Normani
Bryan Adams/PirelliThe annual Pirelli calendar for 2022 arrived Monday, backed by a star-studded cast of 10 stars shot by Canadian musician, singer-songwriter and record producer Bryan Adams.
For this year’s photo shoot — which follows an “On the Road” theme pitched by Adams himself — features Cher, Iggy Pop, Jennifer Hudson, Rita Ora, Normani, Grimes, St. Vincent, Kali Uchis, Bohan Phoenix and Saweetie posing for portraits at Los Angeles’ iconic Palace Theatre and the Chateau Marmont, as well as Italy’s Capri at the La Scalinatella Hotel.
Continuing the trade magazine’s more subtle image (the calendar was once known for its racy imagery prior to the 2010s), this year’s stars went for glamour, each in their own unique way. Normani posed from the comfort of white bedsheets, Saweetie pushed stacked designer luggage on a bellhop’s cart at the La Scalinatella Hotel, and Grimes stayed true to herself with a technology theme. Iggy Pop, meanwhile, posed in silver body paint, and St. Vincent kept things simple with a close-up shot of her face, her tongue out and holding a Pirelli guitar pick.
Speaking about the inspiration for this year’s theme, Adams told Pirelli, “It wasn’t too difficult, if I’m honest, because on the road is what I’ve been doing for the last 45 years. When I proposed it, I almost thought maybe this had been done before because it’s such an obvious thing, and I thought the symbiotic relationship would be good, the idea of musicians who travel and a company that makes tyres. It makes sense to me. I thought they might have thought it was a bit too much on the nose, but in the end they loved it.”
See photos from the Pirelli calendar below.
NEWS
No matter what you thought of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, there was only one undisputed winner by the end of it all: the reaction community in the worlds of streaming and YouTube. Your favorite content creators broke down the bars, reacted to all the most shocking moments, and helped this showdown become one of hip-hop's most culturally significant and resonant moments in a long time... For better or worse. See, the battle's technically not over yet, but only because the 6ix God's idea of victory is clearly quite different. In his federal defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group – his label – for releasing K.Dot's "Not Like Us," he named various content creators who allegedly helped boost the track's widespread popularity and, as a result, its supposedly defamatory nature.
Furthermore, the specific allegation that Drake brings up in this highly controversial lawsuit is that UMG "whitelisted" copyright claims for YouTubers, streamers, etc. concerning "Not Like Us." This means that they would be able to monetize their content without facing a copyright claim from UMG over "Not Like Us," and this isn't really an allegation because various creators have backed this up. But a few important (alleged) caveats that people are talking about online need to be clear. First, "whitelisting" supposedly happens on behalf of a record label behind a song like the West Coast banger, and UMG is instead the distributor of that track. Secondly, as rapper and online personality ScruFaceJean brings up as seen in the post below, tracks like "Push Ups" were also "whitelisted" by its team.
Along with Jean, many other of your favorite content creators spoke out against this Drake lawsuit. Zias! and B.Lou, for example, spoke with their lawyer about the possibility of countersuing for emotional distress, as they found the Toronto superstar's accusations and his implication of them very disturbing and misguided. NoLifeShaq also dragged The Boy through the mud, calling him "soft" and positing that, whether "whitelisting" happened or not, they would react to "Not Like Us" accordingly as they did to his own tracks.
In addition, it's important to bring up that many others fans have pointed to how Drake excitedly used streamers to generate hype and reaction clips for his own diss tracks against Kendrick Lamar. The most direct example is with Kai Cenat, whom he texted to "stay on stream" before dropping "Family Matters." Ironically, the Twitch giant appears in this clowned-upon defamation lawsuit as an example of what the OVO mogul's accusations and implications are. And one more thing: there is no direct link between monetization and algorithmic boosting on sites like YouTube. With all this in mind, content creators seem to feel almost insulted at the idea that they only reacted to the two biggest rappers in the world beefing with each other because one of them would allow them to make money. If Drizzy knew the first thing about the reaction community, maybe he wouldn't have included this...
