While he did not disclose he was NXIVM’s former IT director, Ben Myers, when writing to Judge Nicholas Garaufis, seeking leniency for his sister-in-law, Lauren Salzman, wrote something curious.
You would think he would have disclosed he was a longtime member of NXIVM, maybe even an unindicted co-conspirator in the racketeering enterprise, since he played fast and loose with his IT skills to help Keith Raniere indict several of his enemies.
Yet he chose to omit those facts and, instead, sought to distinguish his present employment with a veneer of righteousness.
He wrote to the judge that he is “lead product manager and senior software engineer for a company focused on increasing equality and diversity in professional opportunities in music.”
Is there a lack of equality and diversity in professional opportunities in music?
In music, the artist controls.
If a guitarist, sound engineer, or agent is employed, this is most often based on merit and largely the choice of the artist, especially today when streaming dominates the music industry.
Nat King Cole
In the day when Nat King Cole was president of Capitol Records, back in the 1960s, music was sold on vinyl records giving corporations, run largely by white men, control of much of the professional opportunities, since they manufactured and distributed recordings.
The old industry is gone, 95 percent savaged by streaming music. The physical product is gone.
Lack of diversity?
I googled “top musical artists.” This came up at the top of the page.
Of 10 photos –six are women, three are black men and one is a white man.
Here are recent ads on Apple Music.
The US has these approximate percentages:
White: 60.%
Black: 14%
Hispanic: 19%
Female: 51%
Male: 49%
In the Apple ads above, 16 of 45 people in them are black men – 40 percent – as opposed to 7 percent of the US population.
Rolling Stone magazine lists top-selling artists. Of the top 15 streamers, 10 are black men, one is a white man. There are two white women, one black woman
#1
Drake
TOP SONGWants and Needs
WEEKS ON CHART339
WEEKS AT #172
#2
Billie Eilish
SONG STREAMS72.5M
#3
Taylor Swift
SONG STREAMS72.4M
#4
Doja Cat
SONG STREAMS69.5M
# 5
The Weeknd
SONG STREAMS63.7M
#6
Juice Wrld
SONG STREAMS61.4M
#7
Olivia Rodrigo
SONG STREAMS59.7M
#8
YoungBoy Never Broke Again
SONG STREAMS58.3M
#9
Kanye West
SONG STREAMS58M
#10
Pop Smoke
SONG STREAMS55.3M
#11
Morgan Wallen
SONG STREAMS55.2M
#12
Lil Baby
SONG STREAMS54.8M
#13
Bad Bunny
SONG STREAMS52.5M
#14
Polo G
SONG STREAMS50.1M
#15
J. Cole
SONG STREAMS48.4M
*****
Black men and women have taken a large share of the industry. Ben is 20 years behind the times.
When the CEO of his own music –Lil’ Baby, Bad Bunny, or Taylor Swift — hires people to help them produce and perform, it is up to them to choose whom to hire. They do not need Ben Myers’ software to help them hire based on race or gender. They will seek talent and merit and to do that they need to hear the talent.
Music is dependent on sound and the business of it is dependent on listeners; they alone decide who they want to hear and what recordings they want to buy or concerts they want to pay for.
Which is the reason why diversity and equality are not required. In fact, it would harm music since music is heard, not seen.
And it sounds like Ben was just doing a little virtue-signaling to disguise his own role in the harming of Toni Natalie, Joe O’Hara, Barbara Bouchey, John Tighe, Jim Odato and others.
I bring this up now since in a matter of days we will be reading another letter from Ben, where he will undoubtedly tell the judge what an angel his mother-in-law, Nancy Salzman, is, and to help sell his point, he will add a little harp music about himself.
The rascal who lied about the location of servers in the computer trespass case is now working on saving music from the phantom control of music by the awful white man.
Where was he when another white man, Keith Raniere, was guiding him into the destruction of the lives of Raniere’s targets or ignoring the woman he kissed, Daniela, who languished in a room for almost two years?
For me, Ben Myers will be seen as a man when he comes out and publicly says how he helped frame the above-named individuals in the computer trespassing case – leading to them being indicted. Until then, no amount of virtue-signaling will raise his respect in my eyes.
