Posts made in June 2020

Clark Atlanta University × T.I.

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Clark Atlanta University (CAU) President George T. French Jr. is thinking outside the box when it comes to educating, enlightening and empowering CAU students.

The university is partnering with three-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist, actor, producer, songwriter and entrepreneur Tip “T.I.” Harris to create an amazing experience for CAU undergraduate students this Fall.

“HBCUs have a vital role in our community and have managed to withstand even while being some of the most under-resourced institutions,” said T.I. “Our national HBCUs continue to underscore the fact that we have always had to do more with less. I am excited to be partnering with Clark Atlanta University in my hometown – Atlanta.”

I applaud their innovative approach to ensuring their students are educated beyond the traditional textbook curriculum. I am honored to end my voice and unique experiences to the betterment of today’s young people and to do my part to lift the legacy of historical black colleges and universities across the nation,” T.I. said.

T.I. will be tag teaming with Presidential Leadership Scholar and hip-hop aficionado, Dr. Melva K. Williams on the “Business of Trap Music.” Williams brought forward the concept as a way to expose the life, career, entrepreneurial success, experiences, and the like of national recording artist, T.I., to the HBCU community. Williams is a prominent figure in higher education and is a long-time educator, HBCU advocate, and co-founder for the Higher Education Leadership Foundation (H.E.L.F.). She also serves as a Vice Chancellor for Southern University Shreveport and New Orleans.

“In higher education it is important that we challenge, empower and equip our students with the proper resources to excel,” said President George T. French Jr., “I believe the best way to do this is to understand their culture and create life-long experiences that will not only motivate our scholars but present them with opportunities to help them become globally competitive,” French said.

Trap Music is a sub-genre of hip-hop music and is a cultural phenomenon that involves a variety of art forms. The genre has been embraced worldwide, has been infused with other types of music and has become a part of everyday living. The effect of Trap Music is well known, but the business of Trap Music and its ability to enlighten and educate will be explored on the campus of Clark Atlanta University.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY: Website | Instagram | Twitter

Summer Sustainability Reading List

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It’s summertime technically!

It might not feel like a normal summer, but we’re still going to enjoy some beach reading, even if we’re sitting in our backyards or balconies. Make sure to check out this Sustainability-focused Reading List from Whitney Bauck at Fashionista. Bauck asked a number of industry leaders about their sustainability reading recommendations and the choices are enough to make anyone feel ambitious.

Note: We loved that Bauck mentioned the book Winners Take All as having influenced how she thinks about sustainability. It’s about the much broader topic of change-making and philanthropy but has had the exact same effect for us.

There a number of pieces in this week’s edition worth checking out, including:

A Retail Dive summary of the major BCG + Higg report on fashion’s post-COVID sustainable future
A thought-provoking look from Vogue Business on rethinking the definition of “growth”
A very neat, interactive tool from Farfetch that demonstrates the carbon footprint from various materials. For example, did you know that the carbon footprint of 1 kg of wool equals 184 km driven in a car?

We hope everyone is able to enjoy their summer a bit. As always, please reply with any new projects, companies, or articles on the intersection of sustainability and fashion!

Sustainable Links

Fashion’s post-growth future (Vogue Business)

As reported by Vogue Business, the goals set by the United Nations Environment Program and the 2030 Agenda won’t be feasible with the current pace of fashion production and consumption. However, it is not a question of creating more sustainable products or reducing the number of collections in the year. The whole system is broken, based on the old way of running the business and aiming for bigger returns. We need to rethink the whole definition of “growth”:

In order to fix the problem, economists say that instead of “green growth”, which argues for green technologies and efficiencies to reduce global emissions with a goal of decoupling them from increased economic activity, the industry must focus on “post-growth”, which rethinks levels of consumption and production.

Does slow fashion provide an answer for creating a sustainable fashion industry? Should businesses think “smaller”? Does fashion equals shopping for new clothes or the relationship between apparel production and its consumption can be redefined and new business models will be created? One thing is certain: the fashion industry has to change, from both the supply and demand side.

Technology’s Potential to Make Your Brand Sustainable (Jing Daily)

According to Jing Daily, given China’s technological development and growing consumer market, it could become one of the key players in the field of sustainability by developing digital infrastructures, leveraging its access to an enormous amount of data, building, and supporting environment-driven communities.

Key takeaway: a company can set itself apart from the competition by leveraging technological innovation. The differentiation based on sustainability and technology will allow the company to be in tune with the demands of post-COVID-19 consumers.

Current Events Have Made Fashion Transparency Consumers’ Top Demand (Sourcing Journal)

“Coronavirus means the end of greenwashing and the end of claims which you cannot fulfill. And everybody who’s in the sustainability business in the future needs to prove every day with all their actions that they are sustainable, and the rest will disappear.”

Brand transparency will shape the future of fashion. As consumers become more educated about sustainability, they will expect more transparency and ethical practices from fashion companies. The companies will have to earn the trust of their customers, build their reputation, and focus on long-term value creation.

Farfetch launches consumer fashion footprint tool (Fashion United)

This week Farfetch has introduced a fashion footprint tool on its website, which allows consumers to consider the environmental impact of the materials used for their clothing, inform on available renewable materials options and drive more conscious pre-owned fashion purchases.

Did you know that the carbon footprint of 1 kg of wool equals 184 km driven in a car, while the water footprint of 1 kg of silk corresponds to 582 bathtubs? (check out Farfetch tool linked here)

As a part of the retailer’s Positively Farfetch sustainability effort launched last year, the company also released the report in partnership with QSA, ICARO, London Waste, and Recycling Board on secondhand fashion shopping habits in the US, UK, and China.

Around the News

Fashion’s most interesting sustainability efforts can also help fight racism – in conjunction with the Juneteenth celebration, we would like to feature this Vogue Business piece on why the company culture should encompass as its core values equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Do brands still care about sustainability amid the pandemic? – last week we’ve featured BCG’s findings on the circular economy and sustainability as the main drivers for growth in post-pandemic business recovery. This week this Retail Dive’s piece shares comments from eight experts on the long-term repercussions of the sustainability commitment.

18 Fashion People Recommend Their Sustainability Must-Reads – check out these book recommendations from fashion sustainability advocates with topics ranging from garment manufacturing and environmentalism to politics and capitalism.

Gucci Launches Off the Grid Sustainable Collection – guilt-free eco-friendly luxury – the Italian fashion house debuted its first collection from Gucci Circular Lines, built around sustainability and circularity.

Apparel and footwear industry proposes green recovery plan for Europe – this Fashion United’s article summarizes seven principles for the development of a circular economy within the textile, apparel, and footwear industry presented by the Policy Hub in its “Proposal for an EU Green Recovery Plan in the Textile, Apparel, and Footwear Industry”

Each week we will cover one term that defines sustainability in the fashion industry – from A to Z.

Animal Welfare – refers to the treatment of animals involved in the fashion supply chain. The demands and profitability of the trade are reflected in the existence of large-scale factory farming and severe mistreatment and cruel handling practices of animals across the fur, leather, exotic leather, down feather, mohair, angora, silk, and wool industries. It is a critical concern in countries with insufficient animal welfare legislation.

Amid protests, can the fur industry survive and be sustainable? – with the introduction of FurMark program and WelFur certification, the European fur industry is tackling the issues of animal welfare, transparency, and traceability across its fur supply chain. As the faux vs real fur debate continues around the world, the development of the fur industry will also depend on the rise of consumer eco-consciousness in China, one of the largest fur markets.

Tips for Thriving During a Pandemic

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By Michael Ungar, Ph.D.

“While there is much to be worried about during this pandemic, it is also an opportunity to build resilience individually and as a family.

Jessica and Faizal have been married for eight years. On the outside, their lives looked good before the pandemic. Jessica owned a small chain of salons, Faizal was an accountant in a large international firm. When they weren’t working, they travelled or golfed. They had one child, and though Faizal wanted a larger family, Jessica was hesitant to become trapped in the role of mother. Then COVID-19 happened. Jessica’s salons closed, and Faizal’s firm was hinting there’d be no bonuses this year. Without the distraction of work or travel, the couple’s relationship sputtered, and both were secretly speaking with divorce lawyers.

Like any crisis, this pandemic has forced us to examine our relationships and our values. It has stripped the veneer from dysfunctional patterns of coping. We are questioning the sanity of long hours at work or our penchant for living with high levels of household debt. While that reflection can make it seem our life is spiralling out of control, this pandemic is also forcing people to reconsider the things they need to be resilient, not just now, but in the future too.

As tragic as Jessica and Faizal’s lives may seem, the real tragedy is that they hadn’t put in place the personal, social or economic resources they needed for resilience. Resilience is most often described as our personal capacity to bounce back from hardship, and likened to thinking positive thoughts, or persevering under stress (the term ‘grit’ is common). The science of resilience, however, says something quite different. While rugged individuals can cope when their lives are stable, paychecks steady, and family conflict low, people with plenty of resources do much better when times get tough. Jessica might not have been able to control the pandemic, or its impact on her business, but she might have been able to put aside a rainy day fund. Faizal couldn’t have anticipated his loss of annual income either, but he might have invested more energy in his home life as a hedge against the emotional toll a future crisis would have on him and his family.

While research on the pandemic is now being done everywhere, there is plenty of evidence from studies of resilience during natural disasters which shows that most of us are poorly prepared for a major change. As we wait for a vaccine to become widely available and we can open up our economies without risking the lives of those with a compromised immune system, there are steps we can take to thrive during this difficult time.

Put more effort into your relationships. Our individual resilience depends on the security of our relationships with others, including our family, friends and colleagues. The more we pay attention to the needs of others, the more they will pay attention to ours.
Keep your days structured and maintain healthy routines. As the days go on and we struggle with change, one way to maintain good mental and physical health is to impose structure and accomplish the things we should accomplish. Structure and routine are a great way to make our lives feel predictable and increase our feelings of hope for the future.
Get your finances in order. Thinking positive thoughts and being optimistic is easier when our finances are less stressed. If you have been accumulating debt, it is time to reconsider priorities and ask yourself, “Do I want to live with this much pressure?” and “What do I really need to feel happy?”
Find new and powerful identities. As the pandemic continues and we spend less time at our places of business, it is important that we find new ways of showing others the things that are special about us. This is the time to explore hobbies, develop new talents, and share with others the things we like to do.
Look for the spaces and places where you feel you belong. Making a contribution to the welfare of others pays a dividend in goodwill. It also makes us feel like we are part of a community, family, or workplace. The more we feel like we belong, the less likely we are to experience depression or anxiety.

Each of these steps has been shown to help people weather a crisis. For Jessica and Faizal, becoming more resilient has meant putting down their smartphones and eating dinners together as a family. It has meant asking each other for help, first with cutting up credit cards, then with making it possible for each of them to take time every day to exercise and be with family and friends. Jessica used to try to squeeze a walk in between running home to make dinner. Now she asks Faizal to cook dinner so she can spend some time looking after her own needs. If it works, she may even agree to having a second child as the family’s new pattern of caring for one another won’t mean all the responsibility for that decision falls on her shoulders.

Faizal, meanwhile, is taking control of the family’s bank account and rethinking where they live. A large home in the suburbs may bring with it some benefits, but it has also made the family vulnerable and placed them too far in debt. Change is coming, of that he’s sure. The couple are no longer seeking marriage counseling to break up. Now they’re seeing a life coach, together, to rebuild their family and their lives.

The pandemic is taking its toll, but like other disasters, it is causing many of us to rethink what we value and change the world around us so we can come back stronger.”

Michael Ungar, Ph.D., is a Family Therapist and Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience at Dalhousie University. His latest best-selling book is Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success. More about Dr. Ungar: www.michaelungar.com

Jessica Minh Anh Global Passport

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A famous fashion entrepreneur is on a mission.

In collaboration with UNESCO, supermodel and producer Jessica Minh Anh – whose history-making catwalks at iconic monuments and renewable energy sites gained her international credibility – is now focusing on vitalizing the tourism industry, to stimulate this hard-hit sector post Covid. Already an ambassador for sustainability and innovation in the international arena, her upcoming travel program: “Jessica Minh Anh: Global Passport,” will focus on promoting domestic travel and tourism across the world, starting with Vietnam.

“Vietnam has weathered the current crisis effectively, avoiding casualties and keeping infection figures contained in the low triple figures. While this is an incredible result, closing borders has come at a heavy cost to some vital national industries, such as tourism. My goal is to promote a safe Vietnam for domestic travel in 2020 and beyond.” said Jessica Minh Anh.

Follow Jessica Minh Anh: Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook

Jessica Minh Anh, Vaughn Lowery, 360 Magazine

July 4th Food × Wine Pairings

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Independence Day is right around the corner, and while it may look a bit different this year with socially distanced grill outs and get togethers, Cameron Hughes Wine has got you covered with a food and wine pairing menu that features some of their most popular wines:

Russian River Valley Chardonnay ($18)

If you plan on grilling chicken with herbs or have any potato-based sides, this is going to be your go-to pairing. A welcome accompaniment to pasta salads as well, but don’t forget our friends in the sea. This will be perfect for those grilling shrimp, scallops, halibut steaks or swordfish.

Santa Barbara County White Blend ($14)

Not everyone wants a red wine with grilled meats and veggies. This is the perfectly robust and rich white to save the day. Just as at home with Chicken as it is Steak, the fuller body on this white blend will mingle perfectly on the palate with that classic “grilled” flavor on anything.

Lake County Muscat Canelli ($12)

Let’s face it, some folks just like a sweet wine. That’s totally fine, so go ahead and serve them pulled pork with the classic vinegar and spicy Carolina BBQ sauce, paired alongside this gem, perfect for cutting the fat, sweetening the vinegar, and taking a bit of the edge off of the spice.

Yountville Cabernet Sauvignon ($24)

At CHW, this wine affectionately falls into a lesser-known category of Napa reds – “Pork Reds” to be precise – a category reserved for non-Pinot Noir reds that are excellent accompaniments to grilled bone-in pork chops. A nice rub of Montreal chop seasoning, grilled medium rare, makes for perfect company with this elegantly structured Yountville Napa Cab.

Mendocino Field Blend ($13)

You’ll be hard pressed to find a better partner to a burger just off the grill. Irrelevant of fixins on your burger, this is the perfect wine to enjoy alongside any twist on the July 4th classic.

Russian River Valley Zinfandel ($17)

This is a grilled steak Zinfandel. No matter if it’s NY, Ribeye, Filet, or Tri-tip, this will be your best friend, and you won’t need to break the bank opening some Napa Valley big boy wine. This’ll do just right by your grilled tomahawk and your wallet.

About Cameron Hughes:

Cameron Hughes is a California vintner who has hacked the code on sourcing expensive wines on the cheap. As a wine trader, Cameron Hughes doesn’t own vineyards or a winery — his focus is on purely sourcing the best wines and negotiating the best price. Once acquired, the wines are bottled under the Cameron Hughes label and then offered at a fraction of the original price.

Texas A&M Innovation Plaza

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Texas A&M System Brands Buildings at Texas A&M Innovation Plaza in Texas Medical Center

The five-acre mixed-use Texas A&M Innovation Plaza in Houston will be home to the Engineering Medicine program and more.

The Texas A&M University System has announced Discovery Tower, Life Tower and Horizon Tower as the names of the three buildings that comprise Texas A&M Innovation Plaza, its landmark 5-acre campus in Houston, Texas, at the prominent intersection of Holcombe Boulevard and Main Street near the Texas Medical Center (TMC). This campus sets a new standard for collaboration in engineering, medicine, research and education and is the first all-new mixed-use campus for the Texas A&M System in Houston.

The Texas A&M University System initiated the new campus by acquiring and renovating an 18-story office building at 1020 Holcombe Blvd. to be the home for EnMed, a unique two-degree program that provides students the chance to earn a master’s degree in engineering from Texas A&M University and a medical degree from the Texas A&M College of Medicine. Opening later this year, this building supports EnMed and an expanded array of Texas A&M’s engineering, research, innovation, medical and life science programs that are reflected in the newly announced brand: Discovery Tower.

Complementing the academic, research, discovery and innovation missions of the EnMed Building, Texas A&M Innovation Plaza will provide a welcoming, secure and vibrant experience to the campus population and visitors alike, with generous green spaces and lifestyle amenities not commonly found in the TMC area.

With groundbreaking scheduled in late 2020, the System’s public-private partnership (P3) developer is bringing additional investment of $401 million to fulfill unmet needs in the area with two complementary towers totaling an additional 1.9 million square feet.

“EnMed is just the first example of innovation that Texas A&M System intends to bring to the Texas A&M Innovation Plaza,” said Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp. “We are excited to have such a visible location in the Texas Medical Center.”

Scheduled to be complete in June 2022, Life Tower is a 19-story, 714-bed student housing tower will overlook a scenic plaza flanked by a large garage with retail and dining at grade with convenient, affordable parking for 2,714 vehicles. Texas A&M medical students and Prairie View A&M University nursing students will be given priority for housing, but students from other institutions could fill open slots, if available.

Scheduled to deliver in January 2024 is Horizon Tower, a 17-story, 485,000 square-foot integrated building that will be built atop the 13-story parking structure. With generous, efficient floorplates and robust building technologies, Horizon Tower will be ideally suited to life sciences, clinical, biomedical, technology and office uses.

Accessible via Main Street, Holcombe Boulevard and Fannin Street, Texas A&M Innovation Plaza is also adjacent to the METRO TMC Station, providing convenient connectivity via bus and light rail service to the TMC, Museum District and Downtown Houston.

The developer for the P3 projects is Medistar Corporation, a long-time Houston-based developer. Infrastructure investment firm American Triple I Partners, founded by Texas A&M alum Henry Cisneros, is part of the financing team.

About The Texas A&M University System

The Texas A&M University System is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $6.3 billion. The System is a statewide network of 11 universities; a comprehensive health science center; eight state agencies, including the Texas Division of Emergency Management; and the RELLIS Campus. The Texas A&M System educates more than 151,000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year. System-wide, research and development expenditures exceeded $1 billion in FY 2019 and helped drive the state’s economy.

Tulsa Race Massacre

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By Emmet McGeown

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, there is a strip of land known as Greenwood. In the early 20th century, it was renowned as a bustling business district with a prosperous and self-sufficient economy. Such a pre-Depression boomtown, still thriving off the discovery of oil in 1901 and still harnessing the energetic drive of frontierism, was not uncommon. Yet, Greenwood was exclusively Black prompting Booker T. Washington to dub it “Black Wall Street.”

Due to staunch segregationist sentiments, African Americans constructed “Black Wall Street” as an oasis of social and economic mobility amidst the sand dunes of bigotry. The vibrant and animated nature of the business district was a testament to the American dream; despite crippling adversity, these business owners and professionals had created an innovative community dedicated to serving their own people’s needs. Black attorneys, doctors, and businessmen formed the nucleus of Greenwood around whom a middle-class utopia was established. Black-owned newspapers and movie theaters catered to the residents’ social perspectives and colloquialisms while Black schools and real-estate agents educated and housed their fellow man.

However, on May 30th, 1921, 19-year-old shoe shiner, Dick Rowland, shared an elevator from the 1st to the 3rd floor of the Drexel building with Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white elevator operator. Sarah Page accused Dick Rowland of assault; she later dropped the charges, but it was too late. Dick Rowland was arrested the following day. An angry white mob arrived at the courthouse and began demanding justice. Their anger was fueled by the prevalent dogma that white womanhood was a sanctimonious virtue that ought not to be violated by the savagery of the Black man.

As the mob gathered around the courthouse, a few Black men from Greenwood arrived to defend Dick Rowland, one of them being his father, a prominent Black businessman. As Black and white citizens faced off, there was a struggle over a gun and a shot rang out injuring a white man. The match was struck. The Black residents retreated and set up a barricade at the railroad tracks in an attempt to prevent the white mob from invading their district. The barricade did not hold, and violence engulfed “Black Wall Street.” 35 blocks of Black property was set aflame with “the fires becoming so hot that nearby trees and outbuildings also burst into flame.” – Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot.

Yet this massacre was not limited to flames. The white mob dropped nitroglycerine bombs from private airplanes, there were reports of decapitations and white children were armed and sent scavenging the neighborhood, told by their parents that they were at liberty to murder Black folk. The Greenwood District burned for 2 days as the Governor of Oklahoma and the federal government engaged in ambivalence. Eventually, the national guard was called in and martial law was declared but it was too little too late. The “Black” in “Black Wall Street” no longer stood for African Americans rather, proceeding the massacre, it alluded only to the dark ash that coated the wreckage left behind.

Every single insurance claim was denied as the Black community was prohibited by established financial forces from rebuilding their community. The claims totaled over $2.7 million. An opinion piece in the Tulsa Tribune Editorial condoned the violence and expressed no remorse over the barbarity unleashed upon Greenwood.

In a 2018 Vox documentary, when asked, “Do you think life is better for black folks in America?” Hazel Jones, the last living survivor of the massacre at the time replied, “Nah. Some places, it is some places it’s not.” The legacy of this horrific event lives on 99 years later. Whilst things have undoubtedly gotten better for African Americans in terms of civil rights legislation, employment opportunities, and education, why is it so that people like Ms. Jones believe that Black America is just as subjugated and abused as it was in 1921? The sentiments of Black individuals who concur with this feeling must be acknowledged and better investigated in order to begin attempting to rectify the injustices which have plagued the African American community since this nation’s inception.

Twenty One Pilots- Never Ending Video

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TWENTY ØNE PILØTS RELEASE FIRST-EVER, NEVER-ENDING MUSIC VIDEO FOR “LEVEL OF CONCERN”

REVOLUTIONARY DIGITAL CAMPAIGN ALLOWS FANS TO SHARE MEANINGFUL MOMENTS FROM THEIR LIVES INSTANTLY VIA CONTINUOUS VIDEO STREAM

“LEVEL OF CONCERN” SPENDS SIXTH WEEK AT #1 AT ALTERNATIVE RADIO

TWENTY ØNE PILØTS – “LEVEL OF CONCERN” (NEVER-ENDING MUSIC VIDEO) YOUTUBE

Twenty One Pilots have released the first-ever, never-ending music video with the help of their fans. Livestreaming now on YouTube the groundbreaking video for Twenty One Pilots’ hit “Level of Concern” pulls in fan created content, in real time, live on YouTube. Powered by Imposium, every three minutes and forty seconds a new music video is created and streamed live to YouTube, containing brand new content from fans. Conceived by the band with award-winning storyteller and director Jason Zada, the concept behind the innovative digital campaign was to find a unique way to connect with fans during the pandemic, and give them an opportunity to share meaningful moments from their lives via the continuous video stream.

Fans can visit HERE to upload their own footage, which will instantly appear in the “Level of Concern” (Never-Ending Music Video). Twenty One Pilots cryptically launched the project on June 12th with a 24hr livestream on their YouTube channel featuring a TV screen flashing mysterious imagery. Three million people tuned into the live broadcast with #twentyonepilots trending on Twitter for twelve hours, with over 150k tweets from the dedicated fans. From the stream fans were directed HERE, the landing page of a complex and immersive Alternate Reality Game (ARG), which Zada developed with renowned game designer, Steve Peters.

The goal of the ARG was to find a total of 20 codes, each one unlocking a virtual USB drive through which fans could download a zip file containing: images, videos, and symbols taken from the band’s personal phones – clues to deciphering the remaining codes needed to solve the game. Each drive contained elements leading to the next puzzle and each code became increasingly harder to solve as the ARG progressed.

One code was hidden in the closed-captioning of the official “Level of Concern” music video, whereas another was hidden in the spectrogram of an audio file. Extremely elaborate in nature, one clue was concealed within a glitched photo file, that when opened in a text editing program contained coordinates to locations around the world. Inputting these coordinates into Google Maps let fans piece together another code.

Serving as the centerpiece of the video launch, upon solving all 20 codes of the ARG fans unlocked a secondary page where they were able to upload their own unique content to the official never-ending “Level of Concern” music video. Written and recorded amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, “Level of Concern” is currently sitting atop the Alternative Radio charts for a sixth straight week and has amassed 150 million streams around the globe.

Originally released alongside an official music video directed by longtime collaborator Real Beer Media, Twenty One Pilots have also shared “Level of Concern” (live from outside), an alternate version of “Level of Concern,” featuring additional performances from friends and collaborators Paul Meany (Mutemath), Jesse Blum (MisterWives), and Simon Jefferis.

The concept for the reimagined take developed as Twenty One Pilots went to work on recording a remote performance of “Level of Concern” for The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon: At Home Edition. The performance, which is streaming now on The Tonight Show’s YouTube channel, sees each musician delivering an open-air performance while in quarantine.The duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun will be donating a portion of the proceeds from “Level of Concern” to Crew Nation, a global relief fund for live music crews, which aims to help touring and venue crews affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.

“Level of Concern” is the first new music from Twenty One Pilots since the release of their 2018 RIAA platinum-certified LP TRENCH,“TRENCH revels in the confounding genre-blurring and cavernous conceptualism that has defined Twenty One Pilots,” declared Billboard. Upon release Trench made a massive global impact with the RIAA gold certified collection earning the GRAMMY® Award winning duo their biggest sales week ever in the U.S., with 175,000 units sold in its first week.

A true global phenomenon having surpassed two billion streams worldwide, TRENCH earned Twenty One Pilots Top 5 chart debuts around the globe including the U.S., U.K., Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and The Netherlands.

TRENCH is highlighted by the #1 Alternative singles “The Hype”,” “Chlorine,” and “Jumpsuit,” the latter of which became the decade’s fastest rising song to reach #1 on Billboard’s “Alternative Songs” chart, and also earned the duo their fourth GRAMMY® nomination (Best Rock Song). TRENCH also features album standouts “Nico And The Niners,” “Levitate,” and “My Blood.”

Last year Twenty One Pilots’ announced that their 2013 LP VESSEL achieved a Gold & Platinum milestone with every individual track from the album receiving Gold, Platinum or Multi-Platinum certification from the RIAA. Twenty One Pilots’ 2015 LP BLURRYFACE was the first album of the digital era to achieve this feat back in 2018, making the duo from Columbus, OH the first artist / group with two albums to reach this landmark achievement.

TWENTY ØNE PILØTS RESCHEDULED 2021 TOUR DATES:

June 18, 2021 Landgraaf, Netherlands
Pinkpop Festival
June 19, 2021 Scheebel, Germany
Hurricane Festival
June 20, 2021 Neuhausen Ob Eck, Germany
Southside Festival
July 01, 2021 Gdynia, Poland
Open’er Festival
July 03, 2021 Werchter, Belgium
Rock Wertcher
July 04, 2021 Arras, France
Main Square Festival
July 07, 2021 Madrid, Spain
Mad Cool Festival
July 09, 2021 Kiev, Ukraine
Atlas Weekend Festival
July 11, 2021 Moscow, Russia
VTB Arena
July 14, 2021 Ostrava, Czech Republic
Colours of Ostrava
July 16, 2021 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Electric Castle Festival

Connect with TWENTY ØNE PILØTS:

OFFICIAL SITE | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | YOUTUBE

Top 5 Mobile App Downloads

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Top Five US Mobile App Publishers Hit 151.2 Billion in Google Play Lifetime Downloads

Recent years have witnessed a surge in app downloads, driven by the growing number of people using mobile phones. According to data gathered by GoldenCasinoNews, the five leading mobile app publishers from the United States hit 151.2bn in Google Play lifetime downloads as of May. With 123bn in lifetime downloads among Android users, Google LLC ranked as the leading mobile app publisher in the United States.

Google Meet is the Leading Google-published App:

In May, Google’s 183 published apps were downloaded a total of 278.9 million times worldwide, revealed Statista and Priori Data survey. With almost 21.5 million downloads, Google Meet was the leading one among them. Google Calendar, Google Play Games, and Google Assistant followed with 11.45 million, 11.12 million and 11.1 million downloads, respectively.

With 12.55bn in Google Play lifetime downloads, Facebook ranked as the second-leading mobile app publisher in the United States, revealed Statista and 42Matters data. The world’s most popular social network hit 2.6bn monthly active users in the first quarter of 2020. Statistics show that in March, Facebook was also the fourth most popular app in the Google Play Store worldwide, reaching 25.55 million downloads. Facebook Messenger ranked in seventh place, with 23.75 million downloads in March.

Microsoft Corporation took third place on the list of most successful US mobile app publishers, with a total of 6.67bn downloads among Android users so far. With millions of people spending more time indoors and online amid coronavirus lockdown, the US software giant has witnessed a surge in the number of app downloads in the first quarter of 2020. Statistics show than in March only, Microsoft apps were downloaded 97.8 million times worldwide, ranking it as the second-leading non-gaming app publisher in the Google Play Store that month.

WhatsApp and Instagram Reached Almost 9bn in Google Play Lifetime Downloads:

Statistics show that WhatsApp Inc was the fourth-leading US app publisher in May, with 5.74bn downloads among Android users. Statista data also revealed that one of the most popular messaging apps worldwide hit 2bn monthly active users in the first quarter of 2020, with the majority of that number based in India.

Instagram ranked as the fifth-leading app publisher in the United States, with 3.22bn in Google Play lifetime downloads. Statistics indicate the popular photo and video-sharing social networking service hit 1 billion active users as of April. The majority of that number or 120 million were based in the United States.

India represents the second-largest Instagram market, with 88 million users as of April. Brazil, Indonesia, and Russia follow, with 82 million, 64 million and 46 million, respectively.

The full story can be read HERE.

Israel – A Nation

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An Army Like No Other How the Israel Defense Force Made a Nation

By Haim Bresheeth-Zabner

“It is said that Israel is an army with a state. This book validates fully this assumption. With a clear and accessible style and with illuminating of many hidden chapters in Israel’s history, Bresheeth exposes fully the militarization of the Jewish State. The book unpacks successfully the military grip of the IDF on every aspect of life in Israel and Palestine, from crucial decisions of going to war to the formulation of the policies towards the Palestinians. Even if you are a knowledgeable reader on the topic, this book will be an essential contribution to your library.”

–Ilan Pappe, author of 10 Myths About Israel

“An original and a remarkable interpretation of the wide-ranging impact of the military on Israeli society and one of the most insightful and challenging works on Israeli society from 1948 to our days. His book traces the ways in which military power acquired legitimacy in civilian society and how the use of organized violence became an acceptable solution to all conflicts in Arab-Israeli history. Anyone interested in understanding the Middle East should read this book.”

–Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Jewish People

“Bresheeth—one of the most important anti-colonial intellectuals of our era—takes the Israeli army as an entry point to undertake a deep analysis of Jewish-Israeli society. The original contribution of the book lies in its ambitions and scope: Bresheeth brilliantly describes the way an army whose ethos is rooted in Jewish historical trauma, has grown to become the occupation arm of Zionism, the motor of its settler-colonial domination and the basis of its politics of separation.”

–Eyal Weizman, author of Hollow Land

Hardback / $29.95 / August 25, 2020 / 9781788737845

A history of the IDF that argues that Israel is a nation formed by its army.

The Israeli army, officially named the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), was established in 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, who believed that “the whole nation is the army.” In his mind, the IDF was to be an army like no other. It was the instrument that might transform a diverse population into a new people. Since the foundation of Israel, therefore, the IDF has been the largest, richest and most influential institution in Israel’s Jewish society and is the nursery of its social, economic and political ruling class.

In this fascinating history, Bresheeth-Zabner charts the evolution of the IDF from the Nakba to wars in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and the continued assaults upon Gaza, and shows that the state of Israel has been formed out of its wars. He also gives an account of his own experiences as a young conscript during the 1967 war.

He argues that the army is embedded in all aspects of daily life and identity and that we should not merely see it as a fighting force enjoying an international reputation, but as the central ideological, political and financial institution of Israeli society. As a consequence, we have to reconsider our assumptions on what any kind of peace might look like

Professor Haim Bresheeth-Zabner is a Filmmaker, Photographer and a Film Studies Scholar, and 2nd Researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He is the editor of The Gulf War and the New World Order (with Nira Yuval-Davis), and the author of The Holocaust for Beginners (with Stuart Hood). His films include the widely shown State of Danger (1989, BBC2)—a documentary on the first Palestinian Intifada—and London is Burning, after the 2011 riots. He has also written in the Israeli Ha’aretz and the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Weekly.