olympics
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Raygun, a b-girl who competed for Australia at the inaugural breaking competition at this year’s Summer Olympics, turned heads during the event with some questionable dance moves and went viral in memes. Raygun announced during an interview with an Australian outlet that she is no longer going to compete in breaking and will retire.
Raygun, real name Rachael Gunn, was a guest on The Jimmy & Nath Show and explained why she’s walking away from the sport of breaking after receiving negative commentary regarding her time in the competition. In so many words, Gunn says that her love of dancing led her to the world stage but that competing is no longer on the table for her after the backlash.
“I’m not going to compete anymore, no,” Gunn said earlier this week. “I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now to approach a battle.”
Away from breaking, Gunn is an educator for Macquarie University Faculty of Arts for its Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature. Gunn famously penned her PhD thesis, “Deterritorializing gender in Sydney’s breakdancing scene: a B-girl’s experience of B-boying,” from her standpoint of becoming involved with breaking in her home country.
Raygun didn’t score one point during her time in the Summer Olympics breaking event, prompting many online to believe she was placed on the stage as a means to draw ratings or cause controversy. Gunn has since shot down the claim.
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Photo: Getty
Celine Dion‘s heart will definitely go on for Kelly Clarkson. Following the Kelly Clarkson Show host’s powerful Kellyoke cover of the icon’s classic Titanic ballad “My Heart Will Go On,” Dion shared a tearful reaction to the tribute in a video posted to social media on Tuesday (Oct. 8). “I just saw you singing ‘My […]
Australian breaker Rachael Gunn, or “b-girl Raygun,” holds the top spot in her sport’s latest world rankings despite Olympic performances that led to online ridicule. On Tuesday, the sport’s governing body issued a statement to “provide clarity” on why Raygun tops the rankings. Raygun, a 37-year-old university lecturer from Sydney, failed to score any points at […]
The closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games leaned fully into French electronic music, and with dazzling results. The ceremony, which happened at Paris’ Stade De France on Sept. 8, assembled not only athletes, but a legendary crew of French dance producers that included the pioneering Jean Michel Jarre, Ed Banger founder Busy P, […]
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Australian Olympic “breaker” Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, has, apparently, been having a rough go of it ever since she embarrassed herself in front of the world by flopping around on the Olympic stage, doing what looked like an impersonation of either a kangaroo, bunny or velociraptor while hopping around like a toddler trying to get her mother’s attention — and calling it breakdancing.
We all saw the way Gunn’s performance prompted an onslaught of memes, gifs and relentless mocking on social media. There was even a petition against her that some 58,000 people signed. The internet dragging was well-deserved, but it appears it put the 37-year-old in a state of distress that she’s still working her way out of. Apparently, the worldwide reaction to Gunn’s culture-vulturing nonsense on social media and on late-night television has harmed her mental health, which is why she has made an effort to stay away from all of it — but she still felt the need to tell us all about it, of course.
From Deadline:
And she hasn’t even seen the Jimmy Fallon-Rachel Dratch parody. “I don’t think I’m in the place yet to watch it,” she says in a new interview with the Australian network television show The Project.
“I knew that I was going to get beaten, and I knew that people were not going to understand my style and what I was going to do,” the 37-year-old breaker said. “The odds were against me, that’s for sure.”
“Fortunately I got some mental health support pretty quickly and I also went off social media,” she added.
Elsewhere during the The Project interview, Gunn apologized for the negative attention she’s brought to the new Olympic sport. “I am very sorry for the backlash that the community has experienced,” she said, “but I can’t control how people react.”
I mean, one could argue that she absolutely could have controlled how people reacted — by not taking her talentless, rhythmless self up on that stage in the first place.
It’s arguable that all Gunn did when she (literally) hopped up on that stage was single-handedly ensure that the breaking completion never had a fair shot at being taken seriously at the Olympics.
Gunn—who holds a PhD in Cultural Studies and examines the cultural politics of breaking, bringing both academic and artistic perspectives—had also previously defended herself in a way that indicates she cares nothing about the culture she supposedly studied and was more concerned with the spotlight and what it did for her personally.
“What I wanted to do was come out here and do something new and different and creative — that’s my strength, my creativity,” she said. “I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative because how many chances do you get in a lifetime to do that on an international stage.”
If Gunn really cared about the culture she supposedly studied, she wouldn’t want to be the only thing people would remember about the time breaking came to the Olympics, which will likely not happen again in 2028.
But, sure, I guess it’s good she’s taking care of her mental health or whatever. Good luck with all that.
Flavor Flav served as a hype man and official sponsor of the U.S. water polo Olympic teams at the 2024 Games. Now, he’s looking to take his involvement to another level when the 2028 Olympics return to the USA in Los Angeles. The Public Enemy rapper joined iHeart’s Politickin podcast hosted by California’s Gov. Gavin […]
The 2024 Summer Olympics are but a memory at this point, but for Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav the flame burns on. The excitable hip-hop hype man isn’t done boosting the names and stories of U.S. athletes, including the paralympians who are gearing up to take the stage in Paris next week.
“THIS is just one of the many @gofundme for the @Olympics and @Paralympics that I support,” tweeted Flav about the games that will take place from August 28-Sept. 8. “Imagine spending 18 years taking ya kid to every practice and game and working 2-3 jobs to buy equipment,,, and then not being able to watch them play the biggest game of they life.”
Flav was responding to a post from Paralympic sprinter Nick Mayhugh, who earlier this month wrote, “HELP SEND MY PARENTS TO PARIS! [gold medal emoji]. I created a @gofundme to help pay for expenses to send my parents to the #Paralympics! They’ve never been out of the country, & couldn’t watch me compete in Tokyo due to COVID. Any & all donations are appreciated!” The rapper was one of more than 300 people who’ve donated anywhere from $5-$500 to the cause; he appears to have donated $100 under his birth name, William Drayton. So far, the campaign has raised $11,126 of its $10,000 goal.
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Three-time gold medalist Mayhugh is a 28-year-old Paralympian who just qualified for his second Paralympic team. The athlete who discovered he had cerebral palsy at age 14, helped the U.S. Men’s National Para Soccer team win its first bronze medal at the 2019 Para Pan American Games and then switched to track for the Tokyo Olympics, where he won a trio of golds in the 100M T37, 200m T37 and the 4X100m medley at the 2021 Games.
“I am humbly asking for any and everyone’s help to get my parents over to Paris to watch me compete for Team USA and bringing home more gold medals!” Mayhugh wrote in his GoFundMe.
Flav has been all-in with the U.S. squad this year, pledging $1,000 and a cruise for all the members of the U.S. Women’s Water Polo team and helping to cover rent costs for 24-year-old discus thrower Veronica Fraley and, before it was restored, offering gymnast Jordan Chiles a giant, bejeweled bronze clock in place of the bronze medal that was briefly stripped from her over a technicality.
The friendship with the water polo squad rambled on to Las Vegas recently, where the PE hype man got hype with the athletes at Resorts World on Saturday night, after being welcomed to the resort with a giant American flag display on the hotel’s facade. “imma so proud of all these women. Look at all the support and attention brought to this sport and women’s athletics. We changing the game and that is something BIG to celebrate,” Flav wrote on Instagram alongside video and photos of him partying with the women.
See Flav’s tweet and Vegas party video below and check out Mayhugh’s GoFundMe here.
THIS is just one of the many @gofundme for the @Olympics and @Paralympics that I support. Imagine spending 18 years taking ya kid to every practice and game and working 2-3 jobs to buy equipment,,, and then not being able to watch them play the biggest game of they life. https://t.co/xnZWGABNbs— FLAVOR FLAV (@FlavorFlav) August 15, 2024
WOOWWW,!!! Y’all we did it,!!! FULLY FUNDED within a day. This is the power of unity and community. Y’all helping make some dreams come true,!!! 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾@nickmayhugh @gofundme https://t.co/BiFE6VJNot— FLAVOR FLAV (@FlavorFlav) August 16, 2024
Dr. Dre wants to suit up for Team USA when the 2028 Summer Olympics come to Los Angeles. The West Coast rap legend recently opened up about his hopes to compete on the archery team, and a two-time gold medalist is willing to help him.
California’s own archery savant Justin Huish spoke to TMZ Sports about potentially training Dr. Dre with the goal of getting the musician to the Olympic Games, and Huish thinks it’s possible the rapper could thrive.
“Archery is kind of like golf — anyone can do it at any age. There’s not really an age limit. I’m gonna be 50 years old myself and I’m still competing at a high level,” he said. “We’ve had times where someone has made the team where someone isn’t in the archery team in years past.”
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Huish continued: “It really would matter would he be able to put the time and effort in fast-tracking that … It’s a six- or seven-hour per day endeavor to really get good. You can be a phenom and you don’t really know.”
Huish was the first male archer to win double gold medals when he claimed the top spot in the individual and team events at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. He also offered a helping hand to Dre if he wants to take his game to another level.
“Dr. Dre, hit me up. I’ll be there. I live in SoCal. I’ll come to your house,” Huish added to TMZ Sports. “I will train, I will dedicate my time to train with you. I will give you all my top sponsors for the best equipment money can buy … I can get you in contact with our top U.S. Olympic coaches. Anything you need. If you’re really serious about this, hit me up.”
Dr. Dre — who performed alongside Snoop Dogg during the 2024 Summer Olympics’ Closing Ceremony on Aug. 11 — recently put his cards on the table when telling Entertainment Tonight about his plans to suit up for Team USA. His relationship with the sport goes back to junior-high school, and he has a setup in his backyard.
“I’m trying to try out for the Olympics in 2028 … archery. I’m dead-a– serious,” he insisted. “I actually started playing around with archery in junior high. I stopped for a while and my son bought me a setup I don’t know if it was for my birthday or Father’s Day or something like that, so I have it set up in my backyard. And I heard qualifying for the Olympics is 77 feet and I practice at 90 [feet].”
Dre went on about the potential feat: “Yeah, wouldn’t that be interesting to go, especially with it being here in L.A. and win the gold medal … I feel like I could do anything.”
If Dre can pull it off, he’ll be 63 years old at the time of the 2028 Olympics, which is taking place on the USA’s home soil.
Watch Huish make his offer below:
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Breakdancing debuted as an Olympic sport at the 2024 Olympics in Paris — and a Canadian competitor won a gold medal in its first year.
The Vancouver-based Phil Wizard, born Philip Kim, took home the gold in breaking, beating France’s own Dany Dann in the final.
Breaking won’t be at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, but the art form that began on the streets of the Bronx as one of the four pillars of hip-hop was well represented at this year’s event. The men’s tournament, which took place on Saturday (Aug. 10), was filled with impressive moves as dancers battled each other one-on-one.
Unlike other music-based events like rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming, the breakers didn’t know which songs they would be dancing to, which meant there was a heavy dose of improv. The DJ played plenty of hip-hop classics, from A Tribe Called Quest‘s “Scenario” to Method Man‘s “Judgement Day” to “Live at the Barbeque” by New York/Toronto group Main Source.
Wizard and his competitors busted out some head-spinning moves, showing off the art of breaking to the world after a competitor at the previous day’s women’s tournament made news for different reasons. After going viral for her less-than-crisp bunny hops and sprinklers, Raygun (a.k.a. Australia’s Rachael Gunn), has faced significant backlash and accusations of rigging the process to get to the Olympics.
“I didn’t realize that would open the door to so much hate,” Gunn said in a statement this week. “Which has frankly been pretty devastating. While I went out there and I had fun, I did take it very seriously. I worked my butt off preparing for the Olympics and I gave my all, truly.”
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The tone was different for Wizard, who expressed his thanks on Instagram this week.
“The sheer amount of love and support from this past week has warmed my heart,” he said. “My goal winning aside was to enjoy the moment as much as possible, as it was years in the making coming down to one moment. I didn’t want to let that one moment define me ever, and I wanted to show how much love I have for this art, dance, community, sport. Looking back I can’t help but be in awe of everyone that showed up, both on and off the field. The camaraderie between all the competitors was truly beautiful, all knowing how hard it was to get here.” – Richard Trapunski
Tragically Hip Docuseries ‘No Dress Rehearsal’ Will Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival
A beloved Canadian band is shedding new light on their journey. The Tragically Hip, who are celebrating 40 years since their founding, will premiere a long-promised new Prime Video docuseries at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September.
The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal is directed and produced by late frontman Gord Downie‘s older brother Mike and features never-before-seen footage of the band. It tells the story of their rise to popularity — the band has nine No. 1 albums in Canada and 17 Junos, and is synonymous with Canadian music for many listeners — and the tragic loss of Downie from brain cancer in 2017.
“This project is a labour of love,” said Mike Downie in a statement. “We set out to understand what held the band together, what pushed them apart and how they captured the hearts and minds of so many fans both in Canada and around the world.”
The brand new trailer for the four-episode series features reflections from the band members on The Hip’s ups and downs as well as their final tour with Downie in 2015 after his diagnosis. The interviews are accompanied by concert footage and commentary from well-known Canadians like actor Will Arnett and broadcaster George Stroumboulopoulos. The band’s longtime manager, Jake Gold, serves as an executive producer.
After its TIFF premiere, the series will stream on Prime Video, though no date is available yet. Incidentally, the series follows another recent Prime Video documentary on a Canadian icon dealing with illness: I Am: Céline Dion.
TIFF 2024 is also set to feature appearances from musicians like Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Pharrell Williams. The festival runs Sept. 5-15. – Rosie Long Decter
PartyNextDoor Re-Enters Canadian Albums Chart Following Drake Collaboration News
A local star is back on the Canadian Albums chart this week after a headlining-grabbing performance at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage.
PartyNextDoor‘s PartyNextDoor 4 (P4) has re-entered the chart at No. 87 following that headlining show, which saw a special appearance by Party’s longtime collaborator Drake.
After playing his own set, Drake brought PartyNextDoor back to the stage before the show’s end to duet on “Come and See Me” and announce some special news: “We’ve been working on something for y’all,” he said. “When it gets a little chilly, PartyNextDoor and Drake album will be waiting right there for you.”
In the meantime, Party’s own album has seen a resurgence, re-entering the chart where it spent three previous weeks and peaked at No. 13. The album is also on the Billboard 200 albums chart at No. 152 (Canadian Albums only has 100 spots).
Also on the Canadian Albums chart this week, Punjabi artist Navaan Sandhu has debuted at No. 97 with his album, The Finest. Amritsar-born Sandhu has been racking up millions of streams with the album, and the music video for its title track, released two weeks ago, has 2.9 million views.
The chart debut is yet another indicator of Punjabi music’s popularity in the country, with artists like Diljit Dosanjh, Karan Aujla and AP Dhillon seeing similar success on Canada’s charts over the last year.
Ye and Ty Dolla $ign‘s Vultures 2 is the No. 1 album in Canada this week. – RLD
This summer, nothing has been bigger than the Paris Olympics. The global games — held across 17 days from late July through last Sunday’s Closing Ceremony — set all kinds of records. They drew an average U.S. daily viewership of 30.6 million, an 82% jump from the 2021 Tokyo Games, and created worldwide stars out of some of the top athletes on the planet.
The Paris Games culminated in that star-studded Closing Ceremony, which featured a huge performance headlined by French band Phoenix in the iconic Stade de France, with onstage assists from Air, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and French producer Kavinsky, among others. The Closing Ceremony drew more than 20 million viewers in the U.S. alone, while its effect led to a giant surge in streams and sales for Phoenix and Kavinsky in particular: Streams for Phoenix’s catalog jumped 86% over the prior week following the performance, while Kavinsky’s “Nightcall” broke the record for most Shazams in a single day and saw its streams grow 74%.
But it was also a massive showcase for one of the most successful groups of the past few decades and one of the top French groups of all time — and it helps their manager, C3’s Matt Sadie, earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week. Here, Sadie talks about all the work that went into the performance behind the scenes, the platform of performing in front of an estimated 800 million people worldwide and what this means for the band. “There have been so many times over the years when we — the management team and Branco, Christian, Thomas and Deck in the band — have all worked very, very closely to bring their special vision to fruition,” Sadie says. “The Olympics performance felt like a real crowning moment in Phoenix’s career, and I am thrilled to have been a part of it.”
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This week, Phoenix performed in Paris for the Olympics Closing Ceremony, a huge event for the band and the country. How did that come together, and what key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
As soon as Paris was given the Olympics for 2024 back in 2017, we immediately identified the opportunity internally. It felt very logical that a band of their international stature, from near Paris and largely based there, should have a place in the Olympics. The Opening and Closing Ceremonies were definitely top of the list.
Clearly, the Olympics team weren’t at the stage of picking acts for the ceremonies in 2017, but around two years ago, alongside my counterpart in France, Laurence Muller, and the band’s agent in France, Sofiene Bijaoui from Corida, we identified who the powers that be were and began conversations. There was a lot of perseverance from everyone on the team. In the meantime, last year we planned the band’s touring to keep them in Europe over this summer, leaving gaps in the schedule where the Opening and Closing Ceremonies were. This allowed the flexibility needed in case the call came, which it eventually did.
What are the considerations when putting an act onto an event as prestigious as the Closing Ceremony? Was there any hesitation or was it an automatic yes?
How do you say no? Given the scale of the opportunity and the very natural connection in being a French band from the area, it was as close to an automatic yes as one can get. In our conversations with the Olympics team, we were immediately given a lot of independence in putting their set together — there was simply the remit that the performance had to feel like a party for the athletes and that we had 15-17 minutes to play with. Knowing that the band would be playing to a global audience of around 800 million, the priority for us was to put a show together which would have the potential to appeal to people who’d never heard of Phoenix before and would remind those who had why they’ve continued to be one of the most beloved artists of the last 20 years. We immediately felt the pre-conditions of the set given to us by the Olympics meant that this was a no-brainer.
How did you prepare for this differently than any other gig?
Pretty much every aspect of this show required preparations that were different to a normal show for the band. It was very much non-stop from myself, Laurence and the rest of the team from the moment we got the green light.
The band haven’t played a medley set of this kind before, so that was a challenge in itself. They knew they wanted to have some guests, so identifying them, getting them on board, and working through logistical gymnastics was pretty consuming for all. For the band, having the acts they wanted to join them in Air, Kavinsky, Angele, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend and VannDa, was a very different approach to a normal show but one they relished.
If you’ve seen them play before, you’ll know that the band have always put a lot of focus into the production at their live shows. They’d usually have the control and time to finesse it into something very special. We had neither of those luxuries here; we were simply told, “You’ll be playing on a stage in the middle of the stadium which is shaped like the world map — you’ll be playing in Africa.” We worked closely with the team to create a scenario which would work for the band and their guest performers. Playing in a stadium is very different to a festival show or the sheds the band played at during their recent U.S. co-headline run with Beck, but it gave our brilliant lighting designer Pierre Claude a huge scale of production elements to work with. His efforts to pull things together were truly herculean.
We’ve done plenty of live streams — from festivals and most recently with Air from the roof of the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, but this was on a whole different scale, with over 80 cameras in the stadium capturing the show. We also weren’t in control of the direction during the livestream. As a solution, Laurence brought in David Ctiborsky from Blogotheque, who’d worked closely with the band on various livestreams, to ensure that the various “moments” were filmed effectively, advising the team from the Olympics capturing it. We also were conscious that this was being broadcast around the world via local broadcasters, so talking points on each of the songs and artists involved was critical promotionally.
Outside of the show itself, promoting it was very different from any other show. Rather than the usual heavy promotion into a show, news of their performance was technically embargoed until the last minute, despite the odd leak here and there. This meant that we had to be reactive with media after the fact, which we were ready to do via our PR — Jen Appel of The Oriel and Nathalie Ridard of Ephelide — our digital marketing team, Dream Team, and the team at C3 Management.
With the band appearing onstage with Kavinsky and Air, and the closing ceremony also featuring a medley of Justice songs, what does it all say about the importance of electronic music to French culture?
To their credit, in choosing artists from the “French Touch” movement, the creative team behind the Closing Ceremony identified something very special that France brought to the world. Daft Punk, Air, Phoenix, Justice and many more have had a huge, and sometimes unsung, impact on music globally, not just in the electronic space. To my mind, it’s one of the country’s greatest present-day cultural exports. Highlighting it in the ceremony really allowed them to celebrate something uniquely French but also globally relevant and ultimately timeless.
What position does a performance like this put the band in, in terms of their next moves? How do they capitalize on the moment?
Clearly this has been a huge watershed moment for the band globally. Every metric has shown that this week, notably seven of the top 11 songs on Shazam this week are from their set, including Kavinsky’s “Nightcall” receiving the most Shazams of any song in a day ever. We’ve seen serious growth on socials and streaming numbers, alongside a vast amount of media coverage. There’s no doubt that a huge number of people have discovered the band, and I’m sure many others have enjoyed being reminded of some of their favorite songs from the last couple decades. The performance has opened a lot of doors already and we’re still seeing the impact in real time.
More than anything, though, after more than a decade as one of the band’s managers, I’m proud of them for always being open to new challenges that push us all creatively and beyond. There have been so many times over the years when we — the management team and Branco, Christian, Thomas and Deck in the band — have all worked very, very closely to bring their special vision to fruition. The Olympics performance felt like a real crowning moment in Phoenix’s career, and I am thrilled to have been a part of it.