Hot 97's Summer Jam 2009

Summer Jam 2009 was my first summer jam ever. Hot 97 delivered again this year with a slew of artists both upcoming and established. The-Dream, Day 26, T-Pain, Elephant Man, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, Mavado (So Special), Young Jeezy and many more all came to the stage and showed love at Giant Stadium this past Sunday. I especially enjoyed Mary J Blige's performance, heartfelt, energy driven as always and her sound was on point with a fantastic band supporting her. It was so awesome when she started singing "You're All I Need" and Method Man came out and did his part! Then in the middle of her set Redman came through and performed with Meth...I was waiting for the whole Wu to come out but to no avail.

Nonetheless, I was still pleasantly surprised with a performance by Jay-Z delivering "Death of Autotune" - Blueprint 3 coming. The whole stadium went crazy of course. My boy Drake also came by surprise and performed "Best I Ever Had" - I wish he could've done more. All in all it was a good show but was disappointed with the Dip-set not going hard at the end.

The Recording Academy and T-Mobile Sidekick Present Estelle and LL

Estelle was lovely last Thursday at Terminal 5, performing all my favorite songs - "Magnificent," "Come Over," and "No Substitute Love" with a rocking live band! She was graceful to share the stage with some attendees to groove it out. Check out additional pictures via Flickr.
LL Cool J was absolutely phenomenal! So much energy, I was bopping my head and dancing like crazy to "Rock the Bells," "Doin' It," "Don't Call It a Comeback," "Momma Said Knock You Out!" and "Around the Way Girl." My first time seeing LL perform live and I was very impressed with his performance...excellent delivery and crowd interaction. Next time we'll have to see LL and Estelle share the stage...their names just sound so good together..

Higher Music Fees at Nightclubs

In Australia, nightclubs pay record labels and artists a royalty fee of 7 Australian cents per guest but "under a recent copyright settlement [the] rate has risen to 50 cents per customer, and it is set to jump to 1.05 dollars, or 84 U.S. cents, in a few years." The Phonographic Performance Co of Australia chief executive, Stephen Peach argues that "Without music, there wouldn't be a nightclub," therefore paying only 7 cents out of a $10-15 cover for music plus the money that comes in from people buying liquor just "doesn't seem right."

The international body that governs record royalty payments, IFPI notes that royalty revenue has increased for the record industry by 16 percent, while music sales have fell by 8 percent. IFPI is urging that other countries follow Australia's lead because it is aggressively pushing to raise royalty revenues for the industry. Do you think nightclubs should pay fees for playing music? They pay fees for selling liquor, so why not? But it would have to be reasonable because owning and profiting from a nightclub is hard enough. We'll see if this discussion gets here soon as the concern now seems to radio. For more info on this visit the NY Times.

Youssou N'Dour To Close Africa Vive Series

Youssou N'Dour is wrapping up his month long series of the Africa Vive festival all throughout Spain. The festival celebrates Africa Day which takes place on May 25th. "The last concert of the series will take place on May 29th in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands (Spain) off the coast of West Africa. Africa Vive is organized by public consortium Casa Africa and Fundación Autor, the promotion arm of the Spanish authors' and publishers' collecting society, SGAE." Africa Vive's promise is to celebrate and encourage the coming together of African and Spanish cultures through art exhibitions, music, cinema and cultural workshops. Visit Africa Vive to learn more.

K'Naan - "T.I.A. (This Is Africa)"

K'Naan's got a new video for his "T.I.A. (This Is Africa)" single. Directed by the same man who did Kanye's "Welcome to Heartbreak" - Nabil Elderkin. Very interesting vid, again a true demonstration of art and taking the music video to a whole next level.

Maxwell's 'BLACKsummers'night' - 7/7/09

Finally, Maxwell is back! The long, long, long anticipated album (the first of the trilogy), BLACKsummers'night is set to be released on July 7th. I usually wait a few days or weeks before I purchase an album because it's not a priority, I can always buy it, but this one I will, I repeat, I will be purchasing BLACKsummers' night the DAY it comes out and I suggest you do the same because the music is that phenomenal. The first single from the album is "Pretty Wings," and the video was directed by Philip Andelman. I am thrilled that Maxwell is back and it feels great to see him and have his music pumping back through the airwaves. BLACKsummers'night has nine tracks all produced by Maxwell and co-produced by Hod David and features a live ten-piece band. The other two albums off the trilogy are titled, BlackSUMMERS'night and blacksummers'NIGHT, scheduled to be released in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

Maxwell will be touring this summer and headlining the Essence Music Festival on July 4th. For full tour schedule, check out Billboard.biz. Words from Maxwell about returning to the music stage -- "After I toured I remembered faces and encouragement and got so much inspiration. In today's time you need so many bells and whistles, but to be able to feel people's need for me made this record better" - and on the upcoming release -- BLACKsummers'night, Maxwell hopes "people enjoy the music, put songs into your lives and apply them to your experiences -- clean your kitchen, make love to your girl, have children, all that." Keep up with Maxwell by visiting his site, Musze Watch "Pretty Wings" below..

Kid Cudi - 'Dat Kid from Cleveland' Mixtape

Kid Cudi's latest mixtape, Dat Kid from Cleveland has me real excited for the newest wave of next-gen rappers. This mixtape is definitely something you can rock to from start to finish...I've been listening to it since Friday. I really love the track with 88-keys, "Ho' is short for Honey," "Welcome 2 the World," featuring Kevin Rudolf, "She Came Along" featuring Sharam, "Look Up In Da Stars," featuring Wale. The album comes with your autotune effects, electronic sound, samples and heavy hitting backbeats. Download Dat Kid from Cleveland gratuit.