Curated playlist

American prisoners and detainees

Martin Luther King Jr.Martin Luther King Jr. died at the age of 39, yet his autopsy showed the heart of a 60 year old, according to his biographer Taylor Branch. Branch attributed the damage to stress. The causes were many. King was jailed repeatedly, attacked…
Billie HolidayBillie Holiday died with seventy cents in the bank. She earned $250,000 in the three years before her 1947 arrest.
Ghislaine MaxwellOn the 29th of December 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Ghislaine Maxwell of sex trafficking of a minor. Maxwell, a British former socialite, had moved for decades through the social circles of London and Manhattan. Her friends…
Chuck BerryChuck Berry was buried with a cherry-red guitar bolted inside his coffin lid. The rock and roll pioneer died in 2017.
Ezra PoundEzra Pound cut T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land by about half. Eliot called the edits proof of Pound's critical genius.
Lauryn HillLauryn Hill stood at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards and said, "This is crazy. This is hip-hop!" She had just become the first woman to win five Grammys in a single night. Her wins spanned album, song, vocal performance and best new artist,…
Paris HiltonParis Hilton became so inescapable in 2007 that parts of the American press tried to stop mentioning her. The Associated Press attempted to leave her out for the week of the 19th of February 2007. On the 26th of June 2007, host Mika…
Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was too big an insurance risk to hire until Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond.
Lindsay LohanLindsay Lohan posed for the October 2010 cover of Vanity Fair and then made a blunt request. "I want my career back," she told the magazine. She added, "I know that I'm a damn good actress." The plea carried weight because Lohan, an…
Harvey WeinsteinHarvey Weinstein was thanked by name in 34 Academy Award acceptance speeches. That is as many times as God was thanked, and only Steven Spielberg, with 43 mentions, was thanked more often. The tally comes from an analysis of speeches made…
Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur wrote and recorded the album The Don Killuminati in three days. Mixing took four more.
Jefferson DavisWhy was Confederate president Jefferson Davis never tried for treason? Prosecutors feared an acquittal.
R. KellyBeneath the Chicago "L" tracks, at the Jackson stop on the Red Line in the Loop, a young school dropout named Robert Kelly sang for passing commuters. Decades later, as R. Kelly, he had sold more than 75 million albums and singles…
Mike TysonBy age 13, Mike Tyson had been arrested 38 times. At 20 he became the youngest heavyweight champion ever.
Lucky LucianoLucky Luciano, born Salvatore Lucania, was arrested 25 times between 1916 and 1936 and spent no time in prison. The charges ranged from assault and illegal gambling to blackmail and robbery. Then a trial over a prostitution racket ended…
Frank LucasFrank Lucas liked to ask one question when he explained how he moved heroin. "Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier's coffin?" He put it that way in an interview for a New York magazine article published in 2000. Lucas operated in…
Frank CostelloFrank Costello, an Italian-American crime boss, tried to keep his face off television during the Senate's organized crime hearings. The attempt backfired. Cameras settled on his hands instead, and his fidgeting and evasive answers played…
Sam GiancanaSam Giancana, who once ran the Chicago Outfit, died on the night of the 19th of June 1975 in the basement kitchen of his house in Oak Park, Illinois. At around 11 p.m., his caretaker, Joseph DiPersio, found the body on the floor. A gunman…
Joe GalloJoe Gallo was shot dead at Umbertos Clam House in New York's Little Italy. It happened at around 4:30 in the morning on the 7th of April 1972, his 43rd birthday. Gallo, nicknamed "Crazy Joe", was a captain in the Colombo crime family of…
James Holmes (mass murderer)James Eagan Holmes, an American born in 1987, made a phone call to a mental health crisis hotline in the moments before he carried out the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. By his own account, he hoped someone might talk him out of it at the…
DMXDMX was the first artist to open five straight studio albums at number one on the Billboard 200.