Music

Since President Trump took over as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in February, artists' responses have been mixed. Some, including Issa Rae, Rhiannon Giddens and the musical Hamilton, cancelled performances in protest. Others, like comedian W. Kamau Bell and the band Guster, decided to move forward.

Yasmin Williams and Cathy Fink, two musicians with deep ties to the cultural center, emailed the Center's interim president Richard Grenell directly — but his replies caught them off guard.

...

"I'm too busy to confront your vapidness to believe what you read without doing your own research," Grenell wrote. He told her the Kennedy Center had "zero in the bank" and he "cut the DEI b******** because we can't afford to pay people for fringe and niche programming that the public won't support."

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250410190547/https://www.npr.org/2025/04/10/nx-s1-5357631/an-anxious-musician-emailed-the-director-of-the-kennedy-center-and-got-a-response

For context, a pair of songs from the musicians he's swearing at and insulting,

https://yasminwilliams.bandcamp.com/track/harvest-feat-kaki-king-darian-donovan-thomas

https://cathyfinkmarcymarxer.bandcamp.com/track/hold-each-other-up