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      Mariachis Play On, Their Music Unsilenced by the Virus or the Deaths

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      Even as the birthday parties and weddings grew scarce during the pandemic, the musicians were increasingly hired to play at funerals, including those of band members.Listen to This ArticleFacing the stone archway of St. Joseph’s Salesian Youth Retreat Center outside Los Angeles, the dark wooden coffin holding the body of Juan Jiménez was wheeled next to a band of masked mariachis. The group readied themselves to play, simultaneously lifting bows to violins, hands to a golden harp and fingers to pluck at guitarróns, their bass guitars.When the priest’s prayer ended, Jesus Guzmán led the band, Mariachi Los Camperos, through almost an hour of music: songs that express grief and goodbyes, like “Las Golondrinas” (“The Swallows”).The calendars of mariachi bands nationwide used to be full of dates for weddings, quinceañeras and serenades where the vigorous music of Mexican culture helped enliven some of life’s most joyous moments. With the onset of the pandemic, those opportunities disappeared, leaving behind only the funerals, the mounting number of funerals, that have kept some mariachis from financial ruin.Mariachi Los Camperos playing a concert before the pandemic. In February, they performed at the funeral of their nationally acclaimed guitarron player, Juan Jiménez (back row, second from right) who died in the pandemic.Jesus GuzmanAt this funeral, in February, the playing was particularly passionate and the musicians, sombreros off, bowed their heads as the body passed. Jiménez was one of their own, a revered guitarrón player who had succumbed at 58 to the coronavirus.“His friends were all there with him, playing for him, thanking him, continuing his legacy,” said Guzmán, a friend of Jiménez since childhood and the music director of the mariachi band they both called their own.To witness the number of sad events that have kept some mariachi bands financially alive is to confront the virus’s harrowing toll on the people who once sang to their music. Latino and Black residents caught in this winter’s fierce coronavirus surge through Los Angeles County died at two or three times the rate of the white population there.Members of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio say the pandemic caused the cancellation of dozens of events that they had been scheduled to perform. Christopher Lee for The New York TimesThe story is similar in other locations with large Latino populations, and studies show Latinos are more vulnerable to becoming ill and dying from the virus. Their communities and households tend to be more crowded and to rely on mass transit, their access to health care is limited and their jobs are likely to involve contact with the public.So as the caskets go into the ground, many mariachi bands in California, Texas, Illinois and elsewhere have turned to playing songs of pain and sorrow to ease the passing. Even for the bands used to playing at funerals before the pandemic, the sweep of death has been overwhelming. Many have lost family and friends, band members and music teachers.For decades, family-run mariachi bands and self-employed musicians in Los Angeles have descended on Mariachi Plaza east of Downtown to vie for new bookings. This is where Christian Chavez, the secretary for the Organization of Independent Mariachis of California, has handed out boxes of food to struggling musicians since the pandemic first upended business.Tuning up in the parking lot.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesRehearsing in the final minutes before an event.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio rehearsing at a member’s home before an event.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMiguel Guzman, a member of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio, said he almost died when the coronavirus landed him in the hospital for a month in November.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesLike many musicians he met on the plaza, Chavez was not immune to the pandemic’s financial hardships. The band his grandfather first founded in Mexico, Mariachi Tierra Mexicana, struggled. The pandemic wiped out his savings in seven months. The coronavirus forced Chavez and other mariachis to make grueling decisions just to make ends meet. That led many to continue working at events where people were nonchalant about masks and social distancing.But, for many, funerals and burials became the mainstay, easing the financial pain but exacting another kind of harm, even for those used to playing such ceremonies intermittently between other events. The weeping. The people grasping for coffins as they were lowered. Chavez said that, at times, these moments were so devastating he had to turn away and just focus on his trumpet.Of the 400 active members of the California mariachi organization, about 80 died of the virus, possibly having picked it up performing at events like parties and at restaurants, Chavez said. That tally includes his godfather, Dagoberto Martinez, who played the vihuela in his family band for 15 years.“Every time I go to work, I pray that I’m one of the lucky ones to return home,” Chavez, who is working events and playing at dozens of funerals, said in a video interview. He and his family got dangerously sick with the virus in October, too.All performing arts workers have struggled during the pandemic as unemployment had an undue influence on that sector. What is unique about the mariachi band members, many of them said in interviews, is how much their music became part of the ritual of passing for a population particularly affected by the pandemic.As more people get vaccinated, Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio is seeing a slight uptick in events while still playing at many funerals.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesIn Pilsen, a neighborhood of Chicago with a sizable Latino community, Enrique and Karen Leon’s circle of mariachis has waned in the past year, in part because of deaths attributed to the coronavirus.“Every mariachi represents a musical instrument, an instrument you hear in a group,” Karen Leon, the manager of the band Mariachi Mexico Vivo, said, describing what the loss of musicians means to the close community of mariachis. “Lots of people think, well, there are plenty of mariachis in Chicago, but it’s really difficult to replace someone when they have their talent. You can’t just replace someone’s life for another.”In the past four months, Enrique Leon and six members of the band played at 15 funerals, half of those for coronavirus-related deaths. Though the funerals are essential, and help pay the bills, they do not match the emotional boost of performing at an event where one can see the music lift people’s spirit like a buoy.“I want to play my guitar, compose songs, be in public singing,” Enrique Leon said. “That ambience fills me up. I’m working, and making money, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same without seeing smiles and laughter, the emotion from the crowd when they see the mariachi.”Members of Mariachi Mexico Vivo playing at a 50th birthday party in March.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesThe party was a return to normalcy for a band whose performances at happy occasions had been disrupted by the pandemic.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesThe guest of honor, Josefina Gonzales, center, who herself survived the virus, was surprised, and moved, by the appearance of the band.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesMembers of Mariachi Mexico Vivo, smiling here at the birthday party, have played at 15 funerals in recent months.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesIn Texas, back in November, Miguel Guzman of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio had to put his violin and music aside when he tested positive for the coronavirus. Just days before, he was masked and inside the home of a friend who was a reliable instrument dealer, buying a violin for a student. The friend later died of the virus.Guzman fell very ill, too, and spent a month in the hospital. The virus winded him. He needed a constant stream of oxygen to breathe with his damaged lungs; he dropped 40 pounds and lost all his muscle; he needed physical therapy just to walk again.At home, his fingers were numb when he repeatedly tried picking up his violin, but it was the promise of playing in the band with his sons again and writing a composition for his wife that kept him motivated to recover.This past month, Guzman finally returned to the band and played at another round of funerals and burials. His first day back was at the funeral of a friend’s father-in-law. The week after, it was a funeral for one of his longtime clients, a tire-shop owner who had died of coronavirus-related complications.Close to the coffin at that funeral, he stood with the band playing “Te Vas Ángel Mío” or “You’re Leaving, Angel of Mine.” He could hear the crying, yes, but he also could hear his violin, carrying life forward for those who grieved, and for him.“Music is the medicine, because when I’m playing, I forget about not being able to breathe,” Guzman said. More

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      Sarah Harding Releases Charity Single Amid Cancer Battle

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      Instagram

      The Girls Aloud member is raising money to help fund cancer research at the NHS Foundation by releasing new single ‘Wear It Like a Crown’ amid her struggle with cancer.

      Mar 26, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Sarah Harding will raise money for the NHS with her new charity single, “Wear It Like a Crown”.

      The Girls Aloud star went public with her terminal breast cancer diagnosis last year (20), and documents her battle in her new book “Hear Me Out”. The publication topped the U.K. book charts shortly after its release, and Sarah is now hoping for similar success with her new tune – with proceeds going to the Christie NHS Foundation to help fund cancer research.

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      Writing on her Instagram page on Thursday (25Mar21), Sarah told fans, “Hi everyone – hope you are all keeping well. It’s been so lovely to hear that you guys have been enjoying Hear Me Out, both the book and the song! I can’t believe you nutters got the song not only into the charts, but to NUMBER ONE! I love you all so much, you are the best people in the world.”

      “So, while I was searching through my laptop for old photos to include in the book I actually came across a song I’d recorded about 10 years ago. I’ve always really loved it, and it made me feel a bit sad that no one ever got to hear it.”

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      “I mentioned this to my team and they said we could release it, and I thought ‘why the hell not?’ It’s called Wear It Like A Crown and it’s out on iTunes and streaming… FROM TODAY.”

      She continued, “I’ve literally no idea how this all works anymore, but on the off chance it generates any profit, I’ll give it all to the Christie NHS Foundation @christiecharity where I’m receiving my treatment. If you’ve read my book you’ll know just how amazing the Doctors, Nurses and all the staff at The Christie are. They are actual angels.”

      “I hope you all like Wear It Like a Crown, give it a listen through the link in my bio and let me know what you think. Lots of love, S x”

      “Wear It Like a Crown” is available to buy now.

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      Pharoah Sanders and Floating Points Meet in the Atmosphere

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      On “Promises,” their new collaborative album, Sanders’s tenor saxophone becomes one with the electronic composer’s web of humming synthesizers.When Pharoah Sanders first heard “Elaenia,” the stewy and transporting debut album by the British electronic musician and composer Sam Shepherd, who performs as Floating Points, he was rapt. It had been almost two decades since Sanders, the tenor saxophonist and American jazz eminence, had released a major new album, but he said he would like to try working with Shepherd.The natural affinity between the now 80-year-old Sanders and the 34-year-old Shepherd makes sense. Despite the generational differences, they’re united by an impulse toward constant expanse, and both see healing as central to the role of music. And each of them is interested in how duration works as a kind of artistic medium in itself.On “Crush,” his most recent solo album, Shepherd treated techno and house beats as a laboratory for experiments into the possibilities of disarray, while incorporating sophisticated orchestral arrangements. He recorded the album quickly at his home studio after a long tour, where he had honed his new creative direction in front of audiences while opening for the British band the xx. It meant that even as his composing delved more deeply into classical inspirations, he was in conversation with dance music.But “Promises,” his new collaboration with Sanders that will be released Friday, came about in a different way, over a week together in the studio in 2019, and rather than techno its deepest grounding is in a kind of minimalism. It’s basically one continuous 46-minute piece of music, written by Shepherd, though it is broken up into nine separate tracks, labeled “movements.” For the majority of the piece, a simple motif repeats — a twisty phrase of just a few notes, played on harpsichord and piano and synth, rising and disappearing at the rate of an enormous person’s sleeping breath — as a two-chord harmonic progression recurs around it.Shepherd adorned this with sometimes-spare, sometimes-soaring string arrangements, which the London Symphony Orchestra plays in conversation with his aerial synthesizer lines. Not until the latter half of the album does the orchestra fully come alive, with a rich and immersive passage on Track 6 — sometimes regal, sometimes bluesy — that almost eclipses the motif, but not quite.And then there is Sanders’s tenor saxophone, a glistening and peaceful sound, deployed mindfully throughout the album. He shows little of the throttling power that used to come bursting so naturally from his horn, but every note seems carefully selected — not only to state his own case, but to funnel the soundscape around him into a precise, single-note line.Like some of Shepherd’s synth phrases, Sanders’s saxophone sometimes announces itself faintly: You’ll just hear him breathing softly through the mouthpiece, or tapping it with his tongue, before he passes a full note through the instrument. When he plays his final notes of the album, at the end of Track 7, he does not so much disappear as become one with Shepherd’s web of humming synthesizers.Sanders is known for pioneering a manifestly spiritual approach to jazz, having taken the mantle from John Coltrane, his former boss, after Coltrane’s death in 1967. But before joining him Sanders had also worked in the mid-1960s with Sun Ra, the visionary bandleader, who converted Sanders’s given name, Ferrell, into Pharoah, and taught him by example how to reimagine the possibilities of a large ensemble. From his first release on Impulse! Records, “Tauhid” (1967), Sanders made suite-length pieces with medium-to-big ensembles that spanned multiple sections and hovered at various registers, as if traversing the layers of the atmosphere.Floating Points insists on something similar, in a different context. Listen to the synths and bubbling bass percussion of “Elaenia” (2015) or “Crush,” and then listen back to the commingled mallet percussion and reeds and wobbly bowed strings on an old Sanders track — say, the title piece of his 1972 album, “Wisdom Through Music”: It’s easy to toggle between them and stay in the same head space.“Promises” is basically one continuous 46-minute piece of music, written by Shepherd, with Sanders’s tenor saxophone deployed mindfully throughout.Eric Welles-NyströmLike Sanders, Shepherd had some of his earliest exposure to music in church, as a choirboy at Manchester Cathedral. He later earned a Ph.D. in the field of neuroepigenetics in 2014, studying the role of DNA in processing pain; his music, heady as it is, can often seem like a therapeutic bath. Where other virtuoso electronic composers these days, like Holly Herndon or Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never), might use their control over our senses to unsettle, Floating Points usually feels like he’s taking care.He plays with sound at just about every frequency audible to the human ear; headphone listening will sometimes reveal deep bass rumbles or vanishingly high synth lines not fully audible through computer speakers. In the way of a great orchestral composer, he will introduce a particular synthesizer voice very faintly in the greater swarm, bringing it in gradually.Shepherd has also put our relationship to the natural world at the heart of his music, echoing a theme in Sanders’s work. His 2017 film-and-music project, “Reflections: Mojave Desert,” included recordings of the sounds of the desert swirling amid the post-rock he made with a band.Sanders’s music has always sounded like both an environment and a pure emotion, and his long, harmonically constant pieces could almost disabuse you of the entire idea of a start and an end. Nowadays, losing track of time is nearly impossible. On “Promises,” the greatest gift Shepherd has given us is that rather than emulating any style or genre from Sanders’s past work, he has found the nonmusical information inside it. By listening, he has heard how to slow down.Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra“Promises”(Luaka Bop) More

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      Bonzie Longs for a Post-Pandemic ‘Reincarnation’

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      On her third album, the Chicago-based songwriter offers melody, mystery and prized imperfections.Nina Ferraro, the songwriter who records as Bonzie, had been working since 2018 on her third album, “Reincarnation.” It would be the continuation of a fully independent career that has consistently yielded richly melodic and mysterious songs. Then Covid-19 hit, and, like everyone else, she had to change her plans. She moved from Los Angeles to Chicago, where she had lived before; she learned how to be her own recording engineer; she immersed herself in studying Japanese. The centerpiece of her album-in-progress became a song she wrote during quarantine: “Alone,” an understated, haunted, not quite acoustic ballad that she released in 2020.As she continued writing and recording, the songs for the album — released on March 16 — converged into a narrative arc from separation to reconnection, pondering mortality and tenacity. “Either you want to die or you don’t want to die/Both are so lethal/Me, I’m stuck in the middle of the glorious combat,” she sings, gently and matter-of-factly, in “Lethal.” It’s a song she wrote before the pandemic.“That’s just the nature of this unstable rock that we’re on,” Bonzie said on a Skype video call from her home in Chicago. “We feel some of these things very strongly right now, but they have always been there. It’s impossible not to be affected by the world situation, but a lot of things are constant for me.”Bonzie, 25, was wearing a hoodie with a design by one of her favorite songwriters, Daniel Johnston. It showed the “Silver Sufferer” (a skull-faced parody of the Marvel superhero Silver Surfer) singing the opening line of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends.” An electric bass and an electric guitar leaned against the walls; her Yorkie, Kiraki (“Sunday” in Armenian), spent time in her lap.Behind her was a large picture frame holding a small yellow rectangle: a sketch on a Post-it note made by the prolific Chicago producer Steve Albini, one of Bonzie’s early supporters. It showed a bell curve of creativity — a burst of inspiration and work followed by quickly diminishing returns.Bonzie said she was inspired by the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi: “You preserve these natural imperfections that are actually beautiful details.”Alexa Viscius for The New York Times“I just thought it was funny,” she said. “There are two people in you at all times. One is this endless spirit soul, that’s just creative and will go forever. And then the other one is trying to gently guide that person, to remind you that you’re physical material. The curve represents time spent creatively, and then the X represents where you stop.”On the new album, Bonzie’s music merges the singer-songwriter staples of guitar, piano and finely turned melodies with synthesizers and programmed beats. For most of the album, Bonzie worked with a co-producer, DJ Camper, who has extensive credits in hip-hop and R&B. One song, the trap-tinged “Up to U,” was co-produced by Yeti Beats, better known for working with Doja Cat. The album’s title song, “Reincarnation,” envisions a post-pandemic renaissance: “We will change, I swear we’re gonna change,” its chorus insists.Bonzie was 12 when she began singing her own songs weekly at a coffeehouse in her hometown, Racine, Wis. She didn’t want to use her own name, and eventually chose Bonzie as an abstract word that also looked good graphically in capital letters. Using a stage name “just felt better to be able to say everything I wanted to say,” she said, “and not be worried when I was singing about all of these dark, deep secrets that I wouldn’t tell anybody.”She moved with her family to Chicago, where, as a high schooler, she performed at well-known clubs like Schubas Tavern and Beat Kitchen. She self-released a debut EP as Nina Ferraro when she was 15, followed by her full-length debut album as Bonzie, “Rift Into the Secret of Things” — a phrase from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” — in 2013. She had already begun to mingle folky coffeehouse basics with electronic experimentation, and she found fans among the city’s indie musicians.“I was impressed by her drive and her seriousness at a very early age,” Albini said by phone from his Chicago studio, Electrical Audio. “She was more serious about her decisions and about her aesthetic than a lot of people her age. It was clear that she had listened and thought very deeply about what she was doing. And the thing that made her stand out immediately was just a singular drive — not to get famous, not just to become known, but to express herself in a way that meant something to her.”Bonzie’s music grew more elaborate on her second album, “Zone on Nine,” released in 2017. It roved from straightforward acoustic strumming to the delicate sonic apparitions and intricate backup vocals of freak-folk to the crunch of hard-rock guitars; her lyrics could be startlingly direct or poetic and elusive. Now, with “Reincarnation,” she has stripped back her music. “I wanted it to be more personal,” she said.Her interest in Japanese culture — which began with high-school exposure to Pokémon and anime — led her to the aesthetic of wabi-sabi, the idea that “artifacts that come from your medium, that you didn’t intend, are what you highlight and you keep,” she said. “You preserve these natural imperfections that are actually beautiful details. It’s accepting the nature of your imperfect humanness. When producing this record, I thought about that a lot. Like, that’s not perfect with my voice, and that’s not like the most shiny, brilliant, beautiful take, but loving that imperfection that we all have.”She was also seeking what she had heard in gospel music. “Some of the best voices in the world are gospel singers,” she said. “And I like the way that it feels like there’s nothing that’s unneeded in gospel production.”Once the pandemic is over, “I think it’s inevitably going to birth a new type of life,” Bonzie said. “I think that there could be a lot of positive things that come on the other side.”Alexa Viscius for The New York TimesShe came across the productions of DJ Camper — who has worked with Brandy, Drake, Jay-Z, Tamar Braxton and H.E.R. — while living in Los Angeles. By coincidence, she found his Twitter account on his birthday, which was also her older brother’s birthday. She contacted him. “We kind of felt like we’d known each other for a really long time,” she said. “He’s a musician’s musician. We related on that level where we would be producing and we didn’t even talk at all. We would find something and we’d just, like, look at each other for a second. And then that would mean like, yeah.”“Reincarnation” begins with “Caves,” which has psychedelia-tinged electric guitars and lyrics that could be about obsessive love or addiction. “I’ve been waiting my whole life/To feel this good for just one night,” Bonzie sings.She said, “You have to start off in a place of letting go of stuff, and then you can explore other things.”In “Slated,” she sings about a lonely oblivion, intoning, “I hope that you will find me,” as electronic tones ripple around her; in “Eternity,” she fingerpicks quietly and repeats, “I wish that you could stay, but these things fade,” as harp, orchestral strings and electronics materialize and vanish around her lustrous voice. But she ends the album with a hymnlike affirmation: “Come to Me.” Floating on synthesizers and organ chords, she sings, “Hold you up/No fear/We are free.”She said, “I feel like so much has changed so fast, and we’re still adapting to the pandemic. We’re still in a shock period. Once we get out of it, I think it’s inevitably going to birth a new type of life. I think that there could be a lot of positive things that come on the other side of this era of humanity.”Like Bonzie’s other songs, “Come to Me” isn’t simply topical, conceptual or autobiographical. “A lot of things go into the pot,” she said. “And then there’s some alchemy, and then the song comes out.” More

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      Take That's Howard Donald Calls His Boyband's Music 'Sh*t'

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      WENN

      Howard Donald describes his boyband as ‘business’ as the singer claims he and bandmates spent at least $13.7 million to produce impressive live shows for their fans.

      Mar 26, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Howard Donald has jokingly branded Take That’s music “s**t.”

      The 52-year-old boy band star has confessed that his band’s songs – which include mega-hits “Back for Good”, “Relight My Fire”, and “Patience” – are not necessarily his favourite tunes as he revealed he is a lover of electronic music.

      He told the “Events That Made Me” podcast when asked which Take That songs are his favourites, “I don’t like any of them, they’re all s**t.”

      On what he is listening to, he added, “At the moment I’ve got 15 boxes of vinyl, all dance music from the late 80s and 90s, I’m sifting through – Beck, Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk, Human League, Gary Numan.”

      “I generally listen to a lot of electronic music – I listen to a lot of dance music.”

      The musician hailed Take That “a business” and said they invest millions into making their live shows impressive for their fans.

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      He said, “We’ve always said we want people to walk out of those arenas and say: ‘Wow. It was an amazing show. I got my $109 (£80) worth.’ ”

      “Production wise, you could spend anywhere between $13.7 million (£10million) – $20.5 million (£15million) producing a show like that.”

      “Then obviously you’ve got to do enough shows to get your money back, otherwise you would be doing it for free. And we are a business at the end of the day.”

      And Howard – who is joined in the group by Gary Barlow, 50, and Mark Owen, 49, in the current lineup – insisted you don’t have to be into the “Rule the World” hitmakers’ music to enjoy their performances.

      He added, “We never used to see guys at our show, and bit by bit the girlfriends would be bringing the guys, and the guys would have their arms in the air.”

      “They’ve come along because they know Take That’s going to deliver a performance – whether you like the music or not.”

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      Rihanna Hints at New Single as She Thanks Fans for Supporting 'Anti' Era

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      Instagram

      The Fenty Beauty founder teases about releasing a long-awaited new single ‘soon’ as she marks Women’s History Month by expressing her gratitude to her loyal fans.

      Mar 26, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Rihanna has hinted she’s gearing up to release a new single “soon.”

      The “Umbrella” hitmaker shared a video put together honouring her career for Women’s History Month on her Instagram which focused on her “Anti” era.

      She wrote in the caption, “Grateful to the most High for putting die hard supports in my circle… Congrats to everyone that contributed to this era (Anti), thank you team.”

      And one follower commented, “Celebrate by releasing a song,” to which she replied, “I think I should” with the soon arrow emoji.

      The “Diamonds” hitmaker then added, “Just 1 tho lol.”

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      Another fan suggested she should celebrate by releasing her long-awaited ninth studio album but she quipped back, “Lemme have my moment nuuuhhh??? Lol.”

      The “Work” hitmaker hasn’t released an LP since “Anti” in 2016 but she insisted she is “always” working on her music and, despite fans’ pleas for her to share her latest material, she wants to wait until she’s completely satisfied.

      “I’m always working on new music. Just because I haven’t released an album in a few years doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on it,” she said. “I’m not just going to put music out because people are craving it. I’m going to make it worth the wait – and it will be worth the wait.”

      The 33-year-old singer has also found success as an actress and with her cosmetics range Fenty Beauty and lingerie line Savage X Fenty but she insisted that whatever she’s working on has to be something she truly believes in.

      “For me, it’s about achieving excellence. That’s why I will never put an album out for the sake of it or do a movie for the sake of it or a fashion collaboration for the sake of it. I have to believe in it,” she added.

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      Trina Approves Idea of Going Against Lil' Kim on 'Verzuz'

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      Instagram

      The ‘Love and Hip Hop: Miami’ star also shares that should the two face each other in the battle, it will not be tense as she says, ‘I won’t even feel like a competition because it’s a family thing.’

      Mar 25, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Trina is more than ready to face Lil’ Kim on “Verzuz”. During her appearance on 103.5 “The Beat”, the Miami star revealed that she’d be down to go hit-to-hit in a popular song battle show against her former rival.

      In the interview, Trina discussed a female emcee that she thought would be the best to go against her on the show. When the host name-dropped the Queen Bee, the “Love & Hip Hop: Miami” star was quick to express agreement.

      “Kim is that b***h. Let’s be very clear,” so she said of the Brooklyn star. “When I came into the industry, this is who I looked at, looked up to. This is the lyrics that I recited, this is what made me know that it’s okay to talk that lethal s**t.”

      Further gushing over the “Lady Marmalade” spitter, Trina continued, “Therefore, I would feel like that’s equivalent because Kim is legendary, and she got mad records.”

        See also…

      Trina also added that should the two face each other in the battle, it won’t be tense. “I won’t even feel like a competition because it’s a family thing,” she explained. “I’m probably gonna be so much more engaged in her records than anything cuz it’ll go back to when I first heard her, so I’ll be in my vibe, like fanned out…That’s just what I would say. That’s just my little opinion, but nobody reached out.”

      Trina and Kim have been friends for a long time, but they infamously used to beef for an unknown reason. The pair reconciled after the deaths of Trina’s mother and Kim’s father. “On this very day I found out my Daddy passed away. I was so distraught and had to put on a brave face, and keep working because I had a show that same night,” Kim posted a picture of her together with Trina back in 2019.

      “When @trinarockstarr came into my dressing room we instantly bonded. She comforted me, and it was exactly what I needed in that moment. It’s as if her Mom and my Dad brought us together and healed our friendship. We both have angels watching over us,” she went on saying.

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      Johnny Depp’s Request to Appeal Libel Case Shut Down by High Court

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