Beyonce recently confirmed to MTV that she is indeed recording her fourth album, while “Irreplaceable” songwriter Ne-Yo let slip on Twitter this week that he’s already managed to hit the studio with the booty popper. As you can imagine, it hasn’t taken long for more details about the upcoming disc to surface, with Ne-Yo elaborating some more on his collaboration with Bey during a new interview to promote his new album (that nobody seems to care about), Libra Scale.

“It’s coming along nicely. I can’t speak too much on it, but it’s another direction for her, and she’s carving out her own niche. In a minute nobody will be in Beyonce’s lane. They really can’t get in her lane now, but they really can’t get in her lane after this album.”

A ” new direction”? That’s strange, since, including Ne-Yo, all the other collaborators so far named for the album have all been people that Beyonce has previously worked with in the past.

Another interesting comment he made was stating that “nobody will be in Beyonce’s lane” after the album drops. True, but at the same time, not. Let’s have a look at Bey’s competition, shall we? Rihanna, Ke$ha and Katy are all primarily singles’ artists, so they’re out; Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne’s careers have cooled off in recent years, so they’re out of the picture; Christina Aguilera released Bionic; Taylor Swift is too country; Alicia Keys is too R&B; Fergie and Gwen went back to their bands; and diva’s like Janet, Mariah and JLo are all past their prime now. So who does that leave?

Currently, Beyonce’s only real competition for the title of pop’s reigning princess, are Lady GaGa, Britney Spears and to a lesser extent, P!nk. Pink has sold over 30 million albums worldwide, had the stand out Grammy performance (as co-signed by Oprah), sold just as many copies of Funhouse as Beyonce did of Sasha Fierce (both albums spawned a #1 single on the Hot 100), has been the only female artist to sell out stadiums  this year, and her Funhouse tour easily out-grossed Beyonce’s I Am tour. However, despite Pink’s accomplishments, she still isn’t exactly viewed in the same glittery, pop star category as Beyonce and co, so until that changes, she’s unfortunately out of the running.

That leaves the legendary Britney Spears, and current superstar sensation Lady GaGa. Both women have spawned two #1 singles each over the past two years, as opposed to Beyonce’s one (“Single Ladies”). Both women dominate the social network Twitter, while GaGa also has Facebook under her belt. Britney had the highest grossing tour of the three, but GaGa is expected to come out on top by the time her ever-changing Monster Ball wraps up, proving that Britney and GaGa are bigger tour draws than Bey.

Britney ruled as pop’s ultimate princess for a good decade, but has now taken on a more reclusive role with less public appearances and little promotion, while GaGa is quite the opposite — out and about everywhere, and conquering absolutely everything in her path. The only thing Bey has both ladies beat on is making money and racking up awards, as evident by her gaggle of Grammy Awards and multi-million dollar fortune earned from TV commercials and endorsement deals.

However, despite Bey’s deep pockets and iron grip over the Grammy committee, all signs currently point to Lady GaGa reigning as the number one diva in the game for the next decade — not Bey or Miss “I’m allergic to promotion” Britney.

Do you think Bey will own the throne with the release of her fourth album, or does that title belong to somebody else?

Beyonce’s been a busy beaver over the past few weeks. She’s had photoshoots, ad campaigns and commercials for her Dereon line, recorded a track with Kanye West (“See Me Now”), done lots of press with a new magazine cover and new interviews, flown to Italy for a few days with her Husband, and on top of all that, she’s still finding time to work on her next album.

According to singer-songwriter Ne-Yo, he’s planning to hit the studio with the X-rated “Video Phone” singer as early as tonight. The two most notably worked together on Bey’s biggest smash “Irreplaceable”, which was the subject of controversy when Ne-Yo accidentally let slip that Bey didn’t actually write the song, like she claimed in the credits.

Other producers tapped for Bey’s next album include Darkchild, Jim Jonsin and The-Dream. So far all the collaborators confirmed for the album are people that Bey has already worked with in the past, so I hope her managers and team find some fresher writers and producers so we don’t just get the same old generic R&B again.

A high quality version of Beyonce’s “Video Phone” performance from her “I Am…” world tour has surfaced online today, so in case you haven’t witnessed Bey performing her VMA-nominated flop yet, then here it is.

Kicking things off, Mrs. Knowles-Carter gets the performance started by urging all the “sexy ladies” in the audience to get their hands up, before calling out, “All my sexy fellas, I want you to put your camera’s in the air and press record!”. She then marches over to a tacky steel chair, plonks her big ass down, and begins to repeatedly open her legs and thrust her crotch like she’s auditioning for a role in Showgirls. The highly-sexual display continues as Bey momentarily gets down on all fours, then springs back onto her feet to dance provocatively with a male backup dancer, allowing him to rapidly and repeatedly poke his index finger into her, uh, tuna taco, like he’s testing the temperature of a freshly baked blueberry pie.

After educating the audience in the specifics of the female anatomy, Bey turns her attention to her famous rear-end, bending over to touch her toes as the same male dancer gets down on his knees and takes a few snaps of her bootylicious behind on his video phone. It’s then back into the steel chair for some more pussy popping from Bey, which reaches a sticky climax when she lets the male dancer put his camera phone so close to her sugar walls that the screen probably fogged up.

Classy!

There’s nothing wrong with raunchy, X-rated performances when it comes to pop, but it’s just funny that the Madonna’s, Britney’s and Christina’s are labelled as depraved sluts on stage, while a bogus perception of Beyonce as some kind of elegant, demure little flower has been planted into peoples minds.

Do you think that Beyonce is the most sexual performer in contemporary pop music today?

Earlier today Kanye West premiered a new song “See Me Now” from his upcoming fifth studio album (complete with official cover art above). The sassy, old-school number features Charlie Wilson and Beyonce – who seems so completely incapable of staying away from the charts that she’s jumped straight on a track from the man who humiliated her at last years VMA Awards.

As usual, West’s ego seems to be out in full force on “See Me Now”, as he brags about his skills as an MC and basically gives a big “FUCK YOU” to everybody who turned their back on him for acting like a douche. Beyonce’s addition to “See Me Now” just adds fuel to the fire, basically stating that even though Kanye publicly embarrassed her, she’s back singing the hook on his new single less than a year later.

“I betcha they put me back on the cover of Ebony right now”, West boasts towards the end of the track. “I know JET Magazine are callin’ right now… I’m back baby! Imma let you finish… but I got Beyonce on the track! We the greatest in the world baby!”

As you can see, Kanye has learned absolutely nothing from his public humiliation, and will most likely continue to be an obnoxious, narcissistic, egomaniac for the rest of his life.  Well, it could be worse. At least he’s talented.

Glee fans better get ready to see some major booty shaking and p*ssy popping coming their way soon, because if new reports in the Hollywood News are correct, then Beyonce is getting her own Glee tribute episode.

According to series creator Ryan Murphy, he’s planning to start doing between two and three tribute episodes every season due to the strength of The Power of Madonna, and the hype for the upcoming Britney Spears episode. Though he didn’t mention Beyonce specifically, the Hollywood News are naming her as one of the candidates, along with another unnamed artist that they’re current negotiating with.

“We’re going to do one after the Super Bowl, a tribute to a musical artist we’re in negotiation for. I think every year we’ll do two or three.”

Beyonce doesn’t really have any iconic moments except for the Bob Fosse “Mexican Breakfast” dance which was recycled into the “Singles Ladies” routine, and Glee already used that in season one, so I’m not really sure what they’ll be able to do with Bey. Maybe they can do an episode where one of the characters gets in trouble for copying someone else’s homework and then tries to pass it off as their own.

In brighter news, Ryan also dished some extra details about the Britney episode.

“We like to do those but this year we’re going to do two of them, the Britney Spears one in an unusual way. On a red carpet once, someone asked if we were doing it and Matt Morrison said, ‘I hope not.’ The whole episode is him saying, ‘No, we’re not doing Britney Spears.’”

So, what else can you expect from Glee besides a number of celebrity tribute episodes? According to Murphy, there will be an episode of all original music, and they’re already in talks with some top songwriters to make it happen. Look out for the Glee season 2 premiere on September 21.

Another producer has stepped forward to confirm that Beyonce has started working on her fourth album, with Darkchild and one of his songwriters appearing on UStream today to break the bad news.

“As far as I know, Beyonce is working. We definitely keep in contact with her, and she lets us know what she’s looking for. I’m not sure if she’s officially started as far as ‘in-studio’, but I’m pretty sure she’s doing it. Ya’ll know Bey – whens he gets focused and she gets ready, she goes in and smashes down.”

“Sweet Dreams” producer Jim Jonsin was the first producer to come forward to state that Beyonce was collecting tracks for her next album, followed by “Single Ladies” writer The-Dream.

Unfortunately, there was no new news on the real Queen B – Britney Spears. Darkchild and his songwriter simply promised that there was some big news coming up in the next few weeks that her fans would love, but refused to elaborate any further.

Considering that Darkchild produced “Scared of Lonely” from Bey’s I Am Sasha Fierce, it appears that so far her new album will mainly feature all the same people that she’s worked with before. Hopefully some new and more exciting names pop up as the project progresses.

Beyonce’s insatiable appetite for chart success shows no signs of slowing down, with her I Am Sasha Fierce bonus track “Why Don’t You Love me?” now set to get the official single treatment.

The song will be released in the UK on August 30, making it the ninth single to be lifted from Bey’s third album.

“Why Don’t You Love Me” is actually one of the best singles that Bey has ever done (probably because Solange wrote it), not to mention the kick ass video, and if released earlier it would’ve made a much better choice than some of the garbage she previously gave the single treatment too, such as “Video Phone” and the snoozefest “Broken Hearted Girl”.

Do you think we’ll get at least one Beyonce-free week on the charts before her next album drops?

In a piece of news that has absolutely RUINED my whole day, John Legend has announced that he’s trying to get the talented, critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse in the studio with actress Beyonce for a duet. You may know Beyonce from a slew of popular television commercials, such as Nintendo, C&A Clothing, Samsung and Crystal Water.

“Usually I’m a fan of their work on some level and I think we could make something great together, and it’s usually just a phone call away and a little bit of scheduling and we usually make it happen,” says Legend, who recently spat the dummy when his hairline started trending on Twitter.

“As long as everyone comes into it with the right attitude, you know, a little bit of humility and a bit of that collaborative spirit, then you usually make something good out of it,” he added.

Five minutes in the studio with Beyonce and Amy will be smoking crack again.

Amy’s highly-anticipated third studio album is due out around January next year.

UPDATE: FAKE! FALSE! LIES! THANK GOD!

The source just took a bunch of quotes from John Legend’s Huffington Post interview, then twisted it to make it sound like Beyonce and Amy would collaborate. I can now go on with my day in peace.

Hip-Hop producer Bangladesh has called out Beyonce in a new interview with Bossip, strongly implying that the singer does not write her own songs. And the sky is blue and water is wet.

In case you don’t already know, Bangladesh wrote and produced Bey’s singles “Video Phone” and “Diva” from her multi-platinum ‘I Am… Sasha Fierce‘ album — both of which Beyonce is listed on as a co-writer and co-producer.

Bossip: You have worked with Beyonce. There is some controversy when it comes to the songs that she has written…. So, have you ever been in the lab with her where you’ve made the beat with her right there, and then you saw her actually write the song or -

Bangladesh: “[Bursts out laughing hysterically]. I’ll put it like this: It doesn’t matter who’s writing the songs, or who’s producing the songs. It’s who’s delivering the mother fucker. It really doesn’t matter if Beyonce is actually sitting there physically writing the song. Even if she’s not, it don’t mean she can’t. She might not have the time. It doesn’t matter, because you can work with artists who write, or work with artists that’s Beyonce’s level… For me… It doesn’t matter.

“The people outside looking in, they wanna know if she writes her own songs or if she ain’t. At the end of the day, she’s on a level where things are handed to her; people wanna be a part of what she’s doing. She either wrote it, or she can put her name on it – it doesn’t matter because that’s the boss you are.” {Source}

Isn’t it about time someone threw this fraud into jail where she belongs?

Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears are just two huge female artists that come to mind who only take co-writes when it’s legit, so just because you’re successful, doesn’t mean that you need to take advantage of your powerful position in a deceitful way.

There’s too many instances of Beyonce’s fake writing, production and pretend vocal arrangements to name every single one, but the most recent instance that springs to mind was when Rob Fusari — the producer of “Bootylicious” — called out Beyonce for taking credit for the song. He was then told off by her father/manager Mathew Knowles when he questioned it. Unfortunately for Fusari, he was an up and comer at the time, so he couldn’t really speak out without jeopardizing his position in the industry.

As long as their are producers like Bangladesh who are happy to let artists fraudulently take credit for work they haven’t done, then these artists will just continue to take advantage of the situation.

Oh, and Bey was recently awarded three ASCAP awards for her songwriting — one of which was for “Diva”.

The 2010 edition of the Forbes Celebrity 100 was released earlier today. The list ranks the most powerful celebrities in the world over the past year (June to June), based on criteria such as: earnings press coverage, web rank, TV/radio rank, and social media standing (such as Facebook, Twitter etc).

Of course Oprah was #1 (as usual), but which pop stars made the list?

No. 2 – Beyonce: Money maker Beyonce came in at #2 (up from #4 on 2009′s list), with earnings of $87 million in the past year. The booty shaker had a successful world tour, music videos and hit singles,  high profile collaborations with artists like Lady GaGa and Alicia Keys, and is one half of hip-hop’s most powerful couple. However, most of her ranking can be attributed to her slew of endorsement deals and commercials, which includes: Nintendo, L’Oreal, C&A, a perfume deal for her first fragrance ‘Heat, and her House of Dereon clothing line.

In fact, the majority of Beyonce’s fame and income comes out of non-music related ventures, since earlier this year she failed to make Billboard’s top ten highest earning artists (a list which only ranks income from music, touring etc).

No. 4 – Lady GaGa: Making her debut on the list is pop megstar Lady GaGa, who has stormed in straight to #4 with earnings of $62 million. The entertainer topped both the web rank and social media rank, and made top five of the press rank. She also had a successful tour, hit singles, a high-profile collaboration with Beyonce in “Telephone”, and became the first artist to reach 1 billion views on Youtube. The star also took a page out of Beyonce’s book by getting major endorsement deals, signing her soul over to Virgin Mobile, Viva Glam, Monster Cable and Polaroid.

No. 6 – Britney Spears: Moving back into the top ten of the Forbes Celeb 100 list is Britney Spears. The tabloid fave has been fairly quiet on the music front lately, but she did have one of the biggest tours of 2009 with the Circus Starring Britney Spears. It ranked as the highest-grossing North American tour of 2009, and the fifth biggest in the world, pulling in over $130 million for 98-dates. Britney also became the most followed person on Twitter, which helped her come in at #2 on the social rank, and #3 on the web rank. However, the notoriously private star dropped considerably on her TV/Radio and Press rankings, most likely due to her strong avoidance of almost anything media-related.

Britney also scored a multi-platinum #1 hit with her compilation single “3″. Adding to Britney’s wealth is her deal with bargain bin clothing line Candies, and her hugely successful fragrance line with Elizabeth Arden, which is the biggest celebrity perfume line of all time. Brit’s total earnings for the year was $64 million.

Now as for the rest of the list: Madonna scraped in at #10, thanks to her deal with Glee and a few tour dates that managed to make the Forbes cut off time for the list. Taylor Swift was #12, followed by Miley Cyrus at #13, Jay-Z at #15, Black Eyed Peas at #16 and Bruce Springsteen at #17. Pink was further down the list at #27, which was mostly attributed to her incredibly successful Funhouse tour.

However, noticeably absent on the list was Rihanna, who didn’t even make the top 100. The singer had an album out, scored some hit singles, just started a tour and earned a lot of press thanks to the aftermath of her relationship with Chris Brown, as well as her for her fashion and style which has become a tabloid favorite.

She may be on of the world’s biggest pop stars, but according to this, Rihanna has while to go before she becomes a force to be reckoned with. I expect to see her on next years list though, when she has more tour dates under her belt and a new album out.

Check out the list in full here.

As usual, Beyonce can’t keep herself away from the studio or the spotlight, with “Single Ladies” songwriter The-Dream confirming that he’s set to work with the booty popping singer once again.

“I’m working on a reality show, I’m working with this girl name Kasha who’s here today. We’ll probably get her album done within the week. Ciara’s already started on her project. You know, Rihanna, Beyonce, the same beautiful people every year. It’s a cycle. We’ve gotta get that money.” [source]

Producer Jim Jonsin (“Sweet Dreams”) also recently revealed that Beyonce had asked him to send her over some good tracks to listen to.

‘I Am… Sasha Fierce’ is still performing strongly in the charts and Beyonce has done several features to keep her name in lights, so it doesn’t look like a new album would drop until next year, but when it comes to Bey and Mathew Knowles, you can never say never.

You know what they say – No rest for the wicked!

In a bid to still appeal to her urban fans as her career descends deeper and deeper into dance music, Kelly Rowland has remixed her new single “Commander” into an urban version, enlisting her ‘Dilemma’ collaborator Nelly to jump on as a featured guest.

The remix is cute but it’s far too auto-tuned to work properly as a ballad, and listening to it just makes you want to give the original a spin.

“Commander” is on iTunes now, while the next dual A-side single “Shake Them Haters Off” will be sent to rhythmic formats on June 15th.

In other completely unrelated news, a new version of Beyonce’s “Me Myself & I” music video has leaked online. You can watch it over at Toyaz-World.

*blank stare*