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The ‘Stoner’ rapper would love to hit the stage in a rap-off against the ‘Lollipop’ hitmaker for Timbaland and Swizz Beatz’s popular online music battle series.
Dec 30, 2020
AceShowbiz – Young Thug wants to see a “Verzuz” battle between himself and Lil Wayne.
Timbaland and Swizz Beatz their Covid-busting online initiative earlier this year (20), setting up rap battles between stars including Snoop Dogg and DMX, and Jill Scott and Erykah Badu.
Now Young Thug has thrown his hat into the ring, insisting a Verzuz battle with Lil Wayne would be fantastic to watch.See also…
During an interview on the “Million Dollaz Worth of Game” podcast, Young Thug said, “It would probably have to be like (Lil Wayne). Because you got to think – we got to talk about influence. We got to talk about everything. We got to talk about everything. It’s not just about no rap.”
“You got to understand, as rappers, as hip-hop artists, you can only go so far. I always just focused on the next level.”
Young Thug also reflected on when his beef with Wayne started – recalling that his peer ignored him the first time they met.
Meanwhile, 50 Cent thought it would be more interesting to see Lil Wayne battle it out with his former protege Drake. “I think because of the momentum, the best thing would be Lil Wayne versus Drake,” the “Get Rich or Die Tryin” star said in a recent interview before explaining, “because it’s two styles, two different styles in the same period so it will be entertaining enough to watch both of them.”You can share this post!
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A number of fans have been wondering if the ‘Cardigan’ singer is throwing shade at her supermodel friend in ‘Right Where You Left Me’ and ‘It’s Time to Go’, the two bonus tracks off her deluxe album.
Jan 9, 2021
AceShowbiz – Taylor Swift has made sure her fans know that her new “Evermore” songs have nothing to do with Karlie Kloss. Having been speculated to throw shade at her supermodel friend in “Right Where You Left Me” and “It’s Time to Go”, the “Cardigan” singer was quick to shut down the rumors by revealing the meaning behind the tracks.
The 31-year-old set the record straight via Instagram on Friday, January 8. “the evermore deluxe album with 2 bonus tracks ‘right where you left me’ and ‘it’s time to go’ is now available! The first is a song about a girl who stayed forever in the exact spot where her heart was broken, completely frozen in time,” she clarified. ” ‘it’s time to go’ is about listening to your gut when it tells you to leave. How you always know before you know, you know?”See also…
Taylor dropped “Right Where You Left Me” and “It’s Time to Go” on Thursday, January 7. Since then, her fans on Twitter were convinced that the latter was aimed at Karlie after listening to the lyrics which read, “When the words of a sister come back in whispers/ That prove she was not, in fact, what she seemed/ Not a twin from your dreams/ She’s a crook who was caught.”
One speculated, “Wait…did Taylor Swift diss former ‘best friend forever’ Karlie Kloss on ‘it’s time to go’ ?” Another chimed in, “taylor swift warned you that there’s nothing she does better than revenge so it really should come as no surprise how beautifully she drags both karlie, scott and scooter in the bonus tracks.” A third additionally tweeted, “i know there’s a lot going on but taylor swift released a song calling karlie kloss ‘a crook who was caught.’ ”
While Taylor did not offer more details about her friendship with Karlie, the two have been rumored to be embroiled in a feud multiple times. Speculations first arose when the “Willow” songstress did not include the model in her music video for “Look What You Made Me Do”. She also did not attend the model’s wedding to businessman Joshua Kushner.
Although Karlie denied the beef speculations in March 2019, the rumors refused to die down. They resurfaced in June the same year after Taylor was once again absent from the former Victoria’s Secret Angel’s second wedding celebration. Among the guests were Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom and the Grammy-winning artist’s music rival Scooter Braun.You can share this post!
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This challenging subgenre, including the subset of free jazz, is driven by the fire of spontaneity, and its rules are still being written. Eleven writers, critics and musicians share their favorites.Lately The New York Times has asked jazz musicians, writers and scholars to share the favorites that would make a friend fall in love with Herbie Hancock, New Orleans jazz, Sun Ra or Mary Lou Williams.Now we’re putting the spotlight on avant-garde jazz, a challenging subgenre born out of the desire to do something that wasn’t as prescribed as bebop or post-bop, a sound carried by the fire of spontaneity by players who weren’t considered to be in the upper echelon of jazz. The definition of avant-garde jazz has been a point of contention since its inception. While the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians often played avant-garde that didn’t feel like jazz at all, others, like Amiri Baraka — on his 1972 album “It’s Nation Time” — fused poetry and polyrhythms to express a different side of the subgenre. Perhaps its biggest public advocate was the saxophonist and bandleader John Coltrane, who took an interest in free jazz — a subset of avant-garde jazz — in the mid-1960s and pushed for the saxophonists Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders to release their music on the mainstream label Impulse! Records.Today, the rules for what is and what isn’t avant-garde are still being written. The list below doesn’t aim to be comprehensive, but it represents a broad cross-section of avant-garde then and now, discussed by some of the foremost experimental musicians today. Enjoy listening to these songs chosen by a range of musicians, authors and critics. You can find a playlist at the bottom of the article, and be sure to leave your own favorites in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆Ana Roxanne, musician“Longview” by Barre Phillips and John SurmanA friend of mine shared this piece with me recently and I’ve been enamored with this album by Barre Phillips, a Bay Area native who has resided in France for most of his life. In “Longview,” save for some flourishes and a couple of brief passages, the piece stays in the same key pretty much the whole time. I appreciate that a bassist who assigned himself to such few notes can keep such dynamicism. This piece has elements of a drone without sounding like one at all. Also, within avant jazz I tend to prefer vocals that lean more toward consonance, and so I admire the singers’ experimentation with sound, syllable and melody all while keeping a steady structure and never sounding stale, creating a soothing element to a lilting frenetic undercurrent of horns and percussion.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Julia Holter, musician and composer“Yeh Come T’ Be” by Jeanne LeeIn this loud and hyper-edited era, our ears can be moved most powerfully by the rare work that coordinates thoughtfully with space and breath. The composer, vocalist, improviser and poet Jeanne Lee’s music has been inspiring to me in this way, and one of my favorite pieces of hers is the minimalistic and incantatory rumination on four words, “Yeh Come T’ Be,” from the singular 1975 record “Conspiracy.” As I listen, I lose sense of time in the wild contrapuntal interplay between breathy tones, yelps, sighs, whispers, chants. “Come to be/to become” — a litany of words teases away literal meaning, in preference for a felt sonic meaning. The performance came about decades ago, yet it feels alive, born and bold in each heard instant. Every listen is new and a revelation.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Laura Warrell, author“Peanut” by Sonny SharrockTell me a work of art “isn’t for everybody” and I want to see it. I admire artists who not only push the envelope but also tear it to shreds, and the jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock was that kind of musician. “Peanut,” off 1969’s “Black Woman,” weaves a surreal patchwork of sounds that offers a transcendent musical experience. The opening melody, gently plucked on Sharrock’s guitar against a tumble of drums, promises a conventional, even folksy, tunefulness. Just before the two-minute mark, all sense of harmony disjoints: Sharrock’s warbling, squealing guitar abandons the established melody; rhythmless percussion bashes against a tumult of discordant notes played on an upright bass; piano keys sound like they’re being pounded by an unruly child. Each instrument could be playing a different song.It’s the vocals, performed by Sharrock’s then-wife Linda, that assemble the other instruments into an awkwardly cohesive, slightly unnerving whole. At first, her vocals are operatic and pretty, but soon she shrieks and moans like a woman suffering labor pains or nightmares. I wonder what was in this woman’s scream. Pain? Rage? Ecstasy? Whatever the origin, Sharrock’s voice performs the kind of internal reconfiguration listeners might get from good art or good therapy. Those who make it to the end may wonder whether they truly like “Peanut” or are simply under its spell.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Zoh Amba, musician and composer“Unity, Part I” by Frank WrightI first heard Reverend Frank Wright’s music when I was a child back in Tennessee. The music deeply filled my heart with flowers of gratitude. This record, “Unity,” really makes me go inside myself and search. What I feel is a sacred journey together and great endless love. This record makes me feel grateful to be here and feel the sunshine. The quartet is Frank Wright, Bobby Few, Alan Silva and Muhammad Ali, recorded in 1974 at the Moers Festival in Germany.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Elucid, rapper and producer“Science Fiction” by Ornette ColemanI couldn’t help but fall in. Ornette Coleman’s “Science Fiction” still feels like everything I was looking for and nothing I had experienced before. An electric organism of Don Cherry horn squeals, double drummer cymbal crashes by Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell, and Charlie Haden’s bass line wanderings. Surging. On its toes. Pulsing and gnashing. Melodious and chaotic. Swinging real loose. David Henderson came through with base elemental declarations sounding like a ghost of an old spooky religion: “How. Many. Enemies. Make. A. Soul?” Cue crying baby. For lovers of hyper-aural freak-outs.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Chad Clark, musician and producer“Max Brown” by Jeff ParkerIf I tell you I’m going to play some “avant-garde jazz,” I think I know what you are expecting.You’re expecting to hear something challenging. And we both know “challenging” is a euphemism for “difficult.” And “difficult” sometimes means “unpleasant.” But I’m gonna throw on the guitarist/composer Jeff Parker’s dulcet, winning “Max Brown.” You are met with a soothing electronic soundscape enfolding Parker’s understated, post-Grant Green guitar. The genre will remain indeterminate. But the music feels good. Horns enter and the song begins to feel like a futuristic take on the crepuscular, narcotic blues of Mingus’s “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”So why do I call this calming music “avant-garde jazz” and not the smarmy candy known as “smooth jazz”? Simply: smooth jazz is a category. But this music resolutely defies categorization. Since the 1990s we’ve grown accustomed to hip-hop importing and metabolizing the sonorities and techniques of jazz. But “Max Brown” is jazz that has imported and metabolized the sonorities and techniques of hip-hop. It may not be the first track to ever attempt this, but it is the first track to do it this stylishly and charismatically. Feels like a bellwether. It’s not Parker’s intent to announce this provocation. His innovation works better if you just … enjoy the ride.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Melanie Charles, musician and producer“The Inflated Tear/Haitian Fight Song” by Rahsaan Roland Kirk“True Black music will be heard tonight!” is Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s setup for one of the greatest moments in TV history: when Kirk and his group of artists, playwrights, provocateurs, composers and Eulipions defiantly played on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1971. At first glance, Kirk is a funny-looking blind man whose gimmick is playing three horns at the same time. But the goal of Kirk and his Jazz and People’s Movement was to diversify television and amplify Black voices. Known for hiding in audiences and breaking out into a cacophony of bells and whistles, they forced people to see the value of jazz or, as Kirk preferred, “Black Classical Music.”With a fiery rhythm section of Charles Mingus, Sonelius Smith and Roy Haynes slated to play Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” on the “Ed Sullivan” broadcast, Kirk instead starts by quoting his theme from “The Inflated Tear.” Sounding like a woodwind section all by himself, Kirk displays his idiosyncratic multi-horn technique. He introduces the band members and gives them an opportunity to blow.Finally, Kirk sets up Mingus’s “Haitian Fight Song,” written in the 1950s in the midst of the civil rights movement. The climate of social change echoed the success of the Haitian revolution 100 years prior. The players transition into a Dixieland feel as the collective falls into chaos, challenging listeners to wake up. Kirk and company deliver here an electrifying demonstration of public rebellion.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Amirtha Kidambi, composer and vocalist“Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace” by Max Roach and Abbey LincolnVocalists are woefully underrated in the “avant-garde” or “free jazz” idiom, which tends to favor instrumental shredders in a not-so-subtly patriarchal way. The extremely powerful voice and artistry of Abbey Lincoln is ultra-marginalized, seldom mentioned unless in tandem with Max Roach per their romantic entanglement. Lincoln, who passed in 2010, is to me the definition of avant-garde, light years ahead of her time in her abstract, expressive and wordless vocalizations on the seminal civil rights-era suite “We Insist! Freedom Now” (1964), with Roach, Coleman Hawkins and Olatunji, among other proto-free jazz instrumentalists.What I love about Lincoln is that she is not afraid to get dirty and ugly, to make the listener uncomfortable in a visceral way. She utilizes what is academically referred to as “extended technique” in her growls, screams and harsh vocalizations, a term I detest for its normative Eurocentric bias. Rather than “extending” the vocal instrument, I see Lincoln as mining its absolute essential and maximal emotional range, something only approximated in mimicry by horns and other instruments. She is especially potent and effective on “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace,” in conversation with Roach’s drums, yelping, hollering and screaming in pain, in a real-time response to those turbulent years of American racial violence and struggle. Lincoln was no supper-club singer, uninterested in light entertainment, and more concerned with shaking an audience into consciousness. We could use Lincoln’s voice and message now, too.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Marcus J. Moore, jazz writer“Steps” by Cecil TaylorWhen we talk about the beginnings of free- and avant-garde jazz, we often go to Ornette Coleman and start there. It makes sense, given the courage it took to title his 1959 album “The Shape of Jazz To Come,” then pepper it with challenging structures that were tough to wrangle. For me, though, I’ve always looked to Cecil Taylor as the foremost purveyor of the avant-garde, his rolling piano chords tucked between tidal waves of unrelenting drums and saxophone. Perhaps no song typifies this better than “Steps,” the opening song of his 1966 album, “Unit Structures.” I’ve always loved how precarious it feels, organized and chaotic at the same time. A complex tune with bright colors and vigorous sonic arrangements, “Steps” also confronts my sensibilities, making me a bit uneasy. But that’s why I appreciate it the most. It’s a reminder that jazz can soothe and agitate, that just because something is easy and relaxed doesn’t mean it’s better.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆V.C.R, recording artist, violinist and composer“The Creator Has a Master Plan” by Pharoah SandersGrowing up as a preacher’s kid in Memphis, my world was filled with cognitive dissonance. In home-school, my father taught me the basics of music theory and songwriting. During this time I was solely allowed to study two genres: gospel and classical. Even though this felt like a daunting disadvantage, I now see how that rigid upbringing served as the foundation for my music career today.Fast forward to 2016 and I’m sitting in my bedroom in Dallas. At the time, I was only experimenting with writing my own songs. I wanted to make music that was audiovisual and edifying to the soul. My art would be healing and palpable. In my search, I stumbled upon Pharoah Sanders’s “The Creator Has a Master Plan.” From the first second, I was captured by the roaring trumpet. Very different from my classical background; you could feel the musicians breathing together and freely channeling the “holy ghost,” as they say. Suddenly, the song transitions into a trancelike chant but no words are uttered. The melody is repetitive, like the prayer services I grew up in. Then a subtle solo vocalization splits the sea of sound, with “The Creator has a working plan …”Warm tears rolled down my face, and I knew my search was over. This was the blueprint, and Pharoah was my guru. I knew from that moment on, my music would have to flow from the same channel and carry his message. I’m eternally grateful to Pharoah Sanders for my personal paradigm shift and pray everyone gets to experience that level of bliss.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Carlos Niño, producer and musician“Water Music” by Albert AylerAvant Garde?Albert Ayler is/as GodMary Maria Parks his Wife“Water Music” is LifeThey’re open heartsBobby Few and Stafford JamesPlease say their blessed names,Impulse! Fire Music, yes!but labels aside, (1969)Here’s a yearning Lullabyso Beautiful and Alive!Jazz? Because of the Saxophone?I hear a totally unique Gospel …Thank You Ed Michel,this Magic from the same Sessionsthat rang: “Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe”Wellness, wholeness, ESP,“Water Music” waves courage,the first time I heard this word,was from Poet Kamau Daáood,Spirits, Bells, Love Cry, Rejoice,that Eternal, Radiant, Inspired Soul VoiceNew Grass, so vibrantly Green, Spiritual Unity,Deeply, inner, Tenor tone, feeling,Flowing, gleaming,Sparkling, infinite,I am so grateful for it.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆ More

‘The Scotts’ has helped the ex-boyfriend of Kylie Jenner in joining an elite club of stars who have landed multiple No. 1 entrances, including Mariah Carey, Drake and Justin Bieber.
May 5, 2020
AceShowbiz – Travis Scott (II) and Kid Cudi’s new collaboration, “The Scotts”, has debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart.
The song is Scott’s third chart leader and the 37th track in history to debut at number one.
Travis now joins an elite club of stars who have landed multiple number one entrances on the Hot 100, following Mariah Carey and Drake, who both have three, and Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Britney Spears.The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” falls to two on the countdown, while Drake’s “Toosie Slide” also slips a spot to three.
Megan Thee Stallion rings up her first Hot 100 top 10, as “Savage” jumps up 10 spots to four, while Roddy Ricch’s former 11-week number one completes the new top five.
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A German publishing heiress and music promoter, she settled in London in time for the 1970s punk-rock explosion and became the muse to its baddest boy.Nora Forster, a German-born publishing heiress and music promoter who gained fame as the wife of John Lydon — otherwise known as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols — and the mother of Arianna Forster, or Ari Up, the lead singer of the influential all-female punk band the Slits, died on Thursday. She was 80.Her death was announced by Mr. Lydon on Twitter. “Nora had been living with Alzheimer’s for several years,” the announcement said. “In which time John had become her full time career.” He did not say where she died.For more than four decades, music fans knew Ms. Forster as the emotional rock for the ever-volatile Mr. Lydon, who in the late 1970s became Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of British polite society for spitting invective in every direction, including the Queen’s, as the frontman for the incendiary punk progenitors the Sex Pistols.When the band imploded after its brief, explosive career, he scarcely mellowed; he continued on as the creative force of the fiery post-punk band Public Image Ltd., or PiL.Because of her husband’s enduring notoriety, particularly in England, Ms. Forster’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease unfolded as a public drama after he went public about her diagnosis in 2018.“It’s vile to watch someone you love disappear,” he said in an interview with The Sunday Times of London in February. “All the things I thought were the ultimate agony seem preposterous now.”Her illness, he said, had “shaped me into what I am.”“I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” he added. “I don’t see how I can live without her. I wouldn’t want to. There’s no point.”The previous month, he had teared up when taking a more wistful turn in an interview on the television show “Good Morning Britain” about “Hawaii,” a haunting PiL ballad that he had written as a tribute to her and that was the Irish entry in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. (Mr. Lydon was born in England to Irish parents.) “Remember me,” Mr. Lydon sang, “I remember you.”“I can see her personality in her eyes,” he said. “She lets me know that it’s the communication skills that are letting her down.”Nora Maier was born on Nov. 6, 1942, in Munich. After the war, her father, Franz Karl Maier, was a prosecutor who helped bring wartime Nazis to justice. He was later the editor and publisher of the newspaper Tagesspiegel.Ms. Forster went on to work as a model and to marry the singer Frank Forster, who was “kind of a swing pop star, always appearing on TV back in the ’60s,” Arianna Forster said in an interview with the music site Pitchfork in 2009, a year before she died.Nora Forster’s survivors include her husband and three grandchildren.As the 1960s unfolded, Ms. Forster promoted West German tours for acts like Jimi Hendrix and Yes, which gave her prominence on the German rock scene. “People were walking around in the living room back then, like the Bee Gees and all these big groups,” her daughter recalled in the Pitchfork interview.The bohemian lifestyle of her rock friends eventually ran afoul of the local authorities. “In Munich, the police were knocking at the door every night because of the loud acid parties,” her daughter once said. “She was fed up with it. You have to go to London to live that lifestyle.”Ms. Forster did just that in about 1970, and by the middle of the decade she had become enmeshed in the punk-rock scene that was starting to roil Britain and the music industry as a whole. She became “a den mother to all the young punks,” said Arianna, who in 1976, at age 14, would rename herself Ari Up and join with a drummer called Palmolive to found the Slits, which became a leading female punk band of the era.In 1975, Ms. Forster met Mr. Lydon, who was nearly 14 years her junior, at Sex, the boundary-pushing clothing boutique on London’s King’s Road run by the fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and the Sex Pistols’ manager, Malcolm McLaren.It was anything but love at first sight.“There was no physical attraction at first,” Ms. Forster said in a 2004 interview with The Sunday Mail of Britain. “I didn’t even think to be nice to him. I was at another gig and John passed by my table and said, ‘Drop dead.’”Despite the mutual hostility, Mr. Lydon was intrigued. “Her nose went 10 feet in the air in her ’40s film star outfit,” he said in the same Sunday Mail interview. “Long blond hair, padded shoulders — that entire femme fatale look, which I was a complete ham for.”Eventually she softened. “I fell in love with John because he surprised me,” she said. “He had a sweet attitude. He was more innocent and not like the rest of the group.”The couple married in 1979, to the horror of Ms. Forster’s father. And, to the likely amazement of those who considered Mr. Lydon a human mushroom cloud, the marriage endured.Even so, it might never have happened if Ms. Forster had listened to her friends’ advice in those early days. “One day he came up and asked why I had never invited him to my house,” she later said of Mr. Lydon. “I replied, ‘People told me you would destroy everything.’” More
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