What Teyana Taylor's Retirement Teaches Us About Supporting Creatives

Teyana Taylor recently announced her retirement from music and it took the world by surprise. After just releasing her critically acclaimed album, ‘The Album’ that even made legends such as Elton John join in on the praise, it's hard to see why Teyana Taylor has decided to give up her role in the music industry. According to Taylor herself, she expressed she felt  “super unappreciated as an artist, receiving little to no real push from the ‘machine,’ constantly getting the shorter end of the stick, being overlooked.” With this announcement, Teyana Taylor got major love from fans and even fellow peers in the music industry such as Swiss Beatz, The Game and Janet Jackson. 

With the retirement of Teyana Taylor, can this teach us how to appreciate creatives and artists as a unit. How can we be more supportive of creatives in the industry that may not be pushed by a major record label, agency or brand? Even those who are pushed by a major machine such as Teyana Taylor or Tinashe during her time with RCA records have felt how lonely it can be in the creative industry. It's a hard spot to be as a creative to constantly showcase your talents and be vulnerable enough to let people into your creative process only for them to shut you down or not give you the proper support you need.

This begs the question, is it better to be a creative and work independently? Once Tinashe was released from her label, that gave her more room to grow and release amazing music projects and even collaborate with other artists that were more aligned with her brand. Seeing Teyana Taylor’s retirement playout only made me realize that many of the talented artists not only in the music industry but in many sectors of the creative industries are not supported financially or even emotionally. By just posting someone's artwork or commenting on their process on social media is a big boost to help them get one step closer to their goals. Even checking in on their wellbeing can be a big help and give them the tools to keep going. Be sure to check in on your creative friends even if everything looks good from the outside, you never know how your support can help them to continue to succeed and grow. 

All About the Benjamins

Rising celeb B.Simone has heads turning from her comments recently. Following her comments with the black lives matter protests and her stance on the situation, B.Simone expressed in an interview with Nick Cannon that her future boyfriend can’t work a 9-5 job. She prefers a “hustling entrepreneur” or a man with a CEO status.

While its always a great thing for someone to have a drive and passion for what they do in life, a lot of important entrepreneurial skills come from 9-5 jobs. Many people who have dreams of owning their own business understand the difficulties that come with it, knowing that although it’s not impossible its a challenge.

Part of owning a business is knowing that you’ll put in much more money than you’ll initially get out. Understanding that it can take a couple of years before seeing a substantial profit from business and in an instant, it can all fall apart just because of how unpredictable the business world is.

It makes you wonder where was B.Simone before her very new famous status? While she may have been hustling for a long time, it is only now that her name is really known in the media.

Its understandable to want a man who has career goals, whether he’s a CEO or an investment banker, or a lawyer shouldn’t matter as long as he is willing to build with you. Everyone has to be willing to meet in the middle because the finished product of a person has nothing to offer besides materialism.

Everyone has standards when it comes to dating. Knowing what you want is important, but sometimes you don’t always know what’s best for you. Have high standards in what you deserve rather than what a man has to have going in order to be with you.

Photo Credit:

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Report: Josephine Coiscou

Targeted

During a time when you didn’t think it can’t get any worse than the Coronavirus, we are thrown a reminder that racism is still very much alive.

It has come to a point that black people can’t do daily hobbies and activities regularly without it costing their life because we fit the description. Once we fit the profile, its nothing but shoot first ask questions later. When will it end?

Ahmaud Arbery and his loved ones are asking the same question. Arbery didn’t think he would end up one of the many names of black people shot and killed for living their lives while fitting the description.

There’s always a depiction of black people that is negative within any community. Usually, it’s that their gangbangers or drug dealers. The ones that become successful have to work twice as hard to prove they aren’t the negative stereotypes that they’ll always be labeled regardless because of where they come from.

Arbery was a young black man unarmed out for a jog when the father-son duo Gregory and Travis Michael noticed Arbery and immediately pursued him as the person responsible for a recent string of burglaries in the neighborhood.

As any right-minded person would, Arbery tried to fight off his assailants with his own self-defense and this resulted in his death.

For so many years the laws in the Southern United States have been against African Americans with a lengthy list of black killings as proof. The laws continue to allow average caucasian citizens to take it upon themselves to decide who is a criminal.

If its not bad enough that the Coronavirus is killing thousands of people daily, black people are still dying just for being black.

From Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, to Michael Brown and so many more and now Ahmaud Arbery.

The real question is when will black lives actually matter?

To be black in America is to be a target in America.

Report: Josephine Coiscou

Operation Game: Kardashian Edition

With time comes new trends, usually its a new fashion style whether its hair, makeup, accessories, or clothes. For some, it goes deeper than that. Some go through life feeling that all those outer layers no matter how much they try to dress them up won’t change how they feel about their appearance.

There are some people, women, especially those who have certain outer appearances that make them feel less than human. This day in society it has become socially acceptable to seek cosmetic surgery to correct body image issues they’ve had for most of their lives due to a traumatic accident.

The phrase ‘everything in moderation’ is a concept long forgotten unless we’ve somehow gone too far. This is not the case anymore. Today, usually things that are done over dramatically are praised when it’s aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The female body shape has become a deadly game. African American women who have had strong curves in their shape for years are now socially accepted because they embrace their curves and their own skin.

This is something every woman should be doing curves or no curves. However, with the influences of men and social media and reality television, it’s not the case. Today, some of our favorite influencers such as the Kardashian-Jenners have turned it into something else.

Television actress Lisa Raye made a point recently saying “the Kardashians have single-handedly changed the woman’s body shape that is acceptable right now.”

The Kardashians have encouraged other influencers to join the trend of a large butt, this is unhealthy because it teaches young women that unless they have an overly large butt no one wants them. Its come to the point where it doesn’t look natural or appealing and women are going overboard with implants and injections infecting their bodies just to be socially accepted.

“Now it’s all about a small waist, and all this a**, which look like the ankles can’t even hold up all of that. I don’t even want my body to look like that because that’s the body everybody has now. That is making every generation after that feel like that’s what they have to do to secure the bag,” said Raye.

This is an insult to the female body shape because instead of telling women to use their minds to get what they want and embrace the bodies they have, there are some women who go through drastic measures such as an expensive, dangerous cosmetic surgery because they think they’ll never have the right assets in life.

The Kardashians are leading this generation and the ones to come they need to look like them.

The Kardashians have become the walking proof and the definition of cultural appropriation.

Report: Josephine Coiscou