The last few weeks were full of women in popular music, and Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj weren’t about to miss out on the fun. The day after Taylor Swift debuted the “Bad Blood” music video at the Billboard Music Awards, Minaj released the video for “Feeling Myself,” a collaboration with Beyoncé from her latest album, The Pinkprint, on TIDAL, a new music streaming service. Much like Swift’s “Bad Blood,” the video is very female-centered and most, if not all of the men in the video, are simply there to be in the background. This video is so unique in that it brings a new and refreshing perspective that is often lacking in the hip-hop and pop music industries alike: the perspective of two women who put each other and themselves before the men in their lives. In “Feeling Myself” Minaj creates an environment where, much like a previous hit from Beyoncé, girls run the world. There are very few men in the video, and the men who are there are pretty much just used as extras. The world that Beyoncé and Nicki have created in this video shows two women who seem to value each other and their friendship the most, (even if that fantasy just exists in this one video, as we all know Beyoncé has an entire family to tend to, and I’m sure Nicki has a ridiculous amount of things going on literally all the time). They’ve continued to work with the feminist vibe from the last Nicki and Beyoncé collaboration, the “***Flawless” remix, putting themselves at the top of their own priority lists and not apologizing for it. The video shows Beyoncé and Nicki having a blast at Coachella, doing a lot of things that any of us would do with our best girlfriends, making the two women very easy to relate to. They dance, they eat (and not in a creepy sexualized Carl’s Jr. way, but in a real human eating way), they goof off, and they paint themselves as two best friends who just happen to be mind-blowingly beautiful. They send a powerful message to the young girls who may be watching this video: it’s okay to think that you’re hot shit, it’s okay to know that you’re hot shit, and it’s okay to talk about it; a message that too many young girls grow up without hearing. Between this video and Swift’s “Bad Blood” video, I, for one, can’t wait to see more of this “girls to the front” type of attitude from today’s music. And with an overwhelmingly positive response from fans, it seems like there is only more to come – Natalie P.
2. Tomas Furey - Beams and Shadows
Based in Montreal, Tomas Furey composes electro-pop pieces that remind us of James Blake or Moderat. His studies in electroacoustics give him a complete control over his art. Here's his new video for Beams and Shadows.