New York's Same Sex Marriage Bill Gives Hope To California Residents

'California needs to catch up,' one gay-marriage supporter says.
By Kara Warner


Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

LOS ANGELES — As the celebrations continued in New York on Saturday (June 25) for the passage of the same-sex marriage bill, many Americans were just waking up to and learning of the news. Expressing similar ecstatic emotions to those expressed by New Yorkers, many California residents spoke to MTV News about their enthusiasm for the bill's passage.

"I think it's the next step for states," John Stoeckly told MTV News after New York became the sixth and most populous state to legalize same-sex marriage. "I think people should be happy about it. I think California is probably going to be the next state that makes that step."

"You love who you love, you can't really help that," Samantha Capatosto said of her support for same-sex marriage. "I think it mean that they don't let people get married, my aunt can't get married, and I'm sad about that. She lives in Florida." "You can't help who you love, be with who you want to be with!" Jackie Mossberg chimed in. Both young ladies, along with friend Lauren Vigil, agreed that they feel like same-sex marriage will soon be legal nation-wide.

"All the states are slowly letting gay marriage become legal," Vigil said.

"I think [California is] kind of stubborn," Capatosto added. "But maybe it will happen."

California courts made same-sex marriage legal in 2008 before the passage of Proposition 8 that year negated the ruling. The law has been overturned by the U.S. District court and is now pending a decision by the California Supreme Court.

California resident Orlando Soria was equally excited about the news, but offered a more cautiously optimistic opinion. "It seems like it keeps going back and forth between things being legal and not legal," he pointed out. "New York is sort of a vanguard state, so it seems that the rest of the country will eventually go that direction, but we have no idea. In a year they could be like, 'Oh that's illegal again.' Part of me thinks it's very exciting for now, especially after Prop 8, but it's hard to get fully excited about this stuff because you never know what's going to happen. I don't know. I should just be excited, but at the same time I'm excited with trepidation."

Soria went on to say that the most surprising aspect of the news was learning that the bill was passed for all of New York State, not just New York City.

"New York State is kind of conservative. I lived in upstate New York for four years, and it was very different from the city," he said. "That's amazing to think that crazy conservative New York state passed something that California has yet to. It's nuts." Rebekah Nazarian's response to the news was that "California needs to catch up. Big ups to New York for taking the lead in being the biggest state to allow same sex marriage, " she said. "This is one time I don't mind being a follower, and I hope soon too California can be proud of the same beautiful accomplishment."

Share your reactions to New York's same-sex marriage bill on Facebook.

Related Videos

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1666432/new-york-gay-marriage-california.jhtml

AnnaLynne McCord Anne Marie Kortright April Scott Arielle Kebbel

Usher, Ke$ha And More Help Dance Music Go Pop In 2010

But is it here to stay? Our music-industry experts weigh in.
By Akshay Bhansali


Ke$ha
Photo: Andreas Rentz/ Getty Images

In 2010, pop princesses, R&B icons and chart-dominating newcomers all danced to the same beat. Not only did dance music go pop, but pop music caught the club-music bug.

Between Katy Perry's "Firework," Ke$ha's "We R Who We R," Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)," Enrique Iglesias' "I Like It," Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" and "OMG" and countless other singles, established artists definitely looked to dance beats for surefire hits. And two of this year's biggest success stories in music were Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz; could there be a soul left in this country who hasn't heard "Dynamite" or "In My Head"?

The love went both ways, with dance music's biggest stars finding mainstream success this year. Dance-music maestro deadmau5 took up house-artist duties at this year's VMAs, and Swedish House Mafia and Usher teamed up for a medley of their gems at the American Music Awards.

So how did this happen? We caught up with some music-industry experts to get their takes.

"You definitely saw tempos go up this year," Jon Caramanica of The New York Times told MTV News. "And I think what you had are a lot of producers who are really familiar with nightclub stuff. They are familiar with Europe. Things are happening on a more global scale now."

"I think everything from Europe, and sometimes even Asia, it comes to America, and we just adopt things a little bit slower," said Jared Eng of JustJared.com. "I think it was just a change. People like different types of music at different times. And dance was of this moment."

Noah Callahan of Complex magazine added: "I think 2010 saw the merging of the pop and dance genres. Pop artists realized that there were best practices that could be borrowed from dance music. And, ultimately, [all] pop music that has been made in the past 20 years had ended up being remixed for the club by dance artists. I think they basically just cut out the middleman and went straight there."

Dance music being introduced into the hip-hop and R&B realms was particularly notable this year.

"I think David Guetta kind of at the end of last year and the beginning of this year spearheaded it," said freelance writer Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. "He produced a lot of tracks. I think as trends go, people revile 'unst-unst.' But it's just coming back around. Big-room techno was a way for people to get decadent in a year that no one could get decadent."

"You have someone like will.i.am, who's like, 'Well, I spent all this time in Ibiza, and this is what they are doing,' and he wants to find a way to bring that into his music," Caramanica said of the Black Eyed Peas mastermind. "R&B especially became dance music. And especially with your Jason Derülos, Taio Cruzes. Guys like that would have literally been blocked at the border two years ago. That would not have made it through customs. And now all of a sudden they have #1 songs. I think will.i.am had a lot to do with that last year."

Elliott Wilson of RapRadar.com added: "It's actually even affected hip-hop. I was talking to Q-Tip, and his next record, I feel like that's gonna kind of go in that vein. I know that was also Jay-Z's thought process with Blueprint 3 at first, that he wanted to make a little bit more of a world music [vibe], a little more dancey. I think the kids today want to go to the clubs. They wanna have a good time. They wanna dance. So I think the artists of today are trying to kind of feed that audience."

"I think it's caught on this year because the people who've done it have been successful," offered Clover Hope of Vibe magazine. "Like 'OMG,' with usher, he didn't have success until he made a dance record. He had 'There Goes My Baby' and these really, like, adult-contemporary records that didn't really catch on. And then once you see that everybody is doing it and that people are liking it, they are like, 'OK, let me just try this out.' It's like Auto-Tune. Like, 'Let me see what I sound like on a record by David Guetta.' They end up liking it and doing more of it."

So does the club-music trend have staying power. According to our tastemakers, not so much.

"I do think it's a blip," Caramanica said. "I don't think that's gonna be something that lasts in America. I think this is gonna be a moment we'll all look back on and go, 'Wasn't that weird when Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz had #1 records?"

"At some point, these R&B artists will get kind of sick of it and be like, 'Let me go back to my soul background,' " Hope said. "When you actually have to say something, dance doesn't really lend itself to substance. And I think that R&B artists, they really want to talk about love and in a deep way, and to do that, you need to do, like, a soul or a traditional R&B record. I want to say that it's kind of a fad."

"I think music is very cyclical," Eng offered. "So I think dance music might be here for a little bit, but I'm sure it will phase out at some point."

Wilson called dance music "the sound of today. I think that people want more aggressive, faster beats, and I think that that probably has legs until at least next summer."

What do you think? Is dance music here to stay? Let us know in the comments!

Related Videos Related Artists

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1655031/usher-keha-more-help-dance-music-go-pop-2010.jhtml

Emma Heming Emma Stone Emma Watson Emmanuelle Chriqui

Is A New "Basketball Wife" Headed To VH1? Meet Carmen Murray....

Shaunie O'Neal is on her grind this year getting more and more "Basketball Wives" added to her show.  In addition to the impending L.A. spinoff, a new "Wife" is rumored to be heading to Miami to joint he original cast-o-characters. 

 

Her name is Carmen Murray and we've got the low-down inside....

Carmen Murray (pictured above on the far right in a white dress) isn't your typical "Basketball Wife."  For one, she was actually married to a baller at one point.  And two, she has a real job involving a real celebrity with a real career.  So maybe that's why Shaunie offered her a role on the next season of the VH1 reality show.

Carmen is the ex-wife of basketball player Lamond Murray.  He last played for the New Jersey Nets in 2006, and now plays for a Bahrain basketball league called Al-Muharraq Sports Club.  At least she has something in common with Tami, Meeka, Jennifer and Shaunie who are all wives/ex-wives of former NBA players.

And the pretty gal is an established music executive who is part of the team behind artist Melanie Fiona.

Celebuzz reports:

Our sources say the ink isn’t on the contract just yet for Murray to join, but that the former real estate investor and founder of Title 9 Productions should be very shortly. With those creds, she must be putting up quite the negotiation.

Is her real career going to threaten Evelyn, Jennifer, and the others and cause big time drama?  Here we go...

 

Ex-husband Lamond Murray

Source: http://theybf.com/2011/06/24/is-a-new-basketball-wife-headed-to-vh1-meet-carmen-murray

Christina Milian Christina Ricci Chyler Leigh Ciara

Selena Gomez: Pretty in Peabody

She has quite the big week in her career lying ahead, and Selena Gomez was busy this weekend pushing forth with her ambitious "Monte Carlo" mall tour on Saturday (June 25).

The "Wizards of Waverly Place" darling took to the North Shore Mall in Peabody, MA, entertaining fans who'd lined up hours in advance to catch a glimpse of the 18-year-old beauty.

With a new album due out Tuesday (June 28) followed by the theatrical release of her movie "Monte Carlo" on Friday (July 1), Miss Gomez recently spoke with Teen Vogue about transitioning from a child star to a lifelong entertainer.

She said, "I?m in a very crucial spot. It?s like starting over. I was trying to explain it to one of my friends, and he said, 'You'll be fine. People believe in you.' But when they're putting together a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, I don't think they're going to go, 'Selena Gomez would be great for this!' I'm not an option. It's humbling, having to go from this Disney high back down to having to fight for roles.?

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/selena-gomez/selena-gomez-pretty-peabody-518105

Drea de Matteo Drew Barrymore Ehrinn Cummings Elena Lyons

Rihanna Slams Report That She Provoked Chris Brown

Rihanna Slams Report That She Provoked Chris Brown

How do you enrage Rihanna? (Or, for that matter, any woman who's been hit by her man?) Suggest that she had it coming.

Yesterday, MTV Canada went even further, reporting that the "Man Down" singer herself might have suggested that she deserved the beating she received in February 2009 from her then-boyfriend, Chris Brown. (He was later convicted of felony assault.)

The article quoted a tweet, supposedly from Rihanna, that read: "'I admit it. I provoked Chris [Brown] to hit me. It not entirely his fault. #imSORRY?' "

Turns out, the website got the story from another site -- and obviously failed to fact-check it. The tweet wasn't from Rihanna (it was apparently a hoax), but when she heard about it, she fired up her (actual) Twitter account.

Her tweet: "are u @#$% kiddin me?????? You're supposed to be a RELIABLE source for news on music and this is the bulls--t u post??"

MTV Canada then tweeted an apology, and added, "#Rihanna fans. We were reporting on a story that was posted on several sites today. We had no intention to be salacious. @Rihanna" Maybe not, but they certainly got her attention. You don't mess with this chick, and if you have any further doubt, check out her gun-toting turn in her latest video!

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/rihanna-slams-report-she-provoked-chris-brown/1-a-360125

Heidi Montag Hilarie Burton Hilary Duff Hilary Swank