Dear Lizzie,
Pound d alarm. Much rage over Nikki Minaj's nothing place but u can show d girls who own dem not on d trail of American Idol but palace files near begnnings of dis Roman empire's Raj on shelves lettered H or R or W or P including S near T...details forthcoming in LettersToLizzie Pre-Order Now see https://sites.google.com/site/krisrampersadglobalPS: Waffle to baffle: No just d late arrival, but using waffles to baffle and taking the long, scenic colourful route to pronouncig judgement on American Idol - it's a Trini thing...
'We came from nothing!' Nicki Minaj bonds with Liberian refugee... as American Idol's final ten women are revealed
|
Trinidadian-born rapper Nicki Minaj wasn’t born with much, and she fought tooth and nail to gain her stardom.
That could be why the Pink Friday singer got so emotional on American Idol this week, when a Liberian refugee, Zoanette Johnson, brought the house down with Circle of Life.
Always one of the most riotous contestants Zoannette, 20, has been in the US since she was two - after escaping from her war torn motherland.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2285707/Nicki-Minaj-likens-Liberian-refugee--singers-axed-American-Idol.html
Pound The Alerm Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYK4ffyETqc
Living in Liberia: http://www.guardian.co.tt/editorial/2013-03-03/living-liberia
Published:
Sunday, March 3, 2013A small social media-fuelled storm erupted soon after entertainer Nicki Minaj commiserated with American Idol competitor Zoanette Johnson about the challenges of their childhoods. “I’m proud that this place right here gives people like you and me that came from absolutely nothing, from a country that we probably didn’t think we would make it out alive, it gives us a shot.”
Ms Minaj, once known as Onika Maraj during her first five years of life at Bournes Road, St James, has had an undeniably challenging life, often leveraged to promotional advantage. Nationalists quickly began pointing out the differences between this country and Liberia while Ms Minaj’s supporters quickly pointed out just how specifically difficult her life experiences were in Trinidad and Tobago before her migration to the United States.
The fame that Nicki Minaj has been enjoying has been a tempting lure for the Government. In October 2010, the performer gave a concert at the Hasely Crawford Stadium that was partly underwritten by the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs. The youth outreach effort came under criticism from Diego Martin Central MP Dr Amery Browne, who accused the Sports Minister of spending $900,000 on the money-losing event, half of the allocation for youth development projects.
Her stated interest in the country of her birth, and perhaps her experience at that concert, led her to produce a Carnival-flavoured video for her song Pound the Alarm, celebrated as a national PR coup. Last week’s commentary, which paralleled her childhood experiences in T&T with a Liberia still recovering from bloody civil wars, are the flip side of depending on celebrities to promote a national image.
In November 2012 the singer announced that a fifth of this country’s population had died from HIV/Aids, a figure that’s closer to 25,000. Somebody needs to brief this young woman about the country of her birth, and quickly. Far too much of our image building has been done on the backs of individuals who by virtue of their hard work and sometimes even their personal mistakes, have come to global attention.
It’s a lazy and potentially lethal shortcut and no replacement for a properly formulated and designed plan to create a consistent and attractive tourism product and to promote it using all the myriad media tools available for modern communication with the world. Nicki Minaj was never a magic bullet for tourism promotion for this country, nor has the appointment of high-profile tourism ambassadors done much for us generally.
The Ministry of Tourism and its agencies of execution continue to make dangerously naive assumptions about the value of our tourism product in a world full of nations aggressively working to package their assets, charms and uniqueness as lures for the curious visitor. As the tourism sector in Tobago gently collapses through lack of visitor interest, Ms Minaj’s comments come as a welcome wake-up call, a pounding of the alarm, as it were, that we’re playing the fool with our tourism assets and it’s time to stop.
T&T no different from Liberia says Minaj
Published:
Friday, March 1, 2013
Trinidad-born rapper Nicki Minaj compared T&T to Liberia on television on Wednesday, saying she didn’t think she would get out alive. Liberia is known for having endured bloody civil war during the past two decades, in which more than 200,000 people died and a million sought refuge in neighbouring countries.
Tourism Minister Stephen Cadiz said yesterday he could not comment on Minaj’s latest comment on the “nothing” place she came from, since he was not sure exactly what location she was referring to. Minaj, on the American Idol show last Wednesday, likened her own underprivileged background to that of contestant Zoanette Johnson, a Liberian refugee living in the US, the UK Daily Mail reported yesterday.
Minaj said, “I’m so proud that this place gives people like you and people like me, who came from absolutely nothing, a place that we didn’t think we’d make it out alive from, it gives us the chance. Thank you.” The story in the Mail said: “Trinidadian-born rapper Nicki Minaj wasn’t born with much, and she fought tooth and nail to gain her stardom. “That could be why the Pink Friday singer got so emotional on American Idol this week, when a Liberian refugee, Zoanette Johnson, brought the house down with Circle of Life.”
Zoannette, 20, has been in the US since she was two, after escaping from her war-torn motherland, the newspaper reported. “Listen, Zoanette, you make me so emotional, you came from Liberia, all those siblings, they are going to get a chance to see you on this show. I am so proud of you. So proud of you,” Minaj said.
Minaj, born Tanya Onika Maraj, is from Bournes Road, St James. She lived there with her grandmother until the age of five, when she migrated to Brooklyn, New York, to be with her parents.Cadiz said he could not comment because he was not sure whether Minaj was referring to a hard life she lived in Brooklyn or in St James. “I have no idea what her family life was like,” he said.
Cadiz said he would not like to think of St James as a “nothing” place and noted that Minaj would have had some kind of good opportunity in order to reach the US. “I am not casting aspersions on Brooklyn but I don’t know if she had a hard life in the States...She would have to explain what she meant,” he said. The minister recalled that not long ago Minaj spoke about the high number of Aids cases in T&T and quoted totally erroneous figures.
In November, she was quoted in the UK Guardian as saying 250,000 people in T&T were living with the disease. The actual figure is reported as being a tenth of that.
Nicki Minaj video sells 'sweet T&T'
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Nicki_Minaj_video_sells__sweet_T_T_-164690936.htm
lBy Wayne Bowman wayne.bowman@trinidadexpress.com
The video for Nicki Minaj's "Pound The Alarm" filmed in Trinidad and Tobago several weeks ago pays a great tribute to the land of her birth.
The video was released Tuesday and people who have viewed it thus far all give it two thumbs up. The video opens with the camera panning over the coastline as seen from the Lady Young Lookout, while an e-pan plays a riff from the song. As the pan plays scenes of a coconut vendor outside Queen's Royal College, Scarlet Ibises in flight, a waterfall, Maracas Beach, boys jumping into the sea from a pirogue, the Caroni Swamp, Pigeon Point, the St James Arch and a sign declaring Trinidad and Tobago as the home of Carnival flash by.
Then as an alarm sounds the screen fills with the Trinidad and Tobago Flag fluttering with Minaj appearing on the Lady Young Lookout singing the song's intro. From there a virtual tour of the island continues as the video moves along.
There are scenes of Minaj and women in Carnival costumes dancing in Belmont and with her and and triple crown Carnival 2012 winner Machel Montano on a music truck. In another scene Minaj is alongside soca artiste Bunji Garlin and there are also scenes showcasing traditional Carnival characters, including moko jumbies, blue devils and fancy Indians.
Director Benny Boom's editing sends the message to the world that Trinidad and Tobago has it all, natural island beauty, gorgeous women, great architecture, technology and is also the place where you can party in the streets with the biggest of stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment
B4 U Say It: Is It True? Is It Kind? Is It Necessary? Rights reserved to delete inappropriate and offensive comments or solicitations.