Victoria Justice knew that when she heard her latest single she had some pop-music gold on her hands. The track, aptly titled perfectly encapsulates the empowering message the singer/actress is hoping to spread on her in-the-works debut album, set for release later this year.

"From the moment I heard it, I just thought it was a really fun, catchy pop song, and I also liked how it came from a place of female empowerment," she told MTV News about the song, on which the former "Victorious" star tells her crush to "man up" because she's gold and he should make a move.

She continued, "I'm all about girl power, so that was important for me. I just thought it would be perfect as a summer release. It's a lot of fun to perform live ... For me, I'm not coming from a place of being cocky, it's more female empowerment."

As Justice preps her , she feels this track not only sets the tone for her album, but has just enough mass appeal to keep all of her fans listening. "I think it's a song that appeals to all ages. And it is, like, a little bit edgier and a little more mature, but not anything that was going to turn off younger fans as well," she said.

She also shows off a sassier, flirtier side in the video, which she dropped last Friday. It features "Teen Wolf" and "Arrow" star Colton Haynes as her love interest. Justice, however, has a more colorful way of describing his role in ...

Bonnie McKee proudly declared her independence as a solo artist on her feisty single, proving that she's ready to step out from behind the shadows and top the charts herself.

"I kind of like to fuse the singer/songwriter thing with a modern pop stuff because I do love pop music," she told MTV News. "I was raised on Michael Jackson and Madonna and Prince and all these people [and] that's what I want to hear. I hear Janet Jackson and I get psyched; and I hear Carole King and I get psyched. But I like to dance, personally, so that's where I'm trying to go."

McKee's decision to be her own artist comes at a time when a number of songwriters, like Bruno Mars, have emerged from the studio and crafted their own pop success. She credits him, as well as a handful of other A-listers, for making it acceptable to make the leap. "I think that people like Bruno Mars and even Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Pink, Alicia Keys — all of these people were signed and dropped songwriters as well," she said. "I think I'm just another in a long lineage of songwriters turned artists, and I'm proud to be one."

However, she still holds her strictly songwriter days close to her heart, using a lot of what she learned working alongside super producers like Dr. Luke and Max Martin to help shape her album. "Absolutely, all of the experience that I've had behind the scenes has taught me so much," she said. "I'm so grateful to have ...

Twitter is a great place to be opinionated — that is, until you express an unpopular opinion and begin to receive death threats. That's what Earl Sweatshirt learned when he announced to followers last week that he wasn't really feeling Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail. But even with all the backlash, Earl tells MTV News that he stands firmly behind his opinion.

Hov and Magna Carta began trending on the Fourth of July, when the album became available on the Samsung Magna Carta app and subsequently leaked on the Internet, giving fans plenty of time to listen ahead of its official release date. Some listeners gave it rave reviews, others gave it a lukewarm nod, and Earl Sweatshirt had a definitive opinion in the other direction.

"If you really f---ed with magna carta then unfollow me," he tweeted on July 11. "im gonna listen to allure and eat a breakfast burrito." The stream of hateful tweets followed almost immediately, and for transparency's sake, Earl retweeted plenty of the venom that was directed his way.

"I was not expecting that," he told MTV News before hitting the stage at his Vitamin Water Uncapped performance in New York on Monday. "Because I wasn't trying to come foul at Jay-Z, it's just not my favorite album by him, but I f----ing love Jay-Z."

As the barrage of tweets kept pouring in, Earl joked on Twitter, "hahah welp theres goes the last of the black fans i had." That said, the Odd Future rapper isn't going to retract his statement.

"I stand by the fact that ...

Social media became the de facto platform for celebrities pushing for justice for Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old high school student from Florida who was shot by George Zimmerman, 28, who claimed he shooting was in self-defense. After a was handed down to Zimmerman on Saturday, the man behind the Million Hoodies protests urges celebs and people to keep fighting.

"My vision for Million Hoodies is really for us to be what the Truth Campaign was for big tobacco," says Million Hoodies founder Daniel Maree. "That's what we want to be against the gun lobby and against racial profiling."

Maree, a digital strategist, first founded Million Hoodies in March of 2012, a month after Martin was found shot and killed, Zimmerman standing over him with a handgun. Martin was unarmed, carrying only a bottle of iced tea and a bag of Skittles, wearing a hoodie.

"The big impetus for Million Hoodies for me was reading about the Trayvon Martin case and noticing that there was no national news coverage of the story, noticing that the police hadn't arrested George Zimmerman and feeling that I have been in that situation before," Maree told MTV News. "I spent two years in Gainesville, Florida, as a high schooler, and I personally had experiences walking home from school sometimes. I would get stopped by the police for no reason other than I was an African American in a predominantly white neighborhood."

Maree also noted that Martin's hoodie was the inspiration for his campaign, recalling experiences he's had in New York City while wearing that article of ...

Robin Thicke's video for has become the runaway viral video hit of the summer, having amassed over 94 million views since launching in March. It probably doesn't hurt that the video is chock full of models.

The clip follows Thicke, Pharrell and T.I. as they prance around a sparse room with scantily clad (or in that other version, topless) ladies, as hashtags like #Thicke splash across the screen. "I wrote the idea as a nude video and refused to do the job when they said they didn't want a nude version, that no one would see it," director Diane Martel explained to MTV News about the videos. "A week went by and they begged me to do it and said I could do a nude version, if I also did them a favor and did a dressed version. I like both versions now. I think Robin likes both too, we all do."

The video, serving as the lead visual for his July 30 album of the same name, has certainly stirred up conversation in the process. Speaking with the BBC, the "Blurred Lines" crooner said he actually preferred the clothed version of the kitschy video, but it was his wife, actress Paula Patton, who pushed him to release both versions. With her seal of approval, any reservations he had about how "sleazy" the video would appear were eased.

She added, "Robin has trusted me all the way [with 'Blurred Lines'] and that's a wonderful thing. I love our relationship, we are both strong-minded and it's cool ... he's ...