• El DeBarge is officially planning a comeback, but he might want to iron out those legal issues first. [SP]

• MTV Arabia will probably only find about 3 percent of most of the programming on MTV USA appropriate for broadcast. [AHH]

• For the Lauren London and Chris Brown fans out there. []

• Oh, please Ne-Yo. [TMZ]

• One reason why Rihanna and Shia LaBeouf should always use protection. [INO]

All the stars came out for Will.i.am’s record release party in Beverly Hills last night.

And by “all the stars,” I mean the rest of the Black Eyed Peas and a few other people. And maybe some anonymous girls with lovely lady lumps and genius IQs.

Sometimes trademark hats are cute (not to mention necessary) — think LL Cool J and Common. But Ne-Yo’s just annoys me, the way it’s always cocked over one eye. How often do you think he trips because his equilibrium is thrown off?

Besides the fact that “Can We Chill” is perhaps the most trite name for an R&B song, his new video for it is typical Ne-Yo — fedora, shades, the occasional Michael Jackson-esque dance move. If you like that kind of thing, enjoy.

[CL]

Upon the completion of last night’s disaster of an award show, my first thought was that it’s going to be uglier than Britney’s extensions at the MTV offices today. I foresee heads rolling. My second thought was to rewatch Britney Spear’s performance, but I realized I couldn’t. It was that bad, for those of you lucky enough to miss it. The woman who used to bring the house down, couldn’t even lip-synch properly, had serious trouble standing still, let alone dancing, and pretty much put on the most listless, embarrassing, shoddy performance in VMA history. I’m sure there was some sort of sedative and/or alcohol involved. Anyway, it’s rough watching a career terminate before your very eyes. Don’t think I can do it again any time soon.

And the new format, with the main stage and all the little parties in other rooms, was confusing and annoying, even though it allowed for more performances. The whole thing was sloppy and unorganized. My highlights and lowlights, plus pics galore after the jump.

CONTINUED »

The annual West Indian American Day Parade is a huge event in Brooklyn, where I live, and, looking at the photos of all the colorful revelry, I’m sad I missed it. Instead I spent some time with my dear friend in Atlanta, where, at Opera on Sunday night, I had the distinctly interesting experience of standing in close proximity to the (not very tall) person I had written my weekly open letter to the day before. Had I been in a normal state of mind (i.e. had the Grey Goose not had your girl feeling a little too loose for a serious conversation about gender/racial politics), I might have introduced myself and sent Polow here. As it was, he was surrounded by a bevy of women, black ones, believe it or not, who had apparently been deemed submissive enough to share his company.

Also seen (by me) at Opera: A bunch of ATL regulars, Ludacris, and Ne-Yo, who developed an undeniably sour expression on his face when the DJ played a Bobby Valentino song right after his. Could he still be annoyed about this?

After the jump check out more pretty pictures from Labor Day in Brooklyn, since I didn’t have a camera to record my Labor Day in ATL. Hope you had a great three-day weekend, too!

CONTINUED »

• Bobby Brown supposedly lived in his car in the months following his separation from Whitney Houston. I suppose that was when he wasn’t living on Superhead’s couch. [TMZ]

• Glamour felt the heat from their staffers presentation on professional “Hair Don’ts” and is attempting damage-control. [LAW]

• Detroit, Detroit, Detroit. Get it together in city hall, please. []

• Black contractors in New Orleans are hard up for work, since the government only works with big corporations. Well, duh. []

• Ne-Yo is lucky Britney Spears never got a chance to record his tracks. []

• According to Ne-yo, when Karrine Steffans tells everyone she went down on you, that’s when you know you’re a star. [MTV]
• D. Woods smartens up and leaves Danity Kane for greener pastures. [H&P]
• KRS-One’s 23-year-old son killed himself. Tragic and shocking. Also shocking: KRS has a 23-year-old son. []
• For those of you dying from anticipation, Mya assures you that her album will drop in 2007. Feel better? [SOHH]
• J-Hud, darling, it’s officially time to find a new style guru. []

Beyonce, Chris Brown, Bow Wow, Hillary Clinton, Mary J. Blige, Frankie Beverly and Maze, Lionel Richie, and Kelly Rowland (to name a few) took the stage Friday and Saturday at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans. Check out plenty of pictures from the final two days of the famous festival after the jump.

CONTINUED »

The only thing worse for today’s hip hop and R&B stars than Karrine Steffans penning a new, more “intimate” book about her conquests would be if Kim Kardashian decided to take her story to the nearest publishing house. Actually, that’s not really the thing among LA socialite types, and the types of D-Listers Kardashian favors would probably savor the publicity.

So Karrine Steffans still corners the market on fear-inducing hip hop groupie reading material. She spilled some of her secrets in a recent interview with King (of course).

“We’re driving down the street, a car pulls up to my car,” Steffans told the men-friendly mag. “My boy Chris is like, ‘What’s up?’ They rolled down the back window and it’s Ne-Yo, and he was like, ‘Is Karrine in there?’ Chris was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, she’s here.’ He got out the car and he came by and was like, ‘I’m heading back to my room, meet me at the hotel.’ We all went to the hotel after that. We hung out all night with Ras Kass and some other girls in the room. The whole time he was just rubbing my feet. Just biting on my feet, rubbing on them. But we were comfortable ever since. Then we spent the next couple of days together. Ne-Yo looked at me right in my face and said, ‘I don’t care what happened before, but your life didn’t start until the day you met me, and no matter what happens if we just stay friends, we end up together it doesn’t matter.’ I just felt like I’d known him all my life. When that got out, I actually panicked. I was nervous. Because I didn’t want him to think that I did that. That’s not my style.”

First of all Karrine, and I’m surprised you don’t know this by now, but Ne-yo used that line on you because he wanted a blow job. Second of all, what’s not your style, here? Kissing and telling? Or leaking your valuable bedroom secrets to blogs instead of in King or your tell-all books or video diaries on your Web site?

[MTV]