She Ain't No Diva
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Hey, listeners, we have a very, very big announcement before we jump into this week's episode. As you've heard, as we've told you, Zach and Saeed and I will be live in Los Angeles at the Ford Theater on Sunday, July 14th. And this is a reminder to get those tickets. Come

come join us. Yeah, go get them before they get gat, as they say. And we can now announce, finally, after many weeks of bated breath, that our guest for the show is the incredible Lacey Mosley, who will be joining us on stage at The Ford Live and in color.

Yeah.

Y'all, I love Lacey so much. I've gone on her show before and it was probably the most fun I've had on a microphone in years to get to bring her and her energy to all of our listeners live in the flesh. It's going to be great. Come join us. Tickets are on sale now. You can find the links in our show notes. We will see you soon. I R L.

Hello, my summer lady. Summer lady. Lady of the summer. Surviving the heat wave, I'm Sam Sanders. And I'm also surviving this heat wave across this great nation, and I'm Zach Stafford, and you're listening to Vibe Check. Vibe Check.

It's hot out here, as Nelly would say. Yeah, and what's wild, as we were talking, I realized that heat is a metaphor for today's episode. And also dualities, because as people can tell, it's just you and I. Saeed, our dear sister, who people will hear from in a second, is out writing and researching and working on...

his incredible art. But Sam and I are here to hold down the fort. And today's episode is kind of perfect for what we're discussing. I love this. Because it's about heated dualities and fighting. Yeah. So if you haven't guessed yet, this week we're talking about the pop girlies finally uniting. And how a few decades ago, the music industry looked a bit different

different think about brandy versus monica who we will be talking about because they have a new song which is still blowing my mind that they came together finally and then britney spears christina but you know pop music has been defined when you talk about women as feuds forever and those feuds seem to be simmering down maybe question mark dare i say the girls aren't fighting

They're not fighting. So Sam, you and I can't fight today, sadly. We have to just agree and share our feelings. There we go. As a Pisces, I love. But before we get into all the feelings and the pop girlies and what it all means, let's check in with each other. Sam, it's been a minute.

Wow, I did not even mean to do that. It's okay! Listen. Leave it in, Chantel. Oh, God, yes, leave that in, Chantel. But how are you doing? How you been? How was your holiday? Yeah, you know, it was nice having the time off.

But honestly, the biggest part of my world right now is trying to get this young dog together. Listeners know that in January, I added a second dog to my pack. Wesley Morris, aka Wesley Snipes, joined my older pit bull, Zora Neale Hurston.

And I gotta admit, I've had a tough time figuring out how to train Wesley. When I got Zora over a decade ago, she was pretty easy. I did five Saturday classes with a lovely black lesbian in Washington, D.C., and we got that dog together pretty quickly, just like with treats. And most dogs, you train them with treats because they like food. Here's the thing with Wesley that has been blowing my mind and made things really hard, but also led to an epiphany.

Wesley is not treat motivated. Wow. He doesn't really like treats. That's pretty radical for dogs. I feel like dogs are very treat motivated. Yeah. I think there's some trauma in his history around food and having to compete with other dogs for it. But in the way that most of us can easily train a puppy with treats, it has not worked for Wesley. So for weeks, we were just...

Not getting along on walks, not getting along in the house. I was shouting and you should never shout at a dog, especially one as cute as Wesley. And I was like, how do I get this together? Some friends recommended a dog trainer who came to the house. And after like 10 minutes with this dog, he said, oh, yeah, your dog is not treat responsive, which is fine.

But the way you'll have to train Wesley is entirely different than the way you train Zora. And the first way to begin this is to only feed him from your hand until he associates your hand with food and then with commands.

Wow. Right? So just that has been a game changer, but it really had me thinking, you know, we so often in life and interactions with dogs or people or whatever, we kind of say, well, this was a way it's going to be. This is how I want to be treated. This is how I've treated folks before. We should do it this way. And we let precedent set the terms of new interactions. And a lot of times that ends up with us

treating people the way that we want to be treated. But I feel like the lesson of Wesley is treat people how they want to be treated. Yeah.

What if it's worth figuring out what that other person or dog or entity needs and saying, "How can I give that to you?" It's wild that that is radical. That what you're offering us is that for people to be treated well, we must ask them how they want to be treated. -How they want to be treated! -That seems so simple. -But it's like... -But we don't do it. We don't because we do assume. We're like, "Well, I would do this. I would expect this." And you're like, "Well, I is not them. We are not the same." We are not the same. And it's like,

I cannot believe that a tiny, weird, crazy dog taught me this lesson, but he sure did. At like six months old. Come on. Yes. So we're not the same. And we're allowed to figure out what people need and respond to that. We're told from birth, treat people how you want to be treated. I'm kind of trying to throw that out right now and just say, I want to treat people how they need to be treated.

And I want to find out. Anywho, that's my vibe. That's my vibe. Thank you, Wesley. Thank you, Wesley. Thank you, Wesley. From me too. You're changing me. I'm now recalibrating some things going on in my life right now. What do they need? Not what I need right now. Yes. Wesley the wise sage. Zach, what's your vibe?

My vibe is tired. You know, Sam, we are no longer 20 years old. I've come to realize very much lately. So as you know, I have spent a lot of the past year not drinking that much. You know, I don't identify as sober. I identify as a person that just like has been trying to choose other beverages instead of drinking alcohol. A little less. A little less. And it's been wonderful. But what's not wonderful are the moments in which I do drink and how devastating the fallout

can be because my body is like, girl, not only are you not 20, but you also haven't had a drink in two months. Your tolerance is low. Tolerance is gone, out the window. So this past week, I was in Mexico on a yearly trip I do with a group of friends that I've known since I was

in my teens for some of them, went to college together. And your sister Monet, she was there too. I loved it. She was there, the darling Monet. And it's our yearly trip and we call it Black Camp. All of us identify as black and we're all different gender identities and ages and we all just go together somewhere in the world. And this year we were in Oaxaca and I showed up, you know, being like, I'm not going to have a drink or maybe I'll have a drink. And you've been to Mexico. There's not just a drink in Mexico. Also, I've been around Burberry Perry. Yeah, Burberry Perry. Yeah.

My dear friend, Berbera Perry. Who we love. For people to understand, we love, but she's the creator of Brown Skin Brides, which we spoke about a few weeks ago. So, you know, all these girls are working hard all the time, but this is our time to unplug and be in a safe space where we can just be ourselves. And my goodness, I haven't had a drink in a few days, but I can still feel the tequila from Oaxaca. And I just don't know how I used to do it. Like, we were going to bed, all of us, by 10. And I was like, if I was

I was 22 and I was at a house on a beach, like with all my best friends. I would be up to four in the morning. We then at this place would be like, even my sister was like, it's nine. We should go to bed now. We should go to bed. No, listen, I get it. It's a lot. So anyway, so it's just been, I'm feeling full from that experience being with people I love, but something I want to bring up that you and I experienced together and it's been on my mind ever since is

was that we were at the Amundsen in downtown Los Angeles a few weeks ago. And we were doing the talkback for Strangely. And when we got off stage from the talkback, two Black women approached us. And one of these women identified as being homophobic to us and that she's struggling with accepting her perceived queer child. And she came to us and asked us a lot of questions that we don't have time to get into. But Sam, I have been reflecting so much on that conversation because I have felt a sense of like,

relief or excitement that she was willing to come up and talk to us, even though she held all these beliefs for being a deeply religious woman, you know, battling her own homophobia and having to confront it with her son. And it was a moment where you and I could have been like, eh, not engaging. You began with saying you're homophobic. But so we sat with her and her friend for a while and talked it out.

And I loved it. And I loved that, like, there was one moment where she's talking to us about her Black son who she thinks is gay. And I was like, huh. So it feels like both of you feel like it's really difficult to talk about your Black child being gay as a Black mother. And then I think either you or me were like...

What's really crazy is that you're now talking to two gay black men about your gay black son. So if you can talk to us about it, I wonder if you can talk to him about it. You fully have the capacity. Yeah. And I told her, I said, you know, a lot of times we say, wait until that person wants to bring up the conversation. But I'm like, girl, if you're talking to me about it,

Tell your child. Yeah. Tell them. Tell your child. And it just, it ties back to what you say. Whenever we do the advice letters, you always at one moment bring up the idea that someone should read this to the person they're talking about. There you go. And we, because people do come up to us all the time wanting to express,

intimate secrets or feelings they're having and they're always about someone else. And we're like, girl, we're just a bridge. Go to that person. There you go. Walk over us and walk to them. Yeah. And it's also like similar to what you said about Wesley. You know, she was very open to where she stands in the issues that she's

right now. And that's all I can ask of someone. Like, where are you beginning so I know where to start? And we can just have this conversation if it feels it has good intention and that they're coming to you with respect. And she came to us with great respect and grace. And she was very humble about it.

- I loved it. Yeah, but listen, if you are talking to strangers about your gay child, talk to your child about your gay child. - Girl, we don't know. - Love your baby. - The community is small, but it's not that small. - It's a cover up, cover up. - And why I bring it up is that it does tie to today's theme of the show, which is, what would it be like to be radically transparent with those you love around you and tell them how you feel and how you want to be loved? - Yes, yes. - So that's what we're going to do today.

We're going to do it. We're going to do it. But first, before that, we're going to also hear from Saeed, who sent us a lovely voice note from Mexico.

Hey, ladies. Good morning from Mexico City. Overall, it's been just like an incredible couple of weeks here in Mexico. I've used this time to rest and relax. I love Mexico City so much. Over the years, Mexico City has proven to be just a pretty restorative place for me and really great for my writing. It just has like a great

cafe culture, which I find is just so helpful as a writer because it means there are just like so many vibrant, shared public spaces, parks, and gorgeous cafes where I can sit for hours and

And, you know, I can just read, read, read all afternoon or in the mornings as I prefer, get a lot of writing done. And something I've learned about traveling abroad is that when you travel alone and you find yourself in a city where you don't have a strong command of the language, but you're like surrounded by people and there's so much life there.

All of your energy has to kind of go inward because I'm not able to make jokes. I can't be like chitty chatting with people. Most of my interactions are like me ordering food, asking where the restaurant is and, you know, asking for help with directions generally. So, you know,

my sarcasm, my analysis, all of the things that I love to talk about with people, I just have to allow to exist in my interiority. And I find that is like a really fertile state for writing because, you know, energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So it goes in and I just get so much writing done. Most of my books, except for Alive at the End of the World, at least half of them have been written

like this outside of the country. So it'll be a while, but I'm really excited to publish this work and share what I've been thinking about. In any case, take care. I love you all and talk to you again soon. All right. All right. It's so good to hear from Saeed. And I'm just like tingling with excitement for what he brings back.

Yeah, me too. And I even, I was in Mexico City for literally hours my way back and I wasn't able to meet up with him. So it's nice to hear his voice because I was like texting him as I was taking off from Mexico City. And I was like, I'm so sorry, the chaos of the world kept us apart. But I'm glad that voice is bringing us back together. But I will say...

I believe Cy Jones is totally working, totally there to like work on his art and think about his stories. But it does not surprise me that our friend has fled the country days before our first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Biden. Something that he doesn't want to engage with. So it's this Thursday and Cy Jones will be in Mexico where he won't even be watching it. And we respect that. I will be tuned in. Sam, I think you will be as well. Wait, I might have to come find you and watch it with you because I can't watch it alone. I can't watch it alone.

No, we're going to figure this out. I'm shaking about this. So yeah, let's go. We'll do that together. Okay. All right. Before we jump into the pop girly of it all, I want to thank you as always for those who sent us fan mail and a special shout out to those of you who have subscribed to our Patreon. I posted last week...

secret super special audio of our audience Q&A from our Boston episode. You can only hear it on the Patreon. And after we tape this, I'm going to post this top secret audio of our Tribeca Q&A where the three of us talk about relationship deal breakers, among other things. It's only on the patroness, the pepperoni, the canini. Find us there if you want to get even more of all of our thoughts and words and things.

patreon.com slash vibecheck. With that, let's jump in, shall we? Let's do it. Let's do it.

First up, pop girlies unite. Or maybe not. We're going to see. At least it feels like that for now. It feels like that. I'll take it for now. Today feels that way. I feel hopeful. Tomorrow, we'll see. We'll see. So, as you all know, we were not on last week, but our conversation with Lena Waithe played, but we were all on vacation enjoying, you know, our lives and celebrating Juneteenth. And a lot happened during that week. So, to begin, something big that happened on Juneteenth itself here in Los Angeles was

was Kendrick Lamar continued his dominance on Drake by performing a live show in Inglewood that was live streamed on Amazon Prime. And it was wild. He called it the unity rally. And on the one hand, I get it because he had Crips and Bloods up there seawalking. But on the other hand, they spent the whole time dissing Drake. I think he did not like us five times.

Five times. Five times. Amazing. In a stadium. And the people were living for it. So it was, you know, we will look back on that moment as a historic way in which people are celebrating Juneteenth. But poor Drake, our Canadian brother from the North. The beef is now well done. The beef is well done. It's super well done. But we bring them up because the men are playing a certain game in music right now that the women are deciding to push against.

And the women in particular we're talking about are not Taylor Swift, but it is people like Ariana Grande who somehow brought back Brandy and Monica together, who did the song "The Boy's Mine" in the '90s. And Sam will give us a deep history into that. But these two women, while that song is continuously seen as one of the biggest songs of all time, they will not perform it together. But not only have they performed it together, they did it with Ariana Grande remixing and changing that song a bit, which is pretty iconic. And we'll talk to you about why that is.

And then in the same day, this past Friday, Charli XCX, an artist I've never really given much time to. I've always liked her, but she's never been the girl. I've never gone to her concerts. I've never disliked her. She wasn't my person. She now is my person. This album, Rap, which Sam and I both love, is incredible. It's such the moment. And what's really incredible about it is Charli XCX finally, through the song Girl So Confusing, overcame.

opens up about having a weird feud that's mostly in her head with another really famous person who the internet speculated was Lorde. And after all that speculation, you know what Lorde did? She jumped on the remix. And talked about it! And they talked about it in public, which is just... It was amazing! So let's begin there, Sam. What were your reactions to these two big moments in music? How are you processing them? What do you think of them?

So what I find so interesting and beautiful in the way in which Monica and Brandy have buried their feud with this new remix and the way that Lorde and Charlie have buried their feud on their remix, it's not just a simple one-on-one girls unite. Both of them are having nuanced conversations about the complex emotions at play in female friendships and feuds. I like that. You

You know, so much of pop feels like a binary. The girls are either enemies or they're besties. And especially with Lorde and Charlie, they're saying, oh, it's so much more complicated. And we're adult enough to talk about the complications and still come together with love. So I always love when pop...

is more complex than you think it can be. And in these two moments with Brandy and Monica and Charlie and Lorde, they're showing us the complexity and beauty

of female friendship and I am into it. I'm totally into it. Yeah, I feel the exact same way. And it feels so new in a moment where things do feel like replicas. Like I saw TikTok the other day where they were playing Dua Lipa songs and then playing the songs from the 80s that are very similar. And it sounded just like that. Yeah, and that's just pop music. A lot of it gets recycled over and over. But what Charli XCX and Ariana are offering us

is a new way of thinking about what pop music can be for these artists in their own artistic processes. And I just think about like Ariana Grande and Mariah Carey forever were rumored to be feuding because people always do that about Mariah, which we'll get into in a bit. When they finally collaborated, they didn't discuss all the rumors of them not liking each other. They just sang the song. They just sang the song. And that's how it's always operated. It's like when they finally like bury the hatchet, they just do the song and move past it. But what

These women are giving us is contradictions, which I love. And that's where, you know, when I was in college, I remember I attended a lecture that Angela Davis gave, the very storied activist and feminist icon and Black Panther party member. Afterwards, I got to talk to her and she said something to me that stayed with me since I was 19. She said, live in the contradiction.

And these songs do live in contradiction. And it's a really beautiful thing because as both of them, as we get into the lyrics are saying, I love you, but I think you want to be me. I don't like you, but I love you. Like it's, we all hold all of those emotions at once. And pop music is always flattening those. Typically they usually flatten it. And what we're seeing right now is a pop music that's really messy and expansive, which we love. I love that. So yeah.

to give people background, because some people, you know, may not be elder millennials, may not know the history. Sam, definitely

Take us back to the 90s. What happened between Brandy and Monica that was so bad that it took 30 years for them to figure it out? Literally. Yeah. So as Zach alluded to, this Ariana song, The Boy Is Mine, with the remix featuring Brandy and Monica, that title, The Boy Is Mine, was the biggest hit of Brandy and Monica's careers. They were 17 and 18 when they recorded this song all about two women fighting over a man,

And it's hard to overstate how massive the song was. Number one for many weeks. I remember one of the dresses one of them wore in the music video sold out within hours of the video being released. Like it was a moment.

But here's the thing, after this video and song about two women fighting over a man came out, the media began to just write a narrative that pitted Monica and Brandi against each other and then led to them feuding in real life. Very early on, Brandi was portrayed as a squeaky clean good girl and Monica was the sassier, more street smart real one.

And those dynamics and the way the press wrote about them led them to actually feud in real life. And this feud reached a fever pitch when, according to people in the industry who have gone on the record to say this, Monica punched Brandi backstage at the 98 MTV VMAs before they went on stage to perform this song together.

Wild. Wild behavior. Wild. Wild. That, to me, is the 90s. That's the 90s. That is one example of how just pure chaos the 90s was. Yes. Yeah. And so everyone knows that they're fighting for years. They never talk to each other. They never perform the song together again. And even in moments when the internet and pop tried to bring them back together, it was weird. During pandemic, they did one of those verses where the singers sing to each other. They were catty during that. Yeah.

You know, they had a song years ago where they allegedly came back together. They were catty during that. But with this, it's been different. When Ariana called them and said, "I want y'all on this remix of my song called 'The Boy Is Mine,'" Monica spoke at length about how this time was different. She said, quote to Complex, "We've talked more in the last four weeks than we have in the last two decades. It's pretty amazing.

And she also said, it gave us the opportunity to talk as women because I think what people don't recognize is that The Boy Is Mine was recorded between two children, two teenagers, and the things were kind of created. They didn't even start with us, but it became a part of our relationship, which in most cases was very, very negative. So she's talking about how a lot of forces at play are creating these feuds with these women, right?

without them even wanting it, but they're saying, you know what? We can still overcome it. So this was not just a let's get together for the remix. They talked, like you said, Zach, about this complexity. So that's the boy's mind of it all. It's a beautiful thing. And also last little fun fact about this boy's mind song.

Brandy and Monica's original Boy Is Mine was about fighting over a man. Ariana's The Boy Is Mine is about seeing a new man and wanting him. So even that is less toxic, which I like. Which we love. Evolution, I guess. Evolution of the story. Yes.

Well, what's amazing about the story you just shared with us, there are some similar parallels between Charli XCX and Lorde. So folks may not be as familiar with Charli XCX unless you are a club girl. And that's how I got to know her, like partying in LA. She used to live here and she used to throw these big parties and she's very around, but she is like kind of underground, but hyper pop music. So think of Kim Petras, think Troye Sivan, that type of pop music.

And years ago, when her friend Lorde in 2013 broke out with her single Royals, which everyone knows that song. You know, that album heroine. And that video was great. The video was amazing. The album is considered by Rolling Stone one of the best things ever made of all time. But Royals came out and Charlie and Lorde were friends.

And it goes super viral. And it becomes this huge iconic song. Lorde becomes a household name. She sells out arenas and her career just blossoms. Charli XCX, who always saw herself as a contemporary of Lorde, doesn't see the same extent. She stays in the margins. She stays on the side. In the clubs. She's in London, in East London doing shows. And she's just not doing arenas yet.

But the salt in the wound for her and where the beginning of this kind of psychological warfare begins is that in interviews, and these have all been documented, people will confuse Charli with Lorde. So she's being asked about Lorde's music, like what was it like to write Royals? And she's continuously being erased and erased. So it creates a narrative that she's exploring in her new album, "Brat."

about what's it like to be in community with women that you're really jealous of, but you have love for, but you don't want to see succeed because you feel like if they succeed, you won't succeed. And all of that, which many of us can relate to those complex feelings. Yeah. I want to just read the lyrics for our listeners. Yeah. Because they make it so plain. Can I read the Charlie verse? And then perhaps you read the Lord verse. It's so beautiful. So the Charlie verse starts out,

Yeah, I don't know if you like me. Sometimes I think you might hate me. Sometimes I think I may hate you. Maybe you just wanna be me. You always say let's go out, so we go eat at a restaurant. Sometimes it feels a bit awkward 'cause we don't have much in common. People say we're alike. They say we've got the same hair. We talk about making music, but I don't know if it's honest.

Can't tell if you want to see me falling over and failing. And you can't tell what you're feeling. I think I know how you feel.

This is deep, Zach. Oh, it's deep and it goes deeper. So Charlie releases those lyrics. They go viral. Everyone assumes it's Lorde. And then she sends Lorde a voice note, letting her know what she's done. And Lorde decides to jump on the song and work this out. And I'll read a snippet of Lorde responding to what Charlie wrote. So for people to understand, Charlie wrote this by herself with her team, put it out, and then Lorde within days writes this response and records it. And she says...

And she goes on to say,

that what she was going on internally kept her far away from Charlie and then same on Charlie's side. So you have these two women who are believing the projections of these pop stars as truth and not having a conversation, as you said at the beginning, like, hey girl, this is what's going on in my head. What do you need to be in this friendship? What do I need? They weren't doing that. And because of that, I mean, 10 years. That's 2013. That's a while. They have this internal feud and they're now working it out. And so, you know, Sam, before we run out of time, I'd be remiss without pointing out that these women

pop stars are coming together and talking about how they actually feel about each other in a year in which

people aren't really talking with each other. They're just talking at each other. And I'm looking at Thursday's debate with the presidential candidate and the current president. So what is this moment in pop culture telling us about larger culture? Are we moving to a moment where people are going to start having honest dialogue about wrongs they have faced? Or is this just specific to the pop girlies? It feels very pop specific, but I will say it represents what I think we try to always get to on this show, how to communicate openly and with love.

And what I like about what Charlie and Lorde are doing is that they're not just saying, here's what you did. Here's what I did. They're saying, here's how I felt when all of these things were happening.

Conversations where you can talk about how you feel are so much better and richer than ones where you just talk about who did what and you litigate. And so I would love to see our politics, our society, our culture have conversations that nuance. I doubt it.

If anything, I think the unity of this current pop music is a refuge from the nastiness of our politics. But yeah, I don't expect the Charlie and Lorde energy to rub off on Donald Trump and Joe Biden. They're not going to be up there on that stage being like, girl, here's how I feel. Could you imagine? Oh, God. How radical that would be. The healing circle. Joe Biden's like, when you said they inject me with drugs to get on stage, I felt. I felt. Could you imagine?

That is actually camp. They should do that in SNL. I'm calling Boateng. I need that. I need that. That's amazing. Well, you know, the elephant in the room to close on with all of this conversation of camaraderie and feminist community and respect of each other is Taylor Swift. So, you know, Taylor Swift, as we've talked a lot in the show different ways, is a star. She is kind of singular. I would argue she is her own music industry. I think she even takes up, I think, 3% of all streams globally for all music genres. I believe that. I believe that. So she is a titan of music industry.

But with the rise of Charli XCX and even Billie Eilish this year, and I don't want to say rise, but the release of their albums that have been doing quite well, Taylor has continued her dominance on the charts. And many fans online are arguing that Taylor is not being a girl's girl by supporting the release of these new works, but instead blocking them from going number one. So she continues to be number one. By blocking, she'll like release another version of the newest album. And then that sales jump,

was purposefully done to keep the,

Charlie from a number one album or to keep Billy from a number one album. We don't know whether that's true or not, but a lot of folks on TikTok say, but I will say when I think of the ways that Taylor Swift has talked about friendship and female friendship, it does feel much more one note. You know, a lot of her lyrics are about breakups and getting over them and holding grudges. But when she was performing female friendship, it was the squad. And if you remember the squad, it felt very one note.

me and all my cool model friends and Lena Dunham, and look at us. And, you know, you like it or love it or hate it or whatever, it didn't have the depth that I'm seeing with what Charlie and Lorde are doing right now. I will say that.

Yeah. And why I wanted to close there is that I do think even in the face of Taylor Swift's kind of puritanical pop music and her way in which she is the historian of her life, like she's the first to write the version that she wants us to understand. And it's from her POV. She doesn't take a lot of, you know, perspectives from others. Like she's not writing from her boyfriends that have wronged her perspectives and trying to contextualize it.

What Charlie is doing, what Billy is even doing, all these people are doing are saying, I feel this way. Sometimes my feelings are bigger than fact. And I think that's radical. But what I also think this is all pointing to, and Sam, you talk about this a lot, is that streaming has really rocked the publishing, the music publishing industry. And it's really hard to be a singular star now.

And now they're having to band together and really work with each other if they want to survive. And that's what this moment feels like. Yeah. The margins are so low now, and it's so hard to make it in this era of everything on demand and endless content. If you don't unite with some of the other pop girlies, it's going to be harder to get noticed. And what Charlie and Lorde get out of both of this is...

is more attention. It's helpful to both of them. You know, 20 years ago, it felt like the women in pop would feud to get more attention. And now the vibe is come together to get more attention. And I like that better. I like it better. I like it better in that our friends, before we go to break, is a wink away

at where we're going with this conversation. Because if you notice, we didn't say what the second half of the show is. And the second half of the show is gonna get a little, I think, fun and very feminist and scholarly. Because what we wanna talk about is, has the diva,

as an icon in culture, the woman that's by herself, that is so extraordinary that no one can understand her and that she gets what she wants at all times without ever apologizing, is that now dead? And is the future of being a woman in culture all about camaraderie? We shall see. Come back after the break. Yeah, come back after the break to see how we walk through this. So don't go anywhere. Listeners, we'll be right back.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands. I

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All right, we are back and we're going to call this segment, and this is a title given to us by Zach. It's so beautiful. Death of the Diva. Is that the current moment? Are we in a moment of diva death? We're going to talk now about how this Brandy and Monica reunion and Charlie and Lorde working things out on the remix, how that compares to the way a lot of women singers and pop stars feuded back in the day when I was coming up. Zach, it was truly a different time, no?

Yeah, it was such a different time and one where we, even as fans, felt like we had to choose teams. So, you know, one of the biggest feuds that you and I grew up with and one that I feel very deeply connected to is the Britney Spears versus Christina Aguilera feud. And you had to pick a side. Yeah, I was team Christina. What side were you? You know what it was? I think if I had to pick one of them to sing at my black church, it would be Christina. 1,000%. But...

So much of early Britney was just Janet drag. And you know how much I love Janet. So I had to pick Britney. It makes sense. But listeners, if you don't remember, this was what the conversation was like. If we had Vibe Check back then, it would have been every week us picking our kind of like warriors and been like,

arguing to the death about who is better why they're better who's who's gonna do better with their album and there was a whole pop media machine that had endless articles about these performed feuds and it wasn't just christina aguilera and britney spears beefing for seemingly no reason for years it wasn't just monica punching brandy backstage at the vmas it was whitney houston and mariah carey beefing

even after they made a hit song together, it was Aretha Franklin out singing Celine Dion very purposefully at a VH1 Divas Live concert. It is really hard to overstate how

most of the 90s and early 2000s, the pop music industry was held afloat by the performance of really talented women fighting each other. Yeah. And to add to that, you know, we even had moments where them coming together was the big TV moment. So, you know, there was VH1's Divas Live. Sam, what was that event? And why is it so iconic? Oh my goodness, yeah. I mentioned Divas Live and I realize a lot of y'all have no idea what I'm talking about. So VH1, back then,

back when they were like the thing. They had a music doc series called Behind the Music. They showed a lot of music videos all day and a lot of adult contemporary videos. They also had a concert series once a year called Divas Live, and they would just bring together amazing women singers and let them do a concert together. So you had the likes of Mariah Carey and Celine Dion and Aretha Franklin and Shania Twain one year and others.

But the year that Celine and Aretha were both part of this Divas Live concert, instead of just singing together solo or sharing the mic, there's one moment where you clearly see Aretha get a little, I don't want to say jealous of Celine singing, but she's like, girl, not on my watch.

So as they're going to commercial break, you just hear Celine and Aretha going back and forth, trying to out-sing each other. And finally, the cameras have to just wrap. It was so awkward. It was so weird. And it was so unnecessary. Because no one's going to sit here and say that either of them beats the other. They're just great in different ways. But that was the energy. And that was...

what was pushed as a must-see TV. Yeah, yeah, it was a huge thing. And the reason why is because we all buy into this cultural idea that divas, and you know, the term diva comes from 19th century opera world. So it was a term used to point to like a woman performer who was just so exceptional that she was a diva, and it comes from the Latin word "goddess."

And that's how it began. I did not know that. Yeah, goddesses, isn't that crazy? And, you know, why we use it in culture, it was a moment for us as it continued on into the 20th century, is a way for us to label women who are breaking boundaries. And as we know through feminism, women who break boundaries are always not treated so well. And the diva itself as a term is a great way to chart that. Because in the beginning it was, okay, girl, you're doing great. Then after a while, these men were like,

"You're doing too great. You're making too much money. You expressing what you need, how you need it, is too much. You're being too loud, too feminist, too these things." So diva continued, but diva's also something we as gay men are obsessed with. I mean, you look at Ryan Murphy's show "Feud," it's all about divas, famous divas and how they fought over the years.

But what we saw forever and what Sam was pointing to is that how diva functions within a cultural landscape is that a diva needs to have a foil. There has to be two divas going at each other so it's something for us to watch and be entertained by. And to our own credit, everyone, diva was always about a performer. So it's not our fault that we look to these performers themselves to be battling on stage or to be giving us a show. However, these...

famous women, Janet Jackson, Madonna, are people at the end of the day. And the divaness became so big around each of them that we began to not see them as people, but rather these projections of a person we thought they were. Well, and the way you set up this idea of the diva, one, to point out that it's historic, that blows my mind. But two, you know, when diva becomes a negative connotation, oh, if you're a diva, you're nasty, you have an attitude, you're too demanding. Mm-hmm.

These are never the terms that we give men in pop who are performing at diva level. Yeah. Right. Name a male pop star, a massive, huge male pop star that has ever been titled or hung up with diva behavior.

So like Bruce Springsteen, I'm sure he's a nice guy, but everyone has their things. He was never called out for having diva behavior, right? I can think of so many men who have become pop stars. I think of Justin Timberlake before the last few years. I think of Harry Styles.

I think of a lot of other men in pop who have reached the level that the Mariahs and the Janets reach. They never deal with the critique of their personas and identities in the way that the diva moniker automatically does to women. We don't have male divas. We don't have them. Yeah.

And why that's so important, what you're bringing up too, is what you're talking about is perception and agency in the artist itself. So as we've talked about with musicians, during this height of big feuds, especially in the 90s with VMAs, these artists didn't control their careers in a real way. They were built by labels. You look at Backstreet Boys, literally built. NSYNC, literally built.

Christina, literally manufactured out of a post-Disney world. So when these stories about them feuding and what they think, those were all also built by a media industrial complex. And Monica spoke to that. Monica said, like, they created this feud between me and Brandy. We didn't create it. And it wasn't just creating the feud. It was creating these archetypes that these women were forced to fit in. Britney's the good girl. Christina's the dirty girl. Brandy's squeaky clean. Monica is street.

that is created. Yeah. What's bad about this creation is that these people are women who don't have a lot of control over their lives and are having to bow to larger powers and play a role that doesn't speak authentically to themselves. So as this has been thrown against certain bodies in pop music, you've seen some pushback. And the most famous pushback to all of this was Beyonce, Knowles-Carter in the late 2000s,

her i am sasha fierce album where she said diva is the female version of a hustler because there you go to sam while this term is really glamorous and wonderful it was really confining for them and they felt so boxed in and you know just thinking about their lives like mariah carey needing something for her voice to be ready is that really diva behavior if she needs no that's just a professional that's just someone that's working because men

always make demands. And what's so dangerous about how we think of divas in popular culture is when we assign a woman a diva, it's not so much about like Barbra Streisand being a diva or Cher being diva. It's more about how when we hear people talk about Cher being quote unquote high maintenance and needing all these things, the message to everyone else who aren't famous is, oh, as a woman, I shouldn't be asking what I want. Or as a woman, I shouldn't be demanding things that I need. I should instead let these men lead and I just want to kind of float below and be desired by them.

Because many times these divas were sexualized, but they weren't seen as fully realized women, which is the problem with this. Yeah. And this is the thing about professionals functioning at that level.

They all have to inherently have a long list of demands. You're touring every night for months or years at a time, and you gotta sound the same and dance the same every night. You need everything in order, you know? Back to the Beyonce and diva of it all, when she sings, or rap sings, a diva is a female version of a hustler.

It's functioning on several levels, Zach. One, she's saying girls are just doing what boys are doing and we're typecast differently, but she's also referencing her very famous husband who for years called himself a hustler.

And she's saying even, I see the difference in the way you treat even me and my husband. And I'm going to speak about that too. This is the thing about diva-ness. Like Beyonce's proximity to Jay-Z did not save her from that title. You know, women's proximity to men does not defend them from these allegations. Right.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, that has to be suffocating for these women who at the end of the day just want to create work that they're proud of and enjoy. And I would say to lead us more into a contemporary moment, you know, before we got to this moment of unity this week, at least in pop music, you know, last summer, the summer before, I'm forgetting time because time doesn't exist post, you know, 2020, is that Taylor Swift and Beyonce were together.

the biggest diva comparisons of all time. Like, literal wars have been waged globally. Oh, yeah. And these two women had to come together for their premieres of their movies to squash it and be like, we're not actually fighting. We're not even running the same race here. And this is what's so crazy. Taylor and Beyonce have...

only been nice to each other. I remember years ago, Beyonce showed up at one of Taylor Swift's birthday parties. At her house, yes. They're actually cool. And so this is the way the machine works. Even if these women don't do anything negative, there's a creation of negativity just because. And I think we don't do that to men. I do wonder though if it's changing. And part of why I wonder if it's changing, Zach, is that the pop media landscape that used to gin up these feuds,

that media is slowly dying. The entertainment media, the music media, it's a lot smaller and less powerful than it used to be. And so much of the way that pop stars are perceived is not through a media lens anymore. It's through their personal social feeds.

Yeah. And what's so important about thinking of their power as their social media is that for them to have dynamic social media, they need to engage with the community. And what would it be like for them just to be fighting all day? And of course, we can point to Nicki Minaj. Her messy self has been fighting on social media for so long. And that's a very singular example. But because the power has shifted from magazine covers to Instagram posts and TikToks,

a lot of these artists have come to realize that maybe we could win this game if we just play a game with each other. That's autobiographical, but it's more in jest and more free for them, where they get to control where the story's going, unlike before. Yeah. And it's easier. Back in the day, would Taylor or Beyonce have had to sit for several magazine profiles and give these interview quotes to squash a perceived beef? Now, they just show up with the same red carpet. Yeah.

Boom, there you go. You got it. You know, and they're even preempting any potential feud. So I'm thinking of Chapel Rowan and Sabrina Carpenter. They're the two hottest young artists in pop music. They will be going head to head for best new artist at the Grammys this year. I'm certain of it.

However, they're playing ball really well with each other. Sabrina Carpenter covered Temple Rowan's Good Luck Babe the other day on BBC Radio. And it's gone super viral. And Sam, I can't think of a moment where pop stars are starting to take off that they start singing each other's music. Has that ever happened before? No. No.

Even Brandy and Monica wouldn't sing the same song together for 20 years. And they recorded the same song together. Exactly. You know? So it's like, and that's what we're talking about. We're in this moment in which they're like, not only playing nice, but working with each other to win where the whole iconography around divas is singular as like,

the diva as Barbra Streisand is Barbra Streisand. You think of her with Judy Garland and others, but she was Barbra. But it's really just Barbra. Cher, Cher, et cetera, et cetera. And you have these crossover moments, but they were defined by the singularity. However, lately, it seems like to be a pop star, you have to be part of a pop community, which is so fascinating. Yes.

It's fascinating, and I also think it's more interesting. And I want to close on this note because we've gone on way too long, but it's been good and juicy and meaty. What I love about all of this is that when we see these women throw off the diva label and collaborate and share their feelings, it usually ends up with music that is more interesting to listen to. Those Lorde and Charlie lyrics are deeper than if it was a feud song.

The music we get out of Sabrina Carpenter covering Chapel Roan, that's interesting auditorially, right? I love this moment of quote unquote pop unity because it's making pop that is just more interesting on top of just being fun. And I'm all about that. I love complex pop. I love complex pop. And if this moment takes us towards more complex pop, I am here for you.

I agree. And you know, people have been talking about how pop stars have become very relatable. They're like girls you went to school with, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that's kind of refreshing at the end of the day because it makes them not so flat with their fame. Yeah. They're sharing their journals with us. Exactly. They're like, this is what I'm going through. And that's also why Taylor Swift does so well. She's literally releasing her voice

notes to the internet. I'd be like, here, do you want those? And so, you know, we're getting to see like the messy textures and, you know, this word that I love, contradiction of all of them and that they're not just beautiful powerhouses, but they are also dealing with self-confidence. They don't trust themselves. They don't think they're good, but yet they still do the work and that's so human. And that's what connects all of us at the end of the day. Yeah. And I mean, this is so the spirit of VibeJack.

not just having friendship and showing friendship, but like talking about how friendship works. I love it. Charlie, Lord, y'all are doing the work. Thank you for it. Listeners, let us know how you feel about all of this, all these pop stars, all this unity moment, all the 90s nostalgia. We want to talk pop with you. Hit us up in the emails. Hit us up on the patronus. We'll be there. With that, we're going to come back after the break with some recommendations. ♪

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.

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Coming to cocktail parties near you at Tito's Vodka dot com. 40 percent alcohol by volume, namely 80 proof crafted to be savored responsibly. Listeners, we're back. And before we end the show, Sam and I want to share something that's keeping our vibes right this week. So, Sam, what's keeping your vibe right this week? You know, I listen to podcasts consistently.

Every day, most of the time, if I'm not at a computer reading and writing, if I'm at the house just doing stuff, there's a podcast on. And I have a long list of shows that I like and love, but I want to particularly shout out this week, Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listeners, you know this show. It is NPR's podcast all about pop culture and the things we watch and listen to and read.

But they've had some really good episodes recently that have just been extra special for me. And the format and how they're doing it has just felt really unique and distinct. There's a June 17th episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour that's titled It's Getting Hot. So what's the sweatiest movie ever made?

And the hosts have a really long, intelligent discourse about what makes for a sweaty movie and how heat itself operates in film. They talk about do the right thing. They talk about dog day afternoon. And they have this really interesting, heady conversation about how the very idea of heat makes films work. I loved it so much.

They also had an episode on June 14th all about Inside Out 2, and the way they talked about this movie was just much smarter than any of the reviews I had read. You know, Pop Culture Happy Hour has been around for a long time, and that show helped me as I became the founding host of the NPR Politics Podcast and of NPR's It's Been a Minute. Like, the DNA of Pop Culture Happy Hour has actually been quietly present in all of the work that I've done on a mic for the last 10 years.

So, I always love them, but especially right now, go check out Pop Culture Happy Hour, particularly their June 17th episode called What's the Sweatiest Movie Ever Made?

It was really fun. I can't wait to listen to this because one of my favorite things to think about in a movie where people are like running a lot is why aren't they sweating? Because sometimes they're just not sweating. I'm like, girl, I would be soaking. Like out of breath. And they're running in heels. In heels. Out here running after a man or running away from the cops. Like Bad Boys, the new one. I was like, these guys are not sweating. They're not sweating. These are my dad's age. Come on. So yeah, that's my rec. Zach, what's yours?

So mine is something that you mentioned in passing just now, but I'm going to drill into it. And that's the movie Inside Out 2, which is doing gangbusters at the box office. Money, honey. They are rich. They are rich, rich over there. I think it's passed 700 million globally in just a few weeks. It is going to be maybe the biggest movie of all time.

The year, this is the year in which Dune 2 came out, y'all. An animated movie about people's feelings. Not just people, but a woman named Riley going through puberty and all the shit that comes with going through puberty. And one of them is named Anxiety. One's Anxiety, one's Envy, played by Ayo Adebri. Like, it's just Amy Poehler's joy. Like, it is star-packed, but also the feelings. I forget the celebrities or the voices because I'm so like, oh my God. Yeah.

Envy is there. Anxiety is present. Like, it is so incredible. And I could not imagine having this movie as a kid who is trying to understand why I feel all these things and why at the end of the day what the movie's, you know, resolution is every time is that these feelings are good and they all have a purpose.

like everything you feel from fear to jealousy all have a purpose if deployed correctly or in a way that makes your life, you know, more meaningful. So it's a really, really special movie. I sat in a theater on a Sunday afternoon by myself with all these families and I just, parents were weeping next to me and I was like, I love this. It's so, it's so good. Movies are back. And anyway. Yes. This is why I haven't gone to see it yet in a movie theater. I,

I know I'm going to cry, and I don't know if I want to have strangers see me crying that hard. People were bawling. I even brought it up in Mexico with friends, and they were just like going through it. They're like, oh my God, I saw it. And like the first one just changed me. And it just, even on TikTok, you see a lot of people saying like, this is called healing, watching this movie. So go see them. The first one is available on Disney Plus if you haven't seen the movie. And then two is in theaters now. So go check it out. Okay.

I'm going to go check it out. I'm going to go to the latest showing and I'm going to sit way in the back row and I'm going to wear a hoodie. And order your fish and chips and then you'll be good. They want you to order it. It's on the menu. I'm going to Alamo Draft House this week and I plan to have me a meal and I may try your fish and chips just because you can talk about it. It's very good.

Anywho, listeners, what are you feeling or not feeling this week? Do you like fish and chips? Let me know. What's your vibe? Check in with us. We are always available via email, vibecheckatstitcher.com, vibecheckatstitcher.com. All right, with that, we did a show.

That's it for this week. Thank you all for checking out this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow this show on your favorite podcast listening platform. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. Also, tell a friend IRL about the show.

Yes, do it, do it. And a huge thank you to our producer, Chantel Holder, engineers, Rich Garcia and Brendan Burns and Marcus Hom for our theme music and sound design. Special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda. And shout out to Ayesha Ayub who creates our social content and our intern, Ella Barnes.

And as always, we want to hear from you. So don't forget, you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Keep in touch with us on Instagram on our page at vibecheck underscore pod and our Patreon, where for $5 a month, you get direct access to our group chat. That's patreon.com slash vibecheck. Stay tuned for another episode next week with Elok. Until then, have a great week, y'all. Bye. Stitcher.

Tito's Handmade Vodka had been mixed with its fair share of cocktails. But one night, a chilled glass topped with lime and cranberry would change everything this bottle knew about happy hour. From the producers of America's Favorite Vodka, it turns out the cocktail you've been waiting for was right there the whole time. The Tito's Rom Cosmo. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll sip with Tito's.

Coming to cocktail parties near you at Tito's Vodka dot com. 40% alcohol by volume, namely 80 proof crafted to be savored responsibly.

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