R&B diva Keyshia Cole is livid with her hometown radio station KMEL for snubbing her. “How did they do that,” you ask? Cole felt slighted by the radio station asking her to open for the singer The Weeknd. KMEL annual 106’s Holiday House of Soul concert happened Monday night and Keyshia took to her Twitter account to air out just how she felt about being number two.
“No disrespect to the weeknd. Why the hell would @106KMEL ask me to open for him in My home town! Where I give back! Where IM FROM! #NO”
In return, the station fired back, letting Keyshia Cole know she was never considered a featured act for their holiday concert anyway. A KMEL rep commented: “We were surprised to see Keyshia Cole’s Tweets the night of our show … as she was never scheduled to be the show’s final act.”
KMEL continued, “When we were notified a week before her performance that she planned to cancel, we immediately removed her name from all advertising and promotion and offered refunds to those fans who requested.”
While she may do something every year for her hometown, KMEL staff clearly doesn’t believe that entitles her to a feature spot on the 106’s Holiday House of Soul concert. Also, if she intended to give back to her community with her performance, wouldn’t just being a part of the concert be enough? Maybe it’s an issue of star-power, status and pay, but overall if she wanted to show her city some love, then she could have done so by participating in the concert despite not being the featured performer.
If you’re wondering just who is The Weeknd, then you’re not alone. In the age of commercial artists represented by major record labels filling all the airwaves, it’s not possible to know the new, independent artists who emerge each year. The Weeknd is an Ethiopian-Canadian who released his remastered mixed tape, Trilogy, to critical acclaim this year. While he had the backing of a larger label in Universal Public Records, he released Trilogy on his own label XO as well. The singer has been recognized by Rolling Stone magazine and music outlets like XXL and The Source as an up-and-coming artist, doing things his way.
No disrespect to Ms. Cole, but it sounds like The Weeknd is doing big things in his own right. Maybe by doing the concert, she may have gotten the chance to work with a talented newcomer in the game; something she was just a short while ago.
