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Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

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Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#51

Post by dustingetz »

zusammen wrote: post #23
weinzierl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secret money is the best, but hard and rare. Celebrity without money the worst and I fully agree with you that I'd prefer to have neither.

Secret money is hard at a certain scale. Money is property rights and people have to believe your rights exist for them to actually exist. Elon Musk is not physically strong but simply the beneficiary of forces that have convinced the world’s mindless executors of one arbitrary thing in his favor, but could have just as easily convinced them of any arbitrary thing out of his favor. It’s better to have $5 million than…

paragraph 2: please be concrete, this claim is interesting but completely unsubstantiated as currently stated

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#52

Post by DevX101 »

weinzierl wrote: post #8
portaouflop wrote: post #3

Celebrity and money are like a reality distortion field. I hope I never acquire either in large quantities - it does not seem like a desirable thing

Secret money is the best, but hard and rare. Celebrity without money the worst and I fully agree with you that I'd prefer to have neither.

Wealthy people are fairly anonymous to most people unless they actually got their wealth via fame (influencers, actors, entertainment talent). Without looking it up, do you have any idea who the CEO of Coca Cola is? Would you be able to spot him/her (I dont' know either) on the street? Now imagine the armies of $XM annual comp high earners in finance and they're even more anonymous.

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#53

Post by world2vec »

brookst wrote: post #49
world2vec wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you happen to acquire large quantities of money please let me know, I can take that burden off you. ;-)

No, no, it is much too burdensome. Let me take this burden that it does not crush you, brother world2vec.

No, no, no brother brookst - I insist, you don't need to suffer.

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#54

Post by perihelions »

vintagedave wrote: post #6

I'm a little confused about what he actually did. The article mostly speaks about making connections and introducing people to each other. But: > The concierge then hands him an envelope with orders to circle the block twice before receiving further instructions. What was in that envelope?

"Rapper, Businessman Found Guilty in Back-Channel Lobbying Campaign to Drop 1MDB Investigation and Remove Chinese National from United States, and Conspiring to Make and Conceal Foreign Contributions During 2012 U.S. Presidential Election"

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-entertainer-convicted-enga...

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#55

Post by giraffe_lady »

toyg wrote: post #32
ta20240528 wrote: post #30

I read that his band mate - a Ms Lauren Hill - was also sent up state for tax evasion. Classy bunch.

Lauryn Hill is a fantastic talent. Like many other fantastic talents before and after her, at some point she lost humility and her mental state degraded.

All three of them are legends. The Score remains one of the greatest and most influential contributions to contemporary music. The mastery of technique they demonstrate on that album is just about absolute.

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#56

Post by derbOac »

svantana wrote: post #21
portaouflop wrote: post #3

Celebrity and money are like a reality distortion field. I hope I never acquire either in large quantities - it does not seem like a desirable thing

Presumably the guy is distinctively not rich, or he wouldn't have gotten involved in such risky business to make money. Most of the hit songs he's been involved with are based one or more older songs, so he may not make much from royalties.

What I got from the article is that there's levels of rich, and always someone richer. Also, that a lot of stuff he felt in hindsight he should have paid attention to he dismissed as normal at the time because weird is normal in those circles, and stuff gets weirder as you get into richer circles, at least certain types of them. In other words, he didn't see it as risky business because risky means weird, and it's always weird business.

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#57

Post by neom »

"If there was one red flag that something was off that night, Michél says it was the elevator. As a celebrity who has performed before crowds of 100,000, Michél was familiar with being whisked in and out of hotels by security. This was … different.

“I’m going to tell you what was weird to me: the fact that the Four Seasons has a private elevator. I never knew that. They have a private elevator for just certain people,” he says. “But my life leading up to that point felt surreal, so part of that night felt natural.”"

Reminds me FDR and the Waldorf-Astoria: https://www.6sqft.com/theres-a-secret-train-track-hidden-in-...

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#58

Post by perihelions »

MrMcCall wrote: post #37
tw04 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He took money from a foreigner to donate to political campaigns and tried to influence politicians at the behest of China, without registering as a foreign agent.

He also refused to take a plea agreement that would've spared him most of this (IIUC). They don't like it when a person doesn't "play ball". And it certainly doesn't help that he's Black.

It also doesn't help that he was a Chinese spy. Or that he assisted the CPC trying to repatriate a Chinese defector to China to be executed.

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#59

Post by JKCalhoun »

vintagedave wrote: post #6

I'm a little confused about what he actually did. The article mostly speaks about making connections and introducing people to each other. But: > The concierge then hands him an envelope with orders to circle the block twice before receiving further instructions. What was in that envelope?

> I'm a little confused about what he actually did.

Launder money? That he deflects when the topic of money comes up is telling enough.

Re: Fugees Founder Pras Michél Speaks Out: 'I Never Wanted to Be a Spy'

#60

Post by UltraSane »

svantana wrote: post #21
portaouflop wrote: post #3

Celebrity and money are like a reality distortion field. I hope I never acquire either in large quantities - it does not seem like a desirable thing

Presumably the guy is distinctively not rich, or he wouldn't have gotten involved in such risky business to make money. Most of the hit songs he's been involved with are based one or more older songs, so he may not make much from royalties.

He was a member of the band The Fugees. Their album The Score sold 22,000,000 copies.
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