#aside from that one 'i am respecting your privacy but asserting my authority as your mentor by speaking into your phonograph anyway' entry

[zalco]

[marsandchariot]

Saturn transiting Aquarius in the 12 Houses

Even if you have no natal planets in the sign of Aquarius, the sign still has a place in your chart, and its themes are activated by planets transiting whichever house it occupies. I have no planets in my 5th house, where Aquarius is. In my 4th, I have Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune in Capricorn. For a while I looked ahead to the transition of Saturn into Aquarius—from earth to air—as bringing a potential for lightness, or even levity. I think this view reflected a kind of denial of what Saturn is, what Aquarius is, and what air is.

Over the summer I received a reading—my first ever—from Alice. This was a significantly emotional experience for me, and I am speaking as someone who has Mars in Cancer. I cried a lot, and most of the emotions that surfaced were in response to 4th house topics like family, ancestry, childhood, and belonging. I asked Alice what it could mean for Saturn to next transit my empty 5th house and they said it could describe the act of taking creation seriously.

This part of the reading was almost a postscript to the heart of what we discussed over the course of our time together. Though “taking creation seriously” may seem like a fairly straightforward translation of Saturn (limits, constraint) in the 5th house (fecundity, reproduction, art, pleasure topics), the idea has continued to resound in my mind months later as a powerful and enigmatic imperative. So last night I went outside to see the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, which to me looked like a bright lovely dot, and I decided I wanted to think about this notion of taking creation seriously for whichever house is receiving Saturn right now. I love the idea of people being able to take themselves seriously as creators, to have conviction in the time they spend making something, in whatever medium to which they feel drawn. I hate the idea of people giving up on their capacity to create because they don’t see “the point.” I want everyone to see the point in their individual practices, and to have the luxury of belief in the value of what and how and when they practice, even if they’re working in total privacy or obscurity. 

 As another guiding range of archetypes I consulted the Materia Prima tarot deck from Uusi, which I am a bit intimidated and totally fascinated by. I read the houses using a modified variation of the Churchyard spread, since it involves one card to represent the querent plus 12 more cards. So you have an idea of the aesthetic, here are three of the 12 cards I drew. 

 Find where Aquarius is in your chart. Again, even if you have Aquarius in an empty house, that house is now hosting some very important guests. The joy of the empty house, in my opinion, is the way new occupants allow you to examine what’s being incited in an area of your life in which you were previously less interested, or you weren’t very aware of. This spark of interest or awareness is how I am interpreting at least the beginning phase of seriousness, setting the scene for development of this theme over the course of the next three years. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 1ST HOUSE 

 A synonym for this transit might be someone willingly or unwillingly “bearing the brunt” of something, or the feeling that one’s priorities must be deferred because the burden of responsibility to others is too great. This querent thinks it is normal for them to do all the heavy lifting without help, because if they don’t, who else will? It may be that this querent is explicitly depended upon, but they may not see the ways in which they constantly carry these burdens results from a lack of boundaries, of thinking they cannot assert their interests or position at all, and they must drop their lives in order to fulfill responsibilities to their community, no matter how abstract or distant that community may be. They think that when everyone is taken care of, they will finally focus on themselves. They allow the needs of others to set their own boundaries, and so the boundary is never set. Rising air signs, please understand your limitations. Please respect your own boundaries and personal priorities at least half as much as you work to attune yourself to and respond to the signals of others. Set aside some time to let the world go on without you. I think you will be surprised at the space you are able to create for yourself, and the way you are finally able to get your own things done. Alternatively, if the bearing of burdens feels against your will, you may be made to feel like the scapegoat in one or more of your communities, and so the erosion of your time and energy arises from your effort to free yourself from this position or to dispel the collective belief in your deserving of this position. It may be possible to change collective opinion with time, but it is not your responsibility to do so, and the effort it takes will not serve your own energetic health.

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 2ND HOUSE 

 Thanks to the pandemic we’ve all got new stuff for all the new things we’re doing. Interests require tools and subscriptions and memberships and Zoom classes. Investing in new materials, especially when they are technically “productive” materials, helps us justify the way we use our time to spend money. Eventually you will have to use your possessions, though, in order to justify the acquisition of them, or else they are just an idea of creation, an aspiration or intention to create. I drew the Arsenic card for this transit; you can see its relationship to The Magician and its connection to equating material mastery with experience and execution. It’s a reminder that we cannot make the idea of creation into an idol; we can’t manifest our intentions through possession of material as a substitute for the activation of ideas. At a certain point you need to look at what you have, and use what you’ve got, or else your material intentions of creation will serve to isolate you from the generative power of your own creative process. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 3RD HOUSE 

 Carve out time to work on your creation. Period. It doesn’t have to be every day, but by developing even the consistency of once a week or month you demonstrate a dedication to your own ability to produce something that cannot exist without your attention. Anyone practicing without professional recognition knows how difficult this faith is to maintain. I have been watching a lot of writer interviews recently. One constant piece of advice they give is to be consistently present for the work—make the space of routine, don’t wait for other peoples’ recognition or respect to justify making time for your creative process. It can feel especially hard to tell people what you’re up to when they aren’t used to taking non-professional practices seriously. But, you know what, fuck them. Your time belongs to you, and the things you want to do, even if you’re not a seasoned professional expert at that thing, are important. Don’t let fears of other peoples’ skepticism run your private life. Advocate for the consistency of your practice. If people can manage to go to church every Sunday, you can manage to write or paint or build or do whatever at least once a week. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 4TH HOUSE 

 A lot has happened to you. A lot has happened to everyone, of course, but you may be sitting on or hoarding those experiences, waiting for the “right” way to use them. But now is the time to activate the impressions or residue of what you’ve experienced so you can understand what those experiences are teaching you. You’ve got to start piecing it together, like clues, to make a cogent shape, because there isn’t going to be an a-ha moment that shows you what it all means. You might want to process with the people closest to you, people who know you really well, about the ideas you’re working through. They may have an insight that brings the pieces of the past together in a way that helps you see the larger picture. You may worry that you take in more than you’re able to reflect, which can feel as if you’re stuck in a more passive or accumulating phase. You may worry that by acting “too soon” you run the risk of using up the resource of the past. But the past has more than a single purpose; it continuously replenishes. Begin using it now. You will always have more later. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 5TH HOUSE 

 It can be hard to get going when you’re simultaneously trying to predict and interpret the meaning of your creation, then producing into those expectations, then getting stuck when it doesn’t seem like you’re fulfilling those expectations you’ve set for yourself. If you fall short of the expectations of your own practice, you may see yourself as failing; as not being serious enough, or not knowing enough. You may retreat from your practice in order to prepare, re-group, plan. Something that can be difficult is the need to assert the purpose and meaning of your creation in order to justify your work on it. People rarely feel comfortable saying, “I’m working on something, but I don’t know what it’s about,” or “I’m working on something, but I don’t know what it is.” The need to envision the finished product (and to be able to claim that what we’ve made is valuable and worthwhile) presents a serious hindrance to one’s artistic practice. How can you do your thing if you’re constantly worrying whether the thing you do is living up to your expectations? Think about kids whose parents constantly projected their own values onto their child, who made their child feel as if they couldn’t deviate from these expectations. Don’t be that parent! Raise a happy child with lots of options. Don’t crush your creation under the weight of your own expectations, which are often just internalized anxieties of not being good enough in the eyes of a nightmare amalgam of different authority figures. Treat your creation like a child whose psyche you’re not trying to pulverize through micromanagement. Ask where it wants to go, what it wants to be, and allow these impulses to run their course, trusting that for your creation, even what you don’t understand has a role to play in your process. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 6TH HOUSE 

 If you are feeling uninspired, or unsure of where to “begin,” this is an excellent time to cultivate a divinatory system or some other system that you use as a visionary tool. Any system to which you gravitate, and which you learn to use in a dynamic way that serves your purpose beyond rote memorization, that answers your questions and creates proposals for your work will, in some way, serve your creative process. I often imagine the 6th house as a grid. To place a grid onto any single surface transforms that surface into many parts. The division of something into parts allows us to deconstruct and rearrange what previously appeared to be a single coherent material. I don’t want to say that your selection of a system is arbitrary, but any consistent method by which you can take stock of the familiar in a way to defamiliarize it will show a way forward in terms of rethinking what’s available to you. Take things apart. Put them back together differently. Isolate elements of the familiar in order to make them strange. You have ideas, you have passions, you have interests. As soon as you take the care in grouping them, tracking them, mapping them, you are seeing more lucidly the unconscious connections you have been making all along. 

SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 7TH HOUSE 

 Saturn transiting the 7th may speak to a seriousness on the level of commitment or partnership. It could also mean cultivating a kind of faithfulness to a project. If you are working on multiple things, maybe commit to a precious few, so you are better able to devote your attention to these before moving on to another smaller group or single creation. Partnership requires a mindfulness to the other in which we simultaneously do not lose ourselves. Says Carl Jung, “Emotional relationships are relationships of desire, tainted by coercion and constraint; something is expected from the other person, and that makes him and ourselves unfree.” It is important that in our commitment to something or someone, we do not give up our freedom; focus and attention are not the same as imprisonment. For this placement, I pulled the Iron card, whose equivalent is Mars. During WWI, the phrase “I gave gold for iron” articulated the incentive to donate jewelry to the war effort. With gold as the alchemical equivalent of the Sun, the ego, the sacrifice can translate to mean giving up one’s self in service of one’s expression. The creation is not the self, but it draws from the self in order to come to life. It could be that this transit asks for more to be given to creation, or that firmer boundaries are drawn between the self and creation, to better prepare the creation to become a discrete and substantive entity in its own right. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 8TH HOUSE 

 Invite contact, invite collaboration. There is the pressure to protect one’s creation from interference in a way that may harmfully shelter it. I don’t think I need to re-hash Colin Craven and the whole point of The Secret Garden, but it is possible to be too precious about your process and your creation, shielding it from the potential of growth. It can withstand more than you think; it is more distinctive than you think; it is more valuable and admirable than you give it credit for. It is possible to shelter your creation so intensely that you even stop working on it, because it’s never the right time, or you haven’t got the perfect idea, or you’re not in the right mood, or you’re not well-versed enough in what you’re trying to do or say. You need to persist for the sake of making your intention manifest, without fear of judgment. You need to bring your creation to light without worrying about its vulnerability to alteration and death. This preciousness may also speak to a kind of purity, where you feel stuck but are loathe to move forward by introducing unexpected elements to your process, out of fear of changing your creation on the core-level. I doubt this kind of “damage” will happen, even if you introduce elements that feel opposite of your original intention. The strongest reactions occur between things that are not like one another. Furthermore, fusions or combinations between unlike elements don’t occur from hesitant proximity; they occur through repeated direct, intentional engagement. Don’t be afraid to bombard your process with the outside world, with new ideas and techniques. It can handle it, and so can you. 

SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 9TH HOUSE 

Stop looking for an institutional position that reflects everything you offer, and instead find ways to satisfy a fuller spectrum of those offerings in ways both within and without the institution. What you offer as a “full package” is important but often professionally or commercially invisible. This can be an especially difficult way to make a living, and you may have to select a position you don’t feel encompasses your entire range of abilities in order to practice those abilities in a way that is compensable. If the institution doesn’t recognize your full capacity, don’t push. Stop giving everything away to prove you are capable of giving. It doesn’t have to be about money, but you need to develop a personal system of limits or regulations so that you yourself can keep track of the value of what you expend. Just because it comes naturally to you doesn’t mean you should give it away for free. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 10TH HOUSE 

 What you’re looking to create may not be a material form at all, but a role you play in the world. It may be a role that is yet undefined, but something you are looking to articulate in simultaneously meaningful and ephemeral gestures. It’s less about a permanent professional station and more of a mutable approach to a unique offering or service. It will take time. Document your process, even if it doesn’t reflect the outcome. You will see traces of the outcome even in areas of the process that don’t “feel significant.” Your work is one of accumulated intentions, diversions, fleeting pieces. Self-illumination is not a single beacon but many spectral lines of emission and absorption. It shows nothing but the portion of the path that’s visible. Air signs linger in distances, in liminal or invisible connections. To play a role in this area may require a mobile or roaming form. You don’t need to produce a final act; show the ways in which any occurrence can continue forward; in which a thing that happens is always happening. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 11TH HOUSE 

 How do you want to share with people? Where are the people you want to talk to? How do you want to make space for them to respond? Building community and systems of shared values is an elusive process, subject to trends of culture, language, and technology. It’s important to see beyond strategies of loud and dominant message projection (marketing) in order to value the content you wish to share. Fears of being unheard have the effect of changing what it is we actually say, imparting instead a message that is shared only for sharing’s sake, not because the messenger any longer has conviction in the import of what is said. It is important to maintain the integrity of your creation so that it reflects something that would serve you, if you were in need of it. Don’t treat your creation as if it’s bait designed to lure the most amount of people (or capital). Make available your process of creation—what are the qualities that you resist and embrace in yourself, and how has this process led you toward the creation of something which you truly believe, not just something you believe will “sell”? Often, the most valuable materials are both rare and common. It is a mistake to strive for just one or the other in order to appear uncomplicated. To be comprised of a single element is to become a brand. Brands are clean but they have no souls. If signs of your struggle and honest experience are missing from your creation, then you are only showing half the picture, and there is more to be done. 

 SATURN TRANSITING AQUARIUS IN THE 12TH HOUSE 

If you feel you don’t have the energy to work on your creation, it’s because you don’t. If you feel like there isn’t time, it’s because there isn’t. Sometimes we can’t just add our creation to the list of other tasks we’re doing that day, between walking the dog and picking up groceries and filing our taxes. That just may not be where the creative state is able to situate itself in our lives. If when you think about working on your creation, you feel the same dread as when working on projects you’re compelled to do for professional or academic purposes—if something feels more toiling than generative—it’s a sign to try a different approach. This may require a recalibration of intention. Intention does not have some inherent buoyancy that allows it to surface with explicit clarity into our conscious awareness. You may have to enter a state of sublimation in order to find its articulation. By entering unconscious or semi-conscious states, we can better observe our conscious actions in order to envision a way forward. There are many people who experience the majority of their process in this state of sublimation, only to transition to the material aspect of their process in a burst at the “end.” Make space in your awareness for your emotional experience of your creative process. Don’t attempt to make your labor visible in a way that “looks” like work. Compulsive labor is not the sole determinant of progress. Discomfort is not the sole determinant of labor. Find the executable intention in yourself and cultivate instead a willingness to meet it, being open to all the ways available to you to do this.

[theperfectlywise]

The curious case of Nicki Minaj: Female emcees, respect, & marketing in the streaming era

Missy Elliot’s Miss E…So Addictive was the first album by a female rapper that I bought. Or rather, that my dad bought for me the summer of 2001. Before a generation lost their innocence when those planes crashed through the World Trade Center. Before the streaming era took over and put the entire music industry’s discography on our iPhones. And when ripping the annoying plastic covering off that CD case would gave you a singular rush of anticipation. The late Purple God Prince gave us a gentle rebuke about albums at the 2016 Grammy Awards, before his untimely death: “Albums still matter. Like books and Black lives, albums still matter.”

But with time comes change, so we’ll spare the excess nostalgia for another time. And given the amount of music I consume daily, buying albums today would likely leave me homeless and penniless, with nothing but my Kate Spade bags, wigs & CDs as declared assets. So there’s that.

Female emcees have always had a tricky relationship with hip-hop, especially along the lines of visibility. Today, Missy’s ….So Addictive and Ms. Lauryn’s Miseducation records rest in an old black case, along with countless others by male colleagues (i.e., Jay, Mobb Deep, Outcast, Wu Tang Klan, etc.). Those two CDs are token items, like the one Black guy that always get killed first in horror movies — there to confirm that female emcees exist, but still not enough to suggest real interest in their stories. Thankfully, I’ve remedied that oversight in my adult years.

Fast forward to 2008, when an up-and-coming Queens emcee named Nicki Minaj captivated the hip-hop world with her Sucka Free mixtape and 2009 Beam Me Up Scotty follow-up.

A Lil’ Kim clone through and through down to the lingerie picture, Beam Me Up Scotty put me on notice to Nicki’s talent as a rapper — something she would later confirm when she washed two hip-hop heavyweights (Kanye West and Hov) on the same song, Monster. Nicki the Ninja would later carry the success of that mixtape, her Pink Friday album, and an eccentric and a playfully sexual Barbie aesthetic to become the highest-selling female rapper of all time. She would run unopposed with this status for years to come.

Looking at Nicki’s recent controversies and chart performance — Joe Coscarelli of The New York Times noted: “Of her [Nicki’s] two songs as a lead artist currently on the Billboard Hot 100, none is higher than number 81”— you get the sense this unopposed run has inspired complacency, if not outright arrogance on her part. Sure, we can chalk this complacency up to hip-hop’s fucked up expectation that only one woman rapper can sit on the throne. That would be a valid argument, as talented female emcees like Rapsody have not enjoyed mainstream success, despite being a Grammy-nominated artist and rapping better than the rainbow-haired, lean-drinking weirdos currently dominating the new school.

That being said, it is my observation that Nicki is currently hanging by the same rope she gladly hung Lil’ Kim with years before. That same standard that helped Nicki during her rise — and relegated Kim’s legacy to an afterthought — is slowly painting her as a “has-been” now.

Where are the receipts? Let’s look at Nicki’s 2018 so far (in chronological order):

April 3, 2018: Coming out of social media hiatus

Nicki was spotted at LAX Airport after being on a social-media hiatus since December 2017. With an all-black ensemble and over-sized shades in tow, Nicki’s airport walk-through signaled a return to the public — and created anticipation for more. Is she coming out with a new song, after all these months? A new interview? We would get this answer a little over a week later.

April 12, 2018: Zane Lowe interview, new singles, and those Cardi B/Tokyo Stylez comments

In the midst of releasing Barbie Tingz and Chun Li, Nicki gave a deep-dive on a variety of topics including her current artistic process, social media, Meek Mill’s legal troubles, and Cardi B. Given that Cardi’s Invasion of Privacy album was released the prior Friday (April 6th), her comments on Cardi grabbed the most headlines.

On Cardi B, Nicki said:

“The only thing with Cardi that really, really, really hurt my feelings was the first interview she did after ‘MotorSport’ came out… With ‘MotorSport,’ I kinda felt ambushed. Up until this recent interview she did, I had never seen her show me genuine love in an interview. And I can just imagine how many girls wished they could be on a song with Nicki Minaj.”

When asked why she didn’t appear on camera with Cardi in the MotorSportmusic video, Nicki effectively threw celebrity hair-stylist Tokyo Stylez under the bus for a scheduling conflict:

“Even with the scheduling conflict, she’s using my hairdresser now so even he can attest to the fact, Tokyo [Stylez]…He knows there really was a scheduling conflict and it was because of him. He’s the one that couldn’t show up. I texted him, ‘You know, if I don’t show up the day she’s shooting, they’re gonna act like I’m doing it to be mean with the current Nicki hate train.’ He wasn’t able to come, and that’s fine.”

I side-eyed these comments for a couple of reasons. For one, Nicki’s assertion that “many girls” wish for a Nicki collab tells me that she expected Cardi to bow down and kiss the ring. Given Nicki’s prior beefs with female rap legends (see: Lil’ Kim’s 2012 Breakfast Club interview) who believed she didn’t pay respect during her rise, it’s strange that she would take Cardi to task in this way. Also, publically blaming the lack of on-camera appearance on a celebrity hairstylist was a messy and unnecessary move. Why throw another professional under the bus for your lack of joint on-screen appearance?

May 24, 2018: Queen is pushed from June 15 to August 10

In an Instagram live-stream, Nicki announced that Queen would be released on August 10th, as opposed to the originally announced June 15 date she teased during a Vogue interview on the Met Gala red carpet. Granted, album push backs are perfectly normal. In many cases, the extra time can help an artist perfect their record and it also gives management more leeway to execute the roll-out. On the other side, album push backs can signal doubts on either:

1.) The quality of the project

2.) How much said project will sell/connect with audiences

3.) Clarity with the album roll-out strategy

In Nicki’s case, to return from hiatus in April with two singles (Barbie Tingz and Chun Li) only to push the album release from June to August points to some internal doubts about the ability of the project to compete in a summer of high-profile releases (i.e., Kanye Kardashian, Drizzy, Nas, etc.). Also, this might be a small detail, but there’s a lack of a cohesive aesthetic between Nicki’s recent singles that is hard to ignore.

Shout out to @bluekeyblade for pointing out this lack of cohesion on this Twitter thread.

The varying aesthetics here contrast with other mainstream artists. Here are some examples Twitter users pointed out under that thread:

You can argue that the increasing emphasis on singles during the streaming era has reduced the need for cohesive projects and aesthetics. However, the marketing professional in me believes these varied aesthetics points to a record label and management team that are testing different aesthetics to see what consumers will connect with. Streaming era aside, it is evident a clear aesthetic is key to a successful brand strategy. Between Mariah’s album fonts, Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman bunny ears, and RiRi’s red hair during the Loud era — all of these artists had a cohesive look that was synonymous with their projects. That Nicki doesn’t appear to have a cohesive aesthetic going into an album roll-out is a worrying sign for how she is being marketed in this new streaming era.

June 13, 2018: ELLE magazine interview, and those sex-work comments

With the tagline “The Queen Returns,” it’s clear this cover-story was meant to promote her new album and assert her return back to the top. You might have missed this though, as controversial comments around sex-work dominated headlines.

“Maybe I was naive, but I didn’t realize how many girls were modern-day prostitutes,” she said. “Whether you’re a stripper, or whether you’re an Instagram girl — these girls are so beautiful and they have so much to offer. But I started finding out that you give them a couple thousand dollars, and you can have sex with them.”

So I’ll start with this reaction gif of Kurt from Glee:

Upon reading these comments, I’m struck by the lack of empathy from a woman who has earned millions by selling her body and sex appeal. Maybe Nicki was simply unaware that performing sex work is often a literal means of survival for poor and disenfranchised women. Contrary to popular belief, sex work doesn’t just occur among the impossibly beautiful Instagram models who fuck rich men for Birkin bags and a trip to the Maldives. On the other side of this jet-set living are poor, LGBT women of color who perform sex work to feed and provide for their families. New York Times best-selling author and trans activist Janet Mock spoke on this very reality in a 2018 AM Tonight interview with Alicia Menendez.

Also, to have these comments come out around the same time she released Rich Sex, a song with these poetic lyrics just boggles the mind.

If you know your pussy worth a Benz truck

(Rich sex)

Don’t let homie fuck unless his bands up

(Rich sex)

Go to DR, get that fat transfer

(Rich sex)

It ain’t such a thing as broke and handsome

(Rich sex)

If you let that broke nigga fuck, we tellin’

(Rich sex)

If you let that broke nigga fuck, we tellin’

(Rich sex)

If you let that broke nigga fuck, we tellin’

(Rich sex)

If you let that broke nigga fuck, we tellin’

(Rich sex)

July 7, 2018: Wanna Thompson, Karen Civil, and those DMs

This brings us to the most recent “controversy” surrounding Onika and those Twitter DMs with Wanna Thompson, a freelance writer from Toronto. I won’t add more to this story, as much has been recently discussed related to Wanna’s original tweet, Nicki’s DM, and Wanna’s subsequent firing from Karen Civil’s website. Check out the New York Times profile on Ms.Thompson for the whole story. Needless to say, the experience has done little to promote Ms. Minaj in a positive light ahead of her album release. Also, it’s interesting that Wanna identified the need for Nicki’s artistry to evolve — a complaint other critics have noted. I mean, how many “bitches are my sons” bars can we take?

Missy Misdemeanor commented on the current state of music and female emcees during a 2012 Breakfast Club interview. When asked about Nicki Minaj — understandable given Nicki’s presence as the top-selling female rapper — Missy curiously wrapped her praise for Nicki’s hustle with the need for unity, respect for music’s predecessors, and new talent development. Judging by Nicki’s history of feuds with older female rappers (Lil’ Kim being the most prominent ) and rumors of behind-the-scenes sabotage antics against her peers, Missy seems to be alluding to some funny-style actions on Nicki’s part. When you think about Missy’s call to nurture new hip-hop talent (lest your own legacy becomes discredited by the new school) and Nicki’s current inability to produce a hit single with lasting power, her words sound that much more prophetic right now. That may soon change though, as Bed, a Ariana Grande collab and a rumored collab with Tekashi 69 are sure to capture attention ahead of the album release. And controversy aside, all press is good press, right?

Looking at Missy’s 20+ year career and the goodwill she still wields in the industry, I’m reminded of how important it is to treat people with respect. That stars are not immune to a fickle consumer base that loves them one second and discards them the next. That complacency is the killer of growth. And when all else fails — it’s alright to sit down, mind your business, and eat your food. We don’t see Beyonce giving controversy-laden interviews and clapping back at music writers on Twitter for a reason. Just saying.