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Ben Carter

Rihanna's 'Dexter-esk' Music Video is Really About the Importance of Protecting Your Mon


Last night I woke up in the middle of the night. I was out for a drink or two during happy hour the evening before and in my advancing age I find my ability to survive an entire night with a full complement of sleep, without waking up with a slight headache and feeling dehydrated with some kind of bowel disturbance is waning. It seems your 28th year is precisely when your body begins to show it’s inability to negotiate even the slightest bit of social drinking. On nights like these I usually busy myself until I fall asleep again. This time around was no different. I perused the interwebs and Instagram and eventually came across the fact that R&B, pop artist Rihanna had released the music video for her deathly popular B*tch Better Have My Money song (BBHMM for short). The video is an incredible flash back to times when artists decided to tell a story along with their song. I was reminded somewhat of Michael Jackson’s 'Thriller' and other semi-short films that have accompanied many smash hits over the last 25 years or so. The video is comical and a little dark at times (as evidenced by the photo above). I came across the short film via the well-known blog necolebitchie.com. The celebrity news website tells a story of Rihanna’s song being inspired by true events. You can read the full story here, but the blog post essentially puts together pieces of Rihanna’s business management history to paint a picture of a pop artist that has experienced the sting of having had business and financial matters mismanaged by their handlers. The piece talks about a former manager that may have misappropriated Rihanna’s money in the development of past projects like ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’ and ‘Distrubia’. Rihanna apparently sued the manager’s firm for the mismanagement and poor advisory of her income. The matter was settled outside of court for a hefty $10 million. The ‘Dexter-esk’ finale of the music video is riddled with the visuals of a person taking advantage of another’s financial success. There are shots of an overdrawn bank account as well as a piece of tape that reads “Effed up my credit”. If a woman scorned is a terrible thing to have to contend with, we see a woman cheated out her money may be death sentence. What’s wrapped up into the story of the video and it’s possible true life inspiration is an old tale of successful and influential people completely deferring matters of personal finances. If we take the reports pieced together by necolebitchie.com to be true, we see yet another artist who has been led to less than awesome decisions about their money by people not making the money. It’s a cautionary tale that even when you’re as rich, talented and bad-ass as Robyn “Rihanna” Fenty, there is still supreme value in being tuned in to one’s financial matters. Watch BBHMM video here.

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