Tag Archives: Black Lives Matter
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Insert Foot: Jason Aldean was born a century late
Insert Foot says the new song by Jason Aldean brilliantly lays out the case for “The Andy Griffith Show” being the American norm in 2023 and if you don’t like it, they’ll punch you in the face. I’ve been trying to ignore last week’s Jason Aldean controversy for a…
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Daniel J. Willis: The worst of 2020 in music, and everything else
Editor Daniel J. Willis’ reaction to just about everything this year. Here’s his 2020 in review. The last couple years I’ve done a column of the Worst of the Year in Music. This is not a normal year. It’s been so bad that the worst of music is, at…
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Classical music meets hip-hop with Kev Choice, AÏMA the DRMR in SF Symphony video series
Kev Choice in SF Symphony’s ‘From Scratch,’ Courtesy: Kim Huynh. The San Francisco Symphony, not able to play any concerts since March, has pivoted to alternative programming over the last couple of months, including video and podcast series CURRENTS, illustrating the connection between classical music and the music of…
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Stockton poet and America’s Got Talent hopeful Brandon Leake: ‘The poem changes as the years go on’
Brandon Leake performs in season 15 of ‘America’s Got Talent’ in Los Angeles on Sept. 1, 2020. Courtesy: Trae Patton/NBC. By the time Stockton poet Brandon Leake blew the “America’s Got Talent” judges and audience away on Sept. 1 with “Pookie”—about his mother’s fear every time he left their…
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REWIND kneeling in protest for Jacob Blake
Jacob Blake This is supposed to be a humor column about music. This week there will be no music and there will be no humor. This is a call to action for Jacob Blake, and for decency. In response to the murder of George Floyd in May and the…
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Oakland’s Damian Lillard on how we can be allies to Black people in the Bay Area
Damian Lillard walks arm in arm with other Black Lives Matter protestors on the Morrison Bridge in Portland, Oregon on June 4, 2020. Photos courtesy: Bruce Ely/Trail Blazers. A day prior to getting his first on-court action in more than four months in the Portland Trail Blazers’ first scrimmage…
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REWIND: Please enjoy some of the best punk and metal by Black musicians
Welcome back to RIFF Rewind’s ongoing Black History Month, scheduled to continue until someone in a position of authority takes meaningful steps to addressing racial inequality in America! Which means eventually we’re just going to have to rename the column because, as I went over last week, that hasn’t…
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REWIND: To honor Juneteenth, five surprisingly recent civil rights advances
“The Problem We All Live With” by Norman Rockwell, depicting Ruby Bridges in 1960. Happy belated Juneteenth! As part of my ongoing Black History Month series, which will last until I say it’s done even if it takes more than a month, I had planned to explain to you…
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INTERVIEW: KT Tunstall on reminding fans to ‘Wash Ya Hands,’ England’s slave trade protest
KT Tunstall performs at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on Oct. 19, 2018. Joaquin Cabello/STAFF. With COVID-19 cases surging across the United States and around the world, it seems people are already forgetting the lessons we learned back in March about how to slow the spread of…
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Insert Foot: Lady Antebellum or Lady A: what exactly is in a name?
Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF. Lady A, also known as the artists formerly known as Lady Antebellum, isn’t having a good week. Neither is Lady A. One moment … The part about not having a good week … month … year, is definitely going around. But the alleged misunderstanding that caused…
