Estelle Live!
John Legend on Radio One
Estelle. The British singer-rapper-songwriter-producer's "Shine" will be the first release on Legend's HomeSchool label through Atlantic Records.
"Wait a Minute (Just a Touch)" is the lead single from the project, slated for release Feb. 12, 2008. Executive-produced by Legend, "Shine2" features production by Wyclef Jean, will.i.am, Swizz Beatz and Mark Ronson as well as Legend, who also has a cameo in the "Wait" video. Guests include Kanye West (on the track "American Boy") and Cee-Lo.
Asked about other artists on the HomeSchool roster, Legend tells Billboard.com that no one else is signed yet and the label is non-exclusive. "This isn't a blanket imprint. There will be some artists a label partner may like and some they don't. I'm doing this one at a time."
Estelle, whose music draws comparisons to Lauryn Hill, was born in West London. She's previously released material through her own label, Stellar Ents, including the album "The 18th Day" and two "Da Heat" mixtapes. She first met Legend several years ago at Roscoe's chicken and waffle eatery in Hollywood; he and West were taking a break from working on the latter's "The College Dropout" when Estelle came up to their table and introduced herself.
The now New York-based Estelle will be visiting major cities starting in November, according to Legend. She tosses aside concerns raised about the failure of many British R&B/rap artists to connect with stateside audiences, saying "I'm just going to be me, and keep my mind on what I do. I think people will get it."
Legend agrees. "It's all about the songs and music. British soul artists haven't come with the right music. Estelle has the right music and producers; her music will speak for itself. She's undeniably a star."
As for his next album, Legend says he's three songs (one of which features will.i.am) into what he's planning as a summer 2008 release. In the meantime, he's just returned from Zanzibar and Tanzania where he shot the video for his latest single, "Show Me." It was directed by Lee Hirsch, the filmmaker behind the 2002 South Africa documentary "Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony."
________________________________________
Gail Mitchell, L.A., Copyright 2007, Billboard/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
James Blunt - 1973 (live at Later...)
Michael Slezark, from “Snap Judgment”, wrote a scathing review of James Blunt’s ‘1973’ single which was hilarious. He wrote: Granted, there's a strong chance I'm still suffering from a case of post-"You're Beautiful" Stress Disorder (PYBSD), but hearing Blunt's slippery mewl on this mid-tempo track makes me want to snap my ears off.
It appears Michael may not be suffering from PYBSD, but WMHD (Whining Male Hater Disorder). It’s baffling how some men can turn a blind eye to misogyny but have a whining fit when other men express their sensitive adoration towards a woman. Sure, there is no problem with a man crush submissive towards an athlete, but the adoration or frustration due to a woman is their Achilles heel. Seems to me, Michael was channeling Vincent Van gogh, and James Blunt is his Rachel/Paul Guaguin. Never the less, it’s beautiful music to my ears, even if Michael might be deaf. James Blunt’s Ode’s to his loves are like icing on the cake, which makes me salivate. Keep it coming and coming and coming James.
James Blunt
4STARS
It appears Michael may not be suffering from PYBSD, but WMHD (Whining Male Hater Disorder). It’s baffling how some men can turn a blind eye to misogyny but have a whining fit when other men express their sensitive adoration towards a woman. Sure, there is no problem with a man crush submissive towards an athlete, but the adoration or frustration due to a woman is their Achilles heel. Seems to me, Michael was channeling Vincent Van gogh, and James Blunt is his Rachel/Paul Guaguin. Never the less, it’s beautiful music to my ears, even if Michael might be deaf. James Blunt’s Ode’s to his loves are like icing on the cake, which makes me salivate. Keep it coming and coming and coming James.
James Blunt
4STARS
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Barak Obama Speech Covered on Hardball
Change and Hope has become something Americans have forgotten. Most Americans understand that we must preserve the planet, improve our economy, increase the value of the US dollar, and rebuild global trust as a country. It’s ironic that we are less safe today, because interest groups and corporations have utilized our government has bully and oppressed other nations with little regard for diplomacy or respect. It is clear that our government’s efforts to ensure our nation’s security have more to do with corporate greed than national security. It appears there is a need for leadership that will help preserve the planet, preserve the freedoms and wealth of the country and not allow it to continue to erode, as the world turns against us for our infamous deeds.
I agree with Obama, engaged citizens working at the grassroots level can change the world. He said, “It’s not the magnitude of our problems, it is the smallness of our politics” the pettiness and greed. I too still believe that with all of America’s faults, there isn’t a better country on this planet. I’d like to keep it that way. In the past 6 years we have allowed the country to slowly topple; fewer jobs that pay the entire mortgage, bad healthcare coverage, no retirement and Trojan horse congressional acts which have become inadequate laws to protect our liberties. Essentially, we are becoming Russia. We can not allow this to continue to happen, as men and women have died for our liberties, great grandparents left their mother countries to come to the US for their liberties. We need change. The Chris Matthews Obama coverage in the clips below brings HOPE.
Barack Obama gives speech, Hardball interview (part 1)
Barack Obama gives speech, Hardball interview (part 2)
Barack Obama gives speech, Hardball interview (part 3)
I agree with Obama, engaged citizens working at the grassroots level can change the world. He said, “It’s not the magnitude of our problems, it is the smallness of our politics” the pettiness and greed. I too still believe that with all of America’s faults, there isn’t a better country on this planet. I’d like to keep it that way. In the past 6 years we have allowed the country to slowly topple; fewer jobs that pay the entire mortgage, bad healthcare coverage, no retirement and Trojan horse congressional acts which have become inadequate laws to protect our liberties. Essentially, we are becoming Russia. We can not allow this to continue to happen, as men and women have died for our liberties, great grandparents left their mother countries to come to the US for their liberties. We need change. The Chris Matthews Obama coverage in the clips below brings HOPE.
Barack Obama gives speech, Hardball interview (part 1)
Barack Obama gives speech, Hardball interview (part 2)
Barack Obama gives speech, Hardball interview (part 3)
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Interviewpoint with Charity: water's founder Scott Harrison
Scott Harrisson is the founder of Charity:water. Through awareness Charity: water will becom a movement. A movement for stainable life on this planet. One bottle at a time.
CHARITY: MISSION
Charity: is a nonprofit organization stimulating greater global awareness about extreme poverty, educating the public, and provoking compassionate and intelligent giving.
Charity:Water
1. EDUCATION & AWARENESS CAMPAIGNS
charity: believes both widespread education and awareness are essential for global change.
charity: campaigns present issues like water and sanitation, hunger, AIDS, and preventable disease in compelling ways to promote higher understanding. Through field research and the use of new technology, charity: produces multimedia exhibitions, events, public service announcements, and grassroots activities. Through a strong web presence, charity: creates and empowers a growing community of compassionate citizens.
2. PRODUCTS THAT GIVE.
charity: believes education and awareness are not enough.
charity: seeks to spark giving by restoring faith in low-level donations. Campaign-related products are developed and sold. 100% of all proceeds directly fund humanitarian programs. In an age of billion-dollar philanthropy, charity: believes that even small gifts can have great impact when spent wisely in the developing world.
3. CLOSING THE LOOP - PROVING ITcharity: believes there is power in showing results.
charity: proves the work done in the field, using Internet technology and volunteers with cameras to bring stories of transformed lives and communities back home. In real time, donors are able to see the difference their gifts have on those in need.
Scott Harrison on The Inteviewpoint pt 1
Scott Harrison on The Inteviewpoint pt 2
Scott Harrison's Story
Just more than two years ago I left the streets of New York City for the shores of West Africa. I'd made my living for years in the big Apple promoting top nightclubs and fashion events, for the most part living selfishly, thoughtlessly. Unhappy, I desperately needed a change in my life.
I asked myself.... What did the opposite of my life look like?
Service aboard a floating hospital with Mercy Ships, a humanitarian organization which offered free medical care in the world's poorest nations. Through surgery ships. They'd been doing it for more than 25 years, producing astonishing results and I'd never heard of them.
Top doctors and surgeons from all over the world left their practices and fancy lives to operate for free on thousands who had no access to medical care. The organization I soon found to be full of remarkable people. The chief medical officer was a surgeon who left Los Angeles to volunteer for two weeks - 19 years ago. He never looked or went back.
I was offered the position of ship photojournalist, and immediately traveled to Africa. At first, being the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court felt strange. I traded my spacious midtown loft for a 150-square-foot cabin with bunk beds, roommates and cockroaches. Fancy restaurants were replaced by a mess hall feeding 400+ Army style. A prince in New York, now I was living in close community with 350 others. I felt like a pauper.
But once off the ship, I realized how good I really had it. In new surroundings, I was utterly astonished at the poverty that came into focus through my camera lens. Often through tears, I documented life and human suffering I'd thought unimaginable. In West Africa, I was a prince again. A king, in fact. A man with a bed and clean runningwater and food in my stomach.
I fell in love with Liberia - a country with no public electricity, running water or sewage - Living in a leper colony and exploring remote villages, I put a face to the world's 1.2 billion living in poverty. Those living on less than $365 a year - money I used to spend on a bottle of Grey Goose vodka at a fancy club. Before tip. Our medical staff would hold patient intake "screenings" and thousands would wait in line to be seen, many afflicted with deformities even Clive Barker hadn't thought of. Enormous, suffocating tumors - cleft lips, faces eaten by bacteria from water-borne diseases. I learned many of these medical conditions also existed here in the west, but were taken care of - never allowed to progress. The amount of blind people with no access to the 20 minute cataract surgery that could restore their sight - all part of this new world.
Over the next eight months, I met patients who taught me the meaning of courage. Slowly suffocating to death for years and yet pressing on, praying, hoping, surviving. It was an honor to photograph them. It was an honor to know them.
CHARITY:
For me, charity is practical. Sometimes easy, sometimes inconvenient, always necessary. It is the ability to use one's position of influence, relative wealth and power to affect lives for the better. charity is singular and achievable.
There's a biblical parable about a man beaten near death by robbers. Stripped naked, lying roadside - people pass him by, but one man stops. He picks him up and bandages his wounds. He puts him on his horse and walks alongside until they reach an inn. Checks him in and throws down his Amex. "Whatever he needs until he gets better."
Because he could.
The dictionary defines charity as simply the act of voluntarily giving to those in need. The word comes from the latin "caritas," or simply, love. In Colossians 3, the Bible instructs readers to "put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness."
Although i'm still not sure what that means, i love the idea. To wear charity.
Join us as we explore living differently.
– Scott Harrison
CHARITY: MISSION
Charity: is a nonprofit organization stimulating greater global awareness about extreme poverty, educating the public, and provoking compassionate and intelligent giving.
Charity:Water
1. EDUCATION & AWARENESS CAMPAIGNS
charity: believes both widespread education and awareness are essential for global change.
charity: campaigns present issues like water and sanitation, hunger, AIDS, and preventable disease in compelling ways to promote higher understanding. Through field research and the use of new technology, charity: produces multimedia exhibitions, events, public service announcements, and grassroots activities. Through a strong web presence, charity: creates and empowers a growing community of compassionate citizens.
2. PRODUCTS THAT GIVE.
charity: believes education and awareness are not enough.
charity: seeks to spark giving by restoring faith in low-level donations. Campaign-related products are developed and sold. 100% of all proceeds directly fund humanitarian programs. In an age of billion-dollar philanthropy, charity: believes that even small gifts can have great impact when spent wisely in the developing world.
3. CLOSING THE LOOP - PROVING ITcharity: believes there is power in showing results.
charity: proves the work done in the field, using Internet technology and volunteers with cameras to bring stories of transformed lives and communities back home. In real time, donors are able to see the difference their gifts have on those in need.
Scott Harrison on The Inteviewpoint pt 1
Scott Harrison on The Inteviewpoint pt 2
Scott Harrison's Story
Just more than two years ago I left the streets of New York City for the shores of West Africa. I'd made my living for years in the big Apple promoting top nightclubs and fashion events, for the most part living selfishly, thoughtlessly. Unhappy, I desperately needed a change in my life.
I asked myself.... What did the opposite of my life look like?
Service aboard a floating hospital with Mercy Ships, a humanitarian organization which offered free medical care in the world's poorest nations. Through surgery ships. They'd been doing it for more than 25 years, producing astonishing results and I'd never heard of them.
Top doctors and surgeons from all over the world left their practices and fancy lives to operate for free on thousands who had no access to medical care. The organization I soon found to be full of remarkable people. The chief medical officer was a surgeon who left Los Angeles to volunteer for two weeks - 19 years ago. He never looked or went back.
I was offered the position of ship photojournalist, and immediately traveled to Africa. At first, being the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court felt strange. I traded my spacious midtown loft for a 150-square-foot cabin with bunk beds, roommates and cockroaches. Fancy restaurants were replaced by a mess hall feeding 400+ Army style. A prince in New York, now I was living in close community with 350 others. I felt like a pauper.
But once off the ship, I realized how good I really had it. In new surroundings, I was utterly astonished at the poverty that came into focus through my camera lens. Often through tears, I documented life and human suffering I'd thought unimaginable. In West Africa, I was a prince again. A king, in fact. A man with a bed and clean runningwater and food in my stomach.
I fell in love with Liberia - a country with no public electricity, running water or sewage - Living in a leper colony and exploring remote villages, I put a face to the world's 1.2 billion living in poverty. Those living on less than $365 a year - money I used to spend on a bottle of Grey Goose vodka at a fancy club. Before tip. Our medical staff would hold patient intake "screenings" and thousands would wait in line to be seen, many afflicted with deformities even Clive Barker hadn't thought of. Enormous, suffocating tumors - cleft lips, faces eaten by bacteria from water-borne diseases. I learned many of these medical conditions also existed here in the west, but were taken care of - never allowed to progress. The amount of blind people with no access to the 20 minute cataract surgery that could restore their sight - all part of this new world.
Over the next eight months, I met patients who taught me the meaning of courage. Slowly suffocating to death for years and yet pressing on, praying, hoping, surviving. It was an honor to photograph them. It was an honor to know them.
CHARITY:
For me, charity is practical. Sometimes easy, sometimes inconvenient, always necessary. It is the ability to use one's position of influence, relative wealth and power to affect lives for the better. charity is singular and achievable.
There's a biblical parable about a man beaten near death by robbers. Stripped naked, lying roadside - people pass him by, but one man stops. He picks him up and bandages his wounds. He puts him on his horse and walks alongside until they reach an inn. Checks him in and throws down his Amex. "Whatever he needs until he gets better."
Because he could.
The dictionary defines charity as simply the act of voluntarily giving to those in need. The word comes from the latin "caritas," or simply, love. In Colossians 3, the Bible instructs readers to "put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness."
Although i'm still not sure what that means, i love the idea. To wear charity.
Join us as we explore living differently.
– Scott Harrison
Monday, November 19, 2007
Tracy Reese 2008 Spring Collection
Tracy Reese’s mastery of the dainty chiffon creation has become her signature style. Like the “little black dress”, Tracy’s collection evokes the beautifully simple pleasures of being pretty. Her signature style is fresh, crisp with perfect lines and as utterly identifiable as Calvin Klein, Vera Wang, or Donna Karen.
I absolutely love her use of retro organic colors, extraordinary texture and clean geometric silhouettes. Her remarkable use of chocolate, canary yellow and taupe colors made the garments ravishingly sophisticated. The Lavender swim suites brought a sense of Zen to the runway. The Tracy Reese 2008 spring collection was absolutely impeccable.
In the Elle interview below, Tracy describes her customer as adventurous, a lady whose personal style is noticed as it shines, and she appreciates the care and detail in her wardrobe. I think the Tracy Reese collection exemplifies the classic style of Impetuous 30Something Cosmopolitans.
I absolutely love her use of retro organic colors, extraordinary texture and clean geometric silhouettes. Her remarkable use of chocolate, canary yellow and taupe colors made the garments ravishingly sophisticated. The Lavender swim suites brought a sense of Zen to the runway. The Tracy Reese 2008 spring collection was absolutely impeccable.
In the Elle interview below, Tracy describes her customer as adventurous, a lady whose personal style is noticed as it shines, and she appreciates the care and detail in her wardrobe. I think the Tracy Reese collection exemplifies the classic style of Impetuous 30Something Cosmopolitans.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Noteable SPRING 2008 Collections
Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week had some noteable collections and some forgetable ones. I won't mention the forgetable collections because I can't remember them. Although not so forgetable, I was disapointed with Baby Phat's 2008 Spring collection. I am not into the "Tramp Chic" look, and it's way too excessive. Caroline Herrarra had wonderful silhouettes but those god awful prints ruined it for me. My absolute favorite was actually Tracy Reese, however the notable runner ups were Luca Luca, Mui Mui, Armani, Monique Lhillier and Zac Posen. There collections were superbly fresh and beautiful. Elle featured their shows below:
Luca Luca Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Mui Mui Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Giorgio Armani Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Monique Lhillier Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Zac Posen Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Luca Luca Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Mui Mui Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Giorgio Armani Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Monique Lhillier Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Zac Posen Spring 2008
Double click bottom Arrow. (Source: ElleMagazine)
Monday, November 12, 2007
OM. What? OMMMMM. Que? OMMMMMMMMMM
Yoga is the union of our physical, mental and spiritual selves. Yoga encourages us to focus our minds and become more aware of the internal flow of energy. It is said that the holistic doctrines of yoga are the result of thousands of years of experimentation and observation by great sages, enlightened gurus and ordinary people.
OM means oneness with the Supreme, the merging with the physical being with the spiritual. The Om (or Aum) sign for the Hindus & Buddhists is the primordial sound, the first breath of creation, the vibration that ensures existence. OM is the mantra used during yoga and meditation in the quest to obtain enlightenment, self realization, and union with the individual self and the universal self. True Blissfulness can be obtained through enlightenment.
Simply stated first, OM is chanted during meditation to relax, clear the mind, and experience absolute nothingness. The nothingness brings one to a level of consciousness which allows one to tap into one's internal and external energies. As a result, the skill of successfully reaching a metaphysical state of being allows for one to reach a level of controlled calmness. This is helpful in dealing with the challenges one faces in daily life.
30Something are plagued with stress from increasing responsibilities and demands. Yoga is a very helpful tool in managing and maintaining balance in ones life. OMMMM.
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