Beyoncé in ‘Formation’: Entertainer, Activist, Both?
Jon Caramanica, Wesley Morris, and Jenna Wortham | The New York Times
“Like Nina Simone and peak Madonna before her (Beyoncé lands somewhere between the two as a polemicist), this is a woman who understands her own power, how to harness and magnetize us to it. I mean, I’m supposed to be out at dinner right now. Instead, I’m hunched over a computer contemplating the Beyoncé politic.”
Anti-Everything: The Culture of Resistance Behind Rihanna’s Latest Album
Erin MacLeod | NPR
“The album is called Anti. It’s anti-establishment, anti-expectations, but it’s also anti-colonial. Is Anti also a wide-ranging commentary on relationships? Sure it is. That’s part of what makes it a consistent, coherent representation of the postcolonial. It doesn’t have to be (or want to be) one thing. Rihanna is a one-woman argument for the importance of cultural studies.”
Justin Bieber Would Like to Reintroduce Himself
Caity Weaver | GQ
“Almost as soon as it broke, the OG Mally story took on a mythic quality. The primate, a pet owned by noblewomen in Renaissance art, and by Michael Jackson, became a symbol of Bieber’s excess. His loss of it was indicative of irresponsibility. His failure to reclaim it marked Bieber as uncaring: the father no monkey deserved.”