Overnight Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour returned to the United States with a concert in Puerto Rico.
As I been saying since this Caribbean and second US leg of the tour was
announced the political purpose it to help drive immigration reform
through the US Congress.
Apart from highlighting the different US immigration status between
Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean islanders this would be achieved by
making Rihanna so miserable that she personifies the tired, the
poor[sic] and the huddled masses yearning to be free that are synonymous
with US' famous Ellis Island immigration station. The idea being that
Rihanna's misery would create such a wave of empathy towards all
immigrants to the US that it would be impossible to for Congress to
refuse to pass immigration reform. It rather goes without saying the
Ellis Island actually re-opened to the public on Monday (28/10/13) after
a year of repairs following Superstorm Sandy.
Therefore the objective of Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the
management) was to make Rihanna as miserable and stressed out as
possible ahead of the Puerto Rico concert to ensure the most wretched
and poor performance possible. Apart from only allowing Rihanna to
travel to Puerto Rico in the hours before the concert this was to be
achieved primarily by getting Rihanna and members of her core tour party
such as her friend Melissa Forde and Gomillion and Leupold
(@GnLStudios) who are the sort of in-house paparazzi to be very active
on social media (Twitter/Instagram). This would prompt me - in my
post-pub state - to tell them all exactly what I thought of them in
brutal and sweary detail. This would of course ibncrease the tensions
within the group and create waves of discussion and argument amongst
Rihanna's huge social media following. If you look back over my Twitter
feed (@Sovereignaka) from last night you will see that I went about this
task with a great deal of glee and gusto. After all it helped prove my
point.
Despite all these efforts Rihanna's actual performance was far from poor
or wretched. There was a small issue about how long it took for Rihanna
to arrive on stage because with a scheduled show start time of 20:00
(local) you would have expected Rihanna to appear between 21:00 and
21:30. The fact that Rihanna didn't actually take to the stage until
between 22:15 and 22:30 would suggest that she was very late. However
with the support act also running late and there being little
expectation that Rihanna would actually turn up on time no-one seemed to
mind that much.
I don't know what sort of stage-set was used for the concert but Rihanna
put in an energetic and enthusiastic performance of the standard
set-list. Again Rihanna dispensed with the usual costume changes instead
wearing one outfit throughout her performance made up of a black
leather bra top and black leather trousers. Basically this looked sexy
as hell and although the use of black was supposed to symbolise that
Rihanna was depressed there was no great political significance to the
outfit.
Obviously in a country of some 315 million people the fact Rihanna is
performing the occasional concert in front of a few thousand isn't going
to be enough to put Rihanna in the US public consciousness to the
extent needed to drive through national immigration reform. As such
efforts have been made to really boost Rihanna's public profile within
the US primarily through the release for radio airplay of "The Monster"
Rihanna's collaboration with Eminem. As always with music it would be
better for you to listen to this song or even buy it rather then have me
analyse it on the Internet. However any analysis of that song will
immediately pick up on two things;
Firstly The Monster is quite clearly the strongest work Rihanna has
released all year. Apart from highlighting just how weak the "Unapologetic"
album which makes up the bulk of the concert set-list actually is this
promotes discussion about where Rihanna's career goes once this
unfortunate chapter ends. After all Rihanna won't be able to release a
new album until at least the autumn of 2014 but she could certainly fit
in a summer of collaborations with artists of Eminem's calibre which I
suppose makes Eminem something of the lamp by Rihanna's golden door.
Secondly Rihanna's main part in the song is singing the hook; "I'm
friends with the monster under my bed. I'm friends with the voices in my
head." Years ago someone assigned me the pseudonym "Eminem" and since
then the actual Eminem and I have been slowly and gradually driving each
other insane. Therefore you could say that I am Eminem's 'Monster.' As
such it sounds as though Eminem has got Rihanna to record this song in
order to get her to very publicly and very loudly admit that she and I
are indeed friends. This creates the obvious question of why we've never
met up or why Rihanna never phones or writes. Apart from my performance
last night a large part of the reason for this is that Rihanna is
afraid that if she does meet up with me the management will punish her
in some way most likely through the Inland Revenue Service (IRS) audit.
So I don't know about Rihanna but I'm certainly yearning for the day when she's allowed to breathe free.
(Originally Posted) 12:55 on 30/10/13.
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