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LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 18, 2023--

It’s been 20 years, but Brenda Mejia still vividly remembers watching a TV infomercial playing Tego Calderón’s “Metele Sazón” back in 2003. At the time, the teenager preferred the bubblegum pop of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears over reggaeton, a genre that was slowly and controversially spreading from nightclubs to radio stations. Then the San Juan native heard Tego’s rhyme and rhythm — and it “haunted her.” She connected with it so much that she went out and bought Mas Flow, the debut compilation album by reggaeton producers Luny Tunes and Noriega that featured the track, and made the hit a part of her quinceañera.

Sam Asghari reportedly threatened to release embarrassing information about Britney Spears

Comedian turned commentator Russell Brand has weighed in on the ongoing wildfires in Maui, Hawaii, flouting conspiracy theories in his usual fast-paced, flamboyant style which are so outlandish, that he’s being compared to GB News anti-vaxxer Neil Oliver. Brand, who’s switched appearances on comedy films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek for his Stay Free podcast in recent years, uploaded a video to his six million subscriber strong YouTube channel on Thursday with the title, “Something Doesn’t Seem Right”. As the baseless conspiracy theory that the devastating crisis on the US island was not aided by climate change but rather a ‘space laser’ continue to spread online, Brand jumped in and dismissed those rightly questioning such a nonsensical argument. “Now, some people would say, ‘Oh, that’s dangerous misinformation – that should be shut down.’ I think the opposite. “Discuss it, look at it, investigate it. Either it’s true or it’s not true, we can decide for ourselves, let’s not get excited,” he says. We have, Russell – that’s kind of what journalists do for a job… Towards the end of the almost 23-minute-long video, Brand turns to the conspiracy that the fires in Hawaii were “started deliberately to benefit rich elites” such as the investment management company and financial services provider BlackRock. He continues: “Now look at the Ukraine war. Ukraine have already done a deal with BlackRock to rebuild their nation using BlackRock investment. “If you apply that mentality to this situation, if BlackRock end up benefitting from the fires in Hawaii, then the conspiracy is almost a redundant detail. Did they start it? Didn’t they start it? “Is it inevitable that the suffering of ordinary people leads to the benefit of rich elites and massive organisations like BlackRock and billionaires across the globe and why is Bill Gates buying all this agricultural land when he’s not a farmer?” Yes, that’s one whole sentence. “Doesn’t it all feel like a kind of macro-conspiracy that’s so diffuse, institutional, oddly abstracted and bureaucratically opaque, that sometimes you just want to simplify it into ‘they started this fire! They started it with a laser from space!’ “And whether it’s true or not, it not only feels true, in terms of its results it is kind of true. There is a conspiracy to keep you poor and benefit rich elites,” he vented, adding that the “next time there’s a pandemic” the elite are “gonna control you more”. In other news, thesauruses are in short supply around the world. And it’s Brand’s ranting about a shadowy elite and government control during a pandemic which has likely led to social media users on Twitter/X branding Brand (ha) a “frappucino Neil Oliver”, the GB News host who has long peddled conspiracy theories about vaccines and an impending “one-world government”. Back in August 2021 he said he’d happily catch Covid – y’know, an actually deadly virus – “for the sake of freedom”, just so you know the kind of dangerous nonsense we’re dealing with here. Others, however, have pointed out to user Matthew Dimitri – who shared a clip of Brand on X – that Brand was actually making an argument about elites and organisations benefitting from natural disasters like the one in Hawaii, and that Dimitri has “misrepresented” Brand: Except instead of rejecting the laser conspiracy theory outright, remember, Brand said he ‘thinks the opposite’ and that instead we should “discuss it, look at it [and] investigate it”, which isn’t a complete dismissal of the idea. He doesn’t really give a definitive answer on whether the claim is true or not, but rather suggests that the result of the whole ‘is it or isn’t it’ debate is more important, as if it’s part of a broader conspiracy or distraction “to keep you poor and benefit rich elites”. Perhaps a far more compelling argument around all this is that Brand should learn to keep things succinct, for the benefit of everyone... Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Sports media fight!

Mixed martial artist Dillon Danis is set to take on YouTuber Logan Paul in a boxing match in Manchester in October – on the same card as KSI vs Tommy Fury – and the Twitter spats are underway, to the extent Danis has claimed Paul and his fiancée Nina Agdal have had arguments over the MMA fighter’s recent tweets. In the build-up to Tuesday’s press conference and the bout later this year, Dannis has taken to X (formerly known as Twitter) to share images of Agdal – a Danish model – nude, and with other men. Insisting “everything’s public”, Danis alleged Paul reported his opponent for “targeted harassment” over the images and that boxing promoter Misfits is “censoring” him after he “went too far” with the social media posts. Over several tweets, Danis wrote: “One rule of mine: if you give it out, you’ve got to be able to take it. I embrace everyone’s comments, good or bad, unlike Logan who turns off his comments, revealing his insecurities.” “I never thought someone who filmed a dead person for a video would have limits.” “Come on, Logan. You really don’t have the guts to respond? This is getting dull. Show some spirit and fight back, kid!” Paul proposed to Agdal last month, and Danis has now shared a fake image suggesting there’s betting odds on the wedding being called off following his antics. The YouTuber is yet to respond to his rival’s teasing, instead limiting replies to his posts on X to those he’s either following or mentioned. And Danis’s regular posts of Agal kissing other men has divided the internet: Despite the online controversy over his actions, Danis appeared on the Full Send podcast and denied going too far with the posts. “Everything’s public. It’s not like I’m getting her ex-boyfriends sending me pictures of her in bed – that would be pretty f***ed up, I would imagine, right? “[It’s] public s*** that she can’t handle, that she used in her past, that’s not my problem,” he said. The fighter also claimed he’s “in [Paul’s] head” in the run-up to their fight, adding: “I can’t say too much but he’s really thinking about pulling out [of] the fight because of how personal it’s getting. “There’s definitely trouble in paradise.” He even said his rival “can’t even train right now” because of the Twitter teasing which is “driving him insane”. While there’s been no comment from Paul about whether he intends to pull out of the fight, it would make a change from Danis’s planned fight against KSI, which was cancelled earlier this year with the rapper’s manager claiming Danis was “underprepared” and “has no coach”. And Danis isn’t the only person fighting on 14 October who’s attracted criticism online, as KSI has been called out for a “disgusting” and “ableist” post on X taking aim at Fury. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.