Beyoncé Bashed for Sampling Challenger Space Shuttle Tragedy on “XO”

Baddie Beyoncé has been rubbing some folks the wrong way these days. Well now she’s facing even more sting from critics, angry at her sampling audio from the NASA announcement of the tragic Space Shuttle Challenger explosion decades ago. For all you young bucks out there, the shuttle blowup occurred off the coast of central Florida 73 seconds after takeoff January 28, 1986, killing all seven astronauts aboard the flight.

Beyoncé defended the songwriters (The-Dream and Ryan Tedder) using the sample, claiming it was meant to honor all the victims of the disaster and remind people to appreciate their loved ones because they can be gone in a flash. Apparently the families of those lost in the explosion ain’t trying to hear that either. My guess is that hubby Jay Z won’t be sampling anything insensitive anytime soon.

Read it at ABC News.

Karrine Steffans Says “I Don’t Have Slavery in My Family”

If there were an award for ditsy broads, Karrine Steffans just proved she’d be first in line to receive one. In an interview at Bay Area’s 106 KMEL, Superhead made it clear that her head is really not all that super after all. Steffans separated herself from us jacked-brained, shameful Black Americans because she’s from the Caribbean, where she and “a lot of islanders” did not experience slavery.

While it’s true that some Black folks in the islands (South America, Central America, and the States for that matter) didn’t go through the hells of slavery, I guess she didn’t get the memo that her native St. Thomas did in fact witness shackles and chains. And it was a Caribbean island (Hispaniola, or modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic) that saw the first shipment of slaves decades before a Black prisoner ever touched the soil of North America. (Oh.)

The former video vixen even went as far as saying she doesn’t have “African-American struggles.” Let’s just hope we don’t see any books on history or psychology from Ms. Not-So-Super-Brain in the near future—clearly, that would be a tragedy.

Watch it at KMEL.

Waka Flocka’s Brother, KayO Redd, Found Dead

In even sadder news, the little brother of rap star Waka Flocka Flame, KayO Redd, was found dead from what’s believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The aspiring MC’s body was discovered in Atlanta just hours after he’d finished promoting his latest mixtape, Red Kiss. Juaquin Malphurs (a.k.a. Waka Flocka) and his mother, Deb Antney, confirmed the news on Twitter, and stars like Nicki Minaj chimed in to share condolences. Let’s keep Flocka and his family in our prayers. #RIPKayO

Read it at Madame Noire and TMZ.