no-paywall
Meet the Nonprofits Feeding Thousands of Out-Of-Work Touring Staff
The live events industry breathed a sigh of relief when Congress passed the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant providing $15 billion to shuttered venues and independent promoters in December, but Espinoza says it’s “disrespectful” that no legislation passed to support event workers. While venues await their funding, Roadiecare is among several industry-adjacent nonprofits stepping up to feed and employ event workers who are without their usual income for the foreseeable future. Live event crew members were hit particularly hard by the pandemic due to complicated unemployment guidelines in the 2020 CARES Act. The pandemic relief legislation allowed for freelance workers to apply for Pandemic Unemploy...
Biden Sets May 1 Target to Have All Adults Vaccine-Eligible
“While it was different for everyone, we all lost something,” Biden said, calling the past year “a collective suffering, a collective sacrifice.” Biden announced that he is deploying an additional 4,000 active-duty troops to support vaccination efforts and will allow more people — such as medical students, veterinarians and dentists — to deliver shots. He is also directing more doses toward some 950 community health centers and up to 20,000 retail pharmacies, to make it easier for people to get vaccinated closer to their homes. As supplies of the vaccines continue to increase, Biden announced that he will direct states and territories to make all adults eligible for vaccination by May 1. The U.S. is expecting delivery of enough doses for those 255 million adults by the end of that month, b...
Verzuz Founders Swizz Beatz & Timbaland Talk Triller Partnership: ‘This Puts a Light Back on Creatives’
The ultimate payoff, says Swizz Beatz, is “hearing everybody being so floored about having shares in the company and feeling like they belong. That’s the real currency. It’s going to take the creative to save the creative.” What initially attracted you to Triller? Swizz Beatz: The whole time that Tim and I were building this platform, we didn’t really have any plans from a monetization or even a business side. We never even built out the technology for it. It was more about wanting to do this from a celebration, educational side; to give people some life, love and happiness during these hard times with COVID-19. Then as the platform started growing it turned into a business with sponsors coming in and offers from people wanting to buy ownership in the company once w...
Stalley Announces New Partnership With Mello Music Group: Exclusive
Mello Music Group placed the welcome mat to Stalley by teaming him up with Joell Ortiz, Namir Blade and Solemn Brigham for their latest collaboration, “Black Rock.” The record will reside on the label’s forthcoming compilation album titled Bushido. Slated for production include vets Alchemist, illmind, and Apollo Brown, while the rap side will boast features by Skyzoo, Open Mike Eagle, B-Real, Murs, and Stalley. The project will officially be out on April 2. You can pre-order here. “While my debut Mello Music project will be released later this year, I’m eager to showcase my talents with the rest of the label on the Bushido Compilation album and debut “Black Rock”; the single is dope!” Stream “Black Rock” bel...
Billy Strings Run At Capitol Theatre Brings Together Streaming Era’s Two Powerhouses
Shapiro tells Billboard that the Capitol Theatre and the Brooklyn Bowl were outfitted with a multi-camera streaming system years earlier to stream shows with partners like Nugs, while the Brooklyn Bowl outlet in Nashville, which opened last year, was purpose-built for streaming. The Capitol Theatre includes a control room from which director Jonathan Healy was able to live-direct eight cameras capturing the show, while fans from home were projection-mapped onto the walls of the 95-year-old-venue. Couple that with Relix Media, which Shapiro owns and which has been a critical support vehicle for building Strings’ profile with jam fans, as well as as well as the huge email lists he’s built from both his venues and the popular Lock’N festival which help market Strings to a wider audience...
