It’s hard to stay relevant in the music industry. Every day there is a new face ready to drop their clothing and sing with auto-tune that can easily catch the attention of the masses and take it away from true talent. Nobody knows that more than these artists, who’ve had major highs in the industry, and quite a few lows as well. They’ve managed to bounce back and forth over the years, some finally getting positive shine, but their talents are so worthy, we just want to see them win in the long run. How about you?

Brandy

Source: WENN

Currently, Brandy is doing big things. She’s got a regular casting role as Chardonnay on The Game, recently put out a critically acclaimed album, Two Eleven, and she got engaged to music exec Ryan Press during the holidays late last year. But as we all know (and you can watch the Behind The Music) episode for further confirmation, things haven’t always been a winning situation for the singer. There was the fatal car accident, the fake marriage scandal, the reality show that didn’t paint her or her brother in the best light, and a fickle listening audience who stopped checking for her. Now that she’s regained a good amount of relevance, we’d love for her to keep it. B Rocka’s voice has always been one of our favorites!

Performing everywhere from Good Morning America to The View and making comical songs about twerking on the spot on Watch What Happens Live–that, my friends, is how you promote a new album.

And it seemed to work for Fantasia, because her latest release, Side Effects of You, shot up the Billboard charts to number two. Blame it on the well-produced and popular songs, “Lose to Win” and the deep-cut banger, “Without Me” featuring Kelly Rowland and Missy Elliott.

According to Billboard.com, her fourth studio album debuted behind Michael Buble of all people (hey, he clearly has a major following), coming in at number two with 91,000 albums sold. Her last album, Back To Me, with jams like “Bittersweet” and “I’m Doin’ Me” also debuted in the number two spot, with 117,000 copies sold. Billboard claims that the number of albums sold for Side Effects of You is Fantasia’s smallest to date, but in reality, there are really just a handful of people out here selling more than 500,000 copies nowadays, let alone more than 300,000. Let’s face it, times have been hard in the music industry.

But all in all, after the rocky time Fantasia has been having lately with handing her home over to the bank, relationship drama, and of course, all the issues with talking crazy on her social media and the editor of JET disrespecting her, it’s time to call a win a win for homegirl. Congrats! And according to our associate editor, the album (yes, she did buy it) is a winner.

Have you checked out the album? What do you think of it?

Fantasia might be having the best week ever two weeks in a row judging by her performance on “The View” yesterday. When we tell you she shut it down, we mean she shut it all the way down.

Singing her latest single, “Lose To Win,” Fantasia brought Sherrie Shepherd to tears with her soulful performance which was truly a testament to how far she’s come from being the insecure young girl out of High Point, North Carolina, who let everyone mooch off of her, to a 28-year-old grown woman with more confidence and peace than she’s ever had. In fact, that’s exactly what she told the ladies during her interview, saying:

“My song ‘Lose to Win’ is my testimony. When I say I’m winning again, I’m not talking about money, about houses and cars – I’m talking about peace.”

We don’t doubt the money, houses, and cars will come soon, though. Despite having to turn over the deed to her home to the bank this past weekend, the cheers she received from the crowd when she simply stepped onto “The View” stage tells me she has a lot more people in her corner than she may realize, and there support will likely lift her higher than she ever was before.

Check out Fannie’s performance up top and video of her interview below. What do you think?

Source: WENN

Fantasia is in the news again.

Since 2009, Tasia Mae has been having some serious trouble with one of her North Carolina homes.  The mansion was originally in foreclosure (if you’ll recall, she was seemingly having a lot of tax problems then) but with the help of her lawyers, Fantasia was able to stop that. Last year, she put the house on the market and drastically decreased the price but has had no buyers. But it seems, Fantasia has decided enough is enough with this home.

According to TMZ, she filed court papers to turn the deed over to the primary bank. By doing this, she’ll skip going through a second foreclosure and effectively, just lose the home to the bank.  The “good” part about this is that by purposely losing the home, she saves herself the blog chat of her not being able to handle her finances properly again.

It looks like Fanny is in a pretty good place right now. Her new album Side Effects of You will do very well on the charts, she’s doing promo and shows everywhere and lest we forget, Fantasia is looking better than ever lately.  As many of us can attest, when you feel good, you make better decisions in life.

See, I bet you thought this little piece was going to be “reading” Fantasia.  Not this time! Those things only happen when she, or anyone else, is completely out of order. Like everyone else, we want the best for Fantasia as long as she wants it for herself!

By the way, have you heard the new album?

Source: Wenn

We love a good success story. And this week Fantasia is looking at lot like the comeback kid. During her intense media rounds promoting her latest album Side Effects of You, Fantasia talked about how she’s grown and evolved as a woman and artist. She told ABC News that these days she’s no longer concerned about taking care of everybody or worrying about what the haters say.

That album, which is brilliant stylistically, is also doing well commercially. Billboard reports that the album which has sold  85-90,000 copies during its opening week will come in at the second best album this week.

She appeared on the cover of Upscale looking svelte revealing that she had lost 50 pounds.

And if all of that weren’t enough she also performed an impromptu song about twerkin’.

Congrats Tasia on the best week ever!

From EurWeb

From EurWeb

*Fantasia was the guest of honor at the (4/23/13) album release party for “The Side Effects of You” at XL Nightclub in New York City.

R&B crooners Kenny Latimore and Joe performed a tribute to Fantasia, and Missy Elliott graced the place to show support.  Fantasia gave her guests and fans an impromptu performance of “Lose To Win,” but prior to the performance, she said:

“I haven’t had all this love since my first album. So, to have you guys come out and support me after all that I’ve been through.  On this album I was able to tell my story. I didn’t let nobody speak for me, I said it the way I wanted to say it. And, I said before I go back into the studio, I won’t go back until they let me do what I want to.”

Read more at EurWeb.com

When Fantasia talked about having a new image after the JET magazine cover fiasco, she was not playing. Next month, the singer will grace the cover of the May issue of Upscale magazine and we have to say she is looking better than ever before — and we all know she has good reason.

Today, Fannie’s new album, Side Effects of You, hits shelves — or make that iTunes — and if you haven’t already heard her new single Without Me with Missy Elliott and Kelly Rowland you are surely missing out. Trust that when Fantasia tells Upscale she’s winning again, she means it.

Inside the issue, the Grammy-nominated platinum artist talks about being a different woman from the ”American Idol” winner we first met back in 2004 and how her story, with all its ups and downs, inspires other women. Check out these snippets from her interview:

On being open and honest

“Everything that I’ve talked about and put out there, it’s helped someone. It might not have helped the person who had something smart to say or had a joke or whatever, but there’s 10 other people that’s inspired by my story. So I wouldn’t change anything. I’m just going to continue to be that person that is open and honest because that’s me, that’s Fantasia.”

On loving herself

“The first thing I want is peace, peace of mind. Being able to be comfortable in my own skin, being able to say ‘this is what I want to do’ instead of trying to please everybody else.”

On people relating to her

“The things that I go through, people go through everyday. I’ve had some rough times and some moments that I wouldn’t say I’m very proud of, but I can say that for me, I’m glad that I was able to let it out. I believe that’s when we become not real, that’s when we become fake—when we try to make things look like it’s just so perfect.”

Are you buying Fantasia’s album today?

Source: WENN

Well, this is a bit of an unexpected collaboration.

On Friday, Fantasia released her second single, “Without You,” featuring Missy Elliott and Kelly Rowland from her upcoming album Side Effects of You.  Co-written and co-produced by Kyle Stewart, Harmony Samuels, Al Sherrod and Missy, “Without You” is a ladies’ anthem of sorts, reminding their men that they’re lucky to have women like them in their lives.

Tasia Mae, as we affectionately call her, dropped the first verse and she is calling a spade a spade:

Really gon make me expose you for exactly what you are/And I’m feeling a little wavy so right now I don’t mind pulling your card/And as hard as you try to hide reality why, we know the truth/ so act brand new if you want to/But what you be without me, what would you be without me/ so what you blowing up just a little they knowing you a little don’t get a finger in the middle cuz my **** you would never be

Further in the song, Missy Elliott gives it to us a little “x-rated” in a way only Missy can:

“Your d**k is useless/Dude, I don’t need your sex, I’m moving to the next/ You frontin man, you stunting man, you worser than my ex/Ha ha ha ha ha, you think that Shyte funny/We know the truth boy, keep it one hunnit”

Well, if this isn’t a “talk that talk” song, I don’t know what is.  Side Effects of You is being presented as an album that shows Fantasia going through a heartbreak and getting back to who she is as a woman. This track definitely sounds like she is getting her confidence back.

“Without Me” could be  a big summer banger as the beat definitely knocks! Check the song out below and let us know what you think!

Unlike those celebrities who are allergic to being single and boo up with the first man they can find, these women seem to genuinely just want love with their true soul mates. They want the prince charming. The fairy tale. The happy ending. But sadly, they just haven’t gotten it. These are the women whose relationship success we’re rooting for, because God knows they’re trying hard enough for it.

Source: WENN

Garcelle Beauvais

There’s no worse feeling than betrayal, and after discovering that her husband of nine years had been having an affair with “some sl*t in Chicago,” as she called her, for five of those said years, Garcelle had to be feeling pretty crappy. And considering that this was her second marriage (her first ended no better), I’m sure that didn’t make things any easier either.

It’s been a long road for Fantasia and her on-again-off-again boyfriend Antwaun Cook. There was the drama with Antwaun’s estranged wife who tried to sue the “Lose to Win” singer in relation to the extra marital relationship that she had with Antwaun. Then, there were those circulating rumors that Cook turned around and cheated on Tasia with Kendra James of Bad Girls Club. Not to mention the public disputes that she’s gotten into with his family since the birth of their son, Dallas. These days Fanny seems to be steering clear of the drama that appears to come along with being emotionally involved with Antwaun. In an interview that appears in the April issue of Sister 2 Sister, the mother of two opened up about the current status of her relationship with Cook and what they’ve both learned from their mistakes.

On her split from Antwaun:

“Me and Antwaun, as of now, we are not together. I think it’s the best thing for us all. We had to learn how to become friends again. There was so much stuff that came out. We were all hurt along the way. There’s trust issues. There’s just a lot of stuff that kinda got put in the mix. And I, at one point, I wanted to make everybody else happy. To love him, to make sure Zion was okay, to make sure everything—but I had to get to a place where I had to learn how to love Fantasia. I never did that, Jamie. And if I don’t love myself, then I can’t be in a relationship.”

“He’ll say, ‘I learned that you can’t play with people’s hearts.’ I think every man gets to a place of knowing that they wanna be faithful and they wanna be good fathers and good husbands and good boyfriends… Things play out for you to say, okay, it’s time for me to man up or it’s time for me to woman up. I think we both have a lot of regrets of how things just happened; it all happened so fast. I just went full-speed ahead and that’s why I was tellin’ you now. I think out everything before I do it. Everything.”

Fanny appears to be making strides in a positive direction. We’re definitely rooting for her and hope that she continues down this path.

Thoughts?