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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 »

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network said an economic boycott of Pepsi would start next week unless the company runs an ad featuring the rapper Ludacris that was pulled last year. “Falling out of favor in the hip-hop community could be very damaging,” Simmons said Wednesday. He also wants Pepsi to issue an apology and donate $5 million to his charity organization. Pepsi yanked the Ludacris ad in August, a day after Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly ran a segment criticizing the company for using the rapper. O’Reilly questioned Ludacris’ appropriateness as a spokesman based on… Read more »

Michael Jackson said Thursday he felt betrayed by a “terrible and unfair” TV documentary about his life, in which the King of Pop revealed he sometimes lets children sleep in his bed. In a statement issued Thursday by his London representative, Jackson said British journalist Martin Bashir broke the trust placed in him, and added he felt “more betrayed than perhaps ever before.” Bashir spent eight months making the 90-minute program, which was to be shown in the United States at 8 p.m. EST Thursday on ABC’s “20/20.” “I trusted Martin Bashir to come into my life and that of… Read more »

The fallout from Guns N’ Roses’ aborted winter tour continues. Police in Vancouver, British Columbia, have set up a Web site with photos of 47 fans they suspect were part of the riots that marred what was supposed to be opening night of the band’s first North American tour in more than nine years. “We believe all of these individuals participated in crimes ranging from causing a disturbance to taking part in a riot, criminal mischief, and breaking and entering,” said spokesperson Sarah Bloor of the Vancouver City Police Department, which posted the Web site on Wednesday. Bloor said three… Read more »

When Britney Spears drops her new album this fall, don’t be surprised to find a little reminder of her relationship with Fred Durst. The Limp Bizkit frontman is among the producers working on Spears’ as-yet-untitled new album, due in October, according to a Jive Records spokesperson. Durst has produced one unnamed track thus far, but it – as well as everything else that has been done for the follow-up to 2001’s Britney – is not guaranteed to wind up on Spears’ fourth LP. Durst found time to helm the Spears tune while working on Limp Bizkit’s new album, tentatively titled… Read more »

One of London’s most famous music venues, which in its heyday in the 1960s played host to The Who, David Bowie and the Rolling Stones, is for sale, its administrators said Thursday. The Marquee Club, which in the 1970s was the epicenter of the punk explosion, ran into financial difficulties after its high-profile relaunch last fall, said a spokeswoman for administrator BDO Stoy Hayward. “We’re looking for someone in the music business who can capitalize on the Marquee brand and keep running it as a live venue,” she said. The price tag is at least $200 million. The club opened… Read more »

Could 2003 be the year that EMI finally finds a mate? Frenzied gossip among executives at this year’s Midem music industry conference on the French Riviera would suggest so. As a new group of suitors eyes the EMI dowry, which includes the Beatles back catalog, bets among the glitterati at Cannes are that the world’s third biggest music company will pair up with one of its old flames: BMG or Warner Music. Yet some still hold out hope for a more dramatic swoop by private equity houses led by an industry guru – cash-rich Clive Calder being one contender after… Read more »

A top music executive said on Saturday that telecommunications companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) will be asked to pay up for giving their customers access to free song-swapping sites. The music industry is in a tailspin with global sales of CDs expected to fall six percent in 2003, its fourth consecutive annual decline. A major culprit, industry watchers say, is online piracy. Now, the industry wants to hit the problem at its source – Internet service providers. “We will hold ISPs more accountable,” said Hillary Rosen, chairman and CEO the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in her keynote… Read more »

In its harshest indictment yet of Internet piracy, a top official of the music industry said Sunday Europe’s 600,000 music professionals risk losing their jobs unless the industry fights back. “They are all potential victims of online music piracy,” Jay Berman, the CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) told music executives in his annual address at the Midem music conference in southern France. “In truth, online music piracy is not about free music. The music creators and rights holders, denied the right to choose how their music is used and enjoyed, are in fact paying the… Read more »

Tough times may have hit the record business, but sellers of musical instruments and products are humming. “It looks like we got back to the high water mark of $7 billion in annual U.S. sales in 2002, and I’m very bullish about the next 10 years,” said Joe Lamond, president and chief executive officer of International Music Products Association, representing nearly 8,000 retailers and makers of musical instruments and products in 85 countries. The estimated 2002 U.S. level would represent an uptick from $6.7 billion in 2001, which had fallen from the industry’s record $7 billion in 2000. The latest… Read more »