I’m proud to say that I have never watched a complete episode of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” as I cannot stand to watch a family whose family values seem to essentially amount to opulent opportunism. And Kim’s New Age Valley Girl spin of the English language is also grating…And her current hubby Kanye ain’t been right since his mother passed away…At first it was understandable because grief can make you do some crazy things…But since then, he has deemed himself a “creative genius” and a “god” and most annoyingly Beyoncé’s award show fairy godmother…whenever Bey doesn’t win an award he feels she should have won, he magically appears on stage and wreaks havoc…Obviously, he was at her beck and call when he most recently jumped on stage when Beck rather than Bey won the “Album of the Year” Award at this year’s GRAMMYs.
Kimye arrives as the entrance of the beautiful Armenian church. Kim purses her lips ever just so and poses in hopes that the paparazzi will take flattering shots of her. Kanye affixes his I’m-too-cool-to-smile-but-I-hope-you’re-looking look as he walks behind her. After a few minutes of this, flanked and guided by big ole bodyguards and haughty handlers, Kimye and Northwest enter the church.
Kim: (stroking her beautiful raven hair like she is a modern-day Morticia Adams) Oh My Gaaawd (taking the Lord’s name in vain with a New Age Valley Girl Twist. Sacrilegious & Annoying… )Like I’m so annoyed…Kaaanye, we’ve got to stop the paps and those other people from coming in behind us…I only want the cameras for the show in here…I mean when we walk back out, I want them to be there of course, but not right nooow…
Kanye: Baby, your man is a God and this is my domain…As it is in my head, so it shall be done on earth…
Enter Bishop Mikayel Adjapagian who walks up to them and shakes their hands while greeting them…
Bishop Mikayel Adjapagian: Welcome Mr. & Mrs. West, we are honored that you are visiting today –
Kanye: (interrupting the bishop) I’mma let you finish, but we need to have the church doors closed immediately to keep the paps and those other people out of my house…Because I’m a god..
Bishop Mikayel Adjapagian: Your house? This is the house of God. You, sir, are a not a god, and I will not allow worshippers to be prevented from entering His house even for you, Mr. West…Furthermore, who told you you were a God?
Kanye: I just told who I thought I was. A god.
Bishop Mikayel Adjapagian: Excuse me? (At this point, baby Northwest, who has been whimpering all along, begins to wail!)
Kanye: I guess you don’t think Beyonce is the mother of God, either?
And it all falls down from here with Syleena Johnson singing faintly in the background…
Later in an Armenian hotel, Kim recounts what happened with Khloé in her Khloé’s hotel room…
Khloé: Aren’t you used that? With Kanye?
Kim: I guess I should let go, and let God…the real God…
Kanye: (who is able to see what is happening in the next door hotel room because he is a god, shrugs)
Any thoughts? (Note: This is all a figment of my imagination…)
I’m back for my second recap of Mary Mary’s reality show and this episode had more drama than last week’s episode…I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but let me not get ahead of myself…
Last week’s episode ended with Erica deciding to go back to Mary Mary after Tina begged her sister to reunite the gospel duo although Erica’s husband Warryn was hot about her decision…
Meet Tina Campbell, Mary Mary’s manager?
This week’s episode starts in Norfolk, Virginia as the Marys are slated to perform at the Richmond Jazz Festival…As Erica feared in last week’s episode, Tina is already late in getting ready for their performance although Tina claims she has changed since she went through hell and back last year and survived…Despite Tina being late, though, the duo performs their hits such as “Heaven” and “Shackles (Praise You)” without any issues. “The hiatus is over, and the Marys are back,” Tina says to camera after their performance.
In the next scene, Tina is back at home in L.A. with her daughter Laiah who is showing her mother her cheer. A little stiff in her movements, Tina says, “I want you to cheer like you’re from where Mommy is from not the suburbs.” (This is would be a good scene for “Black-ish.”) While her daughter is trying to “put something on it” as Tina suggests, a booking agent calls to ask Tina (because she is supposed to be managing the group, right?) about booking a performance at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York, but she blows him off to put her family time first. Since Tina didn’t respond to him, he calls Erica who manages to converse with him and agrees to the performance although her son is drumming in the background like he is on stage and she is cooking with her daughter in the kitchen. When Warryn finds out that Erica scheduled Mary Mary to perform at B.B. King, he blows up. “You have no idea of the implications of what you just did.” Apparently, he spent $40,000 on promotion in that market so that Erica would be able to perform there and other venues in NYC and now that lucrative opportunity will be split among two instead of given to one…Erica wonders why she is the one planning dates for Mary Mary when Tina is the manager…
Sister to Sister Drama…
Mary Mary head to NYC for their performance and while they are there, they are scheduled to be interviewed by Jamie Foster Brown, publisher of Sister 2 Sister magazine which is a mashup of People magazine/TMZ for the black community. But before she arrives at their hotel room, Goo and Erica are tripping because it was reported on the magazine’s website that Teddy, Tina’s husband, may have fathered a child when he was out and about and Tina doesn’t know about the rumor…They tell Tina what was reported before Jamie arrives, but Tina doesn’t back away from Jamie when Jamie straight ups asks her about the rumor…She said it was false information and says, “That’s why I told my truth in the beginning.” Erica is cringing throughout the whole interview because Tina held back nothing… “Tell some, save some, sister” Erica says to the camera…I agree with Tina’s approach…Say it before somebody else says it..
A video posted by rhachellenicol (@rhachellenicol) on
You would think that shutting down an outside child rumor would be enough marriage drama for one episode since Tina and Teddy have put the past behind them, but Tina wants to share her testimony again and tell even more than she did the first time…This time Tina gets interviewed by Shaila Scott of 107.5 WBLS in New York…Wearing a t-shirt that states ” I Show My Scars So That Others Know They Can Heal,” designed by one of my blogger boos Rhachelle Nicol, Tina shares again how her husband had a “lot of affairs over a lot of years.” She shares how sometimes she would be under the covers screaming her sister’s song “Help” and how she felt like killing somebody. But she wraps it up by saying her life is completely better a year later and that she is no longer “trapped in a prison of brokeness.”
The Shark Tank…
Also while in NYC, Tina meets with Daymond John, CEO of FUBU and one of the sharks on ABC’s show “The Shark Tank.” He is helping Tina define her brand. When he asks her to define her brand in a few words, she states, “A test that became a testimony.” Ehhh….I’m not a branding expert, but that phrase has been used by so many Christians I don’t know if that phrase is unique enough to set her apart. But Daymond loves it and pledges to help her brand take off…So what I do know?
Remember Erica Campbell, the solo artist?
Seeing that Mary Mary ‘s show at B.B. King’s was sold out, Erica is feeling some type of way about sharing the spotlight with her sister at the venue. She pledges to show out and not waste her husband’s money since she plans to perform as a solo artist at Shiloh Baptist Church in Harlem…The only problem is that she’s tired after performing as Mary Mary…In fact, she’s so tired she is unable to make the sound check before the performance…When Tina comes to Erica’s room to check on her, she criticizes her sister for saying yes to everything and suggests that she manage her sister…Erra, Tina, you were the one that got your sister to come back to Mary Mary and add more to her schedule…Erica obviously agrees with me because she says to the camera, “You want to manage Erica Campbell, but you can’t manage Mary, Mary.”
Although the show starts off well with Erica singing “A Little More Jesus,” Erica needed a lot more Jesus because she almost fell out on stage. In fact, Tina, who was just chilling in the audience in a baseball cap, t-shirt and jeans, had to get on stage while her sister was resting backstage. And wouldn’t you know it? Before Tina starts singing, she shares her testimony yet again. She says, “It was the most challenging time of my life” and that she was mad at God. Meanwhile backstage, Erica is getting mad at her sister for sharing her testimony yet again…Will Mary Mary stay reunited? You know what to do…Watch next week and read my recap…
I Luh God and other Mary Mary news…
I don’t know if Mary Mary will stay reunited by the end of this season’s Mary Mary, but we do know that Erica Campbell is still on her solo grind…Earlier this week, Erica released her new single “I Luh God” on her reissued album “Help 2.0.”…I had to pause and gather my thoughts about this new song…Do I want to bless it or bash it? First of all, “luh” is love in Ebonics I guess…And folks are calling the song trap gospel…I thought folks listened to gospel so they could get out of the trap — not jam in the trap…
The song starts off with “I luh God, You don’t luh God, What’s Wrong Wit U?” Just typing that made my brain hurt…It don’t seem right to go from “How Great Thou Art” to “I Luh God.” The thing is Mary Mary is known for making gospel songs bump…Erebody loves “Shackles (Praise You)” and “God In Me.” They’ve got catchy beats and they are appropriately “crunk for Christ.” But this song right here confounds me almost as much as Beyoncé did when she sang “Precious Lord” at the GRAMMYs. After Erica’s initial verse, some rapper comes in sounding like a male version of Baby D of JJ Fad (remember summa lumma dumma or whatever Baby D said…) speaking in tongues…I think he says, “I lub Him, I lub Him, I lub Him” faster and faster before he stops…
Plus, I always find myself in a conundrum when I hear gospel songs that have “wordly” beats…What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sing along?… I guess that could work but gospel songs that are too crossover end up sounding corny to me and I can’t participate…And please don’t ask me to dance…When I hear certain beats, I involuntarily arch my back to drop it low…(Hey, no one starts off saved…) but you can’t drop it low to a song about God…Even Erica looks confused while she is singing the song… She wants to dance, but how far can she go…So she settles for doing a half Bankhead Bounce…
I’m still a Mary Mary/Erica & Tina fan, but this ain’t the song that will take me to the altar or turn me up in the club…
On the other hand, I loved her song “Help” and apparently her solo album won her the Artist of the Year Award at the Stellar Awards. And she won other awards as well. The Stellar Awards will be televised on Easter Sunday. Check your local listings and the TheStellarAwards.com for air times.
Like the rest of the Innanet, I watched as Beyoncé, swaddled in her flowing, white organza, bejeweled dress with muted makeup to match, belt out her rendition of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” on the GRAMMYs Sunday night. Backed up by the Harlem Boys To Men Choir(tee hee), who also wore white, she hit all of the right notes and gestured with all of the appropriate movements, but when she was done…
Meh. I was still sitting on my bed, head scarf on and sleep at the corners of my eyes, with my remote beside me just like I was before she started….Translation: I wasn’t taken to church. Had she not been singing “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” I wouldn’t have even thought about church. As one of my FB friends aptly noted: “All those dramatics and no spirit.” Chile…And more proof that God just don’t like ugly. (Back story: In some sort of secret coup, Beyoncé usurped Ledisi’s chance to sing the song at this year’s GRAMMYs although Ledisi was the one that portrayed Mahalia Jackson and sang “Precious Lord” in the recently released movie “Selma.”)
So since this is a religious blog, I decided to break down or introduce the Holy Spirit for those who don’t know Him…First of all, the Holy Spirit, is one of the three parts of God. There is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the invisible presence God who enables us to know or perceive things that we could not know or perceive without His presence…Below are a few Bible verses that describe Him…
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Acts 2:4
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. John 14:26
“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Acts 7:51
In today’s terms…
The Holy Spirit is the One that lets you know, in some sort of mysterious way, that even while the doctor is giving you bad news, you will be healed…Hallelujah, Thank You Jesus!
The Holy Spirit is the One that lets you know that after you have fasted and prayed, that what you prayed and fasted for, is already done in Heaven although it hasn’t been manifested on earth yet…Hallelujah, Thank You Jesus!
The Holy Spirit is the One that will have you crying like somebody slapped you when you hear your favorite gospel song on the radio, swearing the artist got in your head and is singing your testimony for all the world to hear…Hallelujah, Thank You Jesus!
And that was the problem with Beyoncé’s rendition…”Take My Hand, Precious Lord” is Thomas Dorsey’s testimony…He wrote that song after the death of his wife in childbirth and their child days later…Reportedly, it was Dr. King’s favorite song, and he loved to hear Mahalia Jackson sing it…Now, I don’t want to say that Beyoncé’ is not saved nor has the Holy Spirit, but from where I sat in my bedroom, the Holy Spirit bypassed her performance…That’s why aine nobody listenin’ to Rihanna, Lady Gaga and all of the popular girls in the music industry when you going through…You got to go to Shirley Caesar, Yolanda Adams and other great women of gospel music when you need to hear from the Lord…The Holy Spirit has blessed their songs to bless us in our time of need…Below is Ledisi’s version of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” The video is just her voice…You don’t even have to see her face to feel the Spirit…
Now since Beyoncé’s performance on Sunday, she released a video about why she sang the song instead of Ledisi. Something about connecting to her father, ancestors, the struggle etc. Bye Beyoncé…That could be true of Ledisi or any black person in America for that matter as well…It was her moment to shine…That’s why the late Etta James was mad at you…God rest her soul…You performed her signature song that nobody but nobody could sing like her for the Obamas’ first dance at the inauguration in 2009. Admittedly, you portrayed Etta in the movie “Cadillac Records” sooo…see, and that’s why Ledisi should have performed on Sunday. She portrayed Mahalia Jackson in “Selma” not you…
But God has a way of making things that seem bad end up being all good…This year’s GRAMMYs was one of the lowest rated in its history…But for the Beyoncé backlash, no one would probably be talking about it that much. But since Beyoncé is one of the biggest stars (I’m a fan…sometimes…) in the world, even people that didn’t watch the show are now wondering why Beyoncé did what she did…and inadvertently being introduced to the luscious vocals of Ledisi…
