Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z are headlining a co-tour that is titled “Heart of the City” and it is something that has been in coffers for some time. They had wanted to do something together for quite some time. The “Heart of the City” co-tour officially kicks off on March 22, 2008 with a concert at Miami’s American Airlines Arena. The co-headlining tour is exclusively for the North America area alone. It will feature both the popular soul singer and hip-hop rap musician on stage together for the entire tour. The tour is scheduled to go on till the middle of April. The tour itinerary for Blige and Jay-Z includes ten separate dates and the specific locations that the celebrity duo will perform. Cities scheduled to be visited includes Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Toronto, and other cities. There will be more performing dates for the co-tour in the coming future.

Mary J. Blige’s new cd “Growing Pains” was released in December of 2007 and went on to hit the Number 2 spot on the Billboard Top 200 while Jay-Z’s new studio album “American Gangster” released to stores in November of 2008, reportedly sold approximately 400,000 copies in just the very first week it was available to the public. “Heart of the City” tour would provide an opportunity for the duo to promote their albums and careers.

The 21 year old singer and sexy actress, Lindsay Lohan’s film, ‘I Know Who Killed Me”, is in the record books by virtue of winning eight Golden Raspberry awards last Saturday. The Raspberry awards are given to the worst movies of the year and Lindsay Lohan’s film had topped the list by claiming 8 awards. Lindsay Lohan, the Hollywood beauty, was awarded three Razzie’s, two for the worst Actress Awards for portraying the roles of Aubrey Fleming and Dakota Moss in the film and one award for the Worst On Screen Couple, where the two characters she plays in the film appears together.

Lindsay did not turn up for the awards night and the film also won the awards for the Worst Screenplay, Worst Remake, Worst Director as well as the Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie. The film has beaten the previous record holder movies like Showgirls and Battlefield Earth. While Lindsay got the Worst Actress Award, the Worst Actor award went to Eddie Murphy for his role in the movie Norbit. These two Hollywood actors were voted as the poorest performing artists for the year 2007 in a recent poll conducted by the AOL Moviefone this year.

Doubts were raised when the concert tickets of an Elton John show that is scheduled to be held at Sudbury arena on 2 March were sold out in less than an hour. Many fans went back dejected and disappointed. The city’s newspaper “Sudbury Star” brought out the news that the city council took away as many as 100 tickets for themselves. The newspaper sent a mail to the council members asking them to disclose the number of tickets they have purchased. They also mentioned that the ticket scandal was not good news for the Elton John concert and might have a negative influence on future such events in the city. The members however did not bother to reply to the Star’s enquiry.

The Star then reported that certain sources in the city administration were threatening to cancel the show altogether if the paper did not stop its coverage of the scandal. It was then that the CEO of Live Nation Toronto, Riley O’Connor came to rescue and said that the show was not in danger. He denied having anything to do with the city officials. He remarked that this concert could lead to more such concerts in the city. He hinted that there might be other artists who might perform in the city as well in the future.

Amy Winehouse, the British rock star sensation and winner of five Grammy awards this year, missed to take part in the rehearsal organized at the Earl’s Court in London for the Brit Awards. It is reported that Amy was upset with the news of her imprisoned husband, Blake Fielder Civil, swapping of Winehouse’s autographed photos for heroin and this was the reason for her to miss the rehearsal. Amy Winehouse is due to perform a medley at the Brit Awards on the 20th of February with the likes of Adele, Daniel Marriweather and Mark Ronson. There is news circulating in the air that Amy is also seriously considering leaving her husband Blake Fielder for good.

Newspaper reports all across the globe are carrying reports of the Winehouse’s family planning to get a divorce for their famous music artist and are planning to give Blake Fielder large sums of money to disappear from the scenario once the divorce is through. Amy Whitehouse, who has also been in the rehabilitation center recently, wants to start a new life and there are reports of her dating Blake Wood and sources close to her have disclosed her growing interests in Blake Wood.

The Rascal Flatts is one of the most popular music groups in the world at present. Formed in the year 2000in Nashville, this country music group has three dedicated members. Gary LeVox is the lead vocal artist Jay DeMarcus plays bass guitar along with vocals and Joe Don Rooney. The first two albums produced by them have been certified platinum. In these eight years they have reached the top position in the music industry. They have five studio albums and a live compilation to their credit now. Eight of their twenty singles reached no.1 in the U.S chart of Billboard Hot Country Songs.

Their career graph started climbing with each and every song and concert. The group achieved a land mark when their album “Me and My Gang”sold 721,000 copies at the first week of release. 2006 tour of rascal flatts was a great success and they visited 74 cities, of which 61 centers were sellouts. From the year the group was formed, they have won many awards including “Top New Vocal Duo or Group” in the year 2000, Award for best country song in Grammy in 2006 for the song “Bless the Broken Road”, CMT Best group Video of the Year for the song “What Hurts the Most” in 2007, and the People’s Choice awards for the favorite group in 2008.

No one ever knew the reason why R Kelly’s publicist Regina Daniels left him out in the cold on November and she said that the reason for her to leave the job was that R Kelly had crossed the line. There were plenty of speculations and rumors doing rounds on what this line was and it is understood that R Kelly was having an alleged relationship with the publicist’s daughter Maxine, according to the confirmation of the publicist’s husbands, George Daniels. He said that the Daniel’s were treating R Kelly as their son and the secret relationship of R Kelly with their college going daughter is the sole factor for them to split from the R&B singer.

George Daniels accused R Kelly of luring his daughter into a relationship by buying her expensive gifts and toys right from the childhood. R Kelly has vehemently denied these allegations when confronted by George and said that the Daniel’s were extremely hurt by all these happenings. R Kelly has said through a spokesperson that the parents of Max were well aware of this relationship and had also encouraged it. R Kelly says that it was Regina Daniels who invited him to her step daughter’s birthday bash and gave his personal phone number to her daughter, Maxine. Kelly’s spokesperson said that Regina resigned only due to her fear of getting fired for being incompetence.

Keith Urban, the popular country singer, in his debut performance at the Madison Square Garden showed that he is full and full a rock and roll artist as he came up with a soul stirring medley performance of some of the all time classic rock hits like Sweet Home Alabama, Stairway to Heaven, Shook Me All Night Long etc. Urban in his two hour long performance at the Madison used rock guitar to enhance his country songs and the audience were thrilled to bits by his master creation. Keith Urban is a standing example of a musician who can make an ordinary song feel good and good songs feel extraordinary.

Keith made extensions to the popular songs like “Somebody like You”, “Once in a Lifetime” and “Stupid Boy” and this was well appreciated by the huge crowd that had gathered to listen to this famous country singer. The generosity nature speaks volumes about this popular country artist and he stunned the entire audience at Madison when he gifted a female fan by giving her his guitar. Keith Urban also took the opportunity of greeting his wife Nicole Kidman A Happy Valentine’s Day as she was in her native land Australia during his performance in New York.

Kanye West, the hip hop artist, who won four Grammy awards in the recently concluded Grammy Awards ceremony, has announced some of his tour dates for the year 2008 which is named as “Glow in the Dark” tour. The fans of Kanye West will be in for overload of music as Rihanna, the hot and happening R&B Caribbean rock star, N.E.R.D and Lupe Fiasco. The places where Kanye West is going to tour during April 2008 are Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, Auburn Hills, San Jose, and Minneapolis and will carry on in May at the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

He is expected to perform at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival at Manchester in June. His rap album “Graduation” had a good fight with Amy Winehouse “Back to Black” album in the 2008 Grammy Awards. The Grammys that he won in the 50th Award ceremonies are for Best Rap Solo Performance for “Stronger”, Best Rap performance by a group for “Southside”, Best Rap Album for “Graduation” and Best Rap song for “Good Life”. The rap album “graduation” that was released in September 2007 made history by selling 957,000 copies in its first week of release. The rapper hopes to carry this popularity into the recently announced concert tour.

Bryan Adams, one of the best and most successful Canadian pop artists to hit the music scene in his teens, has confirmed to open the 2008 Newmarket Nights race and the racing fans are in for a thrill as he will also perform live at the July Course with his band on the 20th of June 2008. There is much excitement among the people as Bryan Adams is slated to perform some of his best selling hit numbers like “Summer of 69”, “Everything I Do I Do It For You”, “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman” etc.

Bryan Adams started his music career with the launch of his first self titled album in 1980 and since then he has released 10 albums and has sola a record 75 million copies worldwide. Bryan dams is not only known for his inspiring music and song writing abilities, but is also an acclaimed photographer who has photographed celebrities like Cindy Crawford, Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss etc for magazines like Vanity Fair and British Vogue. The organizers are thrilled about signing Bryan Adams to perform after the Friday evening race and Bryan Adams fans is sure to be enthralled by the lively concert that follows the race.

For all Dave Matthews Band fans who don’t know how the band was formed, here’s a short history for you.

His real name is David John Matthews. He used to work as a bartender in Charlottesville until 1990 when he met Ross Hoffman, a lawyer who got him to play some of the songs he wrote. Hoffman wanted other musicians to work and perform with Matthews in the song, so he convinced Matthews to talk to another local musician, Carter Beauford, who had already been a part of several bands.

Matthews played the demo of his songs for Beauford, who agreed to play drums in and out of the studio. Matthews also talked to LeRoi Moore, who decided also to join them because he had time in the afternoon. So in 1991, the three of them started to work on Matthew’s songs. However, the music did not turn out great with just three of them. Their instruments were limited, and they did not reach the sound they were going for. John D’Earth, a former bandmate of Moore, Stefan Lessard who was then 16 years old was asked to join the three in order to complete the demo. Eventually, the four began to play on live performances together. They would practice regularly in Beauford’s and Matthews’ mothers’ basements.

In August of 1991, the four rehearsed at an empty bar where Peter Griesar worked as a bartender. Grieser heard them playing, took out his harmonica, and joined them. After doing some songs, they invited Grieser to perform with them. He said yes to the offer and became their keyboardist. He was with the band until March 23, 1993.

The last person to join the band was Boyd Tinsley in mid-1992. The band at the time was not planning to add a violinist to the group, but Tinsley just clicked with them. The Dave Matthews Band was finally formed.