 |
Classifieds: |  |
| |  |
| |  |
| |  |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
By Steve Jones, USA TODAY
The three headliners on the Verizon Ladies First tour, which opens Friday in Sunrise, Fla. (near Fort Lauderdale), each bring something different to the stage. Beyoncé, Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott write and produce much of their own music and have proved to be dynamic performers in the past.
"It's a big production," says Beyoncé, who hopes to be joined occasionally by partners Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland for a brief Destiny's Child segment in the show. She says as soon as the 24-city tour ends, the trio will go into the studio to start work on the group's fourth album. Beyoncé is still getting used to performing solo, although she says a European tour has really helped her confidence. She says her mother has designed several glamorous costumes for her show. Keys leads her own band and does most of her soulful crooning while seated behind her grand piano. She's confident the three headliners will mesh comfortably. "What a lot of people don't realize is that I've known Beyoncé since we were both at Columbia Records (Keys was signed to the label before she found fame at J Records), and we used to do showcases together," Keys says. "And I was just with Missy at the Brit Awards where we performed (Prince's Kiss) with Gwen Stefani." Hip-hop queen Elliott says she has worked with Beyoncé since the early days of Destiny's Child, and they've done more than a half-dozen records together. Elliott has a new UPN talent-search show called Missy Elliott Project, on which would-be rappers will compete to perform with her. But that will be on a future solo tour. For this one, she promises to give fans "a tour of the mind of Missy Elliott." "They are used to seeing me in the video," says Elliott, "but when they see me up close on stage, it will be something else all together." Keys says that despite all of the star power, there won't be any ego clashes on tour. She says they're genuine friends and mutual admirers of each other's work. Beyoncé says that circumstance in part led to the tour. "Even before I started putting my album together last year, I wanted to get together a tour with other women. I know that you have a lot of types of tours with other types of artists, but not just strictly hip-hop and R&B women." As for Elliott, she says, "I have been wanting to do something like this ever since I went out with Lilith Fair a few years ago (1998), so I'm glad that it's finally happening." |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
