Noah is a deputy arts editor for the Daily. Noah is a sophomore studying cognitive brain science and can be reached at Noah.Goldstein673986@tufts.edu.
When asked to introduce himself during the interview, Zhu Keyu — a graduating fifth-year combined-degree student majoring in both fine arts and film and media studies — provided a layered answer.
Before Boots Riley redefined himself as a full-blown filmmaker with his 2018 film “Sorry To Bother You,” he was the established frontman of Oakland-based rap group The Coup. The group is a politically incendiary collective whose most popular records bear titles like “My Favorite Mutiny” and “5 Million Ways To Kill a C.E.O.” The son of a civil rights attorney and a Jewish refugee-turned-activist, Riley spent his teenage years organizing school walkouts and rising through the ranks of the Progressive Labor Party.
Has Gregg Araki ever truly been a provocateur, or is he just a breezy, sex-positive activist stuck in an important filmmaker’s body? The anarchic energy of his early work points to the former, but his latest, despite its provocative title “I Want Your Sex,” suggests he may have evolved into something closer to the latter — if there’s a difference between them at all.
In less than 50 days, the world’s biggest sporting event will come to American soil. It will arrive with a fair share of complications. The host nation — or rather, one of three — has instigated a vastly unpopular conflict with one of the participants. Haiti qualified for the first time in 50 years, and their fans can’t get into the country to watch. Hotel prices in host cities have dropped by a third. Somewhere within all this, Gianni Infantino is smiling — or trying to stop fecal matter from falling down his leg, or maybe something in between.
Boston is, and has for a long time been, a city of nascent artistic talents. Taking the Berklee College of Music alone, which graduates around 1,300 students each year, one would assume that a vibrant and expansive music scene would naturally follow. But, as it turns out, this assumption proves to be at best a half-truth. For as long as Boston has been a city teeming with the talents of clear-eyed and full-hearted college bands, it has likewise been the site of continuous struggle for performance and practice spaces, with most acts being confined to DIY basement shows or backyard gatherings.
Whenever March Madness rolls around, a sort of mythos always emerges surrounding the storylines and narratives that go into that year’s games. With every buzzer beater or Cinderella story, these legends are deepened, etching themselves into the history of what very well may be the most revered sporting event in the United States.
In the eyes of many, attending a rave is one of the ultimate forms of escapism. After all, few settings seem better suited to forgetting oneself than a haze of hallucinogens and EDM. Yet, as most ravers will tell you, the experience is less about losing their consciousness than discovering it.
When Baby Keem’s first studio album, “The Melodic Blue,” dropped in September 2021, a future of chart-topping superstardom seemed almost inevitable for the Las Vegas-raised rapper. Similar to the reception of his first hit single, “Orange Soda,” the album’s release was followed by near-universal praise, and for a while it looked as if Keem’s arrival as a mainstay of modern hip-hop had come ahead of schedule. The summer following the release of “The Melodic Blue” saw Keem playing to the world’s biggest crowds — four nights at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, two at London’s O2 Arena and a particularly memorable livestreamed stop in Paris — as a central presence on his cousin Kendrick Lamar’s Big Steppers Tour. He dropped seven fresh tracks as a deluxe album in October of the following year. Then he disappeared.
Rooting for the United States, whether it be in the Olympics, the World Cup or any other sporting event, almost always leads me to some degree of internal confusion. Sure, I’m as much of a red-blooded American as the next guy, but it’s often difficult to reconcile the instinct to root for the home team with the knowledge that its banner — so often touted as that of the ‘good guys’ — is emblematic of a nation flawed at its core.
If you need proof that time flies, consider that it’s already been 11 months since Nico Harrison dealt Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in what was, for my money, the biggest trade in NBA history.
