Today Rihanna has performed her concert in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
As I've been saying since pretty much the date was announced the
artistic/entertainment significance of this concert pales into
insignificance compared with its political purpose. The idea of that was
to drive Rihanna into a fullscale emotional meltdown whilst she is in
the UAE in order to allow Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the
managment) to restore the honour to the Gulf Monarchs that Rihanna is
supposed to have taken from them. However what exactly Rihanna or even
the management did wrong is still a bit of a mystery.
One of the main ways that the management intended to cause Rihanna a
great deal of stress was by causing me a great deal of stress. The idea
being that I get p*ssed off and start shouting at Rihanna. It goes
without saying then that it has been almost impossible for me to get
good quality information about the concert. For example the venue (du
Arena) has on its website a clock counting down the seconds until
Rihanna was scheduled to be on stage. The problem was that it was
completely wrong and was instead counting down to the start of the Music
Of Black Origin (MOBO) awards that are currently taking place in
Glasgow, UK. No doubt the intention was that the snub of not winning a
MOBO along with all the award show gossip would only add to Rihanna's
stress levels. However it must be said that with the possible exception
of Tinie Tempah if Rihanna considers any of those attending the MOBO's
her peers then Rihanna is really selling herself short.
Another attempt to cause Rihanna the maximum stress while she is in the
UAE has come from that European Monarchy Belgium where a plane carrying
10 parachutists has crashed killing all on board including the pilot.
The idea being that with everyone waiting with baited breath to find out
when Rihanna would fly into the UAE this would prompt me to point out
Rihanna hadn't been killed in a plane crash. Rihanna's detractors -
Teyana Taylor springs to mind immediately - would then seize on this to
point out that Rihanna's 'Body Count' has risen. There is already some
confusion about whether Rihanna's 'Body Count' refers to the number of
people she has sex or the number of people who've been killed since the
start of this tour so this was intended to both promote discussion about
promiscuity (in Gulf nations any woman who consents to any form of sex
is considered a whore) while leaving Rihanna with some unpleasant facts
to dwell on.
Rihanna's better then that though and ended up taking to the stage
between 18:00-18:30 (22:00-22:30 local). Obviously not knowing what time
Rihanna was supposed to be on stage I cannot comment on whether this
was early or late but the impression I get is that it was right on time.
Rihanna then put in what even the local press are conceding was an
excellent performance of the usual set-list although I'm not sure of the
exact running order. The stage set was of course different. The
intention being that outsiders would be forced to fight their way
through the information blackout to find out if there was any
significance to this. Apart from the managment trying to give the Emirs
yet another gift there wasn't.
In order to adhere to Islamic dress codes/modesty standards that are
strictly enforced in the UAE Rihanna obviously dispensed with the usual
costumes and instead wore a single outfit. This consisted of loose
fitting white trousers, a relatively loose white top with shoulder
straps and a white hat with a long fabric train to cover up her hair.
The only thing noticeable about this is that it indicates that the
management are so subservient to the Emirs that they didn't even dare
raise the issue of modesty standards. The fact that Rihanna did expose
her arms though will be criticised loudly on social media throughout her
stay in the UAE and we're all tensely waiting to see whether the UAE's
Monarch will dispatch Salafi protesters to Rihanna's hotel to harass her
further.
Most of the harassment of Rihanna will of course will take place on
Sunday (20/10/13) while Rihanna's in the UAE with no concert to prepare
for and I've had a very stressful day scheduled for me. The problem
though is that it now seems extremely unlikely that Rihanna will
experience any sort of emotional break down whilst she's in the UAE
because Rihanna has certainly got a lot to be proud of at the moment.
Even the Belgians have been forced to admit that this plan is a failure
by blaming the wings falling off the aircraft for their plane crash.
Therefore most people in the business are currently casually waiting to
see whether the management will continue to scrape their nose across the
asphalt in subservience to the Emirs or simply give up and let Rihanna
head on to Israel. After all the only thing that would more humiliating
for the management then being seen to lack the courage to say no to the
Emirs would be being seen to be too incompetent to succeed in the task
the Emirs have demanded of them.
(Originally Posted) 21:15 on 19/10/13.
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