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Rihanna gives 1.67m to support LA domestic violence victims in lockdown

The singer joined with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to provide shelter, meals and counselling for families at risk in coronavirus pandemic

Rihanna has donated $2.1m (1.67m) to the Mayors Fund for Los Angeles to assist victims of domestic violence affected by the coronavirus lockdown. The singers Clara Lionel Foundation joined with Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey to donate matching sums to the drive. Their donations will cover 10 weeks of support, including shelter, meals and counselling for families experiencing domestic violence during the pandemic in greater Los Angeles.

Alyson Messenger, a managing staff lawyer with the Jenesse Center, a domestic violence organisation in South Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times last month that the lockdown was a worst-case scenario for anyone in an abusive relationship: Compound that with the fact that access to services is more difficult than ever.

UN secretary general Antnio Guterres tweeted on 6 April: Many women under lockdown for #COVID19 face violence where they should be safest: in their own homes. I urge all governments to put womens safety first as they respond to the pandemic.

In Chinas Hubei province, the centre of the initial outbreak, domestic violence reports to police more than tripled in a single county, from 47 cases in February 2019 to 162 this year. A quarter of British domestic violence charities said that they could not effectively support abuse victims during lockdown owing to technical issues, inability to meet victims and staff sickness.

A statement announcing the donations by Rihanna a domestic abuse survivor and Dorsey said: Victims of domestic violence exist all over the world, so this is just the beginning.

Last month, Rihannas Clara Lionel Foundation previously joined with Jay-Zs Shawn Carter Foundation to donate $2m (1.59m) to support undocumented workers, prisoners, homeless people, the elderly and children of frontline health workers in Los Angeles and New York during the Covid-19 outbreak. She also donated personal protective equipment to healthcare providers in New York State, and gave $5m ($4m) to global organisations to protect healthcare workers and marginalised communities.

Her father, Ronald Fenty, has been recovering from coronavirus after spending 14 days inside the Paragon Isolation Center in Barbados. He told the Sun: I thought I was going to die. He said his daughter sent a ventilator to his home, which ultimately he did not need.

The 32-year old singer is the latest musician to mobilise in the effort to assist healthcare providers and people affected by coronavirus. Lady Gaga has curated the benefit concert One World: Together at Home featuring performances from such artists as Gaga, Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Paul McCartney and Coldplays Chris Martin to be livestreamed globally and televised in the US on 18 April. The BBC will broadcast an adapted version the following day.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/apr/10/rihanna-1-point-coronavirus-lockdown-donation-los-angeles-domestic-violence

The future is fluid as labels sign up for gender-free fashion

Pop stars and designers drive a growing trend for non-binary outfits

When two of the biggest pop stars on the planet sign up to a fashion movement, you know something must be afoot. On Wednesday, Rihanna posted a photo of herself to her 76.8 million followers on Instagram wearing a T-shirt by London-based fashion label Art School. Last month, Harry Styles put out his video for Lights Up in which he wears a blue silk moire suit designed by long-time collaborator Harris Reed.

Both Art School and Harris Reed identify themselves as non-binary labels. On Instagram, Art School defines itself as a non-binary queer luxury label, while Harris Reed is fighting for the beauty of fluidity. Despite there being a long history of LGBTQI designers working in fashion (McQueen and Lagerfeld among the most famous), they have notably been cis-identifying, white men. The label of non-binary in fashion is new (Collins recently announced it was adding non-binary to its dictionaries) and pertinent to a younger generation where more than one in 10 millennials identify as transgender or gender non-conforming. There are a clutch of new fashion labels, from One DNA to Riley Studio, that offer the same clothes to everyone, and where dividing your fashion into gendered lines feels out-of-date.

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Rihanna wears Art School in an Instagram post. Photograph: @badgalriri/Instagram

Previously, fashion was very binary it was mens or womens, and you never could transgress between the two, Preston Souza, chief of staff and buyer at The Phluid Project, New Yorks first gender-free clothes shop, explained to website Rivet. And what is really beautiful is that Generation Z is rejecting these labels. Sixty per cent of Generation Z will shop across gendered sections, proof that these binary structures are slowly phasing out.

Younger stars like Billie Eilish, Yungblud and Lil Uzi Vert dress androgynously and speak openly of shopping across the genders (The womens section is waaaaay better than the mens section, Lil Uzi Vert told US GQ).

Mainstream fashion is playing catch-up. New York fashion week featured 36 models who identified as transgender or gender non-conforming (30 more than last season), while Pose star Indya Moore was the first non-binary person to be the face of a Louis Vuitton campaign.

Its not about a girl wearing a suit or a guy wearing a heel, its about you feeling yourself and feeling the fantasy and the look, designer Christopher John Rogers, who has dressed Michelle Obama, Lizzo and whose label won the prestigious CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award earlier this month, told The Fader. Its about queerness in terms of you fully embodying the nuances of yourself when dressing up.

With high street brands such as Zara and H&M doing gender-neutral lines, this could be the future for fashion. But for the creatives at the heart of this change, there are deeper issues at stake. To see someone as powerful as [Rihanna] wearing [our label] is really important, says Eden Loweth, who has run Art School with partner Tom Barratt for three years. For him, non-binary is more than a trend: theres a political element too. When we formed Art School, we wanted it to be more than a label, more than just about whacking out clothes on the catwalk. Its about supporting the rights of our [queer]community.

Eden says that their company is a non-binary one to its core. Words like queer and trans are used quite a bit [in fashion] but we are the only brand who work with the entire community, he says, adding that they do extensive castings, so models are representative of their queer collective. From now on, he says, the onus is on the bigger brands.

The next step is for fashion to stop seeing gender fluidity as a trend, fashion and lifestyle blogger Ben Pechey says, but to see us as real people and ensure that the queer community is given more rights, safety and respect.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/nov/16/generation-z-signs-up-to-non-binary-catwalk-revolution

Work, work, work: Beyonc’s labour of liberation

Leading a creative revolution whose ripples were seen from Kanye to Donald Glover to Little Simz, Beyonc consigned the idea of performers sticking to the music to history

By now, its a cliche. You have as many hours in a day as Beyonc, the saying goes. You can find its words slapped on mugs, T-shirts and Instagram quotes or murmured into the bathroom mirror as a bleary-eyed morning affirmation. The backlash (largely led by white women) to this tongue-in-cheek attempt at self-motivation has already pointed out its blind spots around class. Of course, you, regular human with looming mounds of debt and bills, cant maximise your time like a pop star with entire creative and personal teams to eliminate her drudgery. Thats obvious.

But the sentiment that Beyonc would, at one point, have been a nobody just like you, with as much time to work with still holds true. Like her or not, she leveraged a childhood work ethic into a career that spreads beyond her role as a performer. Yes, Beyonc is a singer. Yes, she often co-writes. In addition, she is also an all-round entertainment mogul, directing documentaries and music visuals, executive-producing film soundtracks and commanding a wider, ephemeral level of cultural influence not to mention moving into fashion.

She isnt alone. Over the past decade, black labour in music has produced a new understanding of musicians as curators a word that neatly describes the ways black artistry has evolved with the times. As music has become more visual and omnipresent, weaving itself into ads, apps and other art forms, the most impactful acts of the 2010s have found ways to integrate those outlets into their own output: theyve become industries unto themselves. Music may be their anchor, but for everyone from Rihanna to Janelle Mone to Kanye West, its just one part of their contribution to culture. Working within the framework of an exploitative industry, these black musicians have created a space that allows for at least a semblance of autonomy.

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Her work functions like a mirror held up to black women … Janelle Mone performing in October. Photograph: Chelsea Lauren/WWD/Rex/Shutterstock

In January 2010, Beyonc announced a hiatus. She retired her Sasha Fierce alter ego and didnt release new recorded material until the following year. (For Beyonc, a hiatus only lasts 18 months.) It marked the first time she had put an explicit homage to soul, classic R&B and more ambitious arrangements ahead of profit. Shed never sounded blacker.

She also retired her father, Matthew Knowles, as her manager and took on that responsibility herself, via her company Parkwood Entertainment. When I decided to manage myself, it was important that I didnt go to some big management company, she said in 2013. I felt like I wanted to follow the footsteps of Madonna, and be a powerhouse and have my own empire and show other women when you get to this point in your career, you dont have to go sign with someone else and share your money and your success you do it yourself.

You can almost follow a direct line from this moment to her current work, which is increasingly pro-black, self-examining and intimate. Her quest for self-affirmation played out publicly when she came forward in 2015 as one of the artist-owners of streaming service Tidal, along with husband Jay-Z and just about every A-list musician around at the time. With more economic freedom came the ability to do as she pleases: that much was obvious from her heavily autobiographical self-titled album, surprise-released in 2013, then Lemonade in 2016.

This transition reverberates in the work of peers whove followed in her wake. On opposite sides of the pond, London rapper Little Simz and Afro-futuristic artist Janelle Mone embody the importance of owning the means of production. Simz self-released her first mixtape in 2010, aged 16, on label Age 101 a place for her and the rest of her Space Age rap collective to share their work. By 2013, Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar had taken notice. Since then, Simz has branched off into comics, curated a genre-hopping festival Welcome to Wonderland: The Experience and returned to acting (see her now in the Netflix revival of Top Boy). Shes navigated the industry as both an eternal outsider and one of Britains most talented rappers, which seemed to frustrate her at first. The business caught up eventually a Mercury shortlisting here, some Radio 1 airplay there though these days she appears less bothered about external validation, perhaps having realised that the industry needs her more than vice versa.

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Rihanna scaled unprecedented levels by becoming the first black woman to head up a luxury fashion brand. Photograph: Caroline McCredie/Getty Images for Fenty Beauty by Rihanna

Mone, meanwhile, co-founded the Wondaland Arts Society which is a film and TV production company, a record label and an organising core for activism in Atlanta. When she moved there from Kansas City in 2001, her art-pop sound and left-field approach soon piqued the interest of Outkasts Big Boi. He introduced her to fellow polymath Sean Combs, who signed her in 2006. As a producer, social justice activist and actor (Moonlight, Hidden Figures) she chooses to uplift black people while acknowledging our complexities. Her 2018 album Dirty Computer confronted questions of gender, sensuality and desire; she can model in a Cover Girl campaign, lead a Black Lives Matter march and be CEO of a record label all roles that show dark-skinned black women theyre more than a worn-out stereotype. Her work functions like a mirror held up to black women, offering them representation in ways that white gatekeepers wouldnt instinctively understand.

This decade, I watched black musicians defy other traditional gatekeepers in the hard-to-crack world of fashion. Like Beyonc, Rihanna entered music as a teen, signing to Def Jam at 17. Now, shes scaled unprecedented levels by becoming the first black woman to head up a luxury fashion brand, with Fenty in partnership with French company LVMH. At the start of the decade, few would have seen her evolution coming. During her Loud era, all shrill EDM production and flame-red hair, she felt easy to dismiss as a pop-machine puppet, singing words written by other people. Now shes a savvy businesswoman, equally at home with music as with philanthropy, acting, design and beauty. Her line Fenty Beauty has shaken the cosmetics industry to its core, forcing a diversity of makeup shades into the market as her competitors scramble to react a sign of what will become a norm. Her Savage x Fenty line does the same for lingerie, essentially ringing the death knell for the Victorias Secret catwalk show by employing a diverse cast of models, as she did at New York fashion week in September.

This matters on two levels. Rihannas success in fashion and beauty moves her away from seeming like a product that belongs to her record label. She becomes a person and force of her own Fenty, after all, is her real-life surname. And by steering all these seemingly disparate parts into one brand, she is creating a new set of norms for black art. Plenty of her peers have seen how investing in and executing a broader vision can support, rather than distract from, their music. Consider the likes of Tyler, the Creator, Solange, Kanye West, Dev Hynes, Frank Ocean and Donald Glover, and you realise how their multifaceted work shaped some of the most important western pop culture of the decade.

Our notions of what counts as black art no longer need to be defined by the global norths white mainstream. Since the 80s, black genres from hip-hop and house to R&B have led countercultures. But those genres used to be put into neat boxes black culture, to be consumed in specific ways and places, without needing to care about the experiences behind the work. Now, black music soundtracks global teendom. Now, Kanye West can endure being laughed out of fashion circles before turning Yeezy into a billion-dollar company. West brought a certain kind of self-conscious tastefulness to his work as a designer, continuing to kick back against convention just as he had as a middle-class art-school kid during his mid-2000s backpack-rap era. (Hardly the usual thug life backstory easier to sell to white consumers.) Glover, meanwhile, can rap (and sing) as Childish Gambino, and also create and executive produce a TV show as lush as Atlanta. Solange can create performance art, with installations for New Yorks Guggenheim and LAs Hammer Museum and Londons Tate Modern. Once you realise youre more than a preconceived notion of a black artist, or of black industry, entire worlds open up.

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These polymaths show that you can eschew one neat categorisation and do so on your own terms … Donald Glover as Earn in Atlanta. Photograph: FX Productions

These musicians stories are aligned in a quest for true independence. Such a thing cant exist within the parameters of a business designed for profit historically, recording contracts let labels exploit artists. Yet this type of multifaceted black labour rebukes the idea that youre only worth the figure on your first contract. Frank Oceans Endless album/livestream, a quick way out of his Def Jam contract before he released Blonde, brought these delicate chess moves to life. One of the most boring critiques of Beyonc is that shes just a cog in a corporate machine. But the fact that any of these artists turn their talent into products doesnt negate their overall value.

Black children are always taught that we have to work twice as hard to gain half as much recognition. These displays of black labour, of a relentless drive to excel in various ways and a refusal to be defined by one skill, push that adage to an extreme. These polymaths show that you can eschew one neat categorisation and do so on your own terms. Black American fans of Beyonc would have recognised the cultural references others missed in Homecoming, her 2018 Coachella festival performance, an ode to historically black American universities. Later, it was turned into a Netflix special produced by you guessed it Parkwood Entertainment. The decade in Beyonc drew to a close with her executive-producing 2019s pan-African Lion King reboot soundtrack, The Gift, in addition to voicing Nala in the film.

The idea of performers just sticking to the music is all but dead. In the next decade, it may well become the norm for black artists to explore other creative avenues without being mocked or cut down. As pop music shifts away from English as lingua franca, new global acts could begin to dominate in spaces previously only held by this crop of multitalented public figures.

Seen at a glance, they can inadvertently make hard work appear effortless, and as though youre failing if youre not squeezing as much productivity out of every day as Beyonc. But that misses the point. These artists have poured buckets of themselves into these accomplishments, and have done so while working in an industry still mired in institutional racism, sexism and one that treats duty of care as an afterthought. They made the choice to seek self-determination sometimes at a high cost. What you do with your 24 hours is up to you.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/19/work-work-work-beyonces-labour-of-liberation

Rihanna’s Fenty label aims to rip up fashion industry rules

Singers new clothing line, on sale this week, has ditched traditions such as catwalk shows

A corseted Japanese denim minidress ($810), a cotton canvas blazer belted with a coordinating bumbag ($1,100), oversized sunglasses ($460) and a brass-and-crystal earcuff ($420) will go on sale at a pop-up boutique in the Marais district of Paris on Wednesday evening, when Rihanna launches her luxury fashion house, Fenty.

Rihannas arrival in the luxury fashion space is a defining moment. Until now, celebrities who have tried their hand at design have faced the judgment of an industry that has held the power to endorse success or condemn a label to failure.

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Fenty clothes will go on sale at a pop-up in Paris. Photograph: Youtube

Victoria Beckham and the Olsen twins passed the test; Lindsay Lohan was panned by critics and failed. But the pop-cultural might of Rihanna, a nine-Grammy-winning pop star, actor and driving force behind Fenty Beauty, which totalled sales of 500m in the first year after its launch in 2017, has overturned the power dynamics of the fashion industry. The question now is less whether Rihanna can cut the mustard as a fashion designer than how the industry will keep pace with the arrival of Rihanna.

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Fenty Beauty on sale at Boots in Newcastle. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images for Fenty Beauty

This week, Rihanna told the New York Times her Fenty label would be as disruptive as possible. The brand is not traditional. There is no runway show. Its a new way of doing things because I believe that this is where fashion is going to go eventually.

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Rihanna at a Fenty Beauty event in Sydney last October. Photograph: Caroline McCredie/Getty Images for Fenty Beauty by Rihanna

The worlds first look at Fenty came not on traditionally slender models, or on a catwalk, or during fashion week. Instead it is seen worn by Rihanna herself, and is being launched several months earlier than expected, well outside of the established fashion calendar.

The aesthetic will be informed by what Rihanna terms her own thick and curvy current body shape, with all pieces available up to a size 18. Fenty.com will be a digital flagship supported by a roving schedule of pop-up shops, with no plans for permanent bricks-and-mortar boutiques. Asked how she came up with the distribution model, Rihanna replied: Because Im a millennial I hate seeing something on the runway and then having to wait six months for it.

Most pop star-helmed fashion labels have stayed within the lanes of sportswear (Beyonces Ivy Park) or streetwear (Drakes Octobers Very Own), but the first Fenty looks break that mould with a sophisticated, tailoring-based aesthetic.

Structure is key, with cinch-waisted denim dresses and starchily voluminous trousersuits. The monochrome palette is reminiscent of Kanye Wests Yeezy, but collared shirts are preferred to sweatshirts and each outfit is worn with elegant high heels, without a pair of trainers in sight.

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Rihanna in a mitre at last years Met Gala. Photograph: Hctor Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

Rihanna, who has made headlines for flamboyant fashion choices in the past, has here adopted a more refined point of view. The corset, a Rihanna signature piece that she teamed with a pearl-and-crystal-encrusted papal mitre on the red carpet of last years Catholic-themed Met Gala, takes a more genteel form at Fenty, as the internal shaping on a long-sleeved dress.

Fenty is the first new luxury house to be founded by LVMH since the launch of Christian Lacroix in 1987 and the first to be helmed by a woman of colour. At Rihannas right hand as style director of Fenty is her longtime stylist, Jahleel Weaver.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/may/21/rihanna-fenty-label-fashion-industry

Guava Island review Donald Glover’s film has more style than substance

Guava Island, a short film from the minds behind Atlanta and This is America, is caught between a musical and a morality tale, and gravely misuses Rihanna

Shot in a postcard-like 4×3 aspect ratio and with an earthy, desaturated grain that lends the sights and sounds of island life a certain timeless and elemental character, Guava Island, a 55-minute film dropped by Donald Glover and his close collaborator Hiro Murai over Coachella weekend, is a reliable feast for both the eyes and ears. That, unfortunately, is about all it is: theres more parable than plot, more symbolism than story, and the Island Girl herself, Rihanna, is criminally underused as Kofi, the twinkly-eyed girlfriend of Glovers Deni, a local radio singer whose attempts to throw an all-night music festival are thwarted by the islands iron-fisted despot Red Cargo.

But one imagines Guava Island played better at the music festival in Indio (where Glover, performing as his musical alter-ego Childish Gambino, premiered the film on Thursday night) than it does on Amazon, which made the tropical thriller available for streaming shortly after. Its the kind of film whose profusion of sensory pleasure is probably best experienced in a setting not unlike its own.

If the fictional Guava Island is burdened by the thug-like Red and his cabal of gun-toting enforcers, who police the islands factory workers, allow them no days off and have a target at Denis back, Guava Island the film is burdened by the weight of expectation. That starts with Glover, one of the brightest artistic minds of his generation, who so consistently brings originality and vigor to whichever medium he chooses to conquer (and who, in the last two years, has racked up a Grammy for record of the year, an Emmy for direction and a Golden Globe for acting); theres Murai, director of not only Childish Gambinos music videos but also most episodes of Atlanta, a show whose strange fusion of Lynchian surrealism and dark humor has brought the half-hour comedy to new and singular heights; oh, and theres Rihanna too, which is always a good idea.

The parts are there, but they dont all fit into the puzzle that is Guava Island, which has neither enough songs to be called a music video film like Beyoncs Lemonade, nor enough plot and continuity to qualify as a feature in the mold of Purple Rain or City of God, which Glover has cited as inspiration. The result is something half-baked and probably best watched while baked, a project rich with ideas about art and consumption that remain curiously unleavened.

It begins on a promising note, with a five-minute animated sequence narrated by Kofi, who in a fairytale-like voiceover delivers the history of an island corrupted by the forces of capitalism and avarice. Deni, she says, the balcony-crooner trying to win her heart, dreams of writing a song that will unite the people of the island, a song that would remind us of the magic Guava had. Its a tall task, which also more or less constitutes the films brittle plot, but one Glover could probably pull off.

The film, unsurprisingly, is most animated and alive in those sequences set to his music. This is America, which two months ago won Grammys for record and song of the year, is reworked as a playful appeal to a local factory cog who dreams of leaving the island and being his own boss. This is America, replies Deni, queueing up the films moral like a ball on a tee. America is a concept: anywhere where in order to get rich you have to make someone else richer is America.

Set against the rattling of machinery of a loading dock, and choreographed in much the same fashion as the original music video, the performance is a fine display of Glovers boundless charisma and groove, but it also makes you wish Guava Island was simply the visual accompaniment to Childish Gambinos last album rather than the somewhat flimsy film-music video hybrid it is. It also brings into sharp focus Rihannas thankless role; she neither sings nor dances in the film, though she does stare admiringly at Deni as he puts on a charming, beachside rendition of Gambinos song Summertime Magic. Though Rihanna has beefed up her acting bona fides in the last few years, Guava Island isnt nearly the showcase for her it could be.

Its ultimately Glovers show, perhaps even a kind of extended allegory for the suppression of his talents by an industry thats found his work both too black and not black enough. I feel like Jesus, he said in a memorably candid New Yorker profile last year. I do feel chosen. My struggle is to use my humanity to create a classic work, but I dont know if humanity is worth it. Guava Island makes his sense of martyrdom literal, too self-conscious, with a final scene that functions as a clarion call to art and creativity in the face of tyranny. Its message is noble, its vistas handsome and vibrant. But the film doesnt quite meet the exceptionally high bar Glover has set for himself.

  • Guava Island is now available on Amazon Prime

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/15/guava-island-review-donald-glover-rihanna-hiro-murai

Ex’s stage left: why post-breakup apologies at gigs need to stop

From Offset interrupting Cardi Bs show to Birdman ambushing Toni Braxton, could male artists please keep their gestures private?

At a gig, there is only one thing worse than an artist playing something from the new album a surprise special guest. Worse still is one thats a surprise even to the performer, AKA the worrying new trend of men making a public apology in the middle of their other halfs live concert. The video of Offset who got dumped by wife Cardi B after she allegedly caught him cheating invading the stage during her Rolling Loud festival set is worth watching just for the look of sheer disgust on her face.

Still, that didnt put Cash Money boss Birdman off ruining his ex-fiancee Toni Braxtons Atlanta concert last month by pulling a slightly-less-prepared version of the same stunt. Interrupted halfway through her final song by Birdman sheepishly ambling out of the wings, Toni took the stage invasion better than Cardi, in that she hugged him, then dragged him off the stage by his hand, throwing him a well talk about this later look on the way.

Weirdly, both couples are back together now, so public apologies clearly work that, or Cardi and Toni just want to make it through a gig without their other halves trying to steal the spotlight and this is the easiest way. It is unclear if these men are so stupid they dont see anything wrong with ruining their exs concerts (the crowd actually boo in the Offset video, and he has since said he didnt give a damn about the criticism, claiming hed do whatever it takes). Or is it just a natural extension of living on social media? The saying sorry by posting a screengrab of the Notes app on Instagram method, but IRL!

It is oddly performative, and counterintuitive to do something so publicly when it would be more meaningful in private. Its unconvincing, like when men make birthday photo collages of their girlfriends and post them on social media with an OTT caption. It doesnt make you think that theyre head over heels in love; rather its a huge red flag that theyve been caught exchanging flirty texts with the girl who sits next to them at work and now have to pay a weird Facebook-based penance.

It isnt just apologies that go wrong. Rihanna says her friendship with Drake ended after he hijacked her moment at the MTV VMAs in 2016. He introduced her as the girl Ive been in love with since I was 22 and tried to kiss her as she accepted the award. Two years later, she said his comments made her uncomfortable, probably because to turn around and tell him to piss off would make her look heartless. There is, though, a right way to do a public apology. Jay-Zs 4:44 was basically one giant Im sorry to Beyonc; then he had the good grace to sound rubbish next to her on The Carters album. Men of hip-hop: please take note. Jay-Z finally got something right. Please stay off the stage.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/08/exs-stage-left-why-post-breakup-apologies-at-gigs-need-to-stop

Rihanna’s garden of Eden show in New York the genesis of something new

Pink hair, plus-size models and an improvisation welcome mood bring Savage x Fenty fashions to life

Anyone looking for an alternative to the increasingly outdated Victoria Secrets lingerie showcase would have found it in Brooklyn Navy Yard on Wednesday evening. There, Rihanna staged her Savage x Fenty fashion show for the lingerie label she launched in May.

The set here was like the garden of Eden sent into the future, with plants sprouting out of geodesic domes. It was populated by about 30 Eves, in many different guises. With a sort of improvisation welcome mood, they threw shapes across the stage in Savage x Fenty designs.

Plus-size models and girls with pink hair shared the stage with the Hadid sisters and former Victoria Secrets angel Joan Smalls. Rihanna herself joined them for a finale, drawing much whooping from the crowd.

At show like this, clothes arent really the point but, for the record, these had a louche, decadent vibe with lots of coloured satin and leopard print. Interpretations of underwear ranged from sports bras to full-on basques.

When Rihanna launched Savage x Fenty, it swiftly sold out both online and in stores. This show aimed to keep up the heat, with a livestream broadcast on YouTube and some pieces available to buy after the show.

Savage x Fenty follows Fenty Beauty, a makeup line which launched in 2017 and saw queues of women outside Harvey Nichols in London. Both brands champion diversity and body positivity, with Savage x Fenty available in seven nude shades and up to a 44DD cup size. Like the show, the initial advertising campaign for the brand featured a range of skin colours and sizes.

Female empowerment is the zeitgeist-friendly message of the musicians underwear range. Women should be wearing lingerie for their damn selves, she said to US Vogue in May. I want people to wear Savage x Fenty and think: Im a bad bitch. I want women to own their beauty. The young women on the stage on Wednesday night were a great advertisement for doing just that.

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A model presents a creation from Rihanna during the Savage X Fenty event. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Reuters

Rihanna, who earned $36m in 2016, is one of the most influential style figures in pop culture currently, much admired for her risk-taking and spontaneity. Such is her influence that when she appeared on the front of British Vogue for August, she single-handedly made pencil-thin eyebrows a faux pas for many years a trend again. Her 2016 collaboration with Puma on a Fenty clothing collection generated $1bn for the sportswear brand. Savage x Fenty is the latest way she is monetising that influence.

Marc Jacobs show was earlier in the evening. It was scheduled for 6pm but was delayed by nearly 90 minutes, causing Anna Wintour and several other high-profile editors to leave before it started. There are already consistent rumours that the Marc Jacobs brand is in jeopardy, with stores in Europe closing earlier this year. This latest talking point isnt likely to stop the rumours.

The collection was a summer take on the designers autumn/winter 80s odyssey. There were boxy suits, glitter tights and puffball cocktail dresses. Frills were extreme, with some dresses like the mille-feuille of the most luxurious of cakes, in sugared almond colours. These fabulous concoctions will no doubt be eaten up by stylists next season, though their wearability beyond the fashion shoot is untested.

Jacobs is now a celebrity as well as a designer. In April, he proposed to his partner Charly Defrancesco with a flash mob in a branch of Mexican fast food restaurant Chipotle. The video went viral. His summer since then has involved a birthday party with Debbie Harry bringing in his cake, and holidays with Kate Moss. This show is just the latest instalment for his many fans to absorb.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/sep/13/rihannas-garden-of-eden-show-in-new-york-the-genesis-of-something-new

Rihanna wipes $1bn off Snapchat after criticising app for making a ‘joke’ of domestic violence

The company had apologised after an ad asking: Would you rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown? slipped through its review process

Rihanna wiped almost $1bn (720m) off the value of Snapchats parent company, Snap Inc, after criticising the social media app for hosting an advert that appeared to make light of domestic violence.

The advertisement for a mobile game called Would You Rather featured photos of Rihanna and Chris Brown, and asked whether players would rather slap her or punch him. Brown was arrested and sentenced to community service after he attacked Rihanna, his girlfriend at the time, in 2009.

Following criticism on Twitter, Snapchat pulled the ad, and issued a brief apology stating that the ad violated its guidelines. Rihanna responded in a statement issued via a post on Snapchat rival Instagrams Stories feature: Id love to call it ignorance, but I know you aint that dumb! You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!! the singer posted on Thursday.

Royce Mann (@TheRoyceMann)

Is it just me, or is this ad that popped up on my Snapchat extremely tone deaf? Like what were they thinking with this? pic.twitter.com/7kP9RHcgNG

March 12, 2018

The singer continued: This isnt about my personal feelings, cause I dont have much of them…but all the women, children and men that have been victims of DV in the past and especially the ones who havent made it out yet…you let us down! Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away.

Shares in the company dropped almost 5% overnight, Reuters reports. After Rihannas statement, a Snap spokesperson said in an email: This advertisement is disgusting and never should have appeared on our service. We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process. We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again. The game behind the ad was also blocked from the platform.

Rihanna has previously spoken about being a domestic violence victim, saying in one interview in 2015 that she resented having to continually discuss it: Its not a subject to sweep under the rug, so I cant just dismiss it like it wasnt anything, or I dont take it seriously. But, for me, and anyone whos been a victim of domestic abuse, nobody wants to even remember it So to talk about it and say it once, much less 200 times, is like I have to be punished for it?

The ad sparked a backlash on social media, including from Chelsea Clinton, who tweeted: Awful that any company would approve this.

The scandal comes at a particularly difficult time for Snap, which has faced anger over a controversial redesign and experienced a $1.3bn drop in market value after the celebrity Kylie Jenner tweeted that she was no longer using the app.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/15/rihanna-snapchat-ad-domestic-violence-chris-brown

Rihanna calls for end to gun violence after cousin dies in shooting

Singer posts picture of herself with man who is believed to have been killed in shooting in Barbados on Boxing Day

Rihanna has called for an end to gun violence after the death of a man she named as her cousin.

The singer posted a picture of herself with a young man, who is believed to have been killed in a shooting in her native Barbados on Boxing Day.

She wrote on Instagram:

Rihanna Introduces Fans To Her Shape-Shifting Alien Cabaret Star Character In New ‘Valerian’ Clip

Get ready to see Rihanna in a whole new way and then another whole new way, and then another one, etc. The singer is finally giving fans an extended look at her mesmerizing alien character in, who can magically transform herself at will.

RiRi posted a new behind-the-scenes clip of her character Bubble in the upcoming. Bubble only showed up for a quick second in the first trailer for, so Rih’s new clip is a huge gift for fans who have been dying to see more of her.

Check out the new clip below.

As you can tell, Bubble is an alien entertainer who appears to have an intergalactic cabaret act, so it’s the perfect part for Rihanna. She’s also a shape-shifter, as we see her instantly turn her menswear-inspired stage costume (which is very the Umbrella video, btw) into a flowing white gown.

We also see Bubble transform into a blue, gooey beast towards the end of the clip, and Rihanna is seen sporting a CGI suit in scenes with star Dane DeHaan, so we might only be seeing a small taste of Bubble’s transformative powers.

The role in is the latest in Rihanna’s recent interest in out-of-this-world projects. Last year, Rihanna provided her voice to the animated alien movieand followed that up by becoming an alien again in her music video Sledgehammer for.

Though best known as a singer, Rihanna has been expanding her career into acting as well. She first appeared in the ill-advised in 2012, followed by a bit part in the Judd Apatow comedy a year later.

She’s taken more promising film roles recently, including a turn on and a spot on the star-studded that is currently in post-production.

hits theaters on July 21.

Read more: http://elitedaily.com/entertainment/film/rihanna-alien-valerian-clip/2013214/