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CBC Releases Report Questioning Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Claims to Indigenous Heritage

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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has released a documentary and article calling into question the Indigenous heritage of Buffy Sainte-Marie. The decorated singer-songwriter, who released a preemptive statement yesterday, maintains that she has Native ancestry, “but there was no documentation as was common for Indigenous children born in the 1940’s.”

Based on its documentary series The Fifth Estate, CBC’s report cites members of the artist’s family, as well as genealogical documentation, to suggest that Sainte-Marie’s “story is built on an elaborate fabrication.” Her account of her ancestry, CBC adds, “has been a shifting narrative, full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies.”

A birth certificate obtained by CBC lists Sainte-Marie’s parents as Albert and Winifred Santamaria, the white couple from Massachusetts who Sainte-Marie has said adopted her. The certificate is signed by the same doctor who delivered Sainte-Marie’s sister, Lainey, in 1948.

In a 2018 interview, Sainte-Marie said she was one of many Native children removed from their homes, adopted, and “assigned kind of a biography,” in a practice known as the Sixties Scoop. “So, in many cases, adoptive people don’t really know what the true story is.” But the Sixties Scoop, CBC notes, “is widely recognized to have started in 1951. Sainte-Marie was born in 1941.”

Stoneham’s town clerk, Maria Sagarino, who found the birth certificate, said, “I can say absolutely with 100 per cent certainty that this is the original birth certificate. Beverly Jean Santamaria was born in Stoneham, Mass., at New England Sanatorium and Hospital on Feb. 20, 1941.”

In an email to CBC, Sainte-Marie’s lawyer contended, “Research has also revealed that children adopted by parents in Massachusetts were commonly issued new Massachusetts birth certificates with the name of their adoptive parents.”

Sagarino objected to Sainte-Marie’s lawyer’s assertion, telling CBC, “It doesn’t appear that she was adopted in any way, shape or form.”

In addition, while Sainte-Marie’s lawyer said the musician’s true birth certificate was destroyed by Canadian governments, the government for the province of Saskatchewan told CBC, “All adoptions that occurred within the province of Saskatchewan have an adoption record on file with the Ministry of Social Services.”

Elsewhere in the article, Sainte-Marie’s niece Heidi St. Marie told CBC, “Nobody except for Buffy ever talked about Buffy being adopted.” Her cousin Bruce Santamaria said his family denied Sainte-Marie’s claim that she was adopted, and believed her claim to Indigenous ancestry was a publicity stunt. He added that his family told stories of Buffy Sainte-Marie threatening family members with legal action if they spoke out.

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Jazz Monroe, Matthew Strauss

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October 27, 2023
This Ultralight Watch Just Set a New Record

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The Ming LW.01 is interesting on a few levels aside from its ethereal weight. For one thing, when a tiny brand that’s been around for less time than This is Us can command as much clout as august Swiss makers with centuries of heritage, it’s confirmation that we are now living in a golden era of indie watchmaking. With pieces by niche makers like F.P. Journe sharing top billing with Rolex and Patek Philippe at auction, and Louis Vuitton putting its money behind little-known names like Daniel Roth and Rexhep Rexhepi, it’s apparent that a major shift is underway in the world of high-end watches.

Enter Ming, a brand founded in 2017 by Ming Thien, a Malaysian child physics prodigy-turned-professional photographer with a longstanding timepiece obsession. Ming and a group of like-minded pals started the brand as an antithesis to the elitism and exorbitant prices they found in the upper tiers of the watch-collecting world. Ming aimed to create watches that were as interesting as they were (relatively) accessible, and over the last six years, he has amassed a loyal following of collectors who are eager to snap up each new limited-edition release. Unlike the big Swiss brands with eight-figure marketing budgets and state-of-the-art production facilities, Ming doesn’t make any of its components in-house and doesn’t operate a single retail store, but that hasn’t stopped the brand from conceiving and executing some of the most interesting watches of recent years—including the superlative-grabbing Ming LW.01.

MING THEIN | MINGTHEIN.COM

MING THEIN | MINGTHEIN.COM

The Ming LW.01 is limited to just 200 pieces (100 in manual-wind and 100 in automatic) and available exclusively on Ming’s website as of 1 pm GMT today. Given the popularity of Ming watches in general and the hype around this one in particular, it is guaranteed to sell out faster than Taylor Swift tickets despite its roughly $22,000 price. If the past is any indication, however, other watch brands are paying close attention, and it won’t be long before another ultralight ticker comes for Ming’s crown.

*Probably. As with any superlative, the closer you look at the nitty-gritty details, the more difficult it becomes to make a definitive ruling. For example, at just 1.75mm thick, Richard Mille’s RM UP-01 holds the title as the world’s thinnest watch. Because it requires a separate key to wind the mechanism, however, some folks (including, perhaps, the makers of the 2mm thick Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept) see it as a bit of a cheat. In light of this, there’s no arguing that the Ming LW.01 is one of the lightest watches ever made, but without weighing every other watch ever made, how can you be sure? For that reason, and being the good sports they are, Ming Thien and his compatriots are leaving it an open question for now.

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Jeremy Freed

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October 27, 2023
Shaquille O’Neal Reminds Everyone He’s the Best NBA Rapper to Ever Do It, With An Assist From Rick Ross and Meek Mill

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Rap and basketball are inextricably linked—the majority of entertainers in both fields typically hail from the same communities and grew up in the same culture. It’s more than likely that if you made it doing one, you probably had dreams and aspirations of doing the other too. As such, crossover is inevitable and endless. J. Cole’s recent stint as a pro player is an echo of the real run Master P tried to go in in the late ‘90s. Everyone from Kobe to Allen Iverson has a rap song or five to their name if not a whole project. Kevin Durant executive produced the latest Drake album. LeBron James, one of our most important music critics, also invented the deluxe track. The list goes on, but one take is universally held as fact: if we’re talking crossover success stories, Shaquille O’Neal is the Gold Standard. And he just hit everyone with a big reminder last night.

First, let’s back up: Rick Ross and Meek Mill are releasing a new album, called Too Good to Be True. The title is an accurate description of most collab projects, but this is a big deal—Ross and Meek’s reunion is as close as we’ll get to the halcyon early 2010s of Maybach Music Group, when they were one of, if not the hottest label squads out, with Ross’s roster spearheaded by Meek and DC rapper Wale minting club hits, street bangers and radio smashes with ease. It was a time when every Meek verse sounded like he needed to be extinguished after leaving the booth, Wale churned out melodic radio hits like it was nothing, and people of taste knew there was a real, credible argument to be made for Ross’ lifelong friend Gunplay being one of the best rappers out. French Montana, also at his peak, was a close family friend despite being formally beholden to Bad Boy Records. Even bemusing decisions like signing Omarion yielded an undeniable track or two (and later, in true Ross fashion, A1 punchlines admitting it didn’t work out.)

Alas, all good crews come to an end. Ross and Meek had a brief (and thankfully never that serious) period of estrangement, Wale has since departed for Def Jam, Gunplay is in and out of trouble and endorsing Donald Trump amongst other problematic behavior, and so on.

All of that is to say, while Ross and Meek have been no stranger to featuring on each other’s albums still, it’s a thrill to see them really back together, trading verses over a mean, gritty beat for “Shaq and Kobe,” mean-mugging in a music video that feels like Michael Mann directing Bad Boys 4 and in full album rollout mode up at radio stations with Funk Flex like it’s 2011 again. They kept the momentum going with an only slightly-less-hard album cut that flips Jay-Z’s classic “Lyrical Exercise.” And last night was their biggest coup yet, with a “Shaq and Kobe” remix that gets one of its namesakes back in his rapper bag. (The original song, save a “hustling 24 hours” double entendre, is light on overt NBA references and moreso just alludes to the duo’s historic dominance. Rap and ball, linked as ever.)

Nineties babies and NBA/hip-hop fans alike are all too familiar with Shaq’s rap career, which began not long after his 1992 draft to the league, peaked with his 1996 album You Can’t Stop the Reign, and petered out right before the start of the new millennium. The annals of rap history are littered with aspiring-rapper-athletes—All-Stars who despite their achievements on the court couldn’t resist the urge to be an entertainer of a similar but different cloth. Most of the music merits participation trophies at best; few ballers came as correct as Shaq did in the 90s, with albums graced by production from the likes of RZA and Erick Sermon and features from the hottest singers and rappers of the moment. Who else can boast having the first track with Jay-Z and Nas together (in ‘96 no less, what taste) or delivering a true-blue rap classic alongside prime-era Notorious B.I.G. with the titanic yet still smooth “You Can’t Stop the Reign.” It’s not even a case of letting the smooth beat ride out until you get to Frank White’s verse—Shaq is actually spitting. (Extra Credit homework: the late, great DJ Kay Slay’s underrated 2006 flip with Shaq, Papoose and Bun B.)

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Frazier Tharpe

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October 27, 2023
Heavyweight Champ Tyson Fury Only Fights for Shit Tons of Money

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A few days before Tyson Fury takes on rookie boxer (and former UFC champ) Francis Ngannou, the world heavyweight boxing champ is feeling feisty. The nearly warm and fuzzy promotional meetups, where Fury seemed almost affectionate toward the less experienced fighter, are a distant memory. He has now shifted his mindset into kill mode, as he prepares to separate his opponent’s body from his being to the tune of a reported $50 million payday.

With seven children and a legacy to look after, the fighter is all business these days. Tyson Fury the wildman is gone (mostly). These days, the champ says he is living his dream, and approaches every fight with the cool and calculating mind of a professional. He says he only fights for a “shit ton of money”—but it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to hear him bristle when asked how he’d fare against fighters from other disciplines, and under different rule sets. These are fights that we may soon see as he rather strongly alludes to an MMA rubber match with Ngannou, who himself is listed as the world’s hardest puncher. Whether Fury can take the easy money and keep gliding on a path he feels is destined will be answered this Saturday in Riyadh.

GQ: Let’s get right to it—what’s the biggest animal you could beat in a fight?

Tyson Fury: I think probably a chihuahua. I don’t know if I could even beat that to be honest.

So you don’t think you could beat up a bear?

Against a bear I’d instantly fall on the floor and die. I don’t like to fight animals. First, they don’t have any combat skills, and second they didn’t do anything to me. I like to fight men, and I like to punch their faces in.

Speaking of which, everybody thinks you are going to smash Ngannou in boxing, but who wins that fight in a dark alley?

Me, because I’d have a pair of runners on and I’d get on up out of there as fast as I could. I don’t fight in dark alleys, I only fight for shit tons of money.

OK, so what if they paid you a shit ton of money to fight Frances in an MMA cage?

Well, we’ll find out soon enough. I’m not worried about his takedowns, so the fight goes like this: jab, jab, right, slip, uppercut, right, game over.

In the promotional material I’ve seen it seems like you have a real respect and admiration for Frances. Is that fair to say?

No, I think he is a big fat sausage and I’m going to knock him out. I was more generous with him in the past, but now I’ve switched on him.

Why’d you change your mind? Did he do something?

No, I’m just getting into fight mode. I don’t know him well enough to like him or dislike him. But I am going to knock him out. And I’m doing it for $50 million. Anybody would take any fight for $50 million. Wouldn’t you fight me for 50 million?

I don’t know, man, you’re a pretty big dude.

You’d fight me for $50 million, of course you would. What’s the worst that could happen?

I could die.

You’re not gonna die—it’s a boxing match.

OK, I’d take the fight if you’re offering.

I’m not. Listen, Frances is doing this fight to make $10 million. That’s more than he ever made in his whole career combined. It’s a snatch and run by Frances for sure.

You and Frances both come from humble backgrounds. Is there anything about him making that kind of money off this fight that makes you feel good?

Nothing about Frances making money makes me feel good. He is getting paid well and I hope he invests well. Ten million goes fast if you don’t spend it properly. You can blow ten quickly. I hope Frances pays his taxes straight away and invests wisely. If you do that you can make a good income.

You talk like a man who has been rich for a while.

I’ve never been rich and I still ain’t rich. I’m very sensible with my money. I don’t waste it on shiny things, I invest it and I always have done that.

Some of your suits are pretty shiny, though. Where do you get them?

I do wear some shiny, glittery things. I get it from my clothing sponsor Claudio Lugli. He has been designing my gear since 2014. He takes my inspirational quotes and he designs whatever he can with them. He puts me in some absolutely showstopping stuff that’s for sure.

If you could be great at any other fighting discipline what would it be?

I wouldn’t want to do any other discipline. If I wanted to, I would have done it. I’ve wanted to be a boxer and a champion all my life. I am living my dream, and I have been for the past 15 years.

Have you heard of Gordon Ryan, the jiu jitsu champion? I skipped jiu jitsu practice to do this interview, so I need to ask this question.

Well thank you, I know how you jiu jitsu guys are about practice. And yeah, I know who he is—silver-haired guy.

If you went into a fight with just your boxing, and he came with just his jiu jitsu, who wins?

Let me tell you this. I don’t believe any man alive could beat me in a no-holds-barred fight, because I will do whatever it takes to win. I’ll bite off your eyes, I’ll bite off your ears, I’ll take out your eyes.

OK, but not a street fight, let’s say it’s an MMA match.

Give me the time to train and pay me enough money and I’ll beat any man alive. It won’t matter the discipline. But really what you’re doing here is trying to compare a monster truck to a Ferrari.

Which one are you?

I’m both.

When’s the last time you were scared?

Every day. Every day I’m scared. I get scared that I’m not going to be a good parent. I get scared that you never know what’s going to happen in this world. I get scared about my kids, and my family, and their future.

You have seven kids. Do any of them box? Do you want them to go the same route as you, or do something easier on the body?

Two of them box, a 12 year old and a 7 year old. They don’t have any fights yet, though. I think all my kids will have to learn how to fight at some stage, because if you can’t fight in this life you’re going to get fucked over. You gotta fight in the workplace, you gotta fight in your relationships, you have to fight everywhere, or you’ll never succeed in life.

With all the celebrity boxing matches going on with the Paul brothers and other YouTubers, where does that leave the cruiserweight somewhere with a 15-0 professional record who still sleeps next to the radiator?

I think it should inspire him to do well and work hard and take his opportunities where he gets them. These influencers are growing the sport and getting more and more eyes on boxing. It’s getting bigger and bigger, and when these YouTubers are done fighting the real boxers can fight and it will be a larger audience. A lot of boxers don’t like YouTubers, they’re jealous of how much money they make. But there’s no point to that. You need to concentrate on your own goals, your own dreams. Don’t watch it on social media. If your screen time at the end of the day says seven hours, well that’s time you could have been reading a book, or training jiu jitsu, or doing something else productive for yourself.

Do you think Frances is scared of you?

No. At 6’4” 275 pounds and an MMA champ, he shouldn’t be scared of anyone. Truthfully I think he can’t believe his lucky stars. Ten million dollars for your pro debut? He is a lucky guy. But I should say, there is no such thing as luck. I believe in destiny. He is supposed to be here and get his money, so congratulations to the guy. But I’m still going to punch his face in.

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Kevin Koenig

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October 27, 2023
“We Just Tell Them, ‘Name and School’”: Here’s How NBC Makes Those Viral Sunday Night Football Player Intros

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Any football fan knows it well. For the hardcore addicts, it’s a pop quiz. For the casuals, it’s a nice way to get to know the players that will be running around for the next three hours. For certain folks (this writer included), it’s a reminder that there’s homework due tomorrow, whether they’re still in school or not. It’s a humdrum bit of broadcasting, and also zeitgeisty enough to warrant a Comedy Central parody. I’m talking, of course, about the player introductions on NBC’s Sunday Night football—the ones where the starting lineups from each team stare down the barrel of the camera and state their name and college. Or, if they’re feeling creative, whatever else is on their mind—like longtime Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, who memorably introduced himself as “Sizzle,” from “Ball So Hard University.”

The tradition of filming live action intros started at ABC. Charlie Vanacore, a veteran replay director for SNF who came over from ABC, is sort of the proud papa of player intros. When the SNF broadcast changed homes in ‘06, Vanacore (who made the jump to NBC that same year) helped the talking-lineups component remain intact. “It’s really the only time during an NFL broadcast where you get to see a player’s face, hear his voice, and have them express themselves,” Vanacore says.

And boy, do they express themselves: it’s not uncommon to hear all manner of exotic intros on the broadcast. According to Vanacore, a defensive back from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette was the first player to go off-script. “I think it was Ike Taylor from the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Vanacore remembers. “He said ‘Swaggin University.’ That was early on, like ‘06. Same with ‘Jared Allen, Culinary Academy.’ I think he also said his preschool once. And then, of course, there was Terrell Suggs, who gave us the scoop on that nickname. “My cousin played basketball at Idaho State,” Suggs tells GQ. “His name was D’Marr. They called him D-Sizzle. So naturally, with us having the same last name, I inherited T-Sizzle.”

With each week offering a mostly new batch of intros—this season, SNF has already featured 12 different teams, and that will jump to 14 after this weekend’s Bears–Chargers tilt—we couldn’t stop wondering about the mechanics behind a weekly tradition that’s become interwoven in the NFL fabric. The NBC crew was happy to oblige. It starts here: during the offseason, NBC producers head out across the United States of Football to shoot about 50 guys per team. Ultimately, players from all 32 teams sit down in front of a green screen and quickly introduce themselves. But, inevitably, an unexpected depth-chart-climber or an unknown rookie shakes up the starting lineups during the season, requiring a new shoot.

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Matthew Roberson

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October 27, 2023
Deion Sanders’ Coolest Move Yet? Growing This Glorious Gray Beard

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We’re used to seeing a clean-shaven Sanders; save for the occasional stache, he’s been baby-butt smooth since his Jheri-curl-and-giant-cell-phone days. But this isn’t the first time the former defensive back has rocked a jaw mane. His peak-of-the-pandemic beard was a majestic storm of gray whiskers, prompting some social media trolls to dub him “Father Time” (instead of Prime Time, get it?). Still, Sanders stood firmly by his seasoned look. “My Beard looks really good on me and I refuse to color it black and live the lie a multitude of men are living like we don’t know yo pillow case is black now!” he declared in an Instagram caption at the time.

And you know what? We applaud him. Growing back his ashen bristles is exactly the grooming power move Deion Sanders should be making at this audacious stage of his career. He’s got no reason to hide the fact that he’s getting older, and every reason to embrace who he is right now: Football’s great disruptor. The man who, 31 years after becoming the only athlete to play in a World Series and a Super Bowl, is still shaking up the sports world like an Etch A Sketch. Not only has he earned his grays, they’re a reflection of his enduring journey and the respect he commands to this day. Besides, in the silver fox power rankings, dude could actually give Clooney and Keanu a run for their money.

“Championship teams don’t let bull junk slide,” a still-bearded Sanders told the Buffaloes at practice this week ahead of their showdown with the UCLA Bruins on Saturday. Neither do they let Just For Men slip into their stubble. It’s all about embracing your natural talents.

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Alex Nino Gheciu

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October 27, 2023
‘Spider-Man 2’ is a Spider-Man Game For a Post-‘Across the Spider-Verse’ World

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We are in the middle of a bull market for Spider-People. 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home — which made nearly $2 billion at the box office — gave us three Spider-Men in Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire. That movie’s three-pronged multiverse was a drop in the bucket compared to last summer’s Across the Spider-Verse, which built on the foundation of its predecessor by including no fewer than 280 Spider-People, including an anthropomorphic jeep named Peter Parkedcar. Even Sony Pictures’ Spider-Man-less Spider-Man movies have gained some traction with audiences (at least, the ones that are about Venom and not Morbius the Living Vampire.)

It’s into that increasingly crowded Spider-Verse that the PlayStation 5 exclusive Spider-Man 2 arrives. A direct sequel to Insomniac’s PlayStation 4 hit (and its 2020 spinoff Spider-Man: Miles Morales), the Spider-Man video games are carving out their own place in the canon, carrying the weight of the character’s 60-year history while finding new avenues to explore. “Our philosophy from day one has been that we want to respect the DNA of the franchise, but we don’t want to be afraid to mix things up,” said senior creative director Bryan Intihar in a recent interview.

Having twice nailed the core experience of an open-world Spider-Man video game, Spider-Man 2 is largely an exercise in getting a lot more of a good thing. Where the first two games confined you to Manhattan, this one expands into Brooklyn and Queens, adding a new flight mechanic to help compensate for the boroughs’ lack of verticality. The side missions are more intricate and varied, and often more intimate, offering more perspective on a day-in-the-superheroic-life. And building on the first game’s customizable wardrobe, Spider-Man 2 gives you dozens of unlockable suits — letting you zip through the game dressed as the Spider-Men from every major Spider-Man movie, along with highlights from the comics and some clever original ones.

And whereas each of the first two games left you playing as a single Spider-Man, this one juggles both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, telling two stories and inviting players to swap between them in real time. “When we made the commitment to put Miles and Pete in the same world, we knew that eventually a game would star both of them together,” said Intihar. “There were definitely times I said to myself, ‘Why did we do two heroes?’ But I think when we ask that, that’s how we know we made the right decision, because that’s what’s going to lead to a unique experience.”

The game begins with both Peter and Miles at a crossroads. Peter, as usual, is struggling to balance superheroics with his personal life, though a new job at his rich friend Harry’s startup hints at a possible future where he can change the world in ways that go beyond shooting webs at bad guys. Miles is close to graduating high school and struggling with the college essay he knows could determine his future. (Of course, this is still a Spider-Man video game, so they’re also going toe-to-toe with a series of familiar baddies, including Sandman, Kraven the Hunter, and Venom.)

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Scott Meslow

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October 27, 2023
The Five Most Exciting New Watch Brands of 2023

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This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here.

2023 has been a really great year for watches. At the tippity-top you have Rolex releasing an emoji-laden Day-Date, and on the other end of the spectrum Blancpain launched sea-slug inspired pieces with Swatch. But it’s not just the watch-world stalwarts who are having fun. In 2023, a host of exciting new brands have emerged—both from industry legends and fresh-faced newcomers alike.

A couple of these upstart brands represent the early returns of a growing collecting community. It’s a theory Mark Cho, the owner of Drake’s and the Armoury and a top-notch watch collector, has been floating out there: “[New collectors] are the ones who are going to shape the future of collecting,” he said during a recent GQ chat. “Just the fact that there’s all this extra interest in watches means that there’ll be other people who want to enter the industry, who want to make watches, want to design new things, and it just makes the whole ecosystem richer, more interesting, more variety, more ideas.”

Some of these companies, however, were founded by folks who have risen through the ranks of some of the biggest watchmakers in Switzerland. For instance…

The shapeshifter

Really the entire conceit of this newsletter is an excuse to write about Berneron. It’s the side hustle of Sylvain Berneron, the chief product officer of Breitling, who previously worked at BMW, Porsche, and Ducati. He’s spent the past two years developing his namesake label’s debut watch, the Mirage, which comes in both yellow and white gold. The oddball design certainly has its detractors. Chris Hall made me laugh when he described it as “a chocolate left in a coat pocket,” in his newsletter The Fourth Wheel. But the Mirage floored me. The watch has such movement: The numerals look like they’re being pulled into an unrelenting whirlpool, and even the bent and crooked hands look like they’re only just resisting the riptide. If I wanted to get philosophical as a softie new-ish dad, I might say the watch looks like a reminder of how quickly time moves.

The lazy comparison for the Mirage is the Cartier Crash, with which it shares a certain mushy quality. But I think a better fit is the work of boundary-pushing designer Gilbert Albert, who was responsible for some of Patek Philippe’s funkiest designs from the mid-20th century and a great lover of asymmetry. (Berneron has cited him as an inspiration.) Critically, unlike the Crash—which has an entirely oozing, liquid shape—both Albert and Berneron’s watches seem to be rebelling and kicking out from their more conservative boundaries. These are watches nearly imploding with energy. So, yeah, I really love this piece. I’m not alone: Berneron will only make 24 of the roughly $55,000 watches over the next decade, and all of them have already been claimed.

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Cam Wolf

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October 27, 2023
Buffy Sainte-Marie Releases Statement About Indigenous Heritage Ahead of Investigative Report

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My Truth as I Know It

It is with great sadness, and a heavy heart, that I am forced to respond to deeply hurtful allegations that I expect will be reported in the media soon. Last month, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, contacted me to question my identity and the sexual assault I experienced as a child.

To relive those truths, and revisit questions I made peace with decades ago, has been beyond traumatic. But I know I owe it to those I love, and those who support me, to respond.

I am proud of my Indigenous-American identity, and the deep ties I have to Canada and my Piapot family.

What I know about my Indigenous ancestry I learned from my growing up mother, who was part Mi’kmaq, and my own research later in life. My mother told me many things, including that I was adopted and that I was Native, but there was no documentation as was common for Indigenous children born in the 1940’s. Later in my life, as an adult, she told me some things I have never shared out of respect for her that I hate sharing now, including that I may have been born on “the wrong side of the blanket”. This was her story to tell, not mine.

As a young adult, I was adopted by Emile Piapot (son of Chief Piapot, Treaty 4 Adhesion signatory), and Clara Starblanket Piapot (daughter of Chief Starblanket, Treaty 4 signatory), in accordance with Cree law and customs. They were kind, loving, and proud to claim me as their own. I love my Piapot family and am so lucky to have them in my life.

I have always struggled to answer questions about who I am. For a long time, I tried to discover information about my background. Through that research what became clear, and what I’ve always been honest about, is that I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents were, and I will never know. Which is why, to be questioned in this way today is painful, both for me, and for my two families I love so dearly.

My Indigenous identity is rooted in a deep connection to a community which has had a profound role in shaping my life and my work. For my entire life, I have championed Indigenous, and Native American causes when nobody else would, or had the platform to do so. I am proud to have been able to speak up for Indigenous issues. I have always tried to bridge gaps between communities and educate people to live in love and kindness.

This is my truth. And while there are many things I do not know; I have been proud to honestly share my story throughout my life.

Painfully, the CBC has also forced me to relive and defend my experience as a survivor of sexual abuse which I endured at the hands of my brother, as well as another family member — whom I have never publicly named.

I could never forget these violations. It is something I have lived with all my life. Speaking about my experience is difficult, and although I have shared privately, I have rarely done so publicly. I’ve spoken up because I know others cannot, and to have this questioned and sensationalized by Canada’s public broadcaster is appalling.

While these questions have hurt me, I know they will also hurt hose I love. My family. My friends. And all those who have seen themselves in my story. All I can say is what I know to be true: I know who I love, I know who loves me. And I know who claims me.

I may not know where I was born, but I know who I am.

Buffy Saint-Marie

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Matthew Strauss

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October 26, 2023
Justin Bieber Just Wore His Best Date Night Outfit Yet

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And every so often, they both just nail it, as was the case when they stepped out for a date night in Los Angeles this week. They began the evening with a service at Churchome—a Beverly Hills megachurch led by Justin’s longtime friend and former Hillsong pastor Judah Smith—and then dinner at upscale Italian spot Funke (where, coincidentally, actor Austin Butler also recently wore a great leather jacket). Now, if you’re imagining a church-dinner date might call for conservative attire, you are clearly unfamiliar with how things go down at celebrity megachurches—or with the Biebers in general. Out-there (and even sexy) fashion is welcome in Churchome’s pews, and the couple dressed accordingly.

For the occasion, Justin wore brown-and-teal argyle trousers, tasseled Santoni loafers, a backwards baseball cap, and a boxy black lambskin Saint Laurent jacket worn open over an unbuttoned cream shirt. That allowed Justin to showcase his chest full of tattoos and, fittingly, the gift Hailey recently gave him for their fifth wedding anniversary: a pair of diamond-encrusted mushroom pendant necklaces by the New York jeweler Alex Moss. (Per Moss, there are five bejeweled spots on each ’shroom caps, for each of their five years of marriage.)

For her part, Hailey also wore her own iced-out Alex Moss piece—a bubble-letter “B” necklace for “Bieber,” of course—plus a pair of baggy Dickies overalls over a simple white tee, black heels, a floor-length black coat, with slim Saint Laurent shades and a structured Saint Laurent Manhattan bag. (For those keeping track, all the Saint Laurent representation makes sense—Hailey is an ambassador for the brand.)

Another great leather jacket moment from the Biebers, when Justin rocked the same Saint Laurent jacket back in May.

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Together, they comprised a perfectly Bieberian his-and-hers ensemble—a couples-style duet, if you will. Individually, they each looked crazy-sexy-cool in their own distinct, fancy-disheveled sort of way: Justin as the swaggy rake, Hailey as the gorgeous tomboy.

And while their dark shades couldn’t fully block out the paparazzi’s blinding flashbulbs, the Biebers seemed to be having fun. In a clip circulating X today, Justin can be heard saying to Hailey, “I can’t even see shit ’cause of these fucking guys,” which makes Hailey laugh. Don’t you just love love?

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Eileen Cartter

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October 26, 2023
The Best Black Friday Mattress Deals Are Closer Than They Appear

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Nectar: Nectar has one of the best sleep trials and warranties in the business, and new customers can save 30% on all mattresses as part of the brand’s fall sale. You have to be really confident in your product to offer a one-year trial—just sayin’.

GhostBed: GhostBed is running one of the best mattress deals on the Internet right now, especially if you need a new bed and bedding to go along with your mattress. GhostBed is offering 50% off all of its mattresses, but to really save, check out the 50% savings on GhostBed bundles.

Amazon: Amazon will likely save its biggest mattress discounts for November, but you can already find discounts on top-rated mattresses from brands like Purple, Nectar, and Zinus.

Avocado: As part of its Early Holiday Sale, Avocado is offering up to $940 off its organic latex mattresses. You can also save up to 15% when you shop the brand’s mattress and sleep bundles.

Bear: For its seasonal mattress sale, Bear is offering shoppers 30% off sitewide plus two free pillows with their mattress purchase. Use the code DEAL30.

Birch: This company’s GQ award-winning mattress (and everything else they make) is 20% off if you use the sale code FALL20.

Casper: One of the original bed-in-a-box brands, Casper is the brand to watch for Black Friday mattress sales. For now, you can save $300 on the Casper Original Mattress.

Helix: Right now, Helix customers can save 20% on all mattresses and get two free bonus pillows with their purchase—just use the code “FALL20” to save.

Layla: Layla’s award-winning hybrid mattress is $200 off right now. You might be noticing a trend here, but Layla shoppers also get two free pillows with their purchase.

Leesa: For its Fall Back To Sleep sale, Leesa is offering shoppers up to $700 off mattresses. Yes, you get bonus pillows here, too.

Saatva: Currently, Saatva is offering up to $450 off its top mattresses, but its Halloween sale ends soon. Keep an eye on Saatva as Black Friday approaches, because we imagine there will be even steeper savings where that’s concerned.

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Timothy Werth

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October 26, 2023
The Prosecutor In Georgia’s Election Case Who Could Instill Real Fear In Defendants

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Fani Willis gets all the headlines. Which is only fair. The Fulton County district attorney is the person who drove a two-and-a-half-year investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. It was Willis who, in August, delivered a criminal indictment of Trump and 18 codefendants on racketeering charges. And it is Willis who is on the receiving end of Trump’s verbal abuse.

But the surprising, rapid-fire run of recent guilty pleas by former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis showcased a member of Willis’s team whom Trump and his remaining codefendants will be getting to know much better. Daysha Young, a tough-minded, experienced prosecutor who was speaking for the state of Georgia in those three court appearances, is the executive assistant district attorney. And Young, a Georgia defense lawyer says, is the kind of trial lawyer who can instill real fear in defendants.

Willis initially had some difficulty hiring a lead prosecutor after launching the investigation in February 2021, finally bringing in Nathan Wade, a longtime friend and a former municipal court judge who had worked primarily as a defense lawyer, heading a small firm that handled personal injury cases. There was skepticism in Georgia legal circles about whether Wade was a good choice to handle an intense, sprawling, high-profile prosecution, sources say.

Young, however, should be undaunted. She has spent years prosecuting grisly child abuse and sex crimes cases that attracted considerable media attention as the head of the Fulton County DA’s special victims division. In 2019, for example, Young won the conviction of two foster parents in the beating death of a two-year-old girl whose pancreas had been split and liver lacerated by blunt force trauma. The parents claimed the girl had choked on a chicken nugget.

Prosecuting the case against Trump should cause her relatively little discomfort. Young’s conspicuous recent court appearances were in the service of big wins. Powell led the post-election attack on Dominion Voting Systems and pressed for access to Georgia’s voting machines. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of intentional election interference. Chesebro was charged with helping create a fake slate of Trump-supporting electors. He pleaded guilty to one felony conspiracy count. The next to fall was Ellis, who had spread unfounded election fraud claims. Ellis also pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

All three had leading roles in Trump’s attempts to negate his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, and all have agreed to cooperate with Willis’s prosecution. Exactly how much information they have to offer is unclear. But what’s certain is that three lawyers, advised by their own lawyers, decided to take guilty pleas, which will put pressure on Trump’s other codefendants to consider cutting similar deals—with Willis’s camp aggressively dangling those offers. David Wolfe, a top Georgia defense lawyer who used to represent Trump codefendants John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani in the case, says he’s unsure of what Powell, Chesebro, and Ellis might tell prosecutors but recognizes the import of these pleas. “They definitely have insight as to why they were doing what they were doing. And more importantly, they would have insight into who knew that they were doing it, and what the strategy was,” Wolfe tells VF.

Wolfe cautions that Young’s recent prominence in court might be mostly a formality: “Oftentimes third-year law students take pleas. It’s not rocket science.” Maybe. But Willis has an enormous amount invested in the Trump case and the district attorney understands the high stakes involved in every aspect. It’s unlikely that Willis, whose office did not respond to a request for comment, would have left anything to chance when dealing with the pivotal moves by Powell, Chesebro, and Ellis, including which prosecutor she wanted speaking for the DA’s office.

Young certainly sounded as if she was taking each step very seriously. On Tuesday, for instance, Ellis was tearful; Young was all business, declaring that “the false statements were made with reckless disregard for the truth,” and highlighting Ellis’s interactions with Giuliani. “I wrote a motion for [Giuliani] challenging the indictment, so I can’t say a whole lot about who might be the next person to fall, if you will,” Wolfe says. “I don’t see him and the former president entering pleas. But it’s entirely up to them.”

Perhaps not entirely. The evidence and leverage Willis, Young, and company are assembling as they roll up guilty pleas from codefendants might exert some influence too.

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Chris Smith

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October 26, 2023
Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker Explains Why Michael Fassbender Eats All Those Hard-Boiled Eggs in David Fincher’s ‘The Killer’

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When he came onto Se7en, I had vastly rewritten it for [director] Jeremiah Chechick who was attached before David. The story that’s out there is a true story—that they came to David with Se7en and they accidentally gave him the first draft. When he was talking to them later down the line, he said, “blah, blah, blah, head in the box.” And they said, “Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait—we sent you the wrong one.” He insisted on going back to the first draft.

When I sat down with him and met him, I kind of dutifully got my little composition book out—it’s weird, but I do write in John Doe composition books. And I was kind of licking my pencil and getting ready and he was just like, No, no—go ahead and close the notebook, and let’s just talk about the script from the very beginning.

I keep waiting for the moment where I write a script and he just reads it and he goes, “Oh my God, this is so disappointing. I hate it.”

After he gave you the beats of The Killer, did you go back to the original material at all?

I did revisit the comics. The biggest thing for me in adapting the literal kind of voice that’s in the comics is: I was concerned about not making the Killer seem like he was doing this morally reprehensible stuff, but at the same time in his mind feeling morally superior. I read The Stranger, the Camus book. A lot of Nietzsche. There’s an alien kind of quality, in my opinion, to the Killer, where he’s almost kind of in a spaceship hovering low. A nicely edited, stripped-down-by-Fincher version of that exists early on, when he’s saying, “It’s not that I feel superior, I just feel apart.” The [character description] in the script was kind of, “If you’re really paying attention, you’ll see that he never blinks, but who would pay attention to that?” And I just love that they, and especially Fassbender, ran with that.

What was your process in writing the voiceover monologue that opens the film?

Hopefully the first act, or the first 20 or so minutes, is going to do something that I really like to try to do, which is subvert the audience’s expectations. The process was to rigorously show process. At a certain point, Steven Soderbergh weighed in on one of the cuts, while Fincher was processing and reorganizing some things. And one of the results of him weighing in on it was [Fincher] moving the line “If you can’t stand boredom, then this isn’t the work for you.” It was a nice way to kind of warn the audience like, This ain’t going to start at a breakneck pace. I love making the audience experience the same kind of tedium and meticulousness that this person doing this job would need to have acquired.

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Esther Zuckerman

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October 26, 2023
Overalls, Leather Hats, and Louis Vuitton LeBron: Check Out the Biggest Tunnel Fits from NBA Opening Night

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The first game of a new NBA season presents a blank canvas. Each team has the same 0-0 record, each player has a fresh opportunity to prove themselves, and perhaps most importantly, it kicks off a new cycle of tunnel fits. We all remember getting fresh for the first day of school. This is the basketball version of that. While the Nuggets, Lakers, Suns, and Warriors technically started a day early, Wednesday was opening night for most teams, and they gave us a veritable fashion show.

Some of the usual suspects stunned yet again, but the beauty of a new season is seeing some unexpected faces enter the NBA fashion space. (Dalen Terry, you are officially on our radar.) Rookies like Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson got their inaugural tunnel fits off, old heads showed that they’ve still got it, and the best part is, the NBA fit train doesn’t stop until June.

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Sit back, relax, and scroll through our 25 favorite NBA fits from the last two nights. Also, please remember: these are extremely tall professional athletes. You might not look the same if you try to replicate their outfits.

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Matthew Roberson

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October 26, 2023
At Least 6 Trump Codefendants Have Been in Plea Talks With Georgia Prosecutors: Report

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Donald Trump’s problems in Georgia are stacking up. Four of his 18 codefendants in the state’s election-interference case have already flipped to the prosecution, and more could be on the way. A CNN report Wednesday revealed that Fulton County prosecutors have discussed plea deals with at least six other codefendants charged with participating in Trump’s alleged conspiracy to illegitimately flip the state’s votes in the 2020 presidential election.

Among those who have been offered a plea deal is Robert Cheeley, a lawyer in Georgia who falsely accused Atlanta election workers of inflating ballot counts. But Cheeley’s attorney, Richard Rice, told CNN that his client declined the deal that he said was offered “some time ago,” adding, “To say that we are currently in discussions with the DA’s office would be an inaccurate representation of what is going on.” Cheeley was charged with 10 counts, including for allegedly perjuring himself before a grand jury. (Cheeley has pleaded not guilty.)

The office of Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing the election-subversion case, has reportedly also discussed plea deals with Misty Hampton, the former Coffee County elections supervisor, and Michael Roman, a former Trump aide. Hampton stands accused of “willfully and unlawfully tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines,” while Roman was allegedly involved in the Trump campaign’s fake-electors plot. Both face seven counts and—along with Trump and the other codefendants—were charged in August under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. (Both Hampton and Roman have pleaded not guilty.)

Those who have already accepted plea deals include bail bondsman Scott Hall and former Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis. In exchange for their cooperation, these codefendants have not received prison time and have had charges reduced or dismissed.

It remains to be seen whether all of Trump’s codefendants can expect the same treatment. A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Rudy Giuliani has not been offered a plea deal and that prosecutors are unlikely to give him an easy out, considering the scope of his alleged involvement in the election-subversion scheme. Still, the outlet reported that the district attorney is willing to discuss plea deals with any of the defendants—the one exception, of course, being Trump himself.

Georgia is hardly the only state where Trump is facing intense legal heat. In New York, after the ex-president took the stand in Letitia James’s case involving financial fraud at the Trump Organization, the judge ordered Trump to pay a $10,000 fine for violating his gag order and providing testimony that was “not credible.” And in Washington, where Trump is being charged in Jack Smith’s criminal case involving the January 6 insurrection, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly accepted an immunity deal that could put the ex-president in even more legal jeopardy.

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Caleb Ecarma

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October 26, 2023
Why We’re Dressing Like Cowboys Now

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This is an edition of the newsletter Pulling Weeds With Chris Black, in which the columnist weighs in on hot topics in culture. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.

Going to high school in Conyers, Georgia, in the 1990s, you either embraced the trappings of our region—big trucks, hunting, American flags, belt buckles, and boots—or did not. I wasn’t interested in rocking full camo or spending weekends in the treestands with my buddies, scented with deer urine, waiting patiently for a 12-point to reveal itself.

In the world that I inhabit today, however, nothing is cooler than dressing like a cowboy. My fashionable friends and normies alike have adopted the look in various forms. It’s not rare to see someone strolling through Soho in all denim or a western shirt snapped up and paired with a classic pair of aviators. Cowboy boots of all varieties have been popping up for the last several years, from the hard-to-miss steel-capped Calvin Klein version from Raf Simons to traditional styles from Boot Barn; even the humble Roper has made a comeback. I clocked my boss at J. Crew, Brendon Babenzein, wearing a suede pair a few weeks ago, and they looked great.

Pop culture, meanwhile, is awash in the cowboy-adjacent. Country music has, as I’ve written, found a wider audience, thanks to the emo-tinged Zach Bryan, politically inscrutable Oliver Anthony, and Luke Combs’ country chart-topping cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” Kayce Dutton, the brooding bad boy heir to the Dutton throne in the hit neo-Western Yellowstone, now in its final season, looks smoldering in his tin cloth jacket, worn-in jeans, and beat-up brown boots. GQ’s Gabriella Paiella just declared Martin Scorsese’s much-heralded new film about the Osage murders in 1920s Oklahoma, Killers of The Flower Moon, “the hat movie of the year.” Supermodel Bella Hadid, a known horse girl, is dating a horse rider and trainer, which officially makes her a “buckle bunny.”

We can trace the recent history of cowboy dress to a style icon whose influence has more recently been felt in the prep revival: Ralph Lauren. After buying his Colorado ranch in the late 1980s, Lauren embarked on what has become a career-spanning homage to the American West, first with Polo Country, in which he combined Americana with the British countryside lifestyle, and later with RRL, the elevated Western brand that he launched in 1993. (As the photo above attests, he himself was dressing like a cowboy as far back as 1977—in East Hampton, no less.) RRL draws inspiration from the workwear worn by the gold rush miners and ranch hands of the mid to late 1800s, as well as military gear from the American Civil War and World Wars. It has become the uniform for a particular brand of wealthy new cowboy—someone who feels as comfortable in Malibu as he does in Jackson Hole. (The RRL stores, by the way, are incredible: Everything in its place, with the perfect patina. It feels like shopping in a fantasy, or on a Hollywood backlot.)

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Chris Black

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October 26, 2023
‘Our Flag Means Death’ Creator on the Season Finale: “They Get to Have a Little Happiness”

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It was jaw-dropping. In New Zealand, you go out the west side of Auckland, and it’s like the most beautiful beach you’ve ever seen. You go to Bethells Beach, and you can turn the camera here; you can shoot the entire thing. You’d shoot it a little bit this way, you’ve got, like, a Bergman movie. You go to the ocean, you’ve got From Here to Eternity. The freedom that you have and the beauty, I’ve never experienced anything like that before.

The battle scenes seemed to be far more elaborate and really felt like the show was leveling up. What went into filming those?

Jacob Tomuri, our stunt coordinator, is exceptional. He did Mad Max; he’s Tom Hardy’s stunt double, and he’s just so capable and good. And so a lot of it this season was that we have a short time frame, we move very quickly, and, again, we have a half-hour budget. We don’t have a one-hour budget, and we don’t have a one-hour shooting schedule. So a lot of it was just picking our shots and saying, Okay, we’re going to do a battle sequence. Let’s storyboard it. Let’s make sure that we know what the stunts are going to be, and let’s make sure that the location is spectacular. So we shoot it on that sandbar behind Bethells Beach, and it was like a dune which went on forever…. A lot of it is just seeing what New Zealand has to offer geographically. And then deciding, yes, let’s do that, and then building it around that, and then making sure that we’ve planned enough, that we can pull it off in a way that’s safe but also has enough size.

What was the idea behind having Stede as a merman in episode 3?

The idea was to make something that was just beautiful, and to get beauty and have beauty around them seeing each other again and their need for each other. To do that and to do it in a way that it’s a comedy, but to do it in a way that’s earnest and genuinely doing it and singing a Kate Bush song. We hit on the idea of a mermaid early on in the season two room, and [we said], Oh yeah, well, we have to put that in. There can’t really be mermaids on the show, but there can be in limbo, kind of purgatory, brain-damaged land as Blackbeard’s dying.

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Sarah Catherall

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October 26, 2023
Mike Johnson Said Same-Sex Marriage Would Lead to People Marrying Their Pets, Wanted to Sentence Abortion Doctors to “Hard Labor”

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By now you’ve likely heard that Representative Mike Johnson—the congressman Republicans finally elected as the new Speaker of the House after 22 days of chaos—played a significant role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election, a lowlight on his résumé that is obviously deeply concerning for the future of democracy. Also extremely worrisome? Johnson’s wildly bigoted remarks about homosexuality over the years, and the fact that he supported criminalizing gay sex between consenting adults.

CNN’s KFile reports that prior to his career in politics, Johnson wrote a series of deeply homophobic editorials in his role as an attorney for the socially conservative legal group now known as Alliance Defending Freedom. In one, he wrote:

“Homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural and, the studies clearly show, are ultimately harmful and costly for everyone. Society cannot give its stamp of approval to such a dangerous lifestyle. If we change marriage for this tiny, modern minority, we will have to do it for every deviant group. Polygamists, polyamorists, pedophiles, and others will be next in line to claim equal protection. They already are. There will be no legal basis to deny a bisexual the right to marry a partner of each sex, or a person to marry his pet.”

In the same op-ed, Johnson—who now has one of the most powerful jobs in the federal government—added that allowing same-sex couples to marry would “place our entire democratic system in jeopardy by eroding its foundation.” In another, he argued that “your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do. This is a free country, but we don’t give special protections for every person’s bizarre choices.” He also separately deemed “same-sex deviate sexual intercourse” to be a public health concern, and the following year, he suggested that “homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.”

Johnson didn’t just write hateful op-eds for the hell of it; he also wrote an official opposition to Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court ruling that overturned state laws criminalizing homosexual activity amongst consenting adults. Last year, as a member of the House, he introduced a bill seemingly modeled after Florida’s bigoted “Don’t Say Gay” measure. According to Punchbowl News, Johnson took issue with the fact that Tom Emmer, whose candidacy for House Speaker was ultimately doomed, voted to codify same-sex marriage in 2022. (As for where Johnson came down on that vote, we’ll give you several guesses, but you’ll definitely only need one.)

Oh, and not surprisingly, Johnson’s take on abortion is just about as horrifying as his take on gay people:

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Bess Levin

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October 25, 2023
Jacob Elordi Is Dressing Like a Classic Leading Man Now

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When Jacob Elordi isn’t carrying a killer It Bag around the city of Los Angeles or some luxuriously far-flung airport, he’s wearing some of the chicest menswear Hollywood’s seen in years.

As a key cast member in one of the few high-profile new films to snag a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement, Elordi has been on whirlwind tour to promote Sofia Coppola’s upcoming Priscilla Presley biopic Priscilla, in which the Australian actor portrays the famously suave Elvis Presley. For an appearance on The Tonight Show this week, Elordi sported a custom Valentino ensemble: a rakish gray shirt featuring what my GQ colleague Avidan Grossman described as “a perfect collar,” worn unbuttoned to showcase a white ribbed tank underneath and tucked into a pair of high-rise dress trousers, with shiny black dress shoes and a silver Cartier Tank watch. (For those keeping track, the actor also wore a yellow gold Tank Normale to Priscilla’s Venice premiere.)

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So far, his press wardrobe has matched the dark appeal of the role, though Elordi himself had to come around on that end. The 26-year-old admitted to Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon that, prior to filming, “The most I knew of Elvis Presley was in Lilo & Stitch.”

Nonetheless, these raffish takes on classic menswear speak to the style vibe he’s been channeling throughout the Priscilla press tour. (Or, as a self-professed student of old-school masters Brando and Clift, it’s also pretty reflective of his career goals in general.) Earlier this month, Elordi wore a slouchy, navy-blue Dior suit (with a wallet chain—fun!) to the film’s New York Film Festival screening; earlier that day, he rolled up both the sleeves of his crimson-striped Saint Laurent shirt and the hems of his flared black trousers for a radio press appearance. They’re ensembles that feel like a chicer continuation of last year’s loose-fitting, gray-toned menswear trend (otherwise known as the Louche Suit Movement), which was marked by baggy Fear of God’s Kenny G-esque sets and an abundance of toothless ’90s-Armani-inspired tailoring.

Jacob Elordi, wearing a Dior suit, at the New York Film Festival on October 6.

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Earlier that day, in Saint Laurent.

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This could also be an incidental fashion choice as much as it is a stylistic one—on the Tonight Show, Elordi told Fallon ahead of the taping that he’d recently lost weight in preparation for another role. “I’m a little bit light so I was concerned about wearing, you know, such baggy clothes,” the actor said on air. “I’ve lost a decent amount of weight to play a prisoner of war, so I’m a little bit concerned because I think I look like– I’ve seen a few photos on the internet of me as Slender Man.” Bleak, and far less enticing than his sultry Saltburn eyebrow piercing, but such is the life of a thespian.

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Eileen Cartter

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October 25, 2023
How Jay-Z and Roc-a-Fella Used DJ Envy to Conquer New York Rap

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In their new book Do Remember!: The Golden Age of NYC Hip-Hop Mixtapes, authors Evan Auerbach and Daniel Isenberg trace the history of New York rap through its humblest and most world-alteringly important delivery system— the mixtape. As the legendary cultural ambassador Fab 5 Freddy notes in his introduction, hip-hop’s global takeover began with cassette recordings of parties and live performances passed from hand to hand and hood to hood. By the early 20th century, cassettes had been supplanted by CDs and hip-hop was on its way to becoming a highly corporatized multi-billion-dollar industry— and superstar mixtape DJs like DJ Clue became all-important tastemakers, capable of shoring up a newly-mainstream rapper’s street cred or signal-boosting an underground crew into the stratosphere. In this excerpt from Auerbach and Isenberg’s book, music executive Lenny Santiago— best known as Lenny S— talks about how a 2001 mixtape enabled the rise of Roc-A-Fella Records, the label founded by Jay-Z, Damon Dash and Kareem Burke in 1994.

Lenny S was a prominent Roc-A-Fella A&R who knew the importance of the mixtape. In fact, before he came to the Roc, he worked on Bad Boy’s street team as they were pushing the groundbreaking Bad Boy mixtape series. Inspired by this and some of the challenges happening at the time at Roc-A-Fella, Lenny S took advantage of his in-house connections and teamed up with DJ Envy to start his own Roc-A-Fella mixtape series. This not only gave the label a chance to control their own mixtape narrative, but it allowed him to build his personal brand in the process.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LANDING EARLY JAY-Z MIXTAPE PLACEMENTS

Lenny S: At that time for us, it was monumental. Especially [DJ] Clue—he was only going for the top notch. He was chasing down B.I.G. or Naughty By Nature, or whoever were the top people. Somebody like Jay, he wasn’t B.I.G., he didn’t have a hit record, he wasn’t top of the charts, he wasn’t any of that. He was just an ill, dope, self-contained, self-funded rapper from Brooklyn who hustled prior and got money.

Those Clue tapes spoke directly to the streets, so that was a big deal for us. You had the radio DJs at night doing their thing, but the mixtape lived 24 hours a day on every street corner. So that was important when those things got shuffled down to Baltimore, Philly, and North Carolina.

We depended on the mixtapes because they traveled around the country by getting bootlegged and copied, and by word of mouth. Mixtapes were how we discovered Nas introducing Nature, Clue introducing Fabolous—all those guys we found on mixtapes.

ROC-A-FELLA MIXTAPE SERIES

Somebody had a record of Jay’s that they weren’t supposed to have. Long story short, the guy got caught with the record. He had it outside the office and was playing it. Dame found out and was pissed, obviously, because we weren’t supposed to let music leak. He was so pissed that the whole staff got docked because he was like, “One team, one family, one unit. One person gets in trouble, we all get in trouble.”

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Evan Auerbach, Daniel Isenberg

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October 25, 2023