Last night Rihanna performed the penultimate concert of the Diamonds World Tour in Houston, Texas.
As usual Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) kept all
official information about the concert tightly locked down. Also there
seems to be a distinct shortage of unofficial information about the
concert available to me.
However one thing I am not hearing is a long list of complaints about
the concert. Therefore I think it is safe to assume that Rihanna
appeared on stage within the allotted time to perform the standard
set-list with the standard costume changes and stage set up. From the
little slivers I've seen the overall concert seemed more subdued that
Tuesday's (12/11/13) performance in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
However that is not to say that there was anything wrong with the
concert - it just lacked the same level of energy as the particularly
strong concert in Oklahoma.
At around the time of the concert there was a small fire and associated
local evacuation at a chemical factory in Eminem's home town of Detroit.
However I think that was just an accidental coincidence. Rather then
being an indication that the management has had a change of heart this
lack of big stunts seems to indicate that they thought that the low
level controversy surrounding the concert would be enough to cause
confusion. For example this Houston concert was a big an obvious
reference to Whitney Houston whose tragic life is seeming to be
something of a template for Rihanna's future.
The main drama concerning Rihanna's concert last night though was
supposed to come from the fact that Rihanna attended Drake's concert in
Houston on Wednesday (13/11/13) much as he attended Rihanna's Dallas
concert on Monday (11/11/13). As Drake's people have been clearly
following my advice Rihanna was not only ushered backstage on Wednesday
but was seen to be ushered backstage. Then following the concert Drake
and Rihanna attended a strip-club together where a lot of money was
spent (estimates range from USD17,000 to USD97,000). The intention here
was clearly to make sure that Rihanna and Drake were seen and talked
about socialising outside of the concert in a effort to fuel rumours
that they had reunited as a couple. This may be one possible explanation
for Rihanna's subdued concert performance the following night.
At 09:00 (EST)/14:00(GMT) today the video for Rihanna's single "What Now"
will be officially released and Rihanna will no doubt be under an
obligation to help promote it via social media. This obviously brings up
the controversial detour to Thailand during the recent south-east Asian
leg of the tour because apparently Thailand was the only place on earth
this video could be shot. Mainly though this unsubtly poses the
question of; What now for Rihanna that her tour has ended? I'll go into
this in more detail tomorrow once the tour has actually ended but there
are basically two scenarios laid out by the management;
The long discussed ideal scenario is for Rihanna to reunite with Chris
Brown because that way the management will own Rihanna for the rest of
what could well end up being a very short life. In order to help make
this scenario a reality the American Music Awards (AMAs) are giving
Rihanna a special "Icon" award in order to make sure she attends the
November 24th (24/11/13) awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Chris Brown is
scheduled to appear in front of an LA Court on November 20th (20/11/13)
although it's been rumoured that may be pushed back until November 25th
(25/11/13) in order to allow more time to prepare in light of his most
recent arrest.
However if Rihanna fails to reunite with Chris Brown the management have
put in place a fall back position of forcing Rihanna into a
relationship with either Drake or A$AP Rocky. That way the can claim
that they haven't failed but have instead cunningly engineered a way to
keep Rihanna and Chris Brown apart without having to take appropriate
legal action against Chris Brown.
I would like to say that there are other options but until Rihanna is
prepared to make life difficult for management by pushing back against
them these are her only two options. The type of thing Rihanna could do
to push back range from the big and aggressive such as applying herself
for a restraining order against Chris Brown to the more subtle such as
refusing to meet up with Drake for these little publicity stunts or
suddenly becoming 'ill' on the day of the AMA's. Obviously though I
think the best idea would be for Rihanna to get in more direct contact
with me. That way I'll be able to more fully bring my skills to bear on
all these other issues.
11:15 on 15/11/13.
Edited at around 11:40 on 15/11/13 to add; Sometimes I envy commuters.
At least they get a gap between waking up and arriving at work.
The four 'Hollywood Marines' who were killed in a range accident at Camp
Pendleton on Wednesday (13/11/13) were supposed to give the impression
that the management had accepted that something had gone wrong with
their plan for Rihanna. Therefore they are currently holding an
investigation before choosing whether to press ahead with the first
scenario or switch to the second scenario. By giving the impression that
the management haven't yet made a decision is intended to add an extra
level of uncertainty to the situation as the COP19/CMP9 into it's second
week and high level segment .
Edited again at around 14:40 on 15/11/13 to add;
The "What Now" has now been officially released and if you really want
it can be viewed here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-3BI9AspYc&feature=youtu.be
The first big inescapable thing about the video is that it is shot
entirely in an artificially lit sparse white room meaning could have
been shot absolutely anywhere in the world posing the obvious question
of why Rihanna had to go to Thailand?
Beyond that the video is really just trying to bring the song to the
fore rather then making any great artistic statements. Apart from the
title the song features Rihanna singing the lyric "I just can't figure
it out" over and over again which really reinforces the question of what
now for Rihanna and whether she will figure out the management's plan
for her and take action to avoid it?
The song also features the lyric; "Whatever it is it feels it's laughing
at me through the glass of a two sided mirror." The video director has
taken this as inspiration to use the surveillance theme throughout the
video with lots of grainy CCTV-style footage. Coming at the start of the
final leg of the Diamonds World Tour this seems intended to place the
idea of covert surveillance in Rihanna's mind in order to increase her
levels of paranoia and therefore stress in the run-up to the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) concert.
As such one way Rihanna could push back against the management is by
never, ever using the directors (there are 3 listed) of this video ever
again.
(Originally Posted on 15/11/13)
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