Rita Ora continued to represent her homeland this weekend, enjoying a tour of Kosovo- meeting the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Memli Krasniqi.

Enjoying their company hours after shooting the video for the single ‘Shine Ya Light’, peep the starlet in all chart topping glory below…

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Much ado has been made about JLS‘ foray into the world of Urban. And while their latest single ‘The Hottest Girl In The World’ attempts to rebrand the group as “mature” (instead of mature cheese), the jury’s been out pending the arrival of the song’s video.

Today sees the waiting end; for the Bangladesh produced cut saw its accompanying visual unveiled moments ago.

Check it out below…

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Feast on your eyes on Pop revolutionary Lady GaGa, turning up at the London Arts Club last night.

Rocking a wedding dress and joined by her ever present posse, the ‘ARTPOP’ gem turned up at the venue shortly after delivering an epic showing of her ‘Born This Way Ball‘ in the city.

More from your favorite artist’s hero below…

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Ever keen for attention, Rihanna sent the net aflutter this morning with a shot of her latest tattoo.

Fresh from performing at the Paralympics in London last night, the 24 year old unveiled her latest ink job on her always-active Instagram account.

Goddess Isis, as she christened her, sits in quite the interesting position and is a tribute to her recently departed Grandmother, “GranGran Dolly”…..

It goes without saying that the model’s body is hers, so on and so forth. We just wish she’d put a fraction of the time she puts into  fishing for photo opps into her actual craft.

I mean punchlines aside, she has actually made strides as a performer. Yet seven years in, those strides could easily have been made within seven months. Put simply, the hunger to better her artistic self seems low on her “to do list”. And until it rises, she’ll have to keep churning out an album a year and singles a plenty to stay “relevant”. Why? The mediocrity of her everything has birthed no (real) lasting “moments” musically. Everything is so geared towards “today” vs what could be her legacy “tomorrow”. Had the Madonna‘s and Janet‘s adopted the same mentality, they’d have burned out before being able to p-e-r-f-o-r-m into their 40’s and 50’s.

Anyway, enough of my rambling…

Your thoughts?

Very much the Emeli Sande of tonight’s Paralympics 2012 Closing Ceremony, Rihanna performed not once, not twice, but three times during this evening’s festivities. And while her ‘Princess of China’ performance showed promise, the model could not keep up the momentum with subsequent turns in the spotlight.

Peep her performances of ‘We Found Love’ and ‘Run This Town’ (which featured Coldplay and Jay-Z) below to see what we mean after the jump…

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‘Talk About Our Love’ singer Brandy was definitely the talk of the night Friday when she and her closest compadres gathered to celebrate the recent success of her Chris Brown-assisted single ‘Put It Down’.

Toasting to the splash the single has made on charts just weeks after its release, the song’s producer Sean Garrett joined Niecy Nash, Ray J, and more to help Bran ring in the occasion.  See more snaps below:

 

‘Down’, the first single lifted from the singer’s forthcoming album ‘Two Eleven’ (October 16th), is set to crack Billboard’s R&B/Hip Hop Top 10 upon its refreshing next week.  Here’s hoping for its continued success!

Your thoughts?

Janet Jackson was certainly unexpected eye candy for frenzied paparrazzi this weekend when she made her way to the opening of Dylan’s Candy Bar in LA.

The collection of sweets, created by Dylan Lauren (daughter of designer Ralph Lauren), has long been favored by the slim-and-trim superstar as explained in her brief chat with E! News.

While some of us can’t wait to get a taste of what the youngest of the Jackson clan is cooking up in the studio, she and her billionaire beau had their sights on a few other delectables.  See what we mean below:

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Fresh from her performance at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards Rihanna took her ‘talents’ to the 2012 Paralympic Games, working the spectacle’s closing ceremony.

Get into it below…

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While fans raved over R&B staples Fantasia and Joe‘s tribute performances to recent BMI honoree Mariah Carey, they were certainly not the only two bringing the house down in homage to the pop icon.

Indeed, Karen Clark Sheard, one/fourth of legendary gospel group The Clark Sisters, was on hand to deliver a fiery tribute to Carey.  And, as fans know, both singers have been quite vocal of their influence on each other – namely Mariah who has long cited Sheard as an influence.

Now, in recently lifted footage, see Karen tackle Mariah’s 1993 hit ‘Anytime You Need A Friend’ from the weekend’s showing.  Taking it to church like only she can:

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The latest series of the X-Factor UK continued tonight. Unsurprisingly, with this being the audition phase, the talented and talent-challenged came out in equal measure for a crack at progressing to the next stage. Judging the hopefuls are new additions Gary Barlow, Tulisa Contostavlos, original panelist Louis Walsh, and newcomer Nicole Scherzinger.

{An international phenomenon, local versions show now air in the US, Italy, France and beyond. The brain-child of Simon Cowell, the show is responsible for birthing the careers of Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke, Cher Lloyd and JLS.}.
The Best and worst of the 5th episode of auditions below…

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From The Vault this week journeys back to the very end of the Urban friendly 90’s, precisely 1999 when R&B veteran Faith Evans released the bombastic single ‘All Night Long’.

Serving as the second single from Evans’ sophomore set ‘Keep The Faith’, the track proved to be another smash for the songstress, reaching the Top 10 of the Hot 100 and Hot R&B Hip-Hop tallies following the worldwide monster that was ‘Love Like This’. Similar to its predecessor, ‘Night’ was produced by Faith alongside Mr Sean Combs aka Diddy (or Puff Daddy as he was referred to back then). Of course, true-to-form Combs also had a guest spot on the song.

Directed by the great Paul Hunter, the single’s edgy japanese themed video remains a regular on the few music channels that actually still play…music. And with good reason too; indeed it’s a visual throwback to an era when R&B videos -on mass-had dollars and gloss pumped into them.

On a random note, the clip also serves up the LOL’s in that it’s also a nod to an era which saw Puffy hog up the screen of any song he produced or featured on. And in the case that is was both, it may as well have been his own video. For our younger readers, the mogul’s uncanny talent of putting himself first didn’t just apply to his Making The Band alumni.

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With Faith and her fellow ‘R&B Divas’ riding high on the show’s success, we can’t stress enough how much we are salivating for a new Ms. Evans project. As witnessed by the show, she is still an artist who has much to say and of course that voice is just undeniable.

Let’s Keep The Faith and pray for that album to come out sooner rather than later.

Your thoughts?

Nine days remain until Pink unleashes her sixth studio album ‘The Truth About Love’ on the masses.

And so as to tide fans over the set’s hotly anticipated September 18th arrival, teaser previews of the entire LP have been released.

What are you waiting for? Take a listen below…

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