Celebs Out & About: Ciara, Viola Davis, Louis Bardo Bullock
Singer Ciara was spotted leaving the salon in West Hollywood yesterday. Ciara spruced up her long, flowing weave by adding a few highlights and a conditioner for her own hair that’s growing under the weave.
Speaking of hair weave, Oscar nominee Viola Davis wore a short cropped wig for her appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America yesterday. Viola received kudos for wearing her own natural hair for the cover of the LA Times magazine earlier this month. It’s a shame that in 2012 black women are applauded for wearing their own hair. We have been fully assimilated. 
Melanie Fiona – The MF Life Cover
Normally I don’t create posts just to display album cover art, but soul singer Melanie Fiona deserves her own post for her much-anticipated follow-up to her smash debut album, The MF Life. Melanie tweeted this pic last night on her Twitter page. It looks like she dropped a few pounds and she’s channeling her inner Pocahontas.
The MF Life drops on March 6th — the same release date as Monica’s 7th studio album, New Life. You can pre-order it here.
AKOO’s Team of Champions photo shoot with the NY Giants
Rapper T.I. dressed the NY Giants in looks from his AKOO Winter 2011/2012 Collection. Here’s a photo from the shoot. Among the players pictured are: Antrel Rolle, Terrell Thomas, and Kenny Phillips. The NY Giants celebrated their Super Bowl 46 victory over the New England Patriots with a ticker tape parade down the Canyon of Heros in New York City yesterday. I’ll post more pics from the photo shoot when I get them.
Source: @MelNYC of @Akooclothing
In Case you Missed It: Love & Hip Hop; Reality Check
I like ‘Love and Hip Hop‘ executive producer Mona Scott-Young. She’s real enough to give viewers into the real, less glamorous side of reality shows. For instance, Chrissy Lampkin only agreed to appear on last night’s episode if she wasn’t interviewed by Scott.
In last night’s episode, subtitled ‘Reality Check‘, Scott took viewers behind the scenes of ‘Love and Hip Hop‘, to show how the producers really influence the direction of reality shows.
Scott is part interviewer, part therapist. It was interesting to watch her use her calm shrewdness and experience to draw the emotions out of the insecure cast members.
For instance, we now know that fading rapper Jim Jones agreed to appear in the LHH pilot because Chrissy “took a liking to” all the attention she received from the show. It was hard to watch Jones squirm under the weight of his own humility as he admitted to suppressing his pride to allow his woman to shine on the show.
Now that’s love.
Alicia Keys’ Background Singer Goes Solo On ‘The Voice’
Sunday night’s season 2 premiere of NBC’s music reality show ‘The Voice‘ shattered TV ratings records. The singing competition earned the highest non-sports related network TV ratings in 6 years. All similarities to other music competition shows ends after the opening credits roll.
Instead of a panel of judges, ‘The Voice‘ features four celebrity “coaches” who choose teams of artists to mentor. This season’s coaches are Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, and country music star Blake Shelton.
Season 2′s contestants included Alicia Keys‘ background singer, Jermaine Paul, who decided to go solo after backing up Keys for years. Keys sent a congratulatory recorded message that was played on ‘The Voice‘. Green and Shelton were impressed by his vocals, but Paul chose Shelton as his mentor.
CNN’s Roland Martin Under Attack From Gay Groups for David Beckham Tweets
CNN’s political analyst Roland Martin came under attack from gay groups after tweeting a wisecrack about British soccer star David Beckham.
Martin, who is very sensitive when he is the subject of gay jokes, took to his Twitter page last night to “live tweet” during the Super Bowl broadcast. His tweets included this one, which his followers took to be an anti-gay slur:
Martin seemed to suggest that his followers “smack the ish out of” any male Super Bowl fan who is “hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad” that was shown during the Super Bowl.
Martin added that “real bruhs” would not purchase underwear advertised by Beckham.
Kanye West’s Super Bowl Ad; Plus, Banned Durex Condom Ad
Super Bowl 46 was viewed by over 111 million worldwide on Sunday. The 2012 Super Bowl commercials fetched an average of $3.5 million for each 30-second spot. Music producer and rapper Kanye West pocketed some change from one of those spots: Budweiser’s Bud Light Platinum ad, which featured the intro from Kanye’s track “Runaway” off of his platinum album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Watch the Bud Light SB ad after the break, plus the banned Durex condom Super Bowl commercial that you never got the chance to see (and I wish I didn’t see).
