Showing posts with label Jay-Z. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jay-Z. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Jay'z Mom Honored by NYC City Council





Gloria Carter, (watched by son Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter and family and friends above), received a proclamation at City Hall from the City Council for her "outstanding contributions to the community."

Honored by Queens Councilman Thomas White Jr for overseeing the Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund, which is a college-focused charity.

In addition, in 2005, she and other staffers from the fund went to Houston to help distribute clothing, food and toiletries to displaced Hurricane Katrina victims. The proclamation was given to Ms Carter at the start of Wednesday's meeting in the Council Chambers at City Hall.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

I don't know about this "Umbrella" video, Rihanna...


(via CL)

Thoughts: Okay, maybe I'm too much of a literalist (is this a word?), but I figured a song about umbrellas would feature umbrellas in their natural enviroment, like maybe Rihanna would film part of the video in Seattle...

But no.

While I do like the "look! we got sparks to rain down like...rain!" element, I don't know if I'm down with this whole superglam/naked with grey paint Rihanna.It is nice to see Jay in a video that doesn't feature Beyonce, though. Let me know what you think:

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Chrisette Michele's "Joy" is beautiful.


http://uploaded.to/?id=2b1gt8

(via okp)

Who is Chrisette Michele?

Hip Hop fans would know her as the only vocalist to be on both Nas and Jay-Z's most recent albums ("Still Dreaming", "Can't Forget About You" and "Hope" on Nas' "Hip Hop Is Dead" and "Lost Ones" on Jay's "Kingdom Come").

She is putting out an album June 5th (the day after my birthday!) and she recently posted 4 songs on http://www.myspace.com/chrisettemichele. Out of the 4, I have fallen in love with this one.
Please check it out, and when you are done, leave a comment!

As an added bonus, I think hip hop heads will really like this one, also by Chrisette:

Beyonce + Jay-Z = 'Upgrade' + T.I = 'Upgrade' Original



www.zshare.net/audio/upgrade-u-original-version-mp3.html



Saturday, April 7, 2007

About that new Rihanna single...

(That would be Rihanna above, in case you didn't notice, brilliantly hiding her forehead)

Thoughts:

So, in previous years, songs like Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous” and Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” have reigned supreme over all radio stations during the summer and basically become that particular summer’s theme song.This year, even thought it is only April, I predict it will be Rihanna’s “Umbrella”.

Jay-Z may have messed up The Roots’s “Game Theory” promotion, and he may have neglected to make a video for the one song in history that was in need of a video (which would be he and Nas’ masterpiece “Black Republicans), but dammit, he was able to hit the first single for “Good Girl Gone Bad” out of the ballpark.

“Umbrella”, not unlike “S.O.S” before it, is a pop smash waiting to happen. The real hook here is, ironically, the hook to the song, which goes “You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, ella, hey, hey, hey”.

As strange as it reads on paper (more like ‘on the computer screen’, I guess), the hook is very catchy and instantly memorable and is what I think is the key to the success of this song. Rihanna’s doesn’t have a very powerful voice (though to be fair this hasn’t stopped countless of other singers in her genre from success) but the melody and subject matter of this song more than makes up for that.

Don’t believe me? Check it out yourself, and tell me what you think in the comments section:

(to access, replace the ‘??’ with ‘tt’ and copy and paste the url into your browser)

h??p://download.yousendit.com/966300D21560FDE1