Jumat, 31 Juli 2009

MTV News

MTV News


Eminem Slams Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon In New Dis Track, 'The Warning'

Posted: 30 Jul 2009 07:32 AM PDT

The battle that began with 'Bagpipes From Baghdad' and continued with 'Obsessed' continues.
By Shaheem Reid


Eminem
Photo: MTV News

When will it end? No time soon, apparently.

The battle pitting Eminem against Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon — which began with Em's "Bagpipes From Baghdad" and continued with Carey's "Obsessed" — took another turn Thursday night (July 30), when Slim Shady dropped a new dis track against Mariah called "The Warning."

Before he starts rapping, Em tells Carey, "Only reason I dissed you in the first place is because you denied seeing me. Now I'm pissed off."

He doesn't stop there. "You wanna hear something wick wack?/ I got the same exact tattoo that's on Nick's back," the Detroit MC says a few seconds into his rap.

"Oh gee, is that supposed to be me in the video with the goatee?/ Wow Mariah, didn't expect ya to go b---s out./ B---h, shut the f--- up before I put all those phone calls out/ When you was wilding out/ Before Nick, when you was on my di--."

From there, Em goes onto graphically describe what he alleges was his one full sexual encounter with Carey, labels her a "liar" and other ugly names, and threatens to reveal personal pictures and phones messages he has of the Carey. Eminem then plays bits of what sounds like it could be Carey's voice at the end of song: The unidentified woman refers to herself as "Mary Poppins."

"[If] you gonna ruin my career, you better get one," Em advises Nick Cannon.

In recent weeks, all three parties have denied any hard feelings: When asked about his angry blog post about "Baghdad," Cannon emphasized there was never any beef; Em has the song's lyrics were "misinterpreted"; Carey and Cannon both denied that the male-stalker character she plays in the new video for "Obsessed" — a character with a striking resemblance to Eminem — was supposed to be a parody of Slim Shady.

Carey has denied having a previous relationship with Eminem; Eminem has insisted there was one.

"My wife doesn't beef," Cannon told MTV News recently. "She's Mariah Carey. She's not beefin', she's a vegetarian. People keep saying ['Obsessed'] was directed at certain people. To be completely honest, she did the record 'cause she's a huge fan of this movie 'Mean Girls,' and there's a line in the movie where one of the girls is like, 'Why are you so obsessed with me?' She says that at the beginning of the song, and that's where the concept came from. But, you know, art imitates life."

Carey told MTV News, "Everybody started having their own speculations about who the stalker [in the video] was. I'm like, look, when I look at that stalker and me with the beard and the whole nine yards, I look like my cousin Chris. I do. I look like my brother and my cousin Chris. So basically, you know, all the speculation about who I'm playing in the video, it's not accurate."

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Tony Yayo Premieres 'Streets Keep Calling Me' Video

Posted: 31 Jul 2009 03:50 AM PDT

Watch the new clip for the Public Enemies track right here, in Mixtape Daily.
By Shaheem Reid


Cormega and Tony Yayo
Photo: MTV News

The Unveiling: Tony Yayo's 'Streets Keep Calling Me'

Today, we bring you the debut of a new viral video by Tony Yayo called "Streets Keep Calling Me." The clip features fellow Queens giant Cormega and is off Yayo's Public Enemies mixtape.

"The Internet is everything for me," Yayo said about putting out music and accompanying visuals on the Web. His videos, like the one for "Candy Man," have been viewed millions of times on ThisIs50.com. "Fif is a smart dude. He has the power to see stuff ahead of time. So it's like, I'm seeing how hard he's going with the Internet — MTV.com and all these other dot-coms, that's poppin' right now. It's the plateau to get yourself out. Before, artists had to pay to get the music out. This is my plateau right now, so I'm going hard."

Public Enemies is Yayo's third mixtape in just a few months.

"The way we had it in '03, 04, I'll never forget that the mixtapes made who we are," Tony explained. "I feel like a whole new artist. I feel like I'm starting all over again. The mixtapes were crazy. I'm still in the 'hood with it.

"It's just everything you're doing yourself," he added about the difference between making his own mixtapes and working on G-Unit projects. "When you got perfectionists like Eminem, Lloyd Banks, 50 Cent and [Dr.] Dre in the studio, you learn a lot from them. I seen 50 say lines 20 times over. The same line. He learned that from Dre and Eminem. I feel the pressure of them still being there. I want the mixtapes to come out right, and I want 50 to be impressed, as well as Banks. It's the same kinda feeling, just a little more pressure, 'cause you wanna make sure everything is good."

For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines.

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Drake Refused Kanye West's Offer To Remake 'Best I Ever Had' Video

Posted: 30 Jul 2009 12:15 AM PDT

'I just wanted to laugh,' Drake says of clip featuring women's basketball team.
By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Sway Calloway


Drake
Photo: MTV News

Some fans liked it, some fans were scratching their heads after the debut of Drake's "Best I Ever Had" video last month. Some in the blogosphere said the clip's buxom female basketball team did nothing but cater to the male audience without matching the theme of the song; others just thought it wasn't all that creative. And a couple of bloggers even went so far as to suggest that director Kanye West sabotaged Drake's production.

In fact, Drake told MTV News that West offered to shoot another video for the song, and he declined. He noted that receiving mixed reviews of his clip was a great lesson.

"That career move was very important to me," he explained at the America's Most Wanted Music Festival kickoff in Scranton, Pennsylvania. "We've done such a great job of building it all up. It's kind of like people were getting this impression of me that I'm never gonna make a mistake. I'm not made of Teflon. I'm gonna do things for myself sometimes, as opposed to what people want me to do."

Drake said the abundance of big-breasted women in the video didn't put up any red flags that the video would offend anyone. He enjoyed the final cut of the video and thought it was right on point.

"If you listen to the song, I'm not saying the most graceful thing in the world. It's not the most heartfelt song," Drizzy continued. "I say some pretty wild things in regards to women in the actual song. When me and Kanye were in the studio working on a song for Big Sean, we were talking about it. We saw a comedic element to it. I felt that the climate in the world right now, everything in the world is so serious all the time, my life is serious, I just wanted to laugh, instead of taking myself too serious as the heartthrob and walking hand-in-hand into the movies and taking my shirt off. I felt it's not that time for me yet. Or maybe never. I'm a very multifaceted person. One thing I told 'Ye is, 'I really want to act. I want to act in this video.' "

Kanye convinced him that the only way to be humorous was to go all the way with it and make it a full on funny video.

"I guess one thing I didn't consider is what the song personally means to a lot of women," Drake said. "To those women, I apologize. I do apologize. My intention wasn't to put anyone down. It was to make them laugh. I wanted people to see something visually different."

Don't worry, Drake, judging by your reception at Monday's AMW show, the fans still love you.

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Shakira Summons Her Inner 'She Wolf' In Eye-Popping New Video

Posted: 30 Jul 2009 04:17 AM PDT

Singer does amazing body contortions in first clip from her forthcoming LP, She Wolf.
By James Montgomery


Shakira in "She Wolf"
Photo: Sony

On Thursday (July 30), Shakira premiered her brand-new, much-anticipated "She Wolf" video on MTV.com (and at 8 p.m. on MTV). And having now watched it about 15 times, I'm hard-pressed to say more than "Wow!" Seriously, it's one people will be talking about for a long time.

Why? Well, basically because it's either the most insanely brilliant (or brilliantly insane) song you'll hear in 2009. The beat could best be described as a gloriously slinky update on every Italian disco tune recorded in 1979: all slithering beats, funky bass, horny horns, snapping snares and even a handclap or 13. Lyrically, there's the fact that Shakira uses the term "lycanthropy" and, seconds later, compares herself to a coffee machine (both of which are surely firsts in the history of pop music). Oh, and in the chorus, she howls at the moon.

Somewhat inexplicably/ unexpectedly, the song was co-written by John Hill — who helmed portions of Santigold's debut disc — and Sam Endicott, the frontman from the Bravery. "She Wolf" is reportedly a taste of what's to come from Shakira's new album, which hits stores in October and also features production work from Pharrell and Wyclef Jean. Shakira has gone on record saying she drew inspiration from Canadian electro-act Crystal Castles (who are infamous for drinking blood and doing stuff like this at shows) for the record. So, needless to say, it should be interesting.

Anyway, that's all the nerdy music journo stuff. Here's a major reason why "She Wolf" is so eye-catching: Shakira's posterior. She's already touted her hips, but, really, her booty is the breakout star of the video. It pops, locks, drops, sways and — in one key scene — seems to swell to nearly three times its original size.

"I start doing all kinds of outrageous stuff and hanging upside down and doing stuff that wasn't planned," Shakira told MTV News about the video. "But it was kind of an improvisation. I just got caught in the moment."

Really, Shakira has taken the art of body-contorting to new (somewhat unsettling) highs in "She Wolf." She herks and jerks, folds herself in half, torques vertebrae, lifts legs over her head, pops her shoulders in and out of their sockets, hangs upside down, nearly topples over ... the list goes on and on. She out-dances everyone in the business, and even manages to out-Beyoncé Beyoncé.

And really, that's what "She Wolf" reminds me most of: a really great, really crazy Beyoncé tune (like "Single Ladies," or, more recently, "Sweet Dreams"). The beat is great, the moves otherwordly (not to mention painful-looking), the vocal ticks are inexplicable. This song is batsh-- and brilliant, too. Without a doubt, Shakira is back, and badder (or at least battier) than ever.

Your move, Beyoncé ...

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Green Day And Pink To Perform At 2009 VMAs

Posted: 30 Jul 2009 07:31 AM PDT

Katy Perry, Ne-Yo and Chace Crawford will be presenters at 26th annual show on September 13.
By Eric Ditzian


Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong
Photo: Jason Kempin/ Getty Images

Secure the stage floor and reinforce the windows: Green Day and Pink are coming to the live MTV Video Music Awards as we take over New York City for the 26th annual show live on Sunday, September 13, at 9 p.m. ET. And in addition to the growing list of musical performers, we can also announce the first of our celebrity presenters: Katy Perry, Ne-Yo and Chace Crawford.

"We are excited to be performing at the Video Music Awards," Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said. "You never know what's going to happen, and it's always a memorable experience for us."

In the band's first VMA appearance since 2005, Green Day will perform a song off their new album, 21st Century Breakdown. Three tracks from that album—"21 Guns," "Know Your Enemy" and "East Jesus Nowhere"— are also available for "Rock Band" download.

Coming off her 2008 VMA rendition of "So What," Pink will take the stage this year to sing a track from her multiplatinum album Funhouse. The two acts join previously announced performers Taylor Swift and Muse.

"Last year, I got to jump out of a window at the VMAs in L.A.," Pink recalled. "This year, I can't wait to blow the roof off Radio City in New York."

After hosting a fantastically controversy-filled VMA show in 2008, Russell Brand will reprise his emcee duties live for the second straight year, as the awards take place in New York for the 14th time in the show's history.

The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards will take place September 13 at 9 p.m. ET. Nominees, celebrity presenters and additional performers will be announced in the coming weeks. To be the first to find out the inside scoop, follow the Inside MTV Twitter account at Twitter.com/InsideMTV.

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Katherine Jackson To Retain Custody Of Michael Jackson's Children

Posted: 29 Jul 2009 10:52 PM PDT

Debbie Rowe will be granted visitation rights, according to custody arrangement.
By Gil Kaufman


Paris Jackson, Katherine Jackson and Prince Michael Jackson
Photo: Kevin Mazur/ Getty Images

Attorneys for Michael Jackson's mother, Katherine, and the singer's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, released a joint statement Thursday (July 30) announcing the details of a custody arrangement for the late singer's children.

The custody plan, which applies only to the two oldest, Prince Michael, 12, and Paris Michael, 11 — who were conceived while Jackson and Rowe were briefly married — will have Katherine Jackson acting as their guardian. Rowe will have visitation rights for the two oldest, with the "timing, frequency and manner of visits ... implemented according to the best interests of the children, as determined by a child psychologist selected jointly, and paid jointly, by Katherine Jackson and Deborah Rowe."

According to the statement, the agreement will be presented for approval to the Los Angeles Superior Court judge handling the custody case at a hearing scheduled for Monday. Despite previous reports, the agreement does not involve any money changing hands. "The parties have neither sought nor agreed to any compensation to be exchanged, apart from the continuation of spousal-support payments that had previously been personally agreed to between Michael Jackson and Deborah Rowe," the statement reads.

Jackson had a third child, Prince Michael II (a.k.a. Blanket), born to a surrogate mother whose identity has never been revealed and who does not appear to be seeking custody. Jackson's father, Joseph Jackson, also claimed in an interview Wednesday that his son had a fourth child, 25-year-old Omer Bhatti, who was born after a one-night stand in the early 1980s; Bhatti has reportedly denied those allegations.

L. Londell McMillan, the attorney for Katherine Jackson, said of the agreement: "Mrs. Jackson and the family are pleased this matter is resolved and was handled in a caring, thoughtful and courteous manner by the parties and their representatives. We were all united in our goals to do what is best for Michael's wonderful children, and both Mrs. Jackson and Debbie Rowe were on the exact same page. Accordingly, although important issues had to be resolved, this was no legal contest but rather simply a process doing the right thing for the right reasons."

Eric M. George, an attorney for Rowe (who met Jackson when she served as the nurse at his dermatologist's office), said, "The parties engaged in a dignified discussion that resulted in a dignified outcome. The sole consideration between the parties was the best interests of the children. I'm proud to have worked with such professionals who represented Ms. Jackson, and I am particularly proud of Deborah for her integrity and selflessness."

Following Jackson's death at age 50 on June 25, Katherine Jackson, 79, was named the children's temporary guardian. Rowe and the singer were married, but following their split in 1999, she gave up parental rights to them and has reportedly not been involved in raising them. Jackson's will called for his mother to take care of the children, and though Rowe was reportedly interested in taking a stronger hand in their care following his passing, she received a financial settlement from Michael Jackson when they divorced in 2000, agreeing to give up parental rights. Those rights were reinstated in 2005 by a judge, and the former couple settled that custody dispute in 2006 under undisclosed terms, with Jackson retaining primary custody of the children.

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Blink-182's Mark Hoppus Grills Motion City Soundtrack About New LP

Posted: 30 Jul 2009 12:46 AM PDT

Hoppus, who produced album, even got band to reveal its top-secret title.
By James Montgomery


Motion City Soundtrack's Justin Pierre and Mark Hoppus
Photo: MTV News

To put it mildly, Blink-182 bassist Mark Hoppus is on a roll. He's taken part in the reunion of one of the hugest acts of the past decade; created a line of ultra-limited, mollusk-related hard-drives; launched a sure-to-be successful tour; and worked with a couple of the brightest up-and-coming acts in the business (All Time Low and Motion City Soundtrack).

Seriously, the guy can multitask.

So it came as no surprise that last week, when MTV News was in Las Vegas for the kickoff of Blink's reunion tour, he decided that he should interview Motion City Soundtrack — the night's opening act, and a band he's worked with in the past — because, you know, he can!

Of course, we let him do it — and it turned out that he was really good. So good, in fact, that he got the guys in MCS to reveal the top-secret title of their upcoming album (which Hoppus produced), by employing an old trick we professional journalists like to call "the bum rush."

"I just worked with them and produced their new record, which is titled My Dinosaur Life," Hoppus said right off the bat. "Is that what it's called?"

"I think so," MCS frontman Justin Pierre responded, a little bit dumbfounded. "Currently we're having inter-band discussions between This Dinosaur Life, My Dinosaur Life, This Is My Dinosaur Life, His Dinosaur Life, Her Dinosaur Life, Their Dinosaur Lives. But I'm partial to My."

"I think My is good," Hoppus shot back. "Can we firm it up right now? My Dinosaur Life."

And firmed up it was. So, having just shocked the band into revealing one closely guarded secret, Hoppus got right to work on prying another bit of information from the band: Perhaps getting them to say something shocking about the new record? (What we in the biz call the "pull quote.") And once again, he struck gold.

"I think it's an awesome record," guitarist Joshua Crain said. "It's definitely a step up. Not that Commit This to Memory [the band's breakthrough 2005 effort] is a bad record, I love that record. I just feel that we got a little more aggro on this one."

Emboldened, Hoppus then moved in for the kill.

"What was it like to have two gnarly, defining rock moment milestones in your career," he asked, clearly setting the trap. "Commit This to Memory and My Dinosaur Life — both that are almost as big as Nirvana?"

"Words can't really express it. I'm stumped," Pierre said. "You know what, though? It feels good. One day, with a little help, you guys can get there."

What can we say? Hoppus is a total pro. Is there nothing he can't do?

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Spencer Smith Explains Why Panic! At The Disco Brought Back The '!'

Posted: 30 Jul 2009 02:43 AM PDT

Drummer says exclamation point reinforces that band 'is not breaking up, it's still going.'
By James Montgomery


Panic! at the Disco's Spencer Smith
Photo: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images

It was the one question that dogged Panic! at the Disco the entire time they were promoting 2008's Pretty. Odd. album: Why did they decide to drop the exclamation point from their name?

In retrospect, it seems like a pretty dumb thing to focus on — especially since Pretty. Odd. was pretty great — but when Panic! became plain, old Panic, it turned into one gigantic, yearlong headache for the guys in the band.

"It's amazing because we never necessarily got asked about it that much when it was in there," drummer Spencer Smith told MTV News. "And then all of a sudden, we decided to take it away for Pretty. Odd., and we were asked about that in, I think, every interview for a couple months."

So after having to answer pointed, punctuation-related questions for the better part of a year, why on Earth did Smith and frontman Brendon Urie decided to bring the exclamation point back? Well, as it turns out, for old time's sake.

"For me and Brendon, there were aspects of our first album that did sort of go away on Pretty. Odd. that we'd like to bring back to our band. There's some theatricality and some different styles of music, and we want to make a record that is drawing from both our previous albums," Smith said. "And it just seemed like it would be a fun thing for our fans. Hopefully, there's less of a big deal [made] about it coming back than there was about it going away. It seems like a new chapter, so having that as part of the band seemed like something we could bring back ... to reinforce that Panic! at the Disco is not breaking up, it's still going."

And they are still very much going. Earlier in the week, Smith and Urie premiered "New Perspective," their first single since parting ways with guitarist Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker. It draws from the shiny, pop stuff they explored on their breakthrough A Fever You Can't Sweat Out disc, but it also hints at some of that "theatricality" Smith mentioned.

"It is a side of the new songs we're doing. It's nice to bridge the gap between what we were doing and the music we'll hopefully put out in the beginning of next year," he explained. "We're sort of figuring out what we want our record to be. We've demoed 10 or 11 songs, and it's everything from sort-of Frank Sinatra-style songs to, like, some of the electronic stuff we had on our first record, and, you know, the theatrical stuff, sort of like Queen, and then there's rock and roll stuff, too. Stuff like the Who. We're sort of figuring out what Panic! at the Disco is with me and Brendon."

And now that the exclamation point is back for good, we've gotta ask: Whose idea was it to include it in the name in the first place?

"I think Ryan may have brought it up, I don't remember, it was a few years ago. Ryan had put it on our PureVolume site — before we got signed, before Pete heard any of our songs — he typed it that way on the site, saying, 'Oh, that would be a cool thing,' and it completely stuck," Smith laughed. "I always thought it was a cool thing, but I think he always had a thing where, like, it wasn't actually supposed to be part of the name, so maybe it was him who brought up losing it. I don't know. Hopefully people won't freak out about it again."

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Shakira Says She Got 'Caught In The Moment' Filming 'She Wolf' Video

Posted: 30 Jul 2009 01:16 AM PDT

Her wild new video premieres at 8 p.m. tonight on MTV and MTV.com.
By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Tim Kash


Shakira
Photo: MTV News

Shakira in a flesh-toned swimsuit, thrashing around in a golden cage, hanging upside down from the shimmering bars. Shakira reaching out her fingernails to claw you as she flexes and struts inside a sparkling ruby-red cave. What?

It's the pop star's brand-new video for her single "She Wolf," naturally, which premiered Thursday (July 30), and as she told us recently, "I got new moves!"

New ones? The 32-year-old has been making a living by popping off a dizzying array of shaking, shimmying and belly-dancing acrobatics onstage and in videos since she was a teenager in Colombia. No one would complain if she busted out some old faves. After all, those old moves are some pretty fine ones. But a new album — her She Wolf comes out in October — brings with it the impulse to find fresh ways to dance.

"The music sort of dictates them to me," she said. "Every song has the moves within it. Just like the rock has the shape of the sculpture within the rock. You just have to go find it."

So how does Shakira find it? Sometimes she creates a one-woman movie studio. "I set up a camera on a tripod, and I put the music on, and I just start dancing and moving and whatever comes out, that's what I try to recapture again," she said. "For my videos and so on."

For "She Wolf," Shakira incorporates elements of ballet, popping and locking, tribal dance and moves that are reminiscent of those in the '80s drama "Flashdance." One thing is clear: Shakira is crazy flexible, and the metaphor of the she-wolf — "the woman at daytime and the animal at night," she explained — has given the singer an opportunity to express herself in a way she never has before.

"This woman starts a journey going into her own closet," she said, explaining the video's concept. "She is in this surreal kind of world where other fun things happen. She's just having fun. And there is also this other metaphor of the cage — the golden cage and the woman.

"I just wanted to express what it feels like for a she-wolf to be in captivity," she continued. "To be in a golden cage. I think I've been in a golden cage most of my life. And now not anymore."

But briefly, when Shakira stepped back into that cage, she seemed to connect with something deeper within herself. "I start doing all kinds of outrageous stuff and hanging upside down and doing stuff that wasn't planned," she said. "But it was kind of an improvisation. I just got caught in the moment."

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