R&B legend Mary J. Blige and hip-hop heavyweight Nas are showing some real love for their Texas fans, with August stops in Houston, Austin, and Dallas scheduled for their co-headlining tour across the U.S. this summer.
Their swing through Texas starts August 2 at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands, followed August 3 by a concert at the Austin360 Amphitheater inside Circuit of The Americas, and August 22 by a show at Fair Park’s Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas.
It’s the first time Blige and Nas will be touring together. In all, they’re playing gigs in 22 North American cities.
Tickets go on sale at 10 am on April 19, at 313Presents, LiveNation, and Ticketmaster. For holders of Citi credit cards, tickets will be available from noon on April 17 to 10 pm on April 18, at citientertainment.com.
Blige, a singer, songwriter, and actress, has racked up eight multiplatinum albums, 31 Grammy nominations, nine Grammy wins, two Oscar nominations, and four Golden Globe nominations. Her most recent album was 2017’s Strength of a Woman. Her hits include "Be Without You," "Real Love," "Just Fine," and, of course, "No More Drama."
Meanwhile, Nas has notched eight platinum and multiplatinum albums, 11 albums in the Billboard Top 10, and 13 Grammy nominations. In 2018, Nas released his first album (NASIR) after a six-year break. His hits include "If I Ruled the World," "Hate Me Now," and "N.Y. State of Mind."
As the rights and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community have expanded over the past 50 or so years, one part of that group, transgender people, has found it more difficult to be considered a normal part of society. Every new instance of putting the story of a transgender person on screen, whether fictional or real, increases their exposure to those who might never have encountered them before.
That makes a documentary like Will & Harper (a title which seems to take inspiration from the groundbreaking TV series Will & Grace) valuable. The fact that the “Will” in the title is comedian/actor Will Ferrell helps, as he and longtime friend, Harper Steele, embark on a road trip across the United States soon after Harper reveals her transition from a man to a woman.
Harper, who met Will while they were both at Saturday Night Live in the late '90s/early 2000s, decided at the relatively older age of 59 that she could no longer pretend to be someone she wasn’t. The idea of the road trip – and of filming it – came about so that the friends could reconnect, learn more about each other given the momentous change, and do a lot of the things that Harper enjoyed doing by herself prior to her transition.
Director Josh Greenbaum and his crew attach a camera to the hood of Harper’s old Jeep Wagoneer to record her and Will's conversations as they traverse many states, starting in New York and heading west. Their connection to SNL means that many of the show’s current and former stars show up in one form or another along the way, including Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, Tim Meadows, Lorne Michaels, Molly Shannon, Kristen Wiig, and Will Forte, among others.
While their love and respect for Harper is obvious, Harper has trepidation over how strangers in middle America will react to her. The presence of Will (and the cameras) gives her perhaps easier acceptance than someone not traveling with a famous person, but there are still more than a few uncomfortable stops, particularly when they get to the South (Texas does not come off well, but surprisingly Oklahoma does).
Those scenes with everyday Americans are interesting (if occasionally a bit contrived), but the heart of the film is the friendship between Will and Harper. Their conversations range from silly to heartfelt, but there is a genuineness to them that can’t be faked. Harper invites Will to ask her any questions he has about her transition, resulting in insightful – and, often, funny – answers. Their friendship was clearly already strong, but it gets palpably stronger during the 17-day journey.
There are a lot of messages one could get from a film like this, but it’s notable for how apolitical it is. Will and Harper have encounters with Eric Holcomb, the Republican governor of Indiana, as well as a few people wearing MAGA hats, but their positions on transgender people goes unremarked upon. The friends gently correct people who mis-gender Harper, but they never express any animosity towards them. It’s a movie about exploration, with education as a side benefit.
While it might be too strong to say that Will & Harper is a world-changing film, it adds another layer to the story of transgender people as a whole. It also shows the unconditional love between two friends, a lesson that is heartening in divided times.
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Will & Harper is now playing in select theaters; it will debut on Netflix on September 27.
