40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks
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Stills are released from Spike Lee’s Bad 25 Michael Jackson documentary, Are you ready for late nights with Tiny?, Mary J. Blige is out as Nina Simone in biopic — find out who’s in, custody battle between Usher and Tameka Raymond gets nasty, Brandy speaks on Whitney Houston’s last words to her and more in today’s UrbLinks.

Spike Lee has released stills from his Michael Jackson Bad 25 documentary. The documentary that features behind-the-scenes footage of the recording process of Bad’s biggest records combined with interviews from several artists including Mariah Carey, Kanye West, Chris Brown and others. Bad 25 will be premiere on what would have been the King of Pop’s 54th birthday — August 29th at Italy’s Venice Film Festival. [SoulCulture]
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Mary J. Blige was originally cast to play Nina Simone but moved on because of funding issues but surprisingly no one knew she was no longer playing Simone until it was released that Zoe Saldana would be playing the role. I’m not convinced she can pull this one off. This will definitely be a career defining role for the actress. [HollywoodReporter]
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Earlier this week I had the pleasure of being on set for the video shoot for X-Factor contestant and now Epic Records signed R&B artist Marcus Canty’s latest single. The track called “In And Out” features Wale and is sure to keep you hot on the dance floor even though the weather will be cooling down soon. Check out this video below of some behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot.

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Although delayed because of Tameka Raymond’s recent untimely death of her eldest son in a jet-ski accident, the custody battle for Usher and Tameka Raymond’s two sons that they have together is back on and is getting pretty nasty. With allegations of violence and temper issues verses celebrity, a judgment is expected to be made as early as next week. [HHW]
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Brandy is on a promotional tour to promote her new album Two Eleven that has been pushed to October 16th and of course is going to be asked questions about her late mentor Whitney Houston. While on the set for her latest video “Put It Down” featuring Chris Brown she remembers Nippy’s last words to her about “being the greatest version of herself.” [Insider]
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Speaking of Whitney Houston an exhibit in her honor recently debuted at the Grammy museum in Los Angeles. The exhibit entitled Whitney! Celebrating The Musical Legacy Of Whitney Houston will run from now until February 2013. [Centric]
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Today’s UnderUrb spotlight goes out to Ray Lavender. He’s been signed to a major label deal before but now he’s releasing music independently so he still qualifies as an Underground Urban artist. He’s been reinventing himself through his new single “We Love” and recently dropped a mixtape The R&B Hustler.

Global Artists Group
You can download the mixtape with both original songs and Ray remixes of some popular songs right now for free by going here.
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From reality TV to a late night talk show. Tiny formerly of the R&B group Xscape but now usually referred to as rapper T.I.’s wife is headed to late night TV. She announced on The Morning Buzz that “Tiny Tonight” is coming. [Vh1]
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That’s your Hip Hop and R&B links for today. Don’t forget to check back daily so you are in the know on all things urban music from Eb the Celeb.