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| Black Eyed Peas Enter 'Digital Afterlife' In 'Boom Boom Pow' Video Posted: 09 Apr 2009 03:51 AM PDT 'We ain't never breaking up, but we ain't staying the same either,' Will.I.Am explains of The E.N.D. album title.
The Black Eyed Peas are back with "Boom Boom Pow," and the group doesn't want to give you the same old thing. With this single, from their forthcoming album The E.N.D., they hope to prove to everyone they're not the same band who gave the world "My Humps." "It's not your typical first single," Fergie said. "It's basically kind of to the left. The song is to the left, and it works, 'cause we're being true to ourselves."
Fergie, who describes the group as "misfits," hopes the video catches people's attention. "The concept of the video is the Peas' birth into the digital afterlife," Fergie said. "So the transformation is us going into a sort of birth or cocoon and coming out the other end as forms of energy. It's a parallel to the music industry. Now everything is downloaded." Will.I.Am said the video was inspired by how digital the world has become and hopes the video portrays "what it would be like if we were actually in the computer, if art was fused in it," he said. "[It's] analog life from a digital perspective becoming technology." The group might hope the song shows fans a new beginning, but the name of their album, The E.N.D., has everyone wondering if it means the group is calling it quits. "We ain't never breaking up, but we ain't staying the same either," Will.I.Am said. "The E.N.D. stands for 'The Energy Never Dies.' So The E.N.D. is our version of embracing change and celebrating the new. "It's the end of a lot of things, and I'm very proud to be bringing forth the new," he added. Related Videos Related Artists |
| 50 Cent Denies He Offered Rick Ross $500,000 To Stop Beef Posted: 08 Apr 2009 12:44 AM PDT 'I don't think anybody interpreted that [rumor] as if it was true,' 50 says.
When it comes to battling, 50 Cent lives by a strict philosophy: "If a person wants a problem, I can accept that and give them a bigger problem than they actually want." A videotaped interview between 50 Cent and radio personality Big Boy hit Big's Web site on Wednesday (April 8), and the G-Unit General spoke more on his feud with Rick Ross. 50 predicted that Ross' album Deeper Than Rap will flop, and that's when the Queens superstar will "have a field day on his a--" with more disses. "People are paying more attention to me and Rick Ross feuding than his actual records. His sales will reflect that," 50 told Big in the backseat of a vehicle en route to his house. When asked about a vlog that Ross recently put out saying an employee of 50 offered the Miami Bawse half a million dollars to stop throwing lyrical jabs at the G-Unit (Ross said he would accept the money to stop dissing 50, but not G-Unit's Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo), 50 laughed it off. "I saw that [video clip] on YouTube," 50 said with a smile. "He made that up — I don't think anybody interpreted that as if it was true. People looked at that like, 'Huh? ... How much more of a fool can you make of yourself?' People look at it like, now you can't take anything from him serious." (Ross recently said that he's enlisted Lil Wayne for a 50 Cent dis track called "Valley of Death.") 50 also said that getting extorted by another to end a feud was the opposite of his character. He loves the back and forth. "I competed with them just to keep the culture active," 50 said. "Ask me: Do I need [to beef with] a Rick Ross? I don't have a release date right now." Related Videos Related Artists |
| Is 'American Idol' Front-Runner Adam Lambert The New David Cook? Posted: 08 Apr 2009 01:11 AM PDT Like Cook, his interpretations turn out not to be as original as many say.
Adam Lambert has been heralded as one of the most original contestants "American Idol" has ever seen. The 27-year-old Los Angeles-bred stage actor's compositions have been praised as unique and provocative, and his unorthodox vocal interpretations of some rather beloved tunes have had the judges cooing gleefully, labeling him as the one to beat this season. Remind you of anyone from last season's "Idol"? Perhaps the guy who ended up taking home the whole kit and caboodle, David Cook?
Whether he is or isn't, it certainly seems as though Lambert is taking a few cues from last year's victor. Much like Cook, Lambert has done little if anything wrong in the eyes of the judges, and he's established himself early on as the guy viewers tune in for each week, "because they want to see what he's going to do next," said MJ Santilli, founder of the popular "Idol" blog MJsBigBlog.com. Santilli, too, has noticed a number of similarities between last year's winner and this year's projected winner, and she thinks it's very possible Lambert is modeling his run for the crown after Cook's. Santilli agreed that if Lambert is, in fact, using Cook's recipe, he's at least adding some of his own ingredients to the mix. He's a more dramatic performer than Cook ever was, she said, which perhaps ties into Lambert's thespian days. "They both change things up from week to week, and do interesting takes on these songs, whether it's borrowed or it's original," Santilli explained. "They are taking songs people are used to hearing one way and doing them another way, and it makes it really exciting for viewers. Adam is a showman, and so was Cook." On the current season of "Idol," the judges have emphasized the importance of finding the right song and then putting one's own original stamp on it. While Lambert has garnered much praise for customizing other people's material, a closer inspection reveals that his interpretations are perhaps not as original as many people say. While his rendition of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" on Tuesday drew a standing ovation from the panel's true critic, Simon Cowell, it was very similar to a cover recorded back in 2001 by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for inclusion on the "Donnie Darko" soundtrack. Last season, Cook received similar accolades for his acoustic rendition of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," which was very similar to ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell's version; Cook didn't mention Cornell until he was called on it publicly. Santilli also pointed out that Lambert's cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" sounds similar to a > version performed by Dilana Robichaux in 2006 on the reality series "Rock Star: Supernova." Likewise, his take on the Miracles' "Tracks of My Tears" is reminiscent of the one >performed by Gavin DeGraw, and, to a lesser extent, Lambert's cover of 'Play That Funky Music' sounds a touch like Extreme's cover of the Wild Cherry track. "David Cook got into a lot of trouble for doing that, and at one point early on, he had to start rearranging his own stuff and not so much going to YouTube and finding already-existing arrangements," Santilli said. "After he did his cover of [the Beatles'] 'Eleanor Rigby,' which was >a version that had been done by the band Doxology, and they got really mad and there was this big brouhaha that he took this arrangement and didn't credit anyone. He had to sit down with Ryan Seacrest on his radio show and say where the arrangements had come from. Then, Cook started doing his own arrangements." Santilli said she expects a similar fate for Lambert. "He is a front-runner right now, and there's still a ways to go, but there's always a backlash against — and more scrutiny facing — the front-runner," she said. "I would be interested to see what happens in the next few weeks. If he is discovered, I don't think it's going to take him down, frankly." Indeed, Santilli predicts Lambert will be the last man standing amid all the confetti when this season's winner is announced in late May, despite the threat posed by Danny Gokey — who, according to her, is this season's David Archuleta. "Danny Gokey was the initial front-runner, but he has fallen away, like Archuleta had," she said. "I don't think Danny and Archy are similar artistically, but Archuleta came on strong that first week, and all his performances were strong ... they were just all the same. He lacked that thrill factor that Adam has, that Cook had." Get your "Idol" fix on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions. Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists |
| Jadakiss Talks LOX Offers, Rumored Lil Wayne/ Jay-Z Tour Posted: 08 Apr 2009 05:02 AM PDT Jada says Diddy made the group 'a light offer' to return to Bad Boy.
NEW YORK — A decade ago, it was "Let the LOX go!" In 2009, it very well could be "Bring the LOX back!" Jadakiss said Diddy is trying to reacquire one of his most treasured acts: the LOX. "Diddy made us a light offer, all you label heads," Jadakiss told MTV News. "He made us a nice light one." Diddy and all three LOX members appeared on "106 & Park" on Tuesday, and footage of them backstage hit the Net via Diddy's Twitter page.
"Our relationship is lovely," 'Kiss said of his ties with Puff. Back in the day, Jada, Sheek Louch and Styles P decided to leave Bad Boy due to creative differences, and later, the trio publicly threatened Diddy because they said the label CEO owed them money. That situation was resolved years ago. "Diddy is our big homie, but the people know the business wasn't as tight as it was supposed to be in the beginning," Jada said. "This [deal], it would have to be [right]. ... Listen, he made the offer. He said, 'You know what we been through. I got extra bread for y'all.' That came out of his mouth." One of Diddy's biggest competitors for the LOX might be a mutual friend: Jay-Z. Jada is signed to Roc-A-Fella/ Def Jam for a solo deal, and Hov has been trying to bring the entire group into the fold for years. 'Kiss said he and his Yonkers brothers are open to hearing all offers. "If somebody makes an offer first, then the bidding war goes down," Jada said. "I'm sure some of the big guys will make some offers. If not, Diddy, holla at me." Jada is promoting his new LP, The Last Kiss, and a tour is being worked out for a co-headlining outing with Cam'ron. "Me and Killa supposed to go out, probably do some House of Blues-type of venues," he said. "Then I'm gonna try and sneak on that Weezy and Hov joint going out after that." A tour with Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and Jada? Hmm ... sounds like something huge for the fans. "Yeah," 'Kiss agreed. Reps for Jay-Z and Lil Wayne said they haven't heard about a Jay and Wayne tour. Related Photos Related Artists |
| Cam'ron Denies Diplomats Reunion Rumors: 'It's A Wrap' Posted: 08 Apr 2009 06:35 AM PDT 'Once the problems get in the public, to me, it can't be fixed,' MC says.
NEW YORK — Cam'ron reiterated Wednesday (April 8) that the rift in the Diplomats is too big for him to make music with Juelz Santana or Jim Jones ever again. The Harlem rapper said the "last straw" was Jim Jones publicly denying a phone call between him and Cam that recently took place. Back in February, Cam sat down with MTV News and revealed that he and Jones had spoken for the first time in years. "It was cordial," Cam said of the phone call. "He knew it was me. He said we was gonna holla — maybe we'll put something together. But in the immediate future, I'm just doing Cam. But you never know what can happen down the line. I called Zeke's phone and I guess Zeke gave Jim the phone to pick up. We just talked, asked about each other's family. He said he's on a promo tour. He'd be back soon. That was that." During a series of radio interviews after the call, Jones denied that the once-tight duo spoke, then admitted he was not telling the truth. On Angie Martinez's Hot 97 radio show on Wednesday, Cam said he still considered Jim and Juelz Diplomats, but would not be working with them again. "Basically, to be honest — it's a wrap," Cam said. "I called Jim. Everybody has not been speaking for the past three, four years. It just got in the public. Once the problems get in the public, to me, it can't be fixed. "Recently, maybe a month ago, I called Zeke's phone," he added. "I speak to Jim, I say, 'Cool, B. Maybe we can work some stuff out.' I was really at the point where we could work some stuff out. Maybe three minutes before I did an MTV interview ... we just got off the phone, so I did the interview and said we just got off the phone. Jim gets on the TV or radio, whatever, and be like, 'No, me and Cam didn't speak. I don't know what he's talking about. He's got Alzheimer's.' Then he said, 'We did speak on the phone.' My thing is, why lie about a phone conversation? Why would I lie about a phone call?" Cam'ron also said he has a new crew that he's working with, the U.N. A U.N. album is due in August, after Cam's Crime Pays LP drops on May 12. Related Artists |
| 'Harry Potter' Actor Jamie Waylett Arrested On Drug Charges Posted: 07 Apr 2009 11:22 PM PDT British actor, who plays Vincent Crabbe in the series, was reportedly growing 10 pot plants in his house.
Jamie Waylett, the sour-faced 19-year-old actor who has portrayed the bullying Vincent Crabbe in six "Harry Potter" films and the upcoming "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," was arrested in London on Tuesday for suspicion of possessing marijuana. According to Us Weekly and various British reports, the actor was stopped with a friend while driving, which led to the officials discovering eight bags of pot inside the vehicle. Soon enough, Waylett's situation reportedly became worse, when police raided the London-area home the young actor shares with mother, two brothers and a sister. Inside the house, the law-enforcement officials discovered 10 plants, believed to be cannabis worth approximately $2,900. According to the report, the plants were growing under powerful hydroponic lights, next to a PlayStation console. Waylett, who has become a "Harry Potter" fan favorite, emerged from massive casting calls in the early part of the decade to land his role. A Slytherin student, Vincent Crabbe serves as one of Draco Malfoy's minions but is as helped by his size as he is fatally flawed by his dimness. An accomplice to the Death Eaters, Crabbe's wizard powers — and his distaste for Harry — increase throughout the "Potter" series. The actor, whose film career thus far has been only in the "Potter" films, is due in court sometime in July. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" hits theaters worldwide that very same month. |
| The Fray Introduce 'The Fray Live' iPhone Application Posted: 08 Apr 2009 04:01 AM PDT 'The app has all kinds of little tricks and whistles,' frontman Isaac Slade says.
On Tuesday, the Fray joined the ranks of Lil Wayne, Fall Out Boy and other artists with mobile apps by adding their own custom experience for the iPhone and iPod Touch. "The cell phone is the new lighter," frontman Isaac Slade said. With almost 80 percent of all teens in the world owning a cell phone and using it to view media, it's essential for artists to have mobile applications in order to remain relevant with fans. Album sales may be down overall, but digital-download sales continue to rise, thanks in part to mobile devices. Artists are building relationships with online music communities such as iLike, Meebo and Pandora to ensure that they can be "liked" and "suggested," counting on word-of-mouth to reach new fans. iTunes' proprietary relationship to the iPhone makes it a one-stop shop for artists to promote their apps, and the Fray are no exception. (View "The Fray Live" screen shots in our photo gallery.) "I'm happy about what iTunes is doing to help the music industry grow," Isaac wrote via e-mail. He hopes that fans will use their app to have more fun at shows during their tour this summer — and beyond. In addition to now-standard features such as tour information and photos, "The Fray Live" offers a unique feature that makes it stand out from the pack —-offering fans the ability to stream footage from Fray concerts all over the world. In addition to the live stream, "the app has all kinds of little tricks and whistles," Isaac teased. "You can check the schedule of shows, buy the tickets straight from the phone and there's even a light-audio-responder-player thingy. That's not its technical name." The "thingy" he's referring to is a unique feature on "The Fray Live," called the Live Visualizer — it's a tool that allows the user to create a personalized light show, with visuals responding to sound detected by iPhone's microphone. "It's great to be part of such an innovative concept," Slade said. The Fray have also launched an iTunes Pass. Fans who purchase the pass will get exclusive goodies delivered directly to their libraries, including six live songs from their iTunes Live From SoHo sessions and — available through August — a cover of Kanye West's "Heartless," exclusive music and video from their upcoming summer tour and much more. "The Fray Live" already contains so many features that the band was surprised when we suggested a component that currently isn't available — the ability to interact directly with fans through an integrated Twitter feed or proprietary direct-messaging system. "We should have that!" exclaimed Isaac. "Do we have to pay you for that idea?" The Fray just announced that their summer tour will kick off June 12 in Atlanta and will continue through August. The video for their next single, "Never Say Never," will debut later this month. Related Photos Related Artists |
| Yeah Yeah Yeahs Karen O Talks 'Where The Wild Things Are' Posted: 08 Apr 2009 03:28 AM PDT Singer talks about Spike Jonze's controversial film of Maurice Sendak's book.
Late last month, the Interwebs went berserk when the trailer for Spike Jonze's much-discussed "Where the Wild Things Are" premiered on Apple's Movie Trailer site. For some, it offered assurance that — despite some rather frightening advance press — the film would remain true to author Maurice Sendak's whimsical-yet-dark tone. To others, the re-recorded version of the Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" provided a sneak peek into the indie-riffic score, which was rumored to have been crafted by Yeah Yeah Yeahs' frontwoman Karen O and Deerhunter's Bradford Cox.
It was confirmed in the trailer that O and musician Carter Burwell would be tackling the "Wild Things" score ... but the YYY mouthpiece has kept mum about just what that score would sound like, and her involvement with the film — until Tuesday, that is. In London to promote the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' new album, It's Blitz, she was asked by MTV U.K. about the trailer, just how she came to be involved in the project, and the music she created for the "Wild Things" film. "I guess I got involved because of Spike, because I guess there is a childlike innocence about my music or my persona or whatever that he always just kind of dialed into," O said. "So I guess he thought I should make music for 'Where the Wild Things Are,' and [so] I kind of assembled a group of mostly rock musicians to make the music, including [YYY's guitarist/keyboardist] Nick [Zinner] and [YYYs drummer] Brian [Chase] to play on it. It was a really amazing experience." And just what will the "Wild Things" score sound like? Well, she wasn't about to divulge all her secrets. But she has seen the film, and she thinks long-suffering fans are going to love what Jonze has done with it — so long as they're prepared for the impossible. "What Spike has accomplished with the film is basically the impossible. There's a lot of stuff that they told me he couldn't do that he did anyway," she said. "It was a really inspiring and exciting thing to be a part of." Related Artists |
| Former MTV News Reporter Tabitha Soren Recalls Kurt Cobain's Death Posted: 08 Apr 2009 04:32 AM PDT 'I just remember thinking how huge of a loss this was, for everybody,' Soren says.
On April 8, 1994, former MTV News correspondent Tabitha Soren was in Seattle, on assignment for NBC News. Early in the morning, she heard a rumor that the body of Kurt Cobain had been discovered in a house near Lake Washington, dead of an apparent self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head. Within an hour, she was one of a handful of reporters — and an ever-growing throng of stunned, heartbroken Nirvana fans — standing outside the ring of police tape at Cobain and Courtney Love's gray clapboard home. She was at the epicenter of one of the biggest tragedies in rock history ... a death that changed everything. Here's what she remembers, 15 years later: "I was working on a story on heroin use in the Northwest for NBC. I was in a hotel, and I had a bunch of friends in common with Courtney Love, and those people informed me about what happened. ... I was never in the inner circle. I mean, Courtney was convinced that I had it out for her, so I always got a lot of negativity from them. So, I was an outsider. An outsider just trying to get an interesting story that other people didn't have. So I headed to Kurt and Courtney's house, and when I got there, they still hadn't pulled [Cobain's body] out of the greenhouse. There were tons and tons of fans there. No one could really believe what happened, and the last thing on earth that I wanted to do was re-victimize these kids who were already hurting. So I may have asked some of them some questions, I honestly don't remember.
"Then I had to go to the coroner's office and wait for the results of the autopsy, and it was like going from one hideous element to another. Having come from local news, I covered fires and funerals and meat-and-potatoes local news stories, but this was the first time I really felt like a vulture, because Kurt was important to me too. His death was a horrible waste, and I couldn't believe that so many people so close to him who were so smart couldn't save this guy. It was such a mess. ... I was just really despondent. This was someone whose music moved me, and I've never been that close to the action ... just staring at a house and there's this little room inside and they're pulling the body out and Courtney was reading this letter aloud for the fans ... it was very, very sad. I can cover perp walks and shootings, no problem, because they're different. Because I wasn't quite as intimate with the people involved. "I just remember thinking how huge of a loss this was, for everybody. I thought Nirvana was a great band — you could listen to the songs over and over again and hear something new each time. The songs grabbed you at the first listen, but then there was always something else ... layers. There was a complexity there. His death was a tremendous loss. It was very sad. They were honest about their music, and they tried to share the spotlight with so many bands who they really loved and who they thought should be heard. There was a kindness and an honesty in that. It's still impressive to me." Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists |
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