Grammy-Winning Singer Arooj Aftab Plays Breathtaking Set in Met Museum’s Temple of Dendur: Concert Review

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Future Laobans,” a project directed by Maung Sun and produced by Maung Sun and Ma Aeint, claimed the Busan Prize, the top award at the Asian Project Market, on Tuesday. The awards were made at an event held at the Paradise Hotel in Busan’s Haeundae district at the end of three days of quick-fire meetings between producers and directors and an array of potential co-producers, financiers and distributors. Organizers said that they put together 705 such one-on-one meetings. The CJ ENM Award went to Indonesia’ “Gaspar,” to be directed by Yosep Anggi Noen and produced by Yulia Evina Bhara and Cristian Imanueli.

Emanuel Okusanya Fast-rising Nigerian star Asake roared into New York Friday night with a show in support of his debut album, “Mr. Money With the Vibe,” which features Afrobeats icon Burna Boy as well as American rapper Russ. Asake (full name: Ahmed Ololade) released his first single in 2018 and has struck an individual blend of West African Afrobeats and South Africa’s Brazilian-tinged ampiano. His set Friday night at New York’s Palladium Times Square — the largest venue on his tour — saw him backed by a full band, including horns, to bring his jazz-influenced sound into a live setting. Clad in an all-denim ensemble and his trademark black sunglasses, he performed his entire debut album in order, starting with the album’s mid-tempo opener, “Dull.” But as the setlist continued and the songs became more lively, so did Asake.

At the height of his youth, Prince Harry used to be known as “quite a wild lad” but all of that changed when he met his wife, Meghan Markle, a bombshell new book has claimed. Before meeting and falling for Meghan, Harry had spent around a decade in the military and was well known in the press for being a party prince.

Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown, Prince Harry, 38, used to be “quite a wild lad” before he married Meghan Markle, 41, in 2018.Low wrote about how Harry and his brother Prince William both lead very different lives, carved out with the help of their former private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton.According to the book, Lowther-Pinkerton helped William, 40, “steer a course through life.”However, with Harry, a certain path was “more complex”.“Eventually, of course, the problem would resolve itself, but not in a way that Lowther-Pinkerton or anyone else imagined. The wild lad died the day Harry met Meghan Markle,” Low penned.The Invictus Games founder lived a hard-partying life before settling down and having his two kids, Archie and Lilibet.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Back in the day (“the day” being the 1990s), Pavement became so typecast as a cliché-lambasting, anti-rock band that they never really got credit for what a great rock band they were — and, as their ongoing 30th-ish anniversary tour shows, still are. The stereotypical scrawny, bookish, indie vibe and image of the group’s early records had become so cemented that few seemed to notice how tight and accomplished they became after drummer Steve West joined the group in 1993. Although they always downplayed their ability to “rock out” and still do, when the band locks in on hypnotic grooves while singer-guitarist Stephen Malkmus plays solos with a Lou Reed-ish combination of soaring melodies and brittle squall (usually finishing with some self-mocking gesture), they can hold their own with virtually any rock band. On their later albums, that seasoning carried over to their songwriting, as Malkmus’ almost run-on melodies were delivered in a cleaner, sharper manner, as if he were no longer quite so embarrassed by how pretty or catchy they can be.

Lily Moayeri Over the weekend, Desert Daze, California’s psych-rock festival (and two-time nominee as Pollstar’s festival of the year), celebrated its 10th anniversary as a destination event for the free-spirited, open-minded, anti-commercial, pro-instrument music fan. It was a veritable Australian takeover of the desert with two out of the three headliners being from that region: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, who are practically the Desert Daze house band, and Tame Impala, who in 2018 had their set cut very short due to weather conditions and were returning to somewhat finish what they started. The hippie-natured festival’s titular ethos has involved several different locations in its decade-long history, with its latest headquarters, on the sand at Moreno Beach, Lake Perris, being one of the most scenic. The backdrop of craggy mountains and a crystal-clear lake is life-affirming for festival-goers who brave the relatively rough terrain of Desert Daze, where the focus is more on the vibe than it is on logistics.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Drake, arguably the biggest rapper in the world, will play a special concert at the legenday Apollo Theater in New York’s Harlem neighborhood that will be broadcast on SiriusXM, he and the network announced on Tuesday. Details on the show were slim — “Drake will perform at the world-famous Apollo Theater in New York. The exclusive SiriusXM concert marks the first time that Drake will perform at the iconic theater,” the announcement reads — but the concert will be the latest in a long series of special, intimate gigs the network has staged at the 1,500-capacity venue. Fans should head here to score tickets, but act fast.

William Earl “Don’t you pretend that I’m not alive” were the first words whispered by the Mars Volta vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s during the group’s reunion stop in New York City on Sept. 29. The tour, in support of a new self-titled record that marks the end of a decade-long hiatus for the Texas rockers, is a reminder not only that the group itself is back but keenly aware of their legacy as a taut, adventurous live act ready to blend genres at a breakneck pace. Their first four records, especially their beloved 2003 studio debut “De-Loused in the Comatorium,” have been a gateway for younger generations of prog fans, fresh to polyrhythms and double-digit song lengths. Yet the band’s final two pre-hiatus albums — 2009’s “Octahedron” and 2012’s “Noctourniquet” — felt like a group in need of a break. This year’s comeback album is perhaps their most far-afield, as it’s their approximation of a pop music, with the average song hovering at three minute mark and produced with a flatter palette than previous work.

Ethan Shanfeld Very few modern bands have a “Mr. Brightside.” Even fewer are able to whip it out in the first five minutes of a show and continue to entertain an arena for another 90 minutes. And even fewer are those who can hold their own in a three-song duet with Bruce Springsteen as he beams with excitement announcing their name to the crowd: “THE KILLERS!” “Everybody knows God made Saturday nights for rock ‘n’ roll,” frontman Brandon Flowers declared toward the beginning of the band’s set, the second of two consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden. And the Killers delivered on that, taking New York City on a tour of its greatest songs from “Hot Fuss” to “Pressure Machine.”

Thania Garcia With only one more show left on the docket, Bad Bunny has just about finished the North American leg of his “World’s Hottest Tour.” That title has certainly lived up to its promise, as the Puerto Rican phenom achieved the top-grossing tour of August with this trek, consisting of several stops in the country’s biggest venues. Last night, he pulled out all the stops for the first of two back-to-back shows at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium. He brought out several guests — including the reggaeton pioneer Ivy Queen, who played a medley of her hottest hits — and declared his love for L.A., inciting cheers throughout the night with: “¡Los Latinos in L.A., que se sienta!”

A.D. Amorosi There’s a handsome backstory to Friday night’s concert “The Town Hall and T Bone Burnett Present a Tribute to Bob Dylan” — produced in partnership with the Bob Dylan Center — that went beyond present-day artists merely doing a set of covers. Dylan. New York City’s Town Hall. The two go hand-in-hand like whiskey and soda. In 1963, when the bourgeoning poet-folkie could no longer be confined by Greenwich Village’s coffee houses, his shrewd then-manager Albert Grossman chose the civic hall built by the League for Political Education to mark Dylan’s major league debut and unite his social consciousness with commerce for the first (but not the last) time.Dylan and T Bone Burnett also go hand-in-hand like whiskey and pretty-much-anything. Not only did Dylan pluck Burnett to be a guitarist on his legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour of the late 1970s, Burnett recently produced Dylan’s one-off recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” for Burnett’s Ionic Original acetate-format project with an auction price of nearly $1.8M. (Burnett is also linked to Town Hall with his smart co-production of 2013’s “Another Day, Another Time at the Hall”) in celebration of the Coen Brothers’ cinematic ’60s folk love letter “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

Coolio's untimely death on Wednesday, famous fans and collaborators who knew the «Gangsta's Paradise» rapper took to social media to pay tribute and share memories.Coolio — who was born Artis Leon Ivey Jr. — died in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, at the age of 59. His longtime manager, Jarez, confirmed the news to Jarez told the outlet that paramedics suspect cardiac arrest was the cause of death, though no official determination has been made.After entering the L.A.

Coolio, the Compton-raised rapper with the trademark braids who won a Grammy in 1996 for his No. 1 smash “Gangsta’s Paradise” from the soundtrack of the Michelle Pfeiffer-starring film Dangerous Minds, died Wednesday in Los Angeles, his manager Jarez Posey told Deadline. He was 59.

Ellise Shafer Coolio, the Grammy-winning rapper, producer and actor best known for his 1995 hit “Gangsta’s Paradise,” has died. He was 59. The rapper’s longtime manager Jarel Posey confirmed the news to Variety, saying that Coolio died around 5 p.m. PT on Wednesday afternoon. According to TMZ, Coolio was found at a friend’s house. Coolio rose to prominence in the Los Angeles rap scene in the ’90s, scoring his big break when he recorded the song “Gangsta’s Paradise” for the 1995 film “Dangerous Minds,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer. It quickly became one of the most popular rap songs of all time, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and ending 1995 as the No. 1 single of that year in the United States. In 1996, “Gangsta’s Paradise” was nominated for record of the year and best rap solo performance at the Grammy Awards, with Coolio winning the latter. The song was soon spoofed by Weird Al Yankovic, who satirized it as “Amish Paradise,” though Coolio was adamant that he did not give Weird Al permission to do so. However, Coolio has said in interviews that the two later made amends.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Metallica have announced that they will perform a special tribute concert on Nov. 6 to honor Jonny and Marsha Zazula, the founders of their original label, Megaforce Records. The group, which will be joined by fellow Megaforce alums Raven, will perform songs from their early career, dating from 1983 and ’84. The concert will take place at the 7,000-capacity Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla. — an unusually small venue for the band. The Zazulas, for decades an influential and well-respected power couple on the metal scene, passed away within a year of each other in 2021 and 2022.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor In recent years, artists have created a booming business out of essentially putting their archives on tour — the “David Bowie Is” and “Rolling Stones Exhibitionism” — traveling exhibitions of their wardrobes, instruments and multiple other artifacts from their long careers. Well look out, because here comes “Pavements 1933-2022: A Pavement Museum” — a semi-jokingly titled international museum exhibition from the legendary indie-rock band featuring “previously unseen imagery, artwork and ephemera, commendations and commemorations, alongside rumored relics of the band’s real and imagined history (as well as exclusive merchandise and classic museum souvenirs),” according to the announcement. (The “1933” part is a deep reference to Pavement’s debut EP, “Slay Tracks 1933-1969,” which of course was released in 1989.)

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If the planet was under threat of annihilation from beyond, and we had to present our divine or interplanetary overlords with just two musical emissaries to make a case that humankind is worth being spared as a species, Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples might be the couple we’d want to pick. Fortunately, with no such emergency yet in sight, they’ve managed to pair up of their own volition for a segment of Raitt’s current headlining tour that makes for a two-sided portrait of what heart, soul and understated heroism look like in music. Not that those kinds of superlatives showed up anywhere but in the subtext of Saturday night’s show at the Greek Theatre in L.A. It was a show where you could think about what Staples meant during the civil rights movement, and since, or about Raitt’s role as a warrior without uniform in the early days of women fighting to get their due in rock. Or you could just enjoy the chops and grease that feed into the respective performances of historically significant figures who wear their mantles as lightly as anything else they’d need to peel off upon stepping into a humid roadhouse.

A.D. Amorosi What does one do for an encore after winning five honors at the 64th Grammys (including album of the year for “We Are“), an Oscar for best original score (for co-composing Disney-Pixar’s “Soul”) and leaving the bandleader gig at a top-rated talk show (“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”)? If you’re protean pianist and megawatt personality Jon Batiste, you write a symphony — an”American Symphony” no less, its title raising the stakes on the grandeur of the piece that premiered at Carnegie Hall Thursday night.

Ethan Shanfeld As the Arctic Monkeys waltzed onstage at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre Thursday night, they were met with such rapturous applause and overwhelming screams that when Alex Turner sat at the piano and sang, “Don’t get emotional,” it was as if he was speaking directly to the audience. While the band opened the show with new single “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball,” which came out just a few weeks ago, the crowd embraced it like an old classic. As Turner sang the song’s title for the final time, in falsetto, a giant disco ball lowered from the ceiling and lit up the exuberant Kings Theatre.  To be clear: there’s good reason for the Monkeymania. Thursday’s show marked the band’s first headlining concert in the U.S. since 2018, and even though their seminal album “AM” came out nearly a decade ago (feel old?), the Tumblr-era thirst for Turner is still very much alive. The audience erupted in shouts at the frontman’s every move — cheering when he ditched his guitar for “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?,” when he hoisted the mic stand above his head during “Arabella” and, of course, when he snarled between songs, “How’s everybody doing,” in a British accent thicker than the bass tone on “Crying Lightning.”

Emanuel Okusanya It hardly seems possible that, more than three years after the blockbuster success of “Old Town Road” — which became the longest-charting single in Billboard history and the most-platinum-certified single, with 15 at last count — and many, sometimes-controversial videos and television performances, Lil Nas X is only now on his first major tour. The artist’s 29-date “Long Live Montero” tour made two sold-out stops at New York’s prestigious Radio City Music Hall this week, and he didn’t disappoint in terms of music or visuals (although he did keep things relatively PG, apart from kissing one of his male dancers behind a curtain).