Star Sparkle Blog

It's American rapper Ja Rule 's 36th birthday today (he was born on a leap year), so I thought I'd post one of his videos. Here is Livin' It Up featuring Case , which was released in 2001 and is from his Pain Is Love album.

Takeshi's Castle was a Japanese gameshow that was on TV in Japan in the 80s. It was based around Count Takeshi (Japanese actor/director Takeshi Kitano ) who lived in a castle and the aim of the show was for contestants to beat the challenges Count Takeshi set and defeat him by "storming the castle". The challenges were silly but also quite hard and by the end of the game there weren't often that many contestants left. It seemed to be very rare for players to beat Takeshi! Takeshi's Castle is the British version of the show (featuring certain games). There is also an American version, MXC (Most Extreme Elimination Challenge) which they sometimes show on British TV and various others around the world. This post is based on the British version, which is narrated by actor Craig Charles. It ended in 2004 (although it was brought back in 2009 but according to Wikipedia they had just changed the opening sequence) but they currently show repeats on the TV channel Challeng

Here is another piece of music by Czech violinist Ivo Sedlacek. At 16 and a half minutes it's longer than the other one I posted Colour Of The Leaves but if you'd liked that, you'll probably like this one as well. :) Ivo Sedlack- Dance of Autumn Lights

Here's a peformance by Amar Gamal. She's another former Bellydance Superstar, who also co-founded a troupe called Bellyqueen along with fellow dancers Kaeshi Chai and Jenna. She's now a long distance member of the troupe. In this video she's dancing with Isis wings. Amar Gamal For more info about Amar visit her Wikipedia page:  Amar Gamal Wikipedia I'm not sure how accurate it is but gives some information. Also visit Bellyqueen's site:  Bellyqueen

Today's video is another Tollywood (the Telugu language South Indian film industry) one. It's a song called Krishna Murariki from the film Narasimhudu, starring JR NTR , Amisha Patel and Sameera Reddy . Amisha is a well-known Bollywood actress, but she sometimes acts in South Indian films too and Sameera has also acted in Bollywood. Narasimhudu (which according to Wikipedia is a remake of Kannada language film Durgi) is about an orphan called Narasimhudu (NTR) who is adopted by some villagers who help raise him. Then when two villagers rape a young girl, the adult Narasimhudu avenges her. This video is nothing to do with that though, it's a dance scene. Update 2- 26/8/23: I've replaced the video again but it still freezes towards the end! Update 14/8/13: This freezes towards the end. I think the first video I posted here got removed by YouTube. You can watch another version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp-E_CY4acM  I won't post it on my blog yet bec

This one isn't a music video really, just pictures put to music. The piece of music is called Colour Of The Leaves and it's by Czech violinist Ivo Sedlacek . His music tends to be quite long (this piece is about 14 minutes) but it's beautiful and worth listening to if you're into classical/violin music or just open to different types. It's not the sort of stuff I usually listen to but I like it. Hope you enjoy it! :) Update 25/8/17: The video I first linked to is now gone from YouTube but you can listen to a sample of the song here:  Colour Of The Leaves sample Sorry about that, it's a shame! I'll update if I find a new video or longer sample in future. :)

Today it's He's Unbelievable by the German singer Sarah Connor . Sarah's career began in 2001 when she brought out her debut single Let's Get Back To Bed- Boy! with the rapper TQ and she has since released 7 albums. She's very successful in Germany and other countries in mainland Europe. She's not so well known in the UK, I think her most famous songs here are Let's Get Back To Bed-Boy!, Unbelievable and Bounce. Some of her albums weren't released here. Here is the video for He's Unbelievable (one of my favourite Sarah songs) from her second album of the same name. For more on Sarah visit her official website (German language):  Official site and her official YouTube channel: Sarah Connor- YouTube The site hasn't been updated in a while though. You can also check out Sarah's video for Under My Skin which I posted in December in the Dong Bang Shin Ki/Tohoshinki post because it's similar to their song Mirotic: Mirotic/Under My Skin