Rihanna's Grammy Performance.

As there's nothing on TV I've just finished watching Rihanna's performances at Sunday's (10/2/13) Grammy Awards. The Bob Marley tribute/love letter to Africa was pretty pedestrian and predictable.

It started with Bruno Mars performing his hit "Locked Out of Heaven." Apart from the comparison with the Rihanna song "Pour it Up" Mars is a man who's had few problems with the US authorities over his cocaine use. This obviously raises the issue of cocaine and Chris Brown's oft repeated claims that he's one of the most oppressed men in the world. Mars was of course sentenced to 1 year probation, a $2000 fine and 200 hours community service for possession of a very small about of cocaine. Having committed two assaults, perverted the course of justice, fraud and bribed public officials Chris Brown remains free.

Bruno Mars was then joined on stage by Sting from the band The Police. Apart from the fact that "Locked Out of Heaven" samples a Police song Sting's appearance was due to the fact that his band actually provided the soundtrack to one of my legendary tussles with the CIA that inspired the video to Rihanna's "Rude Boy" amongst many other things.

Sting and Mars went on to perform "Walking on the Moon" which was a reference to the fall of Tripoli and Qaddafi's flight to Sirte during the Libya war. Britain, France and Qatar were certain that Qaddafi was in Tripoli so when the city fell the war would be over. The US, me and most other people already knew that Qaddafi had fled to Sirte. "As obvious as footprints on the Moon" was the phrase used to describe Qaddafi's flight to Sirte. Therefore the performance was an attempt to get Africa to trust the US rather then Britain or France over the Mali conflict.

Rihanna came on last with Damien and Ziggy Marley for a toe curling rendition of the Bob Marley hit "You Could be Loved" when "Buffalo Soldier" would have been far more appropriate.

Rihanna's earlier performance of her song "Stay" was slightly more interesting. In a clear act of collusion between performer, show organisers and the broadcaster very early on there was a prominent shot of Rihanna's left hand clutching the microphone. This revealed that on her wedding finger she was wearing the engagement ring Chris Brown gave to her. She's actually been wearing that ring for certainly as long as I've been looking. However it's prominence at the Grammys was to get fans to speculate that "Stay" is actually about Chris Brown.

Those people were made to look pretty foolish when Rihanna was joined on stage by Mickey Ekko who wrote the song and as far as we know is not in love with Chris Brown. However along with the "Pour it Up/Locked out of Heaven" comparison this does feed into the theme of Rihanna's process and whether she agreed to record and release "Stay" thinking it reflected her feelings for Brown.

Debuted at the final of the UK X-Factor "Stay" is actually the US saying that despite me it wants to stay allies with the UK provided the UK remains part of the European Union (EU). Having been delayed by Rihanna's 777 tour EU leaders have now agreed a budget for the European Council (EC) and there are some impenetrable discussions about horse meat going on as we wait to see if that European Parliament will adopt or reject that budget.

So tonight's release of the video for "Stay" some three months after the singles release is a US attempt to get a sense of what is going on in the EU discussions while at the same time providing an opportunity for a sort of progress report before Rihanna's deployment to London Fashion Week on Saturday (16/2/13).

The other thing I noticed was that despite all the nominations and performing Rihanna only won one Grammy. That was for best video for "We Found Love" and was awarded before the show began. This was the Grammy organisers trying to downplay their role in Rihanna and Chris Brown's reunion by sort of striking her from the official record. I hope she takes note of how easily people can be disappeared once they become an embarrassment.

(Originally posted)21:25 on 11/2/13.