Happy 28th birthday to this Barbadian bombshell. I have always been a fan of Rihanna – both her look and music. Take a look below at what I think are some of her best looks. And not even just that, but just to see how beautiful she is!
Reasons why I like her:
She gives ZERO effs
She can actually sing
She loves, loves, loves her fans and you can tell it’s genuine
She had relations with Drake
She’s a businesswoman – her recent deal with Puma has earned the company $975 MILLION in just the last quarter. #BO$$
She’s an all around talented entertainer
She’s really just a badass.
I can’t wait to see her live at her ANTI World Tour in May with Syd!
To sum up the 58th Annual Grammy Awards in one word…. #boring. Seriously. I know this is supposed to be a family show and they need to cover all genres, but can the performances please be more upbeat? I don’t know who decides what is performed, but we know you artists can all sing (hence why you’re at the GRAMMYs), so I think you should all pick a dope, upbeat song and get that party started as opposed to serenading us and putting us to sleep. And no I didn’t attend this year. We were told they weren’t going to have a mosh pit, which they didn’t. Maybe next year!
Parts of the show also felt rushed, especially during the acceptance speeches. Prime example was when Bruno Mars won for ‘Uptown Funk.’ Mark Ronson began speaking, honestly not for long, gave the mic to Bruno and the dang ‘cue to hurry up’ music came on. Let the man speak – he just won record of the year! Even the in memorium section seemed to be super fast, which for that I’d prefer it to move a little faster but not like that fast.
Most memorable moments for me:
Kendrick’s performance. The heart, soul, passion, and most importantly the message behind his performance was explosive. Literally. The stage was on fire. He revived the GRAMMYs – brought them back to life. It was so powerful. Mad props to King Kendrick. Also, congrats to him on winning five awards, one being Best Rap Album. Very well-deserved.
Lady Gaga-David Bowie tribute. While I do know who David Bowie is and how influential his music was, I obviously don’t know that much about him. That being said, I thought Gaga did a wonderful job. You can really throw her into any scenario, and I feel like she’ll execute it just right. For those of you who watched this last season of American Horror Story… she did SO good and played her role as the Countess perfectly.
Meh moments:
While I did enjoy the Lionel Richie tribute, I’m still scratching my head as to why Meghan Trainor was part of that. She can sing, but to me I think they could have replaced her with someone more aligned with Richie’s voice and genre. I feel like she didn’t even sing that long any ways.
The Weeknd’s performance. Do not get me wrong, I repeat, do not get me wrong, I absolutely love The Weeknd, but that was not my favorite performance of his. Honest even. Yinz need to watch videos of him performing before he turned into this superstar. THOSE were performances, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen him at least five times. So so good.
The finale. Pitbull, Robin Thicke, and Sofia Vergara, really? That was way too random for me. While they are each talented, yes even Pitbull, I wouldn’t say those three are the most relevant right now.
And Taylor Swift. I don’t even feel like wasting energy to type about her. But two things: 1) She was way too dramatic when Ed Sheeran won. 2) Her acceptance speech should not have focused primarily on Kanye West. Tay Tay, you just won ALBUM OF THE YEAR – TALK ABOUT THAT. You know I love me some Kanye, but most people don’t so by bringing his name into the conversation creates more haters and fuels his fire. If Kendrick would have won, I can guarantee his speech would have been strictly about his album, TDE team, and the fans. Alright, I’m done.
So yes, overall I thought the show was pretty boring, but congrats to all of the winners, which you can find here. To make up for the boredom, I hope to attend the BET Awards again, assuming they’ll be in LA this summer. I’ll keep yinz posted!
What started as a casual glass of wine for #NationalDrinkWineDay in Santa Monica turned into a nightclub adventure in West Hollywood – Hyde Sunset to be exact.
Rolled out with a new friend of mine who let’s just say has some connects. We get to Hyde a little after midnight. I’m introduced to two dudes outside the club and a little away from the entrance of the venue.
I for a brief second thought I heard the voice of Justin Bieber, but thought nahhhh, can’t be. It just all happened so fast, and the next thing I knew I looked up and what do you know the freaking Biebs was walking in my direction. And he looked a little lit, might I add.
We proceeded to walk to the entrance of Hyde, and Justin was walking in RIGHT behind me. It was a little bit of a tight squeeze to get in and then I FELT Justin Bieber’s hand on my butt guiding me into the clurb. Definitely fangirled to myself for a minute. We (minus Bieber) made our way to the DJ booth where we posted up for the rest of the night. Some bangers for sure. Even new Kanye. Lit.
I’m minding my own business, dancing to some beats and what do you know Justin Bieber is literally right next to me trying to get through to the DJ. Cue celebushock. I’m actually pretty proud of myself. I kept my cool and didn’t lose any of my motor skills. He chats with the DJ, makes his way back to the crowd, and I managed to snag a very short video clip before I once again got backhanded by his security guard. I say ‘again’ because Travi$ Scott did the same thing to me at Wiz’s listening party a few Mondays ago. YOLO.
See below for my full Snapchat Story. Well there’s not much to see, but listen to the music being played with a cameo from Bieber. And it does go into my morning leading up to present. So yes, I’d say my Thursday night was pretty good. A late night, got into my bed at 3:30am, but a good night for sure.
I promise the title above will make more sense once you’ve read this piece in its entirety.
KANYE | Well now that The Life of Pablo is finally available on Tidal, all is good in the world. JK. Ye has been going on multiple Twitter rants and is now claiming the album will forever be ONLY on Tidal and will never be available for sale. Well he did Tweet it’s on kanywest.com, but still. And I read that the version currently on Tidal isn’t even the finished one. Who knows. But aside from that nonsense, I REALLY LIKE TLOP. I don’t want to get into too much detail about my thoughts on it – want to save that for its own post – but let’s just say, for me, it’s up there with 808s and MBDTF. Each song makes me want to dance. And if you know me, then you know I like it.
Kanye premiered the album on Thursday at a SOLD OUT Madison Square Garden. He also debuted his Yeezy Season 3 fashion collection. I plugged in my headphones at work and live streamed the EXPERIENCE – yes I’m calling it an experience because it was – on my phone. From the first track he played (‘Ultralight Beam’) to the finale, it was one of the best things I’ve heard and seen, musically, in a while. Kanye was SO happy and proud, his family and fellow artists were there supporting him, Anna freaking Wintour was there supporting him, and one of his models even shed a tear while standing as still as a statue on that massive block. What other artist can you say has done that before? Not just selling out MSG for a listening party, but having live streamed the album for his fans to watch from all over the world. Pretty dope if you ask me. Screenshots below.
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KENDRICK | Saturday morning, Parker and I ventured to the city of Compton to watch Mr. Kendrick Lamar receive the key to the city. MAJOR. Aja Brown, the Compton mayor, presented Kendrick with the highly-deserved honor. What does it mean to get the key to the city? I think it’s more symbolic than anything, but it is given to someone the city looks up to, to someone who is making a difference in their hometown, and is an inspiration for all, working to better their city. The crowd wasn’t too big for the ceremony. Real 92.3 was there to supply the music, teachers and city officials spoke before Kendrick, congratulating him, explaining the impact he has on Compton. One of my favorites was seeing Compton’s dance team perform to some of his songs and then into Lil Wayne’s ‘A Milli.’ That was sick.
Read this article and check out dope pictures from Complex’s very own Andres Tardio here.
KLUB KUCHE | On Sunday, two of my roommates, Megan and Rachel, ran in the LA Marathon. Instead of each running the full 26.2, they registered for a charity relay where they each ran 13 miles. Wally and I had to show our support and of course pump up the crowd. We ventured to Santa Monica around mile 22 to dance our pants off. Not actually off, but we did dance a lot. We then got some much needed foods at Wurstkuche in Venice and let’s just say it escalated pretty quickly. Watch the video below to see for yourself. But most importantly, I’m so proud of Meg and Ray Ray for running the marathon! And proud of everyone else too. I know I couldn’t (or even wouldn’t) want to run in a marathon, so props to all. Super inspiring!
Here are the overdue updates I’ve been meaning to write about. We’re going to try to keep this short and sweet since there’s SO much happening in the hip-hop world.
First and most importantly, on Saturday, January 30, Drake hosted OVO Sound Radio and finally gave us a drop date for Views From the 6. Well, it’s not an actual date, but the album will drop in April. And it makes complete sense. Toronto’s area code is 416 (close to that Pittsburgh 412 ya heard). April being the 4th month and the year being 20(16). It makes ALL the sense, and I’m actually a little disappointed in myself that I didn’t figure it out. Maybe it will drop on April 16th? I’m still thinking some new music will come out this weekend during All-Star Weekend. Don’t even get me startd on how upset I am I’m not there. Moving on to the next piece of news.
YEEZY-WIZ TWITTER DRAMA | This celeb beef was some real Twitter fingers action. Kanye went on quite the rant about Wiz Khalifa. It all stemmed from Kanye changing his album title from SWISH to Waves, which prompted Wiz to Tweet out a photo of Max B, the original ‘Wavy Daddy.’ Cue the Tweets. Drama is all I can say. I was actually laughing reading them, but it was all a bit much. I also managed to screen shot all of Ye’s Tweets, and thank goodness I did because he deleted them. I’ll have to dedicate a post to just those sometime in the near future. Cut to present. Kanye and Wiz had a phone call, made up, and all is good.
EVOL | Future blessed us with ANOTHA ONE. Not much longer after Purple Reign, which dropped in January, the Atlanta rapper released another project titled EVOL, which is ‘love’ spelled backwards. I haven’t listened to either of the projects as much as I should have, but if you listen to one song, you absolutely must listen to ‘Run Up’ on Purple Reign. Seriously fire.
‘DOWN IN THE DM’ REMIX | Listen to this raunchy yet lit remix to Yo Gotti’s club banger featuring Nicki Minaj here. Let’s just say I listened to this on my way to work, and it definitely woke me up. Nicki goes hard in this. Love it.
RIHANNA – ANTI | Okay, this should actually get its own post. What a dang good album. The overall sound and lyrics of ANTI are incredible. The flow from beginning to end. Brilliant. Comparing this album to others by Rihanna, this is by far her most mature piece of work. If you’re an avid RiRi fan, I’m sure you’ll agree. I encourage you to listen! I promise it’s not a peppy pop album you’ll get sick of. And listen to ‘Love on the Brain.’ That straight up doesn’t even sound like Rihanna, but has more of a Beyonce and Macy Gray feel. So good. Listen, yinz!
FLINT CRISIS | Detroit native Big Sean donated $50,000 to support the Flint water crisis. While some of you think he should have given more, it’s obviously way more than I’m sure you’ve given. I don’t want to get into that discussion now, but let’s just give a round of applause to the Sean Don for donating to this town in time of need. Props!
Happy Friday! Lots of exciting things week, so check back early next for a post! And until then, I’ll be waiting for Ye to drop his album.
Don’t have Tidal but want to listen to The Life Of Pablo? I got you. Listen here!
ALBUM COVER
UPDATE: Kanye is an actual genius. Much thanks to Twitter and my little bro Anth for showing me this! It all makes SO much sense. Each of the phases of Picasso’s art seem to be inspiration for his past albums.
Honestly, I’m so pumped. I knew I’d be excited about the release of his album, but I didn’t think I’d be THIS excited. I think because Kanye has been so active on Twitter leading up to today and you can see how excited he is about the project and his Yeezy Season 3 collection, it has made everyone including myself pretty hype.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to snag a pair of tickets to watch the premiere of T.L.O.P. and his collection at the local Lakewood movie theater (sold out and I guess I have to be at work). However I do have Tidal and you should get it, well at least the free trial – that’s what I have – because Ye is streaming it for ALL Tidal users at 4pmEST/1pmPST. Needless to say I’ll be taking my lunch break during that time.
Last night I read the following article on on Twitter about the album so far. HOT 97’s Ebro Darden was lucky enough to get an invite to last night’s NYC listening party.
Now let’s discuss the album title. What was first So Help Me God then to SWISH turned to Waves and now we are given T.L.O.P. We learned what this meant yesterday – The Life of Pablo. Now, this can definitely change again. What is the significance of this title? I don’t really know. He does refer to a Pablo in ‘No More Parties in LA.’
I sort of think it has to do with him referring to himself as a very hard worker. But in Kanye’s brain, it could mean something totally off the wall. It could also be referring to Pablo Picasso.
I cannot wait to listen to this album in full from start to finish. Peep the tracklist below that he tweeted yesterday.
Not going to lie though, not sure how it’s going to beat My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or 808s & Heartbreak, which is probably one of my favorite albums ever. Yes, more than a Drake album. But I do have high hopes for this T.L.O.P. I hope it lives up to the hype Kanye has created around it.
I really just wish I could be on the East Coast right now for two reasons:
1. To be at Madison Square Garden (SOLD OUT) to watch Kanye premiere this shit. EVERYONE will be there. Even Lamar freaking Odom who basically came back from the dead just landed late last night from LA.
2. To be in Toronto for All-Star Weekend where it’s basically the most crucial time to be part of Drake ANYTHING. His hometown. All-Star Weekend. Views From the 6 posters and ads are plastered ALL over the place. Drake will be hosting mad parties. And again EVERYONE will be there. I cannot.
Okay, done throwing myself a pity party.
If you’re a Kanye fan and aren’t able to make it to a movie theater, I encourage you to sign up for the free trial of Tidal so you can be the first to listen to T.L.O.P. And if you aren’t a Kanye fan, well then I feel bad for you.
Follow me on Twitter (@ergense) for Tweets about Kanye and probably a few about Drake.
What I thought would have been a chill night of me standing in the background, listening to Wiz play some tracks from his new album at last night’s listening party, turned into a LIT SITUATION. I shuffled my way to the front, per usual, and was essentially at the main table with Wiz, Juicy J, Travi$ Scott, and Ty Dolla $ign. And was great seeing JCruz from Power 106, as well!
The party was at the Blind Dragon and hosted by the one and only Ms. Karen Civil. She gave updates on Wiz’s arrival time, introduced him, and then handed the mic over to Wiz. She also gave a shout out to Wiz’s mom and said, “Shout out to Wiz’s mom who is here. Whenever I’m in Pittsburgh, she always takes good care of me.” #californyinz
Wiz went over different meanings behind the tracks, rapped a little, and just had a great time. And DJ Bonics, Wiz’s official DJ was spinning. It was dope, and I’m really glad I was able to go! It was all truly a big #californyinz moment.
I even rocked a Pittsburgh shirt, which gained a little attention and served as a conversation starter. #netWORQUE
Peep the video to see just how close I was.
And even more #californyinz-ness… shout out to the Pittsburgh Penguins for unveiling their 50th anniversary logo for the upcoming season. Check it here.
I really really love this kind of stuff – when artists give you a behind-the-scenes look. It’s one of the closest ways they can interact and connect with us as fans. I think it would be so freaking cool to be in a recording studio, too, with one of my favorite artists. To see a song go from an idea to a top-charting single. One day!
So watch below to see the creative process behind Rihanna’s first ANTI single ‘Work’ featuring Drake. He’s not in the vid, but you will see him soon when the real music video is released. Can’t wait! And the chick in the video with RiRi is her assistant, Jenn Rosales who is always by her side and is quite hilarious.
I 100% called Beyoncé announcing a world tour post-performance. This is why I can’t maintain a savings account because #concerts.
Pre-sale starts this Tuesday the 9 and all other tickets go on sale the 16. Her tour kicks off in Miami on April 27, and I’ll update this post once all dates are posted. I more than likely will be going.
Here they are!
FORMATION WORLD TOUR DATES
April 27 – Miami, FL – Marlins Park
April 29 – Tampa – Raymond James Stadium
May 1 – Atlanta, GA – Georgia Dome
May 3 – Raleigh, NC – Carter-Finley Stadium
May 5 – Nashville, TN – Nissan Stadium
May 7 – Houston, TX – NRG Stadium
May 9 – Dallas, TX – AT&T Stadium
May 12 – San Diego, CA – Qualcomm Stadium May 14 – Los Angeles, CA – Rose Bowl
May 16 – Santa Clara, CA – Levi’s Stadium
May 18 – Seattle, WA – CenturyLink Field
May 20 – Edmonton, AB – Commonwealth Stadium
May 23 – Minneapolis, MN – TCF Bank Stadium
May 25 – Toronto, ON – Rogers Centre
May 27 – Chicago, IL – Soldier Field
May 29 – Detroit, MI – Ford Field May 31 – Pittsburgh, PA – Heinz Field
June 3 – Boston, MA – Gillette Stadium
June 5 – Philadelphia, PA – Lincoln Financial Field
June 7 – New York, NY – Citi Field
June 10 – Baltimore, MD – M&T Bank Stadium
June 12 – Hershey, PA – Hersheypark Stadium
Dates from Rap-Up.
That halftime show though was lit, and I’m so glad Bruno was added.
Californyinz 