European Council President Donald Tusk has said he had been “wondering what that special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely”.
The remark came as Tusk spoke to journalists on Wednesday after meeting Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in Brussels, where the European Union (EU) is headquartered.
Ahead of a meeting between British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Thursday, Tusk reiterated that the EU had no intention of renegotiating the backstop.
“The EU is first and foremost a peace project. We will not gamble with peace or put a sell-by date on reconciliation,” Tusk said.
“This is why we insist on the backstop. Give us a believable guarantee for peace in Northern Ireland and the UK will leave the EU as a trusted friend,” he added.
In a vote at the House of Commons last week, MPs asked May to go back to Brussels and renegotiate the safety net to maintain an open border in the island of Ireland, known as the backstop.
It is part of the withdrawal agreement the prime minister had negotiated with the EU, and is seen as the main reason parliament voted it down on January 15.
I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted #Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.
Reactions to Tusk’s “place in hell” comments, which he also tweeted, were not long to follow.
Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, now an independent MEP and considered one of the architects of Brexit, tweeted back: “After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you and run our own country. Sounds more like heaven to me.”
Andrea Leadsom,leader of the House of Commons, said in an interview that Tusk should apologise for his “completely unacceptable” and “spiteful” comments.
Theresa May’s spokesman said such language was unhelpful seeing as Brexit is the result of a referendum that he called “the largest democratic exercise in our history”.
Sammy Wilson, the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) Brexit spokesman, said, “It is Tusk and his arrogant EU negotiators who have fanned the flames of fear in an attempt to try and overturn the result of the referendum.”
The DUP, an ally of May, is in favour of renegotiating the backstop.
After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you and run our own country.
But Mary Lou McDonald, president of another party active in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein, seconded Tusk, saying it is the Brexiteers’ language that is intemperate.
“They are people who have acted with absolute contempt for this country, utter disregard for the experiences of Irish people north and south, with utter disregard for the peace process that has been collectively built over decades,” McDonald said.
Tusk also targeted Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. “I know that still a very great number of people in the UK, and on the continent, as well as in Ireland, wish for a reversal of this decision,” he said.
“But the facts are unmistakable. At the moment, the pro-Brexit stance of the UK Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition, rules out this question.”
Ever since former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced his potential independent presidential bid, the feedback has been … mixed, to be generous. Democrats denounced him as a misguided election spoiler at best, and an entitled egomaniac at worst. Schultz hasn’t done much to dispel those characterizations, with a string of defensive statements and acidic attacks on Senators Kamala Harris’ and Elizabeth Warren’s policy agendas. It was a botched rollout that led to some fairly obvious questions: What is this man’s policy agenda? Why might he be running for president? Who was asking for this?
One group of Americans might have been less surprised by Schultz’s potential bid—the roughly quarter of a million Starbucks employees now fielding unwelcome questions from customers about his political ambitions. That’s because the green-aproned, milk-stained baristas who help millions of Americans function every morning are used to Schultz and his idiosyncratic philosophy taking center stage. Over the course of his nearly three-decade career with Starbucks, Schultz used memos, training materials and frequent communication with his “partners,” as he referred to even the lowliest employee, to ensure that his personality permeated the company.
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“They’re obsessed with him,” said one former barista from the Detroit area. “My manager would just refer to him as ‘Howard.’” (This person, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity to speak freely about a onetime employer.)
Some put it in more blunt terms.
“Starbucks puts the ‘cult’ in ‘culture,’” said Lisa Essett, a former barista from the Flint, Michigan area. “It reminded me of Heaven’s Gate, or L. Ron Hubbard with Scientology or something.”
Schultz did not respond to requests for comment for this story by time of publication. But from conversations with these and other Starbucks employees, and a review of Schultz’s tenure at Starbucks, it’s clear he curated the image of a charismatic, activist CEO who wanted to connect with his baristas as more than just employees. In many ways, Schultz’s approach as a business leader mirrored the pitch he is now making to voters—that a visionary chairman untethered to the muck of partisan politics can delegate, negotiate and achieve what others before him failed to: being able to “unite the country,” as he has promised. In fact, by presenting himself to employees as a transformational figure, Schultz led some Starbucks “partners” to believe he could be considering a run for office long before his current foray—which didn’t always rub those baristas the right way.
Schultz’s brand of paternalism is nothing new in American business. A century ago, Henry Ford’s “welfare capitalism,” in the form of massive pay increases, ensured that his workers would be able to afford the products they manufactured—provided that they didn’t run afoul of his “Social Department,” which policed everything from their tobacco and alcohol consumption to their sex lives. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club, insisted that his employees be classified as “associates” (not unlike Schultz’s “partners”)—the better to foster a sense of personal ownership of their work. “The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers,” Walton wrote in his posthumously released 1992 memoir.
Schultz’s own writing and philosophy are heavily emphasized during the onboarding and training period at Starbucks, according to former employees, and until recently the company website listed his 2011 best-seller, Onward, as recommended reading before interviewing for a job. His personalized memos to his stores served as periodic nudges back toward his vision of the company’s culture and standards. During the 2008 financial crisis, he went so far as to fly 10,000 store managers to New Orleans for a summit where he personally addressed them in an attempt to “reinvigorate the passion within the company,” as he said at the time.
Type Schultz’s name into the search bar at “Starbucks Stories,” the company’s online PR shop, and you can review his missives spanning more than a decade, including a 2008 series with the Maoist-sounding title “Howard Schultz Transformation Agenda.” Many posts feature him speaking plaintively on the virtues of “civility and values-based leadership” and urging his charges “Onward,” the trademark folksy sign-off that lent the aforementioned book its title.
That book, which chronicles Schultz’s return to the company in 2008 after a hiatus as CEO that saw the company trending downward, has a central place in the company’s mythos-of-Howard. Special “Partner Editions” of Onward are at the ready for employees eager to learn, according to Essett. “We were encouraged to read it and were given time to do so on a break,” this person said in a message. “Still didn’t do it lol.”
“They give you a copy of his book and expect you to read it,” said the Detroit-area barista. “And there’s definitely a part where you just read about how he founded it. At the time, it seemed like they were gonna run him for something.”
(Asked for comment for this story, a spokesperson for Starbucks responded by pointing to recent remarks from the current CEO, Kevin Johnson, supporting “Howard” in his next move and praising him for having “built a company that endures by staying true to Our Mission and Values while, at the same time, reimagining our future.”)
For many of Schultz’s charges, the personal touch was welcome. R/Starbucks, the subreddit thread for company employees and enthusiasts, features tributes ranging from the possibly ironic (“My partners shrine to Father Howard”) to the painfully sincere (“Whenever I start to feel a little disgruntled with my job, I pull out ‘Onward.’”) There are discussions over “Uncle Howie’s” favorite beverage (unclear), his “partner number,” or the length of time with the company (top secret) and his random store drop-ins (be cool about it, but not too cool). In a country that is deeply irony-poisoned and supposedly roiling with working-class anger, it’s touching to see employees embrace their role with enthusiasm and good humor, despite the attendant complaints about low pay and expensive benefits.
Baked into much of the Schultz praise is a good old-fashioned working-class aspirationalism—appropriately enough, given the CEO’s background as an outer-borough kid in public housing. “Starbucks was really my manager’s life, and when we started, we received a lot of training on the company’s history and how Schultz had built it up,” said one former employee in Chicago. “Every time something changed in like policy or procedure, my store manager would stress to us that ‘the CEO has sunk millions into research on this, so it’s what’s best,’ or something similar.”
Some employees described a decided split, however, between the company’s managerial class and its rank-and-file.
“It was part of the propaganda from higher-ups, but it was definitely pushed out with varying enthusiasm,” one former employee in Florida said. “Something that did really stick with me was the way middle managers seemed to believe in it, while they were being overworked and asked to cut hours.”
“When you’re just a barista, things tend to be a bit more lackadaisical,” said another Michigan employee.
Occasionally, it has been difficult to identify the line between Schultz’s efforts to improve company culture and his efforts to bolster his own image as a compassionate, progressive capitalist. Speculation that Schultz would run for office has dogged him for years, and he hasn’t hesitated to weigh in on national politics. During the late-2012 “fiscal cliff” debate, Schultz directed D.C. baristas to write “come together” on each of their customers’ cups, which was meant to send “a respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials to come together and reach common ground,” according to a letter he posted on the company’s website. In a similar but more meaningful bout of public altruism, the company’s “College Achievement Plan” has graduated more than 1,000 students with tuition-free bachelor’s degrees through a partnership with Arizona State University.
More notoriously, in the aftermath of the 2015 police shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Schultz launched Starbucks’ “Race Together” initiative, which directed baristas to engage customers in a dialogue around racial issues with prompts like, “In the past year, someone of a different race has been in my home ___ times.” The effort was not well received, and was shuttered after just a week, which the company claimed had been the plan all along. Starbucks also famously closed all of its locations for a day last year to conduct racial-bias training, after the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia store sparked a national outrage—a move some critics dismissed as a PR stunt.
“[Company memos] would always tie into current events somehow,” said Essett, the Flint-area barista. “I remember a lot of diversity memos. Which was always hilarious to me because I worked at the whitest, straightest Starbucks.”
Schultz’s corporate mythmaking sometimes had another byproduct: heightened expectations, which could go unmet. The company subreddit is littered with anonymous complaints from disgruntled employees, like one who griped upon Schultz’s resignation, “You can’t pretend you care about your employees when you’re willing to spend ungodly amounts of money… but can’t manage to pay employees any more than enough to just scrape by.”
“It was irritating to watch proprietary videos during meetings where he’d tell us what a great job we were doing,” said a different former Michigan employee. “It’s the same bullshit I heard from [AT&T CEO] Randall Stephenson, and how they described the importance of our role in the company certainly was not reflected in the way were treated.”
Several former employees complained about the discrepancy between the company’s public image as a first-class service industry employer and the sometimes lackluster benefits and pay. The Michigan employee quoted above claimed his health plan would have taken more than 50 percent of his pay, echoing similar complaints that dot the company’s subreddit about exorbitant premiums. A 2016 Los Angeles Times article about Starbucks described a trend that mirrors the problems facing Affordable Care Act marketplaces, with “strong coverage for those who can afford it and high-deductible, primarily catastrophic coverage for most others.”
Of course, every company has its share of malcontents, and a large contingent of employees are clearly content under Howard’s watchful gaze, which looms large over the company even after his departure last summer. It’s easy to see how someone who views himself as a transformative “change agent” in his corporate milieu might feel called to bring that energy to the public sphere, especially in these times. The vague, feel-good message Schultz touts as a potential 2020 contender closely resembles the one he espoused as CEO, urging Americans to “come together” and deal with the most hot-button political issues of our time by … well, the exact means have been mostly left to the imagination.
And as Schultz begins to face stinging criticism in the realm of politics, it is worth remembering that cults of personality invite not just personalized admiration, but personalized scrutiny and blame.
Another Chicago barista offered an example from the Starbucks frontlines: “The year that I worked there, they tried to roll out a new food/baked goods brand called ‘La Boulangerie,’” the employee said. “Apparently, a key tenet of La Boulangerie was taking all the food people liked off the menu. So, it ended up losing a bunch of money, and they cut everyone’s hours to balance the books.”
Nowhere, Nobody is a film that treats voice like a weapon, choosing to instead revel in silence. Earl Sweatshirt released the eight-minute experimental film last week as a companion to a 2019 tour announcement, and rather than offer mouthy explanations of legacy and idolization, the clip sees Earl, his doppelgänger LaDiamond Blue, and others confront the cleanliness of statues and seek solace in silence. The visual incorporates selections from his latest album, Some Rap Songs, which dropped in November and details the mental labyrinth of emotions he’s entangled in as he works to repair his psyche and understand the spiritual imprint left behind by his father, South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, who died in January of 2018.
But Nowhere, Nobody isn’t a tidy explanation of Earl’s feelings, nor is it a cut-and-dry explanation of bearing a poet’s burden on his shoulders. “Aye 1 thing y’all not finna contextualize the video as ‘earl tries to figure out his father’s legacy,’” he tweeted after the video’s release. “I feel like the fact that my relationship with my father is LAYERS AND LAYERS deeper than y’all relationship with me and my father gets overlooked.” To help explore those layers, Earl, (born Thebe Kgositsile), got help from co-directors Naima Ramos-Chapman and Terence Nance, who currently work together on HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness. Ramos-Chapman made contact with Earl about the idea.
“Thebe heard out my vision and we had just a long conversation about what was feeling very present for us in this moment, and I’m very thankful for his trust,” she told MTV News. “Gio Escobar [of experimental hip-hop collective Standing on the Corner] gave us some seventh-dimensional knowledge and then Terrence and myself wrote and broke down the script.” She kept Random Acts of Flyness team members around to help execute the film.
For Ramos-Chapman, the film’s personal, yet graftable message also retains some resemblance to her own life. “I listened to Thebe’s album over and over again and just let the songs move me to come up with some images that felt very connected to my own experiences, also some of what was lyricized on the album,” she said. Earl, who’s at the center of the film, played a large part in its creation, speaking as much in person as through his music. “Thebe was very much a part of the process,” she revealed. “We had maybe one thorough conversation, but even when we weren’t speaking, he spoke to us through the record. He’s a true artist who respects artists’ wishes and he let Terence and I do our thing.”
Over the course of Nowhere, Nobody’s vast eight minutes, many things happen, although sometimes, it feels like nothing is happening at all. Earl’s an irate coach for a kids’ basketball team. His mother paints a baby statue green. Earl brushes branches off of a statue while holding hand statues, and Earl’s female doppelgänger later swipes branches away from a living man who looks nearly identical to the statue. It’s here where Naima works to keep the mysterious air of the visual, leaving it for the viewer to decide what’s going on.
YouTube/EarlSweatshirtVEVO
To answer the question of the significance of the statues, she offers three questions in its place: “Why do we erect things in our image that we think will last the ages? What does end up lasting in the end? Can you be touched by something that happened in your future?” These statues show up in pieces, never whole. She does offer some clarification to the identities of these busts, though. “The statues were of Thebe, the man bathing him, and the mother,” she said.
Nowhere, Nobody is a mostly quiet affair letting the onscreen characters bask in the world while carrying its weight. But the silence is punctuated on a couple of occasions — the jumbled beat that begins “Nowhere2go,” the opening of “Red Water,” the smooth frustration of “Shattered Dreams,” the expression of claiming a father’s image in “Azucar.” These selections were carefully curated. “We picked what lines we felt cling to us the hardest,” Ramos-Chapman said. “Terence played a heavy role in this as well. I kind of go off of how I sonically feel versus what is being said.”
The film’s ending is perhaps its most concrete moment. A collection of hand statues sit encased in a coffin that’s draped with the South African flag, a clear homage to the death of his father. “There is some fascination that I have to concretize our image and create objects that have talismanic effect and hold power, evoke memory, and create voids for imagining into worlds you can’t quite see fully,” she said.
Ultimately, though, Ramos-Chapman encourages viewers to draw from it what they will to get a satisfactory answer. “I like to leave the meaning up to the people,” she said. “You either get it, or you don’t. It’s half the fun – coming up with what I think is the most resonant charge for me. I think that if you read up on Thebe, listen to Some Rap Songs, and watch closely, then you know what it’s about.”
Not a day has gone by since Clinton lost to Trump where folks on Twitter weren’t re-litigating the 2016 Democratic primary election. One day, liberals will be accusing Bernie Sanders of being a knowing “chaos agent” in the 2016 election. Other days, Clinton voters are subjected to an onslaught of tweets about how they chose their candidate only because they thought she was electable — not because they actually, you know, liked her.
It’s a toxic, highly polarized platform, even among people who are supposed to have shared democratic ideals in common. But on Tuesday night, Stacey Abrams’ post-SOTU rebuttal helped to forge a temporary, unconscious alliance between liberals and the left on Twitter. No one would admit it, of course.
But for a brief, passing moment in our bloody social media history, Twitter was a happy place.
Abrams is one of the rare figures who can unite liberals and the left. This appeared to be true when she ran for Georgia governor in November, and it was on full display when she delivered her powerful address post-Trump’s State of the Union.
Abrams’ address was authentic and moving and made by someone who didn’t look like they were your Great Aunt and Great Uncle complaining that you were late to Sunday dinner. Abrams apparently wrote her own speech, and it showed.
Here’s how Jennifer Rubin, #NeverTrump conservative and columnist for the Washington Post, responded to the speech:
She’s a fresh face, but more important, a real talent who is both personally engaging and pitch perfect for an electorate tired of hearing a windbag president demonize immigrants for the umpteenth time. https://t.co/CBFOV3KcaV
Responding to the State of the Union is a thankless task, but Abrams was arguably the only successful one in recent memory. And she was brief. God bless her for that. https://t.co/CBFOV3KcaV
Much further on the left you’ll find Maurice Moe Mitchell, director of the Working Families Party, who had this to say of Abrams’ speech and future prospects:
Representatives and senators will sometimes disagree with each other on Twitter, especially when it comes to the contentious leaders in their party. Not when it came to Abrams last night. Look at how Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, considered to be one of the more traditionally liberal senators in her party, responded to Abrams’ speech:
.@staceyabrams gave a fantastic #SOTU response. The stark contrast w/the President’s speech? Stacey’s words actually match her actions & her life. She made the case for something our President messes w/every day: the “uncommon grace of community.” https://t.co/NhDfPIJfWv
From Jennifer Granholm, the former liberal Governor of Michigan:
Here’s what I loved about @staceyabrams’ speech: She was personal, e.g. the story about her dad. She relied on values — Americans will “come for you” if you’re struggling. She was clear and strong, calling out racism and division. And she was positive and enjoying it all. Bravo!
Stacey Abrams achieved in a matter of minutes something Donald Trump failed to do in over an hour — to embrace and give voice to the spirit and core values that make America great.
All across Twitter, liberals and the left offered nearly unqualified praise. You could barely find a “Well, actually,” or “The thing is” or a link suggesting she had some kind of demons in her closet.
For at least an hour, everything was just … good.
Stacey Abrams masterfully proved that you can talk about unity and crossing party lines without being needlessly conciliatory or failing to hold folks accountable. She’s too good for this world, man. #DemocraticResponse#STACEYOFOURUNION
It’s so rare to see liberals and the left *almost* united on our most hateful platform. While few conservatives shared the enthusiasm, nearly every good American — regardless of their political orientation — can still respect this tweet.
Divided by politics, united by hatred of Maroon 5. This is my America.
The young adult novel The Sun Is Also a Star is getting the movie treatment and it looks like it has everything a good romance needs: one romantic individual, someone who doesn’t think love is for them, and a whole lot of fate.
Set in modern-day New York City, The Sun Is Also a Star looks at the lives of Jamaica native Natasha Kingsley (Yara Shahidi) and almost-college-student Daniel Bae (Charles Melton) who cross paths and fall in love just before Natasha and her family are being deported.
The 2016 novel The Sun Is Also a Star was a New York Times No. 1 bestseller, among many accolades following its release.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring was being discussed in the Capitol as another possible successor to Gov. Ralph Northam if the allegations against Lieutenant Gov. Justin Fairfax were too much for him to bear. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
It’s the third scandal in days involving top leaders in state government.
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia now has two blackface political scandals engulfing the Democratic Party.
Days after the governor admitted to donning blackface as part of a costume decades ago, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring admitted Wednesday that he, too, as a young man once darkened his face as part of a costume at a college party.
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“In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song. It sounds ridiculous even now writing it. But because of our ignorance and glib attitudes — and because we did not have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others — we dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup,” Herring wrote in a statement. “This was a onetime occurrence and I accept full responsibility for my conduct.”
Herring told the legislative black caucus about the matter in a hastily called closed-door meeting Wednesday morning after rumors began circulating about a photo of him in blackface decades ago. The attorney general showed the picture to the African-American lawmakers and apologized.
The admissions of the two Democratic leaders bookend another emerging political crisis involving the state’s only elected black leader, Lieutenant Gov. Justin Fairfax, who has been accused by a woman of sexually assaulting her at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
Fairfax had called the accusations a “smear” and suggested they were released to keep him from assuming the governor’s office if Gov. Ralph Northam bowed to the nearly unanimous pressure from state and national Democrats to resign. Amid the drama, Herring was being discussed in the Capitol as another possible successor if the allegations against Fairfax were too much for him to bear.
Now talk of that option appears dead as well.
The back-to-back-to-back blows to the top three elected officials in the state paralyzed the Capitol in Richmond and left Democrats shell-shocked by the multiple revelations concerning racial sensitivity and sexual violence — two issues that the party had once viewed as a strength relative to the GOP.
Beyond partisan politics, the scandals involving Northam and Herring were a raw reminder that the past is never dead in the old capital of the Confederacy.
Northam’s 1984 East Virginial Medical College yearbook page, unearthed by conservative website Big League politics, bore a picture of two young men in black face and a Ku Klux Klan outfit. The yearbook had other pictures of young white men in blackface and the yearbook was finally shuttered in 2014 after it contained pictures of students dressed up as Rebel soldiers.
Northam, who initially admitted to being one of the young men in the photograph, reversed himself Saturday but admitted he had darkened his face to look like Michael Jackson at a 1984 talent show.
Four years before that, Herring donned his own costume.
Experts say that over two-thirds of the Himalaya’s glaciers could melt by 2100. Even if steps are made towards reducing global warming, one-third of the Himalayas will still be affected. The experts say the melting will have dire consequences for people who get their food and water from around the area. This would then lead to millions being displaced due to regions becoming uninhabitable.
Microsoft is taking cross-play to a new level. The company plans to expand Xbox Live, its online game service, to the Switch, iOS and Android. It would all be made possible by a new software development kit being developed by Microsoft.
Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev at a judo tournament in the UAE days after Netanyahu’s Oman visit [File: Kamran Jebreili/AP]
Israel‘s foreign ministry has reactivated a “virtual embassy” aimed at promoting dialogue with the Gulf countries.
First launched in mid-2013, the embassy had been active on Twitter for less than a year before going offline in early 2014.
يسرنا أن نعلن عن إعادة إطلاق صفحة “إسرائيل في الخليج” بهدف تعزيز الحوار بين إسرائيل وشعوب الخليج. نأمل أن تسهم هذه السفارة الافتراضية في تعميق التفاهم بين شعوب دول الخليج وشعب إسرائيل في مختلف المجالات pic.twitter.com/eaoLyc8fJm
“We are pleased to announce the relaunch of ‘Israel in the Gulf’ page which aims to promote dialogue between Israel and the Gulf nations,” the ministry said on Tuesday.
“We hope this virtual embassy will contribute to deepen understanding between the peoples of the Gulf and the people of Israeli in various fields,” it added.
Ofir Gendelman, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took to Twitter before the relaunch to urge the Gulf followers to follow the page “with a view to promoting dialogue between you and us”.
While Israel does not maintain any diplomatic relations with any of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, analysts say some of the countries are not opposed to normalising ties with Tel Aviv.
In October, Netanyahu paid a surprise visit to Muscat following an invitation by Oman‘s Sultan Qaboos.
Shortly after that visit, Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miri Regev attended a judo tournament in Abu Dhabi, where the Israeli anthem was also played.
Other Israeli officials who recently visited the Gulf include Communication Minister Ayoub Kara, who gave a speech during a telecommunications conference in Dubai on October 30.
Netanyahu has frequently spoken about growing Arab-Israeli relations over the last year.
As rising star Bad Bunny is making money moves in the music industry, he’s using his platform to pay it forward to underrepresented peoples. And with last month’s release of the music video for “Caro,” a cut from his late-2018 debut X 100pre, the Puerto Rican rapper came out as ally to the LGBTQ community. His inclusive spotlight in the flashy clip is a worthwhile watch for a Latinx community, and the world at large, that could use more of it.
Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, has been working the Latin trap music market since 2016, earning high-profile features and hit singles before even dropping an album. He was taken under the wing of Latinx heavyweights like fellow Puerto Rican singer Ozuna, Colombian superstar J Balvin, and reggaeton music’s resident veteran Daddy Yankee, and on the strength of these co-signs, as well as his playful flow and unapologetic attitude, he’s amassed millions of fans.
Last year, Bad Bunny ranked at No. 8 on Spotify’s most-streamed Latin artists list. Among the countless hits he’s registered on Billboard‘s Latin Songs chart, the 24-year-old has also landed seven songs on the all-genre Hot 100 chart, including the No. 1 hit “I Like It” with Cardi B and J Balvin. And with Latin music consumption having outpaced country music in the U.S. this past year, Bad Bunny has staked himself as one of the loudest Latinx voices leading this sea change.
Bad Bunny finally dropped X 100pre (meaning “siempre” in Spanish, or “forever” in English) on December 24. It’s been lodged in the top spot of Billboard‘s Hot Latin Albums chart for six weeks now, and peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard 200. The album is loaded with songs where he’s either feeling himself or in his feelings, but the music videos for its songs have mostly steered away from the rapper to focus on his message. “Solo de Mí,” for example, stars an abused woman who finds strength in his lyrics that translate to: “Don’t call me, baby / I’m not yours or anyone’s / I’m mine alone.” In an Instagram post about the video, Bad Bunny wrote in Spanish, “I’m not sure if cockfights are abuse, but gender violence against women and the absurd amount of women who are murdered is.”
Bad Bunny’s latest music video for “Caro,” which translates to “expensive” in English, is another that highlights women alongside other marginalized groups like the LGBTQ community. With his painted, manicured nails and flamboyant sense of style, he’s been at odds with the machista, or often toxic masculinity, culture that’s often ingrained in Latinx life. Those nails made headlines in July when a salon in Oviedo, Spain refused him service. Bad Bunny posted about the incident on Instagram and wrote, “They told me NO because I’m a MAN. What year is it? F**king 1960?” But his peers have been far more supportive. In a conversation with Complex last September, J Balvin declared that Bad Bunny’s colorful presence in the urban music scene made him an example that would help “people depriving themselves of being who they really are.”
Accordingly, the music video for “Caro” opens with Bad Bunny getting his nails painted black. But when the camera refocuses on the rapper, he’s been replaced by Puerto Rican model Jazmyne Joy, who seamlessly rocks his gender-fluid style as the visual’s new star. While lip-syncing his lyrics, Joy flexes on the hood of a Ferrari convertible. And in a dream-like fashion show that unfolds in a parallel sequence, women of many sizes, shapes, and age strut the catwalk with confidence. A fierce drag queen, stylish Black man, and young woman with Down syndrome take their strides with pride. Eventually, Bad Bunny reappears during the video’s sunset with people running around him. A man and a woman each jump to kiss him on the cheek, and, Bad Bunny kisses Joy, his copy, in a gesture of self-love. “Caro” is rich with inclusive imagery.
The song’s lyrics also transform it into an LGBTQ anthem, especially when you consider Bad Bunny’s co-writer on the track: Puerto Rican gay icon Ricky Martin. Backed by a hard-hitting trap beat, Bad Bunny takes aim at his judgmental critics by living his best life unbothered. On the emotional bridge, Martin’s vocals back Bad Bunny’s as he lets his guard down to ask in Spanish, “Why can I not be like that? What damage have I done to you?”
The lyrics resonate with well with Ricky’s own story. At the height of his global breakthrough in the early ’90s, he was harassed by the press with questions about his sexual orientation, and Martin eventually came out as gay on in 2010. With Bad Bunny, he finds a beautiful harmony as they sing, “I’m just happy.”
All this makes Bad Bunny a sorely-needed Latinx artist — one who understands why representation matters, champions it in spite of his critics, and is hopefully inspiring more Latinx artists to fearlessly align with the LGBTQ community. As a gay, Mexican-American man who loves reggaeton music, I deeply appreciate seeing and hearing Bad Bunny promote the idea of embracing who I am in “Caro.” Whether or not the rest of the world is ready for him (and his nails), I can’t wait to see what he does next.
![Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev at a judo tournament in the UAE days after Netanyahu's Oman visit [File: Kamran Jebreili/AP]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/2/6/82f003b420ff43aebe10bef4a5c4b91d_18.jpg "Israel reactivates 'virtual embassy' in the Gulf")
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