News

Earlier this month, Zohran Mamdani went on Hot 97, New York’s preeminent hip-hop radio station, to tell the story of how he first entered politics. It’s a tale he’s told many times: In 2015, Mamdani started knocking on doors for an aspiring Queens city councilman, Ali Najmi. But when he told it this time, Mamdani highlighted the real reason he wanted to get involved.

That reason was Himanshu Suri, the Queens-raised rapper and co-founder of the groups Das Racist and Swet Shop Boys. Suri, better known as Heems, grew...

Riz Ahmed is alone in the Great American Music Hall, San Francisco’s legendary concert venue. He knows we’re watching him, however: It’s part of a livestream of The Long Goodbye, a half-hour performance piece adapted from his acclaimed live show, which was itself inspired by his 2020 album of the same name. (You can catch the performance piece on Bam’s website through March 1st.) For those who know the 38-year-old only as an actor — an Emmy winner for The Night Of, and currently building Oscar buzz for...

In September 2018, Spotify announced a new “Global Cultures Initiative,” hoping to increase intercontinental musical exchange, and, ideally, transform more local non-Western hits into global phenomena. “We have launched numerous high-profile playlists and programs in the recent past,” Rocio Guerrero, then Head of Global Cultures at Spotify, said in September 2018. “But Global Cultures is poised to become one of the most important things we are doing as a leader in the field of streaming audio.”

The initiative hit a rough patch recently: The original Global Cultures team was disbanded, according to...

Rock & roll and Anthony Bourdain were a natural fit. So it made sense that artists from Alison Mosshart to Josh Homme would pop up on his various shows, acting as culinary tour guides, drinking buddies, performers or all of the above. But in keeping with Bourdain's adventurous spirit, he made a point of meeting up with musicians representing many different regions and cultures. Over the years, his guests included System of a Down's Serj Tankian, African pop legend Youssou N'Dour, Morocco's Master Musicians of Jajouka and many more. Here, in...

Earlier this month, “The Night Of” actor Riz Ahmed penned a stirring essay for the book “The Good Immigrant,” about living as a British-Pakistani man and getting hassled by security at airports. An excerpt of his letter was published on The Guardian where he compared being stereotyped when he was traveling to auditing for roles. It’s an unfortunate experience that he took as source of inspiration for his music he makes with Himanshu Suri, also known as Heems.

Known as the Swet Shop Boys, the rap duo just released the music video for their single, “T5.” The song is about being racially profiled at airports and shows Riz and Heems being searched by Tsa and border control officers at JFK’s Terminal 5. Check out The Fader-produced video below.

Read More: ‘The Night Of’ Actor Riz Ahmed Pens Stirring Essay About Being Attacked By Airport Security And Racial Profiling

Among...

With Sundance in the rear view mirror and Berlin just around the corner, another huge festival that’s now very much in mind is the 2015 South By Southwest Film Festival (SXSW 2015), to be held in Austin, Texas, this March. And this year, the lineup looks no less eclectic than in any previous year for the festival.

SXSW 2015 will see the debut of two big-studio comedies (Paul Feig’s Spy, starring Melissa McCarthy; and Etan Cohen’s Get Hard, starring Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart), some red-hot documentaries (none more so than Alex Gibney’s Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine) and a vast array of smaller indie titles. Intriguingly, Judd Apatow’s Amy Schumer vehicle Trainwreck will be screened as a work-in-progress.

Elsewhere, Alex Garland’s well-received Ex Machina will be making an appearance, as will Ryan Gosling’s much-maligned Lost River. And curiously, there will be a...

South by Southwest, the multi-faceted film, music and technology festival held annually in Austin, TX will feature such upcoming films as Paul Feig’s Spy, David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn, Alex Gibney’s documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, and Ondi Timoner’s Russell Brand profile Brand: A Second Coming as headliners in this year’s film festival lineup.

SXSW runs from March 13 to 21 in Austin and is now in its 22nd year. Variety has details of the 145 films and 100 world premieres bowing at this year’s festival. Brand, as previously reported, will be the festival’s opening night film.

Other notable titles on the list are the Will Ferrell/Kevin Hart comedy Get Hard, a rough cut of Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck, the directorial debut of 28 Days Later screenwriter Alex Garland, Ex Machina, and a new comedy by Michael Showalter, Hello, My Name is Doris.

On the small screen,...

Top brass at the 22nd South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival have announced the feature line-up for the upcoming festival, set to run from March 13-21 in Austin, Texas.

SXSW will showcase 145 features. The line-up includes 60 films from first-time film-makers and comprises 100 world premieres, 13 North American premieres and 11 Us premieres.

Head of film Janet Pierson and her team of programmers culled selections from a record 2,385 feature-length submissions composed of 1,614 Us and 771 international features. The record of 7,335 total submissions marks a 13% gain on 2014.

For the first time the number of films in the juried Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature selections have risen from eight to ten. The complete Conference line-up and schedule will be released on February 17.

Besides the Narrative Feature Competition and Documentary Feature Competition selections listed below, feature entries include Judd Apatow’s work-in-progress comedy Trainwreck starring Amy Schumer in Special Events, music film 808 (pictured) in 24 Beats Per Second and Alex Garland’s sci-fi...