Chris Brown is the current king of the charts, but another R&B crooner is set to take over next week. Frank Ocean is expected to make a big splash with his major-label debut channel ORANGE.

According to HITS Daily Double, the Odd Future crooner’s well-received album is on track to open with 110-125,000 copies in its first week based on preliminary estimates.

These figures are impressive considering the album is only available as a digital exclusive on iTunes. Physical copies won’t hit shelves until July 17.

The “Pyramids” singer made his television debut on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” on Monday, where he announced that the project would go on sale immediately. Within an hour of its release, it soared to No. 1 on the iTunes charts and currently remains there.

ORANGE didn’t receive a traditional rollout and wasn’t supported with any singles or videos prior to its release. The press shy Ocean made headlines when he opened up about his sexuality in a letter on his blog.

Congratulations!!  Will his album soar like Adele’s 21 did??  It definitely has that potential!!

Jay-Z and Kanye West are ready to unleash another visual off their acclaimed album Watch the Throne. The video for “No Church in the Wild” is set to debut on Tuesday, according to director Romain Gavras. 

“My new video for jay z and kanye is out tomorow. ‪#nochurchinthewild‬,” tweeted Gavras, who directed M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls” and “Born Free” videos.

The apocalyptic piece was filmed in the streets of Prague last month. It is the third video to be released from the hip-hop duo’s Grammy-winning album Watch the Throne following “Otis” and “Ni**as in Paris.”

Clips from the video have been played during the European leg of the “Watch the Throne” tour.

Donna Summer, one of the most influential singers of the disco era, died on Thursday after a battle with cancer.  She was 63.

TMZ reports that Summer was in Florida at the time of her death.

“Early this morning, we lost Donna Summer Sudano, a woman of many gifts, the greatest being her faith,” the singer’s family said in a statement. “While we grieve her passing, we are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy. Words truly can’t express how much we appreciate your prayers and love for our family at this sensitive time.”

Summer was a five-time Grammy winner who rose to stardom in the 1970s with hits like “Love to Love You Baby,” “Last Dance,” “Hot Stuff,” and “Bad Girls.”

She is survived by her husband, Bruce Sudano; their daughters, Brooklyn and Amanda; and Summer’s daughter, Mimi, from a previous marriage.

Chuck Brown, who styled a unique mix of funk, soul and Latin party sounds to create go-go music in the nation’s capital, has died after suffering from pneumonia. He was 75.

Brown died today, Wednesday, May 16th  at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. Hospital spokesman Gary Stephenson confirmed Brown had died after a hospital stay that began April 18.

Thanks to Brown and his deep, gravelly voice, go-go music was uniquely identified with Washington. That’s where he continued to play the city’s club circuit to a loyal audience late in life.

Mayor Vincent Gray said the city will be a different place without Brown.

“Go-go is D.C.’s very own unique contribution to the world of pop music,” he said. “Today is a very sad day for music lovers the world over.”

In 2007 Brown told The Associated Press that go-go was influenced by sounds and fast beats he heard early in life, growing up in North Carolina and Virginia, combined with his experience later, playing with a Latin band.

“Go-go is a music that continues on and on, and on and it’s a call and response communication with the audience,” Brown said.

Go-go was heavy on percussion with drummers as lead players, accented by guitar riffs, keyboards and horns. Sometimes they would play for two or three hours without stopping. In between tunes, Brown would keep the thunk of percussion going and talk to the crowd.

Brown’s hit “Bustin’ Loose” with his group, the Soul Searchers, helped define go-go’s sound. It spent several weeks atop the R&B chart in 1979. Rapper Nelly later sampled Brown’s “Bustin’ Loose” in 2002 for his massive hit “Hot in Herre,” which won Nelly a Grammy.

A neighborhood handy man has testified in court that he helped Jennifer Hudson’s brother cook and sell crack cocaine out of the Hudson family home.

William Balfour is on trial for murdering Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and 7 year old nephew in a jealous rage after being dumped by his ex-wife, Jennifer Hudson’s older sister Julia.

The defense is pointing the finger at Jennifer’s deceased brother Jason, painting him as a drug dealer and characterizing the killings as a possible drug deal gone wrong.

Two people, including Julia Hudson and Jennifer Hudson’s former boyfriend, have already testified that Jason sold drugs out of the Yale street home and now a third person has come forward with even more damning testimony.

From The Chicago Tribune

Reginald Jones used to perform odd jobs for the Hudson family at their Englewood neighborhood home, fixing cars, running errands, even walking the family dog, But under questioning Tuesday by attorneys for William Balfour, the 55-year-old handyman and former Hudson neighbor admitted he used much of the money he earned to buy cocaine from the singer’s brother and feed a daily habit.

Jones also told jurors he would occasionally help with the drug sales, manning the front door to greet customers seeking $10 bags of crack from Jason Hudson, who had been shot in the leg in a home invasion in Michigan a few years earlier and couldn’t get around well.

He testified he once helped cook powder cocaine into about 2 1/2 ounces of crack in the Hudson family’s kitchen.

Last night around 9pm Tyler Perry Studios in Southwest Atlanta went up in flames.  Neighbors claim they heard two explosions before the blaze started.  The fire was put out by 10 pm but one building was badly damaged and the front of another had completely collapsed. Tyler Perry’s 200,000-square foot studio sits on 30 acres and houses several sets and a 400 seat theater. Tyler Perry was at spotted outside the burning studio but would not speak with reporters.

The evidence is piling up against William Balfour in the murders of Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and 7 year old nephew but testimony from two witnesses, including Jennifer Hudson’s former boyfriend James Payton and her own sister Julia, may end up helping the defense…

From CBS Chicago

James Payton, who grew up in Englewood and has known both the Hudsons and Balfour for 20 years, said he stopped by the Hudson home almost every day.

In the month of the murders, Payton saw Balfour outside an apartment building across the street from the Hudson’s house 30 to 40 times.

He said, about a week before the murders, he saw Balfour selling drugs outside the building.

However, Payton also testified that Jason Hudson occasionally sold drugs, which might bolster the defense’s claim that the Hudsons were killed over Jason’s drug dealings, and that Balfour had nothing to do with the killings.

Payton, who said he used to date Jennifer Hudson, is at least the second witness to testify Jason Hudson sold drugs. Julia Hudson also admitted her brother was a drug dealer.

Grammy and Oscar winning singer and actress Jennifer Hudson testified on Monday that she had known the man charged with killing three members of her family since they were in middle school together but never liked him.

Hudson was the first witness called at the murder trial of William Balfour, who is charged with shooting dead her mother Darnell Donerson, 57, her brother Jason Hudson, 29, and her nephew Julian King, 7.

Balfour, married to Hudson’s sister Julia Hudson, did not treat Julia or her son, Julian, well, Hudson testified. “I would tell her (Julia) over and over again not to marry William,” she said.

Hudson testified about the harrowing day of October 24, 2008, when she learned that her mother and brother were dead and her nephew was missing. She flew home to Chicago and identified her mother and brother’s bodies at the morgue. On October 27, she was back at the morgue to identify her nephew’s body.

Before Hudson moved out in the summer of 2006, the family had lived together in the same house in Chicago where the bodies of her mother and brother were found. Julian King’s body was found in a white SUV that Jennifer Hudson had bought for her brother Jason.

Prosecutors say Balfour stole the vehicle, killed Julian in the back seat, and then abandoned it. The murder weapon, a handgun which had been stolen from Jason Hudson, was found in a vacant lot near the SUV, according to prosecutors.

In opening arguments at the trial, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Veryl Gambino described Balfour as a jealous and vindictive man who repeatedly threatened to kill Julia Hudson and her family.

“These weren’t just words. They weren’t just threats. They were deadly warnings of what was to come,” Gambino said.

If convicted, Balfour could face life in prison.