Sunday, June 8, 2014

TOP NEWS//Tracy Morgan Still In Critical Condition

Written by Cyrus Langhorne



EXCLUSIVE//Hollywood actor Tracy Morgan is living one day at a time in critical condition after being involved in a six-vehicle crash this weekend in New Jersey. #GetWellSoon



Details of his current condition and what injuries he sustained have surfaced.

RECOMMENDED

Tracy Morgan is still in critical condition with several broken bones ... and doctors expect him to remain hospitalized for several weeks. Tracy's rep tells TMZ the comedian has been more responsive today ... but sustained a number of injuries including a broken femur, a broken nose and several broken ribs. We're told he's currently recovering after having surgery earlier today on the broken leg. (TMZ)
 Preview The Palace App.

Music mogul Diddy sent prayers to Morgan and the people injured in the Saturday (June 7) wreck.

"Sending prayers to Tracy Morgan and all involved in the accident!! We never know what can happen at anytime!," Diddy wrote June 7. (Diddy's Twitter)
R&B singer Mary J. Blige jumped onto her Instagram page to acknowledge Morgan.

"I send angels and prayers to Tracy Morgan. Pls hang in there.," Mary captioned June 7. (Mary J. Blige's Instagram)
TOP PALACE NEWS
The comedian's camp issued a statement on his condition over the weekend.

Preview The Palace App.
"Tracy remains in critical condition at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital. He sustained these injuries in an accident that occurred early this morning as one of several passengers in a chauffeured SUV returning from a tour date in Delaware," rep Lewis Kay said. "His family is now with him and he is receiving excellent care. We don't anticipate much of a change in his condition today but will provide a further update once more information becomes available." (Statement)
Details of Morgan's horrific accident surfaced online early Saturday (June 7).

The 45-year-old former Saturday Night Live star was traveling in a limo bus that overturned around 1 a.m. Saturday morning of Exit 7A of the Turnpike in Cranbury, N.J., state police tell NBC10.com. That's just north of Trenton. State police say a preliminary investigation has found that a tractor trailer came up upon slow moving traffic and caused the crash. Six vehicles -- two tractor trailers, an SUV and two cars -- all were involved, state police said. (NBC Philadelphia)
Posted by at No comments:

Google Offered $15 Million to Buy Songza


By  

Google has offered $15 million to acquire curated playlist site Songza, according to the New York Post.

The deal would give the search giant company a new music property that could improve its Google Play Music All Access subscription service or a future YouTube product, as the Mountain View, Calif.-based company maneuvers against Apple, Spotify and Amazon to gain the upper hand in the streaming music sector.

Songza chief executive Elias Roman couldn’t be reached for comment, while a Google Play executive and another Songza employee declined comment on the report. Attempts to reach multiple Songza board members were unsuccessful by press time.

Amazon.com, a Google competitor in some areas and an imminent entrant into the streaming music sector, has invested in Songza, and its VP of digital music Steve Boom is listed as a Songza director on a 2013 regulatory filing. Amazon did not return a phone call seeking comment.

 Preview The Palace App.

Launched in 2010, Songza streams playlists designed for specific moods or activities, often tailored to times of day or other contexts such as “getting ready to go out.” The company employs dozens of expert curators who design the playlists, with names such as “Are You Experienced? Psychedelic Space Trips,” “80s Hardcore Punk Boot Camp” and “Tonight’s Slow Jams.” It even incorporates the weather around a user’s location into its suggestions, offering “rainy-day” or “starry-night” songs, under a recent partnership with the Weather Channel’s parent company.

RECOMMENDED
Streaming services have relied increasingly on curation, including human-powered playlisting, as a differentiator beyond radio-like functions and algorithmically-designed song sequencing. Beats Music, for example, uses a brief fill-in-the-blanks questionnaire to deliver playlists, where users can describe their own moods or activities while requesting a genre. Apple agreed to acquire Beats, along with headphone and portable speaker vendor Beats Electronics, for $3 billion in a deal announced last week.

Unlike Beats or its competitors such as Spotify and Rdio, however, Songza doesn’t provide an on-demand streaming service that allows users to pick specific songs. It began as Songza Sets, a discovery-oriented product offered by downloadable music store Amie Street, whose founding team eventually sold the store to Amazon in 2010 and focused on Songza instead.

What's Hot

Preview The Palace App.
The company draws revenue from advertising, and limits the number of times a user can skip a song, thereby paying non-interactive webcasting royalties similar to those paid by Pandora and other Internet radio companies. If Google were to acquire Songza, the royalty rates on songs in its playlists would increase, because of the loss of “pure-play” rate privileges extended to companies that specialize in streaming. Songza, which targets both web and mobile users, also introduced 99-cent-per-week ad-free subscriptions last year.

Songza has about 5.5 million active users, a small fraction of Pandora’s 75 million-plus listeners and significantly less than Spotify’s 10 million paying customers, among its 40 million free and paid users.

Google’s Play Music service already offers a smart-playlisting function around a song or artist, but doesn’t include human-curated playlists. As a specialist in this area, Songza is one of several companies thought to be ripe for consolidation, as large tech companies have stepped up their dealmaking in the online music arena lately.

TOP PALACE NEWS

Along with Apple’s Beats buy, other giants are thought to be readying new streaming initiatives; Amazon is reportedly preparing to add music to its Prime service within a few weeks, while Google is believed to be launching a YouTube-branded music service later this year. Google hasn’t released any numbers, but it’s widely believed that uptake of its existing subscription service has been slow.

At the investor level, Songza has connections to two of those three. Beyond Amazon’s cash commitment and prior association with Amie Street, Google VP of U.S. retail sales John McAteer has also invested in Songza, as part of a 2012 convertible note worth $1.5 million.

EXCLUSIVE

Songza raised another $4.7 million in a round announced last September, from investors including artist managers Scooter Braun and Troy Carter, as well as Lerer Ventures, Deep Fork Capital, Metamorphic Ventures, William Morris Endeavor, and author Gary Vaynerchuk.  Prior investors also include 1-800 Flowers, NBA star Baron Davis, artist manager Julius Erving Jr., and 24/7 Real Media co-founder Geoff Judge.

The original Songza was a search engine that located and streamed music files found on the web. That product was designed by user interface expert, Mozilla designer and serial entrepreneur Aza Raskin, from whose name Songza took its moniker. Amie Street acquired it in 2008.

SOURCE: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/6113880/google-offered-15-million-to-buy-songza-report
Posted by at No comments:

Dame Dash Talks CEO Beef W/ Lyor Cohen

Dame by Keith Nelson Jr (@JusAire) June 6th, 2014
Dame Dash

(Palace News) Earlier today, Dame Dash responded to Funkmaster Flex’s rant during his appearance on The Combat Jack Show last night(June 5th). In his interview he explains why he wants to have “CEO beef”, Funkmaster Flex, Steve Stoute helping Jay Z get sued and more. 

Dame Dash was one of the most powerful record executives during one of Hip Hop most volatiles times in the early 2000s. During that time his Roc-A-Fella artists had engaged in beefs with D-Block, Nas and others. However, Dash now feels that CEOs should no longer benefit from rapper beef:

These CEOs  have made so much money off of rap beef for so long. It’s not like when two rappers have a problem with each other they sit them down to squash it. They actually put a battery in their back. Sort of like a battery might have been in Flex’s back and have them beef with each other and make money off the winner.
TOP PALACE NEWS

Six months after Dash’s DD172 Record label released Curren$y’s Pilot Talk II, Curren$y signed to Warner Bros Records. At the time, Lyor Cohen was the chairman and chief executive at Warner, a fact Dash says Cohen used against him by using Curren$y:

I also noticed that these corporate people were trying to bomb on me and making it look like I had a beef with a rapper to keep the beef off of them. But I couldn’t really answer right then and there, because guys like Lyor Cohen were using people like Warner Bros [Records] money to fund his personal issues. So, I can’t fight a man when he’s using somebody else’s money, especially when I’m funding other businesses. So I was like, Imma let him get that off. Imma see what they do for the next five years.

RECOMMENDED
Lyor Cohen left Warner Bros Records a year after signing Curren$y, which Dash viewed as making him vulnerable. Cohen is now running an independent label, 300 and Dash remarks that he doesn’t have “other people’s money to use to do all of those corporate tricks he used to do.” Dash wants to “make money off of CEO beef instead of making money off of rap beef.” One monetization method Dame has come up with is holding a public debate with Lyor Cohen. One of Flex’s claims was that Dash accused Cohen of being a culture vulture, however used his financial backing for Roc-A-Fella when Def Jam purchased a stake in the company in 1997. According to Dame, not only did he not “use any of Lyor’s money”, he sold a stake in the company to improve Roc-A-Fella’s independence. Preview The Palace App.

When Flex was like ‘you used their money.’ No I didn’t use any of Lyor’s money. I used Universal’s money. I sold it. We sold it. We made equity and we sold half. The reason why we sold them half is so they can fund it. We were partners 50/50. We built equity and earned it based on a multiple. But of a businessperson, or rather, a person who has a job wouldn’t understand that.
SOURCE: http://allhiphop.com/2014/06/06/dame-dash-talks-ceo-beef-w-lyor-cohen-responds-to-funkmaster-flex-more/
Posted by at No comments:

EXCLUSIVE//Tichina Arnold Blast Bad Boy Records' French Montana

EXCLUSIVE//Former "Martin" actress Tichina Arnold has stepped forward to lash out at Bad Boy Records' French Montana for recently taking a jab at her on Instagram. #TooHotForTV




TOP PALACE NEWS
Rather than ignore the joke, Arnold unleashed her wrath at the New York native for poking fun at one of her recent photos.

 Preview The Palace App.

"Man oh man. Mr. Montana, I've perused (read through with thoroughness and care) your #instagram profile description, pictures & posts... but despite my determined effort, I STILL don't have a CLUE to one very simple question... "Who ARE you?".. I mean other than reading that you've dated a Kardashian, and you seem to enjoy taking extraneous pictures with LEGITIMATE celebrities, I'm baffled (perplexed, confused) as to WHO you are & WHAT you actually DO? How do you contribute to society? What do you do to HELP those in need? What philanthropic works have you done? Are you on the board of any charitable organizations? Do you posses your own charitable organization? Do you own your name? How many of your followers are actually REAL followers and not computer generated? Oh.. And one other thing, if you are gonna post or repost things about other people (such as myself). FYI: Maybe you should put more effort into aligning yourself with people who can ASSIST you with building your brand for longevity, only THEN will you be prepared to (as your boy Martin would so clearly put it) "Stomp with the big dogs". [sic]" (Tichina Arnold's Instagram)

RECOMMENDED
After a few more emotional remarks, Arnold suggested for French to consider making charitable contributions.

"But either way, I'm pleased to know you are a true fan of the Martin show despite what criticisms you have. Your continued support is proof that for over 30 years, I have CONTRIBUTED something of VALUE on television to many people (including yourself) and many generations and hopefully more to come. Hit me up and maybe I can hook you into individuals who have "Serious Inquiries" regarding hiring you. I just need to know what exactly it is that you are SELLING, because unfortunately, I STILL don't know. Keep your head up & GOD Bless! TICHINA ... Oh! One more thing, if you know of anyone who has an auto immune disease such as #Lupus, go check out my 501c3 organization at www.wewinfoundation.org - Unfortunately thousands of women (and men) battle with this constant life threatening #autoimmune #disease everyday. It would be AMAZING if you made a donation instead of losing 40k in one on one basketball bets with your cohorts. Your positive & monetary support would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you for your time." (Tichina Arnold's Instagram)
Montana's online diss popped up onto his Instagram page back on May 24.

"I wish Martin could see this right now. He would tear her a** up," a caption read to a photo of Arnold sitting aboard a plane. Montana followed up the caption with "Nahhhhh" (French Montana's Instagram)
Posted by at No comments:

Hot 97 Hosts Ebro Darden and Peter Rosenberg Respond to Chuck D’s Criticism of Summer Jam

Public Enemy's Chuck D Files $100M Lawsuit Against Universal Music Group
Public Enemy's Chuck D Files $100M Lawsuit Against Universal Music Group

In a wide-ranging stream of tweets that began by calling Hot 97’s Summer Jam a “sloppy fiasco” on June 2 and has continued as recently as Thursday evening, Chuck D’s timeline has been scattered with the remnants of a conversation about hip-hop, social activism and radio business. 


Hot 97 on-air hosts Ebro Darden and Peter Rosenberg were pulled into the fray directly and indirectly, responding to remarks that include the charge that Hot 97 is a “CORPlantation.”


“I assume what he was trying to get at is what a lot of people say as far as blaming Hot 97 and radio in general for the demise of hip-hop culture,” Rosenberg told Billboard Thursday. “In Chuck’s case, and what I thought made his points particularly not salient, was he was like blaming the ills of the world basically on radio. Like talking about the prison system and all these terrible things that he was basically attributing to the powers that be.”

RECOMMENDED

In a telephone interview, Darden and Rosenberg expressed having a cordial, albeit not intimate, friendship with the Public Enemy frontman and said neither had spoken to him on the phone about the tweets.
During Darden’s tenure as the station’s program director (which officially ended in March), he has been consistent in using a clear, open rhetoric to explain how ratings metrics drive song selection.

Preview The Palace App.

Preview The Palace App.
“I think there’s validity to what he’s saying as to, ‘I guess Hot 97 could be more local,” Darden said. “But people that listen to us when we research the songs don’t vote those songs high enough to stay around. I have this debate and I put the onus back on the public to participate.”

This has been in response to the sentiment that Hot 97 doesn’t do enough to help develop and provide a platform for local underground artists. 

TOP PALACE NEWS

“When people ask (the audience) what their favorite music is, they should be talking about these songs that supposedly represent these ideas that are more conscious and socially aware,” Darden said.


Darden and music director Karlie “Hustle” Stenius have demonstrated a concerted effort to grow local music — in addition to its festival stage at Summer Jam, Hot 97 sponsors a monthly “Who’s Next Live” showcase for up-and-coming artists and has an online “Battle of the Beats” voting forum for new songs.

“I’m sure that if I was to have a conversation with Chuck D, I would agree with him on certain issues about what more radio could do,” Rosenberg said. “But the way he stated it now, it’s not accurate. It’s not reflective of what the actual role of the station is.” 

Chuck D and Rosenberg traded several tweets, including Rosenberg explaining the purpose of his Sunday evening underground hip-hop show.


“I didn’t really understand everything he was saying,” Rosenberg said. “I understood the beginning of it and then some of it was like, ‘I don’t fully follow this anymore and I’m going to get out.’ What’s really the upside to me trying to argue on social media with someone who is as admirable, awesome and as important of an artist as Chuck D?”

In addition to stars like Nas and Drake, the 55,000 Summer Jam attendees also saw Troy Ave perform – a New York artist that progressed from “Who’s Next Live” to the festival stage to the concert’s main stage.
“When you’re talking about people like Ebro and myself, you’re talking about people that literally are lifetime radio people who love it and listen to it,” Rosenberg said. “I wish radio sort of served a more grand, positive purpose. But it’s entertainment and a business. And that’s it.”
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, June 6, 2014

Ghostface Admits "It's F*ckin' Hard" To Keep Wu-Tang Together

Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah recently weighed in on the drama surrounding his crew, notably Raekwon initially falling back on plans to contribute to a new reunion album. #FamilyTies




TOP PALACE NEWS
Instead of choosing sides, Ghost acknowledged how much effort and force is needed to keep a veteran hip-hop group together for decades.

"You can't really get mad at it because look at all the groups you know that was from back then. They replace them with new members and some n*ggas die off. That's what happens. So, to try to keep this family together, yo, it's f*ckin'' hard," Ghost said in an interview. "We love each other, but love and business is two different things. You gotta understand. We're men now. We ain't coming in on some Fat Albert And The Gang sh*t like we did early on. We got heads on our shoulders now. We got babies. Some of us is grandparents. So, you gotta make sure your foundation is right. Wu-Tang is the foundation." (Complex News)
  Preview Our App.

This week, Raekwon admitted business complications had delayed his involvement on a new Wu project.

"I'm happy. I love the Wu-Tang fans. I love my crew," Rae said in an interview. "But it's business. When you got babies, nothing don't count unless it makes sense for them." (Shade 45)

According to a Wu-Tang blog post from last month, a truce between Rae and RZA had been made.

Breaking news : Raekwon and Rza truce : Raekwon scheduled to hit studio Breaking news : Raekwon and Rza truce : Raekwon scheduled to hit studio to complete verses for album : A Better Tomorrow Details coming! (Wu Tang Clan)

Recently, RZA revealed there were two possibilities if the Chef did not take part in the upcoming group release.

"I haven't said this publicly but let me say this," RZA explained in an interview. "The album is slated to come out in July. If we don't come to terms I think within the next 30 days, then this will have to be an album without Raekwon or it'll never see the light of day and that's a very strong potential because I would not want to put out a Wu-Tang album without every alive member available. I can't put Ol' Dirty on it because he's not here physically." (Sports Illustrated)
Posted by at No comments:

The Future of Interscope: Iovine Is Gone

Jimmy Iovine’s gone. But the label he helped build isn’t missing a beat.

A version of this article first appeared in the June 14th issue of Billboard Magazine.
http://static.wetpaint.me/ai/ROOT/photos/310/56062413.jpgYour company is losing one of the biggest names in the business, a genuine titan who has tight personal ties to scores of top-selling artists and has put out many of the highest-grossing albums of the last quarter-century. So you’re freaking out, right?

 Preview Our App.

Wrong. Jimmy Iovine’s exit from Interscope Geffen A&M as part of the Apple-Beats deal may have robbed the label of its house guru. But the transition to the new chairman/CEO, John Janick, 36, is going about as smoothly as a succession could. That’s due in no small part to Iovine, who saw it coming -- he was in talks with Apple CEO Tim Cook long before word leaked, although the deal ultimately happened "quickly," says a source -- and put a strong plan in place.

In fact, Janick has been “100 percent running” day-to-day operations for at least a year, adds an insider at Universal Music Group (UMG), Interscope’s parent company, and looks to have won the hearts and minds of IGA staffers, while Iovine was crowing that he had set out to accomplish "something that none of his peers had done: find a successor," according to one UMG executive. Indeed, the source credits Janick, who only arrived in the summer of 2012, with propelling Interscope to its first No. 1 ranking among U.S. labels last year. (It tallied a 7.7 percent market share in album and tracks -- albums plus track-equivalent albums, or TEA, according to Nielsen SoundScan.)


That doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing ahead. Iovine’s reputation was critical in helping Interscope build its formidable talent base. Will.i.am credits Iovine with convincing The Black Eyed Peas to sign, despite much more lucrative offers from other labels. “Jimmy was like, ‘Look, Will, you can go sign for a million. I’m not going to give you that kind of money — it’s ridiculous. But I promise if you sign with me, no matter how many records you sell, you can always make records with me until you guys get it right.’ ” That kind of personal power may be hard to replace. “When you lose someone of that caliber, it has to have an impact on the company,” says Sony/ATV Music Publishing chairman/CEO Martin Bandier. “It’s like the Yankees losing Robinson Cano.”

And some industry executives question Janick’s hip-hop pedigree, speculating that Interscope could lose traction with rap artists -- one of the label’s strengths through the years. (It has been ranked as the No. 1 or No. 2 rap label in the United States every year since 2009, according to SoundScan.) However, Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg has faith in Janick's management style, telling Billboard, "[Janick] didn't come in the door telling everybody what they should and shouldn't be doing and imposing his will. Quite the opposite: He's there when you need him and happy to help whenever you ask but he isn't inserting himself just to be present."


Rosenberg is not alone. By seemingly all accounts, Janick, who was unavailable for comment, is drawing rave reviews -- and also is reflecting well on UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, who wooed him from Warner Music Group, where Janick spent 16 years helming Fueled by Ramen (fun., Fall Out Boy, Paramore).


Warner fought to hang on to Janick, but was outmaneuvered and outspent by Universal, according to multiple sources. “John wanted more and had bigger ambitions,” says a former colleague still lamenting Janick’s exit. “He was smart, detail-oriented and cautious -- he came from indie roots and took his time while wearing multiple hats. He’s someone who’s in the business for the right reasons.”

WMG owner Len Blavatnik and WMG CEO Steve Cooper's initial efforts to rein in executive salaries, which led to Janick walking out the door, could prove more costly in opportunity lost than the salary increase they saved themselves.


In the meantime, the pending acquisition of Beats by Apple and the ascension of Janick with Iovine's blessing heads off a potential messy problem for Grainge. It means that the UMG chairman and CEO doesn't have to deal with the drama of imposing a timetable on Iovine, nor does he have to contend with what some viewed as Iovine's preoccupation with recently launched Beats streaming business while still under the employ of UMG (no doubt the nearly $500 million payout UMG stands to receive from its investment in Beats Electronics would erase any hint of animosity).

Not all industry successions plans have gone so well. For instance, when Vivendi imposed a succession plan on Doug Morris before he was ready to go, it worked out fine for UMG in the long-run, as it was able to maintain its profitablity and competitiveness, but in the short-term, it proved to be messy as Morris bolted to head up Sony Music Entertainment, which ignited tit-for-tat signing wars for executive and artist talent, all of which escalated the cost of doing business.

Indeed, as IGA faces a future without Iovine, Janick can count on one of the more stable management teams in the business, which includes vice chairman Steve Berman, president of promotion Brenda Romano and senior vp of artist strategy, head of business affairs David Cohen and media Dennis Dennehy, all of whom have been at the company for at least 15 years. Says Rosenberg: “A lot of people we’ve worked with since the beginning are still there. It's bittersweet for us. Jimmy's presence will be missed, of course, but Interscope still feels like home."

And with new albums by Maroon 5, Lana Del Rey and Robin Thicke on the horizon, along with U2 and Kendrick Lamar, both of whom are said to be readying releases for the fall, that should help the new boss ease worries about the post-Iovine era.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)