The time has come. The Trump admin will ban the Chinese owned TikTok and WeChat on the app stores on Sunday. China banned Google, Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp. We are venturing into a new frontier. Countries are creating apps, targeting users, and weaponizing them for political purposes.

Earlier in the week it was reported that American company Oracle was going to buy TikTok.
India banned TikTok while Australia have been critics of the app. China is collecting data from American users that is streamlined to the Chinese government.

WeChat is the most popular in China. It’s used as a chat app, a payment platform, and a news source. It’s used to monitor the citizens and is a conduit for Chinese propaganda and surveillance.
Now lets be clear. It’s not an outright ban. TikTok will still function but users won’t have access to updates and upgrades.
Will TikTok ultimately go away? Most definitely not. A deal will be made eventually, it’s just taking slower then expected.

Watch out for Londin Thompson and the track Wish It Would Rain. It’s a really good track and she has a captivating smooth vocal. The 20 year old from Cleveland released the song Hits which became a minor online hit and the track Spark which landed on Spotify’s Fresh Finds. But, it finally all came together when she released a snippet of the track Wish It Would Rain on TikTok.
She had 300 TikTok followers when she released ‘Wish It Would It Rain”, then “It was doing just like a regular video she says. Then, four to six hours after I had posted, it started getting more and more traction. My sister and I were sitting in her room freaking out, seeing the views and likes go up by 3,000 every 30 seconds.” The song was shared by Millie Bobby Brown, Meghan Trainor and Tana Mongeau. After the track was nearing a million views, she got the emails from the music labels and Republic Records scored the deal with singer. Give it a stream on KOAR’s Indie Invaders Playlist.

Kanye has the moves, he has the motion and he only needs himself to cause a commotion. Kanye’s been busy, very busy blowing up Twitter that he got banned.  Why?  Who knows.  He posted several artist agreements he had with Universal Music and urged every lawyer in the world to look at the agreements. Maybe Twitter thought it was an invasion of private policy. Regardless, instead of locking people out of an account, they need a new rule that allows users to rectify the situation without being banned.  Kanye has a bigger voice than the ordinary a folk, and people came to his defense with a hashtag #freeYe.
He also posted a video of someone urinating on a Grammy Award and called the music industry and sports a modern day slave plantation.
This is obviously a ploy to get out his agreement with Universal. Kanye says he can afford to buy his masters and that his children will own them, not somebody’s else’s children.
Despite the cancel culture, Kanye insists he won’t be muted or cancelled and I still don’t know why Twitter locked himself out of his account.  That needs to stop and I’m convinced we are heading toward the day when the average citizen or notable artist doesn’t have to live in fear with being deplatformed.

Check out Boys Like You like KELLA. It’s a well crafted song, but then again, the Los Angeles based pop artist is a songwriter having written songs with Bülow, Nina Nesbitt, The Him, The Ready Set and Virginia To Vega.  She says, “I’ve been in my fair share of failed relationships in the past. When I finally met a guy who checked all the boxes, it felt too good to be true. Everything inside of me wanted to run away, but I couldn’t. It was terrifying but was the most freeing experience of my life. To just let go of preconceived notions and let myself fall in love.”

Tired of the old Taylor? Well, a new Taylor has arrived in the male version. His name is Conan Gray. His biggest influence is Taylor and credits her for his love of music. The 21 year old electro acoustic pop artist was born to an Irish dad and a Japanese mom. He moved around a lot, rarely in one place. That’s where you want to be as a songwriter, always on the move with new experiences, new scenes, and new faces. He was enrolled as a college student at UCLA. He was building his career while attending classes during the day. You see? You don’t even need college anymore. Plus he saved a a bucketload of money. The hundreds of thousands that would have went into UCLA now can go into tour production – once live entertainment venues reopen.  He has played ton of shows, opened up for Panic! At The Disco in 2019 and has a million of subscribers. Now, Conan is set to conquer the mainstream with the ballad Heather. You may start hearing the track on top 40 radio as it just made its debut on the Official UK Singles Chart.