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SXSW: Witnessing Zealot Perfection At Jay Electronica’s Vevo House Performance

Brendan Bures
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SXSW: Witnessing Zealot Perfection At Jay Electronica’s Vevo House Performance

They call him Jay Electronica. His name is combustive, causing instant reaction from the right type of person. Usually that person is either a) a rap nerd or b) a 1-percent of the 1-percenter rich class, thanks to his two-year dalliance with a Rothschild. He is perhaps the most un-prolific rapper ever. Jay’s last official single is approaching a decade-old and he became 40 years old last year.

Outside of a few, yes, immaculate Soundcloud loosies in the form of “Better In Tune With The Infinite” and a “We Made It” Remix with Jay Z — whose record label he’s signed to — as well as some stellar guest verses, Jay Electronica has done little musically to warrant fans’ sustained caring. His debut album, Act II: Patents of Nobility (The Turn), is probably never coming out. It’s been maybe possibly dropping forever. It doesn’t help that Jay says things like “The album is a false concept anyways.” This album has reached Detox and Chinese Democracy levels of suspicious anticipation and remember: one of those albums was eventually released and the other will never come out. If he read that, I bet Jay would love that comparison.

Yet Jay Electronica is undeniable. When I heard he was performing at VEVO House during SXSW, I immediately knew I’d go. To not would be blasphemous. Jay’s songs are timeless, something closer to rap gospel than rap record, and still sound fresher than 99% of anything else released today (Just Blaze deserves some credit for this).

Within the past couple of years, being a rap consumer (any pop culture consumer, really) has become overwhelming. There are probably 17 records you need to hear (and now), six shows to binge, a Breakfast Club interview to watch, and further ancillary content to feed upon. This is why, more and more, I’m obsessed with perfect records. I prefer artists with one perfect record I know I’ll listen endlessly to during various stages of my life versus someone with 70 good-maybe-great tracks.

A loaded term, perfect, but I mean perfect in its own way and necessary to the art form. I can’t imagine living in a world without “Dead Presidents” or “Can I Kick It?” or “Ms. Jackson” or “Ultralight Beam.” Our world would be lesser, my life would be lesser, and many records derivative of those songs wouldn’t exist.


Not every popular artist has perfect records. Big Sean has never made a perfect record. Bruno Mars hasn’t (great? yes; perfect? no), Future hasn’t really (though he’s a game changer in other ways), The Chainsmokers (obviously) haven’t. J. Cole went double platinum with no features, but nope—no perfect record.

The moment Jay Electronica stepped on stage, the production for “Exhibit A” started, and Jay rapped, “I spit that Wonderama shit,” those of us in the audience were witnessing perfection. And everyone knew it. That sort of feeling isn’t rationally explained—not well, anyways—and the best evidence I can offer is it was the least amount of phones I’ve seen at a concert in years.

Okay, let me try again: Jay Electronica has this soothing stage presence to him. It’s that goofy, gold-capped smile of his, pure like a child’s glee. He instills you with joyful empathy, and reminds you more of a fun uncle than a rapper when he isn’t spitting. He steals drinks from the crowd like a lifelong friend might, confrontationally joking “There better not be no Molly in this,” before disarming you with that golden smile again.

The DJ plays the track, and Jay raps, and it flips back to watching living perfection. He would intermittently cut the production halfway through a song, and rap the rest a capella. Other rappers do this, but it often feels more like a gimmick. With Jay, you craned closer, wanting to hear him rap those words you’ve heard before.

I don’t mean to say Jay himself is perfect, by the way. Only that the songs, which he brings to life, are. Part of these slightly zealot vibes I’m delivering could be explained by the stage. Jay was almost a full story above us, backlit with rich blue and green and red lights. Smoke would blow through and swirl around, cloaking him.

But Jay knew this, and jumped down from stage twice to perform in the crowd. It brought everyone tighter around, encircling him as he performed. Of course the final song he performed was “Exhibit C,” the track that made his career and continues to give it life now. He cut the track once again, rapping the final words slower, elongating the moment everyone wished to remain in. The concert finished, and Jay in the crowd, the phones finally came out. A disjointed line formed, as everyone wanted to pose with the New Orleans MC, despite his musical disappearing act, despite the vitriol his name still embroiders online, despite his hyper idiosyncratic artistry. That line was long. But for Jay Electronica, they waited.

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Meet The Witch Who Invented Hair Color That Magically Changes With The Temperature

Sam Jones
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Meet The Witch Who Invented Hair Color That Magically Changes With The Temperature

Color-changing hair dye sounds like a Hollywood CGI stunt, but it’s real-life magic.

Unveiled at last month’s London Fashion Week, Lauren Bowker’s FIRE collection, for her company The Unseen, features hair color that shifts hues depending on the temperature. Think of it as a full-head mood ring.

Bowker, who also happens to be a practicing witch, explains on her website that her near-magical creation is inspired by “occult glamour – a spell cast on somebody to make them see something the spell-caster wishes them to see.

It sounds too whimsical to work, but there’s real chemistry behind the colors. WIRED details the science behind it:

When the temperature drops or rises, the carbon-based molecules at the core of the FIRE dye undergo a reversible reaction. Above a certain temperature change, one of the molecules in the carbon bond is more stable than the other, and so a reaction produces a molecule with a slightly different absorption of light, thus creating a different color.

But Bowker’s ambitions lie in something much bigger than fashion: She’s using data and technology to make topics like climate change and the environment more accessible to the rest of the world. She told Dazed:

“If I give you a book of data and say this is your carbon footprint, and say ‘look at what you’ve done it’s really bad’, you probably wouldn’t listen to it. But if I give you a jacket, put you behind a bus and that jacket changes color to visibly show you the pollution that surrounds you at that moment, you’re really going to understand it and have more of a connection to it. The reason I use color a lot as a data visualization in materials that we’re familiar with, is to allow people to see the bigger picture.”

Watch the enchanting color-change in action:

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Recreational Marijuana: 12,500 Marijuana Jobs In Oregon Generating $315 Million In Wages

MJ News Network
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Recreational Marijuana: 12,500 Marijuana Jobs In Oregon Generating $315 Million In Wages

Cannabis industry economist Beau Whitney of Whitney Economics today released the results of “Cannabis Employment Estimates,” a report compiled at the request of the Oregon State House of Representatives Committee on Economic Development and Trade on the number of marijuana jobs associated with the Oregon cannabis industry and a projection of the economic impact the industry is having on the state.

“On a national basis, the $50 billion cannabis market is essentially the equivalent to the U.S. wine market ($55 billion),” Whitney said. “And there are more than 1,000 businesses in Oregon that touch cannabis. I suspect that this is a very conservative estimate based on limited data from the Department of Employment and the OLCC.

In Summary, Whitney’s Report Found:

  • As of February 21, 2017, there are 917 OLCC licensed cannabis businesses and an additional 1,225 applications for a cannabis business. 2,142 in total. The Oregon Employment Department lists 776 cannabis businesses in Oregon.
  • There are approximately 12,500 jobs associated with the cannabis industry in Oregon. These are jobs that directly touch cannabis and are not jobs associated with auxiliary businesses such as security, regulatory, accounting, consulting, real estate, etc. This is a very conservative estimate and these numbers are expected to increase once the more detailed analysis is completed.
  • At an average wage of $12.13/hour, the total annual wages associated with these jobs are $315 million. With a multiplier of 4, this implies that there is $1.2 billion in economic activity related to these wages.

The report does not extend into the supply chain for “shovels or picks,” meaning lights, greenhouses, insurance, real estate, accounting, security, etc.

“At present, I feel there are roughly 300,000 – 400,000 cannabis-touching jobs in the USA,” Whitney said. “That number will grow to more than a million as more states come online as legal markets. Cannabis is a job-creation machine.”

Whitney said a more comprehensive jobs report will be researched and published later in 2017, but this initial update should demonstrate the cannabis industry is a powerful force in the Oregon economic engine.

More Stories

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Naughty Gossip: Pharrell Made Only $2,700 From ‘Happy’ On Pandora; Angelina Alone On Flight To London With All Six Kids

Naughty Gossip
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Naughty Gossip: Pharrell Made Only $2,700 From ‘Happy’ On Pandora; Angelina Alone On Flight To London With All Six Kids

Pharrell’s “Happy” made $2,700 in publisher and songwriter royalties from 43 million Pandora streams in the first quarter of 2014, according to an email from music publisher Sony/ATV CEO Marty Bandier obtained by Digital Music News.

In the letter, Bandier said a million streams of a song on Pandora yields roughly just $60 in royalties. “This is a totally unacceptable situation and one that cannot be allowed to continue,” Bandier wrote.

Bandier added: “We at Sony/ATV want these digital music services to be successful because they are a great way for music fans to listen to music and have the potential to generate significant new revenues for everyone. However, this success should not come at the expense of songwriters whose songs are essential for these services to exist and thrive.”

Pandora is the most used streaming service, which paints an ugly picture for artists looking to make a living off of their craft. Taylor Swift recently spoke out about how little artists make from streaming, claiming that services like Spotify don’t value her art. Swift pulled her entire catalog from Spotifyin protest.

Given how little he’s making, it comes as no surprise that Pharrell is among a group of artists demanding that YouTube take down thousands of songs it doesn’t have permission to share. If YouTube doesn’t remove the 20,000 songs, a legal group called Global Music Rights – which represents artists including Pharrell, the Eagles, John Lennon, and Smokey Robinson – says it will bring a $1 billion lawsuit against Google, YouTube’s parent company.

Related Story: Naughty Gossip: Is David Beckham’s Son Replacing Justin Bieber?

Angelina Jolie On Flight To London With All Six Kids

An eyewitness reveals that Angie was spotted on a flight from LAX to London with ALL SIX of her kids and with no nanny or security.

“She is in London visiting her advisers and friends Arminka Helic and Chloe Dalton,” sources tell NAUGHTY GOSSIP. “Brad grew furious at Angelina for surrounding herself with a “coven” of powerful female pals and this was part of the reason they split. He wanted these women out of the lives of him and his wife and his kids. Angie said NO.”

Arminka Helic, 48, and Chloe Dalton, 37, who both worked for ex-Tory leader William Hague. They were brought in to handle the actress’s public image and write her speeches.

Brad felt Arminka, a former Bosnian refugee, started meddling in other affairs. He also hated their secret meetings where they would plot Angelina’s political ambitions.

While Angelina spent more and more time away campaigning with the women, Brad spent less time at the couple’s British home, — preferring to drink with pals at an estate they own in the South of France.

A source said: “Brad sees the women as a coven. He was furious at some of Arminka’s decisions. He felt she and Chloe, who seemed to travel everywhere with the family, were brainwashing Angelina from the start. He felt he was married to a politician all of a sudden.”

“Angie plans to be in London for a few weeks and did not take any nanny’s or security with her. While in the UK her help and security is being handled by her friends. She literally trusts both of these women with her life and her kids lives,” a close insider tells NAUGHTY GOSSIP.

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Marijuana Bills Currently In Congress: How They Can Change The Game

Mike Adams
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Marijuana Bills Currently In Congress: How They Can Change The Game

There are presently a handful of federal marijuana bills idling in the halls of Congress that would work to pull the United States out of marijuana prohibition.

Perhaps one of the most important bills being pushed this year is the “Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2017.” The proposal, which was introduced by Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, would prevent the Trump or any other administration from swooping in to shut down the cannabis industry, as long those businesses were operating in accordance with state law. The bill is essentially a more permanent version of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which is a temporary protection in the form of a federal spending rider, preventing the federal government from spending tax dollars to investigate and prosecute medical marijuana operations.

There is also the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2017,” a proposal that would allow the cannabis plant to be taxed and regulated nationwide in a manner similar to alcohol and tobacco. Introduced by Representative Tom Garrett of Virginia, the bill is a carbon copy of one submitted in the Senate back in 2015 by Senator Bernie Sanders – it simply aims to eliminate marijuana from the confines of the Controlled Substances Act, so that states can finally establish their own marijuana rules without the risk of federal interference.

One of the more modest proposals in the bunch includes the “Legitimate Use of Medicinal Marihuana Act.” This bill, sponsored by Representative H. Morgan Griffith of Virginia, would downgrade the Schedule I classification of the cannabis plant to a Schedule II – giving scientists more freedom to research the herb while protecting those doctors who recommend medical marijuana to their patients. The proposal would also open the door for the pharmaceutical industry to begin developing a variety of cannabis-based products.

Griffith is also pushing a separate proposal – the Compassionate Access Act – that would eliminate “cannabidiol” from the federal government’s definition of marijuana. The proposal would basically allow CBD oil (a derivative with less than 0.3 percent THC) to become a completely separate medicine from the cannabis plant.

So far, none of these pieces of legislation have so much as received a hearing inside the halls of Congress, and they likely wont. Although the recently formed Congressional Cannabis Caucus has vowed, with some level of faith, to make a dent in the issue of nationwide marijuana reform this year, the group consists only of the same four lawmakers who have been unsuccessfully pushing these types of bills for the past several years.

Even with some of the latest national polls showing that around 60 percent of the American population now believes marijuana should be made legal in the same fashion as beer, Republican forces have, and will likely continue, to turn their backs on any proposal asking for legal weed.

To date, no bill seeking to change this country’s marijuana laws has ever been heard in Congress.

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Watch Jeff Bridges Bring Back ‘The Dude’ To Honor John Goodman For The Hollywood Walk Of Fame

TFT Editors
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Watch Jeff Bridges Bring Back ‘The Dude’ To Honor John Goodman For The Hollywood Walk Of Fame

At John Goodman’s Walk of Fame ceremony, Jeff Bridges brought back perhaps the most beloved character of his career: Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, from the Coen Brothers classic The Big Lebowski, which also stars Goodman. Variety reports Bridges then proceeded to give a speech in character that mimicked the eulogy Goodman’s Walter Sobchak gave to Steve Buscemi’s ill-fated Donny in the film.

“He’s a good actor, he’s a good man, John Goodman,” Bridges said. “He’s one of us, he loves the outdoors and acting. As a showman, he has explored the stages from Los Angeles to New York — we’re talking Broadway here, man — he’s done some weird little movies, too. And he’s lived, like so many men in prior generations have lived their lives. He is a man of his times, a man of our times, and he has become a legend.”

“In your wisdom lord, you have lived through John as you have through so many other bright, flowering, young actors before him,” he added as Goodman cracked up in the background. “I’m talking about men like Clark Gable, Gabby Hayes, Roy Rogers — to keep in the whole Western thing — Groucho Marx, Jimmy Cagney. We could go on and on, but you get the idea.”

“In accordance with what we think may be your final wishes, we have committed to these sidewalks in Hollywood — in the bosom of Hollywood that you love so well — a star. A star for you, a star because we love you so well … what time is it? Afternoon? Good afternoon, sweet prince,” he concluded.

Watch the full speech below.

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Watch Jason Sudeikis And The Director Of ‘Colossal’ Hilariously Bartend At SXSW

Brendan Bures
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Watch Jason Sudeikis And The Director Of ‘Colossal’ Hilariously Bartend At SXSW

There’s a famous Hollywood saying that goes something like this: If Jason Sudeikis is serving beer at a bar, you go to that bar. That’s what happened on the opening night of SXSW as Sudeikis promoted his upcoming movie Colossal, along with the film’s director, Nacho Vigalondo. As you can see in the pictures and video below, Sudeikis was his gregarious, joking self alongside Vigalondo, who put on a show as well. Check out our gallery and keep following The Fresh Toast for all things SXSW.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRixCKMjHaj/?taken-by=getfreshtoast

 

SXSW: Business Professionals Meet To Discuss Cannabis Industry’s Future

Brendan Bures
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SXSW: Business Professionals Meet To Discuss Cannabis Industry’s Future

South by Southwest has been going on for more than 30 years, but 2017 marks the first festival that cannabis can claim an official footprint here. With more than 10 official SXSW events, as well as the Hemp & Garden Show presented by Texas Green Rush, cannabis is displaying its disrupting impact across various sectors.

Those topics differ from sports and technology and legalization, but also business. At the “Keep Your Career, Change Your Industry Meet Up,” individuals gathered from multiple backgrounds and career fields to discuss how cannabis interacts with their professional careers. This included people from consulting fields, cannabis photographers, university professors, and more.

A main topic of conversation when we were there revolved around the current in-between state cannabis seems to find itself in. With a growing swell of enthusiasm seen in medicinal and recreational legalization, a stigma still surrounds the plant. This can affect people’s careers and, in turn, their livelihoods. While the Fresh Toast aims to educate and decouple marijuana from its cultural association with more destructive opioids, sometimes the outdated relationship sticks in employers’ eyes.

That’s why Karson Humiston organized the SXSW event. Humiston is the founder and president of Vangst Talent, the nation’s largest cannabis staffing industry. As she remarked in a brief, opening speech, career fields in the cannabis industry isn’t just regaled to touching the plant. Any industry needs accountants and web designers and secretaries and so on. Cannabis is a thriving business and should start being treated from the outside as such. (This echoed similar comments made by Matt Hawkins in TFT’s Investor Series.)

The meet-up was a successful event and showcased just how far cannabis has grown (pun intended) and how far it can still go. But, as Humiston told me in conversation, it’s never been a more exciting time to jump into the industry and help build something from the ground floor. What was obvious from the event was the business and has all the potential it needs. Now it’s just time to work.

SXSW: ‘Alien: Covenant’ Looks Like The Best Blockbuster This Summer

Brendan Bures
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SXSW: ‘Alien: Covenant’ Looks Like The Best Blockbuster This Summer

“You have to not think about how awesome it is or else you wouldn’t be able to function,” Katherine Waterson said at Austin’s SXSW Conference Friday night. She, along with director Ridley Scott, Michael Fassbender, and Danny McBride, were there to promote their upcoming film, Alien: Covenant. Before a special screening of the original Alien, the cast and its director debuted 13 very fresh minutes of Covenant, as well as a red band trailer and more goodies. From everything I saw at SXSW, I can say Alien: Covenant has the potential to be the best summer blockbuster this year.

Alien: Covenant is a sequel to 2012’s Prometheus, Scott’s initial return to the Alien franchise following a 33-year hiatus. Once distancing himself from the series, Scott has since unveiled a new embracing of all things Alien, announcing his plans at SXSW to create multiple sequels leading up to the original Alien.


“Alien vs. Predator really fucking nailed [the franchise] into the ground,” Scott said during a separate panel discussion at the Nat Geo Further Base Camp. “I thought about that for a while, and I said, ‘I can bring this back.’ And here’s the cause and effect: We resurrected it with Prometheus, which had two really good questions that the others weren’t asking: Who made [the aliens] and why? Prometheus set that up. [Covenant] answers ‘who and why.’ Then it leaves all kinds of questions for the next two, or three, or four. Covenant 2 is already being written as I speak right now.”

During the footage previewed, we see the Covenant ship’s crew preparing a descent to what they believe could be an uninhabited paradise. The crew is comprised of various couples, adding a hefty layer of emotional weight when all hell breaks loose later on. Why they assembled a ship of couples isn’t exactly clear, but if we were to speculate, it seems like they might be on a mission to discover a new livable planet.

Now, before seeing this preview, the movie already seemed well cast. Fassbender, Waterson, McBride, James Franco, Billy Crudup, Guy Pearce. But their banter and chemistry really shone through the screen, equal parts witty, touching, and believable. That’s why it’s all the more heartbreaking, when the Xenomorphs eventually show up and pandemonium ensues, some characters turn selfish or slightly betray others.

Watching the original Alien afterwards, it’s apparent how limited Scott was with showcasing the Xenomorphs and really displaying how terrifying and powerful they were. The Xenomorph hides in the tunnels, it hangs from the ceilings, it lurks and corners. We’re more scared for empathetic and aesthetic reasons, watching the psychological terror written on the characters’ faces and the incredibly creepy and claustrophobic lighting Scott utilizes. And we’ve seen the Xenomorphs properly before, but watching Scott take full advantage of the technology at hand in this late career run of his is really exciting. Because this movie, with all its monsters and penetrating mysteries, looks absolutely horrifying in the best way possible.

Some other highlights:

– Scott also showed a teaser commercial, released online as well, where we witness the assembly of an AI named Walter. Fassbender is the model once again, and it’s slightly disturbing how good he is at playing a robot. When asked if it was difficult to prepare for his role as David, the AI we also see in Prometheus, Fassbender interrupted the interviewer and said, “Easy.” After some laughter from the crowd, he added, “I’m half-German.”

– Danny McBride plays some of the most ridiculous, boisterous, loudmouth characters possible, which is why we love him. But this is a pretty serious dramatic role for McBride and he’s not used as a punchline from what we saw.

“This is the first movie I’ve done where my family thinks I’m in a real movie,” McBride said.

Alien: Covenant comes out May 19.

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Is Netflix Producing Choose Your Own Adventure TV Shows?

Brendan Bures
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Is Netflix Producing Choose Your Own Adventure TV Shows?

Choose your own adventure stories are stressful. Agency is a powerful apparatus—it can delight you being in control and also dismay you when, because of your choices, everything goes to shit. Just ask any child who read those Goosebumps choose-your-own-adventure books.

But according to a report from The Daily Mail—and thus should be taken with a grain of salt—Netflix may soon be experimenting with a format. You may soon be choosing whether an “Orange Is The New Black [character] joins a gang or not” or “the technology could also potentially be used to allow Princess Margaret to marry Peter Townsend in The Crown.”

The story paths selected won’t necessarily be all as simple as that either. Apparently there’s a possibility for some serious complexity, including the ability to create a narrative that folds in on itself, creating an infinite loop of sorts.

Via The Daily Mail:

A source said: ‘We’re doing work on branch narratives so you are actually making choices as you watch. All the content will be there, and then people will have to get through it in different ways.

‘We’ll see how it plays out. It’s an experiment. We’ll see if it gets much success. For creators, it’s new territory.’

This would mean cast and crew having to film these various alternating scenes in advance, and who knows how much that could cost. Whether this technology could alter existing series or strictly new IP remains to be seen. The plan, according to The Daily Mail’s source, is to begin experimenting with a children’s series and, if successful, branch into adult dramas.

Though Netflix hasn’t made an officials statement on the matter, Netflix president Reed Hastings confirmed they are producing something they’re calling interactive shows. “Once you have got interactivity you can try anything,” Hastings told The Daily Mail.

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