Peter Golub here. I’m at the Festival as Director of the Sundance Institute Film Music Program and also as composer of the film, Countdown to Zero. We had an amazing concert on Sunday night. It’s always a challenge, as the films aren’t announced until Thanksgiving and we always want to… Read more...
21 year-old Benny Blanco inhabits both the underground and the mainstream. “I like to do pop, but I also do the weird indie stuff,” he says. Credited as a co-producer on three tracks, he co-wrote two songs, including the title cut, for Britney Spears’ multi-platinum Circus. Additionally, he has worked… Read more...
Perhaps the only development more surprising than Mos Def’s re-ascension to the hip-hop summit — some 10 years after Black Star, his collaboration with Talib Kweli, foreshadowed icon status — is the fact that he’s one of the first artists ever to have an album released as a T-shirt. Yes,… Read more...
Marquee Lineup Includes Rodney Jerkins, Chris Daughtry, Mos Def, Ben Moody, Polow Da Don, Anthony Hamilton and Brian Howes BMI will pair with the Los Angeles Times to present the second annual “How I Wrote the Song” panel Saturday, February 9, from 1p.m. until 3p.m., at the Key Club in… Read more...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers continue their red hot streak, picking up an impressive six nominations for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards. Nominations were announced Dec. 7 at a press conference held at the Music Box @ Fonda in Hollywood; Grammys will be handed out… Read more...
The Odd Couple? Her mentor was James Baldwin; he learned the fine points of guitar playing looking over Muddy Waters's shoulder. As a teen in the '80s, she gave up guitar playing soon after she started because it was such a white-guy thing; he encouraged her to go back to… Read more...
BMI superstars Mariah Carey, Kanye West and John Legend led the list of nominees for the 48th Annual Grammy Awards with eight nods each when contenders were announced at a star-studded press conference held December 8 at Gotham Hall in New York City. Their three-way tie pushed the… Read more...
The 3rd Annual Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards were held last night (6/24) at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, honoring the year's best hip-hop and R&B artists, as well as some of the biggest names in entertainment and sports. Hosted by artist Mo'nique, the BET… Read more...
Talib Kweli is the thinking man’s hip-hop star. He views his music as literature in the most traditional sense: as a completely engaging way of communicating ideas. In the wrong hands, that cerebral take on hip-hop could be heavy handed and dull, but Kweli’s music is clever, astute, challenging and… Read more...
Acclaimed for his compelling hip-hop recordings, film performances and stage work, rapper/actor Mos Def apparently won't be satisfied until he has won an Oscar, a Grammy, an Emmy and a Tony. Indeed, though he only emerged recently from the streets of his native Brooklyn, Mos Def has already demonstrated… Read more...
