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Leslie Grace & Meek Mill Revamp Gloria Estefan’s ’80s Party Hit ‘Conga’: Here’s A Comparison
Calling the process “innovative,” Grace explained that the project originally began at the end of 2019 but was put on pause because of the Coronavirus pandemic. “I went into the studio pre-Covid with Boi-1da. We immediately hit it off. I had written the first verse and the pre onto a loop he had sent me,” she notes. “Everything else was basically done remotely. Meek Mill jumped on the track later on after listening to the structure we built.” The Estefans were also part of the process “every step of the way.” Grace adds: “Everyone was really focused on maintaining the essence of this iconic track. Having their support and suggestions was beautiful. They approved every single thing on the project. This was really a labor of love and really intentional every step of the way with the original...
Diane Warren & James Newton Howard Among Top Winners at 2021 Hollywood Music in Media Awards
Other winners on the night included John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Jon Batiste, Ludwig Göransson, Emile Mosseri and Benjamin Wallfisch. The Hollywood Music in Media Awards (HMMAs) honor composers, songwriters and music supervisors for their work in music for film, television, and video games. Producer David Foster presented the HMMA career achievement honor to Kenny Loggins, who performed his 1980 hit “I’m Alright” from Caddyshack at the virtual event. Colin Hay presented outstanding music documentary to another famed Australian act, Bee Gees, for The Bee Gees: How Do You Mend A Broken Heart. Rita Wilson won outstanding song – independent film for “Everybody Cries” from The Outpost, which she co-wrote with Rod Lurie and Larry Groupé. Wilson per...
Annie Lennox Just Got the COVID-19 Jab, and She Filmed It All
The 66-year-old Scottish artist also gave a shout out to “everyone who’s made it possible” to deliver the vaccine. Lennox has won just about every award going, since she and Dave Stewart joined forces in the late 1970s on The Tourists, then changed the game with their new wave act Eurythmics. The duo has sold over 75 million records, with a long string of hits including “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This),” “Who’s That Girl?,” “Love Is a Stranger,” “Here Comes the Rain Again,” and “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves”. Over time, she’s collected Oscars, Grammys, and with Stewart scored the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music in 1999. Outside of music, Lennox is an activist for women’s rights, and a campaigner for HIV and AIDS awareness. Her sixth and most recent sol...
21 Latin Artists to Watch in 2021
Will Alaina Castillo go for English or for Spanish? The Houston-born singer/songwriter navigates easily between the two languages, infusing both with a heady mix of R&B that enhances lovely, breathy vocals. Most definitely one to watch, with potential to grow in many spaces. — LEILA COBO Alex Rose (WK/Sony Latin): Signed to Walter Kolm’s newly launched WK Records (with Sony Music U.S. Latin), Puerto Rican Alex Rose has already netted major chart traction with “Jangueo,” the extremely catchy reggaetón/pop hit alongside Rafa Pabón. “Jangueo” spent 19 weeks on Spotify’s global 200 chart and made us dance a storm. But the versatile Pabón can go more mellow in tracks like “Bendición” alongside Emilia. — L.C. Bizarrap (Dale Play Records) After launching his career in 2017 by uplo...
Roddy Ricch & 21 Savage Set to Perform on iHeartRadio’s Living Black!
The Feb. 20 show will be produced by Rikki Hughes, best known for her work with comedian Dave Chappelle. Roddy Ricch, 21 Savage, Jhené Aiko and Kirk Franklin will be among the performers on iHeartRadio’s Living Black!, which is set to air Feb. 20 on iHeartMedia hip-hop, gospel and R&B broadcast stations, iHeartRadio’s YouTube and Facebook pages and the iHeartRadio app nationwide. The show, which will air at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT, will be produced by Rikki Hughes, who has won two Emmys and three Grammys for her work with comedian Dave Chappelle. Throughout February, which is Black History Month, iHeartMedia national and on-air personalities, including The Breakfast Club (consisting of Charlamagne Tha God, Angela Yee and DJ Envy), Steve Harvey and Big Boy, will honor “trailblazers, modern ...
88rising Signs First-Look Deal With Sony Pictures TV
The global Asian music and media company has hired former Imagine and NBC exec Alex Lin to spearhead its film and television development. Sony Pictures TV has signed 88rising, the emergent company that spotlights modern global Asian culture, to a first-look deal. The two will partner to develop scripted series centering Asian and Asian American culture, across all platforms, and 88rising has hired former Imagine and NBC exec Alex Lin to serve as its first development executive for film and television. Since its founding in 2015, 88rising has quickly risen — pun unintended — from a record label for pan-Asian artists to a music, media and events company that in 2018 became the first to stage an Asian music festival in the United States (Head in the Clouds, dubbed “Asian Coachella...
ARIA Appoints Annabelle Herd as CEO
Herd brings a skillset loaded with legal and lobbying work in the nation’s capital, Canberra, and extensive experience in the television industry. Previously, she carved out a 16-year career at free-to-air Network 10, where she most recently held the post of Chief Operating Officer, tasked with leading its broadcast operations; group strategy; corporate and internal communications; interstate markets; policy, regulatory, compliance and government affairs; and lobbying and stakeholder relations. And before that, she worked at senior levels with government in Canberra, culminating in a stint as Senior Advisor (Broadcasting and Copyright) and Acting Chief of Staff for then Minister for Communications and the Arts, Senator the Hon. Richard Alston AO. While in the capital, she worked as a gover...
Will Leslie Odom Jr. Be the 4th Double Oscar Nominee for Acting & Songwriting in 4 Years?
The double nods for Blige, Erivo and now possibly Odom are a sign of the increased opportunities Black performers are being given in film. Moreover, if Odom becomes a double nominee, he’ll become the second actor to do so for a film in which he or she plays a real-life character. From 1934, when the Oscars introduced their best original song award, through 2016, no one ever received nominations for acting and songwriting in the same year. That’s partly due to the fact that, years ago, singing actors didn’t usually write their own material, but relied on the work of professional songwriters. Judy Garland, Bing Crosby and Doris Day are forever linked with Oscar-winning songs, but they didn’t have a hand in writing them. This started to change in the mid-’70s. Barbra Streisand has stradd...
Latin Grammy Foundation Grants Awarded to Rafael Escalona Foundation, LAMC & More
This year’s winners reflect that. The Escalona grant was given to the Rafael Escalona Foundation in Bogotá, for a project to preserve a collection of 174 physical Escalona files and offer them in a new user-friendly format. The second preservation grant went to support ongoing archival and cataloguing work at The Latin American Music Center (LAMC) at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., including the Center’s exclusive collection of compositions and manuscripts. Research grants were given to Buenos Aires’ Universidad Nacional de Quilmes for a field study to record traditional canto con caja (song and drum), and to researcher María Alejandra de Avila in Córdoba, Colombia, who is producing an interactive e-book of banda music in Colombia. Since its inception in 2015 , the ...
Clive Davis Reveals Plans for Not One, But Two Pre-Grammy Benefits: ‘We Are Here to Celebrate Music’
Davis tells Billboard plans for the Jan. 30 event were already underway when the Recording Academy decided this month to reschedule the Grammy Awards from Jan. 31 to March 14 due to the pandemic, so he simply decided to honor the original date and then hold a second event on the party’s traditional evening before the Grammy Awards. “When the Grammys moved to March 14, I had so many wonderful artists already set to join me on 30th and rather than getting into schedules, I decided to keep it Jan. 30, but also do our traditional night before the Grammys on March 13,” Davis says. For the first time, both events will be fundraisers. The annual party has been billed as the Recording Academy & Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala for the last several years. Davis is the sole host for both events this ...
’34 + 35,’ ‘Lady Marmalade’ & More Top 10 Hot 100 Hits Featuring Three or More Female Solo Artists
The first such single to hit the Hot 100’s top 10, as well as the most voluminous in terms of female collaborators, came in 1997, with “Not Tonight” — a No. 6 hit for Lil Kim off the Nothing to Lose soundtrack, also featuring Da Brat, Left Eye, Missy Elliott and Angie Martinez. Missy is a common element on several of the nine total all-female Hot 100 top 10 hits to feature more than two female artists. Along with “Lady Marmalade” (which she co-produced and provides the intro for, despite not being a credited artist on the song) and “Not Tonight,” she also appears along with Mocha as featured artists on Nicole’s “Make It Hot” (No. 5, 1998) and again with Lil Kim on Keyshia Cole’s “Let It Go” (No. 7, 200...
15 Hip-Hop & R&B Artists to Watch in 2021
In 2020, Blxst rocketed to success when fans unwrapped his eight-track project No Love Lost. The Cali polymath doesn’t shy away from messy topics, working through heartbreak and relationship woes with elastic ease. Fortunately, Blxst doesn’t allow his losses to define him, as he proves to be a slithery Casanova on “Wrong or Right,” “Overrated” and “Be Alone.” His skill for hitmaking shines on the project’s deluxe edition, as he recruits West Coast all-stars Dom Kennedy (“Got It All”) and Ty Dolla $ign and Tyga (“Chosen”) for his daily escapades. — CARL LAMARRE Pooh Shiesty If you didn’t know Memphis rapper Pooh Shiesty before he locked in with Lil Durk on “Back in Blood,” you certainly do now: T...
