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Today (March 20), Quavo unveiled his SPARK Grants initiative, which is aimed at supporting groups striving to curb gun violence in Atlanta, GA. The announcement was made in collaboration with The Rocket Foundation.
The organization was founded by the Migos artist following the fatal shooting of Takeoff in 2022. The SPARK Grants program will distribute $10,000 each to 10 organizations, dedicating a total of $100,000 to aid in prevention efforts.
In a press statement, Quavo shared, “I am honored to launch this grant program to honor Take and the countless families that have been affected by gun violence. There is a lot of important work going on in ATL right now, and part of our mission is to uplift these organizations and support them to help save more lives.”
Grant applications close on April 21, with the winners to be announced on June 18, Takeoff’s birthday, during National Gun Violence Awareness Month.
Quavo spoke about dealing with the loss of Takeoff in July 2023. In a black-and-white video shared on YouTube, the “11.11” creator explained, “He knows I love him. That’s what we always know. So when you see me, and you see me smiling or something like that, you don’t gotta never think, like, I forgot about him, or I’ll forget about him. I think about him all the time. Sometimes, I cry myself to sleep. I just know he’s here. If I can’t feel him, I just know he’s around.”
Later that year, the Georgia native dedicated Rocket Power to the late rapper. The 18-track offering boasted two Takeoff features as well as guest appearances from Future, Young Thug, Hunxho, and BabyDrill.
Elaborating on the LP’s title, Quavo shared, “Just being fueled by my brother, Take, and bottling in all these emotions — all the pain, all the hard times, all the times I cried, and all the times I just made music to pull up and try to play songs, and he’s not there. I’m just trying to get this fuel from above.”
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The Libertines have revealed that they’ve bought the bathtub that Jim Morrison died in for their Margate hotel, The Albion Rooms.
The band released their fourth album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ last Friday (April 5), marking their first full-length record in almost a decade. It is currently on course to hit Number One in the UK.
During a new interview with Matt Wilkinson on Apple Music 1, Pete Doherty and Carl Barât talked about achieving their “dream” of opening their own Libertines hotel and studio space in 2020.
“We’ve also got the bathtub that Jim Morrison died in, which we’re going to be putting in one of the rooms,” Doherty explained at one point in the chat.
The frontman of The Doors passed away in Paris in 1971 aged 27. He was found dead in the bathtub of the apartment he was staying in, with the official cause of death being ruled as heart failure. Due to French law, however, no autopsy was carried out as no foul play was suspected at the time.
Doherty continued: “There’s a fellow who my wife’s cousin knows, and his cousin was basically the landlord. And he’s not interested in music, and even less interested in music mythology, and so he’s just been going on about this bathtub which people have been trying to buy off him.
He added: “And so I said to Carl – and obviously, Carl’s known me for years, knows I do have a tendency to exaggerate and… well, lie – but this one is the bang honest truth and it’s actually there.”
The revelation came after Barât explained that he had purchased another piece of rock memorabilia: Jimi Hendrix‘s coat. “Someone convinced me to buy it in an auction. It was going cheap,” the musician said.
“It was because there was about to be a movie come out and André 3000 was playing Jimi Hendrix [in 2013’s Jimi: All Is By My Side], and it was going to really revitalise the Hendrix estate and all of the sort of bric-a-brac…”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Barât explained: “We set up this hotel with grand ambitions and a lot of objectives of which we achieved.
“Now, personally, being very close to it and having to deal with a lot more of the runnings and whatnot, I think we’ve done that. And I think what we really need is a studio where the artists can stay there. We don’t have to shove them down the road.”
Barât gave NME a tour of The Albion Rooms in Margate when it first opened its doors. “The band live in three different countries, and the only thing that really binds us without something like this is tour schedules,” he said at the time.
“To have a place that’s our own HQ and that we all have equal ownership of and equal input in – that was the dream.” You can revisit the video tour and interview above.
The Libertines would go on to record ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ at The Albion Rooms.
Doherty told NME last October: “The other albums were basically written before we went in the studio. This time it was a case of people presenting really strong ideas, and then everyone else just tucking in, putting their bibs on, rolling up their sleeves and chewing the fat.
“There were so many times on this album where I thought I knew what the song was, and then it became completely different for the best.”
In a four-star review of ‘…Eastern Esplanade’, NME praised the band for “find[ing] their voice again”, adding: “For the first time in over 20 years, The Libertines feel like a band with a viable future.”
The Libertines recently added more shows to their 2024 UK and Ireland headline tour. Find any remaining tickets here.
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