Well, we might be able to consider this new video that popped up on Beyonce’s YouTube channel an answer to rumors that the singer’s is expecting. After being ordered by docs to cancel a concert in Antwerp, and saying that she was suffering from dehydration and exhaustion, Bey’s team put out this innocent plug of a video on her YouTube channel showing her dancers and singers getting amped up for their next performance. And then, out of nowhere came this subtle attempt at damage — or rumor — control — Beyonce gets right in front of the camera and says she’s nervous about performing because she was just diagnosed with tonsillitis.

So that’s what it is, Bey?

We guess this is good news for U.S. fans who were not trying to see a pregnant Bey hit the stage when she returned to the states later this month. And since Bey hasn’t gotten any legit complaints so far we’re gonna guess God went ahead and worked her sore throat out for her and she performed on point as usual. Perhaps this news will stop the pregnancy rumors for another day or so.

What do you say?

Source: AP

Next to the fashion, performances are what people really tune into music award shows to see and during this year’s Billboard Music Awards, viewers saw a lot.

From Karate head chopping to missed notes and on-stage lap dances, this year’s award show had some of everything. Let’s run down the most, um, interesting.

Chris Brown

If this tweet from Breezy doesn’t give you an indication of how his performance went last night, let us break it down to you: we would’ve taken autotune over that beat up “Fine China” falsetto any day.

Lil hoarse for the performance but it happens. Good Isht otherwise.

— Chris Brown(@chrisbrown) May 20, 2013

The good thing is Breezy can still dance, but we’re just a wee bit nervous about the future of his singing career. Might be a good time to make that ultimate switch to rap.

What a way to end an otherwise perfect performance.

Just when everyone was grooving to Miguel’s “Adorn” and giving him kudos for being the only singer to have a nearly flawless performance during the Billboard Music Awards, he goes and does this.

Why someone 4’11″ thought he had enough wing span to successfully jump over a crowd of 50-100 we’re not exactly sure, but the unfortunate end result was two girls’ necks getting caught underneath each of his tiny legs. We’re gonna go out on a limb here and say this part of the performance wasn’t rehearsed otherwise someone would have surely told Miguel this was not worth the risk.

To his credit, ol’ boy still didn’t miss a beat or a note after nearly decapitating these two fans — which begs the question what’s wrong with those other people who couldn’t sing for their lives on stage. But Miguel? You have to know when to leave good enough alone baby.

Videos like this are why I love Black people.

On Thursday, Jay Leno ran his hilarious Pumpcast News prank segment on the “Tonight Show,” and the couple Jack Rafferty ran up on at the pump definitely gave producers a show for their money. The way Punpcast News works is Jack surprises unsuspecting drivers at the gas pump and offers them free gas in exchange for singing a karaoke number. This opportunity was right up Burbank, CA, couple Will and Monif Sims’ alley because when Jack asked Will if he’d sing for gas, all he wanted to know was “What you wanna hear?”

What follows that question is quite possibly the funniest rendition of Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” that you’ve ever heard. But it only gets better when Will’s wife Monif gets out the car and tears up “Sweet Dreams” — with Will on Falsetto background, of course.

Check out these two tearing up the segment in the video below — dance breaks and all! Aren’t they the cutest?

I think the fall is going to be a promising time for black film. We’re already anticipating the sequel to “The Best Man” in November and from the looks of this first trailer for Lee Daniels’ “The Butler,” October will bring good things are way as well.

We’ve heard a lot about this new cinematic feat — most recently because of Terrence Howard’s comments about Oprah’s tig ‘ol bitties — thankfully, this film is so much for than that. “The Butler” is the story of Eugene Allen, the African American White House butler who served several presidents over his 34-year post before retiring as head butler in 1986. Forest Whitaker plays the rple of Allen, but he is far from the only big name in this feature film. Oprah Winfrey, Robin Williams, David Oyelowo, Colman Domingo, John Cusack, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda, Melissa Leo, Liev Schreiber, Jesse Williams, Aml Ameen, Lenny Kravitz, and Cuba Gooding Jr all have parts in this gripping story that, as you can see from the trailer, is about much more than Allen, capturing race relations between blacks and whites from the ’50s through the ’80s and how that shaped Allen’s own family dynamic.

I’m personally pretty excited about this one, and I think it will be much better received than “The Help,” although criticism has already reared it’s ugly head due to the subject of servitude. Check out the trailer and tell us what you think? Will you head to the theater to see this October 18?

Source: WENN

John Legend is gearing up for the release of his new album, “Love in the Future,” next month, and if you haven’t heard the leading single “Who Do We Think We Are,” you are definitely missing out. The soulful slow jam brings all types of sexay — much like the sensual video that accompanies it —  and thankfully for the Springfield, OH, singer it didn’t bring controversy despite the feature rapper on the track, Rick Ross.

Madame Noire got a chance to chat with John Legend today and we asked him whether he considered removing Rozay from his new track in light of his rape lyric controversy on U.O.E.N.O and he told us plainly, “no.”

“The track was already out when that controversy happened,” John told us. “It was already done, released to radio, and we had already shot the video. Plus I felt like I wasn’t going to completely drop somebody I had been working with for years because they made a mistake. We’ve done a lot of great work together and he did make a mistake — he effed up — and he rightfully got criticized for it, but I’m not going to desert him completely because of that.”

John and Ross do have a rather long history together. John Legend appeared on Ricky’s track “Magnificent” off of his “Deeper Than Rap” album in 2009, and he was also featured on “Rich Forever” on Ross’s mixtape of the same name. Apparently the two might strike magic again this time around, if people are still tolerating Ross after his slip-up.

In other John Legend news, the singer told us he and fiancée Chrissy Teigan have set a date for their big day and they will be jumping the broom this year! John told us of the upcoming wedding ceremony:

“It will be this year. We’re not really discussing a date or location any further, but we do know when and where and it will be this year.”

Although we know the pair likes to keep the details of their relationship under wraps, we did ask the Grammy-nominated artist if he and his wife-to-be would ever consider doing a reality TV show. Thankfully, that answer was a “no” as well.

“We get presented with that all the time, but I just feel like that’s not for us,” he said.” Some people do fine with it, but it’s hard enough to be in a relationship in general. There are always challenge, but to live out those challenges on television every day I think is unnecessary and we’re going to stay out of that.

Smart move on their part.

Check out the video for John’s new single “Who Do We Think We Are” below, if you haven’t seen it yet. What do you think?

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?

Credit: Allen Jones, VCU University Relations

From Black Voices

Doctors in Virginia made science history on Monday when they successfully completed a first-of-its-kind surgical procedure to separate six-month-old conjoined twin girls.

The 14-hour operation was performed at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU in Virginia, where the girls are now in stable condition.

A’zhari and A’zhiah Jones of Franklin, Virginia, were born as so-called thoracopagus twins, meaning their bodies were fused at the abdomen and that they had heart abnormalities.

The first stage of the Jones twins’ phased separation began in October 2012, when surgeons divided their shared liver, and then closed the girls’ abdomens back up.

“As the girls became critically ill over the second week of their lives, we had to urgently separate their conjoined liver as this was the source of their uncompensated cross circulation,” Dr. David Lanning, surgeon-in-chief at the children’s hospital, said in a written statement. “However, complete separation at that time would almost assuredly have resulted in their deaths as A’zhari was in renal failure and A’zhiah had severe cardiac hypertrophy. A phased surgery was the optimal plan.”

In February 2013, surgeons placed tissue expanders in the twins’ abdomens, which enabled the growth of excess skin to be used for closure and reconstruction following surgery.

Read more at BlackVoices.com.

Last night, I expected to walk away from the latest episode of “Iyanla Fix My Life” even more disgusted with former NFL star Bob Whitfield than I had already been. But in the end, I actually felt a little compassion for the ex-husband of former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Sheree Whitfield, and more sad and disappointed by her actions than his, oddly enough.

In my mind, Sheree marks the second client in a row who has come on Iyanla’s show unwilling to do the work (DMX being the first). Most RHOA fans will admit Sheree has seemed phony from day one, but for some reason I imagined that act was for those cameras and she wouldn’t dare get on this show pretending. But after seeing how she acted on a show that was supposed to be about resolving issues, it appears phoniness is a way of life for her, from her farce of a marriage to the grandiose plans of Chateau Sheree — which Iyanla got on her about by the way.

Heading out to the lot which is still ladden with dirt mounds and the outline of an incomplete home, Iyanla asked Sheree how she could build an edifice like that but still need child support from Bob. She then proceeded to ask the former reality star what Chateau Sheree was about and when she said it was about her kids, Iyanla shut that down and told her the extravagant home wasn’t about her kids at all, but about her. And how could she really argue with that? The name says it all.

Caiming that home is about her kids isn’t the only pretending Sheree has done. Both she and Bob admitted to pretending to actually be in a real marriage and be happy. Sheree admitted that Bob didn’t even come home the second night after their wedding and he told Iyanla that he really wasn’t “into her at the time of her first pregnancy.” He basically thought the least he could do in that predicament was try to create a family unit for their unplanned child, hence their marriage. Last night he sang a totally different tune though, telling Sheree he had needed her to be his number one cheerleader when they were married but now that she’s made him out to be a deadbeat dad in the media, he’s done trying to have any type of dealings with her and would prefer to have contact directly with their kids rather than go through her. He said:

“I really don’t like you…and I feel like you don’t like me either. I think it’s almost best we stay unliked. I’m not going to love you from here on out. I’ll respect you because of who you are to my children.”

Sheree said she doesn’t like Bob either, but didn’t cop to being hurt that her ex-husband and father of her children could have such harsh things to say about her. Iyanla then scolded both parents, telling Bob shame on him for not liking the mother of his children and shaming Sheree for not liking her children’s father.

In the end, Bob and Sheree claimed they would work on co-parenting better but with the stipulations Sheree tried to place on Bob’s ability to see their son and daughter, Iyanla was clear with her that her anger and resentment toward Bob was overshadowing what was best for their kids. And since Sheree couldn’t even admit to harboring those feelings, the two would likely be in the same place once their session ended.

As of now, that appears to be true as the update at the end of the show reported that Bob was working on being a better father and noted that Sheree neglected to even provide an update on where things stand.

Check out footage from last night’s episode on the next page. Did you watch?

Source: I am Beyonce

If you can’t wait ’til Beyonce makes her rounds back to the U.S. — or Drake drops another unrelated song about her — allow us to give you your first look into the Mrs. Carter tour which kicked off in Belgrade, Serbia last night.

We know most people are only interested in the costumes and the twerking. So far, we haven’t seen too much evidence of the latter yet, but we do have video of Baddie Bey singing a rendition of Whitney Houston’s classic song, “I Will Always Love You” in some sort of “Halo” remix fashion. And as far as the costumes go, you already know Bey’s style: all leotard everything. She shocked everybody with an interesting faux T&A number (scroll through to see it), but there’s a whole lot more sequined goodness where that came from.

Check out the footage of concert numero uno below as well as pics of opening night on the next few pages. Are you attending the Mrs. Carter tour this year?