Thursday, October 29, 2015

Sony Emails On Leak


Editors note: This piece was written in response to the Sony hack where millions of emails sent between top executives were published on the Wikileaks site. 
Christmas came really early for bloggers, news stations and nosey people in general! I totally believe in the right to privacy and the protection thereof. However when something is in the general public, it would be folly not to look.
The juicy tidbits that I have been able to squeeze from these emails had me like:
Thanks Julian Assange


Naturally, I started by looking out for emails pertaining to black Hollywood and it was all interesting! The most important tone and message that I am learnt is that black artists, actors and personalities are waiting on white corporations to approve them. This is actually really sad. This includes the A listers like Jay and Bey, who are also gossiped about at Sony. Their value is only as far as their celebrity reach and ratings. Herewith the tea:

The Amazing Spiderman 2

They had an equally amazing discourse about which artist to use for the soundtrack and even on the song!! The first choice seemed to have been Rihanna or Lady Gaga (although it was felt she may be lame after the Die Antwoord dissed her). Rihanna apparently decided to pass on it and the next artists were as follows:

  • Lorde- "Shes cool"
  • Ellie Goulding- "Her fan base was questionable
  • Alicia Keys- one of the execs remarked that she doesn’t “get AK” and they weren’t sure if "she is right for Spidey though”.



Allegedly (as Aunty Wendy says), Jamie Foxx had prepared a song for the soundtrack that wasn’t even listened to by Jay Brown. Pharrell was then tasked with the song writing after the resounding success of “Happy”, which is the soundtrack to Despicable Me 2 movie, so they expected an encore with this one too.

There is so much  shade researching, processing, planning, discussion that goes on behind the scenes of the movies and songs we enjoy so flippantly.  I was personally taken aback about the comment on Alicia Keys, is that why her career isn’t as big as I/ we think it should be? Is that what could be happening to other talented artists like Keisha Cole? Monica? Brandy? Ciara? If a Sony executive doesn’t quite “get” you then you get passed on?

I don’t know how they finally settled on Alicia Keys, because it seems like Pharell was a done deal, I think Pharell stood up for her and convinced them it would work with her and Kendrick. I am personally not a fan of this song and I haven’t seen the movie, but at least they got to cut a cheque! I would have loved to hear what Jamie Foxx prepared, I love his music!




Destiny’s Child Film


On Jay Z’s birthday in 2013, illuminati Matthew Knowles approached Sony with the idea of a making a Destiny’s Child film. He was going to see Universal too but he gave Sony the first bite at the cherry as DC is under Sony. All the people in on the email were in agreement.
Its not a secret that people would be interested because of Beyonce and he proceeded to show exactly how much interested in numbers and stats:

“1.8 million online discussions about Beyonce alone in last 30 days and 72 percent positive.  She's still relevant and therefore the group's story can be.
Obviously a huge social media aspect. Beyonce has 52 million social followers on Facebook and 12.9 million on Twiitter.”

He also spoke about how they can use the casting process as part of a marketing/ advertising process, similarly to how Channing’s wife judged an open casting call for dancers in a Step Up movie. Uhmmm, Channing’s wife has a name! She is Jenna Dewan.


This frightens me because, then how would a Sony exec look at the average black person? It means in corporate America, there is no place for a lot of us. It also begins to clarify why some black celebrities don’t come out, publically, to support movements and campaigns in support of #blacklivesmatter. This may negatively affect their popularity across the board, reduce their ratings and that may mean going without a cheque. They are compromised. This also means we will never truly know these people because they are so guarded and every move must be calculated- unless they are decide to go the Dame Dash route!
There is a concern that it may be too early for the film, apparently One Direction didn’t do as well as they anticipated so they decided to do a viewer tack/ track?
I wonder how far back they will go, like will they take it back to the DC of “say my name” ??
Y’all think its too early for a Destiny’s Child movie??

Beyonce and MJ:  When the queen impeded the king!
So, remember when this happened???
beyonce-beyonce-album-cover
Well  apparently Beyonce went on and killed a good thing! When Beyonce decided to compromise my finances  by dropping her album unannounced, she apparently upset the circle of sales. The music label has discouraged other artists from pulling a Beyonce because this upsets the retailers of physical copies of the music as people will no longer be buying the physical albums.
86940-1
When MJ, well his estate, teamed up with Sony to launch his posthumous album there was also some background banter about how the album should be released through Music Unlimited. It was decided that 5 of the 10 songs would be made available through Music Unlimited and that’s it!
What are your thoughts on all the above? Do you feel like the execs at Sony and every other big corporate are pulling the wool over our eyes? How does it feel to see the world as it really is?

Finally, is ever ok to hack into someones emails?
Stay tuned for part 2!

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