NEWS
Millie Small, Jamaican Ska Singer and Songwriter, Dies at 72
Millie Small, who is known for bringing ska music to the masses with “My Boy Lollipop,” died in London yesterday (May 5) following a stroke, the BBC reported. She was 72. “Millie opened the door for Jamaican music to the world. It became a hit pretty much everywhere in the world,” Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who produced Small’s 1964 single, said in a statement. “I went with her around the world because each of the territories wanted her to turn up and do TV shows and such, and it was just incredible how she handled it. She was such a really sweet person, very funny, great sense of humour. She was really special.” Small became known on the global stage when her song, “My Boy Lollipop” peaked at No. 2 on both the U.S. and UK charts. The song is still one of the “all-time biggest...
Weezer Share “Hero” Video That’s Dedicated to Frontline Workers
Weezer has shared a new song from their upcoming Van Weezer album. “Hero” features the band’s classic power-pop sound from their earlier days. It’s the first song they’ve shared since last year’s “End Of The Game.” For the video that was shot from quarantine, Weezer enlisted folks to participate in the tightly-edited clip where the mustached Rivers Cuomo (sporting a KISS shirt) passes a handwritten note — that makes it way around the world (and looks like one gigantic Zoom call) and that folks can see at the end of the video. “This one is for the stay at home dreamers, the zoom graduators, the sourdough bakers, and the essential workers,” the caption for the clips reads. As of now, Weezer is slated to join Green Day and Fall Out Boy on their Hella Mega stadium tour. However,...
Music World Mourns Loss Of Jamaican Vocalist Millie Small
Source: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Millie Small, a Jamaican singer who found global fame as a teenager, has died and the music world is joined in mourning. Small became the first artist from Jamaica to have a single chart on both the American and British charts. Small was born on October 6, 1946, in Clarendon, Jamaica, and raised primarily in Kingston as she pursued a musical career. At 12, Small won the Opportunity Hour vocal competition that sparked her interest in singing full-time. In the early 1960s, Small, under the guidance of her manager Chris Blackwell, moved to London where she recorded her version of Barbie Gay’s “My Boy Lollipop.” The song reached number two on the UK Singles Chart and landed on the United States’ Billboard Hot 100 chart. In many circles and rightfully so, S...
Tekashi Snitch9ine Announces He’ll Be Going Live On IG This Friday
Source: @JustInMyView / R1 Digital It’s actually happening. Weeks after Tekashi “Henry Hill” 6ix9ine was granted an early release from prison, he’ll be returning to his old stomping grounds of social media in an attempt to resurrect his once flourishing rap career. Yesterday the rainbow haired dime droppa took to social media and posted his first message in two years announcing that this Friday (May 8) he’d be going live at 3pm ET and invited everyone to help him “get this party started.” But Tekashi also issued a trollish yet serious warning when he commented on the post and reminded everyone to “Be careful because the feds watching.” Gee, ya think!?! This should be an interesting moment in Hip-Hop as we’ll be able to somewhat gauge just how far removed this current era is from the days w...
Florian Schneider, Kraftwerk Co-Founder, Dies at 73
Florian Schneider, the co-founder of German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk, has died, SPIN has confirmed. He was 73. “Kraftwerk co-founder and electro pioneer Ralf Alf Hütter has sent us the very sad news that his friend and companion over many decades Florian Schneider has passed away from a short cancer disease just a few days after his 73rd birthday,” a band rep said in a statement. In 1970, Schneider formed Kraftwerk with Ralf Hütter after first meeting at the Academy of Arts in Remscheid, then at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. From then until his 2008 departure, the group was widely praised for their futuristic keyboard-based sound or in their own words, “robot-pop.” Kraftwerk were set to embark on a North American tour this summer to celebrate their 50th anniversa...
Ezra Koenig Plays Father of the Bride Medley on Tonight Show
While others are keeping the quarantine streams going or doing weekly covers, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig has been chilling out a bit — with the occasional acoustic tune on Instagram or joining his partner Rashida Jones on an zoom interview. But on Tuesday night (May 5), Koenig did a special medley of “Flower Moon,” “Stranger” and “Big Blue” from Vampire Weekend’s latest, Father Of The Bride from his home studio, which you’ll immediately see is stocked with equipment. In February, the band released bonus tracks from FOTB, which included a track featuring Jude Law reciting a 19th-century Scottish poem. Watch Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig perform a medley from Father of the Bride on The Tonight Show below: [embedded content]
SLANDER and SVDDEN DEATH Announce Epic B2B and New Collaboration
Fans of SLANDER and SVDDEN DEATH have a lot to look forward to this Saturday, May 2nd. The duo just announced they will be kicking off the Bassrush live stream with a special B2B performance at 8PM PST (11PM EST). If that wasn’t enough, during the stream they will be premiering their new collaboration for the first time ever live on SLANDER’s Twitch channel. The tandem first raised eyebrows when they shared a call to action for fans to retweet if they wanted a collab between the two revered bass music acts. After receiving 4.7K retweets, the result was an unequivocal “yes.” Based on the snippet shared on Twitter, fans should plan to stretch in preparation for the stream as necks and backs will be pushed to the extreme with this heavy-hitter.&nb...
You Care: Cucumber Connoisseur Alexis Skyy Says She Scrapped With Blac Chyna, Has No Idea Why
Source: Prince Williams / Getty Reality star Alexis Skyy has confirmed that she threw hands with Blac Chyna. Interestingly, the Love & Hip Hop star says she has no idea why her and the baby mama of both Rob Kardashian and rapper came to blows at a party. Skyy, who happens to be Fetty Wap’s alleged baby mama, shared the tea with Jason Lee of Hollywood Unlocked, which denotes inherent messiness. HotNewHipHop reports: “That was at a house party,” Alexis clarified. “I don’t have a problem with Chyna. Everybody knows Chyna’s crazy. Chyna is just Chyna. Chyna is a bad b*tch, I have no problems with her. She just came up to me like, ‘Hey Lex, what’s up?’ We spoke. We were speaking about our kids. ‘How’s Laiya, how’s every...
Gryffin Aims to Connect the World with Debut Concert Film “Gravity Live from the Shrine”
If you weren’t in attendance at Gryffin‘s awe-inspiring performance at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium last October, fear not, you still have the chance to experience every moment. When the electronic artist brought his revolutionary new show, dubbed Gravity II Live, to the iconic venue, the reviews were out of this world. Fans got the chance to witness hits like “All You Need to Know,” “Desire,” “Heading Home,” and “Hurt People,” all while traversing the origins of the universe. Gryffin and his team are now using footage from that evening to bring the experience to your home screen, with the forthcoming concert film Gryffin: Gravity Live from The Shrine. While touring has been put on hold due to the...
Lollapalooza Delves Into the Archives to Present New Livestream Events
Lollapalooza‘s fate in 2020 remains uncertain. Due to COVID-19, organizers of the Chicago-based festival are working to reach a decision by the end of May as to whether the four-day event will take place this summer. In the meantime, Lollapalooza is opening up the archives and livestreaming two unique weekly events, Lolla From The Vault and Perry’s Power Hour. Lollapalooza was created by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell in 1991 and today the festival’s primary dance music destination, Perry’s Stage, continues to bear his name. Lolla From The Vault kicked off yesterday as fans relived a 2010 headlining performance from The Strokes. For dance music fans, Perry’s Power Hour starts this coming Sunday and will feature Alesso‘s 2019 hea...
Germany’s BigCityBeats Hosted The World’s First “Drive-In Rave” Amid COVID-19 Lockdown
Out of all the music genres, the electronic music scene has perhaps led the way in introducing innovative techniques to reach its audience. What began with livestreams have now blossomed into full-on car raving. This creative approach was imagined by the German team behind the festival WORLD CLUB DOME. Since it was postponed to 2021 due to the current global pandemic, they put on their thinking caps and came up with the idea of bringing the event to a parking lot, allowing fans to experience the first-ever livestreaming event from inside the Autokino Düsseldorf Drive-In Cinema Stadium. BigCityBeats’ WORLD CLUB DOME Drive-In featured amazing pyrotechnics, fireworks, and artists like DJ Le Shuuk, Tiefblau, Plastikfunk, and Topic taking the stage in front of a line of cars filled with r...
MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund Now Depleted of Financial Resources
The charitable foundation MusiCares, an organization dedicated towards supporting music industry professionals in need of financial assistance, has run out of monetary resources. Amid the ongoing pandemic, MusiCares launched their COVID-19 Relief Fund last month, which has drawn an unprecedented influx of applications. The depletion of funds has now caused the organization to halt new applications for the time being. The fund, which was started with two $1 million donations from the organization itself as well as its affiliate, The Recording Academy, went on to raise $14 million in total. The resources were raised from individuals as well as charitable corporate partners including SiriusXM, Spotify, and Pandora. However, as the pandemic has persisted, the orga...
