Hit or Miss?
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Mariah Carey was one of the many acts who performed at the Idol Gives Back 2008, which aired yesterday. Check out her rendition of her inspirational song ‘Fly Like A Bird (from the ‘Emancipation):
She nailed it! Great performance. ‘Fly Like A Bird’ stands as one of my personal favorite Mimi songs of all time, so it’s always good to see her do the track justice live. I’m on the fence as to whether there was some ‘studio wizardry’ used during the last part, but oh well, it sounded on-point and seemed live for the majority.
What do you think of the performance?
Then I’d have a situation where I’m not well promoted, and they really couldn’t facilitate that at the time. So it was a blessing. Part of me was like “Yeah!’’ and the other part was like “Dang!” But it is what it is.
AHHA: Before they went into bankruptcy, I’m sure you had a lot of meetings with them about the album and the release date. What reasons were they giving you about why the album had to keep getting pushed back?
Teedra: Our communication was just horrible. The person I was dealing with [from TVT] was Brian Leech. He was the A&R that came to the studio and listened to what you were doing. Through him I was able to communicate with the label.
I’m not the type of person that can easily sit in the midst of all the technical stuff. I try to stay away from all that so I can be creative and do what I do without the restraints of thinking about what [A&Rs] have to do. That’s why I have people around for those jobs.
So once Brian left, there was really no way to communicate with them as an artist. There was no music person there. There were a couple other A&Rs, but they used to be assistants. There was no music person to really communicate with that could understand the vision I had.
You have to have that person to translate the vision to the label. It was a hard situation because everything was in disarray, and after Brian left, everything just started to fall apart. There were a lot of people underneath Brian that left too, and it kinda fell apart, unfortunately.
AHHA: So are you a complete free agent at this point?
Teedra: Not exactly; I’m not off TVT yet, but it’s something I’m moving towards. It’s very, very near.
It’s great to see that Teedra is moving forward. Like many, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of her sophomore effort ‘The Young Lioness’. Here’s hoping we’re able to hear it soon.
Any thoughts?
Your thoughts?
Actress Stacey Dash lets it all hang out on the latest cover of KING magazine. The 42 year old (yes, 42!) former Clueless star looks literally half her age. Saying that, it’s been a long while since she’s been seen actually…working. So here’s hoping she isn’t just hitting the cover for no reason. A new project perhaps?
“That’s going to really, really catch people off guard,” he says. “There’s a huge [cry] out there for a younger Britney Spears, a younger Janet Jackson. Those two great artists have paved the way. She has a single out called ‘Official Girl’ and Danja produced it, and it is a smash.
Cassie released her self-titled debut in 2006, which went on to sell 321,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan. Single “Me & U” peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and No. 3 on the Hot 100. It has also sold more than 1 million digital downloads.
Diddy says Cassie has grown significantly since the debut; at one point during the promo cycle for the album, the pair used viral video to apologize for her poor performance on a radio show.
“I just don’t think she was ready,” Diddy says. “I think that we threw her into the spotlight without the artist development — that goes on with a lot of new artists. We pulled out, we took our time, we developed her for like, a year-and-a-half. People are just going to see her there and be like, ‘Wow, she’s really cocooned into a butterfly.'”
Although the track list isn’t finalized, Cassie told Billboard earlier this year she’d worked with mentor Ryan Leslie, Seven, Mario Winans, Bryan Michael Cox, Eric Hudson, Sean C and LV on the project.
It’s pretty easy (and justified) to rubbish Diddy’s delusions of Cassie being the next Janet or Britney; after all, unlike her, both Janet and Britney compensate for their lack of vocal prowess by being all-round entertainers. However, I’ll reserve my judgement until more is heard from the album. I must say that the production credits are pretty impressive.
Renown songwriter Sean Garrett (Destiny’s Child, Usher, Ciara etc) is set to release his debut album ‘Turbo 919’ this summer. The video for the LP’s first single ‘Grippin’ On This Bed’, featuring Ludacris, made its debut yesterday. While the song’s infectious hook has made me like it all the more, the video is kinda ‘blah’ IMO. It’ll be interesting to see if Sean’s record garners more attention than the producer/songwriters -turned artists before him.
What do you think of the song / video?