Grammy Award-winning producer/musician Pharrell Williams will join NBC’s singing competition The Voice next season, the show announced on Twitter. He replaces original coach CeeLo Green who recently announced his departure.
“It’s been a huge year for Pharrell, with recognition for his contribution in the world of music — the ‘Despicable Me’ franchise soundtracks, his Oscar-nominated song ‘Happy’ and his Grammy-winning collaboration with Daft Punk on the breakout dance hit ‘Get Lucky.’ His dominance in record sales in 2014, coupled with his incomparable accomplishments in the world of fashion and design, make him an irresistible addition to ‘The Voice’ family,” said Paul Telegdy, President, Alternative and Late Night Programming, NBC Entertainment.
Said executive producer Mark Burnett: “I am thrilled to have Pharrell come back to ‘The Voice’ family, and this time … as a coach. Continuing in ‘The Voice’ tradition of having the biggest and most current music stars as coaches, Pharrell fits perfectly.” Pharrell, who was previously an adviser to team Usher on season four of “The Voice,” is a multi-platinum and international singer-songwriter, producer and fashion designer.
article by Nellie Andreeva via deadline.com
Posts published in “Entertainment”
Television veteran Tichina Arnold will help round out the cast of Starz’s new original comedy series Survivor’s Remorse, executive produced by LeBron James. The half-hour show centers on two men (one an NBA star, the other one not) who make it out of North Philadelphia’s inner city to a more extravagant life of fame and fortune. Along the way, they fight with the guilt of their struggling peers left behind.
Jessie T. Usher will take the lead of basketball talent Cam Calloway who signs a multi-million dollar contract, while Arnold plays his mother.
Let’s Stay Together supporting actor Ronreaco Lee has been cast as Cam’s cousin and confidant Reggie Vaughn and Erica Ash of The Real Husbands of Hollywood will play Cam’s sister M-Chuck. The group joins Teyonah Parris who will play Lee’s wife Missy.
Survivor’s Remorse is set to air this fall.
article by Camille Travis via uptown magazine.com
Tony Award nominee Norm Lewis will join Broadway’s Phantom of the Opera as the show’s first Black lead after 26 years.
On Thursday, producers of the long-running show announced that the stage vet and Scandal actor would make his debut alongside Sierra Boggess on May 12. They noted that he will be the first African-American to play the role.
“I love the show but also to have hopefully set a precedent to see more diversity in casting,” Lewis told The Associated Press.
The thespian’s Broadway credits include Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, Chicago, Side Show, Sondheim on Sondheim, and The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (in which he received a Tony nomination), among others.
To date, Phantom has played to more than 130 million people in 27 countries and grossed more than $5.6 billion worldwide.
article by Camille Travis via uptownmagazine.com
Alfre Woodard has been elected to play Madame President in Katherine Heigl‘s new political drama State of Affairs. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the drama described as Scandal meets The West Wing, will see the 12 Years a Slave actress as President Roberta Payton.
Woodard’s character enlists a CIA agent, played by Heigl, to give her counsel on incidents around the world. The plot follows Heigl as she takes on the role of targeting America’s most critical threats while balancing the demands of a complex personal life.
The casting puts Woodard in the company of several other African-American women leads on pilots this season including Taraji P. Henson, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer.
article by Dominique Hobdy via essence.com
Longtime music executive Sylvia Rhone has officially been named the president of Epic Records. Rhone headed Elektra Entertainment Group, then Universal Motown for nearly two decades. Her new appointment comes just a year after she launched Vested in Culture (VIC), her joint venture with Epic. VIC will remain an imprint of the label. Rhone served as president of Universal Motown Records before joining Epic in 2013.
“I’m honored to have the opportunity to expand my relationship with the talented team and amazing artists at Epic,” Rhone said in a statement. “What makes this opportunity different from any other is my partnership with renowned music executive L.A. Reid. I’m looking forward to what I think will be the finest chapter in my career.”
article by Erika Benton-Martin via thesource.com
Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions have acquired all U.S. and Canadian rights to Dear White People, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by Justin Simien, Dear White People follows the stories of four black students at Winchester University, where a riot breaks out over a popular ‘African American’ themed party thrown by a white fraternity.
The comedy, Co-starring Tyler James Williams (Everybody Hates Chris) and Tessa Thompson (Veronica Mars), won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at Sundance. “Justin Simien is a funny, fresh and current voice with his finger on the Millennials’ pulse,” said Roadside’s co-president Howard Cohen.
article via Variety.com
The comedy, Co-starring Tyler James Williams (Everybody Hates Chris) and Tessa Thompson (Veronica Mars), won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at Sundance. “Justin Simien is a funny, fresh and current voice with his finger on the Millennials’ pulse,” said Roadside’s co-president Howard Cohen.
article via Variety.com
Just in time for Easter, the Lifetime Channel will air the small screen adaptation of Terry McMillan‘s bestseller A Day Late and a Dollar Short. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg (who also executive produced) and Ving Rhames as an estranged couple, with Anika Noni Rose, Kimberly Elise, Tichina Arnold, and Mekhi Phifer playing their adult children.
The synopsis:
In A Day Late and a Dollar Short, when irascible matriarch Viola Price (Goldberg) learns that her next asthma attack will likely kill her, she is determined to fix her fractured family before she leaves this world, from her relationship with her husband (Rhames), to the lives of her four children and grandchildren. While on this quest, she must contend with sibling rivalry, teen pregnancy and prescription drug addiction – and that is only one child. Additionally, her jailbird son (Phifer) needs to learn how to be a better father, her granddaughter is in bigger trouble than her daughter is willing to admit and her estranged husband needs saving from his scheming younger girlfriend. It’s the kind of meddling that the Price family hasn’t experienced from Viola in decades, and she won’t have an easy time bending her loved ones to her will.
The film was adapted for television from McMillan’s novel by Shernold Edwards and directed by Stephen Tolkin. It will premiere on April 19 at 8/7C.
Watch a clip from the movie below:
http://youtu.be/jjCKQuR4FxM
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
Comedy Central duo Key and Peele are on a roll. After landing on the cover of New York Times Sunday Magazine last year, this week they are cover boys for national weekly news magazine Time. It’s the Ideas Issue, and Key and Peele offer an opinion piece about comedy that may or may not make you laugh, but at the very least will make you think. Check it out below:
Would you make fun of a burn victim? Well, we did. Sort of… We’re comics. In the most recent season of our TV show, in a sketch titled “Insult Comic,” a traditional stand-up comedian professes that he is “going to get everybody” in his set (the guy toward the front with big ears, the fat guy, the woman with comically large breasts). That’s the phrase, isn’t it, when a critic wants to praise a comedian for the fearless nature of his or her comedy? That he or she “gets everybody”? That “nobody is safe”? One of the club patrons in our sketch, however, is a wheelchair-bound burn victim. “You skipped me,” he calls from the audience, with a robotic-sounding artificial larynx. “Go for it,” he says, “I can take it.”
But can we, as a society, take it anymore?
Today it seems that we live in a world of extremes. On one end of the spectrum, we have anonymous Internet trolls looking for opportunities to dole out cruelty with impunity. But in mainstream culture, it often seems we’re drowning in a sea of political correctness that lapped up on our shores a couple of decades ago and has yet to recede.
It’s amazing to think how popular television shows like All in the Family and Good Times might fare today in a Hollywood pitch meeting. Films like Blazing Saddles and Silver Streak wouldn’t make it past the development stage at a studio. Too edgy.
Chris Rock has recruited Gabrielle Union to be the female lead in his upcoming film, Finally Famous, reports show. The actress will play Rock’s “popular reality TV star fiancée. Rock, who wrote and directed the film, plays a comedian-turned-film-star itching to be taken seriously by his peers in the acting world. He’s also a recovering alcoholic who owes his sobriety to his fiancée (Union). Her character, eager to be more famous, tries to convince Rock to get married on her show.
Rosario Dawson, who has been known to melt a heart or two in her own right, plays a journalist assigned to interview Rock’s character for a New York magazine. As time passes, their relationship builds, and sparks begin to fly. Here’s the project’s official synopsis:
Andre Allen is a comedian turned film star who, despite the expectations of his millions of fans, is determined to reinvent himself as a “serious” actor. Although his latest pretentiously historical film project is tanking, his upcoming television wedding to pretty, popular reality star, Erica Long, is the biggest media event of the year. In the midst of all the frenzy leading up to his televised nuptials, Andre agrees to be interviewed for the New Yorker by Chelsea Brown, a gorgeous but no-frills young woman with a sharp intelligence that matches his own. It’s a feisty, funny, no-holds-barred interaction that may well change the course of both their lives.
article by Cory Alexander Haywood via eurweb.com
Oprah Winfrey is set to drop some of her biggest gems in a book based on her “What I Know for Sure” columns published in the back of every O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine.
The book will be a compilation of the articles that she’s penned since the glossy debuted in 2000.
According to a press release, the essays will be organized by themes– joy, gratitude, awe, possibility and others– and will “offer a rare, powerful and intimate glimpse into Oprah’s inner life– her thoughts, struggles and dreams– while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves.”
What I Know for Sure will hit shelves Sept. 2.
article by Camille Travis via uptownmagazine.com
According to a press release, the essays will be organized by themes– joy, gratitude, awe, possibility and others– and will “offer a rare, powerful and intimate glimpse into Oprah’s inner life– her thoughts, struggles and dreams– while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves.”
What I Know for Sure will hit shelves Sept. 2.
article by Camille Travis via uptownmagazine.com