Archive May 17, 2025

Just days after four former housekeepers claimed the soul singer repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted them, motown legend Smokey Robinson was sued by law enforcement in Los Angeles on Thursday, the Los Angeles-based band’s attorney said.

According to a statement sent to AFP, “The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau is actively looking into criminal allegations involving William Robinson, aka “Smokey Robinson.”

There is no further comment because the investigation is still in its early stages.

A multimillion dollar lawsuit was filed in a Los Angeles court alleging the 85-year-old had repeatedly forced himself on female employees while his wife was away from home.

The sheriff’s department declined to provide more information about the nature of the investigation, but plaintiffs’ attorneys told AFP that their clients were cooperating with it.

In a joint statement to AFP, Herbert Hayden and John Harris both stated, “We are pleased to learn that the LA County Sheriff’s Department has opened a criminal investigation into our clients’ claims of sexual assault against Smokey Robinson.”

“Our clients intend to fully cooperate with LASD’s ongoing investigation in order to bring about justice for himself and others who may have experienced similar assaults from him.”

One plaintiff alleges that the “Tracks of My Tears” singer would call her to his Los Angeles bedroom and greet her there with only his underwear.

Despite her protestations, he would sexually assault her afterward, according to the lawsuit, which claimed there had been seven such attacks between March 2023 and February 2024.

One former housekeeper alleges that Robinson sexually harassed, assaulted, and raped her throughout her 12-year employment until 2024, while another claims that she was more than 20 times over the course of a four-year period.

The singer claims that the fourth woman was assaulted when she and him took her to his Las Vegas residence in 2007.

The suit does not name any of the women, which is common in sexual assault claims.

The women were afraid of assaults on Robinson’s character, according to the lawsuit, which seeks at least $50 million in damages.

One of the founding members of The Miracles, a Detroit-based band that formed in the 1950s, was Robinson.

After discovering 19 antiquated rattles, some of which date back at least 4,500 years, a Danish researcher told AFP on Friday that toy makers have existed for far longer than most people realize.

Mette Marie Hald, co-author of the study detailing the discovery, revealed her findings to AFP from the scientific journal “Childhood in the Past.”

Based on the low noise level of the rattles and the relatively small size of their handles, “we argue that the rattles served as toys to amuse and calm infants, rather than as musical instruments,” according to the paper’s summary.

Hald even suggested museum curators check their collections to see if items that were once considered religious artifacts turned out to be toys.

You could simply give your child a wooden spoon or stone, she said.

Parents had the option of spoiling their young children with more expensive options, even then.

Parents would go to the market and purchase professional-made toys, she explained, “4, 500 years ago.”

The National Museum of Denmark’s collections contain pieces of 19 clay rattles made in Hama, Syria, dating back to the Bronze Age.

The quality of the rattles, in Hald’s opinion, prevents the parents from making them.

She hopes that the discovery will encourage professionals to examine clay fragments more carefully because some light figurines end up being toys.

Although there are many varieties and they appear very funny, the researcher inquired as to whether these can be children’s toys because they are frequently regarded as religious figurines placed in temples.

These toys are difficult to identify because the majority of these finds are found as shattered fragments.

It has taken nearly 80 years, but a Nigerian movie will finally be screened in a hallowed official slot at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.

After decades of being written off for its cheap and cheerful crowd-pleasers, Nollywood — the frenetic film industry based in Lagos, which churns out up to five films a day — is basking in the reflected glory.

A report said Nigerian producers admit that they are still struggling to reach audiences outside Africa beyond the diaspora, despite making way more films every year than Hollywood.

Nigerians have long lapped up Nollywood’s never-ending deluge of low-budget dramas about love, poverty, religion and corruption, often spiced with the supernatural and the clash between modern and traditional values.

Not exactly known for their quality, many are shot at breakneck speed on shoestring budgets.

But that image — which producers insist is a hangover from the days when most were shot on video camcorders — may be about to change with “My Father’s Shadow”, the first film to make the grade at Cannes, the temple of arthouse cinema.

“Getting into competition for the first time ever shows that Nigerian cinema has come of age,” insisted Prince Baba Agba, a cultural advisor to President Bola Tinubu, who is in Cannes for the premiere.

Pivotal moment 

Akinola Davies’s first feature is set during the 1993 coup, a pivotal moment in Nigeria’s recent history, when the military annulled the election and General Sani Abacha eventually took power.

This “lost chance” when Akinola said the “rug was pulled away and everyone’s dreams of democracy were just taken away”, still marks the country.

The semi-autobiographical story, featuring “Gangs of London” actor Sope Dirisu, has two small boys following their father through Lagos as the coup unfolds.

And the film is no one-off “unicorn”, Agba argued.

Editi Effiong’s crime thriller “The Black Book” topped the global lists on Netflix last year, including being number one in South Korea.

“We have had films going to major festivals and we have won prizes at Sundance,” he said, pointing to “Shine Your Eyes” — a hit at the Berlin film festival.

“Eyimofe (This Is My Desire)” has been picked up by the prestigious streaming and distribution network Criterion Collection.

“It was fully shot in Nigeria, with Nigerian producers, Nigerian finance, everything,” Agba added.

“We are still making an awful lot of films, but now in all the strata, from the bottom to the top,” he added.

“You have people doing million-dollar productions, and you have people doing $10,000 films… all telling unique stories with the soul and heart and spirit of Nigeria,” he added.

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Tax breaks for filmmakers — now passing through parliament — could be a gamechanger, he said, boosting Nollywood’s new “penetration internationally thanks to streaming and co-productions”.

Big US streamers began to dip their toe during the pandemic, with Netflix picking up “Blood Sisters”, “Man of God” and the musical “Ayinla” while local platforms also boomed, particularly in the Muslim north’s “Kannywood”, named after the city of Kano.

‘Big challenges’

There has since been a few big bumps in the road, however, with Amazon closing down its Africa operation last year.

Netflix has also hit the brakes hard, industry insiders in Cannes told AFP, although officially it’s still business as usual.

Big local players, however, are angling to step into the gap with the Ebonylife Group — a Nollywood powerhouse — about to launch its own platform.

“We will start small and we will build… We can’t keep waiting on everyone else to do this for us,” said its founder Mo Abudu, who is also opening a Nigerian cultural hub in London later this year.

While Agba admitted the industry faces “big technological and infrastructure challenges”, particularly with mobile networks as most films are seen on phones, there has been progress.

“We hope to double our (cinema) screens to 300. Brazil, with a similar population, has over 3,000,” he said.

Along with Afrobeats music, Nollywood is Nigeria’s main source of soft power.