Music in the News

Berettas for Beyoncé

Music manager Michael “Blue” Williams has proposed a new initiative to help clean up New York’s streets, and he’s hoping people are willing to go from NRA to Beyoncé in order to make it work. The Guns for Greatness program seeks to offer people a chance to trade in their guns for concert tickets in the city’s first private sector gun buyback program. Though it is currently only under consideration, NYPD commissioner Raymond Kelly has said they’re not against the idea: “We want to get as many guns off the streets, and if this works, we’d like to support it.” If the program is given the go-ahead, Williams, who’s managed acts like Outkast and Cee-Lo Green in the past, says he’ll reach out to top stars like Jay-Z and Beyoncé for help. “The Beyoncé show is coming to Brooklyn; the Jay-Z show is coming to Yankee Stadium. Our goal is to reach out to individuals who are in my industry, in my world and who I have an association with and get their support,” Williams said. “I think we should all work together to help get guns off the streets.”

 

Pilot: Ejected

1990s rockers Stone Temple Pilots have decided that they’re better off without their frontman, as announced in their one-line press release early last week: “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.” The termination comes after the rumour mill started a couple of months ago, when Weiland’s ex-Velvet Revolver bandmate Slash said in an interview that STP had given him the boot. This comes as news to the frontman, however, who released a statement to Rolling Stone not long after STP’s announcement: “I learned of my supposed ‘termination’ from Stone Temple Pilots this morning by reading about it in the press.  Not sure how I can be ‘terminated’ from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits, but that’s something for the lawyers to figure out.”

 

A beautiful dark twisted rantasy

Rapper-producer Kanye West is known for both his talent and for going a little crazy on a regular basis. It’s the latter part of his infamy that’s put him back in the spotlight, after a series of rants he went on during shows in Paris and London, blasting “corporations” and the music industry, among other things. At one point in his Paris show, Yeezy compares himself to Picasso, Michelangelo, Basquiat, Walt Disney and Steve Jobs, telling the concertgoers he’ll return to the music world in two months, bringing “that real shit” with him. As inexplicable as that is, the real crazy came out during the London show, where West went on for nearly ten minutes rapping stuff like “Can I sell your drink for you, please? So you can help me put on a better show, please? Corporations? Can you please support me, please? Me, Kanye West? I swear I’m a nice nigga now. I swear I’ll put the pink Polo back on. I swear to you! Please. Just for three million dollars. I need it so bad, I need a new pool in my backyard! I’ll tell all my fans that your shit is cool. And if they believe in me, then they should also believe in you.”

 

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