Articles By: grace
Catfight: Battle of the Divas
Beyoncé vs. Mariah Carey New feature. Biggest divas in the music world today, head to head. Let’s get to it. There aren’t a lot of people who haven’t heard of Beyoncé and Mariah; they’re only two of the biggest selling female artists ever. Both multi-platinum artists came from well-documented (and marketed) beginnings: Beyoncé pulled a Justin Timberlake and after leading Destiny’s Child to all-time-best-selling-female-group success, branched out into an even more lucrative solo career, while Mariah Carey owes much of [...]
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Rated R – Rihanna
Time flies when you’re making money, but it has been two years since Good Girl Gone Bad (and its plethora of re-releases) and almost twelve long drama-filled months since the Chris Brown “incident.” Everyone’s been salivating ever since word got out that Rihanna had started work on her fourth album, especially because her image’s staggering transformation from flirty young island girl to seriously bad diva wasn’t even provoked by anything as severe as criminal assault – what crazy change is [...]
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Transition – Ryan Leslie
Ryan Leslie is back after with his second album just nine months after his self-titled debut. Granted, Ryan Leslie was received quite well by critics, but wasn’t exactly a chart-shattering record like something Ne-Yo would have been expected to conjure up. Just like the first album, Transition is a one-man show in terms of songwriting and production, although I would venture to say that this is only a slight improvement. Listening to the album, you get the feeling that the [...]
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Evolution of a Man – Brian McKnight
Brian McKnight just seems to be one of the last few models of consistency left in the R&B world; whether or not the charts agree, though, is up for debate. Evolution of a Man marks the changes and maturity that Brian McKnight has gained in the seventeen years and that have seen him release over ten albums since he first came onto the scene. While his star is definitely waning (Usher’s fate in another ten years, perhaps?), he’s still found [...]
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The Problem with Leakage
It seems like no one really has to wait until official release dates anymore to get a listen to new albums. The rule of thumb is: the more popular the artist, the earlier his or her tracks leak, and the faster they spread. Just ask Ciara. While her latest album can’t exactly be considered a flop, it’s definitely no fantasy ride, as pretty much the entire project leaked to the internet weeks and weeks before it was due to be [...]
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Top 5: Albums to Look Forward To Before 2010
1. The Element of Freedom – Alicia Keys Projected Release Date: Dec 1/2009 First single: “Doesn’t Mean Anything” Alicia Keys is back with her fourth studio album, and even though we’ve been wondering “How could she possibly top what she did last time?”, she has always managed to do it. She went all for the Motown and old-school soul on As I Am, her last album, and on this one, she has said that she’ll be experimenting with new sounds [...]
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Top 5: Hip-Hop Protégés
Snoop Dogg Snoop D-O-double-G has been around for so long that it’s hard to imagine him being the protégé of anyone. He is, though. Way back in the early nineties, Cordazar Calvin Broadus was fresh out of high school and a couple of convictions of cocaine trafficking. His freestyle over an old En Vogue song somehow made its way to The Dr. Dre’s ears, and after an audition, Snoop Doggy Dogg found a home at Death Row Records. He certainly [...]
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Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3 review
He’s baaaaack. All that hanging around Kanye must’ve given Jay-Z the resolve to take hip-hop in a different direction (and we don’t mean auto-tune), because the experimentation on this album is producing some much appreciated new sounds. He’s also brought in a staggering number of guests, from Swizz Beatz and Drake to the more obscure Luke Steele (from psychedelic pop group Empire of the Sun) and J. Cole, the first signee to Jay-Z’s own label Roc Nation. While you can [...]
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Top 5: Paper Gangsters
Can’t say they’re gangsta with a straight face. DJ Khaled I watched about six minutes of this DJ Khaled on MTV Cribs before I decided on the topic for this article. Listening to this man talk was just straight up bad. From yelling “We da bessssst,” upon entry into his home (and repeating it countless times after that), to basically overdoing every physical and verbal aspect of the stereotypical gangster rapper, there’s maybe an extremely small chance that DJ Khaled [...]
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Top 5: Michael Jackson Wannabes
You know that really bad cliché about truly great artists who will never die? These five artists are doing their best to make sure this cliché stays alive for the King of Pop. Usher He sings like him, glides like him, and owes 99.9% of his success to the late Michael Jackson. Usher’s R&B crown rests largely on the gloves and the smooth moves, trademarks of the original King of Pop. Apart from dance, Usher and Michael Jackson share an [...]
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