Category: 5. Entertainment

In 1974 – six years after publishing Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – the sci-fi writer Philip K Dick had a hallucinatory experience, sparked by the reflection of light from a delivery woman’s necklace, that began a lasting obsession with an imaginary and elusive godlike being. He called this figure Zebra, on account of its propensity for camouflage – hence the title of Mark Simpson’s new electric guitar concerto for Sean Shibe, Zebra (or, 2-3-74: The Divine Invasion of Philip K Dick), the centrepiece of this polychromatic Prom from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Anja Bihlmaier.

It’s a conventional concerto in some ways: in three movements, fast, slow, fast. But, although the guitar carries the melodic line most of the time, it doesn’t hog the limelight: no Brian May on the palace roof posturing here. Instead, chameleon-like, it slips in and out of camouflage, blending with the orchestra then standing apart, and creating new sonorities. Guitar and muted trumpets wah-wah together; high pinprick notes merge into high violin glitter; in moments of stillness, the orchestra, augmented by synth and organ, traces an aura around the guitar that sounds like the result of a reverb pedal until this halo asserts an eerie presence of its own.

Everything tumbles towards a big extravagant ending, with an AI voice quoting Dick’s words joining the melee. This voice didn’t come across everywhere in the hall but was crystal-clear listening back on BBC Sounds; generally, in fact, the precise balance of the broadcast demystifies some of the sonic intrigue the piece created in the hall.

Shibe’s exuberant virtuosity is a constant, though, as is the vibrancy of Simpson’s music. Shibe’s encore was a heat-hazy version of Messiaen’s choral piece O Magnum Mysterium: perhaps more of his music should be co-opted for electric guitar.

Zebra came in between Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration, initially understated but reaching a glowing apotheosis, and a fellow pharmaceutically inspired work, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. The orchestra responded ever more colourfully to Bihlmaier’s storytelling conducting, with jumpscares in the March and, in the finale, grotesque-sounding woodwinds leading a tightly rhythmic witches’ dance as sinister bells tolled from the gallery.

The last time I saw Malcolm-Jamal Warner was on a bittersweet night in Atlanta. This was after one of his gigs at Buteco, the east side Brazilian joint that Warner took over on the first Thursday of every month. He would magically transform it into the kind of classic Black TV hotspot that he himself might have walked on to back in the day. (Think of Natalie’s, the New York Undercover hangout.) Warner’s Buteco Nights had become a rallying cry among my guy friends to break away from family routines and kick back and catch up for a few hours in a house full of fellow creatives. All the while, Warner would reinterpret funk and R&B jams on the electric bass with his band, Biological Misfits. When two friends announced they were leaving Atlanta for good, this balmy night in April became a final hurrah. I didn’t yet know just how final.

Just when the night seemed as if it couldn’t be stretched any longer, I caught Warner as he and the band were packing up at closing time. I asked about his daughter (whom I fondly remember being carried out of Buteco after a recent gig ran past her bedtime), and suddenly – as ever with Warner, always so thoughtful and intentional in his interactions – we were going deep. We joked about being older dads and the adventures and adversities that come with raising Black children in this American day and age. He was so insanely proud of the job his wife and daughter were doing in homeschool, studying ancient Egypt and other Black history. He was especially excited about an upcoming family trip to Costa Rica, because it meant he could bring the classroom to the beach. After 20 or so minutes of catching up, we bro-hugged and parted ways. I had no reason to expect I’d never see him again.

I was scrolling through Twitter on Monday when I saw Warner’s name trending, and I’ve been numb ever since learning that he died in a drowning accident on that very family trip to Costa Rica, while swimming with his daughter. Like the sudden deaths of Chadwick Boseman and Kobe Bryant, Warner’s passing is a profound shock that makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Here was a guy who became a household name as a teenager and somehow wasn’t turned into another tragic child star, who tarried in the industry over five decades making TV, movies, music and poetry without generating negative headlines or rumors – who, on the last night I saw him, looked for all the world like a man who had it all figured out and was at peace with the final answers. For it all to end now, as he was exactly where he wanted to be in life, just feels unspeakably cruel.

Warner’s is no ordinary celebrity tragedy. It’s the beginning of the end of an era, of a time when TV stars were still so near and dear to us. For those of us who grew up watching the Cosby Show, my original Thursday night routine, he was more than a fictive relative. As Theo Huxtable, the respectful (if mischievous) teen who overcame dyslexia on the way to an NYU psychology major and job helping kids like himself at the community center, he showcased a range of Black masculinity that was alien at the time and still a strange sight on screen today. Just the sight of his name flashing in the opening credits was like seeing a Black fist come through the screen. How could Gil Scott-Heron say the revolution would not be televised when our man was right here, in dreads and kente patterns, repping Malcolm X and Mumia Abu-Jamal in prime time? Not just on the Cosby Show, mind you, but on The Resident and 9-1-1, too.

Warner’s loss has hit like a death in the family and, make no mistake, his family was immense. The welter of tributes – from Beyoncé (who remembered Warner on the front page of her official website) to Kate Hudson (who recalled her time working with Warner on Fool’s Gold) to Tyrese Gibson (who paid tribute to Warner in a Facebook poem) – speak not only to his long and varied career in the industry (an NPR Tiny Desk, directing credits on music videos for Whitney Houston and New Edition) but to his monumental kindness, fundamental decency and unwavering professionalism.

That sense of character, a fixture on and off screen, really shined through when Bill Cosby was subsumed by sexual assault allegations during the #MeToo era. While other industry peers rushed to distance themselves from Cosby, Warner found a way to walk a line between denouncing Cosby’s conduct and reasserting his gratitude to his mentor and TV dad without anyone really questioning his loyalty. Reacting to Warner’s death earlier this week Cosby’s spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, likened the bombshell news to the 1997 murder of Cosby’s flesh-and-blood son, Ennis – a close friend of Warner’s, as it happened. “When we talk about why the good people are taken away from us,” Warner reflected in a recent podcast interview with the media personality Melyssa Ford, “I go: ‘Maybe they’re being rewarded or something.’”

More than his body work – which, again, is simply staggering – Malcolm should be remembered for actually living up to the Cosby Show’s lofty ideals. His Thursday Buteco nights were pretty special too, a natural landing spot for other Black Hollywood icons who happened to be passing through town. But the real privilege wasn’t watching Danny Glover or another star drop by to pay respect. It was sharing in some good, clean fun with a room full of people – a not insignificant number of them Black men who took to their responsibilities as fathers, spouses and good citizens in large part because of the dude on the bass, jammin’ on the one.

That’s the Warner I’ll remember: the sage who elevated people as he brought them together with his bright smile, deep voice and bottomless warmth. I’ll mourn him terribly, though not even half as much as his family members, friends, former castmates and bandmates who knew him far better. Suffice to say: Thursday Buteco nights won’t be the same with him gone, but there’s some comfort in thinking of his absence as its own reward when you know that’s what it may have meant to him.

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 

This week: Songs by Olivia Rodrigo, Sufjan Stevens and more benefit from synchs in the new ‘Summer I Turned Pretty’ season, Connie Francis’ catalog rockets up in sales and streams after her death, Pierce the Veil scores a belated hit with a 2023 song and more.

‘Summer’ Season 3 Synchs Turn Up the Heat on Songs by Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo, Justin Timberlake & More

The inventors of a genre of music were four young working-class men from Birmingham, Britain’s second-biggest city. People paid to watch scary films, they reasoned, so maybe they would pay to hear scary music, too. The rock band, which formed in 1968, adopted the name Black Sabbath. In Ozzy Osbourne—who died on June 22nd, aged 76—they found a singer who embodied heavy metal’s sense of dread (and who would later become a reality-TV star). The band’s furious rhythms and gritty guitars echoed their own tempestuous dynamic; when they were not breaking up and getting back together, they found the time to release 19 studio albums, which sold more than 75m copies. Here are five notable tracks by rock’n’roll’s “prince of darkness”.

Salvador Plasencia did not supply Perry with the fatal dose but has admitted to obtaining ketamine for the actor’s use.

Doctor Salvador Plasencia has pleaded guilty to illegally supplying the drug ketamine to Matthew Perry, star of the hit television show Friends, in the lead-up to the actor’s 2023 overdose and death in the United States.

On Wednesday, Plasencia appeared before the federal court of Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett in Los Angeles to enter his plea as part of a deal with prosecutors.

Plasencia had previously pleaded not guilty. But as his trial date approached in August, he and his defence lawyers reached an agreement that would see his legal jeopardy lowered.

In exchange for having Plasencia plead guilty to four counts of illegally distributing ketamine, prosecutors dropped three additional counts of illegal distribution and two counts of falsifying records.

When questioned by Judge Garnett, Plasencia indicated his lawyers had exhausted all their options for pleas and sentencing: “They’ve considered everything.”

In a statement afterwards, one of his lawyers, Debra White, conveyed Plasencia’s regrets and indicated the doctor would no longer practice medicine professionally.

“Dr Plasencia is profoundly remorseful for the treatment decisions he made while providing ketamine to Matthew Perry,” White said.

“He is fully accepting responsibility by pleading guilty to drug distribution. Dr Plasencia intends to voluntarily surrender his medical license, acknowledging his failure to protect Mr Perry, a patient who was especially vulnerable due to addiction.”

Perry — best known for his role as Chandler Bing on the show Friends — died on October 28, 2023, in a hot tub at his home in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles, California. He was 54 years old.

An autopsy report released in December of that year credited Perry’s death to the “acute effects” of ketamine, while acknowledging other factors. Perry’s coronary artery disease, for example, likely contributed to his death, as well as his long-term struggles with drug use.

Perry had been legally using ketamine to treat his depression. But faced with limits to the amount he could be prescribed, Perry reportedly started to seek additional sources of the drug outside of legal channels.

Plasencia did not supply Perry with the fatal dose of ketamine, according to prosecutors.

But in court on Wednesday, he did acknowledge he provided Perry with ketamine in the month leading up to his death, including 20 vials that contained a total of 100 milligrammes of the drug.

The doctor also admitted to administering one injection and watching Perry’s blood pressure spike. He also said he left some for Perry’s assistant to inject.

In court filings from a separate case, fellow doctor Mark Chavez accused Plasencia of recruiting him to supply ketamine to sell to Perry.

“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia allegedly said in a text message to Chavez. Prosecutors said the ketamine sale netted $4,500.

Plasencia is the fourth defendant to plead guilty to charges related to Perry’s death.

A fifth defendant, Jasveen Sangha, has pleaded not guilty. Authorities have accused Sangha of giving Perry his fatal dose and say she was a drug dealer known as the “ketamine queen”. Her trial will begin in August.