One of the Maxes will be hitting the road — or, tarmac — next month for a series of on-the-ground stories from around the world. For some reason, his initial list of destinations consisted of Fiji, Cancun, Bora Bora, and the Dave & Buster’s down the road. But after a few more drafts, we have a strong lineup whose first stop we will unveil soon.
To help us prepare for this new series — some of you may remember Max F’s Roadtrips to Ukraine, Venezuela, Ethiopia, and Oregon — we want to build a network of people we can reach out to when we are in their area. If you are interested in supporting that mission, you can fill out this form. It doesn't matter where you are or what you do, if you want to support our mission of delivering honest news, please fill out this form.
Thank you, and now that we think of it, that Dave & Buster’s could definitely use some capital-J journalism.
In today's edition:
Sam Bankman-Jailed
Saudi Arabia luring Neymar?
50 Years of Hip-Hop
🔑 Key Stories
SBF Sent to Jail
A judge sent disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to jail on Friday
SBF was charged with multiple crimes in December and was released on $250M bail. Several former execs at SBF’s companies have agreed to testify against him, including Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of one of SBF’s companies and his ex-girlfriend
Last month, the New York Times ran an article about Ellison that cited her personal Google Docs entries. Prosecutors accused SBF of leaking them to discredit Ellison
On Friday, a judge revoked SBF’s bail for that, meaning he will go to jail pending an October trial
Dig Deeper
SBF’s lawyers argued that revoking SBF’s bail would infringe on his First Amendment free speech rights and his Sixth Amendment right to prepare for his own defense
In response, the judge ruled that speech “is not protected if it is to bring about a crime” and said there was “probable cause to believe that the defendant has attempted to tamper with witnesses.” She suggested he be jailed in a prison with internet access so he can prepare his defense
Special Counsel for Hunter Biden
US Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden
A Trump-appointed lawyer, David Weiss, has investigated Hunter Biden for years. In mid-June, Weiss struck a deal with Biden for him to plead avoid jail time. Republicans criticized that deal
In late July, that plea deal fell apart. On Friday, prosecutors said that deal was dead; the same day, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel, giving him more authority
Special counsels operate independently from the government on a day-to-day basis. Analysts said the failure of Hunter’s plea deal likely caused Garland to make the move
Dig Deeper
Garland said Weiss requested the promotion and will be tasked with overseeing the “ongoing investigation” into allegations against Hunter
Some Republicans criticized his decision, arguing that Weiss has proven himself unfit to investigate Hunter and that doing so obstructs House investigations into the president’s son
Several sources said the Biden administration had no advance warning of Garland’s decision
Maui Wildfire Update
The death toll of the Maui wildfires rose to 96, making it the deadliest wildfire in modern US history
Lahaina is a seaside town of 13,000 people on Maui’s western coast. Last Tuesday, high winds from a hurricane that passed off Maui’s coast fanned and spread a wildfire, burning down much of the town
Residents have since criticized emergency officials for not activating emergency sirens and taking other measures to warn residents. Some studies had previously warned about wildfire risk in Lahaina
Maui’s fire chief said stopping the blaze was “nearly impossible.” The death toll is expected to rise more
Dig Deeper
Hawaii’s governor has promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident. “We are going to do some reviews so we can make things safer going forward,” he said
Transferred to “La Roca”
3,600+ Ecuadorian soldiers and police transferred a gang leader to a maximum-security prison
Last Wednesday, a law-and-order candidate in Ecuador’s upcoming elections was assassinated. That candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, had previously said he had received death threats from José Adolfo Macías Villamar, a.k.a. “Fito,” who is the leader of one of “Los Choneros,” an Ecuadorian gang
Fito has been imprisoned in a low-security prison for 12 years, but is thought to have ruled that prison block
On Sunday, 3,600 Ecuadorian security officials transferred him to a max-security prison, “La Roca”
Dig Deeper
Ecuador’s president has not officially accused Los Choneros of the assassination, and said moving Fito was for “the safety of citizens and detainees.” He has threatened to respond to any violence over Fito’s movement with “full force”
🍿 Popcorn
ICYMI
Neymar of Arabia: Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) forward Neymar — considered one of the world’s top players — is reportedly nearing a move to Saudi Pro League club Al Hilal
We Musk move on: Hours after Elon Musk said he was willing to fight Mark Zuckerberg as soon as Monday, Zuckerberg claimed that Musk "isn't serious," and added, "It's time to move on"
Scandal hurts: Lizzo is reportedly no longer being considered as a 2024 Super Bowl LVIII halftime show performer following a sexual harassment and hostile work environment lawsuit
Wildcard
Water > Earth, Wind & Fire: Lionel Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire canceled their sold-out Madison Square Garden show an hour after its scheduled start when Richie said he was unable to fly due to rain
Reptile dysfunction: An investigation found that the Australian military failed to properly assess the risks of swimming in crocodile habitats, leading to a near-fatal attack on two soldiers in 2021
Nice beard, sis: A Michigan woman broke the Guinness World Record for the longest female beard at 11.8”. She has a condition that causes excessive hair growth and came to embrace it
👇 What do you think?
Today's Question:
Do you trust the Hunter investigation is being done properly?
Reply to this email with your answers!
See yesterday's results below the Wrap!
🌯 Roca Wrap
50 years ago on Friday, DJ Kool Herc made history.
On August 11, 1973, Kool Herc hosted a “Back to School Jam” for his younger sister. The party took place in the rec room of an apartment complex in the Bronx, one of New York City’s five boroughs.
Kool Herc unveiled a new musical technique during the party.
Using two turntables, he switched between two copies of the same record to extend the section of the songs in which the drummer played alone. That created one continuous “breakbeat” that made the song more rhythmic and danceable. Herc called that style “The Merry-Go-Round”; historians now consider it the birth of hip-hop.
The early hip-hop scene emerged as inner-city New York struggled.
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, people moved to the suburbs, manufacturers left the city in droves, drugs proliferated, and joblessness and crime increased. One of the hardest-hit regions was the South Bronx, swaths of which – including up to 80% of homes – were demolished or burned down by the late 1970s.
Amid that, the area’s mainly minority and immigrant residents innovated with hip-hop. Jamaican immigrants introduced new artistic styles – including speaking over a beat (“toasting”) and extending breaks in songs (“dubbing”) – and DJs began experimenting with new beats. Other musicians invented new ways to modify records, including “scratching” and “cutting.”
Kool Herc, an 18-year-old Jamaican immigrant at the time of the back-to-school party, would sometimes have a friend, Coke La Rock, toast – “rap” – over his beats. “There’s not a man that can’t be thrown, not a horse that can’t be rode, a bull that can’t be stopped, there’s not a disco that I Coke La Rock can’t rock,” LaRock rapped at one event.
Kool Herc’s new style influenced early pioneers of the genre and coincided with other urban trends, such as graffiti art, rapping, and breakdancing. A hip-hop subculture quickly spread throughout the city, transforming its music scene.
Rap reached a national audience for the first time with the 1979 release of “Rapper’s Delight.” “Now what you hear is not a test: I’m rappin’ to the beat/And me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet,” Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright rapped over a hip-hop beat.
Hip-hop spread throughout the country in the 1980s, taking on new forms as it spread. One of the most prominent additions during that era was “sampling,” a process that involved taking short snippets of existing songs and blending them into new ones. Sampling soon became a dominant feature of hip-hop.
A series of prominent albums followed.
In 1985, LL Cool J’s debut reached #46 on the Billboard 200; two years later, hip-hop group Public Enemy released their critically-acclaimed album. In 1988, Los Angeles rap group N.W.A. released “Straight Outta Compton,” which pioneered the “gangsta rap” subgenre.
In the 1990s, the Los Angeles hip-hop label Death Row Records signed Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur. That rivaled New York City’s Bad Boy Records, which had signed Notorious B.I.G. and others. Hostility between the groups grew until both Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. were murdered – killings that remain unsolved today.
In the 1990s, The Geto Boys – whose first hit was “Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta” – put Southern rap on the map. Artists including Outkast and UGK built on that and turned the South into a hip-hop powerhouse. By the end of the decade, the industry’s first white superstar – Eminem – emerged in Detroit. He signed to Dr. Dre’s record label and became the best-selling rapper of all time.
Prominent rappers have since emerged in the UK, France, Canada, Caribbean, and elsewhere. Within the US, Atlanta, Buffalo, Chicago, and Houston all emerged as prominent cities with their own styles.
Many of those cities are hosting hip-hop music festivals to celebrate the genre’s origins last weekend.
If you have thoughts, let us know at [email protected]!
🌊 Roca Clubhouse
Yesterday's Poll:
Preferred childhood birthday event:
Puppet show: 14%%
Magic show: 86%
Our sincere apologizes for indicating these could only occur at children’s birthday parties. Thanks to the reader who set us straight: “My best friend [had] a magician at her 40th birthday party in San Francisco and it was THE GREATEST party that ever was or will be"
Yesterday's Question:
Just 20 Qs!
🧠 Final Thoughts
We hope you all had great weekends and that your Mondays are off to a great start. A special thank you to the many of you who already filled out the Roca Community form. For those who haven't yet, here it is again!
Enjoy your Mondays and see you tomorrow.
—Max and Max
