LOS ANGELES (AP) — Clarence Burke Jr., lead singer of the group the Five Stairsteps that sang the 1970 hit “O-o-h Child,” (see video below) has died. He was 64.
His manager, Joe Marno, says Burke died Sunday in Marietta, Georgia, where he lived. The cause of his death was not disclosed. Formed in Chicago in 1965, the Five Stairsteps included Burke and four siblings.
The group had several hits in the 1960s and ’70s, including “You Waited Too Long,” ”World of Fantasy,” and “Don’t Change Your Love.”
The Los Angeles Times says the group disbanded in the late 1970s but the brothers briefly reformed as the Invisible Man’s Band and had a 1980 success with the dance single “All Night Thing.” His family says in recent years, Burke performed solo concerts and continued to record.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrotsEzgEpg&w=420&h=315]
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press via thegrio.com
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Students from the Savoy Elementary School in Washington, D.C., crooned, somersaulted, Lindy Hopped and re-enacted scenes from the 1970s film Grease on Friday as a way to flex their school’s new muscles in arts education. They performed in the gym to an audience of their peers and two distinguished ladies cheering in the front row: First Lady Michelle Obama and actress Kerry Washington.
The showcase demonstrated the school’s involvement in Turnaround: Arts, a new initiative to beef up — and in some cases introduce — arts programs to eight low-performing public schools across the nation. The public and private committees that are funding this endeavor hope that student exposure to dance, music, drama and visual-arts classes will boost academic achievement.
Kerry Washington is a celebrity ambassador to the Savoy school — D.C.’s Turnaround school — which, she told reporters during a brief press conference after the performance, is quite fitting because she is known for “fixing” crises in the nation’s capital as Olivia Pope in the hit ABC series Scandal. The actress said that chronically underperforming schools need fixing, too, and she is convinced that arts programming should be included in reform strategies that attempt to do so. Other celebrities that serve as program ambassadors to Turnaround schools include Alfre Woodard, Sarah Jessica Parker and Forest Whitaker.
The showcase demonstrated the school’s involvement in Turnaround: Arts, a new initiative to beef up — and in some cases introduce — arts programs to eight low-performing public schools across the nation. The public and private committees that are funding this endeavor hope that student exposure to dance, music, drama and visual-arts classes will boost academic achievement.
Kerry Washington is a celebrity ambassador to the Savoy school — D.C.’s Turnaround school — which, she told reporters during a brief press conference after the performance, is quite fitting because she is known for “fixing” crises in the nation’s capital as Olivia Pope in the hit ABC series Scandal. The actress said that chronically underperforming schools need fixing, too, and she is convinced that arts programming should be included in reform strategies that attempt to do so. Other celebrities that serve as program ambassadors to Turnaround schools include Alfre Woodard, Sarah Jessica Parker and Forest Whitaker.
Rapper and mogul 50 Cent may have built his brand by carefully honing a tough guy image, but his recent actions demonstrate a complexity in his character, which is as charitable as he is creative.
“People always try and paint negative images about me[.] I’m the most genuine down to earth person and I didn’t forget where I came from,” the superstar performer and businessman recently wrote on his Facebook page.
50 Cent, born Curtis Jackson in Queens, NY, used the social media outlet to discuss his contribution to the funeral of D’aja Robinson, a fellow Queens native who was killed by a stray bullet on a city bus. He posted images of her funeral, held on Friday, on his Facebook page, and confirmed that he paid for the horse and carriage that carried the casket of slain 14-year-old.
“She was pretty, innocent and [didn’t] deserve to die like that,” 50 Cent wrote, according to New York’sDaily News. “R.I.P D’Asia Robinson.”
The softer side of 50 Cent
This softer side of 50 Cent might seem surprising, but it is an evolution that has been brewing for years. While the rapper has built a fortune through graphic songs, he has used a portion of his riches to fund important causes.
Jackson’s G-Unity foundation has been active for much of his career through giving grants to combat social issues. Most recently, when launching his Street King energy drink in 2011 (which has been rebranded as SK Energy), Jackson pledged to feed one billion people through a partnership to fight hunger with the United Nations.
The day before Robinson’s funeral, 50 Cent spent some time promoting SK Energy, and commented on the importance of giving within the context of business ventures.
From The Daily Beast:
Actress Vanessa Bell Calloway couldn’t helped but be moved by the recent editorial by fellow actress Angelina Jolie discussing her decision to have an preventative double mastectomy. In 2009, the veteran of stage, television, and film went in for a mammogram and was told the results looked “suspicious.” The co-star of the Showtime series “Shameless”—who appeared in the original Broadway production of “Dreamgirls” and became a familiar face to fans in the hit films “Coming to America,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” and “The Crimson Tide”—shares with Allison Samuels of The Daily Beast her head-butting battle with breast cancer, the lessons she learned about relinquishing control, and her plans for a healthier future for her two daughters.
I can still remember sitting straight up in my bed one morning thinking something’s wrong. I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t know where it was, I just knew something wasn’t right and I couldn’t explain it. I told my husband, an anesthesiologist, about the feeling I had. First he asked if I was in pain and I said no and then he said not to worry, but of course I did anyway. I had that nagging feeling that all women get at one time or another when that little voice in our heads just won’t be silent.
I’d always been very diligent about getting my yearly mammograms, pap smears, and anything else related to my health since I’d become an adult woman. Sometimes I’d even get them twice a year if the spirit hit me. I took care of myself in other ways as well. I’d been a dancer since childhood so exercise was a part of my daily regiment, and because I’m an actress, being fit goes along with the job description. A healthy lifestyle was an attitude I wanted to pass down to my two daughters, Ashley 22, and Alexandra, 18.
But despite all those years of dogged dedication to my well-being and the fact that there is no history of breast cancer in my family, four years ago I heard the dreaded words no woman wants to hear: the results of my mammogram were “suspicious.” In my mind I knew “suspicious” could mean cancer, but as much as I tried not to dwell on that reality, I somehow couldn’t stop myself. I told as few people as possible as my husband and I waited for the doctors to probe deeper.
It was cancer in its early stages in my left breast. Yes, at 51 years old I was stunned, but I had a plan that I put into action quickly. To know me is to know that I’m a “planner.” This would be no different. I would simply have a lumpectomy. Then I’d have radiation to complete treatment. There would still be no need to tell my parents, my husband’s parents, or my two daughters as my youngest was a sophomore in high school and my oldest was a sophomore in college. My girl’s lives wouldn’t have to be turned upside down and I could continue to go on auditions for television roles in-between treatments.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Filmmaker and actor Tyler Perry has surprised middle school students in Ohio by showing up at a musical concert and donating $100,000 to help student athletes in the city’s South-Western schools.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that Perry was drawn to Finland Middle School on Friday after seeing a TV report about teacher Mary Mulvany starting a foundation to raise scholarship money to cover fees.
South-Western schools earned national attention when athletics and extra-curricular activities were eliminated after a failed levy in 2009. The ballot request was later approved by voters, and sports, clubs and other activities were resurrected for a fee.
Perry says he wants to sponsor as many children as possible and wants part of the money to go toward Finland and some to the foundation.
article by Associated Press via thegrio.com
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tavis Smiley has stood out in 20 years in broadcasting, and he has no intention of changing his style or substance. He’s the rare black host with national TV and radio platforms, one who sees his job as challenging Americans to examine their assumptions on such thorny issues as poverty, education, and racial and gender equality.
In other words, he doesn’t squander his opportunities on PBS’ daily talk show “Tavis Smiley,” which marks its 10th year this month, or on public radio’s “The Tavis Smiley Show” and “Smiley & West,” the latter a forum for commentary he shares with scholar and activist Cornel West.
His quarterly “Tavis Smiley Reports” specials for PBS, in-depth looks at topics such as the relationship between the juvenile justice system and the teenage dropout rate, fit the same bold pattern.
Smiley, marking two decades in broadcasting this year, considers himself engaged in a calling as much as a career: “This is the kind of work I think needs to be done. I’m trying to entertain and empower people.”
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, born May 19, 1930, was an African-American playwright and writer. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, was inspired by her family’s battle against racial segregation in Chicago. Hansberry was the youngest of four children of Carl Hansberry, a successful real-estate broker, and Nannie Louise Perry who was a school teacher. In 1938, her father bought a house in the Washington Park Subdivision of the South Side of Chicago, violating a restrictive covenant and incurring the wrath of many neighbors. The latter’s legal efforts to force the Hansberrys out culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1940 decision in Hansberry v. Lee, holding the restrictive covenant in the case contestable, though not inherently invalid.
Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but found college uninspiring and left in 1950 to pursue her career as a writer in New York City, where she attended The New School. In 1951, she joined the staff of the black newspaper Freedom under the auspices of Paul Robeson, and worked with W. E. B. DuBois, whose office was in the same building. A Raisin in the Sun was written at this time and completed in 1957. In 1953, she married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish publisher, songwriter and political activist. She later joined the Daughters of Bilitis and contributed two letters to their magazine, The Ladder, in 1957 under her initials “LHN” that addressed feminism and homophobia. She separated from her husband at this time, but they continued to work together.
In 1959, Raisin In The Sun debuted, becoming the first play written by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. The 29-year-old author became the youngest American playwright and only the fifth woman to receive the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. A Raisin in the Sun was revived on Broadway in 2004 and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Revival of a Play. The cast included Sean “P Diddy” Combs as Walter Lee Younger Jr., Phylicia Rashad (Tony Award-winner for Best Actress) and Audra McDonald (Tony Award-winner for Best Featured Actress). It was produced for television in 2008 with the same cast, garnering two NAACP Image Awards.
While many of her other writings were published in her lifetime – essays, articles, and the text for the SNCC book The Movement, the only other play given a contemporary production was The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. After a battle with pancreatic cancer she died on January 12, 1965, aged 34. Hansberry’s funeral was held in Harlem on January 15, 1965. Paul Robeson gave her eulogy. The presiding reverend, Eugene Callender, recited messages from James Baldwin and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. which read: “Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn.” She is buried at Asbury United Methodist Church Cemetery in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
article via wikipedia.org
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKc50N-K178&w=560&h=315]
The third time’s the charm for Candice Glover on “American Idol.” The 23-year-old vocalist from St. Helena Island, S.C., won the Fox TV singing competition after auditioning a trio of times and making it to the finals this year. Glover looked stunned when “Idol” host Ryan Seacrest announced she bested soulful 22-year-old country singer Kree Harrison from Woodville, Texas.
Glover said backstage after winning she learned to “Have fun, live in the moment and be confident.” “Because in previous years I wasn’t, so that’s definitely the key if you want to audition for the show or have a career,” she said. After her crowning, an emotional Glover sobbed her way through her new single “I Am Beautiful.”
Grammy- and Oscar-winning former “Idol” finalist Jennifer Hudson returned for Thursday’s finale for a show-stopping duet with Glover on Natalie Cole’s “Inseparable” (see above).
Glover’s win marks the first time a female and a nonwhite singer has won the competition since Jordin Sparks dominated the sixth season in 2007. The previous five winners — Phillip Phillips, Scotty McCreery, Lee DeWyze, Kris Allen and David Cook — were all Caucasian guitar players, known to “Idol” fans as WGWGs, or white guys with guitars.
The lack of a female champion for the past five years was mocked in a finale bit featuring the female finalists, in cahoots with Sparks, jokingly sabotaging this season’s five male contestants. “The good news is ‘Idol’ leftovers have been doing really well on ‘The Voice,'” Sparks teased.
Besides the coronation of Glover, Thursday’s finale also served as a farewell for Randy Jackson, the show’s last remaining original judge who announced last week that he’s leaving “Idol” to focus on his record label and other business opportunities. Jackson served as a judge on all 12 seasons of “Idol.” He first appeared on the panel alongside Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul when the competition debuted in 2002, becoming famous for his easygoing “yo, dawg” rapport with contestants.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-gu1KETjVY&w=560&h=315]
Born to Joe and Katherine Jackson on May 16, 1966, Janet Damita Jo Jackson is the youngest of nine children of the musically legendary Jackson family. Although she started her career in entertainment primarily as a television actress (Good Times, Diff’rent Strokes, Fame), it was Jackson’s music, produced by Minneapolis duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, that catapulted her to international fame and stardom. Though Control was her third solo album, it was the first one to go multi-platinum and kick-started a career that has spanned decades and generated over 100 million record sales worldwide. To celebrate Janet and her musical legacy, above is one of her early, iconic dance videos – “Pleasure Principle.” Enjoy!
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, and music industry entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine have donated a combined $70 million to create a new institute at the University of Southern California, the school announced Tuesday night.
The huge gift from the two who have been music business partners in the past will be used to create the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation.
The academy will provide a special four-year program for undergraduates whose interests span several fields from marketing to computer science to visual design and other arts. It will include one-on-one faculty mentoring with professors from programs around the university and interaction with entertainment industry luminaries.
The huge gift from the two who have been music business partners in the past will be used to create the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation.
The academy will provide a special four-year program for undergraduates whose interests span several fields from marketing to computer science to visual design and other arts. It will include one-on-one faculty mentoring with professors from programs around the university and interaction with entertainment industry luminaries.