Search Results for: IN HER OWN WORDS

“Things are different now,” a news anchor commented last Tuesday while covering the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Those words continue to resonate a week later, with sports, travel and entertainment all vastly affected by the East Coast tragedies. In the music industry, the biggest changes are occurring on the air as radio stations around the country alter their playlists to reflect the radically different context in which pop music is now heard as compared to when the music was originally written and recorded. As Bob Buchmann, program director at WAXQ in New York, put it, “The… Read more »

Good thing Erykah Badu wasn’t around to pick up her Album of the Year trophy at Tuesday night’s Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards – she’d have to mail it to Jill Scott. Show organizers said Thursday (August 30) that Badu’s Mama’s Gun was erroneously announced as Soul/R&B Album of the Year during the taping of the ceremony at Santa Monica (California) Civic Auditorium, and the award actually belongs to Scott for Who Is Jill Scott? Words & Sounds Vol. 1. Katie Jones, supervising producer at Don Cornelius Productions, said the winner was “read incorrectly” during the award’s presentation. She… Read more »

The seductive R&B star, along with fellow musicians Macy Gray, Jill Scott and Zap Mama, served up five hours of sultry, come-hither jams to a 15,000-plus capacity crowd at the DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, Wednesday. “Ladies, women, bitches, hos, hoochie mamas,” Gray addressed the crowd, “we’re here to celebrate one of the most magnificent, most miraculous, things ever created. We want to celebrate the dick!” With many male audience members covering their faces, Gray then led the women in the house in a chant of, “Dick, dick, dick…” Unrestrained sexuality was the theme of the festival, meant… Read more »

After playing their final U.S. show of the year last week, Green Day are really getting down to work. They’re rehearsing new material for their best-of collection International Superhits, which comes out in the fall. At the same time, they’re fine-tuning a new batch of songs for their next studio album. Meanwhile, when he gets a free moment, bassist Mike Dirnt is finishing up the second record by his side-project, the Frustrators. Who said these guys were just a bunch of snotty, irresponsible punks? “We have a super-serious work ethic,” Dirnt said, an hour before heading to the first of… Read more »

Just standing still Monday night in Central Park, you couldn’t help but feel suffocated by the 85-degree wet heat that blanketed the city. So imagine how Erykah Badu felt as she danced around and sang her emotional ditties for the crowd at the park’s SummerStage venue. She was so hot she had to take off her dress in the middle of her set. “Thank you God for this breeze,” Badu said during a breakdown in her performance of “Didn’t Cha Know” early in the show. Dressed in a peach dress, matching headdress and gloves that came to her elbows, the… Read more »

The writing is on the wall – and on the request lists of radio stations all across the nation – America wants AFROMAN. In just a few short weeks, AFROMAN’s breakout smash hit, “Because I Got High” has become the #1 most requested song at top radio stations around the country. “Because I Got High” is blitzing radio stations nationwide, with an unprecedented avalanche of requests leaving no doubt that the track will be the top “feel-good” single of the year. The first single from the upcoming Universal Records release The Good Times, “Because I Got High,” is a tongue-in-cheek… Read more »

“She’s Kobe, and I’m Shaq,” Kurupt said of himself and his fiancée, Blaque’s Natina Reed, on the heels of the Lakers’ championship series win last month. The lovebirds can currently be caught trading verses, Crip-walking and courting each other in the video for Kurupt’s “It’s Over.” The L.A. by way of Philly rapper may be on to something – their duet helped him debut at #10 on the latest Billboard 200 albums chart with Space Boogie: Smoke Oddessey. It was just a year ago that the longtime buddies fell in love. As to who made the first move, we’ll probably… Read more »

Macy Gray picked up more than postcards and passport stamps during her world tour supporting On How Life Is – she also brought home inspiration for her second album, The Id. The charismatic songstress says her world travels supporting her 1999 breakthrough exposed her to an eclectic mix of styles and sounds that inspired her to get wild in the studio. “You go to France and African rhythms are really big over there and then you go to Germany and you’ve got like German hip-hop,” Gray said Wednesday. “And then there’s all kinds of techno clubs and drum’n’bass and jungle… Read more »

The U.S. music industry came under attack in Congress on Friday over the marketing of lewd and violent songs to children, in a testy culture clash between politicians and the entertainment industry. Music industry representative Hilary Rosen was pelted with a barrage of criticism from Republican congressmen in particular, with one labeling her testimony as “shameless” to a hearing of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. The hearing was called to look at the entertainment world’s efforts to curb children’s exposure to violent content, but the film and video game industry largely escaped… Read more »

Napster plans to appeal a crushing decision handed down by a federal judge that the company remain off-line until it can perfect its song-swapping system. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall shot down the notion that Napster could quietly come back online without 100 percent effectiveness in its song-screening technology after an injunction that it remove all copyright music. Napster told Patel in a closed-door meeting Wednesday that it could promise more than 99 percent effectiveness. But Patel demanded 100 percent compliance to keep infringing music out of the hands of music fans used to trading the songs for free. That… Read more »