Kehlani Covers The Fader

Kehlani graces the cover of the The Fader's new issue. Bay Area singer Kehlani has come a long way since last year's Cloud 19 tape (our main entry point to her music), signing with Atlantic, touring relentlessly and showing marked improvement on this spring's You Should Be Here. Now, she's The Fader's latest cover star. In a lengthy interview, Lani Tsunami discusses her troubled childhood, stint on "America's Got Talent," Nick Cannon's involvement in her career, and the attempts that Chief Keef, The Game and Birdman made to sign her. Read a few excerpts below, and the full thing here. On signing with Atlantic: Kehlani resisted these temptations and, by the start of 2015, had taken meetings with "every label there is, more than once." She started recording at Atlantic’s studios and 'clinked glasses,' as she puts it, with them in January, while continuing to court other offers. She says her deal was finalized just before the April 2015 release of You Should Be Here, which was billed as a mixtape but is not meaningfully different from an album. Comprised of new songs with original beats that don’t use illegal samples, it was seemingly recorded with an awareness that it would be put up for sale. By July, it had sold 23,000 units, according to Nielsen Music. On SoundCloud, its songs had been collectively streamed more than 26 million times. On her childhood: Growing up in north Oakland, Kehlani helped look after her aunt’s two younger children. “We lived in this little duplex until everything started breaking,” Kehlani says. “It was getting really cold, and the heater broke, and then the sink broke, then the washing machine stopped working.” Even as a child, she says she aspired to find the bright side of bad situations. “I’ve always been a little light. Something bad would happen, and I’d be like, ‘Well, this is happening, but we’re lucky in these other ways.’” But things got more complicated when her mother reentered her life—though not as her guardian. “At that point, my mom had two other kids. I just couldn’t understand why I was the only child who couldn’t be around her. She would be doing her shit, then get clean for two months, but I was never allowed to stay with her, and I couldn’t grasp why. They would be literally dragging me out of my mom’s crib, holding-on-to-the-walls type shit. Screaming like, ‘Why am I the oldest and I can’t be here? Don’t you think I’m the most mature?’” At school, Kehlani’s talents were acknowledged. She danced seriously from childhood through junior high, until, after an injury, she switched her focus at Oakland’s School for the Arts to singing. “Everybody was gay as hell,” she says of the school. “It was like Glee in that bitch.” As a teenager, she had girlfriends and boyfriends. “I got my first girlfriend in ninth grade. Then I told her I didn’t know what I wanted and broke up with her. I think I was always just, like, you have to be gay or you have to be straight—that those were conflicting. I learned that there’s really no wrong or right, that it was cool to like everything. But it was a lot for me.”

50 Cent & Jake Gyllenhaal Cover VIBE Magazine

50 Cent and Jake Gyllenhaal cover the new issue of VIBE. After appearing on the Muscle & Fitness cover, 50 Cent puts his shirt back on and nabs another cover with "Southpaw" co-star Jake Gyllenhaal. Fif has been busy promoting "Southpaw" with various daytime talk show appearances, but today he targets a different audience in "Southpaw" promotion, by covering the latest issue of VIBE magazine with Gyllenhaal. Take a look at the cover image and few photo shoot outtakes in the gallery above. The interview finds the two going back and forth, as they discuss the upcoming film and more. Check out a few excerpts on that below. "Southpaw" hits theatres on July 24th. The movie is based on a lot of revenge because of what happened to your wife in the movie. Did you actually look at any revenge fights, like those famous rematches? What kind of fights were you looking at and did any stick out that you used for the film? Jake: Well, that Ward [vs.] Gatti [2002] fight was a big one for us. I mean that was a fight that we referenced in the last fight of the film because that’s a fight of will, will, pure will. I don’t even know what that is at that point, but it’s something in a human being that you wish to know about yourself, but you never wish to know, do you know what I mean? That was a big reference but at the same time, the last fight in particular is a fight about using anger but not using rage. Early in the movie, he’s a character who functions only on his rage–anger with violence–and throughout the movie, what he learns is how to use his anger, but without violence meaning he knows how to fight. He learns the techniques of fighting, how to box for real. With that knowledge, he can then when needed, like what 50 said when we talked to Floyd, he can then bring out that rage at times but not in a way that destroys his life. Forest Whitaker character is poised. I think a lot of people will resonate with what he’s able to teach Billy. Jake: When Forest’s character teaches Billy new techniques in the movie, he starts to tell him how to move his feet, use his feet, and slide. There’s a line where Billy says to him, ‘My wife would’ve liked you.’ 50: At that point, it’s dawning on him. He’s telling me to slide my feet so I don’t get hit as much. It’s simplifying things. My grandfather, I made this reference earlier, he simplified his life. He said: ‘I’ma go to work and come home.’ They had so many kids. They’re from Aiken, South Carolina, had nine kids, and then he gave my grandmother the money. He just gave her a check. She took care of the bills. She took care of everything that was necessary for the kids and then come Monday, she’d give him money so he could go back and forth to work — and do what he needed to do. So it’s just simplifying things. It’s the same way Jake’s character is saying, ‘Let Maureen do it. That way I don’t mess it up.’ And then Maureen’s already training [Billy’s daughter], saying, ‘You know we have to look after your daddy,’ from the beginning.

Amber Rose Reveals "How To Be A Bad Bitch" Book Cover

Amber Rose took to Instagram yesterday to reveal the official cover for her upcoming book, "How To Be A Bad Bitch." She's been promoting the book for a minute, most recently she sat down with Big Boy to discuss the idea of a "bad bitch" (and she also confirmed her relationship with MGK). Amber shows herself off in all her bad bitch glory on her book cover. She's basically naked while holding a bow and arrow, and a man lies below her feet with several arrows piercing him. The cover was shot by Dave LaChapelle. Check it out in the gallery above. If you need to know how to be a bad bitch, you can pre-order the book on Amazon here. The book hits shelves on October 27 2015.