Latest news with #Victory
The Advertiser
2 days ago
- Sport
- The Advertiser
How new coach can be 'missing piece' for Matildas
New coach Joe Montemurro can be the missing piece to deliver the current generation of Matildas elusive silverware at the 2026 Asian Cup, says veteran striker Emily Gielnik. Montemurro has kicked off his tenure, with Gielnik among those in his first squad for upcoming games against Slovenia and Panama in Western Australia. Friday's squad announcement marks the first step towards next year's tournament on home soil, where the Matildas are chasing their first trophy since their 2010 Asian Cup triumph. "We haven't quite found the missing piece in terms of the right squad to go and lift a trophy again. And I think Joe might be that missing piece to finding that perfect combination of players," Gielnik told AAP. "I've always been someone that thinks you don't need the most talented players, you need the right people. "Of course, you need talent - that's inevitable, but you need the right people, the right culture and all those things that maybe have been just ever so slightly missing over the last few years. "If he can piece that puzzle together, I think we can dominate the Asian Cup, and we have a good chance moving forward into the next World Cup." Gielnik played some of the best football of her career when Ante Milicic took the reins in 2019 and hopes to repeat that. "It keeps the belief alive," Gielnik said. "It's also a fresh start. It's a clean slate. I'm going to be in the present and just put my best foot forward and I'm excited to start this new chapter with Joe. "I've only ever heard great things about him. "I obviously have watched his career unfold, so I'm excited to learn from him, to play for him, and just to see the freshness and the life that he brings back into this Matildas camp. "With his successful CV, I have no doubt that he's the right man for the job, without even having played for him yet." Gielnik has club options overseas and an offer from Victory on the table. The former Bayern Munich attacker would prefer to play overseas again but plans to get feedback from former Arsenal, Juventus and Lyon boss Montemurro. First, the 33-year-old, overlooked regularly by Tony Gustavsson and Tom Sermanni, has a point to prove. "I shed a couple of tears," she said of her call-up. "For sure I have some little doubts that come in, but I've never really, truly given up - not in a million years. "I still see a good couple of years left in me. I still have ambition to play abroad, to be at that Asian Cup and I'm never going to lose sight of that. "This is a massive opportunity for me to be a part of this Asian Cup, considering I missed out on the World Cup at home. "I'll do everything to be a part of that." New coach Joe Montemurro can be the missing piece to deliver the current generation of Matildas elusive silverware at the 2026 Asian Cup, says veteran striker Emily Gielnik. Montemurro has kicked off his tenure, with Gielnik among those in his first squad for upcoming games against Slovenia and Panama in Western Australia. Friday's squad announcement marks the first step towards next year's tournament on home soil, where the Matildas are chasing their first trophy since their 2010 Asian Cup triumph. "We haven't quite found the missing piece in terms of the right squad to go and lift a trophy again. And I think Joe might be that missing piece to finding that perfect combination of players," Gielnik told AAP. "I've always been someone that thinks you don't need the most talented players, you need the right people. "Of course, you need talent - that's inevitable, but you need the right people, the right culture and all those things that maybe have been just ever so slightly missing over the last few years. "If he can piece that puzzle together, I think we can dominate the Asian Cup, and we have a good chance moving forward into the next World Cup." Gielnik played some of the best football of her career when Ante Milicic took the reins in 2019 and hopes to repeat that. "It keeps the belief alive," Gielnik said. "It's also a fresh start. It's a clean slate. I'm going to be in the present and just put my best foot forward and I'm excited to start this new chapter with Joe. "I've only ever heard great things about him. "I obviously have watched his career unfold, so I'm excited to learn from him, to play for him, and just to see the freshness and the life that he brings back into this Matildas camp. "With his successful CV, I have no doubt that he's the right man for the job, without even having played for him yet." Gielnik has club options overseas and an offer from Victory on the table. The former Bayern Munich attacker would prefer to play overseas again but plans to get feedback from former Arsenal, Juventus and Lyon boss Montemurro. First, the 33-year-old, overlooked regularly by Tony Gustavsson and Tom Sermanni, has a point to prove. "I shed a couple of tears," she said of her call-up. "For sure I have some little doubts that come in, but I've never really, truly given up - not in a million years. "I still see a good couple of years left in me. I still have ambition to play abroad, to be at that Asian Cup and I'm never going to lose sight of that. "This is a massive opportunity for me to be a part of this Asian Cup, considering I missed out on the World Cup at home. "I'll do everything to be a part of that." New coach Joe Montemurro can be the missing piece to deliver the current generation of Matildas elusive silverware at the 2026 Asian Cup, says veteran striker Emily Gielnik. Montemurro has kicked off his tenure, with Gielnik among those in his first squad for upcoming games against Slovenia and Panama in Western Australia. Friday's squad announcement marks the first step towards next year's tournament on home soil, where the Matildas are chasing their first trophy since their 2010 Asian Cup triumph. "We haven't quite found the missing piece in terms of the right squad to go and lift a trophy again. And I think Joe might be that missing piece to finding that perfect combination of players," Gielnik told AAP. "I've always been someone that thinks you don't need the most talented players, you need the right people. "Of course, you need talent - that's inevitable, but you need the right people, the right culture and all those things that maybe have been just ever so slightly missing over the last few years. "If he can piece that puzzle together, I think we can dominate the Asian Cup, and we have a good chance moving forward into the next World Cup." Gielnik played some of the best football of her career when Ante Milicic took the reins in 2019 and hopes to repeat that. "It keeps the belief alive," Gielnik said. "It's also a fresh start. It's a clean slate. I'm going to be in the present and just put my best foot forward and I'm excited to start this new chapter with Joe. "I've only ever heard great things about him. "I obviously have watched his career unfold, so I'm excited to learn from him, to play for him, and just to see the freshness and the life that he brings back into this Matildas camp. "With his successful CV, I have no doubt that he's the right man for the job, without even having played for him yet." Gielnik has club options overseas and an offer from Victory on the table. The former Bayern Munich attacker would prefer to play overseas again but plans to get feedback from former Arsenal, Juventus and Lyon boss Montemurro. First, the 33-year-old, overlooked regularly by Tony Gustavsson and Tom Sermanni, has a point to prove. "I shed a couple of tears," she said of her call-up. "For sure I have some little doubts that come in, but I've never really, truly given up - not in a million years. "I still see a good couple of years left in me. I still have ambition to play abroad, to be at that Asian Cup and I'm never going to lose sight of that. "This is a massive opportunity for me to be a part of this Asian Cup, considering I missed out on the World Cup at home. "I'll do everything to be a part of that."
Perth Now
2 days ago
- Sport
- Perth Now
How new coach can be 'missing piece' for Matildas
New coach Joe Montemurro can be the missing piece to deliver the current generation of Matildas elusive silverware at the 2026 Asian Cup, says veteran striker Emily Gielnik. Montemurro has kicked off his tenure, with Gielnik among those in his first squad for upcoming games against Slovenia and Panama in Western Australia. Friday's squad announcement marks the first step towards next year's tournament on home soil, where the Matildas are chasing their first trophy since their 2010 Asian Cup triumph. "We haven't quite found the missing piece in terms of the right squad to go and lift a trophy again. And I think Joe might be that missing piece to finding that perfect combination of players," Gielnik told AAP. "I've always been someone that thinks you don't need the most talented players, you need the right people. "Of course, you need talent - that's inevitable, but you need the right people, the right culture and all those things that maybe have been just ever so slightly missing over the last few years. "If he can piece that puzzle together, I think we can dominate the Asian Cup, and we have a good chance moving forward into the next World Cup." Gielnik played some of the best football of her career when Ante Milicic took the reins in 2019 and hopes to repeat that. "It keeps the belief alive," Gielnik said. "It's also a fresh start. It's a clean slate. I'm going to be in the present and just put my best foot forward and I'm excited to start this new chapter with Joe. "I've only ever heard great things about him. "I obviously have watched his career unfold, so I'm excited to learn from him, to play for him, and just to see the freshness and the life that he brings back into this Matildas camp. "With his successful CV, I have no doubt that he's the right man for the job, without even having played for him yet." Gielnik has club options overseas and an offer from Victory on the table. The former Bayern Munich attacker would prefer to play overseas again but plans to get feedback from former Arsenal, Juventus and Lyon boss Montemurro. First, the 33-year-old, overlooked regularly by Tony Gustavsson and Tom Sermanni, has a point to prove. "I shed a couple of tears," she said of her call-up. "For sure I have some little doubts that come in, but I've never really, truly given up - not in a million years. "I still see a good couple of years left in me. I still have ambition to play abroad, to be at that Asian Cup and I'm never going to lose sight of that. "This is a massive opportunity for me to be a part of this Asian Cup, considering I missed out on the World Cup at home. "I'll do everything to be a part of that."
Gulf Today
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Hip-hop legend Slick Rick returns after 26 years with album
Hip-hop legend Slick Rick is proving his creative spark is far from fading. The English-born rapper — known for his signature eye patch and masterful storytelling — returned to the booth with his first new project in nearly three decades. He's reminding the world of his timeless rap prowess on his visual album, 'Victory,' released on Friday. It marks Slick Rick's first album since 1999's 'The Art of Storytelling.' This new project is largely self-produced, with the rapper handling 95% of the production and sharing executive producer duties with Emmy-nominated actor and occasional rapper-DJ Idris Elba, who appears on the album alongside Nas, Giggs and Estelle. 'You was a young adult, then a middled aged man and now you're an older man, so my mentality has to grow with it,' said Slick Rick, known for his rap classics such as 'Children's Story,' 'La Di Da Di' with Doug E. Fresh and 'Mona Lisa.' His debut album, 'The Great Adventures of Slick Rick,' in 1988 hit No. 1 on the Billboard R&B/hip-hop charts. 'Victory' was four years in the making, with Slick Rick, now 60, writing and recording the album between his birthplace of London then France, while the visuals were filmed in the United States, United Kingdom and Africa. Slick Rick believes his voice still resonates in hip-hop. Slick Rick spoke about how storytelling plays a role in today's rap, his relationship with Elba and how hip-hop has no limitations. How did you and Idris hook up? We met at a party and then we clicked. His people reached out to me, and they wanted to make an album. They flew me to England and France. I hung out with Idris at his cribs, and we just did what we do. We just had fun, And then when we was finished, we said, 'Yeah, we're ready to bring it to the marketplace.' Did you ever feel hesitant stepping back into the spotlight, or did this album feel like destiny? It might've been a little hesitation, but you're just having fun. We just bringing it to the marketplace and see what happens. There's no pressure or nothing. We're bringing it to the people to see if they like it. Feed them. When did you feel like this project was ready for public consumption? When we were in the studio with Idris doing our thing, I checked the reactions of people. But then I saw people in their happy place. Once I saw that, I'm good. I see him and his people's happy. A little dancing. Popped a little Moet. We were having a good time. What made you go the visual album route? It was saving time. People make songs and do videos anyway. So why not just speed this up real quick? Video and rap both at the same time. Boom, let's keep it moving. ... This is like watching a movie. You want to expand the picture. Not only do you hear my voice and the music, which is the essence. You get ... visual picture as well. You produced the bulk of the album. Why did you decide to go that route instead of enlisting other producers? In my creative process, I need to have a lot of input or it's not going to be authentic Rick. Too many hands, it's not going to pop. So many hands is going to distort stuff. I do my own music most of the time. What's the importance of rap storytelling in 2025? It's an open space. It hasn't been filled, the whole storytelling thing. Before it gets too lost back into braggadocios, one frequency. Expand your horizons. You don't always have to be rough. Be romantic. Be humorous. Be vulnerable. Go all over. Be a politician. Use your imagination. Go places, so we can take stories and give to our people's imagination. Associated Press
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
La-Di-Da-Di! Eighties Hip-Hop Great Slick Rick Is Back With ‘Victory'
'I am British, I am Jamaican, I am American. I am what I am,' says Slick Rick on 'I Did That,' a track from Victory, his first album in twenty-six years. Born in Mitcham, London yet long considered a pioneer of ostentatious New York style and panache due to seminal golden-era recordings like 'La-Di-Da-Di' with Doug E. Fresh and 1988's The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, the man famed for wearing massive gold chains and one eyepatch embraces his British-Caribbean heritage here with newfound vigor. The album is accompanied by a 33-minute film directed by Meji Alabi, who has worked with Afrobeats stars like Wizkid and Burna Boy, and executive-produced by Idris Elba, who helps turn the affair into a whirl of pretty faces, many of them wearing eyepatches in honor of the self-proclaimed Ruler. 'I flipped being blind into a fashion statement,' says Rick. Victory feels reminiscent of a recent swath of projects by Eighties rap gods – LL Cool J's 2024 comeback The Force, MC Lyte's 1 of 1, Chuck D's recent Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon – that push boldly and awkwardly into uncharted sonic territory, with sometimes-illuminating results. With platinum success in the rearview and a swelter of career accolades on the mantle, these acts have little left to prove other than making art that means something to them, whether an audience gathers or not. Slick Rick's journey to earning a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award last year has been particularly bumpy, from serving time for attempted murder charges in the Nineties to nearly being deported in the Aughts before New York Governor David Patterson pardoned him in 2008. He hasn't released a full-length since 1999's The Art of Storytelling, which drew energy from a terrific bop with OutKast, 'Street Talkin'.' However, subsequent occasional but memorable cameos on Jay-Z's 2001 hit 'Girls, Girls, Girls,' Mos Def's 2009 track 'Auditorium' and a handful of others have proven that Rick remains a formidable voice when he chooses to re-enter a studio. More from Rolling Stone New Wizkid Documentary Raises Huge Stakes Around a Quiet Superstar Sly Stone Believed Everybody Is a Star: The Massive Legacy of an Avant-Funk Revolutionary Our Favorite Afropop Songs and Albums of 2025 So Far At 27 minutes, the Victory album is even shorter than the movie. The latter has some tracks currently unavailable on streaming like 'Badman Generation,' which finds Elba preening alongside Rick, the Hollywood actor living out his boyhood dream of being a rapper, and 'Who the Fuck Gonna Stop Us,' which is co-produced by Rick and Q-Tip, who also helmed LL's The Force. Debuting at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, Victory resembles a visual album akin to Beyoncé's Lemonade, but without that piece's poetic reflections on Black identity and culture. Instead, director Alabi stocks up on flavorful images of Black London, impeccably dressed actors and dancers bathed in cinematic light, and a brain-frying amount of jump cuts that don't allow the viewer to meditate on what's being shown. It feels like one of those late-Eighties videos where middle-aged classic rockers surrounded themselves with beautiful models trying to look cool for the VH-1 crowd. There are a handful of fine moments, though, like a clip of Rick performing at the famed Blue Note in Manhattan, rhyming into a diamond-encrusted microphone; or a black-and-white scene of Rick giving his 'I Did That' speech while staring out on a rocky beach. The music itself is a bit more substantive, if only because hip-hop fans understand how crucial Rick is to the evolution of the culture. The way he speaks, his unique British inflections, and the way he deploys his voice in a whispery, almost feminine sway have had an enormous influence on generations of artists. On one of the better tracks, 'Documents,' he pairs with Nas, a hip-hop icon clearly inspired by him. (Victory arrives via Mass Appeal Records, a label Nas co-owns.) There are two cuts, 'Cuz I'm Here' and 'Come On, Let's Go,' that find Rick embracing a fun Afrohouse party vibe. Then there's 'Angelic,' where Rick flips an array of stop-start cadences. 'Thanks to all the fam and/Set to go on rammin'/Here's a toast to all my niggas/Coasting with this British/Goes another painting like I'm Rembrandt's/Showing off the grit has/Wrote it like it's witchcraft/Ya gets me?' he raps. At age 60, he's earned the right to stunt without expectations. Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘You can't wear gold without diamonds!' Hip-hop legend Slick Rick on bling, British roots and his 26-year break
Slick Rick is tucking into a late room-service breakfast in his Park Lane hotel room. He is back in London, the city his family emigrated from when he was a boy, because he's launching a new album, Victory, his first since 1999's The Art of Storytelling, which featured an array of guest artists – including Outkast, Nas and Snoop Dogg – paying homage to one of hip-hop's legendary figures. Even today, he remains the rapper's rapper, the most-sampled hip-hop artist in history. Ghostface Killah has called him the greatest of all time. Eminem described himself as 'a product of Slick Rick', Jay-Z likened him to Matisse and Mark Ronson once gave a Ted talk dissecting his work. Questlove called his voice 'the most beautiful thing to happen to hip-hop culture'. So what has he been doing for the last 26 years? He's keen to point out that he's been busy. There was a lengthy battle with US immigration (he was granted American citizenship in 2016); guest appearances on tracks by Jay-Z, Missy Elliott and Mariah Carey among others; collaborations with fashion brands; a real estate empire to tend to. A smart cookie, Slick Rick invested his 80s earnings in property in the Bronx in New York City, the downside of which, 'delinquent tenants and such', is explored in an exasperated track on Victory called Landlord. But it took a meeting with actor Idris Elba 'at a celebrity-type party thing' to bring a new album to life: Victory was recorded at Elba's homes in London and Paris. Uniquely among his catalogue, the results lean into the former Ricky Walters's British roots: UK rapper Giggs makes a guest appearance, as does Estelle, and the accompanying videos were shot in south London. The bracelet on his wrist is platinum and enormous, his watch definitely warrants the description 'iced out' but, by Slick Rick's standards at least, he's dressed down. The patch that covers his right eye, injured by glass from a broken window when he was two, is just an eye patch, rather than the jewel-encrusted variety that has become his trademark (Sotheby's sold one of them last year for $25,000), and there's no sign of his famous neck chains complete with vast pendants. On a day when he's feeling more flamboyant, Slick Rick looks as if he's wearing a jewellery store's entire window display around his neck. It's a style he says he borrowed from mid-80s drug dealers in Baychester, the neighbourhood of the Bronx to which his family relocated from Mitcham in 1976, seeking a better life. 'Crack cocaine was everywhere, and people that was getting rich off crack had enormous jewellery and nice cars and pretty girls – it was like they were giants. Once you get past the stigma of it being bad, you can harvest the beauty out of what you saw. When we saw the jewellery looking like that, it was like, 'You can't go back to small. You can't go back to gold with no diamonds on it.' No, he frowns, he's not dialling his look down now he's reached his 60s. Quite the opposite: he heads to his bedroom and returns with a huge, diamond-encrusted medallion featuring the Virgin Mary. 'You're selling yourself, you know what I mean? Let's say you ain't made a record in 26 years – you're like an old, washed-up, broke motherfucker, do you know what I mean? But when you present yourself like that, it makes people look at you different: 'Oh, I thought you was a broke ass'. The music eventually catches up, but in the meantime, you sell yourself.' Selling his image is something Slick Rick's proved exceptionally good at: in the US you can buy not just Slick Rick T-shirts, but Halloween costumes, even rugs. Not that there was any danger of it overshadowing his music. He was like no one else in mid-80s hip-hop. Rapping in a soft, conversational, singsong voice, he sounded less like someone addressing an audience than a man telling a particularly ornamented anecdote, with one eyebrow permanently raised at the absurdity of it all. It just came out that way, he says: 'At the time, I was probably the only English rapper, but I mixed it with an American accent, because I'm trying to be cool.' And indeed there's something slightly disconcerting about meeting Slick Rick, at least if you've spent the last 40 years listening to his work: in conversation, he sounds exactly like he does on record. He says that moving from Mitcham to the Bronx was a culture shock – 'it was like being in Disneyland or something, more variety of music, food, cultures' – but equally he was in the right place at the right time. In his early teens, hip-hop's first stirrings swept Black neighbourhoods in the Bronx. He can remember seeing the Cold Crush Brothers performing in a local park – 'four or five of them, two DJs, choreographed dance steps, it was just beautiful to us' – and the disappointment of hearing the first hip-hop singles. 'They didn't sound like they did in the streets.' By then, he had his own group, the Kangol Crew, with their own look – 'the Kangol hat with a little suit jacket, we was popular in school because we stood out'. But really, he says, it was 'just kids banging on the desks and making up rhymes, like competing with each other to make the team laugh'. Still, it was the root of his distinctive approach to writing: rather than just bragging, he took to writing stories, illuminating them by taking on characters and adopting different voices. He says he got the latter idea from the children's records by Alvin and the Chipmunks, on which actor Ross Bagdasarian would manipulate tapes of his voice to create characters, effectively holding conversations with himself, although Slick Rick's characters and stories were infinitely more outrageous. 'That was just me entertaining my age group. Later, critics said it was misogynistic or whatever, but if you're trying to entertain children your age, that's going to come with it. You're not going to nitpick and chip away at it – don't use that word, don't use this word – because you'll mess up the humour.' His real break came when he entered a talent contest at a local club called The Armoury: one of the judges was Doug E Fresh, already making a name for himself as 'the original human beatbox': they teamed up and started making tapes together. 'Then someone leaked the tapes to the radio and they just got so popular that a record label thought they should put it out, and then … it went international.' It certainly did: credited to Doug E Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew, 1985's The Show sold 1m copies in the US and reached the Top 10 in Britain. But it was the B-side, La Di Da Di, that cast the longest shadow: a lengthy shaggy dog story and showcase for MC Ricky D (as he was then known), packed with endlessly quotable lines, it's subsequently been sampled more than 1,200 times, by virtually every major rapper – from 2Pac to Kanye West, Run-DMC to Tyler, the Creator – and a dizzying array of non-hip-hop artists: La Di Da Di is probably the only thing the oeuvre of Miles Davis shares with that of the Vengaboys, or indeed BTS. It's provided the hook for the Notorious BIG's Hypnotize, the chorus for Miley Cyrus's We Can't Stop and a melancholy counterpoint on Lana Del Rey's Doin' Time. It rumbles in the background of Beyoncé's Party, was covered in its entirety by Snoop Dogg – whose vocal style owes a considerable debt to Slick Rick's – and Robbie Williams borrowed its lyrics on Rock DJ. 'It draws people in,' suggests Rick of its longevity. 'It's like watching a half-hour comedy special or something. And it taught the kids that they could go in another direction – '[other hip-hop] is just braggadocious, you can go this way too'.' His solo debut album The Great Adventures of Slick Rick was a platinum seller, spawning more heavily sampled classics in Hey Young World and Children's Story, which subsequently formed the basis of Montell Jordan's This Is How We Do It and TLC's Creep, respectively. Then everything went wrong. A cousin, hired as a bodyguard, attempted to extort money from him: when he was let go, he threatened to kill the rapper and his mother. The situation escalated, shots were fired, and Slick Rick was convicted of attempted murder, serving five years (he was given a full pardon in 2008). He recorded two more albums, 1991's The Ruler's Back and 1994's Behind Bars, while on bail or day release. He doesn't want to talk about his jail time today, nor does he mention either of those albums in the list of achievements he enumerates on Victory ('They were rushed, made on bail. I didn't reach my full potential. I don't want to undercut my audience with filler tracks,' he shrugs) although Behind Bars in particular has some stellar moments. The heartbreaking All Alone (No One to Be With) presses his classic storytelling into the service of a song about a single mother's life going haywire, and the chilling title track is, as he puts it, 'a child's imagination of what everybody perceives jail to be – dangerous, you might get raped, you might get extorted'. It is undoubtedly a peculiar situation: an artist who has exerted a vast influence on hip-hop, while only releasing five albums in a 41-year career, two of which he disowns. But Slick Rick seems noticeably more interested in showing me his design for a platform-soled version of the Clarks Wallabee shoe – 'it's modern, it's perfect,' he enthuses – than he is in discussing his legacy. 'It doesn't matter. You just live your life and then let it resonate how it resonates, let it inspire how it inspires. I'm not really looking for a legacy or nothing like that. Just let it happen how it happens, OK?' It's probably an easy thing to say when you know your fellow rappers have spent decades calling you a legend, but no matter: the great Slick Rick shakes my hand, and returns his attention to his sausage and eggs. Victory is out now on 7Wallace/Mass Appeal
