Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, please, 2020: Induct more women. | | | | Nipsey Hussle in Anaheim, Calif., May 16, 2015.
(Earl Gibson III/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, please, 2020: Induct more women.”
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| | rantnrave:// He was open—and thoughtful—about his teenage years in the Crips and he made it one of the themes of his music. He was murdered Sunday, not far from where he spent those years, in what appeared to be a premeditated gang-related shooting, according to a LOS ANGELES TIMES law enforcement source. Feel free to stop there if you want to miss the entire point of NIPSEY HUSSLE's life as a self-made artist, businessman and tech entrepreneur who rose up from the streets of South LA, never left, and spent most of his tragically short adult life giving back everything he could. He wanted kids in his neighborhood to have a better start than he had. A year ago, he was opening a STEM center and co-working space in LA's Crenshaw district. A month ago he was at the GRAMMY AWARDS, a Best Rap Album nominee for a major-label debut that followed a decade-plus of hustling mixtapes in ways that every other rapper wish they'd thought of first. On the day of his death, he was at his high-tech clothing store (the store, not the clothing, had the tech) on Slauson Avenue, on a block where he owned several other stores. He wasn't quite a bonafide hip-hop star yet. He was also much more than hip-hop, a driven, forward-thinking, community hero. "R.I.P Nipsey the solid morals you stood on and your legacy will last 4L!!," 21 SAVAGE tweeted Sunday. "My spirit is shaken," RIHANNA tweeted. Asked comedian ZACK FOX: "why are y’all shootin at the folks who put their energy and wealth back into the community." Why indeed. Nipsey Hussle is the third hip-hop artist I'm aware of who's been shot to death in 2018, following KEVIN FRET and LIL MISTER. There were at least seven of note in 2017, including local stars like Pittsburgh's JIMMY WOPO and Baltimore's NICK BREED and international ones like XXXTENTACION. (That's based on my ongoing list of music passings, which I'm pretty good about keeping up, but it's quite possible I missed one or two.) It's great—it's important—that the music business is talking about mental health and opioids and encouraging artists to speak out, speak up and seek help. The music business should be talking about this, too. This is a crisis that's taking young artists' lives at a horrifying pace. And not just artists. "We lost more than a rapper today," eulogized DAVID DENNIS JR. in the UNDEFEATED. "We lost someone who loved us." RIP... "I remember distinctly saying to myself, how can I even take this awards ceremony seriously if they’ll open their doors to X, Y and Z and not acknowledge the CURE," TRENT REZNOR said Friday night, proving that rock stars have pretty much the same opinion of the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME as you do (though you may end your sentence with a different artist; there are many, many options). Reznor was speaking at the Hall's induction ceremony, inducting the very solution to his own complaint. "Let’s just say," he concluded, "I’ve never been as happy to eat my words as I was tonight"... Here's a list of women the Hall should consider inducting next year, along with a cogent argument for why it should consider nothing but women. I co-sign 100 percent, though I would like to add the SHANGRI-LA's to the list if I may... COACHELLA is getting religion this year, in the form of KANYE WEST's Sunday Service... RIP early rock songwriter DAVID WHITE and influential ticketing exec SHELLEY LAZAR. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| “I shouldn’t be thinking about legal precedent when I am trying to write a chorus,” a Beyoncé songwriter says, long after “Blurred Lines” changed the rules. | | |
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| The beloved, Grammy-nominated rapper was the best of us. | | |
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| For South Central native Nipsey Hussle, disrupting the tech and music industries is all in a day's work. | | |
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| TikTok was the first app that made me feel old, so I set out to understand it. That didn’t work, but I think I love it now? | | |
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| An academic team's look under the hood of the music-streaming giant arrives as worries over Silicon Valley snooping go mainstream. Angus Batey surveys the bookshop backlash against Big Tech. | | |
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| Today marks the end of an era: It's Martin Bandier 's last day as chairman and CEO of Sony/ATV, the world's largest music publisher. | | |
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| Less than 8 percent of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s inductees are women. Time for it to step up and induct an all-female class in 2020. | | |
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| The Atlanta rapper talks about his viral hit and whether it is country, rap or both. | | |
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| While you weren't watching, this 17th season of the iconic music competition has turned into one of the most compelling reality dramas on TV. | | |
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| Three years ago the northern Virginia conscious hip hop artist Lucidious was struggling to get listeners to his music. | | |
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| | | only a fool would say that |
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| in general, the consensus is long form programs aren't congruent with metered measurement. And it's easy to just say “no,” rather than take a risk or give away commercial inventory to a syndicator. | | |
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| Steve Gold returned to a summer bungalow compound and found what he says was the stage from the 1969 Woodstock festival. | | |
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| But "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" is just a taste of what the 17-year-old will do. | | |
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| Original content is a big strategic focus for the major streaming services in 2019, as is ‘claiming’ as many rapidly-emerging artists as possible. | | |
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| The remixes are heard by millions. They go viral, shooting across Twitter and Facebook, influencing others to try their own hands. And yet recordings like "Africa (Vocals 1 Step Out of Key & Off Beat)" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit In A Major Key" barely register as hits, let alone as music. | | |
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| Def Leppard, Roxy Music and the Zombies also enter the Hall in a long, emotional evening that recognized long-overlooked acts. | | |
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| Victor Willis was the traffic cop in 1970s pop group Village People - and sang lead vocals and co-wrote their hits. After winning back the right to use their name from his former bandmates, he's making a fresh start. | | |
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| Show Me The Body's new album, Dog Whistle, is a call to arms, backed and inspired by a small army of New York underground artists. | | |
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| Growing up without Selena Quintanilla hasn’t been easy. Role models were scarce for bilingual Latinas like me and no one quite ever filled her shoes. | | |
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| A resurfaced video from Cardi B has a lot of people seeing double standards where there are none. | | |
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| | | | | | | He was murdered steps away from this intersection. RIP. |
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