by tyler | Oct 9, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Fat Joe is hosting the BET Hip Hop Awards for the second year in a row. He couldn’t be more thrilled, especially given that this year marks the 50th anniversary of hip hop.
“Hosting for the 50th anniversary is beyond an honor,” he told CNN. “Any year that I host the BET Hip Hop Awards, I’m like a kid in the candy store.”
He said the ceremony, which was filmed in Atlanta,Georgia, last week and airs Tuesday, is a big one as it honors the artists, producers and DJs that have helped make the genre great.
It also marks the 30th anniversary of his debut studio album “Represent,” which Fat Joe is keeping low key.
“I don’t really celebrate so much the anniversaries because I’m always just in real time,” he said. “So I don’t really think about the past. I just move forward and try to push the legacy as forward in as real time as possible.”
That means celebrating both the newer artists as well as those who have come before. While some have complained that the more recent artists are not as talented as some of the older ones, Fat Joe doesn’t play that game.
He recalled being a teen an attending a panel when one of the rap legends on that panel was critical of an up-and-coming rap group.
“I was like ‘Man this guy’s a hater. I can’t believe he’s a hater,’” the rapper recalled. “And I said, if I become successful, I’ll never be that guy.”
Now that he is that successful, Fat Joe said he tries always to be supportive of those coming up in the rap game.
“Whether I like the music or I don’t, I always encourage the youth to do better, to keep rocking, to uplift the hip hop community, to hire more people, take care of their kids,” he said. “That’s what I’m about. I don’t really throw shade on the youth.
Rather than complain that today’s hip hop is not like that of yesteryear, Fat Joe said he focuses on continuing to grow as a artist and even as a host for the awards show.
“With age comes wisdom and so you learn how to move differently, you learn how to make music differently. You learn how to talk about different things,” he said. “My whole life has been a work in progress. Whether it may be as an artist, as a stage performer, as a host or having TV shows, all my life has just been practice makes perfect.”
The 2023 BET Hip Hop Awards will air on Oct. 10 at 9 p.m. ET on BET.
by tyler | Oct 9, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Queen Elizabeth’s reign on Netflix is coming to an end.
The dates for the sixth and final season of “The Crown” were announced Monday, along with the release of a new trailer.
Imelda Staunton stars as Queen Elizabeth in her later years. In the new preview she is seen walking past images of herself as a younger woman, played by Clair Foy and Olivia Colman.
“The Crown is a symbol of permanence. It’s something you are, not what you do,” the character can be heard saying. “Some portion of our natural selves is always lost. We have all made sacrifices. It is not a choice. It is a duty.”
The older Elizabeth is then heard asking, “But what about the life I put aside? The woman I put aside.”
Season 6 will be streamed in two parts. The first part is scheduled to debut on Nov. 16, while the second will begin streaming December 14.
According to Netflix, the fictional dramatization will also feature the love story of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
by tyler | Oct 9, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
U2 paid tribute in song on Sunday to those killed by Gaza militants at a music festival in Southern Israel over the weekend.
During their performance at The Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada, Bono dedicated their song “Pride (In the Name of Love)” to the hundreds killed in the attack at the Nova Festival held outside Re’im.
“In the light of what’s happened in Israel and Gaza, a song about non-violence seems somewhat ridiculous, even laughable, but our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence,” Bono told the Las Vegas audience. “But our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed. So sing with us… and those beautiful kids at that music festival.”
Israeli officials counted at least 260 bodies near the site of the festival, where earlier footage showed carefree partygoers from Israel and overseas dancing in the desert soon after sunrise on Saturday.
Some survivors are among more than 100 hostages that the militant group Hamas claims to be holding in Gaza, according to friends and family members who have seen them in videos shared on social platforms.
“It was a festival of music and peace,” Bono told the audience. “A festival of music and peace. Can you imagine?”
Bono changed some of the lyrics of their song to reflect the tragedy.
“Early morning, October 7th,” he sang. “The sun is rising in the desert sky / Stars of David, they took your life / But they could not take your pride.”
“Pride (In the Name of Love)” originally paid tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. and referenced his assassination on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
Sunday’s performance of “Pride” was preceded by “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” It was followed by “MLK,” according to videos shared by concertgoers on social media.
by tyler | Oct 4, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
One of the most recognizable people in the world, David Beckham has a well-trodden story: a former England soccer captain, married to a Spice Girl and now the owner of Major League Soccer club Inter Miami.
“Brand Beckham” swept the world in the 1990s and 2000s, propelling David and Victoria Beckham to an international stardom reserved for those who transcend the bounds of their celebrity careers and become pop culture icons of their era.
It seems impossible to learn any more about Beckham but there are several revelations contained in the eponymous Netflix documentary released on Wednesday, directed by “Succession” star Fisher Stevens who sketches a complex portrait of the soccer star.
While already independently famous, the marriage between “Posh and Becks” catapulted both of them into another sphere of celebrity, uniting the worlds of soccer, pop culture, music and later fashion.
But, as it turns out, Victoria Beckham is “not into football” and never will be, she says in the documentary, despite marrying one of the sport’s most recognizable figures.
Both of them recall their first meeting and the early days of their fledgling relationship, meeting in car parks and kissing in cars in an attempt to keep it a secret. “It’s less seedy than it sounds,” Victoria quips.
She gave her number to her future husband written on a plane ticket after attending a Manchester United game with fellow Spice Girl Mel C.
Victoria and David Beckham address affair allegations
But the image of a blissful marriage cracked in April 2004 when the now defunct British newspaper “News of the World” printed allegations that Beckham had had an affair after his transfer to Real Madrid.
While the couple don’t directly address the content of the allegations in the documentary, they each speak about the impact that it, and the media coverage, had on their marriage.
“I don’t know how we got through it in all honesty,” Beckham said haltingly in the documentary. “Victoria is everything to me. To see her hurt was incredibly difficult… what we had was worth fighting for.”
For her part, Victoria says that “it was the hardest period” in their marriage because “it felt like the world was against us… and we were against each other.”
For all the magical moments that Beckham enjoyed on the soccer field, there was one incident that threatened to overshadow his career: when he was given a red card for tripping Diego Simeone during England’s round of 16 match against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup.
England went on to lose that match on penalties and crashed out of the World Cup, unleashing a tidal wave of abuse towards Beckham.
It was “public bullying on another level,” Victoria said, saying that it left her husband “clinically depressed” and “broken.”
Beckham’s friend and business partner, David Gardner, said he remembers people spitting at and barging into the soccer player in the street or banging on their car windows at traffic lights.
The abuse, Beckham said, left him feeling “very vulnerable and alone,” during that time but that he “finds it hard to talk through what I went through because it was so extreme… the whole country hated me.”
He added that he still beats himself up about the red card 25 years later.
After retiring from football, Beckham has become a co-owner of Inter Miami and found some other ways to occupy his time too, including beekeeping and cooking.
The series begins with him beekeeping, harvesting honey from a hive of bees that flows into an old jam jar. Beckham jokes that it should be called “Golden Bees” – an apparent allusion to his one-time nickname “Golden Balls” – while his wife, he says with a wry smile, thinks it should be called “DB Sticky Stuff.” Lego is another of his hobbies, he tells documentary director Fisher Stevens.
Coming full circle, the four-part documentary ends with him cooking with his family in a sunroom, a place where he “potters around” on a Saturday, spending the day grilling while watching football on his iPad.
Sometimes, professional commitments impacted on important moments in Beckham’s family life. One example is when he had to break the news to his wife that the birth of their third son, Cruz, would clash with his photoshoot with pop icons Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez.
“I was like… seriously, I am about to burst. I’m on bed rest. Are you kidding me?” Victoria says 18 years later in the documentary. “You’ve got a damn photoshoot with Jennifer Lopez, who is gorgeous and not about to have a baby. So I had my C-section and I remember lying there, don’t feel at my most gorgeous, let’s just say.”
On the front pages of the newspapers, Victoria remembers, was a photo of Beckham standing between Beyoncé and Lopez with the headline “What would Posh say?”
“Let me tell you what Posh would say,” she says in the documentary. “Posh was pissed off.”
by tyler | Oct 3, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
This one is for those among us who are already itching to put up winter holiday decorations.
The proclaimed “Queen of Christmas” is in the spirit as well.
Mariah Carey has announced her “Merry Christmas One And All Tour.”
“Yes, the actual defrosting has begun!,” Carey shared on social media. “Announcing the MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL Tour! On sale 10/6.”
The tour is scheduled to kick off at California’s Yaamava Casino on Nov. 15, before making stops in other cities, including Los Angeles, Denver, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Montreal, Philadelphia.
The tour will conclude Dec. 17 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Carey did a limited “Merry Christmas To All!” series of concerts last year, which also included a CBS and Paramount+ special.
Tickets for the new tour go on presale Wednesday, with general sale to launch on Friday via Live Nation.
by tyler | Oct 3, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
From “Boss Chick” to “Boss Moves,” Rasheeda is all about handling her business.
The rapper, reality star and entrepreneur has brought her whole self to the Philo series, “Boss Moves with Rasheeda.”
“Whether Rasheeda is showing her Pressed boutique, or cooking up new cuisines at Frost Bistro, she’s always in boss mode planning her next big move,” is how the streamer describes the show.
For Frost, the series showcases her hustle.
“Being a boss means being the captain of your own ship and really being focused and diligent, controlling your destiny and leading by example,” Rasheeda told CNN. “It’s really just,about what it is you’re trying to do in this crazy, crazy world.”
Rasheeda knows about how crazy things can get.
She and her husband Kirk Frost have had their lives – and marriage – under a microscope as cast members of the popular reality show, “Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta.”
And while some have questioned their union after more than a little bit of documented turmoil, Rasheeda is confident in her choices.
“You see bits and pieces of our life, we’re human beings,” she said. “We’ve been married 23 years. We go through things and some people don’t agree with it. We’re not gonna please you. And guess what, you’re not in this marriage.”
They are too busy empire building, she said, which is documented on “Boss Moves.”
She recently caught a scoop when rapper Nelly confirmed while on her show that he and singer Ashanti are back together as a couple a decade after they split.
The busy businesswoman said it’s all a part of her desire to “pour into” and educate others through content the masses will enjoy.
Though Rasheeda’s days are packed with managing her fashion boutique and Atlanta restaurant, she’s turning how she relaxes into into her next venture by creating a home decor line.
“I want to do my own throw blankets and pillows and candles and all of that stuff. That’s my therapy,” she said. “When my husband and the kids drive me crazy, I just go furniture shopping and go looking for knickknacks.”
