A new song has leaked from Christina Aguilera’s long-awaited fourth LP called “WooHoo” featuring rapper Nicki Minaj.  This is the fourth song we’ve heard off Bionic, which comes out June 8th.

There was Not Myself Tonight, which I liked but isn’t great, then there was Bionic and You Lost Me both which I loved–but we only have bootleg live performances of.  I hope this becomes a single, Christina really should tap into the urban market.  If you want to listen to the new “WooHoo” track produced by Polow Da Don, click below.

Download “WooHoo”

One of the three remaining Backstreet Boys, Nick Carter talked to gay newsmagazine The Advocate about the new album the group has just released and the tour they’re about to go on. He was also asked about appearing on and in gay magazines back in the late 90s.

You did an Advocate “Big Gay Following” interview with Brandon Voss a few years ago, and years back, in 1997, you were a cover model for XY, a magazine for gay teens. Not everyone in a boy band would be so involved with gay press, and these have followed you for years, for better or worse. If you did something like XY now and you were the same age and at the same stage in your career, do you think it would be such a big deal?

I don’t think it would be as much of a big deal. I really don’t. Honestly, I have so many gay friends, family members who are gay… it’s not a big deal to me. It may have been a big deal back in the day when I was young, but, you know, whatever. It’s part of our culture now and that’s what’s great about it. People accept it now. I love it.

I remember ‘N Sync doing an interview with the Advocate years ago but I don’t remember reading a Backstreet Boys one, though it’s nice to know they were inclusive of their gay fanbase. From what I remember though, Kevin (who is no longer in the group) was the most gay-friendly of the bunch.

Anyone who is my age (early twenties) and was into teen pop as a kid must remember this Backstreet Boys concert where A.J. sang “Lay Down Beside Me” and humped the floor. I rewound this video so many times I broke the VCR.

Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh talk more about “The Informant”, the film where Damon had to gain 30 lbs to play a man who blows the whistle on his company’s price-fixing scheme.

A gay man in Thunder Bay, Canada was brutally beaten by six to eight men with bricks, and will now require reconstructive surgery to deal with the damage done to his face.

Openly gay Representative Barney Frank is eyeing a position in the Obama cabinet.  I doubt it will happen, but if it did he’d be the first gay person ever in the Presidential cabinet.

Ntozake Shange was slated to write and direct the film adaptation of her play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, but now Tyler Perry has stolen the entire film from her.

Female UK prison officer wins case against correctional facility she claims treated her unfairly for being young, female, and pretty.

More tour dates have been canceled for homophobic Jamaican singer Buju Banton.  One of his most popular songs talks about shooting gays and burning their bodies.

Proud, admitted homophobe Tim Hardaway is now working hard to save gay lives.  He says “we don’t have to accept the act, but we have to accept them as people.” How generous of you.

You can watch the full special in 13 parts on YouTube.

Young and the Restless star Chris Engen who plays Victor Newman’s son Adam is apparently trying to get out of his contract and leave the show because he’s not happy with the direction the show is taking his character.  Some say it’s because they’ve given him crappy storylines.  Others say it’s because he’s afraid of the new gay storyline involving a character named Rafe, whom he might have to kiss.

Another year, another season of MTV’s The Real World, another token gay guy.  Maybe this season will be a lot better than that snoozefest that was Real World: Brooklyn.

A sixth grade girl’s school report was curbed because it was about gay rights activist Harvey Milk.  She was told she would not be able to present her report unless the students got permission from their parents first.

A California lesbian high school student has won a $25,000 lawsuit against her school after she was harrassed by faculty for being gay and too masculine. She was forced to attend a counseling session where she was discouraged from being gay, and a staff member told her she was “ungodly” and “going to hell”.

In yet another attempt to marginalize women in our hypersexualized patriarchal society, Nikon decides to make a digital camera ad telling people it will make women look more like how straight men want them to look according to conventional standards of beauty.  Disgusting.

American Idol’s Adam Lambert may have lost the competition, but it seems Queen guitarist Brian May was impressed enough by him to want to work with him in the future.  Some are speculating they might even have Adam come on tour with them as their lead singer, as they’ve finished a four year run with Paul Rodgers as lead vocalist.

Esquire continues to be the beacon of classy fashion magazine publishing as they release their most recent “How To Be A Man” issue, rife with misogyny and homophobia.  They tell their readers one way to cuss like a man is to use the term “shit-sniffing faggot” to insult people.

There’s a new show on NBC called Southland that follows a group of Los Angeles police officers and it’s centered around Ben McKenzie whom you might remember from Junebug and The O.C.  At the end of the first episode, it was revealed that one of the cops is gay.

There was a New York City protest rallying against the recent uptick of murders of gay men in Iraq.  The protest almost turned ugly as the NYPD wouldn’t allow the protesters to stand on the public sidewalk in front of the Iraq mission.

Universal Music and YouTube are partnering to open a completely new website called Vevo that will exlusively feature music videos.  Currently Universal is the only label part of the deal but YouTube is in negotiations to try to get other record labels to lend their artists’ video to the site.

Apparently there were rumors bubbling that Lindsay Lohan was in talks to play Stevie Nicks in a biopic.  Ms. Nicks was asked about how she feels about LiLo playing her on the big screen and her response was “Over my dead body.”

Yesterday I discussed D.C. mayor Adrian M. Fenty leaning toward signing the bill that the council came up with to recognize out of state same-sex marriages, and here is an interview with him on a local newscast discussing whether the U.S. Congress will let the bill pass.

Watch as he sits tweeking his way through this interview, clearly on some sort of narcotic, not able to answer the simplest of questions such as how long the band’s been together or whether he’s actually met Willie Nelson. It’s a complete departure from how he normally behaves in his interviews.

Apparently Canadians were not happy with how he acted either in the interview, or on stage at his concert there. As they all booed him during their set.

I admit I’m not the biggest fan of this man’s work. He’s done Jesse McCartney’s “Leavin”, Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” and Mary J. Blige’s “Just Fine”, all which I like. But conversely he’s also done Britney Spears’ “Me Against The Music”, Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, and Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body”, all which make want to throw up my Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies.

That said, there’ve been producers that Christina’s worked with before who hadn’t impressed me with their previous work, yet turned out something impressive when it came to working with Christina. One example is Rich Harrison, who is famous for producing Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love” and Amerie’s “1 Thing”, yet managed to create one hell of a foot-stomping pseudo-gospel tune called “Makes Me Wanna Pray” on Christina’s Back to Basics album that in no way resembles any of his previous work. So it’s possible that while this guy’s catalogue isn’t making me squeal with glee, he could actually end up turning out something relatively unexpected with Christina.

Considering Tricky doesn’t seem like the kind of producer Christina would normally gravitate to, especially in lieu of the more electronic, futuristic sound she’s trying to create for her next LP, it seems as if she’s doing a repeat of her pattern with her second album Stripped. In chronicling the story of Stripped, Entertainment Weekly did a piece in which famous producer Rockwilder talked about the making of Dirrty:

Aguilera told Rockwilder she was looking for a track that would announce to the world that she’s back — but not the same as she was. ”She wanted it to be down and dirty,” Rockwilder says, ”really powerful, really wild, and crazy.’

Basically, Christina had finished the rest of the tracks for the album, and needed something fiery that would get people’s attention and announce she’s back. She did something similar with “Ain’t No Other Man”, a song with bombastic horns and explosive vocals, and an intro that would perk your head up quicker than a fire truck sneaking up on you on a back road. The point is, though Tricky Stewart is miles different from people like Linda Perry, Ladytron, and Sia (all people she’s confirmed to be collaborating with on this album), it’s possible this departure from the “theme” could indicate she very well could be done with the album.

Sia Furler, most known for her song “Breathe Me” which has been featured on the beloved series finale of Six Feet Under and the broadcast of the 2006 Victoria’s Secret fashion show, has already completed her work with Aguilera.  She told Australian publication the Herald Sun all about her experience working with Christina.

‘‘Obviously she likes Breathe Me, that’s the one everyone goes for, but she mentioned seven songs as far back as the first Zero 7 album, and songs like Destiny and Distractions, and a song called Moon from my last album that nobody ever picks as a favourite.

‘‘That won her some points, she’s a listener, she knows my random album tracks nobody gives a s— about. That’s pretty flattering.”

Though Furler was shocked the singer knew who she was, the feeling was mutual — Furler expressing her love of Aguilera’s ballad Beautiful.

And it was Sia’s way with ballads that Aguilera wanted for her own musical DNA.

‘‘That’s why I’m here, that’s my department, I’m from the ballads department,” Furler says.

‘‘We’ve written some really wonderful songs. I would put any of the songs we’ve written on one of my albums. And it’s a total collaboration. There are some artists who walk in and say ‘I want to write a song about a stiletto’, then walk out again.

‘‘You write the song and they take a third. That’s not at all what it’s been like working with Christina. Often she saves the day when we’re stuck.”

In addition to Sia,Christina has been photographed with Daniel Wu of Ladytron as early as December, and according to him, they’ve been working together in the studio as well.

“We first heard that we were one of Christina’s favorite bands last summer. We were thrilled. So we went over to Los Angeles to meet her in December where she identified the type of Ladytron songs that she liked. We were impressed because she had a real deep knowledge of our music – album tracks, not just the singles.”

At this point the album seems well on its way.  And if the choice of producers and songwriters is any indication, it’s piecing up to be just as diverse as her last two efforts.  Which depending on how you look at it, is either to her avail, or her demise.

According to Xzibit, his words were taken out of context.  But more importantly, Clay asks him about homophobia in hip-hop in general, and Xzibit says the environment is a lot less homophobic that people think, that it’s “just part of the landscape”.

“It started as just common place; it was just part of the language. I think the overtones that it creates, is not what really exists. I don’t think if you are gay and you go to a hip-hop club that you’ll get beat up for being gay. That’s not what is going to happen. I think words are the way that people express themselves—just like if you say bitch on a rap record for a long time you can rally thousands of women that will say that’s incorrect. You can’t focus on one single thing or bad aspect of what happens in hip hop and try to blanket it. That’s not the root of the problem. It exists, I think it’s how you portray it, and it’s how you use it. You gotta paint with a broad brush when you talk about homophobia because it’s a lot of things that exist in hip hop that aren’t exactly right, but it’s part of the landscape.”

Strangely, I understand the point he’s trying to make.  The overtones of homophobia in hip-hop or the homophobic language that’s used doesn’t necessarily indicate intense hatred or homophobia.  Calling another straight guy a “fag” doesn’t necessarily mean that you hate gay people or want to do harm to them.

But there’s two problems.  One of which is, while for many hip-hop artists like say, Eminem, homophobia is limited to their language and not necessarily their actions, there are plenty of examples of rappers who are outright explicitly homophobic and have no qualms about saying that they are.

The other is that simply because you don’t outright hate gay people and want to physically harm them does not mean you aren’t homophobic, or that your level of homophobia is acceptable.  I’m reminded of people I’ve actually met who have said things to me like, “Well my dad calls black people niggers but he’s not racist.”  Doesn’t that statement sound absolutely ridiculous to you?  So why is it any less ridiculous to let hip-hop artists (and society at large) use clearly homophobic language and let them get away with it because they essentially say “Dude, you’re a fag.  No offense to gay people, though!”

When are people going to understand that words aren’t just words?  That when you say “You’re such a pussy” when what you really mean is “You’re weak” or “You’re a wimp”, you are being sexist.  Or that when you call someone a “fag” because you want to insult their manhood, you are being homophobic.  When you say that something is “so gay” when what you really mean is that it sucks, or it’s bad, you are being homophobic.  When you incessantly say “no homo” every time you happen to come even slightly in contact with another man (men should never hug! so gay!), or when you eat a banana (phallic symbol), or wear a pink shirt (pink is for girls only!!), because you’re deathly afraid of people even thinking for a second that you might be homosexual, all of these things create a culture of homophobia and misogyny.

This conversation reminds me a lot of talking to naive white people who think that because they have black co-workers or black friends, or because they voted for Barack Obama, or because they watch Will Smith’s movies and listen to Beyonce that somehow that proves they’re not racist.  They think that racism only exists in backwoods southern hicks who wear white hoods and burn crosses.  They don’t understand that there is a spectrum of racism.  You may be someone who wants to drag a black man from the back of a pick up truck, or you may just be someone who clutches your purse a little tighter when you see a black man walking past you.  But either way, it’s still racist.

Homophobia needs to no longer be acceptable in any capacity.