Drake – Marvin’s Room Music Video

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but in rapper Drake’s case it’s got to be annoying. Drake’s late night, drunken phone call to a past love (who has found a love of her own) stirred something deep inside other artists, who found it necessary to record their own versions of “Marvin’s Room”, even though no one asked them to.

The only version I listened to — or I should say, tolerated — was white soul singer JoJo’s. Unfortunately, her fake emotion wasn’t very convincing. With Drake, you can feel his pain. He knows it’s his loss when he tells her, “The woman that I would try/ is happy with a good guy/ but I’ve been drinking so much/ that I’ma call her anyway and say/ f*ck that nigga that you love so bad…”

You have to know that kind of pain to make others feel it. No one makes you feel heartache like Drake. All other artists need to fall in line behind him because they’ll never be first as long as he’s breathing. As Neo would say, he’s The One!

Chris Brown’s “Marvin’s Room” remix is on the other side

Read more…

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Did Newsweek Go Too far With This Cover of Princess Diana?

Last week, Newsweek tantalized their followers on Twitter.com by posting a snippet of this week’s cover along with a challenge to guess what it was. No one guessed that it was a photoshopped image of Princess Diana — as she would look today — walking with her daughter-in-law, Kate Middleton.

Princess Diana would have been 50 on Friday, but the Newsweek graphic artists digitally altered her likeness to make her look closer to 60. Naturally, the British people are howling mad at Newsweek’s Diana at 50 cover. The cover story: “If She Were Here Now”, was written with care by Tina Brown.

The issue is on newsstands, iPad, iPhone and your Kindle today.

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Celeb Style: Who dressed Hosea Chanchez?

In case you were wondering who dressed Hosea Chanchez for the BET Awards, wonder no more. AKOO styled the star of BET’s ‘The Game’ for his red carpet appearance at the Shrine Auditorium in Hollywood.

From PRWeb.com:

Ralph Reynolds, Creative Director for AKOO Clothing and Vice President of RP55 Group, was commissioned to design a custom suit to be worn by Hosea Chanchez during his BET Awards presentation debut on June 26, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. “I’m honored that Hosea reached out me, I’ve been a big fan of his and the show The Game for quite some time,” states Reynolds. One of the unsung heroes and predecessors of urban fashion, Reynolds is responsible for launching brands such as RP55, Azzure Denim and Indigo Red. Currently, the RP55 Group ships over $20 million of apparel and accessories annually, including AKOO, Play Cloths and G-Shock. “Although urban fashion is what I’m known for, it’s a little known fact that men’s formal wear and luxury accessories are a passion point of mine. I’ve been designing custom garments for a select clientele for years. I enjoy working with Hosea because he exudes the AKOO mantra. He’s a confident and talented individual with a passion for community empowerment,” explains Reynolds.

Hosea Chanchez, star of BET’s hit sitcom The Game, is the founder of the WATCHMEWIN Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enriching the lives of urban youth through mentorship, leadership development, encouragement and empowerment. From actor, philanthropist and fashion trendsetter, Hosea is truly today’s modern man who wants to wear clothes that reflect his passion, personality and lifestyle.

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Beyonce visits Harrods; and Madonna doesn’t care what you think

R&B sensation Beyonce Knowles is pictured arriving at Harrods store in London’s Knightsbridge section as she films an edition of ‘Life Stories’ with Piers Morgan today. Her appearance at Harrods caused quite a scene. The British bobbies (policemen) had to beat back the Bey Stans who surged forward hoping for a chance to touch her weave. Maybe Bey is hoping that the British media can do for her what they did for Kelly Rowland.
Photo: Splash News Online

Pop icon Madonna was seen leaving the Ritz hotel to take a trip on the Eurostar in Paris, France with her boyfriend Brahim Zaibat. I don’t know much about him, but I do know they won’t be together for long. Everybody but Madonna can see it. Notice the queens chuckling at them in the background?
Photo: INF PHOTO

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Was Kelly Rowland a victim of unfair, anti-competitive management?

Everybody’s talking about Kelly Rowland’s performance on the 2011 BET Awards last night. But many are asking themselves where was this Kelly Rowland all these years?

One writer for the Atlanta Post thinks he knows the answer: she was a victim of her former manager Mathew Knowles’ anti-competitive management style.

Salem Aster writes that Knowles was simply more interested in boosting his daughter to worldwide fame — and he did that by suppressing Kelly’s now obvious talents.

Obviously, Beyonce needs no explanation. She is fierce, she is driven and she has the success to match her passions. Nobody is doubting that. However, why is it that Kelly’s talents had to be downplayed for the sake of Beyonce’s success? Economically, it doesn’t make sense.

For some reason, (I’m assuming) Papa Knowles thought there wasn’t enough room for more than one Destiny’s Child member to gain success in the music marketplace. If he did indeed steer Rowland’s career away from success, then he was engaging in anti-competitive practices.

Thew writer notes that, since Kelly “broke ties with her former manager” she is now seeing much more success than when she first became a solo artist. Since the Atlanta Post is a business magazine, I wonder if the writer is hinting that Kelly can sue Mathew?

Meanwhile, over the weekend, her former bandmate, Beyonce, made history as the first female performer to headline at the Glastonbury music festival in 19 years.

Beyonce photo: Getty Images

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Put ‘Em On Blast: Farrah Gray Publishing

If you’re an aspiring writer and you are considering writing a book in hopes of obtaining riches, be careful what you ask for. There are many hidden fees buried deep within book contracts that you may not be aware of if you (or your attorney) don’t go over that contract with a fine tooth comb.

The emergence and growth of social networking websites such as Twitter.com and Facebook has given book publishers new sources of revenue by fleecing unsuspecting authors.

Shanae Hall, who authored the book “Why Do I Have To Think Like A Man?”, writes:

Good Morning Sandra,

My name is Shanae Hall, I am the author of the book “Why Do I Have To Think Like A Man?” This was the book that gave Mary Harvey the courage to speak up. I’m sure you remember. Anyways I am writing you because I need your help putting our publisher (Farrah Gray publishing, who has also published Don Lemons, flavor flav and a few others books) on BLAST!! He has refused to pay us a dime or give us our rights back to our book, prior to the law suit we requested that he sign back our rights to us and that he could keep the money that he stole. Initially he agreed to do so, but later backed out of the release agreement. The primary reason for this law suit is because he billed us $92,000 for tweets and facebook fans that he said we acquired because of the book. When proof of expenses paid were requested of course nothing was sent over to back these extraordinary charges. And second because our royalty statements were grossly inaccurate and incomplete. We currently have a law suit pending in Los Angeles that he doesn’t want to be served the paper work for (I have attached the law suit paper work as well as the fee sheet proving the bill for tweets and Facebook fans, and [?]) . As my mother/co-author Rhonda Frost explained to him. “You are stealing from two single mothers we are not going to let this go away w/o a fight.” Thank you for helping me/us put his lying, want to be a celebrity, fraudulent ass on blast.

Shanae

Supporting documents

DISCLAIMER:

This section gives a voice to those in the industry who feel they have been wronged by certain industry execs, celebrities or companies.

Please note that you must provide evidence in the form of canceled checks, pictures, documents, etc., or your Blast will be rejected. This Blast is not intended for the public to air their grievances with private citizens.

The email author is solely responsible for the content of the email.

As always, we give the parties on Blast the opportunity to rebut the complaint by emailing us at sandra @ sandrarose.com (remove the spaces).

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Dr. Boyce: ‘BET Has Officially Become the New and Improved KKK’

Not everyone was impressed with last night’s program that BET put together for its 2011 BET Awards. After watching the awards show, Dr. Boyce Watkins, who calls himself a hip hop insider, sat down at his keyboard and pounded out a post titled “BET Has Officially Become the New and Improved KKK“.

In his post, he compared BET — which is run by the white-owned media conglomerate Viacom — to the Ku Klux Klan, and he accused Viacom of using BET’s powerful reach to cause and affect a holocaust within black America today.

“The Ku Klux Klan has been regularly criticized for encouraging violence against African Americans and terrorizing our community. But the truth is that the Klan doesn’t have much power anymore,” he writes. Dr. Boyce suggests that Lil Wayne and other hip hop artists who don’t know their history are “encouraging black men to shoot one another, to abuse or murder women, to consume suicidal amounts of drugs and alcohol and to engage in irresponsible, deadly sexual behavior.”

Dr. Boyce was most particularly disturbed that BET chose to heap accolades upon ex-con Lil Wayne, as opposed to, say, Kelly Rowland who rode the charts to international fame with her smash hit “Motivation”:

…the executive committee for the BET Awards made the interesting decision to give the greatest number of award nominations to Lil Wayne, the man who said that he would (among other things) love to turn a woman out, murder her and send her dead body back to her boyfriend. Oh yea, he also that he would kill little babies, have sex with every girl in the world, carry a gun on his hip and “leave a nigga’s brains on the street.”

As a result of the platform given to Lil Wayne and other hip hop artists who form the “corporate armies” producing “weaponized genocide” against black people — BET, he writes, has succeeded in killing “more black people than the KKK ever could.”

Read more…

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