Singer debuted the dreamy love song from her forthcoming 4 album on Wednesday night's 'American Idol' finale. By Jocelyn Vena
Beyoncé's "1+1" Photo: Columbia Records
Beyoncé may not know a thing about algebra, but when it comes to the math of power ballads, she totally gets it. On Wednesday night, Beyoncé premiered her new track "1+1" during her performance on "American Idol."
After changing into a gown following her medley performance with former "Idol" contestants, B was up on the stage surrounded by soft red mood lighting and smoke, slowing things down a bit and proclaiming her love for that special someone in song. The lyrics make sweeping statements about the power of her relationship.
She sings, "Hey! I don't know much about guns but I ... I've been shot by you/ Hey! And I don't know when I'm gonna die, but I hope that I'm gonna die by you/ Hey! And I don't know much about fighting, but I, I know I will fight for you/ Hey! Just when I ball up my fist, I realize that I'm laying right next to you."
The song is the second officially released single from her album 4, which hits stores on June 28. On Wednesday, Beyoncé revealed the full track listing for 4.
"1+1" opens the album and is one of 12 songs. The remaining 11 are: "I Care," "I Miss You," "Best Thing I Never Had," "Party" (featuring Andre 3000), "Rather Die Young," "Start Over," "Love on Top," "Countdown," the recently leaked "End of Time," "I Was Here" and the album's lead-off single, "Run the World (Girls)."
With another year's edition having come and gone, the 2011 BET Awards were held in Los Angeles, CA on Sunday night (June 26).
Taking place at the Shrine Auditorium, the big winner of the night was Chris Brown - who garnered three trophies out of his pack-leading six nominations.
Making for quite the awkward situation, there was a mix-up during the announcement of the Viewer's Choice winner - as Tiffany Greene first named Brown as the winner before then saying Drake and Rihanna were the victors. With Drake accepting the trophy, it was later confirmed that Brown was, indeed, the winner of the fan voted accolade.
Hosted by actor/comedian Kevin Hart, the annual BET event also featured performances by top acts such as Beyonce Knowles, Drake, Chris Brown, Lil Wayne and Mary J Blige, among many others.
Including special tributes to Steve Harvey as the Humanitarian Award Honoree and Patti LaBelle as the Life Achievement Award winner, other BET winners included Nicki Minaj as Best Female Hip-Hop Artist, Kanye West as Best Male Hip-Hop Artist and Wiz Khalifa as Best New Artist.
The complete list of 2011 BET Awards winners is as follows:
Viewer?s Choice WINNER: Chris Brown f/ Lil Wayne & Busta Rhymes ? ?Look at Me Now? Lil Wayne f/ Cory Gunz ? ?6 Foot 7 Foot? Mindless Behavior ? ?My Girl? Nicki Minaj f/ Drake ? ?Moment 4 Life? Rihanna f/ Drake ? ?What?s My Name??
Best Female R&B Artist Marsha Ambrosius Beyoncé<br /> Keri Hilson WINNER: Jennifer Hudson Rihanna
Best Male R&B Artist WINNER: Chris Brown Cee-Lo Green Bruno Mars Trey Songz Usher
Best Group WINNER: Diddy Dirty Money Cali Swag District N.E.R.D. New Boyz Travis Porter
Best Female Hip Hop Artist Diamond Cymphonique Lola Monroe WINNER: Nicki Minaj
Best Male Hip Hop Artist B.o.B Drake Lil Wayne Rick Ross WINNER: Kanye West
Best Collaboration B.o.B ft. Haley Williams of Paramore, "Airplanes" WINNER: Chris Brown ft. Lil Wayne & Busta Rhymes, "Look At Me Now" Kanye West ft. Rihanna, "All of the Lights" Chris Brown ft. Tyga & Kevin McCall, "Deuces" Waka Flocka Flame ft. Roscoe Dash & Wale, "No Hands" Rihanna ft. Drake, "What's My Name"
Best New Artist J. Cole Bruno Mars Miguel Willow Smith WINNER: Wiz Khalifa
YoungStars Award Shenell Edmonds Keke Palmer Diggy Simmons WINNER: Jaden Smith WINNER: Willow Smith
Best Gospel Byron Cage Deitrick Haddon WINNER: Mary Mary Karen Clark Sheard BeBe & CeCe Winans
Centric Award WINNER: Marsha Ambrosius Eric Benét<br /> Cee-Lo Green R. Kelly Kem
Best International Act (Africa) WINNER: 2Face Idibia (Nigeria) WINNER: D' Banj (Nigeria) D-Black (Ghana) Fally Ipupa (DR Congo) Angelique Kidjo (Benin) Teargas (South Africa)
Best International Act (UK) VV Brown Chipmunk Laura Izibor Skepta Tinchy Stryder WINNER: Tinie Tempah
Best Actress Halle Berry WINNER: Taraji P. Henson Regina King Zoë Saldana Kerry Washington
Best Actor Laz Alonso Chris Brown Don Cheadle WINNER: Idris Elba Jamie Foxx
Best Movie Death at a Funeral WINNER: For Colored Girls Takers The Book of Eli Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married, Too?
Sportswoman of the Year Tamika Catchings Candice Dupree Maya Moore WINNER: Serena Williams Venus Williams
Sportsman of the Year Carmelo Anthony Kobe Bryant LeBron James Derrick Rose WINNER: Michael Vick
Chris Brown's Performance
DJ Khaled, Rick Ross, Drake, Lil Wayne PerformancePatti LaBelle & Friends PerformanceTrey Songz & Kelly Rowland PerformanceAlicia Keys Performance
'California needs to catch up,' one gay-marriage supporter says. By Kara Warner
Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
LOS ANGELES — As the celebrations continued in New York on Saturday (June 25) for the passage of the same-sex marriage bill, many Americans were just waking up to and learning of the news. Expressing similar ecstatic emotions to those expressed by New Yorkers, many California residents spoke to MTV News about their enthusiasm for the bill's passage.
"I think it's the next step for states," John Stoeckly told MTV News after New York became the sixth and most populous state to legalize same-sex marriage. "I think people should be happy about it. I think California is probably going to be the next state that makes that step."
"You love who you love, you can't really help that," Samantha Capatosto said of her support for same-sex marriage. "I think it mean that they don't let people get married, my aunt can't get married, and I'm sad about that. She lives in Florida." "You can't help who you love, be with who you want to be with!" Jackie Mossberg chimed in. Both young ladies, along with friend Lauren Vigil, agreed that they feel like same-sex marriage will soon be legal nation-wide.
"All the states are slowly letting gay marriage become legal," Vigil said.
"I think [California is] kind of stubborn," Capatosto added. "But maybe it will happen."
California courts made same-sex marriage legal in 2008 before the passage of Proposition 8 that year negated the ruling. The law has been overturned by the U.S. District court and is now pending a decision by the California Supreme Court.
California resident Orlando Soria was equally excited about the news, but offered a more cautiously optimistic opinion. "It seems like it keeps going back and forth between things being legal and not legal," he pointed out. "New York is sort of a vanguard state, so it seems that the rest of the country will eventually go that direction, but we have no idea. In a year they could be like, 'Oh that's illegal again.' Part of me thinks it's very exciting for now, especially after Prop 8, but it's hard to get fully excited about this stuff because you never know what's going to happen. I don't know. I should just be excited, but at the same time I'm excited with trepidation."
Soria went on to say that the most surprising aspect of the news was learning that the bill was passed for all of New York State, not just New York City.
"New York State is kind of conservative. I lived in upstate New York for four years, and it was very different from the city," he said. "That's amazing to think that crazy conservative New York state passed something that California has yet to. It's nuts." Rebekah Nazarian's response to the news was that "California needs to catch up. Big ups to New York for taking the lead in being the biggest state to allow same sex marriage, " she said. "This is one time I don't mind being a follower, and I hope soon too California can be proud of the same beautiful accomplishment."
Singer teases his new project by pointing to past hits like 'Yeah!' and 'OMG.' By James Montgomery
Usher Photo: MTV News
With the success of songs like "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love," "Hot Tottie" and "OMG," Usher had himself a fairly massive 2010. But rather than rest on his laurels, he's looking to build on his big year, not with an album, but with a "movement."
It's something he's calling "Rev Pop" — or, simply, "Rev" — and though he's already teased his idea in a video with David Guetta (Akon is also involved), he has yet to speak in full about it. So when MTV News caught up with Ush before the 53rd annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles at the (Belvedere) RED launch party, we asked him about his next musical endeavor. And though he didn't reveal much, he did let it be known that "Rev" isn't exactly something new. In fact, he's been doing it for a while now.
"I'll give it to you this way: At a later date, I'll tell you more about Rev Pop, but if I were to give you a flash: I've done it before, I did it with 'Yeah!' " he said, "taking a cultural experience, and also worldwide recognition of a feeling, and putting the soul in the middle of it. Not allowing it to shift heavily to R&B genre, or pop. I did it again with 'OMG,' once again putting the soul in the middle of it, which was an electric-pop experience, with the soul.
"It's bringing those elements together to tell a story, that was born here," he said, gesturing toward his heart, "And that's what Rev Pop is. There's more, I mean, I could really elaborate, but that's just what I'm going to tell you right now. 'Rev' is what it's called ... the movement is called Rev."
Usher wouldn't say just when his fans would be getting their first taste of Rev, but whenever they do, it sounds like they're going to be impressed ... if not a little shocked.
"Stay alive," he smiled, "Because you're definitely going to be in for a surprise."
'You can tell that she was having fun. She looked like she was enjoying herself and loving it,' one fan says after Spears' L.A. show. By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by James Lacsina
Britney Spears performs at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday Photo: Splash News Online
Have you heard? Britney's back! That's the consensus her fans came to on Monday night in Los Angeles, where Britney Spears took the stage at the Staples Center, garnering very positive reviews from her fans.
Rachel Guillory, who happens to be from Brit's home state of Louisiana, said, "She interacted with the audience. She talked, she looked happy the whole time."
Her friend Chandler Cortina added, "You can tell that she was having fun. She looked like she was enjoying herself and loving it."
The good vibes were pouring out from everyone MTV News spoke to after the show, with fans raving about her stage presence and her killer dance moves. "I'll tell you one thing: Britney is back," Andrea Urioste declared. "Who feels me on that?" she asked the crowd, who cheered in approval.
Duprel Nave agreed. "I've been a Britney fan since the beginning. She rocked it and I've been waiting for her to come back," she said. "She gets so much criticism in the media, but she is badass. She's amazing."
Fan Heather Goodly compared this trek, which is several dates in from its kickoff last week in Sacramento, to her last tour. "I went to Circus and this is a thousand times better than that show," she said. "She dances a lot more fiercely, [there are] a lot more hair flips, which is amazing for Britney."
"It's like 2004, 2001 Britney is completely back. Energetic, excited," Ricardo Garcia shared.
So, which parts rocked the most? " 'I Wanna Go,' " Pattie Cortez said of Spears' performance of her new single. "That was our favorite part. It was so intense. Everybody was doing the fist pump."
Chris Rocha went old-school for his pick. "When she did 'Slave For U,' [with] the original choreography, that brought back the old Britney for me. I was waiting for that, and to see that come back, it was awesome."
Have you seen Britney on tour? Tell us what you think in the comments!