Video After The Jump
Jhené Aiko graced the stage on The Ellen DeGeneres Show earlier this week to perform her hit song "The Worst." The track is off of Jhené's Sail Out EP. You can purchase it now on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sail-out/id728792658.
Follow Me
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
NEW YORK (Associated Press) — Maya Angelou, a modern Renaissance woman who survived the harshest of childhoods to become a force on stage, screen, the printed page and the inaugural dais, has died. She was 86.
Her death was confirmed in a statement issued by Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she had served as a professor of American Studies since 1982.
Tall and regal, with a deep, majestic voice, Angelou defied all probability and category, becoming one of the first black women to enjoy mainstream success as an author and thriving in virtually every artistic medium. The young single mother who performed at strip clubs to earn a living later wrote and recited the most popular presidential inaugural poem in history. The childhood victim of rape wrote a million-selling memoir, befriended Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and performed on stages around the world.
An actress, singer and dancer in the 1950s and 1960s, she broke through as an author in 1970 with "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which became standard (and occasionally censored) reading, and was the first of a multipart autobiography that continued through the decades. In 1993, she was a sensation reading her cautiously hopeful "On the Pulse of the Morning" at former President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. Her confident performance openly delighted Clinton and made the poem a best-seller, if not a critical favorite. For former President George W. Bush, she read another poem, "Amazing Peace," at the 2005 Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the White House.
She remained close enough to the Clintons that in 2008 she supported Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy over the ultimately successful run of the country's first black president, Barack Obama. But a few days before Obama's inauguration, she was clearly overjoyed. She told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette she would be watching it on television "somewhere between crying and praying and being grateful and laughing when I see faces I know."
She was a mentor to Oprah Winfrey, whom she befriended when Winfrey was still a local television reporter, and often appeared on her friend's talk show program. She mastered several languages and published not just poetry, but advice books, cookbooks and children's stories. She wrote music, plays and screenplays, received an Emmy nomination for her acting in "Roots," and never lost her passion for dance, the art she considered closest to poetry.
"The line of the dancer: If you watch (Mikhail) Baryshnikov and you see that line, that's what the poet tries for. The poet tries for the line, the balance," she told The Associated Press in 2008, shortly before her birthday.
Her very name as an adult was a reinvention. Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis and raised in Stamps, Ark., and San Francisco, moving back and forth between her parents and her grandmother. She was smart and fresh to the point of danger, packed off by her family to California after sassing a white store clerk in Arkansas. Other times, she didn't speak at all: At age 7, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend and didn't speak for years. She learned by reading, and listening.
"I loved the poetry that was sung in the black church: 'Go down Moses, way down in Egypt's land,'" she told the AP. "It just seemed to me the most wonderful way of talking. And 'Deep River.' Ooh! Even now it can catch me. And then I started reading, really reading, at about 7 1/2, because a woman in my town took me to the library, a black school library. ... And I read every book, even if I didn't understand it."
At age 9, she was writing poetry. By 17, she was a single mother. In her early 20s, she danced at a strip joint, ran a brothel, was married (to Enistasious Tosh Angelos, her first of three husbands) and then divorced. By her mid-20s, she was performing at the Purple Onion in San Francisco, where she shared billing with another future star, Phyllis Diller. She spent a few days with Billie Holiday, who was kind enough to sing a lullaby to Angelou's son Guy, surly enough to heckle her off the stage and astute enough to tell her: "You're going to be famous. But it won't be for singing."
After renaming herself Maya Angelou for the stage ("Maya" was a childhood nickname), she toured in "Porgy and Bess" and Jean Genet's "The Blacks" and danced with Alvin Ailey. She worked as a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Council, and lived for years in Egypt and Ghana, where she met Malcolm X and remained close to him until his assassination, in 1965. Three years later, she was helping King organize the Poor People's March in Memphis, Tenn., where the civil rights leader was slain on Angelou's 40th birthday.
"Every year, on that day, Coretta and I would send each other flowers," Angelou said of King's widow, Coretta Scott King, who died in 2006.
Angelou was little known outside the theatrical community until "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which might not have happened if James Baldwin hadn't persuaded Angelou, still grieving over King's death, to attend a party at Jules Feiffer's house. Feiffer was so taken by Angelou that he mentioned her to Random House editor Bob Loomis, who persuaded her to write a book.
Angelou's musical style was clear in a passage about boxing great Joe Louis's defeat against German fighter Max Schmeling:
"My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through slimy swamps. ... If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help."
Angelou's memoir was occasionally attacked, for seemingly opposite reasons. In a 1999 essay in Harper's, author Francine Prose criticized "Caged Bird" as "manipulative" melodrama. Meanwhile, Angelou's passages about her rape and teen pregnancy have made it a perennial on the American Library Association's list of works that draw complaints from parents and educators.
"'I thought that it was a mild book. There's no profanity," Angelou told the AP. "It speaks about surviving, and it really doesn't make ogres of many people. I was shocked to find there were people who really wanted it banned, and I still believe people who are against the book have never read the book."
Angelou appeared on several TV programs, notably the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries "Roots." She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for her appearance in the play "Look Away." She directed the film "Down in the Delta," about a drug-wrecked woman who returns to the home of her ancestors in the Mississippi Delta. She won three Grammys for her spoken-word albums and in 2013 received an honorary National Book Award for her contributions to the literary community.
Back in the 1960s, Malcolm X had written to Angelou and praised her for her ability to communicate so directly, with her "feet firmly rooted on the ground. In 2002, Angelou used this gift in an unexpected way when she launched a line of greeting cards with industry giant Hallmark. Angelou admitted she was cool to the idea at first. Then she went to Loomis, her editor at Random House.
"I said, 'I'm thinking about doing something with Hallmark,'" she recalled. "And he said, 'You're the people's poet. You don't want to trivialize yourself.' So I said 'OK' and I hung up. And then I thought about it. And I thought, if I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in the people's hands — and I hope in their hearts. So I thought, 'Hmm, I'll do it.'"
In North Carolina, she lived in an 18-room house and taught American Studies at Wake Forest University. She was also a member of the Board of Trustees for Bennett College, a private school for black women in Greensboro, N.C. Angelou hosted a weekly satellite radio show for XM's "Oprah & Friends" channel. She also owned and renovated a townhouse in Harlem, the inside decorated in spectacular primary colors.
Active on the lecture circuit, she gave commencement speeches and addressed academic and corporate events across the country. Angelou received dozens of honorary degrees, and several elementary schools were named for her. As she approached her 80th birthday, she decided to study at the Missouri-based Unity Church, which advocates healing through prayer.
"I was in Miami and my son (Guy Johnson, her only child) was having his 10th operation on his spine. I felt really done in by the work I was doing, people who had expected things of me," said Angelou, who then recalled a Unity church service she attended in Miami.
"The preacher came out — a young black man, mostly a white church — and he came out and said, 'I have only one question to ask, and that is, "Why have you decided to limit God?'" And I thought, 'That's exactly what I've been doing.' So then he asked me to speak, and I got up and said, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.' And I said it about 50 times, until the audience began saying it with me, 'Thank you, THANK YOU!'"
___
Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Video After The Jump
After giving fans a sneaks preview last week Styles P decides to drop the official music video for "Sour" featuring D-Block rhyme partner Jadakiss and Rocko. This is off of Pinero's latest album entitled Phantom and the Ghost.
Cop it now
iTunes: http://smarturl.it/hdxx6g
Amazon Music: http://smarturl.it/ypmh3r
Google Play: http://smarturl.it/odpov3
Follow Styles P on Twitter and his website
https://twitter.com/therealstylesp
Video After The Jump
STAR talks the drama at Myrtle Beach (bike week), Elliot Rodger who went on a killing spree in Isla Vista, Ca, challenging 40 Glocc to a celebrity fight again and Floyd Mayweather & T.I. tension.
Radio legend Troi Torain (STAR) always delivers hard-hitting objective truth. As a culture critic he is vicious, as a businessman he is relentless, as a luminary he is un-matched.
Considered a radio pioneer by many, STAR has set precedents on the urban landscape and was recently inducted into News One's "Top 20 Black Radio Jockeys Of All Time."
STAR & BUC WILD made the national stage on MTV (1999) but it was their radio show on New York's Hot 97 and Power 105 (2000 - 2006) that secured their place in Hip-Hop history.
Torain's resume includes The Source magazine, MTV Networks, Hot 97, Power 104.1, Power 105.1, Pulse 87, Hip-Hop Weekly magazine, Vladtv, Thisis50, 100.3 The Beat, shot97.com and VH1 (The Gossip Game).
This clip is from STAR's LIVE show (12noon -- 2pm) on http://shot97.com.
Media relations — thehater1964@yahoo.com
Pt. 1
Pt. 2
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cash Money Records artist Busta Rhymes is facing a large tax debt.
According to TMZ, the "I Know What You Want" hit maker owes $611,000 for 2008 and $178,000 for 2012, putting him $789,000 in the hole with the federal government.
The 42-year old rapper, real name Trevor Smith Jr., is currently working on his tenth solo album entitled E.L.E.2 (Extinction Level Event 2), due out later this year.
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Video After The Jump
Dame Dash has been speaking out recently about his dislike for Steve Stoute. In a new interview with Hip Hop Motivation, Dame goes into detail about his issues with the record executive.
"A guy like Steve Stoute will always take the people that are protecting the creative and eliminate them so he could rob the creative. Just so he could get his money. Even if kills that black man or that person's brand. Like he did with Mary J. Blige," Dame said. "I was against him putting [Jay Z's] whole name on a $40 sneaker, just so they could get a check. How he had Jay doing Budweiser with a confederate flag for a check. That's not good for your brand."
Dame wasn't done going in on Stoute.
"I don't like that dude because he doesn't care about his culture and he's a liar," Dame continued "And I watched him tell me all of Nas' business and LL Cool J's business when they weren't doing well, so I never trusted him. And I also watched Biggie Smalls' crew put lipstick on him and a wig on him when he fell asleep. that's how I first seen him. I couldn't respect him from that day."
Dame also spoke on the Solange and Jay Z elevator scuffle. He found it to be interesting and somewhat humorous.
"I thought it was funny," Dame said. "Jay's the kind of guy, you don't see him moving like that. And when he does move if it's not that cool looking then it's gonna be kicks. Jay has to worry about perception because corporately people pay him. He really has to play that game. I thought what was ironic about it is people got to see how he plays sh*t off. And how something crazy could happen and four seconds later when there's cameras on, they act like nothing's going on. I thought that was interesting to see and how good he is at it."
Dame Dash goes in on Steve Stoute
Damon Dash Talks Jay Z & Solange Incident
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
El Paso, Texas police are looking into how Wiz Khalifa managed to take a selfie while in jail. The rapper was arrested Sunday, May 25, after TSA agents found 5 grams of weed on him as he attempted to board a flight to Dallas.
Inmates are not allowed to take photos while locked up. Authorities are trying to figure out if the Taylor Gang CEO was left unsupervised or got help from a jail guard.
Free this man. pic.twitter.com/jW0blsH41w
— We Dem Boyz (@wizkhalifa) May 25, 2014Source: TMZ
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Earlier this month, Yves of The Niceguys premiered Sincerely Yves, a six track EP of personal moments and the slow build up to letting every single thought of his been channeled through his pen. While there are dashes of bombast and pomp all over Yves, The Outfit, TX produced “Blur” may be the least confusing track of them all. It’s another alcohol trip combined with punched out chords and the OJ Salem & OG Danny Ocean directed clip is pretty (sort of) NSFW with half naked models and Yves rocking a Rose Bowl USC jersey. Players will forever play on.
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Video After The Jump
Justina continues to impress with both her singing and rapping ability. She teams up with Brooklyn, New York emcee Maino for the remix to her song entitled "Unbelievable." The original version can be found on Justina's Valentine EP. Grab it now from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/valentine-ep/id702946214.
Check out the official music video below and be on the lookout for Justina's Red Velvet mixtape, coming soon.
Video After The Jump
Ransom is on a lyrical tear right now. The New Jersey fire spitter has been dropping nothing but gems as of late. Peep the official music video for "Dying Breed" featuring Fred The Godson and 3D Na'Tee. Be on the lookout for Duffle Bag Ran's Pain and Glory: The Album, coming soon.
Follow Ransom @201Ransom
https://soundcloud.com/201ransom
Video After The Jump
Complex gets the green light to premiere the official music video for TeeFLii's song "24 Hours" featuring 2 Chainz. Download the track now from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/ru/album/24-hours-feat.-2-chainz-single/id879212860?l=en.
New music video from Philly artist Uptown Byrd and BMG's Young Scooter. Available now on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/feel-so-rite-feat.-young-scooter/id869363398?i=869363448.
Directed by DJ DoeBoy
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Video After The Jump
Houston rapper Kirko Bangz remix's Jhene Aiko's hit song "The Worst." The music video was directed by Michael Artis. This is off of Kirko's mixtape entitled The Progression IV. Download it for free from Datpiff http://www.datpiff.com/Kirko-Bangz-Progression-IV-mixtape.595683.html.
Rochester, New York emcee Emilio Rojas recruits Joe Budden, Bodega Bamz, Gene Noble and DUBB for his new DJ Camilo-hosted mixtape entitled Zero Fucks Given.
Production credits go to Harry Fraud, Audio Jones, The Heatmakerz, !llmind and K.E. On The Track.
Download the project from Datpiff http://www.datpiff.com/Emilio-Rojas-Zero-Fucks-Given-mixtape.615421.html.
Follow Emilio on his website, Twitter and Instagram
http://instagram.com/emiliorojas
https://twitter.com/emiliorojas
http://www.emiliorojasmusic.com/
Joe and 50 Cent continue to give fans the best of both world's at they collaborate yet again on a new song. This time it's for the remix to "Mary Jane," which samples Rick James' 1978 hit of the same name.
This will appear on Joe's forthcoming album entitled "Bridges." It will be released on June 23. Pre-order it now from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/bridges/id876790427
Video After The Jump
A couple of hours after his brawl with T.I., Floyd Mayweather Jr. was chilling at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in Las Vegas when Chris Brown's song "Loyal" came on.
"When a rich nigga want ya. And your nigga can't do nothing for ya/These hoes ain't loyal. These hoes ain't loyal," Chris sings on the hook.
Floyd told his homies he warned Tip that Breezy was telling the truth.
"Ey, yo. That's what I told T.I. That's what I told T.I. These house ain't loyal," Money May said, before tossing a wad of cash in the air.
Peep the video below.
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Super producer/rapper Hit-Boy just released his Hits Since '87 compilation album entitled We the Plug. Peep one of the gems off of the project, "Scorn," featuring Kent M$ney, Kid Cudi, Audio Push and Hit-Boy. Purchase the album now from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/we-the-plug/id878789201.
Ne-Yo calls on The Snowman for an assist on his new single entitled "Money Can't Buy." This is off of Ne'Yo's forthcoming album, Non Fiction, due out September 30. Grab "Money Can't Buy" now from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/money-cant-buy-feat.-jeezy/id882016406.
Gucci Mane just released his Brick Factory: Volume One project. Features inlude Waka Flocka, Yo Gotti, Migos, Young Thug, PeeWee Longway, Young Dolph, Dr. Phil, MPA and OG Boo Dirty.
Stream it up top and purchase it now from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/brick-factory-vol-1/id882361926
Tracklist:
1.Cash Shit
2.Goin Hard
3.On Us Feat Migos
4.Paper Problems Feat Young Thug Peewee Longway
5.My Customer Feat Yung Fresh Jose Guapo
6.Real Gas Feat Waka Flocka
7.Say a Prayer Feat Rich Homie Quan
8.Serve On Feat Peewee Longway Quavo
9.No Love Feat Yo Gotti
10.Pour Some More
11.Texas Margarita Feat Young Dolph Dr Phil
12.Bring It On
13.Homeboys Feat MPA Duke Waka Flocka Young Thug Young Dolph OG Boo Dirty
14.Love Somebody Feat Young Thug
15.NWA Feat Migos Wicced Peewee Longway
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Via Yahoo
Party every Friday with “Good Morning America'”s 2014 Summer Concert Series as the hottest names in music perform live in NYC's Central Park.
Entertainment mogul Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson will take to the Summer Concert Series stage for his first-ever morning TV concert on Friday, May 30, 2014 (#50CentOnGMA).
Due to limited capacity, this concert is a free, ticketed event. You must show your printed Ticketmaster receipt to enter Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield. Backpacks and bags are not permitted in the venue.
**CLICK HERE TO REQUEST YOUR '50 CENT' CONCERT TICKETS!***
Concert is general admission and doors open to the public at 6 a.m. ET. The concert will air on "GMA" live from 8 to 9 a.m. ET on Friday, May 30.
CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTABLE MAP TO RUMSEY PLAYFIELD
The Summer Concert Series returns for the sixth year to the Rumsey Playfield in New York City's Central Park. The Rumsey Playfield is located right off the 5th Avenue and 72nd Street entrance to Central Park in New York City.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH 50 CEN'T'S GOOD MORNING AMERICA CONCERT ANNOUNCEMENT
Follow Me
|
|
|
|
|
|
}