Last night Rihanna performed the penultimate concert of the Diamonds World Tour in Houston, Texas. As usual Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) kept all official information about the concert tightly locked down. Also there seems to be a distinct shortage of unofficial information about the concert available to me.
However one thing I am not hearing is a long list of complaints about the concert. Therefore I think it is safe to assume that Rihanna appeared on stage within the allotted time to perform the standard set-list with the standard costume changes and stage set up. From the little slivers I've seen the overall concert seemed more subdued that Tuesday's (12/11/13) performance in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. However that is not to say that there was anything wrong with the concert - it just lacked the same level of energy as the particularly strong concert in Oklahoma.
At around the time of the concert there was a small fire and associated local evacuation at a chemical factory in Eminem's home town of Detroit. However I think that was just an accidental coincidence. Rather then being an indication that the management has had a change of heart this lack of big stunts seems to indicate that they thought that the low level controversy surrounding the concert would be enough to cause confusion. For example this Houston concert was a big an obvious reference to Whitney Houston whose tragic life is seeming to be something of a template for Rihanna's future.
The main drama concerning Rihanna's concert last night though was supposed to come from the fact that Rihanna attended Drake's concert in Houston on Wednesday (13/11/13) much as he attended Rihanna's Dallas concert on Monday (11/11/13). As Drake's people have been clearly following my advice Rihanna was not only ushered backstage on Wednesday but was seen to be ushered backstage. Then following the concert Drake and Rihanna attended a strip-club together where a lot of money was spent (estimates range from USD17,000 to USD97,000). The intention here was clearly to make sure that Rihanna and Drake were seen and talked about socialising outside of the concert in a effort to fuel rumours that they had reunited as a couple. This may be one possible explanation for Rihanna's subdued concert performance the following night.
At 09:00 (EST)/14:00(GMT) today the video for Rihanna's single "What Now" will be officially released and Rihanna will no doubt be under an obligation to help promote it via social media. This obviously brings up the controversial detour to Thailand during the recent south-east Asian leg of the tour because apparently Thailand was the only place on earth this video could be shot. Mainly though this unsubtly poses the question of; What now for Rihanna that her tour has ended? I'll go into this in more detail tomorrow once the tour has actually ended but there are basically two scenarios laid out by the management;
The long discussed ideal scenario is for Rihanna to reunite with Chris Brown because that way the management will own Rihanna for the rest of what could well end up being a very short life. In order to help make this scenario a reality the American Music Awards (AMAs) are giving Rihanna a special "Icon" award in order to make sure she attends the November 24th (24/11/13) awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Chris Brown is scheduled to appear in front of an LA Court on November 20th (20/11/13) although it's been rumoured that may be pushed back until November 25th (25/11/13) in order to allow more time to prepare in light of his most recent arrest.
However if Rihanna fails to reunite with Chris Brown the management have put in place a fall back position of forcing Rihanna into a relationship with either Drake or A$AP Rocky. That way the can claim that they haven't failed but have instead cunningly engineered a way to keep Rihanna and Chris Brown apart without having to take appropriate legal action against Chris Brown.
I would like to say that there are other options but until Rihanna is prepared to make life difficult for management by pushing back against them these are her only two options. The type of thing Rihanna could do to push back range from the big and aggressive such as applying herself for a restraining order against Chris Brown to the more subtle such as refusing to meet up with Drake for these little publicity stunts or suddenly becoming 'ill' on the day of the AMA's. Obviously though I think the best idea would be for Rihanna to get in more direct contact with me. That way I'll be able to more fully bring my skills to bear on all these other issues.
11:15 on 15/11/13.
Edited at around 11:40 on 15/11/13 to add; Sometimes I envy commuters. At least they get a gap between waking up and arriving at work.
The four 'Hollywood Marines' who were killed in a range accident at Camp Pendleton on Wednesday (13/11/13) were supposed to give the impression that the management had accepted that something had gone wrong with their plan for Rihanna. Therefore they are currently holding an investigation before choosing whether to press ahead with the first scenario or switch to the second scenario. By giving the impression that the management haven't yet made a decision is intended to add an extra level of uncertainty to the situation as the COP19/CMP9 into it's second week and high level segment .
Edited again at around 14:40 on 15/11/13 to add;
The "What Now" has now been officially released and if you really want it can be viewed here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-3BI9AspYc&feature=youtu.be
The first big inescapable thing about the video is that it is shot entirely in an artificially lit sparse white room meaning could have been shot absolutely anywhere in the world posing the obvious question of why Rihanna had to go to Thailand?
Beyond that the video is really just trying to bring the song to the fore rather then making any great artistic statements. Apart from the title the song features Rihanna singing the lyric "I just can't figure it out" over and over again which really reinforces the question of what now for Rihanna and whether she will figure out the management's plan for her and take action to avoid it?
The song also features the lyric; "Whatever it is it feels it's laughing at me through the glass of a two sided mirror." The video director has taken this as inspiration to use the surveillance theme throughout the video with lots of grainy CCTV-style footage. Coming at the start of the final leg of the Diamonds World Tour this seems intended to place the idea of covert surveillance in Rihanna's mind in order to increase her levels of paranoia and therefore stress in the run-up to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) concert.
As such one way Rihanna could push back against the management is by never, ever using the directors (there are 3 listed) of this video ever again.
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