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Part 1: Moving Mountains, Here I Stand

BET aired an Usher ‘Here I Stand’ special to celebrate the release of the singer’s album earlier this week. The 29 year old performed select tracks from the record as well as an old favourite (‘Yeah’).

Part 2: Yeah, Love In This Club

Great performances.

In other Usher news, despite reports that ‘Here I Stand’ has been illegally downloaded more than half a million times, the singer is still on course to have one of the highest first-week sales so far this year with first day sales of 146,000 according Nielsen SoundScan. To get an idea of what the album is set to sell first week, one need not look further than Mariah Carey, whose ‘E=MC²’ LP sold 154,000 on its first day out, going on to shift 463,000 units by the week’s end back in April. Though the numbers are looking very promising, it’s a far cry from the 1.1 Million Usher’s last LP ‘Confessions’ sold first week. {Source}

Any thoughts?

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What do you think of the pics?

The third and final video for Kanye West’s ‘Flashing Lights’ surfaced just a few hours ago. Though better than the second, I’m still out of the loop as to what the vids are actually about. Kudos to Kanye for continually thinking out of the box, though…

What do you think of the vid?

The artist, who mixes rock, hip-hop and pop in his music, claims parts of Britain are now more dangerous than New York, and the popular hip-hop culture must be held responsible.

Tricky – who has performed with Massive Attack – says, “I love hip-hop, but it has to take some responsibility for the gun culture we’ve got over here. We’re getting super-violent. You can walk around the Bronx for days on end and nobody bothers you. “In England, you can say the wrong thing in a pub and, before you know it, you’ve got a bottle over your head or a bullet in your brain. English people have got quicker tempers.”

His genuine opinion? Maybe. A publicity stunt? A possibility. Stupid? Hell yes! Granted the crime rate here in the UK has risen in recent years (and is a hot topic in the media at present), it’s very unoriginal to take aim at Hip-Hop. To say the mainstream UK Hip-Hop movement is lacking would be an understatement, so I’m assuming he means US Hip-Hop (the only kind we’re exposed to on mass). Yet, he’s contradicting himself in his ‘parts of England are tougher than the Bronx’ statement, as it’s largely the same thing we’re listening to around the globe. What’s more, without generalising, it’s highly unlikely that you’d find your average Hip-Hop listener in a ‘pub’. For someone who claims to ‘love Hip-Hop’, he sure did little to show it.

In a broader context, I wanted to know if you feel Hip-Hop is responsible for violence/crime in your own locality/country? If so, why? If not, why?

Your thoughts?

After six years of dating, Cherish member Neosha King tied the knot with boyfriend Jason Lawrence early this month. The small, intimate beach ceremony was held on Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Neosha On Jason: “Jason and I both had come out of bad relationships,” explained Neosha, “and we met when he visited his childhood friend, who was also my sister Farrah’s then boyfriend. From the beginning, there was something special between us.”

Jason On Neosha: “When I saw her walk down the aisle it hit me that we were getting married,” says Jason, a design engineer. “We’d been in love for so long and on one accord that it always felt like we were married. She was so beautiful it simply reaffirmed that she was The One for me.”

You can click here to read the entire feature

I actually had no idea that Neosha was engaged or anything. In any case, congratulations to both her and Jason.

Any thoughts?

Supermodel turned media mogul Tyra Banks appears on the June 1st cover of The New York Times Magazine. In her feature, the talk show host describes herself in as a mixture of Oprah Winfrey with a dash of Martha Stewart thrown in.

Cool cover. It’s great to see Tyra garnering so much recognition outside of the modelling world. It goes to show that sky really is the limit. More power to her.

Your thoughts?

To celebrate the recent DVD release of Denzel Washington’s ‘The Great Debaters’, That Grape Juice are giving you the opportunity to win a special 2-disc copy of the Golden Globe nominated movie, which also stars Forest Whitaker.

Email your answer as well as your full name, age, and address to competitions@thatgrapejuice.net. Please be sure to put ‘Great Debaters Comp’ as the subject. Winners will be selected randomly from all correct answers. Competition ends Monday 2nd June. Good luck!

It seems T.I. is the latest star to hop on the Reality TV bandwagon. The 27 year old has partnered with MTV for the project:

“[MTV] will follow the hip-hop star as he performs more than 1,000 of community service before beginning to serve his one-year prison sentence next spring. Ish Entertainment is behind the untitled series, which has scored an eight-episode order from MTV. Cameras already chronicled T.I.’s release from house arrest, and shooting will start in earnest this summer, leading up to his return to jail in early 2009. MTV plans to air the show some time soon after that.” {Source}

Though I’m kinda iffy about the prospect of yet another reality show, I must say the concept sounds pretty interesting. Having enjoyed Lil’ Kim’s pre-jail show ‘Countdown To Lockdown’ a few years back, this one definitely seems like it’ll be worth tuning into. It’s just a shame that our artists aren’t starring in such shows for more postive reasons.

Your thoughts?

Diva Mariah Carey threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the start of a Japanese baseball game between the Yomiuri Giants and the Rakuten Eagles at Tokyo Dome in Japan yesterday. At 38, there’s no denying ‘Ms. Cannon’ looks good, but…

What do you think of the pics?