Dionne Warwick gave her first televised interview since Whitney Houston’s death talking to “Good Morning America,” Robin Roberts. Ms. Warwick candidly discussed the day Whitney died stating that she had spoken to her twice that day. Also, the love and support system that her family has displayed, especially in making sure Bobbi Kristina is coping well.
The stars came out to support Kanye West at his second womenswear at Paris Fashion Week. From G.O.O.D. Music’s Big Sean to chic couple Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz and Bad Boy’s Diddy and Cassie, the front row was a who’s who in entertainment and fashion. Other star sightings included Katy Perry, Common, Shyne, Rosario Dawson, and Teyana Taylor.
Kim Kardashian strutted in the $5800 knit heels that Kanye designed with Giuseppe Zanotti and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour returned to show her support. “I’m very fond of Kanye,” she told the WSJ.
Bobbi Kristina was Whitney Houston’s pride and joy, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that she will receive 100 percent of her mother’s assets. In a will filed today in Atlanta, the 19-year-old is listed as the sole benefactor.
The late legend’s estate is valued at around $20 million, according to TMZ. As Whitney’s only child, Bobbi will inherit her wealth as well as all furnishings, clothing, personal effects, jewelry, and cars.
According to reports, Whitney’s money will be put in a trust, which Bobbi will be able to access as she gets older. She will get the first portion when she turns 21, a second sum at 25, and the remainder when she hits 30.
Whitney signed the will back in 1993, a month before she gave birth to Bobbi.
Unhinged by the critics, Kanye West returned to Paris Fashion Week to unveil his second womenswear line. The rapper-turned-designer presented 20 looks from his fall/winter ready-to-wear collection to a star-studded audience filled with designers and celebrities including Alicia Keys, Anna Wintour, Big Sean, Shyne, Kim Kardashian, Cassie, Common, Diddy, and Swizz Beatz. Following a musical intro, models strutted down the runway dressed in black leather, gold, velvet, crocodile, and fur.
Mr. West addressed his second foray into the world of womenswear. “I learned a lot from the last one,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “I’m learning every day. I’m a new designer. I’m taking baby steps.”
The new collection has already earned more favorable reviews than his first last fall. “This collection looks like he has had a lot of consultants working with him,” wrote the WSJ’s Christina Binkley. “But it’s way better than before.”
Melody Thornton is breaking out of the doll house. After topping the charts and touring the world with the Pussycat Dolls, the soulful songstress is embarking on her solo career with her first mixtape P.O.Y.B.L. Every Monday and Thursday over the next month, she will be rolling out new music and videos for her fans, with the free mixtape release on March 15.
“After the Dolls, I let everything go and took some much needed time to put myself back together,” said Melody. “We worked liked machines and there was little time for maintenance, so I’ve spent the past two years just writing, relaxing, and discovering my musical self without limitations. My amazing fans and supporters have been patiently waiting to hear the REAL Melody Thornton and this is my thank you. I’ve written so many songs and P.O.Y.B.L is the first project of many. I can only hope people love it as much as I do.”
Melody shows off her vocal chops and exposes the dark side of the music industry on the mixtape’s first offering “Lipstick&Guilt,” a remix of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild.”
André 3000 doesn’t do many interviews, but when he does, everyone takes notice. The OutKast recluse, who is readying a solo project, had a lot to say when he phoned into The FADER. Fresh off his collaboration with Gorillaz on the Converse-commissioned “Do Ya Thing” Three Stacks spoke at length about how he chooses his collaborations, his support for Chris Brown, being inspired by Drake and Kanye West, why we haven’t seen him in a music video lately, and the uncertainty of a new OutKast album. Read some of the highlights below.
On why he wanted to appear on Chris Brown’s remix to “Deuces”: “Of course I love the beat, but at that time a lot of people were on Chris Brown as a human being. And I know he’d gone through his troubles or whatever and I just was like—I just wanted to stand by him and be like, Hey, you know, you can’t really charge a man forever and condemn a man forever. So it’s really just like a support thing. I thought it was a cool thing to do.”
On being inspired by newcomers like Drake: “Now I talk to Drake, and I know he had to be like 10 when he was listening to what we were doing. You just never know who’s listening until you hear a connection. I didn’t even know Drake dug my music, I just liked him as a rapper because I felt he had a balance. I didn’t even know that he grew up listening to me. But it’s cool to know that it’s a real lineage thing. I’m happy to see Kanye and Wayne and Drake and all these new artists. They inspire me in a way because they reach back and they say, ‘Hey, we want to get you on these songs.’”
On hip-hop’s new generation: “None of us old guys have new flows. None of us. The young guys have the new flows. The only thing that we have is years of experience. That’s all we have.”
On why he hasn’t appeared in music videos for his collaborations: “When I would talk to these artists and we’d agree that we’d do these songs, we would all be in agreement that it was just vocals. There was no visual or anything. Every artist I work with from Beyoncé, from Young Jeezy and Jay-Z, from B.o.B, it was all understood before my first rhyme was written that there was going to be no videos. And I always felt like—you know, I haven’t been in even in a video with Big Boi—it’s kind of disrespectful of me if I can just jump in a video with a new artist and I haven’t even jumped in the video with my own partner.”
On a new OutKast album: “There’s no plans for an OutKast album right now. … If we do another OutKast album one day, I would be super happy. Because I’ll know that the vibe is right, and we’ll put our all into it. But if we never do another OutKast album, you know, I won’t be sad because we’ve been blessed.”
Cassie bared her heart and more at the launch event for her single “King of Hearts” in Paris during Fashion Week. The model-turned-singer rocked a Roberto Cavalli sequined blazer over her bare chest, with purple fur coat and neon orange pants. Her Bad Boy boss Diddy and Pierre Sarkozy, the son of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, mingled with the chic crowd as Cassie’s electro-dance single pumped from the speakers at L’Arc Club.
She is expected to attend Kanye West’s womenswear show later today. According to MTV’s “Sucker Free” Yeezy has recorded a remix to “King of Hearts.”
According to WENN, cyber thieves helped themselves to Michael Jackson’s entire back catalog, valued at over $250 Million. More than 50,000 digital files are believed to have been downloaded.
Record executives forked over $250 million to Jackson’s estate in 2010 for the music, including unheard material from studio sessions when the King Of Pop recorded Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad.
An exact breakdown of artists and repertoire included among the 50,000 illegally downloaded songs is not known, but it is said to contain previously unheard duets with Black Eyed Peas Will.i.am and the late Queen singer Freddie Mercury.
SMH…….
It looks like Nas will be fulfilling his dream of rappers getting executive nine to fives. Tyga recently was a guest on MTV’s RapFix Live where he told Sway Calloway Nas was going to launch a new record label. The label will carry the same name of the track Wale and Nas are featured on from Tyga’s latest album, “Kings And Queens.”
Tyga offered, “[Nas] actually has a label called Kings and Queens that he just started, so he was like, it’s just cliché that I sent him a song called ‘[King] and Queens’ and he just started a label called Kings and Queens, which is crazy.”
Nas had his own label back in 1999 called Ill Will Records.
For the sake of his health, Nick Cannon says he’s making both personal and professional changes. Speaking candidly with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, Cannon says recent health trouble forced him to resign from his morning radio show last month. It turns out the executive, rapper, actor, writer, producer, and host has a rare form of lupus.
Nick explained: ”The technical term is lupus nephritis. It’s a rare form of lupus that’s just attacking my kidneys. They thought it was just kidney disease and then they were trying to figure out why my immune system was attacking my kidneys and that was sort of the root of it all.” In addition to dropping some of the heavy work load and learning to sleep more, Nick says he’s got to stay away from junk food.
Dre Black So Fresh 