← The Latest with Loren LoRosa
The Latest with Loren LoRosa
Replay: Black Effect Festival Recap, MJ Magic & What the Critics Missed
00:21:34
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- [00:00]
A
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm the homegirl that knows a little bit about everything, and everybody know she
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B
don't lie about that.
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A
Right? Lauren came in hot.
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C
Hey, y'.
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A
All, what's up? It's Lauren LaRosa. And this is another episode of the Latest with Lauren LaRosa. This is your daily dig on all things pop culture, entertainment news, and all of the conversations that shake the room, baby. Oh, my God. Guys, let's check in behind the scenes of the grind. So if you cannot tell right now, I am fighting for my life to even get through this podcast episode. We had such a great time in Atlanta. Like, I. Oh, my God. This was my second year at the Black Effect Podcast festival that Charlemagne throws for Black Effect, the podcast network, which is how you guys are even able to hear me right now. And shout out to Dolly Bishop, who's president of the network, who, you know, she is like, superwoman of that whole production of the event. This past weekend, it went down in Atlanta at Pullman Yards. Man, there were so many people that popped out, like Lil Duvall, Ceelo and K. Michelle sat down with drink champs. So Noriega and DJFN Karisha Young Miami sat down with Crystal Renee Hayslett. Keep us positive, sweetie. Also, Zatina Papoose and Clarissa came. Clarissa wasn't even, like, a part of the live podcast, but she did end up on stage because Envy and Charlemagne brought out, like, just some of the celebrities who were there. So Lil Duvall performed because he recently celebrated the fact that Living My Best Life went platinum. His song I'm Living My Best Life, and I thought that that was dope. But to see the crowd react to him in real time. I've never been to any of his comedy shows or, like, you know, I know he does little Duvall Day in person. I've only seen things online, right? Oh, my God. People went crazy when he came out. The people. I thought it was just my mom that left Lil Duvall down, but the people love him down. But, yeah, so Clarissa also popped out with Papoose, and I saw that going viral online or whatever. And I feel like every time Clarissa goes viral now, ever since she began dating Papoose, it's always for, you know, people having a conversation about what they don't like about her when it comes to her look or her relationship or whatever, and what you. What happens in real time, like, in real life with Clarissa is a lot different than what happens online. So she came to the festival. She was backstage. Clarissa has always been One of the nicest people to me that I've, you know, like, celebrity wise, that I've met. You know, when I first got back on the Breakfast Club and things were kind of going a little crazy and everything was happening, Clarissa had actually reached out to me then and just, you know, sent me some, like, positive words and, you know, like, you know, not to live in a noise and. Oh, my God, like, yes, same, sis, same. Because I watched people react to her in real time when she pulled up at the festival and she went and walked through the black marketplace of the black vendors that were set up, and fans were going crazy. And not only for her, they were going crazy. I mean, the whole day was full of so much love and people really locked in. But, like, fans were really excited to see her. And honestly, to see Papoose with her, like, they. And I think it's because you see it online so much. So to be, you know, a spectator of the sport, no pun intended, because we talking about the female goat here. And then to see, you know, her in real life with Papoose as they, you know, walk throughout the event like, they could barely get through the crowd of people. That's how much love they were getting at the event, honestly. But she came out on stage. You have Cheryl Underwood on stage as well. DJ Envy and Charlamagne on stage, and they're just having a conversation real quick. Like, real, real quick. Just bringing out a bunch of the. The, you know, the people that are attendance. And let's take a listen to Cheryl Underwood's conversation with Clarissa. I like you statuesque and you chocolatey, Pastor Barbie. Thank you very much. Are you single? No, I'm with Papoose. Okay, hold on.
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B
No.
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How you going to do that, Cheryl, to sit on you?
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B
Cheryl, wait. Wait for y'. All Stop talking Papoose upstairs right now.
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A
I know that, but wait a minute. Respect makes you ask the status. I don't know how I missed that moment. Like, in real time. I don't know what they had me backstage prepping for, but I am pissed that I missed that in real time. But, man, yeah, it was just such a great time. CeeLo and K Michelle talked to Nori and Nore and DJ Ethan of Drink Champs, and their conversation range from a lot of different things. To be honest, I wish that they had more time, and I wish that they had done one interview with one person versus two people within 40 minutes. Like, I feel like they didn't really get a chance to dive as deep as they normally do on the show. Which I understand. You know, when you watch a live podcast, you're not, like, you're not going to get everything that you would normally get when you watch them, because it's live. Timing is different. Like, you know, But I do wish they did one person versus the two, even though both of those people are great interviews for drink champs. But, yeah, so they had a conversation, and they were talking to CeeLo about whether Atlanta is running hip hop right now. And the way he hesitated, I'm like, yo, he want to say no so bad, but, like, as like, OG Atlanta, he can't. Let's take a listen.
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I think. No, I think it's like a. Having an intermission right now. I think everybody in the concession stand. Yeah, at the concession, you know, but, you know, the vibe, man, it just is supposed to be transcendent, transferable. Touch the next man, touch the next person, the next region, the next wave, style, trend, etc, you know, I mean, like, inspire it. You know what I mean? Like, a lot of the times, man, the industry is like a roller coaster ride. Let's say Six Flags. You want to ride the screen machine, you're gonna wait in line, you're gonna be anticipating, you know, get on, ride it, and you're gonna be scared. You're gonna be thrilled for about a minute and a half, straight up for however long it is, right? It's like, damn, I waited forever for some. That just lasted a minute or some seconds, right? Or it seems, and you leave out, you go back around and the line is just as long, if not longer. And if you want to ride that right again, you want. If you want to ride that ride again, you got to get back in line. That's it. And I think life is a lot like that. But the industry has.
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Is especially like that.
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So let it be. You know what I'm saying?
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No, no, no. They always look over Memphis. I feel like Memphis is having a time in hip hop right now, and we do have three six mafia, you know, And I feel like a lot of the sound of that type of hip hop, it was, you know, took for them. They really didn't get. I feel like all the acknowledgment three six Mafia deserves when it comes to me, too. Hip hop and being in the south and right now, I feel like the hip hop artists from Memphis right now, Glorilla, you got. You still got Dolph, you got Kenny Money, you got. You've got finesse. You know, you have some really talented lyricists right now that everyone is listening to. And they have that old school Memphis sound.
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A
And then they throw, you know, know, they throw it to K. Michelle because K. Michelle jumps in and she's having a conversation about the fact that Memphis is where it's at right now, musically, in the moment that they're having. But one of the people that she bigs up is Kendaman, who is a female rapper who I've been like, I love Kin the Man. Kinderman pops her shit. Okay? Kinman is a. You know, she's a young female rapper. I feel like I thought the masses knew Kin to Man, but Nori and DJ Effing didn't know who she was. But K. Michelle showed her a lot of love. Let's take a look.
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If you're going through something right now,
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ladies, you can put on kid to
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man from top to bottom and go through it. Like when you would put on that Trina, when you would put on them type ruggies, Ken the Man is that right now. And watching her grow, watching her shows grow, like, I love her as a new artist. Love her.
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A
You also had, you know, Mona. Don't Call Me White Girl on the stage. You had the 5:20 podcast. You had Grits and eggs. Like, it was just good to see some of your favorite people that talk about all the things all the time in person. Like, and I, as a. Like, as a fan of podcasts and a fan of some of these people, I went out and sat in the crowd and watched as much as I could. Hosting this year because I hosted it along with DJ Envy and Charlemagne. Hosting this year was a bit different. Last year I got to introduce a panel, and then I was able to actually kind of, like, watch the show a bit more and, you know, like, experience, like, the crowd a bit more. I didn't really get that much of an opportunity this year to do that, although I tried. So shout out to all the low riders that I saw at the podcast festival. But, yeah, just an amazing day. I. I think it's just beautiful to see something grow in real time. And again, I just started attending last year, and they've been doing this before that, and I'm talking about growth. So I'm excited to see where they go next year and how even bigger it gets next year. But one of the things that I love is that I felt like the audience was so locked into the conversations this year, which is amazing because you learn so much, getting to watch the pros do it in real time and then getting to listen to some of the panels and all that. So I Just hope that everybody was able to take away something and people enjoyed themselves and had a great time. Thanks to everybody that bought my merch. The brown girl grinding merch was in the Black Effect store. Thank you guys so much. There is a code running live right now. Just because I felt so much love around the merch, I wanted to say thank you all. So I'm making some things even cheaper for y' all to shop. It's code BGG love, BG love, spelled L O B E on brown girlgrounding.com to get some percentages off of the merch as you're shopping at checkout. And that is why I'm here struggling right now doing this podcast, because I am exhausted. My body is exhausted, my voice is exhausted. But I'm just grateful to even be able to, like, I. I love being in situations where, like, you're amongst the greats, so you have no choice but to learn. And that's how the Black Effect Podcast Festival feels every single year. So grateful to have experienced that with the team in Atlanta. Now, another thing I did while I was in Atlanta, I. I went to go see the Michael Jackson movie. I went to go see the Michael biopic, and, you know, I saw, you know, all of the headlines and the conversations about the fact that. Fact that the Michael biopic became the number one movie in the world, the biggest opening ever globally, after it grossed over $200 million. Now, this means that it outgrowth nearly all of the films in 2026, period, so far. But I went to go see the movie and I'm going be honest with y'. All. Like, I don't understand the critics reviews, and I'mma tell you guys why. Like, I understand why there's push back about what's not in the film, but I don't agree with the critics that the stuff that should have been added or not. Not that I don't agree with them, but I don't see why the critics solely focused on the sexual assault allegations not being included in Michael's story. But because I feel like there was so much more that I wanted to see in the story before you even got to that time period. So originally, I was supposed to go see the Michael movie Friday evening when I first landed in Atlanta. A lot of my friends and my family flew in because they love the podcast festival as well. They've come both years now that I've been a part of it. So we went out to dinner, we got there. Things were moving so slow with our service, and we were just having A good time. We ended up not making it to the movie then the podcast festival was Saturday. So Sunday before I flew out, I did a matinee movie and I didn't get to see anybody dancing, you know, in front of the screen. Like my movie theater. They were very chill. There were some people dressed up. But the movie was amazing. The movie felt like a hug. The movie made you like. I was like smiling and warm the whole time because I'm like, man, like we just, we don't have this greatness anymore. Like the way Michael was so intentional about his career, you know, shaping his, like, his brand and the way people received him and received information about him and his mystique and the way he didn't take for granted what was happening in his life and the gift that God gave him, but more importantly, the ability to reach all people, not just black people, but all people because of the platform and the amount of success and the amount of fans that he had grown was like, it was the. One of the best lessons in understanding your why and just to see how rooted in family he was like, even to his detriment at some point, to see how rooted in family he was. I think, you know, the goal of this movie, from everything I've watched with the cast and read, was to humanize him a bit more and. And I think that there have been things that have humanized him, but I think because Michael Jackson is so famous, even all these years after his death, it's almost like he's a fairy tale. Like he's not a real person. And the conversation has, you know, been for the last few years about the allegations and people resuing and refiling lawsuits and, you know, all of that. I think that we get lost in all of that stuff and forget just how God sense that man's talent was and the fact that like we will never experience that again. That's all I kept thinking is what a time to be alive, to be watching Michael Jackson as his star roles and you're seeing him amass this crazy level of wealth and success and all of these things that man like, ugh. And then I was thinking about, you know, all of the crazy comparisons to Michael Jackson and I'm like, never. I don't ever want to hear that again. Like this movie really just. It's just such a feel good hug around who he was as a person, what he stood on and how he was blessed because even in the worst of times, he stood on that and what he did for others and just how important that was. With everything that he had and everything he had going on, it was always about other people. But there's a lot that I wish that they had gotten into that they didn't like and not the allegations. And that's why I'm like, I don't really understand why the critics only leaned into that. I think that that's, you know, as a. As a person in the media, I know that, like, that's the headline, right? Like, that's the. That's the bait. That's. That's what makes you click it. That's what gets the conversation going. But to be honest, I would love to see the conversation about Michael Jackson and all the catalogs that he owned and how he owned so much of the music industry's catalogs. I would have loved to see more in depth, just the dynamic with him and Quincy Jones, because I feel like the way that we saw that, the dynamic of Quincy Jones and him in this movie is how we kind of, like, typically always see it. And it wasn't a bad depiction or anything like that, but I just. I thought there would be more, especially because his estate was so involved in this storytelling. And it's Antoine Fuqua, like, who is a master storyteller. I also thought that we would get some more that we had never seen or just a point of view about the relationship that Michael Jackson had with his father, Joe Jackson. So I thought we would go a little bit deeper there, and that didn't happen. I also, you know, I feel like they could have really used the Diana Ross parts of it, but. And again, not just glossed over, but went in depth about that. I definitely think that, you know, the whole Pepsi in the last tour and, you know, that time period, I wish that, like, we had gotten a bit more. Like, there was. It's like we hit so many points in his life from the time he was a child to that last, like, bad tour in 1988 in this movie. Like, that's the timeline. But, like, I was like, oh, I wanted more. And it wasn't even the stuff that everybody else was yelling about. Like, there's so much, like, I would love to ask, you know, Antoine Fuqua and some of the writers, like, how did you guys. In that state. How did you guys figure out what to even keep and how to tell the story? My only pushback of this was that as amazing as it was, as much as it made me smile, as much as it warmed my heart to see him on the screen, and, oh, my God, his nephew did an amazing job the younger boy, the child actor that played Michael Jackson as well, was really, really good, too. His nephew, Jafar Jackson, bodied this role. From the movements, he looked just like Michael Jackson does in all the videos, to the mannerisms, to the voice, to, you know, like, you really felt the heart and soul of Michael Jackson through his nephew. Like I said in the movie theater, I'm like, yo, this family is like the. The poster child family for Is in the Blood. Because it's so n. He was doing it so naturally. Like, there was no overacting. Like, shout out to the choreographers, too. Oh, my God. In the. The wardrobe, I know Marcy Rogers, who's a black woman. She's a black woman stylist, did the wardrobe here. Like, oh, my God. But, yeah, that. That was my only critique, was that there. There was a lot of, like, the story that we did see that, like, I wish we had just gotten deeper into, like, I wish because I just think that they have the range to be able to really tell us things we did not know. And even with the vitiligo stuff and the, you know, Michael Jackson, you know, allegedly wanting to be white, even that was, like, kind of glossed over a bit. Like, they mentioned certain things, but, like, they didn't go into depth, but, like, his struggle with that. So I wish we had gotten some of that. But when they were talking about a sequel, and I know Lena Long was on the Today show with Colin Domingo and mentioned the sequel. Sequel. Let's take a listen. When they talk about a sequel, there's no way they cannot do another movie. They have to. There is so much more that we got to get into. Even. Even if you never touch the allegations, there's so much more. But it was a great movie. I recommend everyone to go see it. Definitely something you take your family to go see. It just makes you feel good. And also, like, if you're a person that is getting up every day and trying to figure out life and very passionate about what you put out into the world and how it's a reminder of, like, greatness is rewarded. Like, and especially in 2026, I feel like we've gotten so far away from, like, people actually caring about the product of what they're putting out. The look, how it makes people feel, but also the humanity of the art. Like, being an artist is, like, you literally are able to take people's emotions from high to low, low to high. Like, you can move mountains with art, with storytelling, with song, with dance. I think we've gotten so far away from, like, how much of a gift our gifts are. And this movie was a good reminder of that. So shout out to them. You know, they definitely need a sequel, though. Like, if there's no sequel done. This is not just you guys went out and saw the movie this weekend. Let me know how you're feeling. Get out there in the streets and in the tweets. I'm Lauren LaRosa. Everywhere L O R E N L O R O S A I tell you guys every single episode. Y' all could be anywhere with any old body. But y' all choose to be right here with me, my lowriders. I appreciate you guys and it was so good to see so many of you, the listeners of the podcast, at the podcast festival. If you did purchase merch, please tag me. I want to post you guys like, I want the world to see y'.
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All.
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I appreciate it so much. And don't forget, you can continue shopping. The merch, the brown girl grinding merch that I drop@brown girlgrinding.com use code BG love L O V E for a little gift some money off of your purchase just because I just appreciate all the love and support and these podcasts at the podcast festival inspired me. I got a. I got a lot. I got a lot I want to do this year. This has been an inspirational weekend. I'll catch you guys in my next episode. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.