August 26, 2005

Ciara Gets Help From Carmelo Anthony And A Horse For Next Video

By Corey Moss and Brandee Tecson (MTV.com)

Ciara has scorched the world's dance floors with her crunkified beats and blazed on tracks with Missy Elliott and Ludacris, and now the 19-year-old is ready to tackle new musical territory: the sappy love ballad.

The First Lady of Crunk & B, who is best known for knocking out booty-shaking tunes like "Oh" and "1, 2 Step," has selected the slow jam "And I" as the next single from her platinum debut, Goodies. Ciara penned the track when she was only 15.

"This track really comes from my heart," the singer said recently. "It talks about how I love someone for who they are and not what they have -- you know, it's not about the money, it's not about those things. I would sacrifice my all for the person that I really love, no matter what."

For the video, based loosely on Whitney Houston's 1992 movie The Bodyguard, Ciara teamed with the Fat Cats ("Oh" and Twista's "Slow Jamz") and recruited Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony to play one of her love interests.

"It's gonna be beautiful," she said. "I got to work with a horse, which was really fun for me and now I'm like, 'I want a horse myself.' I got to give input on the treatment as well and I hope people love it."

Now on her fourth single, the Atlanta singer is growing downright antsy waiting to start recording tracks for her sophomore LP.

"I definitely want to get back in the studio as soon as possible," she said. "My schedule isn't allowing me to [right now], but I have so many different things and new ideas I want to share with the world."

Ciara will be a presenter at Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards, where she is also nominated for Best R&B Video for "Oh" and Best New Artist in a Video and Best Dance Video for "1, 2 Step".