Wham now people. Yeah. I know I've been silent for more than a minute but I don't think I could have kept this one off my chest. Before we get into it though you can check out the vid for Rhianna's new song "Take a Bow". I'm not her marketing rep or nothing but I really love this song and video so you can check it out.
Right. So why do Digicel Rising Star Trinidad judges suck? Well, after capturing the auditions live a few weeks ago, I finally watched it on television and realised that this sh*t is actually worse than I imagined. Before watching the last episode, I had heard about 'Judge Dredd' aka Sahara from Westwood Park (Westwood Park is a Trinidadian soap opera for those who don't know). I heard about how she tells people like it is and makes people cry ya da ya da not unlike Simon from American Idol and although hyper-dread judges normally come off as corny to me, I just told myself that at least I would catch some jones. Boy was I wrong.
Now I don't know how many of you have ever watched American Idol but basically 'Judge Dredd' is no Simon. The funny and interesting thing about Simon is that he is not trying to hurt anyone's feelings. It's just in his personality to tell people like it is. If you have no talent, he will tell you in no uncertain terms that you're wasting your and his time. If more people used this approach then maybe soca music may not be in the state that is but that's a new post by itself right there. Anyway, it stops being funny right about the time when you start trying to be harsh. Watching Rising Star, Judge Dredd came off like one of the roughly sketched characters from Westwood Park; American influenced and corny. I mean, it was clear to me from the get go that she was playing a role but the problem was in the lack of subtlety (more training from Westwood Park?). Anyone who was remotely bad was considered terrible. Anyone remotely good was amazing. At one point there were these two guys singing a duet terribly but not bad terrible...more like laugh till tears run down your cheeks and you spit out what you were eating terrible and I was laughing until Judge Dredd opened her mouth. Her punchline: "I thought I was hearing two cows mooing". Yeah, I know...some writers are needed. And it never is a good look when the woman contains the most testosterone in a panel of three judges with only one female judge. One of the other male judges had something like eye-liner on and was only hissing catty remarks that echoed whatever Judge Dredd said. I always thought the reason for local tv was to not see gay men on your box but I guess I was wrong. The other judge also has a kinda gay way about him as well and I was told from before that he might be the other one's boyfriend (hoss, I hope that's just trini speculation). Either way, he seemed, like the other judge, to be inclined to agree with whatever Judge Dredd opined.
Now I can point out stuff like what does a person whose reason for selection is that she was a semi-star on a soap opera that was more laughed at than taken seriously really knows about musical talent but to me that is irrelevant. From attending auditions I have kinda realised that Digicel Rising star has problems just like any other competition claiming to judge talent. In their case these problems are: they're heavily biased to rnb style singers, they choose look over talent often and they are not very knowledgeable about and biased against certain genres like rap and reggae although their selling point is an all-inclusive competition that welcomes all styles. Nevertheless, I expected the judges to be either kinda entertaining or very boring like real judges. A flaming gay man (I'll fall off my chair if I find out he isn't), an ex-soap opera 'star' playing a role badly and an in-the-closet gay man is about as entertaining as listening to a cd of fingernails scratching on a board. I'm sorry to have to licks down dem judges so but I'm Da Face so I have to tell them like it is. Maybe they'll call me Judge Dredd only I'm not playing a role though :P
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