With the current chart dominance of dance/pop enthused music, R&B singers tend not to make R&B anymore, but Faith Evans has stayed true to her rhythm and blues roots with her new album, Something About Faith.
It is estimated that more than 130 million women worldwide have been affected by female circumcision. Within the UK, over twenty thousand girls under the age of 15 are at risk of the controversial practice, also known as Female Gential Mutilation (FGM).
Medial research shows that FGM has long term physical, sexual and psychological effects on these women, some do not even survive the procedure. The practice is banned in countries like the UK, United States and Egypt. However it remains a common practice in some cultures.
In this podcast I explore this issue with campaigner, Leyla Hussien, from the African Well Woman Service and I speak to a young woman who has undergone the practice (her name has been changed to protect her identity).
For more information click here
From the vulnerable young lady rocking baseball jerse
ys and baggy jeans, to the confident established woman, that stands before me in a black all in one jumpsuit and sexy thigh high boots – Mary J. Blige has come along way.
With a career that spans 15 years, nine Grammy Awards under her belt and 50 million album sales to her name, her title the ‘Queen of Hip Hop Soul’ is well deserved.
Mary J. Blige started out in the 90’s with her debut album Whats The 411? – receiving much critical acclaim when released in 1992. The New York native is currently working on her tenth studio album, which is rumoured to be out in 2011.
Growing up in a rough neighbourhood and having suffered sexual abuse at the hand of a family friend and then domestic abuse in relationships, unlike many artists who banish their skeletons to the back of the closet, Blige faces them head on and explores them through her music. However it’s not all doom and gloom because the 40 year old also explores how you can move on from such challenges and turn your life around.
The honesty of Mary J. Blige’s music is something I had the pleasure of witnessing first hand at her concert today in London, which was part of her Music Saved My Life tour (which she later explained was named this because there’s a song out there that has helped us all and for her music in general helped save her life).
After having cocktails and tapas with my two friends, Aimee and Heather, the girls and I headed to the O2 arena clutching our tickets wit
h excitement and anticipation.
We made our way to our seats to catch what was left of UK singer, Lemar’s set, who was the supporting act and entertained us with his sweet honeydew vocals.
After Lemar the sounds of Drake, Young Money and Trey Songz played in the background. My friends and I chatted amongst ourselves and made friends with three ladies who sat behind us, one being a heavily pregnant woman who I recall was named Michelle.
The arena was buzzing with expectation as we all waited patiently for Mary J. Blige. Moments passed then abruptly the lights faded, there was uproar in the arena as the back drop vanished and there she was standing before us, as beautiful as ever.
A quick yet polite introduction from the songstress welcoming us to the concert, then the band came in, the beat dropped, and before I knew it the whole arena was lifted out of their seats and were singing and dancing along to ‘Real Love’.
I was instantly transformed back to the 90’s with this performance and Blige continued the flashback when ‘Real Love’ faded and transformed into the ‘You Remind Remix’. Other songs she performed as an ode to her earlier career were ‘Mary Jane’, ‘7 Days’, ‘Sweet Thing’ and ‘I’m Goin’ Down’.
Whilst Mary went to change into her second outfit of the night her amazing band kept us company, shout outs to Omar on the keys, Sean the guitarist and the rest of the band members.
The 39 year old then returned in a trilby hat, shimmering gold blouse, skinny jeans and boots combo and treated us to more recent tracks like ‘Just Fine,’ ‘Family Affair’ and ‘I Am’- which like all her performances tonight kept us on our toes.
The crowd refused to accept that ‘Family Affair’ would be her final performance for the night, as we all chanted ‘Mary, Mary Mary’ and beckoned the performer to return to the stage. She gladly returned to end the show with ‘Be Without You’ and thanked us for our support over 
the years, told us she loved us, blew us a kiss and bided us all goodnight.
Particularly her renditions of ‘Not Gon’ Cry’ (which ironically had me in tears), ‘No More Drama’ and ‘Your Child’ were my favourite performances of the night,
I’ve often said that listening to Mary J. Blige is an experience; you connect with her powerful vocals and raw emotions, I now take that back, the true experience is to be able to witness this in the flesh. Each performance had the audience mesmerised and hooked on her every vocal. To watch the way she approaches every song with such immense passion and doesn’t hold back is something that touched me and I will cherish forever.
I left the arena tonight feeling elated and proud of Mary J. Blige, its evident her past issues have been dealt with and she is now in a good place. May the years continue to be kind to our beloved Queen of Hip Hop Soul.
I sit here writing this whilst listening to one of my favourite rappers, and his classic album, It Was Written. My laptop is strategically balanced on an old University textbook and my one and a half year old niece sits to the right of me.....she nods her head appreciatively as track two ‘The Message’ plays.
I chuckle to myself thinking she’s already got great taste in music; she’ll be a connoisseur before she hits secondary school.
I then remember why I’m listening to Nas and why I sat down to write this in the first place, and it occurs to me that when my niece is of that age (children leave primary education in the UK at 10/11 years old), she may not even get a chance to appreciate true Hip Hop.
At the moment the charts are dominated by watered down sing-along tracks, which are being masqueraded as Hip Hop, whilst artists like Nas battle with their record labels to put out music with more substance.
Nas, who’s real name is Nasir Jones, announced the planned release of compilation album the Lost Tapes 2 back in September, which is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Lost Tapes (released in 2002). 
Regarding his proposed release the Queens Bridge, New York rapper, recently wrote an email to his record label Def Jam, which was leaked on the internet.
The email was addressed to Def Jam executives and criticised the label for standing in the way of his artistic liberties and not giving him the support he requires to release/promote the Lost Tapes 2.
Nas began the email by stating that he “is nobody’s slave” and that “this is not the 1800’s, respect me and I will respect you”.
He then went on to write: “Time and time again it’s the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist’s dream and aspirations”. He later also stressed that the Lost Tapes is a movement and an important part of his career and the 37 year old warned Def Jam to not get in the way of his creativity.
Conflict between the artists that make the music and the record labels that market and distribute the music, is nothing new in the industry. The late Michael Jackson had disputes with his label, Sony, rock band The Beatles faced problems with EMI and rap duo Outkast are currently in a disagreement with their label, Jive Records.
On the one hand you have the artist who focuses more on artistic terms, expressing themselves through their music and producing content they think their fans will enjoy. Then you have the executives who are more concerned with promoting the work the artist has produced in a cost effective way, and making a return on this investment.
I won’t go into who’s right or wrong or who’s the protagonist or antagonist, as both parties have a case and in these types of music industry battles, the biggest victim is neither the artist nor label, but we the listeners.
We the listeners, anticipate an artist’s album being released but end up waiting months, sometimes years for the artist and label to come to a compromise. Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco, only just settled a disagreement with his label, Atlantic Records, over his third album, Lasers. It was reported that his label repeatedly refused to release the project let alone set a release date. Fans of the rapper have been waiting for the release for more than a year and created an online petition to Atlantic Records as an attempt to push the label to release Lasers. After such outcry and a proposed protest outside of the record label's offices, it was finally agreed by the rapper and Atlantic Records that Lasers would be released in March 2011.
As of yet we don’t know the fate of Nas’ planned release, which was originally scheduled to be out in December. So until the Lost Tapes 2 is out I’ll just have to keep playing the Nas albums I already have.
*Reaches for stereo, turns up It Was Written and closes laptop*
The UK release date for the film Africa United couldn’t have come at a better time, as the country celebrates Black History Month.
Africa United is the debut film by director, Deborah Gardner-Paterson. It depicts the journey of a group of African children who are on a quest to achieve their dream of being apart of the World Cup opening ceremony. Their journey takes them across Rwanda, Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa where the children get into many adventures and overcome hurdles thrown their way.
As well as illustrating the beautiful spirit of Africa and Africans, where people who aren’t as privileged as many others in the world, still have such a vibrant and positive outlook on life regardless of their situation. However the film also touches on dark realities such as HIV/AIDS, child prostitution and lack of educational opportunities.
Africa United have teamed up with charity, Comic Relief, and 25% of the film’s profits will go to projects aimed at eliminating poverty.
Africa United is out on Friday the 22cnd of October.
To view the trailer and for more information click here.
Hello ladies and gents! Introducing your host, me, DeeDee :)
I've been away from the blogosphere for a while, but I'm back *waves*
This right....here...is my....blog *soulja boy voice* and you're all very welcome and I thank you for viewing 'Can I Live?'
I'm a 22 year old young woman and BA Honours degree holder in Journalism with Sociology (stand up my City University comrades), who's laying the foundations for a bright future.
I love people, life, fashion, music, film and self-expression amongst other things.
So what can you expect from this blog? Well literally anything and everything, I'm enthralled by the diverse nature of journalism so you’ll find me writing/filming/presenting/podcasting about current issues/events, human interest stories, music and random rants about life.
So welcome on board and I hope you come back soon
Peace and love always....
DeeDee xxx
