Archive: September 2011 (111-120 of 132)

Sep 7 2011 04:50 PM ET

Rapper-actor Mos Def announces he will change his name in 2012

Categories: Hip-Hop/Rap, Movies
Mos-Def

Image Credit: Charley Gallay/Getty Images

Following a lengthy line of rappers that have hung up their show names, rapper Mos Def says he’s definitely giving up his rhyme alias come 2012.

Last Saturday at Governors Island for Rock the Bells, where he was performing as one half of Black Star, the artist born Dante Smith revealed that he’s changing his name to Yasiin. After more than a decade in the business, though, he won’t be mad is you slip up and call him “Mos.”

“No, no, not at all,” he said to MTV. “’Mos Def’ is a name that I built and cultivated through the years… I feel that I’ve done quite a bit with that name. It’s time to expand and move on.”

By “move on,” he’s likely referring to his promising career as an actor. He’s already starred in movies like The Italian Job, Cadillac Records, and 16 Blocks. He’s also set to begin a stint on the next season of Dexter.

He’s usually credited as Mos Def during cast listings. But his several identities will soon just be that one.

“I also don’t want to have to deal with having any moniker or any separation between the self that I see and what [people refer to me as],” he continued.

At press time, his publicist wasn’t able to confirm what Mos’ full name will be after it’s changed or if he’ll simply just be Yasiin.

To varying degrees of significance, other rappers have changed their names. T.I was originally Tip, but changed his name because Q-Tip was signed to his label first. The Wu Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard changed up his grimy name after an epiphany of sorts to Big Baby Jesus. And Bad Boy label head Sean Combs arrived at Diddy, following Puff Daddy and P. Diddy because, well, because he felt like it.

Who’s name change do you appreciate the most? Let us know.

Read more:
Rock the Bells: Lauryn Hill, Nas, Erykah Badu and more live at NYC’s Governors Island
EW’s review of Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star

Sep 7 2011 02:40 PM ET

Needtobreathe, 'The Reckoning' -- an EW Exclusive stream from the Taylor Swift tour openers' upcoming album

NEEDTOBREATHE

How did you spend your summer?

South Carolina rockers Needtobreathe passed theirs on the road opening up for a little country up ‘n’ comer named Taylor Swift, and now they’re preparing to release their fourth album, The Reckoning, on Sept. 20, while they continue to support Swift on tour.

You can see the band make their national TV debut on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno next Wednesday, Sept. 14, and listen to their new album’s title track exclusively on EW.com here: READ FULL STORY »

Sep 7 2011 01:44 PM ET

Lil Wayne's 'Tha Carter IV' sells 964,000 copies, lands second-highest first-week numbers of the year: Is he really the 'best rapper alive'?

Lil-Wayne

Image Credit: Jason G. Bahr/Getty Images

Okay, let’s answer the headline’s question first: No, Lil Wayne is not the best rapper out right now. In my mind, Eminem, Jay-Z, and Kanye West are duking it out for that crown. He is, however, the most popular.

Yesterday Billboard reported the final first-week tally for his new album Tha Carter IV. It sold 964,000 copies, making it the best selling hip-hop debut of the year and the second biggest opening week overall—second only to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, which moved 1.11 million copies.

Wayne’s no newbie to colossal numbers, either. The last edition of his Carter series scored big with 1.01 million records sold in its first seven days on shelves in 2008.

Wayne’s C-4 debut more than doubles the opening figures rap peers Kanye West and Jay-Z’s collab album Watch the Throne (436,000), causing the blogosphere to come to the rash conclusion that Wayne, as he’s said often before, is “the best rapper alive.”

Really? Sure, numbers mean plenty. But as I so eloquently wrote in under 140 characters on Twitter recently, “If I ate a doughnut for every bad album that’s been commercially successful, I’d be fatter than that fattest person you know.”

READ FULL STORY »

Sep 7 2011 01:03 PM ET

Blake Shelton debuts his 'Footloose' cover: Hear it here

Blake-Shelton

Image Credit: Andrew Southam

Kick off your Sunday shoes, kids—Blake Shelton has gone Footloose.

The country superstar, who recently nabbed a CMA Award nomination for Entertainer of the Year, has premiered his new song, a faithful cover of Kenny Loggins’ classic fist-pumper “Footloose,” on The Boot. The song will appear on the soundtrack of the Footloose remake, which hits theaters on October 14.

Shelton doesn’t change up the track too much, but he does give it a slightly twangy country twist. “There’s really only one way to approach it,” he explains, “a fun, uptempo, catchy version just like Kenny Loggins did.” Well, mission accomplished!

Listen to the song below: READ FULL STORY »

Sep 7 2011 12:11 PM ET

PJ Harvey bests Adele to take this year's Mercury Prize, becomes only two-time winner

PJ-Harvey

Image Credit: Dave Hogan/Getty Images

The nominees for the 2011 Mercury Prize—awarded by a panel of judges to the year’s best British album—were a typically quirky bunch, with some familiar names (PJ Harvey, Adele, James Blake, Elbow) and a bunch of must-be-big-in-England? picks like Metronomy and Ghostpoet.

While it’s never easy to predict the winner (past victors include puzzlers like Ms. Dynamite and Klaxons), Adele seemed like a good bet, given her uniformly strong reviews and massive sales.

Nope! PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake has won the prestigious award this year. (Her Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea earned the prize a decade ago.) Personally, I think they made the right choice. Adele will have her moment at the Grammys, which love to reward those sorts of classy-and-massive good-taste albums.

Let England Shake is something else entirely: a dark, eccentric, and deeply serious take on war and history that’s as unsettling as Adele is comforting. “Death was in the staring sun,” she sings on “All and Everyone,” “fixing its eyes on everyone/It rattled the bones of the Light Horsemen/still lying out there in the open/as we, advancing in the sun/sing “Death to all and everyone.”

Hopefully now more people will give this difficult album the time and attention it deserves. What do you think of this year’s winner? Should Adele have taken the prize?

More on EW.com:
The worst songs of the ’90s named in new poll — Do you agree?
Beatles back at no. 1 on iTunes today; major artists share their favorite Fab Four tunes
Rock the Bells: Lauryn Hill, Nas, Erykah Badu and more live at NYC’s Governors Island

Sep 6 2011 06:03 PM ET

Beatles back at no. 1 on iTunes today; major artists share their favorite Fab Four tunes

beatles

Image Credit: Apple Corps. Ltd. EMI

There are few things surer in life than death, taxes, and the continued selling powers of the Beatles.

Today, the Fab Four bowed at no. 1 on iTunes with their mammoth 2000 hits collection 1, handily stealing the top spot from Lil Wayne’s That Carter IV and lording over the likes of Adele’s long-running 21 and Maroon 5′s newly revitalized Hands All Over, among others.

In the next few weeks, iTunes will also be rolling out the personal Beatles song picks of several contemporary stars, including Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, Dave Grohl, Demi Lovato, Coldplay, and Ryan Adams—the last of whom we have a sneak preview of, exclusively here.

Says Adams of his own pick, “The Long and Winding Road”:

“I first heard the song in the way that you first ‘really hear’ a song—when it feels as though you’re listening with your whole body—last summer in London. I was lost in some neighborhood I was not meant to be in after a wrong turn. As the sky turned dark with mid-summer storm clouds the Glyn Johns mix in my headphones filled my skull with tremendous longing and a righteous amount of pain. I am now forever a fan after a lifetime of not being much of one. Still I will not buy a record with songs about naval craft no matter the color.”

Readers, do you agree? Let us know in the comments below.

More on EW.com:
Spotify stalking: Everything I never wanted to know about my Facebook friends’ taste in music
Madonna back in the studio, aiming for new album in spring 2012
Michael Jackson tribute tour to be launched by David Gest, Tito Jackson, and more

Sep 6 2011 05:38 PM ET

Fall Music Preview: Eight Things You Might Not Know About Lady Antebellum

Josh Kelley, Hillary Scott, and Dave Haywood

For Entertainment Weekly‘s Fall Music Preview, we met up with Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley, and Dave Haywood of Lady Antebellum at their hometown bar, the Patterson House in Nashville, to talk about their new album Own the Night.

Over a few rounds of bacon-infused whiskey, we discussed the up-’til-dawn celebrating that inspired the title, and learned what happened at the wild afterparty following Lady A’s Grammys sweep in February. (Hint: Deirks Bentley knows how to get down.)

Of course, if you’re one of the rare few who didn’t watch the Grammys and has never sung a tipsy karaoke version of “Need You Now,” you’ll need a quick trivia primer on Lady Antebellum before you read the interview. Below, we’ve listed a few things to help you get to know the band a little better.

1. When the band first started, Scott needed a fake ID to play in bars. “I was 20 and it was always an issue on the road, like, ‘I don’t know if Hillary’s gonna be able to get in!’” she admits. “So one of Charles and Dave’s friends had a spare ID, and I used it to get in. I got caught once, though, in Athens, Georgia. Don’t do this, kids!” READ FULL STORY »

Sep 6 2011 02:35 PM ET

Rock the Bells: Lauryn Hill, Nas, Erykah Badu and more live at NYC's Governors Island

Lauryn-Hill

Image Credit: Andy Kropa/Getty Images

The most well-dressed folks on New York City’s Governors Island last Saturday looked the bummiest. On the balmy last Saturday of the summer, cutoff shorts, tank tops, dirty sneakers and worn-in sandals were among the best things to be wearing for the daylong hip-hop festival that is Rock the Bells.

Elaborate outfits highlighted by fresh tennis shoes, high heels (wedges, too) or anything that gave off a vibe of effort earned more laughs than sartorial appreciation at rap’s lone major fair.

I mean really, how can you appreciate grimy sets from Wu Tang Clan members, Slaughterhouse, and Mobb Deep when you look so, so clean?

Not I, Mixers. In beat up five-year-old Air Jordans, a star spangled tank top (it was Labor Day weekend!), and a pair of shorts, I came to sweat. And from 2pm to midnight, that’s exactly what I did.

My day began with Black Star. The duo featuring Brooklyn rhymers Talib Kweli and Mos Def performed cuts from their 1998 album Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star. They also broke away to perform solo hits. Kweli did his uplifting “Get By.” While Mos, dressed like a substitute teacher in his tie and short sleeve white shirt tucked into his jeans, broke out “Umi Says.”

Things continued with Erykah Badu, who ran through 1997’s Baduizm. Eclectically clad in a fedora, blazer, and pants tucked into her knee-high gold boots, she killed with her mellow “On & On.” Between singing and crowd cruising, she even showed off her production chops by hopping on MPC drum pad for some quick beats.

Next up was Lauryn Hill. Surprisingly, she was bumped out of her headlining slot in favor of hometown favorite Nas. Still, she performed as if she was the night’s main draw. The theme of this year’s festival was that each act select one of their several albums to play. The decision was easy for Hill, who notoriously only has one solo studio album.

READ FULL STORY »

Sep 6 2011 01:07 PM ET

The worst songs of the '90s named in new poll -- Do you agree?

Categories: Let's Argue!, Listmania!

Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

Okay, get ready to argue: Rolling Stone just released its reader poll for the Worst Songs of the Nineties.

Yes, there are plenty of obvious choices from the Department of Terrible Novelty Songs (Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” at No. 9, Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out?” at No.8,  Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” at No. 2) along with a few picks that we’d argue fall into the Actually Pretty Great If You’re Not Too Snobby To Admit It category (Hanson’s “MMMBop” at No. 6 and 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up” at No. 10)

But the thing that struck us most was that this list seems to be comprised only of people who aren’t American rocker dudes. Nearly half the groups have at least one female member (Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” ranks at No. 7), more than half come from somewhere outside the U.S. (including Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” at No. 1, and Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” at No. 5), and with the exception of “What’s Up,” there’s not a single rock-guitar-driven song on the list (it’s dominated by pop, though it’s also got a soft spot for rap, with Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” at No. 4, and country, with Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart” at No. 3.)

Compare that with Rolling Stone‘s readers poll for the Top Ten Albums of the Nineties, which included only white-dude rockers. Though high-ranking bands like Nirvana and Radiohead are certainly worthy white-dude rockers, there’s no trace of the era’s great hip hop albums (Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, Dr. Dre’s The Chronic Biggie’s Ready to Die), or now-classic albums made by women (Hole’s Live Through This, PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville).

In the sake of fairness, shouldn’t the Worst Songs of the Nineties feature a few more rock-guy bombs? What about Creed’s “Higher”? Green Jelly’s “Three Little Pigs”? Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie”?

Of course, there are also plenty of pop songs that should’ve been recognized. Personally, I’d nominate Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” a blow-by-blow account of the longest, most boring conversation of all time. (And then I said… and then she said… and then I said…) Oh, and this song should be way up there.

What else do you think should be on the list?

More on EW.com:
T.I. boards a party bus to a halfway house, ends up back in federal penitentiary
What’s the best song for a first dance at a wedding? Tell us!
‘Community’ star Danny Pudi is suddenly everybody’s music video muse: Watch him here

Sep 6 2011 11:48 AM ET

CMA Award nominees: Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton join Entertainer of the Year vets

CMA-nominees

Image Credit: Andrew Southam

Nominations for the 45th Annual CMA Awards (airing Nov. 9 on ABC) have been announced.

Jason Aldean and Blake Shelton, who earned their first CMA Entertainer of the Year nods, tied past EOY winners Brad Paisley and Taylor Swift with five noms apiece. The nominees are: READ FULL STORY »

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