Cultureteca 02.08.15

This week’s Cultureteca views Ronda Rousey in Rio, and some of the curious overlaps between today’s UFC and WWE; a week’s worth of rap, featuring an album announcement by Dr. Dre, a new video by Kendrick Lamar, diss tracks by Drake, and A$AP fan art; and finally the V&A exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.

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Ronda Rousey, UFC 190, and Fighting Women

On Saturday night at UFC 190 in Rio, defending her UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship, Ronda Rousey knocked out challenger Bethe Correia in just 34 seconds.

Across the long buildup to the fight, Correia had questioned Rousey’s mental strength. Suggesting she would knock her out in two punches, Correia hoped aloud that Rousey wouldn’t commit suicide after falling to such a defeat. Rousey’s father committed suicide when she was just eight years old, so this was understandably a sore subject.

@bethecorreia suicide is no joke or selling point. My father will be with me the day I hand you the comeuppance you deserve.

— Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) May 28, 2015

At the pre-fight weigh-in on Friday, Correia got in Ronda’s face, shouting repeatedly ‘Don’t cry!’. Revelling in her victory in Correia’s home country, Ronda remembered to remove her mouthguard and mimic her opponent, as Correia picked herself up from the canvas:

Don’t Cry

Ronda’s mixed martial arts record stands now at 12-0. This was her sixth successful UFC title defence, and her fourth as a UFC event’s headline performer. Her last three fights have taken her only 64 seconds. While she beat Cat Zingano at UFC 184 courtesy of an armbar submission, on this occasion she admitted her tactics had been to keep Correia on her feet, throwing punches and provoking Correia to attempt to clinch. When that happened, a blow to the temple sent Correia sprawling face-first to the mat.

After the fight, Ronda had kind words for Roddy Piper, who died unexpectedly on Friday after a heart attack. Ronda’s ‘Rowdy’ monicker was taken, with permission, from the professional wrestler, most famous for his various spells with today’s World Wrestling Entertainment, and for his feud with Hulk Hogan which culminated at the first WrestleMania in 1985.

Touching speech by the champ following another AMAZING performance!#UFC190 @RondaRousey http://t.co/90dp79lU7S

— UFC (@ufc) August 2, 2015

Ronda – a longtime wrestling fan – made her first appearance inside the wrestling ring at WrestleMania 31 in March. Over this weekend, there has been some back-and-forth between UFC President Dana White and WWE workers, after White referred to wrestling as ‘fake-shit’. The WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins, and others including Sheamus, Mick Foley, and Joey Styles, were among those to get involved. In fact, White well understands the value of controversy, and he and some of his most astute talents have routinely drawn from wrestling methods when promoting UFC fights.

Today both companies share a reliance on female competitors. Ronda Rousey is indisputably the biggest name and the biggest draw on the UFC roster: owing to much more than a dearth of established male stars, she is the world’s outstanding fighter, exciting and charismatic and constantly improving inside the octagon, while away from her fighting and training duties she has starred in movies and appeared on numerous magazine covers.

Nobody in today’s WWE has attained as yet the same crossover appeal; but it is the company’s female wrestlers who, over the past few months, have afforded the best matches and the most engaging in-ring personalities. The main event between Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable in May was arguably the main event of the wrestling calendar thus far, and Sasha Banks – recently promoted to the main roster alongside Lynch and Charlotte – has emerged as WWE’s most compelling character.

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Dr. Dre Announces Compton: A Soundtrack; Kendrick ‘For Free?’ Video ; Drake Beef; A$AP Art

With the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton on the way, due for release in a couple of weeks, and after a lead-in courtesy of Ice Cube, who spoke on the Philadelphia radio station Power 99 on Wednesday morning, on Saturday Dr. Dre confirmed that he is to release a new album – the first in almost sixteen years, with 2001 having emerged all the way back in November 1999.

Joined by Ice Cube and Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray, Dre made the announcement on his Beats 1 radio show ‘The Pharmacy’. The album will be released this coming Friday, 7 August, exclusively via iTunes and Apple Music. The title will be Compton: A Soundtrack; and it will feature collaborations with Kendrick Lamar and Jill Scott alongside old cohorts including Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Eminem, and Xzibit. Dre has reportedly led production on all of the album’s sixteen tracks.

Dr. Dre began work on his third studio album, the follow-up to 2001, in the early 2000s. Known as Detox, in 2008 Snoop Dogg suggested work on the project was complete. Over the next few years, a couple of singles – ‘Kush’ and ‘I Need a Doctor’ – were released, but after several leaks, and despite a Grammy performance earlier in the year, 2011 passed without the purported appearance of the work. Last year two of Dre’s collaborators, Marsha Ambrosius and Dawaun Parker, stated that Dre had shelved Detox.

Speaking on ‘The Pharmacy’, Dre remarked of Detox, ‘I didn’t like it. It wasn’t good. I worked my ass off on it, and I don’t think I did a good enough job’. On the other hand, he called Compton: A Soundtrack ‘my grand finale. The record is bananas’.

On the subject of Kendrick Lamar, this week he released a video for ‘For Free?’. The short for the jazzy interlude from To Pimp a Butterfly was directed by JoeWeil and the Little Homies. Meanwhile, headling at Osheaga in Montreal over the weekend, Kendrick brought ought Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) to freestyle over ‘Alright’.

Prior to Dre’s announcement, the week in rap was dominated by the feud between Drake and Meek Mill, instigated by Meek’s claim that Drake used a ghostwriter for his verse on ‘R.I.C.O.’, which appears on Meek’s second album Dreams Worth More Than Money, released at the end of June. Last Saturday, on the second episode of his Beats 1 show ‘OVO Sound Radio’, Drake offered a casual response by way of ‘Charged Up’.

Before Meek managed to counter, Drake followed up with the more forthcoming ‘Back To Back Freestyle’. Referring to Meek’s partner Nicki Minaj, and to his role as an opening act on her current ‘Pinkprint Tour’, Drake rapped, ‘You love her, then you gotta give the world to her / Is that a world tour or your girl’s tour? / I know that you gotta be a thug for her / This ain’t what she meant when she told you to open up more’. Finally on Friday – for many onlookers too late – Meek came back with ‘Wanna Know’.

A$AP Rocky was one of several rappers to give his thoughts on proceedings, praising the battle, but declaring Drake the victor. This week I really liked this graphic created by a Tumblr user called Che1ique, which Rocky posted to his Facebook page, linking to A$AP Mob’s fan art site:

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Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty Goes Long

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty ran at the V&A from 14 March. An elaboration, in the artist’s home of London, upon the 2011 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition of the same name, the V&A could boast this as the largest retrospective of the late fashion designer’s work on show in Europe.

It covered the whole of McQueen’s career: from his 1992 MA graduation collection, on the completion of his studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design; to his landmark VOSS show in 2001; to the Autumn/Winter collection for his eponymous label left unfinished at the time of his suicide in February 2010.

The Met exhibition in New York became one of the museum’s ten most visited – and this success has been replicated in London. Drawing to a close over this weekend, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty stayed open all night on Saturday to meet demand. During its run the retrospective has seen more than 465,000 visitors, making it the V&A’s most popular exhibition ever.