Search Results for: Jay Som

These days, try putting on a CD by your favorite rapper without hearing an endless series of plugs for Burberry, Air Force Ones, Alizé, Maybach, you name it. But are hip-hop’s ubiquitous product mentions just about artists chronicling their high-rollin’ lifestyles, or have the forces of marketing worked their way into your favorite rapper’s tunes? What’s next, a hit track written about Hummers paid for by the car’s manufacturer? Well, maybe. “Unless someone is paying me a billion dollars or offering equity, we don’t play that,” Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash said of writing products into a song on request.… Read more »

Russia is fast rising to the top of world music piracy charts with a counterfeit boom that could hit foreign investment and damage Moscow’s efforts to join the World Trade Organization, a leading watchdog said on Thursday. The issue of intellectual property rights, an increasingly important component of U.S. trade policy, is a major obstacle to WTO accession for both Russia and neighboring Ukraine, where bootleg computer programs, music CDs and movie DVDs are rife. In Russia alone the local pirated music market grew to $311 million last year, well above a legal music market of $257 million. “Russia is… Read more »

Eminem, the headliner of Summer Jam 10, took time on stage to show his anger toward the Source magazine. During a break in his performance on Tuesday (June 3) at Giants Stadium, Eminem hurled his 2000 Source Award for Lyricist Of The Year to the ground. The rapper has been involved in an ongoing feud with Source magazine co-owner Ray Benzino, who has accused Eminem of taking advantage of and destroying the hip-hop culture to further his personal gain. Eminem and his mentor, Dr. Dre, subsequently pulled all of their ads from the magazine. Eminem ended his set with a… Read more »

After spending last fall on the road with Jay-Z, N.E.R.D. and Nappy Roots, 311 are catering their next tour to the more rock side of their fanbase. The hip-hop- and reggae-influenced quintet has lined up blues jammers G. Love & Special Sauce, piano punks Something Corporate and frat rockers O.A.R. as openers for a summer trek. The outing kicks off July 15 in Bakersfield, California, and hits mostly amphitheaters, crisscrossing the country until wrapping up September 5 in Santa Barbara, California. “We always want to make sure our fans know how grateful we are and what a blessing it is… Read more »

The days of the compact disc could be drawing to a close as an increasing number of music fans, especially technologically savvy youngsters, turn to the Internet for free downloadable music. At a panel of the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin on Thursday, music industry executives talked about how they plan to stay afloat in the digital world of downloadable music and CD burning. “Unless you’re in a coma, it’s clear that the current business model of selling shiny discs at $17.99 isn’t going to sustain anybody any longer,” said David Adelson, executive editor Hits Magazine and the… Read more »

A Dutch Internet company on Thursday said it had developed software that could be used to compensate musicians whose songs are swapped online, a move it said could cut out the embattled music industry. PGR BV, a privately held company has its own new file-sharing service known as The Honest Thief and is helping companies start up services like the popular Kazaa and Morpheus services in the Netherlands, which has emerged as something of a haven for such operations. “We are the first, but certainly not the last, to eliminate the record companies from the equation,” said Pieter Plass, founder… Read more »

Rap mogul Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, one of contemporary music’s most successful entrepreneurs, has signed a distribution deal with Vivendi Universal’s Universal Records rather than sell the Bad Boy label he says is worth $100 million, the partners said on Thursday. The three-year deal leaves Universal paying marketing and promotion costs and giving Combs an undisclosed upfront fee, which analysts saw as a way for the producer of such hit acts as Faith Evans and the late Notorious B.I.G. to get the backing of the biggest record maker without selling his own company in a down market. Terms of the… Read more »

Hilary Rosen, who led the music industry’s fight against online piracy, turning an obscure trade group into a major player in the debate over copyright protection, said Wednesday she will quit as chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America. Rosen, who will resign by year-end after 17 years with the RIAA, led the group recently in victorious copyright infringement battles against Napster and Aimster and this week’s judgment against Verizon Communications to stem piracy on the Internet. But despite the wins on the legal front, the music industry finds itself entrenched in one of its most tumultuous periods,… Read more »

The Eminem show was everywhere this week as two albums by the rapper commanded top spots on the U.S. sales charts ahead of the Friday opening of his highly anticipated debut movie. The newly released soundtrack to his film “8 Mile” – which features music by Eminem as well as other rappers such as Jay-Z, Nas and D-12 – debuted at No. 1 on the charts, selling an estimated 702,000 units in the week ended Nov. 3, according to music tracker Nielsen SoundScan. The album features three new solo songs by Eminem, who has the starring role in the movie… Read more »

On the heels of the murder of its DJ, Jason Mizell (Jam Master Jay), on Oct. 30, groundbreaking hip-hop group Run-DMC has announced its retirement. “Some rock bands can replace the drummer,” said Rev. Joseph “Run” Simmons at a press conference to announce the formation of a coalition to help the surviving members of Mizell’s family at the Rihga Royal Hotel in New York on Wednesday (Nov. 6). “I don’t know any other way but to be the three original members. As a tribute to the positive legacy of Jam Master Jay, we started together and we want the Run-DMC… Read more »