New Melanie Fiona video - Ay Yo

One of our favourite islandistas on the musical scene, the talented Melanie Fiona, has a new video out for her single Ay Yo - and we are loving it.

It's an inspirational, get up and do what you have to do kind of track and the video has a cool concept and an actual storyline. And they threw in a lil sassy West Indian flavour in the scene right at the beginning too ... lol!

Check it.

All we want for Christmas... is some pepperpot!

Hard-working islandista soul singer Melanie Fiona may be away from home and working on Christmas Day but she's still going to keep her Christmas Caribbean.

[caption id="attachment_1837" align="aligncenter" width="382" caption="A plate of pepperpot would make Christmas right for islandistas Melanie Fiona and Rihanna. (Photo credit: Cynthia Nelson/Tastes Like Home)"][/caption]

 



The Guyanese-Canadian singer, who received her first Grammy nomination earlier this month, told Rap-Up.com about her Christmas plans. Like most West Indians the Toronto-born singer has family all over and is going to spend part of Christmas day with relatives in Miami.

And just like Guyanese-descended Rihanna, who was earlier this month mourning that she may not get pepperpot for Christmas, Melanie Fiona's hoping for some traditional Guyanese Christmas fare too, saying:

"My family is Guyanese, so every Christmas morning we have pepperpot and garlic beef or garlic pork, and my mom makes homemade bread. Anything to do with my heritage is what is my fondest memory… All the crazy stuff that comes with being West Indian, I love it.”

No ... we love it!

Melanie Fiona speaks on her Grammy nom!

Big t'ings a gwan for islandista -not-actually from an island, the talented Guyanese-descended Melanie Fiona, who received her first ever Grammy nod on Friday when the award nominations were announced.

Just a month after her album The Bridge was released, she has been nominated for Best Female R&B Performance ... and of course, she's thrilled.

"I cried the happiest tears of my life when I heard the news. This is something I have dreamed of my entire life. I am a new artist, and to be recognized by the Grammy committee as a nominee in the company of such talented and established artists is my highest honor. I truly feel like the little engine that could," she said, in a press release issued by her label Universal Motown.

Congrats Melanie! We love to see island folk doing well!

Caribbean artistes on BET's Rising Icons

You don't have to tell us in the Caribbean that our stars are on the rise.

It's like the world is finally waking up to a Caribbean moment in sports and culture. Between our dominating sports stars like Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser and even Lewis Hamilton and our up and coming artistes like Rihanna, Hal Linton, Shontelle and Melanie Fiona, the world is getting a dose of Caribbean flavour in recent years.

And as it so happens, two Caribbean artistes - Barbados' Hal Linton and Guyana-descended Melanie Fiona are featured in BET's upcoming feature collaboration with Grey Goose- the Rising Icons series.

Check out some pics from Hal's performance below.

 



 

T-Pain being sued by Guyanese promoter and Ri-ri goes house shopping

Down in GT, they are NOT happy with hip-pop Auto-tune king T-Pain after he skipped out on a concert there last month.

The reason given at the time was that T-Pain had received reports that he was allegedly the target of kidnapping and death threats in Guyana because the promoter hadn't take care of his street people in the right way.

Well, the promoters Hits and James Entertainment ent having it and they are suing him now in a Miami court - for US$5 million.

 Hits and Jams' attorney Ron Lowy charged that T-Pain made outrageous demands, including a private jet (outrageous when you consider he has been all up in the media talking bout he has his own $3M private jet - second hand mind you), FBI protection (brr?) and a phone call from President Bharrat Jagdeo (eh?).

Anyhow, the H&J folk do acknowledge that T-Pain offered to return the money but they say that can't make up for the damage caused or "remedy the disappointment to the Guyanese fans."

Hmm. Will  be interesting to see how this case pans out. Seems like sussness all around.

In other news, Rihanna is continuing her publicly documented quest to show that Chris Brown ent no where round she. She went house-hunting in L.A. with BFF Melissa, looking very hot in a fringed gray necklace and silver Louboutins. Less thrilled about the wet and curly hair and a bit dismayed that she had it pulled back from her forehead.

Political relationship commess in GT and TCI

Ok, so for some reason, baaaaare dirt has been spilt in the last two weeks on some high-profile political relationships- the former or soon to be former 'First Ladies' of Guyana and Turks and Caicos have been talking out a lot in the last two weeks about their estranged husbands and their relationships.

The most fascinating commess has been with Varshnie Singh, estranged wife of Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo who went public in a press conference last week accusing her husband of "high-tech domestic violence".

The two announced their seperation in 2007 and have been working out a settlement since then, which seems to be part of the problem. In the meantime, Varshnie was still in an apartment in the Presidential complex... until Bharrat allegedly put her out with only the clothes on her back. Cha.

Another islandista 'it girl' - Nicole Fiscella

Well this came as a bit of surprise even to us here at islandista, who avidly track the Caribbean heritage of every celeb.

Did you know that Gossip Girl's Nicole Fiscella is an islandista? St. Lucian mother, Guyanese father.



So... what gives with the last name Fiscella right? That's what we thought. It's not a very Lucian or Guyanese name.

Apparently it is the name of her stepfather. Her father doesn't seem to have been a big factor in her life - in fact, her mother Julietta Fiscella who emigrated to the States when she was 19, went through some rough times after she and Nicole's father split when the future Gossip Girl was just 18 months old.

She decided to go to medical school which is not any kind of cheap and actually had to go on welfare, use food stamps, the whole nine yards.

From the alumni site of the State University of New York, University at Buffalo:

Fiscella enrolled at St. John’s University as a biology major, but foundered her freshman year. Her schoolwork suffered as she juggled academics with single parenthood. Lacking a solid foundation in the sciences, her courses overwhelmed her. Unaccustomed to multiple-choice exams – in St. Lucia, students were given only essay tests – she earned all Cs and Ds her first semester.

To motivate herself, Fiscella posted affirmations on her bathroom mirror that reinforced the pact she had made with herself: “I will support myself and my daughter.” “I will help my parents.” “I will be at the top of my profession.”

By her sophomore year, Fiscella’s grades had improved, but her savings had run dry. To make ends meet, she saw no other option than to apply for welfare.

Lean times meant that she had to make meals stretch as far as possible, while putting money to the side so she could take her daughter, Nicole, out for a modest meal once a month. To bolster her morale, Fiscella always performed the same mental exercise: She imagined herself as a doctor.

“The whole picture would play over and over in my mind,” she says. “Every moment of the day was spent focusing on my goal. I visualized myself in a white coat with a stethoscope, helping patients.”

It has been two decades, but Fiscella vividly remembers the plane landing in the midst of a Buffalo blizzard for her medical school interview.

“It was like it was already my home,” she says. “That night I told my mother that, no matter which other school accepted me, I was coming to Buffalo.”

Like many of her peers, Fiscella found medical school grueling. Being away from her daughter throughout the day made the experience more challenging still.

“But, again, I had my focus,” she says. “I had all these people depending on my success, especially my daughter. It was a different experience than many other people have.”

Different, indeed. While other students were studying, Fiscella was standing in line at schools and churches to receive free eggs or cheese. One day Nicole came home from school in tears, upset that kids had teased her because she received meals from the subsidized “food line.” In response, Fiscella started skipping her own lunches so her daughter could have them to take to school.

At the supermarket one afternoon, she found that she didn’t have enough food stamps to pay for her groceries. With her daughter by her side, she watched in mortification as the clerk flicked on the checkout light and began shouting for the manager to come and attend to the problem.

Even worse were her routine visit to the Social Services office. Although she made her own clothes, she purposely dressed down for these appointments so the social worker wouldn’t suspect her of being better off than she was.

“I don’t wish anyone to go through what I went through,” Fiscella says of her years on welfare. “People make judgments about who you are. But at the same time, I knew that if I could put my pride on the shelf, I could get through this time and achieve my goal.”

Inspiring. And funny how life is, isn't it? After coming up pretty hard, Fiscella (the younger) is now making a living portraying this uber-elite, aspirational lifestyle. Interestingly enough, Gossip Girl is her first ever acting role. After graduating from Boston's Tufts University she started working as a model for a few years. During that time, she resisted numerous urgings to try acting but finally gave in and went for the Gossip Girl role - and got it. Go girl - we love to see islandistas doing well,  no matter where in the world they are.