Mar 15, 2020
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Kevin Mayer will lead the Chinese-owned app for making and sharing short videos, which has exploded in popularity during the pandemic.
Both Republicans and Democrats have questioned the Chinese government’s influence over the app. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, and Senator Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas, co-wrote a letter to the director of national intelligence in October, requesting a review of the national-security implications of TikTok’s expanding influence.
TikTok has meanwhile hired a number of American executives and employees to run its business and review content on its app. Vanessa Pappas, a former YouTube executive who joined TikTok as one of its American chiefs last year, said in a November blog post that the company’s United States-based team would call the shots on TikTok’s U.S. business, including by setting specific rules for American users.
Now Mr. Mayer will provide a clear link between TikTok and ByteDance’s leadership in Beijing, with his dual roles at the two companies.
Mr. Mayer is best known as Disney’s longtime deals maven. Before running the direct-to-consumer and international division for the past two years, he served as Disney’s chief strategy officer, helping to orchestrate the purchases of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, most of 21st Century Fox and BamTech, a technology company that specializes in streaming video.
Mr. Mayer joined Disney in 1993 before leaving in 2000 to run Playboy.com. He soon returned to Disney to work on Go.com, a web portal that eventually failed, and other Disney websites, including ESPN.com, before moving to strategic planning.
A TikTok spokesman on Monday stressed that TikTok was not owned by a Beijing-based company. Instead, its parent company, ByteDance Ltd., is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, though he could not say how many people are based there. That entity owns TikTok and all of the businesses in China, he said.
Well, I happen to find this lovely video about some things Wall Street Journal was doing. Turns out the Jack Nicas who wrote the article had doctored the screenshots used. If Wall Street Journal wants to be seen as legitimate, it needs to stop doing this fake news stuff.
Frida Gómez reflexiona sobre el reportaje “¿Artesanía o explotación?” y cómo el periodismo puede documentar la injusticia y luego, mediante
PORTADA: Jesús Linares, de 48 años, y Reggie Carrero, de 52, en un apartamento dañado el domingo en Catia La Mar, Venezuela, tras los ataques llevados a cabo por el ejército estadounidense como parte de la operación para capturar a Nicolás Maduro.Credit…The New York Times América Latina ya enfrentaba dificultades para saber cómo manejar las intervenciones del presidente Trump en la región. Entonces atacó a Venezuela. Por Jack Nicas Jack Nicas ha sido uno de los principales corresponsales en América Latina desde 2021. Reportó desde Ciudad de México. La ciudad quedó a oscuras. Las defensas aéreas quedaron inhabilitadas. Sonaron explosiones. Y bajo el cielo nocturno, una flota de helicópteros estadounidenses se abalanzó y capturó al presidente. Horas después, al celebrar la captura del líder venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, por parte del gobierno estadounidense, el presidente Donald Trump mencionó el petróleo de Venezuela 20 veces. El momento conmocionó a América Latina quizá más que cualquier otro acontecimiento de este siglo, pero su significado depende de a quién preguntes. Para la izquierda latinoamericana, confirmó lo que ciertos líderes llevan décadas advirtiendo: Estados Unidos es una potencia imperial dispuesta a invadir y explotar a sus vecinos del sur en beneficio propio y de sus recursos naturales. Para la derecha latinoamericana, Trump acababa de rescatar a una Venezuela quebrada de una dictadura de izquierda y ahora por fin se daría cuenta del inmenso potencial económico del país. Brasil, México, Colombia, Chile, España y Uruguay —todos ellos dirigidos por izquierdistas— denunciaron conjuntamente los atentados y la captura como “un precedente sumamente peligroso” y advirtieron contra “cualquier intento de control gubernamental, de administración o apropiación externa de recursos naturales o estratégicos” en Venezuela. El presidente de Argentina, Javier Milei, el líder de derecha más destacado de la región, aplaudió la acción estadounidense. “Aquí no hay medias tintas ni grises”, dijo. “Se está del lado del BIEN, o se está del lado del MAL”. En lo que todos pueden estar de acuerdo es en que la intervención demostró que Estados Unidos vuelve a ser el centro de gravedad en América Latina, para bien o para mal. Un vehículo militar dañado en la base aérea de La Carlota, en el centro de Caracas, tras los ataques estadounidenses del sábado.Credit…The New York Times Trump está entre ellos. “La doctrina Monroe es una gran cosa, pero la hemos superado por mucho, por muchísimo. Ahora la llaman doctrina Donroe”, dijo el sábado, refiriéndose a la política de 1823 del presidente James Monroe, que pretendía impedir que las potencias europeas se entrometieran en el continente americano. “Con nuestra nueva estrategia de seguridad nacional, el dominio estadounidense en el hemisferio occidental nunca volverá a cuestionarse”. En los 30 años anteriores al gobierno actual de Trump, la política exterior estadounidense en América Latina se había enfocado en gran medida en apoyar la democracia y el libre comercio. Trump ha revisado ese enfoque para enfocarse en lo que le conviene a Estados Unidos o, en muchos casos, a él. Impuso aranceles a Brasil en un intento fallido de salvar de la cárcel a su aliado, el expresidente Jair Bolsonaro. Aplicó sanciones al presidente de Colombia después de que criticara la política estadounidense. Apoyó a un candidato de derecha en Honduras, en una sorpresa que podría haber inclinado la balanza electoral. Y concedió a Argentina un salvavidas de 20.000 millones de dólares para ayudar a Milei en las elecciones legislativas. Esas acciones inquietaron a muchos en América Latina, recordándoles el largo historial de intervenciones de Washington en la región, como sus invasiones de México, Panamá y Haití, y su apoyo a golpes militares. “Pensando como región, esto asusta de un modo que no había visto en mucho tiempo”, dijo Celso Amorim, el principal a...
Eres libre cuando escapas a la ley de la necesidad
Desde hace algún tiempo estoy suscrito a la lista de correo del The New York Times en español. Y ahora, que todos los medios de comunicación en España te piden que aceptes cookies o pagues por leer sus contenidos, se ha convertido prácticamente en la única prensa que leo (y alguna edición dominical en papel de El País que compro muy de vez en cuando). Ahora que en España casi todos los medios…
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Some Final Notes From the ‘Voice of God’
Milton Nascimento, a musical deity in Brazil, collaborates with the bassist, vocalist and producer Esperanza Spalding on an album that contemplates age’s effect on art.
Milton Nascimento, left, and Esperanza Spalding in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian musical hero, 81, teamed up with the American bassist and singer on “Milton + Esperanza.”Credit...Larissa Zaidan for The New York Times
By Jack Nicas Reporting from Rio de Janeiro Aug. 1, 2024
In 1955, Milton Nascimento was 13, learning to sing and, devastatingly to him, hitting puberty.
“When I began to see my voice deepening, I said, ‘I don’t want to sing anymore,’” Nascimento, one of Brazil’s most important musical figures, recalled last week in an interview. “Because men don’t have heart.”
He was crying, he said, when a smooth, soulful croon came from the radio. It was Ray Charles singing “Stella by Starlight.” “After I heard that, I said, ‘Now I can sing.’”
Over the next six decades blossomed one of music’s great voices, an ethereal force that spanned octaves with emotion and verve, gliding seamlessly between a velvety baritone and a celestial falsetto.
Nascimento’s unique sound and ascent to the highest notes helped influence a generation of artists. In an interview, Paul Simon called his voice “silky magic.” Philip Bailey, a singer in Earth, Wind & Fire, compared it to “a beautiful Brazilian beach.” Sting described it as “truth in beauty.”
In Brazil, where Nascimento’s voice led singalong anthems and emotional ballads, the nation settled upon an even grander metaphor: “the voice of God.”
Nascimento has long been one of the biggest acts in Brazil, while also influencing musicians around the world.Credit...Larissa Zaidan for The New York Times
Now that voice has changed once again. Next week, Nascimento will release what he says is likely his final album, “Milton + Esperanza,” a warm, almost dreamlike collaboration with the American jazz musician Esperanza Spalding after 15 years of friendship between the two. Spalding arranged and produced the album and plays bass throughout, and the pair sing together on nearly every track. That includes a wistful duet in Portuguese between Nascimento and Simon — the first song Nascimento has composed and released in years.
There is little surprise that, at 81, Nascimento’s voice is not what it once was. It is quieter, unsteadier and at times straining to reach notes it once soared past. Yet it retains an undeniable warmth. It is weathered, broken in. And it provides a comforting presence throughout the album, like a grandparent’s hand in yours.
“He has a special essence, and it comes out in the music,” said Spalding, 39, wrapped in a shawl at a Rio de Janeiro bakery on a windy Brazilian winter day. “But it’s the thing he radiates all the time. When he’s watching novelas, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re the one who wrote that song.’”
“It’s a mystery,” she added, “and it’s beautiful.”
She had a point. A few days later, Nascimento was giving off a gentle, unmistakable aura as he sat on his couch in Rio, in a tracksuit and Crocs, in front of the television where he watches hours of Brazilian novelas, or soap operas, every day. He smiled softly, praised everyone he mentioned and, over two hours, drifted from story to story, with many non sequiturs.
Spalding said Nascimento and his music radiate a special essence. “I don’t know what it is,” she said. “But that’s what geniuses do. You can’t take it apart and put it back together again.” Credit...Larissa Zaidan for The New York Times
He recounted collaborations with the jazz greats Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny; told of meeting Paul McCartney for the first time last year (a framed photo of the two hung beside him); put on a song he wrote about his mother (“she taught me what it is to love”); and described several potential extraterrestrial encounters (in one, he saw what he believes was a U.F.O. entering a Rio tunnel).
The conversation followed his stream of consciousness. His voice was soft, his answers short, his memory frequently failing him. In front of him was a pill organizer; behind him, five Grammys. Outside, workers banged on a new patio. He and his son had just moved in. Nascimento no longer walks well, and his previous address had five sets of stairs.
“I look at images from before the pandemic and it feels like 20 years has passed,” said Nascimento’s adopted son, Augusto, 31, who manages his father’s affairs. “My agony is not seeing this as his final work, my agony is knowing that I don’t know how many more years I have left with him.”
His father, however, did not want to talk about aging. “I don’t think much about this,” he said, clamming up. “I don’t. Really.”
Nascimento once remarked that unless an artist can find an audience, “you can be the biggest genius on the planet, but you’re going to end up singing in the shower.” For decades, Nascimento found an adoring audience, but he admitted that, since the recording of this album, he has stopped singing, even in the shower.
‘A grand synthesis of the best Brazilian music’
Born in Rio in 1942, Nascimento was orphaned at 2 years old when his mother, a maid, died of tuberculosis. The daughter of his mother’s employer adopted him and moved to the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, known for its cheese and kindness.
Nascimento — who goes by “Bituca,” a childhood nickname that stems from his pouty face — was brought up in a house of music. His mother studied music and his father worked at a radio station. He quickly learned the harmonica, the accordion and the guitar.
By his 20s, he was earning a reputation in music circles, and when he played three original songs at a televised music competition in 1967, the crowd — and the other competitors — were left stunned.
“It was a spiritual thing. I feel the same thing today, 57 years later,” said the Brazilian guitarist Guinga, who also performed at the event. “He became famous overnight.”
The Brazilian singer Elis Regina, who died in 1982, is widely quoted to have said, “If God sang, he would have the voice of Milton Nascimento.” Credit...Frans Schellekens/Redferns, via Getty Images
Nascimento quickly became one of Brazil’s biggest and most influential acts. He was prolific, releasing more than 50 albums, including “Clube da Esquina” (“The Street Corner Club”), an emotive 1972 record made with a group of musician friends that many critics consider a masterpiece.
His sound was distinct, mixing various Brazilian genres as well as jazz, classical, rock and folk, making music that can be at times both pleasing and haunting. “He is a grand synthesis of the best Brazilian music,” said Nelson Motta, a Brazilian music producer and author. “An idol of the most sophisticated, most ambitious musicians.”
Nascimento collaborated with Elis Regina, Antônio Carlos Jobimand Chico Buarque in Brazil and with James Taylor, Cat Stevensand Duran Duran abroad, among many others. Bailey said in an interview that he and Maurice White — Earth, Wind & Fire’s other lead singer — traveled to Brazil in the 1970s to study its music. White met with Nascimento, and “came back raving about the experience,” Bailey said. “The next record that we did, we were all over the Milton Nascimento experience.”
Spalding first heard Nascimento while a student at Berklee College of Music when a friend put on Wayne Shorter’s 1974 album “Native Dancer,” which opens with Nascimento’s falsetto. “How is this on Earth and I didn’t know?” she recalled thinking. Now she admits she is incredulous when other people haven’t heard of him. “It’s like, ‘Do you know Bach?’” she said.
Spalding, who has won five Grammys, called Nascimento one of her greatest references. “Even for the beautiful arcs and unexpected melodies that you can hear in samba and a lot of Brazilian music, his is different, and it’s been absorbed into people’s marrow in Brazil, and I’m sure affected their consciousness as a people,” she said. “And he’s just, you know, over there in his house, just chilling, watching novelas. He’s impactful, but he’s not trying to be.”
‘Just like a master painter’
In 2022, Nascimento embarked on a farewell tour across the United States, Europe and Brazil, singing while seated, in a multicolored cloak, as the band played around him. Spalding joined him onstage in New York and Boston.
At dinner one night, Nascimento’s son made a spontaneous suggestion: Spalding and Nascimento should do an album together. But it would have to be fast, as Nascimento’s voice was in good shape from the tour.
Though overwhelmed with prior commitments, Spalding immediately said yes. “That’s what canceling is for,” she said. (She had recently collaborated on another hero’s project: Shorter’s opera “Iphigenia.”)
After preparing at home in Portland and on the road, she traveled to Rio six times last year to record. She realized quickly that it would not be a “studio” album. Nascimento was most comfortable at home, specifically in the room with his television, in between broadcasts of novelas. They leaned mattresses against the walls to improve the sound.
“He’d be watching novelas, and he just shifts his chair and starts recording,” she said.
That did not mean, however, that he was mailing it in.
“The sophisticated perceptivity that he has is so amazing,” Spalding said. She recalled playing the nine-minute composition by Shorter that closes the album and asking what Nascimento thought. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, play it from the beginning.’” Then he improvised vocals. “He heard the texture and the composition and knew just where to put his sound,” she said. “Just like a master painter.”
Spalding said that while Nascimento’s age had constrained his voice, it had also added something.
“Physically, elders’ bodies can’t do the same things they could do 30 or 40 years ago. But the music sense and the awareness of composition and structure and sound and timbre feels even more sophisticated and refined,” she said, “even if they’re not speaking as fast or not gesturing as fast as you’re used to.
“So that was also really encouraging to see,” she added. “Like, oh my God, we can keep doing this through our 80s? Just keep distilling and cooking down what we know, what we hear?”
Spalding said that Nascimento still has a very trained musical ear. “Anytime I tried to do some hip little reharm or a little different chord at the end, he’d be like, ‘Stop. No. Don’t do that,’” she recalled, laughing. Credit...Larissa Zaidan for The New York Times
Simon, who is a year older than Nascimento and still writing and recording, said that age had a greater effect on singing than on playing an instrument, but that “even Tony Bennett was coming up with something at close to 95.” The mental aspect is affected in a different way. “The thinking is clearer,” he said, “but it’s slower.” (Simon said he’s at work on a new project, too: “As long as that impulse is there, I follow it.”)
“Milton + Esperanza” reimagines original Nascimento tracks; covers songs by Shorter, the Beatles and Michael Jackson; and includes new songs that Spalding said she wrote while thinking of Nascimento. The album features Simon; Guinga; the jazz singer Dianne Reeves; the singer-songwriters Lianne La Havas, Maria Gadú and Tim Bernardes; and the jazz saxophonist turned flutistShabaka Hutchings, among others.
The affection between Nascimento and Spalding is palpable on the album, as they talk and laugh in interludes. Her voice appears to take his by the hand at times, guiding him over melodies. The result is an album that feels like a tribute to the man who sings on every track.
Last month, Spalding was back in Rio at Nascimento’s home to perform some of the album for an upcoming edition of NPR’s Tiny Desk series. His living room was turned into a set, with flowers, patterned rugs and several gold and platinum albums on the walls. Spalding was perched above the rest of the musicians with her upright bass, with Nascimento across from her, dressed in a Kangol-style cap and sunglasses.
On the first track, “Outubro,” the verse builds into a crescendo as the pair sing in harmony, ascending gradually to higher notes. On the first take, as Spalding climbed higher, she waved her hand to Nascimento to come along. But he couldn’t. He threw up a hand in surrender.
She smiled warmly and nodded in understanding. The band started over.
A few minutes later, when the crescendo arrived again, their voices pushed through together and held the note. As the line ended and the instruments took over, Spalding looked Nascimento in the eyes and smiled proudly, as if to say: I knew you could do it.
Jack Nicas is the Brazil bureau chief for The Times, based in Rio de Janeiro, where he leads coverage of much of South America. More about Jack Nicas.
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