Comfortable in her own skin. Her flaws are purposely revealed on camera for the world to see, and her presentation includes no obvious filters.
I instantly noticed natural black hair with no real formation; pretty dark skin with an occasional trace of acne here and there, no body briefer or any direct restraint to make this black woman appear to be smaller and “in tact.” Instead you get a raw, authentic Nigerian-American woman who looks like someone you may know personally. The self-image that she displays is awe-inspiring, and conveys a message that she has all creative control.
In early May news broke of Dr. Dre's promise to become the first billionaire of hip-hop. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and every media site was all a buzz about the history that was to be made through the likely sale of the headphone and speaker company, Beats Electronics. Owned by American record producer, rapper and entrepreneur Andre Young better known by his stage name Dr. Dre andrecord & film producer, best known for co-founding Interscope Records, James “Jimmy” Iovine, the sale of Beats Electronics to Apple Inc. for a whopping $3.2 billion is definitely worth talking about.
Briggs’ passion for music and performing started at a very young age. While her family still lived in Japan, Briggs explained in an interview with Entertainment Weekly the very moment she recalls falling in love with the art. “I think it’s a rite of passage that the minute you land in Japan, you have to go to a karaoke bar. So that’s what my family did. I moved there when I was 4.” She continued, “My dad went up and sang Frank Sinatra, and I just saw this joy and this light in his eyes, and I just wanted a piece of it.”
Briggs got the piece that she wanted, and then some. She also took to karaoke while in Japan, giving her the opportunity to sing in public and showcase her talents. She was later discovered while performing at a bar in LA. This led to her working with the production team of Mark Jackson and Ian Scott. The irony of being discovered performing at a bar, in similar fashion to stumbling upon her love for performing at the karaoke bar with her dad at 4-years-old. They worked with her on her debut single, “Wild Horses,” and her first single off the album “River.” “Wild Horses” took on a life of its own shortly after being released. The song was picked up by Acura and used in one of the car company’s commercials. The song caught the attention of many of her future fans, who discovered her by using the Shazam app in order to find out who performed the song. She's since had the pleasure of performing at Coachella in 2017, before her debut album had even dropped. Her debut album “Church of Scars,” came out in April 2018, introducing the world to her sound. Which is often described as “dark,” but that doesn’t seem to bother her one bit. In the hit single, "River," she described a scenario of falling out of love "faster than a hairpin trigger." Some of her songs are about love. Her single, “Baby” is one that has a different element. “I'm very drawn to darkness, so the thought of releasing a song that wasn't so heavy didn't seem in character," the singer-songwriter said in an interview with Billboard. "But I felt like it was too honest to not release it."
British alternative rockers Elbowbegan their band like many do – as a group of college students, looking to play a few gigs at a local bar. And as is the plight with many college bands, their group generally maintained slight visibility and stayed largely below the radar. What decisively set them apart, however, was not only their unusual sound, a form of British pop focused on both the alternative and avant-garde, but their persistence, as well.