• Keyshia Cole is featured in the newest issue of People Magazine (click here for pic)! The magazine reviewed and rated A Different Me with 3/4 stars! Buy the magazine to read the full review. Scans coming soon

• Keyshia clubbin’ on New Years Eve with Monica and Lil Wanye:

Shouts to AtlPics.net, and jin and fixedlife12 @ the OK Forums!

I Am Music World Tour: American Airlines Arena (Dec 14):

Review: ‘I Am Music’ show is musically dysfunctional:

The show looked fantastic, with a different elaborate design for each artist (except Gym Class Heroes, who were also stricken with impenetrably muddy sound). Keyshia Cole looked fabulous in a glittery black ’50s style corset and hot pants, accessorized by fan-dancer fans and four dancers. But she was busier with elaborate choreography than singing, not to mention a constantly breaking strap that left her struggling to simultaneously sing, dance and prevent a wardrobe malfunction. It didn’t help that the sound mix had the back-up singers, drummer, bass and keyboard players louder than the star. Cole has a powerful voice and dynamic presence, but all she got to do was belt and strut; we never got to really hear her sing a recognizable melody. Bet she could, if she got a chance. Read more.

• The Boston Globe reviews A Different Me
• DJBooth reviews A Different Me

If you know of an review to add leave a link in the comments.

The New York Time’s Critics’ Choice Review:

Keyshia Cole didn’t invent an alias on this, her third album, but perhaps she should have. After all, Beyoncé’s recent attempt at a split identity, Sasha Fierce, was but a hypertrophied version of her longstanding personality, whereas the side of herself that Ms. Cole displays here feels much more like an actual character.

Or perhaps a caricature. On her first two albums Ms. Cole was one of the most textured singers in R&B, one of the few brave enough to use a young Mary J. Blige as a template and, at times, improve on it. In her songs relationships are flimsy or worse, and their impact is felt in Ms. Cole’s powerful, unchecked voice. On “Love,” the signature heartbreak song from her first album, she sounded as if she was coughing out the words, barely holding the notes in between tears.

But on “A Different Me,” for the first time Ms. Cole’s pleasures are no longer complicated. This is, she notes, her “sexier side.” But Ms. Cole’s version of swoon is decidedly temperate. Where her voice was once assured and three-dimensional, here, although many of the songs are pleasant, Ms. Cole comes off flat. Tension is what animates her, and there’s hardly a rebuke in sight.

Barely a note of skepticism is struck until well past the album’s halfway point, following a variety pack of love songs featuring Beyoncé-esque pomp (“Make Me Over”), 1980s robo-soul (“Erotic”), Lifetime-movie slow burn (“Brand New”), unusually affirming guest raps from Nas (“Oh-Oh, Yeah-Ya”) and Tupac Shakur (“Playa Cardz Right”), who died in 1996 and was an early mentor to the singer.

After those songs, “Thought You Should Know,” about being courted in a club, sounds as if dissatisfaction has finally returned to Ms. Cole’s outlook. “Before you start telling me things, I don’t wanna hear/Before you pull up a seat, let me make it clear/I can buy my own liquor,” she warns a potential suitor. “It’s gonna take more than one drink to get me home.”

But even this cad can’t spoil Ms. Cole’s optimistic mood. “All I want is your company/Ain’t no need for you to front for Keysh,” she sings. “I think you should come see about me/Maybe here is where you need to be.” On her other albums, this story wouldn’t end well, but for now Ms. Cole has let go of her doubt. It’s missed.

Reviewed by: JON CARAMANICA

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Listen to “A Different Me” in full on Keyshia Cole’s MySpace page now until December 16th, CLICK HERE.

Jonathan Cunningham highlights his experience seeing Keyshia Cole perform for BrowardPalmBeach.com:

Now, at this point, it’s about a quarter to 5 a.m. and I’m sitting there with friends thinking, there’s no way Keyshia Cole is going to perform tonight. I knew she definitely didn’t want to do it. But at 5 am exactly, Keyshia Cole hit the stage to an audience that couldn’t have had more than 150 people. She immediately came out as energetic as ever and yelled, “Good Morning Bahamas” which jarred people awake almost instantly.

The reality is, that was the smallest crowd Keyshia Cole has performed in front of in years. The next day, I ran into her mom who said it was Keyshia’s smallest show ever, and while there must have been a show before she was famous that flopped, it’s entirely possible. She’s used to playing sold out arenas, and this show was going to be a challenge. I immediately made up in my mind that if Keyshia didn’t ego trip and went out there sang her heart out, then she’d earn my respect. And that’s exactly what she did. She sang her new hit, “Heaven Sent” and all the ladies in the audience swooned. It was a good moment as most folks who had never seen her perform realized that she was actually live in front of them and not on BET.

From there she asked the audience what they wanted to hear (very cool) and everyone shouted, “I Remember.” Half the crowd was singing it word for word and a woman behind me had tears streaming down her face.

At one point, Keyshia brought her mom out on stage–and addressed the fact that two have notoriously had problems, but that they’re still hanging in there working it all out. Keyshia’s mom started crying right up there on stage and it wasn’t until the band started playing, “Let it Go” that her tears appropriately stopped. It was a heck of a night, and she closed the show with “Shoulda Let You Go,” one of her earlier songs that helped make her famous and fans really appreciated it. She even apologized for Lil Wayne not showing up and is probably the first big performer to acknowledge the impact his no-show had on the island. All of that should help make Keyshia very popular with Bahamians for years to come.

I chatted with her after the set and asked her what she thought of playing a show of that size so early in the morning. “It’s definitely not my normal thing, at all, but I know the people needed me to perform this morning so I just went out there and had a good time,” Keyshia said. “It’s all about giving the people everything that you’ve got and that’s what we did.”

After that, she plugged her new album, which drops Dec 16 and bolted. But she did what she had to do.

See photos of the performance here

There was no stepping off stage for R&B singer Keyshia Cole, but that isn’t to say her showing was less entertaining. at least for those who went to see her.

Cole channelled summer sexy in a tiered white halter, matching shorts and cropped black hair - a departure from her usual blonde curls, long in the front and short to the back and side.
Known for power-ballads with an urbane rough-chick edge, Cole charmed on Should Have Let You Go amidst bluesy synths, black and white-clad dancers, lights and smoke for effect.

Said to have the vocal emotiveness of Mary J Blige, Cole was ‘Keyshia the vulnerable’ on (I Just Want It) To Be Over and ‘Keyshia the defiant’ on I Should Have Cheated from her 2005 album The Way It Is.

With emotions aside, Cole delivered a brilliant Give It Up To Me, a track that features Jamaican hip-hop superstar Sean Paul for the movie soundtrack Step It Up.

Just Like You (the title track from her most recent album), Heaven Sent (her latest single) and I Remember followed. But perhaps her biggest ‘forward’ for the night came from the popular slow jam Love, which the audience inside the Catherine Hall Entertainment Centre sang verbatim.

“Thank you for helping me sing that. You guys sound amazing,” she said, before dedicating When Doves Cry to her mum Frankie, who along with Keyshia and her sister Nefetaria are stars of the BET reality series The Way It Is.

The singer closed with the still-current Let It Go that features Lil’ Kim and Missy Elliot.
Though the international acts put on a good show, their local counterparts were not outdone.

Keyshia Cole is supposed to take the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s Congo Square stage at 5:25 p.m. Saturday. Several hundred fans huddle hopefully in the drenching rain.

Lightning has driven off many of the fans by 6 p.m., and the stage is still empty. Then a Jazz Fest worker appears. They’re checking the wiring, making sure it’s safe.

Ten minutes later, with the crowd down to about 100 or 150 people, Cole appears. “I’m going to sing a song for y’all real quick,” she says.

Click here to view more pics.

Thanks Maya!