\n<\/p>\n
\n\tPresident Trump is hosting the Kennedy Center Honors himself, perhaps (in part, at least) because literally no one else is left. Recent hosts of the program include Queen Latifah (2024) and Gloria Estefan (2023) \u2014 so Trump will fit right in, obviously.<\/p>\n
\n\tBen Folds, the piano virtuoso\/pop musician, had been artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra; the Kennedy Center oversees the National Symphony Orchestra. In a February Instagram post, the singer-songwriter and former frontman of Ben Folds Five said, \u201cGiven the developments at the Kennedy Center, effective today I am resigning as artistic advisor to the NSO. Not for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThose \u201cdevelopments\u201d were Trump\u2019s announcement that he would fire\u00a0multiple board members at the Kennedy Center, including chairman David M. Rubenstein, and planned to install himself as chair; Trump was later elected to the position. TV super-producer Shonda Rhimes also resigned amid the shake-up.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn addition to Trump, the new board includes Susie Wiles, Dan Scavino, Allison Lutnick, Lynda Lomangino, Mindy Levine, Usha Vance, Pamela Gross, John Falconetti, Cheri Summerall, Sergio Gor, Emilia May Fanjul, Patricia Duggan and Dana Blumberg.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a Zoom interview with The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, Folds called the situation \u201creally rough.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMy friends that I left behind there, they we were in very different positions (than me),\u201d Folds said from his hotel room at a tour stop in Montana. \u201cThey\u2019re kind of trapped in that environment. No one knows their name. But for me, it\u2019s lending my name to help stand for, you know, some kind of North Korean vibe.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThat kind of regime uses you, you know?\u201d he continued. \u201cSo then it would be like, \u2018Oh, well, you know, Folds wants a whole big gut full of orange,\u2019 like, \u2018He loves this.\u2019<\/p>\n \n\tTo be clear: Folds does not love this. He does not love any of this \u2014 but maybe for a (slightly) different reason than you might think. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the politics so much as it\u2019s a partisan takeover, which is a very authoritarian thing to do,\u201d Folds said. \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to have a firewall between politics, the government, and the Arts Center.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat firewall was, well, burned down six months ago.<\/p>\n \n\tSince then, Folds says, the administration has \u201crun all [the donors] off.\u201d There is a common misconception that the federal government foots the bill for these things; our taxes pay for something like six percent of the arts funding, Folds said, with the rest coming from donations.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s pretty bad,\u201d he summed up the situation.<\/p>\n \n\tWe\u2019ll say. But, buddy, we want you back. What would it take for the \u201cLanded\u201d singer to land back with the National Symphony Orchestra?<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe reason I was there is because it had a mission \u2014 or multiple missions. It was different than working at another venue,\u201d Folds said. \u201cThe mission can\u2019t be to further a political agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe was there to, through music, give \u201cbus-fulls of kids\u201d meaningful cultural experiences they wouldn\u2019t otherwise have, Folds said.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAll kinds of kids need to look up on stage and see themselves just ruling on stage. Just to go, \u2018God, I never saw someone that looked like me on stage, and they\u2019re like the king of the room right now. This is amazing \u2014 I could go out to do that for a living,\u2019\u201d he continued. \u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s for. And to rage against that<\/em>, that takes some fucking little balls, man.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAt least somebody\u2019s \u201cStill Fighting It.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOn Wednesday, the (new-look) Kennedy Center revealed its 2025 list of honorees, including Sylvester Stallone, disco singer Gloria Gaynor and the rock band Kiss, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Trump is hosting the Kennedy Center Honors himself, perhaps (in part, at least) because literally no one else is left. Recent hosts of the program include Queen Latifah (2024) and Gloria Estefan (2023) \u2014 so Trump will fit right in, obviously. Ben Folds, the piano virtuoso\/pop musician, had been artistic adviser to the National<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[3967,2110,9117,9118,4818,1007],"class_list":{"0":"post-15562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ben","9":"tag-center","10":"tag-folds","11":"tag-itd","12":"tag-kennedy","13":"tag-return"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}