She realized this at the age of 3 when her father read her Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” one night instead of a bedtime story. “I was instantly in love,” she says. “I thought it was the best thing I’d ever heard. It felt like almost like hip-hop, because it was a rap. It rhymed. … I asked him to read it again. I was so in love with it, and he did. I stopped him, and I said, ‘This is what I’m meant to do.’ I said, ‘I’m going to be a great American poet, like whoever this guy is’. And he said, ‘Okay, well then you’ll have to be three times as good because you’re Black, you’re a woman, and you were born into a country built to enslave you.’
“So I always knew that it would be a harder road for me as a Black American woman to get anything published, for anyone to even listen to me, let alone the biggest publishing house in the world. This country does not treat even Black little girls as if they’re worth much. I knew the road ahead of me would be a long and arduous one, and I might not make it.”
Yet she, arguably, has made it. Her debut novel Memphis, released in April of 2022, was a national bestseller and a Read With Jenna Book Club Pick. All the bookstores in Memphis carried her book. “Local businesses have made me who I am, put me on the map,” the writer says. “Women in Memphis found my book, especially Black women in Memphis. They have put me on a map.
“To break out into this industry has been a godsend,” Stringfellow adds. “I don’t think it’s just talent and hard work. This world does not give that many opportunities to unpublished people of color, so I’ve been very lucky. It’s nothing short of a miracle. I just wish there were more opportunities for writers and authors of color to be more widely read in this nation.”
This isn’t anything new, of course. Only 250 years ago Phillis Wheatley could not get her poetry published in the U.S., a fact upon which Stringfellow reflects after the June release her collection of poetry Magic Enuff (The Dial Press). “It’s a huge historical achievement, I think, for the literary canon,” she says. “I’m very humbled.”
Poetry, after all, is some of the oldest literature we have — think of Homer, Sappho, Vergil. These are the works we’ve labeled as “classics.” “[Poetry] is, to me, the highest form of literary work,” Stringfellow says. “I think poetry is revolutionary. I think it has the ability to reshape nations. … In a novel, you have a whole chapter to get your point across — I’m not knocking novelists, and novels, I love them. I’m in the middle of a novel — but in a poem, you have not even a page to get your point across. You might only have a line or not even a whole word, a syllable.”
The verses might be fleeting, but their impacts are all the more striking, the smallest detail becoming a powerful source of imagery. In Magic Enuff, Stringfellow’s poems are deeply personal. “These were written from my experiences over the years. The narrative voice and the poetry is often just my voice. Some of these poems have taken a long, long time to come to light. This collection is my life’s work. My art speaks for herself, and she speaks loud and clear and proudly.”
There are vulnerable moments within the pages, moments where she talks about her dad leaving her mom and her own divorce from her ex-husband; there are haikus about love, poems about the bonds between women and living in the South. At its core, Stringfellow observes, the book is intrinsically and unashamedly political, even in the personal. “The simple act of a Black woman sitting down to write a sonnet is a political act,” Stringfellow says. “It’s a revolutionary act.”
Many poems, though, are explicitly political, like those dedicated to Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, Trayvon Martin’s mother, and Gianna Floyd, all who were killed by or whose loved ones were killed by racially motivated police violence.
“Until Black children aren’t being gunned down in America for simply ringing somebody’s doorbell; until Black children aren’t having the police being called on them by white women for just being outside, being loud, because all children are all loud; until we have basic civil rights in this country, my writing will always be political,” Stringfellow says. “It has to be. Nina Simone once said it’s the duty of the artists to reflect the times in which they find themselves. And unfortunately, I find myself in America in 2024 in some rather turbulent times.”
Yet Stringfellow also embraces the role of the writer as a bearer of hope. She notes how the other week, she saw a woman sitting at the Memphis Chess Club reading Memphis before Magic Enuff’s release. “It was so surreal to see my book out there [even two years later],” she says. “I hope the same happens with this poetry collection — that I see her, I see the cover, and a Black woman is reading her somewhere in Memphis. That is the ideal dream for me. That is the goal, to just bring a little bit of joy to Black women here in the South. Every book I write will be for the glory of Black Southern women.”
Indeed in her poem, “Hot Combs Catfish Crumbs and Bad Men,” she writes, “God can stay asleep/ these women in my life are magic enuff.”
Let’s face it: The Olympics are must-watch television. (Photo: Yalcinsonat | Dreamstime.com)
I’m not a sports fan. Baseball gives me flashbacks to the parade of humiliations that was my Little League career. The constant squeaking sound of sneakers against the floor in basketball games drives me insane. I used to think I liked to watch college football, but in fact I just liked eating fried food with my friends on fall Saturdays. I can do that without the head trauma component. Soccer? Too snoozy. Hockey? Too icy. Golf? Please no.
But I do love the Olympics. The games certainly share many traits that turn me off to professional sports. The massive civic expenditures the host cities have to endure certainly resonates badly with me, a citizen of a city and state that are currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars renovating sports stadiums while we lack a functioning mass transit system. Paris’ leaders seem to have handled that conundrum better than most cities. Many of the stadia and venues are temporary; the only permanent new construction is an aquatics center. In the opening weekend, this fact has made for some spectacular television, like beach volleyball matches played in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. The equestrian events take place on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.
The opening ceremonies featured a memorable reference to one of Versailles’ former residents. I’m not sure what kind of opening ceremony I was expecting from the French, but a bloody Marie Antoinette holding her own head while singing a song from the French Revolution with the Gallic metal band Gojira playing on balconies over the Seine was not it. The opening ceremonies are always a mixed bag, at best. The producers have the daunting task of bringing everyone together while making everything seem monumental, and something’s got to give. Paris’ opening ceremonies may just have been the best ever. There was fire, parkour, fashion, art, and a Dionysian bacchanal in the streets of Paris. Instead of marching into the stadium en masse, the teams paraded down the Seine in a flotilla of boats. The only thing that didn’t go according to plan was the rain, which drenched hundreds of dancers along the riverbanks and chased away the crowd. But the driving rain also produced some indelible images, like a regal LeBron James holding the flag aloft at the bow of the American boat like George Washington crossing the Delaware River.
It was a rainy weekend in Memphis, so I was locked on the couch cramming as many events into my eyeballs as possible. For me, the weirder the sport, the better. I eschewed gymnastics prelims on the opening weekend in favor of rugby sevens. The French men’s team pulled off the upset of the games so far when they won gold in front of a hometown crowd, surviving a squad of swarming Fijians, who had, until Saturday, never lost a game in Olympic history.
For a professional appreciator of the moving image like myself, the Olympics are a quadrennial update on the state of the photographic arts. The modern games excel at producing beautiful images; the photo editor for The Atlantic reportedly sorted through 25,000 wire photos on Friday. This year, the best television has come not from Paris, but from 9,700 miles away in Tahiti. The surfing competition is being held there on a beach known as Teahupo’o, which translates to “wall of skulls.” With competitors riding 50-foot waves breaking onto a razor-sharp coral reef, it may be the most dangerous event in Olympic history, but it’s super relaxing to watch.
The camaraderie of the surfers having the rides of their lives while incidentally also competing for gold is the best example of the Olympic spirit. Gathering all of humanity together to see who can run the fastest and jump the highest may seem quaint in our troubled world. But three wars raging across the globe makes the traditional Olympic truce seem like a pretty good idea. The most moving example of peak human performance came from Celine Dion. After being sidelined from the stage for four years due to a rare neurological condition, she closed out the opening ceremony by slaying at a planetary level with Edith Piaf’s “Hymne a l’Amour.” As her fellow NBC broadcasters sat dumfounded, Kelly Clarkson, herself an accomplished singer, struggled through tears to find words for what we had witnessed. It was the most authentic emotion I’ve seen on TV in a long, long time.
A Democratic quartet at a Monday fundraiser for state Rep. Joe Towns was (l to r) County Mayor Lee Harris, David Upton, Towns, and Yvonne Acey. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Last week in this space we designated some of the most compelling races on the ballot for the August 1st election (state and federal primaries; county general election), which was scheduled to terminate this week.
There weren’t many that were truly eventful, and the same fact holds true for most of the forthcoming follow-up races on the November 5th ballot. Few horse-race scenarios, as it were. But that’s not the whole story.
Take the case of District 84 state Representative Joe Towns, for example. Towns was almost certainly due to be an easy winner in this week’s Democratic primary, in which he was opposed by one Vernell Williams. (This column was written before votes could be tabulated.) And he’ll have no Republican opponent in November. But, as Towns indicated to the attendees at a fundraiser in his honor at Otherlands Coffee Bar on Monday night, his election concerns were rather more focused this week on the outcome of a statewide ballot initiative of his sponsorship on the November ballot.
This is a constitutional amendment — one to abolish slavery in the state of Tennessee. Eyebrows may be raised at this notion. One might think that slavery surely ceased to be a reality in the state long ago, at the time of the Civil War.
For the record, this is what the Tennessee constitution has to say on the subject, as of now:
“That slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, are forever prohibited in this state.” (Article 1 — Declaration of Rights, Sec. 33)
Towns’ amendment would delete the words italicized above and would rewrite the amendment to read (with italics indicating substitute language):
“That slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working, when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”
The difference between the two versions may appear subtle, but the amended version, if passed by the state’s citizens, would eliminate the implicit license, in the original, to impose involuntary servitude on convicts as an exception to the ban on slavery.
In the amended version, there is no “but” clause. Inmate labor is to be regarded as a matter entirely separate from the issue of slavery.
Again, a subtle distinction, but one seen as crucial to Rep. Towns and his co-sponsors.
• Meanwhile, the one legislative race destined to receive the most attention this fall, both locally and statewide, is the one for District 97 state representative between Democratic challenger Jesse Huseth and Republican incumbent John Gillespie (presumed, as of this writing, to become the victorious GOP candidate over relatively unknown party rival Christina Oppenhuizen this week).
The district is largely an East Memphis one, and the camps of both candidates regard its electoral fate as relevant to the political future not only of Shelby County’s suburban rim but of mixed rural/urban communities of similar affluence statewide.
Both Gillespie and Huseth have raised formidable sums of money, and they are well-matched in most regards. Huseth is center-left; Gillespie is center-right. One trait they have in common: Neither is a glad-hander in the standard political mode; both are earnest, almost solemn in their personal demeanors, and that is but one fact among many that augurs for a close race between the two.
“The MANE Event” Kontar “The Great” (Photos: Michael Donahue)
Wrestling fans turned out for 901 Wrestling’s annual Wild Card Rumble, which was held July 20th at Black Lodge.
Anthony Sain, commentator with Kevin Cerrito, describes the event as a “13-man, over-the-top battle royal.”
And, he says, “It’s one of our premier events of the year.”
Tyler “The Lion” LeMasters and Roscoe “The Cajun Catapult” Monroe“Live Wire” Bobby Ford
Describing the event, Sain says, “It starts off with two guys. A new guy comes in every two minutes. … You’ve got to throw guys over the top rope to be eliminated.”
Everybody is eventually eliminated except one. “The True One of One” Kevin Bless was this year’s winner. “It got down to him and one other person and he threw that person over the top rope.”
“The Star of the Show” Andy Mack“The True One of One” Kevin BlessDorian Vain
As Rumble winner, Bless can participate in the 901 Wrestling Championship, the 1819 Championship, or the Tag Team Championship.
The event was in honor of the late 901 Wrestling wrestler Devin “Wild Card” Taylor, who died in a drowning accident.
Bless is “typically a guy that fans don’t get behind, but they were happy to see him win in honor of Devin Taylor. Bless was the last opponent Devin had before he passed away.”
More We Saw You photos at memphisflyer.com.
Norman “The Soviet Saint” Meklakov at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)“The Merc” Chris Evans at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)“The All-American” Ken Dang at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)Nighttrain at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)Top Shottaz at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)“King of Memphis” Hunter HavocMorgan the Man at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)Shane Shoffner at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)Sebastian Moon, Joey Hall, Amos Fitzgerald at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kevin Cerrito and Anthony Sain at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)Connor the Dude at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue)“Baddest Man Alive” Dustin Anthony at 901 Wrestling (Credit: Michael Donahue) We Saw You
Alessandra Daniele and Justin Soffer (Photos: Michael Donahue)
If you haven’t been to Paulette’s Restaurant lately, it’s time to revisit it.
Daniel Clark, Paulette’s food and beverage director, made changes to the menu at the restaurant, located at The River Inn of Harbor Town at 50 Harbor Town Square. But he kept what makes Paulette’s Paulette’s.
A native of Paris, France, Clark has worked in the hospitality business in Europe, South America, and the United States. In Memphis, he’s been with Adam’s Mark, Graceland, and the Marriott. His River Inn position includes Terrace and Tug’s Casual Grill.
He visited Paulette’s when he was asked to take the job last November. “I wanted to see what I was getting involved with,” Clark says.
He was pleased with what he saw. “It is a restaurant that has so much potential. I saw that it was lovely and has a good name in Memphis. And has a feel for the past without being outdated.”
Fine dining has changed in recent years, Clark says. “It’s very different from what it used to be.”
Instead of being elegant but stiff, fine dining restaurants are elegant but also have “a sense of peace.” Not quiet but comfortable, he says.
Clark wants to “keep the tradition and the hospitality” of Paulette’s, which was founded in the mid-’70s by Paulette Fono. It was later bought out by the late co-owner George Falls. “First of all, you cannot replace George Falls. Nobody can replace such a figure. But what we can do is revive the essence of what Paulette’s is.”
And that’s fine dining without being pretentious.
Working with the owners, Clark updated the dinner menu, but kept signature items, including filet Paulette’s, the salmon, shrimp and grits, and redfish with crab meat.
He’s now designed all the Paulette’s menus, including lunch and brunch.
Clark was able to introduce a “more exciting” lunch menu. He based his ideas on the type of lunches served at private clubs, including the old Crescent Club, where he was director of operations. These were places where working people could get an “elegant, quality lunch” even if they only had an hour to eat.
Paulette’s owners allowed Clark to “put some personal ideas and a little bit of his French influence” in his menus. “But Paulette’s is not a French restaurant, although it sounds like one.”
The restaurant is “American/continental.”
Fono, who came up with the original concept for Paulette’s when it was on Madison Avenue, is Hungarian, Clark says. They served a lot of crêpe dishes, including ham palacsinta, a ham crêpe. “Over the years it became fine dining.”
Paulette’s, which moved to Harbor Town in 2011, still features crêpes, including a chicken, asparagus, and spinach crêpe at lunch and crêpes Suzette at dinner.
New dinner items include a blackened barramundi and seafood angel hair pasta; veal chop Normandy, a dish made with a bone-in veal chop, wild mushrooms, and Calvados cream sauce; and pistachio-encrusted rack of lamb served with a pesto instead of “the traditional mint.”
Alessandra Daniele and Justin Soffer try new menu entrees at Paulette’s. (Credit: Michael Donahue),
Clark kept Paulette’s famous popovers with strawberry butter as well as the signature Kahlúa pie, a “monument of chocolate, coffee ice cream, and Kahlúa.”
Justin Soffer and Alessandra Daniele try Paulette’s iconic popovers with strawberry butter. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
His son, Jeremy, surprised him when he told him he loved to eat at Paulette’s. “My son is in his 30s. He has long hair and tattoos. But he’s very current. He’s a nice young man. Stable.”
Jeremy, who also celebrated his wedding anniversary at Paulette’s, told Clark it was the type of place where he and his wife could have a nice conversation.
Clark thought if a 30-year-old thinks that way about Paulette’s, which is kind of a classic fine dining place, so will his friends. “Going after these folks is my new goal. To be able to attract these young people.”
He thought, “How do we make Paulette’s a place they will think of for a special occasion?”
Clark wants Paulette’s to pop up in their minds when they think, “Where could I have a nice, quiet, elegant, romantic dinner?”
Daniel Clark prepares crepes Suzette table side for Alessandra Daniele and Justin Soffer at Paulette’s (Credit: Michael Donahue)
The “wow moment” is what Clark says he’s going for. And sometimes that means old-school. He’s serving crêpes Suzette table side, the way restaurants did back in the day, along with bananas Foster and cherries jubilee.
Clark also is revamping Paulette’s wine list. “I’m a very different wine person than most. I’m not going to throw some fine, exquisite language at you on how to differentiate the aromas of nectarines and blueberries. That’s not me.”
He wants to bring back the old Paulette’s wine dinners, but they’re not going to be “driven by a winemaker.” Clark doesn’t want wine reps who are going to push wines from their wineries. Paulette’s wine dinners will be more like classes on the “general knowledge of wine.”
Alessandra Daniele and Justin Soffer at Paulette’s (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Justin Soffer, 29, and Alessandra Daniele, 24, recently tried some of Paulette’s new menu items, including the barramundi, lamb, and filet. They also had the crêpes Suzette, which Daniele described as “incredible.”
“We had such a good experience at Paulette’s and would definitely recommend it if you were looking to do something different, romantic, and slightly outside of the city,” Daniele says.
And, Soffer says, “Paulette’s was an exceptional experience for all of the senses.”
Clark wants guests to “have an exquisite dinner at Paulette’s, a nice conversation, have some smiles, and leave with the impression that they want to come back.”
He adds, “Food should be the reason they come. They leave with a total experience. Not just the food.”
Alessandra Daniele and Justin Soffer at Paulette’s (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Lawson Day, Margo Araoz, and Justin Weirich (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Cooper-Young Porchfest 2022 was the catalyst for Macrophonics, which features lead singer Lawson Day, lead guitarist Justin Weirich, and drummer Margo Araoz.
“It was the first Porchfest I’d been to,” Day says. He told Weirich, “We need to play this.”
The two met when they were in the seventh grade at DeSoto Central Middle School in Southaven, Mississippi.
“I think when we really started hanging out more was in 10th grade,” Weirich says. “Physical science class.”
They would “talk about music and movies for an hour,” Day says.
“I wouldn’t really pay much attention in school. I was more focused on learning music and listening to different stuff,” Weirich says.
Weirich was 11 when he bought his Fender Starcaster with leftover birthday money and $300 winnings from a family golf tournament.
Day began singing six years ago. He originally was “too lost in video games and things.” Also, he says, “I was terrified to hear my voice for a long time.”
He didn’t sing in front of an audience until he sang karaoke on a cruise. “I’m like, ‘I’m going to sing karaoke.’ And I did it every night on the cruise.”
“Get Down Tonight” by KC & the Sunshine Band was his first song. “I can remember being pretty nervous the first night. And then, I think, from every night onward, I didn’t really care.”
Araoz, who is from Birmingham, Alabama, joined the drumline in high school when she was about 10 years old. “Half the people in my school were in the band,” she says. “That was what the school was known for. I got to see a drumline play live. It was the first time I got to do this. I remember as a 9-year-old feeling the vibrations in my body. I said, ‘I need to do that. I’m put on this Earth to do that.’”
Araoz stopped playing drums and percussion when she was 14 to focus on her high school studies.
She majored in environmental science at North Carolina State University before moving to Memphis in 2021. She met Weirich when they worked together at Otherlands Coffee Bar. “I didn’t have a drum set when I moved here. I hadn’t played since I was 14. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s behind me. I’m no longer a drummer.’”
But, she says, “Justin encouraged me to buy a drum set and he just got the ball rolling for me to retry it.”
The trio got a practice space at Off the Walls Arts, “all hanging out playing music and having fun with it,” Weirich says.
“It was such a cool experience,” Day says. “It felt like being in some kind of coming-of-age movie.”
Macrophonics at the practice space at Off the Wall Arts (Credit: Michael Donahue)
The name “Macrophonics” was Weirich’s brainchild. “I like the imagery of ‘macro,’ being ‘big,’ and ‘phonics’ — ‘big sound,’” he says.
They’ve described their music as “punk rock,” he says. “More the attitude for us in terms of musicality. We try to make songs that sound aggressive, but still kind of catchy.”
“Some of our songs, while they all have a bit of pop structure, sonically can be different,” Day adds. “They don’t fit what people think of as ’80s punk.’”
Their songs are “just do-it-yourself” with “a little absurdist humor,” Weirich says. “Because humor helps the reality go down smoother.”
They only had two originals when they signed up for their first Porchfest in 2023. Day describes their show as “overwhelming. It was me and Margo’s first show.”
Macrophonics at 2023 Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
“I remember being very, very nervous. At that point I was kind of yelling instead of singing. I felt it was a controlled yell. But I was nervous as hell. Freaked out.”
Because it was hot, Day took off his shirt while he sang. He now sings shirtless most shows. “I didn’t want it to be a trademark, but I feel it kind of is.”
Their Porchfest experience was a success. “We wanted to keep doing it: ‘Okay. We’re pretty good at this. We can actually do this. Let’s keep it chugging along.’”
They played shows at Growlers, Hi Tone, Black Lodge, and “a lot of Lamplighter shows,” Weirich says.
Macrophonics is about to have its first EP mastered. They hope to release it “within the next month or so,” Weirich says.
Macrophonics: Justin Weirich, Margo Araoz, and Lawson Day (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Weirich doesn’t like to define their music genre. “I think we like keeping it vague like that. Who wants to be just a punk band? I feel like we have a lot more musical influences to branch into, more things we want to do with the band. For now, it’s more about the ethos of punk than necessarily the direct sound.”
Araoz also makes the band shirts. “I thrift the material for the T-shirts,” she says. “And I carve out my rubber stamps myself. Me and a friend.
“Environmental science shapes how I move through the world in every aspect. I did find a wholesale T-shirt company that uses a closed loop system for fabrics. There’s no waste being produced from any part of the company. They make new T-shirts out of old fibers.
“I wanted to make sure I was producing a product that can be broken down and reused again, not end up in a landfill in Ghana.”
Macrophonics played their second Cooper-Young Porchfest this April with “a lot more confidence going into it,” Day says. “I had a whole year of experience kind of flowing through my body.”
And, Weirich says, “We actually got our first encore. When they asked us, all we had to add on was ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ by the Ramones. We played it double time. We played it faster than the Ramones played it.”
Macrophonics: Lawson Day, Margo Araoz, and Justin Weirich (Credit: Michael Donahue)
“Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world who watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today. But we know that truth and virtue will always prevail.”
That was Speaker of the House (and cosplaying Christian) Mike Johnson responding to the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony, which featured drag queens and maybe a naked Jesus? I dunno. To be outraged, you really had to be paying close attention, and I wasn’t. But Johnson wasn’t alone in his outrage. Here is a sampling of the reactions on X from folks proclaiming themselves Christians:
“A complete mockery of Christianity. This was by far the most satanic and disgusting ceremony I have ever seen. Do not defy Jesus Christ.”
“The radical left is a greater threat than Iran, China, or Russia will ever be to the United States.”
“A serious POTUS would send our athletes home.”
It went on for two or three days. Elon Musk (who is a Christian now?) unfollowed the Olympics account on X. That will show them.
But here’s my favorite reaction: “France literally gathered its planners and made a list of EVERYTHING that would get under the skin of conservatives and said, ‘Let’s open with ALL of it!’”
To be fair, this last guy was actually onto something. As someone who is married to a French woman and who has spent a lot of time with her family and friends, I can say, without fear of contradiction, that that is precisely how the French would have approached this project. They love pissing off the unsophisticated, tightly wound knobs of the world, i.e. MAGA-Americans.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the artistic director of the opening festivities, Thomas Jolly: “We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that,” he said. “In France, we have freedom of creation, artistic freedom. We are lucky in France to live in a free country. I didn’t have any specific messages that I wanted to deliver. In France, we are a republic; we have the right to love whom we want, we have the right not to be worshippers, we have a lot of rights in France, and this is what I wanted to convey.”
And it makes the joke even funnier when those who are outraged are, well, just ignorant fools. The opening ceremony had nothing to do with Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper but was intended to be a (very) loose recreation of The Feast of the Gods, a 17th-century painting by Dutch artist Jan Hermansz van Bijlert that hangs in the Magnin Museum, in Dijon, France. The painting depicts an assembly of Greek gods, including Dionysus, on Mount Olympus for a banquet to celebrate the marriage of Thetis and Peleus. So no Jesus, no blasphemy, unless you think dressing in drag is satanic, in which case, well, I can’t help you.
But let’s be clear: There is no war on Christianity. You’re not a victim. You are a member of the U.S.’s largest religious denomination, many times over. It’s also the largest denomination in France. You’re going to be fine. It’s all a matter of perspective: You’re outraged that children were involved in the opening ceremonies. The French, conversely, are outraged that guns are the number-one killer of children in America.
You’re appalled by a headless Marie Antoinette, Lady Gaga, and Celine Dion. The French (and a lot of Americans) were appalled by the appearances of Kid Rock, Amber Rose, Hulk Hogan, and other creeps at the GOP convention two weeks ago.
You’re upset because you refuse to believe that the French weren’t intentionally blaspheming Jesus Christ and the Last Supper. Yet I’m seeing no outrage from MAGA types over the countless images circulating of Donald Trump being held from behind by a loving blonde Jesus, or even the one that came from a campaign source via email yesterday, of Donald Trump literally hanging on the cross. His loin cloth is an American flag, and Melania is kneeling at his feet. It’s worth a google to see it, if only just to show that blasphemy, like art, is in the eye of the beholder.
While one might argue that a story on the musical auteurs of Memphis who happen to be women should run during Women’s History Month, we at the Memphis Flyer have come to realize that such extraordinary artists know no season, no time or age. Despite the music industry still being dominated by men, and Tennessee typically ranking low as a champion of progressive causes, the women of Memphis are clearly bringing it 24/7 — against all odds. We can boast high achievers in only their second decade of life (teen Zariya Scullark, guitarist for Above Jupiter) and in their eighth (Joyce Cobb, a force of nature in jazz and soul). This city spawned one of the world’s earliest punk “girl groups” — the KLiTZ, dating back to 1978 and celebrated in Rolling Stone at the time — and they in turn inspired others in their wake, from the Marilyns to the Hellcats. Indeed, all of them are still active today, from ongoing shows by the KLiTZ Sisters, to WYXR’s celebration of the Hellcats’ debut album in April, featuring all of the original band members, to the Marilyns’ record release show last month.
The ladies have been tearing it up in the hip-hop world for a long time as well, starting some 30 years ago with rap pioneer Lola Mitchell, aka Gangsta Boo, sadly departed last year. The reigning queen of all that is of course GloRilla, who, since her 2022 breakout hit “F.N.F. (Let’s Go),” has rolled from success to success, including her double-platinum hit remixes “Tomorrow 2” and this year’s “Wanna Be,” both featuring Cardi B, the latter also featuring Megan Thee Stallion and reaching the top 15 of Billboard’s Hot 100.
GloRilla (Photo: Adam Rindy)
GloRilla’s ascendance to the top of the heap was cemented when she opened for Megan Thee Stallion on her sold-out Hot Girl Summer Tour this year, including a triumphant hometown appearance at the FedExForum in May. This year, GloRilla has had no less than three singles in the Billboard Hot 100, with her album Ehhthang Ehhthang also spawning the top 30 Billboard Hot 100 song “Yeah Glo!” and her Rihanna-cosigned hit “TGIF.” And only last week she released her new video, “All Dere,” featuring her CMG labelmate MoneyBagg Yo, wherein Glo enlists MoneyBagg to be her gym partner. What’s more, GloRilla achieves all this as she projects a powerful sexuality, describing her music as “crunk and dominant.”
But we shouldn’t let Glo’s red-hot trajectory distract us from the legions of women working at a less spectacular level, while still achieving artistic success. Slimeroni, now based in Atlanta, is steadily building her own catalog on her own terms and boasts nearly 160,000 followers on Instagram. Alicja Trout, fronting Sweet Knives, and Amy LaVere, performing with partner Will Sexton, both recently completed summer tours. The latest episode of Beale Street Caravan featured Memphis’ own Alexis Grace, and the show has featured strong women from Marcella Simien to Elizabeth King. Cyrena Wages, who will headline at the Overton Park Shell on September 7th, just played the Troubadour in Los Angeles in June. And veterans like Susan Marshall or Reba Russell both fill rooms and work behind the scenes. Russell and engineer/producer Dawn Hopkins call their celebrated production team the “Blue Eyed Bitches.”
As our writers surveyed the landscape of Memphis women in music, we were overwhelmed by such success stories, collectively rattling off a list of more than 50 female or gender-fluid musical auteurs, all of whom confront the wall of male privilege on a daily basis as they ply their trade. Some women have seen those obstacles and taken action as organizers. Native Memphian Ebonie Smith, pursuing a career in recording engineering at Atlantic Records before making her name as an independent producer, founded Gender Amplified, “a movement empowering women and gender-expansive music producers,” when she was still a senior in college in 2007. Though she’s immersed in production projects, she calls the nonprofit her “passion work” and has seen it grow steadily.
“Warner Music Group gave us a pretty sizable grant a couple years ago,” she told the Flyer last year, “so we’ve been hiring staff and doing our music production camps in New York. We also did an event in Memphis with 4U Recording, for Women’s Equality Day in August of ’21, and that was a fabulous experience; we want to do more with them. It’s just a matter of setting it into motion.”
And two years ago, a recent Memphis transplant who goes by Miz Stefani launched the recurring Women in Memphis Music (WiMM) showcase series at B-Side bar (the next will be on August 28th), not to mention the online Radio Memphis show, That Time of the Month. When she worked alongside WEVL DJ Liz Lane and Fa Bahloul to found the inaugural Women in Memphis Music Festival at the Hi Tone last year, it gathered steam as a full blown movement. And a wide-ranging one. Scanning the artists featured on WiMM’s Instagram page (@womeninmemphismusic), one is struck by the sheer volume and eclecticism of female and female-identifying artists in this city.
Underscoring this point, Miz Stefani points to one of her favorite quotes from a man who attended last year’s WiMM Fest extravaganza. “On his Facebook page he said that if, by some freak accident, all the male musicians were somehow eradicated from Memphis, he had no doubt that Memphis music would prevail with just the females that were left in the city.”
Furthermore, having worked for EMI and Blue Note Records in New York, Stefani has witnessed music scenes elsewhere, yet she’s struck by the sheer eclecticism of women’s music here. “I think there’s not a music genre that we have not covered in Memphis,” she says. “Whereas in other places, I can’t find such a wide variety of women performers.
“I mean, girls are everywhere here. They’re in reggae, Americana, jazz, hardcore, punk, rock, and hip-hop. And there are some doing genres that I don’t even have names for. Suroor Hassan is one of the artists that we’ve had on [the WiMM showcase] and she does this kind of hypo-industrial music. I wouldn’t exactly know how to put a one-word genre description on it. We’re all over the map, and it’s unbelievable. We can’t be pigeonholed.”
With that in mind, here is a small sample of the startling variety of women artists who’ve emerged from the Bluff City. While they’ve not all blown up like Julien Baker or GloRilla, they are their equals in terms of their artistry, vision, and sheer determination to thrive in male-dominated world: a veritable sisterhood of sound.
— Alex Greene
Brezay (Photo: Andrew Perfect Productions)
Brezay
In an era of fleeting fame caused by TikTok snippets and audio remixes, Breanna Mitchell knows she wants her career to have longevity. Our interview in itself is an extension of her legacy, as we initially chatted about her streetwear brand, Brezerk, marked by its one-of-a-kind statement pieces enhanced by Memphis flair and her uniquely archetypal vision.
Now, months later, Mitchell is focused on promoting her new self-titled EP, Brezay, and meeting different artists such as SWV, Xscape, and more. This release is a notable one for Mitchell as she bares all as a rapper, allowing her to further display her versatility as an artist.
“It basically showed a different side of me,” Mitchell says. “This was a very creative, hip-hop, commercial EP, and it’s a mix of everything. It’s about me being myself and not really focusing on the distractions and what people say because I went through that a lot — figuring out my sound and where I wanted my career to be and stuff.”
Music has played a major role in Mitchell’s life since she was in high school. She and her producer Jeffrey Williams, aka Jkidd, began pursuing their artistry together as classmates, despite fellow students who made fun of them and the music they were making. Mitchell admits their music wasn’t “good at all” then, but that was just her starting point. Rather than let the negativity define her, Mitchell sought to improve her musicality and the staying power of her work.
While she’s a jack of all trades, rapping was still fairly new to Mitchell before this EP. She admits that the creative process was nerve-wracking. She workshopped ideas with rapper Fresco Trey on a beat produced by Jkidd, also Mitchell’s manager and CEO of Grind City Records. Fresco Trey originally rapped on the beat, and tapped Brezay to hop on the track with them.
“I was like, ‘I ain’t ever rapped before; what you mean you gonna put me on the song?’” Mitchell says. “The next day I got home and I just started writing to it — and it came out quick, too.”
The end product, “Pull Up,” marked a major turning point for Mitchell, as she realized she could hear herself on any type of project. That had always been a goal of hers, but it was at this moment that she was able to pinpoint her growth.
Part of that growth involved invoking intentionality in her work, making sure that her music wasn’t fleeting or an attempt to hop on a viral trend, only to vanish. “Music is deeper than just going in the studio and hoping it goes viral,” Mitchell explains. “You have to put a lot of effort behind it and my pop music definitely involves that.” Mitchell says she wouldn’t describe her pop music as complex, but she says there’s a lot that goes into creating her sound, including input from producers, writers, and musicians.
As we talk about her trajectory and her aesthetic profile, she describes herself as a pop star. It’s a refreshing moniker, reflecting her quest to have a career that transcends not only time but genre. She’s reminded of the influence that artists like Michael Jackson and Ciara still have on her life, as their work, whether upbeat or somber, has had the power to initiate conversations and discourse, regardless of the era.
As a Black female artist in Memphis, she calls her journey navigating Memphis’ sound and audiences “interesting.” There’s what the industry and city audiences want, but there’s also what Brezay wants.
“It’s tough when you have to get people to recognize you because they’re used to a certain thing, so it takes a little processing and dedication, but it’s definitely teaching me a lot,” Mitchell says.
— Kailynn Johnson
Follow Brezay on Instagram @ brezay__.
Haley Ivey (Photo: James Strickland)
Haley Ivey
If you’ve spent any time in Midtown’s music venues the last couple of years, odds are you’ve seen Haley Ivey, either in her punk incarnation, Little Baby Tendencies, or sitting in with other bands on flute, or maybe even dancing in a burlesque or flow arts show. Being a woman in the notoriously bro-y punk world “is something that I think about a lot, but it’s also something I don’t think about at all,” she says. “I’ve always been very strongly sensitive to covert sexism. I’m very hard-pressed about pushing my way into male-dominated spaces, because why the fuck not? When I was in high school, there was a guitar club that started, and it was all boys. I asked if I could join the club, and the teacher just kind of laughed me out of it. Being that young, I was just like, ‘Oh, I guess you’re right. I guess it’s silly that I would want to play guitar.’”
The Mississippi native has a degree in music but dropped out of graduate school for flute performance to pursue her own muse. “When I started the punk project, I saw some local women doing it — not necessarily playing the guitar, but fronting bands. It was never about me being like, ‘I’m a woman and I’m doing this.’ It was just like, ‘This is what I wanna do.’ When I first started, I kind of picked up on ambivalence and judgment from men in the scene, just kind of assuming I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I came across a lot of mansplaining. There was some verbal violence in the beginning. But I will say at this point, having been a couple of years into it, I feel very welcomed and respected. I think a lot of men in the scene are very chill and nice and have opened their eyes.”
One set is all it takes to prove any sexist doubters wrong. Little Baby Tendencies’ jackhammer riffs, punishing speed runs, and full-throttle vocals are inspired by classic punk rock she first encountered on Spotify. “System of a Down was my first love because of their amazing riffs. But also, when I was a kid, it was my first introduction to people talking about that kind of stuff. But also, I pull being kind of being ridiculous from them. I love that aspect about them, too. Dead Kennedys are really fun because it’s kind of the same deal. Great risk, speaking on issues, and also being ridiculous … The way they express their feelings through words, it’s not necessarily poetic, except in its own way. The music is like short, clipped bursts of emotion. And the political stuff — it was refreshing to hear people just say what they wanted to say, pretty much in any way they wanted to say it. And the riffs. Hella riffs. Love me some riffs.”
There are a few different versions of the story behind the name, Little Baby Tendencies. The most common one she shares is, “I lived with a cat named Little Baby, who was kind of an insane cat. … At this point, the name to me is just like the tendencies of being a little baby and being a human. The songs mostly center around environmental and political issues — I would say human rights issues over political issues — and mental health. I guess it is like an idealistic little baby because really what I’m saying behind the microphone is, ‘What the heck, guys? Why aren’t we prioritizing the health and wellbeing of human rights?’ It’s more like, ‘What the fuck?’”
LBT’s first album Bad Things keeps it short, sharp, and shocking. None of the nine songs reach the three-minute mark, but they are all crammed to the brim with inventive riffs and drummer Tyler Harrington’s hairpin turns. Above it all are Ivey’s confrontational lyrics, delivered in mocking snarls and vocal cord-rending screams. And there’s more where that came from. “We just recorded our second record, and it’s supposed to come out this year,” says Ivey. “I’m not trying to make it a statement piece for myself, but there’s just a lot of really messed up stuff going on. … Being absolutely yourself is an act of resistance. My whole life I’ve been asked why I do this or had people telling me not to do this. And it just makes me want to do the thing even more.” — Chris McCoy
Follow Little Baby Tendencies on Instagram @littlebabytendencies.
Suroor Hassan (Photo: Cameron Mitchell)
Suroor Hassan
When she moved to Memphis three years ago, Suroor Hassan didn’t know she’d find herself at home in the music scene here. At the time, she had just begun her Ph.D. program in philosophy at the University of Memphis, and she was just starting to rediscover her passion for music.
Growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, Hassan says she had limited access to the internet and cable, so her exposure to music was mostly through her mom. “She wasn’t like a musician or anything,” she says, “but she was just really into music. She had this huge cassette selection. She really liked pop music, but she also listened to a bit of everything. We would listen to American music but also Pakistani music on the same drive to school. We would listen to Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Linkin Park, Michael Jackson, but then we would also listen to Nazia Hassan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, all these Pakistani artists.”
Inspired by these musicians, the young Hassan would write songs, but by her teenage years, her interest waned. “I felt bored with being a singer-songwriter,” she says. “That wasn’t my vibe.”
Then she moved to Iowa to study at Grinnell College. “It’s kind of the middle of nowhere,” she laughs, but that’s where she discovered electronic music. “It opened a whole new world. I went down a rabbit hole of like, ‘Oh my God, these are such cool sounds that I can actually create.’”
Electronic music was what she’d been waiting for, something to scratch that creative itch. “I just didn’t have the resources before,” Hassan says. “There’s so much freedom [to it]. It’s like you’re literally giving birth to sounds. You’re starting with the waves and you’re manipulating the waves, and from there you can do whatever the fuck you want with it [to] mold it into songs. … That’s kind of like how my brain works creatively.”
Without any formal music training, Hassan went on to release her first album Lavender Showers in June 2023. Listeners can note 2000s pop influences at some points in Hassan’s music, and Pakistani at others. “Some of my songs are in Urdu; that’s my native language,” she says. “One thing Pakistan does really well and really uniquely is percussion. We have these special percussive instruments like tabla and khol that make really cool sounds. And compositionally, [Pakistani artists] tend to write really cool rhythms that make you want to move your body in very strange ways. When you blend in those percussive sounds with electronic music, you end up with a very crazy musical experience that you’ve never experienced before.”
With this in mind, classifying Hassan’s music into a genre isn’t an easy task. “When people ask me what genre my music is, I’m just like, ‘I don’t know.’ There’s just so much baked into it,” she says. “I think ‘industrial hyperpop’ is a good distillation. It’s like pop music, but more experimental and distorted and maximalist, but I also like to add a lot of harsher, more industrial elements to it.”
Her collaborator and friend W1NDOW, self-described as a hyperemo artist, also understands the issue of genre. Together, they run the DIY music label/artist co-op Purgatory Pressings. “We’re really trying to bridge the music scene in Memphis in terms of all the different subgenres that there are here,” Hassan says. “Both of us have noticed that it’s very siloed. The hard-core scene sticks to itself. The rap scene sticks to itself. The singer-songwriter scene sticks to itself. They’re all really good, and our vision is to make all these different blooming subfields interact, and that way Memphis as a whole is really going to bloom as a music scene when we get all the cool stuff done and interact with each other.”
So far Purgatory Pressings has put on several mixed-bill shows at venues like the Lamplighter and Hi Tone, and they’ve taken over putting on Trans Nights at the Lamplighter at least twice a year. This June, Purgatory Pressings also hosted their first Purg Fest with 15 artists on the lineup. “We had never seen anything like that before in Memphis or anywhere, really, where you have so many different artists from so many different genres,” Hassan says. “We are planning on making it an annual thing.”
In the meantime, Hassan has plans to make more music after a busy year of performing and touring. “My first performance was last year,” she says, “and after doing more and more shows, I’ve gotten more comfortable. Now I always want to be performing. When I get on stage, there’s a part in my brain that clicks on … but it’s been really good to be back home and be in the studio and exploring sounds and music. I’m very excited for what’s to come.”
— Abigail Morici
Suroor Hassan will perform at Hi Tone on August 2nd at 6:30 p.m. Follow her on Instagram @suroor.901.
To see more of photographer James Strickland’s work, follow him on Instagram @strickland.photo .
“Little of artistic merit was made south of Baltimore,” a curator for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art once wrote in 1949. Despite that quote being from over a half-century ago, and despite the growth of scholarship on Southern art, more art museums in the South, and more exhibitions and publications on Southern artists, this sentiment carries weight — a certain lack of appreciation for Southern arts is evident in the narrative of American art history. But the Dixon Gallery & Gardens’ latest exhibition “Southern/Modern: 1913-1955” seeks to counteract that.
As Julie Pierotti, the Dixon’s Martha R. Robinson curator, says, “This exhibition and the publication that goes along with it are making a really big statement. They are refuting the last 100 years of American art history that has largely helped the mindset that nothing worth looking at has been made in the South, and this exhibition says, actually, yes, there are some really consequential artists that either came from here or came through the South or looked to the South for their subject matter and for their inspiration.”
Organized by The Mint Museum, in Charlotte, North Carolina, the exhibit was 10 years in the making, Pierotti says. “It was narrowed down to 105 objects, but an important thing to know is that there are many Souths and there are many modernisms, from the Atlantic coast to states bordering the Mississippi River, as far west as Arkansas and Louisiana.”
For the show, the pieces are arranged into themes, from art reflecting religion and rituals, to pieces observing Southern landscapes, to works responding to current events and social issues. The exhibit doesn’t shy away from South’s dark side of racism and violence, Pierotti says, but it also includes moments of celebration and community.
“It’s a little bit of everything in the show,” she adds. “There’s a lot to take in. It’s a big story. There’s a lot to learn in the exhibition.”
The show even includes a few local names like Carroll Cloar, Burton Callicott, and Ted Faiers. “So our own history in the Mid-South plays into the larger story of the exhibition, which is really great,” Pierotti says.
That story continues into the present with the Dixon’s complementary exhibit “2023 Wilson Fellowship,” which features work produced out of a partnership between the Arkansas town of Wilson and the Dixon. Wilson, Pierotti explains, has been looking to enhance its arts scene, and so the collaboration brought about a fellowship, through which artists stay in Wilson for 60 days and take inspiration from the town for their art.
The first cohort — Danny Broadway, Claire Hardy, Thad Lee, and John Ruskey — have the fruits of their fellowship on display now at the Dixon. “The works of art that came out of it are just awesome,” Pierotti says. “They really capture the soul of Wilson.”
“Southern/Modern: 1913-1955” and “2023 Wilson Fellowship: Danny Broadway, Claire Hardy, Thad Lee, and John Ruskey,” Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 4339 Park Avenue, On display through September 29.
Elon Musk. Photo by Trevor Cokley / Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Memphis environmental groups urged officials to deny an electricity deal for xAI, demanded a public review of the project, and said Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) ratepayers could subsidize some large portions of the infrastructure deal.
Details on the deal that brought the Elon-Musk-founded company to locate its artificial intelligence hub — called the Gigafactory of Compute — to Memphis remain few, even almost two months after its announcement.
A Tuesday letter from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) outlined those knowledge gaps, showed confusion and ignorance on the deal by local leaders, said the facility would cause environmental harm to those in South Memphis, and that MLGW CEO Doug McGowen may have overstepped the boundaries of his position in approving the deal.
The letter was written and sent by the SELC on behalf of the Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP), Young, Gifted & Green, Sierra Club Tennessee Chapter, and the Sierra Club Chickasaw Group. SELC said, “many of these members will be directly affected by xAI’s operation and its harmful local consequences.”
The letter was sent to the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). SELC said MLGW is requesting TVA to provide xAI 150 megawatts of power. In the letter, SELC argues TVA’s Memphis system is not reliable enough to handle that much new consumption. Also, it said, a deal for the much energy needs more local approvals.
The 150 megawatt demand is enough to power 100,000 homes.
Southern Environmental Law Center
“The xAI facility is demanding a jaw-dropping 150 MW of firm power by the end of 2024,” reads the letter. “To put that demand in perspective, 150 MW is enough electricity to power 100,000 homes. The xAI facility would become MLGW’s largest electricity customer, siphoning five percent of MLGW’s total daily load to power its operations.”
On reliability, the group said that TVA admitted in October that it did not have enough generating and transmission power in the area even before xAI cam knocking. Back then, TVA proposed a new natural-gas-powered generation project here. The project was necessary to “improve the stability of its transmission system in the western portion of Tennessee. In this area, additional resources are needed to ensure that adequate transmission voltages are maintained within the desired limits,” SELC said, citing TVA’s report.
“Overcommitting to industrial load, as MLGW and xAI have requested, could have serious and even life-threatening consequences for residential customers in Memphis.
Southern Environmental Law Center
“In other words, TVA had already identified a reliability concern in the Memphis-area grid, even before factoring in xAI’s load,” SELC said. “Overcommitting to industrial load, as MLGW and xAI have requested, could have serious and even life-threatening consequences for residential customers in Memphis, contrary to the purpose of the TVA Act and the board policy. When TVA cannot meet peak demand, families go without power during increasingly severe hot and cold weather.”
Further, TVA’s gas-powered plants here are cooled with water from the Memphis Sand Aquifer. Higher strains on those plants — like during winter-weather events here in 2022 and 2021 — caused a serious draw on the aquifer and threaten well fields ”that provide drinking water for predominantly Black, low-income South Memphis communities.”
For these reasons and more, the group urged TVA board members to study the impacts of xAI’s supercomputer before agreeing to serve the facility. That study should include impacts to air pollution, climate change, water quality, water quantity and access, environmental justice, and transportation, SELC said.
“It cannot reasonably be disputed that xAI will require TVA to generate additional electricity and add capacity to the system,” the letter said. “TVA must disclose how it proposes to provide power to xAI, analyze alternatives, and study of the same categories of impacts identified in [the proposal for the new gas plant here] before committing to provide power to xAI.”
SELC also argues that the request to serve xAI is premature “because MLGW has not obtained approval from the MLGW Board or [the Memphis City Council] to spend millions of dollars of ratepayer money to subsidize xAI.” MLGW leaders told council members earlier this month that it would pay for $760,000 worth of substation upgrades for the project. Also, the utility will provide xAI a “marginal allowance” to recoup some of the $24 million it will spent o build a new, $24 million substation, meaning a big break on the company’s power bill.
”Thus, according to MLGW’s presentation [to the council], it seems that over the next few years, ordinary MLGW ratepayers will be subsidizing millions of dollars in infrastructure investments required to serve xAI, both directly and through bill credits to xAI,” the letter said.
Despite this “apparent massive commitment of ratepayer funds to subsidize xAI’s infrastructure needs,” neither the council nor the MLGW board was aware of the xAI project until it was announced on June 5,” SELC said.
Further, the group said MLGW board members weren’t even aware of MLGW’s request to serve xAI with more power from the TVA as late as two weeks ago. For proof, SELC cited an MLGW board meeting on July 17 in which MLGW board member Mitch Graves said, “On the xAI stuff…I wasn’t aware…that TVA’s got to approve something… hadn’t heard that anywhere…what is that they need to approve?”
“On the xAI stuff…I wasn’t aware…that TVA’s got to approve something… hadn’t heard that anywhere…what is that they need to approve?”
SELC citing MLGW board member Mitch Graves
SELC said McGowen negotiated this deal with xAI without oversight from his board or the city council. Doing so, the group said, is a violation of the charters of the council and the board.
”Proper review by the MLGW board and city council is essential because MLGW faces significant operational constraints that directly affect the Memphis coalition’s members’ access to electricity,” the letter said. ”MLGW must give the MLGW board and city council their charter-given right to evaluate whether it is in the best interest of MLGW ratepayers to subsidize millions of dollars of infrastructure investment in xAI over the next two years, while at the same time struggling to keep the lights on and provide accurate billing statements to residential customers.
”The TVA board should not consider the pending request until MLGW obtains required local approvals.”
