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In August 2022, Contemporary Christian Music mainstay TobyMac issued a project, Life After Death, that found the singer-songwriter wrestling with the emotional turmoil that followed the death of his 21-year-old son, Truett, in 2019.
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Nearly three years removed from Life After Death, the 14-time Billboard Christian Airplay solo chart-topper returns with his ninth solo studio album, Heaven on My Mind, on Friday (March 7) via Forefront/Capitol Christian Music Group. The new album finds him discovering a new equilibrium, while continuing to honor the sense of loss.
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“My last record was just facing things no one should have to face… the deepest, heart-crushing you could ever have in losing my first-born son, but I felt like this record was me gaining my footing a bit. Realizing, ‘Okay, I can breathe, and I can get my fist up in the air about things I believe in,’” the seven-time Grammy winner tells Billboard.
As with Life After Death, TobyMac turned to songwriting as an outlet to process this new life season, saying, “I’m a songwriter first and foremost. I’m a songwriter disguised as a pop artist.”
The album’s central theme is perhaps embodied in his uplifting, most recent Christian Airplay chart-topper “Nothin’ Sweeter.”
“I wanted to summarize a little bit that life is full of twists and turns and that I have seen a lot of it, and I’ve seen the sweetest parts of it, the best parts of it, and I’ve seen some really tough parts, and I landed on my feet was the goodness of God.”
TobyMac has weathered a few heartbreaking moments in recent years — not only the passing of his son, but the death of close friend and longtime associate Gabriel Patillo, who died in April 2024 following a battle with cancer. Patillo was a member of TobyMac’s Diverse City Band and an entertainer who had worked alongside TobyMac for 25 years, after first joining as a dancer when TobyMac was part of DC Talk.
He pays homage to Patillo on a pair of songs on the album: the folk-oriented “Campfire (That Very Love)” was written as a plea of healing, followed by the tender tribute “Goodbye (For Gabe).”
“Gabe was the heartbeat of Diverse City. We did everything together,” TobyMac recalls. “The backstage culture that we were always striving to create on our tours, Gabe and I came up with that together — how do we make backstage not competitive? How do we make it a community? How do we make it to where we’re praying for each other, hoping for each other, and cheering for each other when we’re on stage versus feeling competitive? My philosophy is that a healthy [environment] backstage leads to a healthy [environment] on stage. It made the shows stronger, more powerful. We produced every show together, wrote songs together, and he helped me think through everything. He was just my right-hand man for everything that I do.”
Determination and a refusal to lose hope pulsate through the album on songs such as the resolute anthem “Can’t Stop Me” (which feels reminiscent of TobyMac’s days as part of the 1990s CCM rock/rap group DC Talk) and the triumphant “God Did It.” Elsewhere, on “A Lil Church (Nobody’s Too Lost),” which is rising on the Hot Christian Songs chart, he seeks to redefine boxed-in assumptions of what a church can be—focusing more on community over stained-glass windows and towering buildings.
He initially had a current country music hitmaker in mind for “A Lil’ Church.” “I had Jelly Roll in my head, just because we’ve texted a bit here and there. I always wanted to hear him on it, maybe one day I will. That would be awesome,” TobyMac says.
“Rearview,” featuring Gospel artist-writer-producer Juan Winans, touches on coping with regrets.
“Juan wrote his verse, and I wrote mine,” he recalls. “We wanted to write it authentically so we each took a verse. I think regret is something that I struggle with. I look back like, ‘Should I have done this differently? Should I have done that differently?’ it can really imprison you. I tried to look into the things that trouble me, [and] into the things that empower me or make me feel like I can overcome.”
Outside of his work as an arena-headlining artist, TobyMac was part of the team that launched Gotee Records in 1994, developing it into a prominent label home, with a current roster that includes not only Terrian, but also Jon Reddick, Cochren & Co. and more. The label was recently acquired by global company Bell Partners.
“Partnering with a bigger company, we can put twice the power behind our artists,” TobyMac says. “I’m still doing A&R, still developing artists for Gotee. I made sure I could still do that. As a guy that’s had a label for 25 years, if I didn’t think this would serve our artistry in a greater way, there’s no way I would have done it. It’s nice to know that we have a partner where anything we dream of, we can go after it.”
While Contemporary Christian Music is growing domestically, the deal with Bell brings with it the benefit that it “is powerful in other parts of the world where it’s tough for us to get there and to be represented well,” he says. “I’m excited about the growth of our industry internationally. I feel like it’s absolutely moving in the right direction, and I look forward to what we can do with Bell.”
Gotee recording artist and former Diverse City bandmember Terrian, who released her own debut album in 2024, joins on “Resist (Keep the Devil Away).” Terrian is also opening shows on TobyMac’s current Hits Deep Tour.
“When we signed Terrian to a record deal, we started making songs on her right away and she started touring with Diverse City,” TobyMac says. “The plan was always for her to fly and do her own thing. This is the first tour I’ve done right now without Terrian in the band and she’s out there opening shows because I’m super proud of her and want to give her all the help I can to increase the foundation of what she’s doing as an artist. I love developing young artists, walking alongside them, and helping them gain their own vision for their artistry.”
His album finds its center in creating music of a scope both deeply personal and universal.
“I call it the good, the bad, the ugly of my life. Those just end up on the pages of my lyric notebook,” he says. “We’re all facing some relationships going great, and some relationships that are struggling and there are deep valleys. If I write from my life and I’m experiencing all those things, I find that people relate to it. It resonates with people because we’re not that different from each other.”
Save this storySaveSave this storySaveDuane “Keffe D” Davis has given his first major interview since being arrested and charged, in 2023, with first-degree murder in connection with the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur. Speaking with ABC News, Davis said he’s “innocent” and that he “ain’t killed nobody.” Davis also expressed remorse in giving interviews and writing about Shakur’s death, claiming that he did so to make money. Find the ABC News video below.Davis has not been accused of shooting Shakur. Instead, Nevada prosecutors claim that the former gang leader was the ringleader of the group that shot the rapper in a drive-by shooting.Davis is the only suspect ever to have been charged in connection with Shakur’s death, and he has pleaded not guilty to murder. Davis’ attorney, Carl Arnold, has also sought to have the case dismissed, arguing that his client never should have been charged with a crime due to prior immunity agreements. Davis’ trial is due to begin on Monday, February 9, 2026.
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Source: Win McNamee / Getty / Mike Johnson
Like many Americans, MAGA Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s chief of staff got drunk during Donald Trump’s meandering/lie-filled joint address to the nation to get through it, but he made the stupid mistake of getting behind the wheel and getting pinched for drunk driving.
NBC News reports that Hayden Haynes, Speaker Mike Johnson’s chief of staff and one of the most powerful aides on Capitol Hill was arrested for driving under the influence after crashing into a Capitol vehicle.
If you thought Mike Johnson would reprimand or fire Haynes for his dangerous behavior, spoiler alert: of course he’s not.
Per NBC News:
One of the sources told NBC News that a police report indicated that Haynes hit a Capitol vehicle around midnight and was arrested and released with a citation to appear in court. The arrest came after Trump’s speech Tuesday night, when Johnson presided over the House floor and sat just behind the president’s left shoulder.
“A driver backed into a parked vehicle last night around 11:40 p.m.,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement to NBC News. “We responded and arrested them for DUI.”
He has served as chief of staff in the speaker’s office since Johnson won the top job in the House in October 2023. Before that, Haynes served as chief of staff to Johnson in his personal office from 2017 to 2023. He also had worked in various roles for former Sen. David Vitter, another Louisiana Republican, from 2009 to 2016.
Asked by NBC News Wednesday whether Johnson was standing by Haynes, he said, “I am. I am.”
We Don’t Expect Haynes To Face Any Serious Consequences Or Lose His Job
According to Crooks & Liars, a first offense for drunk driving in DC “gets an individual up to 180 days in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, driver’s license suspension, enrollment in an alcohol intervention program, and community service.”
We don’t expect Haynes to suffer any consequences for his dangerous behavior because nowadays these people get away with anything, unless you’re a Democrat, then all bets are off.
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Representative Jasmine Crockett had a choice term to describe President Donald Trump’s deference to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The actions of President Donald Trump since the beginning of his second term in office have cast him as being highly deferential to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. It hasn’t gone unnoticed, and Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett was explicit in her description of the alliance. She was interviewed by Call To Activism’s founder Joe Gallina after Trump’s State of The Union address on Tuesday (March 4), who asked her, “ If you could tell Donald Trump anything tonight, what would you tell him? Crockett paused briefly, then said: “I would tell him to grow a spine and stop being Putin’s ho.”
https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/1897088100851192307
“That’s all we got right now, is Putin’s little ho that is out here really doing the bidding of Russia in a way we’ve never seen an American president do,” she continued, referencing Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s disastrous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky which devolved into a shouting match. Trump accused Zelensky of disrespecting the United States and issued an order to pause funding and the sharing of military intelligence to Ukraine in their fight against Russia.
Crockett also called Trump out for abandoning the nation’s allies. “For those that believe that we should only focus on the United States, this is a focus on the United States,” she said. “We need a president that understands what diplomacy looks like, and it doesn’t look like the disgrace that we saw that took place in the Oval Office.” The Texas representative also called out Trump’s tariff war with Canada and Mexico, telling Gallina that allyship “doesn’t look like s—ting on our allies by telling them we’re going to impose tariffs to the north and the south of us.”
She expressed her sympathy for Canada and Mexico’s decision to impose retaliatory tariffs, noting that Trump needs to work with them. “As people are still complaining about their eggs, now they’re going to have to worry about the rest of their groceries,” she said. “Listen, it is time for him to grow a pair and start to do the work of an American president and stop pretending that he is on some terrible reality TV show that is looking for ratings. I am hoping that America turns off the TV today, and tunes in to people like you, because all he does is look for ratings and we shouldn’t give them the attention.”
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Eric Adams is arguably the most hated mayor in the history of New York City (buddying up to Donald Trump to get his corruption charges dropped definitely didn’t help), so when he was called to testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee yesterday (March 5), we already knew sparks were going to fly.
According to Raw Story, Bronx representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, grilled the embattled mayor of New York City and called him out for blatantly avoiding answering questions related to the scandals that he had brought on himself and his office. Even though Trump’s Justice Department moved to have the charges against Adams dropped, the sudden change in direction led to the resignation of three top U.S. prosecutors who refused to sign off on the move, which prompted the investigation into the matter by Democrats.
Per Raw Story:
When senior Justice Department official Emil Bove ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors to dismiss the case, he argued that it had “improperly interfered” with Adams’ re-election campaign. He also noted that Adams has been more cooperative on Trump’s plans for mass immigration raids than any other New York City politician would be expected to — but denied in the footnotes of the order that there was an explicit quid pro quo.
Adams complained that Ocasio-Cortez was repeatedly asking the same question.
“No, these are very different questions,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
He continued complaining as she talked over him.
“I understand. Mayor Adams, will you not answer this question because you believe you will incriminate yourself?” she asked.
Adams continued rambling as the congresswoman asked to submit the resignation letter from Sassoon for the record.
Ocasio-Cortez then read parts of the letter referencing the Jan. 31st meeting. She then cited other resignation letters from Justice Department employees who also refused to kill the Adams indictment.
She went on to lecture Republicans for downplaying the importance of the resignations.
While it was widely rumored that Adams was basically begging Donald Trump for a pardon in exchange for his cooperation with ICE and letting them run rampant through New York City, Adams was only able to secure having his charges dropped. But ultimately, that didn’t help, as he’s still out here defending himself before Congress.
Check out AOC grill Eric Adams below and let us know your thoughts about the matter in the comments section.
Ukrainian electro-folk duo ONUKA spent last summer touring European concert halls and headlining festivals. Now, due to a recent wartime directive, they must remain inside their home country — so the band boards trains and buses to gigs at underground shelters, as well as buildings near metro stations, in case Russian missile attacks interrupt the music.
“These shelters can accommodate up to 1,000 people. It’s a big concrete room with some seats,” says Eugene Filatov, 41, ONUKA’s producer, who performs with his wife, frontwoman Nata Zhyzhchenko, 39, and five bandmates. “People still need this cultural life.”
The group recently downsized its 2025 touring ambitions due to a late-February announcement by Ukraine’s culture ministry: As of March 3, male Ukrainian “journalists and culture professionals” of draft age will no longer receive recommendation letters for traveling abroad. So ONUKA is performing closer to its Kyiv home, readying a new album, the long-delayed Ukrainian Constructivism, for release next month, and spending more time with the couple’s children, 4-year-old Alex and 1-year-old Lina.
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By Telegram call from Kyiv, three days after U.S. President Donald Trump‘s chaotic and disturbing Oval Office news conference with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Filatov and Zhyzhchenko discuss the long-term impact of Russia’s February 2022 invasion on their family and music. (Filatov, who has an “education sector” deferral from military enlistment because he is a lecturer at Ukraine’s Chernihiv Music College, also responded to follow-up email questions.)
When we previously spoke in 2023, ONUKA was still touring the world. Nata said, “When you are outside, especially when your child or parents or family is here, it’s very hard to accept.” How is your family? Is everybody OK?
Zhyzhchenko: Our kids are safe. They’re all right. The first night, in maternity hospital, [Lina] spent the night inside. That was the worst night for us. I think she’s a war kid. She decided to come to our family in a country that is at war, in a city at war, in the night.
“War kid.”
Zhyzhchenko: This generation of children are totally war kids. They have another mentality, and this is their route, this is their life, this is their routine. We don’t have to compare our childhood with their childhood, because they are another generation. They are a war generation.
In our past interviews, you’ve spoken of Russian missiles disturbing your lives. Are explosions still happening where you live in Kyiv?
Zhyzhchenko: It’s still going on. We have another kind of weapons. It’s like flying scooters.
Filatov: It’s like big drones. Every night, there are a couple hundred of them. We sometimes hear it.
Zhyzhchenko: It sounds like a scooter, and they are flying at nighttime. That’s why the sound spreads very brightly, and physically that is why we can define them from a few kilometers. When we are lying in our beds, it’s some kind of big noise scooter sound in the sirens of night.
How terrifying.
Filatov: Thanks for the American people who are supporting Ukraine. We feel much more safe, because American systems are really, really huge and really helpful. It saves our lives. The explosions happen mostly every day, somewhere, in some cities of Ukraine.
Zhyzhchenko: It doesn’t stop.
Filatov: It’s kind of a lottery.
Zhyzhchenko: A few weeks ago, some piece of this drone collapsed near our house, and it injured the post office. This is the post office —
Filatov: — where we take our packages mostly every day.
Zhyzhchenko: Even a few times a day. It’s close here to us, less than a kilometer. We have this acceptance. It’s our reality.
Filatov: Life goes on, anyway.
How are you able to play shows under these conditions?
Filatov: Performing in shelters is a relatively new practice for Ukrainian artists. In Kharkiv, all cultural events take place exclusively in venues that have shelters — no theaters or concert halls operate unless they provide a safe space.
Zhyzhchenko: Everything happens under rockets. We have to take that fact.
What do the shelter performances feel like?
Zhyzhchenko: It’s a very pleasant feeling, because you know your performance won’t be interrupted. You have to evacuate people if you hear the siren. In a shelter, you have to not interrupt your performance. It’s some kind of comfort and very confident feeling.
How do you get to the shows?
Filatov: We usually travel either by train or by bus with the whole team. Trains can sometimes be the fastest option, especially when border queues are long, but traveling by road gives us more flexibility. So, we just trust our luck and hope for a smooth crossing. Sometimes, though, it turns into quite an adventure — like [summer 2024], when we had to travel non-stop for two days from a festival in Poland just to make it in time for Atlas Weekend in Kyiv.
Who takes care of your kids when you are performing outside of Kyiv?
Filatov: We have a support system that includes nannies, grandparents and kindergarten. They take turns depending on the circumstances.
Do your kids get to see any of the performances? What do they think?
Filatov: They are really small. Our small girl doesn’t even understand, for now, what’s going on. Our boy, Alex — it’s sad to notice that in the kindergarten, for example, they have some games, and they [name] the games after the weapons, or the missiles, or the drones.
Zhyzhchenko: When they are in kindergarten, they go to a shelter, and it is some kind of ritual. They call this shelter “the cave.” He says, “We were in the cave today, and we draw in there,” or singing some song in this cave. It’s not so terrifying for him, because it’s his reality. No one is panicking, because we have adjusted to it. The main safety is the behavior of elder people and adults around this situation.
How are the rest of your family — parents, grandparents, siblings?
Zhyzhchenko: Everyone is safe. Everyone is working with the nation and charity causes and everyone volunteers. But inside our musical team, some people are on the front line. … Everyone has some relatives or friends who [have] died and these deaths are closer and closer.
Who are you referring to, “inside our musical team”?
Zhyzhchenko: Our graphic designer was on the front line and now we have no answer [from] him. This is a hard situation, how to understand that nothing is OK. You just have to see when this person was online the last time, and you see that this date is not changing. It’s hard to realize that maybe he’s captured, maybe he’s in hospital. But I think the reality is much worse. We are trying to go through with his command, and get information about what happened to him.
What did you make of the Feb. 28 press conference with President Zelensky and President Trump?
Zhyzhchenko: All people are very upset about what’s going on. But I think all this is temporary. Everything changes so much. It’s like a roller coaster. Some days we are best friends, the next day we are enemies, the next day we are supporters, the next day it’s very chaotic.
I do hope all people in the world understand that Russia invaded Ukraine, and we are the victim and we are standing. … We defend all Europe, because everything will be changing, very fast and terrible, if Ukraine falls. I really believe we will stand and we will not fall and we will survive.
If I wanted to leave, I would leave Ukraine. But I’m here with my little kids. I actually truly and sincerely believe in this roller coaster life.
Dolly Parton has spoken out with another statement following the death of her husband of 60 years, Carl Dean. In a message posted to her Instagram Thursday (March 6) — about three days after she first revealed the Nashville businessman’s passing at the age of 82 — the country superstar wrote, “This is a love […]
Though Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan just kicked off their eighth season behind the iconic American Idol judge’s desk, they told Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday night (March 5) that newcomer Carrie Underwood is already shaking things up just one week into her tenure.
“She was the number one at the beginning,” Richie said of Underwood, 41, who memorably won the fourth season of the show when she was 21 and said she still has her “14887” contestant sticker from her audition. Asked what it’s like to have an OG Idol on the show, pop icon Richie said their new partner is a “jukebox… she knows every song that the contestants are singing,” joking that Underwood can’t help joining in.
“I go Carrie, ‘they’re competing. It’s not you. You already won,’” Richie joked, as Underwood defended herself by explaining that if a nervous contestant flubs a lyric she is happy to be their human “Teleprompter. I got you. I will help you.”
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As for whether contestants still try to “butter up” the panel by covering their songs, Underwood said they’ve all had it happen so far, for good or ill. “They think it’s to compliment us, but some days we’re just praying, ‘Please God, just let them be able to sing it.’ And sometimes they nail it and sometimes it goes south real fast,” Richie admitted.
Replacing fan favorite Katy Perry, Underwood appears to have slipped into the pump-up pal seat with no hiccups. Richie said the country star immediately said yes to the first singer the panel saw, then again for the second one, only to reach a crossroads for singer number three out of nearly 200. “Luke and I were laughing, ‘well, she’s gotta say no,’” Richie recalled. “And she said, ‘well, she’s so cute… she’s so adorable.’ I said, ‘the answer is no!’”
“I care a lot and it’s people’s hopes and dreams,” Underwood said in her defense. “I’m trying to evaluate, ‘is there more in there,’” she added, as Richie flashed some performative exasperation at his co-star’s gentle nature. “There was not any more in that woman’s [inaudible]… it was a firm ‘no,’” Bryan said.
Asked if some of the singers get nervous in front of the superstar panel, Bryan said he’s basically become an amateur psychologist at this point. “I can read a fainter when they’re about to faint… we had one kid and I went behind him and kind of patted him down and he was 157 degrees, his body temperature,” he said.
The trio kicked off their visit with a competitive, trash-dancing showdown in the “Name That Song Challenge,” during which Bryan and Richie faced off against Underwood and Fallon. Racing to guess which instrumental versions of pop songs house band the Roots were playing while adding one instrument at a time, UnderFallon shot out to an early lead when the host quickly guessed Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
Fallon rubbed in his correct guess with a hip-shaking dance and impromptu duet with Underwood, cheekily asking his rivals, “isn’t this the best game ever?” A not-amused Richie rolled his eyes and shot back sarcastically, “this is so much fun,” with Bryan pointing to the other team and saying, “she’s a jukebox and all you do [Fallon] is listen to music!”
The next one was trickier, with Fallon incorrectly guessing the Commodores’ “Brick House,” as the band’s former singer Richie snagged the obvious answer: the Jackson 5’s “ABC,” which set him and Bryan off on their own touchdown dance routine. They all struggled with the third track, with Fallon finally humming out Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” for the win, then fanning himself theatrically.
After Underwood nailed Huey Lewis & the News’ “Power of Love” to Bryan’s chagrin, Richie rocked back with a correct guess on Heart’s “Barracuda,” setting off a friendly twin air guitar solo with Fallon that lead to a celebratory couple’s waltz for the team that correctly guessed the last song. American Idol airs at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday (March 9) on ABC.
Click below to find out who won the guessing game and to hear Underwood, Bryan and Richie talk about the new season of Idol.
Cam’ron isn’t one to look back on his career, as he’s typically focused on the business moves ahead. However, during an episode of Talk With Flee on March 4, Cam talked about artists he wished he had collaborated with over the years.
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After mulling over it for a few seconds, the Dipset rapper admitted he would’ve loved to bar up on a track with Eminem as well as fellow New York legend Nas. “There was a time, probably when we first came out in the late ’90s, early ’00s, I wanted to work with Eminem when his career was taking off and my career with Dipset was taking off,” he said. “I wanted to do a record with Eminem because he’s super-duper lyrical.”
Cam continued: “I can be super-duper lyrical. I dumb a lot of my s–t down for my audience, but I thought that would have been a sensational record. The other person would be Nas. That would be the other artist I would have loved to work with at one time.”
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With Em and Nas still rapping in 2025, the dream’s not dead yet for Cam, although it would probably feel a lot different than the record fans would’ve received in the 2000s.
Cam has always held Eminem in high regard as one of rap’s best. “Is Eminem one of the best rappers? Yes, Eminem is one of the best rappers,” he said in an Instagram video last April. “Look, what happens is, a lot of people say Eminem don’t be saying nothing, he just putting words together or whatever, but you gotta realize you gotta do what works for you.”
Killa added: “If that works for Eminem, for him to make all the money he made and the Grammys and awards, he so rich that he can’t come outside by himself, then that just works for Eminem.”
While Cam and Em might not hit the studio, they may be appearing on the screen in Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore 2. “Put the whole team in da movie. #HappyGilmore2,” Cam captioned a social media post, hinting at his involvement. Sandler has previously confirmed Em’s cameo in the upcoming film.
Watch the clip of Cam’ron below. Talk about his missed collaborations with Eminem and Nas takes place around the 48-minute mark.
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Source: The Washington Post / Getty / Hamilton
Donald Trump and his fellow MAGA Republicans are BIG MAD they won’t get to enjoy the hit musical Hamilton after the folks behind it said it wants nothing to do with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after Felon 47 named himself chairman.
The musical Hamilton telling the Kennedy Center to kick rocks is the latest punch to the gut since Trump decided to take over. The show was supposed to run from March 3 and April 26, 2026, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Things have been going downhill for the once prestigious institution after the mass firings rocked the Kennedy Center. Artists like Issa Rae canceled her upcoming sold-out show, and other notable names like screenwriter Shonda Rhimes cut ties with the Kennedy Center to protest Trump.
Trump’s reasoning for the takeover, he doesn’t want “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.”
Riiiigggghhhttt.
Hamilton’s Creator & Producer Respond To Trump’s Takeover of The Kennedy Center
Regarding the decision, Hamilton’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and producer Jeffrey Seller didn’t mince their words and kept it real.
In an interview with the New York Times, Miranda said Hamilton won’t be coming to the Kennedy Center because he didn’t want anything to do with the “Trump Kennedy Center.”
“This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it. The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it,” Miranda said.
In a statement, Steller added that the show will not be coming to the Kennedy Center because of the “purge” of the cultural center’s staff, adding that it wasn’t an action against the current Trump administration, but against “partisan policies” following the MAGA takeover.
“The recent purge by the Trump administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national cultural center represents. Given these recent actions, our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,” Steller said.
The Trumpers Are MAD
As expected, Donald Trump’s supporters, including, Richard Grenell, the interim executive director of the Kennedy Center are S A L T Y about Lin-Manuel and co saying no Hamilton for you.
Using his angry MAGA fingers, the Trumper wrote on X: “Let’s be clear on the facts. Seller and Lin-Manuel Miranda first went to The New York Times before they came to the Kennedy Center with their announcement that they can’t be in the same room with Republicans. This is a publicity stunt that will backfire. The arts are for everyone—not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with. The American people need to know that Lin-Manuel Miranda is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically. It’s clear he and Seller don’t want Republicans going to their shows. Americans see you, Lin.”
Awwwww, you mad Grenell?
You can see more reactions below while enjoying a big cup of MAGA tears to sip on.
4. LOL, now it’s “woke”
8. Awwww, you mad?