Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know about the shade that’s being thrown at Beyonce regarding her pregnancy and music. Instead of a giving Beyonce a round of applause, people are slapping her in the face. The same folks who practically begged her to get pregnant have all but turned their backs on her, calling her everything but a child of God. Listen to the media and you’ll be led to believe she’s wearing a prosthetic baby bump... which in itself is just ridiculous (she’s Beyonce, why not just go off the scene for ten months and then say she was away because she was pregnant?). Then it’s she got pregnant and is being covered by the blogs for attention because her album sales are low (which I don’t quite understand how selling 300k records the first week is low. It may be lower than her past sales, but other female singers would kill or die to sell 300 thousand total).
I can imagine Beyonce’s job description sounding a little something like this: “Sing, dance, perform, be happy, travel, be away from your family, deal with ridicule from fans, bloggers, the media and critics without retaliation, without lashing out and disrespecting anyone, always be in the studio—simultaneously on tour—and put out an album people love, yearly.” Of course, “other duties as follows” would be tossed in at the end. That includes interviews, staying fly and made up even while on vacation.
It’s amazing to me how people who can’t even walk an hour in Beyonce’s stilettos have so much to say about how she chooses to live her life. I’m biased. I’ll be the first to say it. The truth is, I JUST became a Beyonce fan. I wasn’t sold on her being a great singer and felt that I knew girls in the hood who could dance much better than her. What changed my perspective were the facts. People downplay 15 successful years in the music business, especially as a singer. The reality is, singers of our generation don’t have the same consistency as legends of the past—Mariah, Patti, Madonna. Beyond that, when is the last time a girl group split up...wait...ANY musical group split up/went solo and was successful afterwards? Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Xscape...No. SWV...No. Changing Faces, Total, Envogue; the list goes on. It’s not something that happens. So the fact that Beyonce has been able to go from a girl group of 4 to 3 to an international solo artist...the odds of that happening and her being successful at it are slim to none. Give the girl her props for beating the odds.
She’s done it all while not having any public meltdowns, not being arrested, not killing anyone, NEVER throwing shade on anyone, even though, she could. She said several years ago she wanted to become a mother at 30, she’s doing it. Even though most of her critics are women, she still makes music for them, empowering them. That in itself is deep. She has the money, the time and the resources to really write, sing and perform some killer rebuttal ish, but she doesn’t. You say she’s an attention whore and she’s trying to teach you a lesson on how to run the world. It’s been said time and time again that women need to stick together and uplift one another. Maybe we should start with uplifting Beyonce. After all, all she’s trying to do is pave the way for women to be successful and live and enjoy her life in the process. She happily gave a piece of her life to an audience who wasn’t entitled to it and didn’t deserve it; the least you could do is let the girl shine. Enough with the shade.
Each one teach one. Live and Learn!
By now you should have heard the news that Fantasia (Barrino) is pregnant…again. Now, you might be outraged because she’s presumably pregnant by Antwaun Cook or that she’s still with him after all the hell she went through—attempted suicide, abortion, his ex-wife trying to sue her, him lying. While all of those issues are valid concerns, my biggest issue is this: protect yourself. I don’t JUST mean from potential STDS and drama, but your career as well. It’s one thing to decide to stick it out with dude; it’s another to continually put your career in jeopardy to do it. Let’s be real, Fantasia’s career has finally picked up again, what with the show, album and touring, and now she’s going to have to slow down yet again to give birth (and hopefully take care of her kid).
Have sex, get it in, but use some protection. I mean, damn, did you not undergo enough public scrutiny the first time? Do you have to continually make bad decisions? (Bad in the sense that it doesn’t make money) I can’t be the only one wondering if Antwaun has a job at all. If his job is enough to pay his ex-wife, cover the two kids he has with her, live, provide for Fantasia and a new baby and her daughter. I’m just saying… The truth is—as Fantasia would say—Fantasia is already carrying her entire family on her salary. Is it really smart to add two more people to that?
Ladies, it’s okay to look after yourself. I think that’s something no one has ever told Fantasia. You see women giving up their lives for men (think Tiny & T.I) and it’s not necessary. You can have both. I’m not going to get into the back and forth of premarital sex, children out of wedlock, stereotypes and statistics; that’s irrelevant. What’s important is to protect yourself. The music industry isn’t really built for or catered to stopping and going. If you take your career seriously, at some point you’re going to have to put some things in action that show that. That’s Fantasia biggest mistake, not protecting career, inadvertently not protecting herself. As my sister would say, “Think long and hard.”