7 Rings
Megan Thee Stallion has encapsulated her fiery, world-conquering boldness in a symbol most befitting her extraordinariness: her “f**k you” rings. The hip hop superstar proudly flaunts seven brilliant diamond rings, upon which each letter of the brashly worded “f**k you” is affixed. Valued at $200,000 and encompassing 126 carats,
Megan Thee Stallion has encapsulated her fiery, world-conquering boldness in a symbol most befitting her extraordinariness: her “f**k you” rings. The hip hop superstar proudly flaunts seven brilliant diamond rings, upon which each letter of the brashly worded “f**k you” is affixed. Valued at $200,000 and encompassing 126 carats, Megan’s fans have embraced the crystallized catchphrase as a welcome addition to her signature looks.
The ostentatious ring set not only signifies Megan’s unceasing confidence, but is also an emblem of her triumphs against adversity. In defiance of the public’s lack of sympathy for her suffering from gunshot wounds allegedly inflicted upon her by singer Tory Lanez, she debuted her rings on Instagram with the caption “Dear haters” alongside middle finger emojis. The “f**k you” rings then made a reappearance at the American Music Awards, where “WAP,” Megan’s provocative duet with Cardi B, was deemed “Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Song.”
The reemergence of the rings was received with overwhelming praise on social media, solidifying them as integral to the rapper’s wardrobe. While Megan admitted to being surprised by people encouraging her to wear such profane jewelry regularly, she will nonetheless gladly indulge in her popular fashion statement.
Photo Credits: Blavity, Page Six
Report: Nia Hunt
Black Women are Human Too
I’m Black. I’m also Human
In society today the toughest job to be is a black woman as we are currently on a daily fight to end societal injustices that we’ve taken for so long. As the fight continues we face battles against hatred from the world, within our families, in the workplace, and within our relationships.
In all the progress of time we've made as black women to stick together and be on the same side empowering each other, there are still those who haven’t grown into the movement for the betterment of themselves.
As we know domestic violence is no laughing matter; rapper Megan Thee Stallion has recently been through a traumatic ordeal of being shot in the foot by rapper boyfriend Tory Lanez having dealt with being in a toxic relationship. As many celebrities have shown their love and support, influencer and former Basketball Wives star Draya Michelle has received some backlash for going on the Wine&Weed podcast and joking about it.
Draya’s comments were encouraging of treatment that so many women today are fearful of daily either currently dealing with abuse and domestic violence or recovering from it. She went on to say she wants a man to scare her into acting right in a relationship and it can only be assumed that she is ignorantly speaking from lack of experience because no woman in their right mind would wish for such toxicity in their life.
Currently, Draya makes her fortune as an Instagram influencer while also having her own small business running a swimsuit line MintSwim. She has modeled for many fashion brands including SavagexFenty owned by mogul Rihanna.
As the world knows and still remembers the domestic violence Rihanna faced in 2009 with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, the mogul found no humor in Draya’s comments following Megan Thee Stallion’s ordeal and ended the partnership with Draya then sending a heartfelt note to the rapper showing her love and support for the trauma she is currently facing.
Shortly after being released from the Fenty brand, Draya took to social media to post a message saying she’s “fighting through the tough days”. Fans took this to mean she had lost her Fenty partnership as they continue to show disapproval. While Draya Michelle is the most noticeable for her comments, it is still disgraceful to see a couple of other celebrities make humor of the ordeal including Chrissy Teigen and 50 Cent who have since deleted their comments on social media and issued apologies for their insensitive remarks.
For black women, it is a trend to be mistreated and desensitize as the most disrespected in relationships including abuse and infidelity. Black women are rapidly the butt of the joke then turned into a meme. Although black women are strong, they are not bulletproof. Black women don’t receive medals for surviving, they just have scars; physically and emotionally.
Photo Credit:
https://www.distractify.com/p/what-did-draya-michele-say
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/memes-of-megan-thee-stallion-shooting.html
https://pagesix.com/2020/07/15/megan-thee-stallion-says-she-was-shot-prior-to-tory-lanez-arrest/
Report: Josephine Coiscou
Megan Thee Stallion: Why Are Black Women Unprotected?
While people have shown concern for the rapper, others have taken the opportunity to make jokes about the incident. Within the last couple of months, the topic of how Black women are marginalized in society has become more prevalent.
Following the news of rapper Megan Thee Stallion getting shot, rumors and memes have been swirling around social media about what exactly happened. While people have shown concern for the rapper, others have taken the opportunity to make jokes about the incident. Within the last couple of months, the topic of how Black women are marginalized in society has become more prevalent.
Days removed from the shooting, Megan tweeted, “Black women are so unprotected & we hold so many things in to protect the feelings of others [without] considering our own. It might be funny to y’all on the internet and just another messy topic for you to talk about, but this is my real life and I’m real life hurt and traumatized.”
The lack of empathy and equity for Black women has been at an all time high; Megan’s situation is just a small piece of the puzzle. With Black women dying due to racial discrimination in the health care system and Breonna Taylor’s murderers still free, the question is: why do people still find it acceptable to disregard the trauma of Black women?
What happened to Megan wasn’t funny, just as what happened to George Floyd. When there were Tiktok videos that surfaced of people mimicking Floyd’s death, people were quick to take action and speak up about the wrongdoing. However, some of these same people are making light of Megan’s situation. Is this because Megan’s shooting wasn’t connected to racism?
Megan was right; Black women aren’t protected. Now that it is public knowledge that Taylor was alive six minutes after she was shot several times, and the police did not try to save her, you have to question why there hasn’t been any progress made toward justice.
In order to progress as a people, we have to start acknowledging all truths, even the truths that we may have negatively participated in.
Photo credits:
Megan Thee Stallion- Essence.com
Breonna Taylor- cbc.ca
Report: Brionna Taylor
Savage x Fenty Teams up with Megan Thee Stallion for Their 2020 Campaign
Rihanna’s lingerie line, Savage X Fenty, has announced Megan Thee Stallion as their 2020 brand partner.
Rihanna’s lingerie line, Savage X Fenty, has announced Megan Thee Stallion as their 2020 brand partner. The collaboration deemed #SavageXTheestallion, is part of the brand’s community-led summer campaign where brand partners, ambassadors and influencers take photos from inside their homes. The brand is teaming with mixed media artist Rafatoon to put together the campaigns.
The “Savage” and “Hot Girl” singer was given this opportunity with Savage X Fenty after she helped launch TikTok’s account in April with the #SavageChallenge. From the app, she was seen modeling the brand’s lingerie while dancing along to her hit song, Savage. The challenge has become viral and has nearly 800 million views.
When interviewed about the collaboration, Rihanna said “Meg is the energy we were looking for. She is a risk-taker with an attitude, character and personality.”
In the first campaign shots, Megan is seen wearing a yellow lace bra, paired with a matching thong. Another shot shows Megan on top of a leather chair featuring the same lingerie that she wore from the original #SavageChallenge video.
The collaboration will feature fits of all available sizes, from 32A-42H and XS on www.savageX.com, Amazon.com, ASOS.com and Zalando.com and is nothing short of classy, bougie and ratchet.
Report: Woo Jong Kim
"Savage"
Beyoncé and Meg the Stallion astonished the world with their shake to the music industry
Beyoncé and Meg the Stallion astonished the world with their shake to the music industry. The remix to the rapper's viral hit "Savage" on Thursday, April 29th, had the beehive (fans) emphatically freaking out over their unique collab on several media platforms.
"And this is why she's queen," one listener wrote on the popular social media of Twitter, along with Queen Bey's verse in which she name drops Onlyfans, TickTock, And her beautiful mother Tina Knowles-Lawson, in which she claims to get her “savagness” from. This sparked a lot of different interests in people to step into their own “savage”power.
For instance, Kerry Washington declared “Savage" the song could not get any better which was a tweet written for Beyoncè where she pays homage towards the queen. I think it’s safe to say many fans can agree, her adding a touch of her magical voice on the song helped to drive the song to number one!
Report: Stacey Rattray
How TikTok Has Changed Music's Path To Success
More and more artists are turning to TikTok in hopes of gaining attention for their new music. Songs like "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion and "Say So" by Doja Cat have shown the new platform's enormous power. What does TikTok's huge success mean for the music industry?
In the first quarter of 2020 alone, the massive social media app TikTok had 315 million downloads. In total, the platform has upwards of 2 billion downloads. Needless to say, this short-form video app is experiencing impressive growth. And it only seems to be improving as more people are staying home amidst the pandemic and have nothing better to do than scroll through the app and learn the latest dance craze.
A large part of the entertainment on TikTok is its music discovery. TikTok provides a kind of music-listening demo to its audience with its 15-60 second videos, and when a particular sound goes viral, it’s great news for the song’s artist. This is because virality on TikTok leads to a boost in streams on other platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music. Take Arizona Zervas, with a jaw-dropping 2472% increase in Spotify monthly listeners since his breakout hit on TikTok, “Roxanne,” or Doja Cat, with the use of songs like “Say So” and “Cyber Sex” on the platform launching her into stardom. Roddy Rich’s “The Box,” another viral dance song, beat out Justin Bieber’s “Yummy” for the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, despite Bieber’s widely ridiculed instructions to fans on how to boost streams. These are only a few examples of huge success stories as a result of TikTok’s influence.
TikTok's "anybody can get famous, fast" narrative only fuels its trends as millions of people will learn the choreography to a catchy dance or lip sync to an upbeat song in the hopes of getting thousands of views. Many artists have noted this path of success and attempted to curate their songs specifically for TikTok virality. For example, Megan Thee Stallion started the “Captain Hook Challenge” herself by posting a choreographed dance to her page and encouraging others to learn it, while Drake’s “Toosie Slide” features explicit dance instructions within its lyrics and the support of already-famous influencer Toosie, making it an instant TikTok recipe for success.
It is clear that TikTok has had a huge impact on the music industry and the process of reaching fame. It almost seems that for a song to even compete with other current hits, TikTok virality is a crucial component. The answer to what song awaits TikTok fame next lies in the hands of its millions of users, and the creativity or whomever wishes to launch the next viral trend.
Report: Grace Carlos
Classy, Bougie...You Know the Rest!
Music lovers have been raging about this new Houston collaboration! The two Texas-born women recently dropped a remix to Megan Thee Stallion’s song “Savage”.
Houston, we have a problem! Once again, Beyonce (better known as Queen B), has stopped the world once again. We all know that all our hotties have been anxiously waiting for this moment. Megan Thee Stallion has always stated that her dream collaboration would have to be with Beyonce. Her wish indeed came true and dominated social media and the charts.
The original song speaks about women empowerment and how women can be a combination of a lot of characteristics, all wrapped in one. Musically, the Texan rapper uses her go-get-it attitude, along with her ridiculous flow to convey her message perfectly over a beat that is reminiscent of nostalgic hip-hop music videos. The original song topped charts, and it has the app Tik Tok to include on its success. Tik Tok has been an app being used heavily throughout this period of social distancing and quarantine. The remix is making listeners reminisce over how a remix is supposed to sound. Many listeners gravitated towards the remix because of Beyonce, and because the song sounds like a different song. A better one at that! It is the absolute best combination of Beyonce's vocals and Megan Thee Stallion's bars. Let's not forget that although Beyonce is a world-renowned singer, we could hand her a Grammy for Rapper of the Year!
These two black women have topped all of the fans' expectations and have made an anthem that will not be going away any time soon. It has made women all across the globe realize that "If you don't jump to put jeans on, Baby, you don't feel my pain." Megan Thee Stallion's Savage has been one of the top challenges on Tik Tok, but the remix with Queen B might top it. This Houston collaboration is one for the books!
Cartoon picture: @maateusforte Mateus Forte
Black and White picture: Wonderland Magazine
Report: Soila Douce
At the rise of Covid-19 many of us first questioned the timeline of fashion week and would we see the regular calendar continue - the question weighed over many of us for months! It was refreshing to see design houses and designers across the globe take advantage of the uncertainty and plow into production mode - thus my interest in Jerri Reid New York - The Black Designer based in Brooklyn New York wow’d instagram with his latest collection paying homage to the Black Is King film which debuted earlier this year in July. I was taken aback at quick of a turn round the young designer produced and released his well crafted designs reflecting some of the films most memorable moments.