Radio-FX Hip Hop and R&B

Apparently, Nick Cannon isn't one for duets.

The solo artist has gone solo in his lovelife as well, with he and Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks calling off their engagement after just five months of betrothed bliss.

The scuttled engagement was much less splashy than the ex-duo's original nuptial news.

The 26-year-old singer-actor popped the question to the lingerie model on May 7, shortly after they left the annual Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Gala. En route to an after-party at Manhattan's Butter nightclub, the couple made a pit stop in Times Square, where Cannon popped the question with the help of both a 12-carat sparkler and the MTV JumboTron, which flashed the question, "Selita will you marry me?"

After receiving her three-letter reply, Cannon and Ebanks, 24, made their way to the Gotham hotspot, where they celebrated with the likes of Zach Braff, Young Jeezy and Tommy Hilfiger.

Cannon and Ebanks began dating in February, after meeting at a Super Bowl party in Miami; three weeks later they were shooting down rumors that they held a shotgun ceremony in Las Vegas.

"You know it's a little scary because it's almost a domino effect and it's like, first we were just a hot couple and then we were married," Ebanks said at the time. "Only God knowd what else is going to come out.

Prior to his coupling with Ebanks, the Drumline star was romantically linked with Christina Milian and Kim Kardashian. During his relationship with the former star, he reportedly claimed that he "didn't believe in monogamy." Ebanks has no other bold-faced romances to her name, though most recently appeared in the Pharell-featuring-Kanye West music video for "Number 1."

Pop star Justin Timberlake, R&B singer Beyonce and rock bands Linkin Park and Daughtry led nominations for the 35th annual American Music Awards, which for the first time will allow members of the public to pick the winners, organizers said on Tuesday.

The four leading acts each garnered three nominations.

Winners will be announced on November 18 during a ceremony held at the brand new Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The event traditionally had been held at the nearby Shrine Auditorium.

Also new is the voting procedure. Fans can vote online at http://www.ama.abc.com through November 1. Until now, winners were decided by a poll of 20,000 music buyers. Nominees are still determined by retail and sales data.

Leading nominees do not always walk away with the most statuettes, and many of this year's top contenders are competing in the same categories. Timberlake, Linkin Park and Daughtry will vie for favorite pop/rock album, while Timberlake and Beyonce were cited for favorite soul/R&B album.

For the fourth year, Jimmy Kimmel will host the show. The initial lineup of performers includes Daughtry, the Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie, and R&B singer Rihanna.

Another tradition is absentee winners.

Last year's multiple champions were the Black Eyed Peas and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, neither of whom attended. The Black Eyed Peas also did not show up the previous year to pick up their plastic trophies.

"If people are on tour, they're on tour. If people can't make the show, they can't make the show. You do the best you can," the show's producer, Larry Klein, told Reuters.

Last year's show also hit a record low in the television ratings, drawing just 10.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was half the number who tuned in for the more-prestigious Grammy Awards this past February.

While some artists choose to keep their private life cloaked in mystery, Jill Scott's music was so rich with details about her most intimate thoughts, even a casual listener could tell that she was madly in love with her man.

From "He Loves Me (Lyzell in E Flat)" to "Bedda at Home," much of Scott's first two albums detailed her relationship with her husband and manager, Lyzell Williams. The songs were passionate, sensual, emotional, and spoke of a love, while not perfect, so enduring that it seemed almost too good to be true.

"Sometimes I think I try to hold on to the positive aspect so hard, I'm not really looking at the reality of life as well, or the opposite," says Scott as she reflects on her recent divorce.

"The second album, when I listen to it now, it seems like I was really making a lot of affirmations, and I know personally I was going through a struggle with my marriage," she adds. "I could hear myself apologizing for things that I had done in the past because I wanted to be OK now."

Scott, 35, still has her struggles, but she sees them much more clearly on her latest album, appropriately titled "The Real Thing: Words and Sounds, Volume 3."

"I've stepped more into my original me than I have been in a long time — just coming from underwater," says Scott. "I didn't even know I wasn't breathing, but I'm breathing again."

And flourishing. This Friday, she appears in a scene-stealing role as a downtrodden wife in Tyler Perry's movie "Why Did I Get Married," and she just finished wrapping "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" with Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella, who cast her in the starring role.

"I went from an ensemble cast to a leading lady in a matter of months," says Scott with wonderment and joy.

It's been a whirlwind year for Scott, who finalized her divorce just as she started recording her album, finished the Perry flick and filmed the Minghella movie in the southern African nation of Botswana. She proudly tells of how she mastered the nation's accent so well that locals would try and speak to her in their native language. She also fell in love with the region, and vows to move to the continent soon.

"If all goes well, I would love to spend six months out of my year in Africa," she says. "I want to create music there, I want to grow a garden. I miss the sky."

But Scott, a trained actress who has appeared in plays, sitcoms and independent films, almost passed on the opportunity entirely. She initially begged off requests to audition, exhausted from filming the Perry movie, dealing with her divorce and her mother's cancer diagnosis (she has since been declared cancer free).

After she got the role and started filming, "I was terrified, and I quit maybe once a week, and I had a nervous breakdown maybe once a week — internal, my own private breakdown."

But whatever emotional changes she was going through, it was nothing compared to the upheaval of her marriage. She and Williams had been together for 13 years. Not only was he her musical muse, he was intricately involved with her career.

Steve McKeever, who signed Scott to his Hidden Beach label years ago and is the executive producer on her latest album, says she celebrated the relationship so much "she was almost evangelistic about it, even in concert. For something that was so imporant to her to fall apart — to not stay together — has got to be one of the most traumatic chapters in anybody's life."

Scott believes including Williams so much in her career on the business side led the marriage to collapse.

"Working together was a mistake, because I have to live separate lives. My life on the road is one thing. I'm very focused, I'm very dedicated, I do what I came to do with all my heart. but when I come home, I want to do what I came to do with all my heart. I wanna cook, I want to be loved, I want to give love," she says. "Once we stopped working together, there was nothing else to talk about, there was nothing else to do, and that's very lonely."

Scott tapped into some of that pain during her portrayal of an overweight, emotionally abused wife in "Why Did I Get Married." Perry recalls one scene which required Scott's character to break down.

"A lot of that is ad-libbed ... that was her stuff coming out," Perry says. "She brought everything that she had experienced in life to that role."

Though Scott recently called the end of her marriage one of her greatest regrets, she holds no bitterness against her ex-husband: "He's a good person, he's very kindhearted in a lot of ways, and he should never be vilified by anyone because they didn't live in our house," she says firmly.

She has no regrets about sharing their love with listeners. She still loves those songs, and sings them in concert. And when she finds someone to share her life with once again, she expects to express that in song as well.

"That's what I do. I share the light and the dark and everything in between," she says. "It all shows up."

A lawyer for Lil Wayne says his client missed a court date, leading to his arrest last weekend, because the summons was sent to an old address and the hip-hop star didn't get it. The 25-year-old rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., appeared in court Thursday after being arrested at his concert in Boise, Idaho.

Lawyer William Head said a notice to appear in court was sent to Carters' New Orleans residence, which did not exist after Hurricane Katrina. "All they did was take his address off his driver's license," Head said. "So he never got it."

Carter was arrested in Atlanta on suspicion of drug possession and was released on bond in August 2006. Carter was later informed that the case had been dismissed, but it wasn't, Head said.

Carter is expected to appear again in court Oct. 31. The rapper's "Tha Carter II" album, released in 2005, has sold about 2 million copies. He recently was voted "Hottest MC in the Game" by an MTV panel.

Snoop Dogg will pick up trash and perform other park maintenance as part of his sentence for carrying an illegal weapon in an airport last year, authorities said Thursday. The rapper, whose real name is Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr., will do "everything from raking leaves to painting benches" in order to meet the 160 hours of community service he was ordered to perform, said his attorney, Donald Etra.

"He's glad to make a contribution to Orange County," the attorney said. Dogg chose the Orange County park site from a list of probation-approved community service sites and will be supervised by a park ranger, county prosecutor Andre Manssourian said.

A judge approved the park service Wednesday. County officials declined to release the name of the park, citing concerns that media and fans might interfere. No date was given for him to start or complete the service, his attorney said.

The 35-year-old rapper pleaded guilty last month to felony possession of a dangerous weapon. He was arrested Sept. 27, 2006, after the discovery of a collapsible baton in his computer bag at John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

Snoop Dogg said the baton was a prop for a video he was filming in New York.

The felony conviction will be reduced to a misdemeanor if the rapper does not break the law for a year.

His sentence included community service, three years' probation, $1,000 in fines and court costs, and a $10,000 donation to a county charity for troubled children.

Bobby Brown denied Wednesday that he had a mild heart attack, something his attorney said earlier he had suffered this week in Los Angeles. The 38-year-old singer told Associated Press Radio that he is feeling fine and went to the hospital just for a checkup.
 

"None of it's true," Brown said. "I went in for a checkup. The doc gave me a clean bill of health."

His account differed from that of his Atlanta attorney, Phaedra Parks, who earlier in the day told The Associated Press that Brown had severe chest pains Tuesday night and was taken to two hospitals. "This morning they did diagnose him as suffering from a mild heart attack ... they attributed to stress and diet," Parks said, noting that she had spoken with him. She said Brown was released Wednesday morning from a hospital in good condition. Parks could not be reached for comment after Brown made his statements. She did not immediately respond to a telephone and an e-mail message.

Brown, who has a performance scheduled Saturday in Los Angeles, said that the reports about him having a heart attack gave him a "jolt" and that he felt he had to speak out. "I did go to the hospital ... to just get a checkup, get everything tested out so that I could go on this tour, and everything is fine," Brown said. "I don't know where the heart attack thing came from," Brown said. "I got my heart and everything checked out earlier this morning, and I'm just fine."

Brown lives in Southern California. He is the former husband of singer Whitney Houston and is seeking custody of their teenage daughter.

R&B star Gerald Levert died Friday, November 10th from a heart attack in his Cleveland, Ohio home. He was 40.

Renowned for his powerful, smoldering baritone, Levert came from a rich lineage of R&B singers.  Before striking out as a solo artist, he was a member of the popular ’80s family group, Levert. His father Eddie Levert, whom Gerald is often compared to, was a member of the ’70s heavyweight group the O’Jays. Born in Cleveland, Ohio on July 13, 1966, Gerald learned the ropes of the music industry from his father.

Officials at his label, Atlantic Records, said they were shocked and sadden by the news.

"All of us at Atlantic are shocked and deeply saddened by his untimely death," a company statement read. "He was one of the greatest voices of our time, who sang with unmatched soulfulness and power, as well as a tremendously gifted composer and an accomplished producer. Above all, he was an exceptional human being whose warmth and grace inspired us all.

"Gerald has been a member of our family for two decades, both with the group LeVert and as a solo artist, and he will be greatly missed by everyone who had the pleasure and privilege of working with him through the years. This is a tremendous loss for the music community and for his millions of fans. Our thoughts and prayers are with Gerald's family during this very difficult time."

Although he enjoyed considerable success with Levert, singing on such late-’80s and early-’90s staples as “Pull Over,” “Pop Pop Pop (Goes My Mind),” and “Casanova,” Gerald really came into his own when he released his solo debut, Private Line in 1991. Songs like the title track, “School Me,” and “Baby Hold on to Me” (featuring his father Eddie), established him as true R&B balladeer able to compete with already reputable crooners such as Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson and Lionel Richie.

Three years later, Gerald teamed up with his father for the modern R&B classic album, Father & Son, which spawned the hits, “Already Missing You” and “Don’t Make Me Beg.” Through the rest of the ’90s and well into the following decade, Gerald Levert solidified his position as one of his generation’s most compelling and popular R&B singers.

Levert also became famous for a series of love duets with Teena Marie, Patti Labelle and Kelly Price, among others. In 1997, he joined an offshoot trio, LSG with fellow soul stirrers, Johnny Gill and Keith Sweat; they released two discs – Levert Sweat Gill (1997) and LSG2 (2003). His last solo disc, Do I Speak for the World, was released in 2004.