Kid Cudi reflects on the joy of his career, and the depression he suffered for five years, in the trailer for his upcoming documentary, A Man Named Scott, which dropped Tuesday.
Born Scott Mescudi, the 37-year-old rapper reveals that the goal of his music is to “help people in some way. How can I make something that calls out to the broken and the lost.”
Cudi’s 2008 debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, was certified double-platinum. He’s won two Grammys, and recorded with a who’s who of hip hop during his 13 year career, including Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige. Yet despite his success, he admits there was a time when he was broken and lost. Cudi had suicidal thoughts for five years.
“I had a hard time dealing with the adjustment from being Scott to being Kid Cudi,” he admits. “People look at me, but I’m not a happy person. I felt like a fraud. That’s what drove me to escape reality.”
Cudi became an alcoholic, and suffered an emotional breakdown in 2013. Since then, he’s turned his life around.
“I sacrifice my privacy and put my life out there to help others,” he says. “That’s always been my mission.”
The Cleveland rapper recorded a song with Jay-Z for the soundtrack of The Harder They Fall, the new Netflix western, co-produced by Hova, starring Idris Elba and Regina King. His eighth solo album, Entergalactic, is set to be released in 2022.
A Man Named Scott will premiere November 5 on Amazon Prime Video.
(NEW YORK) — Petitioners in the judicial inquiry over the death of Eric Garner, who was killed by NYPD officers during an arrest for the alleged selling of untaxed cigarettes, are speaking out as the proceedings continue.
The petitioners represent leaders of the community fighting against racial injustice, including Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr. Together, they hope that the line of questioning will offer more insight and transparency into the fatal 2014 incident.
In a video conference with reporters, the petitioners called for the firing of officers involved in the incident who are testifying.
“I am sick and tired of listening to the lies,” Carr said. “These officers should not be on the force. They should have been fired immediately.”
The unique proceeding is hosting 13 NYPD officers and sergeants, who are testifying on the events surrounding Garner’s arrest, death and the alleged leak of several documents related to Garner and the incident. It will not result in any charges for those involved or any legal rulings.
On July 17, 2014, Garner was suspected by NYPD police officers Daniel Pantaleo and Justin D’Amico of selling untaxed cigarettes. Garner denied the accusation, but the police then tried to arrest the 43-year-old Black man.
Pantaleo used a prohibited chokehold that has been banned by the NYPD since the 1990s on Garner in order to detain him. Garner told officers “I can’t breathe” 11 times before falling unconscious.
Garner was left lying on the sidewalk for several minutes while officers waited for an ambulance to arrive, and was declared dead at the hospital.
Pantaleo, who committed the chokehold that led to Garner’s death will not be involved in the inquiry. He was fired in 2019 following a department disciplinary trial for using a banned chokehold method. Pantaleo was not indicted in Garner’s death.
He denies any wrongdoing. Garner’s family reached a $5.9 million settlement with the city over the incident.
Christopher Bannon, who was a special operations lieutenant at the time of Garner’s death, texted shortly after the incident that Garner’s death was “not a big deal” because he believed the arrest was lawful. On Monday, Bannon further testified that he still believes the arrest was lawful.
“My son lay dead on the ground and he said it wasn’t a big deal,” Carr said. “Well, officer Bannon, it was a big deal to me. That was my son. You had no sympathy or empathy for him.”
D’Amico admitted in testimony to falsities and mistakes he made when filing the initial incident report in his testimony; he claimed that no physical force was used during Garner’s arrest, and he also charged Garner with a tax-avoidance felony.
Garner only had four sealed packs of cigarettes on him, as well as an opened fifth pack that contained 15 cigarettes, however, a felony charge usually applies only to people in possession of at least 10,000 cigarettes.
D’Amico also claimed in testimony this week that he never heard Garner say that he couldn’t breathe.
Deputy Commissioner of Internal Affairs Joseph Reznick said in testimony that the Internal Affairs Bureau did not punish or investigate D’Amico for logging the false charge or falsity in the report, nor did they investigate media leaks of Garner’s medical and arrest history.
Petitioners on the press conference detested the actions being revisited and defended by officials.
“It’s horrendous that we are seven years later and they’re continuing to lie and they’re continuing to be on the force and that the mayor and commissioner have not made any substantive changes to hold these officers responsible,” said Kesi Foster, a petitioner from social advocacy organization Make the Road New York.
Several social justice organizations have joined Carr in what she said is a fight to seek justice for her son.
“Many of these kinds of offenses should be immediately fireable offenses,” said Joo-Hyun Kang, executive director of advocacy group Communities United for Police Reform and petitioner in the case.
“When you’re really talking about trying to end or reduce police violence that cannot happen unless you reduce the outside bloated budget, the bloated size, the outsized power, and the scope of the NYPD,” she added. “We have to reduce and limit the situations where officers are interacting with New Yorkers.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
Netflix has released the preview to its pandemic smash, Tiger King, and in the new trailer, they promise they’ve “only scratched the surface.”
The follow-up will continue the story surrounding all of its main characters, including, obviously, the Tiger King himself, Joe Exotic. In the clip, he calls collect from behind bars, noting “there’s an innocent man in prison.”
Suffering from cancer while incarcerated on a 22-year hitch in a murder for hire plot centering on his nemesis Carole Baskin, 58-year-old Joe continues, “Everybody from the zoo is out there making money, and I’m paying the price for every one of them people. If you give a damn, it’s time to speak up.”
Speaking of Baskin, the mysterious disappearance of her first husband Don Lewis also resurfaces in the clip; Tiger King had fans speculating she had something to do with it. Baskin, now 60, has maintained her innocence in the disappearance in 1997; Lewis was declared dead in 2002.
Netflix’s official description reveals: “With Joe Exotic behind bars and Carole Baskin closing in on ownership of his disreputable zoo, the Emmy-nominated saga continues its twisted course with Tiger King 2 as newfound revelations emerge on the motivations, backstories, and secrets of America’s most notorious big cat owners. Old enemies and frenemies, including Jeff Lowe, Tim Stark, Allen Glover, and James Garretson return for another season of murder, mayhem, and madness. Thought you knew the whole story? Just you wait.”
Macklemore’s daughter thinks his music could use a little more Taylor Swift and Adele.
In a funny video posted to the rapper’s Instagram page, his six-year-old daughter Sloane listens to his new single “New Year” and gives her brutally honest critique.
“Not your best but I still love ya,” she says, before giving a series of suggestions for who he should have collaborated with on the track. She asks her dad, “Do you know Camila Cabello?” “Did you ask Taylor Swift to get on this song?” “Adele wasn’t feeling this?”
“Adele and Taylor Swift would be great…” she adds. But perhaps to save her dad a bruised ego, she does end on a positive note, saying, “I think it’s really great.”
“I [used] to think I was my own worst critic…Then I had kids,” Macklemore captions the clip.
ABBA‘s comeback album Voyage comes out next week, but even though the group is involved with the staging of its upcoming virtual concert experience in London, don’t expect any more new music from them.
That’s the word from the group’s main men, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. Speaking to the British paper The Guardian, they explain that they wrote two songs that didn’t make it onto the Voyage album, but they didn’t finish them, and so they won’t be released. “This is it,” Benny says. “It’s got to be, you know.”
Referring to the group’s breakup nearly 40 years ago, Benny adds, “I didn’t actually say that ‘this is it’ in 1982. I never said myself that ABBA was never going to happen again. But I can tell you now: this is it.” Bjorn agrees, saying, “Yeah.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean no more ABBA, period. The virtual show will play in London starting next spring and The Guardian notes that the lease on the purpose-built theater is for four-and-a-half years. In addition, the paper reports that there are “vague plans to build other theaters in other cities” so people outside the U.K. can see it more easily.
The four members of ABBA — Bjorn, Benny, Anni-Frid and Agnetha — spent hours being motion-captured to create the show, which will feature de-aged digital “avatars” performing their hits, backed by a live 10-piece band and other effects. Asked if it’s weird to see themselves digitally de-aged, Bjorn says no.
“You have to realize that we are confronted by our younger selves all the time on television, in pictures and all of that….It’s completely natural,” he says. “Everyone should have their own avatar.”
Kodak Black is being allowed to perform Friday at the Rolling Loud festival in New York City.
The “Zeze” rapper, who is now in a court ordered drug treatment program, was granted permission by a judge, as long as he remains in contact with his Supervised Release Officer, TMZ reports. The three-day festival kicks off Thursday, headlined by Travis Scott, J. Cole. and 50 Cent.
In September, Kodak was ordered to complete a 90-day treatment program after violating the terms of his release by failing his drug tests. He was recently granted permission to spend 30 of those 90 days outside the state of Florida.
Kodak was released from prison back in January after being pardoned by Donald Trump. He was arrested in April 2019 for weapons and drug possession and was serving a 46 month sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges he falsified information while attempting to purchase guns in Miami
In April, Black avoided going back to prison after he agreed to a plea deal for a sexual assault charge in South Carolina in 2016. He received 18 months probation and must attend counseling sessions.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and on Tuesday, Kodak hosted an event in Miami to honor survivors of breast cancer, and women currently fighting the disease. More than 20 women were given wigs and cash gifts at Ives Estates Park, according to ABC Miami affiliate WPLG-TV.
“I know they’ll appreciate it,” said Black. “Show these women they’re queens, they’re strong, they’re going to get through it. Pray with them, we’re going to get through it together.”
(WASHINGTON) — A Senate hearing grew heated on Wednesday as Republicans repeatedly demanded Attorney General Merrick Garland retract and apologize for a memo he issued earlier this month aimed at addressing a rise in threats against school board officials around the country.
In an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Garland defended the intent of the memo that had called for the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Offices around the country to convene meetings with local officials to discuss strategies aimed at addressing the increase in threats.
“All it asks is for federal law enforcement to consult with, meet with local law enforcement to assess the circumstances, strategize about what may or may not be necessary, provide federal assistance if it is necessary,” Garland said.
Republicans, though, sought to characterize Garland’s directive as an order for FBI agents to investigate and pursue parents voicing concerns at school board meetings — which in recent months have been venues of intense debate over issues like policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and the teaching of race issues in American history.
Garland’s initial memo followed a letter sent by the National School Board Association to the White House that had requested federal assistance in addressing threats they argued should, in some cases, be classified as acts of “domestic terrorism.”
Following widespread backlash from Republicans and several state attorneys general, the NSBA issued an apology Monday for some of the language it included in the letter.
Asked over and over by Republicans whether he regretted issuing the memo following the NSBA’s apology, Garland said he did not.
“I have the letter from NSBA that you’re referring to and it apologizes for language in the letter, but it continues its concern about the safety of school officials and school staff,” Garland said in an exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “The language in the letter that they disavow is language that was never included in my memo and never would have been. I did not adopt every concern that they had in their letter. I adopted only the concern about violence and threats of violence and that hasn’t changed.”
But the explanation did not stop Republicans in the more than 4-hour hearing from falsely accusing Garland of “siccing” the FBI and DOJ’s national security division on parents, as Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., accused Garland of doing in one exchange.
“This is shameful, this here, this testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful,” Cotton said. “Thank God you’re not on the Supreme Court. You should resign in disgrace, judge.”
“I wish if senators were concerned about this that they would quote my words,” Garland responded. “This memorandum is not about parents being able to object in their school boards. They are protected by the First Amendment as long as there are no threats of violence, they are completely protected.”
Garland also denied suggestions from lawmakers like Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., that the White House effectively used him for political purposes by transmitting the NSBA’s letter to the Justice Department in order to have him take action to try and “intimidate parents.”
“Either you were just a vessel of political comms staffers at the White House or you yourself are in favor of politicizing the DOJ,” Sasse said.
“The purpose of this memorandum is to get our law enforcement to assess the extent of the problem and if there is no problem — if states and local law enforcement are capable of handling the problem, then there is no need for our involvement in it,” Garland said in response. “This memo does not say to begin prosecuting anybody. It says to make assessments. That’s what we do in the Justice Department, it has nothing to do with politics.”
Democrats in the hearing in several instances jumped to Garland’s defense, with Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., using time near the hearing’s close to read off a list of incidents in recent months involving harassment or threats against school board officials.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Illi., also admonished the GOP members of the committee for their characterization of the memo.
“I wish my colleagues would reflect for a single moment as to why that memo is important not just for school board members, but to send a message across America that there’s a line we’re going to draw when it comes to political expression,” Durbin said. “When you say words, when you wave your arms, that’s all protected. When you threaten someone with violence or engage in acts of violence that is never going to be protected and shouldn’t be.”
(TEHRAN, Iran) — Iran has agreed to restart negotiations over its nuclear program next month, its chief negotiator said Wednesday.
Those talks, in which Iran and the U.S. have engaged through intermediaries, come as the Obama-era nuclear deal hangs by a thread and amid warnings about Iran’s nuclear advances since Iran halted talks in June.
It’s unclear whether an agreement has been reached to resume talks, when they would begin and whether Iran still has preconditions like sanctions relief. Iran’s top negotiator, deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani, said the “exact date will be announced next week.”
A State Department spokesperson told ABC News the administration had “seen the reports but do not have any further details about a possible return to Vienna talks in November.”
Iran had halted those talks in the Austrian capital right before its presidential election in June, saying for months now that the new administration of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi needed time to transition and formulate his team.
But during that halt, Iran has advanced its nuclear program — expanding its stockpile of enriched uranium, enriching uranium to higher levels, spinning more centrifuges and more advanced ones — alarming U.S. officials.
It has also obstructed the work of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, whose chief said last week its monitoring ability is “no longer intact.”
The Biden administration has increasingly warned that while the door is still open to diplomacy, time is running out before restoring the deal would be pointless because of how advanced Iran’s nuclear program had become.
“This window will not remain open forever as Iran continues to take provocative nuclear steps, so we hope that they come to Vienna to negotiate quickly and in good faith,” the State Department spokesperson said Wednesday in a statement.
To critics, that window should have already been closed, while many analysts warned that Iran is still stalling, even as it talks about resuming negotiations.
“If they continue to stall while advancing their nuclear program, there may come a time when the U.S. or Israel turn to ‘plan B’,” tweeted Nicholas Miller, a Dartmouth College professor who researches nuclear proliferation.
The top U.S. negotiator, special envoy for Iran Rob Malley, said Monday there’s “shared impatience” with Iran among the U.S. and other negotiating parties — Russia, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union, which coordinated the previous six rounds of talks.
“Time is not on our side. The JCPOA cannot survive forever,” Malley added, using an acronym for the nuclear deal’s formal name.
But there’s still a “strong preference for diplomacy, for an effort to revive the JCPOA,” he said, and said there’s “willingness” and “determination” from the Biden administration to make it happen.
On Wednesday, Bagheri met with Enrique Mora, a senior European Union diplomat who had been facilitating the talks. After their “serious and constructive conversation,” Bagheri tweeted, Iran “agreed to start negotiations by the end of November.”
But his boss, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, also said Wednesday that while Iran would restart talks, it would not resume them with what had been agreed upon by June — jettisoning months of previous negotiations. He also called on the U.S. to release $10 billion of Iranian funds frozen by U.S. sanctions to build confidence ahead of any agreement.
That’s a sign of how far apart the new U.S. and Iranian governments are. Even if the parties convene again in Vienna, it will be a long road ahead to revive the deal.
As Abdollahian reiterated, Iran has demanded that the U.S. lift sanctions first, since it was former President Donald Trump who first violated the deal by exiting and reimposing sanctions. But President Joe Biden has committed to not lifting any sanctions until Iran returns to compliance — what his administration calls a “mutual return” to the deal — amid continued domestic criticism of the original agreement in Washington.
In the meantime, as Iranian centrifuges continue to spin, Iran hawks in the U.S. and Israel warn that it’s too late for diplomacy and that other options, including a possible military strike, must be considered.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not engaged questions about a strike but told reporters two weeks ago the Biden administration was considering “every option to deal with the challenge posed by Iran.”
“We, of course, retain all other options to be able to deal with this program as necessary,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday. “But beyond that, I’m not going to comment further because we believe there still is an opportunity to resolve this diplomatically.”
(NEW YORK) — Imagine being a mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and months later you find out your daughter was diagnosed as well. This is the reality two mother-daughter duos faced over the last year.
Sonia Jeffers and her daughter, Mysean Powell, from Savannah, Georgia, and Diana Serano and her daughter, Miriam Fajardo, from Miami, opened up on “The View” Wednesday about the unexpected journey of battling breast cancer side by side.
Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a breast oncologist from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, also joined to shed light on their situation.
“For a mother and a daughter to be diagnosed at the same time is not so common,” Comen said. “What is relatively common is for a woman who’s been diagnosed with breast cancer to have a first-degree relative, such as a mother or a sister or a daughter, who’ve been diagnosed.”
She went on to say that “between 10% to 20% of women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer do have a first-degree relative who’s had breast cancer,” and that “about 5% to 10% of those women will have inherited a known genetic mutation.”
Jeffers, a 53-year-old veteran with two daughters, went to her routine mammogram in 2020 and later received a letter saying she needed to come back to the office. After another series of tests, her doctor called to inform her that she tested positive for breast cancer.
“I just screamed at the to top my lungs, ‘No, no, no, not me,'” she said on “The View.” To make matters worse, she lost the job the same day as her diagnosis, which put a “big financial strain” on her and the family.
Because Jeffers’ diagnosis carried the BRCA2 gene, Powell and her sister had an increased risk of developing breast cancer.
With her mom pushing her to get tested, Powell went and ultimately found out that she had breast cancer. “It was scary because at 32, you don’t hear about us getting breast cancer, so I just broke down,” she said.
“To find out that my child had it, I had to make sure that she makes it through it whether I make it through it or not,” Jeffers said.
“To have someone who’s there to understand everything you’re going through — the hurt, the pain, the tiredness — it was definitely a blessing,” Powell said.
Powell began chemotherapy in October 2020. She told “The View” that young women should examine themselves monthly to check for abnormalities because “who know[s] your body better than you?”
After getting treatment, Jeffers was considered cancer-free on Oct. 19, 2020, and rang a bell to signal the end of her treatment. Nearly a year later, on Oct. 14, Jeffers’ doctor told her the breast cancer returned and metastasized to her stomach.
Her doctors now say her cancer is stage 4 terminal.
Despite the news, Jeffers’ message to those going through metastatic breast cancer is don’t give up. “Just because I have a prognosis of terminal cancer don’t mean that you have to give up on life and give into the prognosis. Fight to continue to live even though it’s terminal,” she said.
Serano is a 60-year-old mother and grandmother who also went for her routine mammogram in 2020 and everything checked out healthy. Nine months later, she felt a lump in her breast and was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“Hearing that my results were positive was a really scary feeling,” Serano said. “I was thinking about my children, my grandchildren, my mother.”
Her daughter, Fajardo, was with her when she was diagnosed. “It was very emotional, but at the same time, I was very optimistic,” she said. During her mother’s diagnosis, she also felt a lump in her breast and “decided to be an advocate” for herself and get a mammogram.
Serano knew that her daughter was at her doctor’s appointment and decided to give her a call. “When she answered the phone, all she said to me was, ‘I’m OK, mom, I’m OK.’ So right away I knew that it wasn’t OK,” she said.
Being that Fajardo is only 30 years old and her mother was diagnosed with the same type of breast cancer three months prior, she said the diagnosis came as a “huge shock” to her. “A positive mindset, it’s extremely important,” she said.
“My mother and I, we know and understand that we’re going to have bad days and that’s OK. That doesn’t mean you’re not strong,” she continued. “She lifts me and I lift her. We’re each other’s rock.”
“We lift each other,” Serano said. “On my bad day, Miriam lifts me. On Miriam’s bad day, I lift her.”
After six rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, Fajardo was considered cancer-free and rang the bell in celebration.
To help with the financial struggles these women have went through during their breast cancer treatments, woman-owned company and “The View” sponsor 84 Lumber gave $25,000 each to Jeffers, Powell, Serano and Fajardo.
“It will surely help,” Jeffers said in reaction to the surprise. “We’re truly grateful.”
HBO has set a release date for their upcoming docu-series Black and Missing, a program which discusses how systemic behaviors stem from “centuries of deeply rooted racism.”
The four-part series, which comes from Emmy winner Geeta Gandbhir and journalist Soledad O’Brien, will debut on HBO with back-to-back episodes on Tuesday, November 23 at 8 p.m ET. The final two episodes will air the next day on November 24 at the same time. In addition to exploring crime-related stories and the issues surrounding them, the anthology is said to “expose the stark disparity in the media coverage of white and Black missing persons.”
In other news, Kirby Howell-Baptiste has been added to the cast of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, the forthcoming Netflix film adaptation of the short story by Stephen King, Deadline has learned. She joins Jaeden Martell, Donald Sutherland and Joe Tippett, who were previously announced. Like the story by King, the film will center on Craig, a young boy who bonds with an elderly reclusive billionaire and discovers that he can communicate with him after passes via an iPhone. Howell-Baptiste will play Craig’s caring and concerned teacher, Ms. Hart. A release date for Mr. Harrigan’s Phone has not yet been announced.
Finally, Nicole Ari Parker, who will star in the upcoming Sex and the City HBO Max reboot, And Just Like That…, says the new series will tackle issues around race. In an interview with Variety, Parker says “some of [their storylines] will deal with race and deal with real experiences.” As previously reported, And Just Like That… will follow Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis‘ characters “as they navigate their friendship in their 50s. It hits HBO Max in December.
