The world came to Soweto on Thursday for a celebration of soccer, music and unity on the eve of Africa’s first World Cup.

A concert featuring headliners Shakira, the Black Eyed Peas and Alicia Keys drew thousands to Orlando stadium

Warm-up acts played for hours before the internationally televised portion of the concert began at 8 p.m. with a frenzy of flag-waving, drumming and African-inspired dancing.

Read the full story

Alicia Keys is in a motherhood state of mind: She’s pregnant with her first child.

The Grammy Award-winning R&B singer has been dating producer Swizz Beatz, who has written hits for Beyonce, Jay-Z and others. They’re engaged to be married at a private ceremony later this year.

Representatives for the couple confirmed the news Thursday night.

Keys last year teamed up with Jay-Z for a hit song about New York called “Empire State of Mind.” She’s among a string of international artists slated to perform at a June 10 concert to mark the start of the World Cup soccer tournament in South Africa.

Beatz has been married before and has two sons.

Well, I've been afraid of singing 'cause I built that note around ewww...

Back before the season started. “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson told reporters that he had been pleasantly surprised that more of the singers auditioning last summer hadn’t been a retread of last season’s finalists Adam Lambert and Kris Allen. I guess he thought that meant that more people were willing to do their own thing rather than follow a trend. But after seeing most of last night’s top 12 girls, I think he might have only been talking about the guys, since the ladies seemed strongly on the Lily Allen/Duffy/Adele/Corinne Bailey Rae train.

That’s not a bad train to be on, considering that all of those are talented, quirky, inventive people. But it doesn’t matter how inventive the mold is – it’s still a mold. Because of some DVR issues, I missed the first three and a half singers, but have caught snippets of them on the Internet. I don’t think I got enough to completely  judge Paige Miles (although her snippet of “All Right Now” was not good), Ashley Rodriguez, and Janell Wheeler. I caught a bit of Lilly Scott, and she was pretty good – I really like her quirkiness, and think she knows who she is enough to not get caught in that confusing judge’s vortex (“Be who you are! Now be someone else! Wait! Why aren’t you being who you are?)

Read the full story

NEW YORK (AP) — The music world’s top stars are signing on for Friday’s “Hope for Haiti” telethon.

Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Keith Urban and Alicia Keys are just a few of the performers who will be featured, according to MTV Networks, an integral partner in the two-hour event.

Haiti was devastated and thousands of its citizens killed when an earthquake hit the Caribbean nation last week. Read the full story

Singer/songwriter Alicia Keys is spreading her entrepreneurial wings. (AP)

Singer Alicia Keys is launching a new company that will handle the singer’s projects, especially those outside of music.

The first project for the 28-year-old’s AK Worldwide is The Barber’s Daughters, a handcrafted jewelry line engraved with messages of hope and wisdom.

“The words, when you read them, they really do resonate with you. They kind of inspire you to want to find that place in yourself,” the 12-time Grammy winner said, sporting a silver oval ring that read: “May you find inspiration and meaning soaked in the wonders of the imagination cradled in compassion of the heart and hold a will to make difference.”

Keys also will launch a new Web site, iamasuperwoman.com, devoted to spotlighting inspirational women and causes that will fill a missing gap in the blogosphere, Keys said.
Read the full story

The artist: Jay-Z

The album: The Blueprint 3 (Roc Nation)

The spin: On the The Blueprint 3, Jay-Z boasts he’s gone “from Brooklyn to down in Tribeca right next to DeNiro” and he’s gone from bragging about how many bricks he moved out the back of a rental car to bragging about how good his seats were for the Pacquaio fight. But despite the lifestyle changes, the underlying message remains the same: Jay-Z is still pretty damned impressed with Jay-Z.

Dubbing himself “the new Sinatra”, he raps over a series of glossy, expensive beats full of live instrumentation — strings, trumpets and hand-claps. This is the best production he’s gotten since his comeback from retirement in 2006.

“Blueprint 3” follows in the vein of his first 10 solo albums — all of which, he reminds us, have “gone No. 1”; all morphing elements of his life story (teenage drug dealer “called a camel” to multi-millionaire CEO married to the world’s biggest pop star) into a Charles Dickens story.
Read the full story