MTV News |
- Lady Gaga Tells Fans 'It's OK' To Be A Freak
- Adam Lambert Explains American Music Awards Performance Frame By Frame
- Rihanna Celebrates Album Release With Jay-Z, Diddy, More
- 50 Cent Brushes Off Soft Sales For <i>Before I Self-Destruct</i>
- Shakira Explains Her 'Did It Again' Video, Frame By Frame
- Damon Dash Brings Artists Together With DD172
- Adam Lambert Still Floored By His AMA 'Ninja Roll'
- Lady Gaga Explains Inspiration Behind Beyonce Collabo, 'Telephone'
- Shakira Shares Her 'Rock And Roll Heart' With MTV News In 2001
| Lady Gaga Tells Fans 'It's OK' To Be A Freak Posted: 25 Nov 2009 08:04 AM PST Singer says she hopes fans 'feel like they have a freak in me to hang out with' in appearance on 'Ellen DeGeneres Show.'
With her flamboyant outfits and stage persona, Lady Gaga certainly doesn't look like a traditional pop star. She admits that she finally feels cool with being that kooky person after years of trying to figure out how to fit in. And, as always, she says it's all about pleasing her fans. "The whole point of what I do — the Monster Ball, the music, the performance aspect of it — I want to create a space for my fans where they can feel free and they can celebrate," she said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" airing Friday. "I didn't fit in in high school, and I felt like a freak. So I like to create this atmosphere for my fans where they feel like they have a freak in me to hang out with and they don't feel alone." Gaga, who sang her singles "Bad Romance" and "Speechless" off her album The Fame Monster, added that she isn't acting the part of Lady Gaga as some gimmick. This is really her, whether you get it or not. "This is really who I am, and it took a long time to be OK with that," she explained. "Maybe in high school you, Ellen, you feel discriminated against. Like you don't fit in and you want to be like everyone else but not really, and in the inside you want to be like Boy George — well, I did anyway. So I want my fans to know that it's OK. Sometimes in life you don't always feel like a winner, but that doesn't mean you're not a winner. You want to be like yourself. ... I want my fans to know it's OK." Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists |
| Adam Lambert Explains American Music Awards Performance Frame By Frame Posted: 25 Nov 2009 06:36 AM PST Singer takes us through every controversial, planned and improvised moment of the show.
As it turns out, two of the most controversial moments of Adam Lambert's American Music Awards performance on Sunday night were total ad libs. That's what Lambert told MTV News on Tuesday, when he sat down to discuss the show-closing set that turned him into a global Internet sensation all over again.
"That wasn't in the original choreography," Lambert explained of the bit where he took a male dancer's head and shoved it into his crotch to mimic oral sex. "I was supposed to look at him, and I just grabbed him. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think he would have been cool with it. ... It might look real forceful, but we all respect each other and were doing it in the name of the show." Lambert also said that he didn't know he was going to grab keyboard player Tommy Ratliff and give him a rather full-mouth kiss near the end of the run through "For Your Entertainment," the title track to Lambert's just-released major-label debut. "During rehearsal, I grab him by the hair and kind of just looked at him," he said, adding that the keyboardist is not married, as had been rumored, but is definitely straight. "He's straight. He just, I guess, didn't mind getting kissed in the name of entertainment on stage." Though everyone was talking about Jennifer Lopez's fall on Monday morning, Lambert walked us through his own tumble, which the musical-theater veteran almost managed to play off as part of the show. "My foot got caught on the stair, and I hit the platform and I didn't know what was going on," he said of the fall, after which he did a forward roll, picked up a cane and fondled a female dancer while getting back to his feet within seconds. "[I thought], 'OK, I have to get up and turn around.' I felt like when you spray a cockroach and its legs are up in the air ... At that point the adrenaline was like, 'Oh my God, I just fell ... ahhhh!' " Lambert noted that near the beginning of his appearance, ABC censors dropped out the audio and cut away from him when he gestured to his crotch, saying that he didn't use any foul language, but someone with an itchy bleep finger simply jumped the gun. "They got scared," he said. Censors also managed to cut away to avoid showing Lambert giving the finger to all the haters. In retrospect, he also had to laugh a bit at the moment when he pushed through a mirrored doorway. "Now that I look at it, that moment there of the door, flinging the door open ... it's a good symbol," he said. Of all the things that went wrong or in a different direction than he planned, Lambert seemed most annoyed by what he said were the poor acoustics in the Nokia Live Theatre, which may explain why some critics complained that his vocals were a bit pitchy and off. "The Nokia Theatre has really crappy acoustics, actually," said Lambert, who also tweeted to gossip blogger Perez Hilton about his acoustical problems. "When you hear an album or you're even at a concert, or anywhere that you're in an acoustic space, there's echo from the room and that makes the sound sound cool, it gives it space. [At the Nokia] it's just, like, dry. It's a dry mix, so it doesn't do anybody any favors. I heard some other performers weren't too happy with some of their sound either." On the positive side, Lambert was proud to reveal that the "Phantom of the Opera"-style, gothic piano intro to the performance was written by none other than famed David Bowie collaborator Mike Garson, who has also worked with Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt and the Smashing Pumpkins. Related Videos Related Artists |
| Rihanna Celebrates Album Release With Jay-Z, Diddy, More Posted: 25 Nov 2009 07:58 AM PST Singer's Rated R party marks the culmination of a month of heavy, soul-baring promotion.
NEW YORK — To quote a track from her just-released album, Rated R, the wait is over for Rihanna. The singer was feted at her album-release party in Manhattan on Tuesday night as Jay-Z, Diddy and Fabolous, among others, turned out at Juliet's Supper Club to celebrate Rihanna's first project since her February assault earlier this year by Chris Brown.
The Barbadian beauty arrived at the festivities fashionably late, just after 1 a.m., but the cameras were at the ready, capturing Rihanna's red-carpet strut. The fashion icon sported a shimmering gold micro-dress with long spikes sporadically jutting out all over and matching shoes. Rihanna was quickly escorted inside where DJ D-Nice was spinning tunes ranging from Jay-Z's "Run This Town" (featuring the guest of honor) to Maino's "Million Bucks" and, of course, RiRi's Young Jeezy collaboration, "Hard." Frequent Rihanna collaborator Sean Garrett said he was happy to support the Def Jam star. He said she took more control of this album, her fourth, and showed that she is not only resilient but also, at 21, she's more of a woman at this point in her career. "She was very, very picky [with this album]," Garrett told MTV News. "She was going through a lot, so I think her emotions were leaning to things that were closer to her heart as opposed to closer to the radio, to be real honest. And that's the sign of a real, true artist." The atmosphere remained festive both inside and outside the venue. Jay-Z, a longtime Rihanna advocate and supporter, arrived with Diddy in a black Maybach. Tyson Beckford, Rick Ross, DJ Clue, DJ Envy and New York Jets star Thomas Jones were also in attendance. Monday's Rated R release came on the heels of a media blitz that began with some very personal interviews with ABC's Diane Sawyer, Glamour magazine, Hot 97 and MTV News. The media appearances were her first since her assault as she broke her silence and explained in detail the attack and her desire to move on. She told MTV News that her album is the summation of her emotions in the aftermath of that fateful night. "This album is an expression of all those feelings that I went through in the last eight months, just different emotions," she explained. "All of it isn't angry, all of it isn't dark and sad, 'cause I didn't go through that the whole time. That was part of it. It was really a roller-coaster, and you get that when you're listening to the album." Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists |
| 50 Cent Brushes Off Soft Sales For <i>Before I Self-Destruct</i> Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:56 AM PST Rapper says online leak caused sales dip.
For a man who has talked big about sales figures for much of his career, 50 Cent seems to have had a change of heart when it comes to his latest, Before I Self-Destruct. The rapper's fourth solo album had the lowest opening week of his career, bowing at #5 on 160,000 sales, trailing his next-smallest debut, 2007's Curtis, by more than 500,000 copies. Self-Destruct did leak weeks before its release, causing a one-week push-up for the physical release and an even earlier release for the album's digital incarnation. And 50 doesn't appear to be sweating the sales dip. "For myself, I'm asking myself, 'What did you expect, bro? Your fans got it when it was available, at the first available opportunity,' " he said in an interview on DJ Green Lantern's Sirius Satellite radio show earlier this week, before the numbers were official. "For me this album is a prequel — it's full circle. When the energy around a project is the way this is, you can't really feel like it's a failure. Like, I look at the numbers and am like, 'What is this?' I've already assessed that the album has been out a month before its actual release period [due to an online leak, and the album's early digital release due to the leak]. So when you got that, you go, 'Well, what did you actually expect?' " In July of 2008, 50 predicted that Self-Destruct, then slated for a late 2008 release, would sell 1 million copies in its first week. He has recently been in the midst of a publicity blitz that has included a rash of promotional appearances and attempts to start one of his traditional pre-release beefs with a major rap figure, in this case Jay-Z. Considering that his 2003 debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin' sold 872,000 and nabbed the #1 spot in its first week and the 2005 sequel, The Massacre smashed the charts with 1.5 million in sales for a second consecutive top debut, in a season filled with major releases from the likes of Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, Rihanna, Lil Wayne, Susan Boyle and Beyoncé, Self-Destruct faces a tough market. Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists |
| Shakira Explains Her 'Did It Again' Video, Frame By Frame Posted: 24 Nov 2009 10:58 PM PST 'We mixed all these pieces together for the video,' singer says of Moroccan, British and Icelandic influences.
When you're an artist as, well, flexible as Shakira, every video presents a challenge: Just how do you top the last one? Over the years, Shakira has taken the art of over-the-top gyration to new heights, so much so that, at this point, anything less than a dance sequence resulting in a full hiatal hernia would be considered a letdown. And she knew this when she teamed with director Sophie Muller for her "Did It Again" clip.
The two scoured the globe to find inspiration for the video, taking cues from Moroccan dancers and 19th-century British painters, and recruiting a Florida-born dancer and an Icelandic choreographer for the project. How do we know all this? Well, we asked Shakira about the video, and she gave us the inside scoop — frame by frame. "It was a collaboration between this friend of mine who's a dancer, and me. She showed me this contemporary dance piece that was produced in Iceland. So we said, 'Hey, maybe we could do something like this for "Did It Again," ' " Shakira said. "So we brought this choreographer from Iceland from this contemporary dance company, and we worked on this piece. "And I decided to bring a little bit of this painter, [Lawrence] Alma-Tadema, who portrays women in these bathrooms, these Turkish bathrooms, and I wanted to bring a little bit of that poetic imagery to this video," she continued. "And I remember not too long ago having watched a few women turn their heads in a trans in Morocco. So we brought all these pieces — Moroccan women twirling and turning their heads, and the poetry from Alma-Tadema's paintings, plus this Icelandic contemporary dance piece — and we mixed all these pieces together for the video." It was a lot to cram into one video, and Shakira needed a male counterpart to pull it off. Luckily, she found a (more than) able body: Daniel "Cloud" Campos, a dancer who's worked with Madonna. "He's sick!" Shakira enthused. "What he does is unbelievable." But did she have any problem getting close to a guy she barely knew? Not really — as she put it, people often do more with folks they know even less. "[We worked on the routine] for a few days," Shakira laughed. "Hey, some people just get in bed after one night." Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists |
| Damon Dash Brings Artists Together With DD172 Posted: 24 Nov 2009 11:41 PM PST Mos Def, RZA, the Black Keys can be found collaborating at the hip-hop mogul's new art gallery/ music studio.
Damon Dash recently took MTV News on a tour of his new Lower Manhattan art gallery/ studio compound, DD172. It's weird to think that the shirtless guy exposing his six-pack abs and splashing models with Armadale vodka in the "Big Pimpin' " video has an art gallery, but Dame would like to broaden the definition of a hip-hop mogul. "I've always loved art and wanted to get involved in it," he said. "I'm always trying to do different new things and things that don't define what the perception of a hip-hop cat is. We don't only do the things they perceive us to do. We're pretty sophisticated."
One artist Dame said he's a big fan of is Graham Gilmore, whose work he's been buying since he made his first couple of dollars. Dame was excited to show MTV News Gilmore's work around his studio compound, saying that he finally ran into the Canadian artist at another friend's art studio. "I felt, like, some special artist connection to him. ... [I said,] 'It would be an honor, actually, if I could have some of your art in my gallery.' All of them have a real specific meaning and come from a place in his heart. I wish he was here to explain all of these, because I can't." Dame is more comfortable explaining the musical side of things. Once you get past the art gallery in the front, the DD172 space is devoted to music, a television network and a magazine. Another of the intellectual properties coming out of Dame's studio compound is his collaboration with Ohio blues-rock group the Black Keys, BlakRoc. The project features Mos Def, RZA, Jim Jones and Q-Tip, and will be released on Black Friday, November 27. Dame said each artist had proven himself as a brand in hip-hop but had never worked with the others. "People don't work together in the hip-hop community, but right now I'm working with Mos, I'm working with Jim Jones, I'm working with RZA, I'm working with Raekwon, I'm working with U-God, like why not? We're always supposed to share our resources." He said there are all kinds of different artistic people teaming up at DD172. New Orleans rapper Curren$y, Mars Volta drummer Thomas Pridgen and Voodoo Farm guitarist Sean O'Connell are collaborating under the name the Muscle Car Chronicles. On any other day, Curren$y could be working with Mos Def and Jay Electronica. "I'm a home body," Curren$y said. "I be in the N.O., but I've been out here for a month, just chilling, just grindin', just because of the vibe of this." "We call this 'The 24-Hour Karate School,' 'The Super Friends,' all that. It's really a place where dudes can come kick it, get artistic, catch a vibe," Dame said. "We just get to build and chill and grow." Related Videos Related Artists |
| Adam Lambert Still Floored By His AMA 'Ninja Roll' Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:56 AM PST Singer says his onstage fall felt 'like when you spray a cockroach.'
Adam Lambert shocked fans by kissing his bandmate, dancing provocatively and giving the finger to his critics during his performance of "For Your Entertainment" at the American Music Awards. But he also impressed and amused several of those watching by managing to play off his stumble atop a stage riser like an old pro.
Nope, that tumble wasn't rehearsed; it was a good, old-fashioned fall. "Literally, as it happened my foot got caught in the stair," Lambert told MTV News. "I hit the platform, and I didn't know what was going on. ... I felt like when you spray a cockroach, and its legs are up in the air. That's what I felt I looked like." Perhaps he had felt inspired by Jennifer Lopez's fall earlier in the evening. Though fans may have thought his somersault was planned, at the time he felt a bit foolish. "And I'm like, 'I bet I look so ridiculously crazy,' " he recalled. "And when I went back and watched it, I was like, 'Oh, ninja roll, cool! That worked out.' " And contrary to appearances, Lambert said he has no experience whatsoever in the ninja arts. "No ninja roll experience," he joked. "I don't know where that came from. I'm lucky I didn't roll off the stage. I don't know how that happened. It was amazing. "I just can't believe that I was up by the next lyric," he marveled. "That was crazy." Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists |
| Lady Gaga Explains Inspiration Behind Beyonce Collabo, 'Telephone' Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:58 AM PST '[I fear] never being able to enjoy myself,' Gaga says of the song's theme.
Two of today's biggest divas, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, got sexy in the latter's "Video Phone" clip, with Gaga even embracing her inner B for the shoot. But the duo conquer a slightly more serious theme — Lady Gaga's fear of suffocation — on her song "Telephone," off her new LP, The Fame Monster.
Gaga, despite her penchant for making dance-floor-friendly pop, said she actually has a hard time just letting loose and having fun. Why? "Fear of suffocation — something that I have or fear is never being able to enjoy myself," she told MTV News. " 'Cause I love my work so much, I find it really hard to go out and have a good time." Although it may be hard to believe because of her glitzy persona, the singer insists her life does not consist of jumping from nightclub to nightclub. "I don't go to nightclubs," she said. "You don't see pictures of me falling out of a club drunk. I don't go — and that's because I usually go and then, you know, a whiskey and a half into it, I got to get back to work." And she told us the phone on the song isn't just a physical phone, but also that person in her head telling her to keep working harder and harder. "That's my fear — that the phone's ringing and my head's ringing," she explained. "Whether it's a telephone or it's just the thoughts in your head, that's another fear." Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists |
| Shakira Shares Her 'Rock And Roll Heart' With MTV News In 2001 Posted: 24 Nov 2009 11:12 PM PST 'I just don't wanna be put in the same category of the Latin boom,' singer said.
In July 2001, Shakira hadn't yet become the global sensation that she is today — she was still working to hit the mainstream in the U.S. Nearly a decade later, Shakira has released her latest effort, She Wolf, and she's officially become a superstar in the States. But back then there seemed to be a new Latin artist hitting the American music market causing a stir and then fading out.
"I just don't wanna be put in the same category of the Latin boom," she said in 2001, in one of her first interviews with MTV News. "Because a boom, what is a boom? An explosion. And, what's after an explosion: the ashes. So I don't want to be a part of the ashes." At the time, the singer was 24 years old and on the brink of releasing her English-language debut, Laundry Service, which spawned hits like "Whenever, Wherever," "Underneath Your Clothes" and "Objection (Tango)." And even then, her cross-genre goals were clear. "I think I'm a pop artist," she said. "I always say I have a rock and roll heart." In the interview, Shakira also recalled her early days as an entertainer. "I was a 13-year-old girl singing her own songs a capella and crossing her finger and praying to get a contract," she said. Related Photos Related Artists |
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