After conquering the Billboard charts with Bad Boy Entertainment, the beverage industry with Ciroc, fashion with Sean John, and both film and television with Revolt Films and Revolt TV, the man who once warned us he “can’t stop, won’t stop” has introduced his latest contribution to the culture: the Revolt Summit.
No, we don’t mean a reprisal of their genius Jackson 5 family costume (above). This year, the fictional family we know and love as the Johnsons are taking an eerily familiar approach to the group costume, revisiting perhaps the most terrifying film of the year—and one of the blackest.
By STEVE PEOPLES, ALEXANDRA JAFFE and HUNTER WOODALL Associated Press
MUSCATINE, Iowa (AP) — Look no further than Pearl City Station, a plain brick building set along the banks of the Mississippi River, to understand the growing sense of uncertainty seeping into the Democratic Party’s 2020 primary contest.
Inside, 200 Iowa Democrats recently sized up Joe Biden, the former vice president and one of their party’s leading presidential candidates. He engenders respect and admiration but generates little excitement.
One elderly man sitting in the back of the room fell asleep as the former vice president shared his vision for America’s future in unusually hushed tones for nearly 45 minutes without taking questions.
Afterward, David Metz, a member of the county Democratic committee, said that despite a campaign season that has already featured millions of dollars spent, countless miles logged and four debates staged, there is a deepening feeling of indecision among local voters who now have less than 100 days to finalize their 2020 pick.
“Nobody knows what to do,” Metz said. “They’re all afraid. There’s a lot of anxiety.”
In almost every campaign cycle, there comes a phase of indifference, fear and difficult questions. But in the 2020 cycle, Democratic officials hoped that the fervent desire to beat Trump would eventually lead to an enthusiastic embrace of its presidential field.
The lack of enthusiasm for Biden’s candidacy underscores a broader trend emerging in the states that matter most in the Democratic Party’s high-stakes presidential nomination fight: Primary voters appear to be getting less certain of their choice as Election Day approaches.
The historically large field, while in part of measure of the desire to oust the incumbent president, has also made it harder for the top contenders to forge a more focused contest. Nine Democrats so far have qualified for the party’s November debate and a dozen more are still fighting for attention. Among the top tier, the liabilities of Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, in particular, are becoming more visible as Iowa’s Feb. 3 caucuses approach.
Major donors and party leaders across the country have publicly and privately raised concerns about the direction of the primary election recently as well. But interviews with dozens of primary voters across Iowa and New Hampshire in recent days reveal a pervasive feeling of unease.
Polling suggests that the number of undecided voters in Iowa has jumped significantly in recent weeks. And even among those who have a favorite candidate, most say they could change their mind before voting begins.
Tom Steyer, a billionaire progressive activist, is among those lower-tier candidates aggressively fighting to capitalize on the uncertainty. He’s vowed to spend at least $100 million of his own money in the campaign, although he acknowledged in a weekend interview that his investment could shift up or down depending on conditions on the ground.
“We’re three months out from Iowa and we thought that there would be a lot of indecision, but it’s definitely higher than we would have expected. No question,” Steyer said. “That is something that has to be true if I’m going to win. And it is true.”
Just ask the voters.
In New Hampshire, Greg Bruss, a 68-year-old retired teacher, says he’s usually volunteering for a candidate by this time in the primary cycle. That’s not the case this year as he mulls voting for either Sanders or Warren.
“The times are that much more dire,” Bruss said. “I don’t want to get it wrong.”
Former New Hampshire state Sen. Bette Lasky says she’s impressed with the Democratic field, but she’s remained on the sidelines as well, even after hosting house parties for several candidates.
“Generally, I don’t have trouble making up my mind,” she said. “But (it’s) difficult for me to get out there behind any one candidate.”
Back in Iowa, 43-year-old Waterloo school employee Danielle Borglum said she expected to finalize her decision after watching the last debate, but she couldn’t do it.
“I didn’t realize the amount of people that we had as candidates!” Borglum said. “So many people have a plan. Is anyone really right?”
Bev Alderson, a 59-year-old retired teacher from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, said she has “a couple of frontrunners, but they’re not etched in stone.”
“There’s too much to be said yet. There’s too many things that are happening and going on, it’s just too early,” she said.
While significant, history suggests that the uncertainty currently defining the 2020 primary season is not totally unique.
Before Iowa’s 2004 contest, for example, former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean all led the polls at times before then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry made a late surge to win.
And three months before Iowa’s 2008 Democratic caucuses, most polls had Hillary Clinton with a significant lead over John Edwards and a little-known Illinois senator named Barack Obama. Obama, of course, went on to win the Iowa caucuses by almost 8 points and Clinton finished third.
That history, backed by polling that shows most voters could still change their minds, is convincing low-polling underdog candidates to keep fighting.
“One of the things I’ve learned by listening to the people of Iowa is they tend to make up their minds fairly close to caucus night,” former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke told reporters during a forum in Des Moines last week.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who hasn’t topped 3% in any Iowa poll since April, said he was encouraged by a crowd of 200 that showed up to see him speak the night before. He said he’s getting a clear message from voters who say, “‘I’m excited about you — you’re first on my list, or you’ve moved up from four to two,’ which I’m learning is really important in the Iowa caucuses.”
And former Housing Secretary Julian Castro warned supporters last week that he’d need to raise $800,000 by the end of the month to keep his campaign alive. But he, too, seized on the large number of undecideds.
The primary campaign, Castro said, is “more unstable than it’s ever been.”
“You have a lot of people in these polls that, even though they express a preference for one candidate or another, are saying that they can still change their mind,” he said. He added: “Three months is probably 10 lifetimes in politics.”
Jennifer Konfrst, a first-term Iowa state senator, agrees.
She’s supporting Booker, but she says many of her friends have already changed their minds about which candidate they like best.
“So many of my friends have three top choices — and they’re not the same three,” she said. “Anybody who says they know what’s going to happen is lying.”
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Woodall reported from Manchester, New Hampshire.
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This story has been corrected to show that Booker hasn’t topped 3% in any Iowa poll since April, not that he hasn’t topped 2% since June.
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By ASHRAF KHALIL Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dave Chappelle has built a career on pushing boundaries and challenging social conventions. But his greatest act of defiance may have come Sunday night at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
At the end of an evening of tributes and testimonials, Chappelle came on stage to accept his Mark Twain prize for lifetime achievement in comedy with a lit cigarette in hand.
“I want every in America to look at me smoking indoors,” He announced. “I didn’t ask anybody. What are they going to do? Kick me out? This is called leverage!”
A host of comedians and musicians paid tribute to Chappelle, 46, describing him as a uniquely gifted and passionate performer with a sort of pied piper appeal that drew other artists into his circle.
Rapper and actor Common praised Dave Chappelle’s bravery and sociological influence.
“He’s a beacon for a lot of different progressive thought,” he said as he entered the Kennedy Center Sunday night.
“He’s always been a leader in thought and culture. He says provocative things and I respect that. He brings uncomfortable things up and now we have to discuss it,” he said. “I think he’s one of the greatest, not just entertainers, but the greatest minds we have in this day and age.”
Michael Che, co-host of Weekend Update on “Saturday Night Live” called Chappelle, “the entertainment equivalent of what they call a five-tool player in baseball. He can perform, he can write, he can do characters. That’s why his fan-base is so wide.”
Sunday night’s ceremony was a homecoming for Chappelle, 46, who as raised in suburban Silver Spring, Maryland and attended Washington’s prestigious Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
“Going there was one of the great privileges of my life,” he said on the red carpet. “D.C. in the ’80s was turbulent and I met a bunch of young black artists who taught me it was OK to be different. It was OK to be weird.”
Chappelle was already a well-established comedian and comedic actor when he was given his own sketch comedy show in 2003.
The show on Comedy Central, “Chappelle’s Show,” was an immediate hit. It combined clever parodies that often tweaked racial conventions with uniquely staged musical productions featuring hip-hop and soul artists.
At the height of his popularity, Chappelle shocked the entertainment industry by walking away from a lucrative contract extension and abandoning the show while it was preparing for its third season. He disappeared from public view and took an extended trip to Africa. He later explained that the pressures of the show’s success and the influence applied by the network made him feel “like some kind of a prostitute.”
Chappelle gradually returned to performing, more powerful than ever, and now releases regular stand-up specials under a multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix. The departure from his own hit show made him an inspirational symbol for artists and comedians, particularly minorities, for his willingness to sacrifice profit to retain his independence.
Jon Stewart, former host of the “The Daily Show,” spoke of Chappelle’s decision with respect, saying he and other comedians were in awe of, “the courage that it takes as a performer or an artist to stand for who you know you are — to take a chance on yourself.”
Common added, “For someone to say, ‘I’m stepping away from this because it just doesn’t feel right in my soul.’ Not a lot of people think like that.”
Musician John Legend paid tribute to Chappelle’s passion for music and determination to use his influence to spotlight different artists. At the height of his fame, Chappelle organized “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party” — a movie built around an all-star concert featuring Legend, the Roots and a reunion of The Fugees.
“He’s a gifted curator who blends different worlds seamlessly,” Legend said. “That’s why you see so many musicians coming to this stage to pay tribute.”
Chappelle spoke with reverence about the Mark Twain prize and the “art form” of stand-up comedy. He noted that the list of previous recipients reads like a roll call of his heroes, including Richard Pryor and George Carlin.
“To be on a list with Richard Pryor is just unfathomable to me,” Chappelle said. “The shoulders that I stand on are all here on this list.”
The ceremony will be broadcast Jan. 7 on PBS.
The post Boundary-pushing Dave Chappelle receives Mark Twain Award appeared first on theGrio.
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