politics
Kodak Black attended a Black History Month reception at the White House on Thursday (Feb. 20). “Kodak in the People’s House,” the official White House X account wrote along with an American flag emoji and photos of the “Super Gremlin” MC. Fellow rappers Boosie Badazz and Rod Wave were also invited, a White House official […]
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Source: JIM WATSON / Getty / White House
Donald Trump and his lame administration are working hard to set the advancement of Black culture back years with the removal of DEI programs, but that’s not stopping these Black celebrities from joining him at the White House to celebrate Black History Month.
The Associated Press reports that Donald Trump’s White House will host a Black History Month event on Thursday, and the who’s who of sellouts will be in attendance to celebrate the jig.
According to the website, Trump’s heada** pick to be ambassador to t Herschel Walker, Trump’s favorite African American, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Republican Rep. John James of Michigan, prison reform advocate and recipient of a Trump pardon in 2020 thanks to Kim Kardashian Alice Johnson, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, Alveda King will join Felon 47 in the East Room for the event.
Other notable sellouts in attendance will be former ESPN host Sage Steele, Kodak Black, Lil Boosie, who recently begged Trump for a pardon on X, formerly Twitter, and Rod Wave, fresh off from performing at the Crypto Ball alongside Snoop Dogg.
The event was scheduled for last week but was postponed due to inclement weather.
Social media has been responding accordingly to the list of names who will be at the event.
“Sorry but ever single attendee (including that fuck ass president) is a cte having criminal degenerate,” one person on X wrote, adding a long rap sheet of problematic behavior from Rod Wave.
Luke Cage showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker added, “Glad to hear our best and brightest will represent us….and if you don’t hear the sarcasm in my voice, you clearly don’t follow me on here.
The list of Black Trumpers continues to grow. Never forget these people were on the wrong side of history.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
4. Exactly
7. “Jigaboo Jubilee” HOWLING
After President Donald Trump was elected chair of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, many have speculated about what the embattled commander in chief would do with his new position. This week, one performing group got an answer.
On Wednesday (Feb. 19), the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington announced that the Kennedy Center had canceled its upcoming Pride Month performance of a show titled A Peacock Among Pigeons, based on the LGBTQ+-inclusive children’s book of the same name. The concert, which was set to take place with the National Symphony Orchestra in May, was scheduled to kick of Washington, D.C.’s Pride celebrations ahead of the city hosting WorldPride 2025.
“We are deeply disappointed with the news that our upcoming Pride performance with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) has been canceled,” the chorus wrote in a statement posted to its Instagram page. “We believe in the power of music to educate and uplift, to foster love, understanding, and community, and we regret that this opportunity has been taken away.”
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The organization continued, adding that they would still perform their rendition of the piece during the WorldPride festivities. “While we are saddened by the decision, we are committed to this work and to our mission of raising our voices for equality for all,” the statement read. “We are grateful to those who have supported us, and we will continue to seek spaces where our voices, our stories, and our music can be heard.”
Billboard has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.
The news comes just a few weeks after President Trump staged a dramatic takeover of the cultural institution. The president purged the Kennedy Center’s board of 18 Democratic appointees while promising to install himself as chairman, added new members to the board more aligned with his politics, was unanimously named the new chairman and fired the Center’s former president, Deborah F. Rutter.
In a statement given to NBC News, the National Symphony Orchestra’s executive director Jean Davidson claimed that the decision to cancel A Peacock Among Pigeons was made prior to Trump’s reshaping of the Kennedy Center’s board. “Before the leadership transition at the Kennedy Center, we made the decision to postpone [A Peacock Among Pigeons] due to financial and scheduling factors,” she said in a statement. “We chose to replace it with The Wizard of Oz, another suitable program for World PRIDE participation.”
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Once upon a time, MSNBC host Michael Steele was a diehard Republican. In fact, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland was the chair of the Republican National Committee for four years, from 2003 to 2007.
But things have changed over the last two decades, and these days, Steele is not only over the party that long abandoned him (after discovering he was more moderate than conservative, which is not the way they like their sunken place “Black friends”), but he’s completely fed up with the MAGA-fied GOP as well as the Democrats who have failed to stop them from making white nationalism great again.
On Saturday, after Alicia Menendez, Steele’s co-host on MSNBC’s The Weekend, read from a report from The Nation stating the courts cannot “save us,” during a discussion on whether the courts can rein in Trump and his perceived puppet master, Elon Musk, who have essentially turned the federal government into their own personal Project 2025 execution station.
“What would you have us do?” co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend asked Steele after he went all the way off on feckless Democrats during the discussion.
“I would like you to show that you give a damn!” he shot back.
“That you got a little emotion about the fact that people are losing their jobs indiscriminately,” Steele continued. “That this individual sitting down [in] the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has given absolute power to one man who brings his son into the Oval Office, whose son says to him, ‘You’re not the president, you shouldn’t be in that chair.’ Now, where did he get that from? He got it from his daddy, because that’s what his daddy thinks of the man who brought him into the Oval Office. So I’d just like to see somebody wake the hell up and get excited about the fact that your country is under assault! They’re not at the gate anymore, they’re in your bedrooms they’re in your living rooms, they’re in your businesses, they got your data, dumbasses, they got all your stuff.”
Steele continued his rant with more harsh words for Musk.
“Elon Musk has his tentacles in everything you’re doing, not just off of X, but now he’s in the Treasury Department, he’s in the Labor Department, he’s in the Department of Homeland Security and nobody seems to give a damn,” he said. “So that’s all I want. Somebody to show that they care enough to get off their fat ass and say something about it.”
Mendez attempted to steer Steele’s ire back to the Republican party where the bulk of it belongs, and that’s when Steele made his feelings about his former party clear and unmistakeable.
“The hell with Republicans! They’re not going to do anything, they’re the problem!” he exclaimed.
So, what do y’all think? Is Steele right to highlight Democratic complicity in Trump and Musk’s MAGA regime, or are the Dems being unfairly blamed for Trump’s second term? Let us know what you think in the comments.
TikTok has returned to the app stores of Apple and Google in the U.S., after President Donald Trump delayed the enforcement of a TikTok ban. TikTok, which is operated by Chinese technology firm ByteDance, was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores on Jan. 18 to comply with a law that requires ByteDance to divest […]
Issa Rae has canceled her sold-out show at the Kennedy Center following Donald Trump’s board takeover, with the actress calling the president’s actions an “infringement on the values” of the cultural organization.
In a statement posted to Instagram Stories on Thursday (Feb. 13), Rae thanked fans for buying tickets to her event titled “An Evening With Issa Rae” before writing, “Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue.”
Noting that all tickets would be refunded, the producer added, “Thank you so much for understanding, and I hope to see you soon.”
Rae’s announcement comes shortly after Trump gutted much of the Kennedy Center’s historically nonpartisan board of trustees and appointed his own supporters in their places. Naming himself chairman, the twice-impeached POTUS also fired the institution’s longtime president, Deborah F. Rutter; the board has replaced her with interim president Richard Grenell, who served as ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term in the White House.
The Barbie actress is just one of multiple people in the entertainment industry distancing themselves from the Kennedy Center amid the changes. Ben Folds has left his position as adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, while Shonda Rhimes has resigned as treasurer of the center’s board.
Philadelphia rock band Low Cut Connie has also followed Rae’s lead, with frontman Adam Weiner announcing Wednesday that the group would be pulling out of its scheduled March 19 concert at the iconic Washington, D.C., venue. “Our little rock n roll act stands for diversity, inclusion and truth-telling,” the musician wrote in a message announcing the cancelation on Instagram. “Maybe my career will suffer from this decision, but my soul will be the better for it.”
Trump first announced his plans to overhaul the Kennedy Center leadership team last Friday (Feb. 7), writing on Truth Social, “I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”
Specifically condemning the center’s inclusion of drag shows in its past programming, the politician added that performances “targeting our children” will come to an end under his supervision. “The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation,” he concluded. “For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
Macklemore is once again criticizing the United States government, this time taking President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to task in a scorching new protest song titled “F–ked Up.”
In the track posted to his YouTube channel Wednesday (Feb. 12), the rapper weaves his way through verses connecting racial injustice in America to the twice-impeached POTUS’ administration, which now includes the Tesla billionaire. Macklemore also calls out the United States’ financial support of Israel throughout the country’s ongoing war against Hamas, a conflict that has killed at least 45,000 Palestinians between the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks — which left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and about 240 people taken hostage — and the temporary ceasefire the two sides reached in January.
“New era ushered, but white supremacy is still in charge/ Talking colonizing Gaza from the White House lawn/ But the people mobbing, and we ain’t backing off/ Finally see the oligarchy and the men that control us all,” the Washington native spits over a dark, intense beat. “Tax breaks for the elite and then they taxing y’all/ Killing Palestinian kids and we getting hit with the cost.”
Macklemore paired the song with a video compiling footage of American and Palestinian protestors, including a clip of the rogue dancer who waved a combination Palestine-Sudan flag during Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show Sunday (Feb. 9). It also shows numerous clips of Trump, Musk and fellow billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos corresponding with lyrics about rich men in power suppressing the American people.
One clip the music video repeatedly comes back to is of the X CEO doing a Nazi-like salute at one of Trump’s inauguration events in January. “They got us f–ked up,” Macklemore rages in the song’s chorus. “And Elon, we know exactly what that was, bruh.”
Billboard has reached out to reps for the White House, Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos for comment.
“F–ked Up” is just the latest protest song the hip-hop star — who has been vocal in both his support of Palestine and his disappointment in the U.S. government — has released in the past year. In May 2024, he ripped into then-president Joe Biden while advocating for Gaza on a track titled “Hind’s Hall,” the proceeds of which went to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s assistance and protection programs for Palestinian refugees. The following September, he dropped a sequel to the song with assists from Gazan rapper MC Abdul and Palestinian-American singer Anees, featuring the chant, “From the river to the sea/ Palestine will be free.” (The American Jewish Committee has deemed the phrase antisemitic.)
When Macklemore performed “Hind’s Hall 2” that month at Seattle’s Palestine Will Live Forever Festival, he also led the crowd in a “F–k America” chant, after which Las Vegas’ 2024 Neon City Festival dropped him from its lineup. Later, the “Thrift Shop” hitmaker said in a statement, “My thoughts and feelings are not always expressed perfectly or politely. Sometimes I slip up and get caught in the moment.”
“I’ve slipped in front of the world before,” he continued at the time. “I’m sure I’ll do it again. But they will not silence my voice, and they will not close my heart. I’ve lost endorsements, I’ve lost shows, I’ve lost business ties. I am still here, unwavering in my support for a Free Palestine.”
President Donald Trump was elected chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., he announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Wednesday (Feb. 12). He replaces financier David M. Rubenstein as chair.
Deborah F. Rutter, who had served as president of the Kennedy Center since 2014, was subsequently fired from her position. Rutter had announced last month that she intended to step down at the end of 2025.
Trump’s Truth Social post read: “President Donald J. Trump was just unanimously elected Chairman of the Board of the prestigious Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The President stated, ‘It is a Great Honor to be Chairman of The Kennedy Center, especially with this amazing Board of Trustees. We will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!’”
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On Monday, Trump posted on social media that he would appoint Richard Grenell, who was ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, as the center’s interim executive director, saying that he “shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture” and would make sure there was no more “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.”
On Wednesday, shortly after Trump was elected chairman, singer and songwriter Ben Folds said he would resign his post as an adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, which is overseen by the Kennedy Center. “Given developments at the Kennedy Center, effective today I am resigning as artistic adviser to the N.S.O. Not for me,” Folds wrote on Instagram.
The Kennedy Center oversees the National Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Washington National Opera, in addition to presenting theatrical shows, the Kennedy Center Honors and more.
In his first term as president, Trump broke with precedent by not attending the annual Kennedy Center Honors, something all previous presidents had done since the honors program began in 1978, minus rare cases when they were called away by urgent events. Trump also was a frequent critic of the Center’s programming.
“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday (Feb. 7).
He continued: “I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture. We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP! Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP. The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
Trump’s social media reference to “Drag Shows” appeared to be a reference to a show the center hosted last year called “Dragtastic Dress-up,” which was aimed at LGBTQ+ youth.
The Center has in recent days scrubbed its site of references to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Trump has been highly critical of such programs.
The Kennedy Center has historically been run by bipartisan boards. On Monday (Feb. 10), the Trump administration officially removed 18 board members who had been appointed by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The members removed include some of Biden’s closest aides — Karine Jean-Pierre, the former White House press secretary, and political strategist Mike Donilon — as well as artists including Grammy and Oscar winner Jon Batiste.
The board is now entirely comprised of Trump appointees, including the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles; Dan Scavino, a longtime Trump aide; and Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance.
It was a good news/bad news day for Grimes on Tuesday (Feb. 11) when the “Delete Forever” singer learned that her ex Elon Musk had taken the couple’s first-born son to a White House briefing. In response to a commenter who noted that four-year-old “Lil X” (born X Æ A-Xii) “was very polite today! You raised him well. He was so cute when he told DJT [Donald Trump] ‘please forgive me, I need to pee,’” Grimes criticized Musk for including their child in the photo-op.
Grimes did not find the seemingly uncleared appearance by her son quite so charming, responding, “He should not be in public like this. I did not see this, thank u for alerting me.” The preschooler spent some of his time in the Oval Office on his father’s shoulders as Trump signed an executive order giving the Tesla boss’ controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) more power to continue its legally suspect slash-and-burn march through the federal beuracracy.
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“But I’m glad he was polite. Sigh,” Grimes added of the little one who at one point was seen picking his nose just inches away from a seemingly irritated Trump. X, dressed in a suit and tie, also pulled faces and seemed to imitate his father’s gestures, at one point mussing Musk’s hair and grabbing his ears in boredom during the daytime White House appearance.
Grimes has three children with Musk — who has a total of 12 children from three different women — and has often been at odds with the world’s richest man over the rearing of their children and his often-controversial public statements. Last month, when Musk made what was widely interpreted as a pair of vigorous Nazi salutes during an inauguration event for Trump, Grimes quickly distanced herself from the billionaire who in late January told a crowd of supporters of the far-right Alternative For Germany party that, “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents,” in an apparent reference to Nazi Germany just two days before Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that,” Musk added, praising the anti-immigration, anti-cultural integration party as the “best hope for Germany.”
At the time of the salutes, Grimes wrote, “it is unhealthy that people are this upset when I have not even been online yet today and am only just learning about this controversy now. I don’t know what happened and I will not make a rash statement – I am not a citizen of this country.” She later made it clear that she did not approve of the seemingly fascist gesture many took as a version of the “Sieg Heil” gesture associated with Holocaust mastermind Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.
“I am not him. I will not make a statement every time he does something. I can only send love back into a world that is hurting,” Grimes said. “To be clear i could go talk s–t and be on a bunch of magazine covers and be a feminist hero and get clout – but it would serve no purpose. I choose my children’s wellbeing. I promise you it doesn’t feel good to be hated all the time for things I don’t even know about, cannot predict and cannot control. But I also chose this path, I accept it. I make the best of it, and I simply wish happiness and health to all.”
Check out Grimes’ post below.
He should not be in public like this. I did not see this, thank u for alerting me. But I’m glad he was polite. Sigh— 𝖦𝗋𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗌 ⏳ (@Grimezsz) February 12, 2025
Los Tigres del Norte has always been known for addressing political issues and social justice in its songs, with strong and direct lyrics, and for giving a voice to immigrants who have come to the U.S. in search of a better life. Amid recent immigration raids by President Donald Trump’s administration, the band’s latest single, “La Lotería,” is no exception.
“It always breaks your heart to leave your land because the tree no longer provides good shade … It’s not that they want to change their flag; although far away, they always long for their roots,” goes the song released on Feb. 6 under Fonovisa.
“I think it comes at a time when we were already seeing what was coming,” Jorge Hernández, lead vocalist and leader of Los Tigres del Norte, tells Billboard Español. “The song is narrated according to how life has led us.”
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Last year, during presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign, Los Tigres performed at her rally in Phoenix. The appearance aligned with the Mexican band’s continued support for Democratic candidates during U.S. presidential elections. In the past, it has endorsed Hillary Clinton (2016) and Joe Biden (2020), and has used its platform to get Latinos to go out and vote.
“We had the opportunity to work on this Kamala Harris campaign, hoping that we would have the pleasure of having another type of government, but well, such is life. Now we have to adapt and do what we have to do,” Hernández says. “I think this moment is very important for all of us Latinos, it’s a crucial moment for everyone.”
“We also have to see what the Mexican government will grant to those people who for some reason have not been able to settle in the United States,” he adds about the fate of the people deported.
The norteño music band known for classics such as “De Paisano a Paisano,” “La Carta,” “Jefes de Jefes” and “Somos Más Americanos” left its native Sinaloa, Mexico, in 1970 — two years after the group’s foundation — and has established itself in San Jose, Calif., since then.
When asked if he fears any kind of retaliation from President Trump for being the voice of many immigrants in the U.S. and for having supported the Harris campaign, the musician stays focused.
“I don’t think negatively,” he says. “We have always participated when we are called not only in the U.S., in different countries and for different organizations. It’s part of our job. We have been identified with Latinos since the ’70s, so it’s nothing new for us. If there were to be something against us, well, we would have to see what process we would follow. For now, we are calm.”
“We did what we had to do as human beings and as citizens of this country and as citizens of our Mexican Republic,” Hernández concludes. “We will continue to move forward fighting for those people who have no voice.”