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Posts published in “Hip Hop/Rap”

Timbaland Hints New Missy Elliott Album May Drop Soon

By goodblacknews on August 3, 2014
Missy Elliott (Cindy Ord/BET/Getty Images for BET)
It’s been nearly a decade since Missy Elliott’s last solo album, 2005’s The Cookbook, but Timbaland says a new one may be on its way. “It’s coming,” the rapper’s longtime producer and songwriting partner tells Rolling Stone. “It’s on her. She got the first single, it’s just a matter of when she wants to do it. We got the hollow-tip bullet in the gun. We have the game-changer right there,” he says, making the sound of a gun firing.

Asked what that bullet sounds like, Timbaland remains vague: “It’s something you ain’t never heard Missy do. It sounds today, but the future.”
Despite their close relationship, the two artists work in an unusual way. “I’ve never watched her record, never in my whole career,” he continues. “I do it, she be like, ‘OK, I got it,’ and I leave the room. She kicks us out. That’s how she do it: She does everything herself.”
In 2012, Elliott released two new Timbaland-produced songs, “9th Inning” and “Triple Threat,” but in the following years her output has been limited to feature appearances. In 2013, she had verses on Little Mix’s “Without Me” and Fantasia’s “I Deserve It,” and earlier this year she and Sharaya J, an artist signed to her the Goldmind Inc., rapped over Faith Evans’ “I Deserve It.”
Timbaland, meanwhile, co-produced much of Justin Timberlake‘s The 20/20 Experience, Jay Z‘s Magna Carta… Holy Grail and Michael Jackson‘s posthumous Xscape. He tells us he’s at work on a solo album called Opera Noir he describes as his Purple Rain. “I have no features on it,” he says. “It’s all about truth and what’s going on around us.”
article by Nick Murray via rollingstone.com

LL Cool J and Russell Simmons Visit and Encourage Youth at Rikers Island

By goodblacknews on August 1, 2014

Russell Simmons, LLCoolJ
Russell Simmons; LL Cool J (Getty Images)

NEW YORK (AP) — A group of young people at a New York City jail complex got some words of encouragement on Thursday from hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and actor/rapper LL Cool J.
The two visited Rikers Island to mark the launch of a national anti-violence program from Simmons’ RushCard, a prepaid debit card.  RushCard’s Keep the Peace initiative is giving grants to neighborhood organizations. One of those is LIFE Camp, a Queens organization that works with young people, including those at Rikers, to reduce violence.
Cool J told the audience that his rough upbringing could have had him where they are if things had worked out differently, and he encouraged them to believe in themselves.  “You can absolutely without a doubt do anything you put your mind to,” he said.
Simmons told them to focus on what’s inside them.  “It’s your spirit you’ve got to work on,” he said.
Deputy Warden Clement Glenn said partnering with programs like LIFE Camp is among the ways the Department of Correction tries to get young people to change their behavior.
“We’re trying to encourage them not to come back into the system, hoping they will integrate into society and become contributing members of their community,” he said.
article via thegrio.com

J Dilla Recording Equipment Headed to the Smithsonian

By goodblacknews on July 20, 2014
J Dilla Recording Equipment Headed to the Smithsonian

J Dilla was only 32 years old when he died in 2006, but in his too-short life, the prolific producer worked with hip-hop icons including Busta Rhymes, Erykah Badu, The Roots, De la Soul, Common, and A Tribe Called Quest, even earning a Grammy nomination for his work with Tribe. And now, another honor for the late Detroit beatmaker: His recording equipment will be featured in the Smithsonian.
At the ninth DC Loves Dilla tribute concert on Thursday night, Dilla’s mom, Maureen Yancey, announced onstage that she would donate her son’s custom Minamoog Voyager — one of the last synthesizers Bob Moog built for someone before he died in 2005 — and his MPC to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“I feel it’s necessary to raise the level of art appreciation in the hip-hop sector and honor my son James Dewitt Yancey, one of the most influential individuals in the history of hip-hop,” Dilla’s mom said in a Smithsonian press release announcing the donation.
Below, watch Yancey announce the donation at the benefit concert, which raises money to battle lupus, a disease that might have played a part in Dilla’s early death.

article by Katie Atkinson via billboard.com

Jay Z and Beyoncé "On the Run" Tour Is Headed to HBO

By goodblacknews on July 13, 2014
"On The Run Tour: Beyonce And Jay-Z" - Opening Night In Miami Gardens
Jay Z and Beyonce perform during opening night of the “On The Run Tour: Beyonce And Jay-Z” at Sun Life Stadium on June 25, 2014 in Miami Gardens, Florida.Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty Images

Missed Bey and Jay in concert? Not to worry, you can watch them on HBO.  Beyoncé and Jay Z will perform over 40 songs for their first HBO concert event, the premium cable network announced Thursday. HBO will tape the pair’s September 12 and 13 performances in Paris, the only international stop on their “On the Run” Tour.
The event builds on the power couple’s extensive partnership with HBO. The 17-time Grammy winner is currently appearing on HBO in Beyoncé: X10, a ten-episode miniseries featuring 2-minute clips from concert performances every sunday night. In February 2013, HBO aired the Beyoncé documentary, Life Is But a Dream. Jay Z’s Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film also premiered on the cable network in August 2013.

African-American Conductors Make History on Broadway

By goodblacknews on June 29, 2014

(Photo courtesy of sneakpeekphotography.com)
(Photo courtesy of sneakpeekphotography.com)

A watershed moment, a major milestone, recently took place on Broadway, with the orchestras of four major shows led under the batons of distinguished African-American music directors and conductors. This marks the first time in the history of Broadway that this many African-Americans have been in executive roles in major productions running contemporaneously.
The men in front of the orchestra and behind the music are (L to R) Daryl Waters, music supervisor and conductor for “After Midnight,” recalling Duke Ellington’s years at the Cotton Club; Zane Mark, music director and conductor for “Holler If Ya Hear Me,” inspired by the late hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur; Joseph Joubert, music director and conductor for “Motown the Musical,” about Berry Gordy’s famous music label; and Shelton Becton, conductor, pianist and performer in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” about the legendary Billie Holliday.
article via amsterdamnews.com

Starz Renews 50 Cent’s “Power” For Season Two After Just One Episode

By goodblacknews on June 13, 2014

Screen-shot-2014-06-12-at-9.12.55-AM-378x414
Apparently 50 Cent’s new STARZ series, “Power,” was a major hit. After just one episode, the cable network has announced that the series will be renewed for a second season, Deadline reports.
The fast-moving drama debuted last weekend “with 462,000 Live+same day at 9 PM, 1.27 million for the three Saturday night airings and 2.022 million for the nine weekend runs on Saturday and Sunday.” In case you’ve been out of the loop for a bit, the 50 Cent-produced series is “set in two different worlds, the glamorous New York club scene and the brutal drug trade” and follows the story of Ghost St. Patrick, a drug dealer and businessman with dreams of going legit. Stars include “Being Mary Jane” actor Omari Hardwick, Naturi Naughton and Lela Loren.

“Tasha St. Patrick, she’s crazy,” Naturi recently described her character to Shadow and Act. “She really is Ghost’s sidekick, the other half of Bonnie and Clyde. She came up from the streets, grew up in Queens, and had a rough life. She had desires to be a singer but those desires got cut short because she was pregnant at 19 with Ghost’s child. He’s trying to choose between going legit and staying in the drug game, and she’s pretty much the woman who’s like look, we’ve built this empire together, I’ll ride with you to the end. She’ll throw the gun away, she’ll tell you how to dump the body. She’s an edgy character and not afraid to do whatever it takes to keep the family together.”

Production for season two begins in September.
See more at: http://madamenoire.com/438064/starz-renews-50-cents-power-season-2-just-1-episode/#sthash.bcWJ1fZa.dpuf

Pharrell Williams Receives the Key to The City from Virginia Beach

By goodblacknews on June 8, 2014

Pharrell-Key-To-City
In another addition to his lengthy list of accomplishments, Pharrell Williams was honored with the key to the city from his native Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Receiving the award at his alma mater, Princess Anne High School, Pharrell thanked his former teachers for their contributions to his success. Mayor Will Sessoms shared a quote from his acceptance speech on Twitter:

Life is like a mosaic, with a bunch of pieces and @Pharrell says he is just one piece. He thx former teachers for being part of his success.

The super-producer also took to Twitter to thank Sessoms in his signature humbled fashion, saying he was “unbelievably honored” by the bestowment.
Watch a video of Pharrell receiving the key to Virginia Beach here.
article by Iyana Robertson via vibe.com

Tupac Shakur's Songs Fuel Broadway Musical ‘Holler if Ya Hear Me’ Opening June 19 at Palace Theater

By goodblacknews on June 4, 2014

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Saul Williams, center, in “Holler if Ya Hear Me.” (Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

In the spring of 2001, Todd Kreidler met his boss, the playwright August Wilson, for breakfast at the Cafe Edison, as was their custom. Mr. Kreidler was assisting Wilson as he brought his play “King Hedley II” to Broadway, but really he was there to learn whatever Wilson wanted to teach him. And that morning, the subject was Tupac Shakur.
After a bit of chitchat, Wilson was exasperated with his charge. “You don’t really know ‘Dear Mama,’ ” he said, referring to Shakur’s signature ode to his mother. He got up, threw money on the table, marched out the door and to the nearby Virgin Megastore. There, he bought a copy of Shakur’s album “Me Against the World” and pressed it into Mr. Kreidler’s hands.
“There’s nothing contained in your life that’s not contained in that music,” Wilson told him, Mr. Kreidler recalled. “There’s love, honor, duty, betrayal, love of a people. There’s a whole universe in that music!” He made it clear, with some vulgarities for emphasis, that Mr. Kreidler wasn’t to return to rehearsal until he’d absorbed it all.
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur in 1992. (Credit Eli Reed/Magnum Photos)

So on the day in 2010, when Mr. Kreidler opened a FedEx box with 23 of Shakur’s CDs and two books of his writings, tasked with building from them a musical rooted in that rapper’s words, he was prepared.
The result is “Holler if Ya Hear Me,” which opens at the Palace Theater on June 19, and weaves 21 songs by Shakur (two of which are musically arranged versions of his poems) into a story about a community struggling to pull hope from the grasp of entrenched social ills. Put differently, it’s not a Broadway-ification of Shakur’s life or vision so much as a repurposing of his words into an emotionally felt, family-friendly context.
“It’s a story about unconditional love that uplifts all of his words,” said Kenny Leon, the musical’s director, a veteran of Wilson’s “Fences” and the current “A Raisin in the Sun.” In that, “Holler” has plenty in common with the rest of Broadway, and the creative team was careful in managing how the play handled what Mr. Leon termed “the things that people think they hate” — bad language, guns, violence.
But it’s an open question whether the familiar Broadway audience, or even the middle-class black theatergoers who have been drawn in by “Raisin,” can make room in their hearts and wallets for Shakur’s words. Hip-hop has made it to Broadway before, but the Tony-winning “In the Heights” tested the waters Off Broadway first, and didn’t have to contend with an implied star whom people find controversial even years after his death.
The $8 million production seems to be splitting the difference; opening directly on Broadway — in a prime Times Square location that last housed “Annie,” no less — but after the Tony awards deadline. (Pop-minded shows like “Bring It On – The Musical” have lately taken a similar route.) Though influential producers were invited to the show’s workshops, they by and large declined to invest. Instead, the lead producers are Eric Gold, a longtime Hollywood manager and producer who is new to Broadway, and Shin Chun-soo, a South Korean theater impresario. “I’m prepared to nobly fail or to nobly succeed,” Mr. Gold said.
Murdered in 1996 in a case that’s still unsolved, Shakur remains, even after all these years, one of hip-hop’s most celebrated figures, a radical thug intellectual with an outsize gift for creating his character in real time. He was prolific and contradictory, a child of activists signed, late in his career, to Death Row, the label that mainstreamed gangster rap.

Inspiring Teen Rapper Jeff Mortimer Who Won't Let Cancer Hold Him Back Earns Record Deal With Sony

By goodblacknews on June 3, 2014

Jeff Mortimer
This talented teen doesn’t let anything hold him back from pursuing his dreams, not even a deadly disease.
Jeff Mortimer, a 19-year-old rapper from West Palm Beach, Florida, has spindle cell sarcoma, ABC News reported. Mortimer, whose stage name is “Young Jay,” is now battling a relapse despite three years of chemotherapy. He was diagnosed when he was only 16.  But despite all the difficulties he faces, Mortimer has reason to celebrate: Last week, he signed a record deal with Sony.
Even before his big break, Mortimer used his talent for music to inspire others. He writes and produces uplifting music for other sick kids, Click2Houston reported.  “I’m not scared of anything. I just have a positive mind,” he told the outlet. “Life is too short, can’t stay sad all day.”
The talented teen will continue treatment but with a more mobile form of chemo so that he can tour, ABC reported. Mortimer’s smiling face and positive attitude is sure to serve as an inspiration to others, and a reminder to follow your dreams.
“When doors are open you have to take them,” he told the outlet, “because you never know when you’re going to see them again.”
To see video of this incredible young man, click here.
article by Melissa McGlensey via huffingtonpost.com

Rapper Common Writes Moving Tribute to Dr. Maya Angelou

By goodblacknews on June 3, 2014

Common and Maya Angelou
The rapper remembers the poet who inspired him to write—and later became his friend. 
Since I was 5 years old I have loved reading good writing. I would read anything that my mother or the teachers I loved gave me. In the 2nd grade I came across an author named Maya Angelou and her poem Still I Rise, this incredible piece of art that I somehow knew came from her soul and touched my soul. A piece of art that I somehow knew would change and improve my life. It was through this writer that I gained the inspiration to be somebody in life and to be heard.
I didn’t know that it would be through hip hop and the gift of rap that I would open myself up and become a writer and MC. Through writing I would get the opportunity to travel and see the world—London, Sydney, Johannesburg, Osaka—and it was writing that brought me one October evening to a charity event in New York where we were blessed to have as our luminary for the night, Dr. Maya Angelou. Having her as our guest was a fluke of Divine Order and a true example of Ask and You shall receive.
What had happened was the poet we booked to perform dropped out last minute so my mother said, “I’m gonna try to get in touch with Dr. Maya Angelou.” I said, “Ma, are you crazy? Maya Angelou? How do you think we’re gonna get one of the greatest beings that ever graced this earth last minute? She doesn’t know who Common is.”
Well, to this day I don’t know if she had ever heard of Common before the call was made but somehow through God’s thread she said she would like to meet with me before she decided if she would do the event. So here I am headed to Harlem to meet her at her apartment, just got my hair cut, heart beating, I walk into her beautiful space that smelled like integrity, art, generosity, love, hope, inspiration, honesty, and home. We would sit for two and a half hours talking about writing, my daughter, San Francisco, and Tupac. And oh yeah, Paul Robeson.
The next night she did her thing at the event and embraced me as a young writer-artist, an important voice in hip hop and even flirted with me. Now that really made me feel special. She and I would go on to build a bond that not only would have us spreading love at events in Harlem, Chicago, and D.C., but I would be blessed to go visit her at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., and celebrate several birthdays with her where we had great times and I got to know her lovely family. It was always an honor to be in her presence and though she did feel like my mother, my grandma, and my friend. I would always Thank God for being there with her.
Every experience was unique, but every time I saw her I learned something about myself and about life, about humanity, about progress. And I was always reminded how we are true reflections of God, how much Light we do have, how great and dynamic Black Women are and how far Integrity, Self Love and Self Respect can take you. I don’t know if my words—or any words—can truly describe the experience of being in the atmosphere of Dr. Maya Angelou, someone you know is sent from the Creator to Give the World A Voice it has never heard, a brightness it has never witnessed, an energy that is Greatness, Divinity and Awakening all wrapped into one.

We would sit for two and a half hours talking about writing, my daughter, San Francisco, and Tupac. And oh yeah, Paul Robeson.

I awoke on May 28, 2014, ready for a powerful day of filming and to do some great work. I was stepping out of a van when I received the news that Dr. Angelou had made her transition and as I moved I felt like my soul was standing still. I hadn’t digested or processed it as I continued to go about the day. Of course I stopped and said a prayer but it wasn’t until the director of our film, Ava DuVernay, said, “We all know what has happened this morning and This Queen is one of the reasons why we can do this film and we will honor her and carry her with us as we proceed forward.” Right then I was able to let loose and cry and release some of the natural pain of losing someone you love and someone so great. And though I’m still in the process I also recognize that she will never be lost and how much we all have gained by having her touch this earth.
God gave us an Angel and we got to witness that Angel for a beautiful time of life. And though that Angel has returned to her maker, Her Work, Her Spirit, Her Words—aw man, Her Words—Her passion, Her heart, Her Love, Her Greatness, Her Royalty, Her Strength, Her Wisdom, Her Divinity, Her Angel will always be here with us. For my daughter’s daughters, your daughter’s daughters, and forever more. Love you, Dr. Maya Angelou.
Love, Common
article via thedailybeast.com