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So let's jump right in.
This might go up late because I was going to record on schedule Sunday, but then I remembered
it was Super Bowl Sunday, and I'm like, yeah, if I record a podcast and drop it on Monday,
the day after the Super Bowl, when all the content streaming the internet is going to
be about the Super Bowl, I better do my research and just relax for the night.
So did just that, watched the game. I'm not a Philadelphia Eagles fan or a Kansas City Chiefs
fan, but I'm from Pennsylvania. So it was pretty cool to see the Eagles in the Super Bowl,
get the chance to win their second one. It was really kind of heartbreaking. I wouldn't call it
a, I mean, it's a terrible end to the season. They didn't win the Super Bowl, but what a hell
of a season man watching them boys play they earned every bit they were they were meant to
be there um if they would have won nobody could have said that they didn't face but uh you know
there were a lot of penalties they really defeated themselves um buckled i mean it's the super bowl
so there's pressure but this is not a super bowl recap of the game i'm going to talk a little bit
about the Super Bowl performance from Rihanna that has everybody mixed with their feelings.
And we're going to talk why Rihanna can't fail. My girl Riri cannot fail. So we're going to discuss
some of the mixed opinions that they had on the halftime show, if you had a chance to watch it.
She was dressed in red, flying super high on a raised platform. People said what they will
about the choreography. So I'm going to go into some of the things that were said, then I'll get
into my opinion. And hopefully if we get into it, Rihanna's opinion. So there was love, there was
hate. Um, some of the stuff that I saw going around social, uh, her dress, people are split
on her attire. Some people said they thought she was dressed really classy, um, little bit
too conservative. And then, you know, other people thought that it was complete trash.
I was trashy. They thought it was a trashy performance. Um, Belisha, yeah, she touched
herself. And I think that not having it be family friendly, uh, it might've pushed something, um,
sex sells. And it has always been a big part of Rihanna. You know, she's an absolute pop star
icon, a beauty icon. And I don't know. I'm not going to get into my opinion until a little bit
later, but some people thought it was amazing. Not amazing that she was touching herself,
but didn't think much of it. Thought it went with the performance. There's people who,
I mean, you have to realize how far Rihanna has come in her career and she's not as young as she
was when she was in the fame. So it's, it makes sense is the evolution to dress in a conservative
way. Everybody, I mean, I was one too. I thought that she was going to take it off and reveal her
stomach. Um, but obviously she wasn't trying to hide her stomach and forgive me. I could have
sworn Beyonce revealed her pregnancy at, uh, maybe a performance or a Superbowl performance.
Um, I can't remember, but I can see why they didn't go that route. It would have definitely
been called cliche because I feel like it's been done before. Don't correct me if I'm wrong. This
is I will not lose podcasts where you're not going to hear news for the first time. Um,
we don't fact check everything, but we try. Um, let's see the comments about she was lip syncing.
I mean, you got to get with the program. It's the Super Bowl. It's 2023. Everybody knows by now
every artist lip syncs. And at that level of production, you can't risk somebody rolling
a card over one of the wires. I mean, you're setting up platforms that are going to be holding
dancers and people moving. It's absolutely ridiculous engineering, everything that comes
to put the performance together. And it's your right to have an opinion on whether or not it was
good or bad or whether or not it entertained you, but they're not going to risk a live performance
or somebody's mic getting cut. So yep, everybody's going to be lip syncing. So people were, I mean,
you're going to be divided. You either understand that at that level of performance, you need to do
it, or you say, you know, I would have liked to hear the voice. And Rihanna's voice, it's
understandable. You say, I want to hear her sing and her perform. She's a phenomenal performer.
And I think we hold her to that level of performance and we're expecting to see, you know, a return. Fireworks, all sorts of crazy stuff, drones. But I don't know. The pregnancy was definitely a that's all the focus was on.
I mean, it was definitely meant to show her stomach. There's a reason why it was revealed
here. And I'm thinking of the timing. I mean, she was announced as the halftime act a while ago. So
I feel like they would have had to build this performance around her pregnancy. She didn't
look that far along. Uh, but I don't know, I guess you would be showing at like five,
six months. I don't know. Um, obviously I'm not going to Google it, but I'm not sure exactly when
you show. I know it's not right away. So maybe they knew for a while and built the performance
around it. So there's people that were saying that she didn't dance enough. I mean, that's a
lot of dancing if you are carrying to the point where you're showing. I mean, that's a lot of
physical work. So on the dancing, on whether or not it wasn't the right choreography, I saw a lot
of that. I saw a lot of the choreography wasn't right. They didn't understand what they were
doing with like the red and the purples. And the all white thought the funniest thing on the
pregnancy, the internet went crazy. They put the line of everybody dressing in the white and they
said, this is ASAP Rocky sperm cells. I was like, oh my God, man, this is hilarious. So this would
be uh asap rocky another rap star pop icon uh fashion he's in fashion um they have a child
together and i'm assuming this would be their second so shout out to them congratulations man
that's really cool it's amazing to get to a point if you see a lot of these stars have success and
then start families afterwards so you know you had uh you had all the the controversy a couple
of points of the performance i wanted to point out when they did all of the lights i thought that was
interesting and i don't know how much of the show was put together but that essentially being a
kanye song i mean the influence of everything that happened with kanye this year and to still have
his song at the forefront of media entertainment at the super bowl halftime show thought was crazy
so they put rihanna's verse in it uh she didn't have any features so she did do umbrella and run
this town but jay-z didn't come out uh i think i saw footage i think he was at the game so
shout out to jay for saying i'm not performing at the super bowl man i'm gonna have a good time
um yeah i thought i saw him out in the crowd but i was like there's no way they're gonna bring
kanye out so maybe maybe it was a supposed to be a guest feature and they pulled him who knows
i thought it was a surprise nobody was talking about all of the lights but um i just i say that
to say this, you're not going to please everybody. So there's a big, there's a good metaphor saying
by Charlemagne, the God, shout out to see the God, brilliant idiots and breakfast club. But
you listen to him. He says, you're going to have, you know, if you put something out and 10 people
hear it, you're going to have four people that don't like it, three people that like it and the
rest that are on the fence. Well, the people that don't like it, they're already never going to like
it. So you need to focus your energy on the people that are on the fence, the people that are rocking
with you that like it, like it. Rihanna's fans, I'm sure they love to see the performance. I don't
think her fans were disappointed in the performance or thought that she could have went crazier. I
mean, if anything, they're happier about the pregnancy, I'd think, if you cared about somebody.
And I get it. Rihanna hasn't given us music in a long time. There's there's a reason for that. And she has so many hits. Imagine being able to do 48 Laws of Power, The Absence. Imagine being able to walk away from music for years and come back performing at the largest performance at the Super Bowl halftime show, playing nothing but your old hits and having everybody singing along.
Come on, that woman. Respect, man. Respect. So going back to what Charlotte said, her fans are already rocking with her. So there's probably some people who are on the fence who I mean, yes, there are people who aren't familiar with all of Rihanna's music and her streaming sales or streaming sales as Oxymoron.
her streams are going to go up because of the performance there's going to be new people that
buy the old music so it resurfaces some stuff she's relevant to the conversation so whether
or not she decides to announce or drop an album it's great publicity wise so i don't think she's
really in a losing situation or i don't think she's reading the comments thinking people said
oh, wow, I didn't dance enough. She's not sitting there in your head. I mean, if you were not a
Rihanna fan and, you know, some of the hate I saw was like, I would have loved to see a real
musician, not a pop star at the Super Bowl halftime show. Listen, every year people complain about the
Super Bowl halftime show. It's like we can just throw on this entertainment and see. I mean,
they fly drones that are coded in synchronicity. Lady Gaga's performance. I think that was Lady
Gaga that they did the year with the drones. But these are memorable moments that they create that
it takes tons and tons of effort and time and people to put this stuff together. And it's like,
ah, well, yeah, man, you know, I would have loved to see insert name here. I get it. So it's cool.
That's the conversation. I respect everybody's opinion. And if you weren't rocking with Rihanna's
performance, that's fine. If you were, that's fine. I'll get to my opinions, uh, in a second,
but Rihanna doesn't, Rihanna doesn't care about what your opinion is. I mean, it might've had
divided opinions, but we have to remember she's achieved immense success in other areas of her
career. Her makeup line has not only been a commercial success, but it's become like an
influential icon in beauty, in the fashion industry and beyond. It's not only just a terms
of revenue, but if you talk about the impact that it's had, it's raised the bar for diversity. So
Fenty has a line that works well for tones of women of all complexions. So in addition to
getting notes for uh being able to include if you notice i i'm pretty sure she somebody handed her
uh what are those little things with the powder with the makeup i'm not sure somebody's yelling
at their make at their stuff right now i think they're called a compact um somebody handed her
that and she dusted her face she wasn't sweating because she was performing that little bit right
there made money, both in terms of revenue stock. I mean, she pushed, she was, it's a shameless plug.
She was plugging the Fenty Beauty, you know? So it's amazing. Absolute trailblazer. She can
continue to take creative risks because while we're here talking about her music and her
performance, she hasn't actually been a performer and she's an absolute billionaire. You name one
other billionaire that we're talking about how they dance and how they perform and talking about
what they used to do. I mean, possibly Jay-Z, but we're not out here talking about Elon Musk
and things he did a while ago. Terrible metaphor. You know, don't shoot me there.
Don't shoot me there. But yeah, I did enjoy the Super Bowl. I enjoyed the game. I thought it was
it came right down to the wire, which is what you want to see in the game.
Watching the Eagles versus the Giants before that, that game was painful to watch, man.
The Eagles are over here playing perfect football and Giants are just making a few mistakes. Eagles
are capitalizing on it. And it wasn't even a shootout. It was just a straight rundown.
Eagles scored so much. I don't remember the exact score. That's like ancient history. Super Bowl
season is over or a football season is over, but no altogether entertaining. So what did I think?
Um, those skylines that there was one shot where she was way, way the fuck up in the air.
There's fireworks going off in the back. The camera was like a, uh, low angle and it's shooting
up and you see the whole crowd behind her. And she was holding, I forget what song she was singing.
I was just in the moment and I was like, wow, somebody choreographed that shot and that thing
to go perfect. You saw it in another one. There was a single camera that was on like a wire. And
I don't know if it has the capability to go 360, but just for them to time that all perfectly,
I was like, wow, I don't care about the dancing, the white suits. I thought the white suits worked
well with the light. It was weird how minimalist the performance was. I don't know the choice in
that, but I think that if people look back, it might make the, and this is just my opinion,
it makes the performance timeless when you don't have like an exact look or a bunch of different
styles. You know, it was a baggy, it was almost that Missy Elliott nineties look. It was very
reminiscent of like a Missy Elliott. So they did a lot with the lights and the platforms changing.
So although it may not have seemed like there was a lot of choreography going on,
you need to be on that platform when it goes up. You need to be where you need to be.
You need to just be completely in line. So I thought the performance was amazing. If Rihanna
or well, being pregnant and being able to do that as a billionaire. Wow. That's all I can say.
that's, that's, uh, that was pretty cool. So were there things I didn't like, uh, her touching
herself? It's, I think it's a bit trashy. I mean, you had, uh, not to bring their name into the
conversation, but I think it was Meg Thee Stallion and Cardi B with the WAP and, um, grinding on each
other at the performance. I don't remember if it was the Grammys or what, but, um, you know,
you have, along with the thing that not everybody is going to like it, some people are shouting
that it's independent, not independence, but, you know, freedom of sexuality for women. And
there's women that are fighting for that. There's people that would say, you know,
you need to be modest. There's nothing ladylike like that. I think someone like Candace Owens
had commented on Meg Thee Stallion and Cardi B. Sorry, I lost my train of thought for a second.
So, you can't lose. Well, A, if you're a billionaire and you perform at the Super Bowl, you're not losing in any way. But if you have the mentality that, okay, this was a good move, this grew my brand, this possibly potentially got me more listeners, more streams, there's going to be people tuning in, so there's new listeners that I have, our analytics are looking good after this Super Bowl performance.
So is it worth everybody complaining about this part or that part?
Maybe some of that stuff was scripted.
Everything maybe they said, we're going to, you know, all you have to do.
You're such an icon, Rihanna, that if we put this in the choreography and you pretend like touch yourself, whatever, it's going to be a huge conversation and more pictures are going to go up or do this.
So I'm not sure.
But I don't know.
That's all I got on that.
In conclusion, Rihanna's success with Fenty Beauty has secured her financial stability and
established her as a prominent figure in the beauty industry. This in turn means that she
can continue to take creative risks in her music career without the fear of failure,
regardless if she performs at the Super Bowl and you didn't like it. Rihanna's a true tailblazer.
she's a true trailblazer sorry sis i don't mean to call you a tailblazer uh rihanna is a true
trailblazer and a cultural icon thank you for tuning in to i will not lose podcast today
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