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militantinremission · 8 months

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HipHop's 50th Anniversary: What 'Culture' are We talking about?

I was in Elementary School back on Aug. 11th 1973. My family left the West Bronx, but I spent a lot of time w/ my 'big cousins' in the Harlem River Houses. My cousin Mona babysat my brother & I, taking Us everywhere w/ her; including dates. I remember Mona taking Us to 'The Summer Of Soul Concert' in Harlem, & I remember going to a few of those Park Jams in Bronxdale & in Soundview. I think We saw more of King Mario than Kool Herc & Coke La Rock. My oldest brother formally introduced me to HipHop in the Spring of 1977. I remember coming home from School to find his Crew set up in Our Dining Room.

I got my 1st look from the 'Other Side of The Rope', & I was hooked! I wasn't a Rapper (yet), or a Break Dancer, but I had an ear for music. Like a lot of Old School Deejays (& under My Brother's tutelage) I cut My teeth on Component Sets & BSR Turntables; rocking Line In switches b4 getting a [real] Mixer... I bought My own DJ Set in 1984 (B2s), & mastered my Craft as a Street DJ, & later in a few NYC Clubs. Most DJs are disciples of [Grand Master] Flash or [Grand Wizard] Theodore; I was more of a disciple of Jazzy Jay & Cut Master DC. We All have Our Unique Features, but EVERYONE went back to School when Jazzy Jeff introduced the 'Transformer Cut', back in 1986. Like a lot of DJs disenchanted w/ 'Gangsta Rap', I split time w/ HipHop's Twin Sister- House Music.

I say all of this, to qualify myself as a 'bonafide Shorty' of 1st Generation HipHop, & a full fledged Member of The New School Era. My point, is to say that 'In The Beginning', there was just The Culture. It didn't have a formal name- but it was being done ALL OVER NYC. I associate the '1520 Sedgwick Avenue' Story of HipHop w/ Afrika Bambaataa; he's The First Person that I remember telling this Story. Disco King Mario predated Kool Herc by years. Herc copied Mario's Style- down to his equipment! King Mario wasn't alone, Pete 'DJ' Jones & Frankie Crocker were dueling On The Radio (WWRL vs WBLS), while DJ Flowers, DJ Spotlight, DJ Smokey, DJ Hollywood, & a number of Club DJs were also mixing it up.

A major argument is whether Disco is connected to HipHop. The Cats up in The Bronx say HELL NO, while the rest of NYC says HELL YES! People need to understand that when We talk about 'Disco', we don't mean 'The Sound' or Studio 54; We mean 'The Disco Fever', 'Harlem World', 'Sugar Hill', & 'The Factory'. The DJs that spun @ these Clubs molded the format that HipHop DJs still follow Today. Kool Herc is credited w/ The 'Merry Go Round'- his mix of Break Beats, but he wasn't the only DJ mixing Breaks or James Brown songs. The Black Spades that were interviewed, speak on King Mario spinning 'Soul Power' & how they chanted 'Spade Power'- as early as 1971. This creates a schism between Bronxdale & Soundview.

Black Americans say HipHop started in Bronxdale, as late as 1971. West Indians- Jamaican- Americans in particular, say it started on Aug. 11th, 1973. Puerto Ricans [Nuyoricans/ Puerto Rocks] say it started between 1975 & 1977, when Afrika Bambaataa incorporated Latino Breakers into 'his' HipHop scene. While there is debate over When & Where in The Bronx it started, EVERYONE AGREES that HipHop was created to Stop Gang Violence. The Culture involves individual expression through Graffiti, B- Boy Style of Dress, & Dance, Spoken Word, & the ability to keep The Party going non-stop. The Original Gangs splintered into Crews that now 'battled' each other w/ Turntables & Mics, on the Dance floor, & w/ Spray Paint Cans (Bombing).

The vernacular of HipHop is based in The Nation Of Islam & The Nation of Gods & Earths, so it's big on Black Power, Black Excellence, & The Traditional Black Family. Both Organizations are Pan Afrikan in their Philosophy, so The Black Diaspora is represented. The same is true w/ The Zulu Nation. Before the rise of The Nation of Latin Kings & Queens, you would find Latino Zulu Kings & Queens- it was All Love! Afrika Bambaataa coined HipHop's 'Mission Statement' of: "Peace, Unity, Love, & Having Fun!", in a song w/ James Brown by the same Name. He also defined the existing '5 Elements' as the fundamentals of HipHop Culture. The Zulu Nation were the unofficial Ambassadors of HipHop; first taking it Downtown, & later taking it Globally... No One questioned Bambaataa's actions.

As We celebrate 50Yrs of HipHop, Afrika Bambaataa's Legacy is tarnished @ best. He has been Radio Silent, since allegations of Child Molestation rose against him 7Yrs ago. Every Move that Bambaataa made is being questioned- Was it a good move for HipHop to go Downtown to SoHo? Did it open the door to the current 'isms' that plague The Culture? It was a Black Specific art form, but it opened itself up to integration w/ Sexual Deviants, Drug Abusers, & White Record Executives. In retrospect, We can see what lured Bam Downtown. I'm curious- is the current manifestation of 'The Culture' Bambaataa's intended goal? It goes against his language, but it's in line w/ his actions.

In the wake of Afrika Bambaataa's 'Fall from Grace', people began questioning his narrative of HipHop. Original B- Boys are still walking The Streets, so it wasn't hard to fact check. DJ Phase has spoke on many Youtube videos under 'The Culture', where he breaks down the Foundation of what became HipHop. According to DJ Phase, HipHop was born on June 7th, 1971- in the Bronxdale Houses. He said that it wasn't organized; Mario simply set up on the grass & spun records. Later that Summer, in July- DJ Phase said that they were more organized w/ more sound & records, so THAT was when Brothers got serious about what they were doing. Disco King Mario did a series of Jams that culminated in the legendary 'Rosedale Park' Jam, that lit up The Bronx & inspired future pioneers.

There is a lot of controversy today concerning the Origins of HipHop. Jason Black, of 'The Black Authority' had the best comment on the subject: "Success has many Fathers, but Failure is an Orphan". As We question the running narrative of HipHop's birth, We also have to question WHO gets Credit for WHAT. No One questions the contributions of Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Haitians, & Panamanians to The Culture, but the claims being made by Busta Rhymes, Pete Rock, Fat Joe, & John Leguizamo are disrespectful. Busta & Pete Rock assert that Jamaican Culture DIRECTLY INFLUENCED HipHop; Busta says 90%. He goes on to say that Kool Herc brought Jamaican 'Toasting' or 'Ranking' to the Bronx Youth. Fat Joe & John Leguizamo say Puerto Rico contributed 50% to The Culture... They ALL sound ridiculous.

In an effort to get ahead of King Mario predating Kool Herc, people have gone as far as saying that Disco King Mario is [half] Puerto Rican. When it was proven that Mario came from North Carolina, a Story came out that his family migrated to (Jim Crow) North Carolina back in 1912. Mario's Sister says they aren't Puerto Rican- They're North Carolinian & 'Country'... His Mother just liked the name Mario. This effort to remove Black Americans from a Black American genre is confusing. Making a contribution 'to', or an innovation 'of' something, doesn't make one 'The Originator' of it. DJ Phase made a point to elaborate on The Energy behind HipHop, & what inspired it. Our Family from The Diaspora mostly arrived after The Civil Rights Movement; They really don't know what AmeriKKKa was like before 1970.

Contrary to what Busta Rhymes, Pete Rock, or Fat Joe may say, HipHop begins w/ The Black Spades. As a boy in Harlem, I remember how revered The Black Spades were. They were respected, but I didn't understand why... Before The Black Spades, Blackfolk in The Bronx were being victimized by Whitefolk; 'Authur Avenue' Italians, in particular. According to The Black Spades, they couldn't go ANYWHERE w/o being attacked, so they organized & struck back. The Black Spades- essentially Black Teens, didn't just beat those Racists back; they opened up The Bronx for EVERY Black Person, giving them The Right of Autonomy. That Energy or Spirit of Revolution was celebrated in Song & Dance, & King Mario was The Conductor.

Kool Herc got to see King Mario & The Black Spades @ 'The Tunnel'. He heard the Breaks & saw how the Black Spades reacted... He heard 'Spade Power!'. Herc himself said that he analyzed what 'they were doing' & came up w/ The Merry Go Round. That, is an innovation. Herc never said that he introduced Toasting to those Baby Spades; in fact, Herc admitted trying to play Jamaican Music, but The Crowd didn't take to it. If Busta & Pete Rock were right, We should have some Reggae among familiar Beat Beats. All of these Cats talk about 'Culture', but they just sound ignorant. A 'Culture' is defined as: 'The sum total of Social Life'. If West Indian (i.e. Jamaican) and/or Latinx (i.e. Puerto Rican) Culture plays such a major role in HipHop, why did ALL of them adopt Black American Social Mores? Kool Herc admitted that he was clowned when he arrived in The Bronx; he thought Cowboy Boots were cool.

If we're going to run w/ the: 'Kool Herc is The Father of HipHop' Story, Coke La Rock should @ least be mentioned. He is credited w/ being The First Emcee. He was Herc's Partner. Busta & a literal Legion of Yardies want to coronate Herc as 'King of HipHop', but it was Coke La Rock that transformed 'Clive' into 'Kool Herc'. Clive DIDN'T KNOW THE CULTURE. Coke La Rock took him down to 125th Street, showed him what to buy, & how to sport it. Somehow, Coke La Rock was written out of the narrative. Again, Bambaataa started this. Another issue w/ Herc being hailed as 'The Father' of HipHop, is how easily he Bowed Down to U- Roy. Herc referred to him as 'his King'. Big Respect to U- Roy, I- Roy & ALL the Pioneers of Ska, Reggae, Lover's Rock, Dub Poetry, & Dancehall! That said, Black Americans BOW TO NO ONE! This is a Problem.

When We talk about Culture, HipHop embodies The Spirit of Revolution. Lay it out on the Black American Timeline, & it's a natural transition; from Work Songs, to Ragtime, to Jazz, to Rhythm & Blues, to Soul & Funk, to HipHop. It's the tireless spirit of Black Liberation in AmeriKKKa. Where does Jamaican or Puerto Rican 'Culture' fit in? They were 'Lovers, not Fighters'. We were Angry! What were they angry about? They were in America- Everything was 'Irie'! When DJ Phase was asked about this [Kool Herc] narrative, he cut to The Chase & said that this narrative gives Whitefolk a 'lane of claim' to Our Culture. It was Too Black, Too Strong, but it's been watered down. When We raise Our Heads, We will see that the people claiming ownership of Our Culture, are the same people representing Us in Government. They are the ones allowing Benign Neglect to continue. They also represent Us 'On Screen', but they rarely depict Us in a dignified manner; We're either Ghetto, or Cowards.

While We're on the subject of 'Culture', let's point out how the level of deviance & violence has risen w/ the number of Jamaican & Puerto Rican Rappers. Boogie Down Productions gets Full Credit for setting off the 9mm talk. Just- Ice's 'The Original Gangster of Hip Hop' was just plain Raw... Also, B- Girls didn't dress like or behave like Dancehall Girls; compare Shante, Lyte, & Latifah to Lil Kim, Nikki Minaj, & Cardi B. White Record Executives, like Lyor Cohen, have rerouted HipHop's 'messaging' to target Suburban Whitefolk eager to hear about 'Ghetto Life'. Today's Artists have been set up lovely by those who came before them, but I wonder if the New Jacks know The History? Do they know what it took for Us to maintain this? Cats had to show restraint, because Authorities were just waiting for Us to mess up. U ca literally count the # of times U hear the N- Word b4 NWA... Do they know Themfolks tried to shut Us down in 1882, leading to the 'New School/ Hardcore Era' that started in 1983 w/ T- La Rock & Jazzy Jay, Run-DMC, & LL Cool J?

Truth be told, The Park Jams faded out by 1986- 1987. The Crack Wars began to make large gatherings dangerous. The 1st Crack Dealers (in My Hood) were The Dreads, who sold out of Weed Spots. The 'Rude Boys' weren't concerned w/ 'protocol', so things got Hot pretty quickly.... I understand that there is an effort to make HipHop EVERYONE'S genre, but it isn't; not anymore than Motown or Bebop. The World is welcome to enjoy HipHop, but make No Mistake- it's a Black American genre that just happens to be globally appreciated & adopted by many. That said, notions of people like Kool Herc, or Eminem being the 'Father' or 'King' diminish the effect that those 'Baby Spades' had on The Original Concept. We can appreciate their contributions, but HipHop Culture is bigger than them. It has a purpose, & it's NOT making Non Indigenous Blackfolk wealthy.

It was a youthful expression of Black Power & Creativity, but outside forces have turned it into a Golden Goose that only benefits White Record Execs & their Proxies. She was treated like a Debutant, but has been reduced to a Crack Whore that EVERYONE can have a piece of. Young Family has to go back to The Root. A Race War is looming, & i'm not sure that their music is up to task. Most of today's Artists are more concerned w/ their 30 pieces of silver, than The Culture it represents. Cats like Busta & Fat Joe aren't concerned, they're taking the money & running. Fat Joe wasn't even a Rapper back in The Day, he was a Stick up Kid; so he's always been about the 'Vic'. Big Pun on the other hand, was The Real Deal... HipHop has become symbolic of Black American Courtesy- We say: "have some", & Our 'guest' proceeds to help themselves to Everything. NO ONE is allowed to be more than a guest in the genres of Jamaican & Latinx Music, so why do they expect ownership in Black American Music?

When We talk about HipHop Culture, We need to remove All the noise in The Room. ANYONE making a claim to Our Culture should be Checked quickly. This 'Back to School Party' Story doesn't make sense! It's supposed to be inspirational, but it's narrated like just another Party. What's so special about it? What exactly motivated Herc's Sister to have this Party, several weeks before School started? How does this 'Party' spark a Movement? Compare it w/ HipHop being a Celebration of Black Youth in The Bronx [dramatically] winning their fight against White Supremacy & their Right of Autonomy- An UNAPOLOGETIC DISPLAY of Black Power. There was a REASON why NYPD left Mario & the Black Spades Deejays alone. When they were 'Jamming', The Black Spades weren't beating down White Racists... No disrespect, but Immigrant Family weren't Here, so they don't know what sparked this Movement.

The Original Concept of HipHop is rooted in stopping Gang Violence. It was a creative alternative to the death & destruction that We brought on each other. The current version of it is so far removed, it's almost unrecognizable. Today's manifestation is literally a Death Cult that offers little to no benefit to The Artist. White Executives seem convinced that it's only about Beats & Rhymes, but the Crap being presented is vulgar & cookie cutter; which defies HipHop's demand for Originality. After 50+Yrs, it's apparent that HipHop is best represented when it's Culturally connected to the Experience of Black American Life. EVERYONE ELSE is a House Guest & should behave accordingly.

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justforbooks · 11 months

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When Tina Turner, who has died aged 83, walked out on her abusive husband Ike in Dallas, Texas, she feared it would spell the end of her showbusiness career. It was 1976, and she had been performing with Ike for two decades, since she had first jumped onstage and sang with his band at the Manhattan club in East St Louis, Missouri. Yet, although she was desperate and had only 36 cents in her pocket, she was on her way to a renaissance as one of the most successful performers in popular music during the 1980s and 90s.

She had to endure several lean years, but a turning point came in 1983, when David Bowie told Capitol Records that she was his favourite singer. A version of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together followed. Produced by the electro-poppers Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh from Heaven 17, the track went to No 6 in the UK, then cracked the US Top 30 the following year.

Turner cemented the upturn in her fortunes with the album Private Dancer (1984). Driven by the huge hit What’s Love Got to Do With It? (her first American No 1), the album became a phenomenon, lodging itself in the American Top 10 for nine months and going on to sell more than 10m copies. Suddenly Turner was one of the biggest acts in an era of stadium superstars such as Michael Jackson, Dire Straits and Phil Collins.

In 1985 she was recruited to play Aunt Entity in the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, for which she recorded another international chartbuster, We Don’t Need Another Hero. A second Thunderdome single, One of the Living, won her a Grammy award, and she was an automatic choice to join the Live Aid benefit concert in that year, as well as to participate in its American theme song, We Are the World.

Her follow-up album, Break Every Rule (1986), launched Turner on a global touring campaign, during which a crowd of 184,000 watched her in Rio de Janeiro. The tour spun off a double album, Tina Live in Europe (1988).

The album Foreign Affair (1989) sold 6m copies and generated another trademark anthem, The Best, which was subsequently used to add oomph to numerous TV commercials and adopted both by the tennis ace Martina Navratilova and the racing driver Ayrton Senna. The subsequent Foreign Affair tour ended in Rotterdam in 1990, after which she duetted with Rod Stewart on the old Tammi Terrell/Marvin Gaye hit It Takes Two. Designed as the theme for a Pepsi advert, the track was a chart hit across Europe.

Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, to Zelma Currie, a factory worker, and her husband, Floyd Bullock, a Baptist deacon. Abandoned by their father and temporarily by their mother, in 1956 Annie and her elder sister, Alline, moved to St Louis, Missouri, where they encountered Ike Turner and his band the Rhythm Kings. After Annie had talked the initially reluctant Ike into letting her sing with the band, he recruited her as one of his backing singers.

It was in 1960 that Tina – who had by then changed her name because it reminded Ike of the cartoon character Sheena, Queen of the Jungle – first sang a lead vocal with Ike’s band. A session singer failed to turn up, and Tina’s stand-in performance of A Fool in Love was a hit on both the pop and R&B charts. Ike immediately rebuilt his act around Tina, and christened it the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. They married in 1962.

Featuring nine musicians and a trio of skimpily dressed backing singers, the Ikettes, the Revue took the R&B circuit by storm. Tina rapidly developed into a mesmerising performer, radiating raw sexuality and bludgeoning audiences with the unvarnished force of her voice. They began to pepper the charts with hits, including I Idolise You, Poor Fool and Tra La La La La, and even if they only intermittently crossed over from the R&B charts to the pop mainstream, the band’s performing reputation was second to none. Evidence of their stage prowess was preserved on the 1965 album Live! The Ike and Tina Turner Show, recorded on tour in Texas.

However, the seeds of the couple’s destruction were being sown in their successful but intense lifestyle. Ike was a habitual womaniser, and also developed a destructive cocaine habit. This provoked violent outbursts against Tina, who, as she later revealed in her 1986 autobiography, I, Tina, was beaten, burned with cigarettes and scalded with hot coffee. She gained a glimpse of what life beyond Ike’s intimidating orbit might be like when she worked with the “Wall of Sound” producer Phil Spector in 1966. To Ike’s frustration, Spector refused to allow him in the studio while he worked on the single River Deep, Mountain High, which subsequently became regarded as a high point of both Spector’s and Turner’s careers.

The Turners’ work won them the admiration of many of their peers, not least the Rolling Stones, who invited them to open a UK tour for them in 1966, then to join them on their American tour in 1969. Mick Jagger was regularly spotted at the side of the stage during Tina’s performances, fascinated by her stage presence and dance routines. One of the high points of Live Aid in 1985 was Tina and Jagger performing together at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.

Working with the Stones prompted the Turners to import a rock-orientated edge into their work, a ploy that worked most successfully when they recorded John Fogerty’s Proud Mary in 1971. It was their first million-selling single and a Top five hit on the American pop charts. In 1973 they notched up another landmark with Tina’s feisty composition Nutbush City Limits, inspired by her Tennessee origins. She took the role of the Acid Queen in Ken Russell’s film of The Who’s rock opera, Tommy (1975): her performance was one of its few critically acclaimed moments, though her spin-off solo album, The Acid Queen, made little impression on the charts.

After her split from Ike, Tina stayed with friends and was forced to survive on food stamps. When their divorce was finalised in 1978, she preferred to take no money or property from the settlement, to establish a complete break from her husband. She earned cash from TV guest appearances on the Donny & Marie and the Sonny & Cher shows, but her late-70s albums Rough and Love Explosion sold poorly.

In 1980 she signed a management deal with Roger Davies, an Australian promoter working in the US, who secured some lucrative engagements in Las Vegas. The following year the Rolling Stones galloped to the rescue once again by booking her as the opening act on their Tattoo You tour of the US, and she also appeared with Stewart in a California concert broadcast internationally by satellite.

By the time she was inducted (with Ike, though he was then in jail) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, Turner had little left to prove. She was able to spend more time at the homes in Switzerland and the Cote d’Azur that she now shared with the German record executive Erwin Bach. A singles collection, Simply the Best (1991), reeled in more platinum discs as Turner entered the senior stateswoman phase of her career.

In 1993, as she launched her first US tour in six years, her film biography, What’s Love Got to Do With It, based on I, Tina, was released, starring Angela Bassett as Turner. The film brought forth a bestselling soundtrack album and another hit single with its opening track, I Don’t Wanna Fight.

A three-disc anthology, The Collected Recordings – Sixties to Nineties, appeared in 1994, and the following year came Turner’s recording of GoldenEye, the theme tune of the eponymous James Bond movie. The tour that accompanied her eighth studio album, Wildest Dreams (1996), became another record-breaker, grossing more than $100m in Europe alone. Twenty Four Seven (1999) teed up what Turner announced would be her last major arena and stadium tour. She had intended to tour with Elton John, but the idea was scrapped after she argued with him about the piano arrangement for Proud Mary during rehearsals for a TV special, Divas Live ’99. Her subsequent solo dates became the top-grossing tour of 2000.

A quiet period ensued, during which Turner confined herself to hand-picked events, such as a 2005 performance on the Oprah Winfrey Show. She contributed a version of Edith and the Kingpin to River: The Joni Letters (2007), a tribute album produced by Herbie Hancock. She performed alongside Beyoncé at the Grammy awards in 2008.

That October she went back on the road with the Tina! 50th Anniversary Tour, synchronised with the compilation album Tina: The Platinum Collection. In 2010 she became the first female artist to score top 40 hits in the UK in six consecutive decades (1960s-2010s) when The Best bounced back into the UK Top 10. Her Love Songs compilation appeared in 2014, and her remix of What’s Love Got to Do With It with the Norwegian DJ Kygo in 2020 made for a seventh decade containing UK hits.

Between 2009 and 2014 Turner appeared on four albums by Beyond, an all-woman group formed with her neighbours in Küsnacht, near Zürich. The music reflected the spiritual and religious beliefs of the participants, with Turner considering herself a Baptist-Buddhist (she was raised as a Baptist, but began practising Nichiren Buddhism in 1973).

In 2013 she married Bach and gave up her American citizenship to become a Swiss citizen. Three weeks after the marriage she suffered a stroke, and in 2016 she was diagnosed with intestinal cancer, then suffered kidney failure when “the toxins in my body had started taking over”, as she put it in her second autobiography, Tina Turner: My Love Story (2018). Her husband volunteered to give her one of his kidneys and a transplant operation was carried out successfully in 2017.

The following year, the biographical stage musical Tina opened at Aldwych theatre in London, directed by Phyllida Lloyd and starring Adrienne Warren in the title role. Turner received a Grammy lifetime achievement award, to go with her existing tally of eight Grammy awards and three Grammy Hall of Fame awards. Among her vast collection of honours, Turner also had five American Music awards, two World Music awards and three MTV Video Music awards.

In 2021 she joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an outright solo performer and sold the rights to her music catalogue to the publishing company BMG for an estimated $50m. Ready to retire fully, she bade farewell to her fans with the two-part HBO documentary Tina.

Alline died in 2010. Tina’s eldest son, Craig, from a relationship with the saxophonist Raymond Hill, took his own life in 2018. Ronnie, her son with Ike, died in 2022.

She is survived by Erwin and two sons, Ike Jr and Michael, from Ike’s first marriage.

🔔 Tina Turner (Anna Mae Bullock), singer and songwriter, born 26 November 1939; died 24 May 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Tina Turner #Anna Mae Bullock #in memoriam

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thepastisalreadywritten · 11 months

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What does Paddington have to do with the Queen?

It can all be traced back to 1986, when Michael Bond wrote Paddington At The Palace.

In the story, Paddington Bear goes to Buckingham Palace, waves a Union Jack flag, gets to see the Queen’s Guard, and even supposedly spots Queen Elizabeth II herself through a window.

Paddington would visit the palace again in 2006, this time for a pantomime called The Queen’s Handbag, which took place as part of the children’s party at the palace as part of the Queen’s 80th birthday celebrations.

The most recent collaboration came this year as part of a tribute for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee (2022).

In a comedy sketch to launch her televised Jubilee concert, Paddington and Queen Elizabeth II sit down in Buckingham Palace together, sharing afternoon tea, some bear-induced clumsy chaos, and naturally, marmalade sandwiches.

Now considered one of the most memorable parts of the Jubilee celebrations, the video has just over 10.2 million views on YouTube.

“It used to be said that millions of people had dreams in which they had tea with the Queen,” remarked Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the writer of the sketch, after the Queen’s passing.

“Even our dream life is going to have to change. Watching her have tea with Paddington will have to do instead.”

This wasn’t Paddington’s only appearance during the Platinum celebrations.

Artist Eleanor Tomlinson created an image of the Queen holding hands with Paddington, alongside one of the Queen’s corgis, as they walk through what looks like the aftermath of a Jubilee street party.

This image has now become synonymous with the Queen’s passing, with the picture circulating widely with various heartfelt captions and even being turned into commemorative tattoos.

https://www.stylist.co.uk/entertainment/queen-elizabeth-ii-paddington-bear-connection/707799

🤍💜🤍

#Queen Elizabeth II #Platinum Jubilee 2022 #Paddington Bear #Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 2022 #Paddington #Michael Bond #Paddington At The Palace #The Queen’s Handbag #Frank Cottrell-Boyce #Eleanor Tomlinson #marmalade sandwiches #Buckingham Palace

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freddieraimbow74 · 11 days

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✊👑The huge crowd at the last Queen concert with Freddie at Knebworth Park in Stevenage, England on august 9, 1986.

#queen #freddiemercury #brianmay #johndeacon #rogertaylor #live #england #UK

#freddie mercury #queen band #brian may #j’adore #roger taylor #jhon deacon #musique #music #queen #original character

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freddiemercurylegendabovelegends · 6 months

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“People talk about Freddie and his ego, but his ego was not as big as people think. It was all a persona. He could make fun of himself, whereas some of the other guys in the band couldn’t do it in the same way. You could have a laugh with Freddie, but you knew were the line was. He wasn’t necessarily the prima donna that everybody thought he was”

- Peter Hince

👉 Peter "Ratty" Hince met Queen in 1973 when they were opening for Mott the Hoople, began working for the band full time during their 1975 'A Night At The Opera' album, and stayed on as the head of their road crew until their final concert in 1986, 'Magic Tour'

👉 Peter is currently a professional photographer -

- Curiosity

Interviewer: How did you become know as "Ratty"?

Peter Hince: When I started in the music business and being the youngest, I had to do the ‘dirty’ work, which included crawling on top of the dirty, dusty equipment to put small items in the tight spaces under the roof of the truck. I was very skinny and had long greasy hair and was nick named ‘The Rat’ by the truck driver on a Mott The Hoople tour. When I first started working for Queen full time, Brian May changed it to ‘Ratty’.

Maybe he thought it was nicer - and possibly after the character in the classic Wind in The Willows book ?

- Peter Hince, interview 2006

Pic: August 1978, Montreux, Switzerland - Freddie Mercury (with Mary Austin) in the gardens of Eden au Lac hotel

📸 Photographer © Peter Hince

👉 July/October 1978 - Queen Story!

"Jazz"

Queen's seventh studio album was the first to be recorded outside of the UK. Sessions for Jazz began at Mountain Studios in Switzerland, in July 1978, and later moved to Super Bear studios in Nice, France, concluding in October

#freddie mercury #queen band #london #zanzibar #legend #queen #brian may #john deacon #freddiebulsara #roger taylor #peterhince #montreux #jazz album #1978

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itsmarjudgeloveclassicrock59 · 8 months

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"Thank You, beautiful people.

You've been a tremendous...you've been a really special audience.

Thank you very much!

Good night, sweet dreams.

We love you!"

- Freddie Mercury.

August 9th, 1986 - Knebworth Park, Stevenage, UK - 'Magic Tour'

The final Queen concert!

#queen band #freddie mercury #classic rock #legendary vocalist

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ramblingqueenfangirl · 1 year

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One of my favorite moments from my favorite Queen concerts. Wembley 1986 2nd night

#queen #freddiemercury #rogertaylor #johndeacon #brianmay #freddie mercury #missyoufreddie

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thereindeerlady · 1 year

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All Im saying

ALL IM S A Y I N G

Is that Queen played live in July 1986 (the magic tour) and they recorded it and imagine with me for a minute (suspend your disbelief and let me HAVE this dammit)-

The government offers their hush money again, but Eddie- lovely, dramatic, dungeon master Eddie- haggles for something more. Figures he’s owed considering the government trying to pay him off is the same one who caused his life to fall apart and almost end just as it was about to begin. And he haggles for plane tickets and concert tickets to Wembley Stadium so the party plus a few trusted adults could go see Steve’s guilty pleasure favorite band on Steve’s birthday (am i making it the same day as mine? yes, yes i am, look away and do not perceive me) AND the government gives it to them. 16 tickets for the plane and 16 tickets for the concert. Steve gawks at him when Eddie tells everyone and Eddie just grins at him and says “Happy Birthday Big Boy.” (The rest of the party in the background going “We can ask for other things???”)

Listen i dont have the brain power to fully flesh out my thought right now but i am just having Thoughts. Idek where i was going with this post past fluffy fluff of the party plus joyce/hopper/mr and mrs sinclair all going to england for a queen concert over the summer but yeah

#dont look at me dont look at me #i know #i also know my audience is just Me #so #steddie #stranger things #brainrot

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scotianostra · 6 months

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On October 31st 1903 Hampden Park stadium opened in Glasgow as the home of Queen’s Park Football Club.

Sources differ some say October 25th but SFA state 31st, I think the confusion is that there ws a previous stadium called Hampden, it is now occupied by railway lines and a lawn bowling club named Hampden Bowling Club. It opened on 25th October 1873 and closed 10 years later. It was the first enclosed stadium with turnstiles in the country

Hampden was the biggest stadium in the world, it would hold this record until 1950 when The Maracanã Stadium in Rio, it held and incredible 199,854 for the final.

Back to Hampden, it opened for a league game on this day in 1903, three years late it held it’s first international when Scotland played England in front of a crowd of 102,741 people, which established Hampden as the primary home of the Scotland team.

Attendances continued to increase during the remainder of the 1900s, as 121,452 saw the 1908 Scotland v England match. A new world record of 127,307 were in attendance to see Scotland play England in 1912.

World record crowds attended Scotland matches against England in 1931 and 1933 and it was 33 that saw the first team from mainland Europe, Austria visit the stadium. Further ground improvements increased the official capacity of the ground to 183,388 in 1937, but the SFA were only allowed to issue 150,000 tickets for games. The 1937 Scotland v England match had an official attendance of 149,415, but at least 20,000 more people entered the ground without tickets.

During WW2 a government official presented an order demanding that both the Hampden and Lesser Hampden pitches be ploughed and used to plant vegetables, but the Queen’s Park committee chose to ignore the order and the government did not pursue it.

Hampden hosted the 1960 European Cup Final; Real Madrid defeated 7–3 Eintracht Frankfurt with 130,000 people in attendance. By the time the next European cup final was held in 1976 between Bayern Munich of West Germany and Saint-Étienne of France the attendance had fallen to 54,670. The French complained about the goalposts stating that two of their efforts which hit the square crossbar and rebounded into play would have resulted in goals if it had been round!

Hampden was aging and the capacity was cut 81,000, redevelopment started in October 1981 and completed in 1986, reduced the capacity to 74,370 and cost £3 million. After the cancellation of the annual Scotland v England fixture in 1989, questions were raised as to whether Scottish football required a separate national stadium, other venues were mooted but the SFA and the stadium committee rejected these and after securing a grant of £3.5 million in 1992, work to begin on a £12 million project to convert Hampden into an all-seater stadium, Hampden was re-opened for a friendly match between Scotland and Netherlands on 23 March. The final stage of the renovation began in November 1997, costing £59 million, inevitably the price soared but Hampden was re-opened for the 1999 Scottish Cup Final. The ground now has a capacity of 51,866.

The stadium was again fit to host the top matches and Real Madrid were again victorious when Hampden Park hosted the 2002 UEFA Champions League Final, defeating Bayer Leverkusen, with Zinedine Zidane scoring the winning goal with a left-foot volley.

In 2012, a Scotland women’s national football team game was played at Hampden for the first time, when it hosted the first leg of a European Championship qualifying playoff against Spain and Hampden was temporarily converted into an athletics stadium for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Championship in 2020 the National stadium has been chosen by Uefa as on of 13 venues for the competition and I am sure the people of Scotland will welcome whoever is chosen to play in Glasgow.

With the advent of big stadium concerts Hampden has been used to host a wealth of worldwide acts Genesis and Paul Young performed in the first concert at Hampden, in 1987. The Rolling Stones played there in 1990, during their Urban Jungle Tour. Since the redevelopment of Hampden was completed in 1999, many acts have performed there, including The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Bon Jovi, Eagles, U2,Oasis, George Michael, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Diamond, Take That, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Pink, Paul McCartney, Rihanna, and Beyoncé.

In 2018 the SFA )Scottish Football Association)agreed a £5m fee for the national stadium with Queen's Park, just this year it was used to host games in the delayed Euro 2020 matches. The stadium recently played host to the 15oth anniversary Scotland v England match, the lesssaid about that game the better! ;)

The pictures show the changes to the stadium over the past 118 years.

#scotland #scottish #history #Glasgow #football #national stadium #sporting history

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johnica-weeks · 1 year

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Roger and Debbie

Roger Meddows Taylor (26 July 1949) 💕 Deborah “Debbie” Leng (6 April 1963)

In a relationship from 1987 to 2004 (not married)

Children:

Rufus Tiger Taylor (8 March 1991)

Tigerlily Taylor (10 October 1994)

Lola Daisy May Taylor (2 April 2000)

Deborah Jane Leng Burgess is a model and actress, and Roger met her on the set of his side band The Cross' video-clip "Cowboys and Indians" (1987). She next appeared as the masked lady in Queen’s “Breakthru”. Debbie started her modeling under the artistic name of Debbie Du-Bell in 1982, and represented the UK in the 1986 edition of Supermodel of the World. She created a sensation in 1987 when she became the iconic Cadbury's Flake girl in a TV commercial and got axed three years later for being "too sexy".

Roger and Debbie’s relationship was immediately object of interest for tabloids, especially since he married his previous girlfriend Dominique in 1988 to secure their two children and the media didn't understand their relationship was actually over, and Roger he soon moved in a new mansion with Debbie. Another object of scandal was the alleged diffusion of a sex tape between the two, and the media never failed to point out their age difference of 14 years. The drummer of a world famous band and a beautiful supermodel couldn’t stay out of the spotlight, after all...

However, besides often appearing together at events, concerts and parties, looking dashing and rich, what happened privately in their lives seems to remain very private. (short to say I’m not really finding much out there besides gossip articles mentioned above). Of course, Debbie is a beautiful woman and always looks friendly and smiling around her family, often having fun with Roger, but there's not much additional information about her personality.

They had Rufus, Tigerlily and Lola together and it appears that Debbie has stayed a lot by Roger’s side after Freddie’s death. “Freddie Mercury was still alive when Rufus came along in 1991 and those two got on famously. Mind you, Fred was always fabulous with kids — he was the one who came up with Rufus’s middle name: Tiger.” They split in around 2004, but they still have a close relationship nowadays and Debbie introduced Tigerlily and Lola to the modeling world, following her steps, while Rufus is drummer of The Darkness, much like Roger.

“Although Rufus’s mum [Deborah Leng] and I were together for about 15 years, we never did get married. I also had Felix and Rory Eleanor from a previous relationship [with Dominique Beyrand], but in that situation, we did eventually tie the knot. I guess I wanted to make sure Felix and Rory were looked after financially. “I’ll admit my life back then was, well… let’s say it was complicated. It was a strange time for all of us. Wouldn’t it be great if relationships were simple and easy? Sadly, breaking up with people who mean a lot to you is never simple or easy. The important thing for me has always been that the kids support each other and feel like brothers and sisters. There’s not some from “this relationship” and some from “that relationship”; they are a gang of five.” (Roger in 2014)

“Mum and Dad never actually got married, but their separation was still pretty rough. There was a bit of shouting for a while and a few headlines, but, y’know what: shit happens. People split up. Both of them have gone off and done their own thing, and they’ve got a much better relationship these days.” (Rufus in 2014)

Prompts - Day 3: Roger and Debbie (14th April)

Under the sunshine

Growing family

Baby you got a fire in you

If I could only reach you, if I could make you smile

Brian & Roger's ships week 2023 rules and prompts

#Brian and Roger Ships week 2023 #queen fandom #queen fandom event #queen ship week #roger taylor fanfiction #roger taylor x debbie leng #debbie leng #deborah leng #BrianRogerShipsWeek2023

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