This year the celebrities came out and showed out on their Met Gala fits. For some reason, head pieces and face pieces were the trend this year.
Gabrielle Union Came through with poppin yellow. This color always looks good on black skin. Go Gabby!!
The men were looking real Zaddy-ish too. Gotta love a man in a suit.
Donald Glover in the light purple suit. He’s been poppin lately. Check out my last post on his This Is America video
Mr. Wakanda himself still dressed in character lowkey and looking good per usual! I see you Chadwick!
Michael B could’ve done better but he’s still fine tho.
Imma let you shine Ferg but your Bae has on a lovely fur dress. I see y’all doing THAT!
Wiz looking good in this brown suit. I see you Wiz!
Even Travis Scott nice looking nice!
Here are some of the other looks from last night.
Come through Ashley Graham with the glowing skin and poppin thighs
Janelle Monae with the head piece jewelry and hat, with a cap shirt
Mary J ALWAYS look good in white, Earlier this year, she wore all white to the Oscars and this gold makes her hair pop and skin pop. I see you Aunt Mary
J. Lo came to slay and always showing some leg. I’m here for this look!
Kate Perry tryna fly off on us with this huge wings lol, but I love the uniqueness of it.
Zendaya is giving me medieval time with this dress. The neck and shoulders look like it’s made of metal and the bottom part of the gown is fabric of course. Then her orange hair makes the whole thing pop.
Issa Rae Bae is looking good in her gold and black. She usually keeps it simple but elegant where ever she goes.
Okay…I’ll give Kim her props. She was stunning last night. Her eye make up, makes her eyes look exotic and her gold gown is simple but glowing. I see you Kim!
Shout out to 2Chainz for proposing to his wife, (I thought he was already married). She looked so happy. I love black love!
Last but not least, shout out to Lena Waithe for rocking a rainbow cape, signifying her gay pride. To me, it speaks “I’m gay and I’m proud.” I love it!
Who’s look did you love the most this year?? Comment below!
On Saturday, Childish Gambino, also known as Donald Glover for his government name that he uses for acting purposes, dropped a song and video titled “This Is America” and let me tell ya….it was needed.
He starts off the video, topless, dancing then BOOM, he shoots a guy with a pillow case covered over his head, in the head. But the way he shoots him is in the stance with one leg stretched in an angle and the other bent slightly. After researching, that stance that he shot the guy in, was part of a Jim Crow caricature dance. Jim Crow is the practice of segregating black people. With him doing that stance, he wants to show that Jim Crow is still I a thing in America, hence “This Is America” title; the lyrics are “Don’t Catching You Slippin Up.”
He goes on doing a bunch of trendy dances, with students dressed in uniforms. The dancing was going on in front of us but did you pat attention to the craziness happening behind the dancing? NOPE, that was the point. Dancing could be used as a distraction in America to distract us from what’s really going on. That could be social media in a sense too.
Next scene is a black choir singing, Gambino comes out and shoots them, hinting at the 2015 Charleston Church shooting. Self explanatory message.
You see a burning car and a police car with sirens on, people around, and a person on a horse
Gambino continues to dance again with the school kids but in the background, You see a burning car and a police car with sirens on, people around, and a person on a horse. He lifts his hand up acting as if his hand is a gun, then everyone disappears, he lights a blunt. Then the guy he shot with the pillow case over his head, is playing the guitar. Gambino then hops on a car, one of many that are portrayed in the video, and dances until the video goes black. As the video is zooming out, you see SZA sitting on the car. After the video goes black, he is seen running fast because there are people chasing him, then the video ends.
Every time I watched this video, I saw something new. How I perceived this video is this, Americans shoots and kills innocent people, but distracts us from some of those stories by people dancing or new trends on social media. Overall, I like the video, Childish Gambino is good for creating music that makes us sit back and listen.
What are your thoughts?? Comment them and check out the video below!
Coachella was the talk of social media this past weekend ESPECIALLY Beyonce. She stole the show for the WHOLE WEEKEND, with her HBCU band, her reunion with Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams from Destinys Child and bringing her sister Solange on stage to kill it with her. Beyonce has the whole Beehive wanting to pledge Beta Delta Kappa, which is the sweatshirt she wore in the second picture. Fans drew the conclusion that Beyonce was a sorority and they wanted to pledge. The letters B-A-K were on her sweatshirt and it could mean B-Beyonce, A-symbolizing Delta, but could also be related to the Roc Nation sign, and the K-for Knowles.
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*the above images are from Beyonce’s instagram*
Our fav Cardi B performed “Best Life” with Chance the Rapper, “She Bad” with YG, “Bartier Cardi” with 21 Savage, “Ring” with Kehlani and even “No Limit” with G Eazy. Her attire with full blown Left Eye vines with the all white and even the ponytails.
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credit: missinfo.tvCredit: thejasminebrand.com
Bae SZA took stage and performed “Drew Barrymore” then she brought out K-Dot (Kendrick Lamar) for “Doves in the Wind” “All the Stars”.
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Migos even took the stage and performed some of their old hits like “Fight Night”
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Of course there were more performance, but these were just the highlights. Make sure you check out my next post about the Coachella Fashion looks over the weekend.
The past few days have been magical for Cardi B. She has been killing music game for the past few months and now it came to a full circle this past weekend.
credit: Cardi B IG
On Friday, she released her first album titled Invasion of Privacy, and guess what?? It went GOLD in the same DAY. By gold, that means she’s sold or “moved” 500,000 units of her album, but there is a slight catch to that. According to Forbes, her single “Bodak Yellow” went certified 5x-multi platinum in September, which we all heard, but just on the strength on Bodak Yellow’s success, she’s moved 500,000 units of her album already!! PLUS “Bartier Cardi” her second single just earned platinum certification as well, which is 1 Million units. So Cardi’s album won’t be shy of a plaque at all, even without the her singles booming on the charts. I’ve listened to the album at least 5 times PLUS the radio stations have been playing her whole album too; so if her album sales aren’t out of the roof, IMMA BE PISSED!
Now let’s talk about the album…DOPE. DOPE. DOPE. And I’m not just saying that because I love her. Honestly, I was getting tired of her putting out all these songs and featuring on songs WITHOUT an album coming, but she made the wait worth it. She starts out her album with the song “Get Up 10” which was a Meek Mill “Dreams & Nightmares” vibe with the storytelling lyrics. She then has a song with Migos of course, with the song “Drip”, another banga! FEATURES FEATURES FEATURES. Cardi’s features on this album were “BRAZY”. Besides Migos, she got with Chance The Rapper for the song “Best Life” which is a more positive upbeat song. Then, she got my girl Kehlani on a song called “Ring”. She also collaborated with YG for the song “She Bad”, and last but not least….”I Do” featuring SZA, another dope record. I love the sense of women getting together and sticking together, especially with the constant competition and negativity that everyone wants to bring with it.
Cardi sampled a couple of records and made them sound just as fire as the original song. Starting off the first sample on the album, “Bickenhead”, this was sample from Project Pat “Chickenhead” which I definitely remember as kid. Another sample was “I like it” from the original song “I Like It Like That” by Pete Rodriguez, which is a Latin song that she channeled her roots in, being Dominican of course. Then, as stated before, she took the flow of Meek Mill “Dreams & Nightmares” on her first song on the albums.
Now, rumors have been circulating with her being pregnant over the past few months. She FINALLY showed off her belly during her performance on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. A video circulated of her came out of her after her performance on SNL, of her saying “I’m finally free.” By that, she’s free from hiding her pregnancy and she can finally embrace it instead of hiding it in shame. She’s been compared to Lauryn Hill because she had a baby in the middle of her career and of course she was the first female rapper to top the billboards with no features with ‘That Thing (Doo Woop) and here we are, years later, Cardi did the same thing with Bodak Yellow. Ironic ehh.
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Many other artists have congratualed on her pregnancy and album release including 50Cent, Rihanna, EVEN OPRAH!
All in all, I’m sooooooooooo proud of her. From the strip club to being Instagram famous, to Love & Hip Hop New York, to being number 1 on the billboard chart to having a dope ass album! I love it and I love how her success has soared.
I tuned in to the Grammys last night and I was happy about the performances buuuuuut disappointed at some of the wins.
For instance, I LOVE SZA, so of course I was rooting for her to win at least 1 out of the 5 Grammys she was nominated for, ESPECIALLY for Best New Artist, but for some reason….Alessia Care won. Alessia’s definitely been active in the music scene for about three ish years, versus SZA who’s been dropping low key EPs but had a BOOMING year in 2017. For the Best R&B performance category, even though SZA was nominated, it was a given that Bruno was going to win because…well he’s Bruno.
For Best Urban Contemporary Album category, that was a toughy, but I don’t think The Weeknd should’ve snagged that one and I listened to that album. I would’ve gave it to at least Childish Gambino, even Khalid and especially SZA. When you think about it…why wasn’t Kehlani’s SweetSexySavage album nominated under this category. I definitely LOVED that album and I had never listened to any of her music prior to that album. Also, why the helllllllllllllllllll wasn’t Heartbreak on a Full Moon nominated. We ALL know that Chris KILT the album. Yes, it was a lengthy album but well-deserving of a Grammy The category for Best R&B Album was a given because Bruno was in that category but I feel like 24k Magic wasn’t all R&B. It had funk in it, which is cool, but I feel like they put him in wayyyy too many categories.
The Best Rap Performance was given to Kendrick Lamar for Humble, but he was in competition with Cardi B for Bodak Yellow and Migos for Bad and Boujee. I would’ve been happier if one of the two won. Kendrick also won Best Rap/Sung Performance for Loyalty, Best Rap Song for Duckworth AND Best Rap Album for DAMN. Of course I’m glad he won, “For The Culture” but damn…literally; Cardi, Migos and SZA could’ve snagged an award from those categories.
I will say that I liked Kendrick’s performance, it was dope AF. Ri Ri was shaking a lil something and my girl SZA sang one of my favs “Broken Clocks. Childish Gambino performed some song, and his vocals were on point! And OF COURSE Bruno & Cardi KILT their performance of Finesse Remix.
Overall review of the awards: good performances, not so good winners.
2017 was a good year for some artists, from high record sales, to mega revenue coming through on their end. I can only image the their net worth by the end of this year. As I said in my blog post [Album Releases of 2017 ] this was a great year for music. It’s been so great, that a few of these artist probably had the year out of them all, musically. Check out these artist below.
Photo credit: GQ
Migos; as a whole the trio has been winning, starting from the beginning of the year when in January, Donald Glover gave them a shout out at the Golden Globes award show, for their song “Bad & Boujee” the recognition, Bad and Boujee rose up on the charts and became number 1 on the Billboard awards. Migos as a group have released four singles and currently 1 “Motorsport” is in the top 10 on the billboards. Quavo was the most successful member outside of the group, featuring in four songs including “Congratulations” by Post Malone, “You the One” by Dj Khaled, “Good Drank” by 2 Chainz and “Strip That” by Liam Payne and many more. They even got more attention for their live interview with Joe Budden and the Everyday Struggle cast, that went terribly wrong.
Cardi B; she went from the strip club, to Love and HipHop for two season, to her first big single number 1 on the top 100 chart. More recently, she was recognized for having three hit songs on the billboard chart at one time with her single; “Bodak Yellow”,” No Limit”, and “Motorsport.” Bodak Yellow sold 3 million units, making the single certified 3x Platinum, per the RIAA standards. She also graced mazaginr covers such as Fader and New York Mag AND she even got proposed to by Offset from Migos. Talk about a lit year!
Next, there’s my girl SZA, (whom I saw in concert on December 19, and it was awesome). She’s been out since 2014 and featured on Wale’s album The Album About Nothing, singing the chorus on “The Need To Know.” She was also on featured on Rihanna’s album Anti, singing on “Consideration.” She’s released three EP’s but Her first album titled CTRL is what got her her mega fan base. Her first single “Love Galore”, received her a platinum plague, selling one million units, per RIAA. Her song “The Weekend” wasn’t even released as a single it received a platinum plague. She also received FIVE Grammy nominations for the 2018 awards. WOOT WOOT, GO SZA!
Switching focus to Rihanna and her selling her Fenty Beauty make up line. She earned $72 million in sales in just ONE MONTH of selling the product. Rihanna debuted the make up in September, starting out with 40 shades and 9 highlighters and other makeup products; she also has a partnership with Puma.
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Lastly, I’m gonna add Chris Brown to this list. He put on a 45 track album, Heartbreak On A Full Moon, and it sold over 64,000 units in a week. (Check out my blog post about Chris Brown Album Review)– But he is the first artist to successfully release an album that long and be very success with it. ALL of his albums have been in the top 10 on the charts; and two were number 1.
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So the question I have for y’all is: who would you say had the best year out of the five artists? Comment your thoughts below!
Danii Gold 