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“Fox’s Dan Bongino resorts to anger when Dem Columnist Jonathan Harris states facts as to why people may fear police!” Fox News contributor Dan Bongino lost control of his temper on Monday night when he blew up at a Democratic commentator for mentioning how often police officers use lethal force. Bongino and Jonathan Harris were on Laura Ingraham’s show to talk about Starbucks’ apology to law enforcement after an
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employee recently asked six cops to leave one of their coffee shops because a customer was uncomfortable with their presence. After Bongino bashed the “snowflake culture” and the “really dumb business decision” at the root of the situation, Ingraham asked Harris if there would’ve been greater outrage if a different group of people was getting kicked out of Starbucks. Harris cited reports saying everyone in the incident was white, but then he went on to bring up data. WATCH what Happened on sdmnitornews.com
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Bey’s Lion King
“The Gift”: The Lion King: is Beyonce’s version of Blackness The soundtrack features over 20 artists from the United States, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana and Cameroon Nine days before the new Lion King remake hit theaters, Disney released a clip from the “Hakuna Matata” scene in which a CGIrendered Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa sing the beloved showtune with the facial expressiveness of a Real Housewives cast after two decades worth of intensive botox treatments. The clip suggested that The Lion King would be a soulless cash grab at best, a crime against humanity at worst. It also made it clear that the remake would never come close to eclipsing the cultural cachet of the 1994 original. Enter Beyoncé, whose companion album The Lion King: The Gift is here to ensure that, a year from now, people will actually remember that this new Lion King movie ever existed. The Gift traces the plot of The Lion King, alternating between songs and dialogue interludes, to weave music into the film’s narrative structure. With a couple clunky exceptions, each song makes only oblique references to its narrative peg so that it can exist functionally in our world, beyond the scope of the Lion King universe. While Beyoncé is the star, the album also features
over 20 artists from the United States, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and Cameroon, such that it operates in part as an exercise in cross-pollination, a celebration of diasporic musical currents. As Hannah Giorgis pointed out In the Atlantic, The Gift fails to include even one artist from East Africa, the region where The Lion King is set, and instead chooses to elevate artists from countries in Africa that have already experienced crossover commercial success in the United States. It’s an incisive criticism that reveals the ways in which The Gift is beholden to a western, capitalist gaze, and thus falls short of its promise as Beyoncé’s “love letter to Africa.” If anything, The Gift is a love letter to blackness. Blackness, more than African-ness, is the current that runs through the album, as Beyoncé and her cohort champion their skin color as the source of their worth and power. Beyoncé repeatedly invokes elemental imagery, particularly water, to affirm her African lineage. On the clever “Circle of Life” redux “BIGGER,” she sings, “I’ll be the roots, you be the tree/Pass on the fruit that was given to me.” On “NILE”: “Darker the berry, sweeter the fruit/Deeper the wounded, deeper the roots/Nubian doused in brown, I’m lounging in it/fountain of youth, I said I’m The Gift includes wonderful solo efforts, namely Burna Boy on “JA ARA E” and Beyoncé on “SPIRIT.” But the album derives its strength from numbers. This is evident on songs like “MY drowning in it.” Next Page
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MY POWER,” a hell-raising posse cut featuring American art-rap savant Tierra Whack and South African Kwaito practitioners Moonchild Sanelley and Busiswa, and “DON’T JEALOUS ME,” which features the Nigerian Voltron of Tekno, Yemi Alade, and Mr. Eazi. Even more so, the album’s intimate duets vibrate with a profound sense of far-flung black kinship, like on “OTHERSIDE,” when Beyoncé’s Swahili intonations mingle with the Yoruba of Nigerian singer Bankulli; when Saint John and Blue Ivy sing the chorus in unison at the outset of melanin ode “BROWN SKIN GIRL”; and when Beyoncé and Wizkid sing the chorus in harmony at the song’s end. While the lack of East African representation on The Gift is a letdown, the album still celebrates African diversity by inviting artists to toggle between English and their native tongues, from Swahili to Twi to Bambara to Yoruba. As a tribute to Africa, it compares favorably to Kendrick Lamar-helmed Black Panther soundtrack. Ultimately, The Gift is a deft balancing act that weighs personal songwriting flourishes and meaning with Disneycore tropes, as well as a sincere desire to celebrate the music of the African diaspora with its fundamentally commercial obligations. LISTEN TO THE FULL ALBUM
AT WWW.SDMONITORNWS.COM
INSIGHTS BLACK MENTAL HEALTH MONTH ON
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After Pulling the Plug on Empire, Fox CEO Addresses Diversity Concerns
Empire is gone, maybe. Deadline reports that after five seasons of twists, turns and trysts, the Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson-led series will be bowing out after its upcoming sixth season. “We are turning the final season into a large TV event, we are trying to go out guns a blazing,” Fox CEO Charlie Collier said of what will be Empire’s final season. “You allow fans to lean in and have the ending they deserve. “And no, Fox has no plans whatsoever to involve embattled actor Jussie Smollett in any future episodes as the show rides off into the sunset. But thanks for asking. “There’s an option to have Jussie in the series but we have no plans for that,” he said. Which sounds a lot like when you break up with your girlfriend, but aren’t quite ready to post memes about inner strength and moving on Instagram. Empire serves as the latest show on the network to get the axe. But more specifically, it’s the latest featuring a black lead. This announcement of Empire’s demise comes on the heels of Fox pulling the plug on the Damon Wayans helmed-Lethal Weapon, Lil’ Rel Howery’s Rel, Russell Hornsby’s Proven Innocent, Lee Daniels’ Star and David Alan Grier’s The Cool Kids, denoting a troubling trend at the network. Next page
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But Collier insists that unlike other rival networks, diversity will remain a priority at Fox. “The diversity of Fox is an issue that is so important and an ongoing effort for us to make sure we’re best in class. As I was looking at Fox and joining, what’s remarkable is that the history of this company and what it’s done in terms of diversity,” Collier said. “If you look across our slate in terms of scripted and unscripted and sports, we really are doing a good job but the job never stops. The effort continues, it never stops.” As a general rule of thumb, I’m always leery of white men touting the virtues of diversity and inclusion since their track record almost always says otherwise, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see this time around.
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3D PRINTING: IS NOW THE TIME FOR BLACK ENTREPRENEURS TO ADAPT? When 3D printing technology first arrived on the scene it seemed more science fiction than fact and few believed it would ever go mainstream. This, especially when it cost tens of thousands of dollars, some of them even running into six or seven figures. Fast forward two to three years and prices are now in the 0ne-thousand-dollar range with industry experts expecting prices for the cheapest printers to drop to $100 in the next couple of years. According to Entrepreneur.com, “3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, uses technology born of paper printing. But rather than outputting two-dimensional renderings, it makes actual physical objects.” One design director says you can “literally sketch an idea in the morning, model it in the afternoon, pop it in the printer and have a sample made that evening.” Sure, 3D printers won’t print you money, but if you are a small business owner, jumping on board this ship early will save you money. How?
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For starters, you can now bring new and innovative products to market faster and a lot cheaper. You no longer have to go to big name manufacturers to design advanced technology. All you have to do is feed texts, illustrations, and drawings of your idea into your printer and it kicks out a prototype. Struggles finding replacement parts will soon become virtually a thing of the past and in terms of home improvements, well, soon we’ll all be able to say, “Move over IKEA.” 3D printing is changing the way companies do business. It creates opportunities to stand out from the competition. One can also experiment on improvements for design and development while steam-lining production. You can now also print and create prototypes using several materials including plastic, glass, metal, and ceramic. Forbes is calling it a game-changer for small businesses. It has ushered in a new era of affordability: “While manufacturing was once a big money, big business proposition, these new gadgets can put the power of prototyping and one-off manufacturing into the hands of the little guy. With one machine and a digital design, 3D printers can build a three-dimensional object of virtually anything right on the spot.”
While 3-D printing has existed on an industrial scale for decades, it only recently became accessible for savvy small business owners and consumers. And the business is becoming highly competitive, especially with old school print giant Hewlett Packard announcing that it too will be entering the market.
