Enough Already! Discussing Lil Wayne’s Offensive Emmett Till Lyrics

Lil Wayne offends…once again. The Louisiana-born rapper made a highly offensive and sexually explicit lyric on his track ‘Karate Chop.’ You might be saying, “he’s always offensive so what’s new?” Lil Wayne must have been tired of slandering women in his usual way and thought, “how can be even more offensive?” His answer was to compare a sex act with a woman to the beating that 14-year old Emmett Till received at the hands of white attackers.
The song is featured on a remix track by fellow rapper Future. Reportedly, the song wasn’t intended to reach the public and was ‘leaked.’ Epic records, the recording label that signs Wayne’s checks (despite his many references to being a ‘boss’ apparently he’s not), said they will go to ‘great efforts’ to recall the track with the offensive lyrics. An official release of the original song has been set with the vulgar lyric removed.
While that’s all well and good, let’s get real for a second. Lil Wayne’s music is offensive regardless of this latest scandal. He’s indiscriminate with his vile lyrics, targeting women (especially) and those in the LBGT community. With lyrics like, “you homo n*ggas get AIDS in the *ss” and “Then I beat her like a cop, Rodney King, baby, yeah I beat her like a cop, Beat her like a cop! Rodney King baby said I beat her like a cop,” it’s obvious that Lil Wayne has no regard for social issues, no common personal decency or definitely no respect for others.
Here’s a little backstory on Emmett Till and why the use of his name in this manner is so derogatory. 14-year old Till was a native of Chicago when he visited family in Mississippi in 1955. While there, two white men accused him of whistling at a white woman. As a result, he was beaten, had his eyes gouged out and was shot in the head. However, that wasn’t the end of it. His killers tied a cotton gin fan laced with barbed wire to his body and tossed it into the Tallahatchie River. The two men, including the woman’s husband, were cleared of all the charges by an all-white jury.
Till’s body was later found and returned to Chicago.  His mother, Mamie Till, demanded an open casket at his funeral to expose the horrors of racism. The media took pictures of his battered body and that action helped move the civil rights movement forward.
I agree that Wayne’s use of Emmett Till’s name when describing what he’d to a woman sexually is horrendous. No doubt about it. However, what makes this most recent lyric any more or less offensive than the rest? This is a man who created a song entitled ‘Lollipop,’ which details how he wants a woman to perform oral sex on him. This same man made a song entitled ‘Every Girl’ with the lyrics “I wish I could f*ck every girl in the world;” and performed it on the BET Awards stage while his daughter danced alongside him. His daughter.
Forget the ‘freedom of speech’ narrative. Sure, we all have the right to say whatever we think, feel or believe, but just because you can say it doesn’t meant you should. Lil Wayne and the rest of hip-hop ‘elite’ have a tendency to degrade women repeatedly with raunchy lyrics; reducing them to mere sex objects. No longer is there any room for informed, conscious and entertaining music in hip-hop. There’s barely any room for female rappers and hip-hop artists. There was a time where women had a voice. Queen Latifah, Eve, Mc Lyte, Lauryn Hill, Rah Digga. Each of them brought their own unique style to the ordinarily all-boys hip-hop/rap club. With the emergence of Lil Kim, though, the death of women in hip-hip and rap was ushered in.
Since Lil Kim stepped on the scene, there have only been a handful of female emcees who have kept their sexual lyrics tame (in comparison) and their rhymes comparable to the men in the game.
Now we have Nicki Minaj. The once fierce underground artist who held so much promise and was slated to be the one to bring female rappers back from the dead has been reduced to wearing rainbow tu-tus and resembling a human Barbie. I’m certain her transformation had MUCH to do with Lil Wayne’s career guidance.
Young Moolah baby!
With the slow death of hip-hop/rap quickly becoming a race to the bottom, the Lil Wayne song ‘Karate Chop’ is just another in a long line of ignorant lyrics that he and other rappers are insistent on assaulting the masses with. Isn’t it time we stopped supporting music because ‘the beat goes hard’ or ‘it’s just a song…it doesn’t reflect real life?” When is enough…enough?

Wake up the Mogul Inside You: Get to Know These 50 African-American Women

In honor of Black History Month we (The Jane Dough) decided to highlight 50 African-American women who are accomplishing extraordinary things in the public, private and non-profit sectors. Check out the gallery and prepare to feel a little bit inadequate when you get a load of some of these resumés.
Fatimah Moody

Fatimah Moody comes from a family of entrepreneurs — her parents owned a restaurant in Queens when she was growing up, and created her management consulting firm LinkVisum in 2007. Despite the bad economic timing she led the company through a period of tremendous growth, going from under $1 million in revenue in 2008 to $10 million in 2010. She’s pretty amazing, but she says her hero is her husband: “We are in the business together, and he is the backbone of the entire operation.” Cute!
D. Michelle Flowers Welch

D. Michelle Flowers Welch is the founder of Flowers Communications Group, a PR firm that has been in business for 21 years and boasted clients from MillerCoors to McDonald’s. Welch totally has the start-up bug and handed control of the company to its president in 2011 so that she could launch Welch Consulting, a sports marketing firm. She recently won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Publicity Club of Chicago.
Susanne Shank

Suzanne Shank is so, so smart — her original career dream was to be an engineer, but she ended up founding and heading up a municipal bonds specialist company that, among many other transactions, has overseen over $3 billion in deals for the Detroit Water Board. That’s not all — “in 2006 Black Enterprise Magazine named Shank one of the “50 Most Powerful Black Women in Business” and one of the “75 Most Influential Blacks on Wall Street.” Based in Detroit, she has established an internship program there — the Detroit Summer Finance Institute — opening careers in high finance to underprivileged city students.
See the full list of magnificent women at TheJaneDough.com

The State of Feminism 50 Years Later

Is feminism is dead and dated? It is according to the Kathleen Parker at the Washington Post. At the turn of the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique,’ critics have continued their analysis of feminism and its relevance to the modern woman. In its inception, the feminist movement began primarily in middle class white America. The movement’s biggest criticism has been that “Friedan didn’t tackle any of the legal obstacles to women’s equality. Nor did she pay attention to women of color or members of the working class.”
In this post-modern world where women work, head-up corporations, attend college in record numbers, what does feminism look like? For the Black woman, it incorporates class oppression, racism, and, of course, sexism. The basis of Black feminism is the notion that any form of feminism that seeks to overcome sexism and class oppression, while ignoring race is discriminatory to many people, not just women.
It’s hard to imagine a world where women are not allowed to vote, struggle to enroll in college due to discriminatory practices, or are denied basic equalities that men enjoy. Because of that, feminism seems to be an outdated idea that is useless at best, tension-inducing at worst. Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post writes, “Revolutions are like children — eager and hopeful in the beginning; then, like teenagers, suddenly riotous and unruly. They have their own ideas about things and pick up friends who are bad influences. Sometimes they need to be spanked. Fine, okay, a timeout.”
However, all movements undergo a transformation as they mature and feminism is no exception. At this point, the term ‘feminism’ is thrown around as a buzz word more than anything. That’s partially because the intent of Friedman’s ‘Mystique’ has never been fully understood. As well, uniting women across various socio-economic and racial barriers in the struggle for equal rights has never been the expressed goal. It seems that the middle-to-upper middle class, white woman’s movement was never meant to include the poor, the racially diverse or the uneducated. This could be a false notion, but it’s a pervasive one nonetheless. Thus, the struggle for respect between stay-at-home-moms versus working women, and women who desire marriage and family above bursting the glass ceiling remains.
We have women entertainers, like Beyonce, being either heralded as the new face of feminism or being torn apart for being too sexy; apparently a contradiction to true feminism. Who will be the new face of feminism is yet to be seen, but one thing remain true. As is stands, 50 years into the movement we still have the same questions about womanhood, motherhood, the working woman and feminism. Feminism, like the civil rights or gay rights movement, needs an overhaul, a foundation and a goal that more than just women can aspire to and advance.

From The House of Deréon to Vogue: Beyonce’s Ghetto-Fab Fashion Roots

As we all lie in the wake of Beyonce’s recently released Vogue pictorial, it’s hard to imagine a time when the diva wasn’t the epitome of glam and fierce haute couture.  Furthermore—a time when her best style accessory was not Jay-Z or a Chanel purse, but a bedazzler. A bedazzer guided by the overzealous hands of Mama Tina Knowles, who now heads the infamous House of Deréon fashion house.
Sometimes, it’s healthy to humanize, rather than deify, our icons, and thankfully, the years 1999-2005 give us plenty of material.  Here is a fashion throwback to a few of Beyonce’s entertaining, but not exactly Vogue-worthy looks.

This picture finds Beyonce (far right)  flanked by the original members of Destiny’s Child, wearing an Aladdin inspired getup. It appears Tina went on a magic carpet ride through the fabric store’s discount bin.  Side note: The divisions in the group are even in the fabric. Kelly got to share a fabric with Beyonce, indicating she had been marked to survive.

The early Destiny’s Child days are really the gift that keeps on giving. This time, the girls are rocking ensembles that seem to feature either dolphins or swans.  Sort of like Lisa Frank in monochromatic.

The group members were changing, and Tina was clearly trying to overwhelm us with fabrics so we wouldn’t notice. Beyonce’s skirt begs many question. Is it snakeskin?  Is it denim? Did Solange sew it in Home Ec?  Especially when paired with that banana-inspired halter, the outfit is so busy Michelle looks understated and classy by comparison.

In this look, it appears Tina was inspired by Girl Scout cookies. Kelly and Michelle look like unhappy scouts and Beyonce has taken on the part of troop leader, as she’s the only one allowed to wear a hat. No word on whether the girls won a “bootylicious” badge.

I like to call this Beyonce’s “wild horses” look. Maybe the Knowles family went to a dude ranch for Thanksgiving that year, because Solange didn’t escape the Western motif either. But again, Tina bestows the tackiest and most flamboyant outfit on her favorite, and Solange gets no horse.

This was a VMA look from right when Beyonce started dating Jay-Z. Clearly, he was embarrassed too. It seems Tina’s bedazzler took some adderall and went to town on those cuffs and collar. The incident prompted Jay to suggest Beyonce stop wearing looks made by Tina.

There is a bedazzled lining to these fashion mishaps, however. Blue Ivy no doubt will have the best Halloween costumes of all time.

Black History Month: Why Isn’t There A “White History Month

“How come there isn’t a White History Month?” If you’re inserting an eye-roll after reading that question, you’re not alone. Many of us have heard that in response to the celebration of Black History Month, so listen up. Each year, history repeats itself as at least one person whines about Black History Month being ‘racist;’ much like the NAACP or UNCF. Although you might think that answering that question by simply giving the ‘evil eye’ and walking away is a good idea, there is a better way. It’s complicated, but it can be done. Before we tackle that quarrelsome question, allow us a bit of history please.
Carter G. Woodson, author of the acclaimed book “The Miseducation of the Negro,” was the second African-American to graduate with a Ph.D. from Harvard. His focus was history, naturally, and he was interested in educating black people in their history. In a educational system where ‘history’ is often reduced to George Washington, the Boston Tea Party and the like, Woodson wanted more emphasis on how African-Americans contributed to the country in which they lived. As a result, Negro History Week was launched in 1926.
According to ‘The Grio,’ its reception was immediate. “Negro History Week allowed black schools, organizations, and churches a chance to expand their knowledge about black activists, writers, artists, and the movements that defined their history. Over time these celebrations grew to be month-long affairs in many communities, officially becoming Black History Month in 1976.”
Both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas were born in February and that is the reason why Woodson chose February for Negro History Week initially.
To those who always wondered why Black History Month is the shortest month…you’re welcome.
So how do you answer the question, “Why isn’t there a White History Month?” One answer given by a commenter on the website ‘Clutch’ had my favorite response. “History is white history. The ‘white’ is silent, like the ‘k’ in knowledge.”
Another awesome retort came from another commenter. “…I agree. The celebration of white history should be confined to one month of the year (as well).”
While you may hate yourself for wanting to laugh at those responses…let’s all take a moment to do just that.
And…we’re back!
If you want to be more diplomatic in your approach to the question, perhaps directing the curious to the classic piece by Peggy McIntosh entitled, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” would be appropriate. McIntosh, a white American, renown feminist and associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women, wrote the infamous piece after addressing what she called, “men’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged.”
Instead of focusing simply on male privilege, Peggy incorporated the racial advantages that most white people take for granted, oftentimes unconsciously.
Some people choose to answer the dreaded “Why isn’t there a White History Month,” question in numerous ways: snarky, sarcastic, annoyed, or with sincerity. Instead of angrily lashing out or shutting down when you hear it, take a moment to respond in a way that encourages education.
Both of you just might learn a little bit in the process.

Kris Jenner Gets Owned by Cosby Mom Phylicia Rashad (Maybe)

Kris Jenner, momager of the Kardashian/Jenner clan and chief pimp of L.A., has been slammed by the most iconic TV mother of all time- Phylicia Rashad. Rashad, who played Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has reportedly made remarks criticizing Jenner and her influence on the entertainment industry. According to the latest issue of the National Enquirer, Phylicia believes that “Kris represents everything shallow and vulgar about Hollywood.”
Well, we all knew that, but it seems so much more powerful coming from Mrs. Huxtable.
On Cosby, Rashad played the ideal modern woman–a powerful attorney, firm disciplinarian to 5 children, and loving wife to her doctor husband (Bill Cosby). You would have never caught Sondra getting a dui, Theo dabbling in drugs, or Denise with a sex tape, all run-of-the-mill Kardashian antics.
This is one TV mom smackdown we are eager to see.
Beyonce Stuns at HBO Documentary Premiere
Last night, Beyonce rocked a  show-stopping Elie Saab gown to the premiere of her her HBO documentary, Life Is But a Dream in New York.
Guests in attendance included hubby Jay-Z, sister Solange, mother Tina, along with her friends The-Dream, Angela Bassett, Luke James, Chris Rock, Russell Simmons, Victor Cruz, and Oprah Winfrey.
Speaking of Oprah, Beyonce sat down with Winfrey for an interview just before the premiere, revealing that the the title of the documentary came from daughter Blue Ivy’s favorite nursery rhyme.  Oprah’s interview will air later this month on OWN.
DMX arrested…again. This time, for driving without a license. When was the last time he made music again? [WISTV]

Mary J. Blige to Vibe: I’m proud of Rihanna. Well, at least someone is.  [theybf]

Adele explains Chris Brown Grammy smackdown photo- “Chris Brown and I were complimenting each other.” [MTV]
The Kim Kardashian/Kris Humphries divorce case gets nastier. Humphries threatens to “blow the lid off” reality TV. Maybe he should join forces with Phylicia Rashad. [TMZ]

Kelly Rowland sobs after birthday lunch with Beyonce. [Daily Mail]

Filed Under: Beyonce, Entertainment, Kris Jenner, Oprah Winfrey

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Toni Braxton Retiring from Music, Leaves Behind a Legacy

Toni Braxton is retiring from her music career after more than 20 years in order to pursue a career in acting.
Braxton made the big announcement that she would no longer be getting in the studio to make any hits, but she his hoping to make several appearances on both the big screens and the small screens.
The iconic songstress told TheGrio that when it comes down to it, she doesn’t love what she’s doing anymore.
“For what I do I have to love it,” Braxton said. “I have to feel that excitement and it’s gone. I’m just not going to do any albums anymore; maybe touring occasionally here and there because I love performing, but not as much as I did in the past. But no new projects.”
The “Breathe Again” songstress is leaving behind quite a legacy with six Grammy Awards under her belt and selling over 60 million records around the world.
While her last official album, Pulse, released back in 2010 it seemed like a new album was on the way when she released the single “I Heart You” just last year. Needless to say, the eighth studio album was never actually released.
While her acting career hasn’t reached the heights of her music career just yet, she still has some pretty impressive roles on her resume.
Braxton nabbed two Broadway gigs in which she played Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and the titular queen in Aida. She made her way unto the TV screens thanks to the seventh season of “Dancing with the Stars” and although that isn’t acting it was enough to spark her interest in the business. For now, however, her TV acting career hasn’t gone any further than reality TV (which we do consider to be acting) on WE TV’s “Braxton Family Values.”
As for film, she took to the big screens alongside LL Cool J and Jada Pinkett-Smith in 2002 in “Kingdom Come.” She also landed her first leading role in a movie, although it never reached movie theaters.
Instead she was the lead actress in the Lifetime movie “Twist of Faith” where she took on the role of a single mom who becomes enamored with a Jewish cantor from New York.
So what’s next for Toni? If she has things her way, she would like to play around with the sexuality of her characters.
“I would like to play a lesbian,” Braxton said. “I don’t know why. And do a whole make-out scene and the whole thing; just something completely different than people would expect from me.”
Sounds a little sexually driven if you ask, but if Toni’s trying to get paid for some girl on girl action we have another industry in mind for her that pays well and doesn’t require any acting talent whatsoever.

Megan Fox’s Son Steals Spotlight From His Daddy
The world finally got a peak at Megan Fox’s son after daddy Brian Austin Green held the adorable little boy in his arm in front of a large window.
There used to be a time that when Brian Austin Green (Megan Fox’s husband) was in a photo, all eyes were on him and nothing could distract you. We’re talking full on alien warfare could go on ten feet behind the guy and we’d still just be waiting for him to take his shirt off or stare at us with his green-ish gray eyes.
Things have changed however after Megan Fox gave birth to the most adorable baby boy you could imagine.
Fox and Green went on a vacation to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and brought along chubby faced Noah for the ride.
The handsome little man seems to be gazing off in the distance as he rests comfortably in on of his father’s arms. This is Green’s second adorable baby, but we’re pretty sure mommy Megan will spoil him to death since he is her first born.
While the quick snapshot of the father son duo was taken outside the window, you can still see the similarities between the two handsome fellows that Fox has been seeing since day one.
“He was his identical twin when he came out…” Fox told Ellen DeGeneres. She also claims that her little man looks “70 percent” like her big man.
Police Chief Resigns After Allegedly Lying for Chris Brown
Chris Brown has been in hot water after accusations arose that he lied about the community service he completed and now the police chief who signed off on the documents has decided to resign.
It was no secret that Brown and Police Chief Bryan Norwood were pals, but the friendship is quickly biting Norwood in the butt.
The Richmond, Virginia police chief helped Breezy pull of the community service fraud and certified that the “Don’t Judge Me” crooner had completed all of his hours. Signing a few papers wasn’t all it took to get the Police Chief in trouble, however.
He took things a step further when he decided to remove Breezy’s case from the Probation Department so he could handle the case all on his own. In other words, he needed to make sure nobody was over his shoulder watching his every move.
While the courts haven’t reached a decision on the case, yet the Mayor of Richmond supported the resignation 100 percent. According to a statement the Mayor of Richmond and the Chief made a “mutual agreement” about the resignation.
According to TMZ, the Police Chief claimed he stepped down in order to take on another job opportunity in North Carolina but the people of Virginia just aren’t buying it – and neither are we.
Meanwhile, the judge is still waiting on Rihanna’s lover to find a way to verify all those hours of community service and if he can’t things might finally get real for the R&B trouble maker.
Chris Brown losing popularity and his sidelines? Karrueche Tran may finally be moving on. [Daily Mail]
Mariah Carey, Nicole Scherzinger pay tribute to Whitney Houston. [Entertainment Wise]
Kim Kardashian becomes the boring mom she accused Kourtney of being. Kim and Kanye chill on balcony while Will Smith parties it up right above them. [New York Daily News]
Gabby Union Stars in Ava DuVernay’s short film “The Door.” [TheYBF]
Super J.Lo rescues Adele’s acceptance speech from Grammy crasher. [People]

Rev. Run, Tyrese Gibson ‘Manology’ Book Reveals Nothing New

Tyrese Gibson and Rev. Run are an unlikely team that has come together to share their knowledge on dating and relationships with another men’s playbook type of guide for women. But are they really saying anything we haven’t heard already?
Steve Harvey’s “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man” laid down the law for women seeking a serious relationship and helped school them on men’s playerish ways and how to get around it. So when Tyrese Gibson and Rev. Run announced their own book titled “Manology” you can’t help but wonder if the book will be pitching any new ideas that Mr. Harvey hadn’t already covered.
A quick look at some of the top tips of the book reveals that this is yet another book saying the same old thing.
Many of the tips such as not blaming your current boyfriend for your ex-boyfriend’s mistakes, being okay to fight as long as your quick to forgive, making sure the sex is good or he won’t stick around, and making sure invest just as much into your brain and business as you do your body are all things we’ve heard before… over and over and over again.
Don’t get me wrong, both of the men have good intentions by releasing the book and they both admitted to having their own daughters in mind.
“We both have daughters and we have a responsibility as fathers to advise and give women the heads up about what is around the corner,” the 34-year-old R&B and actor said. “There are so many women out here who want to love and be loved, but they just don’t understand what to do. I refuse to sit back as a father and say, ‘Figure it out.’”
Rev. Run chimed in and pointed out that “Manology” is intended to be a “man-ual” for women so they don’t get “man-ipulated.”
It’s true that women need to be familiar with some of men’s natural tendencies so they can better prepare themselves but what I find problematic is the fact that every dating guide (especially for African American women) takes the angle of “let us be men and you just get ready to deal with it.”
Let’s face it, Tyrese said it himself right? He wanted to give his daughters a “heads up about what is around the corner.” Well why is all the attention on how women should brace themselves instead of on how men should treat a lady who is worth their time?
It’s almost as if women are being blamed for every failed relationship because they didn’t know how to keep their man from cheating or flirting. Somehow it became our fault that a large portion of men don’t know how to tell the difference between a girl that should be a one night stand a women that should be his wife.
So instead of teaching women how to keep an eye out for the man who is truly worth her time, instead we only receive advice on how we should cope with the average man who can’t keep his hands to himself.
It seems a little one-sided and unfair. How many men are out there trying to pick up a book that talks about the inner working of women? None… because they could care less. In today’s day and age the lesson is: learn how to play the game better than the player or sit out on the bench and be lonely forever.
Well we say women should indeed learn the game, but that doesn’t mean we need to play it. Instead of running around on the court trying to play the game, we need to be sitting court side watching the shenanigans with a man who decided a long time ago that he doesn’t have time for games anymore.
Perhaps the most popular tip that Rev. Run, Tyrese, Steve, Dr. Phil and many other experts are constantly throwing around is the fact that women need to stop trying to change their man.
“The worst thing you can do is grab a man and fix him up,” Rev. Run writes in the book. “Only God can do that, so don’t crack the whip. What you can do is introduce him to a better way of life. Show him the truth and let him decide for himself.”
“…introduce him to a better way of life?” You mean try to convince him that we are worth his time? Well why doesn’t he also have the same responsibility to prove to us that he is worth our time?
With so many books out about what women are doing wrong in the dating world, there is little to no responsibility on the men to… well… man up.
So while we appreciate the good intentions, Mr. Run and Mr. Gibson, we are fed up with hearing about everything we are doing wrong and nothing about what the right guy should be doing for us.
The “strap on ladies and get ready to deal with us because we don’t feel like changing” logic is getting old and it’s getting old fast.
Take a break from schooling the ladies and start schooling the men too. After all, love was never intended to be a game – we’re just starting to accept it as one.

Music Roundup: Rihanna Hops in the Bathtub for “Stay” Video and Justin Timberlake Teases “Mirrors”

It’s new music Tuesday, and plenty of new videos and music are making a splash–literally.
Rihanna- “Stay” Video
After her strong Grammy performance, Rihanna has dropped the video for “Stay,” set in (where else?) a bathtub. The video features Rihanna washing herself and mourning the pain of convincing a man to stay in her life. Given that we know who the ballad refers to (and that they are back together), the video is convincingly raw and emotional.
The song itself is also one of Rihanna’s better ballad attempts.
Solange- “Bad Girls,” Black Cab Sessions
This video also has a rather, shall we say “unorthodox” setting. Solange basically decided to sing her song “Bad Girls” in the back of a cab. It’s for a new series called Black Cab Sessions where a production team convinces artists to give impromptu performances in the back of a cab.  Sort of like “Cash Cab” meets “MTV Unplugged.”
It’s a good performance, but I still have to ask– what is Solange doing in the back of a cab to begin with? Did Beyonce not let her ride in the limo? Beyonce gets the Super Bowl, Solange gets cabs.

Chrisette Michele- “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” (cover)
Chrisette is participating in Billboard’s week-long tribute to Whitney Houston, which commemorates the one year anniversary of her untimely passing. “I study her DVDs,” said Chrisette. “Literally the way footballers take notes before the Super Bowl, I’ll watch a Whitney show before I go onstage.”  Her cover of Whitney’s 1987 dance hit is wonderfully understated and light, different enough from the original to be enjoyable and not elicit immediate comparisons–because Whitney always wins.
However, adding a few lines of “I Believe in You and Me” (another Whitney smash from The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack) was a creative and welcome twist.
Melanie Fiona- “Wrong Side of a Love Song” video
Melanie has now dropped the video for her Grammy-nominated song, “Wrong Side of a Love Song.” The video features Melanie telling the story from the home she shares with hunky co-star Omari Hardwick.
“It’s very raw and it’s acting, and it’s very, very truthful,” she explained to Rap-Up. “It was really a meeting of the minds and talents and artistry to bring this to you guys. We wanted to tell a powerful, powerful story.”
Justin Timberlake- “Mirrors”
Closing out the releases this week is Justin Timberlake’s second single from upcoming album The 20/20 Experience. The ballad is full of classic JT vocals on top of Timbaland beats. It’s a little sappy, but for *NSYNC fans will bring delightful pangs of nostalgia. The breakdown in the middle is positively swoon-worthy.