Kings favorite Lee Cole and the heartbreak track I Don’t Wanna Wait popped on South Africa’s on Spotify’s Viral 50.  Spending time between NY and South Africa, the singer-songwriter wrote and recorded the track last summer, shot the video in NJ, and released the track in Feb. The song which is climbing to 200k Spotify streams found itself on thousands of personalized playlists while landing on Apple’s Heartbreak Pop Playlist. I think we are going to see a resurgence in melancholic and heartbreak songs. Lewis Capaldi’s mega hit Someone You Loved exceeded a 1 billion streams.

Newcomers Limón Limón dropped another really cool track Frozen Lemonade.  It was in March when I first heard of the duo and featured the good vibes track Normal Now. It’s nice to see a new artist drop two good tracks back to back. The Los Angele duo has garnered tastemaker support and landed on Spotify’s Indie Fresh Finds. Give it a stream on our Indie Invaders Playlist.

Hollywood, journalists, and academia heavyweights are making a call to cancel culture. J.K. Rowling, Bari Weiss and Noam Chomsky among others are to sign a open letter calling for an end  to cancel culture.

What is cancel culture? You should know because music artists and journalists are living in fear of their livelihood.

Cancel culture refers to the practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture thrives on social media in the form of group shaming.

I’ve been in a circle that was a target for the cancel culture.  It wasn’t long ago that we received a  flurry of emails  questioning our association with an artist who supposably made politically incorrect TikTok videos. I was demanded by a group of people who I didn’t even know to disassociate with the artist or face consequences. Really? Yes..Really.
J.K. Rowling who is known for her Harry Potter fantasy series wrote “This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time,” the letter added. “The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.”
Obama weighed in on the cancel culture and had this to say:

“I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media — there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough. If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Did you see how woke I was, I called you out… That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

If you like Walk The Moon & New Politics then give Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah by whatamess.  The project has songwriters and producers Stephen Conley and Patrick Visa coming together. Based in Los Angeles the duo explains the song rather simply, ” We wrote this song about liking to stay inside rather than going out, but asking your significant other to pull you out to do fun things. In summation – When I say “stop”. Don’t slow down. When I say “no”. Just say YEAH.

Could the USA ban the Chinese owned app TikTok? It’s in the talks. Like serious talks. This week India banned TikTok and WeChat saying they pose a “threat to sovereignty and integrity.”

The United States is “looking at” banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Other nations have accused TikTok of having ties and being controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
Labor Senator and former President of the Australian Labor Party Jenny McAllister raised concerns over TikTok, including that the social media platform isn’t entirely transparent about how it approaches Australian privacy laws.
Regardless, many believe TikTok is unsafe and a privacy risk.