Artist: The-Dream ft. Mariah Carey
Song: "My Love"
Album: Love vs. Money
Director: Nick Cannon

What to watch: Mariah Carey shows us what's really 'hood by sporting a ghetto fab hairdo, making Kool-aid and braiding some dude's hair on a porch.

Watch this video now on One Nation and Urban Tip on mun2.

• Love vs. Money, the new album by R&B singer, songwriter and producer The-Dream, is "genuinely odd," according to Rolling Stone, which describes it as "avant-garde dance music and radio-friendly pop." Vibe thinks the man behind "Umbrella" and "Single Ladies" is "not doing anything new, per se—he’s just sampled the best parts of the old." The Boston Globe can't stop raving about it: "Unlike his spotty debut, this is a seamless, brilliantly produced affair featuring his unmatched contemporary pop technique and songwriting craftsmanship."
• American Idol alum Kelly Clarkson "makes nice with the pop machine and takes back the mall while keeping her integrity" on her fourth album, All I Ever Wanted, according to Blender magazine. The follow-up to Clarkson's disappointing My December gets a "B+" from Entertainment Weekly: "Does ['My Life Would Suck Without You'] mean our queen is back? In a word, yes." The Los Angeles Times agrees, calling the album a "generous helping of the Kelly so many love – yes, Photoshopped and slicked up, but with her big, brilliantly accessible heart and voice intact."
• Mexican dancer rockers Kinky flirt with pop on their sixth release, Barracuda. "This is the sweatiest, most accessible record that the band has yet released, which makes its middle third all the more disappointing given the great songs that surround it," laments Popmatters. "How you feel about Kinky’s fourth effort will likely be determined by how you view their overall progression toward more gloss, increased pop, bigger beats and added sonic trendiness (hey, ‘80s British New Wave!)," writes Metromix.
• R&B singer-producer and Timbaland protégé Keri Hilson releases her debut album, In A Perfect World. Slant magazine slams it, calling it "merely passable," before adding: "Hilson needs to do much more than pick fights with Beyoncé to justify her transition from hook girl to solo star." Allmusic echoes the opinion: "If [Hilson] didn't… fill the songs with her beaming personality and casually fluid voice, and didn't have top-level producers providing mostly excellent beats, it would be a mess."
• Masked underground rapper Daniel Dumile (MF DOOM, Madvillain) returns as DOOM with his latest, Born Like This. "After a period of workaholism that threatened overkill, followed by a period of hibernation, Born Like This finds DOOM back to his scalpel-tongued, scatter-mouthed best," observes The Guardian. "While he hasn’t had the breakthrough success many of his contemporaries have had, he is still one of the best around," proclaims Clashmusic.

Terius Youngdell Nash, aka The-Dream, is arguably the hottest singer-songwriter in R&B. The 27-year-old Atlanta native penned two of this year's biggest singles: Rihanna's Umbrella and J. Holiday's Bed.

After a stint as a backup vocalist, Nash began writing songs for friends and local talent. His first hit was the R&B ballad Everything, a New Edition-meets-BlackStreet track by pop group B2K. The-Dream soon added songs for Britney Spears, Madonna and Nivea to his resume, eventually hooking up with producer Tricky Stewart to work on Rihanna's third album. Following the success of "Umbrella" and "Bed," Nash signed to Def Jam with a push from music mogul L.A. Reid. He also engaged in a war of words with Chris Brown – the artist for whom "Bed" was originally written – but later apologized for taking their beef to the press.

The-Dream's recent debut, Love Me All Summer, Hate Me All Winter (or LoveHate for short), has already spawned two minor hits: the electric Shawty Is A 10 with Fabolous and the sumptuous Falsetto, both oozing with Nash's signature "ehs" and "oohs." Although LoveHate hasn't blown up on the level of a Rihanna or J. Holiday record, The-Dream isn't standing around, waiting to get his. He's already picked up work with Sting, Nicole Scherzinger, Mary J. Blige and Usher.