Rihanna ETHERS Alicia Keys (and I'm not talking about in the looks department...)...Don't make that face....lol...U know the kid is preaching the gospel...Enjoy, folks....



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Alicia Keys Is Putting Us To Sleep. Rihanna Is Starring In Our Dreams
It's okay. You know it's true.

January 31, 2013, 06:30 PM EST by Keith Murphy

The Shadow League (ESPN)


"Careful with your ego, he's the one that we should blame/Had to grab my heart back/God know something had to change..."--Alicia Keys ("Brand New Me")

"Funny you're the broken one but I'm the only one who needed saving/Cause when you never see the light it's hard to know which one of us is caving..."--Rihanna ("Stay")

Nearly a billion fans will tune in to watch the upcoming Super Bowl XLVII — a mammoth celebration that, for rabid football followers, lands somewhere between Mardi Gras and Christmas in St. Barts. Yet, beyond Sunday’s New Orleans smash-up between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, novice viewers who couldn’t tell the difference between brothers and opposing head coaches John and Jim Harbaugh will be watching to get their pop culture fix. Inevitably, talk will turn to which TV commercial got the biggest laughs; whether or not a post lip-synching, headline-making Beyoncé lived up to the 2007 half-time show brilliance of Prince; and how Alicia Keys fared in hitting those hazardous notes to “The Star Spangled Banner.”

For the latter extravaganza, Keys, 32, will kick off the game on America’s biggest televised stage, yet another milestone for the uber Grammy winning singer-songwriter. For those keeping score, since her 2001 debut Songs in A Minor — which went on to sell 12 million copies worldwide — that’s 14 golden gramophones; five no. 1 albums; three chart-topping singles; five sold-out tours and unmitigated praise from everyone from Stevie Wonder to U2’s Bono. When it came time for the aforementioned Purple One to get the first-ballot call from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, it was Keys and Outkast who were chosen to induct the legendary music icon. Thus far, it’s been a charmed life for Keys.

Indeed, before I finally came to my senses and ran into the arms of the less talented Rihanna (more on that revelation later), I fell for Alicia Keys’ act. Hell, like millions of other music heads, I never had a chance. Her bio was too immaculate, too unbelievable. It was the sort of back-story that could only be written by a hack Hollywood screenwriter: an 18-year-old, biracial beauty and piano prodigy from Hell’s Kitchen, NY, who at, a age 16, graduates two years early from New York’s Performing Arts College, and signs a solo deal to Columbia Records. After the music industry’s most powerful inside man Clive Davis discovers her raw songwriting talent, he co-signs and grooms the teenager to become her generation’s Roberta Flack—only bigger. This soulful throwback was as well versed in the ‘70s soul of Flack and others as she was in classical music and the Wu-Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard. In an era when the early ’00’s musical standard was the manufactured, one-trick pony, pop-coated/R&B likes of SIsqo, Keys was a revelation who fit the bill.

"When I was a kid I'd practice Chopin on piano - and I love Chopin!” Keys told The Guardian during a 2001 interview. “He's my dawg! Then I'd go out on the stoop and blast the radio. I'm from New York, the concrete jungle. Hip-hop influenced me from day one.”

Young, Black and Fabulous (The YBF.com) founder and influential celebrity blogger Natasha Eubanks recalls the moment she discovered Keys. “I was a sophomore in college…I remember watching VH1 Soul around 2001-2002,” she says. “It was like 2 in the morning and she’s on this bed with the phone in her hand singing ‘Fallin’ with these big ol’ braids. I was like, ‘Who is this girl???’ I became obsessed with her and the only station that was playing Alicia was VH1 Soul. I literally watched VH1 just to catch that video again because it was so different than everybody out at the time.”

Eubanks stops to catch her breath as she details the overwhelming talent that was Alicia Keys. “Everybody else was just pop driven…they really couldn’t sing or play an instrument. Alicia came on the scene with a true passion-felt sound. She’s playing the piano, she wrote the songs…everything was her.”

So what happened? How did I get from under the spell of Keys? I simply saw her for the devastatingly boring, uninspired artist that she was. Sure, there were other songs that garnered my attention: the heartbreaking soul of “You Don’t Know My Name;” the haunting “Karma;” and the ridiculously sexy “Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready).” But Keys’ slip was showing. It was the pleasant yet limited vocal range made all the more alarming when juxtaposed with the very same greats — think Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Donnie Hathaway — that critics were all too willing to make Keys a logical heir. The just-add-water nod to past classics (one of her worst offenders being the sneaky, derivative “Like You'll Never See Me Again,” which is basically “Purple Rain” on Zanax). Her soulless, square cover of Prince’s “How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore?” The blatant grabs for stadium anthem glory — headlined by the inescapable “No One.”

By the time Keys released the tepid, overbearing “Girl On Fire”, the nauseating title track from her latest album, it was a wrap. The only thing that would have made Keys more unbearable is if she changed the lyrics of said song to “Obama’s On Fire” and…HEY, WAIT A MINUTE! Keys actually pulled that contrived, “is this chick for real?” stunt during the President’s re-inauguration ball. Ironically, at the same time I was on the first train out of Alicia-ville, my slow and surprising appreciation for a more unpredictable act was continuing its evolution.

Sure, I laughed uncontrollably at Rihanna’s early attempts at what she called singing. The Bajan performer was (and still is) stunning. But as she dropped her 2005 debut, no amount of polish, beauty or publicity could mask the reality that, at worst, her voice resembled a goat being operated on without anesthesia. Rihanna came off as a directionless, young Stepford Wife in training. Even her earliest press sessions were sterile and unspectacular. When asked what advice she would give to artists looking to break into the music business in 2005, she provided this stock answer to songwriter Dale Kawashima: “Never give up on your dreams. Keep holding onto them, and keep working to make it happen.” Yawn.

For the rest of this mad-making piece go to:

http://theshadowleague.com/articles/alicia-keys-is-putting-us-to-sleep-rihanna-is-starring-in-our-dreams

And Tweet it out (murphdogg29)......

i might holla back now. i bet he still ain't offering no real money tho.

>i might holla back now. i bet he still ain't offering no real
>money tho.


He might...ESPN is backing him....Yep...

we'll see. he seems like an aight dude.

>we'll see. he seems like an aight dude.


He's cool...I've known him since the VIBE days...I think this site can can turn into something dope...