No, Beyonce Did Not "Save" Country Music from Extinction, DEI Didn't Cause a Bridge Collapse, Diddy Had "Custody" of Justin Beiber as a Minor?! (03/29/24)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
It’s Holy Week, so get yourself to church!
He is Risen.
With that being said, let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
I don’t hide my centrist/right/small government views, which are pretty apparent in this publication…but I hold to independent journalism strongly enough (I hope) to hit both sides of the political aisle when they deserve it….and the Daily Wire ran one of the worst pieces of journalism I’ve seen in 2024.
From The Daily Wire:
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) put a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant on the Maryland Port Commission just months before a container ship crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. The supply chain on the East Coast and beyond now hangs in the balance as authorities will have to swiftly undertake complex feats of engineering to reopen the port and, eventually, the bridge.
Moore named Karenthia Barber to the Commission last August. The headline of the press release announcing the hire hailed her as the “first black woman to serve as Maryland Port Commissioner.” Her Ports Commission bio says she is “the Founder and CEO of Professional Development Associates, LLC. [sic] a consulting practice that provides leadership and workforce training, coaching, and diversity, equity and inclusion audits and consulting,” and a volunteer for the Maryland Democratic Party.
Yeah, and?
The bridge fell down when it got hit by a giant ship. How could that have possibly been caused, or prevented, by a staffing consultant?
“Thing happened and other thing happened so therefore they’re connected” is always terrible logic, and should be called out as such. Always.
[two]
Ugh. The New York City media elites can be unbelievably insufferable in their ignorance of the rest of the country. Example? Claiming country music is dying, but drumroll…’Yonce has shown up on Good Friday to save us from our stupid hick ways.
From Page Six:
Country music has been on life support.
With legendary trailblazers like Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette and Charley Pride long gone, we’re left with Walker Hayes and his god-awful Applebee’s jingle.
Maren Morris and Cassadee Pope fled Nashville faster than you could say, “Yeehaw!” to get away from their racist peers.
Even all-time greats Loretta Lynn and Alan Jackson declared the genre is “dead” and “gone.”
Enter Beyoncé, whose new album, “Cowboy Carter” (out Friday), is the revival that country music so desperately needed.
The instantly timeless 27-track project is a soulful celebration of Southern values and the genre’s African American roots, one that the Houston-born superstar decided to record after feeling unwelcome when she performed at the 2016 CMA Awards.
“The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me,” she wrote on Instagram ahead of its release.
In reality, it’s hip hop that’s fading in 2024, with country music on a rapid rise. Peep the Billboard headline as the mic drop.
I gave Cowboy Carter a listen…and, like every Beyonce album, I hate it. From a music/production standpoint, it’s well done (although too infused with dance music, drum machines and programming for my pallet).
Country music is known for it’s storytelling. How does Beyonce’s country album stack up in that regard? Variety ran a feature on the “best lyrics” on Cowboy Carter:
Baby, if you ain’t got no ritz get the f*ck up out the south
Life is comin’ at me fast, keep my Bible on the dash
Pistol in my seat just in case I gotta blast
I just wanna shake my ass (Have a blast)
From my initial skim of the record, Beyonce sings about three things:
A) How awesome Beyonce is
B) Nonsense lyrics that fit over dance-y beats
C) Petty vengeance (she sings about not winning Album of the Year at the Grammys…how humble)
Beyonce claims there are no black artists in the country space…but she’s dead wrong. Here are three I recommend over her
The War and Treaty are a husband wife duo who pull heavily from Blues, Gospel and Soul for their unique blend of country music, and have toured with the likes of Chris Stapleton, and collaborated with Zach Bryan.
Britney Spencer is a black artist that consistently does what Beyonce failed to do on any of the original songs on Cowboy Carter—tell a great story. Sober & Skinny is a heck of a story-song about trying to beat vices and let love win out.
Rhiannon Giddens has played an incredible role in black country music, first with the pioneering roots outfit Carolina Chocolate Drops, and has racked up an impressive eight Grammy nominations as a solo artist.
I’m a HUGE fan, and the ONLY thing that disappoints me about Giddens is that she heavily criticized Beyonce’s 2016 Country Music Awards performance with the Dixie Chicks…then turned around and collaborated on Cowboy Carter:
Giddens spoke to the Associated Press in 2017 about Beyonce:
What angered me about it was that it overshadowed, you know, two other performers of color who were, who were kind of naturally there. Charlie Pryde, who You know, a huge figure. And then myself as a guest of Eric Church, where he was making a really particular point, you know, having me sing on his song, the song was all about like turning hate into love and, you know, getting rid of these words of anger and that upset me that though, that that was overshadowed by, you know, it can turn into a flashpoint rather than a moment of, yeah, this is awesome because it didn't feel organic.
It doesn't matter who you are. if the moment doesn't come from the inside of the moment, doesn't a genuine desire to, to, to inhabit the music and to, you know, I'm not, I don't know what daddy issues is. I mean, I hate genres personally, but you know, if you don't have an honest to God, like I really want to be here for this music, you know, then I'm, it's not going to vibe with me, you know?
And that's just my personal opinion. Like people loved it or whatever. As somebody who has, you know, tirelessly advocated for getting the history of the banjo, the history of early American music, the history of blacks and country music, all of that, you know, not the easy way, you know, like I don't, I didn't go into pop.
I asked Rhiannon about this on Twitter, and she gave this reply:
Page Six is wrong—country music has never been in danger of extinction, and didn’t need Beyonce to save it.
I’ll wrap up with the best of intentions here—if Rhiannon Giddens is working with Beyonce, I hope it’s a signal the superstar actually cares about the genre, and isn’t just cashing in.
But whatever your feelings on Beyonce, I hope if you’ll give a few black country artists who have a longer track record of passion country as a genre a spin too. Let’s close out this segment with a few more.
[three]
Netflix’s new sci-fi show from the Game of Thrones showrunners made the Communist Party in China…Big Mad.
From Forbes:
The show has sparked some anger in China—despite Netflix not being available in the country—because of the opening scene where a professor is beaten for defying the government during the Cultural Revolution, which some Chinese viewers reportedly felt was Hollywood portraying the country in a poor light.
Oh, so it’s bad to show one death on screen, when in reality the Cultural Revolution cost 200 MILLION CHINESE LIVES?!
Cool. I haven’t watched The Three Body Problem yet, but I’m now recommending it, because the Communists don’t want you to watch it.
[four]
As the Diddy situation unravels (and appears that he could be headed towards life in prison), footage has re-surfaced of the then-40-year-old hanging out with Justin Bieber for the weekend
From The Independent:
Amid the investigation, a 14-year-old video from Bieber’s YouTube channel has re-emerged in which Diddy talks about spending “48-hours” with the “Baby” singer.
“You ever seen the movie 48 Hrs? Right now [Justin is] having 48 hours with Diddy, him and his boy,” the rapper says in the video.
“They’re having the times of their lives, like where we hanging out and what we’re doing we can’t really disclose. But it’s definitely a 15-year-old’s dream.”
“I have been given custody of him,” Diddy says. “You know, he’s signed to Usher and I had legal guardianship of Usher when he did his first album. I did Usher’s first album.”
So, why…and how…did Diddy, who’s being investigated for human trafficking, become the legal guardian for minors, exactly?
I don’t want to turn into some sort of apocolyptic conspiracy theorist…but the crackpot theories about Hollywood sure are coming true at an increasing rate.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup.
Will Smith (I Am Legend, Men in Black) and Martin Lawrence (Martin, Death at a Funeral) have a pretty good track record with the buddy cop franchise Bad Boys, which dates back to 1995. The fourth one looks to be another fun popcorn flick that's probably pretty thin on plot…but the audience mainly shows up for the one liners and car chases in movies like this. Good enough…looks worthy of a matinee ticket. Catch it 06/07.
Well, that was fast. Netflix found time to crank out a movie about Prince Andrew visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s “Pedophile Island, “ and it looks surprisingly well done, considering the condensed time frame. The always great Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The Crown) is in this one, and she has a strong track record of selecting quality projects.
[holy weekend music]
The Worship Initiative put together an excellent project that's as much spoken word/audio drama as it is a collection of songs. Last Words: A Good Friday Liturgy is worth adding to your library to return every Lent.
Until the next one,
-sth