The 2007 World Music Awards were held earlier this month in Monte Carlo. R&B stars Ciara and Rihanna performed at the event. Check out their performances below:

In a recent interview with popular UK urban magazine RWD, Amerie spoke candidly on her current label situation/frustrations. Check out the extract below {Thanks Adrian}:

How has your label treated you?
Er, you probably don’t even want to ask me that right now. That’s how I feel abut it. I personally love some of the people that work here in the UK; my publicist Shoshanna and Simon… but I really don’t want to talk about it cos I want to keep it all positive, you feel me?

Well, it seems the album didn’t really perform as well as it should have?
Cos they’re not pushing it like they should.

Why aren’t they?
We want to release Crush, but they feel there’s a lot going on. This is my thing; I’m an artist and this is not rocket science. Take Control was going good, so we knew we had to schedule the video for Gotta Work. But you need money to do a video, and by the time we got it cleared, it was late. They didn’t feel like that, but anybody with half a brain could see it was late. So then Gotta Work was going up, but it peaked and rapidly started coming down, so we knew we needed to do Crush. They said ‘Wait.’ I love the business and I studied the business and I told them we needed to do the other video, because you need to have another single when your other track is peaking. They’re talking about doing it next year, but I’m not doing it next year! So I don’t know what to tell you. I get that everyone’s filled with good intentions, but the road to perdition is filled with good intentions. There should have been no gaps.

I’m kinda surprised (yet pleased) she was so open about the whole thing. I guess, one can only be dragged through the dirt for so long. It’s a shame too as ‘Because I Love It’ is a really solid record – one of my favourites from this year.

Supermodel-turned talk show queen Tyra Banks took an exclusive behind the scenes look at ‘The Beyonce Experience’. The special, which aired yesterday, was filmed at the Philadelphia stop on the tour. Tyra and the ‘Deja Vu’ singer spoke on everything from pre-show rituals to costumes (including the now infamous ‘Ring The Alarm’ fall outfit). Tyra had me in hysterics with her wacky ways and it was good to see Beyonce show more of her character outside being a ‘superstar’. Tidbit: you can’t knock the Knowles’ hustle factor – Matthew was selling them items hard at the end.

Check out this steamy photoshoot Rihanna and Robin Thicke appear in for GQ magazine. This is kinda random, but I can’t deny that it’s a great shoot. You can read their joint feature, in which they speak about the success they have enjoyed this year, by clicking here.

R&B songstress Alicia Keys has surpassed initial sales expectations for her new album ‘As I Am’. Whereas the LP was forecast to sell in the region of 600,000 copies first week, Billboard has it’s final sales at 742,000 – a career best for Keys. ‘As I Am’ now stands as having 2007’s 2nd highest opening week numbers behind Kanye West’s ‘Graduation’. {Source}

As some of you may have heard, Ne-Yo was dropped suddenly from R. Kelly’s ‘Double Up’ tour a few couple of days ago. Whilst, at the time, ‘contractual reasons’ were cited as the reason, the ‘Do You’ singer has spoken out about the situation on a Washington radio station. Check out the report below via Natasha over at YBF:

…But Ne-Yo now says that he was told to tell people his being dropped was due to financial and contractual issues. But actually it was because he challenged some of the goings on behind the scenes of the tour. And that may or may not (he purposely remained vague on the issue)have led to contractual obligations not being fulfilled. He discussed how simple things like a dressing room were not given to him and his dancers because R. Kelly wanted all 7 of the dressing rooms to himself. He also said that R. Kelly and his people were quite unprofessional and demanded Ne-Yo’s rehearsal times be cut short. Basically he wasn’t feeling the respect level given to him and said “No” to many of the unplanned and slightly disrespectful changes. And apparently, after Keyshia Cole threw a fit and threatened to not perform on opening night because she didn’t like that R. Kelly’s people slated her to go on before Ne-Yo, they didn’t drop her for challenging their decisions. And Keyshia still ended up not performing that night. Ne-Yo says all that wasn’t cool and he’s being treated unfairly.

He says he definitely still respects R. Kelly musically, but not as a man. Sounds like The Kells’ divatude is back in play…reminiscent of the Best of Both Worlds Tour with Jay-Z. And we all know how that ended up. Ne-Yo was asked about whether any lawsuits would come of this and he responded with the typical “We’ll see what happens” response. He also says now that he has all this free time on his hands, he’s trying to put something together on his own for his fans.

Whatever the real reason, it was pretty messed up to drop him from the tour – especially after Keyshia Cole’s rumored behaviour. all of this makes me question R. Kelly’s logic; I mean, with his trial coming up soon, he’s gonna need every bit of good press he can get and this definitely isn’t a good look.