The legendary Dance Theatre of Harlem Company is back after an eight-year hiatus and they are in top form. Almost a decade of re-organization, leadership building and increased fundraising efforts culminated into a dazzling preview performance in Manhattan at El Museo del Barrio.
Good Black News
Richard Perry/The New York Times
For many years, Jay-Z closed out his concerts with “Encore,” a soothing, triumphant number from “The Black Album,” which at the time of its release in 2003 was billed as something of a retirement. “From Marcy to Madison Square,” he rapped, sketching an arc that had taken him from a Brooklyn housing project to headlining the most symbolically important arena in the country.
That used to be enough, goal-wise, but no musician has reframed the potential for bucket-list completion and brand extension like Jay-Z, who in the past decade has consistently sought new ceilings to break through. That journey brought him to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Friday night, for the first show of a sold-out eight-night run in this new rusty bunker that will house the Brooklyn Nets, a team that he owns a small piece of, and for which he is the unofficial ambassador.
Lil Wayne is the new Elvis Presley when it comes to Billboard hits. The inimitable MC from New Orleans has just surpassed the king of rock in total number of songs to land on the Hot 100. “Celebration,” the latest single from Game, is the 109th song to make the chart with Wayne appearing as either a lead or featured artist. Presley’s record was 108 spanning between 1958 and 2003.
Lil Wayne is the new Elvis Presley when it comes to Billboard hits. The inimitable MC from New Orleans has just surpassed the king of rock in total number of songs to land on the Hot 100. “Celebration,” the latest single from Game, is the 109th song to make the chart with Wayne appearing as either a lead or featured artist. Presley’s record was 108 spanning between 1958 and 2003.
Bettye LaVette (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)
WEST ORANGE, N.J. — Bettye LaVette makes no apologies for her life. Sitting cross-legged on an Art Deco chair in her living room here, sipping wine, she was animated and gritty as she talked about the decades she spent singing in clubs and cursing her “buzzard luck,” while her contemporaries, like Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross, became superstars.
“I thought I was going to die in obscurity,” said Ms. LaVette, 66. “I’m still going to die broke but not obscure.”
It has been 50 years since Ms. LaVette, then a teenage mother from a working-class Detroit home, recorded her first single, “My Man — He’s a Lovin’ Man,” which became a hit on Atlantic Records and seemed to foretell a bright future. But she quarreled with Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records and left the label, and even though she recorded dozens of other R&B singles in the 1960s, including the minor hit “Let Me Down Easy,” her career never took off. She survived as a club performer and appeared in “Bubbling Brown Sugar” on Broadway and on tour. Her long-delayed first album in the early 1980s didn’t sell. By the late ’90s, she was popular only among European R&B enthusiasts.
It has been 50 years since Ms. LaVette, then a teenage mother from a working-class Detroit home, recorded her first single, “My Man — He’s a Lovin’ Man,” which became a hit on Atlantic Records and seemed to foretell a bright future. But she quarreled with Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records and left the label, and even though she recorded dozens of other R&B singles in the 1960s, including the minor hit “Let Me Down Easy,” her career never took off. She survived as a club performer and appeared in “Bubbling Brown Sugar” on Broadway and on tour. Her long-delayed first album in the early 1980s didn’t sell. By the late ’90s, she was popular only among European R&B enthusiasts.
Swizz Beatz has yet another title added to his growing list of duties. The rapper, producer, songwriter, designer, and a bunch of other things has reportedly been appointed the global ambassador for New York’s public hospitals to raise awareness and boost funds for its medical centers.
“A word to the wise ain’t necessary — it’s the stupid ones who need advice.”
–Bill Cosby, Emmy-Award Winning actor and comedian
U.S. President Barack Obama participates in an election campaign rally in Virginia Beach, September 27, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed
(Reuters) – President Barack Obama maintains a lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney with 40 days left until the November 6 election, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll said on Thursday. The daily tracking poll said Obama had 49 percent support to 42 percent for Romney among likely voters. Ipsos interviewed 1,194 registered voters online for the survey.
Singer Monica performs a tribute to Whitney Houston during BET Awards 12, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on July 1, 2012. UPI/Jim Ruymen
Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson and Usher are to lead the lineup of performers for a Whitney Houston tribute to tape in Los Angeles next month, CBS announced. Houston accidentally drowned in a hotel bathtub last February after using drugs shortly before she was to attend the Grammy Awards ceremony. She was 48.
Nicole Ari Parker has been cast as a lead in the NBC drama pilot for the thriller, The Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives, which centers on “a murder and the secrets and lies within a tightly woven group of three suburban couples and their families exposed in its aftermath,” says Deadline.