Cardi B

2023 has the summer of unruly concertgoers. So far, bras, phones and a woman’s ashes have been thrown, pelted, and flung at the likes of Bebe Rexha, Drake, Kelsea Ballerini, Kid Cudi, Pink and Harry Styles. Now that Cardi B has become the latest victim, the celebrities are finally fighting back.   On Saturday, Cardi B was performing her 2018 hit “Bodak Yellow” at Drai’s Beach Club in Las Vegas when a concertgoer threw her drink at the rapper. Cardi B immediately hurled her microphone into the audience before unleashing a string of expletives. Cockburn commends Cardi for her excellent aim — she hit the culprit squarely in the chest.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlYU3Lpx9b0&ab_channel=CNN Cardi had warmed up her throwing arm the night before.

How was your Super Bowl party? I spent mine investing all my money in crypto and then blowing it on Peacock subscriptions. For once it was the commercials that were the most memorable part of the game — not Matthew Stafford's lightning arm, not even 50 Cent entering the halftime show upside-down like a bat. And that was because every ad was a broadside of celebrities. Not a fan of Bud Light Seltzer? Wait until it's pitched to you by Guy Fieri and a race of Eloi-like doppelgangers (spoiler: you still won't be a fan of Bud Light Seltzer). And how can I not order Uber Eats after watching Gwyneth Paltrow smell her own vagina candle while Trevor Noah eats deodorant? I'm old enough to remember when movie stars starred in movies; now they're hawking Doritos and cheap flights to Istanbul.

In Mike Judge’s 2006 film Idiocracy, an early over-the-top indicator of future Earth’s stupidity is the number-one movie in the country: eight-time Oscar winner Ass, which is nothing but 90 minutes of its title proudly displayed.It turns out, though, that Judge’s vision of the future was not over-the-top at all. In fact, it was shockingly tame. Idiocracy took place in 2505, but Ass only took until 2020.The most popular song in America right now is Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s ‘WAP’. The title is short for ‘wet ass pussy’, and the lyrics get even less Shakespearean from there. The song is accompanied by a big-budget, hyper-sexualized music video that has already been viewed on YouTube close to 100 million times in five days.

Back in the Nineties, rap beefs used to mean something. Fans of the genre watched in horror as its biggest stars traded insults and then bullets. Two of its most promising talents, 2Pac and the Notorious BIG, were wiped out within months of each other, all because of a coastal rivalry. Cockburn isn’t hoping for a return to bloodshed — needless to say, his streets have seen too much of that in their time — but he is concerned about the relative tameness of conflicts between rappers these days. When a multimillionaire like Kanye West rises to a supposed slight from multimillionaire Drake about whether he slept with his multimillionaire wife Kim Kardashian, it’s fair to ask whether the noble art of the rap beef has lost its edge. That’s why new contenders are always welcome.

If Super Bowl LIII served no other purpose in this late Roman phase of the American republic, at least it reminded everyone of the Latin numerals. The first half ended III-0, and the halftime entertainment was low-scoring too. II out of X to Adam Levine, Maroon 5 — who at least could have named themselves Maroon V for the occasion — and a cast of several dozen. Maroon 5 sound like a wedding band playing Jamiroquai covers, though it is hard to imagine anyone wishing to soundtrack their special day with ‘This Love’. On this occasion, they were everybody’s fifth choice. Cardi B spoke on Friday of her anguish at turning down an invitation to perform at Atlanta.