Double-dating islandistas

Britain's islandista pop stars, Leona Lewis and Keisha Buchanan of girl group the Sugababes teamed up for a too-cute double date on Tuesday night with their respective boyfriends Lou Al-Chama and Dean Thomas.

The group was snapped leaving a London nightclub and piling into a car with Dean taking the wheel.


What makes the whole thing  extra cute is that Leona is actually the one who hooked up Keisha with Dean. This after a loonnnng stretch of well-profiled singledom and exasperation at men's lame efforts to end said singledom for British-Jamaican Keisha.

She told the UK's Daily Mirror:

"I met him through Leona. Her boyfriend Lou Al-Chama and him auditioned to be in a band together a while ago and they've been friends ever since. We even joined them on holiday over Christmas, it was lovely."

The couple, who have been together for a year and a half now, seem  headed down the aisle as Keisha has confided that he is "absolutely the one" and that her mother has already lined up the Sugababes' makeup artist for the wedding!

By the way islandistas, you may have noticed that we have started to carry more suss and news on British islandistas as well - being so close to the States, we're not always clued in to what is going on that side of the Atlantic, but there are islandistas over there doing fabulously - Leona, Alexandra, Keisha and Jamelia, just to name a few. So let us know what you think of our new focus - love it? Hate it?

Kelly Osbourne's hair do looks familiar!

Hmmm, so what do we have here?

Britain's Kelly Osbourne, famous for being the daughter of Ozzy Osbourne was photographed at the 10th anniversary party for Flaunt Magazine rocking a hairdo that looks rather familiar.

We're just saying...

Of course, it is just more proof that islandistas are trend setters. Where Rih leads, the rest of the fashion pack is following these days. After all, the girl has managed to make a quiff seem fly and edgy.

But of course, let us not forget the real originator of this hairdo.



The Purple One. Fall back chicks... y'all still ain't as fly as 'The Artist'.

Islandistas flaunt pleather leggings trend & Paris shopping!

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Our favourite and fierce islandista Rihanna and her boyfriend (ye, we're going to stop fronting - enough with this 'good friend' foolishness!) Chris Brown made a Christmas shopping trip - to Paris, no less!

The cutest couple in pop hit the Louis Vuitton store in the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Rihanna did most of the shopping while Chris clowned for the paparazzi as he waited for his girl.

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 Rihanna, ever the fashion-forward islandista, was working some pleather leggings, which is a growing style trend... one that not everyone can carry off! However, since the Fentys seem to only produce giant children (have you seen her brothers?) and Rih-rih got legs for days, she worked it well. See for yourself below.

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Another islandista working the pleather leggings look is X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke who also managed to wear it well (what are the odds of TWO people managing to rock this scary trend well?) on a trip to a music studio on Wednesday. Unlike the taller and leggier Rihanna who could actually wear pleather leggings with a cropped top, Alex sensibly topped hers with a funky baggy t-shirt-dress.

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Speaking of Alex, she is already getting the superstar shopping treatment. On Thursday, London's exclusive Harrod's opened an hour early just for her so she could get some Christmas shopping in. It was pandemonium on the outside by the time she was ready to leave, as hundreds of fans and paps crowded outside to get autographs or just a glimpse of the islandista who could be Britain's next big music sensation.

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Islandista rising: X-Factor champ Alexandra Burke

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Alexandra Burke - remember the name people because she is going to be big - Simon Cowell said so!

And if the word of the X-Factor/ American Idol impresario is not enough for you, in the last 24 hours, Burke, the winner of UK singing reality show X-Factor (which brought us Leona Lewis) has smashed the European record for fastest-downloaded single, with her cover of winner's single Hallelujah, moving 105, 000 copies in one day. The previous record was held by - you guessed it, Ms. Lewis herself who moved 82, 000 for A Moment Like This.

Already Cowell, whose Syco label has the rights for all X-Factor winners, is salivating at the prospect of taking Burke to the world and making her as big a star as Leona, who is the biggest genuine pop star to come out of Britain in at least a decade. He had predicted some time back that she would win and win she has, stepping through the door that Lewis opened in 2006 when she became the first non-white reality show winner in the United Kingdom.

British-born Alexandra is an islandista by descent on both sides - her mother, former Soul II Soul lead singer Melissa Bell is apparently half-Irish, half Jamaican-Indian (looking at pics of her, I suspect Ms. Bell's father may have been a dougla rather than full Indian) and her father David Burke is Jamaican-born. 

Just a few months ago, Alexandra was a part-time waitress and club singer, earning 200 GBP per gig. Despite her mother's stardom in her younger days, the family was far from wealthy, due in part to the fact that Alexandra's father left the family when she was 7 and also due to her mother's diabetes in recent years which has resulted in kidney failure and her needing dialysis three times a week. In fact, she rescheduled her dialysis on Saturday night so she could be at the X-Factor finals to cheer on her daughter. Alexandra has said one of the first things she would like to do is buy her mother an at-home dialysis machine so she would not have to spend so much time going to the hospital for treatment every week. Definitely touching.

Miss T&T places 3rd in Miss World, Ri-ri and Chris get frisky

Congrats to Miss Trinidad and Tobago, Gabriella Walcott who placed third in the Miss World finals in Johannesburg, South Africa a few hours ago! Miss Russia won.

No pics from the finals as yet, but we understand she won the 'Beauty with a Purpose' fast track contest for her work with a children's special hospital unit.

Well done islandista!

 

In other stuff, Rihanna and Chris Brown seem to be throwing that "we're just friends"  line to the wind in their performance at the Z-100 Jingle Ball in New York City last night.

There were plennnnty of teenaged hormones flying around on that stage from the looks of their performance pics. Take a look for yourself!





 

*coff*... we get it already... get a room kids!

Bits & pieces: Miss World success, Etana tops charts and Lewis jealous?!

So big tings a gwan for islandistas all over the world right now and we're feeling great about it!

Jamaican singer Etana (one of our favourite new artistes on the scene right now - just a really refreshing and positive change) has hit the top of the Choice FM reggae charts in the United Kingdom, with Blessings, her collaboration with Italian-born reggae artiste Alborosie. Choice FM is one of the biggest urban (read black) radio stations in the United Kingdom so that is a major achievement. Well done!


In other successes - Miss Barbados World, Natalie Griffith, has won the prize for best talent at the Miss World contest which is presently going on in South Africa. By winning, she goes straight into the semi-finals.

And in a wee bit of suss, Nicole Scherzinger, girlfriend of F1 champ Lewis Hamilton, has revealed that he is a bit of the jealous type, especially when it comes to the racy (hee hee) outfits she wears for her performances as lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls.

‘He says he wishes the outfits were for his eyes only,’ said the singer.

Ohhh Lewis! No need to be jealous. After all, who is really going to hold a candle to a sexy Formula one champion worth a bajillion dollars?

3 Grammy noms for Rihanna plus so much more...

We're just bursting full of news and suss for you today islandistas... might take two posts to get it all in!

First to the good news. Islandista Rihanna has been nominated for three Grammy awards. In a star-studded nomination ceremony/concert held during prime time last night, she picked up nominations for Best Dance Recording for Disturbia, Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for If I Never See Your Face Again and a video category (clueless me, I didn't even know the Grammies had vid categories) for Best Long Form Music Video for Good Girl Gone Bad Live. So there... who says Rihanna can't perform live?

Well... we have after seeing some of her performances in the past... but the Recording Academy disagrees.

Now to some (kinda) bad news - Rihanna and her boyfriend Chris Brown are being sued by a paparazzo Luis Santana, who was allegedly roughed up by their bodyguards in St Petersburg, Florida, a few weeks back. He's suing both of them, plus the nightclub it happened outside of. He says the heavies roughed him up and smashed his camera and he's suing them for $1 million. Ouch... the pics he posted of his bruises look pretty painful too...

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In some good news, top designers are falling all over themselves to produce a dress for US First Lady Michelle Obama. We have seen them and many are simply gorrrrgeous!

We especially love the sketches by Diane von Fustenberg, Christian Lacroix and Badgley Mischka. You can see all the sketches here at Women's Wear Daily.

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And in suss... folks have been asking what these Jamaican entertainers really about though, since Elephant Man's performance in Barbados a few weeks back. It's one thing to be a tight-pants sporting, pointy-shoe wearing, hair-dyed character. You can argue that it part of the persona. However it is pretty incongruous with all the rampany homophobia that Jamaican artistes like Ele love to spew - which he did of course, at the event.

But it is reaaaaally funny when this same homosexual-bashing artiste RUNS a set of cute female dancers off of the stage -not once, but twice! And then to make matters more interesting, he calls up a set of skinny-pants wearing yutes from down in the crowd to come on stage with him and then he big dem up straight and is really, really into dancing with them.


What Ele really going on with? How you acting so homophobic and then you run cute girls and bring up a set of men around you? Me thinks he (and other JA dancehall artistes) doth protest too much... how ironic!