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Tiffany Haddish was arrested Friday (Nov. 24) and charged with driving under the influence, police said. The actor and comedian was detained after Beverly Hills police received a call about 5:45 a.m. Police said she appeared to be found slumped over the wheel of the vehicle while the car engine was still running. Haddish, an Emmy and Grammy […]
The scene at the Chipotle on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley at first looked much like any other Friday evening. Six good-looking guys in their early 20s sat around a table eating burritos, laughing and ribbing one another. They had landed at LAX that morning after a 16-hour flight, but despite their jet lag, the vibe was lively.
Then an emergency alert lit up one of their cellphones. Seconds later, a warning buzzed on another device. And then another, and another, and another, and yet one more. It was Oct. 6 — already Oct. 7 on the other side of the world in Israel — and the moment things got very real for as1one, the first-ever boy band comprising Israeli and Palestinian musicians.
The guys had arrived in Los Angeles from Tel Aviv, Israel, to lay down tracks for their forthcoming debut album — a trek made following months of visa coordination and more than a year since the group officially formed, after first being conceived in the United States years prior. The team behind as1one, led by longtime music executives Ken Levitan and James Diener, envisioned a Middle Eastern version of BTS, and in the effort to create it, Israeli and Palestinian casting directors had held auditions in major cities and tiny villages throughout Israel in 2021. (Auditions could not be held in the West Bank or Gaza due to logistical challenges.) A thousand young men auditioned; the six who were glued to their phones at the Sherman Oaks Chipotle had made it in.
There’s Sadik Dogosh, a 20-year-old Palestinian Bedouin Muslim from Rahat, Israel, with a piercing gaze and an acting background. Neta Rozenblat, a Jewish Israeli who’s 22 but looks younger, grew up in Tel Aviv, where he studied computer science before getting into singing, which led to a 2021 performance on the Israeli version of The X Factor. Hailing from Haifa, Palestinian Christian Aseel Farah, 22, is the group’s rapper and its self-proclaimed introvert. Twenty-three-year-old Jewish Israeli Nadav Philips grew up near Tel Aviv, idolizes Mariah Carey and used to perform as a wedding singer. Niv Lin, 22, is a Jewish Israeli from a desert town in southern Israel and played professional basketball before shifting to singing. (He also performed on The X Factor.) And Ohad Attia, also 22 and a Jewish Israeli, grew up in Tel Aviv singing and playing the guitar, a skill he flexes beautifully in the group.
On the surface, the six young men check all the usual boy group boxes: They strike the requisite balance between dreamy and adorable and sing ballads and bangers with heart-melting harmonies about girls, love and “dancing like the whole world is watching,” as one of their songs proclaims. But while each knew they were signing up for a boundary-pushing endeavor simply by joining a group composed of Palestinians and Israelis, they couldn’t have predicted that their message of unity would be so intensely tested before they had even released any music.
When the guys went to sleep at their L.A. rental house on the night of Oct. 6, they weren’t yet sure what to make of the alerts. They had all grown up accustomed to intermittent rocket warnings that often passed without incident. But by morning, it was clear what was happening back at home had little precedent: Hamas operatives had killed about 1,200 people throughout southern Israel in coordinated attacks on villages, kibbutzes and at a music festival. (“Niv lives not far from where that rave was, so he undoubtedly would have been there,” Diener says, adding that the woman Lin had just started dating, along with other friends, was killed in the attack.) Their scheduled sightseeing tour of L.A. was canceled. Instead, the guys spent the day frantically calling and texting with friends and family back home.
As news of the Oct. 7 attacks spread, as1one was given the option to fly back to Israel as soon as possible. But after talking among themselves, they decided to stay. “In the beginning, we really felt bad that we couldn’t do anything, that we couldn’t help our families and friends in Israel,” Attia says. “But then when you think about it, you really realize we’re on a mission and that we can be helpful. We can show the world.”
Ohad Attia
Austin Hargrave
The next day, as1one went to its scheduled studio session and met with songwriter-producers Jenna Andrews and Stephen Kirk, who together have credits on mega-hits like BTS’ “Butter” and “Permission To Dance.” Andrews and Kirk had already joined as1one for writing sessions in Israel, and that familiarity helped the duo channel the group’s intense emotions into music as the horrific news from Israel continued.
“The toughest moments were during the sessions,” Rozenblat says. “I was told about two friends that were killed, Niv was told about friends of his that were killed — a lot of us found out about really awful stuff during that session, not to mention that now there’s a whole war going on.”
But by the end of the session, they had a new song. Two-and-a-half weeks later, in a sun-drenched conference room in Century City, they play it for me through a beat-up Bluetooth speaker.
“What if we just stopped the world/Hold the phone/Faced the hurt/Take me home/We’re not built for this/We’re built for more/Forget the score/Show me what it’s like when we stop the world,” the sextet sings over a pulsing beat. It’s the kind of anthem that’s vocally reminiscent of the Backstreet Boys’ heyday and thematically evocative of — depending on how you’re listening — either a tumultuous romance or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“How crazy is it to get hugs from Palestinian friends when my Israeli friends died?” Lin says. “That’s our story.”
Sadik Dogosh
Austin Hargrave
As1one wasn’t necessarily intended to function as a singing six-man answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Seeing how K-pop and Latin music became global forces over the past few years, Levitan and Diener wanted to form a group from outside the Western world that they could build into a superstar act. They had experience with this caliber of artist: Levitan helped develop Kings of Leon, managed Bon Jovi and, as co-founder and president of Nashville-based Vector Management, has worked with Kesha, The B-52s, The Fray and more. Diener launched A&M Octone Records, where he developed acts including Maroon 5, and after the label sold its 50% share to Interscope Geffen A&M, he co-founded the music publishing and management firm Freesolo Entertainment.
Together they looked to Israel, a place, Diener says, where “we felt that what they have to say musically hadn’t really been given a shot on the world stage.” The pair weren’t seeking to create a group made up of Israelis and Palestinians — only to, as Levitan says, “leave no stone unturned” in their search for the country’s very best talent. They began traveling to Israel in late 2021, first to find the Israeli and Palestinian casting directors and consultants who could get them access to local music schools, conservatories and recording studios where they would scout talent. (They’ve been back to the country every two months since the first trip.) Ami Nir, an A&R executive at Universal Music Group in Israel, became their partner in the project and was crucial in creating connections.
Aseel Farah
Austin Hargrave
Even before meeting any prospective singers, the pair — who refer to themselves as the group’s founders and producers — encountered plenty of challenges: raising investment money, working in a foreign market (and during a global pandemic) and, above all, the historic tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. During one meeting, a potential Palestinian talent scout was so opposed to the idea of a mixed band that she flicked her cigarette ashes at Levitan and Diener.
“We were really working from negative one, not even at zero,” Levitan says of the meeting. “She was very pessimistic.” But as the two explained their history in the business and their vision for the group, the scout uncrossed her arms and listened — and, shortly thereafter, joined the team. Such unlikely changes of heart happened again and again at meetings throughout the country. “I think people felt our sincerity,” Diener says. “They didn’t feel like this was in any way a gimmick or a pretext.”
As Diener explains, assembling a group from this part of the world inherently meant being “confronted by the question of, ‘Are you willing to put together a group that may be mixed?’ ” He and Levitan agreed that they were — but that it would require choosing “the right guys who could handle and appreciate that mix of talent within the band,” Diener says.
As they narrowed down the talent pool during auditions, Levitan and Diener met with families of potential members, selling parents, siblings and extended relatives on the idea, often through translators, and many times while sitting around the family’s kitchen table after a meal.
Nadav Philips
Austin Hargrave
By this point, they had also enlisted a documentary crew to film the process; cameras were put in place after people close to Levitan and Diener suggested what they were doing “might just be historic,” Diener recalls. Ultimately, the local Israeli team was replaced with a crew from Paramount+, which has since shot hundreds of hours of footage for a forthcoming five-episode docuseries produced by James Carroll (Waco: American Apocalypse, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer). “It’s in no way a reality series,” Levitan says. “This is something much more thoughtful and cinematic.”
The cameras were rolling during the final phase of the audition process: a May 2022 boy band boot camp in Neve Shalom, an Israeli village founded in 1969 by Israeli Jews and Arabs to demonstrate that the two groups could live together in peace. Here, the guys played instruments, posed for photo shoots, showed off their dexterity with social media and sang together. “You’d be singing to yourself, then someone standing on the other side of the road would be doing a harmony with you,” Attia recalls.
A psychologist was on site as well, not only to ensure potential members were mentally prepared for the demanding work schedule ahead, but also to weigh in on whether they would fit well within the unique mixed-group dynamic. “There were [guys] we really wanted to work with,” Diener says, “but as their community and parents became more aware of what this was going to look like, they couldn’t endorse it in the same way they’d endorsed the audition process, so we lost a few really good prospects.” (Levitan adds that these prospects wouldn’t have necessarily made it into the group.)
A year-and-a-half after starting the scouting process, Levitan and Diener had settled on the right six guys — it was just by circumstance that four were Jewish Israelis and two Palestinian.
When Levitan and Diener Zoomed Dogosh to tell him he had been accepted, the camera crew caught him jumping around so enthusiastically that his microphone broke. “Getting accepted in the band, it was like a fever dream,” says Rozenblat, who had been tracking 25,000 steps a day while pacing around his house waiting for the news.
Neta Rozenblat
Austin Hargrave
Recording started shortly thereafter, with the guys intermittently traveling from their respective homes to a Tel Aviv studio. Philips and Lin say they had never spoken with a Palestinian person until joining as1one — a name that the guys chose from a few options that the team had come up with and that is pronounced “as one.” Over time, camaraderie grew, and by the time they gave their first live performance at a private event for TikTok Israel eight months after their inception, they were looking, sounding, moving and working the room like a band. (Levitan and Diener often use the words “brotherhood” and “unity” when describing the group’s bond.)
The bonding process ramped up in August, when as1one traveled to London to record at Abbey Road Studios with Nile Rodgers, who plays guitar on one of the songs written by Andrews and Kirk. (The session came together after Diener sent Rodgers the group’s cover of Rodgers’ Daft Punk collaboration, “Get Lucky.”) After they wrapped, Rodgers gave his guitar to as1one guitarist Attia, who says he was “literally shaking” and immediately FaceTimed his mother to tell her. (Overjoyed for her son, she cried.)
On Oct. 5, as1one boarded a flight for what was meant to be a monthlong trip to L.A. The scheduling turned out to be prescient: The team had considered flying the guys out a few days later — which, had it happened, would have put the project on perpetual hold amid a war that to date has killed around 1,200 Israelis (and claimed an estimated 240 hostages) and more than 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to reports from Gaza’s Health Ministry (an agency that, as The New York Times has reported, “is part of the Hamas government in Gaza but employs civil servants who predate Hamas’ control of the territory”).
While their families remain in the increasingly precarious situation abroad, as1one is in L.A. indefinitely, living in a rented house in Sherman Oaks with Andrew Berkowitz (the group’s executive in charge of talent who was involved in casting and has more than 30 years’ experience in artist promotion at labels including RCA and Arista) and traveling to various local studios making music. “Our policy with them is whatever they need, including if they need to go home, we will make that happen,” Diener says. “There’s a lot of people keeping their eyes on them.”
The group has recorded seven songs in the four weeks since its arrival, with collaborators including Andrews, Kirk, Danja (Nelly Furtado’s “Say It Right,” Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack,” Britney Spears’ “Gimme More”), Justin Tranter (a go-to co-writer for Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Maroon 5 and Imagine Dragons) and Y2K (Doja Cat’s “Attention”).
Niv Lin
Austin Hargrave
The songs as1one performs for me live in this conference room include a stirring ballad with lyrics fashioned in boilerplate boy band parlance (“I wouldn’t be me without you!”), rendered in gorgeous six-part harmony and delivered with passion. (They close their eyes a lot while singing.) When the guys launch into a peppier, sexier jam about being hot-blooded animals on the dancefloor, it’s easy enough to imagine a stadium full of fans screaming along. The songs are clever and well-constructed, and the melodies stay in my head long after the meeting is over.
The guys, along with Levitan and Diener, are quick to clarify that they’re less a “boy band” and more a “male pop group,” given that they play instruments (Attia is on acoustic and electric guitar, keyboard and drums; Lin plays keys and acoustic guitar; Philips plays keyboard; Rozenblat plays keyboard and acoustic guitar; Farah is on percussion; and Dogosh is learning piano) and don’t plan on performing choreography. And Levitan and Diener expect that the group’s story will attract a wider-than-usual fan base for an act of this kind. Still, as the duo sees it, their core fan base will likely be — in the high-pitched squealing tradition of groups like *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys — what Levitan calls “a very, very excited and active female audience.”
It’s not yet clear when the first as1one single will be released, and the group hasn’t yet announced a label signing. (Levitan and Diener say they can’t disclose details on label negotiations beyond that “there’s real interest in the band.”) They’re backed by a 30-person team and 15 lawyers representing each member individually and collectively across trademarks, music, film and general counsel, and repped by WME, where they also have film and TV representation. That documentary crew lives with them, still capturing their every move — from jam sessions at the house (where there is a “No harmonicas after 11 p.m.” policy) to the much darker and more complex moments of their recent history.
All this infrastructure is being forged with a singular vision: to make as1one the biggest musical group in the world. “I mean, seriously,” Levitan says. “That’s our goal.”
The stakes for as1one were always high, but they’ve of course become significantly higher over the last six weeks. Eight of the group’s friends and family members have been killed in the conflict. It would be overwhelming for anyone, and certainly must be for the six young men now living 7,500 miles from their home, where a brutal war is being fought. But whether through coaching or genuine belief, the guys present a silver-lining attitude.
“There’s no way to describe how bad you feel,” Philips says. “Your first instinct is to go back and be with your friends and family. Then a few days later, you realize there’s no better service to the world than what we’re doing, and it just gives us a bigger purpose.”
“We don’t want to be political,” adds rapper Farah. “We just want to be humanitarian.”
From left: Sadik Dogosh, Ohad Attia, Niv Lin, Nadav Philips, Aseel Farah and Neta Rozenblat of as1one.
Austin Hargrave
They also don’t want to be inextricably linked to the conflict that, like it or not, has defined their formation. “One of the things we’ve told them,” Levitan says, “especially with everything going on now, [is that these events] can be an influence [on the music] but just can’t be directly related, because [the music] has got to be broad enough where everybody can relate to it.”
Right now, though, the inherent message of an Israeli-Palestinian group named as1one may give the act a greater meaning than Diener and Levitan could have ever imagined, regardless of what the guys are singing about. Conversations now aren’t just about being the biggest band in the world, but about the Nobel Peace Prize.
“You may say it’s a pie-in-the-sky kind of goal,” says Levitan. “But what this has become is that important.”
This story originally appeared in the Nov. 18, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Macklemore said he didn’t expect to give a speech at the pro-Palestine demonstration on Saturday (Nov. 4) in Washington, D.C. But he found himself at a podium in front of the thousands of protesters who showed up to call for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and the militant terror group Hamas.
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“First and foremost, this is absolutely beautiful to observe today,” the rapper said of the crowd in front of him.
“I didn’t expect to be on a microphone,” said Macklemore. “There are thousands of people here more qualified to speak on the issue of a free Palestine than myself.”
“But I will say this,” Macklemore continued. “They told me to be quiet. They told me to do my research, to go back, that it’s too complex to say something, right? To be silent in this moment. In the last three weeks I’ve gone back and I’ve done some research … I’m teachable. I don’t know enough. But I know enough that this is a genocide.”
Saturday’s protest was in response to Israel’s retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, which killed more than 1,400 people. Since then, the Israeli military’s response has killed more than 9,000 people in Gaza, according to reports from CNN, with a large percentage of fatalities that have included children, women and the elderly.
Macklemore, who released a statement on the conflict via Instagram on Oct. 19, also shared a video from the crowd of Saturday’s rally in an Instagram Story.
In his Oct. 19 post, he wrote: “I have been in fear. I have felt a literal lump in my throat and I cannot stay silent any longer. I condemn the murder of any human. The bombings, kidnappings and murder of the Israeli people carried out by Hamas was horrific in every way imaginable. My heart deeply hurts for the Israelis that lost loved ones to such an abomination. As a father I cannot imagine if one my kids was at that festival, or was still missing after being kidnapped. It is absolutely unfathomable. But killing innocent humans in retaliation as collective punishment is not the answer. That is why I am supporting the people around the world who are calling for a ceasefire.”
Watch a clip of his speech from Saturday in D.C. below.
Macklemore speaks at the “Free Palestine” rally in DC: “They told me to do my research, that it’s too complex, to be silent … In the last 3 weeks, I’ve gone back & I have done some research, I don’t know everything, but I know enough to know that this is a genocide.” pic.twitter.com/QQcjZQcSFQ— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) November 4, 2023
There is no subtle way to say this: Lil Nas X managed to outdo himself, and just about everyone else with his Halloween costume this year. The “Industry Baby” rapper loves to push our buttons with outrageous stage outfits and sets, but on Tuesday (Oct. 31) Montero took things to a whole new level with […]
Israel has reported that Shani Louk, a 23-year-old German-Israeli woman kidnapped by Hamas at the Nova Music Festival, has been found dead.
The ministry confirmed Louk’s death in a Monday (Oct. 30) statement on X, formerly Twitter. “We are devastated to share that [Louk’s] body,” it read, “was found and identified.”
The statement alleged that the young woman, prior to her death, was “tortured and paraded around Gaza by Hamas terrorists.”
Louk was one of thousands of festival-goers attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, when the terrorist group surrounded and gunned down Nova attendants that morning and throughout the day. Earlier this month, Louk’s mother, Ricarda, told CNN that she last spoke to her daughter after hearing rockets and alarms sounding in southern Israel. Shani told her mother she was at the festival, but there were few places to hide.
“She was going to her car and they had military people standing by the cars and were shooting so people couldn’t reach their cars, even to go away,” Ricarda said at the time. “And that’s when they took her.”
Per CNN, Louk’s body was captured on video prior to her death, seemingly unconscious in the back of a Hamas truck after the festival attack.
Hundreds of bodies were found onsite after the massacre, which was part of a wider Hamas attack on Israel that claimed approximately 1,400 lives. Around 200 people remain hostages of Hamas.
In retaliation, Israel has since declared war against the terrorist group, launching airstrikes on Hamas-controlled Gaza in Palestine. As of Monday (Oct. 30), the estimated death toll in Gaza stands at more than 8,000, with civilians constituting most of the dead.
As citizens across the world have called for a ceasefire in the Middle East, 120 countries voted last week for a United Nations resolution and “sustained humanitarian truce” in Gaza; meanwhile, Israel’s military announced plans to expand ground operations. On Friday (Oct. 27), two survivors of the festival attack — 27-year-old Maya Parizer and 28-year-old Jonathan Diller — spoke about their experiences to a crowd of mostly students at New York University, with Diller describing how “the missiles kept coming and coming.”
On Friday (Oct. 27), less than three weeks after Hamas terrorists killed more than 260 attendees at an electronic music festival in Re’im, Israel, two survivors spoke about their experiences to a crowd of mostly students at New York University.
The festival massacre was part of a wider Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that claimed approximately 1,400 lives, most of them civilians, and set off a war between Hamas and Israel that continues to escalate as Israel bombs Gaza and conducts limited sorties into the area. Officials in Hamas-controlled Gaza have listed the Palestinian death toll at more than 6,000, although President Biden has said he has “no confidence” in that number. As the festival survivors spoke Friday, hundreds of protesters gathered further uptown in New York’s Grand Central Terminal calling for a ceasefire. Around 200 people remain hostages of Hamas.
Maya Parizer, a 27-year-old Israeli American, and Jonathan Diller, a 28-year-old Israeli-Italian American, shared their stories to a room of less than 100 people on a Friday afternoon, with both staying around afterward to speak one-on-one to students. Pictures and descriptions of festival attendees who were kidnapped and remain hostages were laid out on chairs.
Parizer began to tear up almost immediately, sharing that she had attended the Nova Festival prior to 2023 and encouraged many of her friends to attend this year.
The attack began around 6:30 in the morning on Oct. 7, which Parizer said is a normal hour for Nova attendees to be up and dancing. “Sunrise is when the best dancing happens,” she said. “Instead of amazing DJs, I saw what looked like a thousand rockets within seconds… I didn’t imagine what happened next would be exponentially worse.”
“[I’m the] type of the person who tells everyone to wake up and start dancing,” Diller recalls of the morning of Oct. 7. “So we go to the stage and start dancing. At 6:30, we start seeing the rockets. And, uh, it’s kind of interesting. You see all these dozens of rockets in the air coming toward you, from the side, and the music keeps going. You can’t hear the alarm – it’s loud music…. Everyone didn’t panic because there was still music going on. People were drunk, didn’t know what’s going on.”
Not long after, the music was shut off and a police officer told attendees the situation was code red, referring to the Red Color early-warning system that warns Israeli towns around the Gaza Strip that missiles are incoming. “The missiles kept coming and coming,” Diller said between many heavy sighs. “I’m talking about a hundred missiles in the air and people just panicking.”
Despite the rocket attack, Parizer notes that no one seemed to understand the full gravity of the situation; many of the 3,000 attendees were preparing to leave but taking time to pack up their belongings, not aware that Hamas terrorists were headed their way.
Both Parizer and Diller, who attended the festival separately and left in separate vehicles around 7 a.m., said it was a decision to drive away via the road less traveled – a move based on luck as much as logic – that ultimately saved their lives. It was only as they attempted to drive away from the Re’im event amidst heavy traffic that the extent of the attack became apparent. Diller said he stopped to help a woman out of her bullet-riddled car: “We open the door and she slides out, just bleeding. We didn’t understand where this poor girl, 23…. got shot from,” he said. At that point he realized “something’s not right.”
At that point, Diller and his friends began to flee on foot, moving away from the sound of “heavy gunshots.” They walked for more than four hours before finding shelter in a distant town. “People were so tired, people were still drunk,” Diller says. “[It was] just keep your head down, don’t panic, keep going forward.”
Parizer became aware how serious the situation was after driving past a bloody body on the side of the road, calling the police and receiving no answer. After she and her fiancé drove past terrorists who shot at them (“by some miracle [we survived]” she said), an Israeli soldier stopped their car and instructed them to stop driving. “We were a minute or so from turning left and not being here to tell our story,” she said.
While squatting in a nearby shelter, Parizer said she decided to “call my parents and say my goodbyes.” Her mother didn’t pick up, and her father “didn’t comprehend the situation. He tried to reassure me and said IDF [Israel Defense Forces] would handle it and I should stay in the shelter.” But with no door on the shelter, Parizer and her fiancé decided to flee, a decision she believes saved their lives. They found a family who let them hide in a nearby kibbutz, and for the next 24 hours, they laid low, listening to the sound of automatic gunshots while clutching kitchen knives.
Parizer also shared the story of her friend, a woman who “didn’t have the luxury” of getting out physically unscathed. Terrorists found her friend and several others inside a shelter and began throwing grenades inside. “These are not people that are experienced,” Parizer said of those hiding in the shelter. “It’s drunk people with survival instincts who were brave. They decided to throw the grenades back…. In the beginning, they were successful, but they started losing their body parts. Hands, feet.”
Despite suffering extensive bruising and hearing loss in one ear, her friend survived, though she initially didn’t realize why. When footage of the attack was later reviewed and translated, her friend learned the reason she was set aside. “They said, ‘she is the one for rape, so let’s put her back inside for rape.’ My best friend,” Parizer said through tears. “By some miracle she survived because they had to leave. I don’t know why. Something happened and they left.”
Parizer said she’s still “traumatized” and “petrified”; when a building alarm went off in the distance during their NYU visit, she was visibly uncomfortable until it stopped.
“It’s just people that went to rave,” she said. “It’s like going to Coachella and not coming back. Most of us did not even comprehend what was going on when it started.”
“I would say it’s like Burning Man with Coachella – just people loving life,” Diller said. He recalled convincing his resistant friend to go with him to the festival in the first place. “I said, ‘Come on, it’s the Nova Peace Festival. It’s once a year, it’s 3000 nice people, beautiful people.’”
Diller summed up what the festival turned into: “[They were] coming with machine guns and spraying whoever they could see just because they’re Jewish. [The dead] didn’t do anything to anyone. Two of my friends were murdered and three of them got kidnapped.”
“I condemn all deaths. I don’t want to see any people hurt. I advocate peace – I always have,” Parizer said. “I know it’s not the entire nation [of Palestine]. I don’t want to talk politics – I just want the kidnapped back home. And I want the terrorists to stop. Thank you for listening.”
A female songwriter is suing Kobalt Music Group and former company executive Sam Taylor over allegations that he leveraged his position of power to demand sex from her – and that the company “ignored” and “gaslit” women who complained about him.
In a complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles court, lawyers for Nataliya Nikitenko say that Taylor exploited his control over her career to repeatedly pressure her to have sex with him — an allegation legally termed “quid pro quo sexual harassment.” After initially rebuffing him, she claims she eventually gave in and was “forced to engage in unwanted sexual intercourse.”
“Taylor’s actions were sexually predatorial, as defendant Taylor held a position of power over plaintiff,” Nikitenko’s lawyers write. “In fear of her physical safety and with the knowledge that defendant Taylor would withhold work opportunities, defame plaintiff, and ruin plaintiff’s reputation if plaintiff displeased defendant Taylor … plaintiff reluctantly submitted to defendant Taylor’s sexual advances.”
The lawsuit was filed by an unnamed woman identified only as Jane Doe, a common procedural step in cases where plaintiffs fear retaliation. But the allegations closely mirror public accusations from Nikitenko reported by Billboard last year, and the language of the lawsuit directly confirms Jane Doe is Nikitenko.
In addition to the accusations against Taylor, Nikitenko is also suing Kobalt and company executives Sas Metcalfe, Sue Drew and Lauren Hubert. The songwriter’s lawyers claim that Kobalt and the executives were aware of allegations of impropriety against Taylor, but “silenced” women who made them.
“Kobalt [and its executives] consistently ignored the complaints against [Taylor] throughout his entire employment further empowering him and encouraging to continue his scheme of threatening individuals, sexually assaulting them, sexually battering them, and leveraging his power and ability to advance their careers,” Nikitenko’s lawyers write. They say the company “valued profits over the safety of not only their employees but the artists, musicians, and singers they contracted with.”
Taylor did not return an emailed request for comment on the lawsuit’s allegations; a lawyer who represented him in relation to Nikitenko’s claims to Billboard last year also did not reply. But in the story last year, Taylor’s lawyer said the relationship had been “completely consensual at all times.”
“It is a shame that his efforts to genuinely help her career, unrelated to any relationship, are being turned on him in this manner,” Taylor’s lawyer told Billboard at the time. “We assume that she’s doing this with full knowledge of the complete lack of linkage between his efforts on her behalf and any relationship. That relationship has long since ceased.”
Kobalt, in a statement to Billboard on Wednesday, called the lawsuit’s allegations against the company and its employees “baseless.”
“The complaint contains materially false allegations, and we believe that the plaintiff knows them to be false,” the company spokesman said. “Kobalt has always had a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any sort, and neither Kobalt nor its executives condoned or aided any alleged wrongdoing by any Kobalt employee, including Sam Taylor. Kobalt will vigorously defend this case and pursue all of its available remedies.”
In her lawsuit, Nikitenko says she signed a publishing administration deal with Kobalt in May 2015, when she was 20 years old. She says she first met Taylor, then 39, at a “writers hang” in February 2016, when he “pulled plaintiff aside and asked for her cell phone number.”
Over the next year, she claims that Taylor (her “point person” within Kobalt) began to sexually harass her via text and in person, including repeatedly “flirting” with her and making inappropriate comments in front of others at Kobalt.
In one alleged incident, Nikitenko claims that she was in a “a very small recording booth” at the Kobalt offices when Taylor entered, shut the door and told her “show me your boobs.” She claims he then “touched, groped, and grabbed” her breasts, leaving her “shocked” and “embarrassed.”
“The fact that defendant Taylor did this in the middle of the office only further illustrated that defendant Taylor was given the latitude and power to do whatever he wanted without and care or concern,” her lawyers write in the lawsuit.
Nikitenko says that as the harassment from Taylor continued to escalate, she eventually succumbed and agreed to go on a date with him because she feared retaliation. When she asked where they should meet, Taylor allegedly responded “your house.” She says she then rebuffed him and they instead met at a Santa Monica restaurant, but that he “insisted and pressured” her to let him take her home.
“Due to plaintiff’s well-founded fear for her career and the power dynamic that defendant Taylor had over her career, plaintiff was forced to engage in unwanted sexual intercourse with defendant Taylor,” Nikitenko’s lawyer wrote. “As soon as defendant Taylor orgasmed, defendant Taylor quickly got dressed and left.”
Over the following two years, Nikitenko claims that Taylor repeatedly leveraged his position to coerce her into more sex, often alternating between sexually-charged texts — including “unwanted nude pictures” — with discussions of career advancement. In several texts quoted in the complaint, Taylor allegedly told her “you owe me.”
“Throughout plaintiff’s contract and business relationship, defendant Taylor required plaintiff to pay defendant Taylor with sexual favors for career opportunities defendant Taylor promised,” her lawyers write. “Defendant Taylor would often say that defendant Taylor needed a ‘fee’ after helping plaintiff. This ‘fee’ referred to sexual favors.”
After he allegedly became “frustrated” with her, the lawsuit claims that Taylor spread a false rumor that Nikitenko, who is white, had “made a racist comment” during a recording session with music producer J. White, who is Black. She claims the false rumor was a form of retaliation, and that it has “prevented plaintiff from working with many other producers and labels.”
According to the lawsuit, Taylor was “terminated” from Kobalt in October 2019; a Kobalt spokesman declined to comment when asked for the exact cause for his exit from the company.
Notably, Nikitenko’s lawsuit says she did not report Taylor’s behavior to anyone at Kobalt until July 2020, well after he had already been terminated. But she says the company and its executives were previously aware of his “history of inappropriate sexual behavior,” and that several other Kobalt employees had complained to HR about him.
“No corrective action was taken by defendant Kobalt which allowed for and encouraged defendant Taylor to continue to sexually harass, threaten, and retaliate against others, including but not limited to, plaintiff,” her lawyers write.
In March 2022, Nikitenko says she attempted to terminate her agreement with Kobalt, citing her alleged mistreatment by Taylor. She claims that the company offered to let her walk away, but only if she repaid her unrecouped balance and signed some form of non-disclosure agreement — an offer she says she refused.
In the time since she went public with her allegations last year, Nikitenko says that Kobalt has “retaliated” against her by “not placing plaintiff in sessions or introducing Plaintiff to other artists to work” and ignoring her direct requests for work.
Taylor joined Republic Records in October 2020, and was promoted to the head of the label’s hip-hop and R&B A&R department in December 2021. It’s unclear if he is currently still employed by Republic, and a label spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment on Taylor’s status. Republic, a unit of Universal Music Group, is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit or accused of any wrongdoing.
Brakence is taking a stand amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel. On Wednesday (Oct. 18), the hyperpop musician announced on social media that he will be helping Palestinians affected by Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza by donating proceeds from the North American leg of his The Hypochondriac (Is Still On) […]
Just over two weeks before MTV EMAs were set to take place on Sunday, Nov. 5, in Paris, Paramount announced on Thursday (Oct. 19) that the show has been canceled “given the volatility of world events.” This marks the first time the show has been canceled since it was launched in 1994. Even during the […]
Toronto musician Mustafa has posted an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, pleading with him to support the people of Palestine and “defy this active genocide and imprisonment that is levelling Gaza.” This comes after Israel declared a state of war against Hamas on Oct. 9.
Mustafa, then going by Mustafa The Poet, met the prime minister at a Black liberation event and eventually served as the Ontario representative in Trudeau’s youth council 10 years ago. Calling Trudeau his “old acquaintance,” Mustafa asks him to fight for the lives of Palestinian civilians, in particular the women and children, affected by Israel’s offensive.
The artist highlights Canada’s own past with colonial oppression. Mustafa asks Trudeau to join past leaders like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu on “the right side of history in the liberation of Palestine.”
My (now) open letter to an old acquaintance; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau- on Palestine, genocide, & our indigenous population pic.twitter.com/7Nqhemf7Up
— Mustafa (@MustafaThePoet) October 16, 2023
Read Mustafa’s full letter below:
Justin Trudeau,
We met a decade ago, to jog your memory we participated in an event for black liberation together before you were the prime minister of Canada.
When you were appointed prime minister, I served on the first ever youth council as your Ontario rep., we travelled this endless country together in search of some semblance of democracy.. You have your flaws in leadership, but in our time together I sensed a heart in you.
I know you have a political & economic responsibility to Israel. I remember our time in Calgary was clipped because you had to immediately fly to Tel Aviv for the funeral of war criminal Ariel Sharon. I knew and you knew there was no say in the matter of your attendance for this man you did not know.
I’m asking you to use the same tongue that defended Israel & condemned Hamas to defy this active genocide and imprisonment that is levelling Gaza, that is burying & disfiguring children and women.
I’m asking you to use our people’s tax dollars that have been exhausted to support the most funded & violent state in the world to also protect the relentlessly tormented people of Palestine.
So much of our time together was about undoing the iniquities that were done to our Indigenous population, a hopeless pursuit for this already stolen land — for the decades and decades of ethnic cleansing that they’re still recovering from, how could we ever undo what can’t be forgiven or rectified?
A century from now, when they contemplate your legacy Prime Minister, will you be recalled as a custodian of this unforgivable genocide, this ethnic cleansing, this stolen land? Your battle here in Canada will have been for nothing.
Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, join these respected leaders on the right side of history in the liberation of Palestine.
Solidarity with the oppressed and the erased,
Mustafa Ahmed,
Regent Park, Toronto
Hours after Mustafa posted his letter on X, an air raid struck a Gaza hospital, killing at least 500 people. This prompted Trudeau to tweet about the tragedy, stating accountability must be held for those responsible.
I’m horrified by the loss of life at Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza. My thoughts are with those who lost loved ones. It is imperative that innocent civilians be protected and international law upheld. Together, we must determine what happened. There must be accountability.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) October 18, 2023
Mustafa has also released the first song, “Name of God” from of his upcoming full-length album debut. A devout Muslim himself, Mustafa reflects on the loss of his brother and his relationship with God.
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In true Mustafa fashion, this single also came with a heartfelt message in his own words:
I never felt like the Nubian prince my father seen in me through his tinted lens. I try their dance, their prayer- I always fall short.
& Gods name wasn’t always related to beauty for me, but to hopelessness, this Islam we share and Allah we call for while witnessing a constant violence that continues to
bind us, I don’t think I ever felt completely Muslim among other Muslims,
All these sub-beliefs like borders. My aunts in all their wisdom and narrowness-one Sufi spinning into remembrance, one refuting the taking of a photograph.
When my big brother was killed in what will always feel like yesterday, knowing the suspected murderer was someone he held as a friend, someone he prayed with- it led me to believe that maybe his love was his end? Maybe where there is no love, parting from love keeps us alive? Maybe ending in love is the only way to actually begin? I don’t know.
The only clear memory from the days of his death were my parents reciting in unison, “oh Allah, we accept his passing, we accept what you ordained.”
I’m desperate to love God like them.
Our faith and our hearts are too often our demise- I know a field of young niggas dreaming that can testify to this. For better or worse we’ll uncover every bone beneath our hollow laughter, our confused affection; maybe its revealed in our final gasp for meaning.
Until then.
Bismillah, In the Name of God, 10.17.23
Mustafa recently made an appearance during the Daniel Caesar Toronto show on Oct.13. Alongside Charlotte Day Wilson and Caesar, Mustafa performed “Old Man’ by Neil Young in an unconventional encore broadcast live from the green room at Scotiabank Arena.
This article was originally published by Billboard Canada.