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Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine Donate $70M for New Arts and Technology Center at USC

By goodblacknews on May 15, 2013
Music industry entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine, left, and hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre at a Grammy Party in Los Angeles. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, and Iovine have donated a combined $70 million to create a new institute at the University of Southern California, the school announced Tuesday, May 14. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP, file)
Music industry entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine, left, and hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre at a Grammy Party in Los Angeles. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, and Iovine have donated a combined $70 million to create a new institute at the University of Southern California, the school announced Tuesday, May 14. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP, file)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, and music industry entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine have donated a combined $70 million to create a new institute at the University of Southern California, the school announced Tuesday night.
The huge gift from the two who have been music business partners in the past will be used to create the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation.
The academy will provide a special four-year program for undergraduates whose interests span several fields from marketing to computer science to visual design and other arts. It will include one-on-one faculty mentoring with professors from programs around the university and interaction with entertainment industry luminaries.

Usher Becomes 1st Artist to Curate Music for Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks

By goodblacknews on May 11, 2013

Recording artist Usher attends NBC's "The Voice" Season 4 Red Carpet Event at the House of Blues Sunset Strip on May 8, 2013 in West Hollywood
Usher will collaborate with Macy’s to curate the concept, music and design for the Macy’s 4th of July fireworks show, which will be launched from barges off Manhattan.
It’s the first time the company has worked with an artist on the concept for its annual show, Macy’s said Thursday.
Usher will score the music for “It Begins With a Spark,” which will feature his songs, as well as songs from Rihanna, Swedish House Mafia, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra.
He will also provide visual design cues and direction for the pyrotechnics that are choreographed to the musical score.
The 37th annual Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks display will air after the annual concert on NBC.
article via eurweb.com

Fats Domino’s Katrina-damaged Grand Piano Finally Restored

By goodblacknews on May 4, 2013
A photo of musician Fats Domino lies in the street next to his home in the heavily damaged Lower Ninth Ward December 24, 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Nearly four months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area, the worst-hit parts of New Orleans and surrounding areas are still uninhabitable. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
A photo of musician Fats Domino lies in the street next to his home in the heavily damaged Lower Ninth Ward December 24, 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Nearly four months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area, the worst-hit parts of New Orleans and surrounding areas are still uninhabitable. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A white Steinway grand piano salvaged from musician Fats Domino’s home after Hurricane Katrina has been restored and will be the centerpiece of an exhibit in New Orleans’ French Quarter.  The piano was damaged after water poured through a broken levee during the August 2005 storm, flooding Domino’s home in the Lower 9th Ward.  Its restoration came through $30,000 donated to the Louisiana Museum Foundation.  
The largest gift of $18,000 came from Allan Slaight, a retired music producer in Miami. Other donations came from Sir Paul McCartney, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Tipitina’s Foundation. The piano was to be unveiled Thursday at the Old U.S. Mint, now a museum in the French Quarter.  It will be part of the Louisiana State Museum’s music exhibition opening in 2014 but separately will go on display at the Mint in June.  A second Steinway piano belonging to Domino is on permanent display at the Presbytere Museum in the exhibition “Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond.”
“Fats Domino is a seminal figure in American music, and he will have a prominent place in the coming Louisiana music exhibit,” said Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, who oversees the Louisiana State Museum. “His beautiful grand piano, fully restored, will serve as the perfect symbol for Louisiana’s resilient nature and ever-evolving musical heritage.”
Born in New Orleans in 1928, the pianist, singer and songwriter sold more than 65 million records between 1950 and 1963, made Billboard’s pop chart 77 times and its rhythm and blues chart 61 times.  Katrina tore into Louisiana and Mississippi on Aug. 29, 2005. Flooding from storm surge and broken levees washed over an estimated 80 percent of New Orleans.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press; article by Stacey Plaisance via thegrio.com

First Official Photo from TLC Biopic Released

By goodblacknews on May 3, 2013

(L-R) Drew Sidora, Keke Palmer and Lil Mama in VH1's "Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story"
(L-R) Drew Sidora, Keke Palmer and Lil Mama in VH1′s “Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story”

No, that’s not Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes as TLC circa 1992.
It’s Drew Sidora as T-Boz, Keke Palmer as Chilli, and Lil’ Mama as Left Eye in VH1’s upcoming TV movie about the 90s r&b/hip hop trio.
VH1 released this photo today as an official first photo from the upcoming biopic “Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story.”
“Drumline’s” Charles Stone III is directing from a screenplay by “What’s Love Got To Do With It’s” Kate Lanier.
The real T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli from TLC (1992)
The real T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli from TLC (1992)

The film started production in March in Atlanta where Chilli, Left Eye and T-Boz started their rise to multi-platinum fame as one of the most successful musical trios of all time.
The two surviving members of the group, Chilli and T-Boz, serve as consultants and executive producers on the movie. The pic is scheduled to premiere toward the end of the year.
article via eurweb.com

Lauryn Hill's New Album: Singer To Release First Studio Effort Since 1998's 'Miseducation'

By goodblacknews on April 27, 2013

Lauryn HillLauryn Hill posted a statement to her official Tumblr account, announcing that she’s back in the studio for the first time since 1998’s iconic “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” The singer’s only album since “Miseducation” has been 2002’s “MTV Unplugged No. 2.0,” recorded live at the MTV Studios in Times Square the previous year. This will mark her first studio material in 15 years, and fans will surely be anxious to lay down a welcome mat for the former Fugees singer, who has steadily grown more eccentric over the past decade.
Hill revealed on Tumblr that she is launching a new record label in conjunction with Sony Worldwide Entertainment as an effort to pay the $504,000 she owes immediately in taxes.
Here’s an excerpt of her post:

I’ve remained silent, after an extensive healing process. This has been a 10+ year battle, for a long time played out behind closed doors, but now in front of the public eye. This is an old conflict between art and commerce… free minds, and minds that are perhaps overly tethered to structure. This is about inequity, and the resulting disenfranchisement caused by it. I’ve been fighting for existential and economic freedom, which means the freedom to create and live without someone threatening, controlling, and/or manipulating the art and the artist, by tying the purse strings. 
It took years for me to get out of the ‘parasitic’ dynamic of my youth, and into a deal that better reflects my true contribution as an artist, and (purportedly) gives me the control necessary to create a paradigm suitable for my needs. I have been working towards this for a long time, not just because of my current legal situation, but because I am an artist, I love to create, and I need the proper platform to do so.

Legal issues aside, Hill hasn’t been totally out of the spotlight since “Miseducation” stormed through the music scene. Her “MTV Unplugged” effort divided the critics who so unanimously praised her debut solo album, with Rolling Stone calling “Unplugged” a “public breakdown,” and she has sometimes left her passionate legion of fans disappointed by her public persona.

R.I.P. Cordell Mosson, Bassist for Parliament-Funkadelic

By goodblacknews on April 26, 2013
Cordell Mosson playing bass for Parliament-Funkadelic.

Cordell Mosson, a guitarist whose bass line drove the flamboyant band Parliament-Funkadelic for four decades, died on April 18 in New Brunswick, N.J. He was 60.  The cause was liver failure, his companion, Donna Snead, said Thursday.

Mr. Mosson — Boogie to his band mates and audiences — had been a fixture of the group since the early 1970s, playing bass, drums and eventually rhythm guitar and, like the rest of George Clinton’s sprawling collective, appearing onstage in elaborate, intergalactic outfits.

He collaborated on seminal P-Funk albums like “Up for the Down Stroke” and “Funkentelechy and the Placebo Syndrome” and replaced Bootsy Collins onstage as the bassist when Mr. Collins left to focus on his solo career. (Mr. Collins still recorded with the group.) Mr. Mosson toured with the group until 2011.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Clinton, the band’s leader and frontman, recalled Mr. Mosson as multifaceted, able to play “all the psychedelic stuff and the Motown and the James Brown.”

“Boogie’s been playing with us since he was 13 or 14,” Mr. Clinton said, adding, “He was the heartbeat for a long time.”

Mr. Mosson appeared with the band in the 1994 film comedy “PCU,” starring Jeremy Piven, Jon Favreau and David Spade. He and 15 other members of the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

Cardell Mosson Jr. was born on Oct. 16, 1952, in New Brunswick. In addition to Ms. Snead, he is survived by four daughters, LaPortia Nicholson, Lisa Brown, Latonya Snead and Ramona Perry; four sons, Chauncey Mosson, David Shropshire, Cordell Boogie Mosson and Remby Perry; a brother, the Rev. Larry Mosson; and eight grandchildren.

 article by Daniel E. Slotnik via nytimes.com

New Orleans Jazz Fest to Feature Jill Scott, B.B. King and N.O. Native Frank Ocean

By goodblacknews on April 26, 2013
Frank Ocean
Frank Ocean

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — If there’s a theme to this year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, it may be living legends.  Headliners include B.B. King, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Hall and Oates and Fleetwood Mac. There’s also a cast of modern-day hit makers such as The Black Keys, Maroon 5, Jill Scott, Kem, the Dave Matthews Band and New Orleans native Frank Ocean.

Over the next two weekends, fans of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival will be treated to traditional jazz as well as rock ‘n roll, Cajun, gospel, blues, hip-hop, funk and zydeco.  “The way the talent fell into place this year, it became a very special year for us,” festival producer Quint Davis said. “It’s Jazz Fest, but it’s also B.B. King, Willie Nelson. It’s Ben Harper. It’s Hall and Oates. We ended up with probably the greatest living proponent in each kind of music we feature here.”
In all, about 5,000 entertainers will play the festival on 12 stages. The first weekend is Friday through Sunday, and the following weekend starts Thursday, May 2, and lasts until Sunday, May 5.

Snoop Lion 1st Guest Editor of Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy; Offers Listen of New "Reincarnated" CD

By goodblacknews on April 23, 2013


In the 20 years since Snoop Dogg released his genre-defining debut “Doggystyle,” the rapper’s name has become a sort of hip-hop shorthand, and he’s become a larger than life figure in popular culture over a string of albums and movie roles (“Starsky & Hutch,” “Training Day”). So it came as something of a surprise when the MC rechristened himself “Snoop Lion” last year after studying the Rastafari religion in Jamaica, and announced he was recording a reggae album, “Reincarnated,” which comes out Tuesday.
Snoop today takes over Speakeasy as the first-ever special guest editor, and in that role wrote an essay that explains his reggae transformation, assigned a story about the part youth sports programs play in communities, and will answer questions from readers. Check back in throughout the day to read Snoop’s contributions.
It only makes sense to pair his guest-editing stint with “Reincarnated,” which Speakeasy is streaming in its entirety. To listen, click here. The album features contributions from Drake, Akon and Miley Cyrus, and production from Diplo and Major Lazer. If you have questions for Snoop, send them on Twitter with the hashtag #AskSnoop.
article by Eric R. Danton via blogs.wsj.com

Jay-Z and Beyoncé Named to Time 100 ‘Most Influential’ List, Reach Billionaire Status

By goodblacknews on April 18, 2013
(Photo courtesy of Mark Seliger for TIME)

(Photo courtesy of Mark Seliger for TIME)

Power couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé have recently been making lots of headlines lately, and now the rapper is gracing the cover of Time.  Both he and wife Beyoncé have been named by the magazine as two of the world’s most influential people.
The annual feature lists 100 of the world’s most prominent figures, in no particular order, who have made the biggest global impact over the past year.  The issue, which includes Jay-Z on one of seven covers, also provides brief profiles that capture the essence of each qualifier.

Amber Holcomb Jazzes Up 'Idol' Stage With Stellar Performance

By goodblacknews on April 18, 2013

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gofe3zBKhf0&w=560&h=315]
Amber Holcomb, one of the Top 5 left in the “American Idol” competition, and often called a “young Whitney Houston” by the judges, has been in the bottom two several times this season. Amber-Holcomb-of-American-Idol-interview_gallery_primaryBut after weeks of pop-tinged performances, last night she showed off her jazz chops again (the first time was in the Las Vegas sudden death rounds where she sang “My Funny Valentine“) and did an amazing vocal on the Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman standard “What Are You Doing For The Rest of Your Life?”  Hopefully her talent will be rewarded and she will be one of the Top 4 after tonight’s elimination episode on FOX.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson