Saturday, November 6, 2010

The Young, Black, and Fabulous

The Young, Black, and Fabulous

Beyoncé Debuts New Concert Special On "ABC" This Thanksgiving

Posted: 06 Nov 2010 08:59 AM PDT

 

Once again you will be able to wind down from a big turkey day feast with one of pop music's queens.  Beyonce has announced she will return to network tv this year with a Thanksgiving Night special on ABC.  Get the deets inside... 

 

 

Beyoncé Knowles returns this year with her second Thanksgiving night special called 'Beyoncé I Am...World Tour' piecing together performances from over 90 of the singer's most recent 32-country, 6-continent world tour stops.

The pop star was trailed by cameras from March 2009 through Feb. 2010 as she traveled the world to places like China, Africa, Australia and Abu Dhabi. Viewers will see the work behind the over-the-top production, including creating choreography, backstage moments and costume creation. 

If this sounds similar to last year's 'I Am...Yours: An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas' this time around, Beyonce took a step behind the camera and produced, directed and edited both the special and a full-length theatrical film of her tour for her own Parkwood Pictures film company.

Beyoncé's husband, Jay-Z, and Kanye West also turns up in the concert special.

The day after the special airs (Nov.26) the DVD of I Am...World Tour will be available exclusively through Wal-Mart.

A deluxe edition of the I Am...World Tour, including the concert DVD, a live audio CD, an exclusive documentary and a 40 page four-color booklet--will be available Nov.30.

The special 'Beyoncé I Am...World Tour' will premiere on Nov.25 at 9:30 pm on ABC. 

Watch the promo here:

Photoshoot Fab: Brandy Covers "UPSCALE" Magazine

Posted: 06 Nov 2010 08:11 AM PDT

Brandy took time from "Dancing With The Stars" to do a photoshoot for the latest issue of UPSCALE Magazine.  See the photos inside...

 

 

Brandy talked to UPSCALE Magazine about her trials and tribulations over the past few years including the "spiritual" marriage she feels betrayed fans, failed albums, and 2006's fatal car accident for which she settled out of court.   

Brandy is currently riding a new wave of popularity as younger fans are discovering her on "Dancing With The Stars" which she is now favored to win. 

She is looking fab.

Angela Burt-Murray Is Out As Editor-In-Chief Of "ESSENCE"

Posted: 06 Nov 2010 07:25 AM PDT

 

Angela Burt-Murray, the editor-in-chief of ESSENCE, is leaving her position with the magazine after five years as its leader.  Get the deets inside....

 

As the leader of the top lifestyle magazine for African American women, Angela Burt-Murray had a very influential role in the lives of African American women.  So why would she walk away from a job like this after only five years? 

That's debatable.  In a meeting with her staff on Friday afternoon, Angela told staffers that she was relocating to Atlanta with her family.  Outside of that, we can only speculate as to why she is moving on.

Most people would say it has something to do with the controversy that flared this summer when Angela appointed a white woman to the key position of fashion director. The hiring of Ellianna Placas, incensed some readers, who argued it was difficult for people of color in mainstream fashion magazines and that ESSENCE should be their domain exclusively.

"It's with a heavy heart that I learned that Essence magazine has engaged a white fashion director," Michaela Angela Davis, a former Essence fashion director and one-time editor in chief of HONEY, wrote on her Facebook page, sparking a lively debate on the topic.

Sheryl Tucker, who took a buyout as an editor-at-large at Time Inc. in 2008, is being brought back to run the magazine on an interim basis.

The fashion director controversy was not mentioned in the official memo from Time Inc.'s Editor-in-Chief John Huey, who praised Angela for her contributions to the magazine, including the Essence Book Club and Essence Music Festival Seminar Series. He said the magazine was "beginning our search for a new editor," though it's rumored her departure had been in the works for weeks.

Lil Wayne's Big Jet-Setting-Courtside-Chillin' Day

Posted: 05 Nov 2010 11:42 PM PDT

It was a busy second day of freedom for Lil Wayne on Friday.  From New York to Arizona to New Orleans all in one day.  We've got the deets on his new probation for those charges in Arizona and pics of him and his boys kickin' it courtside in New Orleans at the Hornets VS. Heat game when you read on....

Weezy jetted straight from his court appearance in Arizona to the New Orleans Arena for a little bit of home.  Hornets star Chris Paul gave huge basketball fan Weezy some courtside tix as a Welcome Home present.  So he kicked it with his manager, Cortez Bryant, Mack Maine, and Baby at Friday night's game--and watched the N.O. beat Lebron and Co.  (Yeah you read that right.)  Pics of the crew kickin' it courtside:

I see the prison dentist kept certain things....
 

When reporters asked Wayne how it felt to be home--he responded with, "Like I never left."

By the way, it looks like Wayne had to take in the game completely sober.  Along with his freedom from jail, he's on probation for the next 36 months where he's not allowed to consume any alcohol.  And he can't be around anyone who is consuming it or any other drug, or involved in any criminal activity either.  And, of course, Wayne can't possess any type of illegal substance, vapors, nothing at all.  Check out the docs HERE.

Earlier Friday morning, Weezy and the crew jetted to Yuma County, Arizona to handle those legal issues he ran into there back in '08 when he was caught with a stash of cocaine, ecstasy and a handgun.  They knocked his 3 year sentence down today to three years of unsupervised probation and 360 hours of community service that he can perform in Miami.

Here's vid of Young Money kickin' it in Hollygrove Friday night--Weezy's old New Orleans neighborhood:

And the rest of the weekend is just as busy.  Wayne flies out to Vegas Saturday to possibly do a surprise performance with his homie Drake.  Then it's off to the M-I-A for the massive ass welcome home parties on Sunday.

 

Janet Jackson Opens Up About Weight Issues Saying Jermaine Dupri Taught Her To Love Her Body

Posted: 05 Nov 2010 02:25 PM PDT

Janet Jackson sits down with "Extra" to talk about her new movie For Colored Girls and her new book True You tonight.  Find out why she says her relationship with Jermaine Dupri was pivotal to her personal growth inside...

 

 

For Colored Girls star Janet Jackson opens up about her life as she promotes the film and her new book True You.  In her new book, which focuses on a lot of the body image issues she grew up with as child star, she says her involvement with ex-boyfriend Jermaine Dupri was pivotal to her growth.  "My life didn't change until I opened up and started to talk about it," she says of her image issues.  

"It was my relationship with Jermaine.  Up until that point I would still put on a pair of pants and if my butt looked too big, I didn't want the pants, as much as I loved them. But it was
nine years ago when he said 'your butt's fine the way it is."

Although the couple split in 2009, Janet remains "really grateful to him for showing me that side of myself." As for her book, she now wants to help other women by detailing her own
struggles.

"It's a self-help  book. And people always ask me about the weight
gain, the weight loss. What was the workout regimen, the nutrition, so
instead of just writing about that, I wanted to get to the bottom of it,
which meant I had to go back to my childhood."

Her new movie Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls opens today.  

Here's a clip of the segment: 

CANDIDS: Vivica A. Fox And Slimm Out And About In Atlanta

Posted: 05 Nov 2010 01:10 PM PDT

 

Vivica A. Fox was spotted out in the ATL with her boyfriend Slimm yesterday.  Vivica had just finished taping "The Monique Show" (airing Novembr 11).  See the pics inside...

 

 

Vivica and Slimm were spotted leaving Rosa Mexicana in Atlanta's Atlantic Station yesterday.

She is in Atlanta for the national tour of her play with Brian McKnight, "Cheaper To Keep Her."

Vivica's shoes are the new Alexander Mcqueen stilettos. Looking good.

 

Aretha Franklin Hospitalized And Forced To Cancel Shows

Posted: 05 Nov 2010 12:12 PM PDT

 

The Queen of Soul will be taking a few months off from touring and performing based on her doctor's orders.  Find out the deets inside...

 

Aretha Franklin has reportedly canceled all concert dates and personal appearances through May due to an unnamed ailment.  The news follows reports that Aretha had been hospitalized over the weekend.  Her publicist Tracey Jordan said Aretha was “resting comfortably at home, but is anxious to get back on the road to perform for her countless fans around the world.”
Tracey did not reveal the exact nature of 68-year-old Franklin’s ailment but said, “Her doctors have required her” to cancel the appearances. 
It's been a rough year for Aretha. Her adult son, Eddie, was beaten by three men at a Detroit gas station in September. And a month earlier, she broke ribs in a fall, causing her to miss two free concerts in New York.
One of the shows now being canceled is a Christmas concert scheduled for Detroit’s Fox Theatre on Dec. 9. Theater operator Olympia Entertainment said the show was being called off “due to medical reasons.”

Get well soon Re Re.

The Carters Kick It With Lady Gaga In London+Excerpts From Jay's Book "Decoded"

Posted: 05 Nov 2010 11:08 AM PDT

The Carters are in London kickin' it with friends like Lady Gaga.  Pics of them trying to remain low-key while leaving dinner, plus Beyonce's new VOGUE cover when you read on...

A laid-back Beyonce and her hubby Jay-Z hit The Berkeley Hotel around 11pm last night and all left around 2am.  Dinner and drinks witht heir friend Lady Gaga (not pictured) was on the menu.

Jay kept his hoodie tied up as they headed back to their own hotel:

Speaking of Jay, here's some snippets from his new Decoded book:

 

On His First Arrest

Jay-Z’s first arrest came at age 16. He was dealing in Trenton, because his friend “Hill” had a supplier there. Hill had enrolled in the local high school, and one day when Jay-Z went to meet him, he got caught with crack in his pockets on the campus. Since he had no prior arrests, the police let him go, but they confiscated his supply. In order to make up the cash to the supplier, Jay-Z had to go back to Marcy and deal crack 60 hours straight — three days in a row, he writes. He kept awake by “eating cookies and writing rhymes on the back of brown paper bags.”

On Cristal's Diss

Biggie first introduced Jay-Z, who says he rarely takes drugs, to Cristal Champagne in 1994. Since then, he and other hip-hop stars put the expensive drink on the map by name-checking it in their rhymes. So when Cristal’s managing director, Frederic Rouzad, was asked by a reporter if the brand was compromised by the “association with the ‘bling lifestyle’,” and he replied, “We can’t forbid people from buying it,” Jay-Z decided to boycott the brand altogether. “That was a slap in the face,” Jay-Z writes. “I released a statement saying that I would never drink Cristal or promote it in any way or serve it at any of my clubs ever again. I felt like this was the kind of bull - - - t I’d been dealing with forever, this kind of patronizing disrespect for the culture of hip-hop.”


On Coming to Terms With Dad

The song “Moment of Clarity” deals with the abandonment by his father when Jay-Z was 11. He says he realized only later that his father, Adnis Reeves, began to unravel after his brother, Jay-Z’s Uncle Ray, was murdered outside a Brooklyn club and the cops never found the killer. “My dad swore revenge and became obsessed with hunting down Uncle Ray’s killer. The tragedy — compounded by the injustice — drove him crazy, sent him to the bottle, and ultimately became a factor in the unraveling of my parents’ marriage.” He only reunited with his dad, at his mother’s urging, three months before

His dad died of liver disease in 2003. But he writes, “By the time he left, he’d given me a lot of what I’d need to survive.”

On Getting High with Biggie

Biggie made a cameo appearance in the 1996 video for “Ain’t no N - - - a,” which Jay-Z was filming with Foxy Brown in Miami just when he started to break. Jay-Z says he looked down on smoking pot as counterproductive, and only did so on vacation. “I could count the number of times I’d smoked trees,” he writes. But when Big asked him to smoke, he said to himself, “Relax, you’re not on the streets anymore.” So he smoked, and got stoned out of his mind just before the video started shooting. Laughing at his formerly sober friend, Biggie leaned in and whispered in Jay-Z’s ear: “I got ya.” It took Jay-Z 20 minutes in his room to gather his wits. Later he told his friend: “Never again my n - - - a.”

On Befriending Obama

A friend of President Obama’s helped set up a meeting with Jay-Z in 2008, he says. The two talked for hours. “I wish I could remember a specific moment when it hit me that this guy was special. But it wasn’t like that,” he writes. “It was the fact that he sought me out and then asked question after question about music, about where I’m from, about what people in my circle — the wider circle that reaches . . . all the way back to Marcy — were thinking about politically.”

When Beyoncé sang at the inauguration, he writes, he watched from the audience instead of backstage so he could “feel the energy of everyday people. It was unbelievable to see us — me, Beyoncé, Puff, and other people I’ve known for so long — sharing in this rite of passage.”

NY Daily News has more snippets if you're interested.

Pics via SPLASH
 

Rihanna's LOUD Preview, New Promo Shots, & Jet-Setting With Matt Kemp

Posted: 05 Nov 2010 10:20 AM PDT

This one's for the stans.  Rihanna's got some pretty new promo pics out for her LOUD album.  We've also got a preview of the upcoming album, plus candids of her jet-setting out of London with Matt Kemp. 

 

Read on for the Rihanna mania...

Nice.

 

Here's 30-second snippets of the songs off the LOUD album:

You feelin' it?

And after her performance at the Westfield mall yesterday in London, Rih and her boo Matt Kemp were spotted jetting out of Heathrow on her way to Madrid today:

Well isn't that cute that Matt tags along for emotional support.

 

BONUS VID:  Affion Crockett and Wayne Brady are up to their comedic tricks again.  In honor of Tyler Perry's new film hitting theaters today, check out their new Funny or Die video "For (Stuffed) Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When Sesame Street Wasn't Enough."

 

TWITTER FOOLERY: Amber Rose Bashes Funkmaster Flex + MC Hammer Says He Defeated Jay-Z

Posted: 05 Nov 2010 09:33 AM PDT

amber rose mad Pictures, Images and Photos

 

Amber Rose and MC Hammer just bashed their "opponents" via Twitter. Read their tweets when you go inside...

 

Funkmaster Flex called out Amber Rose saying that she was a hoe recently on the radio. Amber responded tweeting, "One question @funkmasterflex how am I a hoe when I was in a RELATIONSHIP for 2 years with a man that I loved???"

 

She continued tweeting saying, 

"It really hurts my feelings that @Funkmasterflex feels that way about me he was one of my favorite DJ's :-(,"

"Baby @THEREALDJCLUE you know ur my #1!!!! :-)"

"Someone gave u ur start at hot 97 right??? @funkmasterflexdid u hire yourself? No u didn't. Life is a blessing this was handed to me!"

"I have opportunities @funkmasterflex to do great things and help ppl why would u hate on that? Because Kanye helped me?"

"God bless @funkmasterflex hope u could put urself in my shoes before u are so judge mental next time."

 

Tell em why you mad! I can't say I'm surprised by Flex's comments though.

 

 

 

MC Hammer also used to Twitter to claim his victory against Jay-Z.  If you didn't think delusion in Hollywood was real before...

"@MercedesRay320 Big Play Ray.. I already won. I addressed a man that most men fear. Used him as a warning to others. And checked him too..,"

"Nothing worse than a Spineless Man (ask any woman) .. I ReBuke Weakness.."Why you gett'n at J" .. Shut up 'Gurly Men'.. govenator lol"

"He Blindsided me with "So Appalled" and now he "wines" me with his new book.. Sean Carter is a genius.. But don't sleep on me .." 

This is so unnecessary yet funny at the same time.  Judging by Jay-Z's response, MC Hammer is clearly trying to do just what Jay said--trying get back into the spotlight with some 'beef'.

 

Charlie Murphy Snaps On Stage, Cusses Out Audience & Gets Boo'd?!

Posted: 05 Nov 2010 09:00 AM PDT

What happens when the audience isn't laughing at the comedian's jokes?  Said comedian screams out "F*CK YOU!" and drops the mic. 

 

Video of Charlie Murphy poppin' off at Grambling State University when you read on...

Recently, comedian Charlie Murphy did a paid stand-up appearance at Grambling State University in Louisiana.  Clearly the audience just wasn't feeling his jokes.  Because after Charlie wasn't getting the responses he desired, he brought his manager on stage to bring out the check he was given for his performance.

Charlie took the check and said "Y'all can have it back. F*CK YOU!" to the crowd. Then dropped the mic and walked off stage.  The audience of about 500 people boo'd him as he left. 

Wow.  If you remember, Charlie's wife of 12 years died last year after her battle with cancer.  And it begs the question of he was fully ready to hit the stage again as he didn't sound like himself.  And performance goers said his routine was def not catered to a younger college audience and most jokes didn't fly with them. 

Craziness...
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