Lil Nas X has become the most unlikely darling dude of country music, making history as the first openly gay entertainer to win a Country Music Association Award.
The “Old Town Road” rapper and his co-collaborator Billy Ray Cyrus has seen huge success with the folksy head-bopping rap jam. And on Wednesday the dynamic-odd-duo won for musical event of the year, which includes Cyrus’ rap solo on the song’s remixed version, Out Magazine reports.
“LETS GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! 🐎 ⚡,” Lil Nas X tweeted on Wednesday, celebrating his historic win.
“I wasn’t sure if this was going to be able to happen tonight,” he told reporters USA Today reports. “I’m so happy this song was accepted because it is the bridging of two polar opposite genres. I’m happy it’s gotten respect from both places.”
Earlier this year, Lil Nas X‘s smash single “Old Town Road” was removed from country charts. In a twist of irony, he later found himself nominated for a Country Music Award at the 53rd annual celebration of the genre.
The trap-infused, remix which was nominated for the Musical Event of the Year category, was even up against country music vets Brooks & Dunn and Garth Brooks.
According to the Huffington Post, the original version of “Old Town Road” first hit the web in December. However, it did not begin to catch the attention of the masses until March. As it began to ascend up the Hot Country Songs chart, it was also removed in March. Billboard cited the reason for the exclusion as the single not containing the “elements of today’s country music to chart.”
After the removal outrage spanned social media, the history of racism, in particular with Black artists and country music, arose. In April, Billy Ray Cyrus spoke out in support of the young star, spawning the first of many remixes to the song.
And when Lil Nas X came out as gay at the end of June, his song still continued to skyrocket and became the longest-running No. 1 single ever to hit the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.
“My introduction to MIT was an interesting one,” says Jaleesa Trapp, a graduate student in the MIT Media Lab. “MIT came to me.”
That introduction came in the form of an afterschool program called the Computer Clubhouse in Trapp’s hometown of Tacoma, Washington. The program, founded by the Media Lab research group Lifelong Kindergarten and run by the The Clubhouse Network, is a technology-based learning environment for high school students that has been introduced to 100 underserved neighborhoods in over 20 countries. At the Clubhouse, Trapp learned graphic design, coding, video editing, and robotics, and she was introduced to a wide spectrum of possible STEM careers.
Now, Trapp is working toward her PhD in the very same research group. Informed by many happy hours spent at the Clubhouse, her undergraduate studies, and her experience teaching high school, she aims to study the different ways youth, particularly black and brown youth, interact with computers and technology. She is especially curious about nonstandard human-computer interfaces — technologies distinct from desktop or laptop interactions.
Shaking things up
The Clubhouse in Tacoma was in close proximity to Trapp’s high school, yet it felt worlds away. “I hated high school, but I liked going to the Clubhouse,” she says. “It was like I was in two different worlds. My teachers had no idea that at the Clubhouse I was creating these interactive CD-ROMs and doing all types of things.”
Trapp’s experience at the Clubhouse, along with a high school internship at Microsoft, crystallized her interest in using technology to solve problems for people. She received her undergraduate degree at the University of Washington in human-centered design and engineering with a concentration in human-computer interactions.
After college, Trapp spent a year with AmeriCorps before returning to the Clubhouse as a coordinator, running the program she had attended just a few years before. After a year working solely at the Clubhouse, she was approached by local educators to teach high school. She hesitated at first but then realized the impact she could have. “I ended up going back to teach high school [because] I wanted to give more youth the opportunity to have the same Clubhouse experience I did — but inside the classroom. Not all students can come to an afterschool program, so I try to find a way to do that inside the school.”
Trapp describes her pedagogical approach as a bit unorthodox. She recalls a computer science class in which she taught students how to make their own playdough to use with Makey Makey, software that allows children to make their own controllers with conductive objects. “The way that I run things, when I go to other teachers’ classrooms I know they think, ‘She’s letting these kids run wild!’ I like going and shaking things up.”
Returning to kindergarten
After teaching for three years, Trapp wanted to apply her skills and her proclivity for shaking things up to the world of academic research. When she applied to the Media Lab, the Lifelong Kindergarten Group was a natural fit. The group is inspired by the way learning occurs in kindergarten — through building and experimenting — and aims to expand that concept to other technologies and learning experiences.
One of the strengths of the program, she says, is the diverse backgrounds of others in the Media Lab. "Kind of like the real world!” she laughs. “We all have these different skills and knowledge to bring to work on a project, which I think makes it a lot more dynamic than if we were to work alone.”
Despite the diversity of backgrounds, Trapp notes that she is one of just a few black students in the Media Lab, which at times makes her feel hypervisible: “I change my hair a lot. I wear a lot of braids and twists and stuff. And just the comments about my hair, asking why it’s so different … just having to answer that type of question is really exhausting. Like, you get to come here and be a student, and I get to come here and teach you about black hair … and then be a student.”
Empowering her students
Trapp has channeled the added pressure she feels as a minority student into her master’s thesis, which she recently finished. It’s an antiracist learning guide that helps educators engage marginalized youth in STEM activities by creating an equitable learning space. One important way to do that, Trapp explains, is by shifting power: “Even just the way we do introductions, allowing students to stand up there and say their names instead of [teachers] butchering their names, asking them their preferred name, giving them that power, asking them what they value.”
“I don’t have rules in my classroom,” she adds. “They come in and as a group we decide, how do we want to treat each other in this space? How do we want to treat this space, and how do we hold each other accountable for it? And by doing that, if something happens I can always remind them, ‘You set this up, not me, and I’m also held accountable to it.’” Trapp looks forward to using her master’s thesis work as a foundation for her PhD thesis, but with more of a focus on how youth interact with computing.
As she gears up for her next four years in Boston, Trapp admits she misses her beloved Tacoma, where her strongest support system remains. (The town raised thousands of dollars after she was admitted to MIT, to help her to move to campus and settle in.) She also feels a responsibility to the youth of Tacoma.
“I think I’m so invested because I want to be able to give opportunities that I didn’t have,” she says. “If there were more opportunities like the Clubhouse … I think that could inspire kids to do other things, and know that they’re capable, and know that there’s more out there. And then, hopefully, they would still want to give back to Tacoma, too. For the future of Tacoma, I want kids to know that they can go and do anything that they want to do.”
As a filmmaker and attorney, I tell stories and I represent people who tell stories. As a filmmaker, my goal is always to make movies that have a social justice focus, but that are also funny and entertaining.
My latest film, BURDEN details the macro and micro-aggressions we face as men of color in this society. I wrote in response to a discussion of what happened to the two men in a Starbucks in Philadelphia in April 2018.
90 DAYS starred Teyonah Parris and Pauletta Washington and dealt with HIV/AIDS in the heterosexual black community. The film literally toured the world, opening up dialogue on the topic in our communities across the African Diaspora and in Africa. It won many awards including multiple awards at Cannes and an African Academy Award. More importantly, it started young to old people talking about this disease that is still ravaging our community when it doesn’t have to do so anymore.
I also write books and have done several TV shows. The thru-line in all of my projects as a filmmaker and attorney is uplifting, empowering, and celebrating our people.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF IN LIFE?
I am most proud of my relationships with my family and my friends. The love I have in my life is the fuel that keeps me going when showbiz and entrepreneurship gets rough. My family is a traditional tight-knit, wisecracking and all-loving black family from the Southside of Chicago. I also pride myself on having the same friends for literally my entire life. When you have a solid foundation under you anything is possible, and I am proud that I have maintained, nurtured and supported the people that mean the most to me.
HOW HAVE YOU TURNED STRUGGLE INTO SUCCESS?
After living in New York City for almost 15 years, I decided I needed to move to Los Angeles to give my career as a writer/director a boost. I had been majorly successful in New York and had firmly established myself there. I moved to LA right after my 39th birthday. Little did I know that the first year in LA would be one of the most difficult years ever in my life.
Almost a year later, I celebrated my 40th birthday and things still hadn’t improved. My birthday party underscored that I was alone in a new place. It was filled with people, just not with the people that mattered most to me. It depressed me and I went into a week-long funk, secluded in my house.
By the weekend, I had enough of my pity party and knew I had to do something. I had to take the pain I was feeling and use it as fuel to change my circumstances. So the Sunday after my 40th birthday, I sat down and wrote my award-winning film, 90 DAYS, in 6 hours. That little film changed my life and firmly cemented me as a writer/director in Hollywood.
WHO WAS YOUR GREATEST MALE ROLE MODEL AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM HIM?
My grandaddy aka “Big Daddy” was the epitome of what it meant to be a man. He worked hard. He wanted to learn things. He was a man of principle, integrity, and honor. He loved his family first and most. And he was dedicated to excellence in whatever he did. Whether it be the two jobs he worked for 30 years—driving a CTA bus and working for the Post Office—to being a 33rd Degree Mason, to the job that was most important to him: being a loving husband, father, and grandfather. I think about Big Daddy often and I always want to make sure I carry his legacy of excellence forward in my work as a filmmaker and attorney.
WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?
My mother always told me to, “Never give up and always do your best.”
HOW ARE YOU PAYING IT FORWARD TO SUPPORT OTHER BLACK MALES?
My entire mission is to make sure I am not the last of anything. As a filmmaker and attorney, I make it a point to hire and mentor younger black men in entertainment. Just as Ava DuVernay does with women, I do the same to make sure my editors, my producers, my crew are made up of a lot of black men.
I have also volunteered for organizations like College Summit/Peer Forward, which helps young black men (and women) who might not otherwise go to college prepare, apply and go to college.
HOW DO YOU DEFINE MANHOOD?
I define manhood as the acceptance and execution of responsibility, duty and your place in the world. It also is the courage to stand for your convictions and the confidence to love who you are.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT BEING A BLACK MAN?
I love the strength we have. Walking through this society as a black man and not merely surviving but thriving is a Herculean feat. I love that we are complex. I love that we are full of joy when we are given the space to express it. I love the way we move through the world—our swag is undeniable.
I want black men and women to really understand and embrace the extent of our power. We are powerful beyond measure and the sky is just the beginning of what we can accomplish in unity for our community. Truly, you can decide to be and become whatever you want. We have that much power and I want us to know it!
BE Modern Man is an online and social media campaign designed to celebrate black men making valuable contributions in every profession, industry, community, and area of endeavor. Each year, we solicit nominations in order to select men of color for inclusion in the 100 Black Enterprise Modern Men of Distinction. Our goal is to recognize men who epitomize the BEMM credo “Extraordinary is our normal” in their day-to-day lives, presenting authentic examples of the typical black man rarely seen in mainstream media. The BE Modern Men of Distinction are celebrated annually at Black Men XCEL (www.blackenterprise.com/blackmenxcel/). Click this link to submit a nomination for BE Modern Man: https://www.blackenterprise.com/nominate/. Follow BE Modern Man on Twitter: @bemodernman and Instagram: @be_modernman.
For many, reaching the C-suite for senior executive officers may seem like the pinnacle of success. Power, prestige, the opportunity to make a lasting impact — not to mention that spacious corner office. But how do executives arrive at those top spots? What does it take to stay and thrive in the role? And what can we learn from the experience of others that can be applied to our own career paths?
Just as there are many incentives that drive an executive’s desire to land in the C-suite, so are there many potential paths to get there. That is especially true in today’s dynamic business environment, which demands that leaders be comfortable managing a state of nearly constant change.
Veteran executive advisor and coach Cassandra Frangos spent her career helping Fortune 500 companies assess and select C-suite executives. She shares her experiences and expertise with those seeking leadership positions in her recent book, “Crack the C-Suite Code: How Successful Leaders Make It to the Top.” The book includes interviews with dozens of CEOs and other C-suite executives from a broad range of companies and industries, as well as hundreds of executives who are likely to be C-suite candidates in the future. Frangos also interviewed the topmost experts in executive recruiting, leadership development, and management academia.
“I talked to as many C-suite executives as I could, across industries over a multi-year period — at conferences, networking events, and over the course of my everyday job. I got in the habit of asking them to tell me their stories,” Frangos shared in a recent webinar for MIT Sloan Executive Education. “Suddenly, I was the one asking the question: 'So, what did you do to reach C-suite?'”
With this research and inquiry as the backdrop — along with her keen interest in the intersection of psychology and business — Frangos offers a practical framework for how leaders can prepare for and achieve the corner office. This work has also informed a new program at MIT Sloan Executive Education, Strategies for Career Development: Charting Your Path to the C-Suite. The inaugural session of the program was held in September and received great reviews from participants who appreciated the insights, interactivity, and 360-degree assessments the program provides. Frangos teaches the program alongside MIT Sloan Professor Roberto Fernandez.
Trends to watch
“It’s an exciting time be in in the C-suite — and with it comes a lot of pressure,” says Frangos. “The digital economy changes everything; most CEOs have never before seen this much transformation.”
To manage this kind of change, today’s CEO needs to be both strategic and operational. They need to have a keen understanding of the current and future impact of technology on their business. And they need to be willing to recognize the areas of expertise they need to shore up. Frangos illustrates her points by sharing examples of specific strategies that real executives — including some household names — have used to ascend to the top of their organizations. Her experience offers a glimpse into the real work of succession and offers both inspiration and practical advice.
Another key trend for aspiring executives to watch is the move toward flatter organizational structures. This removes layers of management that can act as a barrier to change, and in turn puts the CEO in charge of more direct reports, making it easier for him or her to get a pulse on the business and act quickly and decisively based on this information.
Within this type of organizational structure, communication is key. The successful CEO needs to be able to clearly communicate their vision clearly to their colleagues, customers, investors, and, perhaps most importantly, to themselves. It is this last audience — understanding one’s own motivations for reaching the C-suite — that is at the core of Frangos’ research and recommendations.
Charting your path
Leaders who have their eye on the C-suite have likely already proven themselves as capable within their organization and in their field. Frangos offers ways to leverage this momentum to help these executives accelerate to the top. From the tenure track to the “leapfrog” path and options in-between, she offers a framework for advancement that is suited to an individual’s goals and strengths.
“When I assess executives who are getting ready to be promoted, I’m often surprised at how many don’t understand what their brand is within the organization,” she says. “For example, they may be very good operationally but need to be seen as more strategic to get to the next level.”
Frangos’ work explores ways leaders can evolve to better align with their leadership goals, as well as zeroing in on other factors that enhance or detract from a chance of success in the C-suite. She also offers proven career development strategies, regardless of where a person is in their organization. Importantly, her approach stresses the need for leaders to cultivate both professional and personal support networks.
Embarking on a path to the C-suite isn’t for the faint of heart, which is why it’s just as important for leaders to assess whether they truly have the appetite and determination to do the work and stay the course.
“Only you can control your destiny,” says Frangos. “No one is doing this for you. You have to chart your own path.”
Strategies for Career Development: Charting Your Path to the C-Suite will be held again in July and October 2020.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick announced Thursday he is running for president, making a late entry into the Democratic race less than three months before primary voting begins.
In an announcement video, Patrick highlighted his poverty-stricken childhood on Chicago’s South Side, saying he’s running for the “people who feel left out and left back.”
As the first in his family to go to college and law school, Patrick said, “I’ve had a chance to live my American Dream.” But over the years, the “path to that dream” has closed off for others, he said, as government and economy have been “letting us down.”
Patrick made history as the first Black governor of Massachusetts and has close ties to former President Barack Obama and his network of political advisers. But he faces significant fundraising and organizational hurdles this late in the race.
His announcement comes as some Democrats worry about the strength of the party’s current field of contenders. Another Democrat — former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — is also weighing a last-minute bid for the party’s nomination.
Bloomberg has taken steps toward launching a presidential campaign, filing candidate papers in Alabama and Arkansas. Even 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton this week said in a BBC interview that she is “under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it,” adding that she has no such plans but still would “never, never, never say never.”
The moves reflect uncertainty about the direction of the Democratic contest with no commanding front-runner. Joe Biden entered the race as the presumptive favorite and maintains significant support from white moderates and Black voters, whose backing is critical in a Democratic primary. But he’s facing spirited challenges from Patrick’s home-state senator, Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, progressives whose calls for fundamental economic change have alarmed moderates and wealthy donors.
Patrick acknowledged the challenges posed by his late entry in such a big field.
“When I was thinking about it many months ago, one of the questions was: How do you break though in a field this large and this talented without being a celebrity or sensationalist? And I’m none of those things,” Patrick said on CBS “This Morning.”
Patrick could present himself as a potential bridge across the moderate, liberal and progressive factions — as candidates like Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kamala Harris and Sen. Cory Booker are trying to do.
But the former governor faces significant hurdles to raise enormous amounts of money quickly and to build an organization in the traditional early voting states that most of his rivals have focused on for the past year. And he’ll have to pivot to the expensive and logistically daunting Super Tuesday contests, when voters in more than a dozen states and territories head to the polls. Bloomberg’s team has said they will skip the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to focus on the Super Tuesday roster.
It’s also a near certainty that Patrick — and possibly Bloomberg — wouldn’t make a Democratic debate stage until January, if at all, because of debate rules set by the party.
Those dynamics left some prominent Democrats questioning Patrick’s viability.
“Stop. We have enough candidates,” said Kathy Sullivan, a Democratic National Committee member from New Hampshire, which hosts the party’s first presidential primary following the Iowa caucuses.
Texas Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, whose state boasts the second-largest number of Super Tuesday delegates behind California, argued that donors and media are mistaken to think that rank-and-file Democrats see Biden, Warren and others as unable to take downPresident Donald Trump.
Besides, Hinojosa said, “most of the people you need to build out a campaign have already chosen sides.”
A former managing director for Bain Capital, Patrick has close ties to Wall Street donors. As only the nation’s second elected Black governor since Reconstruction, Patrick also could run as a historic boundary breaker trying to dent Biden’s support among African Americans — though Harris and Booker, the only two Black Democrats in the Senate, have been unable to do that thus far.
Patrick has remained active in politics since his term as governor ended in 2015. During the 2018 midterm elections, he traveled across the country in support of Democratic candidates, raising his national profile. He also campaigned for Doug Jones during Alabama’s contentious 2017 special election for U.S. Senate.
Last year, some of Patrick’s supporters and close advisers launched the Reason to Believe political action committee, which held meet-ups across the country, including in early presidential primary states.
By December, however, Patrick cooled to the idea of a presidential bid.
“After a lot of conversation, reflection and prayer, I’ve decided that a 2020 campaign for president is not for me,” Patrick posted on his Facebook page at the time. Patrick said he and his wife worried that the “cruelty of our elections process would ultimately splash back on people whom Diane and I love, but who hadn’t signed up for the journey.”
After Trump’s election, Patrick’s initial criticism of the Republican president was somewhat less pointed than other Democrats offered. “We need our presidents to succeed,” he said, while still expressing concern about what he described as Trump’s belittling of those with opposing points of view.
Patrick also urged the party at the time to look in the mirror, saying that “the outcome of the 2016 election was less about Donald Trump winning than Democrats and our nominee letting him do so.”
Early in his career, Patrick served as assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration and later worked as an executive at Texaco and Coca-Cola. Since leaving the governor’s office, Patrick has worked as a managing director for Bain Capital — a company co-founded by 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Patrick’s predecessor as governor.
Patrick’s Massachusetts record is mixed. His successes include helping oversee the 2006 health care law signed by Romney that would go on to serve as a blueprint for Obama’s 2010 health care law.
But Patrick was also forced to publicly apologize for a disastrous effort to transition to the federal health care law during which the state’s website performed so poorly it created a backlog of more than 50,000 paper applications.
Barrow reported from Atlanta. Peoples reported from Concord, N.H.
The former Scandal actress admitted that she gets quite a few texts sent to her phone that are meant for another KW – Kanye West.
Appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show, Washington said she’s figured out that she and Ye’s got quite a few friends in common, even though she doesn’t know him.
“We’re not friends but we have a lot of friends in common,” Washington explained.
Her name, she assumes, has been programmed as KW in several celebrity phones so she occasionally gets an accidental text meant for rapper.
“I think a lot of people have us programmed in their phone as ‘KW,’ so I’ll get a text like once a year where I’m like ‘That’s not for me.’ … This year if it happens I’m sure it will be something very pious and Godly,” she said referencing West’s news Christian quest.
Washington who appeared on Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons, also learned from Kimmel that she’s got a true friend in Will Ferrell.
Washington who played opposite Ferrell as Tom and Helen Willis from The Jeffersons was surprised when Kimmel told her that the actor advocated that she assume the role. That shocked her since she said she didn’t know him that well before.
“The only time I ever see him is in my pajamas at drop off,” at her kids school, Washington said in the clip. “But, I must’ve impressed him with my pajammies,” she said laughing.
Now the actress is joining the producing team to bring audiences a holiday episode of All in the Family and Good Times on December 18.
“You know what’s amazing to me is just how relevant these shows still are,” Washington said. “Still so funny, still so meaningful.”
Washington has her slate full and has also signed on to produce a new legal drama Reasonable Doubt through her production company, Simpson Street Productions partnering with Larry Wilmore and his Wilmore Films imprint along with ABC Studios.
