Jem Aswad-Senior Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorMTV has announced the first round of performers for the 2022 VMAs, taking place live from New Jersey’s Prudential Center on Sunday, August 28th at 8PM ET/PT.Anitta, J Balvin, Marshmello x Khalid and Panic! at the Disco are the first round of announced artists, with more to follow in the coming weeks.Brazilian singer Anitta, who played a vivid 45-minute set of her hits at Coachella in April, will make her VMA debut with the TV  performance of her new single, “Envolver.” She is also up for her first VMAs award in the Best Latin category, making her the first Brazilian artist to be nominated for a Moon Person.Veteran Colombia artist Balvin will return to the VMA state with the TV premiere of “Nivel de Perreo” with Ryan Castro, returning for the first time since his epic on-stage collaboration with Bad Bunny for “Que Pretendes” in 2019. The five-time VMA winner is also nominated for Best Latin (for “In Da Getto” with Skrillex), which would make him as the most awarded Latin artist in VMAs history.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLive Nation posted solid results in its second quarter earnings report, with a 40% increase in revenue over the same period in 2019 to $4.4 billion, an 86% increase in operating income to $319 million, and a 50% increase in adjusted operating income $480 million.Perhaps most significantly, “We have sold over 100 million tickets for our concerts this year — more than we sold for the entire year in 2019,” CEO Michael Rapino said in a statement, adding that the company is on track for a record year.Live Nation also posted what it said is its highest quarterly attendance ever, with more than 33 million fans across 12,500 events — up 20% over the same quarter in 2019.Rapino said, “With most of the world fully re-opened, it’s clear that concerts remain a high priority for fans. Consumers are seeking out and spending more on experiences, and the growing demand we are seeing for live music and events is driving our business to record levels, far outpacing any macro issues or cost increases.” However, while many blockbuster tours, such as Harry Styles and Olivia Rodrigo, are thriving, the high number of artists on the road, combined with recession fears and lingering apprehension about mass gatherings as Covid variants continue, has caused others to perform below expectations.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorJohnny Depp and Jeff Beck have been accused of lifting lyrics for their song “Sad Motherfuckin’ Parade” from an obscure “toast” sung by an incarcerated man and documented and released by a folklorist in 1974, according to a report in Rolling Stone.A large number of lyrics of the Depp/Beck song “18” are strikingly similar to lines from a toast — an often-profane form of Black folk poetry from years past — called “Hobo Ben” and apparently written by a man named Slim Wilson who was serving an armed-robbery sentence at Missouri State Penitentiary and documented by Bruce Jackson in his 1974 book about toasts, “Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me,” and a companion album. Wilson — whose name is a pseudonym — is not listed in the song’s credits.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOne of the wonders of music streaming is its borderlessness. Back in the day, a person might never hear, let alone purchase, music outside their country or comfort zone if they didn’t happen to wander into that area of a record store or radio dial.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWith hits from a wildly diverse array of artists including Halsey, the Weeknd, Camila Cabello, Jon Batiste, Leon Bridges, Twenty One Pilots, SZA, Maren Morris, Maggie Rogers, Maroon 5, Bomba Estereo and many more, Ricky Reed is one of the most successful and ubiquitous songwriters of the past 15-odd years.But it’s his work with Lizzo, both as a musical collaborator and the head of Nice Life, the label to which signed along with Atlantic Records, that has made him Variety’s Hitmaker of the Month for July. The singer’s “Special” album features five songs co-produced by Reed — including the smash single “About That Time” and the closer, “Coldplay.”Reed (real name: Eric Frederic) began working with Lizzo (real name: Melissa Jefferson) in 2016.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIn the past 48 hours, the only noise louder than the Beyhive has been coming from R&B singer Kelis, who is outraged that Beyonce sampled her 2000 song “Get Along With You” without informing her. The sample appears in “Energy” from Beyonce’s just-released album “Renaissance”; the officially credited writers and producers of “Get Along With You” are the Neptunes, a.k.a.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSony Music Publishing has signed rising singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Em Beihold to a worldwide publishing agreement. Her gold-certified single “Numb Little Bug” has been on the Billboard Hot 100 for 24 weeks, and she released her debut EP “Egg in the Backseat: last week.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorApproximately 36 hours before its scheduled release at midnight ET on Thursday, Beyonce’s full album has apparently leaked.Social media was filled with comments on the leak and Variety was able to find high-quality flac files that certainly sound like the album within a matter of minutes. Some posts showed CD copies of the album for sale, apparently in Europe.Reps for Beyonce and the album’s distributor, Columbia Records, did not immediately respond to Variety’s requests for comment.The leak came as a shock, as Beyonce’s operation is famously among the most secure in the business, renowned for the surprise drop of her 2013 self-titled album — which required countless non-disclosure agreements —  and an overall air of secrecy. The singer revealed the tracklist for her forthcoming seventh album “Renaissance” last week.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThree weeks after postponing his “Wonder” world tour to focus on his mental health, Shawn Mendes announced on Wednesday that he’s canceling the tour altogether.“As you guys know, I had to postpone the past few weeks of shows since I wasn’t totally prepared for the toll that being back on the road would take on me,” he wrote in social media posts. “I started this tour excited to finally get back to playing live after a long break due to the pandemic, but the reality is I was not at all ready for how difficult touring would be after this time away.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Newark Museum of Art is presenting two stunning exhibits of photography featuring Billie Holiday and a selection of jazz legends. “Jazz Greats: Classic Photographs from the Bank of America Collection” and “Billie Holiday at Sugar Hill: Photographs by Jerry Dantzic” opened last month and will run through August 22, 2022.“Jazz Greats” includes 33 photographs by 15 photographers that date from the 1920s to the 1980s, including Miles Davis, John & Alice Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Eric Dolphy (pictured, top), Louis Armstrong, Eartha Kitt, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie, along with photos of amateur musicians performing in their local communities, as well as their audiences.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorFormer President Barack Obama has unveiled another of his summer playlists, and as in the past, it’s a combination of the expected — NPR-level but edgy rap and R&B, some old soul chestnuts, a smattering of alt-rock and country, a nod to his podcast-mate Bruce Springsteen, and some international gems — along with a couple of “woah!” surprises, particularly British upstarts Wet Leg. (We could give more examples, but just look below.)Like his past lists and his annual summer reading lists, it’s a combination of age-appropriate, adventurous (but not too adventurous) and family-friendly music that uniformly has a positive or socially relevant message — just like the man and the policies of his presidency, which feels so long ago.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorHer most famous client only needs one name to be recognized, but legendary Madonna publicist Barbara Charone can go one better: she’s known throughout the music industry simply by her initials.BC’s remarkable 50-year career is now being celebrated in her new memoir, “Access All Areas,” which has been the talk of the U.K. industry since its publication at the end of last month.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorYouTube has announced the Foundry Class of 2022, welcoming 30 new artists to its global artist development program. The Class of 2022 is Foundry’s biggest class to date, featuring indie talent spanning genres and continents.Created in 2015, Foundry is YouTube’s incubator for independent music, supporting indie artists at all stages of their careers through annual artist development classes and ongoing release support campaigns.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorMTV has unveiled the nominations for the 2022 VMAs: leading the pack are Jack Harlow, Kendrick Lamar and Lil Nas X with seven each, closely followed by Doja Cat and Harry Styles with six, and Billie Eilish, Drake, Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and the Weeknd with five. The show takes place at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Sunday, August 28 at 8 p.m.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorEven in a fast-moving film like Jordan Peele’s “Nope,” there are some easter eggs you just can’t ignore — and one that has caught more than a few viewers’ eyes is the bizarre preponderance of characters wearing T-shirts featuring alt-rock bands from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.It starts with the character Angel (Brandon Perea) wearing a Wipers T-shirt — the legendary Portland band beloved by Kurt Cobain. Then you see one with a Mr.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs rumored, Meta announced on Monday that it will be changing the way artists and music rightsholders are paid from Facebook, moving to a revenue-sharing model for user-generated video content, although it has not shared full details.In the new system, video creators who use licensed music in videos over 60 seconds long on Facebook will receive a 20% share of any advertising revenue generated by their videos. “A separate share” — presumably the remaining 80% of that advertising revenue — will then be split between the music’s rightsholders and Meta, although how and how much that revenue will be split has not been confirmed.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAdele has announced rescheduled dates for her “Weekends With Adele” Las Vegas residency, which was abruptly postponed the day before it was scheduled to begin in January. The new dates — including one on Christmas Eve — will take place at the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and begin November 18; they are listed below.  In addition to the 24 rescheduled shows, 8 new shows have also been announced. The residency will now run through March 25, 2023.A select number of tickets will be available across all 32 performances.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorKobalt, one of the world’s largest music publishers, has removed its entire 700,000-song catalog from Facebook and Instagram in the United States, a rep for the company confirms to Variety.The company’s U.S. licensing contract with Meta, parent of the two social-media giants, has expired and the two parties have failed to reach a new deal.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorPearl Jam have canceled a second concert on their European tour due because of damage to singer Eddie Vedder’s vocal cords from wildfires that have been plaguing France.The group canceled Wednesday’s show in Vienna and have announced that Friday’s concert in Prague is off as well.In an Instagram post on Wednesday, the band announced that “due to the extreme circumstances at the last outdoor site outside of Paris (heat, dust, and smoke from the fires) our singer Ed Vedder’s throat was left damaged. He has seen doctors and had treatment but as of yet, his vocal cords have not recovered.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBeyonce has revealed the credits for her forthcoming seventh full-length solo album “Renaissance,” and they’re every bit as star-studded and envelope-pushing as you’d expect, a mixture of household names like Drake, Jay-Z and Pharrell, veteran hitmakers like The-Dream, Raphael Saadiq, Hit Boy, Mike Dean and Nova Wave, and some unknowns who are having their first entries on Genius.com.Based on the songwriting credits revealed in Apple Music — with a few typos — collaborators include:Drake, on the song “Heated,” Jay-Z, with credits on three songs, Pharrell Williams, likely in collaboration with his Neptunes partner Chad Hugo (the name “Chad” appears at the end of the credits for song “Energy”), Nigerian singer Tems, Solange/ D’Angelo collaborator Raphael Saadiq, R&B chanteuse Sabrina Claudio, Longtime Beyonce collaborator The-Dream (“Single Ladies,” “Who Run the World (Girls)”) on multiple songs, Longtime Jay-Z/ Kanye West collaborator No I.D., Songwriting/production duo Nova Wav (Denisia “Blu June” Andrews and Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney), PC Records founder and Charli XCX collaborator A. G.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBMG announced early Thursday that it has acquired the entire music publishing back catalog of French electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre.The deal brings the rights in such groundbreaking albums as “Oxygene” and “Equinoxe” together with Jarre’s writer’s income stream. The company previously acquired the sound recordings of Jarre’s first three albums when it bought noted independent record label Francis Dreyfus Music in 2012.Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although for context, according to the announcement, Jarre has racked up 85 million-plus album sales over his career.Jarre said of his deal with the German-based company, “This partnership with BMG means a lot to me.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBeyonce has revealed the tracklist for her forthcoming seventh album “Renaissance,” which drops July 29, a week from this Friday.The tracklist, which was posted on her Instagram story and appears below, includes many intriguing titles like “America Has a Problem,” “Alien Superstar,” “Church Girl,” “Cuff It,” “Thique,” “All Up in Your Mind” and more, along with the single, “Break My Mind.”Earlier this month Beyoncé shared the album’s cover artwork, which sees her posing regally atop the silhouette of a luminous horse. In a note accompanying the artwork, Beyoncé wrote:“Creating this album allowed me a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world. It allowed me to feel free and adventurous in a time when little else was moving.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorShania Twain’s “Not Just a Girl,” a new, career-spanning documentary produced by Mercury Studios and directed by Joss Crowley, will be available Tuesday, July 26 on Netflix.According to the announcement, the doc “takes viewers from her humble beginnings in Timmins, Ontario, where she was raised poor and inspired by the story of Dolly Parton, through her initial record label signing in Nashville, and onto her career-defining moment meeting her future husband and rock producer Mutt Lange ahead of writing, recording and releasing her breakthrough album ‘The Woman in Me.’” It features studio session footage from throughout her career and brand new interviews with Twain at home, and discussing her forthcoming sixth album. Among the guest voices in Not Just A Girl are Lionel Richie, Diplo, Avril Lavigne, and Orville Peck.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Los Angeles-based “electro-soul” band B00TY has release “Matter of Time,” its new single featured in Issa Rae’s forthcoming HBO series “Rap Sh!t.”The song is released on the new label, A Tiny Universe (ATU), formed by hitmakers Adrian Miller and Om’Mas Keith, who have 10 Grammys between them and have worked with Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Anderson .Paak, Odd Future and many others.Keith, who produced the song, says “B00TY perfectly embodies what we’re aiming at musically with A Tiny Universe, and both Adrian and I feel that they will ultimately represent an essential element of our musical legacy.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorJustin Bieber will resume his “Justice” world tour on July 31, a rep for the singer has confirmed to Variety, after a diagnosis of Ramsay Hunt syndrome forced him to postpone a brace of North American tour dates early last month.The singer’s massive world tour, which has 75 scheduled dates, will resume with a performance at the Lucca Summer Festival in Italy, and follow with five dates in Europe into August before heading to South America in September. It continues in South Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand before returning to Europe in January through March.There is no update on the rescheduled North American dates, but it seems likely they will be rescheduled for next Spring.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWilliam “Poogie” Hart, lead singer of legendary Philadelphia soul act the Delfonics, has died, his son Hadi tells TMZ. According to the report, Hart was taken to Philadelphia’s Temple University Hospital after suffering breathing difficulties and died Thursday due to complications from surgery.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLive Nation has re-upped longtime CEO Michael Rapino to a new five-year contract that will see him earn $30 million year if he and the company meet performance metrics, according to documents filed with the SEC.While Rapino’s annual salary holds at his previous $3 million per year, the annual target cash bonus is climbing from $6 million to $17 million per year. The news was first reported by the Hollywood Reporter.Starting next year, Rapino will also be eligible for an annual grant of restricted shares valued at no less than $10 million.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAugust 08, singer-songwriter known for his work with the LA-based collective 88Rising, has inked with Allel Sound, Jhene Aiko’s joint label venture with Def Jam. His debut EP, “Towards The Sun,” drops tonight and includes the new single and video “Water Sign,” which features Aiko.“August is an incredible writer, singer and artist whose music speaks to me on so many levels,” said Aiko.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorCindy Blackman Santana said that her husband Carlos is “doing very well” after he passed out onstage during a concert earlier this week.The veteran guitarist was performing at the Pine Knob Music Theatre outside of Detroit on Tuesday night when he collapsed in mid-song due to heat exhaustion and dehydration, his rep later explained. He was immediately treated by medical personnel and waved to fans as he was wheeled offstage and taken to a nearby hospital.“Hi Everyone! Carlos & I thank you so much for your prayers, love, care & concern for him!,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday “Please know that he’s resting and doing very well! He was diagnosed with heat exhaustion & dehydration… it was 100 degrees on stage and 114 under the lights so that coupled with not enough water is what caused the issue.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorManny Charlton, founding guitarist of the hard rock band Nazareth and producer of Guns N’ Roses early demos, has died, according to a post from his grandson. No cause of death was cited; he was 80.He was Nazareth’s guitarist, producer and songwriter from the band’s formation until 1990, performing on the band’s most successful albums, notably 1973’s “Razamanaz” and 1975’s “Hair of the Dog,” which went platinum and featured the group’s biggest hit, a dramatic cover of “Love Hurts,” originally made famous by the Everly Brothers, that reaced the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.In 1986, Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose reportedly wanted “the guy who produced Nazareth’s ‘Hair of the Dog’” to produce the band’s debut full-length.