The fierce one made yet another NYC appearance last night at the Gramercy Park Hotel (June 29th). Rihanna also attended the birthday party for Allegra Versace, rocking a futuristic black and white outfit, black shades and two tone black and white gloves along with black Christian Louboutin pumps:

Word has it she was paying tribute to the late Michael Jackson but I don’t really see it. The singer sampled one of his songs for her previous hit ‘Don’t Stop The Music’. Fierce in deed.

Here are the last photos of the late Michael Jackson looking not so “healthy” but alive. The King of Pop was reportedly rehearsing at LA’s Staples Stadium for his concerts which were set to kick off on July 13th at London’s 02 Arena. 48 hours later, the tragic singer was pronounced dead:

In the British press, they were saying he was in top form and raring to go but he looks everything BUT healthy to me. His skin looks rubbery and he is anorexic-looking and very frail. Shocking details about his autopsy was leaked yesterday. Apparently, his body was a complete mess. For a man of 5′10, he weighed a very anorexic 8 stone. He had reportedly lost most of his hair and was very skeletal with bruises, broken ribs, scars from his plastic surgery and needle wounds from his drug use. The bruising and broken ribs are the result of his doctor frantically trying to get his pulse back with CPR. Also, they reported that he probably hadn’t eaten anything in 11 hours at the time of his death. All that was found in his stomach was dissolving pills. Anyway, I’m just typing what I remember reading in The Sun. Um, I know they are notorious for not being that credible but they were right about the skin cancer so who knows? The family ordered and paid for a second post-mortem which has now been completed. We won’t know the REAL results of his death until the toxicology reports come out in 6 to 8 weeks but the Jackson family are adamant that someone is going to pay for his untimely passing last Thursday.

As for the 800,000-plus tickets sold, AEG promoters didn’t really want to lose all that money and were looking to turn the concerts into a star-studded tribute with Janet Jackson and her brothers leading it. There were also talks about using a highly technical state of the art MJ to give off this digital but realistic illusion that he is there performing. AEG Live have just unveiled details about ticket refunds, and fans can get their money back starting from as early as tomorrow.

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Mariah Carey dresses in drag by turning herself into rapper Eminem as well as a doorman on set of her new music video ‘Obsessed’. The Brett Ratner-directed video shoot has been taking place in New York City. I can’t even stop laughing at these. Mariah made herself look as ugly as possible:

So I guess, the secret is finally out of the bag. Mariah is using Eminem’s own weapons against him. Pretty genius really considering that the rapper often spent the last 10 years dressing in drag in his video’s to mock top pop acts like Britney Spears and the late Michael Jackson. And now the same thing is being done to him. Needing to add, this is probably the most fully dressed Mariah has ever been in the last decade or so. The video will premiere on July 13th.

Letoya Luckett certainly is giving her fans a double whammy of a treat today. First, with the unveiling of her album cover artwork for ‘Lady Love’, and now the official premiere of her new video for her uptempo club banger ‘She Aint Got’. Check out the Bryan Barber-directed video below:

Letoya dashes to the club to confront her man after she finds a suspicious text message in his phone’s inbox. The video, whilst on a recession budget, was still pretty exceptional. However, I can’t help but notice that it pretty much mirrors Teairra Mari’s ‘Cause A Scene’ video. This is a case of knowing how to use what little resources you have and making the most of it. Clearly, Letoya has done just that. Even the choreography scenes at the club was sexy. In no means is she a great dancer but she had the swagger going on down pat. I am just really happy that she decided to go with the uncensored version of the song because the edited version sounded stupid and permitted the song to lose it’s creativity and attitude.

UPDATE: So it turns out that the audio to the video was not authentic and the censored version IS in fact the one being used. I’ve now posted the REAL video via Yahoo.

And here’s the official album cover artwork for ‘Lady Love’:

Now I know some folks are going to say she copied Beyonce’s dance remix artwork for ‘Above & Beyonce’ or whatever. The only similarity is the Net but both covers are completely different. Anyway, the singer will go head to head with Mariah Carey when the album hits stores on August 25th.

Due to tragic circumstances, it’s been probably over a week since we had a Rihanna post around these parts and if anyone’s presence was greatly missed around these parts, it was Rihanna’s. Check out some new pics of the singer, which were taken yesterday afternoon (June 29th) as she lunched with singer/songwriter Santigold. The two of them were spotted leaving NYC’s Philippe restaurant:

And last week, Rihanna was seen hanging out with NERD frontman Pharrell Williams who is currently working on her new album. She’s been having a lot of business meals/meetings with several songwriters and producers, and Santigold has now become a rumoured potential contributor.

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Solange Knowles entertained her audience when she performed at the 39th annual LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Pride parade in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon (June 28th). Check out some pics below:

Yes, I posted this particular picture on purpose but at least Solo can make fun of it. She tweeted: “I’m just at home here. Had a blaasssst. Camel toe and all!” The 23-year-old performed songs from her latest sophomore album ‘Solange & The Hadley Street Dreams’ such as ‘Sandcastle Disco’, ‘I Decided’ and ‘T.O.N.Y.’ among others. The singer then ran into a delighted crowd to greet and hug her fans and continued to entertain them from there. Interesting choice of outfit if I say so myself. It looks very Carnival-ish and really stands out. The singer will also be teaming up with her sister Beyonce next month where they’ll both perform a one-off benefit gig in Minneapolis at the Target Center. The gig will raise money for the Charles & Phyllis Newman Foundation as well as their own charitable institution, The Survivor Foundation. Good cause.

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Michael Jackson’s untimely passing has propelled the singer to the top of the UK album chart six years after his last number one. His greatest hits album, Number Ones, has hit the top spot after a surge in sales in the days since his death on Thursday (June 25th). Four of his other albums also soared into the top 20 countdown.

The songs currently climbing fastest up the charts are Man in the Mirror, Billie Jean and Thriller.

Thriller - the biggest-selling album of all time - raced from 179 to seven, King of Pop reached 14, Off The Wall got to 17, and The Essential Michael Jackson came in at 20. A total of 11 Michael Jackson and Jackson Five albums featured in the top 200 albums. In the U.K. singles chart, 43 of the top 200 singles feature the singer. Man in the Mirror was the highest charting entry at 11, Billie Jean entered at 25, Smooth Criminal was at 28, Beat It got to 30, and Earth Song reached 38.

This is phenomenal but not really that surprising. I instantly knew his old classics would rechart. Even more amazingly is that he could even end up dominationg all of the UK top 10. Next week’s charts should be really interesting.

Yesterday on June 28th, Mariah Carey started shooting the music video for her new single ‘Obsessed’, the leading song from her new album, ‘Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel’. Day one of the shooting was held behind closed doors on the fourth floor of The Plaza Hotel in New York City. Check out some pictures below:

The concept of the video is said to be a securely-guarded secret with “many surprises” that they do not want leaking. But we’ll have to wait until July 13th which is when the video is expected to premiere. The video is being directed by Brett Ratner, who helmed Mariah’s ‘Touch My Body’, ‘Heartbreaker’ and ‘It’s Like That’ music video’s among others. Picture source.

Janet Jackson, sister of the late King of Pop Michael Jackson spoke at the 2009 BET Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on June 28th, 2009 in Los Angeles. Check out her emotional words below:

Doing this tribute speech obviously meant a lot to Janet and she wanted to inform the fans that his legacy will live on forever, no matter what. I’ve posted all of last night’s performances (the R&B ones) after the jump.

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Ladies turn. The 2009 BET Awards took place last night at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday (June 28th). This post is dedicated to all the R&B female singers who hit up the red carpet and the actual show. Check out the pics below:

In clockwise order, Ciara, Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Letoya Luckett showed up to the so-called Michael Jackson-tributed Awards ceremony. I don’t think ex-Destiny’s Child members Letoya and Beyonce attended the same Awards show since the 2000 Grammy Awards. Correct me if I’m wrong. Anyway, it’s good that the two of them can still attend the same places no matter what type of drama supposedly took place behind the scenes (Beyonce’s dad reportedly sabotaging Letoya from performing at the main show as Beyonce. She DID perform at the pre-show though). In a way, I’m not really understanding it because Letoya had Beyonce’s House of Dereon line selling at her Lady Elle boutique in Houston, so the drama certainly wasn’t coming from her end.

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The 2009 BET Awards took place last night at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday (June 28th). I’m going to break these BET Awards posts into three parts - R&B male appearances, R&B female appearances and performances. This post is dedicated to all the R&B male singers who hit up the red carpet and the actual show. Check out the pics below:

In clockwise order, Mario, Ginuwine, Ray-J and Bobby Valentino showed up to the so-called Michael Jackson-tributed Awards ceremony. The performance post will be up sometime today. Right now, I’m currently working on pictures. However, you can read my review on last night’s ceremony after the jump, and trust, I am absolutely appalled.

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The BET Awards is tonight and a lot of tributes to the late King of Pop are expected to take place. Who was the pits? Who was on point? Have your say here.

Discuss.