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Official "Put It Down" single cover
Brandy, B-Rocka, Bran’Nu, whatever you wanna call her these days is back, and HOW! The star has released her first single from upcoming album Two Eleven (under RCA/Chameleon Records).
Listen to the song here: http://soundcloud.com/4everbrandy/put-it-down-main
We certainly think it’s a club banger, and should see star, who recently opened up about her eating disorders during her teenage years, back to the top of the RnB charts. We love it.
Put It Down, which also features Chris Brown, was produced by Shondrae “Bangladesh” Crawford and Sean Garrett and co-written by Chris Brown, Shondrae Crawford, and Sean Garrett.
The 33-year-old arrived in Johannesburg on Tuesday evening
We need to get this out of the way early: no under 18s will be allowed into the venue (Orlando Stadium) on Saturday. No, not because Usher is that sexual, but you know, HANSA will be flowing freely. Anyway, the US singer is in the country for a one-night only performance, although he’s been in the country since Tuesday evening. We’re all hoping it’s not one of those 1 hour and then he’s off kind of shows.
A lot has already been tweeted and said, so we’ll just give you a numbers breakdown for Saturday.
6 LEGENDS IN THE MAKING- Mo and the Dark Knights (GP), Busi M (Western Cape), Shoelance (Eastern Cape), Mapak’shop (Northern Province), Mo Klaassik (FS) and Abdus (KZN)
30 000- The capacity for concert (although Orlando Stadium is a 45 000-seater)
50 000- The litres of water to be made available (who cares about the water? It’s a Hansa gig!)
30 000- The meals (does this mean no seconds? Jokes!)
40- The medics that will be in the vicinity
2- Doctors on call
450- Security personnel that will patrol the stadium
250- Toilets
2 500- Hansa Festival of Legends staff on site
100 000- The watts of sound that will be pumping from 12.30pm until late on Saturday
25- Generators on site. I mean this is Joburg
320- Stage lights
2 100- The size of the stage in square metres
18- You won’t be allowed in if you’re under this age. No matter how many poster of the man
The entrance to the store. Image by: Pearl Boshomane
In case you didn’t know, Spanish fashion brand Zara just opened their first South African store, launching it last night. The store is housed in the new extension of (the already sizeable) Sandton City, which was so stunning we thought we’d been teleported to a mall in Dubai without knowing it!
Angels sang and danced as we walked towards the doors of the fashion brand we only know from international fashion mags. At the launch we spotted the fashion teams from ELLE and CLEO magazines, R&B singer LeeAnne and style blogger Mili Bongela. The crowd, was, as would be expected, fashionable and cool.
Inside the store. Image by: Pearl Boshomane
The Zara store is huge and is one of the biggest in the world. It’s 2700 square metres of clothes, bags, shoes, scarves and hats. 2700 square metres of bliss.
Hot trends we spotted were preppy tailored blazers and jackets (which we loved), loose-fitting tops (very Stella McCartney), tailored pants, colour blocking (even on the platform heels!), nauticals (Queen Mother Coco Chanel would be impressed), early 60s-style dresses (very Jackie O – let’s channel our inner First Ladies) and hot pants (won’t be donning those any day soon). The guys’ clothes were very Ben Sherman (you know, preppy, cool, hipster, very London), and the suits were lovely (if you can’t afford a Tom Ford suit, Zara has you covered).
The men's clothes. Image by: Pearl Boshomane
As for the prices, they’re middling, with the average price of a blazer being about R600. It’s not Chanel or Prada or even Black Coffee, but it’s not exactly Mr Price. Look, Sandton City never pretended to be about the masses in SA. It’s more for the up-and-coming and the ‘made-its’.
We get the feeling that they will get carried away shopping at Zara.
Here’s to fashion!
Lindsay is becoming a playmate... Image by: Getty
Rumour is that Lindsay Lohan, Tinseltown’s resident wild child, is taking on a new role: Playboy Playmate.
This would make perfect sense since the “recovered” addict is allegedly going for broke, despite once commanding about $7 million per film. But that was back when she WAS in films. Nowadays the actress can’t even land a supporting role in a television advert, apparently.
Gossip encylopaedia TMZ reports that LiLo (as she’s often called by the gossips) posed for the Hef’s mag this weekend and was paid about $1 million. Not bad for a (not-so-former) jailbird. Just last week the girl left court in handcuffs at her probation hearing after the judge revoked her probation which she’d violated.
At least she had a nice dress on. Even Joan Rivers thought so.
But while she’s keeping her clothes off, maybe Lindsay should consider becoming a permanent fixture in Hef’s life – as his newest girlfriend, perhaps? She could even have a reality show while she’s at it: ‘Lindsay of the Playboy Mansion’. I guess she would be indulging in another kind of blow.
Oh no, I didn’t just say that. Curse my filthy mouth.
The talented (and visually-appealling) Mr Johnny Depp, who stopped ageing at 30, is in a bit of trouble…
And no, he hasn’t been getting kicked out of hotels and attacking photographers like back in his wild-child days. No, no. Johnny Depp said in an interview with Vanity Fair, for their November issue, that being in a photo shoot is like being raped.
That’s right. He compared posing for photos to being violated sexually. For such a smart man, Johnny was sure being insensitive and dumb.
He’s not the first celebrity to make this blunder – Twilight actress Kristen Stewart made a similar comment in 2010 when talking about being stalked by the paparazzi. And while we imagine that being hounded by photographers and posing for a camera when you don’t want to can’t be much fun, we’re pretty sure that to compare such to rape is just being ridiculous.
Celebrities and their non-problems. Their publicists must train them to bite their tongues at times, because some people have real problems.
So, Lady Gaga (aka Mother Monster aka Stefani Angelina Germanotta aka J0e Calderone) recorded a duet with legendary crooner Tony Bennett recently. We can’t say what shocked us more – Lady Gaga putting her pipes to use on a big-band/ jazz standard or the fact that Tony Bennett, at 85, knows who Lady Gaga is. But then again, unborn babies probably already know who Lady Gaga is.
But we digress.
The Gaga and Bennett duet is that of the Frank Sinatra number The Lady is a Tramp, which appears on Bennett’s latest album Duets II. We suppose it’s good that Bennett and Gaga are “bridging the generation gap”. Or perhaps the old man’s going through a later-life crisis.
Either way, check out the video below.
Black Coffee has been nominated for an MTV EMA
And in some good old scandal-free news, DJ Black Coffee has been nominated for an MTV Europe Music Award.
Hurrah, hurrah, we’re quite impressed and very proud of the man.
Whether you like house music or not, it’s almost impossible to ignore the man’s talent for making smooth beats. That guy is a hitmaker of note – and it’s not one-season music either, it’s near-classic stuff. Clearly MTV could not ignore his talent, either.
The category he’s been nominated in is brand spanking new, and it’s called World Wide Act. The award will feature five nominees from five different regions: Africa/ India/ Middle East, Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America and Europe. Black Coffee is one of five nominated under the Africa/ India/ Middle East category, and if he garners top votes he will be in the World Wide Act category.
So I guess it’s like a nomination for a pre-award. Or something.
Either way, well done to Black Coffee. Good on you, man!
Alicia Keys has been cheated on, if rumours are true
The rumour mill has kicked into overdrive for Alicia Keys and her producer hubby Swizz Beatz.
Apparently, allegedly, supposedly, Mr Beatz has been doing some funny things behind his Grammy-winning wife’s back with a 23-year-old woman named Christina Elizabeth.
The story goes as follows:
Beatz and Elizabeth met at Solange Knowles’ birthday party in 2007. Nothing happened at the time, but they stayed in contact. Regularly. Via their Blackberries and through other means, too (wink wink, nudge nudge). The two would send each other explicit messages that nobody would want their mother to see. Except, now they’re all over the interweb for millions of us (and Alicia) to see after Ms Elizabeth lost her phone recently.
For those who don’t know, what makes this story juicier than the average cheating celebrity husband tale is the fact that Alicia was herself, at one point, the mistress. Yes, when she and Beatz got together, he was married to someone else. Tut, tut. It seems the words of Alicia’s hit song ‘Karma’ are coming true, with her getting a taste of her own medicine.
But Ms Keys brushed aside the cheating rumours on her Twitter with the following tweet: “Some things are just LAUGHABLE!!!!! Now, Let’s Continue to SHINE!! Everything else is just a waste of time!!”
We can only hope.
Wednesday was one of those days where I wished human cloning was possible. Two events and only one of me,it was no easy task. The first stop was the Miss SA farewell at Sun International in Sandton. Miss SA is going off to the land of football Brazil to participate in Miss Universe.
The event was attended by a handful of people . My favourite person there was Julius Malema. He was there with his fellow comrade and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula. A couple of of soapie stars were there including Sophie Ndaba, I heard her greeting Juju and Fikile with ” Hello darling ” had me wondering if Queen or Sophie had attended the event. Its very hard to differentiate between the two lately.
At the event they showed off the dresses that Bokang will be wearing at Miss Universe. The first dress, an emerald green frock was designed by Gert Johan Coetzee. The second, the national costume was abit bizzare.Designed by Andile Bhenye, the costume designer for Rhythm City, it was an african print dress which was accentuated with neon coloured frills at the bottom of the dress.
The pics of Bokang aren’t the greatest, sorry.
Bokang in her first dress with designer Gert Johan Coetzee
Bokang in the national costume
Julius Malema and Fikile Mbalula
Sophie Ndaba
David & Victoria Beckham, October 2003. Pic: Pierre-Philippe MARCOU
The Beckhams celebrate the arrival of their fourth child and first daughter after three sons.
Former Spice Girl and yummy mummy, Victoria gave birth to a baby girl, named Harper Seven (sounds too close to Half Past Seven don’t you think?), on Sunday morning at Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.
In a statement on his Facebook page, David Beckham said: “I am so proud and excited to announce the birth of our daughter Harper Seven Beckham.
“She weighed a healthy 7lbs 10oz and arrived at 7.55 this morning, here in LA. Victoria is doing really well and her brothers are delighted to have a baby sister xx
The Beckhams, who married in 1999, already have three boys – Brooklyn, 11, Romeo, 8, and Cruz, 5.
