General Larry Platt Lawsuit
Mar 17, 2010 Rapper
General Larry Platt better get ready for war as he has been hit with a nasty lawsuit over the comedy song ‘Pants on the Ground’. A music company called American King Music claims that they funded the singer’s recent recording session with rapper/producer Mims for the official full-length version of the song. But in the suit, the company claims that Larry and his reps “failed to take care of Platt’s obligations” but didn’t specify what exactly those obligations are. American King is suing over the music distribution agreement and expenses related to producing, writing and recording of the song. Larry’s manager says that he never made a contract with American King though but the company thinks they’re entitled to 50% of the profits from the sale of the song on iTunes.
Tags: Comedy, General Larry Platt, iTunes, Lawsuit, Mims, Music, Rapper, Singer
Mary J. Blige Does Led Zeppelin
Mar 12, 2010 Concert, Led Zeppelin, Mary J. Blige, Singer
Mary J. Blige has reportedly done two covers of Led Zeppelin songs for the international reissue of her album ‘Stronger with Each Tear’ which is due out on Monday. The singer recruited the likes of Travis Barker, Randy Jackson and guitarist Steve Vai to collaborate with her on ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and had so much fun that she decided to cover ‘Whole Lotta Love’ too. Mary said “I did Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love’ — it’s crazy! I am a Led Zeppelin fan. I’m not going to say I’ve been to their concerts, but I’ve listened to their music since I was a child, and it’s always moved me, especially ‘Stairway to Heaven’, and ‘Whole Lotta Love’ is just fun. I want y’all to hear it.”
Tags: Concerts, Led Zeppelin, Mary J. Blige, Music, Randy Jackson, Singer, Steve Vai, Travis Barker
Def Jam CEO Heading Out
Mar 12, 2010 Def Jam, Mariah Carey
Antonio ‘LA’ Reid, the CEO of Island Def Jam, recently bailed on an appearance, claiming that his son was in the hospital. However, sources are saying that the medical emergency may have been BS and that due to disappointing sales from Rihanna and Mariah Carey’s latest albums, LA is feeling the pressure and may be on his way out. A source said “There was speculation among other music executives that this was not entirely the truth. Reid didn’t want to answer questions about his future with Island Def Jam. The move left organizers panicked with no speaker with just hours to go. Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff agreed to stand in.” Is LA trying to head out after a couple of flops?
Tags: CEO, Emergency, Island Def Jam, LA Reid, Mariah Carey, Music, Rihanna
Snoop Dogg Does Comedy
Mar 10, 2010 Snoop Dogg
Rapper Snoop Dogg is teaming up with comedian Mike Epps in a comedy stage show called ‘Imagine That!’ portraying former nightclub performers in jail who are trying to break out. Mike said “This is an incredible opportunity to combine our similar, but different worlds of entertainment together on stage for the first time.” Snoop added “We’ve worked together in the past on some projects and knew that our audiences would love to see us bring Hip-Hop music and Hip-Hop comedy together on stage.” The tour begins on April 27 at Harrah’s Rincon Casino in San Diego. Will you watch it?
Tags: Comedian, Comedy, Entertainment, Hip Hop, Mike Epps, Music, Rapper, San Diego, Snoop Dogg
Diddy Has a Stalker
Mar 8, 2010 Diddy
35-year old Florida native Cemelia Green was arrested outside of Diddy’s East Hampton home a week ago after the crazy woman claimed to be the rapper’s wife. The woman, who reportedly had a history of mental illness, camped out in her car for a couple of days before embarking upon the music mogul’s residence. The police promptly arrested her at the scene and threw her into Suffolk County jail for trespassing and criminal mischief. Diddy’s stalker is being held on $5000 bail but I don’t really think anyone will be coughing up the money to bust her out. I almost want to feel sorry for her.
Tags: Bail, Criminal, Diddy, East Hampton, Florida, Mental Illness, Music, Rapper, Suffolk County
Peaches is No Superstar
Electronic rapper Peaches had planned a very special concert where she would be performing the music of the musical ‘Jesus Christ: Superstar’ as a one woman show in Berlin. However, the German right holders to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s shows refused to give her permission to perform the music. Peaches went on her Twitter to talk about the project saying “[They] claim that this project is of no interest to them due to its unconventional form. It’s a shame that the authorities feel threatened by this fresh approach. I know a lot of people who really love the music and would appreciate this stripped-down solo performance. I have so much respect for the music and lyrics from the original score and this was my way of honouring that.”
Tags: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Berlin, Concert, Electronic, Music, Musical, Peaches, Rapper, Twitter
Lil Wayne Lawsuit
Feb 22, 2010 Lil Wayne, Ringtones, Video
No one should be surprised anymore when you hear the name Lil Wayne and the word lawsuit in the same sentence. The rapper is getting sued by record producer Darius Harrison for $2.5 million. It seems that the producer and The Royalty Network are claiming they’re owed the money in unpaid royalties. Darius claims that they own the rights for the use of ‘Mrs. Officer’ on Lil Wayne’s 2008 CD ‘Tha Carter III’ and say that they own the rights to any profits that the rapper made due to the sale of ring tones, music videos and such. It’s not the first lawsuit of its kind and when it comes to Lil Wayne, I doubt it would be the last.
Tags: Lawsuit, Lil Wayne, Music, Profits, Rapper, Ring Tones, Royalties, Videos
Shooting During Beyonce Concert
Feb 17, 2010 Beyonce, Beyonce Knowles, Concert
A number of crazy people reportedly opened fire outside of Beyonce’s concert last week. The youths involved began shooting at concert goers as they left the R&B singer’s show at the Parque de Exposicoes in Salvador, Brazil. Thankfully, none of Beyonce’s fans were injured during the terrifying incident. It leads one to question though, why would you shoot at random people? Do the people in Brazil hate Beyonce that much to want to scare music fans off? I highly doubt that. Again, it’s very fortunate that no one got hurt – Beyonce and fans alike. As a reminder to all, remember that violence is never the answer.
Diddy’s Kid Gets the Works
Jan 28, 2010 Diddy
This past weekend, Diddy threw his eldest son Justin Dior Combs a star studded and expensive birthday bash to celebrate turning 16. At the end of the party, the music mogul surprised Justin with the keys to a $360,000 car. No, that’s not a typo. The 16-year old kid is now a proud owner of a Maybach sports car. All in all, Justin got a whole bunch of celebrities, an MTV film crew – his birthday was being filmed for the network’s series ‘My Super Sweet 16’ –and a car for his birthday. Let’s hope that he’s a really good driver or that car’s going to be a pretty expensive piece of trash.
Fantasia Wins an Award
Jan 18, 2010 American Idol, Rihanna
Fantasia Barrino rocked the house when she performed at the Barbados Music Awards recently. The 25-year old American Idol season 3 champion took home the International Award of Excellence at the show. The singer also performed an hour long set including ‘Free Yourself’, ‘When I See You’ and even performed Barbados beauty Rihanna’s hit song ‘Umbrella’. Who knew that Fantasia could still book singing gigs, much less win awards for her music? How could she even win that award when she doesn’t have much to boast about excelling about? Either Barbados is way behind on the times or they couldn’t get anyone else to show up.
Tags: American Idol, Barbados, champion, Fantasia Barrino, Music, Rihanna, Singer
New Michael Jackson Creditor Claim
Jan 8, 2010 Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson’s estate is taking hits from all sides as more creditors are coming out with their claims. A new creditor came out earlier this week and it’s a company claiming that it’s owed money for helping the King of Pop refinance the MIJAC catalog. According to a creditor’s claim filed in LA Superior Court, the late singer’s estate owes $328,299.03 in unpaid fees to a small investment banking firm in Baltimore called Signal Hill Capital for financial services related to music publishing assets. As it was previously reported, the grand total for all of the creditors’ claims against the estate is expected to exceed $20 million.
Tags: Baltimore, Creditor, Estate, LA, Michael Jackson, Music, Pop, Singer, Superior Court
Lil Wayne Does Jesus
Rapper Lil Wayne recently signed on to voice the role of Jesus Christ in T-Pain’s upcoming animated series for Adult Swim called ‘Freakniks’. Adult Swim creative director Jake Escobedo explained the show’s premise by saying “Basically it was a Black Spring Break that went down in Atlanta and got shut down back in ‘98 or ‘99. So the show is going to resurrect that, and it’s going to be starring T-Pain and Lil Wayne and all these other artists like David Banner and some other dudes. It’s all drawn, and T-Pain plays the ghost of spring break, the Spirit of Freaknik. He brings this party back to Atlanta and the artists have done all this music for it, and it’s amazing.”
Tags: Adult Swim, atlanta, David Banner, Jesus Christ, Lil Wayne, Music, Rapper, T-Pain
Kanye West Working on New Music
Jan 6, 2010 Kanye West, Taylor Swift
Kanye West just announced on his blog that he is going back to the studio to lay down some new tracks. The rapper said “FIRST OF ALL, I WANT TO THANK EVERYBODY FOR THEIR CONSTANT LOVE AND SUPPORT OVER THESE PAST 6 YEARS! I’M SO HAPPY TO BE BACK IN THE STUDIO MAKING NEW MUSIC. I WILL BRING YOU THE BEST I HAVE TO OFFER WITH THE SAME DEDICATION THAT KOBE HAS ON THE COURT… THAT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS THE MODERN DAY ARTISTS AND POETS, TO ACCURATELY REPRESENT WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW.” I wonder if he will write a song about the VMA incident with Taylor Swift.
Tags: Kanye West, Music, Rapper, Taylor Swift, VMA
Usher’s Album Leaks
Jan 3, 2010 Lil Wayne, Song Leaked, Usher
After a good long while, Usher actually has some new music coming out. However, just like Lil Wayne’s ‘Rebirth’ Usher’s upcoming ‘Raymond VS Raymond’ has been leaked and has appeared on the internet this past week. There’s been many changes to the album’s release date which was originally scheduled for an early 2010 release, later changed to December 21st, and now back at TBD status. The release date is also different on various websites with Best Buy, Tower and FYE among others having a pre-order for the album’s release on February 16 while Walmart.com is for February 2 and Amazon is for March 1. Mind you, it doesn’t show up on iTunes at all. It sounds like the singer’s camp needs to get their stuff together.
Tags: Amazon, Best Buy, FYE, iTunes, Lil Wayne, Music, Singer, Tower, Usher, Walmart
Snoop Dogg on GPS
Dec 16, 2009 Rapper, Snoop Dogg
If you’re getting tired of the boring voices on GPS tracking systems telling you where to go, well you can stop fretting as Snoop Dogg is coming to the rescue. The 38-year old rapper has lent his voice out to GPS company TomTom, providing two versions of voiceovers. One is said to be Rated G, without swearing and somewhat understandable, and the other has tons of swearing and is hardly understandable. Snoop talked about the random project saying “It’s really because when I be riding the car and I be hearing the boring ass lady that be doing all the time it bothering me. She’s always turning my music down and being like, ‘turn left, go right, straight ahead.’”
Tags: GPS, Music, Rapper, Rated G, Snoop Dogg
New Music Video from Iyaz
Nov 30, 2009 Music Artists, Music Videos, Rapper
Iyaz has a new video out for his first infectious single ‘Replay’. The 22-year old singer and rapper not only has the release of the music video to celebrate but also the general success of the song which has been certified gold and has reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Iyaz, who became close friends with chart topper Sean Kingston after the two connected on MySpace, said that the and the ‘Fire Burning’ singer work well together. He said “Sean is my ‘little’ big brother. When you put us in the studio together, it’s like magic.” ‘Replay’ should be proof enough of that.
Tags: Billboard, Iyaz, Music, MySpace, Rapper, Sean Kingston, Singer, Video
Alice in Chains rocks Yahoo with special acoustic performance
Nov 27, 2009 Alice in Chains, Music, Singers, Song, Video
Alice in Chains are currently being featured on Yahoo Music’s Maximum Performance! The band stopped by the Yahoo studios to perform an acoustic set featuring songs off the new record Black Gives Way To Blue. The band rocked through amazing acoustic renditions of their new hit single “Check My Brain”, “Black Gives Way To Blue”, and “Your Decision”. The band also sat down with Yahoo for an exclusive video interview, where the band talks about life after Layne, and their amazing re-birth with new singer William DuVall.
“Check My Brain” Yahoo video embed:
“Black Gives Way To Blue” Yahoo video embed:
“Your Decision” Yahoo video embed:
Tags: Alice in Chains, Band, Live, Music, Performance, Video, Yahoo
2009 American Music Awards winners – AMA
Nov 23, 2009 AMA - American Music Awards, American Music Awards, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Music Artists, Taylor Swift
The compete list of 2009 American Music Awards winners:
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Taylor Swift
POP/ROCK – Favorite Male Artist
Michael Jackson
POP/ROCK – Favorite Female Artist
Lady Gaga
POP/ROCK – Favorite Band, Duo or Group
Black Eyed Peas
POP/ROCK – Favorite Album
Number Ones, Michael Jackson
COUNTRY – Favorite Male Artist
Keith Urban
COUNTRY – Favorite Female Artist
Taylor Swift
COUNTRY – Favorite Band, Duo or Group
Rascal Flatts
COUNTRY – Favorite Album
Fearless, Taylor Swift
RAP/HIP-HOP – Favorite Male Artist
Jay-Z
RAP/HIP-HOP – Favorite Album
Blueprint 3, Jay-Z
SOUL/R&B – Favorite Male Artist
Michael Jackson
SOUL/R&B – Favorite Female Artist
Beyoncé Knowles
SOUL/R&B – Favorite Band, Duo or Group
Black Eyed Peas
SOUL/R&B – Favorite Album
Number Ones, Michael Jackson
SOUNDTRACKS – Favorite Album
Twilight Soundtrack
ALTERNATIVE ROCK – Favorite Artist
Green Day
ADULT CONTEMPORARY – Favorite Artist
Taylor Swift
LATIN – Favorite Artist
Aventura
CONTEMPORARY INSPIRATIONAL – Favorite Artist
Mary Mary
T-MOBILE BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST
Gloriana
INTERNATIONAL ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Whitney Houston
Tags: American Music Awards, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Music, Singers, Taylor Swift, Twilight
Black Eyed Peas Settle Plagiarism Case
Nov 23, 2009 Black Eyed Peas, Will.I.Am
Some musicians just have a habit of ripping off other artists and I have to ask when will they ever learn? Will.I.Am surely needs to learn his lesson regarding the matter. As previously mentioned, the Black Eyed Peas front man has been accused several times of ripping off music from other artists. One of the recent accusations deals with a song by musician Adam Freeland called ‘Mancry’ which had a piece of it ending up in the BEP song ‘Party All the Time’. According to reports, Will.I.Am was at an event last year where Adam performed the song in question. Good news though as they have settled all the trouble. Adam posted a message on his Facebook saying “Just settled w/ Black eyes Peas who ripped off Mancry. If you see me in the next wk say ‘Party all the time’ I’ll buy you a beer. Woo hoop!” I guess he got paid.
Tags: Adam Freeland, Black Eyed Peas, Facebook, Music, Will.I.Am
Michael Jackson’s Movie Gets Help from the Past
Nov 20, 2009 Michael Jackson, Movies
Michael Jackson fans might be upset when they find out that the much hyped ‘This is It’ film, documenting the late singer’s final tour rehearsals, seems to have gotten a bit of help from the past. According to new reports, music experts are saying that some of the sound bytes on the movie are actually from years before. Former BBC senior studio manager Andrew Rose claims “Throughout the film sudden changes in vocal timbre suggest the dropping in of older recordings which may have required significant digital manipulation to fit the new live backing.” The shocking part in all this is that officials at Sony Pictures admit to altering the film. It’s not like it’s going to hurt them now as the film has already grossed over $200 million.