Now that Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler have chucked the deuces to “American Idol,” the conversation has been over who will be the new judges following their exits. Randy Jackson is even rumored to be ready to back away from his current position, so that leaves a lot of space for popular new-school and old-school talents to step in. Aretha Franklin has already put her name into consideration to sit in one of the judge’s chairs, but who else would be great? Here are 10 other talents to help bring the show back to its former glory. Or at the very least, keep it interesting.

people.com

Rihanna
RiRi will never be the vocalist of our time, but she has that “X Factor” that connects her to fans. In an era where image is more valued than substance, Rihanna can give a few pointers on how to be a media darling and keep the public interested. In 2005, the ink was overflowing with premature obits that her career wouldn’t sustain because she didn’t have the talent to back up her hype. It’s 2012 and Rihanna is still at the top of the charts and Forbes just listed her as the 3rd highest grossing celebrity under 30 with a haul of $53 million while stronger singers are in search of relevance and commercial success. Love or hate her, Rihanna’s built a brand for herself and it’s not as if she’s just gonna sit there with a smirk on her face. If her Twitter feed is any indication, she can talk that talk.

Source: Popcrush.com

If you didn’t catch the BET Awards show last night, you truly missed out. That’s normally not the sentiment one feels after spending four hours watching the network, but yesterday BET showed that all of the viewers’ graveling over the past few years was well worth it because the folks behind the annual production definitely stepped their game up.

There were a few moments everybody anticipated before last night’s show like D’Angelo hitting the stage and an expected Whitney Houston tribute, but both were better than anyone imagined (although the bar was already set pretty low). Mr. Brown Sugar took us back to his “Untitled” Days, performing “How Does it Feel” and Mariah Carey hit the stage to introduce the Whitney Houston tribute and talk about their friendship, followed by performances from Monica, who took us straight to church, Brandy, Chaka Khan, and Cissy Houston, who amazingly belted out “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” in memory of her daughter.

BET got the Maze and Frankie Beverly tribute right too, with Joe, Tyrese, and Faith Evans singing  a few tunes before the band hit the stage themselves. Kanye also opened up the show with his G.O.O.D Music, “Lamborghini Mercy” crew, Yolanda Adams and Amber Bullock tore up the Gospel Sundays segment, and Chris Brown only lip synched through half of his performance. All in all, this year’s festivities were a major improvement over previous years.

Check out all of the performances from the night right here. Which was your fav?

Brande Victorian is the news and operations editor for madamenoire.com. Follow her on twitter @Be_Vic.

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Source: StyleBlazer.com

From StyleBlazer.com

The legendary Chaka Khan celebrates 40 years in show business this year, and she’s looking just as good as when she started. The Chicago native gushed to Wendy Williams about her weight loss, juice dieting, and plans to launch a new fragrance.

It’s amazing to see someone so iconic like Chaka venture out into different things in the business, especially at this stage in her career when she really doesn’t have to. It looks like Chaka has a new stylist these days, too! She looked chic on Wendy’s talk show, refined and age appropriate but still smoldering, a departure from some of the looks we had seen her in prior to her weight loss.

Head over to StyleBlazer.com to watch the clip of Chaka Khan on Wendy.

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Source: fitperez.com

I don’t really listen to Drake but I had to borrow a line from his “Stay Schemin’” verse directed at Vanessa Bryant (“You wasn’t with me shooting in the gym”) because it perfectly illustrates my point in the ongoing did she or didn’t she have weight loss surgery debate. I don’t usually walk around defending celebrities either, considering they can always go cry in their money as one of my old editors used to say, but the celebrity weight loss shade is real—real ridiculous that is.

As I was reading over Chaka Khan’s interview yesterday I was surprised she mentioned people thought she had weight loss surgery. When she first made her big 60-pound reveal, Chaka hadn’t been seen for a hot minute so it wasn’t as though one day we saw her at a certain size and she was significantly lighter the next. Plus, most noted how fit she appeared to be and that’s not characteristic of people who have just gone under the knife. She’s since mentioned that she went vegan and credits her dramatic loss to the absence of meat from her diet but many are still assuming a surgeon was also present somewhere in this.

Fast forward to the post on Jennifer Hudson’s new clothing line and there was all kinds of shade unraveling about how her entire Weight Watcher’s 80-pound weight loss is a hoax. I expected side eyes at the thought of people wanting to dress like her but I thought all the nonsense over her having gastric bypass surgery was dead. Like Chaka, J-Hud didn’t pull one of those overnight size 16 to size 6 moves. It took her somewhere around a year to get those results, which is hardly how long it would take had she went the surgery route. In fact, she’s pretty much a model for healthy weight loss which should be achieved safely at two pounds per week.

What’s crazy to me is how people are calling her a fraud for being a Weight Watcher’s spokesperson and claiming that’s the only way she shed pounds. Um, how many of ya’ll were with her in the gym? Better yet, the hospital or the operating table where she supposedly had this surgery? People have gone so far as to say that she’s false promoting because she doesn’t acknowledge the exercise aspect of her plan that brought her to those results. I think everyone knows diet and exercise go hand-in-hand. Her job isn’t to sell treadmills, ellipticals, jump ropes or basketballs, she’s pushing the portion of her success story that relates to food which is the Weight Watcher’s meal plan. What’s fraudulent about that? And the point that she probably had a trainer whip her into shape (either in lieu of or in addition to surgery) is null and void as well because I’ve seen many an average woman shell out cash to have someone kick her butt into shape during 5 am workouts.

What’s even more crazy to me though is how people will see a random overweight black woman and say she needs to lose weight as if it’s as simple to do as letting the words come out of your mouth. Then when they see a celebrity who worked out and used a food program to drop pounds they assume it’s not possible and that she must have had surgery. And then when they hear Beyonce say she dropped 40 pounds in a few months eating lettuce and running on a treadmill they believe it and celebrate it as if that’s healthy. Where’s the logic in that?

On some level, I blame Star Jones for this. Her notorious denial of weight loss surgery has made every other weight loss success story after hers suspect from the gate because she kept up the charade for so long. But this is also just a classic case of people contradicting themselves and dare I say it, hating. Why is it women like J-Hud get beat on so hard for assumedly not being healthy and needing to lose weight, and then when they do it through sweat, tofu, and rice cakes, it’s assumed they took the easy way out? You can’t try to beat diet and exercise into one person’s head all day long as the magic pill for weight loss and then when another person gets the results they should from doing what was suggested, all of a sudden it isn’t possible? What’s so difficult about accepting and celebrating someone else’s triumph, and silencing the need to steal their shine?

The most interesting part is the critics are always people who’ve never known what it’s like to have to drop weight themselves. They’re speaking from facts they’ve heard or read, not from personal experience which is why they suggest someone just start walking 30 minutes a day as if that’s going to add up to a 3,500 calorie deficit that would yield them a one-pound weight loss. It’s the same reason they assume any celebrity who has gone from plus-size to average couldn’t have done it without a medical intervention: they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Speculating on celebrity weight loss is no different than commenting on other rumors about who they’re dating, sleeping with, or beefing with. We weren’t there, so we don’t know. Therefore there’s no reason to throw shade and assume the worst. If you hate celebs when they’re fat and find a whole new reason to hate them when they’re thin, how do they ever win?

Brande Victorian is the News and Operations Editor for MadameNoire.com. Follow her on Twitter @Be_Vic.

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Source: Fashionbombdaily.com

Everyone has been gushing over how amazing Chaka Khan looks, especially after the singer dropped a reported 60 pounds this year, but she’s not trippin.’ In an interview with The Huffington Post, Chaka was asked how she feels about the mixed reaction to her weight loss and being labeled a sex symbol, and she replied:

“I’ve always been a sex symbol. When I was fat I was a sex symbol. Some men like it that, you know. But I don’t think about that. That’s so far from my mind right now [Laughs].”

Alright then, Chaka. She also said she isn’t paying the weight loss surgery rumors any mind either.

“They can say whatever they want. Only I know what’s really going on. My weight loss had to occur, because I was diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes and I also had high blood pressure. And I’ve been on medication for that since last year until the beginning of this year. And I ended up going, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, this is enough. I can’t live like this.’ And I have a new little daughter to raise [my granddaughter], I adopted her so I have to be here. … [She] was really my first and major influence to lose weight and get healthy so I can be here for her. What I did was stopped eating and went on a strict unconditional fast for a couple of months. And went off meat, became vegan, stopped all the dairy, stopped all the meat.”

With that out of the way, Chaka told the reporter what is on her mind, which is capitalizing on the recent surge in interest in the ’70s funk singer. She was asked whether she’d be recording for any new blockbuster hits anytime soon, like she did in the past covering a few James Bond themes, and she replied:

“I certainly hope so. A lot of doors have opened significantly for me since I dropped the weight. And I have mixed reactions to that, but I’m going to strike the iron while it’s hot. So there’s been lots of meetings with lots of people. I’m coming out with a perfume line called, Khanasutra, a line of candles, and Chaka Lips for the holidays.

Ms. Khan also has a new album in the works, with plans to drop a few singles over the summer. The finished product won’t be out until next year, but when it hits, it will mark the 59-year-old’s 40th anniversary in the music business.

“Yes, it’s a big moment for me,” she said. “I’m still in the mix, still doing it. And even a lot better now, because I’m in much better shape than I was in the last 10 years. So everything is going really well.”‘

It’s good to see she’s still doing her thing!

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Have you noticed that Chaka Khan’s has dropped more than a few pounds recently? I saw that she was slimming down but I didn’t realize she’d dropped this much weight. No word as to what she might be doing but we can say the 59 year old vocal powerhouse looks good! Seeing as how she gradually went down in size, I’m inclined to believe she decided to forgo the knife.

What do you think she did to lose the weight?

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Chaka Khan’s tribute video to Trayvon Martin has the feel of Michael Jackson’s 1985 charity single “We Are the World.” The singer debuted the song “Super Life” to the world yesterday and she enlisted a ton of singers, actors, and entertainers to help spread the message about the injustice surrounding the teenager’s death.

From Eric Benet, Kelly Price, and Luke James on vocals, to actors and actresses like Angela Bassett and her husband Courtney B. Vance, Terry Crews and his wife, Rebecca, Loretta Devine, Eva Marcille, and Boris Kodjoe, the tribute is a raw video of the entertainers in the studio together wearing shirts and hoodies in the slain teen’s honor and announcing, “I am Trayvon Martin. Chaka Khan said the purpose of the song is

“to raise awareness in children and adults and everybody that you can’t judge a person by what he’s wearing.

“I really feel strongly about our children, period, and their safety,” she said. “We’re concerned about children’s safety.”

The project literally just came together over the weekend. Chaka Khan said within 48 hours everyone came out to Henson Studios in Hollywood to be apart of the effort. Since everything happened so fast there hasn’t been any mention of making the track available for purchase or where any proceeds might go, but the funk singer wrote this on her website:

“Celebrities are privileged beyond belief to have a public following. We have explored and exploited media to our own benefits. Now it’s time to exploit media for the benefit of humanity as a whole. As purveyors of content and media, we need to use our voices to stop injustice at the site of its origin.”

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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The majority of people who were tuned into the Grammy’s last night simply wanted to see how the award’s show would honor the life of legacy of Whitney Houston who passed away just a day before. Shortly after news broke of the singer’s death, Jennifer Hudson was confirmed to be at least one of the artists who would pay tribute to the singer, and there were also rumors circulating that Chaka Khan would perform her hit “I’m Every Woman,” which Whitney took to a new level when she remade the song in 1993.

But during the ceremony, Chaka Khan sent out a tweet letting followers know she’d pulled out of the performance, writing:

 ”As I grieve the loss of my friend and ‘little sister,’ I don’t feel it appropriate to perform at this time. Continue to pray for the family.”

Still, the show went on, and after much anticipation, Jennifer Hudson humbly took the stage in attire reminiscent of the iconic singer but with an air of reverence as she sang one of Whitney’s biggest hits, “I will always love you.” The pressure on her was enormous and while many on my Twitter timeline felt the tribute was unexpectedly short, I think the show did just enough to pay respect without running the risk of ruining classics that no one in our generation has the voice to touch anyway.

In case you missed it, check out the clip of J Hud’s tribute below. How do you think she did? Should more have been done to honor Whitney at the Grammy’s?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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From theGrio.com

The Heart Truth’s Red Dress Collection 2012 fashion show was held last night in New York City at the Hammerstein Ballroom. This annual event seeks to raise awareness about women and heart disease by featuring a host of beautiful actresses, singers and popular personalities in stunning red dresses, strutting their stuff for a celebrity-studded audience.

See who walked the runway and who was in the audience here.

P.S. Does anyone else feel like Chaka might have lost some weight? She looks great, doesn’t she?

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It’s been a while since we’ve seen Grace Jones in the limelight. But judging by recent pictures of her from Paris Fashion Week, the androgynous diva has not lost it. As you can see, the 63 year old woman was as active as ever when she took the stage to perform with Chaka Khan, Sister Sledge, the Pointer Sisters and Gloria Gaynor at the Etam fashion show.

You can watch a video of the entire performance at theGrio.com.

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