December 2019 E-Magazine
SHAKA KING’S
MENSWEAR AND JEWELRY DESIGNS HEAT UP THE FALL / WINTER SEASON
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FASHION SHOW
CHICAGO, FRIDAY-NOV 29TH
The holidays are a time for giving. But the reason for the season can get overshadowed by the pressure to consume. If you want to cut back on spending, giving back to the community can be a rewarding substitute for excess shopping. Here are some charitable activities that can bring abundance to your family this year.
GIVING BACK THIS SEASON! Volunteer at a shelter. If you don't have cash to spare for donations, you can donate your time, which is just as valuable. Volunteer at a homeless shelter or women and children's shelters in food prep or meal service. Visiting a shelter to meet the people you serve one-on-one can be a gratifying experience for the entire family. You can search this directory of homeless shelters near you. Collect donations for a food bank. Food banks distribute food to families and various organizations that serve people in need. A charitable activity that your family and friends can rally around is collecting items from the community for a local food bank. You can facilitate your own food drive or gather cash and food donations to contribute to a food drive run by another organization. Food banks look for nutritious nonperishable items, such as whole grain foods and low-sodium canned meats. Besides groceries, food banks often ask for other items, such as paper goods and school supplies. If you're interested in donating to a food bank, look through this database of national food banks. Send holiday cards to active-duty military and veterans. Members of the military sacrifice for our country. Sending festive holiday cards is one way to show that we appreciate all that they do. Plus, it's a thoughtful way to give back that's low-cost. You can send holiday cards to military members through a local American Red Cross chapter that participates in the Holidays for Heroes program. If your local chapter doesn't participate in this program, check to see if A Million Thanks has a card drop-off location near you. A Million Thanks is a nonprofit with a mission to show active-duty and veteran military members our support through letters and cards from the community. Donate used clothes and coats. If your family has gently used clothes, sheets or other textiles, give them to Goodwill or put them in a drop-off bin. Make sure the drop-off bin you use accepts donations for charitable purposes. Otherwise, you could put items in a bin that will go to a for-profit group. Coats are items that homeless and low-income families need during the cold winter months. Search to see if any stores and organizations in your town are holding a "Share the Warmth" drive. Share the Warmth is an initiative that collects gently used coats for needy families.
Remimakuo Annual Holiday Party We look forward to celebrating the holidays with you and happy that you are choosing to support those in need. A donation of gloves, mittens, scarfs or hats for LGBTQ youth. Gift cards are appreciated as well. A suggested donation of $10 will be appreciated.
Gallery Guichard 436 East 47th Street, Chicago, IL Saturday, December 14, 2019 Finally, we encourage ride sharing; parking is available but is limited and restricted in some areas.
Killer Tech Gifts Every Man Should Own
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Brooklyn Tech Envelope Mark & Graham $139
Travel Tech Organizer
Cool cases to keep your cords on lockdown Affordable: Stash your tech essentials with style (and without killing your budget) by snagging the Brooklyn Tech Envelope from Mark & Graham. Sleek and impressively compact, this leather pouch is somehow manages to hold an iPad, six credit cards, a pen and two cord compartments. Bonus: it’s on sale right now for $89.
Power Bank and Adapter
Anker Powerwave+ Amazon $59.99
You can never have too much juice Splurge: For the wireless tech maximalist with an Apple Watch, this $59 Anker Wireless Charger offers optimal charging for your cord-free Apple phone and watch life. Along with its super fast 10W two-in-one charging power (compatible with all Qi-enabled phones and devices), it folds up conveniently to save space and double as a nightstand.
EC Technology Portable Charger Amazon $30.99
Affordable: Are you the kind of person that is always losing shit? This portable charger from EC Technology ($30) comes with a highly visible splash of neon blue or pink, plus a built-in safety flashlight so that you’ll always know where your next charge is. While it has fewer USB ports than the others (three), it gets the job done to charge an iPhone about nine times, iPad Air about two times, and the Samsung Galaxy about five times.
Anti-Theft Tech Backpack
Keep your valuables safely tucked away Voltaic Systems OffGrid 10 Watt Rapid Solar Backpack Charger Amazon $199 Splurge: Too much tech and not enough charge? Let the sun do the work for you by investing a cool $199 in this OffGrid Solar Backpack from Voltaic Systems. It has all the functionality you expect in a solid backpack (padded sleeve for a 15.6-inch laptop and 10-inch tablet, lots of pockets and and tons of storage), but you’re really paying for the built-in solar panel battery pack that can charge most smartphones using its inclusive USB port within 3.5 hours using the power of the sun (which is free, abundant, and eco-friendly).
Affordable: If you’re a maximalist tech bro with a minimalist travel style, you’ll probably dig this $79 Anti-Theft Urban Incognito backpack from Travelon. Weighing only 1.65 pounds, this super light polyester backpack features a hidden zipper that opens 180 degrees so that there’s no more rifling down the standard 30-degree opening rabbit hole. Along with stowing all your essentials (including a 15.6-inch laptop), it features slash-resistant body panels, a secret RFID blocking pocket for extra security, and tons of padding so you can tote everything comfortably and safely.
Oscaurt Anti-theft Travel Backpack Amazon $32
Noise Canceling Headphones Turn on, tune out
Bose Headphones 700 Amazon $399
Splurge: The latest Bose Noise Cancelling 700 gets our thumbs up for its balanced sound quality, excellent built-in microphone and noise-cancelling capabilities. With these you can always count on crystal clear acoustics while listening to your favorite tunes or hopping on a call. That said, you will pay handsomely for those features.
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Lena Waithe on "Queen & Slim": Black people have to "create the heroes that we need"
Lena Waithe is out to "break convention" with her latest project, "Queen & Slim," a film that follows a black couple who accidentally kill a white police officer in self-defense during a traffic stop. The first black woman to win an Emmy Award for comedy writing told "CBS This Morning" she wanted to "put people of color in the center of a narrative" that "we are in a war that we didn't start." "I feel like black people, when they walk out their door, they go to war every day," Waithe said.
The idea for the film began when she was approached by James Frey, author of "A Million Little Pieces." "He came up to me at a party, and he said, 'Hey, I have an idea for a movie that I can't write.' He's like, 'It's a black man and black woman on a first date, on their way home. Police officer pulls them over, things escalate very quickly, and they kill him in self-defense… And then they decide to just get in the car and go.' And I was like, 'You're right, you can't write that,'" Waithe recounted. It's important, particularly for the black community, to "create the heroes that we need," she said. Waithe also said she thinks of her work on "Queen & Slim" as "protest art." "I know Nina Simone said it is an artist's duty to reflect the times. And I believe I'm doing that, I'm reflecting the times in which we live. I believe it's open season on black bodies," she said. When she hears on the news about another officer-involved deadly shooting of an unarmed black person and then comes to hear that officer was back on the force weeks later, she said it is "very traumatizing" for her. "I think for some people, it's just a news story. But whenever I see a name come across the screen, a part of me dies," Waithe said. For her film, she said viewers will see that it's layered – and "just like black people aren't a monolith, neither are police." "But I do think that when black people see the police uniform, it represents something that can be scary, that can be dangerous. And it could be the end of your life," Waithe said. © 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. www.cbs.com
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, NY, NY The thrilling hit musical, telling the story of Tina Turner, on Broadway.
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Lizzo’s Eight Grammy Nominations Are A Triumph for Music Streaming Lizzo is the most-nominated artist for the 2020 Grammy Awards, largely thanks to a song she released in 2017. How did that happen?
Story by Amy Wang for www.rollingston.com
In 2004, journalist and entrepreneur Chris Anderson wrote an article for Wired arguing that the future of entertainment would not lie in a handful of chart-topping megahits but in the “millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream” — known in stats terms as the “long tail,” or the modest, lower-volume sales streams that businesses tend to overlook in favor of pushing their most popular products. While the long-tail philosophy has since been adopted by many industries, Anderson’s predictions have held especially true for music in the streaming era. It’s evidenced nowhere more than in this year’s slate of Grammy nominations. Rapper-singer Lizzo leads the pack in the nominations announced Wednesday, notching eight nods for categories including Record and Song of the Year. But three of her nominations are for “Truth Hurts” — a track she released on September 19th, 2017, far out of the usual eligibility period of the Grammys. (Official eligibility spanned October 1st, 2018, to August 31st, 2019.) “Truth Hurts” did not chart upon its release; it did bubble up in early 2019, though, when a series of TikTok videos riffing off the song’s lyric “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that bitch…” catapulted the track into a cross-platform social-media meme. Lizzo hopped on the trend herself in a video on iHeartRadio’s TikTok account, and the song enjoyed yet another wave of attention when it was featured in Netflix’s popular rom-com Someone Great. The song hit Number One on the Billboard and Rolling Stone music charts around September 2019, two entire years after its release.
“Truth Hurts” was tacked on as a bonus track on the deluxe version of Cuz I Love You, Lizzo’s third studio album, which falls squarely inside the eligibility timeframe with its release date of April 19th, 2019. A rep for the Recording Academy told Rolling Stone that the Academy may accept previously released singles that later become a track on an artists’ album for nomination eligibility, as long as the single has not been previously entered into the Grammy Awards process — but suggested that such situations are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. That a three-year-old sleeper hit could take home one or more of the Grammys’ top prizes next year speaks not only to the long-tail effect of timeless internet culture but also to the idea that artists no longer have a designated window for success — be it a week, a month, or several years — in which to achieve popularity, significant revenue, or accolades. Without cost barriers to music access, listeners can make a song go viral at any time. If artists and executives begin to intentionally adopt long-tail plays by, for example, pushing older releases in film deals or launching marketing campaigns for years-old songs, we may see much more awards show rule-bending yet. Lizzo’s eight nominations are as follows:
Best New Artist Cuz I Love You (Deluxe) — Album of the Year Cuz I Love You — Best Urban Contemporary Album “Truth Hurts” — Record of the Year “Truth Hurts” — Song of the Year “Truth Hurts” — Best Pop Solo Performance “Exactly How I Feel” (with Gucci Mane) — Best R&B Performance “Jerome” — Best Traditional R&B Performance
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Should I Become An Entrepreneur? 7 Key Questions That Will Make You Think. Becoming an entrepreneur is a life changing decision. Sometimes it just happens naturally and, before you know it, you're an entrepreneur. However most times it requires a deep, possibly life changing self-analysis. "Should I become an entrepreneur?" is a question only you can answer. However, there are two key actions that can take you a long way when considering the question. Firstly, talk to friends and family that know you well - they will probably have a good picture whether being an entrepreneur suits your personality. Secondly, challenge yourself with the questions below. You can keep the answers to yourself but you must answer the questions with a brutal honesty and self-analysis. There are no right or wrong answers. Just a less enjoyable path if you fool yourself when considering the questions below. Remember,
Anybody can be an entrepreneur, but not everybody will enjoy being one.
1) Is entrepreneurship for me?
Entrepreneurial success stories abound. There is a huge survival selection bias. Those that succeed love talking about how great it was, those that fail tend to keep it a bit quieter. The problem with this is that people think being an entrepreneur is cool and easy. Oh, and that you also magically become very wealthy somehow. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is very cool. And you may become very wealthy at the end of the process. But note that the stats are stacked against you. Instead, you should focus on the essence of being an entrepreneur and whether becoming an entrepreneur will make you happy. Will you be a happier person if you become an entrepreneur?
2) Is it the right time for me to become an entrepreneur?
Becoming an entrepreneur is going to have an impact on your personal and professional journey. This includes the obvious financial perspective but also personal relationships and everything in the between. Consider these profound changes carefully. There is never a right time, but there are definitively some wrong times.
3) What do I want to achieve?
Think carefully and be very honest to yourself: do you want to start a business that will sustain you and your family? Or are you starting a business because you want to make the world a better place and you are driven by a sense of purpose and mission? In my case, I'm entirely driven by a sense of purpose and mission. I started my current Insurance startup Rnwl because I came across a problem and I want to make the world a better place for consumers. We're on a mission to help our users to stop overpaying on their insurance in the simplest way possible, allowing them to save time and money. I was equally driven by a sense of purpose and mission when I started my previous company (SyndicateRoom). I wanted to help entrepreneurs attracting smart money and to allow investors to have a fair and transparent way of investing in the best startups.
4) How do I deal with uncertainty?
Becoming an entrepreneur is, almost by definition, entering a world of uncertainty. If you are the type of person that excel in a world of uncertainties and the associated opportunities, then you will love being an entrepreneur.
5) Am I naturally self-motivated?
As a founder, you're on your own. Nobody is ever going to thank you for all the hard work. Nobody is looking over your shoulder to check you are working either. To be honest, nobody really cares about what you are doing. If you don't work hard, ultimately it will be your problem.
6) Am I resilient?
One of the most frustrating things about being an entrepreneur is how other people 'just don't get it' when you are starting. They all seem to find problems with your idea - there is no market for it, somebody else is already doing it, it will never work, etc. Ignore the nay-sayers. But learn from the concerns they raise. If they 'just don't get it', then maybe the problem is on how you are explaining your value proposition. Maybe you're not being clear enough. Just maybe...
7) Can I 'go through walls'? Can I overcome seemingly impossible challenges?
As an entrepreneur, you will feel like you are constantly going through walls. The hurdles and challenges will be relentless. You need to be able to 'go through walls' and keep on going. All in all, if after considering the questions above you keep dreaming about becoming an entrepreneur, don't look back. Just do it. Don't be afraid of the nay-sayers. Just roll your sleeves up and get on with it. Enjoy the journey. Have fun. Tons of it.
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The #NoWaste Collection AW ’19 Photographer - Sadrea Muhammad (@cre8ivejunkie1) Designer - Shaka King (@shakakingmenswear) www.shakaking.com Model: Marcus J. Smith (@smoothmodel28) Model: Brett Walker (@brettnevinwalker) “The #NoWaste Collection - is a capsule collection of 100% upcycled fabrics and cutting floor scraps + buttons and trims from previous collections. All sourced from the shelves of the SKM Design Studio, creating a smaller carbon footprint for the betterment of the universe .” - SK
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W hat Is Considered a Good Credit Score? By Beverly Harzog, Credit Card Expert for creditcard.usnews.com
Once you know you have a good credit score, you can star t shooting for an excellent credit score. There are dozens and dozens of credit scores out there. That's why it can be so confusing to determine if you have what qualifies as a good credit score. And nowadays, there are even two categories for a "good" score. You can surpass a good score and have a "very good" score. Sometimes, it can be too much to digest, so allow me to add a little clarity to this situation. I want you to forget about all those dozens of credit scores for now. We're going to focus on the two credit scores that lenders use the most often: FICO Score 8 and VantageScore 3.0. If you have a good credit score with one of these versions, you'll probably come out OK with the oodles of other types of credit scores, too. Of the two scores, FICO Score 8 is used most often, so I'll focus on that one first.
What You Need to Know About FICO Score 8 The FICO Score 8 is the most widely used version by all three credit bureaus, and scores range from 300 to 850. Just so you know, lenders also use the FICO Bankcard Score, which ranges from 250 to 900. But if you have a high score with FICO Score 8, you'll most likely have a high score with the FICO Bankcard Score. OK, I promised you clarity, so let's focus. According to myFICO.com, here are the credit score ranges: • • • • •
Exceptional: 800+ Very good: 740 to 799 Good: 670 to 739 Fair: 580 to 669 Poor: 579 and lower
The average FICO score as of April 2018 is 704, which is right smack in the middle of the "good" category. If you have a good credit score, you are considered "acceptable" as a borrower. This means you're considered to have a medium risk of delinquency. With a score of at least 670, you're in the "prime" lending category. You won't get the top rates, but you'll get decent offers. Now, there's also a "very good" credit score range. If you fall within this range, you have a score that's higher than average. You have an excellent chance to get approved – and get low interest rates – when you apply for credit. You have what's considered a low risk of delinquency.
What You Need to Know About VantageScore 3.0
VantageScore 3.0 ranges from 300 to 850, just like the FICO score does. According to Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus, here are the credit score ranges: • Excellent: 750 to 850 • Good: 700 to 749 • Fair: 650 to 699 • Poor: 550 to 649 • Very poor: 300 to 549 Are you wondering why 670 is a good FICO score but only a fair VantageScore? It's because the factors that are included in the scores aren't weighed exactly the same.
So, this means even a VantageScore of 700 isn't the same as a FICO score of 700. But it's safe to assume that scores greater than 700 are considered good credit scores for both versions.
How to Move Up to Excellent Credit
Hopefully, you now have a good feel for what's considered a good credit score. There are a few things you can do that will help you move up in the credit score world, regardless of which score is used. But here's a word of caution: While you want to move up into the excellent range to get the top rates, try to abstain from obsessing over the number. Don't check it daily or you'll drive yourself crazy. Just follow the practices listed below and you'll get there. Pay your bills on time. There isn't a magic formula that will make your score jump from 700 to 760 in record time. But you can nudge your score in the right direction by having a history of on-time payments. Payment history is 35 percent of your FICO score, so take your bill-paying activities seriously. I'm talking about paying every bill on time, whether it's your credit card, mortgage or cellphone bill. You can't have a sloppy payment history and attain excellent credit. The same goes for VantageScore. Payment history is considered an "extremely influential" factor in that score.
Know your credit utilization ratio.
Credit utilization ratio is the amount of credit you've used compared with the amount of credit you have available.
You want to pay off your balances in full and by the due date every month. Carrying a balance on credit cards leads to debt, so don't fall into that trap. But you also need to be aware of the balance you maintain during the month.
During the monthly payment cycle, keep your credit card balances under 30% of your limit. For example, if you have a $3,000 credit limit, don't have a balance higher than $900 (3,000 x .30) at any time during the month. If you want to see even faster improvement, keep your ratio under 10%.
And take note that you can't cheat. Let's say you have three credit cards and each one has a $1,000 credit limit. You have a 50% ratio on one ($500), and a 10% ratio on the other two cards ($100 balances on each card).
Here's the math: 500+100+100=700, which translates into an excellent credit utilization ratio of 23% (700/3,000).
You might assume that because your overall ratio is less than 30% that you're golden. But the FICO score assesses not only the total utilization ratio, but also the ratios of each individual credit card.
You can't maximize this factor of the FICO score when you have a card with a 50% ratio. There are no free lunches with credit scores!
Play with timing. If you're determined to "game" the system, here's your chance. Your credit score changes every time the credit bureaus update your credit file with new information, which is reported by your lenders every month. Find out when your credit card issuer reports to the credit bureaus. If you have a credit balance that's larger than usual, make two payments in one month. This will keep your reported balance low, so it won't produce a high ratio.
D'ussĂŠ Cognac Celebrate the holiday in style!
D'ussé Cognac Naturally aged at least four and a half years in the cellars of France’s Château de Cognac.
Will DC and HBO give us our first Green Lantern as a person of color in their new series in 2020?
The original Green Lantern Hal Jordan African-American John Stewart
Greg Berlanti's 'Green Lantern' Series Will Be 'Biggest DC Show Yet'
Lebanese-American Simon Baz
latina Jessica Cruz
It may seem like powerhouse writer/director/ producer Greg Berlanti has his hands full of superheroes with shows like Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, but the Love, Simon director is now taking his act to HBO Max where he’ll develop not one, but two new superhero TV shows for DC Comics: Strange Adventures and Green Lantern. While Green Lantern is a familiar name thanks to decades as a popular character and a colossally bad movie starring Ryan Reynolds — before the actor found his superhero footing as Deadpool, — Strange Adventures is a bit more of an unknown property. In a press release Berlanti said that the anthology will be a “series of cautionary tales set in a world where superpowers exist.” Sounds interesting. Berlanti went on to say that Green Lantern will be “the biggest DC show ever made.” This show actually sees a return to the character for Berlanti, as he coproduced and co-wrote the Ryan Reynolds film. Hopefully the second time is the charm! It will be interesting to see how his style — normally known for its camp, lightness and heart — will translate to HBO. Will Green Lantern and Strange Adventures include any of the cheesiness that comes with Berlanti’s Arrowverse shows for the CW? More interesting to see will be which Green Lantern, or Green Lanterns, the series will star. Reynolds played Hal Jordan, the second Green Lantern of Earth, but more recently, the comics have focused on others, like Lebanese-American Simon Baz, latina Jessica Cruz, and African-American John Stewart. In the press release, Berlanti also said that “we will be going to space with a Green Lantern series, but I can’t reveal any more about that yet,” so we’re almost definitely going to get some of the more alien members of the Green Lantern Corps, who are essentially space cops, with different members protecting different sectors of outer space. There isn't’ a release date for these series yet, but they will both stream on the upcoming HBO streaming service, which doesn’t launch until May 2020. Story from out.com by Mey Rude
With a wink and A ‘Yasssss!,’ Lazar us Lynch
brings soul food to the Snapchat generation By Elazar Sontag for the Washingtonpost.com
When Lazarus Lynch’s debut cookbook came out last month, he slipped into an electricblue-and-purple wig, a checkered trench coat and leather pants, and took to the streets. Followed by a five-piece band, Lynch skipped up the subway steps, his wig blowing every which way, and shimmied to the center of Times Square, where he began dancing with his book held high in one hand, a tambourine keeping beat in the other. Soon there was a crowd surrounding Lynch, and he was in his element. Lynch is as comfortable singing, playing music and dancing through Times Square as he is in the kitchen. He recently put out the soulmelting R&B single “In My World,” which has been streamed nearly 150,000 times on Spotify, and he’s working on two more singles he’ll release this summer, plus a studio-produced album he’s already finished writing. And when he’s not making music or developing recipes, Lynch is interviewing
cooks and farmers for “Comfort Nation,” his Food Network digital series focused on cooking traditions around the country. Throughout the book, Lynch rotates through more outfits — rings, necklaces, hats, bags, fanny packs and neon nail polish — than a model during fashion week. “In the book I wanted to marry all those things,” Lynch tells me the following week in the brick-walled kitchen of the Jamaica, Queens, apartment where he was raised and where his mother still lives. “I was thinking, ‘How do you do that?’ I had no template. I had no model for how books articulate heart and soul.” So the 25-year-old chef, writer, television host, musician and all-around artist created exactly the book he couldn’t find a template for, one exploding with color and personality, and named it “Son of a Southern Chef: Cook With Soul.”
Curry Chicken With Red Hot Pepper Sauce.
Lazarus Lynch with his curry chicken. (Photos by Jesse Dittmar for The Washington Post)
Lynch’s cookbook, “Son of a Southern Chef: Cook With Soul.”
Though “Son of a Southern Chef” overflows with expressions of self-love, Lynch hasn’t always been so comfortable in his own skin. Growing up, he followed his parents — devout Christians — to church every Sunday, and as close as he was with both of them, he didn’t know how they would receive his queerness. “I grew up with this idea and this teaching that maybe who I am is wrong,” Lynch says. In 2014, reclining on a sundappled park bench with his father, he was struck by a sense that this was finally the right time to broach the topic. “I remember being on that bench, and my dad saying, ‘I’m going to love you no matter what.’ It meant everything to me. There are a lot of children that don’t have that support.” That conversation stuck with Lynch and informed his work. “I wasn’t sitting here thinking, ‘How can I make this book queer?’ ” he says. “It’s just me. But when young queer boys and girls come up to me and they say,
‘Thank you for being yourself, you’ve inspired me to be myself, you’ve inspired me to talk to my parents,’ that’s part of the joy I get to experience every day.” The book’s recipe headnotes are conversational, like a friend texting you words of encouragement. His shrimp and grits “screams yasssss,” he writes, and in the Issa Drinks Wave section of the book — what other cookbook indexes might simply refer to as beverages — a watermelon cocktail’s headnote reads, “I could see Jay-Z and Beyoncé sipping on these on Maui.” Between recipes, on pink pages entirely taken up by text, Lynch offers up quotes ranging from “Let your light shine!” to “You are worthy of self-appreciation, joy, and self-love.” To Lynch, the quotes, LOLs and LMAOs are just another way to bring more people into the fold, welcoming a new generation to cook soul food and claim it as their own.
And then there are the photos: On one page, photographer Anisha Sisodia captures Lynch, dressed as a knight with a skewer as his lance, riding a much-larger-than-life grilled shrimp into battle, while on another he surfs a pile of enormous breaded okra tumbling out of a fryer basket. Therese Nelson, a food historian and founder of the website Black Culinary History, applauds Lynch’s attempt to bridge generations. “The power in someone like Lazarus is the ability to show people that these black foodways have modern viability,” she says. “He’s somebody who you’re going to relate to culturally. To take these recipes and make them cool and interesting and modern is powerful.” The book sometimes reads like an autobiography, with nearly every recipe connecting back to his family. When Lynch
was growing up in the same kitchen where he stands dredging thick filets of fish now, his father, Johnny Ray Lynch, was always working, wearing as many different hats as Lynch does today. “He took on any job he could,” Lynch says. “He finished high school and went straight to work. He created several businesses. Everything from a carpet store, a 99-cent store, a men’s fashion store, a moving service and then finally the restaurant. The restaurant was Baby Sister’s Soul Food, a small space in Queens. There, he and Lynch’s Guyanese-born mother, Debbie-Ann Gravesande Lynch, served the dishes Lynch’s father ate as a child in Bessemer, Ala. Baby Sister’s Soul Food was a community space and a family affair. Though she worked full time as a secretary, and cooking wasn’t her passion, Debbie-Ann would swap out her formal work clothes for an apron each night,
A photograph of Lynch’s late father, Johnny Ray Lynch, center.
After his father’s death, Lynch says, “legacy was so important to me.”
and join Johnny Ray on the line to fry fish and fill plates. He built a stage in the dining room and set up enormous amplifiers. “My father would throw all these shows. People who sang background for Chaka Khan would come through and hang out,” Lynch remembers. “It was that kind of spot. I still miss that today.” Lynch did all he could to connect with his father. “Both my parents were out hustling, making ends meet, so I kind of resented other kids who had their father after 5 o’clock,” he says, as he carefully drops the first batch of flour-dusted fish filets into a cast-iron skillet of bubbling oil — a recipe straight from his father’s restaurant. “The way that I figured out how to spend time with my dad was to cook with him. It was either that or music.” So when they weren’t in their living room playing djembe drums, piano or saxophone together, Lynch helped at the restaurant, grating mountains of cheddar for his father’s famous mac and
cheese, peeling carrots, even mopping the bathroom floors. In his teens, Lynch ended up at Food and Finance High School, New York City’s only public culinary high school. After school, he’d bring what he’d learned back to his father’s kitchen. “I would go to the restaurant, and I’d say: ‘Dad, we need to add salad to the menu. We need to change this and change that, maybe add nutmeg,’ and he was like: ‘Why are you adding nutmeg to the collard greens? That’s ridiculous,’ ” Lynch recalls, laughing. After high school he enrolled at Buffalo State College in Upstate New York. Unenthused by his classes, Lynch launched a blog and a YouTube channel, both titled “Son of a Southern Chef,” which is how he’d come to see his place in the world of food. He began interviewing his father and watching him more closely as he cooked, writing down everything he did. He shared those recipes
and stories online, and people wanted more. Lynch’s Instagram following was expanding quickly, and a television network reached out to cast him for a Snapchat cooking series. A few months later, ABC Network approached Lynch to host a digital cooking show, “Tastemade Get Cookin’,” giving him a platform to share his family’s recipes. Then, just as his world was opening up with opportunity, Lynch received a call that his father, who had been battling cancer for more than a year, had died at 53. Lynch was devastated. What would happen to his father’s stories and recipes, many of which Lynch had recorded for his blog, now that he was no longer at the restaurant, filling plates with yams, fish, mac and cheese, and greens? Suddenly, Son of a Southern Chef took on a new meaning. “More than ever, legacy was so important to me,” Lynch says. So he decided to write this book.
Nicole Taylor, a food writer and the author of “The Up South Cookbook,” says Lynch’s work to preserve his father’s legacy is crucial. “For decades and decades, there were these brilliant, amazing black people from the South and beyond who were doing creative things, but they weren’t recorded,” says Taylor, who was recently named executive food editor at Thrillist. “Oral tradition is the base of black food culture, and it’s the base of Southern food culture. It’s so important that we have folks like Lazarus publishing books, because what it does is it tells our family story. It gives a blueprint.” While Lynch’s own recipes are boundarypushing, he didn’t meddle too much with his family’s dishes. “My father loved butter, he loved all that stuff,” Lynch says. “In the book, I celebrate that. I don’t dismiss it.” Dad’s Fried Fish Sandwiches, for instance, the ones Lynch is making as we talk, call for Aunt
The makings of Fried Fish Sandwiches With Tartar Sauce.
Jemima self-rising flour. “This was the classic dish at Dad’s store. In the black community, fried fish is a celebration food.” Including ingredients like Aunt Jemima in the book wasn’t just a way of keeping things simple and approachable — though that didn’t hurt. It was a matter of holding on to history. “It’s about meeting people in a lineage that they can relate to. That’s how I watched my father cook. That’s also how he watched his mother cook.” The choice to feature ingredients like Aunt Jemima in the book is already making an impression. “It’s approachable, but it’s also like, ‘This is me, this is who I am,’ ” says Taylor. “When I see that Aunt Jemima container, it’s a historic take.” Lynch has watched with delight as the first people to buy his book cook from it, sending him pictures on Instagram and tagging him on Facebook. For the first time since he danced through Times Square holding his book high, Lynch found a moment of peace and quiet a couple of weeks ago to sit and flip through “Son of a Southern Chef.” He pulled up a stool in the kitchen, the same one he sat on for hours as a child, helping his father mix coleslaw, wash collard greens and split open boiled peanuts. “I sat and I read the book,” Lynch says. “As soon as I started doing that, I felt this warmth come over me. I could just feel his comfort. My father’s fingerprints are all over this book.”
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5
Tips to Train like an Athlete
Make your training as effective as possible by following the lead set by the elites.
1) Do a proper warm-up Athletes have learnt throughout their careers that to perform at their best, they need to get their bodies ready to perform. Most people’s idea of a warm-up is a couple of static stretches, a small amount of cardio and maybe a bit of foam rolling, but if muscles and tendons are not prepared for the movements that are coming, they will not be able to perform to their maximum, which will limit the efficiency of the movement and the effect gained from it. Essentially, if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.
Make your training as effective as possible by following the lead set by the elites.
Athletes have learnt throughout their careers that to perform at their best, they need to get their bodies ready to perform. Most people’s idea of a warm-up is a couple of static stretches, a small amount of cardio and maybe a bit of foam rolling, but if muscles and tendons are not prepared for the movements that are coming, they will not be able to perform to their maximum, which will limit the efficiency of the movement and the effect gained from it. Essentially, if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.
2) Train more than once or twice a week Of course it’s easier for athletes to train every day because it’s their job, but what we can learn from them is that frequency of training not only creates good habits for continued training, but will allow you to challenge various body parts and give them adequate rest and recovery time. Training just once or twice a week makes it difficult to make adaptations in the body, whether your aims are for aesthetic or performance reasons.
3) Don’t go to hard Modern fitness has a love of all things HIIT. While it has a place in a training plan, it cannot be the only part. Athletes will use high-intensity training periodically to improve cardiovascular function, but not too often because it can increase injury risk and spike stress hormones.
4) Master your movements Athletes are great at their chosen sport because they’ve spent thousands of hours learning and honing their skills. When the average person chooses to train, they often disregard the need to learn or perfect a movement before increasing the resistance or difficulty. If you’re unable to move correctly, then as the movement gets harder your training efficiency drops and your performance level will also decrease.
5) Focus on recovery Ever seen a video of some athlete jumping in an ice bath? It looks horrible, but they do it because they know it will aid their recovery, and allow them to train harder and faster sooner. Ice baths are a little outdated now – the latest thing is cryotherapy, and you may have noticed cryo clinics popping up around the place. The extremely low temps cause the brain to divert blood flow to your core to keep vitals like the heart, brain and lungs working. This triggers a release of hormones and antiinflammatories into the blood. When you leave the pod, blood – enriched with oxygen and hormones – heads back to all parts of the body, helping muscles recover faster.
WEIGHT2WEAR
When Should You Drink a Protein Shake? By Alex Shultz
Illustration by Alicia Tatone
Picture this: You’ve just completed a workout. You’re feeling accomplished— yoked, swole, jacked, buff, muscly, ripped, cut—and are in the throes of the sensation Arnold Schwarzenegger memorably christened “the pump.” And all of that is great, as long as you don’t say any of those words out loud, ever, to anyone. The next step, according to lore passed down through generations of diligent weight-room enthusiasts, is to grab a protein supplement and let its precious grams flow through your body, thereby repairing microtears in muscle and maximizing the well-earned gains in mass and strength. But what does the science say? And is the timing really so important that you have to clean out your disgusting shaker bottle in the office kitchen sink every day? The conventional wisdom around when to
drink protein shakes—or bars, or beef jerky, or whatever—is that you should do it as soon as possible after finishing a workout. As it turns out, this is only sort of true. In 2017, the International Society of Sports Nutrition issued a position statement on all things protein and exercise, based on its extensive review of existing research. And on the subject of protein consumption and timing, their conclusions didn’t make any definitive statement—they just noted that the optimal moment for supplementation is “a matter of individual tolerance. In other words, the idea that you have to chug your protein drink is likely overblown, especially if you’re consistently consuming protein every three to four hours throughout the day. That was also the consensus from a different review of literature published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition in 2013.
In an e-mail, ISSN co-founder Jose Antonio, Ph.D., politely scolded me for this misguided inquiry. “That's the wrong question to ask,” he wrote. “The right question is this: Is there ever an advantage to not consuming protein post-workout? Clearly, the answer is a big fat no.” Total protein intake, he says, is what matters; the post-workout suggestion comes from the understandable desire to not eat all of one’s daily prescription in a single sitting. For most people, the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day; for those trying to put on mass, that figure is closer to between 1.4 and 2.0 grams. If you’re keeping tabs on your intake, the merits of more frequent protein boosts are readily apparent. On the other hand, if a shake sounds like the worst thing in the world after you’re done on the bench press, research also indicates that there’s nothing wrong with having protein before a workout instead. As long as you’re hitting that magical ratio each day, a post-workout drink isn’t anything special. There’s an obvious caveat worth considering, though. “From a practical standpoint, it’s easier for digestion to have it afterwards,
” says Kelly Pritchett, Ph.D., a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “If you compare eating a steak before versus after, which is going to feel better? Probably eating afterwards. You’re going to be sluggish trying to digest that right beforehand.” There are a few supplements and nutrients that are best saved for immediately after a workout. Creatine is one of them—that’s the conclusion of a separate study Antonio coauthored. And Pritchett says if she had to pinpoint the most important nutrient to consume post-workout, she wouldn’t choose protein—she’d choose carbohydrates, which provide the necessary fuel to help you finish that last set. If you’re having trouble hitting the upper limits of your protein targets, try gulping down some casein, a protein the body digests more slowly than whey, before bedtime. But even that, says Pritchett, is “just the icing on the cake”—keeping the protein flowing all day is what matters most. That, and discussing your muscle-mass improvements in public without utilizing any of the words listed above.
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Owner, Michael Elliott, Los Angeles Remember. They laughed at him on ‘Shark Tank’. Ridiculed him, actually. Look at him now, baby! by Philip Green
Michael Elliott, Hammer & Nails and Namaste, Los Angeles. It’s like a man cave on Melrose! Flat-screen televisions, the latest magazines, drinks and refreshments, relax and commiserate. Hammer & Nails men's grooming spa over on Melrose. Hammer & Nails, http://www.hammerandnails-salon.com/. He has locations in West Hollywood, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Folsom, Baltimore, New York, Portland and a new salon for women, Namaste in Studio City, California. Instead of recreating the typical nail salon, Elliot took it one step further and created Namaste Nail Sanctuary, a salon that combines the necessity of nail services with the life-changing benefits of meditation, relaxation, and rejuvenation. The company opened its doors to its first location in Studio City, California, on April 2 and is already looking to franchise, just like his previous success story.
Stress kills. The antidote to stress is rest, it’s relaxation, it’s taking time for self, it’s calming your mind, it’s meditating. You can do all those things while getting your nails done,” said Elliot. The service seems to be in high demand. Before the official opening day, the company held a soft opening where customers could come in and test out the services, free of charge. Apparently, they filled up so quickly that some customers were turned away. Elliot wrote in a recent Yelp review, “My wife and I are truly sorry for how our free service offer to you was handled. The interest in Namaste Nail Sanctuary has exceeded our wildest expectations, and so has the response to our Soft Opening offer. Our Front Desk team should have happily honored the offer that was sent to you, and we would love a second opportunity to provide you the Namaste Nail Sanctuary experience, on us.”
Tank Wants To Be a Big Brother for New R&B Artists: 'by Sowmya Krishnamurthy for billboard.com I Love For People to do Well' For Tank, it’s taken nearly 20 years to find his place in R&B -- but with experience comes wisdom. “I went through a period where I kept saying, ‘I’m not that. I’m this,'” he tells Billboard. Once known for his sultry voice and six-pack, the singer had to undergo growing pains before becoming truly comfortable in his skin. He’s now focused on helming all aspects of his career; he’s hands-on with everything from his wardrobe (he had to throw all his Zara out upon his stylist’s request) to treating his craft as a business. His forthcoming album, Elevation (out Oct. 25 on Atlantic Records), continues a long trajectory marked with personal and professional enlightenment. “I can’t be anything other than what I am,” he says. “I can only give you the man who I am now.” You’re releasing your ninth studio album. After all of these years, what continues to motivate you to release music? You can settle in. You can smell the roses and celebrate too much. There can be a hangover period that I didn’t want. I look at it like, "Yeah, that’s cool." That’s great that we did that but I believe we are capable of more. Even with all of the greatness that we’ve achieved, we can go further. We can go higher. We can elevate. We wanted to use this album to prove that -- push ourselves in terms of sound, imagery. We want to push for higher, whether it be love or sex or heartfelt relationships. Whatever it is, we are seeing where there were holes and tightening up.
What were those specific areas you wanted to improve upon? There were really dope people I wanted to be creative with. I got to work with Omari Hardwick, who’s this crazy hybrid between poetry and spoken-word and rap. Just something nobody has really heard before. I wanted to be a part of that. JoJo, a person who, we were kind of trapped in the same place [Blackground Records]. A place where very few people make it out of. We both made it out. This is our time to do something. Where can I take JoJo? Someone I’ve known since she was a little girl, and now she’s this beautiful grown woman. People see her in a way that I don’t think she even realizes. JoJo, we’re getting ready to put the sexy on you. Just letting you know right now, the DMs are gonna be different. Major., who’s uplifting and positive. Luke James, a kid who I’ve raised in this business and one of the most amazing talents on Earth. I got to put them on a song that continues to uplift. Keith Sweat, one of my OGs, I was able to pay homage to, somebody who’s teaching me a lot -- not just in business, but in life.
What did Keith Sweat teach you? Make sure you’re not just an artist. Make sure you’re not just a writer or producer. When you walk into Keith Sweat’s garage, there’s masters and masters of records that have sold millions. They’re his. Was that a revelation for you? R&B artists aren’t known for being as entrepreneurial as, say, hiphop artists. R&B, you have to think where the artists come from. We come from church. The only thing we’re taught is to give the offering or to give of ourselves in service. We’re taught to sing with conviction, and that’s the finish line. You compare that to hip-hop where [a lot of] guys originally came from the streets, an entrepreneurial background. When they crossed into the music game, they wanted to know how their hustle would pay off. Like, “It’s my block. I need to own most of this block. We didn’t even know you could own!” That’s why their minds are so much further ahead than ours because we weren’t bred in that environment. I remember early in my career, I was one of the most sought-after songwriters and producers. Nobody told me at that time, “Now is the time to get your label or start a publishing company.” Nobody told me. When did the paradigm shift into being more business-focused happen? It wasn’t until 2016 that we made the decision to bet on ourselves. In the space we were in, nobody was gonna bet on us. In 2017, I got all of my rights back for the first time since ‘98. I got all of my rights back. I own me for the first time. Do you own your masters? From 2016 and onwards. Now we have to figure out how to go back and get the rest of the stuff. That’s the goal. Nobody told us!
That’s what can make you money forever, especially in the DSP era. Absolutely. It’s crazy that in the DSP era, the people who own my original three [album] masters [on Blackground Records] are not even on the [streaming] platforms. I have to get that back or file some crazy lawsuit, in terms of me losing money. I could be generating money but you won’t allow it. From the outside looking in, it seems Blackground Records has a treasure trove of content they could be monetizing. In your opinion, what’s the deterrent for them? Is it that they’re old school and don’t understand technology, or is it more of an ego move? I think it’s a little bit of the last thing you said. And a lot of, I have no idea.
It’s money just sitting on the table. Don’t people like free money? That would be a motivation factor, at least! On my Instagram and Twitter everyday, people from China and Australia ask why they can’t find my old music. Like JoJo, have you thought about rerecording your old catalog? I’d like to ideally purchase it back, but you know, if all else fails, we’ll rerecord. You’re working with younger artists like Luke James on this album. At this stage of your career, do you feel like an elder statesman that wants to guide the next generation? I’ve always felt that. I just love people. I love for people to do well. I’ve been like that since day one. What you need me to do? Play keyboard? Sing backup? Sometimes the work that I’ve done, nobody really sees it. People are like, “Oh, Tank ain’t doing nothing.” One thing I had to come to the realization, most of what I do isn’t for sale. It’s for inspiration. I had to become okay with that. I had to be okay with a Chris Brown calling me like, “Bro. You’re my favorite. You inspired me,” or Trey [Songz] telling me he listens to my album every day or whoever. Finding the gold in that, like wow, I’m helping create and shape the next wave of R&B. Or Jacquees, telling me that his mother loves me. It’s a little weird when their moms love you. It used to be weird. But now it’s like, their moms are my age -- or younger. So I’m like, “Where’s your mom?!” I had to find the gold in that. That’s really why I’m here.
At what point did you become comfortable in this position? When I realized the money wasn’t going to make me happy. I hadn’t ascertained as much as I wanted to. But I realized that it might not have been for me -- to make $100 million. But it is absolutely for me to insert $100 million worth of value and influence into this genre of music that I love. Despite that, your singles -- “Dirty,”, “I Don’t Think Your Ready” and “When We” -- all hit No. 1 on the U.S. Adult R&B chart. How important is that chart success for you? It’s important because it’s our business. When we’re having business conversations, we use that to leverage other things we need. Numbers are important to me because it’s important to them, the partners. We have to do our part to make sure everyone is happy. It’s telling on our next move, our next relationship.
okay acoustics: Singer Tank Offers Sensual Renditions Of "I Don't Think You're Ready" & "When We"
The R&B singer-songwriter recently released his ninth studio album, Elevation. In our latest installment of our okay acoustic series, R&B singer-songwriter Tank offered sensual renditions of his songs “I Don’t Think You’re Ready” and “When We,” which are from his albums Elevation (released in October this year) and Savage (2017), respectively. (Warning: the songs contain explicit content.)
“ With only a piano by his side, Tank’s performance strips away the electronic elements of the two tracks while keeping their sensuality intact. “Music is the place. It’s a special place where you can pretty much communicate anything you want,” Tank says during the performance. “In this day and age I think we need to communicate more love, more sensitivity, more understanding. And that’s what my music is and what it’s about.” Communicating those ideas, communicating that energy, I think is absolutely infectious,” he continues. “I don’t know if it’s gonna be one person to save the world, but I do believe that it may be one song.” Tank recently released his ninth studio album Elevation. The project features JoJo, Omari Hardwick and others.
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The New Apple AirPods Pro are a Welcome Upgrade with One Annoying Flaw Apple has finally brought active noise-cancelling to the world's most popular headphones. Your ears will thank you. By Daniel Varghese for gq.com Apple's AirPods are everywhere, and with good reason. They pair to your iPhone and other Apple devices seamlessly, have a great microphone for calls, and sound decent. But they have one massive flaw: they don't block noise at all. When you're walking around, waiting for a train, or sitting on a plane, this makes them basically unusable without turning up the volume to eardrum-obliterating levels. This week, Apple has released a new version of the AirPod that addresses this flaw: the $250 AirPods Pro. The new AirPods Pro are Apple's first ever active noise-cancelling headphones. The buds feature silicon ear tips (in three different sizes) that expand to the size of your ear canal to seal out ambient noise. Like other active noise-cancelling headphones, the AirPods Pro then uses built-in microphones to plays a frequencies through its speakers that will cancel out that noise. In our preliminary listening tests, the noise-cancelling is less effective than that on the stellar Bose Noise-Cancelling Headphones 700, but it's enough to make walking through the city and working in an office significantly easier. Actually using the new AirPods Pro is a bit different than using the AirPods, but just as easy. To pair the new headphones, which have the same H1 chip as the 2nd-generation AirPods, all you have to do is open their case near your phone. Once you're up and running, Apple has created an Ear Tip Fit Test, which you can find in the Bluetooth settings menu, that helps you figure out which size of ear tip you should be using. (It might be different for each ear!) The AirPods Pro still have built-in controls, but instead of just tapping the headphones, you now have to press or squeeze a force sensor at the end of buds.
Each of the buds on the AirPods Pro are also shorter than those of the AirPods, which means the charging case is a bit different. (It also means the headphones look less silly sticking out of your ears.) The Pro case is the same size of the AirPods case, but now it opens from the longer side. I've found that extracting the AirPods Pro from their case requires a twisting motion that I just can't get right. But maybe that's not so bad, since my AirPods seem to have a propensity to fall straight out of their case and onto the subway platform every time I pop the top unless I am extremely careful. Apple has also made the AirPods Pro water- and sweat-resistant, which make them better workouts than the AirPods everyone is already using. Sound quality on the AirPods Pro is a bit better than that of the AirPods, largely because the active noise-cancelling allows you to more fully immerse yourself in anything without the interference of a grumbling AC unit. For a tiny pair of headphones, the Pro have an impressive bass response. But sometimes, it sounds like the tuning is a little off, which make mid- and high- range frequencies sound a bit distorted. On "I Been Born Again," by Brockhampton, for example, Kevin Abstract is a bit harder to understand than usual. That's a small issue, though. These headphones sound decent. A bigger issue, however, stems from the headphones noise-cancelling modes. Many noise-cancelling headphones allow you to control how much noise-cancelling they actually do, so that you can have more spacial awareness. When it works, it allows you to hear important information (like a gatechange announcement at an airport or the engine of that reckless driver on your left) while still cancelling the most unpleasant noises. The AirPods Pro give you some control over this, but they're a lot less sophisticated than other noise-cancelling headphones we've tested. You can toggle between
three playback modes from your phone's control center or with the force sensor: noise-cancelling (self-explanatory), off (no noise-cancelling), and transparency mode. In transparency mode the buds pipe in ambient noise the microphones detect straight back into your ears. But you're not able to control how much of that ambient noise you'll hear. In a noisier environment, that renders this mode completely unusable. You're better off just turning off noise-cancelling altogether. This is a frustrating issue, but one that we hope Apple will fix in a software upgrade. We plan to continue using the AirPods Pro over the next few months to evaluate their longevity. But it's worth noting right now that their battery is just as irreplaceable as that on previous AirPods. If the battery on your AirPods die, you'll have to replace the buds—Apple promises to recycle the dead ones. If that was already a dealbreaker for you, the new AirPods Pro have nothing to offer. But if you've been waiting for noise-cancelling true wireless headphones with all the software features that make using AirPods feel like magic, you've found your one true bud.
AirPods Pros Apple $249
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Michael B. Jordan ‘Naruto’-Inspired COACH Capsule Collaboration
Coach has announced the launch of Coach x Michael B. Jordan, the first-of-its kind creative collaboration with well known actor, producer and first global face of Coach menswear, Michael B. Jordan.
Guided by Coach Creative Director Stuart Vevers, this is Jordan’s first venture into the world of fashion design. He’s bringing his passion for Naruto, a popular Japanese anime and manga, to this unisex ready-to-wear footwear and bag collection. The collection combines Coach’s workmanship with Jordan’s rapport for practical fashion and graphic codes from the world of Naruto.
How Michael B. Jordan Weaves Naruto Inspiration into His Coach Line The actor recently discussed his capsule collection and love for anime
Many are already plenty familiar with actor Michael B. Jordan's love for anime, which ranges from classics like Dragon Ball Z to modern hits like Attack on Titan and beyond. He recently spoke with Highsnobiety for the magazine's 19th issue, covering the way Dragon Ball Z blew his mind, his role on Rooster Teeth's gen:LOCK, and even how Naruto influenced his own capsule collection for fashion brand Coach, for which he was named a a global ambassador last September.
In fact, Naruto wasn't just an inspiration for the line; Jordan based the entire thing on Masashi Kishimoto's series. When collaborating with Coach creative director Stuart Vevers, Jordan would go into a ton of detail about anime and the world of Naruto, breaking down everything from the characters to the symbols and designing pieces from there. Many of those symbols made their way into the line, including the spiral symbol of the Leaf Village and the emblem of the Uchiha clan. There's even a bomber jacket with detachable sleeves that takes inspiration from Kakashi's own jacket, and it's no surprise that this is one of Jordan's favorite pieces.
Here are some of his thoughts on the collection: “I wanted something that people who loved anime would be able to pick up on — small Easter eggs here and there that people really grab on to … It’s subtle. It’s not over the top, but you still get it in the lining of certain jackets, or a print on some of the tote bags.”
It's definitely worth reading the full article for more insight into the anime series he loves and how it's all such a big part of his childhood, adult life, and creativity. Some other sections of note: Jordan has apparently been approached to do some live-action takes on anime, but he's declined them all. He cites the gap between real life's limitations and anime's signature style as one of the major hurdles, adding that you only have a shot at success if you "stay authentic to the manga and the anime.� As for the recent Area 51 raid, he thought about going and just seeing what happens from way back in the back. Jordan thought the memes were hilarious, and says his Naruto run is good. Finally, some fuel for the ancient subs vs. dubs debate. Jordan's a subs guy: "It's the only way to really watch it for me. I need to hear the Japanese‌ the English dub is not the same messaging that it was intended to be. It's just a different translation." Source: Highsnobiety
Michael B. Jordan, Bryan Stevenson and Jamie Foxx unveil 'Just Mercy' at TIFF By Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
Photo credit: courtesy of www.variety.com
TORONTO -- The starry based-on-a-true-story social-justice tale “Just Mercy” made a powerful impression in its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, drawing an emotional response for the courtroom drama led by Michael B. Jordan's crusading attorney and Jamie Foxx's wrongly imprisoned Death Row inmate. “Just Mercy” had been one of the festival's most anticipated premieres. The film stars Jordan as Bryan Stevenson, founder of Alabama's Equal Justice Initiative. Foxx plays Walter McMillian,
who in 1988 was sentenced to death for the murder of a local young white woman. Made in the tradition of a Civil Rights drama but set in more contemporary times, “Just Mercy” confronts larger social issues including criminal justice reform, the death penalty and racial profiling. Based on Stevenson's 2014 book “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (“Short Term 12”), the film is also a kind of tribute to Stevenson's activist legal work.
Jordan, who has starred in Marvel's “Black Panther” and 2015's “Fantastic Four,” said Stevenson is “a real-life superhero.” He called making the film “one of the most enjoyable experiences that I've had.” “I felt like I had a great deal of pressure to get it right,” said Jordan following the screening. “And I felt honoured to be able to carry that weight.” Initial reviews were warm for what critics called a respectful and earnest message movie. But praise was especially heaped on the movie's performances, including Jordan and Foxx. Both stars are expected to be contenders for next year's Academy Awards. Warner Bros. is set to release “Just Mercy,” which co-stars Rob Morgan, Brie Larson and O'Shea Jackson Jr., on Dec. 25. Foxx said he drew on personal experience for his performance. McMillian was ultimately exonerated in 1993 after his case became
nationwide news, including a segment on “60 Minutes” that illustrated how local police framed McMillian with a false witness. “I understood a lot of things before we even started,” said Foxx, noting his upbringing in small-town Texas. “I understand what it is, even now today, if I'm driving in my nice car in my nice neighbourhood and I see that police officer, it still makes me feel like something could happen.” Stevenson said the evening would only fuel him in his continuing work for criminal justice reform. “All of these talented people make it a little easier to see what's at stake when we tolerate injustice, what we lose when we put up with inequality, what we suffer when we permit discrimination and bigotry to rule and shape our lives,” said Stevenson, gesturing to the movie's cast.
director Destin Daniel Cretton confabs with Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan COURTESY OF WARNER BROS.
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United Airlines Now Offers Buy Now, Pay Later For Flights…With Some Restrictions By DeAnna Taylor for travelnoire
Each year, traveling to your favorite destinations gets a little easier. Whether it’s the
introduction of the basic fare from major airlines to the option to make payments on your flight. It seems that more and more companies are playing into everyone’s desire to see the world. United Airlines is the latest company to jump on the bandwagon. The U.S. based carrier recently revealed that it will now allow customers to book their flight with the option to make payments over a three to eleven month span. The company is working with third-party affiliate Uplift. While they aren’t the first carrier to use Uplift, they are the first major U.S. carrier to do so. Currently, Spirit and Allegiant offer the option as well. “We began offering Uplift Pay Monthly in 2017 with United Vacations and received great feedback from our customers about the option to pay over time,” United’s vice president of digital products and analytics Praveen Sharma said in a statement. “Expanding Uplift’s flexible purchase option to flight tickets now allows even more customers to travel the world and create memories that will last a lifetime.” Of course, with anything that sounds great, there are some restrictions. The payment plans won’t be automatically available to anyone booking a flight. You will first have to go through a credit check, just like you would for a credit card. Once a credit determination is made, you will be assessed an interest rate from 9 to 25 percent. Using Uplift does mean that you will have an open line of credit with the company, so keep this in mind before you apply to use the service.
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CHARCOAL & LICORICE MOISTURE DEFEND FACE LOTION Applying a daily moisturizer twice daily after cleansing is essential. Think we’re kidding? Try wearing a pair of leather shoes for a while without conditioning them, and you’ll see all of those cracks, crevices, general wear and aging over time. If that happens to even the toughest of tanned cowhide, imagine your face? Your skin is much less resilient and requires care and protection to remain fresh in appearance. Apply Face Lotion while your skin is still slightly damp to seal in moisture (two to three minutes after washing, no longer). A really good moisturizer will leave your skin feeling smooth and soft without feeling oily and heavy. It will also help to control shine from oily areas of the skin.
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KING INTL SWIM & SPORT ALOHA COLLECTION SPRING SUMMER 2020 VOYAGE TO OAHU, HAWAII Oahu is a U.S. island in the Central Pacific, part of the Hawaiian island chain and home to the state capital, Honolulu. Highlights of the city include historic Chinatown and the iconic Waikiki beach, that also boasts both dining and nightlife areas.
LeBron James expands I Promise School project, includes transitional housing for at-risk students By Jeff Zillgitt for usatoday.com
Shortly after LeBron James’ I Promise School opened in Akron, Ohio, Michele Campbell, the executive director of James’ charitable foundation, identified a pressing need: transitional housing for students and their families who are going through traumatic experiences.
“Initially, our work was focused on helping these kids earn an education. But we’ve found that it is impossible to help them learn if they are struggling to survive, if they are hungry, if they have no heat in the freezing winter, if they live in fear for their safety,” James said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports and other outlets. “We want this place to be their home where they feel safe, supported, and loved, knowing we are right there with them every step of the way as they get back on their feet.”
“Some are homeless, some live in shelters and we have a student who was the victim of a gun invasion in their home and watched his brother get shot and a cousin get shot and die and he had to go back in that home," Campbell said. "It was terrifying for him. I was unsure how we were going to provide housing. I knew we wanted to do it. I didn’t know how we would do it." Enter Graduate Hotels and CEO Ben Weprin. He knows James and his business partners Maverick Carter and Randy Mims and took a tour of the I Promise School in May. “I met Michele and her team and was incredibly inspired and blown away by the mission and the execution – just the overall vision of the I Promise School,” Weprin said. “It was an eye-opener in their ability to dream something so big and then do it and will it to life.” Weprin’s wife, Mary Ann, visited the school two weeks later, and they wanted to know how they could help. Campbell's answer? Housing. Weprin got to work and partnered with the I Promise School to purchase an historic Akron apartment building and create the I Promise Village by Graduate Hotels.
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Kith x Disney: New New Collab Collab Captures Captures Eight Eight Decades Decades of of an an All-American All-American Icon Icon By Ashley Simpson for wmag.com
Justin Bridges
Kith x Disney 2019 collection in celebration of Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday. Photo courtesy of Kith. Justin Bridges
K
ith collaborations have a tendency to make noise. There was the 2017 link-up with Nike, which looked to Kith founder Ronnie Fieg’s childhood bike rides around Queens with his friends, everyone wearing Uptempos (while all the other kids sported Air Jordans). Fieg and Kith subsequently . rebranded the sportswear giant’s slogan as “Just Us.” Then there was Fieg’s Hawaii-themed Coca-Cola collection, which brought 1950s Waikiki aesthetics to the classic beverage label's design. And who can forget the much-hyped Kith x Versace release, a pairing at once super modern and totally throwback, given Versace’s impact upon '90s streetwear and Kith’s reigning status in the current era. Today, Fieg introduces what may be its most wide-reaching and charmingly nostalgic collaboration yet: Kith’s first collection with Disney, titled Best of Kith for the Best of Mickey. The collaboration is in celebration of Mickey’s 90th birthday this month, and features eight different themed Kith x Disney offerings (for both children and adults)
Fieg looked to each of Mickey’s eight decades to design individual stories in the character's image. Think: a faded denim bomber with Kith’s label and the 1920s Mickey emblem on its back. (All 1920s pieces are made in Kith’s signature denim). A plaid wool (the fabric for the '50s) jacket with an outline of the era's Mickey stitched on its front is another highlight. A navy puffer jacket (the '90s items are all puffers) with miniature primarycolored Mickeys sewn all over stands out. Denim kimonos, cable knits with a 1940s-style Fantasia Mickey, and trucker jackets—Kith signature silhouettes—comprise a few of the other pieces. “These custom fabrics are a core part of our brand DNA, so we wanted to tell the story of the timeline of Mickey by dedicating eight of our fabrics to different decades he has lived through,” the designer explained of his concept for the expansive collection. “We used eight of our signature fabrics and dedicated each of them to a different decade, ranging from the 1920s through the 1990s. This made every decade stand out from each other and feel special, while also allowing us to create one of the most diverse collections we’ve ever worked on.”
Kith x Disney 2019 collection in celebration of Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday. Photo courtesy of Kith. Justin Bridges
Kith x Disney 2019 collection in celebration of Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday. Photo courtesy of Kith .Justin Bridges
Kith x Disney 2019 collection in celebration of Mickey Mouse’s90th birthday. Photo courtesy of Kith.
Items expand beyond apparel, with footwear (three Chuck Taylors appear with different takes on Mickey’s story) and accessories (a plush plaid wool bear, a favorite of Fieg’s, could be for a child or just as easily sit on a mantle underneath a Christopher Wool print, adding a playful aesthetic touch) also on offer. . Of course, at the base of this collection is deep sentimentality and a sense of childhood wonder for one of the few symbols that, in a very divisive era, may still be considered all-American. “I remember watching Fantasia for the first time when I was 7 or 8 years old,” mused Fieg. “My dad put it on for myself and my little cousin. I remember watching it and being jealous that my cousin, who was 3 or 4 years old, got to see it so much younger than me. It was such an amazing film that even at that young age I was wishing I had been able to see it sooner.” Fieg continued: “The opportunity excited me because Disney has been a major source of inspiration for me since I was a kid."
“Disney has helped teach me about storytelling, creating emotional connections with people, as well as experiential moments. So, when asked to be the closing ceremony partner for Mickey’s 90th, it felt like a dream come true.” The Kith x Disney pieces will give Mickey a laid-back, street-ready look. “I don’t like to use the word 'streetwear' because it’s so vague, so I can’t speak to that fully,” said Fieg, referencing just how arguably diluted this term has become in our social media, Hypebeast-fueled times. “However, I think that the person shopping at Kith will be excited to see Mickey in this new way. Everyone has a nostalgic relation to this character, so getting to see him through a new lens and in a more niche way will feel special.” You can celebrate Mickey’s birthday with a Kith-designed meal at Nobu— Fieg eats there two to three times a week—or by visiting a Mickey retrospective in the Kith Soho store, and on November 18, the day the collection drops, with the Kith x Mickey offering of your choice.
Kith x Disney 2019 collection in celebration of Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday. Photo courtesy of Kith.
D'ussĂŠ Cognac
Cheers to the Holidays!
D'ussĂŠ Cognac
Cheers to the Holidays!
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Straight from Santo Domingo Celebrity Fitness Trainer and Professional Bodybuilder Marco Feliz @marcosfeliz1 rocking the #DASOULS Shot on location in the Dominican Republic by Photographer Freddy Cruz @freddycruzphoto Designer – Andrew Nowell @dasoul_underwear ... Get A Pair!
Straight from Santo Domingo Celebrity Fitness Trainer and Professional Bodybuilder Marco Feliz @marcosfeliz1 rocking the #DASOULS Shot on location in the Dominican Republic by Photographer Freddy Cruz @freddycruzphoto Designer – Andrew Nowell @dasoul_underwear ... Get A Pair!
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