During Tag Records Survival Of The Freshest Tour Launch Party for new artist Q held at Rucker Park in Harlem, I meet Jermaine Dupri, Russell Simmons and Q on the tour bus decked out with white sofas, a laptop station, lighted mirrors and flat-screen TVs.

A fruit plate filled with strawberries, bananas, caneloupe, melon and pineapple beckons.  

I take a seat with Jermaine, Russell and Q.

Did Janet Jackson’s man ever dream he’d get this far?

“Me? Yes!” Jermaine exclaims. “When I was younger, I always had a person to follow, and that was this man right here. [Points to Russell] I watched what he was doing, and I figured if he could do it, I could do it. I ain’t never did it like him but I’m on my pace.”

Russell says, “It is maybe true that he saw me do something and maybe I inspired him, but then I sat back and watch him and he’s my inspiration. That’s how things have shifted.”

Jermaine continues, “As hip-hoppers and music people in general, we’ve always got people that we look up to and admire. That’s one thing that the young kids today – they pay attention to the wrong things. You’ve gotta find somebody who’s really out there doing what they’re supposed to be doing. It’ll help you get out and do what you want to do.”

What advice does Russell have for achieving greatness?

“Realize that it’s much easier operating from your strengths to quiet the inside as opposed to let all the noise control you,” he tells me.”

He continues, “You have to recognize that the only goal in life is to be comfortable in your seat. You’re only here for a second, and you’re here to be happy. When you understand that, it makes it easier to get through what people perceive as struggle. You go out there, they keep giving you more, and you keep giving back more. There’s nothing else you can do in life. There’s always more. That’s the human condition. Try to get past that as much as you can.”

“I learned that,” Russell says. “I used to wake up and think what I wanted to give, but in the back of my mind, I thought I was thinking what I wanted to get. I had to be giving in order to get. I must’ve got ahead by having a giving attitude. When you realize that’s the real path, you don’t have to worry about what you’re going to get.”

One thing Russell is taking: Ten Tag body sprays, please. Jermaine gives back by autographing a shoe.

Kellie Pickler hosts the CMA Music Festival: Country's Night To Rock, which airs September 8 on ABC. She’ll join friends Taylor Swift and Julianne Hough in hosting the two-hour music special, and she teamed up with OK! to help get ready for the big night.

The 22-year-old country darling comes clean about her approach to makeup.

“I think less is more,” the North Carolina native says. “I think a lot of people wear way too much makeup, but less is more. It’s all about picking one thing to highlight. If you’re going to do a dramatic eye, everything else should be very subtle. If you’re going to pick out the lips and do a red lipstick, then everything else should be subtle. I think you pick one thing to highlight, and mostly for me, if I had to pick my keeper out of everything, I love mascara. Sometimes I just put mascara on. During the day, I don’t ever wear foundation, blush or eyeshadow. I’ll put mascara on and maybe a little frost or chapstick.”

She continues, “I try different mascaras all the time. When Debbie does my makeup for different events, she always uses the Giorgio Armani foundation and powder. And then I love MAC. I have every MAC lipgloss imaginable. For mascara, I honestly find the kind at Walgreens or Wal-Mart or whatever is the best. There’s a new one from Cover Girl that’s called Lashblast. It’s in an orange thing. Lately I’ve been using that, but I have 40,000 mascaras. For a girl that doesn’t like makeup, I have a lot. Most importantly, at the end of the day, wash your face. My favorite is from MAC, it’s called See Through. It’s the lipgloss. Mostly I just wear that.”

Kellie’s style has evolved as her career has picked up steam beginning with her finalist-making stint on American Idol in 2006.

“Honestly, when I was a kid, younger, I was such a tomboy,” she says. “You would’ve never caught me dead in a dress. My grandparents raised me, and my grandma, all she could do is get my hair curled and pinned back pretty for picture day. By the time the day was over and I came home from school, I’d have holes in my pantyhose and my dress shoes would be scuffed up. My hair would be matted, and I’d have dirt on my face. I was such a tomboy. It’s crazy to see that now I’m into dresses and high heels and just how much I’ve changed from being a little girl into a woman. It’s fun to look back at pictures and think ‘wow, I would’ve never worn this ten years ago.’”

What are her style tips now that she’s worked with the pros?

“I‘ve learned you can’t really compare yourself to other people,” Kellie says. “You can’t look at what someone else is wearing, and think ‘oh, I want to buy that’ because everyone’s body is shaped differently. We all have great things about our body, our assets, and you pick things that compliment your body’s shape. If you’re going to show off your legs, you should be more conservative with everything else. I think you should do your clothes like you do your makeup. You pick one thing to accentuate, and make everything else subtle. That’s the thing that people look at – ‘wow, she has amazing legs,’ or ‘gee, she has such a thin waist.’ You pick one thing and work everything else in your outfit around it.”

She continues, “My favorite thing would probably have to be my waist. It’s weird. When I gain weight, the place it goes is my butt and my thighs. I would consider myself more pear-shaped. I pick things based on that. I like things more fitted around my waist. And I’m short, I’m like 5-foot, 5’1,” so I pick things that are more fitted because when I wear things that hang down, it doesn’t really look good on me because it just swallows me.”

For a behind-the-scenes look at Getting Ready With Kellie Pickler, pick up the OK! on newsstands now. "Jen Gets Revenge" is the cover line.

I’ve always been someone who’s visually stimulated. I don’t know what to eat but see something appetizing pass me in a restaurant and that’s what I’ll have. I see a jogger in the street and I can’t wait to get out and run. I’ve recently realized this desire for instant gratification after visual stimulation extends to bigger things than what I want to eat. After spending a recent weekend in Nashville I came back shopping for an acoustic guitar (and lessons) with ambitions to write and sell songs. After spending a few days at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, I’ve decided being a Senator someday sounds nice, or maybe a delegate. It sounds crazy and elicited a few laughs from my family – who seem to have forgotten they raised me telling me  ‘You can do anything you want to do hunny,’ but now we have a candidate for vice president of the United States who was only began her first foray into the politial arena, on a city council in an Alaska, when she was a few years younger than me. So, I’m just sayin’…You never know. I’m going to the US Open in a few days and will probably want to quit it all and be a professional tennis player – or just get married and play tennis all day ;)

In the meantime… My current career at OK! remains revolved around celebrity and I met one or two this week that were inspiring. After she finished chatting with Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Alba I had a chance to speak to Rosario Dawson for a bit at a party hosted by Vota Latina. I used to think she was soooo lucky to be dating her ex-boyfriend, Sex in the City's Absolut Hunk Jason Lewis, but now I see it may have been the opposite, because she's quite amazing. Unlike talking heads for a cause Rosario is one of the most sincere and driven celebrities I’ve had the pleasure of a conversation. Rather than preaching to vote for one candidate or the other (although she did tell me if a movie was being cast of a model First Family the Obamas could be it) Rosario is also attending the Republican National Convention next week to continue to spread the word to get out and vote – for whichever candidate fits your fancy.

Other celebrities who haven’t been as quiet about their allegiances in the past kept mysteriously mum at the DNC. Both Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck hosted and/or attended a fair share of public events in Denver for Barack’s four-day party, but both refused to speak about him specifically - even when asked on camera for an endorsement, or just a comment. I get trying to play down Barack’s whole celebrity factor to an extent, but isn’t that like attending someone’s Sweet 16 and not saying a few nice things about the girl of honor when the camcorder’s thrown in your face asking you to do so?

Vin Diesel greets me on his way into The Regency Hotel in NYC with a friendly “hello.” Even though reporters are kept waiting, we can hear him glad-handing outside. When they try to move him along to keep him on schedule post-interview, he makes sure he addresses every question.

That’s just the type of guy he is – always trying to keep people happy.

“He’s quite a number,” costar Melanie Thierry says. “The only thing I can say is he’s always late.”

Vin, 41, takes the lead in Babylon, A.D., which is in theaters now. The futuristic sci-fi thriller places the father of one in the role of a terrorist smuggler. Today, he’s fresh off the plane from the Dominican Republic, where he’s shooting a short film prequel with the help of the students in his NYU professor dad’s nonprofit acting school.

“We take inner city, underprivileged kids and put them through a six-week guerilla filmmaking course,” he says. “The coolest thing in the world was that these kids who had never known anything about film and had been going to this school, are now hands-on working for a huge Universal picture. How cool. You don’t have that here – if you went to NYU, you couldn’t be guaranteed to be working on set of a major motion picture.”

Although Vin gets joy from helping others, it isn’t easy to win him over.

“I always have issues with trust,” he says. “I’m a New Yorker. Time and experience helps, but trust comes from the gut. You’ve gotta trust people from your gut. It’s that feeling that you get. You’re forced with deciding whether you’re going to trust someone by relying on your intuition.”

How does Vin maintain his muscles?

“I do practice mixed martial arts as more of a recreational thing,” he says. “I have a lot of friends who have been heavyweight champions in the mixed martial arts world.”

In the film, Vin fast-forwards to 2016. What is his vision for the future?

“There are going to be border issues,” he laments. “We’re coming into an age where the borders will be strong but our society will be numb to it and won’t recognize what’s happening because of our freedom in the virtual world with the Internet.”

He continues, “On some level, I think we’re satisfied with the freedom that we have in the virtual world and we won’t realize that the borders in the physical world have been shut. That’s the bait and switch.”

Babylon, A.D. is in theaters now.