The Internet is a beautiful place that brings people together. It can help you stay connected to your friends near and far, network with professionals and even let you know when there is an artist in need. On April 5th, 2017, Solange Knowles took to Twitter to ask for a unique favor: for someone to turn her vision into a reality by creating a mashup of The Wiz and Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak song “Bad News.”
The Wiz is a musical from 1978 based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz but with a twist. The adaptation focuses on capturing the true essence of the African-American experience through the magic of soul music. The film was even called the “Motown remake of ‘The Wizard of Oz.’” It also featured an all black cast including the pop legends Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. Like The Wiz, Solange has embraced and celebrated black identity throughout her work; it is no surprise that the singer would want to combine these two pieces that had so much influence in black culture. As for Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak, ”He left a legacy with this album. When you mash the two songs together, you get to fully witness the beauty of human emotion.”
Two talented fans took on the challenge, one of them being Rona Akbari, better known as @TheRonaLisa, a Florida State University senior who is a Digital Media Production major.
She replied to Solange’s tweet in the best way possible:
Rona not only did an amazing job creating a video collage but she was also recognized by Solange herself. She took to both Twitter and Instagram to express her gratitude:
Solange posted the video twice on Instagram and mentioned Rona in the post, as well. She captioned the second post, “Still shook.” So are we, Solange, so are we. Since then, the video has been viewed about 447,500 times on Instagram.
“When she retweeted me on Twitter, I was really shocked and excited. That was a little early in the evening. Then later that night, I saw she posted on Instagram and physically typed out my name into the caption (spelled correctly, too!), which was extremely wild to me,” said Rona Akbari.
Now it is safe to say that Rona is Twitter famous after gaining a ton of new followers and being mentioned by articles on the web countless times, like The Fader, a music magazine, and Complex. While Rona did break the internet, as a senior graduating in May, it is important to remember that we are all college students looking for a job. Hit her up if anyone knows of any openings in the media production world.