Contemporary fame is a function of mind share. Talent helps, but it’s not necessarily a prerequisite. The ability to cause conversation, to stir pots, to cause tizzies is far more crucial.By that metric, there is no more effective performer than 6ix9ine. Trolls seek attention by any means, but 6ix9ine is more sophisticated than that — he is somehow both popular insider and aggrieved outsider, agitator and victim. He is a rapper, but his real skill is seeking out loose threads and yanking on them until whole personas come undone. (Those of others, not his own — that always stays intact.)6ix9ine’s relationship to social media is fluent and triumphant and almost hard to fathom — it’s a match of artist and medium on par with Tom Cruise in the 1980s, the Beatles in the 1960s, Babe Ruth in the 1920s. He’s a chaos agent, spewing toxic missives from his phone to people who feel compelled to respond, almost none of whom can match his savvy or his LOL-shrug nihilism. His music is good, sometimes very good, but his slippery way into other people’s psyches promises to make him indelible.Such has been the case in the almost two weeks since he released a new single, “Gooba,” and went live on his Instagram to announce his return following about a year and a half in federal prison. At one point, over two million people tuned in, the largest number ever for an Instagram livestream.It was a majestically funny, self-aggrandizing performance, full of seething hostility and blithe boasts. 6ix9ine, also known as Tekashi69, danced to “Bad Boys,” the theme from “Cops,” while swinging a pair of handcuffs. (In April, a judge granted him compassionate release because of the coronavirus; he’s completing his sentence under home confinement.) He emulated his enemies’ weeping over his success. He taunted rappers who claimed to have a firmer grip on New York than he does: “If you don’t got this watch right here, you a little boy to me. I’ll kiss you on your forehead.” (The watch, he said, cost $1 million.)Most crucially and controversially, he defended his decision to testify against his former associates, the gang members in the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods who rode along with him early in his career and helped him establish credibility before turning on him and subjecting him to various travails, financial, emotional and violent.Dominos began falling almost immediately, especially from hip-hop’s older generation, for whom 6ix9ine’s success can still seem curious, or even dangerous. Meek Mill unleashed two strings of tweets critical of 6ix9ine’s defiance of the code of silence: “I gotta crush you for the culture you chump!” 6ix9ine responded in a comment: “Imagine having a new born baby come into the world & be pressed about a Mexican with rainbow hair.” (Meek did not fare well in a prior attempt to take down a meme-fluent rising rapper — Drake — with a complaint rooted in the ethics of an earlier time.)Snoop Dogg chimed in, and 6ix9ine accused him of having snitched on Suge Knight, posting a video of himself watching an interview with Knight where he makes the same allegation. Snoop took the bait, replying with a rant: “Better leave the Dogg alone. Go find you a cat.”This is light work for 6ix9ine, the sort of troll activity that’s so effective because it confuses turmoil for righteousness. Meek Mill and Snoop Dogg’s indignation and gruffness are merely instruments 6ix9ine plays to entertain his own audience.But there is vanity at stake here too, as was clear when 6ix9ine took on his next antagonist, Billboard, accusing the trade publication of chicanery in tabulating its charts. “Gooba” debuted at No. 3 on the Hot 100 this week, and 6ix9ine wanted answers, or at least to suggest that there were worthwhile questions that needed to be asked. He posted two videos in which he suggested that Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber’s “Stuck With U” had catapulted to No. 1 through a combination of illicit sales numbers and Billboard’s dismissing millions of YouTube plays of “Gooba.”(As for “Gooba,” it’s OK. Prime B/B- Tekashicore. Barking and yelping. Nerve-rattling production. Not as good as “Gummo” or “Kika.” Better than “Fefe,” though. In the video, he gets licked by a Dalmatian. He throws up a middle finger and sticks his tongue out. His teeth look great. “Are you dumb, stupid or dumb?” he wonders. He shows off his ankle monitor. “Tell me how I ratted, came home to a big bag,” he shrieks. It is a fair line of inquiry.)Again, it worked — Bieber replied to defend the integrity of the song’s sales. Then Grande responded with her now-familiar brand of elegant shade, expressing extreme gratitude for her success and addressing 6ix9ine, not by name but by chart position. “i ask u to take a moment to humble yourself. be grateful you’re even here. that people want to listen to u at all. it’s a blessed position to be in,” she wrote on Instagram. “congratulations to all my talented ass peers in the top ten this week. even number 3.”More bait, more to nibble on. 6ix9ine reacted in a video where he emphasized the challenged circumstances in which he grew up in — “My mom used to collect cans, right, on the street. I used to bus tables, be a dishwasher” — before cutting to video of Grande when she was a Nickelodeon child star. It felt like a “Daily Show” bit.Finally, he came for Billboard itself. “You can buy No. 1s on Billboard. I want that to register in your head,” he griped, even name-dropping Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard’s senior vice president of charts and data development. Billboard replied with an unusually detailed statement delineating how it had arrived at its chart data. 6ix9ine posted a photo of himself on Instagram holding a fistful of credit cards, promising to buy enough copies of his song next time to reach No. 1.All of these have become uproarious story lines that 6ix9ine can extend ad nauseam. Attempted chart manipulation, overt and subtle alike, does happen, and is a persistent thorn in Billboard’s side. But misinformation can travel fast and wide online, and friction is far stickier than courtesy.It’s asymmetric warfare — the button-pusher with oodles of free time and an understanding that the louder he rattles, the more people he’ll reach, will thrive even if his specific complaints lack merit. The internet rewards persistence more than fact.This is a moment in which the famous have largely essayed to spread joy and calm (even if their methods are sometimes constitutionally flawed). There is maybe no better time to sow chaos. Defenses are down. People are leaning into sincerity. Those who are eager to please, to be seen as beacons of integrity and hope, are ripe for unmooring.6ix9ine’s ability to do so while still presenting as the victim is his most efficient sleight of hand. To his supporters, he’s a disrupter, and moreover, proof that disruption is a justifiable mode. To his antagonists, many of whom didn’t realize that’s what they were until he targeted them, he is a nuisance, but a provocative one who’s just informed enough that he can’t be ignored.Certainly, no one has ignored him, and that’s where he draws his power from. “IM BACK AND THEY MAD,” reads his Instagram bio. Mission accomplished.That he’s done all of this while still under federal house arrest is impressive but perhaps not surprising. In the testimony 6ix9ine gave at trial, he indicated that the realities of gang affiliation were too much for him to handle. The people he’d trusted with his career, and his life, were the ones who turned on him. Real life had become, in many ways, the obstacle to his virtual success.Now, 6ix9ine is rebuilding his career from inside a house, still an inmate, presumably under heavy security protection. (He has already had to move once, after his original location was leaked.) But he has access to the one support system that’s never failed him: the internet. His life — his power — is all virtual. Given how fraught the real world can be, he may never stop quarantining. More

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The ‘I’m Still Standing’ hitmaker is expected to make a return to Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland on February 18 after being forced to cut short his Sunday performance because of the illness.
Feb 18, 2020
AceShowbiz – Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” world tour will continue as planned, promoters have promised, despite the singer having to cut short a New Zealand concert after falling ill with walking pneumonia.
The 72-year-old was performing at Auckland’s Mount Smart Stadium on Sunday, February 16 when he stopped the show almost two hours in, telling the audience: “I can’t sing… I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.”
Elton appeared to break down in tears as he leaned on his piano and shook his head. Fans gave him an ovation as he walked off stage, aided by assistants.
The incident called the veteran’s remaining tour dates into question, but promoter Chugg Entertainment confirmed in a statement that Elton’s scheduled gigs in Australia and New Zealand will be going forward as planned.
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“At this stage, all remaining shows will go ahead as planned,” the statement read. “Elton John was disappointed and deeply upset at having to end his Auckland concert early last night.”

Elton is next scheduled to return to Mount Smart Stadium on Tuesday night (February 18), and has dates Down Under until March, when he moves his jaunt to America.

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A founder of Murder Inc. Records, he helped launch the careers of Ja Rule and Ashanti and was credited as a producer on 28 records that made the Billboard Hot 100.Irv Gotti, who founded Murder Inc. Records with his brother and built a hip-hop empire that produced some of the biggest rap and R&B albums of the early 21st century, has died. He was 54.His death was confirmed late Wednesday in a statement by Def Jam Recordings, which was the parent label for Murder Inc. when it was founded in 1998, and where Mr. Gotti had also worked as an executive. The statement did not say where or when he died or cite a cause.Murder Inc., which Mr. Gotti started with his brother Chris, helped launch the careers of the rapper Ja Rule and the R&B singer Ashanti. Their success propelled the label to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s.“I’m important in America because of hip-hop,” Mr. Gotti said in the 2022 BET documentary series “The Murder Inc Story.” “I love hip-hop with a passion.”Mr. Gotti was born Irving Domingo Lorenzo Jr. in Queens on June 26, 1970. He said in the BET documentary that his father was a taxi driver and he was the youngest of eight children. In his early teens, he recalled, he played for hours with turntables and a mixer that his siblings got for him, and he started working as a D.J. for parties when he was 15.He later began working as a music producer and talent scout, and he was credited with helping discover the future hip-hop superstars Jay-Z and DMX. He became an A&R executive at Def Jam.Mr. Gotti was also an executive producer of DMX’s first album, “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot,” released in 1998, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. He also produced Ja Rule’s first album, “Venni Vetti Vecci” (1999), and worked on several successful releases by Ashanti in the early 2000s, cementing his reputation as a hitmaker.Mr. Gotti was credited as a producer on 28 Hot 100 hits, according to Billboard.With the ascent came scrutiny. In 2003, the F.B.I. and the police raided Murder Inc.’s offices in New York. That was followed by a federal investigation into whether the label had been founded with drug money. Mr. Gotti faced charges of laundering money for Kenneth McGriff, a convicted gang leader. In an attempt to clean up the image of his label, Mr. Gotti dropped “Murder” from its name.“They had everybody who loved me in corporate America, who felt I was a good guy, distance themselves from me,” he said after his acquittal in 2005. “All while I was saying, ‘I didn’t do this, I didn’t do this,’ and they was like, ‘OK, we’ll wait and see.’”Information on survivors was not immediately available.A complete obituary will be published shortly. More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyScrapped Plans for London Concert Hall Sour Mood for U.K. MusiciansThe decision comes as classical musicians struggle to deal with the impact of the pandemic and Britain’s departure from the European Union.A computer-generated rendering of the proposed London Center for Music, by the architects Diller Scofidio & Renfro. London authorities announced Thursday that the project would not go ahead.Credit…Diller Scofidio + RenfroFeb. 19, 2021, 11:11 a.m. ETLONDON — Back in 2017, London music fans had high hopes for a reinvigoration of the city’s classical music scene.That year, Simon Rattle, one of the world’s most acclaimed conductors, became the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the architects behind the High Line in New York, were appointed to design a world-class 2,000-seat concert hall in the city.Now, the situation couldn’t be more different.On Thursday, just weeks after Rattle announced he would leave London in 2023 to take the reins at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, London officials announced that plans for the new hall had been scrapped. Rattle had been the driving force behind the project.In a news release announcing the decision, the City of London Corporation, the local government body overseeing the proposal, did not mention Rattle’s departure; the new hall would not go ahead because of the “unprecedented circumstances” caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the release said.The announcement was not unexpected. Few private funders came forward for the project, and Britain’s government was reluctant to back the project, which critics had decried as elitist, after years of cuts to basic services.But some musical experts say the news is still a blow to Britain’s classical musicians, already suffering from a pandemic-induced shutdown of their work, and Brexit, which has raised fears about their ability to to perform abroad.“It’s a further confirmation of the parochialization of British music and the arts,” said Jasper Parrott, a co-founder of HarrisonParrott, a classical music agency, in a telephone interview.The mood among musicians was low, Parrott said, especially because of changes to the rules governing European tours that came about because of Brexit. Before Britain left the European Union, classical musicians and singers could work in most European countries without needing visas or work permits, and many took last-minute bookings, jumping on low-cost flights to make concerts at short notice.Classical musicians now require costly and time-consuming visas to work in some European countries, Parrott said. Changes to haulage rules also make it harder for orchestras to tour, he added: Trucks carrying their equipment are limited to two stops on the continent before they must return to Britain.Deborah Annetts, the chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, said on Tuesday during a parliamentary inquiry into the new rules that she had been “inundated with personal testimony from musicians as to the work that they have lost, or are going to lose, in Europe as a result of the new visa and work permit arrangements.”A British musician who wanted to play a concert in Spain would have to pay 600 pounds, or about $840, for a work permit, she said, adding that this would make such a trip unviable for many. She called upon the government to negotiate deals with European countries so cultural workers could move around more easily.Parrott said he expected many British classical musicians would retrain for other careers, or move outside Britain for work, if the rules were not changed.High profile departures like Rattle’s have only contributed to the impression of a sector in decline. On Jan. 22, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, a young Lithuanian conductor seen as a rising star, announced she would leave her post as music director of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the end of the 2021-22 season. “This is a deeply personal decision, reflecting my desire to step away from the organizational and administrative responsibilities of being a music director,” she said in a statement at the time.Manuel Brug, a music critic for Die Welt, the German newspaper, said in a telephone interview that, viewed from the continent, classical music in Britain seemed in a bad way, “with all this horrible news.”The new London concert hall “was always a dream, but at least it was a dream,” he said.Given recent developments, many British musicians and singers may have to consider moving to Europe if they wanted to succeed, he said.Yet not all were downbeat about the future. British musicians could cope with the impact of the coronavirus, or Brexit — but not both at the same time, unless the government stepped in to help, said Paul Carey Jones, a Welsh bass baritone who has campaigned for the interests of freelance musicians during the pandemic.“British artists are some of the best trained, most talented and most innovative and creative,” he said. “But what we’re almost completely lacking is support from the current government. So we need them to grasp the urgency of the situation.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

“Old Town Road,” remember? Were we ever so young?In just the handful of years since, Lil Nas X has become a bona fide pop star, even if his music is sometimes a step behind his persona.His recent single, “Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. But he made as much noise by releasing the song in several different versions (à la “Old Town Road”) to squeeze maximum value from it, and by making easy sport of swatting down internet combatants dissatisfied with how he expresses himself, his sexuality and his art.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Lil Nas X’s unconventional path to pop success, his unconventional methods of maintaining it and his possible futures beyond it.Guest:Jazmine Hughes, The New York Times magazine staff writer and Metro reporter More