BOOMBAYAH

Wait can the African pop stans let me in on the tea, do Ayra and Tyla have secret beef?

I feel bad for my sister, but I think she shouldn't have aired all this out on social media. She could've done a PR People Magazine announcement through a representative saying they broke up due to scheduling conflicts. Now she's going to be bullied over this online by Barbz and Shaderoom residents.

Russell is a unicorn lmao, Ciara lucked out. Even with real people/non=celebrities, finding a straight man who's as compassionate, loving, and willing to push back against toxic masculinity (just look at how much he was/is clowned by other men for being a stepfather and "soft") as Russell is a rarity. One of the insults Future and his stans would hurl at him constantly was that he was a square.

She was pregnant, but there was also a whole bunch of other mess with her faking a marriage so it did not look like she was pregnant out of wedlock (which basically put the nail on the coffin on her next album Afrodisiac-and mainstream career-because the sham marriage was exposed):

It's Not Worth It and I Thought have hit potential and are pretty accessible despite the experimental elements (I mean to the GP What About Us? is as pots and pans as you can get and that was a cute top 10). I think All In Me would've been a great Europe-exclusive single too, since UK garage was incredibly popular at that time. Love Wouldn't Count Me Out as a final single to close the era off could also be a good idea; it's a beautifully underrated ballad.

(Off topic) I find it interesting how FM and Afrodisiac are grouped into the same "alternative R&B" category in online discourse around this album, when Afrodisiac sounds so generic to me (not bad either). I enjoy some songs on it, but it's just your bang-average pop-R&B Timbaland sound. The Kanye tracks, as controversial as they are, are the only fresh sounds on the album, and even those are just high-quality contemporary 00s R&B, not electro-fuelled, edgy R&B.

Brandy's Full Moon is now widely regarded as one of the best albums of the 2000s, with many people calling it the best alternative R&B album ever, or at the very least a foundational record within that canon. Looking back at "What About Us?", it's clear that Brandy was still hot and highly anticipated in the early 2000s, despite some people framing the period between Never Say Never and Full Moon as a steep decline in interest. The lead single, "What About Us?", peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted for 18 weeks, Full Moon the album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 with around 150,000 first-week sales. Do you think that if Brandy had been able to fully promote the album, she would have gone on to have a stronger mainstream career? The album's constant cultural and critical resurgence proves that the material was there for more singles. This was also pre-solo-Beyoncé mania, so at the very least, a full album cycle would have meant she didn't have to compete directly with Beyoncé or feel pressured by her image and sound (as she later did during Afrodisiac).

HIDE IN ME, I'LL BE YOUR SECRET PLACE

LET ME BE THE REASON YOU GET THROUGH YOUR DAY

The "centre-left" tends to fall apart when the discussion shifts to geopolitics. What leftist, or even average liberal, is vehemently anti-China in 2026, or willing to criticize a POC Western woman for representing her country of origin?

I've grown to like the remix but whenever I go back to the OG I'm reminded of how absolutely genius it is…kinda pinks best song a shame it didn't go anywhere as a standalone solo single.

Right? It's so crazy how she went from being so quiet and shy to giving full pop girl charisma. Nice to see her develop into more of a performer and still keep her artistry.

PUSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This is so mid, and even bad at times lol. You can literally see the label giving her less and less budget and promo with every single she releases… but even with Chanel (which I'm guessing she/her label expect to be a "final" chance at a hit) it sounds so obviously generic and repetitive that I don't know why they'd choose this as a single. She needs to take some time off from releasing music and actually tap into her artistry and find a vision since these generic scraps aren't cuttting it.

And a certain ponytailed songstress proves ha point

This so need to be pushed. It's amazing.

Omg the way I thought the fakemink remix was scrapped due to quality when it's better than most of the songs on this

This to me just screams her publicist gave her the thumbs up to show support since she was standing by Amy Schumer when she was basically calling all Muslims terrorists in her anti-Palestine tangents lol

I wish Perrie would focus on ballads. It's clear her heart is no longer in being a popstar, which makes sense she is in her 30s and is a mom, but she still insists on doing faceless radio stuff lol. I would be nice if she went an Adele route, though maybe she doesn't have the pen/artistry to be a songwriter in that same way.

I was going to say Gaga since I think even though she isn't the least relevant/influential here, she has the least amount of influential and culturally important albums. That said, the culturally massive albums she does have are just that, massive, so I change my answer to Lana.

lol this might be too woke for this site but the thought of these capitalist events with billionaires suddenly being ethical because the left and right billionaires are sitting on different sides of the room is hilarious and peak liberal politics.

Anyone who actually knows how the world works is not shocked at this lol. Being ultra rich supersedes everything else, hence why prominent black activists like bell hooks have always criticised Beyoncé's brand of feminism and anti-black activism (it's basically just capitalism repackaged).

Good riddance