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In addition to his June trip to Johannesburg, where he performed his stirring ballad (and official World Cup anthem) "Sign of a Victory," Kelly visited Uganda in January (performing before more than 40,000 fans at Lugogo Cricket Oval in Kampala), and Angola last week.
"Visiting Africa is always exciting and inspiring for me, both musically and personally," said Kelly. "Even though I hate flying, I'm always willing to get on an airplane if the destination is Africa."
While in Angola last week, Kelly performed for 20,000 fans at a benefit concert in Luanda for the Special Olympics of Angola, after which he attended a basketball game at the Special Olympics and donated several specially-designed wheelchairs. He also serenaded President Eduardo dos Santos at a surprise party celebrating the longtime leader's 68th birthday. "Robert was the most accommodating and warm artist to ever visit Angola," said Karina Barbosa of STEP Productions, which produced the benefit concert.
Kelly will be returning to Africa in December to perform in several countries.
In the meantime, Kelly is getting ready for the release later this year of his eleventh studio album, Love Letter. The first single off the album, a soulful R&B ballad in the vein of Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye called "When A Woman Loves," drops on Sept. 7 and is already making waves. It will debut at No. 24 on Billboard's Urban Adult Contemporary chart — the most powerful debut by a male vocalist since Michael Jackson's "This Is It" debuted at No. 16 last year.
R. Kelly


NEW YORK, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Shakira's (Epic Records) global hit "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)" has become the best-selling World Cup song in history. "Waka Waka" will be available on her forthcoming album Sale el Sol/The Sun Comes Out, scheduled to be released on October 19th. After selling an astounding two million singles, "Waka Waka" is the biggest World Cup song ever released, however its success goes far beyond its popularity as a song, the song and accompanying dance has become a cultural and viral phenomenon.
The official video for "Waka Waka" has seen over 170 million YouTube hits making it the #4 most watched video of all time and the #3 most watched music video. Including unofficial "Waka Waka" videos, the total cumulative views are over 350 million. The track was also the soundtrack to Shakira's hugely successful 1Goal campaign in which Shakira devised the now-famed "Waka Waka" dance and tasked her fans around the world to "dance for 1Goal" and upload their "Waka Dance" videos to spread the word for education. Fans in overwhelming numbers made videos and uploaded them to YouTube with flash-mobs popping up across the world - together gathering more than 400 million views and helping to promote 1Goal's campaign for universal education. Check out some of the "Waka Waka" dance highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ek8hBNgUOU.On the heels of the momentous success of "Waka Waka," Shakira is set to release her new single "Loca" in Spanish and English featuring UK phenomenon Dizzee Rascal and Dominican hip-hop artist El Cata (on the English and Spanish respectively). Recorded in the Dominican Republic, Shakira brings her signature fusion of musical identities to this production of "Loca" by blending the horn-heavy elements of meringue with a synthesis of techno percussions laid out to a dance back beat. "Loca" is Shakira's interpretation of El Cata's song "Loca Con Su Tiguere."
For the "Loca" video, Shakira took to the streets of Barcelona, with Dizzee Rascal and a handheld camera, as the backdrop for "Loca." In an attempt to capture the true interpretation of the song, Shakira opted to go away from the traditional big production music video to portray a spirited, fun-filled day being 'loca' in the streets with the people of Barcelona.
"Barcelona is one of my favorite cities and has become a second home to me," said Shakira. "The video is just about having fun and being real in this amazing place with real people."
Epic Records

Mavis Staples Delivers Raw Joy On New Album 'You Are Not Alone'

Produced by fellow Chicagoan Jeff Tweedy at Wilco’s studio The Loft,
the intimate and textured production showcases the iconic singer at her
most powerful and fervent. ‘You Are Not Alone’ mixes traditional
gospel numbers with two new songs written for Mavis by Tweedy, plus her
unique interpretations of songs by Pops Staples, Randy Newman, Allen
Toussaint, John Fogerty, Rev. Gary Davis and Little Milton.
The album features Mavis’s touring band of the last three years: Rick Holmstrom, guitar, vocals; Jeff Turmes, bass, vocals; Stephen Hodges, drums; Donny Gerrard, background vocals; plus special guests Jeff Tweedy on guitars, bass, and vocals; Wilco’s Patrick Sansone, keys, vibes; Mark Greenberg, vibes, keys; with additional background vocals by frequent Neko Case collaborators Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Connor, and Richard Parenti.
‘You Are Not Alone’ is Mavis’s second studio release for Anti. It follows her 2007 critical triumph, “We’ll Never Turn Back,” produced by Ry Cooder, which revisited the great songs of the civil rights era and prompted her hometown paper The Chicago Sun-Times to hail her as “an American treasure.” In 2008, Anti- issued a rapturously received live album, ‘Live: Hope at the Hideout,’ which was named one of the Best Live CDs of All Time by Amazon.com’s editors and earned Mavis her first Grammy-nomination as a solo artist.
Mavis Staples is enjoying a major career resurgence, having become a festival favorite in recent years. This summer she will play Lollapalooza on August 6, and the Wilco-curated Solid Sound Festival at Mass MoCa on August 14 with additional US and European tour dates to be announced soon.
Track listing for Mavis Staples, ‘You Are Not Alone’
1. You Don’t Knock (Pops Staples/Wesley Westbrook)
2. You Are Not Alone (Jeff Tweedy)
3. Downward Road (Pops Staples)
4. In Christ There is No East and West (traditional; arranged by Jeff Tweedy)
5. Creep Along, Moses (traditional)
6. Losing You (Randy Newman)
7. I Belong to the Band (Rev. Gary Davis)
8. Last Train (Allen Toussaint)
9. Only the Lord Knows (Jeff Tweedy)
10. Wrote A Song for Everyone (John Fogerty)
11. We’re Gonna Make It (Little Milton)
12. Wonderful Savior (traditional)
13. Too Close To Heaven / I’m On My Way to Heaven Anyhow (Prof. Alex E. BradfordJr./Brad Pathway)


NEW CASSANDRA WILSON ALBUM, “SILVER PONY,”
SET FOR RELEASE NOVEMBER 9 ON BLUE NOTE RECORDS;
FEATURING SPECIAL GUESTS RAVI COLTRANE & JOHN LEGEND
Silver Pony, the stunning new album from multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz-pop chanteuse Cassandra Wilson, will be released by EMI’s Blue Note Records on November 9. Wilson, whose remarkable, husky-tinged vibrato has created a trademark sound for her as an artist, will be touring worldwide in support of the release which features special guests saxophonist Ravi Coltrane (“Silver Moon”) and R&B singer-songwriter John Legend (“Watch The Sunrise”).
A unique hybrid live/studio album, Silver Pony moves seamlessly between live recordings from a European tour and studio recordings laid down at New Orleans’ Piety Street Studios. The album features a mix of jazz/pop classics as well as songs newly-written by Cassandra and her band.
Silver Pony draws its title from an experience which Cassandra had as a child and which left an indelible mark in her memory bank, and thus on her career itself. “A man came around my neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi, with a pony and camera,” she recalls. “You could pay to get your picture taken.” Her brothers declined, but Cassandra was eager. Her mother hesitated-“there were certain things young ladies just didn't do,” Wilson adds. But Cassandra seized the moment, got the picture. “I'm so happy she let me ride the pony,” she says now. “I was fearless, and I guess she wanted to encourage that in me.” That priceless photo is now featured on the cover of “Silver Pony,” and such fearlessness now fuels Wilson's work. “I prepare for each recording but you can never truly prepare,” Wilson says. “Because you don't really know what's coming. You just place yourself in the circumstances that will allow the project to reveal itself.”
Silver Pony was produced by Cassandra Wilson and John Fischbach (owner of Piety Street Recording Studios) and features Cassandra on vocals and synthesizer, Marvin Sewell on electric guitar, Jonathan Batiste on piano, Reginald Veal on electric bass, Herlin Riley on drums, and Lekan Babalola on percussion. Ravi Coltrane adds saxophone on “Silver Moon” and “Watch The Sunrise” features both vocals and piano by John Legend.
A complete track listing is as follows:
1. Lover Come Back To Me 6:51 (Hammerstein/Romberg)
2. St. James Infirmary 7:12 (Traditional)
3. A Night in Seville 3:00 (Wilson/Sewell/Veal/Riley/Batiste/Babalola)
4. Silver Moon 6:41 (Wilson/Sewell/Veal/Riley/Batiste/Babalola)
5. Pony Blues 9:32 (Patton)
6. If It’s Magic 4:34 (Wonder)
7. Forty Days and Forty Nights 4:58 (Roth)
8. Silver Pony 0:36 (Wilson/Sewell/Veal/Riley/Batiste/Babalola)
9. A Day in the Life of a Fool 7:35 (Bonfa/Sigman)
10. Blackbird 6:43 (Lennon/McCartney)
11. Sunrise 3:32 (Laird/Jones/Stephens)

Los Angeles,California,United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) August 30, 2010 --
Toronto’s R&B Diva Divine Brown has designs on taking over America.For some artists that might seem like a far fetched pipe dream, but when you posses the pipes of this Juno® Award winning powerhouse it doesn’t seem out of the question, at all. Ladies and Gentlemen, prepare for the Divine Invasion.
Leading the Divine Invasion is a retooled version of “Sunglasses,” a former #1 Canadian Pop smash that logged months on the charts north of the border. The tune pays homage to the80’s opus by Corey Hart “I Wear My Sunglasses At Night” now cloaked in aTribal Dance beat courtesy of Remix producer Cajjmere Wray. “Sunglasses” is a Top Breakout on the Billboard Club Play chart this week.
Fans of Female R&B singers first became familiar with Divine from limited US airplay and video play of her breakthrough single “Old Skool Love.” Brown, a Toronto native of Jamaican heritage, became a fan of American R&B while listening to broadcasts from Buffalo NY’s R&B outpost WBLK. Any lingering perception that the accomplished vocalist is anything but a legitimate artist due to her sharing a moniker with the infamous street-walker caught in flagrante delicto with actor Hugh Grant in 1995 is immediately put to rest upon hearing her sing. Just ask actress Sheryl Lee Ralph who invited her to participate in her annual AIDS benefit “Divas Simply Singing” after watching a video on YouTube.
With “Sunglasses” heating up the Billboard chart, recording of the highly anticipated follow up to the Juno® Award winning “The Love Chronicles” underway, and a reality series in development detailing Divine’s takeover of America, music fans should get prepared for the Divine Invasion!
“Sunglasses” Cajjmere Wray and WORMS remixes are available now from iTunes.
Website: Divine Brown