Lil Mama celebrated the release of her debut album, “VYP: Voice of the Young People,” with a party at Room Service in New York last night (Apr. 28th). DJ Khaled was a guest at the party.

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Singer Alicia Keys dropped by BET’s 106 & Park yesterday (Apr. 24th) to premiere her new video, Teenage Love Affair.

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Let me preface this by saying that neither Alicia Keys nor Derek Luke look like they could have a “teenage love affair,” lol! But the overall theme of the video is still pretty cool never-the-less. Check out Alicia Keys’ new video for “Teenage Love Affair” - from her album As I Am (in stores now) above!

In other AK news, it has been reported by her record label that she has had to cancel 2 tourdates (Pittsburg - yesterday / Cleveland - this Thursdsay) on her newly launched North American tour because of swollen vocal cords. Refunds will be made available. Get well soon, Alicia!

Alicia Keys performed on the Today show Monday to promote the third single, “Teenage Love Affair”, from her album that has been on the charts for 22 weeks, As I Am (J Records). Alicia also performed her first single, “No One” as well. You can catch Alicia on the cover of Blender Magazine. CONTINUE READING

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

R&B singer Alicia Keys recently sat down with KIIS-FM’s Ryan Seacrest in an attempt to clear the air on her statements that “gangsta rap” was a government “ploy to convince black people to kill each other” and that the government and media were responsible for the drama between slain rappers Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. Alicia says that her statements were “misinterpreted” and elaborated more on them.

“The term ‘gangtsa rap’ was so over-sloganized during that time and in so many ways everyday people as well as the government could have really done so much more to obliterate and eradicate the things that were going on in the community at that time that forced the artists to discuss and talk so strongly what they saw- what they lived with every day.”

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The beautiful and talented Alicia Keys is currently featured on the cover of the May 2008 issue of Blender Magazine. The magazine isn’t scheduled to hit stands until this Tuesday, but a snippet of the article has been making its rounds online and causing a lot of controversy in the process. She believes that the government was involved in the shooting deaths of slain rappers 2-Pac and Biggie, and she also expressed her feelings about “gangsta rap.”

There’s a knock on the hotel-room door, and a minder enters with a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich: lunch. We’ve been talking about Keys’s early jones for the Notorious B.I.G. “My favorite Biggie song is ‘Me & My Bitch,’” she says, licking a stray globule of jam off her finger. “That title doesn’t make you think he’s speaking about the love of his life, but he is. She throws his shit out the window, she flushes his drugs down the toilet—she’s crazy! But if you grew up like that, then you understood, that was love in that world.”

We ask what other gangsta rappers she liked. And that’s when Keys drives a steamroller through the wall.

“‘Gangsta rap’ was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other,” she says, putting down the sandwich. “‘Gangsta rap’ didn’t exist.”

Come again? A ploy by whom?

She looks at us like it’s the dumbest question in the world. “The government.”

PHOTOS: WIRE IMAGE » Rapper Common was spotted at the Red Bull Season Launch party over the weekend. During his song I want you, he chose a fan to come onstage for a special performance. Looks like she enjoyed it.

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PHOTOS: KEVIN WINTER / GETTY IMAGES

Kanye West (photographed above) performs “Stronger” at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, held at the Staples Center last night in LA. Towards the end of the performance, recording artists Daft Punk made a special cameo appearance. The show featured a lot of performances, and even though we posted the majority of them throughout the night as they came in, a few slipped through the cracks. Here are the remainder of the photos that we didn’t get to post last night. More can be found after the cut.

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