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Posts tagged as “Drake”

NYT MUSIC FEATURE: Can the Weeknd Turn Himself Into the Biggest Pop Star in the World?

02weeknd1-superJumbo
The Weeknd (Photo Credit: Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, The New York Times)

The scene backstage last November at the American Music Awards, that annual gathering of pop perennials and idiosyncratic arrivistes, was carnivalesque: Niall and Liam of One Direction toddled about trying to snap a picture with a selfie stick, while Zayn, their bandmate at the time, smoked coolly out of frame; Ne-Yo was there in a leopard-­print blazer two sizes too small; Lil Wayne was wandering around, alone, wearing absurd shoes. In the middle of it all, Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, remained calm, slow ­motion to everyone else’s warp speed.

Allergic to these sorts of scrums, he found his way to his trailer to hang with his friends, five or so fellow Canadians, all of them art-goth chic, wearing expensive sneakers and draped in luxurious, flowing black. Tesfaye, 25, was dressed down by comparison, in a black corduroy jacket and paint-­splattered jeans (Versace, but still). He stands 5-foot-7, plus a few more inches with his hair, an elaborate tangle of dreadlocks that he has been growing out for years, more or less letting it go where it wants. It spills out at the sides of his head and shoots up over it, like a cresting wave. Casually, Tesfaye did some vocal warm-ups and sat indifferently as his underutilized makeup artist dabbed foundation under his eyes and balm on his lips.

Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. the Weeknd, at his apartment building in Toronto last December. (Credit: Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, for The New York Times)

He’d just had his first flash of true pop success: ‘‘Love Me Harder,’’ his duet with Ariana Grande, the childlike pop star with the grown-up voice, cracked the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. He was scheduled to make a surprise cameo here at the end of a Grande medley. Until that song and, in a sense, that moment, Tesfaye had been a no-hit wonder: a cult act with millions of devotees and almost no mainstream profile.

When Tesfaye came out from the shadows midway through Grande’s performance, the crowd screamed. For two minutes, the singers traded vocal riffs and unflinching eye contact, Grande playing the naïf and Tesfaye the aggressor. The performance was quick and sweaty, and seconds after it was over, Tesfaye was already speeding for the exit, stopping only for a quick embrace from Kendall and Kylie Jenner. When he reached the parking lot, a yappy talent wrangler for an entertainment-­news show sensed an opportunity and asked for an interview. Tesfaye gave him an amused half-smile and kept walking. ‘‘Hey!’’ the guy shouted in desperation, fumbling for a name before landing on the wrong one: ‘‘A$AP Rocky!’’ Tesfaye turned his head and said, ‘‘C’mon, man,’’ arching an eyebrow, then picked up the pace.

Even though he had just performed for an audience of millions, Tesfaye was still, to many of them, a total stranger. When he began releasing music in 2010 — murky Dalí-esque R.&B., sung in an astrally sweet voice, vivid with details of life at the sexual and pharmacological extremes — Tesfaye chose to be a cipher. The only photos of him in circulation were deliberately obscured; he didn’t do interviews. His reticence was an asset — fans devoured the music without being distracted by a personality. Their loyalty was to the songs and, in a way, to the idea of the Weeknd. He was happy to stay out of the way.

NYT MUSIC FEATURE: Can the Weeknd Turn Himself Into the Biggest Pop Star in the World?

02weeknd1-superJumbo
The Weeknd (Photo Credit: Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, The New York Times)

The scene backstage last November at the American Music Awards, that annual gathering of pop perennials and idiosyncratic arrivistes, was carnivalesque: Niall and Liam of One Direction toddled about trying to snap a picture with a selfie stick, while Zayn, their bandmate at the time, smoked coolly out of frame; Ne-Yo was there in a leopard-­print blazer two sizes too small; Lil Wayne was wandering around, alone, wearing absurd shoes. In the middle of it all, Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, remained calm, slow ­motion to everyone else’s warp speed.

Allergic to these sorts of scrums, he found his way to his trailer to hang with his friends, five or so fellow Canadians, all of them art-goth chic, wearing expensive sneakers and draped in luxurious, flowing black. Tesfaye, 25, was dressed down by comparison, in a black corduroy jacket and paint-­splattered jeans (Versace, but still). He stands 5-foot-7, plus a few more inches with his hair, an elaborate tangle of dreadlocks that he has been growing out for years, more or less letting it go where it wants. It spills out at the sides of his head and shoots up over it, like a cresting wave. Casually, Tesfaye did some vocal warm-ups and sat indifferently as his underutilized makeup artist dabbed foundation under his eyes and balm on his lips.

Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. the Weeknd, at his apartment building in Toronto last December. (Credit: Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, for The New York Times)

He’d just had his first flash of true pop success: ‘‘Love Me Harder,’’ his duet with Ariana Grande, the childlike pop star with the grown-up voice, cracked the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. He was scheduled to make a surprise cameo here at the end of a Grande medley. Until that song and, in a sense, that moment, Tesfaye had been a no-hit wonder: a cult act with millions of devotees and almost no mainstream profile.

When Tesfaye came out from the shadows midway through Grande’s performance, the crowd screamed. For two minutes, the singers traded vocal riffs and unflinching eye contact, Grande playing the naïf and Tesfaye the aggressor. The performance was quick and sweaty, and seconds after it was over, Tesfaye was already speeding for the exit, stopping only for a quick embrace from Kendall and Kylie Jenner. When he reached the parking lot, a yappy talent wrangler for an entertainment-­news show sensed an opportunity and asked for an interview. Tesfaye gave him an amused half-smile and kept walking. ‘‘Hey!’’ the guy shouted in desperation, fumbling for a name before landing on the wrong one: ‘‘A$AP Rocky!’’ Tesfaye turned his head and said, ‘‘C’mon, man,’’ arching an eyebrow, then picked up the pace.

Even though he had just performed for an audience of millions, Tesfaye was still, to many of them, a total stranger. When he began releasing music in 2010 — murky Dalí-esque R.&B., sung in an astrally sweet voice, vivid with details of life at the sexual and pharmacological extremes — Tesfaye chose to be a cipher. The only photos of him in circulation were deliberately obscured; he didn’t do interviews. His reticence was an asset — fans devoured the music without being distracted by a personality. Their loyalty was to the songs and, in a way, to the idea of the Weeknd. He was happy to stay out of the way.

Struggling Philadelphia High School Strawberry Mansion Hires Music Teacher, Starts Using Recording Studio Donated Last Year by Drake

Drake with students from Strawberry Mansion High School (Photo: ABC News)
Drake with students from Strawberry Mansion High School (Photo: ABC News)

The students at Strawberry Mansion High School, once considered one of the most dangerous schools in the country, have started using the school’s brand new recording studio donated by rapper Drake after a music teacher was finally hired.
Located in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood with a high crime rate, Strawberry Mansion is a school plagued by violence. It once spent six years on the state of Pennsylvania’s “Persistently Dangerous Schools” list.
In a special ABC News “Hidden America” report on the school that first aired in May 2013, Diane Sawyer and ABC News producers followed the daily lives of the school’s students and faculty, including its then-new principal, during the 2012-2013 school year. ABC News then went back in September 2013 to follow Strawberry Mansion at the start of the new 2013-2014 school year for a second special that aired in December 2013.
Click to see ABC News video of this story here.
Grammy award-winning hip-hop artist Drake was so moved by the ABC News specials, especially after learning that budget cuts had left the school without a music teacher, that he donated $75,000 to Strawberry Mansion for a new recording studio.

But even though members of Drake’s crew finished the studio last summer, Principal Linda Cliatt-Wayman told ABC News that budget issues and the school’s violent history made it hard to find a music instructor.

So the studio, which included new keyboards and other equipment, as well as sound booths, sat unused for months.
Finally, Ben Diamond arrived in February to take on the role as a part-time music teacher who would teach studio production, but even then, Wayman said student interest was low at first.
It wasn’t until she used the school’s PA system to broadcast the first student-produced song to come out of the new recording studio that Wayman said students became interested. Now 91 students have signed up for the studio production class, she said.
“Music has a way of bringing people together,” Wayman told ABC News via email. “That is what I want the music to do for my kids, bring them all together to find the special gifts that lay dormant inside of them. I want them to get distracted on their positive attributes to help them create within and around them. They all love music. That is the one thing they all have in common.
“For me, the opening of the studio is more than about music,” Wayman added. “It is about making and keeping a promise to students who are constantly disappointed, pleasing them, making them happy and getting them to see that they must finish what they start [and] work hard to bring dreams into reality.”
In addition to Drake, other ABC News viewers donated money to Strawberry Mansion after the 2013 specials aired. Their generosity helped provide school uniforms, jackets for the school’s first football team, warm-up suits for the basketball team, school trips, PSAT and ACT prep classes, as well as scholarships for seniors heading off to college. Viewer donations also helped provide basic necessities that were missing at Strawberry Mansion, including books, notebooks and calculators.
article by Claire Weinraub and Lauren Effron via abcnews.go.com

Dr. Dre is Forbes’ Highest-Paid Hip-Hop Act at $620 Million for 2014

Dr. DreDr. Dre tops Forbes list of highest-paid hip-hop acts with a total of $620 million earned this year. This is the most money ANY entertainer that has been evaluated by the magazine has earned in one calendar year.
What makes this even more incredible is that Dr. Dre alone made more than all 24 of the people combined on the 2014 list.  Two second-place entries, both tied at $60 million, made 10% of what Andre “Dr. Dre” Young did. But, with that total, Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs won’t be cashing any unemployment checks any time soon.
Cash Money claims a large stake in the money game as well, with Drake in fourth place at $33 million, Birdman (Co-CEO of Cash Money) at No. 7 with $24 million, Lil Wayne a hair behind him with $23 million and Nicki Minaj, the only female artist on the list, at No. 11, with $14 million.
The complete “World’s Highest-Paid Hip-Hop Acts” list follows:
1. Dr. Dre: $620 million
2. Sean Combs: $60 million
2. Jay Z: $60 million
4. Drake: $33 million
5. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: $32 million
6. Kanye West: $30 million
7. Birdman: $24 million
8. Lil Wayne: $23 million
9. Pharrell Williams: $22 million
10. Eminem: $18 million
11. Nicki Minaj: $14 million
12. Wiz Khalifa: $13 million
13. Pitbull: $12 million
14. Snoop Dogg: $10 million
15. Kendrick Lamar: $9 million
16. Ludacris: $8 million
16. Tech N9ne: $8 million
16. Swizz Beatz: $8 million
16. 50 Cent: $8 million
20. Rick Ross: $7 million
20. J. Cole: $7 million
20. DJ Khaled: $7 million
20. Lil Jon: $7 million
20. Mac Miller: $7 million
article by Cedric “Big Ced” Thornton via blackenterprise.com

Beyoncé Reveals Artistry, Herself on "Beyoncé" (REVIEW)

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Beyoncé pulled off a coup late last Thursday night when she released a terrific self-titled “visual album” – containing 14 songs, each with an accompanying video – straight to iTunes with zero advance warning or fanfare.  The record is expected to easily top the weekly album chart despite being released midway through the stanza, and according to Apple, the album had already sold more than 800,000 digital copies by Monday morning. Not only does Beyoncé rank as the year’s most accomplished and engaging mainstream pop album by a rather laughable margin, but its calculatedly shrugged-off release strategy can’t help but read as an imperious kiss-off toward the singer’s competitors for the 2013 crown — Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, and even her husband Jay Z — all of whom worked up gallons of sweat and employed every eyeball-grabbing trick in the book to move their product, only to be upstaged by Beyoncé’s abrupt digital data-dump.

“I’ve been climbing up the walls, ’cause all this shit I hear is boring,” she sings on the album’s second track, by way of explanation. “All these record labels, boring.”
Of course, like Radiohead’s “name-your-price” release of In Rainbows in 2007, this is the sort of trick that can only be pulled off by an artist who has already spent decades tirelessly feeding the publicity machine, and it’s unlikely Beyoncé’s December surprise will “change the music business” any more than Radiohead’s did. Competition is Beyoncé’s lifeblood, and coming off of the commercially disappointing 4, it’s easy to see this as a gauntlet thrown down. Far more personal, confessional, and flat-out filthy than anything the singer has released in the past, Beyoncé offers some striking windows into the star’s personal life, while audio archival snippets from her early years shuttling between beauty contests and kiddie singing competitions are sprinkled throughout, hinting at the lifetime of rigorously maintained perfection and pageantry to which much of this record is a reaction.

Beyoncé Breaks iTunes Records, Sells 828,773 Albums in Just Three Days

PHOTO: Beyoncés visual album broke iTunes records after its Dec. 13, 2013 release.
Beyoncé’s visual album broke iTunes records after its Dec. 13, 2013 release.
(iTunes|Getty Images)

Of course, the fact that the album was available exclusively through iTunes and not via any other digital music service helped push along the sales. Additionally, fans couldn’t buy single songs for the usual 99 cent price; instead they were forced to buy the whole album for $15.99.  The album, however, included more than just 14 songs. It also came with 17 videos. You could watch only 30 second snippets of each video clip on YouTube. Called Beyoncé’s first visual album, it also included tracks from her husband Jay-Z, R&B singer Frank Ocean and rapper Drake. Another big draw? The closing track, “Blue,” features her daughter Blue Ivy in the video.

Jay-Z's ‘Made in America’ Festival Documentary to Air on Showtime

jay z on real timeDirector 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

Kanye West Takes No. 1 Spot on Billboard 200; J. Cole Takes 2nd in Rap's "Biggest Week" Since 2011

Official sales numbers are in for the J. Cole-imposed competition with Kanye West and Yeezuslands at No. 1. Cole’s Born Sinner and Mac Miller‘s Watching Movies With the Sound Off enter at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, making it rap’s “biggest week” since November 2011, reportsBillboard.
The Billboard 200 chart tracks top-selling albums nationwide. The coveted first-week sales often determine the trajectory of an album’s overall outcome and strategies for continued marketing.
Kanye, even with the no-marketing marketing strategy, and no single pushed to radio (DJ’s, unconventionally, made their own radio edits from the album), earned his sixth straight chart-topping debut, selling 327,000. This puts him in the third slot for biggest openers this year (behind BET Awards performer Justin Timberlake with 968,000 and electro-pop duo Daft Punk with 339,000); and it puts him in a three-way tie with Eminem and Nas for almost the most No. 1’s. Jay-Z has the most with 12, including his collaborative project with ‘Ye, Watch the Throne.

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


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