Music blog regulars will know that the Pussycat Dolls have thoroughly redeemed themselves with the (deluxe) Doll Domination album. Jai Ho conveniently repackages the end song from Slumdog Millionaire, giving Miss Scherzinger lead vocals and a background role for the composer, A R Rahman.
Jai Ho alternates between dramatic ethnic verses and uplifting pop choruses. Sure, they go a little overboard with the autotune sometimes (autotune is the modern equivalent of helium, isn’t it?).
My inclination is to crown this the best single the Pussycat Dolls have ever released, actually. The music is amazing. There are overtones of Beyonce and Shakira on Beautiful Liar, but ten times better. The video features the girls looking stunning and doing a fun Bollywood style dance routine. Don’t they look like they’re all having great fun?
I got an email about Das Racist earlier today, and just have to share this with you. If you like your songs really stoopid, in the tradition of Afroman and Soulja Boy, you will love this.
Das Racist is an art rap/freak folk/world music duo based in Brooklyn, New York, comprised of Queens-born Himanshu Kumar and San Francisco-born Victor Vazquez. The two met at Bard Art College in Massachusetts, where Victor was Himanshu’s resident advisor in a “students of color for social justice” themed freshman year dormitory until he was suspended for a “race-related altercation” in which he slapped another student and told him to “shut [his] cracker ass up.”
Sound like a really nice pair of guys, don’t they? But seriously, Pizza Hut Taco Bell is one of the funniest songs I’ve heard in ages. Check out the remix below, or hit their MySpace or here for the (superior) original version!
The other songs on the MySpace page are equally bizarre but brilliant. You’ve just gotta go and check them out.
Hip-hop kingpin, Timbaland, is suing his record company Blackground Records for allegedly trying to sabotage his career when he moved into producing records.
He moved from being solely a performer to being hugely successful producing records for other artists. However, he claims this isn’t thanks to Blackground. According to TMZ:
In his lawsuit, filed today in Federal District court, Timbaland claims he just got too damn successful as a producer — and the record label couldn’t contain its jealously and hostility for him.
Timbaland alleges Blackground went on a McCarthy-esque search-and-destroy campaign, contacting various record labels and giving them a million reasons why they shouldn’t hire Timbaland to produce songs.
I’m assuming that because Timbaland is selling records by the truckload all over the world that this isn’t about money. It possibly has more to do with reputation and a little payback for the alleged campaign that could have killed off his lucrative career.
Seems Justin Timberlake doesn’t release anything by himself these days, he’s just happy to meander onto any given rap track and sing a few lines. No real hard work to be done, the audience is happy, and everybody goes home satisfied.
Except T.I. – he’s headed for prison in a few weeks, isn’t he?
Chris Cornell partnering with Timbaland was the most unlikely musical collaboration ever. If your experience of Cornell is through Soundgarden or Audioslave, you are about to hear the boldest move of his career.
Now, if you’ve been wondering where Cornell’s been since Audioslave broke up, the video reveals all: he’s been brooding in clubs in Puerto Rico, Texas and New York. Observing women flirting on the dancefloor while their menfolk look on in frustration. Oh yes, and hanging out with hordes of line-dancing women.
It’s not often that a celebrity bothers to respond directly to rumors in the media, but that’s what uber-producer Timbaland did when he heard a ‘leak’ about the follow-up to his hugely successful Shock Value album.
He got in touch with MTV and cleared up the situation – which claimed he had secured Justin Timberlake, Usher and Gwen Stefani to appear on the album.
"It’s funny," Timbo said about the surprisingly detailed report, which claimed it was based on an advance preview of five tracks from the album. "I’m surprised people are watching me like that. I am recording the album, but I don’t know none of them joints, none of them songs. That’s just bogus."
As for an official track listing, the production wizard was mum — and he didn’t confirm or deny whether any of the artists listed in the report will appear on the album. He did speak generally about the album’s direction, however.
After my last post about 50 Cent, it looks like Dr. Dre and his associates are planning chart domination this year. Eminem’s the latest of Dre’s pals to resurface for 2009, and his supposed new single Crack A Bottle is already leaking all over the internet.
And Crack A Bottle features the unholy trinity of Eminem himself, with guest appearances by Dre and 50 Cent. (Remember when they used to invite Xibit along to this stuff? He’s too busy pimping rides these days :().
The much-delayed fourth studio album from 50 Cent looks set to finally be released on 3 February 2009. It was originally due to be released back in 2007, but the rapper took the decision to release Curtis (the album) first.
Some people think I changed the title of my album from "Before I Self Destruct" to "Curtis", but what I did was, I changed albums. I had Before I Self Destruct, I recorded twelve songs under that actual topic, and then I created the material that is under Curtis, and I felt like this album should come out right now and Before I Self Destruct is gonna be my follow-up record, so I’m probably like three or four records away from completing my next album at this point.
Wow. After a phenomenal year in the American charts for rapper T.I., he’s due to go to prison in March after being convicted on federal weapons charges.
But before he takes a one-year break from da industry, T.I. is going to wrap up with a private concert at Chloe Sveigny’s New Years Eve party in Miami. I’d imagine the private gig will result in a decent payday for the 28 year old.
I’m hearing the latest N-Dubz single a lot on the music channels lately. Dedicated to their late manager, Byron Contostavlos, Papa has an epic feel to it, lifting this posse beyond the realms of your regular urban fare.
The music video is totally random and surreal, with the various members of the group falling out of doorways in the sky, and floating in the ether.
