Ciara's 'Ride' video: Banned by BET?

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Robot Love: Music + technology

What's up with all the robot love, lately?
I mean, didn't Jay-Z, like, kill autotune last year? (Dont' tell this guy)
More pronounced recently is the marriage of robotic imagery and our fave women music stars:
The Beybot X1

Beyonce donned a whole cyborg thingy at an awards show a few years back. Was she ahead of her time? And who can forget the cyborg hand?

Going Gaga for Robots

Lady Gaga, who I'm convinced is the secret love child of "Sweet Dreams" singer Annie Lennox and Madonna,  turned the futuristic robotic thing way up with her interesting fashion sense.


Ciara-3PO?

And who can forget the most futuristic, sonically speaking, of them all, Ciara? Cici has devoted her whole music catalog to tech-friendly sounds and hasn't been afraid to venture out into bold territory. I guess that "Love, Sex and Magic" stuff is worth something, huh?



Rihanna: Bionic lady

Rihanna, an island chick to the core, has been stepping up her futuristic thing lately. Although being fondled by a robot may not qualify, the "Umbrella" star has realized the need to come of more technologically advanced.



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Nicki Minaj: From Myspace to Femme Phenom

At LaGuardia High School in New York, Onika Maraj was as silly as silly puddy. You can tell from the daffy-duck faces she makes even now. But when did the femme fatale known as Nicki Minaj emerge on the hip-hop scene?
In 2002, a group of eUuniverse employees created Myspace. In two short years, the site graduated to a music reservoir for up-and-coming and unsigned acts to show their work. In 2004, hundreds of artists had built pages with free music for the masses. Like the teenage rap sensation Soulja Boy before her, Nicki Minaj is originally a Myspace rapper.
Some of her early songs pull from the grit and grind of her upbringing in New York City.
She was discovered by Dirty Money CEO Fendi. Lil Wayne personally contacted her, and the rest, as they say is Barbie history.
Flash forward to 2010: The little girl from a troubled home is one of the top rappers in hip-hop and poised to be the queen. And there's still no album, and no tentative title or release date. Yet, she's appeared in more than 14 songs for other people.
Her album promises to be one of the most anticipated rap events of the year. And that's a long way from the humble beginnings of LaGuardia.

Despite sales, Ciara's music is built to last

You might not be able to tell from record sales, but Ciara's catalog of music, spaced out over her three albums so far, will likely have more staying power than, say, Rihanna's and maybe even Beyonce's.
While Beyonce and artists like Monica and Keri Hilson have capitalized on the sound of Now, Ciara's sound is futuristic, robotic even. Her music is sonically closer to Aaliyah's than any other artist. CiCi isn't the only female artist out there with lackluster sales though.
While music will continue to get more computerized, and less organic, her sound prove more durable over the long haul. Now, that won't do her any good in the short term, as newcomers continue to eat up ever-shrinking market share around her, but people will one day appreciate her for what she was. In other words, those Goodies may last forever.


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Eva Mendes is going hard these days

We've all seen it before: Starlet does some pretty okay projects, gets noticed and starts to see her star rise. The names are legion: Beyonce, Alicia keys, Ashanti, etc.
But sooner or later the clothes start to come off the risque'-ness seems to take over. Rihanna, most recently comes to mind. How about Ciara? And now Eva Mendes. The Latin lover has been turning up the thermometer for a few years now since she starred with Denzel in that crime thriller "Out of Time". Ms. Mendes is back now with some seriously hot pics in the latest Calvin Klein advertisement, and well, can you say fuego?

Pinay 'And I' (Ciara)