The Pussycat Dolls

The Pussycat Dolls, brainchild of choreographer Robin Antin, are no longer just a sexy burlesque troupe who performs nightly at Ceaser Palace in Las Vegas. The all new Dolls have a hot single on the charts, "Don't Cha," featuring Busta Rhymes and produced by Cee-Lo.

-picture courtesy of Vegas.Com

The group is made up of seven beautiful women, including former Eden's Crush member Nicole Kea, Carmit Bachar, Ashley Roberts, Jessica Sutta, Melody Thornton and Kimberly Wyatt. According to an article that appeared on VH1.Com, the ladies are putting the finishing touches on their debut album. "We are working with some pretty phat people," said Kea in. Signed on to make things hot with the Dolls are super-producersTimbaland, Rich Harrison and Sean Garrett. Ron Fair, who produced hits for Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne will produce the disc which is expected to hit stores in late summer.

"We've been working on [the album] for a while now because we've been very selective with our songs and our producers, and we don't want to settle," Kea explained. "The whole Pussycat Doll thing is a movement, a whole concept and a thing unto itself. We want [the record] to be like that, and we want the music to be special too" (VH1.Com).

While "Don't Cha" is the first single from the dancers' upcoming album, the ladies have been on the radio and in videos before. The Dolls covered Dean Martin's "Sway" for the Shall We Dance soundtrack and Patti LaBelle's "We Went As Far As We Felt Like Going" from Shark's Tale.

The Pussycat Dolls celebrated the Grand Opening of The Pussycat Dolls Lounge at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, NV with a special performance last April that featured Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria.

-TA

Black Women and HIV

African American communities are being greatly affected by the global epidemic that is HIV/AIDS, as well as by vast other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

According to BlackWomensHealth.Com the AIDS rate among Black women is three times as high as that among Latino women and 18 times as high as that among White women. Today Black women make up more than half of all women who have died of AIDS.

Although African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, that group actually accounts for 41 percent of all AIDS cases in the United States.

The Surgeon General of the United States, states that there are 33.4 million HIV-infected people around the world, and 665,000 in the United States. It is estimated that 50 percent of all new HIV infections in the United States are among people under 25, the majority of these young people are infected sexually. Nearly half (44 percent) of the HIV infections in the age group 13 to 24 were reported among young females and over half (63 percent) were among African Americans.

As African American women, it is important for us to protect ourselves. No man is worth your health--or ultimately your life. The only way to limit your chances of contracting this disease is to practice abstinence. However, if you do choose to be intimate, use a condom. If we don't take care of self, no one else will care to take care of us.

Here are a couple links to articles pertaining to community involvement and recent news concerning HIV/AIDS:

The Links, Inc. presents Black Women and HIV/AIDS: Out of the Shadows

Fueling the HIV/AIDS Crisis

Important HIV/AIDS Links:

The Body

AIDS Education Global Information Systems

AIDS.Org

CDC: Division of of HIV/AIDS Prevention

The Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts

The mother of the late, great Tupac Amuru Shakur will unveil the long-awaited arts center dedicated to the memory of the hip hop emcee who died alomst 10 years ago, on June 11, 2005.

The Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts is the $4 million project started by Afeni Shakur that is focused on helping at-risk youth by getting them involved in the arts. The center sits on a six-acre campus in the Atlanta suburb of Stone Mountain and is reported to include an art gallery, rehearsal area, offices, gift shop and a "peace garden" which will feature a bronze statue of Tupac that will be unveiled in September. Afeni plans to add a museum, community meeting space and classrooms to the center in the future.

While fans often wondered where all the money went from Tupac's seven posthumous album, the fact is that the majority of the center's funding came from the foundation Afeni set up to receive proceeds from those releases, as well as the movies, DVDs and other projects Tupac released after his death.

While the foundation has sponsered a youth arts camps for 12- to 18-year-olds for several years, the center will be the permanent site for the program.

Tupac often spoke of the great experiences he had while enrolled at The Performing Arts School in Baltimore, Maryland. That foundation helped foster the creativity that grew out of the emcee/poet/activist/actor and Tupac's mom wants to foster the same creativity in other young people.

"Arts can save children, no matter what's going on in their homes," Afeni, 58, told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I wasn't available to do the right things for my son. If not for the arts, my child would've been lost."

Afeni has devoted her life to keeping Tupac's memory alive and helping young people strive for excellence.

"I learned that I can't save the world, but I can help a child at a time," Afeni said, adding that it was all made possible by her son.
"God created a miracle with his spirit. I'm all right with that."

-TA

For Love of the Natural, the Afro Returns

From the April issue of Essence Magazine
By Joan Morgan

The 1970’s was an age when Black was already beautiful. In the wake of the Black Power and Civil Rights movements, Black Nationalism and feminism, the reigning do of my day was the Afro. It was a defiant rejection of White beauty standards, an aesthetic demand to feel good in the skin we’re in. Is it any wonder, then, that we also called it the natural?

-pic from Essence Magazine
By Ondrea Barbe

While the politics of this style statement may have eluded me, I was old enough to intuit the sexiness of the thing. This was the ultimate expression of both Black style and cool, and it seemed logical that any description of a fine-ass Black boy back in the day would begin with “He got an Afro.” Of course he’d sooner offer you the gift of full lips and a kiss than allow you to touch his perfectly coiffed halo.

For me, a young girl growing up in the South Bronx, the ’fro was also the ultimate expression of womanist power and sex appeal. In my 10-year-old mind, Pam Grier’s Foxy Brown ’fro was far more powerful than her gun, its manicured perfection the true key to her superpowers.

Today, almost four decades since its emergence in American culture, the Afro is very much a survivor, taking up residency everywhere from hip-hop’s urban lairs to Parisian runways. Much more than a nostalgic nod to Black style of yesteryear, the Afro remains stylistically potent because politically it is still born of need. It simultaneously says, “We’ve come a long way, baby,” and “We still have a ways to go.” So the choice to go natural—be it Afros, dreadlocks, Nubian knots, twists, cornrows or braids—still serves as a big thank-you kiss.

Here’s to the kinkiness of our hair. The resiliency of our spirits. Our demand to be acknowledged as beautiful just the way we are. Here’s to the Afro.