
Fleetwood Gold - The Fleetwood Mac Experience 8 p.m.; Emerald Theatre, 31 N. Walnut St., Mount Clemens; $25.
Tuesday, Jan. 16 Live/Concert
A Night of Motor City Soul with Smoke Jones and Laura Rain and the Caesars 8-11:30 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit; $25.
Beartooth, The Plot In You, Invent Animate, Sleep Theory 5:30 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $34.50-$59.50.
Art Exhibition Opening
Panic In Hamtramck (day two): with Convulsis, Exploding Zombies, Graboids, Ogemaw County, Redlord, Self Absorbed, Spitting Nails 5 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $12-$30.
MAMAE: Alpino Roots Cellar Music Series 6:30-8 p.m.; Alpino Detroit, 1426 Bagley St, Detroit; $10.
Continuing This Week
Raputa - J Geils Tribute, Petty Thieves - Tom Petty Tribute, Hyndsight - Pretenders Tribute 7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $10-$90. The Mega 80s 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.
DJ/Dance B.Y.O.R Bring Your Own Records Night 9 pm-midnight; The Old Miami, 3930 Cass Ave., Detroit; Free.
University of Michigan Museum of Art Unsettling Histories: Legacies of Slavery and Colonialism.
THEATER
SPORTS
Performance
Hockey
DJ/Dance TECHNICALLY GHETTO w/ Parkhouse 9 p.m.; Deluxx Flux, 1274 Library
COMEDY
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Color & Ink Studio UNIFIED: A Keto Green Solo Show. Opening reception from 5- 8 p.m. Show runs through Jan. 28. Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) Intimacy: The Artistic Community of PASC. Through Jan. 14.
Meadow Brook Theatre Father of the Bride. $43. Wednesday, 8 pm, Thursday 8 pm, Friday 8 pm, Saturday 6 pm and Sunday 2 & 6:30 pm.
VUP, Cedar Bend, The Ruckus 8 p.m.; Blind Pig, 208 S. 1st St., Ann Arbor; $10.
ARTS
Little Caesars Arena Detroit Red Wings vs. Los Angeles Kings (Grateful Dead Night) Each ticket purchased includes a limited edition Red Wingsbranded Grateful Dead jersey, as well as entry into a pre-game concert performed by Raising the Dead! $68-$360 Saturday, 7 p.m.
Critics’ picks Technically, Yeah MUSIC: Congratulations are in order for Technically, Yeah, the monthly performance night celebrating its 50th show this week. Launched in 2017, the event typically features live performances — Monica Blair, Tammy Lakkis, Rebecca Goldberg, Charles Trees, and Illingsworth are among the artists to grace its stage — sandwiched by all-vinyl sets by hosts Eddie Logix and Jo Rad Silver. And now, Logix and Jo Rad can spin their own wax: The duo is marking the occasion with its firstever vinyl record release, Real, No. The 12-inch EP blends their myriad influences into four tracks that mix deep-house grooves with hi-tech jazz, including an appearance from Kasan Belgrave on sax, the son of famed Motown jazz trumpet player Marcus Belgrave. Here’s to another 50. —Lee DeVito Starts at 9 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 11, UFO Factory, 2110 Trumbull, Detroit; facebook.com/ufofactorydetroit. Tickets are $10.
Chris Tucker LOL: Chris Tucker is saving the best for last, as Detroit will be the final stop on the star’s “The Legend Tour. The stand-up comedy run is Tucker’s first major tour in over a decade. While his roles in 1990s films Friday, Jackie Brown, and starring opposite of Jackie Chan in action-comedy Rush Hour may be what Tucker is most famously known for, he says stand up comedy is what prepared him for all of his movie roles, according to a news release. “I love performing live, there’s nothing like the energy of a live crowd and making people laugh,” Tucker said in the release. The upcoming tour stops will be phone-free events. Guests will be given pouches at the beginning of the show to secure their phones and smart watches, and anyone seen using a digital device will be kicked out. —Layla McMurtrie Starts at 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 12, Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313presents.com. Tickets start at $39.
Apotheculture Club WEED: Detroit’s cannabis-infused dinner and performance arts club is at it again with an evening at
Chris Tucker.
COURTESY PHOTO
the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Launched in 2023, the Apotheculture Club hosts multi-course infused dinners crafted by Detroit’s cannabis chef Enid Parham, aka Chef Sunflower, before taking attendees to live theater, symphony, or other events via luxury shuttle. On Saturday, the club is taking guests to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to enjoy the music of Chevalier de Saint-Georges, considered the first known classical music composer of African descent. Chef Enid’s fourcourse infused dinner will feature a French-Caribbean menu to honor the composer with dishes like conch fritters with a smoked plantain puree, roasted cauliflower saffron soup, French chicken stew over Senegalese jollof rice, and black cake. “We have been working hard to advance cannabis culture and add something more thought-provoking to it,” says Chef Sunflower. “Each course of our French-Caribbean menu is inspired by the life of Chevalier de SaintGeorges, whose story we’ll share throughout the night.” Mingling starts at 5 p.m., and the performance begins at 8 p.m. with an afterglow to follow. For the grown and sexy only. —Randiah Camille Green Starts at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 13; private location given to ticketholders only; eventbrite.com. Tickets are $200.
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MUSIC
You can catch Black Guns at Greektown’s Club Dream on Friday.
COURTESY PHOTO
Dashing to Detroit
Rap mogul Dame Dash brings his rock group Black Guns to the Motor City By Kahn Santori Davison
Few entrepreneurs and
record executives have made the kind of impact on hip-hop as Damon “Dame” Dash. As the co-founder of Roc-A-Fella records along with Jay-Z and Kareem Burke in 1994, Dash also co-founded the Rocawear clothing line in 1999 and helped spark the careers of Kevin Hart, Kayne West, and Cameron, just to name a few. And since his Roc days have concluded, he’s gone on to start another clothing line The CEO and has directed movies Honor UP, Stoned, and Prince of Detroit. In his latest venture, the 52-year-old mogul is putting back on his artist hat and has teamed up with longtime friend and onetime Roc-A-Fella signee Freeway on 365, a hip-hop/rock fusion album. “I was in this rock band the Black Guns with Tash [Neal],” Dash says during a Zoom interview. “We made this album Therapy and we have other albums we didn’t put out. But I just like the rock ’n’ roll thing. And one of the first records was called ‘Line Em Up,’ and it was by Freeway’s record that he never really put out. I actually white-labeled it. All the records I really loved at Roc-A-Fella, I always envisioned them as rock records and what they would
sound like with instruments.” Dash has long been a fan of fusing rock with hip-hop. In 2009 he oversaw Blakroc, an album that successfully matched the bluesy rock vibes of the Black Keys with top-tier emcees such as Mos Def, Jim Jones, RZA, Ludacris, and others. Unlike other rap-rock albums, Blackroc highlighted hip-hop-based emcees, not rock singers doing double duty. The album peaked at No. 21 U.S. Billboard’s Top R&B/HipHop Albums. A sequel to Blackroc had been planned and partially recorded with the Black Keys and emcees Sean Price, Wiz Khalifa, Curren$y, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli, but it never came to fruition. “[When] these muthafuckas [The Black Keys] blew up, they didn’t want to tour, we never toured,” Dash says. “I have issues, not too much with [the Black Keys’] Dan Auerbach but with Pat [Carney].” Nonetheless, that album was the inspirational foundation to Dash’s continued interest in creating a rock-rap project. “I was thinking about why I called this group the Black Guns and it’s because a lot of what I learned about rock ’n’ roll came from the Blakroc project with the Black Keys, and also a Guns N’ Roses style,” he adds.
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Once Dash teamed up with Freeway in person, they went through a nonstop five-day work stretch at Dash’s Florida studio which resulted in a mountain of content. “We knocked out 10 records, did three podcasts, one television show, and did the performances,” Dash says. “We shot the music video, we did the album photos, and then Datwon [Thomas] from Vibe magazine flew in and did the interview for the cover.” Dash has lined up several performance dates at venues across the country, including Greektown’s Club Dream on Friday. He says he’ll be documenting his journey and using it as a tutorial to show aspiring artists how to break a record and how to establish themselves as a group. “We’re going to these marketplaces, doing smaller venues just for practice,” he says. “Just because you got to, just for respect for the art… My thing is whenever I’m going to make money off entertainment, the entertainment can’t just be something that distracts you. It has to be something that teaches you.” Detroit hip-hop artists Pariis Noel met and performed in front of Dash in Florida last year. The two found a musi-
cal kinship within themselves and Noel has been added to the Detroit show, as well as two other tour stops. “[Afterwards], we went right to the studio, after the show, and he made a record with Nicky Licky,” Dash says. “And I liked what happened because a lot of people came to the studio after [and] people thought it was going to be a hang out, but we got to work. And people started leaving and it was just us three after about a half hour. But I like the focus that he had, I like the respect he had in that environment and that he already had a record on deck, he was ready.” “I was the one that told him, ‘I got open verses right now,” adds Noel. “I got material, so let’s cook up,’ and I stayed the whole night.” Noel plans to perform material from his albums Beautifully Flawed, Energy Never Lies, as well as tracks from an upcoming project with Lorenzo Burez and Eaze. Grammy-nominated artist Ashley Sorrell will also be performing. “This vibe on this new material is crazy,” Noel says. “It’s titled Good Things Come in 3s. It’s like, imagine J. Cole on a Babyface Ray-type vibe.” Currently, the Black Guns’ music
videos and behind-the-scenes footage are on YouTube, but Dash would prefer you view them on his newly launched America Nu Network, a culturally immersive and all-encompassing media player. Basically, Dash has made his own NBC in the form of an app that can be downloaded via Apple’s App Store or Google Play. “I made it free for everybody. I learned about the CPMs and the data,” he says, referring to cost per thousand impressions, a term used in online advertising. “So now I can teach all these content creators, or anyone that makes their money digitally, about how they’re getting robbed and what language they should be speaking based on the fact that I’m the chairman of a television network.” A quick scroll through the NU Network app and you’ll see comedy shows, health and wellness interviews, movies, TV series, and podcasts. “Having the power to broadcast, and get the CPMs and being able to do what you want when you want with the people you want is a power you can’t understand,” says Dash. Dash’s America NU Network will also be the final landing spot for his film, Prince of Detroit. The movie chronicles the true story of Tommy Duncan (who plays the role of Tony Fox), a Detroiter who became a millionaire in the healthcare industry. Dash chose to direct and bring the story to the big screen after having a conversation with Duncan about his life story. The movie debuted at Detroit’s Music Hall last June and went to AMC theaters nationwide shortly after. “It’s a movie about a Black family that has generational wealth and made money in healthcare,” Dash says. “No one has ever seen anything in movies about anything Black dealing anything but us getting our asses whooped or us beating each other up, or us being athletes or us being rappers or entertainers. They never give a visual of anything but us entertaining… There have been so many wealthy Black people in Detroit for years. I wanna showcase us winning.” Before the performance on Friday, Dash is teaming up with Detroit City Council president Mary Sheffield for a panel discussion on community building and brand development at the Cambria Hotel. The panel is also set to include Darryl Clements from InterCapital Funding, Shannon Steel from Steel Capital LLC, Management LTD, and Dwight Glover form Commerce Financial LTD. “I’m giving a full clinic on it,” Dash says. “The first part of the day we’re going to be having a conversation or a panel talking about the independent
business. Not everyone wants to be independent, sometimes you gotta be. If someone is not going to give you a job, or they’re not going to sign you, or they’re not going to give you a movie deal, it’s not going to get done unless you do it yourself. And only a half of a percent of the world gets that kind of funding. So you have to, whether you like it or not.” Dash says he has grown very fond of the Motor City over the years and loves the confidence and style Detroiters carry. He says the city is full of a lot of “pretty people” and he enjoys himself every time he gets the opportunity to come here. “More artsy than people know, to be honest Detroit is one of my favorite towns,” he says. “I was bugging out when I went out there.” Dash admits he doesn’t have any vivid memories about Detroit from yesteryear and even though he dated the late songstress Aaliyah, they never visited the city together as the Detroitraised singer and actress was in the prime of her career. “We didn’t get to travel, she was on the road and I was always on the road,” he says. “A lot of our relationship she spent in Australia. It was like a strong two months, then she went away for like six months, and then it was another two months and then it was a wrap because that thing happened,” Dash says, referring to the tragic plane crash in the Bahamas that claimed Aaliyah’s life in 2001 at just 22. As Dash continues to embrace and build new projects and endeavors, he has a lot to say to those who want to confine his mogul status to only what he accomplished at Roc-A-Fella. “One thing that I don’t understand is sometimes I hear people say, ‘Make another Hov,’ like someone else saying that dumb shit,” he says. “I don’t make another rapper, I make another $100 million business. So as soon as Roc-AFella was over, a year later I had Rachel Roy doing $100 million. But because some people don’t understand anything but the language of music, they don’t even know I had a whole other vertical that was bigger than Roc-A-Fella the next year … And that’s how I know you can’t trust the world’s narrative, you have to make your own.” Freeway X The Black Guns’ “365 Tour” starts at 9 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 12 at Club Dream, 440 E. Lafayette St., Detroit; eventbrite.com. Tickets are $40. The American Nu Panel Discussion starts at noon on Friday, Jan. 12 at the Cambria Hotel, 600 W. Lafayette Blvd., Detroit; eventbrite.com. Suggested donation.
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FOOD
Star among the offerings at Troy’s Shiromaru is the black tonkotsu.
COURTESY PHOTO
First-class Japanese at a reasonable price By Jane Slaughter
Shiromaru 5365 Crooks Rd., Troy 248-792-6015 shiromarutroy.com
Ramen or rice bowls $15-$16,
udon $13-$14, sushi rolls $5-$15, sake $9-$24 Shiromaru is one of those places where the quality of the food outshines the informality of the experience. Not a complaint! And so preferable to the opposite, where the restaurant puts on a service show at high prices but the food is meh. At Shiromaru you delight your tastebuds though you order at the register and you can get a sake bomb in a can. Six o’clock on a Saturday saw a medium-length line of patrons of various Asian and non-Asian ethnicities, apparently happy to forego tablecloths or table service in favor of first-class Japanese food at a reasonable price. The menu includes a long list of sushi but I concentrated on the broths and rice bowls. Star among these is black tonkotsu. Read J. Kenzi LopezAlt on why tonkotsu is so delicious, and why making it is so time-consuming. Before opening Shiromaru in 2022,
owner and ramen chef Jasmeet Singh had worked in Japanese restaurants for years after immigrating here from northern India 17 years ago. He became fascinated with ramen — “I was amazed by the texture and the richness of the soup,” he says — and learned the art. Pork bones are soaked overnight to remove impurities and then simmered for many hours to produce the creamy broth. It’s not literally creamy; think pork fat. Hours at a simmer removes proteins from the bones, converts their collagen into gelatin, and actually breaks down fat, marrow, and calcium into tiny pieces which are suspended in the liquid. “Shiromaru” loosely translates as “white bowl,” referring to the creamy color and texture. Singh’s ramen is produced from scratch and extruded by a machine from Japan. Singh swirls in aged black garlic, some wood ear mushrooms, green onions, half a marinated egg, and best of all, pork belly chashu, braised till it’s chopstick-tender. The various mouth-feels alone — slidey noodles, velvety soup, rubbery mushrooms — would be enough to make this dish a star, but the lush flavors take it over the top. The other versions are clas-
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sic tonkotsu, without the black garlic, and red, with chili garlic sauce. I’m sure they’re equally spectacular. Three versions of chicken bone broth — paitan — are similar but with corn and bamboo, and there’s a vegetable broth with broiled tofu, which sounds like a very, very poor cousin. If you prefer a less liquid meal — though the tonkatsu bowls are chock full of solid food — I have nothing but praise for the rice bowls with pork belly chashu or barbecued eel (unagi don). The chef doesn’t skimp on the tender pork belly, the mayo is tangy, the red ginger bright, the eel sauce sticky. In the unagi don the eel melts in the mouth and the barbecue sauce is not super-sweet; it’s adorned with shavings of ginger and ribbons of cucumber. A little serving of miso soup comes first, with a few cubes of tofu and some chewy seaweed. I enjoyed an appetizer of escolar ponzu, though I read later that escolar (mislabeled “white tuna”) can cause diarrhea if you eat enough of it. (Sorry to mention that.) The raw fish was agreeably pungent on a bed of cucumber strips with a dusting of red pepper (togarashi). Escolar is also featured in the sumptuous Shiromaru Deluxe
Bowl, which tops rice with that and tuna, salmon, yellowtail, avocado, and some unnecessary iceberg. The mix is pleasantly spicy with a little horseradish kick from the wasabi dressing. (I learned recently that almost all of what we call wasabi does not actually come from the tender wasabi plant, even in Japan. Rather, it’s a mix of horseradish and mustard oil, known as kona wasabi.) Shiromaru also does somewhat lighter udon soups (ramen noodles contain eggs; the fatter udon noodles are vegan). I got an “Udon Set,” which is the soup plus a California roll. The thick noodles are eminently slurpable and the broth includes the misnamed “crab stick” along with shiitakes and “crunch,” house-fried tempura flakes. Mochi ice cream is dessert; it didn’t really taste like mango but was close enough for a frozen treat. The strong green tea mochi was preferable. I bought a can of House Wine (that’s the brand name), 12 oz. for $9. A server brought me a chilled wine glass and exclaimed, “Oh, we never get to use these!” Makes sense — the sake and the Japanese beers, all the usual brands, are a lot more authentic and a better match for the food.
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FOOD
sadly predictable. New hires came and went. Turnover attrition happened in horrific numbers. Service as we knew it pre-COVID didn’t survive. Putting those desperation tactics behind them now, proprietors who take the time and effort required to properly train their culinary and hospitality troops rather than forcing them to almost instantly fend for themselves in frontline positions just might start reducing those body counts. The sacrificial lamb approach to shepherding herds of help through hard times isn’t a sustainable strategy. Manning a daily, battle-ready restaurant doesn’t work without arming your people with the know-how they need to succeed. Granted, employees have always come and gone in the food and beverage trades, but as a sign of these times, mass desertions demand more determined and disciplined efforts by employers to train and sustain personnel resources that are anything but expendable anymore.
Here are three things restaurants can do to bring customers back in 2024.
Chowhound
Restaurant resolutions By Robert Stempkowski Chowhound is a weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture. Tips: eat@metrotimes.com.
Self-improvement is January’s rallying cry. Once again, here we are. So, how can we get better this year? Who’s up for a shot at sobriety? New gym membership, anyone? Maybe I should just mind my own business. Failing that, let me offer, instead, a few thoughts on how a restaurant industry left punch-drunk and staggered after three-plus years of COVID culture could rally in 2024. Given workforce shortages, diminished levels of service that have come consequentially, and steep, presumably permanent price increases we’re now asked to accept as the new normal cost of doing food business, there seems room for improvement almost across the board. Restaurants might do well to carefully consider what they bring to the table going forward. Granted, they did what they felt was necessary to survive a pandemic crisis. That was then. As things stand now, three aspects of operations seem most in need of some reinvigorating address: service, staffing, and consumer value perceptions. Since a strange, new flu virus started sucking the life out of sit-down restaurants, customers have been offered a steady
diet of bare bones hospitality, ironically increased and automatic service charges, and hard-swallow menu pricing. Threeplus years into COVID-triggered tumult, it’s time for the hospitality industry to recognize and work to resolve some of the long-haul consumer fatigue we’re left with. Between restaurateurs and the public, both sides are feeling sick and tired of these circumstances, which is why that relationship finds itself sorely in need of some re-energization and repair. Since consumers can always just eat at home and spend dining dollars at their discretion, the industry side will likely have to meet them a little more than halfway. To wit:
Revisit service as a recovery key What goes around comes around. Service took a back seat when dine-in business models shifted into survival mode in 2020. Now, it shouldn’t take a Nostradamus to see that the essential yet so-often-lacking element of service stands poised to make a big comeback. Certainly, the dining public’s craving more than it’s been getting lately. As a difference-maker for operators who’ll conscientiously attempt to raise the bar, higher standards of hospitality in 2024 could proffer a saving grace, secret ingredient potential for future success
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SHUTTERSTOCK
in what’s become a subsistence service economy. Such minimalism is due for relegation to COVID culture’s many dreary memories. A shining recommitment to taking care of dining room customers could prove a tonic to the industry at this point. All those dine-in spaces that emptied and turned into take-out emergency rooms need refilling. We’ve had our fill of being force-fed restaurant goods from brown paper bags and Styrofoam containers. I foresee hordes of the hungry heading out to eat more regularly if and when service returns to speed and former standard. Restaurants the public sees rising to that challenge should realize some sizable returns on such reinvestment.
Place premiums on employee training and retention Here’s what happened a lot after food and beverage professionals started leaving the industry en masse: Hiring became a harried and hurried exercise in warm-body replacement. At the German siege of Stalingrad during World War II, an existentially-threatened Soviet government resorted to sending untrained and unarmed soldiers to the key city’s defense. These poor souls — marchedout utterly unprepared by panicked leadership — could only arm themselves with the rifles of countless, fallen comrades come before them into that insane situation. If nowhere near an actual human tragedy, employee turnover in the food and beverage ranks seems analogous enough. Employers with staffs shot full of holes felt forced to plug in raw recruits before many were serviceready. Training became all too quick and cursory, and the consequences were
As to that value perception problem We all see what’s happened to food prices. These days, steaks from the grocery store set us back about what we paid for them prepared and plated at a restaurant a few years ago. That’s shameful, and don’t get me started debunking all the supply-side, dominoeffect excuses every COVID profiteer has put forth since a pandemic infected food suppliers with wholesale greed they knew they’d get away with under the circumstances. That’s between them and God. But between we prospective customers and restaurants, a rift’s resulted in menu pricing that’s pushing the limits of our get-what-wepay-for expectations, even lowered as they’ve been over the course of recent COVID years. Now, we’re living in a world of near-$20 lunch menu listings and value meals that don’t feel that way when we exit the drive-thru fifty bucks lighter with four, thrown-together burger combos in tow. And there’s the growing ubiquity problem to boot. It seems every other menu offered in metro Detroit has defaulted into Maurice Salad, BYO burger, and broasted chicken-centricity. One wonders how much culinary creativity has been stalled by the loss of purchasing power in this food inflation economy. Still, this writer wishfully imagines some culinary young turks out there making their marks now by turning still-cheap chicken livers into stellar pates and chitterlings into something deliciously akin to fried calamari. This can be done, and should be. Cost-effective cooking creativity could become 2024’s proprietary super power.
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CULTURE
Intimacy: The Artistic Community of PASC presents work by artists with developmental disabilities and mental health differences.
BROCK AILES
Arts spotlight
Progressive Art Studio Collective artists radiate exuberance and joy in first museum show at MOCAD By Randiah Camille Green
Metro Detroit’s art studio for
artists with developmental disabilities and mental health differences has only been around for three years and has already landed a museum exhibit. Progressive Art Studio Collective (PASC) was launched in 2021 and is the first art studio and program of its kind in Detroit and Wayne County. In Intimacy: The Artistic Community of PASC at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, 37 of PASC’s 175 artists present works across mediums. PASC Program Manager Anthony Marcellini says the program’s goal is to support these artists with developmental and mental health challenges in developing successful contemporary careers. At PASC’s open studios, rather than steer the artists in any way, the staff encourage them to create freely focusing on positive reinforcement. The organization, a program through Services to Enhance Potential (STEP), has three studios in Detroit, Southgate, and Warren. In the spring, PASC will move its Detroit studio to a gallery space in Library Street Collective’s forthcoming Lantern project.
“It’s not like art school, where they tell you, ‘That’s been done before,’ or ‘only one of you will ever make it as an artist,’ which is what my teachers told me in art school,” Marcellini says. “It’s more like, ‘Keep going. Do more. Would you like to try this new material? How about experimenting with this thing.’” He adds, “It’s really about developing a space of independence, autonomy, and freedom for people who don’t often get that, who then use creative expression to communicate in another way… Verbal communication or written communication sometimes, for some of them, is not always the primary form of communication. Making art is also a very therapeutic activity. So that aspect of the studios is very important. It’s a very healing space in that sense.” Intimacy is part of MOCAD’s Mike Kelley’s Space for Public Good programming. When Abel González Fernández came on as assistant curator at MOCAD roughly six months ago, he was tasked with creating programming relative to the Mike Kelly Mobile Home-
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stead’s legacy of community care. After being thoroughly impressed by PASC’s mission and the work in a show they had at Library Street Collective at the time, he decided to work with Marcellini to curate the group’s first museum show. “For MOCAD it was important to understand a museum as a social body that provides accessibility for these artists,” González Fernández says. The show ranges from large-scale abstract works to sculptures of pop iconography and paintings that offer modern commentary on art history. PASC artist Ronald Griggs, for example, offers a depiction of Madonna and Child, with the child appearing to be nonbinary. “I was struck by the fact that these artists were like actually having a dialogue with classic art history, and bringing their input to the art,” González Fernández says. “Marquise Rucker has this piece that I love that is an abstraction that reminds me of the vanguard art of the ’20s and ’30s.” The show also has a joyous overtone, like the exuberance of wonder and play. Santina Dionisi’s sculptures of figures
like Zero from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Piglet and the honey pot from Winnie the Pooh made us smile. “Having our first museum show in just three years, I think, is a testament to the quality of the work and certainly the space of the studio itself that really allows that work to flourish,” Marcellini says. “But also having audiences understand that a program like this exists [is important] because almost everybody either knows somebody who has a friend [or] a relative who has a disability. This is a great way to broaden the community so that they know that there are spaces where things are being created by people with disabilities in very positive, supportive environments.” On January 12 at 6:30 p.m., MOCAD will host an artist walkthrough of the show before it closes on January 14. Prints of several of the works are available in MOCAD’s museum shop and all original work is for sale at progressiveartstudiocollective.org. Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; 4454 Woodward Ave., Detroit; mocadetroit.org.
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CULTURE
The Zone of Interest radically upends the idea of a Holocaust movie — to brilliant effect.
COURTESY OF A24
Film
Nazis, they’re just like us By Kayla McCulloch
The Zone of Interest Rated: PG-13 Run-time: 105 minutes
If silence is violence, then I’d deem Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest the most brutal film in theaters today. Emotionlessly presenting a daily report on one of Führer und Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler’s most loyal soldiers, the film quietly explores its nightmarish concept with zero frills. There’s no blatant depiction of the monstrosities occurring in the immediate vicinity. They’re unspeakable, and they go unspoken. Instead, smokestacks billow black soot into a cloudy blue sky while little ones splash in a pool. Groundskeepers till fine gray ash into the soil of a blooming garden. Gunfire and screams pierce the air surrounding an otherwise serene picnic by the water. This is life just outside the confines of Auschwitz in its simplest — and most revolting — form. Nazi Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) is a commandant at the German
Reich’s enormous complex of more than 40 concentration and extermination camps. Located within occupied Poland, the compound played a central role in the systematic implementation of the Holocaust throughout World War II. On a smaller scale, Höss plays a key part in Auschwitz’s day-to-day along with a battalion of other Nazis. Signing off on proposed expansions, discussing the finer details of a soonto-be-built crematorium, overseeing disciplinary actions for insubordinate Standartenführer personnel … the epitome of evil, all in a day’s work. Home is hardly an escape for Höss, so I can’t imagine the pathetic “just following orders” excuse for the atrocities committed holding any actual weight here. With only a wall between his workplace and his household, there certainly can’t be any compartmentalizing going on. His wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) looks after the greenhouse while a horrific soundscape echoes from next door. His children play with knick-knacks torn from the hands of kids their same age imprisoned not far from their window. The family swims in the same river where body parts wash
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ashore. No vertical concrete slab with barbed-wire trim can block out this reality. Still, Rudolf and Hedwig would say they’re living the dream. Husband is successfully climbing the career ladder, wife is aptly rearing the littles, the staff of servants keeps the interior and exterior of the house looking tip-top… It’s everything they hoped and dreamed for, dating back to the earliest pages of their ongoing love story and unfolding exactly as planned. But, when a surprise promotion — one that would relocate Rudolf to Berlin and crown him deputy inspector of every concentration camp, not just Auschwitz — threatens the plans they’d made together, the cracks in the facade begin to show. The Hösses can pretend not to see the ugliness in plain sight, but it’s been obvious to us observers from the start. If you — like me — are a fan of (or, at the very least, familiar with) Glazer’s last film, 2013’s Under the Skin, then you might assume you know what to expect going into The Zone of Interest. While bearing no similarities in plot, Under the Skin nevertheless approaches its starkly terrifying material with os-
tensibly flat direction. No fancy camera movements, no twisty-turny narratives, no lavish sets, no extravagant performances gunning for an Academy Award sizzle reel. To a certain extent, this does accurately describe both films. However, The Zone of Interest takes Glazer’s distinct approach a step further by eliminating some of the more stylized elements of the former film for an even more grounded effort. (The only true slips out of the real world and into the void come in the form of brief digressions shown in an unsettling black and white negative.) Hüller’s performance in The Zone of Interest also took me back to Under the Skin. Whereas in that film Scarlett Johansson’s alien character (Laura, as she’s named in the script but never explicitly called on-screen) searches for human traits to adopt so she can better blend in with us mortals, Hüller’s Hedwig has suppressed the same human traits that would prevent her from accepting existence under Nazism. She is the inverted version of Laura, a black and white negative who has shed those basic human traits to become the compliant, complicit spouse of a highranking Nazi. It’s a question worth asking: How (not to mention why) do you make an emotionless, even-keeled movie about such unfathomable real-life horrors of the not-too-distant past with troubling current-day resonance? The cinematography by Łukasz Żal and score by Mica Levi are essential factors in Jonathan Glazer’s complicated equation. Żal’s pragmatic digital shots show the full picture — the Höss family in the foreground, the manmade barrier in the middle ground and Auschwitz just beyond in the background. Meanwhile, the inimitable Levi delivers an uncharacteristically pared-down but nonetheless fitting soundtrack. There’s no romanticization, no glorification. Only vérité. From its naturalistic dialogue to its relatively plotless proceedings, its observational interludes to its unemotional portrayal of life in and around concentration camps, The Zone of Interest dares to challenge the premise of a “Holocaust movie” as we’ve come to understand them over the years. Placed alongside Schindler’s List, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and Inglorious Basterds — all contemporary titles that spend a lot of time from the SS perspective — The Zone of Interest is clearly a radical departure. Once it arrives at its subversive, medium-bending conclusion, it’s already cemented its status as one of the toughest, most difficult historical dramas of its era — and one of the most distinctive works of the decade so far.
metrotimes.com | January 10-16, 2024 31
CULTURE Savage Love Loading Zone By Dan Savage
Q: My boyfriend recently broke up with
me. He confessed that he has been battling an addiction to orgies and couldn’t show up for our relationship in the ways I needed him to. Basically, he uses drugs and logs onto Grindr or Sniffies to find sex parties. He is into the kink of anonymous breeding. He bottoms and likes to take and “tally” as many loads as he can. Sometimes these “breeding sessions” last an entire day. I understand his issue is drug usage, but I am curious about the fetish of anonymous breeding as a whole. I have found your podcast and writings to be helpful when it comes to understanding certain kinks, and I’m wondering if you have some specific insights on this anonymous breeding kink. My questions specifically relate to the experience of the bottom, e.g., the person being bred and taking. I numbered my questions for you: 1. Why is being anonymously bred exciting? 2. Any ideas on the psychology behind wanting to be anonymously bred? Specifically, the “no loads refused” mentality? 3. Why is the idea of tallying/counting loads exciting to the bottom? What is the significance of having a running tally written on the body of the bottom with a marker? 4. Why are blindfolds common to this kink? 5. What are the dangers and what safety precautions would you urge a bottom to take? I am, of course, concerned about my ex and his drug use and I have offered him what help and emotional support I can. But learning about his kink threw me and I want to understand it better. —Seeking Enlightening Educational Download
A: Before I answer your questions — or
before I pass them to a cumdump who can — I wanna enter this into the record: sexual interests and kinks are personal and subjective and one person’s ultimate fantasy is another person’s worst nightmare. So, while there are definitely gay men out there who are excited to take anon loads — some gay men are all about
getting fucked in the ass by strangers who aren’t wearing condoms — I have to quibble with the way you phrased your first question. You may not have meant to imply that taking anon loads excites all gay men, SEEDS, but some readers (straight ones, young ones, dumb ones) are gonna read your question and think there are two kinds of gay men: the gays who find the idea exciting and are out there doing it and the gays who find the idea exciting but aren’t brave enough and/or high enough to do it. And that’s not the case. For some gay men — for gay men of my generation — the association between getting bred and suffering an early, protracted, and punishing death remains a powerful boner killer. I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW: we have a daily pill now that protects HIV-negative men from infection and HIV treatments so effective the virus literally can’t be detected in the bloodstreams of HIV-positive men and undetectable equals untransmittable and there’s even a “morning-after pill” that helps prevent the spread of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. Taking anon loads may not be the death wish it was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but for men who remember when it was… yeah, the vibes aren’t good. And it’s not just older gay men who aren’t excited by taking anonymous loads. Lots of gay men who came of age with PrEP and U=U are content to take a single, solitary load from someone whose first, last, and middle names are known to them. And some gay men aren’t into penetrative sex at all; these men, AKA “sides,” wanna blow loads on and near hot guys, not in them. But with that said… I’m willing to say… I get it. I’m a gay man, gay men love dick, some gay men binge dick. And the things people point to when condemning and/or pathologizing anonymous group sex — the objectification, the dehumanization, the mitigatablebut-ineliminable risks — are precisely what turns some people on about anonymous group sex. (We are objects, being human is exhausting, danger is exciting.) And it’s not just gay men who find orgies exciting. Gay men may have an easier time arranging orgies for all sorts of reasons (hookup apps, men are sluts, less cause to fear sexual violence), it’s not like we invented orgies or hold the patent. A lot of women love dick and some of those women fantasize about being
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the center square at a gangbang. (And some of those women — with the help of trusted partners — get to live out their cumdump fantasies.) Okay, SEEDS, I shared your numbered questions with a man who enjoys the same kind of sex your ex-boyfriend enjoys — the cumdump kind — only he doesn’t need drugs to do it and being a cumdump doesn’t interfere with his ability to form relationships. While he’s active online, he didn’t want me to link his social media to avoid getting dogpiled and shamed. So, we’re going to call him Football Jock Bottom… 1. “Deep down we are animals,” Football Jock Bottom said, “Men are animals that need to come, and we need to come a lot. And I find it hot to be able to provide that service to other men. They love it: no bullshit, come in, get your nut, and go about your day. I’ve taken loads from all types of men: single and married, young and old, big and small, fem and masc, cis and trans, out and on the DL. That moment when a man is thrown over the edge and can’t hold back anymore is the hottest thing in the world to me and I get to experience that moment multiple times when I am taking loads.” 2. FJB didn’t address this question in his emailed response. But if someone is turned on by taking as many loads as possible in a single session or over the course of a lifetime, having a “no loads refused” policy makes obvious sense, doesn’t it? 3. “I don’t write ‘cumdump’ on myself or use tally marks — that’s not my thing,” said FJB. “But tops in this scene are constantly asking how many loads you have in you already. If you don’t have enough, some will wait until you’re sloppier to stop by. For some guys, it just feels great to have a warm gushy hole wrapped around your cock.” And, really, nothing says “gushy hole” like ten or fifteen tally marks. 4. “I don’t ever wear a blindfold — and most of my friends don’t either — but I do like to wear my football helmet which creates the ‘anon’ for me,” said FJB. “Taking vision out of the equation allows me to focus on the feelings and sensations of getting fucked. Also, being an equal opportunity cumdump sometimes means taking the load of someone you don’t find conventionally attractive; thus, a blindfold can help make it enjoyable for the bottom from that sense.” 5. “Dangers and precautions are things we don’t talk about enough,” said FJB. “Aside from the biological
risk of taking many raw loads, there is a physical safety risk. You are exposing yourself to potential harm from bad actors. I’m a big dude; if I feel threatened, I stand up and show my size. But it’s important to let a friend know where you are and what you’re doing and have them check in with you. I recommend using discretion when chatting online — and if someone gets aggressive over text, they will probably get aggressive in person. I also avoid men who are under the influence of meth. “Besides that, it’s imperative to have a kink friendly doctor who will arm you with all of the vaccinations and medications you’re going to need. PrEP, doxyPEP, routine testing, all vaccinations including flu and COVID. I haven’t had an STI since April 2022 and I haven’t suffered any long-term health consequences so far. But like anything, it’s important to practice moderation. Doing this right and doing it as safely as possible requires a lot of work and careful planning — but it will always carry risk. “Finally, like this reader’s ex-boyfriend, I used to feel like I couldn’t do this and be in a relationship. I felt like I wasn’t worthy of love because I was a cumdump. A couple years of therapy and honestly getting into fisting showed me how to have truly intimate moments with men again. No one should tell himself he’s not worthy of love just because he likes having dudes nut in his ass.” I wanna thank Football Jock Bottom for sharing and quickly address the elephant in the room and/or the pipe in the mouth and/or the powder around the nostrils: your ex-boyfriend’s drug problem. Someone who needs to obliterate their inhibitions with drugs or alcohol in order to enjoy something, SEED, is almost always doing that thing wrong and/or doing it for the wrong reasons. I believe our bodies are our own. They belong to us — or they should — which means they’re ours to use, ours to share, and ours to use up. If this is how your ex-boyfriend wants to use his body (or have his body used), that’s his choice. But if he can’t be used like this without both abusing and blaming drugs, SEED, he’s not living his best life and enjoying crazy kinks. He’s destroying his life and engaging in acts of selfharm disguised as kinks. Got problems? Everyone does! Send your question to mailbox@savage.love! Podcasts, columns, and more at Savage. Love.
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CULTURE Free Will Astrology By Rob Brezsny ARIES: March 21 – April 19 Why do birds sing? They must be expressing their joy at being alive, right? And in some cases, they are trying to impress and attract potential mates. Ornithologists tell us that birds are also staking out their turf by chirping their melodies. Flaunting their vigor is a sign to other birds of how strong and commanding they are. In accordance with astrological omens, I invite you Aries humans to sing more than ever before in 2024. Like birds, you have a mandate to boost your joie de vivre and wield more authority. Here are 10 reasons why singing is good for your health: tinyurl.com/HealthySinging TAURUS: April 20 – May 20 Which zodiac sign is most likely to have a green thumb? Who would most astrologers regard as the best gardener? Who would I call on if I wanted advice on when to harvest
peaches, how to love and care for roses as they grow, or how to discern which weeds might be helpful and useful? The answer, according to my survey, is Taurus. And I believe you Bulls will be even more fecund than usual around plants in 2024. Even further, I expect you to be extra fertile and creative in every area of your life. I hereby dub you Maestro of the Magic of Germination and Growth. GEMINI: May 21 – June 20 Research I’ve found suggests that 70% of us have experienced at least one traumatic event in our lives. But I suspect the percentage is higher. For starters, everyone has experienced the dicey expulsion from the warm, nurturing womb. That’s usually not a low-stress event. The good news, Gemini, is that now and then there come phases when we have more power than usual to heal from our traumas. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, the coming months will be one of those curative times for you. CANCER: June 21 – July 22 At their best, Libras foster vibrant harmony that energizes social situations. At their best, Scorpios stimulate the talents and beauty of those they engage with. Generous Leos and Sagittarians inspire enthusiasm in others by expressing their innate radiance. Many of us may get contact highs from visionary, deepfeeling Pisceans. In 2024, Cancerian, I believe you can call on all these modes as you brighten and nurture the people in your sphere — even if you have no Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Leo, or Pisces influences in your astrological chart.
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LEO: July 23 – August 22 Here are my wishes for you in 2024. 1. I hope you will rigorously study historical patterns in your life story. I hope you will gather robust insights into the rhythms and themes of your amazing journey. 2. You will see clearly what parts of your past are worth keeping and which are better outgrown and left behind. 3. You will come to a new appreciation of the heroic quest you have been on. You will feel excited about how much further your quest can go. 4. You will feel gratitude for the deep inner sources that have been guiding you all these years. 5. You will be pleased to realize how much you have grown and ripened.
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VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22 Virgo author Eduardo Galeano mourned how our institutions condition us to divorce our minds from our hearts and our bodies from our souls. Even sadder, many of us deal with these daunting schisms by becoming numb to them. The good news, Virgo, is that I expect 2024 to be one of the best times ever for you to foster reconciliation between the split-off parts of yourself. Let’s call this the Year of Unification. May you be inspired to create both subtle and spectacular fusions of your fragmented parts. Visualize your thoughts and feelings weaving together in elegant harmony. Imagine your material and spiritual needs finding common sources of nourishment. LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22 According to ancient Greek myth, the half-divine hero Heracles consulted the Oracle of Delphi for guidance. He was assigned to perform 12 daunting feats, most of which modern people would regard as unethical, like killing and stealing. There was one labor that encouraged integrity, though. Heracles had to clean the stables where over a thousand divine cattle lived. The place hadn’t been scrubbed in 30 years! As I meditated on your hero’s journey in the coming months, Libra, I concluded that you’d be wise to begin with a less grandiose version of Heracles’ work in the stables. Have fun as you cheerfully tidy up everything in your life! By doing so, you will earn the power to experience many deep and colorful adventures in the coming months. SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21: I will name two taboos I think you should break in 2024. The first is the theory that you must hurt or suppress yourself to help others. The second is that you must hurt or suppress others to benefit yourself. Please scour away any delusion you might have that those two strategies could genuinely serve you. In their place, substitute these hypotheses: 1. Being good to yourself is the best way to prepare for helping others. 2. Being good to others is the best way to benefit yourself. SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21 “Doubt has killed more dreams than failure ever will,” says Sagittarian author Suzy Kassem. Many of us have had the experience of avoiding a quest for success because we are too afraid of being defeated or demoralized. “Loss aversion” is a well-known psychological concept that applies when we are so anxious about potential loss that we don’t pursue the possible gain. In my astrological estimation, you Centaurs
should be especially on guard against this inhibiting factor in 2024. I am confident you can rise above it, but to do so, you must be alert for its temptation — and eager to summon new reserves of courage. CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19 In 2024, I predict you will be blessed with elegant and educational expansion — but also challenged by the possibility of excessive, messy expansion. Soulful magnificence could vie for your attention with exorbitant extravagance. Even as you are offered valuable novelties that enhance your sacred and practical quests, you may be tempted with lesser inducements you don’t really need. For optimal results, Capricorn, I urge you to avoid getting distracted by irrelevant goodies. Usher your fate away from pretty baubles and towards felicitous beauty. AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18 Some people feel that “wealth” refers primarily to financial resources. If you’re wealthy, it means you have a lot of money, luxurious possessions, and lavish opportunities to travel. But wealth can also be measured in other ways. Do you have an abundance of love in your life? Have you enjoyed many soulful adventures? Does your emotional intelligence provide rich support for your heady intelligence? I bring this up, Aquarius, because I believe 2024 will be a time when your wealth will increase. The question for you to ruminate on: How do you define wealth? PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20 “No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,” said philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Here’s my response to that bold declaration: It’s utterly WRONG! No one in the history of the world has ever built anything solely by their own efforts, let alone a bridge to cross the river of life. Even if you are holed up in your studio working on a novel, painting, or invention, you are absolutely dependent on the efforts of many people to provide you with food, water, electricity, clothes, furniture, and all the other goodies that keep you functioning. It’s also unlikely that anyone could create anything of value without having received a whole lot of love and support from other humans. Sorry for the rant, Pisces. It’s a preface for my very positive prediction: In 2024, you will have substantial help in building your bridge across the river of life. Homework: I invite you to redefine what it would look and feel like to be your best self.
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