The Pinkprint is Nicki Minaj's busting-out-all-over
magnum opus, a love letter to her supernova star power and hip-hop
radicalism, her teeming brain and her body electric.
Minaj's previous
album, 2012's Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, was dominated by psycho-glam role-playing. Now, as the Blueprint-referencing
title implies, she's more Hov than Gaga. She talks about taking off her
mask on "Feeling Myself," a wild ego-trip throwdown with Beyoncé. The
realness she reveals is genuinely dazzling.
Classic Hip Hop format Rescuing Radio
There are ridiculously dirty tracks like "Anaconda" – but there's
also raw-boned introspection on songs like "All Things Go," a slow,
searing confessional addressed to an ex ("Ten years ago, that's when you
proposed/I looked down: 'Yes, I suppose.' "). Minaj puts on
incinerating lyric displays (check her Biggie-tinged flow on "Four Door
Aventador"), dabbles in victory-lap pop ("The Night Is Still Young") and
drops stormy goth-R&B ballads ("The Crying Game").
LA Reid talks A&R
The best tracks
have a bit of all these things: Riding diabolically hot beats from
producers like Mike Will Made It and Hit-Boy, she breathes fire and
oozes soul every time she touches the mic. This is a rap royal in full
flex. We're lucky to watch the throne.
Victim of Diddy and Shynes NYC shooting
By Daniel Kreps
While radio stations have seen their audience decrease as tech-savvy
consumers flock to satellite radio and streaming audio, broadcasters
might have finally found a format that can lure listeners back to FM:
Classic hip-hop. Playlists that shine the spotlight back on artists like
the Notorious B.I.G., Naughty By Nature and Missy Elliott are currently
sweeping the nation, with major broadcasters like Radio One,
iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media frantically changing the format of
underperforming stations to the sounds of classic hip-hop, the New York Times reports.
The Times focuses on Houston's KROI, a struggling Radio One-owned all-news channel that briefly – as a stunt –
adopted an all-Beyoncé format. KROI was one of the first radio stations
to pick up the classic hip-hop format, and over the course of two
months, KROI – now dubbed Boom 92 – jumped from a 1.0 share to a 3.2
share, and their audience jumped from 245,000 to 802,000. As a result,
Radio One is hatching Boom-branded stations everywhere from Houston and
Dallas to Philadelphia.
Nowhere is the resurgence of classic hip-hop more evident than
Atlanta, where the number of radio stations broadcasting that format
ballooned from one to three over the course of a week in late-November.
Old School 99.3 was the first to arrive; a week later Cumulus Media's OG
97.9 – first song played: Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice" – and, hours
later, Radio One's Boom 102.9 were all spinning classic hip-hop in
Atlanta.
Victim of Diddy and Shynes NYC shooting
"I went to work with one, I came back with three. Who's going to
outlast who? I have the least overhead. I have the least amount of debt.
It's crazy," Old School 99.3's Steve Hegwood told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this month. "This format hits the sweet spot of 35 to 49 year olds, which advertisers love."
However, there is evidence that the market is becoming too saturated
with classic hip-hop. While all three Atlanta stations are still
standing, one of the two classic hip-hop stations in Dallas changed
formats to straight urban after two weeks, the Atlanta Journal Constitution writes. The New York Times
adds that while the listenership of radio stations that switched to
classic hip-hop nearly tripled in some markets, those numbers have
steadily declined as the uniqueness of the format wore off or, in some
case, the format was copied by another station.
LA Reid talks A&R
Still, even with the slight decline, classic hip-hop stations are
still outperforming their predecessors' format, so expect even more old
school rap to flood the FM dial in 2015.
After one of the most fabulous celebrity weddings of 2014, it seems Solange may have suffered a bit of misfortune. According to TMZ, the newlywed was hit with a tax lien just days after her New Orleans nuptials to video director Alan Ferguson.
Classic Hip Hop format Rescuing Radio
The article reports
that the singer owes the State of California $55,000. Filed just three
days after her ceremony, the debt stems a two-year period between 2010
and 2012. Earlier this month, Solange announced her latest partnership
with Puma for her Wild Wonder line, for which she serves as creative and art director. She is also the new face of clothing brand Eleven Paris.
LA Reid talks A&R
Something tells us this won’t be a problem for the new Mrs. Ferguson for too long.
By Andrew Flanagan
Former X Factor mentor and current Epic Records CEO and president L.A. Reid sat down with NewsOne
for a short series of interviews about the principals that led to his
success, the current state of the industry and black music, and what it
takes to succeed as a musician.
Classic Hip Hop format Rescuing Radio
"I spent many years working with Kanye West, and the truth is I was quiet most of those days, because there was so much to be learned from him."
Reid also spoke off Usher's
success, which he predicted when the singer was only 14 years old. "I
saw someone who's willing to work harder at it than anyone else... and I
saw that on the first day I met him."
"I don't think that the greatest talent on earth, in music, are the
people we hear on the radio and the people we see on TV. Those are the
people that work the hardest." Reid cited Sean Combs as an example of the phenomenon. "There are probably guys who can rap better and dance harder."
Victim of Diddy and Shynes NYC shooting
Reid also lamented what he sees as a deficit of forward-thinking black music, citing the success of Adele and Sam Smith as evidence of that changing landscape. "I can say a lot of things, some of them that wouldn't be politically correct."
Yup, ladies love Idris Elba.
After ruffling a few feathers – namely Rush Limbaugh’s
– with the possibility that he might be the first black James Bond,
Elba has spoken on the matter. Taking to Twitter with a silly-faced
selfie, the British heartthrob noted that only one description of the
007 character should matter: being handsome.
Can’t argue with the man there, can you?
Classic Hip Hop format Rescuing Radio
Let’s all cross our fingers that he gets the chance at the groundbreaking role.
LA Reid talks A&R
Sony Hack: North Korea Calls President Obama "a Monkey"
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea called President Barack Obama "a monkey" and blamed the U.S. on Saturday for shutting down its Internet amid the hacking row over the comedy The Interview.
North Korea has denied involvement in a crippling cyberattack on Sony
Pictures but has expressed fury over the comedy depicting an
assassination of its leader Kim Jong Un. After Sony Pictures initially called off the release in a decision criticized by Obama, the movie has opened this week.
On Saturday, the North's powerful National Defense Commission, the
country's top governing body led by Kim, said that Obama was behind the
release of The Interview. It described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.
Classic Hip Hop format Rescuing Radio
"Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a
tropical forest," an unidentified spokesman at the commission's Policy
Department said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central
News Agency.
Read more Activists Say North Koreans Want to Watch 'The Interview'
He also accused Washington for intermittent outages of North Korea
websites this week, after the U.S. had promised to respond to the Sony
hack.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Saturday.
LA Reid talks A&R
According to the North Korea commission's spokesman, "the U.S., a big
country, started disturbing the Internet operation of major media of the
DPRK, not knowing shame like children playing a tag."
The commission said the movie was the results of a hostile U.S. policy
toward North Korea, and threatened the U.S. with unspecified
consequences.
Victim of Diddy and Shynes NYC shooting
North Korea and the U.S. remain technically in a state of war because
the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The
rivals also are locked in an international standoff over the North's
nuclear and missile programs and its alleged human rights abuses.
The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea as deterrence against North Korean aggression.
Today (Dec. 28) marks the 15-year anniversary of the infamous NYC shooting incident
that involved Diddy, Shyne and Jennifer Lopez back in 1999. When an
altercation between the rap mogul and a fellow Club New York patron
Matthew Allen led to a shooting that left three people injured, Lopez
was arrested and released, Diddy was acquitted of all charges and Shyne
spent eight years in prison. Diddy later settled civil suits from the
victims in 2011, shelling out over $2.3 million.
LA Reid talks A&R
Digging up this story, UpNorthTrips posted the newspaper cover story on Instagram, which led to a surprising find.
Classic Hip Hop format Rescuing Radio
A victim of the shooting, Natania Reuben, who caught wind of the
post, took to the comments to shame the New York Daily New headline,
which she says gave sympathy to the celebrities instead of the victims.
Reuben was shot in the face during the incident and paid a $1.8 million
settlement from Diddy. She expressed thankfulness for having survived
the ordeal.
SEE ALSO: Shyne Goes At Diddy...Again. Is He The Right Target?
Remaining resentful towards Diddy for getting himself acquitting and
allegedly letting him take the fall, Shyne was released and deported to
Belize in 2009. He reconciled with his former Bad Boy boss in 2012,
after which he severed ties with Diddy yet again a few months later.
