Rihanna Sits on A Zebra, And the Crowd Goes Wild


This video is amazing, but it weirds me out. The most mainstream pop princess ever in a video that fits best in the underground scene that birthed M.I.A. I mean, props to her for doing something different despite being mainstream, but... is it possible that the underground aesthetic loses something when it is appropriated by the mainstream? What's gonna happen now is that everyone is going to hop onto the "edgy" bandwagon (as they have already done with the shaved head fad) and credit it to Rihanna. She's alright, but she is by no means original, and credit should be given where credit is due (M.I.A., Grace Jones, Keith Haring, and all of the other people referenced in this video). The song itself is good, but not AMAZING, you know? It doesn't blow me away, so there's a kind of incongruity between the video and the music in terms of quality. I'm probably going to watch it over and over again though - maybe at the end I'll figure out what exactly Rihanna's appeal is, because I still don't get it.

Edit: Now thinking about it, maybe the underground doesn't lose anything - maybe it's just way ahead of the mainstream, and comes up with things years before anyone else finds out about it. So by the time it's appropriated by the mainstream, they're already off that.

Comments

  1. yeah boo, i think the latter comment makes sense... the video/song are alright, and she put in effort with the dancing. even so, all of this "edgy" nonsense still gets the side-eye from me.

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  2. i completely agree. i'm tired of rihanna getting credit for doing what other people did like 3 years before her.

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