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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!
Pic: DANNY MOLOSHOK
Rihanna portrays a rape victim in her latest video, ‘Man Down,’ who commits premeditated murder against her offender with the shot of a gun. The video has been deemed too violent by The Parents Television Council and they are trying to get BET and other channels to stop airing it.
The groups are also angry because Rihanna has promoted the video on her twitter account stating that the theme of the video was female empowerment.
Well here’s the video, what do you think?
Read more at TimesLIVE
Kenny Kunene & Ciara. Pic: LOUISE McAULIFFE
Despite the last-minute cancellation of the Cape Town and Durban ZAR Fest concerts, American hip-hop and R&B artists Ciara, Lil Kim, Fat Joe and Timbaland are confident that tomorrows concert at the Dome will do well.
We caught up with Ciara at a press conference at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Sandton, where she discussed her impressions of South Africa, tomorrow night’s performance and her musical influences. The R&B star had a lot to say about Beyoncé, enjoy:
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You can go to TimesLIVE multimedia for the full interview.
Lady Gaga. Pic: ©BANG
US talk show host David Letterman ‘upset’ Lady Gaga when she made a scarcely clothed appearance on his show on May 24. The pop star got so upset on the show that she swallowed his “list of rumors” by the end of the interview.
Letterman began the interview by questioning her about her outfit “What are you wearing? I mean, what aren’t you wearing?,” he asked and Lady Gaga calmly replied: “I only liked the jacket, so I decided that’s all I would wear.”
But then Letterman harped on about Gaga’s famous pantlessness saying “I’ve never thought to myself that I’m just gonna wear my underpants”, she shot back: “Why not? I’m sure you’d look nice. You’d be surprised,” adding a few anecdotes of her variety show time together with her co-star Lady Starlight, when they used to wear matching bikinis singing pop songs: “It’s amazing what will happen if you take your clothes off,” she quipped.
But after applauding Letterman’s stylist (orange tie with stripes), the conversation took a different turn, with the talk-master checking off various rumors off his list. Following a story of Gaga supposedly making her own jerky out of the famous beef dress, or using flyfishing for relaxation, the star had enough, grabbed Letterman’s notes, and ate them up.
Shakira during the press conference at Soccer City, Johannesburg. PHOTO: ANTONIO MUCHAVE
Colombian-born singer Shakira has become the latest recording artist to accumulate over 30 million friends on Facebook. She passed the 30 million mark on May 26 and in a show of gratitude uploaded a video on Facebook thanking her fans for making her one of only a handful of musicians to gain over 30 million friends on the social networking site.
Shakira also attracted attention on Twitter when she pushed talk show host Oprah out of tenth place on Twitter’s “top ten most followed” charts this week.
According to AFP, Eminem became the first person to hit the 30 million friend mark in March. aND he currently has more Facebook friends (37,279,306) than any other person, living or dead. As of May 27 other musicians with over 30 million friends include Lady Gaga (35,451,406), Rihanna (34,269,822) and Michael Jackson (33,651,096).
Shakira’s Facebook page can be found at http://www.facebook.com/shakira
Zaki Ibrahim at the "For Coloured Girls"movie premier. Pic: THE TIMES
Last night Canadian-born, South African based neo-soul singer Zaki Ibrahim performed at Analogue Nites in Melrose and I haven’t heard/ read a single bad review. I was at a different event (that’s for another post) but I got to meet her when she performed at the film premier of Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls”.
Zaki’s song “Ansomnia” features in the movie’s soundtrack, alongside music from the likes of Janelle Monae, Nina Simone, Lalah Hathaway, Sharon Jones & The Dap- Kings and Estelle.
After her performance I asked her to tell me a bit about herself and her music:
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Go to TimesLIVE Multimedia for the full video of the For Colored Girls premiere.
Tags: MTV Shows
People on twitter are confessing their love for Beyonce after she appeared on the American Idol finale and sung her hit “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” with backing vocals from the show’s female contestants. The performance is currently the 4th most talked about topic on twitter, worldwide. And it’s earned the hash tag: Damn Beyonce.
“The Voice ☑ The Moves ☑ The Fierceness ☑ The Beauty ☑ The Body ☑ The Music ☑ The Style ☑ The Grace ☑ DAMN BEYONCE” tweet a chorus of Twitter users adding “Damn Beyonce. your vocals. pretty much perfect.”
I was intrigued when I saw 2 pantsula dancers in Beyonce’s new video, Run The World (Girls). I was convinced that they were local and I was curious about how they managed to make it onto the video. Well, they’re not South Africans but they are from neighbouring Mozambique.
Beyoncé and her longtime choreographer Frank Gatson, Jr. were inspired by the Mozambique dance group Tofo Tofo, after seeing a video of them dancing on YouTube.
It took Beyonce’s people almost 2 months as well as the assistance of the embassy to track them down. She then flew them to the States and they taught her some of their moves.
Frank told MTV “We had seen something on YouTube; we had seen these three guys from Africa, this Mozambique African dance troupe … we were like, ‘Wow, this is an amazing movement.’ And that movement has always been in the back of our head for the last year. From there, we talked about a lot of concepts.”
While pantsula dance is nothing new to us Africans, it’s the first time that it has been given such exposure. I’m glad Beyonce saw something great in them and the movement as a whole. But I wish the genre was as appreciated and respected here. Why do our artists always need the American/ European stamp of approval for us to value them?
Bonang Matheba is FHM's first black South African cover girl
Bonang Matheba held an exclusive party at Icon in Sandton, to celebrate her FHM cover and announce her new reality show B* Dazzled. At the party Bonang expressed how ecstatic she is to be FHM‘s first black South African cover girl (the first black girl was Congolese-born model Joelle Kayembe ).
We caught up Queen B* at the party and this is what she had to say:
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P.S. wait for the video to buffer after you’ve pressed play now.
