When it comes to the advancement of women, Salma Hayek says its chime for change…
The 46-year-old Mexican actress has joined forces with Beyoncé andFrida Giannini to launch Chime For Change, a global campaign aimed at promoting women’s leadership. Hayek and the women appear in a public service announcement.
Founded by Gucci, Chime for Changeis a community of people working to promote education, health and justice for every girl, every woman, everywhere.
The initiative will serve to collect funds that help to finance projects that allow girls and women to share their histories of successes, inspiring others to strive for their dreams.
Other celebrities involved in the project include Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Kid Cudi has joined forces with kid Smith on a new musical collaboration…
The 28-year-old part-Mexican American hip-hop artist/songwriter appears on a new track titled “Higher Up,” which has been released by Jaden Smith.
The new rap single contains rhymes from Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s 14-year-old son, which are delivered over the instrumental track from Kid Cudi’s 2009 song. The young Smith presents a chilled-out R&B beat and some lyrics dedicated to his famous parents.
“Higher Up” opens with a gentle piano playing along a relaxed percussion beat. Jaden’s deep voice, which sounds very different from how his vocals sounded in his cameo on Justin Bieber‘s “Never Say Never,” comes as a surprise at the start of the song. Kid Cudi joins the rhymes during the song’s hook, singing the line, “Who’s all ready to go higher up?”
Smith sings, “I’m just a kid who’s not really a kid/ I’m different, dawg, I wear dresses / I’m not upset / You don’t mess with my style cause this stuff’s aggressive/ I’m sorry mom and dad I’m just trying to live, tell them bloggers when they see me to stay out my business.”
“Higher Up” is the first of two projects between Kid Cudi and Smith.
The “Day ‘n’ Nite” hitmaker has previously revealed that the young Smith would be a featured artist on his next album, Indicud, which is slated for release in 2013.
Sérgio Mendes is speaking out against slavery across the globe…
The 71-year-old Grammy-winning Brazilian musician has teamed up with Jada Pinkett Smith, Mila Kunis and others in supporting the International Labour Organization’s fight to end slave labor throughout the world.
The ILO reports that an estimated 21 million people around the world—most of them women and children—work as forced labor or in conditions so oppressive that they would be considered “slave-like.” Sadly, one out of every four contemporary slaves is a child.
The dire situation has struck a chord in Hollywood, with a new group of celebrities like Mendes offering their public support for the International Labour Organization’s global “End Slavery Now!” campaign.
This week, Pinkett Smith released a video appeal for the ILO, a subsidiary of the United Nations, while Mendes released an image of himself holding an “End Slavery Now!” sign.
“When we think of slavery,” said Smith, “we think of the past. But the truth is that three out of every 1,000 people in the world today are either in forced labour, have been trafficked or work in slave-like conditions. . .It has to stop.”
In a statement issued from the organization’s Geneva headquarters, ILO Director General Guy Ryder said, “For all of us, having a decent job with a fair wage, having our fundamental rights protected and having access to minimum protection in times of need is a basic aspiration. Sadly, even today, millions of women and men, boys and girls are caught in the nightmare of slavery and forced labour. That’s why the ILO is greatly encouraged to see so many leading artists join this fight.”
Salma Hayek is shining a spotlight on the global problem of human trafficking…
The 45-year-old Mexican actress has teamed up with Jada Pinkett-Smith for the “Don’t Sell Bodies” campaign, which aims to raise awareness about the exploitation of girls and women around the world.
Human trafficking affects some 20 million people around the world, with Latinos serving as the largest demographic to fall victim to sex and labor trafficking cases. Thirty-seven percent of Latinos are sex trafficked and 56 percent are labor trafficked victims in the United States, according to the Department of Justice. Within the percentage of citizens being trafficked for forced prostitution in the U.S., most are Latinas under the age of 25.
It’s those unbelievable statistics that inspired Hayekand Pinkett-Smithto get involved in the Don’t Sell Bodies campaign. The Frida actress directed the attention-grabbing video titled, “Nada se compara,” which features women falling victim to this modern form of slavery.
Smith, who sings the track in Spanish, says that Salma inspired her to get involved and raise awareness for an issue that affects Latinos and non-Latinos alike.
“I think it’s especially important in all communities. There are very, very high numbers of African-American and Latina women who are trafficked, but that’s not to exclude white women or Asian women,” Pinkett-Smith said in an interview with the Huffington Post.
He’s a rising star in the world of Latin music… And Kingnaldo’s next project could see his career blow up even more…
The Puerto Rican rockero, whose real name is Reynaldo Serrano Lima, is following up his critically acclaimed 2009 debut with a new album entitled Combustible.
Kingnaldo tells Efe that his new disc “goes more directly to things that get to me” like social and human injustices, including the ones imposed by systems of government.
Kingnaldo—born and raised in the western village of San Sebastian, but currently living in Atlanta—is working with musicians like Harold Hopkins on bass and drummer Kirk Marshall, who has accompanied Snoop Dog, Nas and Jada Pinkett Smith.
To help launch his new album, Kingnaldo held a show recently that was dedicated to the 31st anniversary of the death of Puerto Rican inmate rights activist Carlos Torres Irriarte.
In February, Kingnaldo released the music video for the album’s first single “La Mujer De Mi Vida.”
