The legendary Whintey Houston is over here in Europe to promote her comeback LP ‘I Look To You’, this evening stopping by German TV show Wetten Dass to perform the album’s title track – which you can watch above.

Yes, Nippy! I was on the edge of my seat the whole performance, hoping and praying that Oprah wasn’t a fluke; and Whitney proved herself yet again. Great performance. By no means a perfect performance, yet one that really does reinforce the fact that the ‘voice’ is still there – legitimately. She sounded the best she has in years. Awesome. {Thanks Tamone, Trent and everyone else who sent this in!}

Tidbit: Let’s ignore the awkward interview at the end LMAO!

What do you think of the performance?

Shakira continues to promote her smash ‘She Wolf’ in Europe, recently stopping by popular French show Le Grand Journal to perform it.

While her previous live offerings of the song have been decent, they’ve dually been kinda ‘just there’; however, the Columbian beauty nailed this particular performance. Spurred on, I’m sure, by the uber receptive crowd, this IMO stands as her best live showing of the song to date. Fierce, sassy, and oozing sex appeal, she nailed it. It was also great to see her actually attempt to sing the verses as opposed to lip-synch as she had done so previously (there’s no need to deny she sucks live vocally, but browny points for trying…plus she is one hell of a ‘performer’). Good stuff.

What do you think of the performance?

The youngest of the Knowles clan, Solange, features in the latest issue of Honey Magazine. You can read the 23 year old’s interview with the magazine by clicking here. In the meanwhile, check out an extract from the feature, as well as the rest of her eye-catching shoot:

With this record I am experimenting more with a really interesting mix of music. My describing it probably sounds crazy but I’m kind of working with tribal, Native American drums and mashing them with weird ’80s and blues. I have been exposed to so many different great forms of music. It’s definitely going to be an experimental album.

I’m still establishing the sound, but what I’m really focusing on is doing everything independently. I’ve been A&R-ing the project and staying on top of the budgets. I’ve been producing myself, and learning the backside of making the record financially because I didn’t do as much of that the last record. I really want to be in a place where I feel no pressure with my record sales.

————

It was never my intention to have this huge commercial success because otherwise, I would have made other kinds of records. I know how to write pop [and radio] records. I’ve written them for other people. But that isn’t the music that inspires me. It isn’t the music that I feel good about performing or that makes me want to get up and push every morning and be in 10,000 cities in one month promoting.

Your thoughts?

R&B singer Brandy took to Youtube to offer her own rendition of The Wiz classic ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’.

Disclaimer: As regular visitors will know, we love Brandy around these sides…

However, for as good as she sounded, I couldn’t help but think she over sung the song. Too much rifting and ad-libbing (literally on almost every word). Nonetheless, Ms. Norwood gets a pass; after all these years in the game, she is still stands as one of premier vocalists in the industry.

What do you think of Brandy’s performance?

So sad:

The fiance of Kandi Burruss, a cast member on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” was killed Friday evening at a northwest Atlanta strip club, according to WSB Atlanta.

Burruss’ fiance, A.J. Jewell, died from a head injury sustained in a brawl at the Body Tap club, located at 1271 Marietta Blvd.

Burruss’ publicist Lisa Nelson confirmed to WSB that the actress has been informed of the incident and said the family asked for privacy.

Police said it’s unclear what prompted the fight. No arrests have been made. {Source}

Just this week I had been watching Kandi doing the media rounds for the show talking about him, and now this. People, please, stop the violence. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Kandi and AJ’s family.

Your thoughts?

Things are not looking good for Mathew Knowles, the father of superstar Beyonce. According to TMZ, a woman has filed a suit in court this week, submitting that she is pregnant with Papa Knowles’ child!

TMZ has learned a woman has filed a paternity case against Beyonce’s dad, Mathew Knowles.

We’ve learned Alexsandra Wright filed the case in L.A. County Superior Court. Wright lives in L.A. — she works in the name-branding business. We’re told she’s in her late 30s.

Wright, who is 6-months pregnant, filed the case last week, alleges Knowles is the father. Sources say Wright is repped by Neal Hersh, who is currently repping Lamar Odom in the prenup negotiations with Khloe Kardashian.

Mathew has been married to Tina Knowles since 1980.

Mathew could not be immediately reached for comment. Ditto Neal Hersh.

If this turns out to be true, which for his sake it needs not to be, then a whole lot of folk will be saying “I told you so” about Papa Knowles. After working so aggressively to carve out a relatively wholesome image of his family, this would throw that all out of the window and into the street, if it proves true. SMH…

Your thoughts?

In news that will no doubt come as a shock to many, TLC’s T-Boz has revealed, in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE magazine, that she has been battling a brain tumour. The article below, in which she confirms that the grapefruit-sized tumour has been removed, is a long, but ultimately engaging read:

Looking at her now, you’d never know that Tionne Watkins, better known as T-Boz of the 90’s girl group TLC, has secretly battled a brain tumour for nearly three years. She hid her struggle (which took away her ability to speak for months) on The Celebrity Apprentice in March. “I didn’t want pity – I was there to help sick children,” says Watkins, who also has sickle-cell disease, an often-fatal blood disorder marked by chronic fatigue and organ failure. “I was told I wouldn’t live past 30 or have children.” Watkins, who lives with daughter Chase, 8, in Atlanta, shares her story for the first time with PEOPLE’s “Jessica Herndon.

Because of my sickle-cell disease, I have a high tolerance for pain. By 2006, I’d have headaches for six years. I thought it was stress. But when my vision went blurry, I got an MRI.

Turns out, she had a grapefruit-size acoustic neuroma (which are noncancerous) on her vestibular nerve, which affected her balance, hearing, sight and facial movement.

I thought, “God, why now?” I told the doctor my goal was not to die – I had to be there for Chase.

Watkins consulted many doctors who refused to remove the tumour, citing sickle-cell-related complications, like lung or heart failure. The alternatives (like burning her brain stem) were grim. Keith L. Black, M.D., and Rick A. Friedman, M.D., of Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, thought surgery was possible if they worked with a blood specialist.

Dr Black asked me in what order did I want to save these three things: my hearing, balance and facial movement. I said save my facial control first and hearing second, because you wouldn’t be able to tell if I can’t hear well just from looking at me. At least I’d have hearing on one side. Then save my balance last. But I worried about it. What if I couldn’t sing or dance? Music is my heart.

During the November 7th, 2006, surgery, Dr. Black cut behind her ear and peeled the tumour from the brain stem. The surgery took about seven hours. (I had written my will – I might not have made it.) When I woke awoke, I could hear and looked normal. But then I had a sickle-cell crisis. With the pain meds and steroids, they said I kept flopping and hitting my head. They gave me IV fluids in order to stop it.

After I was released, more than a week later, the ride to my L.A. apartment was like vertigo to the 10th power. I had to sit up in bed for two months. They propped me up, but I kept sliding down, which made my head swell. It was so painful. At one point, fluid poured out my nose. I was readmitted. I couldn’t walk or really see. I heard screeching noises. They said “We may have to cut you open again” I was like, “No!” I prayed, and the fluid stopped, so I got out.

When I was eating pancakes four days later, they fell out my mouth. I couldn’t feel my cheek. I couldn’t blink, walk or form words. When I saw my face was distorted — I cried. Two weeks later Chase, who stayed with my aunt in Atlanta, and I were on iChat and she was like, “Mom, you look pretty.” I don’t know what she saw, but it made me feel better. In rehabbed, I had to relearn how to walk and how to say my ABCs. I can relate to deaf people: You think you’re saying “where” but your mouth goes “whaa”. When Chase visited me, she’d hold my cheeks and kiss me. She didn’t treat me like I looked funny.

Though self-conscious about her face, Watkins’s speech improved within a year, and she performed with TLC at the June 2008 BET Awards.

I knew I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t talk straight or keep my balance, and my lungs were weak. Fans asked if I had a stroke. It was not a good night.

Now, with dance therapy, Watkins hasn’t fully regained her balance, but she feels ready to perform. TLC will play at Justin Timberlake’s charity concert in Las Vegas Oct. 17.

If you say “sick kids,” you always get me. People like Justin have shown me love. He’s excited. So am I.

To this day, the headaches are unbelievable. My facial nerves jump, and I want my smile back. But if that’s all? No problemo. I fight to be here daily because I want to see Chase get married and have kids. I want to party and laugh. I’m doing a solo album, and I want to tour. I have to see if I can do it. I’m still here. It will take way more to stop me.

Wow! Her story is so, so inspiring. I pray that God grants her many more years on this earth; she really deserves it. More power to her.

Your thoughts?

Usher’s record label Jive sent out the above pic to select sites, That Grape Juice included, earlier tonight, announcing that the singer’s new single ‘Papers’ is set to première this coming Monday (October 5th). Our good friends over at Rap-Up.com shed a little more light on the song itself:

Usher is airing out his dirty laundry. The R&B superstar will address the end of his marriage on the first offering from his new album, set to debut Monday.

The title of the song, originally reported to be “Filing Papers,” has been confirmed as “Papers” by Jive Records. It was penned by Sean Garrett.

The new single was supposedly written before Usher announced his divorce from Tameka Foster. “Let’s say I wrote a record for Usher three or four months ago where I really didn’t have any idea of what he was going through personally,” Garrett told MTV News in June. “I felt that was the direction we needed to go. I felt that was the question everyone wanted to know: Was [his relationship] good or was it bad? Was it right? Are you happy or you’re not?”

“Papers” will premiere on Monday, October 5, at 2:02 p.m. EST, unless the Internet gets its hands on it earlier. Usher’s sixth studio album Monster is due in December.

It seems Usher is looking to address his much publicized marital issues with this record, the motives of such an action I feel is quite suspect. Nonetheless, his best work in recent years was ‘Confessions’ and we all know the story with that one. Roll on Monday!

Your thoughts?

Diva Mariah Carey held a promotional concert in support of her new album ‘Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel’ on ABC’s Today Show early this morning in New York’s Rockefeller Plaza. Peep her performance of her classic ‘Make It Happen’, as well as ‘H.A.T.E U’, ‘Obsessed’ and ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’ below:

While ‘Obsessed’ is such an awful song, that a Mimi live performance was expectedly just as terrible, I quite enjoyed her renditions of ‘Make It Happen’, ‘I Want To Know What Love Is and ‘H.A.T.E U’ to a lesser extent (as I don’t like the song). Yes, her voice did gradually (by the end) sound like she had been gargling gravel; however she held her own in terms of what we know she is capable of doing these days. So not a bad effort at all (lip-synching at the end aside).

Whether this ends up helping her sales is anyone’s guess. Hits Daily Double have revised their sales prediction (which is based on how much the album is being purchased each day this week, so as to forecast its overall first week sales) and have seen likely contenders for #1, Paramore, EXTEND their lead over Ms. Carey-Cannon with 190,000 in comparison to Mariah’s 160,000. Regardless of whether she ends up selling a bit more, a #1 debut looks out of the question. Instead Mariah will, despite a relatively successful hit in ‘Obsessed’ as well as her name power, end up coming in at #2 with the lowest first week sales of her career. Her place in the public and media’s hearts (following ‘Emancipation’) is what IMO made for the relative tanking of ‘E=MC2’ to be brushed under the carpet. Yet, nothing speaks louder than her sales right now. Clearly, there is a problem – be it the material, her live performances or whatever. Folk just aren’t checking for Mariah as they once were. If only she’d take a big sip on whatever she was drinking when she recorded ‘The Emancipation’, because with each day since she released the follow-up to that, it feels like that album was – as much I don’t want to say it – a fluke. SMH…

Tidbit: Is it me or did she look like she wanted to cry during the whole concert? I hope all is well with her personally.

Your thoughts?

In a revealing new interview in the latest issue of Marie Claire magazine, Alexandra Burke opens up about her troubled family life, as well as the downsides of fame:

X Factor winner Alexandra Burke has confessed that her new-found fame has had a devastating effect on her family.
The 21-year-old singer admitted that her success on the show has led to clashes with her mother and indirectly to her brother Aaron’s attempted suicide.

Burke said her mother Melissa, who sang with 80s group Soul II Soul, finds it hard to cope with her daughter’s fame since she won the show.

In a revealing interview accompanied by a stunning photoshoot for Marie Claire Alexandra said: ‘She had Soul II Soul but it didn’t last as long as she wanted it to last.

‘Then I get this big new show, I win it, and it’s weird for her to see this.

‘Although she’s proud, it’s like she wants to rewind time to when she was younger, when she didn’t have kids.

‘I’ve never talked about this by the way. We’re not a perfect family. Things p*** me off.’

That includes being kicked out of the house at the age of 16 – she admits for the next two-and-a-half years she barely talked to her family.

The singer and her mother made up and were further reconciled during the X Factor auditions, which Alex needed persuading to attend.

She ended up winning the whole thing, starring in a duet with Beyonce in the grand final, but still the family came under strain as jealous neighbours subjected them to a campaign of harrassment in Islington, north London.

Thugs threw stones at her car and smashed a window in their block of flats and even used the name of her No.1 hit – which sold a record 105,000 copies in one day – as they abused her.

She said: ‘Every time I come out it’s abusive names. They start singing Hallelujah and shouting “Alexandra the Bitch’. It upsets me.’

The attacks became so bad that brother Aaron, now 16, attempted to take his own life in July this year, and Alex said she still fears for his well being.

She added: ‘He wanted to die. He’s going off the rails. He needs a father figure.’

Alex has now moved to Barnet and is a regular visitor to mentor Cheryl Cole’s home in Surrey.

She said: ‘I am very open with her and she is with me. I tell her lots of things I wouldn’t even tell my sister.’

Despite all the problems, however, Burke is determined to carry on with her pop career and has a new single, Bad Boys, coming out in stores on October 12 (October 11 online). {Source}

While I’m not sure Simon Cowell and co will be pleased with the whole ‘X-Factor blew my family apart’ undercurrent the interview has (and the media are already wrongly having a field day with), I applaud Alex’s realness about the situation. For all those looking to break into the industry, interviews like this really reinforce the fact that it’s really not all glitz and glamour. Not in the slightest.

Your thoughts?

The UK’s biggest boy band (sad, but true) JLS have finally addressed the rumours about their sexuality in October’s Gay Times Magazine. UK’ers, unless living under a rock, will have no doubt been aware of the mass suggestion that some, if not all, of the four-piece are interested in guys. Here’s what the guys had to say about it:

Talking to Gay Times magazine about the rumours that one or more members of the band are gay, Aston says, “We always get the same thing from straight guys. Just because we like to take care of ourselves and get a lot of female attention, they’re first response is ‘you’re gay’.”

Marvin: “I met a girl in a club recently who was convinced that we were all gay – just because none of us tried it on with her! We were like ‘yeah whatever baby…’ We don’t care, though. We’ve got loads of gay friends anyway. All of mine fancy JB!”

Aston chips in with “whenever we do meet do meet and greet with gay fans, I’m the one they sling over their shoulders and run off with.”

Kudos to their PR team; it was actually an ingenious idea to combat the rumours – which they didn’t actually deny – by doing a feature with this magazine.

While their sexuality shouldn’t be as big a deal as folk are hyping about, my gripe centres solely on the fact they are crap lol; IMO their brand of crappiness represents all that is wrong with the industry today (shoddy music at the top of the charts). Perhaps contradicting myself, however, is my stance that I can’t hate on the guys for trying to live their dream…even if it has been pre-formatted to last approximately 15 minutes.

Your thoughts?