INNA just keeps on releasing banger after banger and this one is no different, in collaboration with Farina, titled "Read My Lips". I feel like I've heard this song before like it's a part of INNA's unreleased songs - just like "We Wanna" used to be, the collaboration with Alexandra Stan which also featured Daddy Yankee. As much as I love INNA's songs and as much as I feel like she could sing anything and I would still love it because of her gorgeous voice, I feel that this is disjointed, and I think it's due to it being a collaboration with Farina; I don't think it was the best song for them to collaborate on as Farina's reggaeton style doesn't match the rhythm of the song and INNA's superb dance vocals, but "Read My Lips" still works as a song overall, I am eager to hear remixes of the song to see what the DJs and producers would do to the track.
As for the music video, I am getting Mad Max vibes throughout. Filmed by two different groups (NGM Creative for INNA and NJ Entertainment for Farina) due to the artists being in different countries, this music video is incredible. The visual opens with a goddess-like theme with INNA looking amazing in a black dress where she's sitting on a chair/throne. In contrast, a second scene is shown where INNA is wearing a red dress with a red line splitting her chin and neck in half, vertically. Farina matches with a black outfit that is a lot more provocative, and a separate scene sees her in a goddess-like cream-coloured rope outfit, as the tone of the song changes to match her rap. The middle-performance scene sees INNA in a skin-and-beige-coloured outfit continuing the goddess themes whilst Mad Max-style visuals intercut - almost as if the song is a film soundtrack. With the final scene showing INNA wearing a bright fluffy yellow coat. It's such a high production music video, how is this not a part of a film soundtrack? The dancers are bringing some brilliant choreography, it's just a shame they don't get a full scene. The music video is good, it's just missing a few things that could've elevated it to be better.
For Thursday Revisit, I've decided to review Cardi B's debut single and debut music video, which was released in 2015, just making it into the five-year-old Thursday Revisit rules. I've never seen this video and I'm eager to see what it's like and to compare where she came from to where she is now. The song is a rendition of British rapper Lady Leshurr's "Queen's Speech 4" which went viral, in itself, in 2015 and it's amazing that Cardi B reinvented it for herself, like Lady Leshurr reached across the Atlantic with that track and set Cardi B into motion! Cardi B even mentions Lady Leshurr and her song in this rendition of the song. She goes in hard with her rap, and it's no surprise she's become a star. Prior to the release of this song, she appeared in Love & Hip Hop: New York TV show for its sixth and seventh seasons.
The music video, directed by Renel Jolly, is set in a salon where Cardi B is getting her nails done whilst others are getting their hair done. She also appears as the receptionist, and various characters walk into the salon. There's not a whole lot going on and it's certainly not at the high-budget of her more-recent music videos, and yet she still brings star quality to the visual throughout.
Alongside listening to a lot of Natti Natasha, I've also been listening to Thalía a lot too. I first came across Thalía last October when I attended Inna La Londra (Inna's concert in London), where her opening DJ played one of Thalía's songs and everyone was practically singing along and so I used Shazam to find out what song it was. Now, almost a year later, I'm exploring her back catalogue of songs, which is lengthy, to say the least, and she is such a brilliant singer. It's amazing to see one of the top female Latin artists collaborating with Natti Natasha who has soared withing the Latin music world recently. The music video on YouTube has amassed over 1 billion views, which isn't surprising since both stars have massive fanbases, and I can see this continue to gain more and more views. The song itself charted well throughout Latin America as well as peaking at number five in Spain. The track's title, "No Me Acuerdo" translates into English as "I Don't Remember", and it's about having a night out and waking the next day to her lover who tells her that he's been told she cheated on him but she doesn't remember the rest of the night.
The music video takes the story of the song and recreates it. We start off with Thalía waking up in bed at 4pm, with her lover showing something on a phone, an image of her in the arms of another guy. We then get a flashback to her night before as she tries to remember what happens. We see her partying the night away with Natti Natasha and eyeing up another guy who ends up carrying her on his shoulder - which is where the image from the phone comes from. The ending scene sees her love-interest storming out of the room as she looks at the image on the phone. It's such a good music video and it looks like Thalía and Natti Natasha had such a good time filming this music video.
So, today, I've been having a Natti Natasha kind of day and listened to all the songs she has released to date, and there have been some absolute fire tracks that she's released, she's definitely someone we all should be watching as she's quickly become a top female artist in Latin America and I truly believe she'll have a worldwide hit sometime soon, I'm just sad it wasn't this one as I adore this song. This is not a surprise as I am a fan of Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and I need to attend one of their gigs, one day. Their music has been so on-point the last few years, collaborating with some of the biggest names, and this song release is no different as the one and only David Guetta and Latin superstar Daddy Yankee and rising stars Afro Bros all came together on this track along with Natti Natasha whose vocals were completely off the chart. If you haven't heard "Instagram" yet and haven't added it to your party playlists, then you're completely missing out. The song should've been a chart-raging success instead, it did moderately well apart from in the Netherlands where it reached the top 10.
The awesome music video starts off with a guy finding a phone on a beach and the screen is showing Natti Natasha's Instagram profile. Then the music starts and Natti Natasha stuns in every single look, she's on-point, sexy, and beautiful. There's a scene where she's on a yacht, one where she's in a club and the narrative scene which sees her walking down a road where guys in cars offer her a lift, which she turns down until a group of women come along and she hops in. We then hop over to Daddy Yankee, which the women are watching on a live video (perhaps Instagram Live?) where he's on a cliff and bringing it reggaeton style, and we watch others watching his live stream, including David Guetta, who then invites Natti Natasha to a pool party at his place, and all the artists are there too (apart from Afro Bros who appear as a video on a phone screen). This is when the party really gets started and Natti Natasha continues to shine in every way! At the party, someone takes her phone - but she's not bothered - and the phone is passed around and ends up on that beach, creating the full-circle moment of the music video.
Creative concept, brilliantly incorporated with the song itself, and an absolutely addicting track. What more could we all ask for? How did this song not go viral and become a fully-fledged international hit? I will never know.
Chart Mondays are back and we have a brand new number one! I knew Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion was going to reach the top spot here in the UK at some point. Since "WAP" was released, the song and video have gone viral and so it's no surprise that it's reigning at the top of the official UK singles chart. Rap and hip-hop aren't really my thing, but I can appreciate its lyrics at times and there are a few artists in the genre that I actually like and support. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion come in hard for this track and I have to applaud them for how they've made their mark in what is considered to be a male-dominated genre. "WAP" samples Frank Ski's 1993 song "Whores In The House" and contains many sexual innuendos about how they wish to be pleased by men - which makes a change since for decades we've heard male rappers and hip-hop stars sing about women pleasing them, and it's great that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion has flipped the script with this release. To see such a song go viral and chart highly all around the world is a massive feat and has to be applauded.
The accompanying music video, directed by the one and only Colin Tilley, is flat-out incredible. There's so much power in every single scene and it's such a clever concept considering the lyrics. If this was a male song about women pleasing men, you can imagine the visuals - because we've seen it a hundred times before - and so creating a reversal music video would've been the most typical music video and yet it wouldn't have quite the effect (plus we've seen such music videos from other female artists in the past); instead, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion bring confidence, sass, and self-awareness of their bodies and their needs. They bat out the choreography with no problems and continue to be sexy, sultry, and sensual. There's a scene where Kylie Jenner walks down the corridor, and it's such a moment because there's so much self-empowerment in the way she walks that captures all our attention. Normani, Rosalía, Mulatto, Rubi Rose, and Sukihana, all make appearances, mainly as dance scenes, showing their fierceness and self-empowerment.
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion make an incredible and unforgettable statement with this music video and those who criticise the music video for its sexually explicit content need to look at themselves and complain about the hundreds of much-worse music videos by male artists that go back decades upon decades. This is on-point from start to finish and sexually-charged in a good way; it makes quite the statement, and we need more female empowerment in this world, for sure!
