Hipster rapper Kid Cudi has confirmed to MTV that the long-awaited music video for his third single “Pursuit of Happiness” will finally be released soon. He also surprisingly revealed that his HBO co-star Josh Hartnett will produce the clip, whilst Canadian rapper and good friend Drake will make a cameo.

I just saw the first rough cut the other day. Drake is in it. He has a cameo … a bunch of my homies that I knew coming up. We were just kicking it. When you see the video, it just makes me feel good, because I’m seeing all my friends and people that matter in my life. We were all celebrating. It’s like a New Year’s Eve-type thing. Everybody’s just getting wasted.

It’s about time that they released this video because the single already peaked at #59 in the beginning of October.

Anyways you can currently catch Cudi opening for Lady GaGa on her tour, and you can look out for his new HBO TV series “How to Make it in America” starring Josh Hartnett to air next year.

Despite the UK’s Radio1 confirming that the “Outta My Head” would be the second single from Leona Lewis’ sophomore album Echo, All Access have now listed the R&B/Pop midtempo “I Got You” on their website with an official radio impact date of December 7.

This most likely means that the song will serve as the next US single, whilst “Outta My Head” will be released in Europe.

With it’s catchy uplifting chorus and slight urban undertones “I Got You” is definitely the standout ’single’ type track from Echo, but will it be enough to boost the album which just debuted at a disappointing #13 on the Billboard charts?

Tamia, Deborah Cox and Kelly Price, who together form the new female super group The Queen Project, have spoken out about the current state of R&B today and what they want to do to bring it back.

I think that R&B, based on what is actually being played on formats that are called “R&B”… it’s watered down. It’s been redefined based on what “they” are putting out under the name of R&B. We’ve always done true R&B music. We love crossing pop and we love crossing genres because we all have the same idea that music is universal and that we don’t have to be restricted to one area, but when you’re talking about true R&B lets go back to what it means — Rhythm & Blues.

Those that sang the blues and sang the rhythmic music they told stories. The music had sound, it had substance. When I think about being a little girl and hearing songs at my nana’s house, listening to Marvin Gaye, and when you heard “What’s Goin’ On” that stuff spoke to the times, it spoke to the people. The world really is in a messed up place and we’ve healed through music in generations past, and OUR music should be doing that right now. It shouldn’t be tearing us down

Rather than complain about it, we’re gonna fix it.

Girlfriend has a point. Bring on The Queen Project!

[Download Link]

Snoop Dogg takes it back to his Beautiful days with “Special”, a smooth new Neptunes produced track featuring Brandy and Pharrell from the rappers tenth studio album Malice N Wonderland.

This is a just classic Neptunes through-and-through, and when you pair it with B-Rocka and the Dogg it’s impossible to go wrong.

Snoop’s new single “Gangsta Luv” with The-Dream is currently out now and just reached a new peak of #51 on the Hot 100, whilst sitting tight in the top ten of the rap charts and the top forty on the R&B.

Are you gonna pick up Malice N Wonderland on Dec 8? I know I definitely am, it’s one of the hip-hop releases that I’m really anticipating.

It turns out that The-Dream & Tricky aren’t the only producers that Ciara has been working with on her new album, with Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins confirming that he’s about to hit the studio with the Goodies singer soon.

This is gonna be an incredible day! Me and Ciara r gonna work on some heat!

The pair first teamed up together in 2006 when Darkchild produced “Can’t Leave Em Alone” and “Make It Last Forever” from Ciara’s 2006 LP The Evolution, then later on “Pucker Up” from her third album Fantasy Ride.

He also produced “Feedback” for Ciara’s idol Janet Jackson, which she later remixed herself and released online.

Thank God that CiCi isn’t just having The-Dream & Tricky do 100% of her new album. If she’s already enlisted Darkchild, does that mean she could have some other producers up her sleeve to?

The multi-talented Kelly Clarkson surprised fans last night at the San Jose show of her All I Ever Wanted tour by teaming up with her support act Eric Hutchinson to cover the Michael Jackson classic “Rock With You”.

Seriously is there anything that Kelly can’t sing? She’s easily without a doubt one of the best female artists of our generation. Kelly’s got a lot to be happy about right now, with her single “Already Gone” reaching a new peak of #16 on the Hot 100 this week whilst topping the Hot AC radio format.

Oh and speaking of the Jacksons this isn’t the first cover she’s done of the famous family, also delivering her own version of Janet Jackson’s “If” earlier this year. If you haven’t seen that one yet check it out below the cut.

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R&B/Soul singer Robin Thicke finally got the chance to perform his new single “Sex Therapy” properly at the 2009 Soul Train Awards which aired earlier tonight.

Hopefully this fantastic performance can help the song out on the charts because so far it hasn’t gotten any higher than #54 on the R&B charts. Where you at radio? Ya’ll need to get behind Thicke!

The blue-eyed soul singer doesn’t seem too worried about his success though, recently opening up about his new album and why he isn’t a one hit wonder.

“The key to not being a one-hit wonder is talent. It’s having craft,” he said. “This album is a lot more hip-hop. I’ve got Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, The Game and Kid Cudi .”

I know I’ll definitely be picking up my copy on December 15th. Will you?

Timbalands anticipated-then-hated new album Shock Value II has now leaked online.

I haven’t downloaded it yet but I did YouTube some of the songs and all I can say is that I’m extremely underwhelmed by what I’ve heard SO FAR, and a little shocked at how you can go from the fierceness of the first Shock Value to the mediocrity of Shock Value II.

I’ve included the surprisingly average Katy Perry assisted “If We Ever Meet Again” to listen to above since it was one of the very few tracks that hadn’t leaked online prior to the albums release.

How do you feel about Shock Value II? Are you disappointed or has Timbo delivered another winner?

The 2009 Soul Train awards finally aired tonight, so I selected two of the best performances from the show to post.

The beautiful and talented Toni Braxton showed off her piano playing skills as she performed her new single “Yesterday”, before brining Trey Songz on stage for a duet which ended in a passionate lip lock.

Also getting down was Keri Hilson who showed off her dance skills to a medley of her songs including “Knock You Down”, “Turnin’ Me On” and my personal fave “Slow Dance”.

Keri really is one of the baddest ladies in the biz right now! I’m curious to see how her sophomore album will go after all this success.

[Download Link]

Drop It Low BFF’s Chris Brown and Ester Dean reunite once again for “I Love U”, a new track which will appear on the deluxe edition of Breezy’s new album Graffiti.

Call me crazy but I’m not really feeling the cute polka music on this one. Ok I kinda am, but I’ll never admit it. I miss the mindless ghetto trash of Drop It Low!

Thankfully however I don’t think that this is the final version, so we still have time to tie up and torture the producer until he agrees to ditch the accordion and never ever use it again.