The first time I heard Chance the Rapper, a good friend (@hospey) played me “Favorite Song” as he tried his best to educate me on rap beyond Macklemore (thank goodness with time I eventually got there). I bobbed my head along. It was a good song! Very catchy. But I kind of forgot about it. It actually took me an embarrassingly long time to really listen to Acid Rap, Chance’s most current mixtape at the time. And then on a particularly rainy day in a particularly rainy period of my life I heard the aptly titled “Acid Rain”. I was in the car and had to pull over because the song had quite literally brought me to tears. On it he’s haunting-- almost apathetic at points. It was exactly what I needed to hear, and that was when I realized Chance had more to offer me than a few head bobs. Since then I’ve followed Chance with reverence and awe. With every move he makes, he seems to only add to these feelings. His anti-violence initiatives in Chicago left me amazed, as he helped promote a campaign to cease gun violence in Chicago for 42-hours over Memorial Day weekend. An amount of time that may seem small to us gun-violence-sheltered Canadians, but for Chicago on their most dangerous weekend, this was nothing short of a miracle. Then right as he began to catch the attention of the music industry he completely shifts gears to work on Surf, a project produced under Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment, not Chance the Rapper. It’s not my favourite musical Chance moment but the fact that when most artists would be signing record deals and networking their butts off to get their face out there, Chance was making a “social experiment” of an album with a bunch of pals…is Chance in a nutshell. He sticks to his values whether that’s friendship, faith, or independence and does not falter, not for fame, money, or anything that normally tempts us regular people. Chance is not regular. And that brings us to Coloring Book and his shiny new Grammy’s. I am not sure if there is an artist who has ever deserved a Grammy more than him, and it’s not just because Coloring Book is a beautiful, cohesive mixtape. No it’s the fact that it’s a mixtape, period. A mixtape is essentially a compilation of an artist's work available for free. It can look like an album, it can sound like an album, but you will never have iTunes charging you $1.29 for it (or whatever they have raised the price to at this point). So this means in the age of technology these compilations are available on streaming sites such as Datpiff, Soundcloud, Spotify, or Apple Music. As we saw with Acid Rap this is a great way to get your music out there and build a fan base, however these tapes could never be showcased in awards settings such as the Grammy’s. A rule undeniably skewed towards padding the pockets of record producers decrees you must sell your music in order to be eligible for a Grammy. That is……until Chano came along. Although the Recording Academy insists their recent streaming related rule change wasn’t due to any particular artist, it’s hard to deny the heavy pressure Chance was putting on them to make it happen. Coloring Book reached No. 8 on Billboard’s charts making it the first ever streaming-exclusive album to do so. It reached 57 million streams in its first week, which equates to about 38,000 units sold. Considering Rihanna’s ANTI (which is a miracle and has already been documented here) only sold 15,896 units in its first week—(albeit that doesn’t include the streams it gained from being leaked) Coloring Book hit an impressive number. The Grammy’s rule that “recordings must be commercially released in general distribution in the United States, i.e. sales by label to a branch or recognized independent distributor, via the Internet, or mail order/retail sales for a nationally marketed product,” was originally intended to weed out the amateur from the ‘professional’ musicians. But as Chance and many others are beginning to show, streaming has made that once distinct line far murkier. What now counts as a professional musician? Should it be the traditional ‘those who sell music to the masses’? Or should it bend to include those who can reach 57 million streams in one week, sell out an entire baseball stadium for their brainchild music festival, those who can work with the likes of Kanye, 2 Chainz, Madonna, Lil Wayne, and John Legend? Chance seems to think the latter, and the Recording Academy eventually came around too. Chance wasn’t shy about wanting these Grammy's. He took out an entire ad in Billboard magazine that said, “Hey, why not me?” He took to social media on it, he even co-signed a fan made petition about it. But not once did he take the obvious route for someone who wants to be eligible for a Grammy…to sell a song. No instead, five months before the Recording Academy changed their rules he’s spitting lines like, “let’s do a good ass job with Chance three I hear you gotta sell it to snatch the Grammy Let’s make it so free and the bars so hard That there ain’t one gosh darn part you can’t tweet.” As an intro to Kanye West’s project Life of Pablo… you can bet that made it to the ears of a few Grammy execs. Instead of giving into their rules he literally made it impossible for them not to change them, and threw it in their faces to boot. He put up a fight and refused to back down. And now he’s sitting here with 3 Grammy’s not because he made beautiful music (he did), but because he knows when his values are worth not backing down on—and other people take notice. When Chance cares about something it’s impossible to not care with him. That’s why he has atheist teenagers all over the world singing, “how greeeeeeat is our god!”, that’s why his fans never faltered when he took time off from being a solo artist to create Surf and that is certainly why he has 3 shiny new Grammy’s staring back at him. Thank you Chance for teaching your humble fans how to give a shit about what they believe in. WE LOVE YOU. -Leah
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2/9/2017 0 Comments BOSS LADIES: SHONDA RHIMESWHO: Shonda Rhimes WHERE: all over your TV WHEN: Thursday nights WORDS OF WISDOM: “There's nothing wrong with being driven. And there's nothing wrong with putting yourself first to reach your goals. The other stuff still happens.” Shonda Rhimes is pretty much the queen of television. Ever since Grey’s Anatomy’s first episode, when Meredith Grey woke up naked, next to an equally naked Derek Shepherd, Shonda has been slaying the television game. Her empire continues to boom, and in my opinion (I hope everyone else’s too), she has become the most powerful and most brilliant showrunner working today. Her shows are known for smart dialogue, commanding characters, compelling stories, and embracing humanity in all its diversity. Not only does Shonda make truly amazing, edge-of-your-seat television shows, but she blesses us week-after-week with fully fleshed out characters, not confined to boxes or singular traits. She has redefined over and over again, what it means for humans to be the sum of all our parts, instead of the tired, stereotypical portrayals we are so used to seeing in television and movies. Shonda Rhimes began her television reign with the courageous decision (for 2005, at least) to start the show with Meredith Grey waking up after a one-night stand, kicking the guy out, and continuing on with her day as a bad-ass doctor. Shonda was told by a room full of old men that a woman who has sex with a guy before work is only trashy, and nothing else. She was instructed to rewrite the pilot to make her female characters more palatable and classier. And she responded by ignoring their advice, and giving us the real and the very relatable Dr. Meredith Grey. This paved the way for so many more characters who refused to adhere to typical representations; she created black, female, gay, Asian, and differently abled characters, unconstrained by their expected definitions. While a show about sexy doctors may not have begun with the goal of tackling hot-topic current issues, Shonda and her Shondaland team can be counted on to deliver much need doses of truth, to a weekly audience of more than 20 million viewers. Especially unafraid of making big, bold and relevant statements is Thursday night’s middle slot: Scandal. In paralleling the 2016 Presidential election, the show included powerful commentary on sexism in politics, Black Lives Matter, and the alarming rise of xenophobic, fear-mongering political figures. In an increasingly transcendent and overlapping time, where fraudulent businessmen can pretend to be qualified politicians (I’m looking at you, DJT) and Hillary Clinton can try her hand at acting (Broad City!!!), Shonda skilfully uses her area of expertise to speak out, and take a stand. Each week she does it so eloquently and effortlessly; I am constantly in awe of her talent, her compassion for differences, and her bravery to engage with so many controversial issues, in an industry that is not always so allowing or forgiving. Her 2015 debut book, "Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person" is a testament to how driven and passionately Shonda lives her life. She is a stunning example of having everything she needs to fulfill her, and being genuine and honest about what that entails. In a world where women are sometimes pressured to "have it all": the marriage, the kids, the career, the perfect body (whatever that is...), and the social life, Shonda Rhimes does it her own way, and inspires other women to do it their way too. In case you hadn’t guessed it already, I might just be a Shonda super-fan; to me, she can do no wrong. Although there have been some particularly devastating deaths of beloved characters, I trust Shonda Rhimes to be the wonderfully intelligent and determined leader that she has proven herself to be, season after season. 12 years later, she continues to bring the heat, bring the drama, and blaze the trail for anyone who dares to do things differently, and be a boss. - Amy Two years ago, while speaking to Georgetown law students, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine.” People laughed, but in actuality, it’s kind of a revolutionary (albeit slightly facetious) answer. In a world where Justin Trudeau’s “because it’s 2015” sent many into affronted alarm, RBG’s statement is defiant, challenging, and deserves unpacking. To me, Justice Ginsburg was posing the question: “Why not?” or “Why should it be so hard to imagine?” Considering that the last two centuries of the US Supreme Court have never seen more than three women on the bench at a time, having nine judges who are women is a good place to aim, and if they achieve half of that, then that’s not so bad. For 192 years, there were nine men on the bench. Not once, and not twice, but every single time a new judge was nominated, for almost 200 years, the Supreme Court was made up entirely of men. It was not an anomaly, but a hallmark of history that continues to plague today’s society. Contrary to what it maybe sounds like, I don’t think RBG is mandating that all men be removed from the Supreme Court, but instead is utilizing her position, as an influential figure, to say that having nine women on the bench can be, and should be, a possibility. There should be no limit to female potential, and young girls should never be raised to think there is a limit. The Notorious RBG was simply doing what she has always done: standing up for every girl's dream to be whoever, and do whatever, she wishes, without the limitations of gender roles or societal constructs. Justice Ginsburg is a trailblazer, a pioneer, and has inspired generations of women to achieve more than they could have ever imagined. Throughout her career, she has been an advocate for discriminated-against communities. Most of her years have been spent fighting for gender justice, and in acknowledging that gender injustice disproportionately affects marginalized women. In recent years, she has voted on the progressive (left) side of multiple Supreme Court decisions dealing with racial injustice and the law. However, even more recently, her actions have hinted that, possibly, Ginsburg has become comfortable in a role as a white feminist. It’s not to say that she hasn’t embraced and practiced intersectionality in the past, but if feminism isn’t ALWAYS intersectional, then it’s not actually a useful contribution to the liberation of the oppressed (and in my opinion, not really feminism at all). Intersectionality is an idea officially coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, but one that has been practiced “in every generation and in every intellectual sphere and in every political moment”. In her own words, it is “the need to think and talk about race through a lens that looks at gender, or think and talk about feminism through a lens that looks at race.” It was founded in the thought that a women of colour experiences discrimination that does not fit into the cut-and-dry boxes of racism or sexism, but rather a combination of both. Now, intersectionality is a discipline that encompasses all aspects of oppression: race, sex, class, sexual orientation, ability, and so much more. RBG’s response to Colin Kaepernick’s protests against police brutality (which warrants another post entirely), were disappointing to say the least, and disrespectful, if I was to say a bit more. Among other words, she called the protests “stupid”, “arrogant”, and “dumb”. In her position of great power and reach, she belittled and vilified a peaceful protest, without even mentioning the issue at hand, or the reason why Kaepernick decided to protest in the first place. Justice Ginsburg’s shying away from expressing opinions on police brutality and racial injustice cannot be attributed to her responsibilities as a Supreme Court Justice. Her fellow justice, Sonia Sotomayor, wrote a deafening dissent in 2016, which went far past the legal requirements of a dissent, and became, what seemed like, a cathartic venting of frustrated emotions. In a case centered around unlawful police stops and the Fourth Amendment, Sotomayor ended her dissent with a section written “only for [her]self”, which many have viewed as a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement, and ultimately, a personal condemnation of the ongoing denial of racial discrimination in the United States. Unfortunately, RBG’s contribution on that part of this crucial matter was nowhere to be found. So, when Ginsburg responded with “when there are nine”, I was excited and filled with pride- I was thrilled to hear a fellow female speak so boldly. But I also wish she would have said a bit more. I wish she would have used her authority to talk about every other person who has been oppressed by the heteropatriarchy. I wish she would have been a voice for people other than just the educated white women in the audience. I know it would have incited substantially more rage than her initial comment, but I wish she’d declared a desire for more than just gender equality on the bench. She had the opportunity to hold up a microphone for all the aspiring Indigenous lawmakers, for all the future Muslim judges, for the LGBTQ community, for every Asian-American, for every Sikh, Hindu, or Buddhist, and for the immigrants who dream of one day sitting on the bench. Why limit ourselves at nine women? Why not nine judges who might be more representative of the demographic makeup of the United States? Intersectionality is something Canada needs to work on too. Justin Trudeau took steps when he introduced a significantly more diverse cabinet than his predecessor, and the current House and Senate are the most diverse in the country’s history. On the other hand, our own Supreme Court (which is the product of Prime Ministers dating back to 1984) has a long way to go to achieve racial diversity. Also extremely troubling: Donald Trump just nominated the most white, most male first-cabinet since Reagan. Since 1981. 36 years ago. Did I miss the memo that time is in fact now moving backwards?? In both countries, and all over the world, we need to stop buying into this false explanation of “We’re just hiring the best possible candidate for the job”, and call it what it is: sexism, bigotry, racism, and prejudice. Plain and simple. And it extends so much further than gender equity in our governments; it’s not just the 75¢ on the dollar for white women, but the 64¢ for Black women, 59¢ for Indigenous women, and 56¢ for Hispanic women. Feminists around the world have to adopt intersectionality, because women’s rights are merely a fraction of the immense puzzle. It’s not enough for us to just show up to the Women’s March. We must listen, and be allies to so many others. We need to stop fearing imagined consequences of stepping outside the white-feminist bubble, because for those who are oppressed, the consequences are so much more than an unfollow on Instagram, or an unfriend on Facebook. Especially in the new political climate, white women have to be there for Standing Rock, for Black Lives Matter, for Palestine, for refugees, and for every other community. And then maybe we can call ourselves feminists. -Amy Further Reading on the Importance of Constant (Vigilant) Intersectionality Celebrity Feminism: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a8642654/celebrity-feminism-has-no-place-in-trumps-america/ Sonia Sotomayor: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/utah-streiff-sotomayor/487922/ Ruth Bader Ginsburg: https://rewire.news/article/2016/10/11/ruth-bader-ginsburg-shows-white-feminists-must-better/ Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality: http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/04/kimberl-crenshaw-intersectionality-i-wanted-come-everyday-metaphor-anyone-could 1/31/2017 0 Comments Currently...January.
1/27/2017 0 Comments life: happy anti-versary365 days and I still have ANTI on constant rotation. I can’t recall an album ever making that kind of space for itself in my life. I feel like every time I stray from it— get really into Anderson .Paak or even Frank Sinatra for a minute—I still always have to go back to ANTI. Why doesn’t it get old?? Anderson .Paak and Frank Sinatra are really great, but trust me you can only listen to “Fly Me to the Moon” so many times before you start seriously aging yourself. ANTI, on the other hand has never had me feeling the need for a switch up. Every time I press play on “Needed Me”—I feel it in my toes. Don’t know if that’s an indicator of much but I think it should be. I could pick out the first seconds of that echoing intro anywhere… and I often do. That girl you saw scream “RIHANNAA” in public? Ya, that was me. I think maybe that’s ANTI’s secret. The visceral reaction it demands. Every song demands an emotional response. And it's not because a songwriter strung some pretty words together, actually the words are fairly sparse and simple. “Goodnight Gotham” is a minute and a half of “night, night, for a night,” with the occasional, “only if” cut from Florence and the Machines “Only if For A Night”. Not a lot to work with as far as searching for meaning. But still, instinctively you know what the song is about. It reaches beyond the cognitive space of words and fastens meaning onto gut reactions. When I listen to “Goodnight Gotham”, it’s a mess. It’s frantic, it’s relentless, it's haunting, it's frankly kind of scary… but at the same time invigorating? There are probably a multitude of instances where one would feel that clusterfuck of emotions. Do I know which instance she’s getting at? No. But I don’t think that is necessarily the point. I am a firm believer that creative content released into the world gains meaning only upon its interaction with us. There can be no concrete tangible meaning sitting latent in anything. Creators can have intentions— what they hope for you to conclude from their work, but depending on the varying experience and background of those consuming this work, the reactions and conclusions drawn will be equally diverse. When I hear ANTI I have a visceral reaction to the sound. I read my own experiences into every drawn out, exhausted vocal on “Love on the Brain”, the anxious technological chaos of “Pose”, and the desperate drunk sound of “Higher”. Rihanna leaves the space to do this wide open, and that’s why I don’t think I can get sick of ANTI. I draw this album's meaning from the empathy of emotion it evokes, and I celebrate it for its ability to raise these emotions, not through logic and words but through sound. FUCKING BRILLIANT RI RI CANT WAIT TO SEE WHATS NEXT -Leah Maybe it’s sadistic, but I love a good unhappy ending. Give me the bittersweet love story, the missed messages, the bad timing and even the tragedies. I guess I look for realism? To me, real is sloppy, unpredictable, and unfair. It can’t be succinctly summed up, and you don’t get every detail. It doesn’t necessarily mean every costume is authentic down to the pantyhose. Or every accent is perfectly sourced. It just means it is aware of the conventions its genre lives within and finds a way to messily evade those, thus recognizing the messy situation we all call life. In this way--La La Land is all about real. And no, I don’t think breaking into song and dance is real. Nor do I think by-chance encounters with the same person season after season is very real. But this is a show that revels in its romanticism and therefore shocks with its realism. It is so strongly aware of its musical genre it even shows an ‘alternate ending’ that exists purely in the musical element of this strained musical vs. realist world it has established. A world in which all conventions are followed, cumulating in the two lovers finding happiness together. It is this awareness that causes the antithetical ending to be so satisfying. The movie itself is aware of the impossibilities of its limitless genre. It parallels this world of the musical with ‘great love’, raising the question of whether this love can only exist in such a world. In the real ending Mia leaves Sebastian in order to follow her dream. The implication being, she cannot give her entire soul over to this passion if he takes up a part of it. He was her ‘great love’, but eventually she finds different love with a caring husband and a beautiful baby. I think if you’re lucky you get one or two ‘great loves’ in your life. But then I think you get a whole lot of different love too. Do I think it’s realistic to expect those one or two ‘great loves’ will be the person you spend the entirety of your life with? No I don’t. But I also don’t think that takes away from their magic. This is what La La Land does. It reminds us of the honest reality of ‘great love’ while reminding us the wonder of its very existence. It gives us an unhappy ending while reminding us we don’t live our lives for the ending, we live them for the messy wonderful limitless middle. -Leah 1/19/2017 0 Comments Life: Trump in the HouseWhen I fly, my palms get really sweaty. I over-analyze every single jerk of the plane, every dip and every shift through the sky. I am constantly scanning the faces of the flight attendants for any signs of impending danger. I can quite definitively assure you that I am not the greatest flyer that has ever sat squished in a middle seat on a late-night flight from Toronto to Vancouver. However, there was something so pacifying about turning my phone onto airplane mode as the plane pulled away from the gate on December 19th. That was the night the Electoral College would cast their official votes in determining the presidential pick, and there was the faintest, slightest, glimmer of optimism that maybe, somehow, the White House would not be transitioning into the "Orange House" come January 20th. While I do not claim to know the intricacies, or really any more than the basics, of the Electoral College, I do know that it is a 200 year-old, antiquated system that appointed Donald Trump as the commander-in-chief of the United States, regardless of him being the less popular of the two major candidates in the November election. And that is absolute nonsense. Mr. Trump was able to convert the right demographics, and capitalize on poisonous voter suppression, so that he came out victorious in key states, which shifted the teetering balance away from a qualified, strong (nasty) woman, to an actually nasty, horrible, vile man. It has been roughly two years since the campaigns began and despite copious satirical jokes and shared dinner-table laughs, the man who no one ever believed would make it, has effectively made it. That is more than absolute nonsense; it’s outrageously ludicrous. There are entirely too many people, and bodies, and organizations to blame for this incensing turn of events, and thus it is not possible to pinpoint a single reason, however the fault lies straddling the bipartisan line, that is for sure. Obviously, the acute responsibility can be assigned to the majority of Republicans, and a small portion of disgruntled, frustrated Democrats. Their decision to check the box for DJT instead of HRC, is the small-picture reason that the Electoral College elected Donald Trump (also known as America’s official tanning bed spokesperson) onto the throne of the most powerful country in the world. But that is such a tertiary, downstream justification for the catastrophe that we have witnessed. More comprehensive explanations might include: voter suppression, white privilege, the very problematic Democratic National Convention, and ingrained systemic sexism and racism, just to name a few. Turns out, 53% of white females voted for You-Know-Who, paying no heed to the multiple allegations and lawsuits against him for sexual assault and aggressions, or his track record of heinously racist comments and stances. I cannot claim to know anything about those particular white females, without employing an erroneous fallacy, but I do know what I don't understand. How could the majority of White American females disregard all qualms or fears of a sexual predator rising to power? How was an overqualified female with years of political experience not enough to sway them? During his whole campaign, was there genuinely nothing off-putting enough to conclusively reject him? Of course, there is an absolute necessity to acknowledge the privilege of that particular vote: white women have infinitely more protection in the American justice system than women of colour. They were less at risk; they had less to lose. Which is, I guess, maybe why they were able to cast their vote for a man who ran on a tyrannical, misogynistic, xenophobic platform. Or why 58% of white voters overall voted for him. I’m not saying that Hillary was the perfect candidate, as she has engaged in some fairly disturbing displays of power in her past, but she was undeniably a better alternative. In the same way that it is impossible for me to ever truly grasp the fear that black men and women might feel when they see flashing lights in their mirrors, there is a painful part of Hillary's loss that men may never fully understand. Even for me, who was won over by Bernie very early on, my heart was twisted and crushed when I groggily rolled over on November 9th at 6am, swiped open my phone, and tapped on the CNN App. Putting aside all the politics and promises, a woman lost to a man, and that, on its own, is sufficiently disheartening (read: the US still won't have had a female president after 225 years). But then you start comparing their experiences, their qualifications, and their skills, and it is a slap-in-the-face, punch-to-the-gut, stab-in-the-back kind of loss. It says to me, and many other women, young and old, that no matter how hard we try, there will always be a man there to beat us. Everything that happened in this election period is unfathomable and outright insane, so for those five hours in the air on the night of the Electoral College’s decision, I embraced ignorance, in all its bliss. I fantasized that upon touchdown, I would switch off airplane mode and be greeted with a thunderous influx of electronic notifications to let me know that decency had reigned. I knew it was a far-fetched dream: that the slight political protestation against the functioning of the Electoral College would change anything. But I held onto that dream-- as a woman, and as a human being, who fears for all those who do not benefit from white heteronormative supremacy (which is pretty much everyone in the whole world, white cis-men included!!) More explicitly, I fear that Trump’s election will create an America where hate and ignorance dictate its citizens’ everyday decisions. I fear an America where women lose access to reproductive health services. I fear an America where mass incarceration of black men continues to be the norm. I fear an America where the intolerance of Islam, and its false synonymy with terrorism, persists in its growth. I fear an America where conversion therapy creeps back onto the table. I fear an America that intensifies its second-class treatment of Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, I fear an America that moves backwards instead of forwards. Now, it is the eve of the inauguration, and a month since Trump’s fate was sealed. And although, he will still be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States tomorrow, there is a new emotion brimming inside me, and inside so many others across the world. It is something I neglected to consider while flying through the air on December 19th, in my spiraling pessimistic state. Today, and tomorrow, and far into the foreseeable future, there is hope. The Women’s March on Washington is slated to have more attendees (not to mention better performers!) than the inauguration. Countless elected officials have voiced their dissidence with Trump’s rhetoric and his campaign promises, and have avowed they will work to create a safe, thriving America. Needless to say, it will take an enormous amount of work to stand-up to Trump’s presidency, and his conservative cabinet picks and appointed staff. It will require commitment, collaboration, open minds, and consistent conversation, on the part of activists, lawmakers, business-people, artists, and government officials alike. For every late-night gibberish tweet, for every dismissive comment, and for every attempt to apply his oppressive, harmful views onto the government, we will have to put in the extra hours, and truthfully it doesn’t scare me at all anymore-- in fact, it is honestly invigorating. And then, four years from now, in January 2021, after all that hard work, I ardently hope there is someone a little less self-tanner, and a lot more powerful-female, placing their left hand on the Bible, ready to start anew. - Amy |