entertainment blog
Inside Track: NFT LA Brings Web3 Networking IRL; Miami Music Week’s Big Return
The NFT | LA conference brought web3 networking into real life this week, taking over the Los Angeles Convention Center and surrounding downtown restaurants, bars and venue spaces with the city’s first-ever blockchain-focused gathering of this size. From March 29-31, official programming at the convention center included panels and keynotes covering music, gaming, art, fashion, cryptocurrency and more intersections of culture, commerce and emerging blockchain technology. Mark Cuban, Sandbox CEO Mathieu Nouzareth, Andrew Yang and Baron Davis were some of the big names speaking, as startups showcased their new products, patrons sported shirts with their own Bored Ape characters on them and frames for displaying those virtual non fungible tokens in your IRL living room took up a considerable ...
The Ledger: Inside Universal Music’s 2021 Annual Report
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. Universal Music Group’s first-ever annual report, released Thursday, offers an exhaustive look at the company’s finances and operations as well as environmental, social and governance initiatives. If you want to know how many metric tons of paper was purchased for internal use (24) or the number of megawatt hours of electricity from renewable sources (7,982), it’s in there. In terms of dollars and cents behind investments and catalogs, the annual report has a few things worth highlighting. UMG sold Alamo Records for 102 million euros ($112.7 million) for a gain of 98 million euros ($108.3 million). Sony Music reportedly...
Eddie Murphy Working To Star As George Clinton In Developing Biopic
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Jason Koerner / Getty Eddie Murphy has proven time and again that he has the chameleon-like ability to transform himself into any character he’s embodying for a role. The veteran actor and standup comic legend reportedly is working on a role as Funk pioneer George Clinton in a developing biopic. Deadline reports that Murphy and others are hard at work on securing rights from Clinton to move ahead with the film and hire staff to flesh out the story. Murphy, who will be one of the film’s producers, has a current three-film deal with Amazon Studios but it isn’t known if the biopic will air on the streamer. As the outlet aptly notes, Clinton, now 80 years young, laid the groundwork early on as one of the pioneers of the Funk sound. The film will follow Clinto...
South Asian ‘Summer Of Soul’ Producer Blasts Chris Rock For ‘4 White Guys’ Comment At Oscars
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: David Livingston / Getty It looks like Will Smith isn’t the only one who doesn’t much appreciate the way Chris Rock jokes around. Joseph Patel, the South Asian co-producer of Questlove’s Summer of Soul documentary, recently posted then deleted a Twitter thread in which he blasted Rock for including him among producers he introduced as “four white guys” when he presented them their Oscar for the film. “The reason that makes me SO SO VERY ANGRY is because I was so proud to be one of a handful of South Asians to have ever won an Oscar in the history of the award,” Patel wrote, according to N.Y. Daily News. “Three South Asians winning on the same night — that’s never happened before! And it’s meaningful! It’s history!” Related Stories Patel also pointed out t...
Freddie Gibbs ft. Rick Ross “Ice Cream,” Phife Dawg “Phife Forever” & More | Daily Visuals 4.1.22
HipHopWired Featured Video For the past few months Freddie Gibbs has been feeling the ire of his fellow rap peers such as Jim Jones, Young Thug and Benny The Butcher, but luckily for the Grammy nominated rapper, he has a friend in the Miami Bawse, Rick Ross. Linking up with Rozay for his visuals to “Ice Cream,” Freddie Gibbs pulls a page out of the Wu-Tang manual and rents an ice cream truck to go along with the daisy duke rocking thick young ladies who can convince a vegan to take a bite of that sugary churned milk. Milk done did them bodies good. Just sayin.’ Related Stories 6 years after his shocking passing, the memory of legendary Hip-Hop MC, Phife Dawg lives on and in his clip to “Phife Forever”, A Tribe Called Quest fans are treated to stock footage and photos of Phife living his li...
Ol’ Dirty Bastard Documentary On The Way Via A&E Network
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Al Pereira / Getty The story of one of Rap’s most memorable MC’s is about to be told. A&E has confirmed they are working on an Ol’ Dirty Bastard documentary. As per Complex a prime time film on the late great has been finally green lit. On Thursday, March 31 the network announced that they have signed on to formally chronical the life and career of the Wu-Tang Clan member. While other projects have been released prior this is the first ever to be blessed by his estate. Additionally, the doc is set to feature some never seen before footage shot by his widow Icelene Jones. Tentatively titled Biography: Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the film will be co-directed by the father and son team of Sam Pollard (Black Art: In The Absence of Light) and Jason Pollard (Ge...
5 Reasons Why You Should Attend Summer Camp Music Festival 2022
Summer Camp Music Festival lives up to its name. At its core, the annual event is a celebratory festival that revolves around music, culture and family. But Summer Camp offers so much more than music to its attendees, hosting insightful and immersive activities all weekend long—just like you’re back under the starry skies of summer camp. Following multiple postponements due to the onset of the global pandemic, the organizers were able to host a successful 20th edition last fall. Gathering 25,000 people to celebrate, the festival saw its highest attendance to date. Now, this Memorial Day Weekend, Summer Camp will be returning to Chillicothe, Illinois’ Three Sisters Park for its 21st edition. Here are five reasons why you should attend Summer Camp Mu...
Lady Gaga to Perform at the 2022 Grammys
Lady Gaga will perform at the 2022 Grammys in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 3. The 12-time Grammy winner is up for another five awards this year alongside Tony Bennett, including Album of the Year for their collaborative LP Love for Sale. (Bennett, who has retired from performing, is not billed alongside her.) It will be Gaga’s first Grammys performance since 2019, at which point she had performed at five consecutive Grammys. Other performers this year include Billie Eilish, BTS, Olivia Rodrigo, Lil Nas X, John Legend, J Balvin with Maria Becerra, Carrie Underwood, and openers Silk Sonic. There will also likely be a tribute to the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, although the band itself canceled its scheduled appearance. The Grammys ceremony starts this Sunday, April 3, at 8 p.m. Ea...
Grammys 2022 Performers List: See the Full Lineup Here
The 2022 Grammy Awards are taking place Sunday (April 3) at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Trevor Noah will host the ceremony for the second year in a row. Among the many performers are Billie Eilish, BTS, Lady Gaga, Lil Nas X with Jack Harlow, Olivia Rodrigo, and Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak’s Silk Sonic. Plus, there’s the Premiere Ceremony® (at the MGM Grand Conference Marquee Ballroom), hosted by LeVar Burton. Find the full list of performers for both events below. The Premiere Ceremony begins at 3:30 p.m. Eastern and the main event broadcasts at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS with a livestream via Paramount+. (Pitchfork earns a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.) Follow all of Pitchfork’s coverage of the 2022 Grammy Awards, including the new live ...
Pabllo Vittar Enlists Rina Sawayama for New Song: Watch the Video
Brazilian singer-songwriter, activist, and drag queen Pabllo Vittar has teamed up with Rina Sawayama for a new song. It’s called “Follow Me” and it arrives with a music video directed by Amber Park alongside creative director Lauren Kessler. Watch Vittar and Sawayama walk the runway in vintage Dior in the clip below. “I’m so excited to release this song with Rina,” Vittar said in a press release. “She is such an icon and I’m so pleased we managed to make this song work as it’s the perfect combination of our music styles. I really hope the fans love it as much as we do. Shooting the video was so much fun as well, wearing iconic outfits, and strutting our stuff on the runway! SERVE!” Sawayama added: “I have been such an admirer of Pabllo for so long—she is nothing short of an icon and so for...
Why Harry Styles’ New “As It Was” Video Resembles Elderbrook’s “Inner Light”
In August 2021, English musician Elderbrook released the music video for “Inner Light,” his collaborative single with the electronic duo Bob Moses. The visual stars Elise Legros and Jean-Yves Phuong as they dance on a rotating platform, situated inside the Panthéon in Paris. The scene is excerpted from French dancer and choreographer Yoann Bourgeois’ 2018 film The Great Ghosts. “Inner Light” may now look familiar to Harry Styles fans, as the pop star dances on a rotating platform with Mathilde Lin in his new “As It Was” music video. As it turns out, Styles’ new video is choreographed by Yoann Bourgeois. Bourgeois had previously used a rotating stage in his 2014 piece He Who Falls, as Billboard notes. In an interview with NR, the artist remarked, “The relationship with physical forces has a...
City Girls Drop New “Top Notch” Single and Music Video
In their first release of the year, Miami rap duo City Girls have debuted a new song and video featuring Fivio Foreign. On the hard-hitting “Top Notch,” JT and Yung Miami confidently refute rumors and gossip. The track begins with a previously teased verse from Yung Miami, who tells her haters to “go and check the news.” New York drill rapper Fivio Foreign follows with his guest verse before JT joins in. In an accompanying music video, City Girls rap outside of a corner store while surrounded by a crew dancing and hyping them up. While this is City Girl’s first single of 2022, Yung Miami and JT individually dropped singles at the tail end of last year. JT teamed up with Summer Walker for November’s “Ex For A Reason,” while Yung Miami’s “Rap Freaks” went viral on social media upon its ...
