Although African-Americans weren’t prominent in Forbes’ annual list of the richest Americans, they are definitely well-represented among Hollywood power couples. The finance magazine has released its list of the highest earning celebrity couples and perhaps to the surprise of no one rapper Jay Z and his wife, pop icon Beyoncé, top the list. The chart topping duo earned $95 million last year through their concerts, album sales and endorsements, putting them ahead of couples like Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, as well as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, who just welcomed their first child, a daughter named North, into the world, came in 5th overall, earning $30 million. Still none of these couples’ earning power combined reaches the height of say Oprah Winfrey, who, bolstered by rising OWN ratings, has made close to $3 billion in the last year.
article via thegrio.com
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Even if Pharrell Williams isn’t a household name where you live, the music he’s had a hand in creating most likely is. He’s featured in this this year’s song of summer, “Blurred Lines,” Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” and he’s co-collaborated on songs such as Snoop Dogg’s “Drop it like it’s Hot” and Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl.”
Sixteen Grammy nominations (and three wins) later, the music producer-song writer-recording artist sat down with TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie to talk about the path to getting to top of the Top 40.
“I can write pretty much anywhere, but in the shower it’s, like, where it’s, like, really great,” Williams told Guthrie of where he’s come up with some of his best work, including “Hot in Herre” Nelly’s super-successful 1992 hit.
But before he was sharing top billing with the likes of Nelly, Justin Timberlake and Ludacris, he was any other kid growing up in Virginia Beach, playing the drums and going to band camp. “Most of us were kinda nerdy,” Williams said. “Nobody sort of walked in, like, you know, Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl-cool.” It was at that camp where Williams, then 12, met his producing partner Chad Hugo. By the time they were 19, the duo had helped write and produce the 1992 Wreckx-N-Effect hit song, “Rump Shaker.”
Fast forward two decades and many successes, Williams says he can point to the singular best song he’s ever co-written. “My son,” he told Guthrie of Rocket, his little boy with new fiance Helen Lasichanh. “Every night’s like a sleepover,” he said of Lasichanh, who he calls his “bestie.”
So what else does the super-successful Williams hope to accomplish? “Honestly? It’s … more music,” he said. That said, music isn’t the only thing on the artist’s plate: Beginning Nov. 5, Williams will appear as a mentor on Rihanna’s new fashion reality competition show “Styled to Rock” on the Style Network.
article by Courtney Hazlett via today.com
Director Ron Howard will debut the “Made in America” documentary about the Jay Z-curated music festival in Philadelphia Oct. 11 on Showtime.
Close to 50,000 fans attended Jay-Z’s “Budweiser Made in America” festival on Labor Day weekend last year. The two-day event included performers such as Pearl Jam, Drake, Run DMC, Skrillex, D’Angelo and Calvin Harris.
The year’s festival kicks of this weekend with performances from Beyonce, Nine Inch Nails, Imagine Dragons, Deadmau5, Kendrick Lamar and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. Howard’s documentary serves as a backstage pass to the event, which showcases performers sharing stories of how they are “making it in America.”
It will debut Sept. 7 at the Toronto International Film Festival.
article via eurweb.com
Rapper and Chicago native, Kanye West, has plans to give back to troubled youth in his hometown this summer with the upcoming launch of the “Got Bars” music writing and production program. In August, West’s nonprofit organization, Donda’s House — founded in honor of his late mother Dr. Donda West — and the ARK of St. Sabina community center, will kickoff the 10-week course open to youth ages 15 to 24. The “Got Bars” program aims to educate participants on how to write and record their own music and in turn help them to develop problem-solving skills. The program will also teach youth about the benefits of eating well, working out and other life skills.
West credits his mother’s passion to teaching as the inspiration behind the program. “My mom spent her life as an educator and I am happy Donda’s House can pick up the torch and honor her life’s mission,” West said in a statement early last week. The Chi-town rapper has chosen Che “Rhymefest” Smith, co-founder and assistant director of Donda’s House to spearhead the program, along with his wife Donnie Smith. Rhymefest will oversee the music and production aspects of the 10-week course, while his wife Donnie, an English teacher, will serve as executive director.
“I am so happy to launch “Got Bars” to honor Kanye West’s mother’s memory and to fulfill one of my Alder manic campaign goals,” said Rhymefest in a statement. “Got Bars” will change our youth musically, get them healthy and keep them busy in a creative, peaceful environment.” Donda’s House will eventually release an EP featuring songs from the program’s participants. Applications for “Got Bars?” will be accepted until Friday, August 2. For more information on the program, visit the Donda’s House website.
article by Hayat Mohamed via newsone.com
The rapper’s Roc Nation collection shifted 129,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures for the week ending July 21. Numbers reflected a 76% drop-off from the set’s debut-week sales of 528,000, which was the year’s second-biggest opening to date.
Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles’ “The Blessed Unrest” (Epic) had to settle for No. 2, arriving with first-week sales of 68,000. Her last album, “Kaleidoscope Heart,” reached No. 1 with a 90,000-unit tally in 2010.
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Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles’ “The Blessed Unrest” (Epic) had to settle for No. 2, arriving with first-week sales of 68,000. Her last album, “Kaleidoscope Heart,” reached No. 1 with a 90,000-unit tally in 2010.
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- Jay-Z’s ‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’ Tops Billboard Charts, Without Samsung’s Help
- 16-Year-Old Producer WondaGurl Creates Beat For Jay-Z’s New Album
- Jay Z And Justin Timberlake Honor Trayvon Martin At Legends Of The Summer New York City Stop
In at No. 3 was the 24th installment of Razor & Tie’s long-running “Kidz Bop” series, which turned 62,000 copies. The current package contains moppet-friendly versions of hits by the Lumineers, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Justin Timberlake and others.
Florida rapper Ace Hood attained his best chart position to date with “Trials & Tribulations” (Cash Money), which ascended to No. 4 with 34,000 shifted. His previous personal best came in 2011 with “Blood, Sweat & Tears,” which peaked at No. 8 behind a 26,000-unit frame.
Holdovers for the week included Florida Georgia Line’s “Here’s to the Good Times” (No. 5, 31,000 sold, off 5%), Imagine Dragons’ “Night Visions” (No. 6, 28,000, down 15%), J. Cole’s “Born Sinner” (No. 7, 27,000, off 32%) and Justin Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience” (No. 9, 24,000, up 33%). Timberlake’s album sold just 24 units more than Simpson’s debuting collection, according to SoundScan.
article by Christopher Morris via Variety.com
Historic hip-hop imprint Priority Records has been given a new lease on life, this time as a producer-centric electronic music and progressive urban music label. A joint venture of Insurgency Music and Capitol Music Group, the refurbished label will be headed by Insurgency co-founder Michael Cohen, the two companies announced July 22.
Operating out of the Capitol Records building in Hollywood, the new-look Priority will officially launch in August with single “Higher,” a collaboration between hip-hop beatmaker Just Blaze, “Harlem Shake” creator Baauer and Jay Z.
As Cohen explained in a statement: “We are looking to establish the new Priority as a home for producers. The emergence of the producer as an artist and brand within the global electronic music scene and beyond has heralded a paradigm shift in the way music is created, discovered and spread. We are firm believers in nurturing artists and scenes that develop in the underground, and we intend to infuse the label with the most progressive artists we can find, wherever they may be.”
Founded in 1985 in Los Angeles, Priority first hit paydirt with novelty releases from the California Raisins, but it was as a hip-hop imprint that it truly made its mark. The label released such landmark gangsta rap albums as N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” and Ice Cube’s “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted,” and later forged a hugely successful alliance with Master P’s No Limit Records in the mid-1990s. Priority pacted with EMI in the 1990s and was eventually merged into Capitol.
Priority releases will be distributed by Caroline in the U.S., with parent company Universal Music Group handling international.
via Priority Records Relaunched as Electronic Music Label | Variety
Jay Z and Justin Timberlake took a moment out of their recent show at New York City’s Yankee Stadium to honor the late teenager Travyon Martin. The duo was in New York City this weekend for the latest stops on their co-headlining Legends of the Summer Tour.
Jay Z and Timberlake closed their Friday show with a performance of Jay Z’s “Forever Young,” dedicating the song to the 17-year-old Martin who died last year.Take a look at the duo’s dedication below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQqLhBGaV3o&w=560&h=315]
While in New York this weekend, Jay Z also attended a rally for Martin with his wife, Beyonce, joining a crowd speaking out against the recent ruling that aqcuited Florida man George Zimmerman in the case of the shooting death of Martin. Beyonce also recently made her own tribute to Martin, holding a moment of silence for the young man at her Nashville show after the ruling was announced.
Other celebrities who have spoken out on the case include singer Bruce Springsteen, who dedicated his song “American Skin (41 Shots)” to Martin at a show in Ireland, and Stevie Wonder, who announced that he will no longer perform in the state of Florida until it changes its Stand Your Ground laws.
article via huffingtonpost.com
Jay Z and Timberlake closed their Friday show with a performance of Jay Z’s “Forever Young,” dedicating the song to the 17-year-old Martin who died last year.Take a look at the duo’s dedication below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQqLhBGaV3o&w=560&h=315]
While in New York this weekend, Jay Z also attended a rally for Martin with his wife, Beyonce, joining a crowd speaking out against the recent ruling that aqcuited Florida man George Zimmerman in the case of the shooting death of Martin. Beyonce also recently made her own tribute to Martin, holding a moment of silence for the young man at her Nashville show after the ruling was announced.
Other celebrities who have spoken out on the case include singer Bruce Springsteen, who dedicated his song “American Skin (41 Shots)” to Martin at a show in Ireland, and Stevie Wonder, who announced that he will no longer perform in the state of Florida until it changes its Stand Your Ground laws.
article via huffingtonpost.com
NEW YORK (AP) — Jay-Z’s new album has sold more than 500,000 units its first week. Nielsen SoundScan said late Tuesday that preliminary data shows that “Magna Carta Holy Grail” moved about 527,000 copies. It will debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart this week. The album was officially released on July 7. Samsung bought and gave 1.2 million copies of the album to Galaxy mobile phone users on July 4. Billboard is not counting those sales on its charts.
“Magna Carta” has the second-best first-week debut of the year after Justin Timberlake’s “20/20 Experience.” The album features Timberlake, Beyonce, Frank Ocean and Timbaland. Jay-Z’s 12th album had more than 14 million streams in its first week on Spotify, beating a record that Daft Punk set in May with “Random Access Memories.”
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press via thegrio.com
Nas has found a new home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University’s W.E.B Du Bois Institute and Hip-Hop Archive announced the creation of the Nasir Jones Fellowship. The fellowship named after the rapper who is known for his philosophical bars, will allow scholars and artists to use their education through a creative outlet. The Nasir Jones Fellowship key purpose is based on the motto: Education is real power.
The Hip-Hop Archive press release states the mission:
“To seek projects from scholars and artists that build on the rich and complex hip-hop tradition; to respect that tradition through historically grounded and contextualized critical insights; and most importantly, to represent one’s creative and/or intellectually rigorous contribution to hip-hop and the discourse through personal and academic projects.”
The fellowship will cover the works of Nas and other prolific hip-hop artists who contributed monumental work to the genre. Recipients of The Nasir Jones Fellowship will be selected by Harvard faculty.
The MC who received the privilege of his own fellowship at the Ivy League states:
“In my roller coaster of a life I’ve endured good and bad for sure, and I’ve truly been blessed to have achieved so much through art in my short life thus far. But I am immensely over-the-top excited about the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship at Harvard. From Queens, NY to true cultural academia. My hopes are that greed for knowledge, art, self-determination and expression go a long way. It is a true honor to have my name attached to so much hard work, alongside great names like Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and W.E.B. Du Bois and to such a prestigious and historical institution, and all in the name of the music I grew to be a part of.”
Before forming his own fellowship, Nas has helped Grammy-award winning music producer 9th Wonder with his own academic research project called These Are The Breaks. The research was based on compiling original samples from hip-hop albums that were permanently archived in the Harvard Library; Nas’s Illimatic was a part of the research. 9th Wonder’s research project and journey to Harvard has become a documentary called, The Harvard Fellow.
article by Lauren R.D. Fox via madamenoire.com
Jay-Z reached out to a number of producers while creating Magna Carta Holy Grail, his 12th studio album. The usual suspects — Timbaland, Pharrell, and Swizz Beats — were there, but a budding 16-year-old producer from Canada, Ebony Oshunrinde, a.k.a. WondaGurl (pictured), also made her mark on the album, according to The Star.com.
WondaGurl produced the track “Crown” on Holy Grail, which was released digitally July 4th and in stores Tuesday, but the Brampton native first got in to creating beats after watching a video of Jay-Z and Timbaland in the studio together. “It inspired me, and I wanted to do the exact same thing that he did,” she said. At age 9, Oshunrinde downloaded music software, teaching herself to use it via YouTube tutorials.
She coined the WondaGurl name by switching the name of fellow Canadian producer Boi-1da (pronounced boy wonda). In 2011, she caught her big break, winning the Battle of the Beatmakers competition. This caught the attention of Boi, who began mentoring WondaGurl at Toronto’s Remix Project Studio. A year after winning the competition, the musical prodigy signed an exclusive management deal with label Black Box and began working in a studio.