Jem Aswad-Senior Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Over the past few weeks it’s been mortifying, amusing and ultimately inspiring to witness the almost real-time reactions of the Cure’s founder/frontman Robert Smith to the hell-on-earth that is the concert-ticket purchasing process — and roll up his sleeves and do something about it. While high prices, availability issues and a bevy of vaguely defined “service fees” could be expected for such box-office record-breakers as Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, Smith was as surprised as anyone to see the prices on his group’s “Lost World” tour, its first for several years. While the group had managed to avoid such controversial policies as platinum packages and variable pricing, Smith was appalled to see hefty service fees added to the cost of “Verified Fan” tickets, which are intended to protect fans by keeping tickets out of the hands of scalpers, for the tour.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The three men convicted of murdering rapper XXXTentacion in a 2018 robbery in Florida were sentenced to life in prison Thursday, according to NBC Miami and multiple news reports. Dedrick Williams, Michael Boatwright and Trayvon Newsome appeared in a Broward County courtroom, where Judge Michael Usan handed down the life sentences, which are mandatory in the state. The three men will have no chance for parole or early release. The late rapper’s manager, Solomon Sobande, the manager for the rapper whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, read a statement on behalf of the family during the sentencing, and referenced XXXTentacion’s son, who was born after he died.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Diddy says he’s paying Sting $5,000 per day for sampling the Police frontman’s 1983 blockbuster hit “Every Breath You Take” on his own 1997 song “I’ll Be Missing You.” Diddy tweeted Wednesday in response to a resurfaced video clips from a 2018 interview Sting did with the Breakfast Club. As noted by the Shade Room, the clips shows interviewer Charlamagne Tha God asking Sting to confirm whether Diddy pays him $2,000 daily for sampling the song on “I’ll Be Missing You.” Sting says yes, “for the rest of his life,” to laughter, and then confirms that Diddy asked for permission to sample the hit after his own song was released.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Ray Shulman, a multi-instrumentalist known for his work with the progressive-rock band Gentle Giant and later a successful producer for the Sundays, Bjork’s early band the Sugarcubes, and many others, died on March 30. He was 73. The news was announced by his brother and Gentle Giant bandmate Derek, who wrote in a statement: “I am deeply saddened to announce that my younger brother and my best friend Ray Shulman passed away on March 30th at his home in London. I was with him until the end as he bravely battled a long illness. At least I know he is now at peace. “Ray really was a genius in so many ways. He was an incredible composer, musician, music producer and tech wizard. Together with myself and my elder brother Philip he was a founding member of Simon Dupree & The Big Sound and subsequently Gentle Giant. He went on to produce artists like the Sundays, the Sugarcubes, Ian McCulloch and many more. More recently he devoted his tech and musical expertise in authoring and remixing other artists like Jethro Tull, Genesis, King Crimson and many more.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Primary Wave Music has struck a partnership with multiple Grammy and Juno Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan that sees the company acquiring a majority stake in her songwriting and recorded-music catalog. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it includes such hits as “Angel,” “I Will Remember You,” “Hold On,” and more. Following the success of her 1993 breakthrough album, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy,” the singer has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide, received three Grammy Awards and twelve Juno Awards and has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and 13-Time Grammy winner Pharrell Williams will be honored by the Recording Academy at its annual Grammys on the Hill Awards, taking place on April 26. The event is intended to bring together congressional leaders and music makers to recognize those who have led the fight for creators’ rights, and the three will be honored for their contributions to support music creators. Special guests and attendees will be announced in the coming weeks.  “Grammys on the Hill is a celebration like no other, spotlighting music’s unifying power as we bring together our nation’s leaders with some of the most renowned artists in the world,” said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. “It’s a privilege to honor Pharrell alongside Senate Majority Leader Schumer and Senator Cassidy, all of whom have fought tirelessly for pro-music policy that protects the creatives that make up our community.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor On May 30, Foo Fighters will headline the opening night of a new Washington D.C. venue called the Atlantis, an intimate 450-capacity room opened by independent promoter I.M.P., which also owns and operates area venues the 9:30 Club and the Anthem and operates the Lincoln Theatre and Merriweather Post Pavilion. The venue kicks off the season with a robust opening lineup that includes Maggie Rogers, Parliament Funkadelic, Yo La Tengo, Darius Rucker, Joan Jett, Tove Lo, Jeff Tweedy, Tank and the Bangas, Portugal. The Man, and Billy Idol, among others (full lineup below). The new club was accidentally announced by D.C.-area native Dave Grohl in September of 2021, when Foo Fighters played the re-opening night of the long-running 9:30 Club after months of pandemic shutdown. He said I.M.P. was going to open a new, smaller venue fashioned as a near replica of the original 9:30 Club, where he got his start. He gave no additional details but added, “We’ll probably be the band that opens that place, too, right?”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor This op-ed is jointly signed by the advocacy organizations the Songwriters of North America (SONA), the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC), and the Music Artists Coalition (MAC). If you love songwriters and hate the many ways songwriters are underpaid, paid slowly, or not paid at all, please read the following: There is over a quarter billion dollars of mechanical-royalty income related to songs that were streamed between 2018 and 2022 that has not been paid — and there is no guidance on when it will. Why? Eyes down. The Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”) is an organization responsible for receiving mechanical royalties from streaming services, matching the royalties for songs to the appropriate songwriters, and distributing that income to songwriters and publishing companies accordingly. The MLC is currently holding $373 million dollars in mechanical royalty income for songs streamed between 2018 and 2022. 

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Three male suspects were arrested Thursday in connection with the alleged assault and robbery of rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine at a Florida gym last week, law-enforcement officials announced Thursday. The suspects – Rafael Medina, Jr., 43, Octavious Medina, 23, and Anthony Maldonado, 25 – were in custody, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said in a tweet late Thursday. The rapper (real name: Daniel Hernandez) was transported from an LA Fitness Gym to a hospital on March 21 after being injured when “an altercation occurred inside the business between several individuals,” the sheriff’s office said last week. His injuries were said to be non-life-threatening.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor BMG posted its strongest year of growth in 2022, with annual revenues of $911 million (up 30% over last year) and made more than $400 million worth of acquisitions in the booming catalog market, the company announced Thursday in its annual earnings report. The company’s annual operating EBITDA was up by more than 35% to $205 million. Founded in 2008, the Berlin-based company has been a steady presence in the music industry, basing its strength on tried-and-true artists and catalogs that range from Adam Lambert to Cypress Hill, from T. Rex to the Trojan reggae label. Its publishing division is one of the biggest in the industry, and it has made bold moves into the music documentary business — including a major stake in the critically lauded David Bowie doc “Moonage Daydream.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor As expected, a new hard rock festival called Power Trip, from the founders of Coachella, has announced its lineup: Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Tool. It will take place at Coachella’s home base of the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, Calif., Oct.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Amazon Music is paying tribute to hip-hop’s vast influence on music, culture, and society with “50 & Forever,” a program in celebration of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, intended to honor the music’s legacy and champion the artists writing the next 50 years of its history. Created by Rotation — the hip-hop and R&B brand from Amazon Music — “50 & Forever” will include curated events, livestreams, playlists, original content, and new music, spanning Amazon Music, Twitch, Audible, Prime Video, and Amp.  The celebration will feature some of the most important names in hip-hop, from hip-hop’s Golden Era through present day, including J.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Oleg Stavitsky is co-founder and CEO of Endel, a sound wellness company that utilizes generative AI and science-backed research. Today, when the music industry cautiously expresses enthusiasm for AI, it focuses primarily on AI as a new tool that producers and artists can use in the studio. The rest of generative AI’s capabilities are seen as a threat, or as RIAA President Mitch Glazer put it in a recent op-ed, as “empty knock offs and chatbot impersonations,” from which true, human-made music must be protected.  Meanwhile, The U.S. Copyright Office has put forward new requirements when registering copyright for AI-generated content: they will consider the extent to which the human had creative control over the work’s expression and “actually formed” the traditional elements of authorship. Both perspectives draw a hard line between human creativity and AI activity, rather than looking at ways the two can collaborate and co-create. 

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor While an official announcement is not expected until later in the week, multiple sources tell Variety that Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Tool and Iron Maiden headline a new festival called Power Trip from Coachella founders Goldenvoice. The sources say the festival will take place at Coachella’s home base, Empire Polo Field in Indio, Calif., in October. The news was previously reported by Hits, Desert Sun and the music blog the Scenestar, and a remarkably unsubtle teaser campaign apparently from the organizers. Despite the Coachella connection, the festival is more like a hard rock version of Goldenvoice’s 2016 Desert Trip festival, which featured a classic-rock dream team of Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Who and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Jesse Rutherford, singer-songwriter-producer of the Neighbourhood, has signed a new solo deal with Atlantic Records. Operating under the name Jesse®, returns with two new songs, “Joker” and “Rainbow,” that will be live at 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday. The new songs are the first releases from the musician’s new solo chapter with Atlantic Records. “It’s been a minute since I’ve shared anything,” Jesse® said. “It feels like I moved away from home & got a new phone number. This is my message letting you know I’m back in town & trying to get together.” “Joker” arrives with a companion visual directed by Ramez Silyan; the songs will be followed by another, “Me & Universe,” on April 28, with a full-length album due out later this year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Warner Chappell Music has renewed its global publishing deal with producer Marco “MAG” Borrero. A frequent Bad Bunny collaborator, MAG produced 15 of the 23 tracks on the blockbuster album “Un Verano Sin Ti,” which led to his 2022 Variety Hitmakers honor and his No. 1 position on Billboard’s Year-End Hot Latin Song Producers chart. “Un Verano Sin Ti” became the first all-Spanish album to top the year-end Billboard 200 chart as well as earn a nomination for Album of the Year Grammy award. The Brooklyn-born, Puerto Rican-Dominican producer was mentored by Max Martin — the most successful songwriter-producer of the past 25 years — and over the course of his career has also collaborated with Rauw Alejandro, Arcángel, Bebe Rexha, Imagine Dragons, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Scott Borchetta — founder of Big Machine Label Group, the company that originally signed Taylor Swift — was involved in an accident Sunday while racing in the Trans Am Series. According to a statement from the label, he was taken to the hostpital for examination and is currently in stable condition. His wife, Sandy Spika Borchetta, who is also an executive VP at the company, and other family members are with him. “We ask everyone to please respect the Borchetta family’s privacy during this time,” the announcement concludes. Borchetta had to be extracted from his car after it went off course in the high-braking Turn 1 of the 12-turn course, according to a report on the TobyChristie.com website. Shortly after the accident, the Trans Am broadcast team reported, “I can tell you [Scott] is okay. He is conscious, and he’s been talking to his team, but he is on his way to the hospital. It was a big hit, but I am glad to say he is now in good care and being taken to the hospital.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Kelly Clarkson has announced that she will headline an exclusive Las Vegas engagement called “Chemistry…an Intimate Night With Kelly Clarkson,” opening Friday, July 28, 2023 at Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino (formerly Zappos Theater). The evening is described as “an intimate music experience that spans her two-decade long catalog of award-winning hits.” See Variety‘s cover story on Clarkson here. “I am so excited for these shows and couldn’t think of a better place to get back on stage than Las Vegas! The crowds in Vegas are such an amazing collection of people that simply want to have a great time and that’s what we’re going to do!” said Clarkson. “So many of my musical idols have had, and still have, incredible residencies on The Strip, and I’m so excited to create my own!”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Jay-Z’s net worth has soared to $2.5 billion, according to a new Forbes report published Friday. While the report is slim on details, it notes that the fortune of the man born Shawn Carter 53 years reached far beyond music. “Even in a year without a tour or album release, Jay-Z mints millions from his Armand de Brignac champagne and D’Usse cognac,” it says. “The Brooklyn-born rapper was crowned hip-hop’s first billionaire by Forbes in 2019, thanks to a sprawling and diversified empire,” noting assets from his Roc Nation entertainment and sports empire to a fine-art collection including works by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Sony Music has dissolved the long-running Arista Nashville imprint, a rep for the company confirms to Variety. The news was first reported in Country Aircheck‘s newsletter. Most of the artists will be absorbed into Sony Music Nashville, with Nate Smith is going to RCA Nashville and Old Dominion and Megan Moroney moving over to Columbia Nashville. Brooks & Dunn is the most famous artist on the label, having been one of its cornerstone acts since 1991, but the duo is not a going concern on the recording front. Apart from a retrospective/duets project three years ago, they have not issued an album of new material since 2007.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor In February of last year, as controversy broiled around Joe Rogan’s racially charged language and COVID-related misinformation on multiple editions of his Spotify podcast, the streaming giant’s CEO attempted to defuse the situation by apologizing to his aggrieved staff and pledging $100 million “for the licensing, development, and marketing of music (artists and songwriters) and audio content from historically marginalized groups.” Nearly 14 months later, that $100 million “Creator Equity Fund” has spent less than 10% of its funding on that work,” according to a report in Bloomberg. The initiative was behind schedule in hiring an eight-person staff to oversee the project and “has suffered from shifting priorities,” the report said, citing unnamed people familiar with the effort. At the beginning of this year, the fund had not completed its 2023 budget and had not determined its priority projects, according to a memo the publication said it had obtained, and another fund intended to promote diversity in podcasts suffered after that business was hit by layoffs last year, a union representing workers said.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The newly launched independent music publishing, rights management, and catalog marketing company AMR Songs has acquired by catalogs of former Lovin’ Spoonful frontmany John Sebastian — including such songs as “Daydream,” “Summer in the City,” “Do You Believe in Magic” and “Wecome Back” — as well as Grammy-winning reggae group Soja. Founded by industry veteran/ CEO Tamara Conniff and private equity professional/ CFO Steve Reinstadlter, the Los Angeles and New York-based company has acquired an undisclosed interest in Sebastian’s entire catalog, including his publishing and artist royalties from the Lovin’ Spoonful, which also include “Younger Girl,” “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice,” and “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?,” among others.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor No, Daft Punk are not reuniting — but the duo are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their epochal Grammy-winning final album, “Random Access Memories,” with an expanded edition that features 35 minutes of previously unreleased music across nine songs. Today, the duo dropped “The Writing of Fragments of Time,” the first track from the album (which comes out May 12). According to the announcement, the track is a “documentary track” that nods back to the album song “Giorgio by Moroder,” in which the iconic Giorgio Moroder discusses his own creative process and come up. “This newest behind the scenes track glimpses the actual humans at work with all their doubts, excitement and first draft imperfections.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Wet Leg lead the nominations for the 2023 Libera Awards, the celebration of independent music presented by the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM). The Grammy-winning British group lead all nominess with six, while Sudan Archives, Allison Russell, Fontaines D.C., and Soul Glo have three each. The ceremony takes place on Thursday, June 15 at the historic Town Hall in New York City, and will feature 37 categories highlighting the best in independent music, as well as performances from nominees. In addition to recording artists across all genres, the award ceremony will also acknowledge categories for Best Sync Usage, Creative Packaging, Independent Champion, Label of the Year, Marketing Genius, Self-Released Record of the Year, Best Re-Issue, Best Live/Livestream Act, Video of the Year, and A2IM’s Humanitarian Award. Nominees for this year are listed below.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor To call “Spinning Gold” a labor of love is an understatement completely uncharacteristic of its subject: the late Neil Bogart, the larger-than-life founder of Casablanca Records, the famously freewheeling 1970s powerhouse that brought the world Kiss, Donna Summer, Parliament-Funkadelic and the Village People in less than five years. Some 25 years in the making, the biopic was written, produced and directed by Bogart’s eldest son Tim (who’s worked in those roles on many TV series, from “Majors & Minors” to “The Jungle Book”) with music supervision from his youngest son, Evan (a songwriter and music publisher who co-wrote Beyonce’s “Halo,” among many other hits), and other family members as producers. Out March 31, it features Tony and Grammy-nominated Broadway star Jeremy Jordan (“Newsies,” “Rock of Ages,” “Waitress”) as Bogart, Michelle Monaghan as his first wife, Lyndsy Fonseca as his second, rapper Wiz Khalifa as P-Funk’s George Clinton, singers Ledisi as Gladys Knight and Tayla Parx as Summer, among many others.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Odesza, Lana Del Rey, Karol G, the 1975 and Tomorrow X Together are the top-billed artists for the Lollapalooza 2023 festival, taking place at its longtime home of Chicago’s Grant Park from August 3-6.  This year’s lineup also includes Fred again, Noah Kahan, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, J.I.D., Maggie Rogers, Carly Rae Jepsen, Diplo, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Tems, the Rose, Rina Sawayama, Lil Yachty, Rema, Morgan Wade, Lainey Wilson, L’Impératrice, Ivan Cornejo, Sudan Archives, and many others (see the full 170-plus-artist lineup below). The festival, which celebrated its 30 th anniversary in 2021, will take place across nine stages and four days.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Global recorded-music revenue growth slowed down dramatically in 2022 but still was up 9% according to the year-end report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s released Tuesday. While 2021 saw an 18.5% growth, largely due to an increase in streaming numbers as the world waited at home for the pandemic to lift, a growth in global streaming numbers powered the past year’s lift, which showed total trade revenues for year at $26.2 billion. Subscription audio streaming revenues increased by 10.3% to $12.7 billion, and there were 589 million users of paid subscription accounts at the end of 2022, according to the report.  Total streaming (including both paid subscription and advertising-supported) grew by 11.5% to reach $17.5 billion, or 67% of total global recorded music revenues, according to the IFPI, which represents more than 8,000 record company members worldwide.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The first real SXSW in four years wrapped up this weekend, but it’s likely what went down this year will be looked at in the future as another transitional year. After a mid-pandemic return in 2022 that was intentionally less high-profile than past editions, this year’s South By was supposed to be a return to form of the citywide takeover that’s made SX a staple in the calendar for decades for musicians and execs alike. In practice, though, the music portion of SXSW still felt under-attended, and the current wave of music just on the fringe of popularity under-represented. Even the former Spring-break hub intersection of Sixth Street and Red River was a ghost town on Friday night, and lines to get into showcases across town were essentially nonexistent. On top of that, many of the highest-profile showcases were postponed or shut down following a massive lightning storm on Thursday night. Perhaps it’s post-Covid malaise, perhaps it’s the heightened cost of touring, maybe people were waiting to see how this year went — but something in the Topo Chico has changed, hopefully not for forever.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor One of the ironies about the rise of 100 Gecs — who have become poster children for “hyper-pop,” whether they want to be or not — is the fact that their hyperactive music, which is filled with lyrical and sonic pranks, changes direction every few seconds and has melodies that are like bubblegum pop through a garish Instagram filter, is being feted for its pretty undeniable brilliance. Critics slather over them, they signed a deal with Atlantic Records, were the subject of in-depth profiles in the New Yorker and the New York Times, and were even artists in residence at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. While it’s not hard to imagine the hardly-serious duo of Laura Les and Dylan Brady doubled over with laughter when these things started happening, now it’s almost like the joke’s on them.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The fast rise of AI technology has opened up a world of brain-busting questions about copyright and creators’ rights — for example, if David Guetta drops a song with a ChatGPT-generated verse from a fake Eminem, who gets paid? — and it’s safe to say them music industry is alarmed by this universe of new challenges. A new coalition to meet those challenges called the Human Artistry Campaign was announced at the South by Southwest conference on Thursday, with support from more than 40 organizations, including the Recording Academy, the National Music Publishers Association, the Recording Industry of America and many others.