All Hail The Queen

So the Grammys have come and gone and in their wake a Queen’s reign was solidified. Yep people it’s now official Her Royal Bootilisciousness is now the biggest female artist on the planet after setting a record of most Grammy wins by a female in one year. The former Destiny's Child singer snagged Grammys for best R&B song for “Single Ladies” and best contemporary R&B album for her chart-topping “I Am ... Sasha Fierce” as well as best traditional R&B vocal performance for “At Last". Queen Bey also won the prestigious Song of the Year award for her hit “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)", which also earned her the best female R&B vocal award.

I have always had reservations about Beyonce. I think she isn’t that original. In most of her shows and songs she rips off other people’s work and very seldom gives credit to them. I wrote an article about her concepts’ being unoriginal http://www.tvsa.co.za/default.asp?blogname=seasonallover&ArticleID=13267. I also think Beyonce isn’t the greatest of all singers however whether you are Beyonce fan or not, it would be preposterous to say she has no talent and ignorant to not acknowledge her impact in the world music scene . Sometimes one needs to judge an artist on based artistic merit and not personal taste. Judging by Bey’s success she is the best in the game. I mean to achieve the heights she has in such a short period of time is astounding and deserves an applause.

Queen Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter was ranked no 4 on Forbes’ 2009 Celebrity 100 with earnings of $87mil last year. At 29 she has won 16 Grammys (among other awards) and has sold over 120mil albumns i.e abt 70mil with Destiny’s Child and abt 55mil on her own. Should Bey’s star power keep rising like this she is set to beat the Grammy record of 26 Grammys won by a female artist set by Allison Krauss. At this stage she only needs 3 to beat Aretha Franklin’s record of 18 Grammys by a black female artist.

Mrs Shawn Corey Carter-Knowles’ achievements are just too numerous to mention so I’ll just leave it at that and just say Big Up Gurl !!!

If You Don't Like It, Quit

I was very disappointed to read that JustCurious.co.za decided to remove an article by one of it's bloggers, The Jozi Insider. The article was about a bday bash hosted by 5fm's Poppy and was attended by Jozi's schlebs. I never read the article and seeing that it's not there anymore I would assume this second hand info is true (thanks Mika). This is very disappointing in deed. We all know that gossip well inevitably ruffle some feathers and for JCurious to fold like this, it's unfortunate. JC's lack of "balls" has made it loose any credibility in my books.Why succumb to the pressure of this schlebs? What's the point of having a "celebrity" site if you can't even write freely about celebrities? Then again if some of JustCurious people are trying to be celebs themselves I guess they don’t wanna piss certain people off and burn their bridges *sigh*. This is what happens when bloggers become celebrities themselves. How do you become unbiased if you have to write about your friends, colleagues or potential employers? ... I'm sorry I still can't forgive Brown Shuga for going actress on us bloggers. I mean, imagine Christine Amampour suddenly becoming a politician, would you take her seriously? :)

So what does all this mean for JustCurious?

- Are you only gonna write "nice" things about celebs?
- Are you gonna be selective about celebs you write about?
- Can your bloggers be assured that their views will not be censored by your need to suck up to this celebs?

My advice to Brown Shuga or whoever is in charge of Just Curious would be:

Your celebrity friends must respect your work. Your site is a blogging site which means your writers express their own views on situations. People see things differently and you cant be held responsible on other people's perspectives. Your writers are not journalists they are bloggers, one has to distinguish between the 2. Though being a blogger is not a ticket to fabricate stories it is a platform to give first person perspective on situation thus eliminating the bearaucracy of mainstream journalistic reporting. I'm not really into gossip articles hence I never comment on them. I do however enjoy reading some of them and The Jozi Insider is a talented writer and has a way of phrasing his/her commentary that is just fun and a delight to read. It must have been demoralising for him/her to have his/her article removed just because you succumbed to over-sensitive hypocrites.

Much Love. Blaque

I love blogging and reading blog sites because the articles don't have the mainstream news media red tape. I'd be very sad if the non-biased independency of blogging was manipulated in this way to soothe and suck up to bruised egos. As for the schlebs who had “issues” with what was written about them… well, if your egotistic-hypocritical behinds cant take the heat, quit the industry. There are plenty of people who will replace you in a sec and trust me no-one will miss you. Be grateful that atleast someone still thinks you matter enough to be written about.

pics: google
original article:http://www.tvsa.co.za/default.asp?blogname=seasonallover&ArticleID=13605

Uyanda Mbuli Vs Mika

I find it very irritating that people will do anything, some will even do things their mothers wouldn’t be proud of, just to be in the limelight and once they are there they turn around and say they want their “privacy”. We all know that celebs are a talked about commodity. Hell, this people make some of their living on the fact that people read about them. If you are now a celeb you knew before you got into this industry that people will not only talk about your work but they will poke into your personal life as well. If you didn’t want anybody to talk about more than just work then you should have not gotten in to this industry. Go be a teacher or something, nobody will care if you cheat on your wife, you haven’t paid your rent or you have kids in every area code in Gauteng.

Having said that, I don’t think that journalists and bloggers should go out of their way to slander and defame celebrities and use the fact that this people are on the spotlight as an excuse. It is upsetting at times when you read these gossip columns and blogs and it’s very clear that the writer has a personal gripe against the person she is writing about. One ought to be objective in the stories they write because at the end of the day celebrities are human and do deserve some sort of respect as anybody would want their person to be respected. For a blogger to call someone a “dragon” simply because he doesn’t like them is just rude and kinda has a whiff of vindictiveness. Such insults say more about the writer’s character than that of the celeb he is clearly berating.

Uyanda Mbuli Mika Stefano

Case in point: I don’t know how true this rumour is but apparently Uyanda Mbuli is suing SA’s Perez Hilton wannabe, Mika Stefano, for calling her a dragon while reporting on her recent legal woes with her business partner Gert Johan Coetzee. I do think Uyanda is overreacting but I understand where she’s coming from. What's the deal between this two anyway? I used to like reading Mika’s blog until I noticed that he has a tendency to not be objective and often takes jabs at people he doesn’t like personally. Yes it’s his website and he has every right to post whatever he wants but childish personal attacks on people simply because you have issues with them it’s just low and spiteful. I love and admire the fact that Mika is doing something to bring the zest back into this industry, let’s face it Shwashwi has gotten a bit redundant but damn brother leave the stereotypical-vindictive- jaded-attitude (Kuli Roberts has that covered) out of your work because you could be better than that. You have a platform do reach great heights so don't taint it with petty bitchiness.

I originally wrote this for tvsa.co.za http://www.tvsa.co.za/default.asp?blogname=seasonallover&ArticleID=13605