SDM Anniversary Issue #20

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LOOK GREAT ❇ DRESS SHARP ❇ LIVE WELL

BLACK & WHITE ISSUE INTRODUCING CALCULATED CLOTHING IN THE TOWN

SWAGGA DIGITAL MAGAZINE

SPRING 2017

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ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

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Introduction

❋ FASHION JUNE - AUGUST 2017

Culture

LIFESTYLES

Music&Art

WHAT WAS ON TRIAL IN THE BILL COSBY CASE

OPIODS A MASS KILLER

20 ISSUE NO. 20/VOL 5 USD:$16.00

ANNIVERSAIRE

SPOTIFY WANTS YOU CREATE YOUR OWN MUSIC

DISPLAY UNTIL AUGUST 2017

NOIR ET BLANC

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BEHIND THE PAGES

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EDITOR’S NOTE

This publication is dedicated to my mom whose courage, strength, tenacity and love has been a rock for me in the production of this magazine. There are so many people who are instrumental in the production of this publication, and I could not possibly name them all in this writing but I just want to thank all of you and you know who you are for assisting me with this issue. Many thanks to all of the wonderful and talented models, photographers, MUA’s, and Hair Stylists.

Reproduction of any material within this publication in whole or in part is, prohibted without expressed consent of publisher.

The publisher assumes no responsibility to any party of the information, claims or ads herein to include errors, inaccuracies or omissions.

By advertising the advertisers agree to indemnify the Publisher against all claims relating to or resulting from said advertisements and or promotional material.

Ron Fulcher Editor-In-Chief

M D COPYRIGHT ©2009-2016 SDM PUBLISHING ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction in whole or in part without the permission of SDM The Magazine is prohibited. SDM The Magazine does not accept and cannot be held responsible for any kind of unsolicted materials. Published Quarterly, Four (4) Times a year. Available in Print, Mobile, and available for download to Apple, Android, Ipad and Tablets. Visit our website at www.swaggadigitalmagazine.com Need to send a email to the EDITOR: sdm_magazine@yahoo.com. For subscription information email us at: sdm_magazine@yahoo.com Printed in the USA, MAIL P.O. Box 3138 Oakland, California 94609 CALL 1.415.856.9891 CUSTOMER SERVICE: sdm_magazine@yahoo.com CONNECT WITH US EMAIL SDM_MAGAZINE@YAHOO.COM SOCIAL MEDIA: facebook/swaggadigitalmagazine, instagram/@swaggadigitalmag twitter/@blackberryron snapchat/@keepitrealfilms Visit Issuu.Com,Blur.com and Magcloud.com Digital Newstands to download our digital version to IPAD, TABLET, IPHONE or your Andriod Device

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VOLUME VI, NO. 20 | SPRING ISSUE

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WWW.SWAGGADIGITALMAGAZINE.COM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | RON FULCHER

BRANDING & STRATEGY

DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY | ARCHIE BRUMFIELD GRAPHIC DESIGN ~ CREATIVE SERVICES | SDM PUBLISHING PHOTO EDITOR ~ ART DIRECTOR | RON FULCHER ADVERTISING MANAGER | ARCHIE BRUMFIELD

SOCIAL MEDIA

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SPECIAL THANKS

SEE EYEWEAR FIRST MODEL MANAGEMENT WESTCOAST LEATHER FORD MODELS H&M CLOTHIERS JCREW MACY’S SAN FRANCISCO UNION SQUARE RCA RECORDS, NYC FAB STUDIOS, OAKLAND CA LIONSGATE PUBLICITY RCA RECORDS UBER RIDE SERVICES SMART MODEL MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL RICKIE LEE COLLECTION LOOK MODEL MANAGEMENT FORTE MODELS NEW YORK CALCULATED CLOTHIER OAKLAND CA

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SDM

It’s more than just a magazine

it’s a lifestyle

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ON THE COVER ERICK DAVID TIPPETT

TECH

71. APP ADDICT BLACK-OWNED RIDE SHARING APP THE PERFECT ALTERNATIVE TO UBER

72. OH SNAP! BLACK TEENS THE BIGGEST USERS OF SNAPCHAT AND INSTAGRAM

CULTURE 75. OPIODS, A MASS KILLER

WE’RE MEETING WITH A SHRUG

73. EMPATHY NOT EMBRGOES THE HYPOCRISPY OF THE US CUTTING TIES WITH CUBA

FASHION

56. INTRODUCING CALCULATED CLOTHING IN OAK TOWN

LIFESTYLE

78. HBCU HOWARD UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES GOOGLEPLEX 70. JUST WHAT WAS ON TRIAL IN THE BILL COSBY CASE

MUSIC

74. SPOTIFY WANTS YOU TO CREATE GROUP PLAYLISTS ON FACEBOOK MESSENGER

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DIGITAL MEDIA

CONNECT WITH SDM. PRINT . MOBILE . SOCIAL . ONLINE . TABLET

Twitter is a registered trademark of Twitter, Inc. Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc., Pinterest is a registered trademark of Pinterest, Inc., Tumblr is a registered trademark of Yahoo, Inc., All Instragram logos and trademarks are property of Instagram LLC. All Rights Reserved

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PROMOTION

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ART CULTURE MUSIC FASHION LIFESTYLE MUSIC

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see eye

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ewear

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INTRODUCING CALCULATED CLOTHING

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Just What Was on Trial in the Bill Cosby Case?

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age, confusion, despair — these were only a few of the emotions brought up by Bill Cosby’s recent trial on sexual assault charges. Things didn’t get better when jurors could not agree on a verdict, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial. Wesley Morris, critic at large, and Jenna Wortham, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, discuss the fallout.

WESLEY MORRIS Hey, pal! A couple of weekends ago, I had been dancing at a party when the remix for R. Kelly’s “Ignition” came on. People were thrilled to hear it, as they should have been: “Ignition” is a jam. But R. Kelly’s pop genius has become, for me, inextricable from the many allegations of sexual impropriety against him.

So when it’s “Ignition” time, I have to excuse myself from the dance floor. R. Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008, but getting down to his music is not part of a celebration I’m comfortable having. Guilty feet have got no rhythm, and all of that.

Any time a black person is on trial, there’s a sinking feeling that blackness might be on trial, too.

Meanwhile, a mistrial was declared in the Cosby trial. The jury deadlocked on charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand. Mr. Cosby can’t be guilty unless the jury finds him so. But the accusations over the last few years made by her and dozens of other women leave you in a precarious place in terms of how to respond. Not so much to his work — that hasn’t been vital for a couple of decades — but to his place in our own personal histories and the country’s.

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[App Addict] Black-Owned Ride-Sharing App Moovn is the Perfect Alternative to Uber oovn founded by Godwin Gabriel, is about to become a major competitor with Uber and Lyft, not just in America, but across the globe.

Riders across the country are deleting the ever popular Uber app from their cell phones in lieu of their apparent support for President Trump. And just when we thought Lyft would be our backup, news broke of their connection to Trump as well. For African-Americans, this is the perfect opportunity to support Black business and download Moovn, the ride sharing app that not only lets you schedule a ride on the fly, but also, schedule one weeks in advance.

The app is available in seven major U.S. Cities (including New York, D.C., and Chicago) as well as in Tanzania, South Africa, and Kenya, and is planning to be released in 20 more cities by March of 2017, according to the Huffington Post. Moon is also easy to use, simply download, book a ride and go.

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Oh Snap! Black Teens the Biggest Users of Snapchat and Instagram

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recent poll shows Black teens are most likely to have access to smartphones It’s probably no big surprise to see your teenager’s eyes glued to his or her mobile phone these days, but did you know your kid is probably one of the most prolific users of social media technology?

According to a survey released last week by The Associa ted Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Black teens are the biggest and most frequent users of mobile-friendly social media apps Snapchat and Instagram. The poll, which explored social media use amongst teens and its relationship to race and class, showed that nearly 9 in 10 black teenagers use Snapchat, compared with just over 7 in 10 whites. And 4 in 10 black teens report using Snapchat almost constantly, compared with about 2 in 10 white teens. The poll also found that a third of Black teens say they use Instagram almost constantly, compared with about 1 in 5 white teens who responded similarly, the Associated Press reported. Much like with #Black Twitter, researchers noticed that Black teens are like to be first adopters of new social platforms. “They’re first -movers, in many ways,” said Amanda Lenhart, the lead researcher on the poll. “It speaks to the level of embeddedness of the technology in Black youth’s lives and their willingness to move into new platforms more quickly than their counterparts.” More than 9 in 10 black teens — 95 percent — have access to a smartphone, compared with 89 percent of whites and 86 percent of Hispanics. While this may make them savvier on social media and messenger apps, the technology could be a handicap in education or employment, especially for teens who don’t have access to other types of devices. Lower-income teens are less likely to have tablets or traditional desktop computers, which cost more and can make tasks like writing a paper, doing homework or filling out a job application easier.

The study also examined teen habits among other social media apps. While texting is still the way 9 in 10 teens send short messages, according to the poll, 4 in 10 also use a messaging app, such as Kik, WhatsApp, Skype or Facebook Messenger. Thirty -four percent of Black teens surveyed responded that they use three or more messaging apps, compared with 20 percent of white teens.

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Empathy, Not Embargoes: The Hypocrisy of The U.S. Cutting Ties with Cuba

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nd this is the conundrum that has always stood between Cuba and the U.S. for everyday people like us; a deep desire to know each other, whether through screens or in person, and then suddenly, because of egos and archaic laws, the light goes out again.

The Trump administration claims its recent decision to reinstate stricter travel laws to Cuba is due to the Cuban government’s human rights violations. But anyone who understands the embroiled history of our two countries, their government’s refusal to adhere to Western ideals, and the very nature of capitalism, can see that this is simply a veiled excuse. Add to this the United States’ open relationship with Saudi Arabia, China and the Philippines, and again, the hypocrisy is evident. And with Raul Castro on his way to stepping down in 2018 and more young Cubans invested in diplomatic relationships, restricting interaction only upholds a restrictive past, not the possibilities of a fruitful future.

We are a country that reprimands others for human right violations but will let a four-year-old watch her father be executed from the back seat of a car with no repercussions, an entire city drink toxic water, and tear gas hit the faces of peaceful protestors. We are a country inextricably built on the backs of human exploitation. It’s in our very DNA. Yet, we still believe it’s our duty to teach a small island a stone’s throw away from Florida how to live.

But what about how to survive?

Politicians rarely walk outside of picture perfect photo opportunity understand that the life force of a place is never its laws, it is its people. And it is the people of Cuba who suffer when they are cut off from us, when burgeoning entrepreneurship and youth activism, access to free trade, and basic human engagement are all halted in the name of law.

In Havana, I understood how decade old disputes between Washington and Cuba have widened the chasm between us every day folk. But I also learned about what connects us, despite this.

There are people in this world who long to know America. My privileged disdain cannot always understand why. Why they'd want to explore a land with laws that keep us separate and abuse brown bodies like theirs, daily. But they do. And that longing speaks to basic human needs: Connection. Freedom. Understanding.

The very things an embargo can never bring.

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Spotify Wants You to Create Group Playlists on Facebook Messenger !

Creating Spotify playlists is about to get a lot more communal. As much as we love crafting our playlists on our own, putting one together with a group of your friends is something that opens up a whole other realm of entertainment. Music is a staple in many of our lives, so who doesn’t want to know what tunes your friends are into. But assembling a playlist between several people can be tough to do if you don’t all have the same app. Fortunately, Spotify is looking to change that. Two months

ago, Spotify added a bot into the Facebook Messenger app that helps users search for and share songs. On Wednesday, Spotify announced that it’s kicking things up a notch by making it easy for you and your friends to collaborate on some fire playlists. Simply called “Group Playlists for Messenger, “the music streaming service’s addon to its Messenger bot lets anyone in a chat add songs to the playlist queue, including ones that aren’t on Spotify.

To get started on a group playlist in Messenger, just select the Spotify Messenger extension while you’re in a Messenger chat. Once a new playlist has been created and named by a Spotify user, all it takes is the click of a button to start adding your own tracks into the mix. Don’t have Spotify? No worries. Non-Spotify users can get in on the Group Playlists for Messenger too. Anyone in your group chat can add songs to the playlist. The only caveat is that those who don’t have Spotify will only be able to hear previews of the songs instead of the full versions.

According to TechCrunch, Spotify says that millions of playlists have been shared through the Messenger bot since it launched in April 2017. The addition of the Group Playlists feature is a major tool that the music streaming service will utilize to tap into the nearly 2 billion existing Facebook users.

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Opioids, a Mass Killer We’re Meeting with a Shrug

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bout as many Americans are expected to die this year of drug overdoses as died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. For more than 100 years, death rates have been dropping for Americans — but now, because of opioids, death rates are rising again. We as a nation are going backward, and drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50.

“There’s no question that there’s an epidemic and that this is a national public health emergency,” Dr. Leana Wen, the health commissioner of Baltimore, told me. “The number of people overdosing is skyrocketing, and we have no indication that we’ve reached the peak.”

Yet our efforts to address this scourge are pathetic.

We responded to World War II with the storming of Normandy, and to Sputnik with our moon shot. Yet we answer this current national menace with … a Republican plan for health care that would deprive millions of insurance and lead to even more deaths! More on President Trump’s fumbling of this problem in a moment. But it’s bizarre that Republicans should be complacent about opioids, because the toll is disproportionately in red states — and it affects everyone.

Mary Taylor, the Republican lieutenant governor of Ohio and now a candidate for governor, has acknowledged that both her sons, Joe and Michael, have struggled with opioid addiction, resulting in two overdoses at home, urgent calls for ambulances and failed drug rehab efforts. Good for her for speaking up. It should be a national scandal that only 10 percent of Americans with opioid problems get treatment. This reflects our failed insistence on treating opioids as a criminal justice problem rather than as a public health crisis.

A Times investigation published this month estimated that more than 59,000 Americans died in 2016 of drug overdoses, in the largest annual jump in such deaths ever recorded in the U.S. One reason is the spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is cheap and potent, leading to overdoses.

Another bad omen: As a nation, we’re still hooked on prescription painkillers. Last year, there were more than 236 million prescriptions written for opioids in the United States — that’s about one bottle of opioids for every American adult. Even with all that’s at stake, there are three reasons to doubt that Trump will confront the problem.

First, Trump and Republicans in Congress seem determined to repeal Obamacare, which provides for addiction treatment, and slash Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the G.O.P. House plan would result in an additional 23 million Americans being uninsured in a decade

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— and thus, less able to get drug treatment. Other, more technical elements of the G.O.P. plan would also result in less treatment.

Second, Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, last month seemed to belittle the medication treatments for opioid addiction that have the best record, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions still seems to think we can jail our way out of the problem.

Third, Trump’s main step has been to appoint Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to lead a task force to investigate opioid addiction. But we needn’t waste more time investigating, for we know what to do — and in any case Christie talks a good game but bungled the issue in his home state.

Among experts, there’s overwhelming evidence of what works best: medication in conjunction with counseling. This doesn’t succeed in every case, but it do es reduce deaths and improve lives. It also saves public money, because a result is fewer emergency room visits and inpatient hospital stays. So the question isn’t whether we can afford treatment for all people fighting addiction, but whether we can afford not to provide it.

The bottom line is that we need a major national public health initiative to treat as many Americans abusing drugs as possible, with treatment based on science and evidence. We also need to understand that drug overdoses are symptoms of deeper malaise — “deaths of despair,” in the words of Anne Case and Angus Deaton of Princeton University, stemming from economic woes — and seek to address the underlying issues.

Above all, let’s show compassion. Addiction is a disease, like diabetes and high blood pressure. We would never tell diabetics to forget medication and watch their diets and exercise more — and we would be aghast if only 10 percent of diabetics were getting lifesaving treatment.

Innumerable people with addictions whom I’ve interviewed haunt me. One was a nurse who became dependent on prescription painkillers and was fired when she was caught stealing painkillers from a hospital. She became homeless and survived by providing sex to strangers in exchange for money or drugs.

She wept as she told me her story, for she was disgusted with what she had become — but we as a society should be disgusted by our own collective complacency, by our refusal to help hundreds of thousands of neighbors who are sick and desperate for help.

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Uber is a Creature of an Industry Struggling to Grow Up

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any people in Silicon Valley believe that the way to be successful is to “move fast and break things.” Sometimes they end up breaking the very businesses they created, as anybody involved with Uber now knows.

There’s a cautionary message in Travis Kalanick’s resignation as chief executive of Uber under pressure from investors who were responding to a series of sexual harassment, discrimination and legal scandals that have rocked the company recently. In many ways, Uber is an extreme case of a business where rapid growth has fueled executive hubris and an anything-goes corporate culture. It is also very much a creature of a technology industry that is still struggling to graduate from adolescence to adulthood. For all its brilliant minds, Silicon Valley often can’t recognize its own flaws, let alone fix them.

Uber would have attracted controversy even if a different chief executive had led it. After all, it was seeking to disrupt an existing taxi industry that in many cities had become a complacent oligopoly that ripped off consumers with the blessing of local officials. But under Mr. Kalanick, Uber came to be defined by questionable behavior, deceiving law enforcement and antagonizing and manipulating drivers who did the work that made its business possible. Extreme even for an industry known for chauvinism, Uber fostered a “bro” culture where brashness was rewarded, hesitation was for losers and the few women who were hired were ignored or harassed.

It would be easy to blame only Mr. Kalanick and his team for this mess and say their departure — some top executives were forced out earlier — will fix the problem. But that would be ridiculously naïve. The culture at Uber and other companies like it is enabled by an ecosystem in which venture capitalists, investors, board members and others let founders and executives indulge in bad behavior as long as they keep delivering rapid-fire growth with the promise of a stupendous return on investment. They have paid far too little attention to building sustainable businesses that respect norms of good corporate behavior and, in some cases, even the rule of law.

The economy and society need start-ups like Uber that are willing to challenge monopolistic practices and entrenched businesses. But Silicon Valley executives and investors need to learn to leaven their aggressiveness with good judgment, humility and a large helping of ethics. They will find that those qualities are essential to building companies that last.

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Howard University Announces GooglePlex Campus oward University announced the opening of a new west coast campus today at the GooglePlex in Mountain View, Calif. Spurred on by a mission to increase diversity in the tech industry, Vice President of Global Partnerships at Google and Howard alum, Bonita Stewart, expressed excited to share the news in a release that went out Thursday. “Howard happens to be my alma mater, so I am especially proud to share that our formal recruiting from the university has evolved into a residency for Black computer science (CS) majors right here at the Googleplex. “Howard West” is now the centerpiece of Google’s effort to recruit more Black software engineers from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)-and to make them feel right at home here in Mountain View,” says Stewart.

The program, which kicks off this summer, will allow rising juniors and seniors in Howard’s computer science program to attend Howard West for three months at a time. The campus will be a dedicated space at Google, and senior Google engineers and Howard faculty will serve as instructors.

Stewart stressed the important role HBCUs play in the computer science community. and how Google in Residence (GIR) programs and partnerships like Howard West, help to remove barriers African-Americans often face in the tech industry. “HBCUs are a pillar in the computer science (CS) education community, producing more than a third of all Black CS graduates in the U.S. Google already has a strong partnership with Howard through Google in Residence (GIR), a program that embeds Google engineers as faculty at Howard and other HBCUs.” Stewart continued, “Through GIR we’ve learned a lot about the hurdles Black students face in acquiring full-time work in the tech industry. The lack of exposure, access to mentors and role models are critical gaps that Howard West will solve. Left unchecked, systematic barriers lead to low engagement and enrollment in CS, low retention in CS programs and a lack of proximity and strong relationships between the Silicon Valley, HBCUs and the larger African American Community.”

Howard University President Dr. Wayne Frederick echoed Stewart’s sentiments and shared his hopes and vision for the new partnership program. “Howard West will produce hundreds of industry-ready Black computer science graduates, future leaders with the power to transform the global technology space into a stronger, more accurate reflection of the world around us,” Frederick said. “We envisioned this program with bold outcomes in mind – to advance a strategy that leverages Howard’s high quality faculty and Google’s expertise, while also rallying the tech industry and other thought leaders around the importance of diversity in business and the communities they serve.”

Stewart hopes that the program will introduce students to a limitless world of possibilities in tech and continue to promote Howard’s legacy of providing its students with access to opportunity, in the same way it did for her when she was a student. “The spirit of total possibility put me on my path to Harvard Business School and ultimately Google. Howard West will continue Howard’s tradition of providing unprecedented access to opportunity, only now with a presence in the heart of Silicon Valley.”

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LOOK GREAT ❇ DRESS SHARP ❇ LIVE WELL A SDM PUBLISHING COMPANY PUBLICATION ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (C) 2017