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Alicia Keys and Rihanna have both spoken out to try and help find 11 year-old cancer-stricken actress Shannon Tavarez a bone marrow transplant.

Tavarez, who stars as Nala in the Broadway musical production of the Lion King was diagnosed with an acute form of leukemia in April.

Now the two singers have lent their support to the campaign to help find a transplant donor for the young performer.

“For her, the sky is the limit but now she’s fighting for her life,” Keys, who is five months pregnant, told People.

The Fallin’ singer visited Tavarez earlier this month at the Long Island hospital where she is receiving daily chemotherapy treatments.

“Tavarez should be performing on Broadway but is confined to her bed, fighting for her life,” Rihanna added.

“She needs to find a bone marrow donor to survive. I urge all my fans to register as donors. It’s the most beautiful thing someone could do, to give the gift of life.”

Source: Splash News

The official video for Alicia Keys’ “Unthinkable (I’m Ready)” from her album The Element Of Freedom
Alicia Keys – Unthinkable – Video

The ‘Sex and the City 2’ soundtrack will be hitting the shelves on May 25th, two days before the movie comes out, and I have details on what you can expect to hear. The first music on the record will be Alicia Keys covering Blondie’s ‘Rapture’ which is being mashed up with the movie’s infamous theme song. The soundtrack will also feature two songs by Liza Minnelli – a rendition of Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ and Cole Porter’s ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’. If that isn’t cheesy enough, the soundtrack will also include a song with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda singing Helen Reddy’s ‘I Am Woman’.

Drake’s ‘Thank Me Later’ album is officially being pushed back. The original release date for the album of the Canadian singer/rapper was May 25 but now Universal Motown has confirmed that it’s been pushed back to June 15 so Drake can put finishing touches on the project. I wonder if he’s a perfectionist of if the album isn’t really all that good and label execs cracked the whip on him. I guess we’ll just have to wait until June. So much for Alicia Keys wanting to help him with promotion by postponing her duet with Beyonce in place of her song with Drake.

It seems that there are a couple of celebrities who will be worth a pretty penny come New Year’s Eve because they will be starting off 2010 with some major cash going into their pockets. Rihanna will be collecting a royal fee of half a million dollars to perform at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. It would mark the singer’s first concert in the Middle East. A source said “She was supposed to perform back in May [in Abu Dhabi], but she cancelled in the aftermath of the assault. This is a make-up date.” The Barbadian babe isn’t the only one rolling in dough though as Alicia Keys is getting paid $250,000 to throw a holiday concert in New York City. Happy New Year indeed!

The release date of Jay-Z’s ‘The Blueprint 3’ got bumped up and I didn’t even know until after the album dropped! The rapper’s album, featuring collaborations with Rihanna, Kanye West and Alicia Keys just to name a few, dropped yesterday. The album was originally scheduled to hit stores on September 11th, marking the eight year anniversary of the release of 2001’s ‘The Blueprint’. I have a feeling that the release date switch had to do with the entire album leaking out onto the internet recently. They could at least try to fool everyone else who hasn’t heard about the leak.
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At least 11 people were killed this past weekend in a stampede during the final night of the Mawazine music festival in the Moroccan capital of Rabat. Kylie Minogue and Alicia Keys had performed at the festival in the weeks prior to the incident, which draws over a million people to the city of Rabat annually. 70,000 people had gathered at the closing night of the festival to hear hometown sensation Abdelaziz Stati when a wire fence gave out while the crowd was leaving the festival grounds. The crowd’s surge caused a stampede where 5 women, 4 men and 2 children suffocated to death while being trampled by the mass exodus of concert goers. My condolences go out to the family and friends of the victims.

R&B songstress Alicia Keys performed her new single “No One”
Alicia’s new album titled “As I Am” gets released on November 13th.