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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Brian White Gets Personal


Actor Brian White has been wooing women in movies and in magazines for a nearly ten years and shows no signs of slowing down. After a injury abruptly sidelined his NFL career, he has appeared in several TV shows and movie. PRIME caught up with him for a few minutes to talk about his family and his upcoming role in Tyler Perry’s new Movie I Can Do Bad All By My Self.

PRIME: Tell us about your child hood and how you were raised.
Brian: Simply stated, my mother (and my father when I was with him) made sure that my childhood was full of love and that I had positive role models and examples of doing things the right way. Between both parents, from athletics to academics, I was exposed to the best in life -- and even some of the worst so that I knew the difference. The distinction between the two was always explained to me and I was given reasons why I should aspire to the former. In retrospect, I think the cumulative result from this kind of childhood is a broadly empathetic worldview coupled with upwardly mobile aspirations.

PRIME: Were there a lot of kids in the house
Brian: I am the eldest and only boy of 6 children.

PRIME: Today a lot of couples never get married. Were your parents ever married?
Brian: Yes, my parents were college sweethearts, married for a few years and then divorced.

PRIME: Are you still close with both parents?
Brian: Yes. I am very close with both my parents simply because we all make it a priority to remain close, stay in contact and to be a real part of each other’s lives. I also enjoy the opportunity to work with them both as partners in my various philanthropic endeavors and events. My father often participates as a guest speaker and my mother works behind the scenes as an event coordinator and organizer.

PRIME: It seems that family is important you all. Do you have kids?
Brian: No children, yet.

PRIME: Often as kids we don’t understand/believe what our parents tell us. What are some things your parents told you then that you now believe are true or that you didn’t understand until later in life?
Brian: My mother taught me from a young age that my integrity is my only real currency in this world and that the more I invested in my education during my formative years, the more doors that would remain open to me over the course of my professional adult life. I trusted her wisdom back then and no truer words have ever been spoken!

PRIME: You mentioned that your parents both went to college. So did you all middle class? What type of work did your parents do?
Brian: I grew up as a “latch key kid” in a single parent, middle-income household raised by my mother in a suburb of Boston, MA. My mother, Estelle was a business executive. My father, Jo Jo was a professional basketball player. He played for the Boston Celtics.

PRIME: What were their expectations for you in school? I mean were they really strict about grades?
Brian: My mother consistently presented school, and education in general as the path that would insure I developed the tools and skills required to guarantee myself a bright future. B’s and above were “expected”. A’s were encouraged and usually rewarded.

PRIME: For a lot of families now and when we were growing up, college wasn’t an obvious option. So was college an expectation or more of a hope or wish?
Brian: Education and college are MANDATORY in my family. No exceptions. Period. My parents both went to college, my 4 middle sisters and I are all college graduates and my youngest sister just started college this year.

PRIME: How did growing up in a single parent home affect you as a teen?
Brian: I saw a variety. Probably 70% of my friend’s parents were “happily married” while I was growing up. The other 30% had single mothers, like me. Honestly, I never looked at it as a positive or a negative. It was never a disadvantage or an advantage. It was just the way things were. My mom and dad were divorced and my mother raised me. Frankly, mom did not tell us kids about any drama with our father because it had nothing to do with us. Instead, she made sure we made calls and sent holiday cards and birthday presents to him and allowed/encouraged and assisted us in seeing see him whenever possible, no matter her personal feelings about the matter. As a result, my father and I are close today and have a wonderful relationship. Additionally, I have benefited as a man and one-day father from seeing the positive examples of my fathers 2nd successful marriage, which is still going strong after 30 years.

PRIME: You went to college and now you’re in Hollywood. What do your parents think of your success?
Brian: As a child my parents taught me to try lots of different things in order that I discover what I truly love doing and then to spend the rest of my life developing the tools, skills and strategy to make my living doing some or all of those things. I’ve followed their advice and continue to do so and can only hope that they are pleased and proud of the results.

PRIME: What are some of the things you think you missed/regret from having one parent in the house?
Brian: I don’t believe in regrets. If I didn’t have the life experiences I’ve had, I don’t think I would be the man I am today. I think my sisters and I were blessed to have a mother who was able to set aside her personal feelings and emotions about her relationship with my father for the benefit of her children preserving our own relationship with him. I have always felt loved by both parents and had close relationships with both. And without having had to sometimes “work” hard at maintaining the relationship with my father due to distance, I’m not sure if I would appreciate the great relationship we have today as much as I do?

PRIME: Why do you think it’s important to have both parents?
Brian: I think having both parents is always the ideal goal because it fosters the development of children who grow up knowing “forever” is possible in relationships and have witnessed positive examples and have tangible role models of loving relationships between men and woman (or even same sex couples) and learn how to argue appropriately, settle conflicts and the true value of having real “family.”

PRIME: How do you feel about single parents adopting?
Brian: I feel that every child needs to be loved and deserves that gift. And for that reason alone I believe that it is better for a child to have 1 parent to love and care for them than none.

PRIME: What about gay parents?
Brian: Like I said before, I don’t believe that sexuality is relevant when the choice is between a child having the blessing of being loved versus growing up without that gift.

PRIME: How much of your acting can you pull from your own experiences?
Brian: The more I’m blessed to work, the more I try to seek out characters and roles that are disparate from myself. I think we, as human beings, are emotional mosaics of our accumulated life experiences. We may not always consciously draw from our past, but I believe that our past experiences are always influencing our current actions. For me that’s what’s most fascinating about stepping farther and farther away, artistically, from me as a person… to discover what (if any) aspects of these roles and personas I actually share similarities with? I derive the most personal satisfaction artistically from those moments when at work when I am not able to draw on life experience and must instead truly live in that moment and be along for the ride with the character under those totally foreign circumstances. Two examples would be my role as Patrick in “The Family Stone” and as Randy in the upcoming Tyler Perry’s, “I Can Do Bad All by Myself.”

PRIME: What’s next for you?

Brian: I am a regular on a new television series with, Ray Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula called, “Men of a Certain Age” for TNT debuted in December. On the philanthropic side, I am co-hosting a regional essay contest, with Keisha Whitaker for enrolled students ages 12-22 in our home state (Massachusetts) called Words Matter: www.WordsMatterNOW.org I am also hosting my first major international event, Helping Hands Celebrity Weekend in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands in July 21-25, 2010 in support of my foundation, WARM2Kids (www.warmfoundation.org).

Event info/details/to make charitable donations please visit:

www.HelpingHandsCharityWeekend.org

Friday, February 26, 2010

2009 Year In Review


2009 Year Review

WTF Moments:

We can all agree that Kanye West stealing the mic from Taylor Swift at the MTV VMA’s tops the list for WTF moments of the year! Intoxicated or not running on stage and interrupting Taylor ’s acceptance speech was wrong but funny as hell! Hey, it may have helped Taylor ’s popularity and very well could have been a factor for her rise in record sales.

Oprah Winfrey Retirement Announcement

Kim Zolciak Single "Tardy for the Party"

Lamar Odom and Khloe' Kardashian Wedding

Serena Williams US Open Outburst

David Letterman Sex Scandal & Extortion

Heene Family Balloon Hoax

Tareq and Michaele Salahi White House State Dinner party crashers

Bitchassness:

Joe Jackson for capitalizing on the death of Michael Jackson, his golden-goose, Joe Jackson is KING of Bitchassness! Selling tickets to his son’s memorial is as about a greedy as it gets, where did the money go?

Kanye West Stealing Taylor Swift's Shine

Chris Brown Giving Rihanna The Beatdown

Eldrick “Tiger” Woods Practicing His Stroke On Women Other Than His Wife

Took Too Much Time:

Beyonce we love you, really we do but 2009 proved to be Beyonce overload! Jay put a “Ring On It” so go sit down!

OctoMom, Nadya Suleman and Her 14 Kids

Skinny Jeans for Men

Frankie & Neffie from Keyshia Cole's The Way It Is Reality Show

Tiny & Toya’s Reality Show!

Jon and Kate Gosselin!

Break Ups:

Chris Brown and Rihanna break-up was an ugly one, young love gone wrong.

Janet Jackson and Jermaine Dupri

Nelly and Ashanti

Usher Raymond Ended His Marriage to Tameka Foster

Kelis Divorce from Nas

Hook Ups:

Lamar Odom and Khloe’ Kardashian’s whirlwind courtship and marriage make our list, I guess when you know you know!

The Dream and Christina Milan

Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian

Stacy Ferguson AKA Fergie and Josh Duhamel Marry

Katy Perry and Russell Brand

Ex-Playmate Kendra Wilkinson and Hank Baskett of the Indianapolis Colts Wed


Blew-Up Overnight:

Lady GAGA came from no where and took the music industry by storm. The twenty-something year old amazed audiences with her outfits and vocals, GAGA is nominated for five-Grammy Awards.

Keri Hilson

Drake

Justin Beiber

Adam Lambert

Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe

Comeback Kid:

After an eight-year hiatus from music Maxwell came back with a vengeance releasing his fourth studio album "BLACKsummers' night". His debut single "Pretty Wings" flew up the charts, the crooner snagged six-Grammy nominations and a No. 6 spot for Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums of the year.

Whitney Houston

Jay-Z

Michael Vick

Jennifer Hudson

Headliners:

"Yes We Can" became "Yes We Did" officially on January 20, 2009! The people's choice President Barack Obama was sworn into office to serve as our nations 44th President and first African-American President.

Chris Brown's physical altercation with Rihanna

OctoMom, Nadya Suleman gave birth to eight babies for a total of 14 kids

MJ's untimely death at age 50

The US Airways plane crash in the Hudson River

President Barack Obama receives a Nobel Peace Prize

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Tony Rock:Rockin the Mic


Tony Rock is best known for his role as “Dirk,” the prototypical bachelor on the UPN series “All Of Us.” He has successfully been able to avoid the looming shadow of his older brother, Chris Rock, and claim his own audience as a comedian and actor.

Tony has been in the comedy game for just over a decade, which is the average time, it takes many comedians to work the comedy club circuit before audiences remember their names, yet Tony has been a regular at A list comedy clubs for half that time. A humble Rock says, “I’m still a baby in comedy and learning every day.”

Having a very famous brother in the same line of work is a double edged sword for Tony. Some people assume he gets shows simply because they are brothers. But the other side to that is people hold him to a higher standard. Tony maintains that he has been grinding and is earning his stripes. In fact, he insists that each of the (eight)”Rock brothers are doing well, independent and don’t need to piggyback of each other. In addition to his run on UPN, Tony has amassed other TV credits including “The Funny Spot” “Def Comedy Jam” and “The Tony Rock Project.” He admits The Tony Rock Project, although self titled is the first project he did “for the check.” “That’s the first project I did that I wasn’t behind it 100 percent, and I won’t do that again,” he states. He admits he had very little input and the show was created by the producers and they later tagged his name at the end. However he is in talks with Comedy Central to do a new sketch comedy show. Also his Comedy Central Special debuts this Friday. For Tony, he would love to do more acting, but because he has less control over the work, comedy will always come first. In addition, he says he would love to do a dramatic movie with his brother.



Judging from the many loud outbursts of laughs and the long line of fans waiting to take pictures with Rock this past weekend, the crowd at the Washington DC Improv seemed to love his antics and stories. Tony says he has grown as a person and a comic. Now he can find the non-obvious humor in typical stories. He says the biggest lesson he has learned applies to anything that you want to do. The best people are the people who work the hardest. Tony is on the road approximately 35 weekends each year. Traveling so often gets frustrating at times, but being on stage and getting love from the fans make it worthwhile. On stage he has no filters and will say whatever comes to mind. Offstage, although he is often the life of the party, he is much more reserved. He says he doesn’t curse in front of elders, nor women when he first meets them.

As for his personal life, he says he doesn’t expect to be marrying anytime soon and is still regrouping from a terrible break-up, but says he would like to marry some day and have a “gangload of kids.” Tony says he tries to be a loyal and good friend and wants to be a role model for other kids in his hometown of New York.
Be sure to catch Tony Rock and Garrick Dixon when they come to a town near you. Comedy Central Presents Tony Rock airs February 19th at 11pm EST

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Kjon: The Wait Is Over


“On The Ocean” is the lead single from Kjon, one of R&B newest artist, who says “I’m not afraid to sing about what I’m going through and other stuff that matters.” The Detroit native says he wrote the song as a inspirational message for him and for anyone going through a struggle or pursuing a goal. “It’s a song about perseverance and never giving up, because all your work will pay off,” he said.

Although Kjon had released independent music, and even performed in local talent shows it wasn’t until he was laid off from his health care management job that he fully concentrated on making music a priority. He only waited on the ocean for six months before his ship finally came and he landed a deal with Universal Music.
As expected, growing up in the backyard of Motown, he was influenced by many of the greats, but he says he didn’t realize how much the music impacted his life and how it influenced his interest in music until he was an adult. He credits Michael Jackson, the Isley Brothers, and Marvin Gaye as some of his old school influences. He says he likes some of the new artist, including Robin Thicke and NeYo.


The by-product of his musical influences manifests itself on his debut CD “I Get Around.” Kjon says this CD has something for everyone, kids and adults. In addition to motivational songs, he says he was sure to include sensual ballads as well as club bangers. Even with Hip Hop saturating radio, film and even commercials, the singer is a self professed R&B guy. Although, like many people, he is a hip hop fan, but feels there needs to be a better balance in radio playlists.

Even with the success of the CD, he insists that he is still the same person. He gives one example saying that he has always taken his two kids to school, but now people are starting to recognize him. Kjon says that he is a father first, but admits his children, who are 5 and 7 years old, understand that his job takes him away from home but they know it’s just work. “I love doing music, but I love being with my kids more. They make me smile,” he said.

Being an independent artist had its challenges and for Kjon the struggles and sacrifices paid off. He says the song “On the Ocean” was the result of him hitting a low point, but that song kept him motivated. In addition “I Get Around,” the title of his CD is homage to his amount of hustling and hard work trying to get his music played. Even without mainstream radio support he still managed to book shows and get fan support. Having released three independent albums and his first major album he says he had to learn the business on his own by trial and error. To other artist, he offers the following advice. Learn the business and learn to accept critiques.
Even though Kjon has lived enough life to offer advice, he admits that he is still learning every day. One thing he wants fans to know about him is that he has learned to tell people how he feels about them because tomorrow isn’t promised.
To learn more about Kjon, you can find him online
www.whoiskjon.com
www.twitter.com/whoiskjon

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Donell Jones is Back


His voice knocked us off our feet with his soulful rendition of a Stevie Wonder classic in 1996. Then in 1999, he blazed the R&B charts with “U Know What’s Up”. And the following year, he made his mark with the hit “Where I Wanna Be”. Now, Donell Jones is back, this time with The Lost Files, his latest CD release.

The 90s represents an era in music that has long-passed, and that notion is not lost on Jones or his fans. “Lots of people [hit] me up on Twitter and MySpace about how much they miss the 90s R&B. A lot of people love that era. A lot of music now is about how much money I make and what car I’m driving,” Jones says. “But people like to hear songs about what they’re going through.”

The Chicago-born, Atlanta-based singer/songwriter is known for wrapping his smooth tenor voice around song lyrics to flirt, confess love and lament loss. Rather than slamming listeners with a message, Jones works it subtly, wooing them with his skillful vocals reminiscent of Stevie, Al and Donny. Acknowledging that his style doesn’t necessarily reflect the times, Jones appreciates it and other singers in the same vein nonetheless. “I’m happy that Maxwell, Joe, Chico [DeBarge] and guys like that are back and still making music,” he says. “R&B is missing stories about love and relationships.”



Jones hopes to turn the tide in R&B music with The Lost Files, a collection of songs he recorded “years ago that didn’t make the previous CD”, he says. The CD will be a “prequel” of sorts to his next release, due to drop in 2010. “You will be able to hear the growth in the music,” he said about the two releases. On his current release, Jones has a particular cut, a love song called, “Forever.” “It’s about people who are in love and who want to grow old together.”

A multi-talented artist, Jones plays piano and guitar, write and produces much of his own music. He wrote and produced the title cut off of his Where I Wanna Be release in 2000. The song reached #29 on the Hot 100 Billboard chart and #2 on the R&B chart. Now, he has started his own record label.

“When I was on Jive [Records], I was on there with a lot of other big names. R. Kelly, Usher,” Jones recalls. “I always had to wait. Even if my project was ready, the label always went on their own schedule. And then they didn’t really promote it. It was a lot of politics. My stuff is as good as theirs.”

Today, he calls his own shots.

One of the biggest lessons Jones said he learned about being in the business is to have his own team. “The business is crooked,” Jones warns. “If you are in the music business, get people that you already knew, that you know they will have your best interest. People that the label gives you won’t have the same commitment.”


Jones’ music interests were cultivated at a young age watching his father and uncle sing. “I’ve always wanted to do music,” he says.

Outside the studio and off the stage, Donell Jones is the proud father of four children, who he credits with making him into the man he is today. “They slowed me down and made me become a man sooner,” Jones said. Of the four, one of his daughters seems enthralled with the fact that her dad is a music celebrity. “She wants me to take them to school,” he laughs. “But the others don’t want me to.”

Jones promises his fans that the new CD will be a treat. “Go get it. You’re going to enjoy it,” he says. “It’s for people who miss 90s R&B.”

An artist who truly appreciates his fans, Donell Jones welcomes fans’ feedback on Twitter and MySpace. “It’s actually me responding.”




On the Internet:
twitter donnelljones96
myspce.com/donnelljones