u/superdouradas

Hi, I’m from Portugal, and the other day I saw a video of Elon Musk saying that the UK will have a civil war within 20 years. Obviously, he is massively exaggerating a situation that simply doesn’t exist. And for some reason I still don’t understand, he seems determined to see the far right gain power in the UK, just as he seems to want it to happen across the rest of Europe.

He is a danger to democracy, but what I find even more alarming is the way he makes the UK look to the rest of the world. I’ve visited the country several times and it’s a beautiful place. It’s a shame that this guy is damaging the UK’s reputation so much.

For God’s sake, London is one of the world’s great cities and one of the safest major cities on the planet. Don’t you think that with statements like these, Musk is damaging the country’s good name?

Today I watched a video that I believe was from a documentary about Tina Turner..

The video revealed something I found genuinely shocking at the height of her success and during her incredible comeback, Tina was boycotted by Black radio stations in America. The reason? Her music was considered too "white." Black radio audiences were still expecting the rhythm and blues sound of her Ike & Tina Turner era, and when she reinvented herself as a rock artist, many felt she had betrayed her roots. There's even footage of Ike Turner himself criticizing Tina for not having black musicians in her band, among other things.

But what really caught me off guard was something else entirely I had always assumed Tina Turner achieved success simultaneously in the US and in Europe. That wasn't the case. In Europe, she was filling stadiums throughout the 80s and 90s and was already being called the "Queen of Rock." Meanwhile, in the US, she was still playing arenas, and only made the jump to stadiums in the 2000s.

In an interview with Larry King, she said that back then, in Europe, she was on the same level as Madonna and that was true. In the 80s and 90s here in Europe, Tina Turner was massive. In the US, though, she remained behind Madonna in terms of scale. What's also interesting is that in Europe, Tina drew audiences from every generation, while Madonna's fanbase at the time skewed much younger.

It also makes complete sense now why she eventually left the US to live in Europe. After feeling embraced and celebrated here in a way she wasn't back home, and after experiencing that rejection from part of the Black American audience who felt she had "sold out," her decision to make Europe her home stops feeling like a random lifestyle choice and starts feeling like something much more personal almost like she went where she was truly seen and valued.

But the thing that surprised me most, by far, was learning about the boycott from Black audiences in the United States the sense that she had betrayed her roots by embracing a "white" sound. That's a layer of her story I never knew about...

It also makes me wonder: how many other Black American artists went through similar battles? How many were pressured to stay within a certain "lane," only to be criticized for "selling out" the moment they crossed into new creative territory?