I wanted to get onstage and orate, without people thinking about the normal things people think about. Like girls being like, 'Oh, he's sexy,' or 'I don’t want him, he's ugly,' and then other dudes sizing you up. A visual always brings a first impression. But if there’s going to be a first impression I might as well use it to control the story. So why not do something like throw a mask on? | | | | Representing the state of Georgia: Outkast's André 3000 and Big Boi in Los Angeles, April 28, 2002.
(Kevin Winter/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I wanted to get onstage and orate, without people thinking about the normal things people think about. Like girls being like, 'Oh, he's sexy,' or 'I don’t want him, he's ugly,' and then other dudes sizing you up. A visual always brings a first impression. But if there’s going to be a first impression I might as well use it to control the story. So why not do something like throw a mask on?”
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| | rantnrave:// Happy new year and welcome to MusicREDEF 2021. Since we last chatted, I've been reminded that there's a band called EVE 6 and I've learned that the LONG WINTERS guy used to be a HARVEY DANGER guy, but it's neither the '90s nor the '00s and I promise this will be an "INSIDE OUT"- and BEAN DAD-free zone for as long as I'm able to hold out... Things to catch up on: JACK DORSEY's SQUARE apparently is thinking about acquiring JAY-Z's TIDAL. The potential deal between the fast-growing payment company and the struggling (by most accounts) music streaming service left a lot of people scratching their heads in the waning days of 2020, but the always astute DAN RUNCIE makes a good case, on his hip-hop blog TRAPITAL, for a 2021 marriage. Hip-hop influencers have been crucial to the marketing strategy of Square's CASH APP almost from the beginning; Runcie noted nearly a year ago that more than 200 rappers, including OFFSET, DREEZY and RICH THE KID, had name-dropped Cash App in songs. Aligning itself with an app that, for all its struggles, is rich with hip-hop content, can expand that marketing and, among other benefits, drive down the app's customer-acquisition costs, he now argues. As for Jay-Z, who not that long ago informed the world, "I bought some artwork for one million / Two years later that s*** worth two million / Few years later that s*** worth eight million," let's just note that he bought Tidal for $56 million. Do the rest of your math yourself. Then imagine if Tidal had actually been successful... Maybe Tidal and Square should go on a double-date with AMAZON MUSIC and WONDERY... VARIETY's KRISTIN ROBINSON detects a bootleg-song-sized loophole in SPOTIFY's podcasting strategy, which, if you want to take the cynical view, is good for the podcasting side of the business and not so great for the music side of the business. But that might be underestimating the value of those bootlegs for fans, artists and even record company marketing departments, which aren't always fully in sync with record company legal departments. In either case, ENGADGET reported several days later that Spotify appears to be in takedown mode... Add JIMMY IOVINE to the list of sellers to HIPGNOSIS SONGS. He's sold 100 percent of his music and film production points—which covers works by the likes of EMINEM, 50 CENT, U2, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and STEVIE NICKS—to the investment fund for an undisclosed price... Monday would have been JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE's 39th birthday, and his father marked the occasion by releasing the album that no father would ever want to, or should ever have to, make. It's heartbreaking and beautiful, and not without a little hard-earned pride and joy... Compositions by MA RAINEY, DUKE ELLINGTON, FLETCHER HENDERSON, BESSIE SMITH, JELLY ROLL MORTON and RODGERS & HART are among the 95-year-old works that entered the public domain on Jan. 1... Speaking of Ma Rainey: GEORGE C. WOLFE's film version of AUGUST WILSON's MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM brings to life the electrifying power of 1920s blues and jazz—and the timeless gift record companies had for screwing the artists who created it. The work's stage origins are readily evident in a film that takes place nearly entirely in two rooms on a single day, and the late CHADWICK BOSEMAN is brutally great as Rainey's restless trumpeter... BOBBY SHMURDA could be out of prison in seven weeks... Over the holidays we lost the masked underground hip-hop genius MF DOOM (who died in October, but his death wasn't reported until New Year's Eve); metal shredder ALEXI LAIHO of CHILDREN OF BODOM; bluegrass shredder TONY RICE; prolific and versatile pianist "BLUE" GENE TYRANNY; hip-hip pioneer JOHN "ECSTASY" FLETCHER of WHODINI; proto metal bandleader LESLIE WEST of MOUNTAIN; the greatest named sideman in rock history, the SILVER BULLET BAND's ALTO REED; beloved Mexican composer ARMANDO MANZANERO, and music publicist RANDY ALEXANDER, an old colleague of mine from the New Jersey music journalism scene. RIP also CLAUDE BOLLING, FRANK KIMBROUGH, TITO ROJAS, ADOLFO "SHABBA DOO" QUIÑONES, STEVE BROWN, PHYLLIS MCGUIRE, GEOFF STEPHENS, EUGENE WRIGHT, RUDY SALAS, IVRY GITLIS, FOU TS'ONG, FANNY WATERMAN, LOU DENNIS, GEORGE GERDES, GINNY KALMBACH and SHIRLEY YOUNG... Here's our full accounting of nearly 650 notable music deaths in 2020. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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 | The New Yorker |
| A nonconformist rapper’s second act. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| The masked hip-hop legend, whose death at age 49 was announced on New Year’s Eve, was never fully revealing, but he gave us a lot to work with. Our staff breaks down the essential pieces of the Daniel Dumile experience. | | |
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 | OneZero |
| Search engine optimized accounts that publish hundreds of nearly identical tracks rake in streams and profits. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| DJs who customarily would have performed for packed dance floors on New Year's Eve instead sat home, angry at peers and partygoers who violated safety protocols. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| Pop stars had been playing the release game with an old set of rules - and losing because of it. Until 2020 broke the board. | | |
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 | Trapital |
| A recording of the Why Artists Are Selling Their Music Catalogs webinar from December 19. We broke down the reasons why so many artists sold their catalogs in 2020, the companies that want them, and where this trend is heading. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Making predictions for as uncertain a year on the music calendar as 2021 involves peering into the murkiest of crystal balls, given how tricky it is to forecast when live music will return in any big or even small way. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| Oda’s creators say the service is an alternative to the Instagram Live and Facebook gigs that have been popping up during the pandemic as well as the seemingly endless scroll of virtual meetings. You cannot listen to an Oda concert on your phone, laptop or your Sonos speakers. | | |
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 | Level |
| Cheryl Boyce-Taylor’s memoir ‘Mama Phife Represents’ is a stunning work of elegy just when we need it most. | | |
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 | Passion of the Weiss |
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| | | midnight train to georgia |
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 | Water & Music |
| Most labels founded and run by major artists end up looking a lot like the more corporate labels that said artists complain about in the press. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| On social media this year, the stan was ascendant, fueling commercial competition, trolling and other arcane battles. How did we get here? | | |
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| Variety |
| With obscured titles, underground remixers are uploading their creations as podcast episodes, hoping to circumvent copyright infringement detection by the platform. | | |
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 | BPI |
| Official figures released by record labels' association the BPI, based on Official Charts Company data, show that recorded music consumption in the UK rose by 8.2% in 2020, with 155 million albums or their equivalent either streamed or purchased by fans. | | |
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 | Future Rock Legends |
| In recent years there has been mounting pressure from artists and critics to induct more women into the Hall of Fame. Let's ask and answer some questions regarding the numbers. | | |
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 | Hyperallergic |
| Curator Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi hopes to rouse a new generation of writers with “Chez Baldwin,” a 32-hour-long Spotify playlist based on Baldwin’s vinyl record collection. | | |
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 | Beats & Bytes |
| A data-driven look at how Black Gospel music’s nearly century-old tradition thrives today. | | |
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 | Pollstar |
| “Save Our Stages was like landing at the beach in Omaha, but we still have to get to Paris,” says Michael Strickland owner of Bandit Lites, a lighting company out of Knoxville, Tenn. | | |
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 | VICE |
| In a year where rave culture was forced to improvise and adapt to the times, we track how people’s party and drug habits changed. | | |
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 | BuzzFeed News |
| “If Remy is the hero of 2020, I think that’s a better ending than I could’ve thought of.” | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From "Madvillainy" (2004). |
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