Author: The Argonaut

Annenberg Space for Photography celebrates the image makers who redefined pop culture By Max Bell Hip-hop music was initially derided as a fad, a passing novelty somehow artistically unequal to rock or pop. Today, hip-hop is pop music and a driving force of pop culture. Rappers headline music festivals and receive extensive coverage from national news outlets. Rap songs perennially top music sales charts. Contemporary fashion, slang, art — hip-hop influences all of it. In recent years, hip-hop’s continued popularity has inspired countless documentaries, biographical films and books concerning the genre’s pivotal music and artists. These endeavors are vital...

Downtown Santa Monica to get hundreds of tiny apartments offered at market rate By Gary Walker Angelenos tend to associate single-room occupancy units, commonly called SROs, with Skid Row flophouses serving indigent or low-income individuals who share kitchen and bathroom space — a type of affordable housing that had all but faded into a relic of 20th-century urban planning. A new-millennium reboot of the concept featuring tiny apartments with modern amenities in brand-new buildings could soon reshape the residential landscape of downtown Santa Monica. Under terms of an agreement between Santa Monica city leaders and prominent developer WS Communities,...

Mass shooting victim’s father takes to the stage to carry his son’s legacy forward By Christina Campodonico On Feb. 14, 2018, artist Manny Oliver dropped off his son Joaquin at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with a bundle of brilliant yellow sunflower poseys that the 17-year-old wanted to give his girlfriend for Valentine’s Day. He asked Joaquin — affectionately nicknamed “Guac” — to call once he’d delivered the bouquet, but never received that call. Hours later Oliver learned that Guac had been caught in the crosshairs of a former classmate’s violent attack on the school with an AR-15 assault...