Jem Aswad Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music On Saturday Grimes lived what is probably the nightmare of every Coachella performer: debilitating equipment malfunctions in front of thousands of fans and possibly millions watching online. While things seemed fine for the first half of her set, things began breaking down during the second.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music One of the challenges for electronic-music artists who aren’t making dance music is how to put on a compelling live show. The answer, of course, is to serve up not just exciting music but visuals as well, and at a packed Paramount Theater in Brooklyn on Friday, as usual, Oneohtrix Point Never (aka Daniel Lopatin) delivered.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music A security guard was shot several times outside the Los Angeles-area home of Weeknd co-manager and business partner Amir “Cash” Esmailian in an apparent home invasion, according to Fox11. Esmailian has been a key member of the team around the Weeknd, which is led by his longtime manager Wassim “Sal” Slaiby’s SalXCo, for more than 20 years and founded XO Records with the artist. He played a major role in bringing both the Weeknd and Canadian rapper Nav into the company and is deeply involved in the company’s dealmaking and promotion.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The career move after St. Vincent’s unexpected windfall from “Cruel Summer” — the song that began life as a collaboration between her and producer Jack Antonoff, was completed by Taylor Swift and, several years later, ended up as the theme song of the “Eras Tour” juggernaut — would be to make a pop-leaning album to capitalize on that success, even just a little.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music It looks like No Doubt’s electrifying sets at the Coachella festival may have been an advertisement for a Gwen Stefani solo tour, as the South Star Festival in Huntsville, Alabama announced Tuesday that she and Blink-182 will be its two headliners. The festival takes place in the city’s John Hunt Park on September 28-29.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music City Parks Foundation has announced the 2024 season of Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage, New York City’s iconic outdoor performing arts festival, bringing 85 free and benefit shows to Central Park and 13 neighborhood parks across the five boroughs. Andra Day, Ethel Cain, Ghostface Killa and Kim Gordon are just four of the artists slated to perform.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Primary Wave Music has announced a new partnership with veteran singer-songwriter Neil Finn, founding member of Crowded House, longtime member of Split Enz and solo artist. The multi-million-dollar deal sees the company acquiring Finn’s music publishing catalog and writer’s share of public performance for his work with Crowded House as well as his solo material. Included in the deal are the many hits Finn wrote for Crowded House — “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” “Better Be Home Soon,” “Weather With You” and more — as well as his solo material and the songs he wrote as a member of Split Enz, including the 1980 hit “I Got You.” Released in 1986, “Don’t Dream It’s Over” appeared on Crowded House’s eponymous debut album and became the band’s biggest hit, reaching No.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The already-complicated battle over control of Hipgnosis Songs Fund grew even more so on Saturday, as the private equity firm Blackstone bid $1.5 billion to the troubled fund — which includes the rights to catalogs by Neil Young, Shakira, Blondie, Journey, Lindsey Buckingham and others — pushing aside Concord’s $1.4 offer made earlier in the week. Blackstone already owns two other elements of Hipgnosis — the investment fund Hipgnosis Songs Capital and the advisor Hipgnosis Song Management — and the move reflects founder Merck Mercuriadis’ determination to retain control of the company.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Mercury Studios and Utopia Originals have announced the premiere of the feature-length documentary “Linda Perry: Let It Die Here,” which will make its debut at the upcoming Tribeca Festival 2024. Directed by Don Hardy (“Citizen Penn,” “Pick of the Litter,” “Theory of Obscurity”), and produced by KTF Films, the film takes a look at the life and career of Perry, who led the group 4 Non-Blondes before launching her career as one of the most successful songwriters of the last 30 years, collaborating with Dolly Parton, Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, Pink, Adele, Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Weezer, Gwen Stefani, Alicia Keys, the Chicks and others.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The troubled Hipgnosis Songs Fund, whose former CEO Merck Mercuriadis drove up the value of music catalogs with more than $3 billion in acquisitions before overspending and problematic management caused the company to lose more than half of its value, has agreed to a $1.4 billion sales to Nashville-based Concord, the companies announced in the early hours of Thursday. The catalogs involved include assets by Neil Young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shakira and others.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The music world of the 1960s was filled with fashion icons, from the Beatles to the Ronettes, from Jimi Hendrix to the Supremes, from Motown to Haight-Ashbury. But for some of us, the mid-1960s Rolling Stones were as cool as it gets. The Beatles were in the same lane but, truth be told, the Stones wore it better.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Shore Fire Media, one of the music industry’s most long-running and far-reaching strategy and communications companies, has announced the promotion of five of its top executives to key leadership positions. Allison Elbl, Matt Hanks, Mark Satlof and Rebecca Shapiro have been promoted to co-presidents, with Jaclyn D. Carter promoted to senior vice president.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Los Lobos, the iconic East Los Angeles band that elevated that helped bring Chicano music to the masses over the last 50 years, is the subject of the feature-length documentary with the working title “Los Lobos Native Sons,” currently in production and slated for a 2024 release. The film features testimonials from George Lopez, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Waits, Dolores Huerta, Bonnie Raitt, Flaco Jimenez, Cheech Marin, a trailer below.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music On the heels of the two albums they’ve released in the past three weeks — “We Don’t Trust You” and “We Still Don’t Trust You” — Future and Metro Boomin have announced dates for a six-week North American tour called, naturally enough, the “We Trust You” tour, presented by Cash App and Visa and produced by Live Nation. The arena run kicks off on Tuesday, July 30 in Kansas City, Mo.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Killer Mike, Vince Staples, Steve Aoki, Lane 8, Snow Tha Product, BadBadNotGood, Sudan Archives and more lead the lineup at the inaugural Elsewhere Festival and Conference will make its debut in Wichita, Kansas on the weekend of June 21-22, 2024. (The full lineup of participating artists and venues is below.) Created and produced by Midtopia, a Wichita-based artist and music worker collective, both the festival and conference will take an unconventional approach to supporting regional arts.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music It turns out that when Pete Townshend recently told the New York Times that he was planning on a final Who farewell tour, he was “being sarcastic,” he told the “Sound Up!” podcast in an interview released today (April 16). “It feels to me like there’s one thing the Who can do, and that’s a final tour where we play every territory in the world and then crawl off to die,” he told the Times in an interview published last month.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Will Smith made a surprise appearance onstage with J Balvin on Sunday night, dressed in his full “Men in Black” suit and sunglasses and performing the title track of the 1997 film. The appearance was brief but memorable, capping a UFO-themed set and concluding with Balvin being dragged off by black-suit-clad dancers as Smith pulled out a “Neuralyzer,” the famous memory-eraser device from the film.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Rico Wade, a member of the pioneering Atlanta-based production trio Organized Noize and a key early Outkast collaborator, has died, according to an Instagram post by his close friend Killer Mike and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. No cause of death was cited; he was 52. “I don’t have the words to express my deep and profound sense of loss,” Killer Mike wrote.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Along with Nick Drake, Judee Sill is probably the greatest lost singer-songwriter of the 1970s — an artist whose gifts were so great but their demons were apparently greater. While Drake’s legend has taken its rightful place — due largely to a car commercial, of all things — Sill is yet to get her due.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music As accusations of sexual misconduct continue to be leveled against Sean “Diddy” Combs — and now his son — the embattled artist and entrepreneur posted a seemingly defiant video and caption on Instagram Friday. He posted the full-length video from his 1998 song “Victory” — in which he is seen running from Los Angeles police for nearly its entire seven minutes — along with the caption “Bad Boy for life,” a frequent catchphrase referencing his long-running record label and a fist emoji. The comments were left open, and Christian Combs, who is reportedly being sued by a woman for sexual assault in 2022 — wrote “Who you know do it better!!” with three fire emojis.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Keith LeBlanc, a drummer, producer and recording artist best known for his work on pioneering early hip-hop records by Grandmaster Flash and others, died Thursday after a battle with an undisclosed illness, his wife Fran LeBlanc confirms to Variety. Later in his career he worked extensively as a producer, session musician — including on Nine Inch Nails’ 1989 debut “Pretty Hate Machine” — and member of the bands Little Axe and Tackhead.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music A major problem with early success is getting past it — case in point, the cheerful bop of Vampire Weekend’s first two albums and their image as peppy college boys who’d studied Paul Simon’s “Graceland” like a James Joyce masters’ thesis, playing their jaunty global pop to deliriously skanking millennials at seemingly every music festival of the latter aughts. And although that take was understandable — if unfairly reductive — at the time, VW is now a very different band.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Considering the vast number of books published every year about David Bowie — or, for that matter, the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Prince — a new one had better have either fresh info or fresh insights. Thankfully, Suzi Ronson’s “Me and Mr.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Spotify, which increased the cost of its U.S. monthly subscriptions less than a year ago, plans to raise the price of its paid-subscription service in several overseas markets at by the end of this month, and in the U.S.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Lou Reed was indisputably one of the most provocative musicians the rock world has known, releasing songs about heroin abuse and sadomasochism on his very first album (“The Velvet Underground and Nico”), utilizing piercing guitar feedback on many of his songs, and scoring a global hit single in 1973 that referenced oral sex (“Walk on the Wild Side”). But arguably his single most provocative musical move was “Metal Machine Music,” a double-LP filled with nothing but deafening guitar feedback and effects that was released in 1975, at the peak of his commercial success.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music A series of billboards apparently teasing Billie Eilish’s new album have popped up in major cities across the world, as noted in multiple social media posts on Tuesday. The billboards do not feature the Grammy- and Oscar-winning artist’s name but do include her familiar “blohsh” symbol and what appear to be lyric snippets saying things like “Did I cross the line?,” “I try to live in black and white” and “She’s the headlights I’m the deer.” A rep for the artist did not immediately respond to Variety‘s requests for comment.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music SiriusXM has announced that Taylor Swift will have her own limited-engagement SiriusXM channel, “Channel 13 (Taylor’s Version),” starting Sunday, April 7, 13 days ahead of her forthcoming album “The Tortured Poets Department.” The channel will air 24/7 across North America and will be a destination for Swift’s music from across her 17-year career, including favorites, all “(Taylor’s Versions),” “From the Vault” tracks, live recordings, bonus tracks and more. The 13th day of the channel, Friday, April 19, coincides with the release of “The Tortured Poets Department.” The channel will be playing the full album throughout the weekend.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Stevie Wonder, Pearl Jam, Kacey Musgraves, Camila Cabello and more than 200 other artists have joined with the Artist Rights Alliance non-profit – an artist-led education and advocacy organization – to issue an open letter supported by more than 200 artists calling on “AI developers, technology companies, platforms, and digital music services to cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.” A full list of signatories appears below. While AI-related threats such as deepfakes and voice cloning continue to attract significant (and legal) scrutiny, the letter also highlights two related trends: the use of musical works by AI developers without permission to train and produce AI “copycats,” and the use of AI “sound” to dilute royalty obligations.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music With hits like Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Kelis’ “Milkshake,” Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” and dozens of others, Pharrell Williams and longtime collaborator Chad Hugo rode to multiplatinum success as the songwriting/production duo the Neptunes. While Pharrell has become a superstar in his own right over the last two decades, with solo hits like “Happy” and “Freedom,” Hugo has kept a comparatively low profile – but the pair are now in a legal dispute over the group’s name.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music In the weeks since Beyonce announced her “Cowboy Carter” album, there’s been an enormous amount of commentary over the singer’s move into country music, and the long-overlooked contributions of Black artists to the genre since its very beginning. There’s also been more-humorous comments about the album’s title — which comes from Beyonce’s married surname and her husband, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter — and the long legacy left by the Carter Family, whose music is widely viewed as the single biggest influence on the country genre.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Being asked to collaborate on a Beyonce album is the equivalent of knighthood, and the morning after “Cowboy Carter” dropped to near-universal hosannahs, featured artists Miley Cyrus and Post Malone shared their gratitude at the rare honor. Cyrus, who duets with Beyonce on the song “II Most Wanted,” wrote on social media: “I’ve loved Beyonce since long before I had the opportunity to meet & work with her. “My admiration runs so much deeper now that I’ve created along side of her.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Universal Music Group and Spotify — the world’s largest music company and the world’s largest paid music-subscription service — have unveiled an expansion of their “strategic relationship” in an announcement that has very few details but is likely the opening of a new maneuver in UMG’s ongoing battle with TikTok. UMG and the China-based platform, which has been the leading source of music discovery for the past five years, have been in a standoff over multiple issues, primarily the platform’s low royalty payments and AI policies, since their licensing agreement expired earlier this year.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Sean “Diddy” Combs — rapper, producer and entrepreneur — has fired back against the government’s raids on two of his properties in Miami and Los Angeles on Monday. In a statement, his attorney Aaron Dyer characterized the searches by investigators with the Department of Homeland Security as an “unprecedented ambush” and a “witch hunt.” “Yesterday, there was a gross overuse of military-level force as search warrants were executed at Mr. Combs’ residences,” Dyer wrote.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The U.S. recorded music industry grew its revenue by 8% in 2023, reaching an all-time high of $17.1 billion and marking eight consecutive years of growth. However, there’s no question that the streaming boom of the past decade, which produced years of double-digit growth, is leveling off and the industry is reacting with layoffs and talk of a “transformational moment” in the months and years to come.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music R&B ace Maxwell has announced “The Serenade 2024” North American Tour, which will see him joined by two special guests: two-time Grammy winner Jazmine Sullivan and rising singer-songwriter October London. Full dates appear below.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music At the Black Music Action Coalition‘s “Rooted in Country” discussion panel Thursday night — addressing the many challenges Black country artists continue to face breaking into the genre — it was just a matter of time before the conversation turned to Beyonce’s “Act II: Cowboy Carter” country-themed album that drops next Friday. The all-female panel (in honor of Women’s History Month) featured Rissi Palmer, a pioneering country singer-songwriter and host of the “Color Me Country” podcast; Holly G, founder of the Black Opry collective; and Live Nation Country’s Julie Matway; it was moderated by label veteran and author Naima Cochrane, who wrote a powerful study on the subject called “Three Chords & the Actual Truth: The Manufactured Myth of Country Music & White America” that was published in June of 2022.