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Vulture » ‘New Girl’ Actor Lamorne Morris Q&A

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Fergie Cover » Billboard

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Wired » 80s Dance Explosion

Wired » 80s Dance Explosion

5 months ago  View high resolution

VIBE » Man of the Year: Frank Ocean

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ESPN The Magazine

ESPN The Magazine

5 months ago  View high resolution

Shooting days run long. Actors can be divas. Making movies can be Hell. It’s hard to fault directors for adopting an unstylish way of life. But they don’t all amble around in sweats all day. Here, we salute the motion picture architects who toiled behind the lens with flair, from the debonair icons of cinema’s golden age to the contemporary masterminds
– GQ: The 25 Most Stylish Directors Of All Time

6 months ago 

VILLAGE VOICE The 100 Problems Of Kanye West The beard … the scruffy hair … the perpetual scowl … the walking-Zoloft-ad aura of despair—all signs of a different Kanye West. These days, he’s fiery and five-o’clock-shadowed, suddenly unsure of all things, save that he’s not at fault for The Break-Up—the one that came fatefully soon after his mother’s tragic plastic-surgery-related death, thus distressing him twofold. Broken though he is, men don’t cry, so he’s gotta make his songs cry. What’s a rapper to do? Sing! Ferociously. Glumly. AutoTunically. An epic clash between She and Him, 808s & Heartbreak is the musical equivalent of busting windows or keying cars, “Before He Cheats” now repurposed as After I Cheated. Kanye’s 12-track soliloquy is primarily an excoriation of ex-fiancée Alexis Phifer, dealing with his feelings the way men—sweeping generalizations here—typically deal with their feelings. By not, really. “Emotionally naked” is how Kanye described it, but it’s a bulimic type of emotion: He swallows his pride but quickly blechs it back up. It’s the Jay-Z approach: “Pretend to be heroic … but, deep inside, a nigga so sick.”  The result is an unstable but moving album by a man clearly distraught and uncertain how to express that hurt, so he comes across more defensive than analytical, dense with the type of raw, reactionary, gender-indiscriminate rage anyone experiences fresh after a break-up, when time has yet to yield perspective and depth. So here’s where I’m conflicted, as a woman, torn between loving Kanye’s (newfound?) sentiment and being disturbed by the resulting carnage. Besides “Hey Mama,” Kanye hasn’t offered many glowing assessments of women, often reducing them to “gold diggers” or “dykes” or “one of Russell’s nieces.” But misogynist is too strong a word to throw around, even now—it’s normal to hate a woman, even all women, after a messy break-up. Still, Kanye’s position on Heartbreak is awfully harsh, with the defendant absent and thus unable to defend herself as he takes minimal blame and finds myriad ways to call her a bitch without actually calling her a bitch. She’s frigid, is the main idea here: an aloof, hectoring, unforgiving robot, who’s “cold as the winter wind when it breathes, yo,” not to mention “a spoiled little L.A. girl” and—pot/kettle accusation here—a “drama queen.” Kanye is capable of self-reflection and regret in other areas: arriving late to his godsister’s wedding (and then leaving early), allowing his materialism and thirst for fame to overpower him, etc. Love, he cannot compute. There, his language skews immature, controlling, and chauvinistic instead of introspective: I decided we wasn’t gon’ speak, so/Why we up 3 a.m. on the phone? (You’re so funny when you think you can decide things.) I’m not loving you the way I wanted to … I can’t keep myself and still keep you, too. (Note the echo of the famous Sex and the City line: “I love you, but I love me more.”) I told her there’s some things she don’t need to know/She never let it go. (Don’t ask me about stuff that doesn’t concern you, even if it does.) Just remember that you talkin’ to me, though/You need to watch the way you talkin’ to me, yo. (As a matter of fact, just don’t speak at all, ‘K?) Luckily, the atmosphere was ripe for emo musings in 2008. Jeans fit snugger, rappers became wannabe singers, and AutoTune ruled the world—it was OK to be soft in hip-hop. Kanye’s crooning, by now, you’ve come to either accept (guilty!) or disdain. When a man’s fed up, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. The Man Scorned can’t be too down on himself, though, because his pride won’t let him. It’s what Beyoncé tried to do this past year, too—or yearned to be able to do. Start with “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” the indisputable ladies’ anthem of the year, wherein our heroine deploys ego as a crutch for misery. Ignored or spurned outright by some hapless lover (Kanye?), she goes out partying with the girls in her best freakum dress and flippantly teases her ex: “You had your turn and now you gon’ learn/What it really feels like to miss me.” Kanye, in coming to terms with his own break-up, also assumes the position of a brokenhearted victim grasping onto any semblance of pride on “Heartless”: “You wait a couple months, then you gon’ see/You won’t find nobody better than me.” But his version plays as tragedy; hers plays as triumph. Oddly enough, then, that an extensive portion of the “Sasha Fierce” side of Beyoncé’s split-personality double CD I Am … Sasha Fierce, silly as it’s themed, flaunts her masculine side—more dominant, arrogant, and daring. (“A diva is the female version of a hustler,” etc.) The man-catering “Beyoncé side” is all ballads and vulnerability, as exemplified by the brilliant, double-standard-defying “If I Were a Boy.” Here, Beyoncé longs for the right to “Drink beer with the guys/And chase after girls/I’d kick it with who I want/And never get confronted for it.” Oh, to be Kanye for a day and relish his sense of entitlement. To Heartbreak’s insensitivity, Ne-Yo’s ever-considerate Year of the Gentleman offers empathy, constantly placing its sensitive soul man alongside and sometimes directly in the shoes of a wronged woman, a better vantage from which to constantly chide the other dude—as if faintly chiming in, “You go, girl!” Here, the defendant is often present and dominant; self-sufficient women even excite him on “Miss Independent”: “Ooh, there’s something about a woman that want you but don’t need you.” He is very much pandering here—best not to upset the ladies most likely to buy his records, right?—but Ne-Yo nonetheless comes across as informed enough that it’s hard to picture him sitting at home secretly humming “Wonder Why They Call You Bitch.” So Kanye won’t let you see her side, Beyoncé wants to make sure you see hers but wishes she were on the other side instead, and Ne-Yo just wants everyone to make up, and then make love. But here’s the thing about Kanye’s lyrically vapid, messily sung album that’s the worst in his catalog so far, but that I still really like: A guy I know recently found out that his girlfriend of two years was cheating on him—he has “Love Lockdown” as his ringtone, and “Heartless” is now his anthem the way Beyoncé intends “Single Ladies” (and Ne-Yo intends “Miss Independent”) to be mine. In fact, the majority of my guy friends were surprisingly high on 808s. Kanye made this album in his very specific image, yet here he is, speaking for all the sour, brokenhearted males we like to think don’t exist—the side of relationships that hip-hop rarely, if ever, speaks of in candid terms. While other genres are steeped in girl-bashing records borne of love, not merely lust, rappers rarely bare their souls about women not named “Mom” at all. WithHeartbreak, a visibly and audibly seething Kanye joins in the douchebaggery for once, and hip-hop is all the better for it. It’s a new way of seeing, by feeling.

VILLAGE VOICE

The 100 Problems Of Kanye West

The beard … the scruffy hair … the perpetual scowl … the walking-Zoloft-ad aura of despair—all signs of a different Kanye West. These days, he’s fiery and five-o’clock-shadowed, suddenly unsure of all things, save that he’s not at fault for The Break-Up—the one that came fatefully soon after his mother’s tragic plastic-surgery-related death, thus distressing him twofold. Broken though he is, men don’t cry, so he’s gotta make his songs cry. What’s a rapper to do? Sing! Ferociously. Glumly. AutoTunically.

An epic clash between She and Him, 808s & Heartbreak is the musical equivalent of busting windows or keying cars, “Before He Cheats” now repurposed as After I Cheated. Kanye’s 12-track soliloquy is primarily an excoriation of ex-fiancée Alexis Phifer, dealing with his feelings the way men—sweeping generalizations here—typically deal with their feelings. By not, really. “Emotionally naked” is how Kanye described it, but it’s a bulimic type of emotion: He swallows his pride but quickly blechs it back up. It’s the Jay-Z approach: “Pretend to be heroic … but, deep inside, a nigga so sick.” 

The result is an unstable but moving album by a man clearly distraught and uncertain how to express that hurt, so he comes across more defensive than analytical, dense with the type of raw, reactionary, gender-indiscriminate rage anyone experiences fresh after a break-up, when time has yet to yield perspective and depth. So here’s where I’m conflicted, as a woman, torn between loving Kanye’s (newfound?) sentiment and being disturbed by the resulting carnage. Besides “Hey Mama,” Kanye hasn’t offered many glowing assessments of women, often reducing them to “gold diggers” or “dykes” or “one of Russell’s nieces.” But misogynist is too strong a word to throw around, even now—it’s normal to hate a woman, even all women, after a messy break-up.

Still, Kanye’s position on Heartbreak is awfully harsh, with the defendant absent and thus unable to defend herself as he takes minimal blame and finds myriad ways to call her a bitch without actually calling her a bitch. She’s frigid, is the main idea here: an aloof, hectoring, unforgiving robot, who’s “cold as the winter wind when it breathes, yo,” not to mention “a spoiled little L.A. girl” and—pot/kettle accusation here—a “drama queen.” Kanye is capable of self-reflection and regret in other areas: arriving late to his godsister’s wedding (and then leaving early), allowing his materialism and thirst for fame to overpower him, etc. Love, he cannot compute. There, his language skews immature, controlling, and chauvinistic instead of introspective:

I decided we wasn’t gon’ speak, so/Why we up 3 a.m. on the phone? (You’re so funny when you think you can decide things.)

I’m not loving you the way I wanted to … I can’t keep myself and still keep you, too. (Note the echo of the famous Sex and the City line: “I love you, but I love me more.”)

I told her there’s some things she don’t need to know/She never let it go. (Don’t ask me about stuff that doesn’t concern you, even if it does.)

Just remember that you talkin’ to me, though/You need to watch the way you talkin’ to me, yo. (As a matter of fact, just don’t speak at all, ‘K?)

Luckily, the atmosphere was ripe for emo musings in 2008. Jeans fit snugger, rappers became wannabe singers, and AutoTune ruled the world—it was OK to be soft in hip-hop. Kanye’s crooning, by now, you’ve come to either accept (guilty!) or disdain. When a man’s fed up, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. The Man Scorned can’t be too down on himself, though, because his pride won’t let him. It’s what Beyoncé tried to do this past year, too—or yearned to be able to do.

Start with “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” the indisputable ladies’ anthem of the year, wherein our heroine deploys ego as a crutch for misery. Ignored or spurned outright by some hapless lover (Kanye?), she goes out partying with the girls in her best freakum dress and flippantly teases her ex: “You had your turn and now you gon’ learn/What it really feels like to miss me.” Kanye, in coming to terms with his own break-up, also assumes the position of a brokenhearted victim grasping onto any semblance of pride on “Heartless”: “You wait a couple months, then you gon’ see/You won’t find nobody better than me.” But his version plays as tragedy; hers plays as triumph.

Oddly enough, then, that an extensive portion of the “Sasha Fierce” side of Beyoncé’s split-personality double CD I Am … Sasha Fierce, silly as it’s themed, flaunts her masculine side—more dominant, arrogant, and daring. (“A diva is the female version of a hustler,” etc.) The man-catering “Beyoncé side” is all ballads and vulnerability, as exemplified by the brilliant, double-standard-defying “If I Were a Boy.” Here, Beyoncé longs for the right to “Drink beer with the guys/And chase after girls/I’d kick it with who I want/And never get confronted for it.” Oh, to be Kanye for a day and relish his sense of entitlement.

To Heartbreak’s insensitivity, Ne-Yo’s ever-considerate Year of the Gentleman offers empathy, constantly placing its sensitive soul man alongside and sometimes directly in the shoes of a wronged woman, a better vantage from which to constantly chide the other dude—as if faintly chiming in, “You go, girl!” Here, the defendant is often present and dominant; self-sufficient women even excite him on “Miss Independent”: “Ooh, there’s something about a woman that want you but don’t need you.” He is very much pandering here—best not to upset the ladies most likely to buy his records, right?—but Ne-Yo nonetheless comes across as informed enough that it’s hard to picture him sitting at home secretly humming “Wonder Why They Call You Bitch.”

So Kanye won’t let you see her side, Beyoncé wants to make sure you see hers but wishes she were on the other side instead, and Ne-Yo just wants everyone to make up, and then make love. But here’s the thing about Kanye’s lyrically vapid, messily sung album that’s the worst in his catalog so far, but that I still really like: A guy I know recently found out that his girlfriend of two years was cheating on him—he has “Love Lockdown” as his ringtone, and “Heartless” is now his anthem the way Beyoncé intends “Single Ladies” (and Ne-Yo intends “Miss Independent”) to be mine. In fact, the majority of my guy friends were surprisingly high on 808s. Kanye made this album in his very specific image, yet here he is, speaking for all the sour, brokenhearted males we like to think don’t exist—the side of relationships that hip-hop rarely, if ever, speaks of in candid terms. While other genres are steeped in girl-bashing records borne of love, not merely lust, rappers rarely bare their souls about women not named “Mom” at all. WithHeartbreak, a visibly and audibly seething Kanye joins in the douchebaggery for once, and hip-hop is all the better for it. It’s a new way of seeing, by feeling.

7 months ago  View high resolution

Kid Cudi, Wale & B.O.B » Nylon Guys

7 months ago 

VILLAGE VOICE Bad Girls Gone Worse: Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga She shows no mercy. Audacious and unrepentant, she seeks revenge when provoked: the aggressive, emasculating Kate Gosselin of this bitch. She might just sport black nail polish and strut around stage—nay, life—wearing panties as pants. She. Will. Definitely. Cut. You. And perhaps set your bed ablaze and lie next to you as sparks shoot from her brassiere. The lady is a tramp, but she knows it. In 2008, Beyoncé sang longingly of becoming a boy—impossible, or at least profoundly unlikely—so she could “put myself first and make the rules as I go.” But the leading ladies of 2009 got the job done sans testosterone, crassly exploiting their sexuality via songs in the key of Angry. The abused became the abuser, the victim the victor—personally, if not commercially. While the Scorned Woman archetype has always fueled pop, few have been successful (and believable) at selling aggressive sex as performance art. The few: Madonna, Janet, and the way more warped Lady Gaga, who, in 2009, was accused not just of being ballsy, but of secretly possessing a penis. A hermaphrodite she’s not, though her blurring of gender lines perhaps makes her one in theory. The success of Gaga’s late-2008 debut, The Fame, carried over into the new year in the form of mammoth singles, absurd theatrics, multidimensional drag garb, and, in late ‘09, a deluxe version of her debut (via the Fame Monster EP). She’s consequently a mainstay on both the iTunes and (singles-wise, anyway) Pazz & Jop charts. Why all the love? Because Lady Gaga is comfortable with the concept of Lady Gaga, even if you’re not. Her way of shunning feminine ideals is to embrace them to a repulsive extreme, i.e., the bloody MTV Video Music Awards performance, the restricting corset in her “Bad Romance” video (unfortunately giving new life to the ghastly anorexic-model look), and an underlying theme of surrendering your personal life in exchange for public adoration. Hers is the type of self-awareness most other artists—those who take themselves too seriously—unfortunately lack. Gaga’s subject matter is serious, partly because she’s not. Silly as she is, her songs often attempt to bestow power upon the powerless: tales of triumph disguised within glossy pop packaging. Even as she’s pointing out the evils men do (men-men, not humanity), it’s countered with aggression and the sense that women can be just as conniving. Note how the male leads in the “Paparazzi” and “Bad Romance” videos stay oblivious to their impending death via poison and explosives, respectively. The latter, RedOne-produced single finds Gaga drawn to a toxic relationship: “I want your horror/I want your design/’Cause you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine.” But she’s also lethal herself while in pursuit of him—both a man-eater and -killer. It’s the same sick desire for torture that Rihanna embraced, except her bruises were perhaps more real, and publicly documented. After her tabloid-fodder assault at the hands of Krump-loving then-boyfriend Chris Brown, she refused the victim role and instead attempted a Twilight version of her former bad-girl self: “While you’re getting your cry on/I’m getting my fly on,” and so on. In lieu of pounding pop-reggae anthems, Rated R opts for gothic overtones and dark, violent imagery. Her weapons of choice: a grenade and a potty mouth: “I’m such a fuckin’ lady/You don’t have to be so afraid.” Meaning, you so should be. As with Gaga, the visuals complete the narrative: bondage gear, spikes, and barbed wire recast as empowering fashion statements. Too bad it didn’t work. Blame it on both the lack of hard-hitting singles and a visual aesthetic deemed too risqué (read: disturbing) for the broad pop crowd whose attention she captured with her first edgy makeover. More naughty than threatening back then, she wielded an umbrella, not a grenade, and watched her album sales more than double. But this new Rihanna, unlike Gaga, was simply lethal, without the arsenal of radio bangers to back it up. The men, of course, remain largely terrified. AskMen.com, the perennial source for battle-of-the-sexes counsel, attempted to clarify a few things in a 2006 article titled, “6 Signs You’re Dating An Alpha Female”: “She gives you a run for your money and makes you work overtime on her.” (Rihanna: “It’s gonna take more than that hope that I know you got/I need it all/The money, the fame, the cars, the clothes.”) “She’s hard to reach.” (Lady Gaga: “You should’ve made some plans with me/You knew that I was free/And now you won’t stop calling me/I’m kinda busy.”) “She is sarcastic and condescending to you.” (Mariah Carey: “You a mom and pop/I’m a corporation/I’m the press conference/You a conversation.”) As bad as “Obsessed”—detailing her battle with an obsessive stalker we’ll call “Creminem”—truly was, that failed Mariah single was as entertaining as ever. A shame her Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel went primarily unnoticed on account of a poor first impression. There was no glorious emancipation this time, and nothing newly appealing about Mariah’s personal life (sorry, Nick), especially for those already turned off by her slutty-sloppy act and newfound menace. Payback is a consistent thread on Memoirs, its romantic odes often undercut by idle threats and hostilities. Consider the album’s caught-you-cheating-now-I’m-gonna-kill-you-haha intro: “Go to sleep and I’ll be fine/But if you only knew what was in the back of my mind/You already stuntin’ but you really gon’ find out in time.” Carey stopped acting like a schoolgirl for once, offering the perspective of a woman who’s been through some things … and will now proceed to cut you. Actual schoolgirl innocence was bliss for Taylor Swift, the red-state sweetheart made all the more innocent by Kanye West’s interrupting-cow bit at the MTV Video Music Awards (triggered when Taylor beat out Beyoncé for a statue, and overshadowing Gaga’s own bloody theatrics). Straight from the school of Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, Swift commands attention through virtuosity, not sexuality, her teen rebellion cloaked in giddy couplets. By casting herself as Juliet in the blissful “Love Story,” she reduces a Shakespearean tragedy to a dreamy, doe-eyed lunchroom crush: “Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone/I’ll be waiting, all that’s left to do is run/You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess.” Does she know what she’s doing? Not really. At just 20, she’s merely playing to her strengths. But Swift, like Peggy, is increasingly aware of her power. She certainly owns the coyness, as was evident during her Saturday Night Live opening monologue, wherein she (adorably) sang, “I like writing songs about douchebags who cheat on me” and referenced “that guy, Joe [Jonas, you’ll recall], who broke up with me on the phone,” offering a quick shout-out: “Hey, Joe, I’m doing real well.” It’s true, Joe. Swift had a great year, the alpha female in sales and accolades, if not aggression. We know that most of America prefers their pop stars provocative. (Pazz & Jop voters, too, though they define “pop star” differently: Their alpha female was Neko Case, who imagined herself as both a tornado and a man-eater, and threatened to “punch you in your face.”) It’s the reason Madonna and Janet and now Lady Gaga found success as sex goddesses constantly offending the status quo. But the constant in those cases is great songs—sexuality is secondary, though it’s made to seem prime. Because there’s a thin line between dangerous and domineering: Gaga straddles it, Rihanna crossed it, Mariah’s just happy to be there, and Taylor has no use for it. (Yet.) A woman in control of her surroundings shouldn’t be jarring, and yet she inevitably is: We’re all still apprehensive, whether she’s a villainous pop queen or a harmless-as-a-LOLcat country star (or a First Lady as feisty as her husband). Ultimately, Gaga and her ilk, by suggesting that women can be both helpless and supremely powerful, are slowly peeling off the layers, until all that’s left is panties.

VILLAGE VOICE

Bad Girls Gone Worse: Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga

She shows no mercy. Audacious and unrepentant, she seeks revenge when provoked: the aggressive, emasculating Kate Gosselin of this bitch. She might just sport black nail polish and strut around stage—nay, life—wearing panties as pants. She. Will. Definitely. Cut. You. And perhaps set your bed ablaze and lie next to you as sparks shoot from her brassiere. The lady is a tramp, but she knows it.

In 2008, Beyoncé sang longingly of becoming a boy—impossible, or at least profoundly unlikely—so she could “put myself first and make the rules as I go.” But the leading ladies of 2009 got the job done sans testosterone, crassly exploiting their sexuality via songs in the key of Angry. The abused became the abuser, the victim the victor—personally, if not commercially. While the Scorned Woman archetype has always fueled pop, few have been successful (and believable) at selling aggressive sex as performance art. The few: Madonna, Janet, and the way more warped Lady Gaga, who, in 2009, was accused not just of being ballsy, but of secretly possessing a penis.

A hermaphrodite she’s not, though her blurring of gender lines perhaps makes her one in theory. The success of Gaga’s late-2008 debut, The Fame, carried over into the new year in the form of mammoth singles, absurd theatrics, multidimensional drag garb, and, in late ‘09, a deluxe version of her debut (via the Fame Monster EP). She’s consequently a mainstay on both the iTunes and (singles-wise, anyway) Pazz & Jop charts. Why all the love? Because Lady Gaga is comfortable with the concept of Lady Gaga, even if you’re not. Her way of shunning feminine ideals is to embrace them to a repulsive extreme, i.e., the bloody MTV Video Music Awards performance, the restricting corset in her “Bad Romance” video (unfortunately giving new life to the ghastly anorexic-model look), and an underlying theme of surrendering your personal life in exchange for public adoration. Hers is the type of self-awareness most other artists—those who take themselves too seriously—unfortunately lack. Gaga’s subject matter is serious, partly because she’s not.

Silly as she is, her songs often attempt to bestow power upon the powerless: tales of triumph disguised within glossy pop packaging. Even as she’s pointing out the evils men do (men-men, not humanity), it’s countered with aggression and the sense that women can be just as conniving. Note how the male leads in the “Paparazzi” and “Bad Romance” videos stay oblivious to their impending death via poison and explosives, respectively. The latter, RedOne-produced single finds Gaga drawn to a toxic relationship: “I want your horror/I want your design/’Cause you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine.” But she’s also lethal herself while in pursuit of him—both a man-eater and -killer.

It’s the same sick desire for torture that Rihanna embraced, except her bruises were perhaps more real, and publicly documented. After her tabloid-fodder assault at the hands of Krump-loving then-boyfriend Chris Brown, she refused the victim role and instead attempted a Twilight version of her former bad-girl self: “While you’re getting your cry on/I’m getting my fly on,” and so on. In lieu of pounding pop-reggae anthems, Rated R opts for gothic overtones and dark, violent imagery. Her weapons of choice: a grenade and a potty mouth: “I’m such a fuckin’ lady/You don’t have to be so afraid.” Meaning, you so should be. As with Gaga, the visuals complete the narrative: bondage gear, spikes, and barbed wire recast as empowering fashion statements.

Too bad it didn’t work. Blame it on both the lack of hard-hitting singles and a visual aesthetic deemed too risqué (read: disturbing) for the broad pop crowd whose attention she captured with her first edgy makeover. More naughty than threatening back then, she wielded an umbrella, not a grenade, and watched her album sales more than double. But this new Rihanna, unlike Gaga, was simply lethal, without the arsenal of radio bangers to back it up.

The men, of course, remain largely terrified. AskMen.com, the perennial source for battle-of-the-sexes counsel, attempted to clarify a few things in a 2006 article titled, “6 Signs You’re Dating An Alpha Female”:

“She gives you a run for your money and makes you work overtime on her.” (Rihanna: “It’s gonna take more than that hope that I know you got/I need it all/The money, the fame, the cars, the clothes.”)

“She’s hard to reach.” (Lady Gaga: “You should’ve made some plans with me/You knew that I was free/And now you won’t stop calling me/I’m kinda busy.”)

“She is sarcastic and condescending to you.” (Mariah Carey: “You a mom and pop/I’m a corporation/I’m the press conference/You a conversation.”)

As bad as “Obsessed”—detailing her battle with an obsessive stalker we’ll call “Creminem”—truly was, that failed Mariah single was as entertaining as ever. A shame her Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel went primarily unnoticed on account of a poor first impression. There was no glorious emancipation this time, and nothing newly appealing about Mariah’s personal life (sorry, Nick), especially for those already turned off by her slutty-sloppy act and newfound menace. Payback is a consistent thread on Memoirs, its romantic odes often undercut by idle threats and hostilities. Consider the album’s caught-you-cheating-now-I’m-gonna-kill-you-haha intro: “Go to sleep and I’ll be fine/But if you only knew what was in the back of my mind/You already stuntin’ but you really gon’ find out in time.” Carey stopped acting like a schoolgirl for once, offering the perspective of a woman who’s been through some things … and will now proceed to cut you.

Actual schoolgirl innocence was bliss for Taylor Swift, the red-state sweetheart made all the more innocent by Kanye West’s interrupting-cow bit at the MTV Video Music Awards (triggered when Taylor beat out Beyoncé for a statue, and overshadowing Gaga’s own bloody theatrics). Straight from the school of Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, Swift commands attention through virtuosity, not sexuality, her teen rebellion cloaked in giddy couplets. By casting herself as Juliet in the blissful “Love Story,” she reduces a Shakespearean tragedy to a dreamy, doe-eyed lunchroom crush: “Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone/I’ll be waiting, all that’s left to do is run/You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess.”

Does she know what she’s doing? Not really. At just 20, she’s merely playing to her strengths. But Swift, like Peggy, is increasingly aware of her power. She certainly owns the coyness, as was evident during her Saturday Night Live opening monologue, wherein she (adorably) sang, “I like writing songs about douchebags who cheat on me” and referenced “that guy, Joe [Jonas, you’ll recall], who broke up with me on the phone,” offering a quick shout-out: “Hey, Joe, I’m doing real well.” It’s true, Joe. Swift had a great year, the alpha female in sales and accolades, if not aggression.

We know that most of America prefers their pop stars provocative. (Pazz & Jop voters, too, though they define “pop star” differently: Their alpha female was Neko Case, who imagined herself as both a tornado and a man-eater, and threatened to “punch you in your face.”) It’s the reason Madonna and Janet and now Lady Gaga found success as sex goddesses constantly offending the status quo. But the constant in those cases is great songs—sexuality is secondary, though it’s made to seem prime. Because there’s a thin line between dangerous and domineering: Gaga straddles it, Rihanna crossed it, Mariah’s just happy to be there, and Taylor has no use for it. (Yet.) A woman in control of her surroundings shouldn’t be jarring, and yet she inevitably is: We’re all still apprehensive, whether she’s a villainous pop queen or a harmless-as-a-LOLcat country star (or a First Lady as feisty as her husband). Ultimately, Gaga and her ilk, by suggesting that women can be both helpless and supremely powerful, are slowly peeling off the layers, until all that’s left is panties.

8 months ago 

Frank Ocean ‘Channel Orange’ Album Review VIBE Frank Ocean knows our dirty little secrets. Beneath our cleverly constructed reality and premeditated status updates, there’s much more than we’re willing to let go. With his deceptively modest debut, Channel Orange, the 24-year-old singer-storyteller unearths those muddy truths, whether it’s dissolving the candy casings of luxury, chronicling the crash after a high or the heartache that inexplicably mooches off love. Everyone’s not happy here. Amplified by his fleeting falsetto and talk-rap narration (our own R&B Morgan Freeman), his anecdotes twist everything wrong about love, sex, drugs, excess and religion into a complicated orgy. There’s religion to cope with loss, splurges to suppress misery, white lines to mask the pain. It’s a story about others, and sometimes him, but mostly you. Since Frank laid out his sexuality for the world’s prodding, there’s been plenty of talk about the subjects of his lyrics. The letter explains how his unreciprocated love for a male friend inspired his well-received debut project, Nostalgia Ultra, and this one, too. You can hear his tale beautifully in “Thinkin Bout You,” “Bad Religion” and “Forrest Gump.” But for the most part, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All’s quiet storm is an outsider observing foreigners by viewing it from their side. He’s interested in how and why people embrace vices as fix-its and risk their lives for the sake of pleasure. Through them, he learns himself. As others have pointed out, he uses a series of vignettes to detail the trappings of wealth (“Sierra Leone,” “Sweet Life,” “Super Rich Kids”), drugs (“Pilot Jones,” “Crack Rock”), sexual appetite (“Pyramids,” “Lost”) and blind faith (“Monks,” “Bad Religion”), all of which intersect. Musically, he leans on rock and funk and Elton John of course, and there’s soul behind his bottomless lyrics—restrained keys and mild drum riffs, Stevie Wonderisms and a little of John Mayer designed to subtly coddle his stories; something that’s just there to fit his plot into. The album’s slow pacing may even test your patience (sorry, “Pink Matter” begs for a skip every time, Andre 3000 greatness and all). You’ll hear a lot about stories when it comes to Frank. Rightfully. Lots of his songs are formatted like novels, with protagonists, many perspectives and sideline characters: the indifferent taxi driver in “Bad Religion” and the maids in “Super Rich Kids” who wander oblivious to the mischief because, well, “they must don’t care.” Those two, plus “Pilot Jones” (with its “ice-cold” refrain), all kick off with quick prologue set-ups. He’s also skilled at plopping in phrases that flow like free writing sessions: “Domesticated paradise, palm trees and pools”; “Mosh pits and bare chests/Stage-diving sky diver.” It all seems intentional. He probably excelled in English. Amid the ruin, there’s self-reflection throughout Channel Orange. People have to deal with their choices. Some presumably learn. Others fall in or fold. A song about temptation, “Pilot Jones” sees its main subject succumbing to a dealer-seductress. In the sequel, “Crack Rock,” a druggie, maybe that same crackhead, endures his addiction despite the consequences, like not being able to hold babies: “Your family stopped inviting you to things/Won’t let you hold their infant.” Built into that personal storyline is a larger assessment on the drug trade and police corruption. Frank’s concerned with how we easily remove ourselves from other people’s narratives (“Don’t no one disrupt nirvana/Don’t no one wanna blow the high”). But you can tell he’s got faith in empathy. Besides the Odd Future ties (and Kanye West and Jay-Z), Frank’s hip-hop sensibilities are blatant. He spits on several tracks—he followed Hov, he said, and wrote all the lyrics toNostalgia, Ultra in his head. He crafts his songs like puzzles that require multiple readings or visits to rapgenius.com to fathom. It’s hard to label it. And everyone won’t love it. But where else can glass dicks, buttercream silk shirts and a coke white tiger collide. Dissecting it almost seems fruitless. 

Frank Ocean ‘Channel Orange’ Album Review

VIBE

Frank Ocean knows our dirty little secrets. Beneath our cleverly constructed reality and premeditated status updates, there’s much more than we’re willing to let go. With his deceptively modest debut, Channel Orange, the 24-year-old singer-storyteller unearths those muddy truths, whether it’s dissolving the candy casings of luxury, chronicling the crash after a high or the heartache that inexplicably mooches off love. Everyone’s not happy here. Amplified by his fleeting falsetto and talk-rap narration (our own R&B Morgan Freeman), his anecdotes twist everything wrong about love, sex, drugs, excess and religion into a complicated orgy. There’s religion to cope with loss, splurges to suppress misery, white lines to mask the pain. It’s a story about others, and sometimes him, but mostly you.

Since Frank laid out his sexuality for the world’s prodding, there’s been plenty of talk about the subjects of his lyrics. The letter explains how his unreciprocated love for a male friend inspired his well-received debut project, Nostalgia Ultra, and this one, too. You can hear his tale beautifully in “Thinkin Bout You,” “Bad Religion” and “Forrest Gump.” But for the most part, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All’s quiet storm is an outsider observing foreigners by viewing it from their side. He’s interested in how and why people embrace vices as fix-its and risk their lives for the sake of pleasure. Through them, he learns himself.

As others have pointed out, he uses a series of vignettes to detail the trappings of wealth (“Sierra Leone,” “Sweet Life,” “Super Rich Kids”), drugs (“Pilot Jones,” “Crack Rock”), sexual appetite (“Pyramids,” “Lost”) and blind faith (“Monks,” “Bad Religion”), all of which intersect. Musically, he leans on rock and funk and Elton John of course, and there’s soul behind his bottomless lyrics—restrained keys and mild drum riffs, Stevie Wonderisms and a little of John Mayer designed to subtly coddle his stories; something that’s just there to fit his plot into. The album’s slow pacing may even test your patience (sorry, “Pink Matter” begs for a skip every time, Andre 3000 greatness and all).

You’ll hear a lot about stories when it comes to Frank. Rightfully. Lots of his songs are formatted like novels, with protagonists, many perspectives and sideline characters: the indifferent taxi driver in “Bad Religion” and the maids in “Super Rich Kids” who wander oblivious to the mischief because, well, “they must don’t care.” Those two, plus “Pilot Jones” (with its “ice-cold” refrain), all kick off with quick prologue set-ups. He’s also skilled at plopping in phrases that flow like free writing sessions: “Domesticated paradise, palm trees and pools”; “Mosh pits and bare chests/Stage-diving sky diver.” It all seems intentional. He probably excelled in English.

Amid the ruin, there’s self-reflection throughout Channel Orange. People have to deal with their choices. Some presumably learn. Others fall in or fold. A song about temptation, “Pilot Jones” sees its main subject succumbing to a dealer-seductress. In the sequel, “Crack Rock,” a druggie, maybe that same crackhead, endures his addiction despite the consequences, like not being able to hold babies: “Your family stopped inviting you to things/Won’t let you hold their infant.” Built into that personal storyline is a larger assessment on the drug trade and police corruption. Frank’s concerned with how we easily remove ourselves from other people’s narratives (“Don’t no one disrupt nirvana/Don’t no one wanna blow the high”). But you can tell he’s got faith in empathy.

Besides the Odd Future ties (and Kanye West and Jay-Z), Frank’s hip-hop sensibilities are blatant. He spits on several tracks—he followed Hov, he said, and wrote all the lyrics toNostalgia, Ultra in his head. He crafts his songs like puzzles that require multiple readings or visits to rapgenius.com to fathom. It’s hard to label it. And everyone won’t love it. But where else can glass dicks, buttercream silk shirts and a coke white tiger collide. Dissecting it almost seems fruitless. 

9 months ago  View high resolution

Wired » Captain Hook: A Psychological Profile

Wired » Captain Hook: A Psychological Profile

9 months ago  1 note View high resolution

[GQ.COM] CTRL+ALT+DEL: The 15 Worst-Dressed Men Of Silicon Valley

9 months ago 

[GQ.COM] Get Schooled: 10 Lessons from Entertainment's Most Stylish Youth

9 months ago 

KING ME In September 2011, the fashion world was invaded. During New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, a photo of Nicki Minaj sitting front row—the equivalent of courtside—at a Carolina Herrera runway show made the Web rounds. Nicki sported a blonde updo wig and a top adorned with brightly colored pom-poms, a human version of the balloon-powered house in Up. Seated next to the former street DVD queen who once re-created Lil’ Kim’s notorious squat pose, an image of a very different kind: Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, sporting her own stock uniform—frigid grill, bobbed cut and dark shades—arms folded in per- petual disapproval. The juxtaposition of hip-hop’s reigning queen and fashion’s most feared Svengali in discourse had music and fashion blogs babbling. And it happened again days later at the Oscar de la Renta show. It was a big deal to all, but mostly to Nicki Minaj, who held up her prize in a tweet to her then roughly 6 million followers. “Oscar De La Renta w/my date Anna Wintour again” she tweeted. “Oscar is a very handsome man. So is Valentino. Tell ya all about the collection in a bit!” Four months later, an aggravated Nicki is holed up in a Los Angeles studio, on the phone, roaring against any mention of the word “pop” in association with her art, addressing herself in third person (“Nicki Minaj has been singing since her first mixtape,” she says). It’s an ongoing debate that stemmed from her 2010 crossover debut, Pink Friday. While she tried to put the glittery Barbie persona and the ’hood chick in equilibrium, the album had some thirsting for more of the hardcore “put this pussy on your sideburns” Nicki Minaj of mixtapes like 2006’s The Come Up: The Carter Edition (the DVD led to her inking with Lil Wayne’s Young Money/Cash Money camp) and 2009’s Beam Me Up Scotty. All featured hot bars and, yes, an occasional singsongy lilt. To foresee her potential at that time to hawk M.A.C lipstick lines, break records and morph into a sparkly real-life anime drawing, you’d have to be an A&R Nostradamus or some otherworldly Martian. But now Nicki’s star status is indisputable. She’s the first female rapper to have seven records on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart (including “Your Love”). She’s murdered multiple guest verses (from Kanye West’s “Monster” to Trey Songz’s “Bottoms Up”) and toured with Britney Spears. Goody-good- ies like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez have rapped her girly summer banger “Super Bass” in concert. And by the time you read this, Nicki may have won the Grammy for Best New Artist. Either way, she faces a new world of expecta- tions for her sophomore effort, Pink Friday: Ro- man Reloaded. Which may explain why trying to interview Nicki post-Pink involves excessive stalking and careening around roadblocks. (When her label mate Drake’s name is brought up, a rep listening incognito interjects, “Maybe that’s a ques- tion for Drake. Nicki, do you want to answer that?”) Her newly minted superstar status—and the scrutiny it brings—may also explain why Nicki herself is extra vigilant with her words. With a promise to return to “Mixtape Nicki” for this set, she refuses to acknowledge any deliberate pop ambi- tions. And you can feel Minaj rolling her eyes on the other line when asked just how much of Roman Reloaded features the playful rap-sung tunes of her platinum debut, which made her both a crossover rap phenom and fashion’s urban it girl. “When I say ‘Mixtape Nicki,’ it means not censoring myself and not caring what anyone thinks,” she tells VIBE via phone. “That has nothing to do with pop. You can do a pop song that doesn’t censor yourself.” So far, on the road to Roman Reloaded, she’s dropped two singles—“Stupid Hoe” and “Roman in Moscow”—that showcase her rappity-rap alter ego Roman Zolanski and reawaken her game-of-thrones match with Lil’ Kim. But the 27-year-old MC will tell you quite forcefully, in a way that makes you feel like a queen’s minion, that neither pop nor rap defines her, and that her artistic direction is no longer up for debate. “I refuse to define what I do,” she says. “You’ll feel it. It’s more of an experience than a genre. They’ll have to create a new genre for this. You can’t put it into a genre that’s out now. You absolutely can’t.” VIBE: It’s got to be hard to be a perfectionist this time around when you’re trying to meet a deadline. Nicki Minaj: Actually, I’m writing 10 times quicker than I wrote on the first album because I’m a lot more confident in who I am. We’ve just been trying to pace things so that the album comes out at the right time. The music is pretty much done, but we may hold the album back a bit so that things are done perfectly as opposed to being rushed, in terms of promotion.   What made you more confident? I don’t know, probably a collection of different things. I couldn’t really sum it up into one thing. I just know that I’m having a lot more fun this time.   You’ve said before that you didn’t really have fun recording Pink Friday. I felt like I had something to prove to everyone who said a female rapper could not make an album unless she was talking about her pussy. And so I went above and beyond to prove that I could not talk about sex and not talk about my genitalia and still have a successful album. And I proved that. And now my time for proving things to my critics is over. I don’t really need to prove anything to anyone else anymore.   But the major criticism was that the album was too pop, more singing than rapping. I’m very happy I made that choice.   Has the success of Pink Friday validated that you know what you’re doing? I think I had the most growth outside of Pink Friday. My features really gave me the most confidence, because I used the features to play around a lot. Once I’m having fun, the lyrics are the simplest thing to come up with.   Drake has had a war of words with common. Does Drake have more of a target on his back now? All I know is that Drake is extremely talented and he’s very smart. I don’t think people realize how intelligent he is, so some things are… It’s fun. Some things are hip-hop, and that’s what it is. If he does have a target on his back it’s because he’s extremely successful and he makes music people can relate to.   How has he changed with Take Care? Do you feel like he’s gotten more confident, become more of a tough guy? I really don’t think Drake has changed musically. Take Care is a continuation of Thank Me Later. I don’t really feel that it’s a leap. His core fans are getting what they love from Drake.   Do you guys talk about how you’re handling fame? We speak about it all the time, yeah. What’s the greatest advice that you’ve given him and that he’s given you? [Laughs] I told him recently to go back to his clean-cut look. I always tell him what I think girls are going to like. We have a couple laughs about it and keep it moving. In terms of image, whenever I wear my black hair, he’s so happy. He’s like, “Yo, that’s how I want you to look.” We have more indepth conversations about the business, but those are confidential.   Is it still hard to get your way as a woman in this industry? It’s not hard to get your way when it’s your way or the highway. People either follow suit or they’re not around. I don’t really like the sound of that, ‘cause that sounds like a temper tantrum. I’m just very black and white when it comes to my business. There’s really no gray area. I really don’t have a lot of small talk with people I work with. It’s pretty much let’s get the job done. In the beginning, if people didn’t know me they’d probably assume I wasn’t smart or wasn’t business savvy. But once you sit and talk to me, it’s a different story.   You seem kind of intimidating. I would say that people are cautious of the way they come at me. I’m just about my business. So when I meet people, it doesn’t mat- ter how big of a celebrity they are, I maintain who I am. I maintain respect for myself. So I very rarely come across anyone who disrespects me, because I respect myself. I don’t go around acting in a way that people would ever get it twisted with me. If that means they’re intimidated by me, then so be it. I’d rather people be intimidated than be too comfortable. (Continued)

KING ME

In September 2011, the fashion world was invaded. During New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, a photo of Nicki Minaj sitting front row—the equivalent of courtside—at a Carolina Herrera runway show made the Web rounds. Nicki sported a blonde updo wig and a top adorned with brightly colored pom-poms, a human version of the balloon-powered house in Up. Seated next to the former street DVD queen who once re-created Lil’ Kim’s notorious squat pose, an image of a very different kind: Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, sporting her own stock uniform—frigid grill, bobbed cut and dark shades—arms folded in per- petual disapproval. The juxtaposition of hip-hop’s reigning queen and fashion’s most feared Svengali in discourse had music and fashion blogs babbling. And it happened again days later at the Oscar de la Renta show. It was a big deal to all, but mostly to Nicki Minaj, who held up her prize in a tweet to her then roughly 6 million followers. “Oscar De La Renta w/my date Anna Wintour again” she tweeted. “Oscar is a very handsome man. So is Valentino. Tell ya all about the collection in a bit!”

Four months later, an aggravated Nicki is holed up in a Los Angeles studio, on the phone, roaring against any mention of the word “pop” in association with her art, addressing herself in third person (“Nicki Minaj has been singing since her first mixtape,” she says). It’s an ongoing debate that stemmed from her 2010 crossover debut, Pink Friday. While she tried to put the glittery Barbie persona and the ’hood chick in equilibrium, the album had some thirsting for more of the hardcore “put this pussy on your sideburns” Nicki Minaj of mixtapes like 2006’s The Come Up: The Carter Edition (the DVD led to her inking with Lil Wayne’s Young Money/Cash Money camp) and 2009’s Beam Me Up Scotty. All featured hot bars and, yes, an occasional singsongy lilt. To foresee her potential at that time to hawk M.A.C lipstick lines, break records and morph into a sparkly real-life anime drawing, you’d have to be an A&R Nostradamus or some otherworldly Martian.

But now Nicki’s star status is indisputable. She’s the first female rapper to have seven records on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart (including “Your Love”). She’s murdered multiple guest verses (from Kanye West’s “Monster” to Trey Songz’s “Bottoms Up”) and toured with Britney Spears. Goody-good- ies like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez have rapped her girly summer banger “Super Bass” in concert. And by the time you read this, Nicki may have won the Grammy for Best New Artist.

Either way, she faces a new world of expecta- tions for her sophomore effort, Pink Friday: Ro- man Reloaded. Which may explain why trying to interview Nicki post-Pink involves excessive stalking and careening around roadblocks. (When her label mate Drake’s name is brought up, a rep listening incognito interjects, “Maybe that’s a ques- tion for Drake. Nicki, do you want to answer that?”) Her newly minted superstar status—and the scrutiny it brings—may also explain why Nicki herself is extra vigilant with her words. With a promise to return to “Mixtape Nicki” for this set, she refuses to acknowledge any deliberate pop ambi- tions. And you can feel Minaj rolling her eyes on the other line when asked just how much of Roman Reloaded features the playful rap-sung tunes of her platinum debut, which made her both a crossover rap phenom and fashion’s urban it girl. “When I say ‘Mixtape Nicki,’ it means not censoring myself and not caring what anyone thinks,” she tells VIBE via phone. “That has nothing to do with pop. You can do a pop song that doesn’t censor yourself.”

So far, on the road to Roman Reloaded, she’s dropped two singles—“Stupid Hoe” and “Roman in Moscow”—that showcase her rappity-rap alter ego Roman Zolanski and reawaken her game-of-thrones match with Lil’ Kim. But the 27-year-old MC will tell you quite forcefully, in a way that makes you feel like a queen’s minion, that neither pop nor rap defines her, and that her artistic direction is no longer up for debate. “I refuse to define what I do,” she says. “You’ll feel it. It’s more of an experience than a genre. They’ll have to create a new genre for this. You can’t put it into a genre that’s out now. You absolutely can’t.”

VIBE: It’s got to be hard to be a perfectionist this time around when you’re trying to meet a deadline.
Nicki Minaj: Actually, I’m writing 10 times quicker than I wrote on the first album because I’m a lot more confident in who I am. We’ve just been trying to pace things so that the album comes out at the right time. The music is pretty much done, but we may hold the album back a bit so that things are done perfectly as opposed to being rushed, in terms of promotion.
 
What made you more confident?
I don’t know, probably a collection of different things. I couldn’t really sum it up into one thing. I just know that I’m having a lot more fun this time.
 
You’ve said before that you didn’t really have fun recording Pink Friday.
I felt like I had something to prove to everyone who said a female rapper could not make an album unless she was talking about her pussy. And so I went above and beyond to prove that I could not talk about sex and not talk about my genitalia and still have a successful album. And I proved that. And now my time for proving things to my critics is over. I don’t really need to prove anything to anyone else anymore.
 
But the major criticism was that the album was too pop, more singing than rapping.
I’m very happy I made that choice.
 
Has the success of Pink Friday validated that you know what you’re doing?
I think I had the most growth outside of Pink Friday. My features really gave me the most confidence, because I used the features to play around a lot. Once I’m having fun, the lyrics are the simplest thing to come up with.
 
Drake has had a war of words with common. Does Drake have more of a target on his back now?
All I know is that Drake is extremely talented and he’s very smart. I don’t think people realize how intelligent he is, so some things are… It’s fun. Some things are hip-hop, and that’s what it is. If he does have a target on his back it’s because he’s extremely successful and he makes music people can relate to.
 
How has he changed with Take Care? Do you feel like he’s gotten more confident, become more of a tough guy?
I really don’t think Drake has changed musically. Take Care is a continuation of Thank Me Later. I don’t really feel that it’s a leap. His core fans are getting what they love from Drake.
 
Do you guys talk about how you’re handling fame?
We speak about it all the time, yeah.

What’s the greatest advice that you’ve given him and that he’s given you?
[Laughs] I told him recently to go back to his clean-cut look. I always tell him what I think girls are going to like. We have a couple laughs about it and keep it moving. In terms of image, whenever I wear my black hair, he’s so happy. He’s like, “Yo, that’s how I want you to look.” We have more indepth conversations about the business, but those are confidential.
 
Is it still hard to get your way as a woman in this industry?
It’s not hard to get your way when it’s your way or the highway. People either follow suit or they’re not around. I don’t really like the sound of that, ‘cause that sounds like a temper tantrum. I’m just very black and white when it comes to my business. There’s really no gray area. I really don’t have a lot of small talk with people I work with. It’s pretty much let’s get the job done. In the beginning, if people didn’t know me they’d probably assume I wasn’t smart or wasn’t business savvy. But once you sit and talk to me, it’s a different story.
 
You seem kind of intimidating.
I would say that people are cautious of the way they come at me. I’m just about my business. So when I meet people, it doesn’t mat- ter how big of a celebrity they are, I maintain who I am. I maintain respect for myself. So I very rarely come across anyone who disrespects me, because I respect myself. I don’t go around acting in a way that people would ever get it twisted with me. If that means they’re intimidated by me, then so be it. I’d rather people be intimidated than be too comfortable.


(Continued)

9 months ago  View high resolution

Vulture » ‘New Girl’ Actor Lamorne Morris Q&A

Fergie Cover » Billboard

Wired » 80s Dance Explosion

Wired » 80s Dance Explosion

VIBE » Man of the Year: Frank Ocean

ESPN The Magazine

ESPN The Magazine

Shooting days run long. Actors can be divas. Making movies can be Hell. It’s hard to fault directors for adopting an unstylish way of life. But they don’t all amble around in sweats all day. Here, we salute the motion picture architects who toiled behind the lens with flair, from the debonair icons of cinema’s golden age to the contemporary masterminds
– GQ: The 25 Most Stylish Directors Of All Time
VILLAGE VOICE The 100 Problems Of Kanye West The beard … the scruffy hair … the perpetual scowl … the walking-Zoloft-ad aura of despair—all signs of a different Kanye West. These days, he’s fiery and five-o’clock-shadowed, suddenly unsure of all things, save that he’s not at fault for The Break-Up—the one that came fatefully soon after his mother’s tragic plastic-surgery-related death, thus distressing him twofold. Broken though he is, men don’t cry, so he’s gotta make his songs cry. What’s a rapper to do? Sing! Ferociously. Glumly. AutoTunically. An epic clash between She and Him, 808s & Heartbreak is the musical equivalent of busting windows or keying cars, “Before He Cheats” now repurposed as After I Cheated. Kanye’s 12-track soliloquy is primarily an excoriation of ex-fiancée Alexis Phifer, dealing with his feelings the way men—sweeping generalizations here—typically deal with their feelings. By not, really. “Emotionally naked” is how Kanye described it, but it’s a bulimic type of emotion: He swallows his pride but quickly blechs it back up. It’s the Jay-Z approach: “Pretend to be heroic … but, deep inside, a nigga so sick.”  The result is an unstable but moving album by a man clearly distraught and uncertain how to express that hurt, so he comes across more defensive than analytical, dense with the type of raw, reactionary, gender-indiscriminate rage anyone experiences fresh after a break-up, when time has yet to yield perspective and depth. So here’s where I’m conflicted, as a woman, torn between loving Kanye’s (newfound?) sentiment and being disturbed by the resulting carnage. Besides “Hey Mama,” Kanye hasn’t offered many glowing assessments of women, often reducing them to “gold diggers” or “dykes” or “one of Russell’s nieces.” But misogynist is too strong a word to throw around, even now—it’s normal to hate a woman, even all women, after a messy break-up. Still, Kanye’s position on Heartbreak is awfully harsh, with the defendant absent and thus unable to defend herself as he takes minimal blame and finds myriad ways to call her a bitch without actually calling her a bitch. She’s frigid, is the main idea here: an aloof, hectoring, unforgiving robot, who’s “cold as the winter wind when it breathes, yo,” not to mention “a spoiled little L.A. girl” and—pot/kettle accusation here—a “drama queen.” Kanye is capable of self-reflection and regret in other areas: arriving late to his godsister’s wedding (and then leaving early), allowing his materialism and thirst for fame to overpower him, etc. Love, he cannot compute. There, his language skews immature, controlling, and chauvinistic instead of introspective: I decided we wasn’t gon’ speak, so/Why we up 3 a.m. on the phone? (You’re so funny when you think you can decide things.) I’m not loving you the way I wanted to … I can’t keep myself and still keep you, too. (Note the echo of the famous Sex and the City line: “I love you, but I love me more.”) I told her there’s some things she don’t need to know/She never let it go. (Don’t ask me about stuff that doesn’t concern you, even if it does.) Just remember that you talkin’ to me, though/You need to watch the way you talkin’ to me, yo. (As a matter of fact, just don’t speak at all, ‘K?) Luckily, the atmosphere was ripe for emo musings in 2008. Jeans fit snugger, rappers became wannabe singers, and AutoTune ruled the world—it was OK to be soft in hip-hop. Kanye’s crooning, by now, you’ve come to either accept (guilty!) or disdain. When a man’s fed up, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. The Man Scorned can’t be too down on himself, though, because his pride won’t let him. It’s what Beyoncé tried to do this past year, too—or yearned to be able to do. Start with “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” the indisputable ladies’ anthem of the year, wherein our heroine deploys ego as a crutch for misery. Ignored or spurned outright by some hapless lover (Kanye?), she goes out partying with the girls in her best freakum dress and flippantly teases her ex: “You had your turn and now you gon’ learn/What it really feels like to miss me.” Kanye, in coming to terms with his own break-up, also assumes the position of a brokenhearted victim grasping onto any semblance of pride on “Heartless”: “You wait a couple months, then you gon’ see/You won’t find nobody better than me.” But his version plays as tragedy; hers plays as triumph. Oddly enough, then, that an extensive portion of the “Sasha Fierce” side of Beyoncé’s split-personality double CD I Am … Sasha Fierce, silly as it’s themed, flaunts her masculine side—more dominant, arrogant, and daring. (“A diva is the female version of a hustler,” etc.) The man-catering “Beyoncé side” is all ballads and vulnerability, as exemplified by the brilliant, double-standard-defying “If I Were a Boy.” Here, Beyoncé longs for the right to “Drink beer with the guys/And chase after girls/I’d kick it with who I want/And never get confronted for it.” Oh, to be Kanye for a day and relish his sense of entitlement. To Heartbreak’s insensitivity, Ne-Yo’s ever-considerate Year of the Gentleman offers empathy, constantly placing its sensitive soul man alongside and sometimes directly in the shoes of a wronged woman, a better vantage from which to constantly chide the other dude—as if faintly chiming in, “You go, girl!” Here, the defendant is often present and dominant; self-sufficient women even excite him on “Miss Independent”: “Ooh, there’s something about a woman that want you but don’t need you.” He is very much pandering here—best not to upset the ladies most likely to buy his records, right?—but Ne-Yo nonetheless comes across as informed enough that it’s hard to picture him sitting at home secretly humming “Wonder Why They Call You Bitch.” So Kanye won’t let you see her side, Beyoncé wants to make sure you see hers but wishes she were on the other side instead, and Ne-Yo just wants everyone to make up, and then make love. But here’s the thing about Kanye’s lyrically vapid, messily sung album that’s the worst in his catalog so far, but that I still really like: A guy I know recently found out that his girlfriend of two years was cheating on him—he has “Love Lockdown” as his ringtone, and “Heartless” is now his anthem the way Beyoncé intends “Single Ladies” (and Ne-Yo intends “Miss Independent”) to be mine. In fact, the majority of my guy friends were surprisingly high on 808s. Kanye made this album in his very specific image, yet here he is, speaking for all the sour, brokenhearted males we like to think don’t exist—the side of relationships that hip-hop rarely, if ever, speaks of in candid terms. While other genres are steeped in girl-bashing records borne of love, not merely lust, rappers rarely bare their souls about women not named “Mom” at all. WithHeartbreak, a visibly and audibly seething Kanye joins in the douchebaggery for once, and hip-hop is all the better for it. It’s a new way of seeing, by feeling.

VILLAGE VOICE

The 100 Problems Of Kanye West

The beard … the scruffy hair … the perpetual scowl … the walking-Zoloft-ad aura of despair—all signs of a different Kanye West. These days, he’s fiery and five-o’clock-shadowed, suddenly unsure of all things, save that he’s not at fault for The Break-Up—the one that came fatefully soon after his mother’s tragic plastic-surgery-related death, thus distressing him twofold. Broken though he is, men don’t cry, so he’s gotta make his songs cry. What’s a rapper to do? Sing! Ferociously. Glumly. AutoTunically.

An epic clash between She and Him, 808s & Heartbreak is the musical equivalent of busting windows or keying cars, “Before He Cheats” now repurposed as After I Cheated. Kanye’s 12-track soliloquy is primarily an excoriation of ex-fiancée Alexis Phifer, dealing with his feelings the way men—sweeping generalizations here—typically deal with their feelings. By not, really. “Emotionally naked” is how Kanye described it, but it’s a bulimic type of emotion: He swallows his pride but quickly blechs it back up. It’s the Jay-Z approach: “Pretend to be heroic … but, deep inside, a nigga so sick.” 

The result is an unstable but moving album by a man clearly distraught and uncertain how to express that hurt, so he comes across more defensive than analytical, dense with the type of raw, reactionary, gender-indiscriminate rage anyone experiences fresh after a break-up, when time has yet to yield perspective and depth. So here’s where I’m conflicted, as a woman, torn between loving Kanye’s (newfound?) sentiment and being disturbed by the resulting carnage. Besides “Hey Mama,” Kanye hasn’t offered many glowing assessments of women, often reducing them to “gold diggers” or “dykes” or “one of Russell’s nieces.” But misogynist is too strong a word to throw around, even now—it’s normal to hate a woman, even all women, after a messy break-up.

Still, Kanye’s position on Heartbreak is awfully harsh, with the defendant absent and thus unable to defend herself as he takes minimal blame and finds myriad ways to call her a bitch without actually calling her a bitch. She’s frigid, is the main idea here: an aloof, hectoring, unforgiving robot, who’s “cold as the winter wind when it breathes, yo,” not to mention “a spoiled little L.A. girl” and—pot/kettle accusation here—a “drama queen.” Kanye is capable of self-reflection and regret in other areas: arriving late to his godsister’s wedding (and then leaving early), allowing his materialism and thirst for fame to overpower him, etc. Love, he cannot compute. There, his language skews immature, controlling, and chauvinistic instead of introspective:

I decided we wasn’t gon’ speak, so/Why we up 3 a.m. on the phone? (You’re so funny when you think you can decide things.)

I’m not loving you the way I wanted to … I can’t keep myself and still keep you, too. (Note the echo of the famous Sex and the City line: “I love you, but I love me more.”)

I told her there’s some things she don’t need to know/She never let it go. (Don’t ask me about stuff that doesn’t concern you, even if it does.)

Just remember that you talkin’ to me, though/You need to watch the way you talkin’ to me, yo. (As a matter of fact, just don’t speak at all, ‘K?)

Luckily, the atmosphere was ripe for emo musings in 2008. Jeans fit snugger, rappers became wannabe singers, and AutoTune ruled the world—it was OK to be soft in hip-hop. Kanye’s crooning, by now, you’ve come to either accept (guilty!) or disdain. When a man’s fed up, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. The Man Scorned can’t be too down on himself, though, because his pride won’t let him. It’s what Beyoncé tried to do this past year, too—or yearned to be able to do.

Start with “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” the indisputable ladies’ anthem of the year, wherein our heroine deploys ego as a crutch for misery. Ignored or spurned outright by some hapless lover (Kanye?), she goes out partying with the girls in her best freakum dress and flippantly teases her ex: “You had your turn and now you gon’ learn/What it really feels like to miss me.” Kanye, in coming to terms with his own break-up, also assumes the position of a brokenhearted victim grasping onto any semblance of pride on “Heartless”: “You wait a couple months, then you gon’ see/You won’t find nobody better than me.” But his version plays as tragedy; hers plays as triumph.

Oddly enough, then, that an extensive portion of the “Sasha Fierce” side of Beyoncé’s split-personality double CD I Am … Sasha Fierce, silly as it’s themed, flaunts her masculine side—more dominant, arrogant, and daring. (“A diva is the female version of a hustler,” etc.) The man-catering “Beyoncé side” is all ballads and vulnerability, as exemplified by the brilliant, double-standard-defying “If I Were a Boy.” Here, Beyoncé longs for the right to “Drink beer with the guys/And chase after girls/I’d kick it with who I want/And never get confronted for it.” Oh, to be Kanye for a day and relish his sense of entitlement.

To Heartbreak’s insensitivity, Ne-Yo’s ever-considerate Year of the Gentleman offers empathy, constantly placing its sensitive soul man alongside and sometimes directly in the shoes of a wronged woman, a better vantage from which to constantly chide the other dude—as if faintly chiming in, “You go, girl!” Here, the defendant is often present and dominant; self-sufficient women even excite him on “Miss Independent”: “Ooh, there’s something about a woman that want you but don’t need you.” He is very much pandering here—best not to upset the ladies most likely to buy his records, right?—but Ne-Yo nonetheless comes across as informed enough that it’s hard to picture him sitting at home secretly humming “Wonder Why They Call You Bitch.”

So Kanye won’t let you see her side, Beyoncé wants to make sure you see hers but wishes she were on the other side instead, and Ne-Yo just wants everyone to make up, and then make love. But here’s the thing about Kanye’s lyrically vapid, messily sung album that’s the worst in his catalog so far, but that I still really like: A guy I know recently found out that his girlfriend of two years was cheating on him—he has “Love Lockdown” as his ringtone, and “Heartless” is now his anthem the way Beyoncé intends “Single Ladies” (and Ne-Yo intends “Miss Independent”) to be mine. In fact, the majority of my guy friends were surprisingly high on 808s. Kanye made this album in his very specific image, yet here he is, speaking for all the sour, brokenhearted males we like to think don’t exist—the side of relationships that hip-hop rarely, if ever, speaks of in candid terms. While other genres are steeped in girl-bashing records borne of love, not merely lust, rappers rarely bare their souls about women not named “Mom” at all. WithHeartbreak, a visibly and audibly seething Kanye joins in the douchebaggery for once, and hip-hop is all the better for it. It’s a new way of seeing, by feeling.

Kid Cudi, Wale & B.O.B » Nylon Guys

VILLAGE VOICE Bad Girls Gone Worse: Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga She shows no mercy. Audacious and unrepentant, she seeks revenge when provoked: the aggressive, emasculating Kate Gosselin of this bitch. She might just sport black nail polish and strut around stage—nay, life—wearing panties as pants. She. Will. Definitely. Cut. You. And perhaps set your bed ablaze and lie next to you as sparks shoot from her brassiere. The lady is a tramp, but she knows it. In 2008, Beyoncé sang longingly of becoming a boy—impossible, or at least profoundly unlikely—so she could “put myself first and make the rules as I go.” But the leading ladies of 2009 got the job done sans testosterone, crassly exploiting their sexuality via songs in the key of Angry. The abused became the abuser, the victim the victor—personally, if not commercially. While the Scorned Woman archetype has always fueled pop, few have been successful (and believable) at selling aggressive sex as performance art. The few: Madonna, Janet, and the way more warped Lady Gaga, who, in 2009, was accused not just of being ballsy, but of secretly possessing a penis. A hermaphrodite she’s not, though her blurring of gender lines perhaps makes her one in theory. The success of Gaga’s late-2008 debut, The Fame, carried over into the new year in the form of mammoth singles, absurd theatrics, multidimensional drag garb, and, in late ‘09, a deluxe version of her debut (via the Fame Monster EP). She’s consequently a mainstay on both the iTunes and (singles-wise, anyway) Pazz & Jop charts. Why all the love? Because Lady Gaga is comfortable with the concept of Lady Gaga, even if you’re not. Her way of shunning feminine ideals is to embrace them to a repulsive extreme, i.e., the bloody MTV Video Music Awards performance, the restricting corset in her “Bad Romance” video (unfortunately giving new life to the ghastly anorexic-model look), and an underlying theme of surrendering your personal life in exchange for public adoration. Hers is the type of self-awareness most other artists—those who take themselves too seriously—unfortunately lack. Gaga’s subject matter is serious, partly because she’s not. Silly as she is, her songs often attempt to bestow power upon the powerless: tales of triumph disguised within glossy pop packaging. Even as she’s pointing out the evils men do (men-men, not humanity), it’s countered with aggression and the sense that women can be just as conniving. Note how the male leads in the “Paparazzi” and “Bad Romance” videos stay oblivious to their impending death via poison and explosives, respectively. The latter, RedOne-produced single finds Gaga drawn to a toxic relationship: “I want your horror/I want your design/’Cause you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine.” But she’s also lethal herself while in pursuit of him—both a man-eater and -killer. It’s the same sick desire for torture that Rihanna embraced, except her bruises were perhaps more real, and publicly documented. After her tabloid-fodder assault at the hands of Krump-loving then-boyfriend Chris Brown, she refused the victim role and instead attempted a Twilight version of her former bad-girl self: “While you’re getting your cry on/I’m getting my fly on,” and so on. In lieu of pounding pop-reggae anthems, Rated R opts for gothic overtones and dark, violent imagery. Her weapons of choice: a grenade and a potty mouth: “I’m such a fuckin’ lady/You don’t have to be so afraid.” Meaning, you so should be. As with Gaga, the visuals complete the narrative: bondage gear, spikes, and barbed wire recast as empowering fashion statements. Too bad it didn’t work. Blame it on both the lack of hard-hitting singles and a visual aesthetic deemed too risqué (read: disturbing) for the broad pop crowd whose attention she captured with her first edgy makeover. More naughty than threatening back then, she wielded an umbrella, not a grenade, and watched her album sales more than double. But this new Rihanna, unlike Gaga, was simply lethal, without the arsenal of radio bangers to back it up. The men, of course, remain largely terrified. AskMen.com, the perennial source for battle-of-the-sexes counsel, attempted to clarify a few things in a 2006 article titled, “6 Signs You’re Dating An Alpha Female”: “She gives you a run for your money and makes you work overtime on her.” (Rihanna: “It’s gonna take more than that hope that I know you got/I need it all/The money, the fame, the cars, the clothes.”) “She’s hard to reach.” (Lady Gaga: “You should’ve made some plans with me/You knew that I was free/And now you won’t stop calling me/I’m kinda busy.”) “She is sarcastic and condescending to you.” (Mariah Carey: “You a mom and pop/I’m a corporation/I’m the press conference/You a conversation.”) As bad as “Obsessed”—detailing her battle with an obsessive stalker we’ll call “Creminem”—truly was, that failed Mariah single was as entertaining as ever. A shame her Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel went primarily unnoticed on account of a poor first impression. There was no glorious emancipation this time, and nothing newly appealing about Mariah’s personal life (sorry, Nick), especially for those already turned off by her slutty-sloppy act and newfound menace. Payback is a consistent thread on Memoirs, its romantic odes often undercut by idle threats and hostilities. Consider the album’s caught-you-cheating-now-I’m-gonna-kill-you-haha intro: “Go to sleep and I’ll be fine/But if you only knew what was in the back of my mind/You already stuntin’ but you really gon’ find out in time.” Carey stopped acting like a schoolgirl for once, offering the perspective of a woman who’s been through some things … and will now proceed to cut you. Actual schoolgirl innocence was bliss for Taylor Swift, the red-state sweetheart made all the more innocent by Kanye West’s interrupting-cow bit at the MTV Video Music Awards (triggered when Taylor beat out Beyoncé for a statue, and overshadowing Gaga’s own bloody theatrics). Straight from the school of Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, Swift commands attention through virtuosity, not sexuality, her teen rebellion cloaked in giddy couplets. By casting herself as Juliet in the blissful “Love Story,” she reduces a Shakespearean tragedy to a dreamy, doe-eyed lunchroom crush: “Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone/I’ll be waiting, all that’s left to do is run/You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess.” Does she know what she’s doing? Not really. At just 20, she’s merely playing to her strengths. But Swift, like Peggy, is increasingly aware of her power. She certainly owns the coyness, as was evident during her Saturday Night Live opening monologue, wherein she (adorably) sang, “I like writing songs about douchebags who cheat on me” and referenced “that guy, Joe [Jonas, you’ll recall], who broke up with me on the phone,” offering a quick shout-out: “Hey, Joe, I’m doing real well.” It’s true, Joe. Swift had a great year, the alpha female in sales and accolades, if not aggression. We know that most of America prefers their pop stars provocative. (Pazz & Jop voters, too, though they define “pop star” differently: Their alpha female was Neko Case, who imagined herself as both a tornado and a man-eater, and threatened to “punch you in your face.”) It’s the reason Madonna and Janet and now Lady Gaga found success as sex goddesses constantly offending the status quo. But the constant in those cases is great songs—sexuality is secondary, though it’s made to seem prime. Because there’s a thin line between dangerous and domineering: Gaga straddles it, Rihanna crossed it, Mariah’s just happy to be there, and Taylor has no use for it. (Yet.) A woman in control of her surroundings shouldn’t be jarring, and yet she inevitably is: We’re all still apprehensive, whether she’s a villainous pop queen or a harmless-as-a-LOLcat country star (or a First Lady as feisty as her husband). Ultimately, Gaga and her ilk, by suggesting that women can be both helpless and supremely powerful, are slowly peeling off the layers, until all that’s left is panties.

VILLAGE VOICE

Bad Girls Gone Worse: Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga

She shows no mercy. Audacious and unrepentant, she seeks revenge when provoked: the aggressive, emasculating Kate Gosselin of this bitch. She might just sport black nail polish and strut around stage—nay, life—wearing panties as pants. She. Will. Definitely. Cut. You. And perhaps set your bed ablaze and lie next to you as sparks shoot from her brassiere. The lady is a tramp, but she knows it.

In 2008, Beyoncé sang longingly of becoming a boy—impossible, or at least profoundly unlikely—so she could “put myself first and make the rules as I go.” But the leading ladies of 2009 got the job done sans testosterone, crassly exploiting their sexuality via songs in the key of Angry. The abused became the abuser, the victim the victor—personally, if not commercially. While the Scorned Woman archetype has always fueled pop, few have been successful (and believable) at selling aggressive sex as performance art. The few: Madonna, Janet, and the way more warped Lady Gaga, who, in 2009, was accused not just of being ballsy, but of secretly possessing a penis.

A hermaphrodite she’s not, though her blurring of gender lines perhaps makes her one in theory. The success of Gaga’s late-2008 debut, The Fame, carried over into the new year in the form of mammoth singles, absurd theatrics, multidimensional drag garb, and, in late ‘09, a deluxe version of her debut (via the Fame Monster EP). She’s consequently a mainstay on both the iTunes and (singles-wise, anyway) Pazz & Jop charts. Why all the love? Because Lady Gaga is comfortable with the concept of Lady Gaga, even if you’re not. Her way of shunning feminine ideals is to embrace them to a repulsive extreme, i.e., the bloody MTV Video Music Awards performance, the restricting corset in her “Bad Romance” video (unfortunately giving new life to the ghastly anorexic-model look), and an underlying theme of surrendering your personal life in exchange for public adoration. Hers is the type of self-awareness most other artists—those who take themselves too seriously—unfortunately lack. Gaga’s subject matter is serious, partly because she’s not.

Silly as she is, her songs often attempt to bestow power upon the powerless: tales of triumph disguised within glossy pop packaging. Even as she’s pointing out the evils men do (men-men, not humanity), it’s countered with aggression and the sense that women can be just as conniving. Note how the male leads in the “Paparazzi” and “Bad Romance” videos stay oblivious to their impending death via poison and explosives, respectively. The latter, RedOne-produced single finds Gaga drawn to a toxic relationship: “I want your horror/I want your design/’Cause you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine.” But she’s also lethal herself while in pursuit of him—both a man-eater and -killer.

It’s the same sick desire for torture that Rihanna embraced, except her bruises were perhaps more real, and publicly documented. After her tabloid-fodder assault at the hands of Krump-loving then-boyfriend Chris Brown, she refused the victim role and instead attempted a Twilight version of her former bad-girl self: “While you’re getting your cry on/I’m getting my fly on,” and so on. In lieu of pounding pop-reggae anthems, Rated R opts for gothic overtones and dark, violent imagery. Her weapons of choice: a grenade and a potty mouth: “I’m such a fuckin’ lady/You don’t have to be so afraid.” Meaning, you so should be. As with Gaga, the visuals complete the narrative: bondage gear, spikes, and barbed wire recast as empowering fashion statements.

Too bad it didn’t work. Blame it on both the lack of hard-hitting singles and a visual aesthetic deemed too risqué (read: disturbing) for the broad pop crowd whose attention she captured with her first edgy makeover. More naughty than threatening back then, she wielded an umbrella, not a grenade, and watched her album sales more than double. But this new Rihanna, unlike Gaga, was simply lethal, without the arsenal of radio bangers to back it up.

The men, of course, remain largely terrified. AskMen.com, the perennial source for battle-of-the-sexes counsel, attempted to clarify a few things in a 2006 article titled, “6 Signs You’re Dating An Alpha Female”:

“She gives you a run for your money and makes you work overtime on her.” (Rihanna: “It’s gonna take more than that hope that I know you got/I need it all/The money, the fame, the cars, the clothes.”)

“She’s hard to reach.” (Lady Gaga: “You should’ve made some plans with me/You knew that I was free/And now you won’t stop calling me/I’m kinda busy.”)

“She is sarcastic and condescending to you.” (Mariah Carey: “You a mom and pop/I’m a corporation/I’m the press conference/You a conversation.”)

As bad as “Obsessed”—detailing her battle with an obsessive stalker we’ll call “Creminem”—truly was, that failed Mariah single was as entertaining as ever. A shame her Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel went primarily unnoticed on account of a poor first impression. There was no glorious emancipation this time, and nothing newly appealing about Mariah’s personal life (sorry, Nick), especially for those already turned off by her slutty-sloppy act and newfound menace. Payback is a consistent thread on Memoirs, its romantic odes often undercut by idle threats and hostilities. Consider the album’s caught-you-cheating-now-I’m-gonna-kill-you-haha intro: “Go to sleep and I’ll be fine/But if you only knew what was in the back of my mind/You already stuntin’ but you really gon’ find out in time.” Carey stopped acting like a schoolgirl for once, offering the perspective of a woman who’s been through some things … and will now proceed to cut you.

Actual schoolgirl innocence was bliss for Taylor Swift, the red-state sweetheart made all the more innocent by Kanye West’s interrupting-cow bit at the MTV Video Music Awards (triggered when Taylor beat out Beyoncé for a statue, and overshadowing Gaga’s own bloody theatrics). Straight from the school of Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, Swift commands attention through virtuosity, not sexuality, her teen rebellion cloaked in giddy couplets. By casting herself as Juliet in the blissful “Love Story,” she reduces a Shakespearean tragedy to a dreamy, doe-eyed lunchroom crush: “Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone/I’ll be waiting, all that’s left to do is run/You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess.”

Does she know what she’s doing? Not really. At just 20, she’s merely playing to her strengths. But Swift, like Peggy, is increasingly aware of her power. She certainly owns the coyness, as was evident during her Saturday Night Live opening monologue, wherein she (adorably) sang, “I like writing songs about douchebags who cheat on me” and referenced “that guy, Joe [Jonas, you’ll recall], who broke up with me on the phone,” offering a quick shout-out: “Hey, Joe, I’m doing real well.” It’s true, Joe. Swift had a great year, the alpha female in sales and accolades, if not aggression.

We know that most of America prefers their pop stars provocative. (Pazz & Jop voters, too, though they define “pop star” differently: Their alpha female was Neko Case, who imagined herself as both a tornado and a man-eater, and threatened to “punch you in your face.”) It’s the reason Madonna and Janet and now Lady Gaga found success as sex goddesses constantly offending the status quo. But the constant in those cases is great songs—sexuality is secondary, though it’s made to seem prime. Because there’s a thin line between dangerous and domineering: Gaga straddles it, Rihanna crossed it, Mariah’s just happy to be there, and Taylor has no use for it. (Yet.) A woman in control of her surroundings shouldn’t be jarring, and yet she inevitably is: We’re all still apprehensive, whether she’s a villainous pop queen or a harmless-as-a-LOLcat country star (or a First Lady as feisty as her husband). Ultimately, Gaga and her ilk, by suggesting that women can be both helpless and supremely powerful, are slowly peeling off the layers, until all that’s left is panties.

Frank Ocean ‘Channel Orange’ Album Review VIBE Frank Ocean knows our dirty little secrets. Beneath our cleverly constructed reality and premeditated status updates, there’s much more than we’re willing to let go. With his deceptively modest debut, Channel Orange, the 24-year-old singer-storyteller unearths those muddy truths, whether it’s dissolving the candy casings of luxury, chronicling the crash after a high or the heartache that inexplicably mooches off love. Everyone’s not happy here. Amplified by his fleeting falsetto and talk-rap narration (our own R&B Morgan Freeman), his anecdotes twist everything wrong about love, sex, drugs, excess and religion into a complicated orgy. There’s religion to cope with loss, splurges to suppress misery, white lines to mask the pain. It’s a story about others, and sometimes him, but mostly you. Since Frank laid out his sexuality for the world’s prodding, there’s been plenty of talk about the subjects of his lyrics. The letter explains how his unreciprocated love for a male friend inspired his well-received debut project, Nostalgia Ultra, and this one, too. You can hear his tale beautifully in “Thinkin Bout You,” “Bad Religion” and “Forrest Gump.” But for the most part, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All’s quiet storm is an outsider observing foreigners by viewing it from their side. He’s interested in how and why people embrace vices as fix-its and risk their lives for the sake of pleasure. Through them, he learns himself. As others have pointed out, he uses a series of vignettes to detail the trappings of wealth (“Sierra Leone,” “Sweet Life,” “Super Rich Kids”), drugs (“Pilot Jones,” “Crack Rock”), sexual appetite (“Pyramids,” “Lost”) and blind faith (“Monks,” “Bad Religion”), all of which intersect. Musically, he leans on rock and funk and Elton John of course, and there’s soul behind his bottomless lyrics—restrained keys and mild drum riffs, Stevie Wonderisms and a little of John Mayer designed to subtly coddle his stories; something that’s just there to fit his plot into. The album’s slow pacing may even test your patience (sorry, “Pink Matter” begs for a skip every time, Andre 3000 greatness and all). You’ll hear a lot about stories when it comes to Frank. Rightfully. Lots of his songs are formatted like novels, with protagonists, many perspectives and sideline characters: the indifferent taxi driver in “Bad Religion” and the maids in “Super Rich Kids” who wander oblivious to the mischief because, well, “they must don’t care.” Those two, plus “Pilot Jones” (with its “ice-cold” refrain), all kick off with quick prologue set-ups. He’s also skilled at plopping in phrases that flow like free writing sessions: “Domesticated paradise, palm trees and pools”; “Mosh pits and bare chests/Stage-diving sky diver.” It all seems intentional. He probably excelled in English. Amid the ruin, there’s self-reflection throughout Channel Orange. People have to deal with their choices. Some presumably learn. Others fall in or fold. A song about temptation, “Pilot Jones” sees its main subject succumbing to a dealer-seductress. In the sequel, “Crack Rock,” a druggie, maybe that same crackhead, endures his addiction despite the consequences, like not being able to hold babies: “Your family stopped inviting you to things/Won’t let you hold their infant.” Built into that personal storyline is a larger assessment on the drug trade and police corruption. Frank’s concerned with how we easily remove ourselves from other people’s narratives (“Don’t no one disrupt nirvana/Don’t no one wanna blow the high”). But you can tell he’s got faith in empathy. Besides the Odd Future ties (and Kanye West and Jay-Z), Frank’s hip-hop sensibilities are blatant. He spits on several tracks—he followed Hov, he said, and wrote all the lyrics toNostalgia, Ultra in his head. He crafts his songs like puzzles that require multiple readings or visits to rapgenius.com to fathom. It’s hard to label it. And everyone won’t love it. But where else can glass dicks, buttercream silk shirts and a coke white tiger collide. Dissecting it almost seems fruitless. 

Frank Ocean ‘Channel Orange’ Album Review

VIBE

Frank Ocean knows our dirty little secrets. Beneath our cleverly constructed reality and premeditated status updates, there’s much more than we’re willing to let go. With his deceptively modest debut, Channel Orange, the 24-year-old singer-storyteller unearths those muddy truths, whether it’s dissolving the candy casings of luxury, chronicling the crash after a high or the heartache that inexplicably mooches off love. Everyone’s not happy here. Amplified by his fleeting falsetto and talk-rap narration (our own R&B Morgan Freeman), his anecdotes twist everything wrong about love, sex, drugs, excess and religion into a complicated orgy. There’s religion to cope with loss, splurges to suppress misery, white lines to mask the pain. It’s a story about others, and sometimes him, but mostly you.

Since Frank laid out his sexuality for the world’s prodding, there’s been plenty of talk about the subjects of his lyrics. The letter explains how his unreciprocated love for a male friend inspired his well-received debut project, Nostalgia Ultra, and this one, too. You can hear his tale beautifully in “Thinkin Bout You,” “Bad Religion” and “Forrest Gump.” But for the most part, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All’s quiet storm is an outsider observing foreigners by viewing it from their side. He’s interested in how and why people embrace vices as fix-its and risk their lives for the sake of pleasure. Through them, he learns himself.

As others have pointed out, he uses a series of vignettes to detail the trappings of wealth (“Sierra Leone,” “Sweet Life,” “Super Rich Kids”), drugs (“Pilot Jones,” “Crack Rock”), sexual appetite (“Pyramids,” “Lost”) and blind faith (“Monks,” “Bad Religion”), all of which intersect. Musically, he leans on rock and funk and Elton John of course, and there’s soul behind his bottomless lyrics—restrained keys and mild drum riffs, Stevie Wonderisms and a little of John Mayer designed to subtly coddle his stories; something that’s just there to fit his plot into. The album’s slow pacing may even test your patience (sorry, “Pink Matter” begs for a skip every time, Andre 3000 greatness and all).

You’ll hear a lot about stories when it comes to Frank. Rightfully. Lots of his songs are formatted like novels, with protagonists, many perspectives and sideline characters: the indifferent taxi driver in “Bad Religion” and the maids in “Super Rich Kids” who wander oblivious to the mischief because, well, “they must don’t care.” Those two, plus “Pilot Jones” (with its “ice-cold” refrain), all kick off with quick prologue set-ups. He’s also skilled at plopping in phrases that flow like free writing sessions: “Domesticated paradise, palm trees and pools”; “Mosh pits and bare chests/Stage-diving sky diver.” It all seems intentional. He probably excelled in English.

Amid the ruin, there’s self-reflection throughout Channel Orange. People have to deal with their choices. Some presumably learn. Others fall in or fold. A song about temptation, “Pilot Jones” sees its main subject succumbing to a dealer-seductress. In the sequel, “Crack Rock,” a druggie, maybe that same crackhead, endures his addiction despite the consequences, like not being able to hold babies: “Your family stopped inviting you to things/Won’t let you hold their infant.” Built into that personal storyline is a larger assessment on the drug trade and police corruption. Frank’s concerned with how we easily remove ourselves from other people’s narratives (“Don’t no one disrupt nirvana/Don’t no one wanna blow the high”). But you can tell he’s got faith in empathy.

Besides the Odd Future ties (and Kanye West and Jay-Z), Frank’s hip-hop sensibilities are blatant. He spits on several tracks—he followed Hov, he said, and wrote all the lyrics toNostalgia, Ultra in his head. He crafts his songs like puzzles that require multiple readings or visits to rapgenius.com to fathom. It’s hard to label it. And everyone won’t love it. But where else can glass dicks, buttercream silk shirts and a coke white tiger collide. Dissecting it almost seems fruitless. 

Wired » Captain Hook: A Psychological Profile

Wired » Captain Hook: A Psychological Profile

[GQ.COM] CTRL+ALT+DEL: The 15 Worst-Dressed Men Of Silicon Valley

[GQ.COM] Get Schooled: 10 Lessons from Entertainment's Most Stylish Youth

KING ME In September 2011, the fashion world was invaded. During New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, a photo of Nicki Minaj sitting front row—the equivalent of courtside—at a Carolina Herrera runway show made the Web rounds. Nicki sported a blonde updo wig and a top adorned with brightly colored pom-poms, a human version of the balloon-powered house in Up. Seated next to the former street DVD queen who once re-created Lil’ Kim’s notorious squat pose, an image of a very different kind: Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, sporting her own stock uniform—frigid grill, bobbed cut and dark shades—arms folded in per- petual disapproval. The juxtaposition of hip-hop’s reigning queen and fashion’s most feared Svengali in discourse had music and fashion blogs babbling. And it happened again days later at the Oscar de la Renta show. It was a big deal to all, but mostly to Nicki Minaj, who held up her prize in a tweet to her then roughly 6 million followers. “Oscar De La Renta w/my date Anna Wintour again” she tweeted. “Oscar is a very handsome man. So is Valentino. Tell ya all about the collection in a bit!” Four months later, an aggravated Nicki is holed up in a Los Angeles studio, on the phone, roaring against any mention of the word “pop” in association with her art, addressing herself in third person (“Nicki Minaj has been singing since her first mixtape,” she says). It’s an ongoing debate that stemmed from her 2010 crossover debut, Pink Friday. While she tried to put the glittery Barbie persona and the ’hood chick in equilibrium, the album had some thirsting for more of the hardcore “put this pussy on your sideburns” Nicki Minaj of mixtapes like 2006’s The Come Up: The Carter Edition (the DVD led to her inking with Lil Wayne’s Young Money/Cash Money camp) and 2009’s Beam Me Up Scotty. All featured hot bars and, yes, an occasional singsongy lilt. To foresee her potential at that time to hawk M.A.C lipstick lines, break records and morph into a sparkly real-life anime drawing, you’d have to be an A&R Nostradamus or some otherworldly Martian. But now Nicki’s star status is indisputable. She’s the first female rapper to have seven records on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart (including “Your Love”). She’s murdered multiple guest verses (from Kanye West’s “Monster” to Trey Songz’s “Bottoms Up”) and toured with Britney Spears. Goody-good- ies like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez have rapped her girly summer banger “Super Bass” in concert. And by the time you read this, Nicki may have won the Grammy for Best New Artist. Either way, she faces a new world of expecta- tions for her sophomore effort, Pink Friday: Ro- man Reloaded. Which may explain why trying to interview Nicki post-Pink involves excessive stalking and careening around roadblocks. (When her label mate Drake’s name is brought up, a rep listening incognito interjects, “Maybe that’s a ques- tion for Drake. Nicki, do you want to answer that?”) Her newly minted superstar status—and the scrutiny it brings—may also explain why Nicki herself is extra vigilant with her words. With a promise to return to “Mixtape Nicki” for this set, she refuses to acknowledge any deliberate pop ambi- tions. And you can feel Minaj rolling her eyes on the other line when asked just how much of Roman Reloaded features the playful rap-sung tunes of her platinum debut, which made her both a crossover rap phenom and fashion’s urban it girl. “When I say ‘Mixtape Nicki,’ it means not censoring myself and not caring what anyone thinks,” she tells VIBE via phone. “That has nothing to do with pop. You can do a pop song that doesn’t censor yourself.” So far, on the road to Roman Reloaded, she’s dropped two singles—“Stupid Hoe” and “Roman in Moscow”—that showcase her rappity-rap alter ego Roman Zolanski and reawaken her game-of-thrones match with Lil’ Kim. But the 27-year-old MC will tell you quite forcefully, in a way that makes you feel like a queen’s minion, that neither pop nor rap defines her, and that her artistic direction is no longer up for debate. “I refuse to define what I do,” she says. “You’ll feel it. It’s more of an experience than a genre. They’ll have to create a new genre for this. You can’t put it into a genre that’s out now. You absolutely can’t.” VIBE: It’s got to be hard to be a perfectionist this time around when you’re trying to meet a deadline. Nicki Minaj: Actually, I’m writing 10 times quicker than I wrote on the first album because I’m a lot more confident in who I am. We’ve just been trying to pace things so that the album comes out at the right time. The music is pretty much done, but we may hold the album back a bit so that things are done perfectly as opposed to being rushed, in terms of promotion.   What made you more confident? I don’t know, probably a collection of different things. I couldn’t really sum it up into one thing. I just know that I’m having a lot more fun this time.   You’ve said before that you didn’t really have fun recording Pink Friday. I felt like I had something to prove to everyone who said a female rapper could not make an album unless she was talking about her pussy. And so I went above and beyond to prove that I could not talk about sex and not talk about my genitalia and still have a successful album. And I proved that. And now my time for proving things to my critics is over. I don’t really need to prove anything to anyone else anymore.   But the major criticism was that the album was too pop, more singing than rapping. I’m very happy I made that choice.   Has the success of Pink Friday validated that you know what you’re doing? I think I had the most growth outside of Pink Friday. My features really gave me the most confidence, because I used the features to play around a lot. Once I’m having fun, the lyrics are the simplest thing to come up with.   Drake has had a war of words with common. Does Drake have more of a target on his back now? All I know is that Drake is extremely talented and he’s very smart. I don’t think people realize how intelligent he is, so some things are… It’s fun. Some things are hip-hop, and that’s what it is. If he does have a target on his back it’s because he’s extremely successful and he makes music people can relate to.   How has he changed with Take Care? Do you feel like he’s gotten more confident, become more of a tough guy? I really don’t think Drake has changed musically. Take Care is a continuation of Thank Me Later. I don’t really feel that it’s a leap. His core fans are getting what they love from Drake.   Do you guys talk about how you’re handling fame? We speak about it all the time, yeah. What’s the greatest advice that you’ve given him and that he’s given you? [Laughs] I told him recently to go back to his clean-cut look. I always tell him what I think girls are going to like. We have a couple laughs about it and keep it moving. In terms of image, whenever I wear my black hair, he’s so happy. He’s like, “Yo, that’s how I want you to look.” We have more indepth conversations about the business, but those are confidential.   Is it still hard to get your way as a woman in this industry? It’s not hard to get your way when it’s your way or the highway. People either follow suit or they’re not around. I don’t really like the sound of that, ‘cause that sounds like a temper tantrum. I’m just very black and white when it comes to my business. There’s really no gray area. I really don’t have a lot of small talk with people I work with. It’s pretty much let’s get the job done. In the beginning, if people didn’t know me they’d probably assume I wasn’t smart or wasn’t business savvy. But once you sit and talk to me, it’s a different story.   You seem kind of intimidating. I would say that people are cautious of the way they come at me. I’m just about my business. So when I meet people, it doesn’t mat- ter how big of a celebrity they are, I maintain who I am. I maintain respect for myself. So I very rarely come across anyone who disrespects me, because I respect myself. I don’t go around acting in a way that people would ever get it twisted with me. If that means they’re intimidated by me, then so be it. I’d rather people be intimidated than be too comfortable. (Continued)

KING ME

In September 2011, the fashion world was invaded. During New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, a photo of Nicki Minaj sitting front row—the equivalent of courtside—at a Carolina Herrera runway show made the Web rounds. Nicki sported a blonde updo wig and a top adorned with brightly colored pom-poms, a human version of the balloon-powered house in Up. Seated next to the former street DVD queen who once re-created Lil’ Kim’s notorious squat pose, an image of a very different kind: Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, sporting her own stock uniform—frigid grill, bobbed cut and dark shades—arms folded in per- petual disapproval. The juxtaposition of hip-hop’s reigning queen and fashion’s most feared Svengali in discourse had music and fashion blogs babbling. And it happened again days later at the Oscar de la Renta show. It was a big deal to all, but mostly to Nicki Minaj, who held up her prize in a tweet to her then roughly 6 million followers. “Oscar De La Renta w/my date Anna Wintour again” she tweeted. “Oscar is a very handsome man. So is Valentino. Tell ya all about the collection in a bit!”

Four months later, an aggravated Nicki is holed up in a Los Angeles studio, on the phone, roaring against any mention of the word “pop” in association with her art, addressing herself in third person (“Nicki Minaj has been singing since her first mixtape,” she says). It’s an ongoing debate that stemmed from her 2010 crossover debut, Pink Friday. While she tried to put the glittery Barbie persona and the ’hood chick in equilibrium, the album had some thirsting for more of the hardcore “put this pussy on your sideburns” Nicki Minaj of mixtapes like 2006’s The Come Up: The Carter Edition (the DVD led to her inking with Lil Wayne’s Young Money/Cash Money camp) and 2009’s Beam Me Up Scotty. All featured hot bars and, yes, an occasional singsongy lilt. To foresee her potential at that time to hawk M.A.C lipstick lines, break records and morph into a sparkly real-life anime drawing, you’d have to be an A&R Nostradamus or some otherworldly Martian.

But now Nicki’s star status is indisputable. She’s the first female rapper to have seven records on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart (including “Your Love”). She’s murdered multiple guest verses (from Kanye West’s “Monster” to Trey Songz’s “Bottoms Up”) and toured with Britney Spears. Goody-good- ies like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez have rapped her girly summer banger “Super Bass” in concert. And by the time you read this, Nicki may have won the Grammy for Best New Artist.

Either way, she faces a new world of expecta- tions for her sophomore effort, Pink Friday: Ro- man Reloaded. Which may explain why trying to interview Nicki post-Pink involves excessive stalking and careening around roadblocks. (When her label mate Drake’s name is brought up, a rep listening incognito interjects, “Maybe that’s a ques- tion for Drake. Nicki, do you want to answer that?”) Her newly minted superstar status—and the scrutiny it brings—may also explain why Nicki herself is extra vigilant with her words. With a promise to return to “Mixtape Nicki” for this set, she refuses to acknowledge any deliberate pop ambi- tions. And you can feel Minaj rolling her eyes on the other line when asked just how much of Roman Reloaded features the playful rap-sung tunes of her platinum debut, which made her both a crossover rap phenom and fashion’s urban it girl. “When I say ‘Mixtape Nicki,’ it means not censoring myself and not caring what anyone thinks,” she tells VIBE via phone. “That has nothing to do with pop. You can do a pop song that doesn’t censor yourself.”

So far, on the road to Roman Reloaded, she’s dropped two singles—“Stupid Hoe” and “Roman in Moscow”—that showcase her rappity-rap alter ego Roman Zolanski and reawaken her game-of-thrones match with Lil’ Kim. But the 27-year-old MC will tell you quite forcefully, in a way that makes you feel like a queen’s minion, that neither pop nor rap defines her, and that her artistic direction is no longer up for debate. “I refuse to define what I do,” she says. “You’ll feel it. It’s more of an experience than a genre. They’ll have to create a new genre for this. You can’t put it into a genre that’s out now. You absolutely can’t.”

VIBE: It’s got to be hard to be a perfectionist this time around when you’re trying to meet a deadline.
Nicki Minaj: Actually, I’m writing 10 times quicker than I wrote on the first album because I’m a lot more confident in who I am. We’ve just been trying to pace things so that the album comes out at the right time. The music is pretty much done, but we may hold the album back a bit so that things are done perfectly as opposed to being rushed, in terms of promotion.
 
What made you more confident?
I don’t know, probably a collection of different things. I couldn’t really sum it up into one thing. I just know that I’m having a lot more fun this time.
 
You’ve said before that you didn’t really have fun recording Pink Friday.
I felt like I had something to prove to everyone who said a female rapper could not make an album unless she was talking about her pussy. And so I went above and beyond to prove that I could not talk about sex and not talk about my genitalia and still have a successful album. And I proved that. And now my time for proving things to my critics is over. I don’t really need to prove anything to anyone else anymore.
 
But the major criticism was that the album was too pop, more singing than rapping.
I’m very happy I made that choice.
 
Has the success of Pink Friday validated that you know what you’re doing?
I think I had the most growth outside of Pink Friday. My features really gave me the most confidence, because I used the features to play around a lot. Once I’m having fun, the lyrics are the simplest thing to come up with.
 
Drake has had a war of words with common. Does Drake have more of a target on his back now?
All I know is that Drake is extremely talented and he’s very smart. I don’t think people realize how intelligent he is, so some things are… It’s fun. Some things are hip-hop, and that’s what it is. If he does have a target on his back it’s because he’s extremely successful and he makes music people can relate to.
 
How has he changed with Take Care? Do you feel like he’s gotten more confident, become more of a tough guy?
I really don’t think Drake has changed musically. Take Care is a continuation of Thank Me Later. I don’t really feel that it’s a leap. His core fans are getting what they love from Drake.
 
Do you guys talk about how you’re handling fame?
We speak about it all the time, yeah.

What’s the greatest advice that you’ve given him and that he’s given you?
[Laughs] I told him recently to go back to his clean-cut look. I always tell him what I think girls are going to like. We have a couple laughs about it and keep it moving. In terms of image, whenever I wear my black hair, he’s so happy. He’s like, “Yo, that’s how I want you to look.” We have more indepth conversations about the business, but those are confidential.
 
Is it still hard to get your way as a woman in this industry?
It’s not hard to get your way when it’s your way or the highway. People either follow suit or they’re not around. I don’t really like the sound of that, ‘cause that sounds like a temper tantrum. I’m just very black and white when it comes to my business. There’s really no gray area. I really don’t have a lot of small talk with people I work with. It’s pretty much let’s get the job done. In the beginning, if people didn’t know me they’d probably assume I wasn’t smart or wasn’t business savvy. But once you sit and talk to me, it’s a different story.
 
You seem kind of intimidating.
I would say that people are cautious of the way they come at me. I’m just about my business. So when I meet people, it doesn’t mat- ter how big of a celebrity they are, I maintain who I am. I maintain respect for myself. So I very rarely come across anyone who disrespects me, because I respect myself. I don’t go around acting in a way that people would ever get it twisted with me. If that means they’re intimidated by me, then so be it. I’d rather people be intimidated than be too comfortable.


(Continued)

Vulture » ‘New Girl’ Actor Lamorne Morris Q&A

Fergie Cover » Billboard

VIBE » Man of the Year: Frank Ocean

"Shooting days run long. Actors can be divas. Making movies can be Hell. It’s hard to fault directors for adopting an unstylish way of life. But they don’t all amble around in sweats all day. Here, we salute the motion picture architects who toiled behind the lens with flair, from the debonair icons of cinema’s golden age to the contemporary masterminds"

Kid Cudi, Wale & B.O.B » Nylon Guys

[GQ.COM] CTRL+ALT+DEL: The 15 Worst-Dressed Men Of Silicon Valley
[GQ.COM] Get Schooled: 10 Lessons from Entertainment's Most Stylish Youth

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