• Michelle Obama: mother, future first lady, …and blogger? [BH]

• First dunking then brawling — are WNBA games turning into NBA games? [HP]

• Bow Wow and Jermaine Dupri love each other again. Awww? [MTV]

• Ashanti is now the tourism ambassador for Nassau County in Long Island. Uh, good luck with that. [SP]

• Wax Amy Winehouse looks so much better than real Amy Winehouse. [People]

• Ashanti just keeps on trucking. Good for her. [CL]

• "For the second time in two days, John McCain has referred to current events in "Czechoslovakia" – a country that officially ceased to exist in January of 1993." It's not the world of yesteryear, Senator. [DK]

• Black Voices put together a gallery Sexiest Black Women Over 40 (aka Black Don't Crack) gallery. [BV]

• Mariah Carey might follow in the footsteps of Celine Dion, Elton John, and Toni Braxton and sign a very lucrative Las Vegas residency deal. I'd go to see her show. [SP]

• Despite their stringent-sounding custody agreement, Kimora Lee Simmons and Russell Simmons are quick to praise each other's parenting skills. [Bossip]

Ashanti is so personable and boisterous in interviews, and over the years I often wished that her personal style matched her fun personality in a more classy way. From 2002 to 2008, her fashion sense, or her ability to hire a stylist who does not secretly hate her, has gotten slightly better. But there's always room for improvement.

There are many things one can say about "our" network, BET, but a positive thing I can say is that I generally find the BET Awards far more entertaining than any award show MTV ever puts out. The show airs tonight, with performances by Lil Wayne, Usher, Alicia Keys, Al Green, Chris Brown, and others, but last night everyone's favorite network president Debra Lee hosted a pre-show dinner in LA. A glowing post-engagement Jill Scott was in attendance, along with Ashanti, Nelly, Soulja Boy, Eva Pigford, and Robert Townsend. Eclectic pre-party crowd.

CONTINUED »

Janet Jackson, looking simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable, walked the red carpet at last night's LA launch of the Cartier Love bracelet. She was joined by Jermaine Dupri and many others, including Ashanti. Is it wrong to say she's been looking really good lately when it's a known fact that she starves herself to look this way? I mean, at least when stars pretend like they eat hamburgers (or healthy servings of fish, chicken and veggies) for every meal, we can pretend, too.

• Celebrity Circus? Just as ridiculous as we thought it would be. [NB]

• John McCain is sorry about what's happening to flood victims in the Midwest, but Barack Obama's actually doing something to help. [TS]

• Ashanti's performance at last night's NBA game: yea or nay? [TGJ]

• Kanye West's fans are fickle, but only if you make them wait for two hours. Oh well, he'll always have Selita Ebanks. [Bossip]

• No, Death Row artists are not the only rappers to come out of the West Coast. [SB]

Ashanti, the R&B songstress whose music will never stop reminding me of so many frat parties, appeared on the Tonight Show Friday to perform her new single, “Good Good.” I'm pretty sure the whole song’s about her vagina, which is just hilarious considering that meemaws and peepaws love Jay Leno and his “clean material.”

Click through for some of that “Good Good.”
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CD buyers made a declaration last week, and it was that they'd rather buy Disturbed's Indestructible, NOW 28, Usher's Here I Stand, and Weezer's new album than Ashanti's The Declaration, which sold 86,000 copies in it's first week. This mostly before the buzz created by her "gotchagram," so maybe she'll benefit from the controversy on next week's charts. Her last album, 2005's Concrete Rose, sold 254,000 in its first week.

CONTINUED »

Lesson learned, Ashanti: Using violent, bloody, fake news clips, in which your more blood-thirsty fans can insert the names of their friends (or, say, "Black Children Must Die") to promote your album is not the best course of action in this day and age. Well, any day and age, really. Unfortunately the lesson was learned the hard way — in the form of a protest outside of Universal/Motown's LA office and the threat of another protest at Game 5 of the NBA Finals, where Ashanti is slated to perform. Needless to say, her people have decided to remove the offending promotion.

"Following discussions with Ashanti, we have jointly decided to remove the TheWayThatILoveYou.com website that hosts the Gotchagram," read a statement issued from the singer's label yesterday. "Ashanti and her music have always been about self-empowerment and addressing the issues that are most meaningful to her. We stand by our artist and her creative choices."

• The marketing exec at Universal in charge of Ashanti's album might want to rethink his or her career path. [WAOD]

• The Wire gets some love, finally. But I'm still really dreading the Emmy nominations. [BV]

• Nas's "Be A Nigger, Too" video is out. That's all. [CL]

• A new study shows that blacks are the most frequent hate crime victims in Canada. [AFP]

• His Royal Purpleness is now 50. And still rocking the stilettos. [E!]

Hey! Why did Times writer Ellen Carpenter just gloss over this rather telling piece of information in Sunday’s puff piece about a Thursday night on the town with R&B star Ashanti?

By dinnertime, Ashanti was starving. “I don’t remember the last time I ate,” she said as she rode an elevator to the club’s garden-floor dining room. She paused to think. “It was a Carney’s turkey burger. That was Wednesday afternoon in L.A.”

And right when you go, “Wait, wha? Before big events Ashanti starves herself?” Carpenter’s already onto the famous guests in attendance at the singer’s album release party.

CONTINUED »

• For some reason, Kelly Rowland just can't understand why Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson landed the role in the Sex and the City movie that she tried out for. Incidentally, the role was created because, according to Sarah Jessica Parker, "African-American women and women of color have been a big part of our audience for a long time (and) we really haven't been responsible to them." True words. [SB]

• Star Jones has now resorted to hosting Bad Girls Club reunion specials. At least she's good at it. [Jezebel]

• Whitney Houston was cleared of all drug charges stemming from that one time she tried to bring three joints on a plane in Hawaii. [SP]

• New music from Michael Jackson! Sadly, there's no way to make old music from Michael Jackson new again. [Bossip]

• Ashanti made some ill-advised makeup choices at the premiere of the new Indiana Jones. [C&D]

• Sean Patrick Thomas still gets press? Congrats on the baby, SPT. [People]

• It just gets worse and worse with DMX. [Bossip]

• Jennifer Hudson goes back to her singing roots. [SB]

• Ashanti says a little something (emphasis on little) about her relationship with Irv Gotti and Ja Rule. [Str8NYC]

• Kelly Rowland's writing a children's book. Is this what you do when you can't sell records? [EUR]

• It's official: the marriage certificate has been signed and the weekly tabloids no longer have any excuse. [Bossip]

• Mariah Carey's a diva. Who knew? [EUR]

• If you've ever desired to see Meagan Good suffer a painful death, here's your chance. [CL]

• Oh, Lil Wayne. It's really way past time to give up the syrup. [NB]

• No one can stop talking about the "Glow in the Dark" tour. [SR]

• Ashanti's album is coming at long last. Sadly, it doesn't seem as if too many people have been anxiously awaiting its arrival. [C&D]

FICTIONAL VIDEOS Ashanti and Nelly are very good friends, and her new video, in which she plays a knife-wielding woman scorned, is not in any way based on anything that has happened during their relationship. Feel better now? Yeah right about that "good friends" thing, though. [People]