The body of Whitney Houston is on its way to New Jersey. Insiders tell TMZ the singer is actually being transported east on Tyler Perry’s private jet, as that movie mogul offered up its services as soon as he arrived at the Beverly Hills Hilton on Saturday. According to NBC New York, meanwhile, a funeral will take place later this week in Newark, where mourners have already gathered, leaving flowers and signs outside the church Houston sang at as a child. No other details are available at this time, though The Newark Star-Ledger reports Whigham Funeral Home, which has organized services for several of Whitney’s family members, will handle the arrangements. Based on the latest leaks, Houston died inside her hotel room on Saturday as the result of mixing multiple prescription pills with alcohol . Her body, submerged in bathtub water, was discovered by the artist’s aunt.
This morning on the Rickey Smiley Morning Show, Hall of Famer Prime Time Deion Sanders talks about the divorce with Pilar, the fight that happened in the house the other night, what really happeneded with their marriage and much more!!
Berneice Jenkins is getting ready for church this Sunday and has your weekend Church Announcements! If you missed them on the Rickey Smiley Morning Show here ya go!
Frank Ocean has just dropped some new music, and this song is called “ Voodoo .” Most interesting line: “She’s got the whole world in her juicy fruit.” Take a listen to it in the audio player below. RELATED POSTS: Beyonce And Jay-Z Collaborator Frank Ocean Readies New Album Jay-Z & Kanye West Feat. Frank Ocean “No Church In The Wild” [MUSIC VIDEO]
Today is Rick Ross ‘ 36th birthday, and it took him years to emerge out of Miami and become a nationally known rapper. But he’s cranked out some of the best hip-hop songs each year since his career exploded in 2006. Jay-Z upgraded Ricky Rozay’s career by signing him to Def Jam, and he’s become more respected with each album because of his consistency in delivering hits. Hip-hop is said to be a young man’s sport, and some thought a new rapper approaching the age of 30 wouldn’t have longevity, hits, or big record sales. But William Leonard Roberts II, a.k.a. Rick Ross, proved his doubters wrong. Rick Ross, DJ Khaled & More Bring In The New Year At Club Cameo Rozay may not be known for writing uplifting or socially conscious songs. But his flow, distinctive voice and beat selection come together and create music that’s perfect to ride out to in a Maybach, Aston Martin, or any whip. Rick Ross & Meek Mill Cover “No Church In The Wild” After releasing his debut album Port Of Miami , Rick has stayed on his grind by releasing four albums in under six years. In addition, he has released mixtapes, launched his successful Maybach Music Group record label, and has been featured on numerous songs. Ricky’s tireless work ethic got the best of him last October when he was struck with two seizures in one day. He is now taking better care of himself while growing his empire, which recently expanded into the restaurant business. Rick Ross, Traveling With Medical Kit In Case of Emergency On Friday, January 6th, the man we also know as “The Boss” will release his latest mixtape Rich Forever at 3:05 pm (the time is a salute to his hometown of Miami’s area code). Plus, a mixtape with Drake and his anticipated fifth album God Forgives, I Don’t are scheduled to be released sometime this year. Rick Ross Goes Against Doctor’s Orders, Records “Biggest” Jay-Z Collabo [VIDEO] As we anxiously await new tunes from Rick Ross, enjoy this list of his best songs that we’ve heard thus far. Which one is your favorite? “9 Piece” Feat. Lil Wayne “Aston Martin Music” Feat. Drake & Chrisette Michele “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast)” Feat. Styles Hustlin’ “John Doe” “Mafia Music” “Magnificent” Feat. John Legend “Push It” “Super High” Feat. Ne-Yo “The Boss” Feat. T-Pain
In his new Brooklyn-set drama Red Hook Summer , director/co-writer Spike Lee tackles the complex topics of religion and redemption within the modern African American experience, as filtered through the eyes of a spoiled Atlanta teenager (Jules Brown) forced to spend one hot, explosive summer with his preacher grandfather in the projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. It’s a richly conceived portrait of the Brooklyn neighborhood as microcosm for the black community at large, very much a Lee joint through and through. But, as the filmmaker reminded audiences this week at Sundance , where he railed against the Hollywood system, “it’s not a sequel to Do the Right Thing !” It’s tempting to draw parallels to Lee’s incisive 1989 Oscar nominated drama – he does, after all, appear in Red Hook Summer as his Do the Right Thing character Mookie (who’s still delivering pizzas for Sal’s, though he and Tina have parted ways). But fast forward to 2012 and there are new complications to be explored now that gentrification, secularism, reverse-migration, and the evolution of culture have altered the composition of the community – and Lee, with co-writer James McBride, seeks to explore every nook and cranny of this expansive 21st century terrain. Into the evolving world of Red Hook comes young Flik (newcomer Brown), who resents the old-school rules of his grandfather, charismatic minister Enoch (Clarke Peters). A local girl (Toni Lysaith) helps Flik acclimate to the hood, but unexpected, volatile events shift this coming of age outsider tale into a polemic on faith, the church, and community that’s proven difficult for some festival audiences and critics alike to swallow. Lee, speaking with Movieline after the divisive debut of his film, wasn’t worried about leaving some viewers unsatisfied. “There are a lot of questions in the film that we don’t necessarily have the answers for, and I think a lot of the time that’s good,” he said. “I know there have been a lot of references back to Do the Right Thing , but one of the major criticisms of Do the Right Thing when it came out was that I didn’t have the answer for racism at the end of the movie. But who has that answer?” Red Hook Summer paints a picture, in vibrant colors and heightened dialogue, of a community anchored by faith and led by Peters’ charismatic, Bible-thumping minister – the lone figure leading the charge against crime, apathy, and dissolution within the neighborhood. A pointed jab at Tyler Perry seems to declare Lee’s intent to do better and be less jingoistic to the black faith-based crowd. Asked to declare his position on Perry, Lee paused. “I respect his business savvy. It’s great.” Still, he couldn’t resist inserting a mock Madea poster into his film. “What, Fat, Black and Crazieee ?” he laughed. “It’s coming this summer to a theater near you! Where Red Hook Summer goes in its last act makes it much more than a superlative version of a Perry film, suggesting that religion and blind faith can only go so far in tempering the ugliness of the world around us before personal accountability comes into play. “All one has to do, I think, is read a newspaper, because the marketing for this film is being done daily in the newspapers and on television,” explained Peters. “What Spike has done is hold a mirror up to that for you to look into, safely, and make your own judgments and hopefully govern yourselves accordingly.” The nature of the film, and the scope of Lee’s provocative vision for it, may explain why he says mainstream Hollywood studios balked at backing the project. “They know nothing about black people,” he said at the Q&A following his Sunday premiere. “Nothing!” Striking out on his own, Lee financed and filmed Red Hook Summer himself, shooting over the course of a few weeks on location, using the church founded by McBride’s parents as the film’s central backdrop and casting his two young actors from local Brooklyn schools. “Obstacles don’t bother us,” he told Movieline. “They’ve never bothered me. I’ve always been an independent filmmaker. Just because I did Inside Man , that doesn’t mean I left it.” But the studios weren’t the only ones hesitant about Lee’s project; according to McBride, “a lot of actors [wouldn’t] do it. They don’t want to be affiliated with this kind of film.” Even actor Nate Parker, who plays a former congregation member-turned-gang leader and also appears in George Lucas’s Red Tails , was advised not to take the role. “People on my team said, ‘Aren’t you afraid that people won’t want to work with you because you’re only doing these types of films? Aren’t you afraid that you’ll miss your window?’” “No,” he continued. “We need to give ourselves more credit. We need to give the world more credit. To say that the world is so short-sighted that they don’t want to see people like us – human beings doing human things? Religion is universal.” It’s not just the citizens of the contained streets of Red Hook or Brooklyn who are primed for these re-examinations of faith. Co-scripter McBride on the one hand wrote Red Hook Summer drawing on his own history with the place, but he also hopes it’s applicable to other communities. “There are a people who believe in God and need God badly, and there are people who deliver His word well, and who have some corrupt elements in their lives,” he said. “This issue of religion is something that affects white people, in fact, probably more than black folks. Look at where we are politically in this country – look how the Republican party has fallen apart as a result of this religious zealotry, which is misguided and misplaced and used as a baseball bat to divide us.” And so, in the face of studio apathy, polarized reviews, and a collective reluctance to discuss faith and its place in life, Lee and Co. are something of an underdog force chipping away at a largely unspoken topic within a vastly underrepresented community. Still, the idea that Red Hook Summer will inspire discussion and debate is, perhaps, victory enough. “With a team like this I hope that we’re on the scrimmage line all the time, moving that ball down the film inch by inch,” enthused Peters, “because we can’t do long passes! We’ve got to do it in increments. And this is just another bite into that.” Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter . For more of Movieline’s Sundance coverage here .
Mitt Romney is a baller: Mitt Romney offered a partial snapshot of his vast personal fortune late Monday, disclosing income of $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million last year — virtually all of it profits, dividends or interest from investments. None came from wages, the primary source of income for most Americans. Instead, Romney and his wife, Ann, collected millions in capital gains from a profusion of investments, as well as stock dividends and interest payments. The couple gave away $7 million in charitable contributions over the past two years, including at least $4.1 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Romney’s family has for generations been among the Mormon Church’s most prominent members. The Romneys sent somewhat less to Washington over that period, paying an estimated $6.2 million in federal income taxes. According to his 2010 return, Romney paid about $3 million to the IRS, for an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent. For 2011, Romney estimates that he will pay about $3.2 million, for an effective rate of 15.4 percent. That’s in line with his earlier estimates, but sharply lower than the rates paid by President Obama and Romney’s closest Republican rival, Newt Gingrich. “You’ll see my income, how much taxes I’ve paid, how much I’ve paid to charity,” Romney said at a debate Monday night in Tampa. “I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.” He said his tax bill is “entirely legal and fair,” adding: “I’m proud of the fact that I pay a lot of taxes.” Romney released his tax returns — nearly 550 pages, including the 2010 returns for three family trust funds and a foundation — in a bid to regain his footing in the Republican presidential campaign after stumbling badly in last weekend’s South Carolina primary. The returns confirm, however, that Romney continues to benefit from his association with Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded in 1984 and left in 1999. His earnings through Bain have drawn controversy because they are treated as capital gains rather than wages and thus benefit from being taxed at the lower rate of 15 percent. Critics say such income, known as “carried interest,” should not be counted as investment earnings because private-equity partners are mostly relying on the money of others rather than their own. The returns show that Romney earned more than $13 million in “carried interest” over the past two years. Complicated as they are, the tax returns provide only a partial picture of Romney’s wealth. They don’t show the full extent of his net assets, which are estimated to be worth between $190 million and $250 million. Romney has an individual retirement account worth between $20.7 million and $101.6 million, according to his 2011 financial disclosure. He also has a blind trust for his wife, Ann, containing $10 million. Source
John Mellencamp: It’s About You isn’t really about you, or me, or even about John Mellencamp, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who has built an enduring career with his eminently likable, real-person stage demeanor and his songs’ connection with the way regular people live. It’s About You is quite possibly mostly about the filmmaker, Kurt Markus, a commercial photographer who has shot portraits for publications including Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and GQ , as well as ad campaigns for the likes of BMW and Armani. But that’s surprisingly OK: Mellencamp invited Markus and his son, Ian, to tag along, video camera in tow, to record his summer 2009 concert tour and to eavesdrop, visually and otherwise, on recording sessions for his 2010 album No Better Than This . Mellencamp even told Markus at the outset, somewhat cryptically, that the movie should be about Markus. And so It’s About You — whatever the heck it’s actually about – is in the end a kind of visual journal, a photographer’s way of seeing and responding to what’s around him. Those events and moments and glancing touches might include a group of musicians huddled around a single microphone in Memphis’s hallowed Sun Studios, or the flash of producer extraordinaire T. Bone Burnett’s cuff-links during another session, held in the same room where Robert Johnson cut a potent handful of songs in 1936. Markus accompanies the visuals with a voice-over narration that’s sometimes grating and other times startling in its perceptions. The result is a kind of homespun video scrapbook, bumpy seams and glue splotches and all; it’s flawed, but at least it feels handmade and human. Mellencamp could have faded away when he was still John Cougar Mellencamp, in the late 1980s, but somehow he’s managed to thrive as a modern rock’n’roll troubadour, standing tall and sturdy even alongside more massive luminaries like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. His low-key manner, as it’s revealed in It’s About You , is probably part of the key to his longevity: Even when he’s singing about boarded-up houses and busted American dreams, he never comes off as haranguing or overly morose – there’s always a glimmer of cautious optimism in his eyes. Markus captures that gleam both in the performance footage and in the more spontaneous recording sessions. Some of these sessions took place at the First African Baptist Church, in Savannah, Ga., which Markus tells us is the oldest black church in America. He also tells us about – though doesn’t show us – the bullet-size holes in the church’s floor, used to provide ventilation for the runaway slaves who were once harbored there. And we see Mellencamp and his then-wife, Elaine (the two have since split), donning white robes before they’re dunked in the church’s baptismal pool. There’s a kind of offhanded grace in the image. It’s not that Mellencamp and his wife aren’t taking the moment seriously; it just seems to be more of a piece with everyday living rather than some monumental event. This isn’t, strictly speaking, a concert film, and at one point Markus half-apologizes for not having a sound person along: He wanted to keep the whole thing as intimate as possible, and for that reason, he even refuses to set foot on Mellencamp’s tour bus. He states that he believes some moments, even on tour, should be kept private. But the real intimacy of It’s About You comes through in Markus’s footage of faded, semi-deserted Midwestern downtown streets, with their battered storefronts and rusty signage. Markus narrates some of this footage in a sort of numbed monotone. And just when you might be wishing that he’d shut up and let the images speak for themselves, he comes out with something that stops you cold. “These empty shells of better days are the biggest attraction America has going for it,” he says at one point, meaning that they’re visions of something truly American that persist even in the face of economic hardship and decay. His camera shows us deserted drive-thru restaurants and shuttered shops in sections of San Antonio, and he remarks that it’s as if a plague had wiped out a whole population, suddenly and thoroughly. “It’s a Texas Pompeii,” he says, observing how sadly beautiful it all is. As captured by Markus, Mellencamp, now 60, is looking a little weatherbeaten himself, but in a handsome, vital way — he shows no sign of going the way of those sad, forgotten downtowns. Still, they’re a big part of what he’s all about. Because, in the end, it really isn’t about him. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
2012 will likely be another big year for Frank Ocean . In 2011 the smooth R&B singer emerged as a highly sought after crooner by releasing his critically acclaimed mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra. The striking, if not bizarre effort led to him being feature on Beyoncé’s 4 album as a writer on “I Miss You” and as a singer on two of her husband Jay-Z’s collaborative effort with Kanye West, Watch the Throne (“No Church in the Wild” and “Made it in America”). Now Ocean’s about set to release his debut album. In an interview with BBC News , Ocean gushes that he’s “super proud of” the as-yet-untitled spring release. “It succinctly defines me as an artist for where I am right now and that was the aim, just to make something that represents where you are at that space and time,” he adds. “It’s about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story and all kinds of sonic goodness—sonic goodies.”
The Christmas spirit didn’t last very long at the Church Of The Nativity, the church built on the site where most Christians believe Christ was born: At one of oldest churches in the world, built over the cave that tradition marks as the place Jesus was born, Franciscan, Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests have brawled Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Outside the Beltway Discovery Date : 29/12/2011 01:20 Number of articles : 2
