Is Beyoncé getting too big for her britches?  In OK! Magazine, she slighted the mighty Jacksons family when comparing her own middle-class upbringing, suggesting that her parents, Matthew and Tina Knowles, didn’t use her as a cash cow like Joe Jackson did his children.

“I grew up upper-class. Private school. My dad had a Jaguar,” Beyonce told OK! Magazine. “We’re African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.”

Well hooray to you for not growing up poor in a small, modest home in Gary, Ind filled with talented siblings. And I give your parents kudos for sending you to a private school if the public ones were subpar. But didn’t they teach you scruples? And was it necessary to bring up the Jacksons to suggest that you weren’t exploited, even though they seem to have a stronghold on your career?

So folks, was it just a slipped of the tongue or a cocky remark? Also, do you think that Beyoncé needs an interview coach?

We’re all hunkering down trying to keep our coins in our purses and our dollars in our wallets. Much of the economic meltdown has focused on the housing market with various people losing their homes.

According to US Magazine, Fantasia is facing eviction from $1.3 million, six-bedroom mansion in North Carolina, because of unpaid mortgage payments. Unless she can make them by the end of the month, she’ll lose the house.

If this news is true – and God knows I wish it wasn’t – whose fault is it? Of course, we can only surmise. So is it Fantasia for not keeping taps of her finances? Is it her former management team, 19 Recordings for not keeping taps and/or not informing her?  Or should the blame to put on both?  

As much as I love Common’s music, I’m a bit iffy with the new direction he’s taking with his upcoming new disc, Universal Mind, on which he aims for the dance floor, unapologetically.


Music provided by Singersroom.com

Witness his new song, “Punch Drunk Love,” filled with sexual come-ons and braggadocio rhymes. The electronic, tick-tock beat does nothing for me, and his rhymes sounds like he’s trying too hard.

So gives us your take? Thumbs up or down? 

Are you brave enough to sing for the “Queen of Soul?” If so, would you do it on television? Apparently, Aretha Franklin hopes that many people are indeed courageous enough to display their vocal chops to her as reported singerroom.com.

Ms. Franklin is said to be interested in a reality TV series, similar to American Idol. But instead of letting viewers vote for the winner, she and P Diddy will make that decision.

Oh, the drama. Just imagine all the passionate yet ill-fated versions of “Amazing Grace,” “Respect” and “Who’s Zooming Who?” we’ll have to endure. And the hissing remarks Franklin and Diddy would surely deliver.

If Ms. Franklin lands such show, would you try to sing for her? Would you watch it?

Oh, snap! Beyoncé is better than Tina Turner! Well that what Kanye West reportedly exclaimed to reporters in New Zealand. “She is just as great, if not greater, than artists we had in the past…she’s probably greater than Tina Turner,” West said, according to singerroom.

While high praises are always welcomed, even from someone prone to knuckle-headed hyperbole as West, but the statement almost seems like a stunt, as if he’s trying to start somethin’ between Tina and Beyoncé.

Beyoncé already got in trouble with Aretha Franklin for reading a script that introduced Tina as “the Queen” before their riveting performance at this year’s Grammy award show. Now it seems that outside forces are pitting a very appreciative Beyoncé against one of her mentors. Maybe Tina won’t take too much offense from Kanye’s remark. And if she does, let’s hope she doesn’t lash out against Beyoncé.

But what’s your opinion? Was Kayne’s comment disrespectful? Will it come to haunt Beyoncé in the future? Or is Tina just too cool and confident with her legendary status, that she could care less what Kanye says?

Gnarls Barkley always bring it when it comes to video and visual presentation.  Take for instance, its new video for “Mystery Man” on which the duo uses crude, decidedly lo-tech animation to enliven its song. It looks like a mash-up between ’70s children show, The Electric Company and some Quasimodo video for Stones Throw Records.

Check it out. And weigh in. Love it or hate it?

Last week, I had a lurid fantasy of Amy Winehouse singing a makeover of the Ohio Players’ sleazy but irresistible ballad, “I Want to Be Free.” You know the song on which Sugarfoot, sounding very much like a pimp, crooning about leaving his no-good, lying woman.

Anyway, I guess my fantasy transmitted to Amy, because she just called it quits regarding her marriage to Black Civil.  [OK everybody, let’s have a round of applause!]  According to New of the World, the singer “It’s over. There’s no way back for us now. It was never going to last. We were only together for sex.”

Now that Amy is taking the first steps of cutting loose from that vampire of a husband, maybe she’ll indeed rehabilitate and release some new material. Hell, even a cover of “I Want to Be Free.”

But how committed to do think she is with the split from Blake? Will she turn a new, brighter leaf? Or go back to the scum bag?

So Brandy wasn’t legally married to Robert Smith six years ago when she had his child, Sy’rai. <crickets>. Somehow, this is big news. At least, according to US Magazine, in which the singer confessed lying about being marriage to Smith to save her reputation as a teenage role model. After all, she’d starred in the TV production of Cinderella and the UPN show Moesha.‘

Folks, I can’t keep from yawning about this. Maybe, I’m just too cynical to care one way or the other. Maybe, it’s because I’m not a teenager so I don’t look at Brandy as a role model. Maybe, it’s because I’m not a parent of a teenager. Maybe, it’s because they’re no longer together. Maybe, it’s because I never really dug her music.  But that’s just me.

How much do you care?

OK, we’ve seen the visuals and heard the sentiments before in songs like TLC’s “Unpretty,” Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama” and Pink’s “Stupid Girls.” Now powerhouse singer, Deborah Cox adds her ditty on self-affirmation with her new song, “Beautiful U R.”

The song and video are professionally agreeable, and the themes are admirable. I just wished I was more excited about the song.  I’m glad that she’s no longer doing those “jazz at gunpoint” projects like she with the music of Dinah Washington. But geez, the song just sounds like filler for me.

What do you think of it?

I’ll admit that I’m one of the many fans wishing that Janet Jackson’s music would grow up a bit. I thought much of her last album sounded like she was competing with her imitators – Britney Spears, anyone? But I never suggest that she try to sound like  Sade!

 According to a report of singerroom.com, Janet claims that her former label, Def Jam, wanted her to sound like Sade. Apparently that was the last straw. “I’m not ready for that just yet. I love doing dance songs and I think my fans expect that of me,” she said.

Fair enough, Janet shouldn’t try to sound like another artist, especially someone as iconic as Sade. Still, there has to be a balance somewhere between dance and mature [read: better lyrics, better musical arrangements, better themes] material.
 

What’s your take? Should Janet’s music sound like her age, not her shoe size?