Portland’s Michael Odokara-Okigbo won praise from the judges on the NBC talent show “The Sing-Off” Monday night, helping his a cappella group advance to the next round.

Odokara-Okigbo, performing with the Dartmouth Aires, sang lead on Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground.”

“This is what I’m talking about,” judge Shawn Stockman, of the R&B group Boyz II Men, said after the performance. “Michael, you’re a great frontman.”

The other musician judges — Ben Folds and Sara Bareilles — also said they loved the performance, although Folds said the background singers could have been a little softer in parts so Odokara-Okigbo wouldn’t have had to work as hard to be heard.

Odokara-Okigbo, a Waynflete School graduate and senior at Dartmouth College, said he was dedicating Monday’s performance to his mother, who had recently been ill. The Dartmouth Aires now will continue to compete for the show’s grand prize — $200,000 in cash and a Sony Music recording contract. During Monday’s show, two groups were eliminated, meaning 12 groups are now left.

“Sing-Off” will air weekly on Mondays until the season finale, Nov. 28.

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Sly Stone now homeless on streets of Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — Soul music legend Sly Stone, best known as the frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, has squandered his fortune and is living homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.

“I like my small camper,” Stone told the New York Post in an article co-written by William Alkema, director of a documentary about the band. “I just do not want to return to a fixed home. I cannot stand being in one place. I must keep moving.”

Stone once lived in a Beverly Hills mansion and a Napa Valley compound. But the Post reported that his fortune was stolen “by a lethal combination of excess, substance abuse and financial mismanagement.”

He lives now in a white camper that he parks in L.A.’s Crenshaw neighborhood. A retired couple feeds him daily and allows him to shower in their home, the paper reported.

Stone said he has been recording new music on his laptop.

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Actress escorted off plane for kissing girlfriend

A lesbian actress who starred in “The L-Word” says she was escorted off a Southwest Airlines flight for kissing her girlfriend.

Leisha Hailey on Monday took to Twitter to call for a boycott of the carrier after a flight attendant told them other passengers had complained. Hailey tweeted: “Since when is showing affection to someone you love illegal?”

Southwest responded on its website that Hailey was approached “based solely on behavior and not gender.”

The actress and a band mate from the group Uh Huh Her were on a flight from Baltimore to St. Louis.

Sheen, studio settle suit

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LOS ANGELES — The studio that fired former “Two and a Half Men” star Charlie Sheen said Monday it has struck a deal with the actor to end their legal dispute.

Warner Bros. Television released a statement saying that Sheen’s lawsuit against the studio and series executive producer Chuck Lorre has been settled “to the parties’ satisfaction.”

Sheen had filed a $100 million lawsuit for wrongful termination against Warner after his firing last March.

 


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