Chuck D narrates new audio docu-drama about the birth of hip-hop

YouTube’s Director of Black Music & Culture and the founder of Spotify’s Rap Caviar playlist, has spoken to NME about hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, YouTube’s new FIFTY DEEP programme and why Soulja Boy deserves his props as an innovator of “youth culture.”The Congolese-American’s career has been heavily intertwined with the genre. Earlier in his life, he helped programme hip-hop music on BET – where shows like Rap City earned the network huge ratings, VJed on MTV in the early ‘00s, and even worked with rap mogul Diddy for three years at Bad Boy Records.One of his biggest feats, however, is creating the popular Rap Caviar playlist for Spotify: now the most-followed rap playlist on the streaming platform and meant to represent the creme de la creme of all things hip-hop.“I didn’t pitch it necessarily,” Basa said, explaining how Rap Caviar came about.

Watching Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” one may wonder whether it’s even possible to make a film about an Italian figure and have it not be at least 80% about style. An admittedly rather inane thought, but one made a little more legitimate by the central presence of Adam Driver as the titular Enzo Ferrari.

Don Broco have announced a UK tour titled ‘The Birthday Party’ set to kick off later this year.The tour is set to start on November 29 in Reading. From there, the band – consisting of frontman Rob Damiani, guitarist Simon Delaney, bassist Tom Doyle and drummer Matt Donnelly – will make stops in Margate, Bristol, Sheffield, Cambridge, York, Manchester, and Wolverhampton before wrapping up in London.‘The Birthday Party’ tour announcement comes hot off the heels of Don Broco’s appearance at this year’s Reading & Leeds festivals.

Aerosmith fans are about to experience some real “Sweet Emotion.”Starting Saturday, Sept. 2, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers will kick off their 40-concert ‘Peace Out Farewell Tour.’Over the course of their goodbye run, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and the rest of the band along with special guest opening act The Black Crowes are scheduled to drop into Long Island’s UBS Arena on Sept.

Juan Gabriel, the beloved Mexican singer and queer icon, will be getting his own Netflix documentary. The company shared the announcement, claiming they’d reached an agreement with Juan Gabriel’s estate for a documentary film looking into his life.

diamond ball, The Buccaneers may become your new obsession.As you patiently wait for Bridgerton , a brand new bodice ripper is coming your way this fall. Set shortly after Regency-era shows like and , a young group of Americans are about to disrupt Victorian London in the new series, The Buccaneers, premiering in November 2023.“Girls with money, men with power.

Ethan Shanfeld Oliver Anthony, the country-folk singer behind this year’s most surprising No. 1 hit “Rich Men North of Richmond,” delivered a message to fans in a teary-eyed, 10-minute video posted to YouTube. In the video, Anthony addressed his viral song’s mention at Wednesday’s GOP debate.

Travis Scott’s recently announced 27-concert ‘Utopia Presents Circus Maximus Tour,’ his first since 2021’s Astroworld tragedy, officially launches Sept. 25 at Chicago’s United Center.After that, he’ll play stadiums and arenas all over North America up until Nov.

Margot Robbie almost was part of the American Horror Story universe, but she didn’t end up landing the role.

The year’s sultriest tour is officially underway. Karol G’s historic ‘Mañana Será Bonito Tour’ where she becomes the first female Latinx entertainer to headline a stadium tour continues Friday, Aug.

Jon Gosselin and his girlfriend, Stephanie Lebo, are opening up about why they decided to keep their relationship under wraps for almost two years.Speaking with ET's Rachel Smith at the couple's home in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania, Jon says «the real reason» was simply because they wanted their privacy. But it's not like their inner circle didn't know about their blossoming relationship. Yes, they all knew — their kids, their family, their friends.

Ben Affleck! Jennifer Lopez’s husband turned 51 on August 15, and according to reports; despite we have seen JLo out and about without him, he is “happy and thriving.” A source close to the Batman actor told People that “everything is going well in his life. He is happy and content.” Lopez also took to social media to share an adorable video of the pair.The 54-year-old singer, actress, and businesswoman shared a video of them singing along to Sam Cooke’s “(What A) Wonderful World” 1960 love song on Instagram.“Dear Ben … Happy Birthday.

The Wiz is heading back to Broadway in 2024, but first the musical will travel around the United States with nearly the full cast who will be seen in New York City!

William Earl Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme has faced many demons since the release of the 2017 album “Villains”: cancer, divorce, rehab and court battles. And the new Queens record, the just-released “In Times New Roman…,” definitely adds weight to the band’s woozy, bluesy rock — a dour energy far removed from the dancier sound conjured by producer Mark Ronson on “Villains.” “Roman,” self-produced by band founder Homme and one of his strongest QOTSA lineups ever, is one of the rawest and heaviest albums the band has delivered, and during Saturday’s Queens, New York stop of their “The End Is Nero Tour,” they proved that sometimes the new material can be a live standout, even as the band approaches its fourth decade of existence.

In the mid-2000s, on Friday nights in the sweaty basement of Retro Bar, the DJs would play The Walkmen song The Rat.

A.D. Amorosi Hip-hop may belong to the world now, but there’s little question that the sound and culture that took over the world had its start in the New York City borough of the Bronx in the summer of 1973, where DJ Kool Herc and others held neighborhood block parties — mixing, scratching and rhyming over records. In observance of that anniversary, Run D.M.C.

YouTube has announced that they will celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop this year by launching the FIFTY DEEP campaign.This month marks 50 years since DJ Kool Herc performed at a party in the Bronx and showed off his DJing invention of scratching records to extend the instrumental breaks in the song. This revelation was the cornerstone for hip-hop as people could dance longer (evolving into breakdancing) and aspiring MCs could rap during song breaks.In honour of the musical milestone, YouTube has launched FIFTY DEEP, “a cultural campaign on YouTube that salutes how far [the genre] come.” Director of Black Music & Culture Tuma Basa wrote a blog post on the new campaign, saying that the mission “is for every generation to dig into the gems of YouTube’s archival treasury of Hip Hop.”They plan to fulfil their mission by collating a visual library of 2,000 videos that “have changed the game” for hip-hop music, having a custom Yoodle (YouTube’s version of the Google Doodle) to pay homage to the phenomenon of type beats, and creating a Google Arts & Culture Hip Hop Hub to collate “a wide range of cultural institutions’ collections and curated stories.”FIFTY DEEP will kick off this Friday (August 11) with a live stream of Hip-Hop 50 Live on Mass Appeal’s official YouTube channel.

The 75th Annual Emmy Awards will not take place in September 2023 as originally planned — but the show will go on!

Duran Duran is about to take off on the second leg of their ‘The Future Past North American Tour’ with special guests Nile Rodgers’ Chic and Bastille.Over the course of the 19-concert run, Simon Le Bon and co. will drop into Canandaigua, NY’s Constellation Brands Performing Arts Center on Sept.

Netflix's latest limited series is a fictionalised re-telling of a drugs crisis which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans since the late 90s.