The latest challenge to land on social media has one of the more peculiar origins: The Weeknd’s Variety interview promoting his new album, After Hours. Amid charming anecdotes about hanging out with Jim Carrey on his 30th birthday, The Weeknd also remarked on the impact his singular musical style had on R&B, using the example of Usher’s “Climax.” Calling “Climax” a “Weeknd song,” the Canadian singer said that he was flattered but insulted that Usher would borrow “his” style.
Now Usher has responded to the comments, but rather than doing so directly, he instead issued the #ClimaxChallenge, singing an excerpt from the song’s chorus on his Instagram Story. He notably did not mention The Weeknd, but the implication was clear: “You wish you could sing a song like ‘Climax.’” It wasn’t long before other R&B singers — both certified ones like Eric Bellinger and aspiring ones — were giving it a go and hashtagging their own renditions of the #ClimaxChallenge. While Usher didn’t say that it was in response to The Weeknd’s comment, others were more than happy to speak up on his behalf. In the caption of his own video (which featured a collection of other entries), Bellinger tagged The Weeknd, writing, “Now all we waitin for is you.”
We’ll see if The Weeknd responds, but until then, check out some of the entries to the challenge in the videos above.
As it becomes more and more likely that you’re running low on mixers, we’ve spent the week calling out gins and a variety of whiskeys to drink straight. Today it’s rum’s turn. We’re not talking about the harsh, high proof, mouth-drying rum that you mixed high-octane punches with in college. We’re talking about aged, nuanced, high-quality rums — sure to please even whiskey purists.
Jake Larowe, bar manager at Birds and Bees in Los Angeles, prefers well-aged rums to whiskey for slow sipping.
“I love clean, 12-year barrel-aged rums,” he says. “Something that doesn’t get too heavy from a long stay in wood but still has enough time to sit and mellow.”
To help us drill down to specific bottles, we enlisted the help of some of our favorite bartenders. Here are their picks for the best rums for drinking neat.
Clairin Vaval Haitian Rhum Agricole
Valentino Longo, bartender at Le Sirenuse in Miami
I love rhum agricole to drink neat during the day, like Clairin. And for after dinner with a nice cigar, a Venezuelan rum, like Diplomatico.
If I’m going to drink a rum neat, it better be smooth. That’s why I like El Dorado 12-year. It is rich and complex, and kind of funky. Plus it’s at a good price point for aged rum.
My choice of rum is the Ron Zacapa 23-year barrel-aged. Many of our other labels of rum are designed to enjoy in a hand-crafted cocktail while Ron Zacapa is designed to be enjoyed as you would a Cognac or a fine whiskey. Its time in barrel has given it a rounder mouthfeel and more depth of flavor, best enjoyed neat.
My go-to rum is Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva. The origin is Venezuela. It’s utterly smooth at room temp. On the nose, I get honey or tawny port, you can smell a little bit of raisin. Fruity up front, I get banana and cantaloupe. The finish is a little funkier though it dissipates quickly.
Dos Maderas 5 + 5
Josh Streetman, bartender at Motor Supply Co. in Columbia, South Carolina
Rum styles range across the board, with production methods being widely diverse and mostly unregulated. I like Dos Maderas 5 + 5. It’s Spanish and finished in oak and used port barrels. I also have an affection for agricole for a funky, lighter, vegetal flavor. Duquesne from Martinique is my pick.
Ron Zacapa XO
Natalie Migliarini, the mixologist behind Beautiful Booze on Instagram
Ron Zacapa XO Rum. I love the sweet, spicy, and rich flavors — including dark chocolate, brown sugar, and toffee. I also love Zacapa’s Master Blender, Lorena Vásquez, whom I’ve met on several occasions. Her personality and energy really make this brand stand out.
The best rum for me is Black Coral Rum’s Spiced Rum. It is distilled using ingredients sourced in Palm Beach’s backyard and is incredibly flavorful. The flavors of toasted cacao nibs, clove, allspice, nutmeg, and cinnamon make it a great sipper. It also makes great old fashioneds and Manhattans.
Foursquare Cask Series
Nate Simmons, bartender at Garden & Grain in Pensacola, Florida
Foursquare Cask Series Rum from Barbados. This line of artisan rums is pot stilled and aged in a combination of ex-bourbon, ex-Madeira and/or ex-sherry barrels. Incredible flavor and complexity.
Papa’s Pilar Dark Rum from Hemingway Rum Co. is my absolute favorite rum. It has notes of warm spices, caramel, vanilla, coffee, and port that make for a sweeter rum. The aroma alone makes me crave dessert. Although I do like to use this rum in cocktails, it is delicious enough to stand alone as an after-dinner spirit.
Bacardi Limitada
Zsolt Ducsai, food and beverage director at Serafina Beach Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Bacardi Limitada. This rum pairs well with a nice cigar. It’s rich in flavors (dry vanilla) and complex, with dark fruits and smooth notes.
I’m going to go with Mount Gay XO Reserve Cask. If you are going to drink something straight, there has to be some sophistication and barrel aging to tone down the alcohol. It also provides a variety of flavors in a more “natural way” than having to mix it in drinks with a plethora of the ghastly synthetic ingredients that rum so often finds itself in.
This Barbados Rum has been aged for eight years and is incredibly smooth. Immediately off the bat, you’ll taste honey, banana and toffee apple with hints of spicy oak, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. A truly terrific rum that I think deserves a lot more credit. Easy to drink by itself, nothing added.
Paranubes
Alan Walter, spirit handler at Loa Bar in New Orleans
When it comes to sipping neat, you can’t go wrong with Paranubes. This Oaxacan spirit is between cachaça and agricole. It’s a truly unique, vegetal, and sweet flavor.
Gorillaz have so far released a couple of singles as part of their Song Machine series, and now the group is back with another one. The latest track is “Aries,” which features clear influence from its featured artists, Georgia and Peter Hook, the co-founder of Joy Division and New Order.
The band’s virtual member Noodle said of the track, “Highly impatient and competitive, many Aries have the fighting spirit of your mythological ruler.”
This is the first new track from the group since they announced last month that the coronavirus pandemic won’t impact Song Machine. The band’s Murdoc said at the time, “Even though large tracts of mankind grind to a halt in the face of this formidable foe, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. And even if a large part of the planet becomes completely bored out of their melons, we will not surrender. We will carry on the struggle. Until the day we can go outside again with open arms, high five, group hug, fist bump, and maybe even French kiss. Until then. We’ve got this, and more importantly the machine remains ON!”
Watch the “Aries” video above.
Gorillaz is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The coronavirus led nearly every festival and concert tour to be postponed or canceled this summer, meaning those who work in the live music industry have been financially impacted by the pandemic. In order to help out, many musicians have offered donations to relief funds as well as directly to their crew. Lady Gaga is hosting a Together At Home televised charity event and HER recently covered three months’ worth of healthcare costs for her entire team.
Angel Olsen is the next artist to offer assistance. Along with sharing a remix to her recent album’s title track, the singer announced a livestream concert that will benefit a charity as well as her own touring crew.
Olsen debuted a dissonant remix to “All Mirrors” by Chromatics producer/instrumentalist Johnny Jewel. In a statement, Olsen described why she’s drawn to Johnny Jewel’s remix:
“I’ve been listening to Chromatics for years but I never thought I’d get the chance to meet them or work with Johnny. It’s always interesting to me what other people hear in something, how one slight movement can change a song completely. I love how he took my vocal lead melody and followed it, making a completely different route for ‘All Mirrors’ as a wonder-dream dance song.”
Along with the remix, Olsen announced her benefit livestrem, Still At Home: An Evening of Songs On Piano And Guitar. The livestream will be organized like a live concert and those wishing to attend can purchase tickets to gain access. All proceeds from ticket sales will benefit both MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Effort and Olsen’s own touring crew.
Listen to Olsen’s “All Mirrors (Johnny Jewel Remix)” above.
Olsen’s livestream takes place 4/11 at 6 p.m. EST. Tickets start at $12. Find them here.
Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: Sam Roberts showed up for commentary like some grand harbinger of doom, Keith Lee retained the North American Championship in a hoss division triple threat, and Dakota Kai won a gauntlet match by being the last person to enter, which is obviously how you win gauntlet matches.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for April 8, 2020.
Welcome To Quote NXT TakeOver USA Unquote
WWE
This week’s episode takes the form of “NXT TakeOver USA,” which is what happens when the big WrestleMania show you’ve been building to gets canceled because of a global pandemic and you don’t want that sweet skull and crossbones logo to go to waste. It’s also a great illustration of how the concept of “NXT TakeOver” with no fans reacting and 20 commercial breaks is depressing as hell. It’s like watching a print of Avengers Endgame in an empty theater with the volume turned down, and not all the special effects are done. And it ends with Pepper Pots kicking Thanos in the balls.
Best: Io Shirai Is Your New Number One Contender
Anyway, the best match of the night is the Women’s Championship number one contender match involving basically everyone who isn’t brand new, a jobber, or busy at WrestleMania. Like we learned at WrestleMania, in fact, ladder matches without crowd reactions are difficult to pull off, because it feels like there’s no drama in people climbing, and no believable teases that this is going to be the finish. Plus, nobody in the women’s version is a crazy parkour nut who wants to do corkscrew planchas off the ring post or whatever.
They work hard, take some nasty bumps all things considered, and the right person wins: Io Shirai, who will hopefully stand still while Charlotte Flair moonsaults at her, let Charlotte whiff her completely, and then show her what that shit’s supposed to look like. I think it’s interesting, though, that they had Candice LeRae be the one getting pie-faced off the ladder to give Io the win, as based on what happens later in the show, it might constitute a double turn. The last thing I want is for Io to suddenly become a babyface again, especially when we need evilest possible Io to send The Queen to the Boneyard. I’d be willing to accept Io as a stop-gap win for Flair on her way to getting dunked on by Bianca Belair at SummerSlam or whatever, but if Bianca’s just going to stay on Raw and Candice has turned into the Natasha to Johnny Gargano’s Boris, Io’s really the only answer, isn’t she?
Note: Io Shirai should also be the number one contender to the North American and NXT Championships. Keith Lee would probably turn her into a fine paste, but I think she’d have a pretty good shot against Adam Cole.
Worst: They Had All This Time Away From TV And Are Still Calling Themselves ‘EVER-RISE’
Ovaries are back, and they’re on hardcore enhancement duty for Malcolm Bivens’ new team of Rinku Singh and Saurav Gurjar, who are already just “Rinku” and “Saurav” despite already having a t-shirt produced with their full names on it. Their tag team name is “Indus Sher,” by the way. Sher means “lion,” and the Indus is obviously a river in Asia, so they’re basically RIVER LION. They’re one bobblehead promotion away from being a Minor League Baseball team.
Unfortunately they’re also greener than a gamma-radiated goose’s shit and don’t have much chemistry together, which isn’t helped much by the former 3.0’s willing but competent at best tag team stylings. So it’s about five minutes of … I guess you could say fine, average-ass tag team wrestling between two guys WWE obviously wants to push as monsters who aren’t particularly monstrous beyond their physicality, and a team that looks like Colt Cabana got split into two guys and named themselves like a biscuit mix. Oh, and Stoke doesn’t get a promo. Not great, Bob.
Best:
WWE
Also Best, Maybe?: I’m Not Finnished With You
I got excited a couple of months ago when it looked like we were getting a Finn Bálor vs. WALTER match at NXT TakeOver Dublin, but when Finn went to NXT UK and just kinda left and they held a battle royal to find WALTER’s next opponent instead, I thought they’d scrapped it completely. So it makes me happy to see that Finn V WALTER is still on at some point, and will presumably reengage when the pandemic’s over and folks can actually travel again.
Speaking of the travel bans and as a quick side note, I’m on Team Devlin when it comes to thinking William Regal holding a tournament to name an “interim Cruiserweight Champion” while the actual Cruiserweight Champion can’t leave his home country for fear of global pestilence is some bullshit. Is the Cruiserweight Championship so important that we can’t understand he’d be over here defending it if he was physically able? It’s not like he’s injured, or just isn’t defending the title. It’s the whole world, guys. It’s also pretty rank that there’s already a tournament to name a new champion starting next week, while they’ve got to “consider” what to do about Pete Dunne’s Tag Team Championship. Something’s afoot.
Ah well, if it builds to a Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon-style unification match somewhere down the road, that’ll be pretty cool. But damn, NXT. Cold blooded.
Worst: This Ain’t It, Chief
What we were promised here was the “final beat” in the ongoing … uh, beat-off between Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano. The feud’s been going on for four years. Every time we get close to a resolution that would allow the characters to move on, fate intervenes in the form of an injury or, in this case, a global virus that shuts down society. But this is it, and we’re devoting the entire second hour of what was supposed to be the WrestleMania weekend TakeOver to the match. This is EVERYTHING. So what did we get?
An okay 20-minute match for the middle of a feud, used as a 60-minute end of a feud.
It’s like somebody watched the Edge and Randy Orton Last Man Standing match from WrestleMania and were like, “that was pretty divisive. You know what would make it better? If it we made it longer, even MORE melodramatic, replaced the low volume commentary with an hour of silence, and gave it a screwy finish that left everyone unsatisfied.” Brother, you know how much I adore these wrestlers and this feud if you’ve read ANY of these columns over the past several years, and I would legitimately rather get a root canal than sit through this entire match again.
Some of you will say, “actually I LOVED it,” because you could drive a car off a cliff and die and someone on the Internet would watch it and say, “actually I thought they did a great parking job, I enjoyed it.” Let’s just go down the list of things that didn’t work for me here.
It’s too long. Whoever decided “good matches” in WWE need to be 30-60 minutes long needs to get reassigned to the mail room. It was full of commercial breaks, which made it feel like TWO hours, and the lack of commentary or crowd noise or even some kind of background music like the cinematic matches at WrestleMania got made it feel even slower. It’s just an hour of listening to grunts, moans, breaths, over acting terrible out of context taunts like “is that all you’ve got, daddy?” and bleeped-out curse words. It felt less like a Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa match, and more like someone trying to spoof one. It took everything that was bad about the recent trend of non-stop kick-out marathons, applied a Boneyard Match filter to it, and thought that’d be good enough. Which is sad, because the simple, effective, logical storytelling of NXT has been the key factor in making it WWE’s best brand in a walk. You felt rewarded for watching, and like you were actually going to see a match play out like you might want it to, and give you a finish, good or bad, that makes sense and engages you on a basic, professional wrestling kind of level. It was still “sports-entertainment,” but it rarely ever made you feel like you were wasting your time.
Then we have the issue of Johnny Gargano’s devious plot to win his rivalry with Ciampa being getting his ass kicked for 55 minutes but wearing a cup, so at the end his wife could show up and kick him in the balls, thereby lulling Ciampa into a false sense of security so she could sneak up behind CIAMPA and kick CIAMPA in the balls, so Johnny could win. Comical evil for the sake of comical evil, whether I’ve previously felt like the characters were justified in their motivations or not. You could practically see Shawn Michaels slobbering all over the paper as he wrote this all out, not stopping to think about how effective that final, defiant crawl up the Undertaker’s legs at WrestleMania 26 or “I’m sorry, I love you,” would’ve played out if they’d been 60 minutes long and built around Whisper wandering out to fake cry in front of Shawn’s opponent to swerve them into taking a wedgie. Good will and fandom of both the wrestlers and the promotion aside, this was as bad as any of those legendary goofball swerves we make fun of Vince Russo for booking. This turned the feud into a Dignity on a Pole match.
And man, it didn’t have to be. Circumstances fucked it. The cinematic presentation of the match was a good idea and something WWE should continue playing with, but it lacked both the absurd ambition of the Firefly Fun House and the dumb, escapist fun of the Bone Zone. It was just long, and boring, and up its own ass, and morose. At the end they even teased the thought that maybe they were going to end the feud with Gargano and Ciampa realizing what hatred and toxic masculinity have done to them and finally reaching some kind of understanding after having fully found themselves in the other’s shoes, but nope, we got a wife swerve and the approximation of a Road Dogg cup gag from 20 years ago.
WWE
At least we got a post credits scene.
So what, Ciampa just attacks Gargano the next time he sees him and they both get kicked out? Ciampa attacks Candice for screwing him over and they swap back alignments and build to ANOTHER match? Gargano and Ciampa start fighting again and Triple H shows up to kick their asses 1-on-2 for not listening to him? Killer Kross reveals he’s got mind control powers and is the reason Gargano and LeRae went full dark?
At this point I hope the first post-quarantine show reveals that everything from the quarantine was a dream. AJ Styles isn’t dead, Rhea Ripley never lost the Women’s Championship to somebody who doesn’t even want it, and Gargano and Ciampa didn’t end their feud on a deaf and dumb student film.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
Caz
I wish for John Cena to portal in, wander around looking confused for 5 seconds, and then portal back out
Baron Von Raschke
I want to thank NXT for the commercials during this Ciampa/Gargano match…without them, I would have had the sound down on Dynamite when Jericho said that he owed Cody’s mom a slap in the face.
I would have laughed if the luchadors kidnapped Johnny & Candice on their way to the car.
Clay Quartermain
It’s weird that I’m watching a Shawn Spears match over a Chiampa vsGargano, but here we are
Taylor Swish
Does Io have to cash in on Charlotte? I’d give a good 4 rolls of toilet paper to see Shirai vs. Cole.
Dave M J
Candice: YOU SAID YOU WERE ONLY GOING TO BE A HALF HOUR. HOME. NOW.
Johnny: Awww, but-
Candice: …would be a damn shame if your Spider-Man figures got thrown in the garbage
Johnny: …sigh…ok.
Mac&CheeseMainEvent
Triple H: “Ok guys, tonight is your big empty arena match. Feel free to wrestle all around the performance center, use gym equipment, tear the place up, fight on top of the truck and when it is over, the winner is going to cry over the loser because they won the battle.”
*Ciampa and Johnny look at each other*
Triple H: “What?”
Ciampa: “That was Edge – Orton at Wrestlemania.”
*long pause*
Triple H: “…I’m not going to lie I missed Mania because I was binge watching Tiger King; Carole Baskin, am I right?”
Mr. Bliss
Me every 5 minutes during the Gargano/Ciampa match:
troi
I actually love that Johnny won because he has a friend besides Ciampa
The Voice of Raisin
In any other promotion, this match ends with Father James Mitchell showing up to tell Gargano and Ciampa that they’re already in hell and have to literally fight forever.
Frinkiac
That’s it for this week’s Best and Worst of NXT. Does that count as the first bad TakeOver?
As always, make sure to drop down into our comments section and let us know what you thought of the episode, and if you liked or laughed at anything in here, give us a share on social media to help us out. It helps more than you know, especially during all this COVID-19 nightmare where we’re trying to keep freelancers lancing freely writing about almost wrestling shows.
Join us here next week for the beginning of the Jordan Devlin Memorial Interim Cruiserweight Champion Tournament, and Dakota Kai and Tegan Nox blowing off their feud in a dramatically shot, 45-minute fight in the woods that ends with Raquel Gonzalez throwing Kai into a well. See you then!
With so many artists performing entire concerts from their own living rooms lately, it was only a matter of time before NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts series got in on the action. After kicking off the Tiny Desk (Home) Concert series in March with Soccer Mommy, NPR has kept the party going with an eclectic roster of guests including Margo Price, Michael McDonald, and Tank from Tank and The Bangas. The latest addition to the collection is none other than The Roots’ Black Thought, whose performance doubles as the first entry into his own Streams Of Thought series.
While explaining that Streams Of Thought won’t always consist of musical performances, Thought does make his performance well-worth tuning into as he tears through a breathless rendition of “Thought Vs. Everybody” from his upcoming Streams of Thought Vol. 3 EP, then offers a preview of “Yellow” from his upcoming off-Broadway musical Black No More. The set closes with “Nature Of The Beast,” which also comes from the third Streams Of Thought EP, and features a guest appearance from Portugal. The Man, as well as a callback to “What We Do,” The 1995 Roots single that almost sparked a beef between Black Thought and The Notorious B.I.G.
Thought’s desk is impressive, with Grammys, gold and platinum plaques, and some thought-provoking reading material stacked up behind him, but the rapper is as relaxed as we’ve ever seen him as his lounges in his comfy armchair in socks and slides.
Watch Black Thought’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert above.
Chef Asma Khan shot to culinary fame when she opened the all-female staffed London eatery Darjeeling Express. Her renown increased even further thanks to an episode in season six of Netflix’s Chef’s Table. With plenty of buzz and some famous fans, the chef used her time in the spotlight wisely — by continuing to fight for women and migrants across the industry.
Then everything changed. Khan had to close her restaurant in March. Rather than running takeout or grocery service, the Darjeeling Express staff isn’t working at all right now (though she vowed to pay everyone’s salaries, no matter what). And with the whole industry in a holding pattern, Khan — like every chef — has concerns about what the industry might look like when it comes back, which parts of it will survive, and how our collective “new normal” will play out.
We caught up with Chef Khan over the weekend to talk about this strange, often-scary moment in history. The conversation also gave her a chance to share her approach to supporting her staff during the shutdown while juxtaposing the U.K. government’s approach versus the U.S.
Since opening, you’ve been a huge advocate of women in the restaurant industry. Can you talk us through how that became such a big part of Darjeeling Express and your work in the restaurant industry?
I realized when I was starting to set up Darjeeling, everyone was so surprised that I was going to set this kitchen up with an all-woman kitchen and crew. I didn’t think it was so unusual when I was setting up the restaurant because all these women had been with me during my supper club days. This was my natural team to cook with and I just thought it was very natural. It was the people’s reaction that made me realize it was something unusual. And it’s not even that I wanted to start off by having an all-female restaurant kitchen, it was the team that started with me. They took the journey with me. These women were nannies from the school where my kids went. We used to do supper clubs together in my house. Then we moved to the pub. And then, when we opened the restaurant, they moved to the restaurant.
What was the reaction you got from that?
I did get a lot of comments from people that I should really get some men in there, some “professionals” in there. Not even for a second did I think that this was something I would even consider. In my heart, I always dreamt and imagined that we would be successful.
I wanted so badly to succeed, to show that it’s possible that the passion and skills of these women, who are home cooks, are on par with anybody who’s learned professionally. We were not different. Yes, we were a lot older and we may not look like all the other chefs working in other restaurants. But I see people by their passion and how much love and desire they have to cook, and this was, for me, the perfect team.
You were then able to make it about more than just your team. You used your voice to start fighting for women and migrants in the kitchen across the industry.
Well, the thing is what triggered this was that a very well-known male chef had been accused of sexual harassment. And an outside agency came in and verified that, yes, it was true that there had been sexual harassment, pretty serious sexual harassment. But the outcome of that decision was that the women who had complained lost their jobs, and he was promoted from head chef to executive chef.
And that just stunned me. Then the response on social media of chefs in the industry — they were having this argument that this was not really a promotion.
Wow.
They were saying being promoted to an executive chef is not really a promotion from a head chef. I was just astounded — is this what this debate was about? What about those three women?
That was a turning point for me. I wrote an article in one of the newspapers without fear. They did warn me that there’s a risk of you being sued. I said, “I have no fear,” because if I just call it out of how unfair it was that these women lost their jobs, even though the harassment was proven — because there was an outside agency, third party, who was neutral and said that, yes, this had happened. If this was seen as okay in an industry — any other industry — there would be a huge outcry over how appalling it was that the decision was made. But the silence, especially from female chefs, was deafening.
There was a lot of kind of… getting together of male chefs in defense of this particular person. That’s when I realized that I need to pick my corner, and I need to fight, not for my own team because we’re okay. Sometimes, occasionally, we argue, of course. It’s not that everything is perfect. Occasionally, we do have problems in our kitchen as well as between the women, but that it is all kitchens. I know there’s no bullying, and I’m there all the time. But this was time for me to lend my voice to the voiceless.
What happened next?
The irony of it all is that after I wrote in defense of these girls, they came to the Darjeeling Express. I knew the three girls sitting over there crying were “those girls.” But I didn’t walk up to them because I couldn’t do this to them. Then they wrote to me saying, “We came to honor you. We came to honor someone who cared enough.”
That’s when I realized that they were so scared they’d never work again in this industry. Because when everybody is silent, it’s very scary. If your head of your kitchen is a woman, and something like this happens and they’re silent, she may personally find it revolting what happened, but if she does not say anything publicly, that silence is very, very toxic because it makes you feel that if this happened to you, no one would speak up in your defense.
I realized that and thought, “Let me be that voice speaking up for these women, and if it means that I have to deal with a lot of aggression from other people, I can deal with that. I can deal with that because the pain is not personal.”
Do you feel your success with Darjeeling Express and Netflix fueled you?
We’re successful, but for me, the success has to be very much like what my father said about privilege. He taught me that you do not use it for your personal joy and getting money or just individually reaping the benefits of success. I wanted the success of Netflix, the success of the recognition and the accolades that the restaurant got. Then, I wanted to transform that success into a weapon that I could use to talk about what is happening to women and to bring forward other women.
After Netflix, I realized that people would be interested in listening to what I had to say. I thought, “I don’t want that opportunity to do a pop-up in New York with some trendy chef and make a lot of money.” I’m not taking the money to my grave. It’s like when you know you have a speech in front of you, before going to go on stage. You have limited time there. When the spotlight hits you, you say your lines, and then, you get off, and you go back into the wings. This is my time, and the spotlight has hit me, and the lines that I read out are very important. They should not be about me trying to become more famous or networking more or making money. I know I probably sound very idealist, but this is my time to speak for those who didn’t get the time to get on stage.
Darjeeling Express
Then the world changed. You shut down Darjeeling before, arguably, the UK was taking this as seriously as they perhaps should have been. And it’s become obvious that women, minorities, and migrants, they’re the first three groups either forced to the frontline or on the chopping block to get left behind when things like this happen?
Absolutely. Nothing hits home harder than when you saw that the first four people to die in the NHS [National Health Service] in this country were black and Asian men — all migrants — who were working for the NHS. The first nurse who died was a Muslim mother, someone wearing a hijab, a mother of three, who made a career in nursing because she wanted to improve her life.
These things all rip me apart because I understand that it is, again, immigrants, and it is, again, women who have already paid the price with their lives in the health service and in hospitality, too.
What does… all of this look like down the road to you?
When the doors open, it will be a much harsher regime because … of course, all of us are going to lose a lot of money. We’re all going to come back with much tighter budgets. When the money is tight, you will find owners who will squeeze the low paid workers, invariably the low-wage migrant workers who are Black or Asian. The women who are lower down in the pecking order will be made to work extra hours, not being paid for overtime. When there wasn’t a justification for the exploitation of weaker people in kitchens and in our industry, it was already rampant. I’m afraid that a lot of people are going to come back and use what has been very brutal, without a doubt, financially as an excuse.
It’s devastating what’s happened, the closures. To go back in there to pick up the pieces and start again will be difficult. But I hope that this time away will have taught owners of restaurants and chefs and big decision-makers in hospitality about compassion and about community and about survival. I’m hoping that they will come back softer and kinder and less toxic and less hostile and that they see the value of human life because they made it through this, and that other person who they’ve hired has also made it through it.
I hope it will actually bring us, bring the industry up to what it should be — about service, about compassion, about love, and celebrating cuisines. Not about bullying and suppression of a particular gender while also of underpaying people.
You decided to close your doors completely, whereas other restaurant owners have tried to do carryout service or delivery service to varying degrees of success. What was behind your decision to close entirely as opposed to phasing in delivery?
I didn’t want to expose my staff to public transport, which was packed at that time. This is how most people travel in London. I knew that this virus was being transported by people being in close contact. I didn’t want to do that to my staff.
I didn’t want to risk my front-of-house while they were serving in a small restaurant. We’re not the Ritz. We don’t have tables that are far apart. People are very close to each other, and my staff would have to be very close to you to serve, to take your order. I felt that of the people who were coming to my restaurant, some may turn out to be ill and not discover it a week or ten days later — which is already too late for me because they may have infected my staff.
That’s why I didn’t do takeaway. The only reason to do that would have been financial, or to have dragged it on to try and kind of continue with the business. I had to let the business go because, for me, the human life of my staff and my customers was far more important. I didn’t want a risk that one of my potentially infected staff could infect an entire restaurant.
At that time, the government was not willing to say anything, was not willing to close anything. So I closed. I promised everybody, “I am not sacking you. I am going to pay you.”
Darjeeling Express
Where would that money come from?
It was going to come from my personal savings. I’ve saved some money for a particular thing. Already, in my mind, I had decided this was going to pay everyone’s wages because I didn’t know what the government was going to do. I wasn’t going to wait because this was like a ticking bomb. I wasn’t going to wait for someone to get sick in the team. The other thing is, I’m very aware that each woman in my kitchen is supporting 15 to 20 people back home, and if that person got sick, or God forbid, was unable to work again…
That’s devastating.
Basically, 15 or 20 people would be starving back in India or Nepal. So I wasn’t going to take that chance because I saw myself as responsible, not just for my own team, but all the dependents of those people, their children, their elderly grandparents, in-laws. Many of them are supporting husbands back at home too. So I had to close and I told everybody then that however hard it’s going to be, I will pay you, and I will not let you down. I’m here, but I want you to go home. I would not allow a dream that began so beautifully to end with tragedy, and this was what scared me.
But, unlike the U.S. (so far), the U.K. has provided serious relief for restaurants, right?
A week after we closed, then the package was announced. Now, my staff is going to go on that package and get 80-percent salary. They’re all very happy because they will be able to support their families as they did before. So, for me, that was the most important thing, that they need to be able to live well in this country, still be able to send back the same amount of money, and it looks like that’s going to continue.
They’re all getting all their supplies from the restaurant because we just had a delivery the day before I closed. So all the stuff that we had, everyone has taken home. We still have cans of oil, which I distribute to all the security staff and the cleaners.
I sleep in peace at night knowing that I did the right thing. I don’t worry looking at my bank balance because I think that what would have really shattered me was making people come back to do takeaways or anything extra and exposing them to infection. That would have been terrible if anything had gone wrong.
I know we’re all in sort of a holding pattern here. What do you see the industry looking like when this does start to come back?
People will lose a lot of restaurants because the reality on the ground is that everybody runs on very, very low margins. All of us in the UK have the staff being covered 80 percent, but there are other costs that we are liable for. Service charges and bank loans, which I’ve just been deferred on for six months. No one is writing them off. These are all temporary measures. As yet, my landlord has said nothing about rent, nothing.
Have you been in contact with your suppliers? How are they faring?
I’ve been in touch with all of them. In early March, actually, when the problem was building up, I wrote to all of them saying that even though I have a 30-day credit, I want to start paying everything now, because we might get into trouble. They were all really grateful. They all sent me their invoices. I paid everybody. I started paying them because I was afraid that something goes wrong, no one’s going to pay them. So I cleared everybody.
I’ve been in touch with all of them. I’ve been speaking to them, and one of them, very kindly, sent me 45 eggs because I jokingly told him that my son wanted omelets. I have a college kid who came back, and he ate everything up in the house. I was just joking with him, and he sent 45 eggs and some vegetables. It was so sweet. But I’m not sure who’s going to survive this thing because I think that a lot of restaurants may not pay them. I know I have, but I’m not sure if others will.
It’s a very difficult time. It’s like a scare where you open your eyes and you’re scared because you don’t know how many you’ll still see standing when this is over.
I think a lot of the nice and the great and the good may go. It’s not necessarily that only the successful ones will survive. It’s not about success anymore. I think those who just had the resilience to see it through, have planned properly, didn’t abandon their staff, do not need to start from scratch again recruiting staff, they will actually come out of this better. They’ll come back with the entire staff who will be motivated and will appreciate the fact that you stood by them through the closures.
Selena Gomez’sRare was one of the year’s first high-profile album releases, as it came out in early January. Now, a few months later, Gomez has decided to add onto the record with a deluxe edition, which introduces three new songs to the tracklist: “Boyfriend,” “Souvenir,” and “She.” “Feel Me,” which previously appeared as a bonus track on some versions of the album, is also included on the new deluxe edition.
Posting about the album today, Gomez wrote, “I hope you can take a moment to disconnect and dance to the new songs!!” Ahead of the deluxe album’s release, she also shared a message about the song “Boyfriend,” which she says isn’t indicative of her current priorities:
“Many of you know how excited I’ve been to release a song called ‘Boyfriend.’ It’s a lighthearted song about falling down and getting back up time and time again in love, but also knowing that you don’t need anyone other than yourself to be happy. We wrote it long before our current crisis, but in the context of today, I want to be clear that a boyfriend is no where near the top of my list of priorities. Just like the rest of the world, I’m praying for safety, unity, and recovery during this pandemic. Because of that, I’m personally donating to the Plus 1 COVID-19 relief fund as well as donating $1 of every order in my official store to the fund starting now.”
Stream the new deluxe edition of Rare below.
Rare (Deluxe) is out now via Interscope. Get it here.
Modern Family wrapped up its Emmy-winning, 11-season run last night. Much of the two-part series finale was about change — Mitchell and Cameron move to Missouri, Phil and Claire go on an RV trip, Jay and Gloria head to South America to spend time with her family, etc. — but one thing that stayed the same was the format of the show.
Modern Family is presented as a mockumentary, with the characters speaking to an unseen crew, but as co-creator Christopher Lloyd told Entertainment Weekly, “we didn’t” consider pulling an The Office and presenting the footage as a “real” documentary.
“Look, it’s a valid idea. Obviously, we started out in our pilot having that person be a character. And then the more we thought about, we thought, “That might take the audience out of it.” And then having lived in a mockumentary form without literally a crew for 250 episodes, it felt like it might’ve been to meta or too cute to maybe do that for us,” Lloyd said. “The Office made you aware that they were actual people much more than we did. We were just using it as a technique more than a sort of an actual reality.”
You know what else stayed the same? Manny being annoying. Anyway, Lloyd was also asked what he hopes people will say about Modern Family in the future:
“I hope that they say, ‘Oh, that was a really well-made show. There was care in the writing of it. There was incredible professionalism and talent in the cast, and what it all added up to was a really rich experience of great laughs. I loved spending time with those characters, but also I found myself moved at the end, and that’s like a full meal.’ … The hope is that people remember it as a fuller experience than you sometimes get with a comedy and come back to it for the nourishment that comes from that.”
R.I.P. Modern Family. It’s hard to imagine another broadcast show ever winning Outstanding Comedy Series five years in a row ever again.
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