Sunday, October 23, 2011

Onana, what’s wrong with Rihanna?

24 October 2011 - It’s been a while since Facebook and I were on the same page, but Twitter and I are friends. Twitter is much easier to manage, in my opinion, and as has been said often, there’s only so much drivel one can spout in 140 characters. But what I love most about it is the eavesdropping, especially when you’re ‘following’ celebrity conversations. It’s fascinating stuff.

I used to think celebrities were just like the rest of us, just more famous. Boy, was I wrong. Some of them could as well be from another planet. Always makes me want to do the robot dance and chant, “Take me to your leader”, because it does seem to me that there’s a puppet master on that planet who’s somehow managed to convince this world that his Pinnochios are real little boys and girls.

Take Rihanna for example. Back when she was a human being and not a product of the mass media, things were much simpler. I remember one of her earliest interviews on the Tyra Bank’s Show. She was promoting Pon de Replay, the first song off her debut album Music of the Sun.
You could tell that she was very much in awe of Tyra and indeed, the whole set of circumstances, almost like she couldn’t believe any of it. There was even an element of gratitude. Fast forward to the album Good Girl Gone Bad and the celebrity factory had churned out a “rockstar” (her words) who bore little resemblance to the young Bajan beauty who had spoken so demurely on Tyra. Now there was an element of entitlement.

It’s as if Rihanna has a progressive, degenerative disease of the mind. With each album, the good girl has gone from bad to worse. She had to defend herself after the outcry that followed Man Down, a single off the album Loud, which she says was inspired by the evils of sexual abuse. “I’m a rockstar, not a role model,” she said on Twitter, after the video was condemned for glamourising sexual violence and attempting to normalise murder.

Recently, she ran into trouble with a Northern Ireland land owner who objected to her risqué We Found Love video being shot on his property – she was dancing around topless. Once again the “rockstar” took to her Twitter page to explain that love is a powerful drug and that the video was deep and meaningful. Millions of fans responded, agreeing in principle that taking off your clothes, simulating sexual acts and vomiting (all of these scenes in We Found Love) are deep and meaningful. Can’t blame them really.

As I write this, I’ve got my earphones on as Rihanna sings rum, pa, pa, pum to Man Down. I didn’t like it at first, but it grew on me. That’s the insidious nature of this music. The crafty nature of that otherworldly puppet master, who force-feeds us vomit knowing that inevitably, we will come to enjoy it.

From fresh clay, Rihanna has been moulded into a substance abusing, morally challenged, over-stimulated sexual entity. And yet, she is still commanding an audience. Perhaps we’ve all ‘gone bad’ together. Have a thoughtful weekend.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Rihanna Teases 'We Found Love' Video in Behind-the-Scene Footage

Rihanna is gearing up to premiere a music video for her latest single "We Found Love". Although its release date is yet to be announced, the "Cheers (Drink to That)" singer has already teased what to expect from the clip by dropping behind-the-scene footage.

Riri previews the scene she shot in a corn field somewhere in Belfast. It's the one which got her kicked out of the set by the owner of the land for wearing "inappropriate" outfit. Back then, she wore jeans and unbuttoned shirt and vest which revealed her bikini top. She also allegedly went topless.

Regardless the complaint, Riri looks happy and is all smiles in the behind-the-scene video. "This is the perfect treatment for the song," she says. "I'm working with Melina (Matsoukas) again. We have similar stuff, similar taste. We get each other a lot when it comes to creative."

She's seen romping around the field and dancing in the mud with a bunch of extras. "She wanted a bunch of movement, just like being big and expressive," one of her female crew spills the beans on the choreography. "We're gonna see all these crazy movement."

Beside the dancing scene, Riri will also share a romantic scene with her on-screen love interest who is played by 21-year-old boxer Dudley O'Shaughnessy. "By the way I kissed this guy earlier today," she teases. "I met him and I was like, 'Hey let's f**ken kiss.' And now we're about to f**k. Fake f**k. Whatever that means."

"We Found Love" features Calvin Harris and serves as the first single from Riri's upcoming studio album "Talk That Talk" which is due in the U.S. on November 21. Its music video will be "all about love" and shows "the good feeling of it and the dangers of it." She concludes, "Love being like a drug."

Rihanna broke Drake's heart

The pair dated briefly in 2009 after Rihanna split with Chris Brown - following his physical assault on her - and although Drake doesn't believe he was her "rebound guy", he admitted he thought there was more to the relationship than the 'California King Bed' hitmaker did.

He said: "I've probably been hurt more than I've hurt someone else. [With Rihanna, I wasn't] necessarily the rebound guy. At the time it hurt, but she didn't mean to. I'll never put that on her. I was hurt because I started to slowly understand what it was. I guess I thought it was more. That was the first girl with any fame that paid me any mind.
You spend days reading about this person in the magazines. All of a sudden you have this number-one song and you're at some birthday party and there she is. And you're just some naive kid from Toronto staying in some shitty-ass hotel who got invited to this party on a whim. That's just how it happened."

Drake also revealed it is difficult to date because of his fame as women often find it difficult to trust him.

He added to American Elle magazine: "[It's hard] to get women to trust you. When you have a woman in your life and you're telling her, 'I'm in New York working on my album,' and you're actually in New York working on your album, but they're saying you're in the Bahamas with so-and-so, it's hard for her to believe. I've had women lash out based off the fact that they think I'm lying when I'm not."

Rihanna on top in the UK, continues upward move in the US

Rihanna scores her sixth number one single in the UK this week as the Calvin Harris-assisted We Found Love wrestles the top spot from Sak Noel's Loca People. Rihanna's first number one single in the UK was 2007's Jay Z-assisted Umbrella. Her other chart toppers include Take a Bow, Only Girl (in the World), What's My Name (featuring rapper Drake), and Love the Way You Lie (which was led by Eminem).

The pop singer has been on a high in recent weeks, having created controversy while shooting the video for We Found Love in Northern Ireland. Additionally, she has visited a number of countries with her Loud tour.Stateside, We Found Love continues to heat up the Billboard charts moving from nine to seven on the Hot 100 singles chart.

Rihanna's seventh studio album Talk that Talk is due in November.

American Idol winner breaks records on the US album charts

He's the youngest male solo artiste to debut at the number one spot on the Billboard 200 album chart. Eighteen-year-old season 10 winner of the American Idol series, Scotty McCreery, sold over 197,000 copies of his debut set Clear as Day to take the crown.

He is the first country act to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 with a debut album. McCreery is the first American Idol winner to debut at number one since Ruben Studdard's album Soulful hit the apex in 2003.

Next week we can expect a high debut on the Billboard 200 from Lauren Alaina, the second-place finisher of season 10 of American Idol. Her album Wildflower is expected to debut inside the top 10.

Nando impacts the charts with Get Better

Recording artiste Nando has scored his second Top 10 single with Get Better. Just nine weeks after entering the Reggae Vibes Jamaica Top 20 Reggae Chart, Get Better, an anthem for single moms and all women striving to raise their children without sacrificing their values, has moved to number seven.

Nando is presently putting the final touches to his debut album, Yaad and Abroad, which is slated for release within a few months.

In an interview, Nando said, "We just had a listening session for the album last week that was attended by some top names in the industry and the response was overwhelmingly positive. We are waiting on a remix with a top dancehall deejay to close off the album. Once that's done, we will determine the release date for the album," said Nando.

He further added "Music is my passion and performing for and interacting with the fans are definitely high points of that passion; therefore, I am really eager to shift gears and move from the creative phase to the performance and fan-interaction phase on this leg of my musical journey."

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Novak voted the US Sports Academy’s September Athlete of the Month

   The no.1-ranked men's professional tennis player, Novak Djokovic, and the no.1-ranked women's professional golfer, Yani Tseng, were named the United States Sports Academy's September Athletes of the Month.
 
 Both Novak and Tseng are arguably the two most dominating athletes in their sports this year.

   Novak beat Spaniard Rafael Nadal 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-1 to win his first US Open championship and third Grand Slam title in 2011. The 24-year-old Serbian star has a remarkable 64-3 record this season.
  SOURCE: Novak Djokovic Official WebSite
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