2 Mile Hill lead singer Mahalia Cummins this evening brought some necessary realness and truth on the band’s social media page with a video of herself rapping a list of woes that Barbados is currently facing.
Opening the video with a lip smack, her tongue out and some expert goose-necking, Cummins references 2 Mile Hill’s latest single “Conversation” with the line “‘Cause uh lookin’ fuh some deep deep conversation” and jumps right into laying out the issues and name dropping Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs and M.P. for St. Michael North West, Chris Sinckler. If Cummins’ attitude and presentation of the lyrics in the video is anything to go by, she’s not at all happy. A sentiment that many Barbadians share.
The rap covers everything from government embezzlement and the legalisation of marijuana to violence in schools and the South Coast sewage crisis, all in under a minute. Speaking to Zeitgeist Mahalia said:
“The inspiration came from observing and experiencing life on the island in recent times. I felt the need to vent and share what I’ve been living and thinking and music is how I express myself. It didn’t take very long [to come up with the lyrics] since there were almost endless points to pull from. Social media platforms are where open discussion happens. The state of our nation is an issue that many Barbados are already discussing on said platforms. I’m just one more voice.”
Listen to the rap here.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bf_y4qKl3Kd/?taken-by=2milehill
The scenario that some of us TGIT fans had always wanted to see happen has finally made its way onto television; Olivia Pope and Annalise Keating have met one another and worked on a case together! Nothing could have made it more perfect except for the inclusion of Meredith Grey, but she probably would have been hard to write into the crossover (unless the case was medical?). Plus, the crossover is really all about the #BlackGirlMagic of the Pope-Keating duo.
This episode managed to make me feel sorry for Olivia, which was surprising. I did still feel like given everything she’d done she was well deserving of her state of being, however, seeing her so unhappy and lacking confidence in her skill as a crisis manager did make me pity her. Particularly when she went back to Annalise after having read the case file and calling her the problem with the case. She seemed so defeated. Despite her assertion that Annalise’s reputation was too sullied for her to fix it…she’d fixed worse. And the fact that she thought that she couldn’t was pretty sad. Annalise with her trademark harshness pretty much verbally bitch-slapped Olivia into action and seeing Olivia walk away with her famous Boss Lady Strut was thrilling.
I loved the hair salon scene with Olivia and Annalise. I wasn’t surprised that they butt heads and read each other for filth. It totally made sense given their strong, Type A personalities. I didn’t like that Olivia threw Annalise under the bus after the meeting with Mellie failed, so I was glad that Annalise threw Olivia’s own failure back into her face. It was an entertaining exchange to watch and very funny. I guess you could say that Olivia won because she ended the conversation, but really, they both did in that scene.
Greed, sloth and pride, I think, were Andrew Cunanan’s biggest vices. Greed most of all. Not only in terms of material wealth and possessions, but also in terms of people. He wanted a lot and it seems that he might have, in many ways, felt like it was owed to him. This episode demonstrated that.
I wasn’t even sure if it was true that he loved David (or that he was even capable of love for that matter), but he seemed to believe it well enough. That was the first instance of his greed in this episode for me; that he was living off of this wealthy man, expected to maintain that relationship (and the stream of income it provided) and still be with David. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too.
Norman was so accommodating of him. Andrew had it good with him. He could have and did have that life of wealth and comfort that he wanted so badly with Norman. But, as has been evident in the show so far, what Andrew wanted above all else was to love and be loved. So his relationship with Norman was not enough. I’m very surprised that Andrew didn’t kill Norman when he told him no.
Said rejection by David seems to have been what started his downward spiral into out of control drug use. That and the fact that Norman didn’t call him like he wanted to, that he felt Norman for David and didn’t get him and that he spent so much money trying to buy David and it didn’t work. So he was angry.
Clearly, his pathological lying and everything else about him that makes him detestable came from her. The joy with which she recounted the story of the failure of the wealthy child that Andrew went to school with, the superiority she felt by saying that Andrew was better than him was clear. She instilled that into Andrew.
I understand that Tobias killed his father and he’s now, somewhat, within reach and that killing him/bringing him to justice was the entire reason that Jefferson became Black Lightning in the first place, but this go around he’s in the superhero game to save Freeland from The 100. His reason for doing the superhero thing isn’t about revenge this time, but he seems to be blinded by that desire because all he cares about now is Tobias. Which, again, I understand, but still.
The moment that that shot focused on that statue I knew it would be something about it being a racist slave owner or something. I didn’t think they would vandalise it though. Aside from the whole “don’t give the police a reason to shoot you” thing that Jefferson mentioned – which I hadn’t even thought about – there are ways to protest something that don’t involve breaking the law, which just seems to be Anissa’s default. I appreciate what she’s trying to do with her activism, but in this case I don’t exactly agree with her methods.
Everything for Anissa and Jefferson came to a head when they met at Lynn’s research lab and they fought. As kind of cool as it was to see the two of them fight – who knew that Anissa was strong enough to deflect bullets and withstand lightning – I don’t understand why Anissa would have attacked Black Lightning when she knows that he’s a hero. A simple; “I’m here to save her” could have prevented that fight. So would have removing the duct tape from Lynn’s mouth. But the writers wanted them to fight I guess.
Hurt as she was by his words, Jennifer still tried to comfort him, but he continued to push her away. Because I understand why he’s behaving like that, I do think he needs Jennifer more than ever. Still, she shouldn’t have to take that abuse from him so I still want her to break up with him. She can still be there for him as a friend. When he fixes his attitude they can get back together.
I am surprised, shocked even, that Rio is a mean girl. She was always the one we saw cheering the girls up when they felt down and giving them words of encouragement. That is the complete opposite of a mean girl. I thought that her lashing out at Sandra was an isolated incident because she was feeling very insecure that week and the pressure of the competition was starting to get to her. Apparently not. Even worse was the fact that she called Kyla “stupid”, when the girl had a brain injury. Hell, even if she didn’t have a brain injury that would still be a very ugly thing to say.
Kyla decided to confront Rio about being called stupid and, quite frankly, I don’t think Rio meant her “apology.” Of course, because of editing, we didn’t see the entire exchange. And because of reality TV editing, things would obviously be spliced together to look a certain way.
Rio put her foot in her mouth again after they got their second Tyra Mail for the week, in which Tyra stated that they would not be posing with the stereotypical, buff, male model in their next shoot. Her response to that was “We’re posing with fat ass dudes” and to laugh. I’m glad that the one thick girl, Khrystyana, was the one who pulled her up for that. The rest of the girls didn’t seem too pleased about it either. Rio just waved it off as a joke.
Erin looked graceful, elegant and strong on set; like a Grecian statue. I was really disappointed that Khrystyana struggled on set, but I understand why. She still looked pretty good, though. Sandra wasn’t giving the judges what they wanted, but she still looked good to me. I wish she’d explained her discomfort to them. Given how she feels about men that size, I’m sure Rio struggled because she didn’t like the way the male model looked.
I was shocked to see Khrystyana and Sandra in the bottom two. Their photos I liked more than Rio’s. It was interesting that the two girls who were uncomfortable with the male models, were the ones who were in the bottom two. Tyra’s assessment of Khrystyana, I think, was unfair. She had one, single bad week and Tyra called her inconsistent. Khrystyana was one of the top girls in the house since the beginning. One bad week does not make her inconsistent.
Black Panther is a 2018 comic book, superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. The eighteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was written by Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler, who also directed, and stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker and Andy Serkis. After the death of his father T’Chaka in Captain America: Civil War, T’Challa returns home to be crowned King of Wakanda, but find his rule and Wakandan traditional challenged by outside Erik Killmonger.
Christina needs to keep Brendi K.’s name out of her mouth. Seriously, who is she to tell someone that they’re immature and then call out Brendi K. for crying after she is criticized when she is the same one who cries anytime any of the other girls in the house has something to say to her? She…of all people…Girl please. Still, she is somewhat right; it’s been clear throughout the competition that as much of a bad bitch as Brendi K. presents herself to be, that’s more or less a front. She is rather sensitive and insecure.
As it turned out, the “raw”, “stripped” shoot was not about nudity at all. They simply weren’t going to wear any makeup! The point was to be vulnerable and in every girl’s photo the other contestants’ hands would be visible, showing them supporting their sister. Hence the manicures.
The girls did a campaign video for the National Crime Prevention Council to combat bullying. They had to write a personal statement about bullying and come up with a group tagline. The winning video would be used in the council’s national campaign. They split themselves into groups of three and were instructed to pick someone they wanted to know more about. The three groups were Jeana, Erin and Rio, Kyla Sandra and Khrystyana and Shanice, Brendi K. and Christina. While the girls were preparing their scripts Stacey came in to help.
As for the final videos, Kyla wasn’t as bad as she looked on set; she actually had some emotion on her face. The Sandra that was in the video is the Sandra I want her to bring on shoots. She gave far more there than she usually does. However, she was too pretty in some shots to me; it was like she lost the feeling she had tapped into for other parts of the video. Khrystyana was so raw and intense that she blew me away. There was so much authenticity to what she was doing it was visceral.
Everyone did so well this week for the most part that the calling order was a non-issue. Imagine my surprise when Tyra said that Brendi K., Jeana, Khrystyana, Kyla, Rio, Sandra and Shanice had all tied for best photo. For the first time in ANTM history. My first thought when she told Brendi.K to stay was that she, Jeana and Khrstyana had tied, but the more girls that were called to stay the more confused I got. I never would have imagined a seven-way tie. It was well deserved.
With this episode we came to the last – or rather the first – of Andrew Cunanan’s victims with Jeff Trails. It was a maddening and also saddening episode. Not just because we got to see the way that Andrew ruined lives before he decided to start ending them, but because we got to see Jeff before the murder; who he was, what he was going through and the ways in which Andrew contributed to that. Beyond Jeff’s situation in particular, it was eye opening to see how homosexuality was viewed in the 90’s…just twenty-eight years ago! On a happy note, we finally got back to Versace.
It was also enraging that Jeff was suspected of being gay simply because he stopped the other men from killing a gay man. As if he could only care about the life of another human if he was gay himself. Humans can’t care about the lives of others unless they’re one of them right? I highly doubt that there was a gay man who was outing others by identifying their tattoos. I expected that the man who told Jeff that was doing so to later check on Jeff to see if he removed his tattoo (I cringed during that scene) so that he would have confirmation. But that wasn’t the case. I wish Jeff had asked him how he knew where the hook up spot for gay men was. That would have shut him up.
Regardless of the consequences, I was happy that the two of them chose to do their interviews, despite the resistance with which their intentions were met. Donatella was genuinely concerned for Versace. Andrew was not when it came to Jeff. I don’t know what he would have gotten out of dissuading Jeff from doing the CBS interview, but everything Andrew did was motivated by his selfishness. It did seem like he wanted Jeff to be dependent on him, though, the same way he forced David to depend on him in the last episode. It was like he could smell the vulnerability on Jeff when he met him at the gay bar and swooped in to take advantage of it. Luckily, Jeff stuck to his decision and later came to see Andrew for who he was.