With Shabazzian 2021, we close this year’s I LIKE PINGA’S JOYS. Let’s start enjoying the Present and fantasizing about the Future.
Three years and counting
Three years ago, very few people knew who Rhyheim Shabazz was. When we interviewed him in March 2019, he was not even confident about starting a career in porn. This blogger remembers that the star gave his success a life expectancy of 8 months during a side conversation.
Indeed, he was wrong. His stardom rocketed up to unseen levels of popularity at unseen speed. We will never know what would have happened without the pandemic, but we are not exaggerating if we declare 2020 as the first Shabazzian year.
We closed 2019, celebrating Rhyheim as the Best Adult Entertainer of the Year. Big Bro had only ten months of Porn Life, but the traditional labels were already too small to classify him. Best top, best dick, best orgy, best duo, and a long list of conventional titles would have ended in the newcomer’s bookshelves.
Since then, the Shabazzian wave took over the Pornosphera. The Neo Vanilla trend became the force behind the Independent Boom, and The Cooperative turned into a Porn Power House. Not only American porn stars would flock to collaborate with Rhyheim and EyeFilmz. Besides, in a vision never before accomplished by independent porn creators, frequent international travels expanded the brand’s geographical influence.
A Shabazzian 2021
Perhaps we should recognize two Shabazzian years. 2020 was a year of unstoppable growth. 2021 was the year of Rhyheim’s consecration. By July 2021, his Twitter following reached an unprecedented One Million figure. Never before a gay porn star had risen to that level of popularity.
Tim Tales devoted an entire weekend to the star’s return by October. But this time, not as an exclusive performer, but as a star partner. Rhyheim did not perform with other Tim Tales stars. Instead, he took over the best European studio screen and brought two of his main partners in The Cooperative. The scenes with Italo Andrade (his Brazilian alter ego) and Elijah Zayne (his life partner) seemed to inaugurate a new association.
At approximately the same time his new association with a premium mainstream porn studio was evident, we witnessed another groundbreaking development. Str8UpGayPorn, probably the most popular gay porn gossip blog, also joined the conventional outlets welcoming the new Porn Power House in the hood.
Not only did Big Bro and his partners in The Cooperative start to receive more attention and regular posts devoted to them. Besides, the blog began to include banners linking to their OnlyFans pages.
Furthermore, Rhyheim was celebrated as “Best Performer of the Year” in the blog’s phony annual awards. The award does not reflect the dimension of his achievements and influence, but it is indeed a nice closing for two Shabazzian years.
Not everything shone
2021 seems to be the year when the conventional porn industry embraced the Shabazzian wave. However, it was also when the Neo Vanilla explosion suffered a couple of damaging hits.
By mid-year, OnlyFans announced a change in their policies. First, they announced that they would ban pornography. Later, they went back to their decision and, instead, changed some of the rules regulating adult content.
Indeed, this is a hit that takes away from The Cooperative’s pornography one of its significant appeals. One of my favorite Neo Vanilla features, the depiction of recreational drug use, was murdered by the new rules. No more poppers, no more weed kissing in Shabazzian porn. No more long introductory conversations and relaxing before getting to the hot work.
OnlyFans also changed the rules on certifying performers’ legal age and consent. This change will also impact the number and diversity of the performers filmed by EyeFilmz. However, it is a limitation that will fade with time as more newbies comply. Meanwhile, we can expect to see Rhyheim fucking mostly with already known and certified porn performers, independent or from the studios.
Finally, Rhyheim’s and many of his partners’ Twitter accounts suffered an attack last November. Big Bro, EyeFilmz, and Italo had to open new accounts. Although this was not the first hit, it was the first successful one.
A Shabazzian Future?
Can we expect a Shabazzian future? Will The Cooperative’s inclusiveness spirit influence the mainstream industry? Will mainstream practices contaminate Neo Vanilla’s independent freedom? Although it is too soon to know, we will probably play with these ideas in future posts.
Rhyheim Shabazz is exceptional. Measuring other adult artists against him would be indeed unfair. It is hard to imagine future landscapes when you factor in exceptionalism, but we will try.
Meanwhile, join me to celebrate another Shabazzian year, closing our 2021 I LIKE PINGA’S JOYS.
Stay tuned; we are back to 2022.
Hasta la próxima pinga, amig@s!
