Search Results for: sting

A spokesperson for Arista Records, home to TLC, denies that group member Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes has joined the ranks of Suge Knight’s Tha Row Records. When asked to confirm accounts made to LAUNCH by Tha Row publicist Jonathan Wolfson, the Arista spokesperson replied, “Not true. No comment.” Wolfson revealed on Wednesday (January 2) that Lopes had indeed signed with Tha Row Records and that her album would be released soon (LAUNCH, 1/2). Wolfson’s statement confirmed a recent news entry on Tha Row’s website, which also noted that Lopes has changed her name to Nina. Lopes’s solo album, Supernova, was… Read more »

The relationship between the Roots and its label MCA appeared estranged in October, when Philadelphia’s City Paper ran a cover story on the group lambasting its label over a number of creative conflicts. Months after the much-discussed article hit the newsstands, group member Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson says that the relationship has been improving. In the controversial expose, Roots members Black Thought and Thompson voiced their dissatisfaction with the staff of MCA, including president Jay Boberg. They were upset that the label strongly suggested that Erykah Badu replace the then-unknown Jill Scott on the group’s song “You Got Me,” which went… Read more »

Britney Spears, Kid Rock, Usher, Mick Jagger and Cher will all perform on next week’s American Music Awards, while Sean “P. Diddy” Combs tries his hand at being a television host. But none of that promises to be quite as fun as the backstage bickering that has consumed music’s two big awards shows. The bad feelings burst into the open last month when Dick Clark, executive producer of the American Music Awards, accused the Grammy Awards of essentially blacklisting artists who appear on Clark’s show. Clark said in a lawsuit that Michael Greene, head of the National Academy of Recording… Read more »

And we thought A.J. was the bad boy: Squeaky clean Backstreet Boy Nick Carter was arrested early Wednesday morning for allegedly disobeying a cop’s orders to leave a Tampa, Florida, nightclub. The blond, 21-year-old singer (and youngest Boy of the Backstreet) has been charged with a misdemeanor count of resisting or opposing a law enforcement officer without violence. Carter was cuffed and placed in a squad car, but was later released on his own recognizance, police say. He’s due in court March 4. Police pulled up to the Pop City nightclub late Tuesday night after a fight reportedly broke out,… Read more »

A Minnesota man has been indicted on mail and wire fraud charges for allegedly impersonating two singers so he could get models’ phone numbers and pay his bills. Ronrico Madison of St. Paul, Minn., was accused in U.S. District Court in Manhattan yesterday (Jan. 2) of posing as rapper Ginuwine and Donald “DeVante” DeGrate of the R&B group Jodeci. The indictment and an earlier complaint returned in Minnesota accused the 23-year-old of posing as Ginuwine as he made phone calls to people across the U.S. During the calls, Madison allegedly sought advance fees for a Ginuwine concert to be held… Read more »

Backstreet Boy Nick Carter Arrested Backstreet Boy Nick Carter was arrested on suspicion of refusing to follow police officers’ orders to leave a nightclub after a fight broke out. The youngest of the five-member pop group at age 21, Carter was charged Wednesday with a misdemeanor count of resisting/opposing a law enforcement officer without violence. He was handcuffed, placed in a squad car and released on his own recognizance. In a statement released Thursday, Carter said he did nothing wrong. “I truly believe my celebrity motivated the officer to arrest me,” he said. I am certain that after a full… Read more »

Pressplay (www.pressplay.com), the online music service launched Dec. 19, is an order of magnitude better than rival MusicNet (www.musicnet.com), which launched Dec. 4. The gap is so great that I don’t think MusicNet deserves to sign up a single additional subscriber without first undertaking a major overhaul to match pressplay. Not that pressplay is perfect; the major record labels are still struggling to figure out how to sell their music online without opening the door to further piracy. But pressplay succeeds at delivering all three components of the online music experience: “streaming,” where you listen to songs without putting them… Read more »

As Epic Records commitment to artist development continued to flourish in 2001, Epic will bring an entirely new group of exciting artists to the stage in 2002. The Epic team will work as one cohesive unit towards our common goal: helping our artists rise to the top of the marketplace. EPIC RECORDS 2001 RECAP Flickerstick – Winners of the breakthrough VH1 series Bands on the Run released their major label debut Welcoming Home The Astronauts. The album was re-mixed by Tom Lord Alge (Weezer, Blink-182, Marilyn Manson) and includes two new songs, “Execution By X-mas Lights” and “Smile.” Flickerstick will… Read more »

After explaining “What a Girl Wants” and issuing the invitation to “Come on Over” in 1999, Christina Aguilera is acting like a “Genie in a Bottle” by granting her fans’ wishes for new material. Aguilera’s new album, which she’s been working on in a Los Angeles studio since September, is expected to drop in June, according to an RCA Records spokesperson. Giving the platinum-topped pop singer a hand with the endeavor are producers Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, No Doubt) and Rockwilder (Jay-Z, Redman), keyboardist Scott Storch (Dr. Dre, Bubba Sparxxx) and former 4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry, who recently… Read more »

George Lucas will kill of NSYNC in the upcoming Star Wars prequel “Attack of the Clones”. Lucas has cast the boyband for literally half a second in a cameo role for the next Star Wars movie. The members of NSYNC will each play Jedi Knights in the arena battle on Geonosis but you will need to wait for the flick to come out on DVD and then use your freeze frame to see them. The NSYNC scene came with thanks for the 13 year old daughter of George Lucas, Kate, who is a huge fan and talked daddy into casting… Read more »