Cassper Nyovest : I know only M.I among Nigerian rappers

“You Rappers Should Fix Up Your Lives”

Prior to winning best Hip-hop at SoundCity MVP, South African rapper, Refiloe Phoolo famously known as Cassper Nyovest, had an exclusive interview with our correspondent, where he talked about African Hip-hop in general and the state of Hip-hop in Nigeria.

Commenting on the controversial 2017 single “You Rappers Should Fix Up Your Lives” where M.I Abaga admitted that South African rappers are dominating the Hip-hop scene in Africa.

Cassper agrees with M.I Abaga, stating as quoted:

“Yes, South African Hip-hop is in the forefront of African Hip-hop in general. It might not be as popular as it is in South Africa in Nigeria. But I know for a fact that the rappers from Nigeria are kinda unknown in SA,” he says

“If we talk about crossing over, I know that a lot of people in Nigeria know about my music. I know that in Kenya and Ghana it’s the same thing.

“I’m not just talking about me, I’m talking about the movement. Sarkodie is big in Ghana, but are there other rappers who are as big as Sarkodie from Ghana? The South African Hip-hop movement is big across, also in London, New York…we are out there performing in different countries.”

Cassper also confessed the topic is controversial as he tried to explain his point further. “Me saying that might offend people here.

They might feel that I’m taking shots at Nigerian music. But that’s not the deal. If we are to discuss in terms of numbers and appeal across the world, it’s just the way it is.”

Well, Cassper Nyovest is quite right saying this topic is controversial. But it is also advisable to note that everything he said in the interview are facts. South Africa is in the forefront of African Hip-hop, and Nigerian rappers are unknown in South Africa

"The lead singer with the Irish band The Cranberries was in London for a short recording"

The Cranberries lead singer Dolores O’Riordan has died suddenly at the age of 46, her publicist has confirmed.

The Irish musician, originally from Limerick, led the band to international success in the 90s with singles including Linger and Zombie.

A statement from her publicist said: “The lead singer with the Irish band The Cranberries was in London for a short recording session. Image result for Dolores O’Riordan

“No further details are available at this time.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the police were called to a hotel in Park Lane at 09:05 GMT on Monday, where “a woman in her mid-40s” was pronounced dead at the scene.

The police have confirmed that the death is not being treated as suspicious and said a report was being compiled for the coroner.

Her current band mates in The Cranberries – Noel Hogan, Fergal Lawler, and Mike Hogan – paid tribute to the lead singer on social media.

The message said: “She was an extraordinary talent and we feel very privileged to have been part of her life from 1989.”

Ronaldinho a player so good he made you smile

The Brazilian has retired after an extraordinary career but his wonderful talent will be remembered for ever. ‘He changed our history,’ the Barcelona midfielder Xavi said

Ronaldinho. See? You’re smiling already. Just thinking about the things he did and the way he did them, the way he was, gets you giggling. Look him up on YouTube and maybe you’ll fall for him all over again, a bit like all those defenders. Watch for long enough – it won’t take long – and you might even feel like standing to applaud, just like the Santiago Bernabéu did, an ovation for a Barcelona player, as if for all the rivalry they hadn’t so much been beaten by his genius as shared in it. Sergio Ramos was on the floor, they were on their feet. Cameras zoomed on a man in the north stand with a moustache and a cigarette hanging limp from his lip. Bloody hell, did you see what he just did?

It’s a question that was asked a lot. What Ronaldinho did, no one else did. And it wasn’t just what he did; it was the way he made people feel. Nostalgia, memories, are about that: not so much events but emotions.
Image result for ronaldinho

Watching Ronaldinho was fun, it made people happy. Those may be two of the most simple, childish words of all but they are the right ones. Football stripped right down to its essence: happy, fun.

Funny, too. Image result for ronaldinho

There may never have been a player who made the game as enjoyable as Ronaldinho, in part because he played and it was a game. “I love the ball,”
Image result for ronaldinho goal

he said. One coach, he recalled, told him to change, insisting that he would never make it as a footballer, but he was wrong. It was because he played, because he enjoyed it, that he succeeded: the grin on his face was not just there after he won the league, the Champions League, the World Cup and the Balon d’Or, it was there while he won them. It became contagious. “He changed our history,” Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernández said.
Image result for ronaldinho

One Real Madrid director claimed that Madrid hadn’t signed him because he was “too ugly” and would “sink” them as a brand. “Thanks to Beckham,
everyone wants to shag us,” he said. He, too, was wrong: everyone wanted to embrace Ronaldinho, enjoy him. The long, Soul Glo hair, the goofy grin, that surfer’s “wave”, thumb and little finger waggling – a gesture so his, so symbolic of Barcelona’s revival that is was fashioned from foam and sold in the club shop.

An entire publicity campaign was built around him, the embodiment of “jogo bonito”. He might not have been beautiful but his game was and no one was more attractive, a marketing dream Madrid missed. Almost a comedy cartoon character himself, he inspired the “BarcaToons” and on Spain’s version of Spitting image his puppet giggled and laughed and repeated one word over and over: fiesta!. “I am like that,” he admitted.

On the pitch, too, an extension of that expressiveness. “When you have the ball at your feet, you are free,” Ronaldinho wrote in an open letter to his younger self, repeating a mantra: creativity over calculation. “It is almost like you’re hearing music. That feeling will make you spread joy to others. You’re smiling because football is fun. Why would you be serious? Your goal is to spread joy.” He said that was the way his father, a shipbuilder and football fan who worked weekends at Gremio’s ground, had told him to play. His older brother Roberto was at Gremio too. And then, growing up, there was Bombom, his dog. He also played.

Ronaldinho’s brother was his idol but he ended up better than him. He was better than anyone at the time: you genuinely wondered if he might end up better than anyone else ever. It didn’t last long enough for that but it lasted because he did things you’d never witnessed before, skills most never imagined let alone replicated, and that emotion remained. “His feet are so fast he can touch the ball four times in half a second. If I tried to do what he can do, I’d end up injuring myself,” Philippe Cocu said.

For three years no one could match the wow, the wonder, the silliness, the jaw-dropping, laugh-out-loud daftness of it all. The back-heels, step-overs and rubber ankles, the power too, the change of pace, the passes without looking. The passes with his back, for goodness sake. The free-kicks over the wall, round the wall and under it. Nutmegs, lobs, bicycle kicks, everything.

An advert featuring Ronaldinho showed him ambling to the corner of the penalty area, pulling on new boots, flicking a ball into the air and keeping it there. Strolling around the area, he volleys the ball towards goal. It hits the bar and comes straight back to him, he controls it on his chest, swivels and volleys it goalwards. Again, it hits the bar and comes back. He controls it again and, still without letting it drop, hammers it goalwards a third time. For a third time, it thuds off the bar and sails straight back. Without letting the ball drop, he strolls back to where he started, sets it down and smiles. On the boots is stitched the word “happiness.”

Ronaldinho surrounded by four Celtic players during a Champions League match in March 2008.

It is quite astonishing; it is also a fake, a montage. Or was it? There was a debate. You didn’t know – and that was the point, the measure of him. The fact that anyone could even begin to believe that such a nonchalant demonstration of mastery might be genuine was eloquent – and only with Ronaldinho would they. That didn’t happen, no, but the Bernabéu ovation did. So did the shot thundering in of the bar against Sevilla – at 1.20am. The goal against Milan. That toe-poke against Chelsea. “It’s like someone pressed pause and for three seconds all the players stopped and I’m the only one that moves,” he said.

The Brazilian legend Tostao claimed: “Ronaldinho has
the dribbling skills of Rivelinho, the vision of Gerson, the spirit and happiness of Garrincha, the pace, skill and power of Jarzinho and Ronaldo, the technical ability of Zico and the creativity of Romario.” Above all he had one, very special ability: he made you smile.

World is one step away from nuclear war, Pope Francis warns

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE - Pope Francis said on Monday he was really afraid about the danger of nuclear war and that the world now stood at “the very limit”.

Pope Francis speaks to reporters onboard the plane for his trip to Chile and Peru January 15, 2018.

His comment, made as he flew off for a visit to Chile and Peru, came after Hawaii issued a false missile alert that provoked panic in the U.S. state and highlighted the risk of possible unintended nuclear war with North Korea.

Asked if he was worried about the possibility of nuclear war, Pope Francis said: “I think we are at the very limit. I am really afraid of this. One accident is enough to precipitate things.”

He did not mention Hawaii or North Korea.

Pope Francis has often flagged the danger of nuclear warfare and in November he appeared to harden the Catholic Church’s teaching against nuclear weapons, saying countries should not stockpile them even for the purpose of deterrence.

As reporters boarded his plane bound for Chile, Vatican officials handed out a photograph taken in 1945 that shows a young Japanese boy carrying his dead brother on his shoulders following the U.S. nuclear attack on Nagasaki.

“I was moved when I saw this. The only thing I could think of adding were the words ‘the fruit of war’,” Francis said, referring to a caption put on the back of the image.

“I wanted to have it reprinted and distributed because an image like this can be more moving than a thousand words. That is why I wanted to share it with you,” he said.

#sports Manchester United 3-0 Stoke City: FULL TIME

Image result for Manchester United 3-0 Stoke City

LINEUP

Henrikh Mkhitaryan Is not in Manchester United's XVIII apparently because his head 'is not in the right place'.

Man Utd De Gea; Valencia, Jones, Smalling, Shaw; Pogba, Matic; Mata, Lingard, Martial; Lukaku.
Substitutes Joel Pereira, Lindelof, Rojo, Ander Herrera, Fellaini, McTominay, Rashford.

Stoke City Butland; Bauer, Zouma, Martins Indi, Tymon; Fletcher, Allen; Shaqiri, Ireland, Choupo-Moting; Crouch.
Substitutes Grant, Edwards, Wimmer, Afellay, Adam, Diouf, Sobhi.

Referee Anthony Taylor (Wythenshawe).

1 min: Kick Off

1 min: It took 35 seconds for United to touch the ball. Then Valencia launches it downfield to nobody, and Stoke have it back again.

4 mins: Martial gets into space on the left of the penalty area, but his cross hits a defender, pings into another defender, and is cleared.

7 mins: Mata clips the ball into the area, where Martial has got in front of Bauer. Both players go a-tumbling, and the Stoke debutant had his arms around the Frenchman when they did so. Not exactly an assault, but probably a foul. The referee waves play on.

9 min: GOAL! Manchester United 1-0 Stoke (Valencia)

What a hit! An absolute peach from the United right-back!

13 mins: That is only the 6th time Antonio Valencia has kicked the ball with his left foot in his entire Manchester United career.”

17 mins: Stoke find space on the right, and Bauer passes to Ireland, who has the freedom of the penalty area. The ball forces him to control with his back to goal, and he spins and fires wide.FacebookTwitterGoogle plus

19 mins: Lingard is tripped by Allen, a couple of yards outside the penalty area, and United have a fine shooting chance.

20 mins: Mata hits it into the wall.

21 mins: Ooooh! Ireland, in the centre circle, passes to the right and starts running. It’s moved inside to Shaqiri, who touches to Ireland, now bursting into the penalty area, and he shoots just wide!

25 mins: Stoke nearly score again! A long cross from the right is nodded down by Crouch, with De Gea committed but nowhere, and Jones somehow gets in the way of Choupo-Moting’s shot!

29 mins: Lukaku is in the penalty area for the corner, but the ball isn’t, as it’s played short and then crossed half-heartedly. Shaw runs onto the clearance and slams in a shot from 35 yards, which Butland gathers.

31 mins: United win another corner, and play this one short as well. Lingard does eventually cross this time, but Butland catches, fumbles, and catches again.

36 mins: Pogba strikes a ludicrous 50-yard pass downfield and into the path of Shaw, who catches it just before it rolls out of play and pulls back to Martial, whose shot deflects wide. United take the corner short, and nothing comes of it. Again.

38 min: GOAL! Manchester United 2-0 Stoke (Martial)

Lukaku is on the right again. This time he passes infield to Pogba, who passes further infield to Martial, who curls a brilliant right-foot shot into the top corner from 22 yards!

42 mins: Mata’s fine pass finds Martial, who controls, shimmies, twists and prods a pass to Lukaku, running into the area. Any kind of half-decent control would have left him with a simple finish, but he couldn’t quite bring it under his spell.

45+2 mins: Into stoppage time. Shaqiri controls brilliantly, cuts past the onrushing Jones, and sends a stinging low shot towards the corner. De Gea makes a difficult save look easy.

45 min: HALF TIME

46 mins: They’re back under way, and Stoke have brought Kevin Wimmer on for the second half, taking off Josh Tymon.

49 mins: Pogba plays the ball through to Martial, but Butland races from his line to reach it first.

54 mins: Pogba chips a pass to Lukaku, who controls on his chest and attempts to flick it over his shoulder and back to Pogba, but instead hits himself in the face.

55 mins: He then span and blasted a decent left-footed shot at goal, to be fair. Butland saved.

Stoke City’s Moritz Bauer

59 mins: Not sure how United failed to score here. Pogba crosses low from the left; Martial controls it, somehow bounces between Wimmer and Martins Indi, and then sidefoots a low shot from eight yards that goes straight to Butland.

60 mins: Stoke take off Choupo-Moting, and bring on Ramadan Sobhi.

63 mins: Lingard trips Fletcher, and is booked.67 mins: Jones brings the ball out from defence, shimmies past a few Stoke midfielders in unlikely style and passes to Lukaku, who goes down under a fairly humdrum challenge from Martins Indi, bounces up and squares up to the Stoke defender aggressively. Lukaku is booked.

67 mins: Jones brings the ball out from defence, shimmies past a few Stoke midfielders in unlikely style and passes to Lukaku, who goes down under a fairly humdrum challenge from Martins Indi, bounces up and squares up to the Stoke defender aggressively. Lukaku is booked.

68 mins: And another booking, this time for Ireland, for cynically clipping Mata’s ankles.

72 mins: GOAL! Manchester United 3-0 Stoke (Lukaku)

Finally United stick a chance away! Lingard runs 60 yards and passes to Martial, who pings it at pace into Lukaku’s chest inside the area. It drops at his feet, and he shifts it onto his left foot and slams it inside the near post!

74 mins: This half has been kind of like the first, except without Stoke having any chances or doing at all well at anything.

75 mins: It’s raining so hard, hope it won't be postponed.

79 mins: Pogba crosses from the right, and Mata magics an over-the-shoulder flick that takes it towards Lukaku. It hits the post, but the flag is up.

80 mins: United make their first substitutions, bringing off Lingard and Martial and bringing on Fellaini and Rashford.

81 mins: His team are 3-0 up with the game in their pocket, but when Mata is found on the right in an excellent crossing position and succeeds only in picking out a defender, he screams at himself in rage, frustration and wild self-loathing.

83 mins: That will be Mata’s final contribution to the evening’s entertainment, with Scott McTominay replacing him.

86 mins: An amazing chance for Stoke! The ball’s lifted into the area, Smalling totally misjudges it and Diouf’s chest control opens up half an area’s worth of space. He blasts in a shot that De Gea saves, and then slams the rebound wide with Ireland unmarked at the far post!

90 mins: United have a corner and don’t take it short. Instead, Rashford crosses to the defender at the near post. Still, Stoke clear straight back to a red shirt, Rashford is picked out again, and he dances into the box and sends a low shot straight at Butland.

90+3 mins: Pogba ends an excellent performance by curling high and wide from the free kick, and that’s it!

GETINTOPC

Cassper Nyovest : I know only M.I among Nigerian rappers

“You Rappers Should Fix Up Your Lives”

THE CRANBERRIES LEAD SINGER DOLORES O’RIORDAN DIES AT 46

"The lead singer with the Irish band The Cranberries was in London for a short recording"