Page 26 - Florida Sentinel 4-19-19

Entertainment
Nipsey Hussle Honored With B-Ball Court Mural In South Los Angeles
Nipsey Hussle's love for his community was always ev- ident, and in his passing, his neighborhood has stepped up and reciprocated the love to the rapper. Not only was the entrepreneur business savvy and a STEM advocate, but he also had an appreciation for basketball and that's high-
NIPSEY HUSSLE COURT
lighted in the newest homage dedicated to the rapper.
There's a new basketball court coming to the corner of Crenshaw and 60th street and its creation is to pay respect to the slain rapper," NBC News reports. The new Nipsey Hussle Memorial Basketball Court was an idea formulated
and carried out by Nick Ansom, CEO of the Venice Basketball League. Ansom, a native of France who now re- sides in Southern California, collaborated with muralist Gustavo Zermeño to paint an image of Nipsey on the court.
Although the Victory Lap
artist's music is what first at- tracted Zermeño to him, it was Hussle's efforts in help- ing out the community that hooked him. So when Ansom called on Zermeño to help with the project, the artist had more than enough to offer in remembering the 33-year-old figure.
Meet Marsai Martin, The Youngest Executive Producer In Hollywood
The youngest executive pro- ducer working in Hollywood makes her big-screen debut.
Little is a comedy where a big and powerful tech executive wakes up as a little kid. In the end credits, the movie screen reads: "Introducing Marsai Martin."
Marsai may be new to the big screen, but she needs no in- troduction to fans of the ABC sitcom Black-ish, in which she's starred since 2014. In fact, she's been acting for almost a decade. She's now 14 years old — "al-
Marsai Martin stars as little Jordan Sanders in Little, a wrong-body comedy inspired by the 1988 Tom Hanks film Big.
most 15," she says.
Martin says the family was
minding its business at a mall near their home in Texas when
a woman handed them a coupon for glamour shots. Marsai was 5 at the time, and they signed her up to get her portrait taken.
The photographer was so impressed with the way she took direction that he offered a bigger discount — if her dad promised to show the photos to a few tal- ent agencies. Her parents kept that promise, and submitted the photos to four.
"Three of the four agencies said: 'We already have a girl who looks like that,'" says Marsai's mother, Carol Martin. "Basi-
cally, 'We already have our little black girl. We don't need two lit- tle black girls — we have our one.'"
But at agency number four, Marsai landed an interview.
"She had all the agents in a conga line around the room and they're like: 'We want to sign her!'" Carol Martin says. Marsai Martin is best known for her work on Black-ish, which is about an upper-middle-class black family living in a mostly white neighborhood. It's loosely based on the life of show creator Kenya Barris.
"From the moment we met her, it was this pint-sized little ball of talent with these amazing
glasses," Barris says.
He cast Marsai as one of
the fraternal twins on the show, Diane. Diane is wise beyond her years and can intimidate most adults with a withering glance over her trademark glasses.
Barris says Marsai made that character her own by the second episode – with very little formal acting training. He calls her an old soul.
Her most recent character is Jordan from the comedy Lit- tle — a tech mogul who magi- cally reverts back to her nerdy 13-year-old self. Marsai doesn't just play the lead; she pitched the idea.
Kodak Black Has Been Arrested At U. S. Border On Gun And Drug Charges
TMZ reported early Thursday that Kodak was still in custody after a canceled Boston show, claiming he was arrested on weed and gun-related charges. Kodak and several other people were re- portedly stopped by Customs Agents Wednesday, at which point Kodak is said to have been taken in on criminal possession of a weapon and misdemeanor pos- session of marijuana charges. He was entering the country from
KODAK BLACK
Canada at the time.
Wednesday night, Kodak's
show was reported as having been canceled for unknown reasons. At the time, it was said that even some members of Kodak's team were not aware of why the show had been called off. Additionally, they were reportedly not immedi- ately aware of Kodak's situation ahead of his scheduled House of Blues set.
In a quick update to Thursday's report, TMZ said that Kodak and two other people were entering at the Lewiston-Queenston Interna- tional Bridge in a Cadillac Es- calade at the time of the incident. Kodak is alleged to have been driving. A Glock 9mm was re- portedly discovered inside the ve- hicle, though it was not claimed by anyone on the scene. A sepa- rate car, described in the report as a Porsche, held three other people and was also stopped. The driver of the Porsche is alleged to have admitted to carrying a pair of loaded handguns, with a third gun (as well as marijuana) ulti- mately discovered in the car's trunk.
Kodak is currently in the mid- dle of his Dying to Live Tour, which is next scheduled to hit Mashantucket, Connecticut Thursday night. At the time of this writing, it was unclear if ad- ditional dates would be affected by the reported arrest.
PAGE 16-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2019