Real Music People

It turns out that Dr. Dre is a heavy influence on the USA Olympic basketball team just as much as Dr. J is. The dream team travelled to China in style over the weekend thanks to the rap mogul and LeBron James. The Cleveland Cavaliers star bought the entire team ‘Beats by Dr. Dre’ headphones for the long flight. Here’s to hoping that the basketball star gets paid back in gold as those crazy music accessories are worth $350 each. Talk about breaking your bank account. Hey, if it gets his teammates to pass him the ball more often than they’d really like to then it has made its point.

Ne-Yo wants to duet with Marilyn Manson. The R’n’B star wants to team up with the goth shock rocker on a track and intends to approach him in the near future.

Ne-Yo, 25, revealed: “I’m trying to get hold of Marilyn Manson about an idea I have. Ne-Yo goes rock!”

The singer – who had a UK number one hit single in June with his singer ‘Closer’ – has also revealed he would love to collaborate with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.

He added: “When I got told ‘Closer’ had beaten Coldplay to number one in the UK, I couldn’t believe it. I am THE Coldplay fan, so that was really cool. I’d love to do something with them – me and Chris Martin that would be cool.”

Ne-Yo - real name Shaffer Chimere Smith – is currently exploring the British scene, after being given an MP3 player loaded with tracks by UK artists. He said: “I’ve been discovering a lot of new stuff. You wouldn’t think they were my kind of thing but I really like The Feeling. I like some of Duffy’s stuff, but not all of it. If she can escape the ‘I’m a blonde Amy Winehouse’ thing she’ll be OK. People are saying that in the US, because of the style of music and the fact she’s from the UK.”

Lil Wayne is getting into more trouble as he’s now being accused of ripping off the Rolling Stones. The rapper behind the lollipop song is being sued by a music publishing company that owns the rights to the Rolling Stones tune ‘Play With Fire’. Abkco Music Inc. is claiming that Lil Wayne released an alternate version of the song without their permission. The company is suit for copyright infringement and is seeking unspecified damages. The company is also calling his version “explicit, racist and offensive”. If it was a rip off, he wouldn’t have done too much to make it explicit. It’s a Rolling Stones tune. It was likely to have explicit undertones to begin with.

Don’t be surprised if I tell you that another reality TV show is in the works. Chris Brown is teaming up with ‘Survivor’ producer Mark Burnett to make a new dance competition series with an emphasis on hip hop/street dance. The R&B sensation will pit contestants against one another in impromptu dance-offs in the as yet untitled project with Chris choosing the winner of each round. Chris commented on the show saying “Dancing is more than just a way of moving, it’s a different expression of music. That’s what I want to focus on with this show.” Burnett also commented on why he chose Chris for the show saying “Chris Brown really is a superstar, and someone who lives and breathes music and dance — so his credibility is massive in this arena. It’s his show; he’s headlining it. He’s the final arbiter on those who win and those who don’t.”

Rap star Darryl McDaniels has been admitted to a New Jersey hospital, where he is expected to undergo surgery to remove two major blood clots later today.

The rapper had recently been suffering from pain and swelling in his left arm. The pain became so intense he went to the hospital, where doctors discovered the blockages.

It’s unclear how long the 44-year-old will remain in the hospital, but the unexpected sick-bay stay forced him out of a planned appearance at the AVP Beach Vollyeball Tournament scheduled to take place in Brooklyn tomorrow and air live on NBC.

Solange has been writing and performing from an early age. Classically trained in ballet, jazz, tap and modern dance at school, her performing career started a little unexpectedly, as a back up dancer when a Destiny’s Child dancer suddenly had to leave the tour.

This experience and traveling with the group all across the world was huge influence on her and opened her up to many different types of music and style. She used this cultural melting pot on her debut album ‘Solo Star’ which she released at the age of 16.

Since these beginnings Solange has developed into a notable singer, songwriter and actress, with some fantastic achievements already under her belt. The latest talent from the Music World stable, she co-wrote Beyonce’s ‘Get Me Bodied’ and ‘Upgrade You’ from Beyonce ‘B-Day’ album, ‘Love Off’ for Kelly Rowland’s ‘Ms Kelly’ and Michelle Williams’s upcoming club smash ‘We Break The Dawn’. Tapping into her other passion acting, she has also starred in hit movies ‘Johnson Family Vacation’ and ‘Bring It On: All Or Nothing’, in which she co-starred with Heroes star Hayden Panettiere

Music has remained her first love throughout. Her forthcoming album ‘Sol-Angel & The Hadley Street Dreams’ is influenced by the likes of Otis Reading and Marvin Gaye.

“If I had to describe the sound of my record”, say Solange , “I would like to think that it is as if The Supremes, The Marvelettes, Dusty Springfield and Minnie Riperton were to make the music they did in the 60’s and 70’s now with a modern touch.”

‘I Decided’ totally encapsulates that vibe. Produced by The Neptunes and given an extra sparkle by UK’s finest Freemasons, ‘I Decided’ is a burst of pure old school R&B pop drama with a modern twist

With an amazing album to follow with collaborations from the likes of Pharell, The Boards Of Canada, Mark Ronson, Q-Tip, Raphael Saddiq and the legendary Lamont Dozier, Solange has well and truly found her own voice.

Akon is still guaranteed to be a free man, at least for a month more. The criminal case against the hip hop artist has been adjourned until next month, on August 6th. The case is from an incident last year when Akon threw a 15-year old fan offstage at the 2007 KFEST concert in June. In December 2007, Akon plead not guilty to charges of second degree harassment and endangering the welfare of a minor. The boy’s mother, Patricia Smith, attended the case hearing this week and said that it was pretty typical. She says “People can just hang in there long enough until the case goes in their favor.” If he gets convicted, the singer can face up to a year and 15 days in the pokey.

A guitar Jimi Hendrix burnt on stage more than 40 years is about to go to auction.

The 1965 Fender Stratocaster, which he doused in lighter fluid and then set on fire at the Astoria in London in March 1967, is expected to fetch around $1million.

Hendrix injured himself after he lit the guitar and had to be taken to hospital with minor burns on his hands.

Hendrix did his burning guitar stunt twice during his career. The one up for auction is the only one still in existence.

Who knew that the Democrats were so cool? It has been revealed that Kanye West, NERD and Wyclef Jean will be performing at the Democratic National Convention in Denver next month. Hollywood Democrats who plan to attend the convention include the likes of Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Forrest Whitaker, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Cheryl Hines and Ed Norton, who’s been shooting a documentary about Barack Obama’s race to the White House. That’s definitely one star-studded occasion. I wonder how the Republicans are going to compete with that. Maybe they can have Heidi Montag perform and have Spencer Pratt be the musical director for John McCain.

Rapper Yung Joc is being sued by an Atlanta company that claims he took off with almost $25,000 worth of stereo gear. The rapper was due in court in Fulton County yesterday to fight it out with the owners of Stereotypes, a high-end stereo outfit, who claim that they put in a bunch of equipment in his car last year but they ended up getting stiffed out of their fee.

The members of the rap group Mobb Deep recently filed a lawsuit against their ex-manager who they claim jacked their music without their permission. Prodigy and Havoc, whose real names are Albert Johnson and Kejuan Muchita respectively, say that their former manager Norman Bell used their recordings on ‘best of’ albums that were never authorized by group members. Albums, they allege, they didn’t get any payments or royalties for. They say that Bell, who calls himself ‘Purfek Storm’ owes them over a million dollars in back royalties. Did anyone even buy those albums that they’re talking about? Bell could just have no money since no one cared about the ‘best of’ albums.

Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida has to date been the No.1 selling album in 36 countries around the world, including in the U.S., where it held the top spot for two weeks, and in the U.K. where the album has been No.1 for the last four weeks.

Coldplay’s previous album, the 10 million-selling X&Y, reached No.1 in 32 countries in 2005.

In a number of countries, including the U.K., France, Germany and Japan, first week sales of Viva La Vida exceeded those of X&Y, and Viva La Vida has already been certified gold or platinum in 31 countries including platinum in the USA, Germany and Australia and double platinum in the U.K. and Canada.

In many countries Viva La Vida held the top spot on the album chart in its second week, including in the USA, U.K., Australia, Canada, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand.

Viva La Vida set the record for the highest first week album sales ever on the iTunes Store worldwide, in addition to being the biggest album pre-order in iTunes’ history. In the U.S., 288,000 week one sales were digital downloads, the biggest ever first week sales tally for a digital album, and with 394,000 digital albums sold in the first three weeks, Viva La Vida is the all time best selling digital album in the States. U.S. over the counter sales for Viva La Vida across all formats have now exceeded 1.1 million according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In the U.K. Viva La Vida is the fastest-selling album of the year with over the counter sales of more than 600,000 since its release on 12 June, while in Germany the album is already the biggest selling release of the year as well as the fastest.

Coldplay will launch their North American tour with two sold out dates in Los Angeles on July 14th and 15th.

The Game is pissing off people left and right and he doesn’t seem to care just who he’s running over. The latest group to join in on the ‘Hate The Game’ movement is his own family. They claim that the rapper promised to finance part of his cousin’s funeral but when it came to paying up, they ended up getting stiffed. A family member claims that the rapper volunteered to pay half of the funeral costs but then went underground before they could get the money. The rapper then unexpectedly showed up at the funeral last weekend where things got heated when the issue of cash came up. Apparently, a brawl went down. Have you no respect for the dead?

The prodigal son is set to return. Rush & Molloy is reporting that Usher is quietly talking with his mom about making her his manager once again. The singer is apparently livid that music big shot Benny Medina couldn’t deliver big sales for his latest album which only sold 433,000 on its first week. Shouldn’t he be blaming himself for controversially firing his mother in the first place or that his choice of tunes just didn’t cut it for today’s audience? He must have been ticked off that Lil Wayne pulled in bigger numbers than he did. He definitely didn’t see that one coming.

Kanye West is off on another rant. This time, he’s after Harper’s Bazaar for assuming the painting on his ceiling is a winged version of the rapper. He says “To put it short as Kanye-ly possible (don’t mean to speak in third person)… Harper’s Bazaar came to my home, took pics, asked a lot of questions and then assumed the painting in my dining room was of me as an angel. This isn’t true and it bothered me greatly because people think I’m so so so cocky that I would have something like that. I’m sure it was an inside joke to everyone from the magazine in my home that day… I wanted people to see my home because I spent 2 years gutting it and was proud. I’m just a regular guy with cool stuff in his crib but instead I was made out to be Ben Stiller’s character in the movie Dodgeball with the huge pic of him wrestling a bull in his office…”

Do you remember a guy named Eminem? The rapper has been missing in action from the music scene for the last couple of years but he’s been keeping himself busy by frequenting strip clubs and getting himself into trouble. The has-been rapper was sued last week by a man that claims that Em punched him at Cheetah’s on the Strip Gentlemen’s Club in Detroit while both of them in the bathroom. The accuser is seeking $25,000 in damages. Why the heck did Eminem start a brawl in the bathroom? He should have just kept himself busy making some music instead of going to strip clubs.

The R&B prince Chris Brown and his R&B princess Rihanna performed at the Louisiana Superdome during the 2008 Essence Music Festival on Friday, the Fourth of July, in New Orleans. In other news, Billboard recently did a review of Rihanna’s latest single ‘Disturbia’ saying “…It’s safe to say that Rihanna is the premier artist of the second half of the decade, with no signs of wear and tear. This latest is a sort of ‘Thriller’ for partygoers, with multilayered vocals cascading across Ri’s lower register, alongside fun scatting, a la ‘bum bum bi dum bum’ with co-writing (and background vocals) from the irrepressible Chris Brown…”

NERD front man Pharrell Williams recently sat down with British Vogue and revealed that he’s using a revolutionary procedure to get rid of his tattoos. Apparently, the ink does go well with the grown up image he’d like to project. You can forget about painful laser procedures, he’s going to have replicated skin over his tattoos. He says “It’s basically like getting a skin graft, but you’re not taking skin from your ass or your legs. These guys actually grow the skin for you. First you have to give them a sample of your skin, which they then replicate. Once that’s been done, they sew it on - and it’s seamless. It’s going to be pricey, but worth it. I got fire on my arms! I’m a grown man!”

Dave Matthews’ sax player has been sidelined due to obtaining a serious injury from an ATV accident. 46-year old LeRoi Moore was on break between concerts when he got injured riding the rig at his farm outside Charlottesville, Virginia. He was transported to UVA Medical Center where he’s listed in fair condition. A statement on the band’s website said “Please join us all in wishing LeRoi a speedy and complete recovery.” Meanwhile, Jeff Coffin, the sax player of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, will sit in with the band for the remainder of their tour while LeRoi recovers. Get well soon LeRoi!

It looks like Ticketmaster is about to get some serious competition as Live Nation, the owners and promoters of music venues all over the globe as well as the group that gave Jay-Z and Madonna their $100 million contracts, will be launching its own ticketing arm once its contract with Ticketmaster expires at the end of the year. A little competition is always good for both the consumers and the producers. But then again, at the end of the day, Live Nation is still a corporation. Sooner or later, they’re going to suck the life out of us too much like every other corporation does.

Amy Winehouse quit hospital in a rage after her decision to return to the stage backfired.

She threw a tantrum hours after her chaotic Glastonbury set and told dad Mitch to get her out. Friends now fear she may return to drugs — if she hasn’t already.

A pal said: “We feared a taste of the outside would remind her what she’s missing and it would be hard to get her back into life at the clinic. That’s exactly what’s happened.”

Rehab singer Amy, 24, was admitted to The London Clinic two weeks ago suffering from emphysema. She got clean and was “like an excited little girl” in the build-up to her comeback shows at Glastonbury on Saturday and Nelson Mandela’s Hyde Park birthday concert last Friday.

The pal added: “Doctors said we should let her do the shows because performing is what she lives for. We can’t take that away. It seemed the right thing to do because she was so excited. She looked and sounded better than she has in ages at the gigs.”

But Amy ranted on stage and elbowed a fan at Glastonbury. After her set she was whisked back to The London Clinic by helicopter — and 24 hours later she’d had enough.

The pal said: “Sunday was like she was on a terrible comedown from the whole thing. She kicked off and threw all her toys out the pram. She told Mitch, ‘I’m climbing the walls in here. I need to get out’. She said if he didn’t help her get out she’d walk out. He realized he had to let her leave, otherwise he’d have no control over where she goes and what she gets up to.”

The pal added: “He’s with her and keeping and eye on her, but he’s beside himself. Everyone is gutted as she’d been doing so well and hasn’t touched any drugs for two weeks. But now she’s out we fear it will all go downhill.”

A spokesman for Amy confirmed she had left the clinic and would be treated as an outpatient. She spent last night with pals at a local pub and kebab shop.