Out magazine’s Ladies We Love issue, which featured pop chanteuse Britney Spears on its first cover that came out last week, just keeps delivering the gay goods: The issue’s second and final cover has hit, and it’s another lady they (and we) love from the world of music: Madonna.
But they didn’t put together just another profile of Madge. Instead, they’ve constructed a pretty cool (and never-before-seen!) photo portfolio from one of Madonna’s earliest photo shoots, just before she was about to hit it big. The gritty photos - hot in and around the apartment building that Madonna lived in in New York City’s East Village - were taken by now-famed photographer Richard Corman, who contributes a short essay about this experience with the diva to the package, in the summer of 1982.
Corman recounts how Madonna was already an icon to the kids in the nabe. 'She was like the Pied Piper of the neighborhood - they loved her,' Corman remembers. 'They followed her, they danced with her, they sang with her. It was something they did on a daily basis, and it was remarkable. We just walked up and they gathered around. She put the boom box on - it was her music, though I don’t remember which song - and they just started dancing and singing. She was so alive and unpretentious. She was fierce, determined. Nothing was going to stop her.'
Later, Corman recounts how things have changed for both he and Madonna since this innocent little shoot: 'For me, like her, when I do a shoot now, I’ve got eight people around me - but that day it was just the two of us.'
It’s kinda sweet, thinking about Madonna as just a girl with a boom box and a bunch of neighborhood kids on her heels, right? Do you love these photos? Do they take you back? From The Music Mix / EW.com
out.com
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Madonna-backed group ends plans for Malawi school.A charitable group backed by pop star Madonna has scrapped its plan to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi due to mismanagement, the New York Times reported on Thursday. The organization, Raising Malawi, has ousted its board of directors and replaced its members with a new set of officials that includes Madonna and her manager, the Times reported. 'A thoughtful decision has been made to discontinue plans for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, as it was originally conceived,' Michael Berg, co-founder of Raising Malawi, said Thursday in an e-mail to the center's members who had contributed to the project, according to the Times. Berg, a co-director of the spiritual and educational organization Kabbalah Center International in Los Angeles, could not be reached for comment on Thursday night. The Times said the effort to build the Malawi school had collapsed after spending $3.8 million on the project and its executive director left in October amid criticism of his management style and cost overruns. Madonna lent $11 million of her money to the organization. She has been a frequent visitor to Malawi and has adopted two children from the country. On Thursday, the singer issued a statement to the Times saying she was still intent on working with Raising Malawi. 'There's a real education crisis in Malawi,' she said in the statement given to the Times. 'Sixty-seven percent of girls don't go to secondary school, and this is simply unacceptable.' A spokeswoman for Madonna could not be reached on Thursday night. Yahoo! News
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A charitable group backed by pop star Madonna has scrapped its plan to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi due to mismanagement, the New York Times reported on Thursday.
The organization, Raising Malawi, has ousted its board of directors and replaced its members with a new set of officials that includes Madonna and her manager, the Times reported.
'A thoughtful decision has been made to discontinue plans for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, as it was originally conceived,' Michael Berg, co-founder of Raising Malawi, said Thursday in an e-mail to the center's members who had contributed to the project, according to the Times.
Berg, a co-director of the spiritual and educational organization Kabbalah Center International in Los Angeles, could not be reached for comment on Thursday night.
The Times said the effort to build the Malawi school had collapsed after spending $3.8 million on the project and its executive director left in October amid criticism of his management style and cost overruns.
Madonna lent $11 million of her money to the organization. She has been a frequent visitor to Malawi and has adopted two children from the country.
On Thursday, the singer issued a statement to the Times saying she was still intent on working with Raising Malawi.
'There's a real education crisis in Malawi,' she said in the statement given to the Times. 'Sixty-seven percent of girls don't go to secondary school, and this is simply unacceptable.'
A spokeswoman for Madonna could not be reached on Thursday night.
YahooNews
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Madonna has spoken about the death of Elizabeth Taylor in this statement:
'I am so sorry to hear that this great legend has passed. I admired and respected her not only as an actress but for her amazing and inspiring work as an AIDS activist. She was one of a kind.'
madonnalicious
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The Live version of Madonna's "Miles Away" is included on the "Songs For Japan" album to be released on iTunes today.
Taken from her 2008 "Sticky & Sweet Tour", "Miles Away" is featured along with songs by REM, U2, Sting, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Beyonce and many more...
All of the monies earned from "Songs for Japan" will be directed to the Japanese Red Cross Society (JRCS) to support its disaster relief efforts. The society will use the funds for the ongoing provision of immediate relief and for eventual recovery support to the affected population. The artists participating on Songs for Japan, the major music labels - EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group - and music publishers have waived their royalties and proceeds from the worldwide sales of the album to ensure that the JRCS receives as much support as possible from this global initiative. In addition, iTunes will donate all proceeds from the album's worldwide sales to the benefit of the JRCS.
Visit your local iTunes Store now to download.
madonna.com
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wow! I was surfing the net and found these beautiful pics of Madonna with her then boyfriend Jean-Michel Basquiat. He was an artist from the New York Scen in the 80's
Madonna wrote a short essay on Basquiat for The Guardian prior to a show of his work at London's Serpentine Gallery.
"He was one of the few people I was truly envious of" . "But he didn't know how good he was and he was plagued with insecurities. He used to say he was jealous of me because music is more accessible and it reached more people. He loathed the idea that art was appreciated by an elite group. When I heard that Jean-Michel had died, I was not surprised. He was too fragile for this world."
oh! and he "painted in Armani suits, and often appeared in public in the same paint-splattered $1,000 suits." according to Wikipedia (not so sure about it)