Super Bowl 55 halftime headliner and Grammy-winner pop star, The Weeknd says his next album draws inspiration from the Black Lives Matter movement and the coronavirus crisis.
The Canadian crooner, whose real name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, recently told lifestyle magazine TMRW that the pandemic lockdowns coming on the heels of the rise of Black Lives Matter led to an outburst of creativity for his work.
“The pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the tensions of the election have mostly created a sense of gratitude for what I have and closeness with the people near me,” the “Starboy” The Weeknd said. “I have been more inspired and creative during the pandemic than I might normally be while on the road.”
As Hollywood continues to jump aboard the Black Lives Matter cause to defund the police, crime has exploded in nearly every big U.S. city. Shootings and homicides initially declined as the coronavirus lockdowns began, but since June, those numbers are reversing and have even started to soar.
According to CNN, the homicide rates in New York City have risen 23 percent in just the last few months. Chicago has suffered even higher numbers as homicides have jumped 39 percent since the end of June. Los Angeles has also experienced a 23 percent jump.
Crime analyst Jeff Asher recently assembled data from 51 cities and found that murder is up 35.7 percent over 2019.
The Council on Criminal Justice recently reported that crime is up sharply across 21 states, especially murder. “Homicide rates increased by 42% during the summer and 34% in the fall over the summer and fall of 2019,” the group says. And the FBI recently noted that murders are up 15 percent averaged across the nation in the first half of 2020.
Many media outlets claimed that much of this crime could be laid on the coronavirus lockdowns. But others point to the defund the police movement causing police officers to withdraw from some of America’s most dangerous communities.
Indeed, with shootings up 127 percent in New York City, Democrat Councilman Robert Holden slammed the defund the police movement for endangering the city.
“Defunding the police is perhaps the worst idea in NYC government history,” Holden told Fox News. “We can’t legislate using fashionable slogans that fit on protest signs. It hurts every New Yorker. The NYPD are the gold standard for law enforcement around the world. Any issues that need to be addressed require more training, which costs money.”
Holden added that “there is definitely a correlation” between the social justice movement and the rising crime rate.
“We have had well over 1,000 shootings this year. The deadly combination of closing Rikers, getting rid of cash bail, defunding the police and putting them under the fear of going to jail if they need to apprehend a violent suspect are all part of a pro-crime atmosphere that emboldens violent criminals,” Holden said.
Meanwhile, The Weeknd has supported the Black Lives Matter movement for years and donated $250,00 to the group in August 2016. He has also appeared to call police officers “murderers,” posting a hashtag in a 2016 tweet that said “blue lives murder.”
The Weeknd has a history of dustups with the police. For instance, in January of that same year he was arrested for allegedly punching a police officer during an altercation in Las Vegas.
His last album, After Hours, was released in March and he has railed against the Recording Academy because his album has not been nominated for a Grammy. Despite winning several other accolades such as winning Favorite Album-Soul/R&B honors at the American Music Awards, the Grammys took a pass.
According to reports, The Weeknd feels that his snubbing by the Grammy resulted from his hemming and hawing over whether or not to accept the Super Bowl halftime show gig.
The “Can’t Feel My Face” singer took to Twitter to attack the Grammys as “corrupt” and added, “You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency.”
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