November 2008
Britney Spears hadn’t performed since her disastrous VMA performance just over a year ago. Her performance left many mouths salty with fans asking themselves if she’s lost it as a performer. So when she was scheduled to perform lead single ‘Womanizer’ at a number of shows across the globe, she disappointed BADLY. Her poor performances as of late should be a testament that she’s not fit to go on tour. I mean, let’s face it. She’s hardly admired for her vocal abilities. People want to see hot performances and if she can no longer deliver those hot performances, it defeats all purpose of a Britney comeback, period. Maybe she’ll shock us next year but I’m not really counting on it. I think she should just concentrate on being a mom to her kids because her stamina to perform just isn’t there anymore. It’s like she’s lost a massive portion of her confidence and self-esteem and it shows.

Beyonce released her highly anticipated album ‘I Am…Sasha Fierce’ on Nov 18th. Whilst I thought the ‘Beyonce’ side of her album was elegant and beautiful, I thought her ‘Sasha’ side was immature and dumb. Even the uptempo’s on her debut solo album ‘Dangerously In Love’ were much better and mature in its production. Matter of fact, DIL is the best album of career. I play that album more than I do her new one. But I’ve already vented enough about her gimmicky project.

X Factor winner Alexandra Burke wins the X FACTOR, after almost fainting and sobbing uncontrollably when she performed with her idol Beyonce. I believe there are good things in the pipeline for Alex. I am also reading that next month she flies out to the United States to start recording her debut album. Good luck to her. I hope they hook her up with some good producers. But more importantly, I want an uptempo album with few ballads. A lot of people are saying she’s just another Leona, but if she wants to steer clear from those comparisons, she needs to not be moulded into a balladry act which is what Leona has become. Alex says she’s nothing like Leona but more like Beyonce because she intends to shake her butt on stage. I love how she already has an outline mapped out for herself and the direction she plans to go in.

December 2008
So now we’re here. Entering the final moments of 2008. Britney released her album ‘Circus’ which was decent. Folks showed they are still backing her because she got the no 1 single and album. Plus, the album sold over 500K in first week sales. A lot of the songs shit on ‘Womanizer’. Some folks disagree but oh well. Keyshia Cole was one of the artists I was hoping would save R&B music this year but she too failed me. Brandy had a nice album though, despite it being her most commercial in production. It’s not better than ALL her previous ones but still a nice effort. Here’s hoping that 2009 brings us a better year for music. Not just R&B music, but music in general.

September 2008
This is the month where we recieve official confirmation that Janet Jackson has departed from her label Island Def Jam, after only releasing one album - the poor performing ‘Discipline’. I have written several posts where Janet has been more than vocal about her frustration with the label. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a solid working relationship and would not see eye to eye with single choices as Janet admitted herself: “We started off with ‘Feedback’ and the label and myself haven’t quite seen eye to eye since the Feedback single so they’ve kind of basically stopped all promotion. I’m trying to figure out a way to say this, but just to say it and to be quite honest, they just stopped all promotion whatsoever on the album so I don’t think you’re going to hear another single off this album.” In a way, I’m kind of mad at Janet as well because it’s not like she doesn’t have the money to fund her own video’s. Her project never had to go to waste the way it did if she hustled the project for herself and not entirely rely on the label. Sometimes, you have to make those sacrifices to stay on top. Beyonce did it with B’Day. All the expenses for studio time and production, producers and her video anthology all came out of Beyonce’s pocket. Her father and label didn’t even know she was recording a new album until she was ready to release it, lol. It’ll be interesting to see what label will snap Janet up this time. Live Nation reportedly sponsored her ‘Rock Witchu Tour’ and she didn’t even complete it. Instead, she cancelled the remainder of her shows so I don’t even know where she stands with them anymore. It’s certainly not looking good for Janet’s musical future.

October 2008
On October 10th, Beyonce Mania hits town when her two singles ‘If I Were A Boy’ and ‘Single Ladies’ finally go to radio. Her two songs are the Internet talk of the day but her ‘Single Ladies’ video got more talk than anything since it pays tribute to the Fosse chicks in the 1960’s video ‘Mexican Breakfast’. I don’t think I’ve seen so many spoofs to a music video the way I have for Single Ladies, which is why it is soooo popular right now. We get to hear Brandy’s gorgeous second single ‘Long Distance’ and Britney’s comeback single ‘Womanizer’, which was really underwhelming. But poor Michelle Williams releases her eurodance-driven album ‘Unexpected’ and it only sells 14,618 copies in the first week and landing in at number 37. Shockingly, Aubrey and D. Woods get kicked out of Danity Kane by Diddy which was shown in their Making The Band finale. As to whether the group can survive as a threesome is yet to be seen. However, I don’t think nothing beats the horrific tragedy involving the triple murders of Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew on Oct 24th. I am still reeling about that but relieved that suspect William Balfour has been charged and that justice will be served. In fact this is by far the biggest low in R&B music this year.

August 2008
August was a pretty interesting month. First of all, there was the infamous story by Rihanna’s former business manager that the singer was broke and was down to her last $20,000. Rihanna reportedly sacked Patricia Willliams because she believed Williams was stealing her money. When Rihanna checked her financial records she was supposedly “shocked” that a lot of her money had disappeared. Marc Jordan, who is also accountable for Rihanna’s financial affairs reportedly uses the money Rihanna makes from third-party endorsements and from tours to fund her albums and music video’s. It was kind of foul to put the girls business on blast like that if this is true. Sadly, I can’t rule it out because the story isn’t that farfetched. Artists often work to recoup back the money that their record company spent on their promotion and so forth. There have been stars much bigger and much more successful than Rihanna, like TLC and Toni Braxton who both had to file bankruptcy due to similar circumstances. At least the story gave us more insight into ‘the other side’ of working in the music industry.

The funniest moment took place on August 9th during Solange’s performance of hit single ‘I Decided’ at the Soul Picnic 2008 event. I died when a crazy (drunken) fan got on stage to make a spectacle of himself whilst Solange performed. The fan was getting into his lil routine much to the delight of the audience who appeared to be enjoying the farce. When security tried to get him off the stage, Solange told them to leave him alone and even danced with him throughout the remainder of the performance. I have to say that was funny as hell but if that was Beyonce, the poor guy probably would have been flat on his face by hordes of burly bodyguards.

Beyonce’s controversial new L’Oreal ad caused furore on both black AND white blogs that month. The ad appeared to have whitened Beyonce’s skin and features to make her look like a white woman. If that were the case that’s pretty sickening because it appears they were interested in Beyonce’s name to endorse their product and not her true physical appearance which is a black woman. Due to the outrage online, L’Oreal felt the need to put out a statement denying that they altered Beyonce’s look to none other than FOX news who are notorious for spewing their racist propaganda. SMH.

My musical highlights that month include Monica’s buzz single, the Ludacris assisted-‘Still Standing’ as well as the release of Karina Pasian’s debut album ‘First Love’. This album was my contendar for being the best R&B album to drop in 2008.

July 2008
In July, it was officially announced that my girl Alicia Keys recieved the go ahead to record the theme song to ‘Quantum of Solace’ with Jack White of the White Stripes. It also became the 22nd James Bond movie. Beyonce, Leona Lewis, Duffy AND Amy Winehouse (who had her recording session revoked due to her inability to complete it) were all linked to the song but Alicia won out in the end. The 27-year-old now joins a list of legends to record the James Bond theme such as the iconic Madonna, Tina Turner and Shirley Bassey. So, this was truly a massive gig and a worthwhile opportunity. Though, upon hearing the track, I must admit it wasn’t very good, sadly. She failed to pull it off because the song was just so big for her to carry. Her vocals were also drowned out in the massive empowering hardcore rock production.

Danity Kane finally premiered their video ‘Bad Girl’ in mid-July. The video which was directed by Erik White was clearly on a high budget with its comic-book ‘Sin City/Batman’ style production. Though, at that point, Diddy left it too little too late to start pulling out the stops. Their album ‘Welcome To The Dollhouse’ (one of the best pop-R&B albums to come out this year) wasn’t promoted properly and ended up doing a sudden disappearing act on the charts. But for what was to come concerning the future of the group itself was completely inevitable.

There appeared to be a mean bust-up between BET 106 & Park hosts Terrence and Rocsi. Or at least that’s what they wanted it to look like anyway. Apparently, Rocsi was seen walking off the set after Terence repeatedly insulted her as well as asking her why her body couldn’t look more like Ciara’s. Rocsi who was visibly upset, rolled her eyes before walking off the set leaving Terence to host the rest of the show alone. Her absence for that past week sparked up reports that she was suspended for walking off, but it turns out she was on Holiday leave and Terence later apologised for his asshole-ish behaviour. It totally showed a lack of professionalism on his behalf and should have warranted him getting the boot because you don’t bring your problems to a live TV taping. But I’ll always have a sneaking feeling that this was a publicity stunt strictly for higher viewing stats. It’s about time they ditched that wack show anyway.

Beyoncé performed the Barbra Streisand classic ‘The Way We Were’ in front of the woman she claims is her inspiration. The performance took place at the 31st annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C earlier this month. Check out her beautiful rendition below:

A flawless graceful and powerful LIVE performance if ever I’ve seen one. Her notes were gorgeous and elegant. Barbara looked mighty impressed as she was often seen nodding her head in approval. What I like about Beyonce is that, when tributing someone, she doesn’t just take a legendary song from a legendary artist and sings it. She studies it, analyses it and then pays attention to EVERY.LAST.DETAIL.

June 2008
Amy Winehouse performed in front of 90,000 fans at the Glastonbury Festival where she put on a disastrous show. But more shockingly is that she flew into a rage during her performance and whacked a concert goer multiple times in the process (see video in ‘comments’). Her rep claims that a man grabbed her hair so she “reacted.” However, Glastonbury organisers claim someone grabbed hold of her breasts and witnesses say that the man she hit said some callous remarks about her husband Blake which caused Amy to act as violently as she did. Either way, this was one of many disastrous performances that took place this year, from her bizarre Grammy performance to her shocking performance at the Lisbon festival the month before and many more. I seriously don’t understand why Amy bothers to do performances when it’s so clear she’s totally out of it most of the time. Her album ‘Back To Black’ was such a wonderful effort that it gets constant rotation in my stereo so to see such a talented artist throw it all away is just pitiful. There was also outrage the month before when the singer was spotted on video camera snorting crack. Despite the evidence, she was not charged because they couldn’t prove it was crack. So, they let her go because, well, as stupid as it sounds it could have been Johnson’s Baby Power. If she were charged, it would probably have woken her up a bit but now she knows she can continue taking drugs and get away with it as well as setting a bad example to young people who enjoy and listen to her music.
Usher had the no 1 album for the extremely underwhelming ‘Here I Stand’ on both sides of the Atlantic that month. However, it seemed to have inflated his egotistical head to gigantic proportions. UK urban mag RWD asked Usher what he thought about his ex-girlfriend’s recent comments regarding her previous feelings for him. The ex-girlfriend in question is former TLC singer Chilli who stated that although she’s not in love with him anymore, when they WERE together, she truly loved him. When Usher was asked what he thought of this, his response was: “I think it’s a little unrealistic, I’m married (laughs), I’m not a boy. It’s been three years past, you know? But we all have unrealistic goals too. Like shoot, I will always forever love Katie Holmes and Halle Berry. I don’t feel anyway about it. It does appear maybe to be a plug for something. She got a record coming or something?” What an idiot.

My biggest low this year was seeing a paedophile R&B singer get off scot free. On June 13th, R. Kelly was found NOT GUILTY by a Chicago jury of 12 (nine men, three women). The singer was acquitted on all 14 counts of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl…

If he was convicted, he faced a minimum of four years in prison and a maximum of 15 years. The trial came to an end six years after he was first charged in 2002. I avoided reporting on this trial like the plaque because for me it was all about the verdict, and I wanted it to be a guilty one. I went to Asda earlier that day and bought champagne because I was expecting to pull corks and celebrate some justice, but sadly, it wasn’t to be.

A highlight of mine that month was the premiere of Solange’s video ‘I Decided’. The track was just fierce and was the first single from her sophomore album ‘SoL-AngeL and The Hadley St Dreams’. The video was directed by Melina and it has a portrayal of how pop culture was like from the ’60s to the future. The video was awesome. It was really creative and not the expected from many pop video’s out today. It consisted of very creative concepts and good visuals. Best video of the month. Her album was better than her sister’s and yet, it has only sold just over 100K TO DATE since its release on August 26th. Disgusting. On another positive note, I never thought we’d ever see Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson release a new album, never mind a single. She finally premiered her new video for ‘Spotlight’, which is a song that really ended up growing on me.

May 2008
May was kind of slow for anything exciting, but there was in fact a couple of cringeworthy moments that I could think of. And the most cringeworthy of all was when 106 & Park hosts Terence and Rosci salivated over Madonna so much that their juices completely dried up. For the first time in BET history, Madonna appeared on BET’s ‘106 & Park’ to promote her latest album ‘Hard Candy’. Throughout its existence, Madonna has never given a shit about BET. In fact, she wouldn’t even allow herself to spit on it, so going on the show was completely out of her element. It’s not like she is Tom Cruise who go on it for shits and giggles. I recall Michelle Williams‘ original video ‘We Break The Dawn’ not getting any airplay on BET because the song wasn’t urban enough (which is why they had to put out an urban remix) and yet, they play Madonna’s RAY OF LIGHT which doesn’t even have an ounce of R&B or Hip Hop whatsoever. During her appearance on the show, the audience which is usually 90% black were mainly 90% white, the questions they asked her were dumb and you could just see the overall discomfort in her face, as if she were asking herself “why am I here with these losers?”. I’ll never forget her facial expression when she was asked when was the last time she had to ask permission for something? LOL!!!!!!!! She also took a long time to answer the questions and when she did answer them, there was a lack of enthusiasm in her tone. BET don’t have much respect or integrity anyway but that respect was certainly thrown out the window the day they sold themselves to compensate POP music royalty, especially since it was painfully obvious that Madonna didn’t even want to be there.

Another cringeworthy moment that same month was when previous American Idol champ Fantasia Barrino performed on the American Idol Results show. The stage-eccentric singer performed ‘Bore Me (Yawn)’ but her performance was certainly far from a bore that’s for sure. She showed off a new flaming red hairdo, did a crazy routine and sounded absolutely awful. I was laughing hysterically throughout the whole performance but when I saw Simon Cowell’s facial expression, I absolutely lost it. I was floored.

Another highlight of May was when Kelly Rowland performed at the Great American Gay Day 2008 event and whilst doing so, someone threw a hat at her and it hit her right in the face!!! We’ve seen quite a few situations regarding how other singers have reacted towards getting objects thrown at them on stage. Akon infamously brought his thrower onto the stage and indulged in physical humiliation by throwing the kid BACK into the crowd. When Trey Songz had ice thrown at him, he dived into the crowd to give the culprit a good ole mean beatdown. But Kelly is showing us that a female don’t mess too. After being hit, Kelly immedietely stopped performing and screamed: “Who threw that up here? Come to the front!” The thrower was forced to come forward and apologized before reportedly leaving the concert, embarrassed.

President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th President of the United States of America is underway and Beyoncé takes much pride in her patriotism by singing her very own version of the timeless Lee Greenwood classic ‘God Bless the U.S.A. (Proud to Be an American)’. Check it out below:

I think she did a really nice job of this song. It’s really powerful, yet beautiful and breathtaking. I wouldn’t mind being an American right now myself actually. The track has also ignited a buzz that she might actually be singing it at the Barack Obama inauguration. Beyonce has stressed on many occasion that she’d love to sing at the prestigious event but confirmation is still pending.

Over the Christmas Holiday, new R&B boyband Brutha did a brief interview and performed their latest new single ‘I Can’t Hear The Music’ live on KTLA in Los Angeles:

Their vocals were quite scratchy during this performance but I still see a lot of potential. The five brothers will also sing for President Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration, so as of now, they are off to a flying start.

April 2008
The funniest moment of April is when a Mariah Carey performance went all awry on a live morning TV show. Mariah met her shame on April 25th when she performed a small gig on Good Morning America. During her performance of ‘Touch My Body’, the intro of her backing track could be heard and then it stopped abruptly making it painfully obvious that she wasn’t singing live. Unfortunately, her vocals just weren’t matching the backing track. But the disaster doesn’t stop there either. When Mariah realises that she can no longer conceal her lip-synching she turns round to her backing singers and tells them: “Stop singing my part now baby” knowing full well that no one was singing her lines. Classic! Five days after that disastrous performance, the singer tied the knot on April 30th to actor Nick Cannon, at her private estate on Windermere Island in the Bahamas. Biggest highlight of the month was Leona Lewis reclaiming the Number One position on the Billboard Hot 100 with her international hit single, ‘Bleeding Love’. Leona became the first British female artist ever to score both a US Number One album and single in the same week. The first time ‘Bleeding Love’ got to Number One was on March 27th, making her the first British female solo artist to top the Hot 100 in over 21 years. Talk about British Pride! Madonna jumps on the Hip Hop bandwagon this year and premieres her new video ‘Four Minutes’ on April 3rd. The song was produced by Timbaland and featured Justin Timberlake. I thought the video was hot. Best video of April. The choreography was energetic. At 50, that woman can really move. I was mad that a hot beat got wasted on someone like Madonna though. On April 4th, Beyonce finally ties the knot with her beau Jay-Z and moved heaven and earth to make it the most private ceremony as possible. We saw Jay-Z and Beyonce’s family passing through but we didn’t even get a glimpse of Beyonce, her wedding dress or her hairstyle. Nothing. It was a media circus at Jay-Z’s NY apartment and the beautiful bride successfully kept herself out of the paparazzi view. Usher premiered his video ‘Love In This Club’. It was a sexy video. Keri Hilson and Usher had real chemistry. The choreography was hot but it would have been nice to see more of it throughout the video. Raven Symone released her self-titled album on April 29th and it was a lot better than I expected. In fact, it was better than some of the albums that I had high expectations for. How sad is that?

March 2008
Funniest moment of the month took place on March 6th 2008 when super R&B group Dru Hill made the announcement live on Baltimore’s 92Q radio station that as a group, they were reunited. Then, Woody waited until the LAST MINUTE to reveal LIVE on radio that he was no longer part of the group and a physical fight broke out. Sisqo basically had a heart attack. It was straight up comedy here on out! Best song of the month would go to Ne-yo’s ‘Closer’. I didn’t like it at first. I thought it sounded like a ‘Because of You’ reject but the upbeat dance number certainly grew on me under dramatic circumstances. With exactly seven days before their album ‘Welcome To The Dollhouse’ was scheduled to drop, Danity Kane FINALLY premiered their new video ‘Damaged’ on March 11th. It’s no secret that Diddy is the worst CEO in music but his handling of their project was absolutely catastrophic! Shocker of the month is when Mariah Carey finally went on her promotional trail for new album ‘E=MC²’ and made a lipsynching mockery of herself on SNL. She was on the show to replace Janet Jackson who pulled out at the last minute. When she performed ‘Touch My Body’ and ‘Migrate’, she STRUGGLED through her performances and had to use pre-recorded vocals for the more difficult notes. This cemented the fact that Mariah’s golden voice had deteriorated dramatically. It was then that Leona Lewis was getting hailed as the voice of our generation. March was also the month we got a taste of Beyonce’s new album ‘I Am…Sasha Fierce’ when her track ‘Beautiful Nitemare’ hit the Net. It gave us an idea where Beyonce was going musically. The track is now called ‘Sweet Dreams’. On March 31st, we finally get to hear Michelle Williams‘ new single ‘We Break The Dawn’ in which the singer introduces her new synthy electropop musical direction.

February 2008
The funniest moment of Feb was when singing legend Aretha Franklin had a hissy fit at Beyonce for failing to crown her as “the Queen” amongst the many female legends she acknowledged in her Tina Turner tribute at the Grammy’s. I say never mind Rethy! Being a legend is also about putting out timeless music. Therefore, putting out songs like ‘Diva’ certainly won’t get you remembered, but I’ll reserve my rant for the November portion. Hottest video of February goes to Ashanti’s ‘The Way That I Love You’. I loved the video. Like ‘Rain On Me’, it was conceptual but GANGSTAR! I loved her portrayal as the vengeful and betrayed girlfriend, though, I wouldn’t recommend that type of revenge on anyone, lol. On Feb 12th, we finally got to hear Mariah Carey’s new single ‘Touch My Body’ (pictured below in a photoshoot she did in the Aug 2008 issue of Elle). Worst R&B song of the month. After many delays and angering the fans by constantly resetting the countdown clock, we finally got to hear that anticipated first single, and it was rubbish! In the aftermath of the song leaking before schedule, Mariah’s people also unleashed their weapons of mass destruction which resulted in a huge shutdown of blogs who posted the song. A song that wan’t even that hot to begin with. Everyone was really excited because her last comeback album ‘The Emancipation of Mimi’ was fantastic and hit the nail on the head in terms of its commercial success. Then again, I should have known better especially with an amateurish title like Touch My Body. Pst! Another highlight that month is when MTV officially lifted their ban on Janet Jackson following her Superbowl nipplegate debacle in 2004. The singer also released her album ‘Discipline’ that month as well. Most insightful moment? Rihanna’s daddy Ronald Fenty speaking out for the very first time about his crack addiction and how much it affected the singer. When journalists tracked him down in Barbados, he was spotted hawking tacky toys, perfume and household items from the boot of a battered Nissan car. In light of Rihanna’s fortune, he never asks her for a penny and insists he’s happy in his work, which earns him around £250 (about $492 US dollars) for a seven-day week. Wow…