BET is giving Trina her flowers by honoring her with the “I Am Hip Hop Award” at the 2022 BET Hip Hop Awards.
“I am honored to receive and accept the 2022 I Am Hip Hop Award presented by BET,” Trina said in a statement. “As a legend with over 20 years in the music industry, consistency and unity have contributed to my Rockstarr power as a femcee. I believe when one woman wins, whether it’s in front of the camera or behind the scenes, we all WIN. Let’s keep winning!”
BET’s Connie Orlando, EVP, Specials, Music Programming and Music Strategy, also spoke highly of the rapper.
“Trina is a multi-talented hip hop artist who has set cultural trends and continues to be passionate about giving back to her community,” said Orlando. “She has paved the way for several artists, and we look forward to honoring her impact and legacy on hip hop’s biggest stage, BET Hip Hop Awards 2022.”
Prior recipients of the award include Nelly, Lil’ Kim, Lil Wayne, and Master P.
Hosted by Fat Joe and boasting performances from French Montana, Joey Bada$$, Pusha T, GloRilla, Bleu, Moneybagg Yo and more, the 2022 BET Hip Hop Awards will air Tuesday, October 4.
(NEW YORK) — New Jersey public school students will be the first in the country required to learn about climate change while in the classroom starting this school year.
“Climate change is becoming a real reality,” New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy, who spearheaded the initiative, told “ABC News Live” on Thursday.
The new standards were adopted by the state’s board of education in 2020, but because of the pandemic, the roll out was halted, giving educators and districts more time to prepare the lesson plans for all students in grades K-12.
“The districts themselves are able to design whatever it is that the way they want to implement and interpret this new education standard,” said Murphy.
Lessons will focus on how climate change has accelerated in recent decades and how it’s impacted public health, human society, and contributed to natural disasters.
“You can look around the world, whether it’s Pakistan that has a third of the country under water right now, or wildfires raging across the United States, and droughts in Asia,” said Murphy. “Here in our own backyard in New Jersey, we have our own challenges. Whether it’s sea level rise or microburst or algae blooms.”
The program will also introduce students to careers in climate change, as federal and local officials work to combat natural disasters and create a greener economy by adding new jobs and increased funding.
“I want to make sure that the next generation of students and those who come after have the skill set necessary to be able to win and succeed at the incredible jobs that are going to be available as we all shift towards a greener economy,” said Murphy.
Last month, President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was passed, which aims to tackle climate change and analysts believe that it can create as many as 1.5 to 9 million new jobs in construction, manufacturing and service over the next 10 years.
In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, the president said we’re “already living in a climate crisis.”
“No one seems to doubt it after this past year,” Biden said. “Choosing which child to feed and wondering whether they will survive. This is the human cost of climate change. And it is growing.”
Over the past few years, many state and local officials have taken action to involve their communities in the fight against climate change. Gov. Phil Murphy allocated $5 million in the fiscal 2023 state budget for climate education in March.
“A top priority of my administration has been to reestablish New Jersey’s role as a leader in the fight against climate change,” the governor said in a statement.
To help educators adapt to this new curriculum, the state launched the New Jersey Climate Change Education Hub, which gives teachers access to lesson plans, educational videos, and professional development.
The first lady said that while creating this program, she traveled to at least 10-15 schools and found that climate change was already being taught to some degree in most classroom settings. She added that having it as a requirement is necessary to ensure all students have the same learning opportunities, as they do with other required subjects.
Murphy added that within just the first month of the school year, teachers have expressed their excitement towards the curriculum, and that the state “has gotten great initial feedback.”
(KYIV, Ukraine) — A so-called “referendum” to join Russia announced by pro-Russian authorities of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine has raised alarm bells globally as experts and leaders see it as a manipulative farce by Russia to force control over parts of Ukraine as Ukrainian forces are pushing back on Russian forces.
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink referred to the referendums, as well as increased military mobilization, as “signs of weakness, of Russian failure,” echoing many opinions that Russia is acting out under pressure in response to Ukrainian advances.
“The United States will never recognize Russia’s claim to purportedly annexed Ukrainian territory, and we will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Brink tweeted Tuesday.
The voting is planned for Sept. 23 to 27. Self-appointed Kremlin-backed officials of the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions also announced they would hold referendums on the same dates.
“We believe it is more timely than ever to make a strong-willed decision on the immediate holding of a referendum on the unification of the Kherson region with the Russian Federation,” the local so-called Public Council said at a meeting Tuesday.
The Russian Central Elections Commission said it would set up polling stations in Russia. Voters would be presented with one question: “Are you in favor of the secession of the Zaporizhia region from Ukraine, the formation of an independent state by the Zaporizhia region and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject of the Russian Federation?”
This decision of the Kremlin’s proxies to stage sham referendums marked a significant escalation of the conflict and has been widely condemned by world leaders.
The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Russian statements a “sedative” for the Russian audience.
“There is global consensus and international law,” Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the office of the president posted on Twitter. “It is unambiguous: Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea are Ukraine. Any attempts to repaint flags are a fiction that will not change anything for us nor for our partners.”
The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that any referendum in Russian-occupied territories will not have any legal consequences.
“No matter how much the Russian Federation holds illegal votes in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the result will be the same: all Ukrainian territories will be freed from Russian occupation, and the Russian leadership will be brought to the strictest responsibility for organized terror, war crimes and crimes against humanity on Ukrainian soil,” the statement said.
U.S. President Joe Biden also criticized what he called Russia’s “outrageous acts” in a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday.
“Just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and reckless disregard of the responsibilities of a nonproliferation regime,” he said. “Now, Russia is calling up more soldiers to join the fight and the Kremlin is organizing a sham referendum to try to annex parts of Ukraine, an extremely significant violation of the U.N. Charter.”
The eastern part of Ukraine has been occupied by Russian proxies since 2014. In late February 2022, right before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the “independence” of the so-called DPR and LPR. Since then, the leaders of the unrecognized republics have called for integration with Russia, but Moscow has reiterated that such a decision is not timely.
Parts of southern Ukraine were occupied by Russian forces during the 2022 invasion. The occupational authorities there have tried to hold unofficial referendums to proclaim “independence” following Russia’s 2014 invasion of the Donbas region. The efforts have so far failed and the referendums have been postponed several times.
Now, such a possibility looks much more realistic.
In a speech Wednesday, Putin said Russia would support any decision the electorate makes and provide security for the referendums.
Meanwhile, the Russian leader announced partial mobilization across the country that would draft up to 300,000 men to be sent to war in Ukraine, according to the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The timing of the referendums and mobilization, is not a coincidence, experts say. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War believe Ukraine’s ongoing northern counter-offensive is panicking proxy forces and some Kremlin decision-makers.
In early September, the Ukrainian Armed Forces astonished the world with its lightning counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, moving the Russians more than 30 miles east in just a few days. Videos showed Russian soldiers running away, leaving behind vehicles and ammunition.
In all, the Ukrainian Armed Forces says it has liberated more than 3,700 square miles of territory so far, according to the Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar. This also includes some areas in the southern Kherson region, where Ukrainians are moving forward slowly but steadily, liberating village by village.
Russia’s retreat from the Kharkiv region sparked not only praise of the Ukrainian Army in the West, but also criticism of Russian authorities even amid the Russian propagandist media. Some military bloggers expressed the idea of “freezing” the war in Ukraine, which they claim would be beneficial to Russia itself.
(NEW YORK) — As the United States heads into the fall and winter, questions are arising about whether the return of masks is needed to stem a potential COVID-19 surge.
Evidence has shown COVID cases and hospitalizations tend to rise during the colder months when people congregate indoors. Some health officials warn the virus could surge again in December and January.
Currently, cases and hospitalizations are on the decline in the U.S. after having peaked in late July, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Those who are vaccinated and boosted are at much lower risk of falling severely ill and dying from COVID-19. CDC data shows unvaccinated Americans have a five times higher risk of dying compared to those who’ve received just a primary series and a seven times higher risk of dying compared to those who also received at least one booster dose.
Experts told ABC News that while vaccination is the best protection against COVID-19, some people may need to consider masking to protect themselves in case infections rise.
“My recommendation to people would be to mask when in indoor crowded spaces,” Dr. Stuart Ray, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News. “I’ve spent a great deal of time with patients who have COVID and have not contracted the infection from what I can tell, both from antibody testing and from a lack of syndrome.”
Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, told ABC News that masks have helped reduce COVID transmission in health care settings.
“I’ve worked in a respiratory infection clinic with COVID patients at the height of their contagiousness and they’re breathing in my face, and I haven’t gotten COVID from patients,” she said. “I really do believe that PPE works, that masks work.”
However, experts admitted it will be hard to convince Americans to wear masks again after so many cities and states have done away with mandates.
Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver remain the three biggest cities in the U.S. where masks are still required on public transit. In most cities, only health care environments still require mask mandates.
Ray said he believes a surge, similar to those caused by the delta and the omicron variants, would be the only thing drum up support of mandates.
“I think that people are really tired of this pandemic and there is, culturally, very little appetite for mandates, for masking,” Ray said. “And so, it’s a steep climb to tell people unless there’s a particular context in which it’s important, like a health care setting when there are many vulnerable people.”
He added, “If we were to come into a highly disruptive surge, then the appetite for a mandate might change, because people realize that a bunch of essential services are being disrupted. If hospitals got stressed by the surge, then I think we might see mandates returned.”
Doron said that although she supports masking, she doesn’t believe that cities and counties should reinstate mask mandates because many people take them off indoors for prolonged periods of time anyway, increasing the risk of transmission.
“In the community, we had mask mandates where you wear masks unless you’re eating or drinking and if you’ve ever traveled in an airport or on an airplane, where there when there was a mask mandate, you know that, you know, people are pretty much eating and drinking the entire time,” Doron said. “And so, it just doesn’t have the ability to do what it’s meant to do.”
In the absence of mask mandates, the experts said people may need to assess their individual risk level and decide if wearing a mask will help protect themselves and those around them.
“You to weigh your own susceptibility, your own tolerance for the risk of the long-term complications, which are still somewhat unknown and the risks that you might pose to people you care for either professionally or personally at home,” Ray said. “Now, some people may decide — and this is the judgment part — that they just don’t care that they don’t think that this is a big deal, and that they’ll just get infected and that they’re likely not to be hospitalized.”
Dr. Thomas Murray, an associate professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, said assessing the risk level also applies to kids in school, where many mask mandates have been lifted.
“Children who have higher risk, like asthma, might be an example of that,” Murray said. “What we’re really trying to balance is having kids enjoy a normal in-person school experience with the risks that go with congregating in classes when we have lots of respiratory viruses circulating.”
He said if schools don’t reimplement masking, other strategies “become critically important” for children, such as screening, testing and keeping them home if they have symptoms.
However, not all masks are created equally. For those who plan to keep wearing masks or choose to start wearing them again heading into the colder months, the experts recommend wearing a high-quality mask.
“I think that single-layer cloth masks really don’t provide much protection,” Ray said.
Doron said if you cannot get a N95 or KN95, or cannot wear one for long periods of time, a surgical mask will provide protection.
“The surgical mask does provide protection, especially if it fits you well,” she said. “And then there are ways to make it fit better, ways to fold it or and tuck it and tie the strap for your ears.”
Pedro Portal/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Fiona has pummeled Puerto Rico, an island whose infrastructure struggled to recover from the devastating Hurricane Maria that killed almost 3,000 people in 2017.
Fiona left many without electricity and water, including Pedro Julio Serrano, a resident and human rights activist.
“It’s not a natural disaster. This is a political disaster,” Julio Serrano told ABC News.
Some Puerto Ricans who spoke with ABC News are frustrated with the lack of progress in reconstructing the island so residents no longer have to worry about having running water, electricity, and safe roads, buildings and more.
After Maria, many elderly, sick, and disabled people died because they didn’t have the electricity or access to the care and necessities they required, according to Puerto Rican officials. Following Fiona, hospitals and people in need of care have been left scrambling to find generators to support them, according to Puerto Rico’s Gov. Pedro Pierluisi.
“The vast majority of the people who died [from Maria] was because of incompetence and because people couldn’t get their power back for months,” Julio Serrano said. “What is happening is criminal.”
Some residents said local and federal governments have had several years to fix things.
“We really shouldn’t have to be resilient in the 21st century, when we’re supposed to be a part of the richest nation in the world,” Victor Amauri, referring to Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. territory, told ABC News. Amauri is a resident and spokesperson for Brigada Solidaria del Oeste, a local activist group.
Puerto Rico’s electric system has long been unstable, even before Hurricane Maria devastated the island. As a result, blackouts have been a regular part of life for many residents for the last five years, according to island residents.
Those who spoke with ABC News say they blame LUMA, a private company that has operated and managed Puerto Rico’s electric power transmission and distribution system since June 2021.
LUMA said it was currently working with customers to restore power and stabilize the grid.
“We will continue to work non-stop until every customer is restored and the entire grid is reenergized” LUMA Public Safety Manager, Abner Gómez, said in a statement. “While these efforts continue over the coming days, we strongly encourage customers to continue to exercise caution and stay away from any downed power lines.”
Much of the federal money allocated to help fix the electric grid has not been spent due to disagreements between Puerto Rican officials and the Federal Emergency Management Agency on how to use it.
LUMA, as well as the Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi, did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Cynthia Burgos López, resident and executive director of La Maraña, a group dedicated to rebuilding Puerto Rico, told ABC News that residents hadn’t seen the impact of federal dollars on the island.
“Being a colony from the States, we have a lot of money that’s being sent all the time to Puerto Rico, but we have such a corrupt government, that nothing gets to the communities,” she said.
Burgos López recalled the long, but recent history of government officials who have been embroiled in corruption scandals.
At least nine Puerto Rican mayors and several other government officials have been arrested on charges of bribery, extortion, and more in recent years.
Residents said they blame the long-standing corruption, under-resourcing and underfunding for why the island was not ready for Fiona, and why it will not be ready for the next storm.
“We know that without Fiona, we were not having light. So with Fiona, we were going to be monthslong without light,” Burgos López told ABC News.
Some also told ABC News that barriers imposed by the United States — such as the enforcement of the Jones Act, which mandates ships carrying goods between U.S. ports to be built in the United States — have continued to place a financial strain on Puerto Rico and its residents due to increased prices of goods, though it’s a furiously debated topic.
For now, residents are working together to ensure their fellow community members get what they need, and not waiting for outside help to touch down on the island. However, some residents and activists plan to protest, and demand action from officials in the wake of the storm’s damage.
Amauri said there are long lines to get gasoline, people using generators to refrigerate their food, and residents are scrambling to find clean drinking water.
(PHOENIX) — Arizona Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem revealed during Thursday’s debate that he has been interviewed by both the Justice Department and Jan. 6 committee about his alleged involvement in the Capitol attack.
This was the first time Finchem has publicly confirmed speaking on the matter with federal officials.
“They asked me, why was I there? I said, ‘Well, I think you already know. I was there to deliver an evidence package to Representative Paul Gosar,'” Finchem, who was subpoenaed by the committee earlier this year, told reporters after the debate.
The four-term, far-right Arizona lawmaker, who continues to espouse the “Big Lie” and is running to be the state’s chief election officer, revealed the Jan. 6 interview and Justice Department involvement in a back-and-forth on the debate stage with his opponent, Democrat Adrian Fontes.
“I was interviewed by the DOJ and the J-6 commission as a witness,” Finchem said. “So for him to assert that I was part of a criminal uprising is absurd. And frankly, it is a lie.” Finchem told reporters after the debate that the meeting was “a couple of months ago.”
Fontes, the former Maricopa County elections recorder during the 2020 election, prompted the comment by bringing up Finchem’s efforts to decertify President Joe Biden’s win, Finchem’s presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and affiliation with the Oath Keepers militia group.
“Good,” Fontes told reporters after the debate regarding the revelation that Finchem sat for investigators. “I hope they investigate, and if he did something wrong, I hope that they prosecute and convict him.”
ABC News has asked Finchem’s campaign whether he sat for more than one interview with federal investigators and whether he traveled to Washington for the sit-down.
Finchem, leaving the Arizona PBS studio immediately after the debate while reporters chased after him, said he was not asked by investigators about “Stop the Steal” coalition organizer Ali Alexander specifically, and when asked about Alexander’s characterization of him as a “close friend,” Finchem distanced himself, saying, “That’s probably an exaggeration.”
But on the debate stage, Fontes repeatedly tied Finchem to the insurrection.
“He’s part of an organization that has called for the violent overthrow of our government. He has supporters and he himself has called for a civil war in this country, the stockpiling of ammunition for this very war,” Fontes said. “It is an unhinged and violent aspect of Mr. Finchem that he’d rather not discuss.”
“Last time I checked, to be at a place when something is happening is not illegal,” Finchem countered. “I’ve been treated as a witness, not a subject.”
Finchem claimed he was in Washington, D.C., at the time of the attack to deliver a book of information to Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., which he said contained evidence of irregularities in the 2020 election.
“I was there to develop — or to deliver — an evidence book to two congressional members of my constitutionally elected congressional caucus, so that they had the information that they needed to have in the well of the Senate, when they went to argue for a question in controversy,” he said.
While maintaining that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, Finchem said he has “no idea” if there were irregularities in the August primary, which he won, adding, “It is what it is.”
When asked what changed from 2020 to 2022, Finchem said, “The candidates.”
“Not the process, not the people running things, not the rules,” Fontes replied, calling Finchem’s comment “most telling.”
On mail-in voting, Finchem said he doesn’t support every Arizonan getting a mail-in ballot, like Fontes tried to have enacted in Maricopa County in 2020, and dismissed concerns he would try to restrict mail-in voting. He said, “I don’t care for mail-in voting. That’s why I go to the poll.”
Fontes, who supports early and mail-in voting — an option the vast majority of Arizonans use to cast ballots — said, “Mr. Finchem wants to strip Arizonans of their capacity to vote by mail. That’s dangerous.”
Finchem has also previously said he supports getting rid of electronic voting machines in favor of a full hand-count of ballots.
When asked about the role of the federal government in Arizona’s elections, Finchem said, “I think the federal government needs to butt out of states’ rights. It is the legislature who names the time, place and manner of election, not the federal government.”
Fontes interrupted to say, “I think Article One, Section Four of the Constitution of the United States of America would disagree with Mr. Finchem’s assertion about who is charged with the time, place and manner of elections that clearly Congress plays a significant role and that happens to be the federal government, for your information, sir.”
Fontes, who lost his reelection as Maricopa County elections recorder to Republican Stephen Richer, has used his 2020 loss to defend Arizona’s election process.
“This could be the last election in our lifetime,” Fontes told ABC News in a recent interview, expressing concern about the number of candidates on his ballot who deny the validity of the last election. “We can’t depend on the legislature. We can’t depend on the courts. We have to depend on the American people and Arizona’s voters.”
Reba McEntire made her Big Sky debut with the premiere of the show’s third season on Wednesday night, and one episode in, her character — Sunny Barnes — is even more enigmatic than she was in the previews.
Sunny — alongside her husband Buck, played by Reba’s real-life boyfriend Rex Linn — is the owner of Sunny Day Excursions, a glamping company in rural Montana, but there’s a dark secret lurking behind her cheerful facade. At least, that’s what’s strongly hinted in the trailers for the show, which center around a pair of detectives’ attempts to solve a series of missing person cases.
After the season premiere episode aired, Reba hopped on social media to ask fans what they think: Is Sunny the bad guy this season, or not?
“Alright, what do we think after watching? Is Sunny a villain or not?” the singer wrote on Twitter, along with a poll. Fans jumped into the comments section to share their thoughts and theories, and there were plenty of valid arguments for both sides.
To find out whether Sunny and Buck are at the heart of the disappearances, keep watching this season of Big Sky, which airs on ABC.
It’s time once again for celebrities to spin the wheel and solve the puzzle. Celebrity Wheel of Fortune returns to ABC Sunday night, with Snoop Dogg, Amanda Seales and Mark Duplass competing on behalf of their chosen charities.
Host Pat Sajak tells ABC Audio that celebrities aren’t usually the best players, which actually means a little more work for him.
“You know, celebrities are not necessarily loyal Wheel of Fortune viewers. Presumably, they’ve seen the show. We hope that they have. But, you know, they’re not, on our regular show they’re a little more, you know, they’ve studied for a long time. They wanted to be on maybe for decades. They’ve tried out a number of times,” he explains. “So we have to kind of take them by the hand a little bit and show them through the game.”
That’s not taking anything away from the celebs, according to Sajak, who notes, “even if you’re familiar with it, to be thrown in the studio and suddenly have to go with all the rules and everything can be challenging.”
Sajak, who’s hosted the show since 1981, says that in his experience, there’s one group of celebrities that, in his experience, seem to have an edge over the others.
“Probably athletes seem to have the advantage over other celebrities, since they tend to be a little more competitive,” he says. “I mean, because of that winning attitude sort of ingrained in them. But, you know, it’s always a surprise.”
Vanna White, who’s co-hosted the show with Sajak for the past 40 years, thinks the secret to their long partnership is that they only spend 34-days a-year together.
“We hardly see each other,” adds Sajak, joking, “If all marriages were like this, the divorce rate would be absolutely gone.”
This weekend, fans will finally enter the colorful, larger-than-life world of Miranda Lambert’s Velvet Rodeo residency when she opens the show in Las Vegas.
But what’s a “Velvet Rodeo,” anyway? For one thing, it’s a tip of the hat to Miranda’s latest album, Palomino: Opening track “Acting Up” features the line “I want a sunset ride / A velvet rodeo.”
Miranda says that as she was dreaming up her Vegas show, she latched on to that phrase because of how perfectly it expressed the signature blend of personalities she infuses into her music.
“I’ve built my career on being feminine but also trying to have a bad-a** vibe at the same time,” the superstar tells ABC Audio. “It’s sometimes a hard line to walk, and I feel like that’s kind of what my music has done, as well.”
Now, she’ll bring those two contrasting personality traits to the Vegas stage. “I wanted something a little soft and feminine for Vegas, which is velvet. And then, obviously, a rodeo — I mean, I joined the circus for a living. That’s what I do,” she adds with a laugh.
Even though her residency is in Vegas, Miranda says the show — and her newest batch of songs on Palomino — takes her back to her Texas roots.
“I’ve really been enjoying my hats and my boots,” she details. “I started when I was 17, wearing a cowboy hat painted with the Texas flag. So I feel like I’m just back, full circle, back to my Texas roots a little bit, with the energy and sound of this record.”
Miranda kicks her residency off on Friday. She’s got plans to be in Vegas for more shows through the rest of the year.
Months after winning an Oscar for his Summer of Soul documentary, Questlove has announced he has another film in the works. According to Billboard, the Roots drummer will be executive producing a documentary about late music producer J Dilla.
“Explaining musical genius is my mission. To be able to tell the world about the musician that had the most influence on me is a dream come true,” Questlove said in a statement. “Not just on me, but on an entire generation of musicians that everyone knows and loves. J Dilla was our teacher. And what he taught us was how to feel rhythm in a way we had ever felt before. I’m so honored to be a part of bringing his story to the world through this documentary.”
Dilla Time — described as “part biography, part musicology, and part musical meditation” — will dive into the life and career of J Dilla, highlighting moments from Dan Charna‘s New York Times bestseller Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm.
Questlove’s Two One Five Entertainment will produce the documentary, directed by Patel and Darby Wheeler,alongside Charna, Scenario Media, Summer of Soul producer Joseph Patel and J Dilla’s estate.
It’s the only documentary the estate has endorsed.
J Dilla worked with the likes of Erykah Badu, Common, his group Slum Village and more. He died in 2006 from a rare blood disease. He was 32 years old.
