Bellas, I am so tardy to the Melanie Fiona party!

I’ve been watching this beautiful young singer on the rise, but I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention. All of a sudden, my mind connected the dots. The chick I’d seen on VH1 Soul with Questlove, was the vocalist behind that version of Sam Cooke’s Cupid that I heard at Starbucks! And the same artist I’d been reading about on Soulbounce forever! OH! This is Melanie Fiona!

It took me a while, but now I’m head over heels for her sound and her style.

Melanie Fiona hails from Toronto, but — according to Wikipedia – has parents from Guyana. Which perhaps explains the Caribbean influence that comes through loud and clear in her Subway Series. In this awesome clip, she performs her songs “Sad Songs,” “Please Don’t Go” and “Bang Bang” on the streets and in the subway stations of New York City.

So. Amazing. The sounds of steelpan gave me chills – such an amazing and underused instrument.

Melanie’s album, The Bridge, is available for sale right now. Show a real singer some love, if you’re feeling this!

Two giveaways in one week? What am I thinking?

Bellas, if you live in Washington DC or nearby, I’ve got a special giveaway for you! But it’s only a one-day thing!

And it’s not a car. Lord knows, I wish it could be.

Lexux has been hosting some truly fabulous events around the country — check out the details at Strictly Fab and Gyant Unplugged for details on the last one, a special screening of Good Hair.

This is something different, and a bit more exclusive.

The Lexus Listening Lounge will take place the evening of October 6, in a beautiful venue, starring one of R&B’s hottest, flyest new artists. I can’t reveal who, I can’t reveal where. But I’ve got TWO TICKETS and special swag bags to give away. If you’re looking to add a little well-deserved luxury to your Tuesday night, leave me a comment below!

All you need to say is: I’m in DC! Pick ME!

This giveaway will officially be closed by 10 p.m. CST today, Friday October 2. So comment ASAP so I can make next week a little more fun for ya!!

Happy Friday, bellas!

**comments are officially closed on this giveaway and I’ll choose 2 winners ASAP!

When Fefe Dobson burst on the scene back in 2003, rock-loving black girls around the world sat up and took notice. Here was a chick who refused to play by the record label rules. Edgy, cute, funky, and totally unique at the time.

She was getting solid airplay on MTV for a minute there, but then she disappeared. What happened?

I wondered when I wrote a loving homage in 2007, but now thanks to a great interview with Honey Magazine, we know what Fefe is up to!

– planning her glorious comeback and releasing new music
– diplomatically defusing those “Rihanna bit your style” allegations
– looking fly as evah!!

I’m team Fefe all the way! And I love her new song, I Want You.

Click here for her official site, and click here to get her new song!

Are you a fan of Fefe? Tell me!

I wrote the following words in 2007, for a post titled simply: I Miss You.

“…I never knew Aaliyah, so I can only imagine the heartbreak that her family and friends felt. Feel.

You know she’d have a hot clothing line too — all of these R&B chicks have one now, but I am sure that hers would have been much cooler…”

Eight years. I can’t believe it’s been eight years. How time has flown. But Aaliyah Haughton – forever thought of as Baby Girl to her legions of fans around the world — will never be forgotten. Her fans will never forget her legacy, her talent, her beauty. She blessed us with lasting musical gifts while she was here. And in a cruel twist of fate, she was taken from us far too soon.

Real talk – writing this post brought tears to my eyes. There are so many more things in this world to cry about, but just hearing Aaliyah’s honeyed voice sing my favorite of her ballads made my eyes burn and water up, contemplating what could have been. If only.

Aaliyah, you will never be forgotten. You will always live on in the hearts of your fans.

Click here to support the Aaliyah Memorial Fund. And please, feel free to share your favorite Aaliyah songs and memories with me.

Bellas, my love for Nina Simone is no secret — but every so often I’m reminded of her genius. That just happened with this video, and I had to share it with you.

So many things about this 1968 performance clip are striking. Her powerful performance, yes. Her energy, yes. But especially – the regal strength of her beauty. I love a big, wide headband and Nina wore hers like a queen. Set off with a little makeup – smokey eye and a berry lip — paired with a beautiful ivory strapless fishnet number that’s so vintage chic, there’s no wonder that what’s old is new again. I know many bellas who’d wear that outfit right now if they could!

Enjoy, bellas – Nina forever!

Last year I hosted a great Rock The Bells giveaway. And after hosting the giveaway, I went to the Miami show, wrote a big review, and had a ball. I even randomly wound up meeting the ticket winner, who was so overjoyed to win that we took photos together on the lawn. It was a LOT of fun and I loved every second of it… but I noticed a few odd things. Event organization was kinda quirky, especially regarding backstage passes and meeting the artists. (What do you mean we’re not allowed back there? Isn’t that what my media pass says?) And attendance was surprisingly low. Truly great concerts in Miami are at a premium, and this one should have been sold out to capacity. A Tribe Called Quest? The Pharcyde? Meth and Red? Fuhgeddaboutit! But nonetheless, the crowd remained comfortably sparse throughout the evening.

Let’s put it this way – I was super psyched for next year’s Rock The Bells, but it didn’t exactly surprise me that the Miami show got canceled. Sorry, Miami friends. Here’s hoping there’s enough impetus to bring it back next year.

But to be perfectly honest, I doubt it.

Look, I love Rock The Bells. I love the concept of picking the creme de la creme of what’s now old school hip hop, and making an ultimate nostalgia tour for Eighties and Nineties babies. It’s a guaranteed good time, and a way to remind us all what hip hop used to be before it became entirely about flashy labels and hollowness.

But this year’s experience gave me, and a few others quite a bit to chew over. And so, with great respect, I’ve got some helpful suggestions for Chang Weisberg and the organizers of Rock The Bells.

#1 – Work with the media. The new media.

Last year, I helped to promote RTB and wrote about it for both my blog, and for the Miami New Times where I worked at the time.

This year, I got straight up dissed on a media pass. And I had planned to do even better coverage than I did last year.

Oh wait, I could get a media pass but even if I did, I couldn’t actually watch the show, and I’d still be expected to buy tickets if I wanted to see the concert itself. What??? That makes no kind of sense. And it certainly wasn’t because the event was sold out or packed to capacity. I saw that with my own two eyes.

I say this not to complain or get on some blogger’s entitlement high horse — I know how this must read to folks who paid money to attend the show. “Waaa waaa waaa, media pass denied! Buy a ticket like the rest of us!” And I did wind up paying like, $77 for my husband and I to go to the show. I couldn’t miss it, not after last year’s stellar experience.

But here’s just a thought — if the folks behind Rock The Bells knew how to work the media a bit better — the new media, we who aren’t laying people off like crazy, or taking those very same free tickets and not writing a review just because they can (and I know quite a few old media folks who do that) — they could guarantee greater grassroots knowledge, word of mouth, and consequently success for their concert.

Don’t ask me, the proof was in the empty stands. I’d never been to this particular venue, but my husband had. He was dumbfounded.

“I’ve never seen a show here that was this empty,” he declared.

I shouldn’t be able to attend Blogging While Brown — a conference comprised of some of the most influential black bloggers in the country, ask said influential black bloggers in the key demographic if they were planning to attend Rock The Bells, and get the response, “what’s Rock The Bells?” Or, “Oh yeah…when is that?”

That happened not just more than once, not just more than twice. Several times. From well known, well read bloggers of color.

With a lineup as impressive as Rock The Bells has been able to put together, this should be a concert experience as renowned as Lollapalooza, or Bonnaroo, or Pitchfork. Instead it was half (or in some cases, a quarter) of the size of any of those shows. And that’s a damn shame.

If I worked Rock The Bells PR, I’d be reaching out to media of all kinds, including and especially to blogosphere — placing ads, offering media passes, trying to host giveaways, sending video clips of performances, building relationships, doing everything to drum this concert into the public consciousness.

Instead, I’m hearing stories like that of excellent photographer Tafari Stevenson-Howard, who shared his RTB disappointment with me:

“From a media perspective, I have very little to offer on the Rock The Bells Detroit in terms of concert content. As a photographer & blogger covering the music, sharing my experience is going to be difficult because when you’re shooting, you cannot focus on anything other than getting the shot.

Annnnnd then, there was the fact that I was not able to photograph any of Damian Marley’s performance because he came on after Nas’ 3rd song. The media contact at DTE Music Center was not movable or willing to let any of us to capture Damian, so I just left at this point disappointed & wondering if I should have bothered to even attend.”

Point #2 – The on-the-ground staff needs to lose the attitude, and the ticket prices need to be affordable for one and all.

I’m not surprised Tafari had the experience he had which he blogged about here — there are some straight up music gestapo who work these concerts. There’s an infamous one in Miami who I butted heads with many, many times — the less I say about him, the better. It sounds to me like Tafari encountered something similar in Detroit. A self important keeper of the concert who struts around barking at people like they are subhuman, and wielding their power to revoke your good time at a moment’s notice. These people’s salaries are paid for quite comfortably by the powers-that-be of Live Nation and/or Ticketmaster. Well guess what? Times have changed. Now money’s short, times are hard and people aren’t as willing to shell out $40, $50 bucks for a concert ticket anymore. So we all need to check our attitudes at the door, and work together to make the experience worthwhile and fun for everyone.

There’s a reason Live Nation is now offering No Service Fee Wednesday, complete with parking, hot dog and a soda, and it ain’t because there’s a glut of hot dogs on the market. The music behemoth needs to feed the beast with your hard earned concert ticket money, and having exorbitant fees for shows is not the way forward. Lose the exorbitant fees, and work with the artists to bring the overall ticket costs down.

Affordable tickets to quality concerts will ensure a greater turnout across the country. Of this, I am certain.

Read the rest of this entry »