l i f e s t y l e SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2016

Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, Lil Kim to be honored by VH1

NEW YORK: Queen Latifah remembers Monica, Fantasia, Jazmine Sullivan, being on set in 1997 for the music Remy Ma, Trina, Eve, Tweet, Keyshia video for “Ladies Night (Not Tonight),” Cole and Raven Symone will also honor the female rap anthem starring Lil Kim, Elliott. “VH1 Hip Hop Honors” is return- Missy Elliott and others. It featured a ing after a six-year hiatus. Common, Da number of top female musicians per- Brat, MC Lyte, Naughty by Nature, Rah forming on the song and making Digga, Suga T and Yo-Yo will pay tribute cameos in the video, including Left Eye, to Latifah, who will perform the 1989 Da Brat, Angie Martinez, Mary J. Blige, classic “Ladies First” with Monie Love. SWV, Total and Xscape. Lil Kim and Salt-N-Pepa will also be “That day was so much fun,” Latifah honored. “It’s important for me to be recalled in a phone interview Thursday. part of a celebration of ladies of hip- “That was pretty much like Missy ask- hop because I feel like it’s important we ing for everybody to come down and are recognized for our contributions to be in the video.” “It was a good time. We music and (that) our voices are heard,” just had a lot of good times,” she added. Latifah said. Elliott, like Latifah, opened doors for Elliott, whose hits include “Get Ur women in rap - and in music overall - Freak On,” “Work It” and “Lose Control,” helping female performers advance said she started to rap after listening to their careers through guest appear- Salt-N-Pepa and learned all of their ances on songs, writing and producing, songs, including “the album cuts, the and management. And while they were album fillers or whatever.” She also competitive, there was also a sense of called Latifah and Lil Kim her “sisters.” camaraderie. “So for us to come together, that’s Fast-forward and those helped by always been a dream of mine. That’s Elliott and Latifah are now paying it another blessing that something like back. The list of names honoring Elliott this can bring us together,” she said. at “VH1 Hip Hop Honors: All Hail the Latifah said she hopes contempo- Queens,” to air live Monday night (9 rary female rappers will collaborate like p.m. EDT) from David Geffen Hall in she and her peers did on the set of NEW YORK: Lin-Manuel Miranda, foreground, performs with members of the cast of the musical “Hamilton”. — AP New York City, is long, from Pharrell to “Ladies Night.” “It was a good time in Timbaland to Nelly Furtado. life ... there were a lot more of us then “The funny thing (is) I couldn’t even (and) we were able to have a lot of fun fit everyone. ... People that I work with together,” Latifah said. “I would love for ... we are like family; it extends beyond the girls today to have that same cama- the music thing, so you know they were raderie that we had. We competed with calling me like, ‘I’m performing right?’ each other in a healthy way and at the A Hamilton tale too tall? I’m like, ‘Girl, I only got a certain amount same time (were) able to hang out with of minutes and I can’t fit everybody,’” each other, and perform with each oth- Elliott, laughing, said in a phone inter- er, and get on each other’s records and view Wednesday. “I’m so thankful and really have fun with this music.”-AP humbled.” Group disputes tomcat story

TRENTON, NEW JERSEY: In the song “A Winter’s Ball” in the smash Broadway hit “Hamilton,” Aaron Burr’s character sings of Alexander Hamilton’s delight for women, including the tale that Martha Washington named her feral tomcat after him. “That’s true,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton character tells the sold-out theater each night. But it’s not, according to a group of Hamilton enthusiasts and researchers gathering in New York and New Jersey this week. Twenty miles from the Broadway theater where fans spend thousands of dollars to see the show, a group dedicated to studying the nation’s first treasury secretary gathered Thursday to unveil new artifacts and retrace a piece of history they hope can soften some of Hamilton’s rough edges. They believe the tomcat story and talk of Hamilton’s relationship with LOS ANGELES: Queen Latifah attends “The Wiz Live!” Photo Op at the Directors women have been used through the years to Guild of America. — AP undercut what they say was his vital work for the country. Phoenix-based Hamilton researcher Michael Newton says it’s an issue of fairness. “If you’re saying Hamilton was this scoundrel, all of a sud- UNION, NEW JERSEY: A will belonging to Peter Lavien, Alexander Hamilton’s half brother, is dis- den it colors your view on his position on politics played at the Liberty Hall Museum at Kean University. — AP and economics,” Newton said. That Hamilton had at least one affair isn’t in doubt. He wrote a 95-page pamphlet on his ical letter from someone described as a British “People should think and evaluate and not affair with Maria Reynolds, which heavily dam- captain republished 56 years after Hamilton’s necessarily instantly accept stories whether it’s aged his reputation. That plus a very friendly death. Newton says that what apparently started on the stage or wherever they get it from,” she relationship with his sister-in-law plays a big part as a joke about Martha Washington naming her said. “The play is getting people to ask a lot of of the Tony award-winning musical that has cat after Hamilton “in a complimentary way” questions about Hamilton and history. (Miranda) become a cultural phenomenon and created a morphed through the years to biographies stat- would be very happy.” larger audience of people looking to learn more ing she named her tomcat after him to comment The Hamilton researchers, part of the about him. on his reputation. Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society, on The tomcat story is included in multiple biog- Newton points out that dictionaries note that Thursday also unveiled what they say is the orig- raphies of Hamilton, including the Ron Chernow tomcat only meant a “male cat” in the 18th cen- inal copy of Hamilton’s half brother’s will and let- book that the musical is based on. In “Hamilton: tury and didn’t carry its other connotation - a ters about Hamilton and his wife’s dealing with a The Revolution,” co-authored by Miranda, the promiscuous man - until later. Chernow, who yellow fever outbreak. Both were found in the song’s lyrics include a footnote that says the line only touches on the story in his 800-page book files of John Kean, part of one of New Jersey’s was “most likely a tale spread by John Adams lat- with half of a sentence, didn’t respond to emails most prominent families. Hamilton lived at the er in life” but that Manuel included it because he seeking comment. former home of New Jersey’s first governor, likes “Hamilton owning it.” Joanne Freeman, a history professor at Yale, William Livingston, and it is now a museum on AUSTIN: Missy Elliott appears at a panel discussion during South By Southwest. “At this point in the story,” Miranda writes, “he said she’s always assumed the tomcat tale wasn’t the campus of Kean University. — AP — AP is at peak cockiness.” Newton and fellow actually true. She said that people should under- Hamilton researcher Stephen Knott both say stand that not everything in the show is accu- they haven’t found evidence of Adams spread- rate, but that it’s good that it’s gotten people to ing the tale and instead trace the story to a satir- ask questions.

Sculpture created from US Army helicopter visits Michigan

KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN: A mixed-media sculpture created from remains of a US Army helicopter that was shot down in 1969 during a Vietnam medial rescue is visiting Michigan. The Kalamazoo Gazette reports Steve Maloney’s “Take Me Home Huey” arrived Tuesday at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo after being on display outside Henry Ford Museum in suburban Detroit. They’re the latest stops on a cross-country tour that started last year. The Kalamazoo native says the artwork “has been quite a journey for me, as well as the realization of my dream to raise the profile of military veterans who sacrificed so much and never received a proper welcome home.” It seeks to boost awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder. The sculpture is on display at the Air Zoo until Aug. 31. — AP KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN: A person takes a picture as a motorcade of 10-20 motorcycles led by the Michigan State Police, escort the exhibit “Take Me Home Huey” by contemporary artist and Kalamazoo native Steve Maloney to the Air Zoo on its East campus. — AP