Maxwell's nationwide US Tour (Trace.TV)

Maxwell Black Summer Night Tour!
With the brassy soprano Jill Scott at his side, Neo-Soul's king of cool returns to shine an ethereal light on the masses.
By Marcus Scott

Just last year, the trailblazing neo-soul artiste Maxwell wowed audiences when he chopped his halo of hair, dropping his now universally-acclaimed “BLACKsummers’night,” now seen by many cynics and fans alike as a crowning achievement in the R&B and soul genres. The stratospheric-falsetto-swooping NAACP Image Award winning luminary that enthralled audiences with his dynamic Superbad soul power machismo and bohemian Mat Hatter eccentricity decided to roll up his sleeves, teamed up with Live Nation to produce a nationwide 17-city US arena tour that kicks-off May 21st. Fresh from his catapulting two-time Grammy Award win for his platinum-selling, No.1 hit “BLACKsummers’night,” Maxwell left his handprints on the hearts of music lovers everywhere, landing on several critics’ year-end best of list.
The “Fortunate” singer decided to display “a woman’s work” of art this time around on tour, and acting as his support is fellow neo-soul pioneer Jill Scott—the soul sistah songbird enchantress with the ebullient glass-shattering operatic soprano—who will be touring with her forthcoming album, “The Light of The Sun.” The busy bee recently had a leading role in HBO’s critically-acclaimed Anthony Minghella-directed miniseries “The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” and Lifetime film “Sins of the Mother,” is in the process of promoting two feature-length films, prepping a cartoon series, and has branching out in the fashion world by designing a new bra for her Ashley Stewart intimate apparel line. No worries. With a career spanning a little over a decade, the sometimes actress—who will return in the Tyler Perry ensemble film “Why Did I Get Married, Too?”—will be performing previous hits, starting with her double-platinum ever-influential nu-soul staple “Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1” to her three-time Grammy triumphant crowd-pleasing present-day career.
Both of the shinign supernovas will be supporting new releases as Maxwell shall be promoting his most-anticipated “blackSUMMERS’night,” With a concert with a world-class appeal to it, the duo have nothing but good things coming from various commentators on their solo shows. While Jill Scott has been compared to piping hot bravado that compares to Motown machine glitz, Maxwell produced a Broadway musical extravaganza on a stage that icons James Brown, Cab Colloway and Sam Cooke were made to execute performances night-after-night. And the praise is unanimous: Both perform better live than in their studios, meaning we’ve all been duped.
Interested? Here are the dates where you can get a ticket:

Fri. May 21 / Cleveland / Quicken Loans Arena
Sat. May 22 / Detroit / Palace of Auburn Hills
Mon. May 24 / Indianapolis / Conseco Fieldhouse
Tue. May 25 / Chicago / United Center
Sat. May 29 / St. Louis / Scottrade Center
Wed. Jun 2 / Seattle / Key Arena
Fri. Jun 4 / Oakland / Oracle Arena
Sat. Jun 5 / Los Angeles / Staples Center
Tue. Jun 8 / Dallas / American Airlines Center
Wed. Jun 9 / Houston / Toyota Center
Sat. Jun 12 / Atlanta / Philips Arena
Mon. Jun 14 / Miami / American Airlines Arena
Fri. Jun 18 / Washington DC / Verizon Center
Sat. Jun 19 / Philadelphia / Wachovia Center
Mon. Jun 21 / Uncasville, CT / Mohegan Sun
Fri. Jun 25 / New York City / Madison Square Garden
Tue. Oct 12/ Dallas / American Airlines Center

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Rhythm and Rhyme Story Time

Here are excerpts about underground emcees Hasan Salaam and Rugged N' Raw:
Born and raised in New Jersey, Hasan Salaam has been telling it like it is with his music. He has been writing lyrics since age 11. After being exposed to the movie and book on the life of Malcolm X, he was inspired to convert to Islam. Salaam stated on his Myspace page that he’s not in the rap game for the sake of making millions. He’s doing it for the sake of one simple concept: love.

Rugged N’ Raw (or RNR) … the name says it all. Like Salaam, RNR has been described as a rhythmic story teller. His lyrics, stage presence and appearance become in sync and it is obvious that he enjoys having fun in doing what he loves. Nobody likes being broke, but RNR was able to turn lemons into lemonade with his most popular video, “Broke and Proud,” featuring Hasan Salaam.

To read the rest of the article, check it out at inCOLOR Magazine.

Photos courtesy of Myspace and Hip Hop Linguistics.

P!nk's Funhouse Goes International... again? (Trace.tv)

P!nk Lets Her Freak Flag Fly Sky High

Are you ready to funhouse?

A story by Marcus Scott

TRACE.tv

Pop music firecracker P!nk will continue her circus chic tour de force in 2010, this time with the much-anticipated Funhouse Summer Carnival Tour, after selling over 2 million tickets on her successful Funhouse Tour. The spitfire chanteuse who released her critically-acclaimed electro-rock rhapsody “Funhouse” to an enormous praise and impressive sales embarks on her fifth tour as announced by tour promoter Eventim and then by P!nk via Twitter. It will be the bluesy punk rocker’s first-ever stadium tour in Europe. However, unlike last year’s one-of-a-kind bat-hanging-from-the-rafters Led Zeppelin-esque Cirque du Soleil rock extravaganza, P!nk has stated that there will be less acrobatics and a new set list which confirms that fans are in for a new experience.

Since its release, the pop stalwart “Funhouse” has sold over 5 million copies worldwide, spawning several smash hits including “So What?,” “Please Don’t Leave Me,” “I Don’t Believe You,” “It’s All Your Fault,” the title track and “Bad Influence.” Earning 2 Grammy nods for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her hit single “Sober,” this punk debutante—along with the shows already scheduled—will headline various music festivals throughout Europe during the tour. P!nk will start by breaking new ground at 6 stadiums across the UK, starting with a show at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday, June 12 in Bolton.

P!nk will also be whizzing across Australia, where she smashed audience attendance records for female artists performing at the Sydney Entertainment Centre where she serenaded 115,598 people on her last tour. That’s a whopping 22,903 more fans than Australia’s own pop diva, Kylie Minogue. That means, her Aussie fans only have a few months to “sober” up for the ride of their lives. Careful, she could be a “bad influence.”

Funhouse Summer Carnival Tour events:
May 27, 2010 Hannover, Germany - Expo
May 29, 2010 Cologne, Germany - RheinEnergieStadion

May 30, 2010 Mega land, Landgraaf – Pinkpop Festival
June 2, 2010 Heilbronn, Germany -Frankenstadion
June 3, 2010 Stadtallendorf, Germany - Hessentag
June 5, 2010 Innsbruck, Austria - Olympiaworld Innsbruck
June 6, 2010 Munich Germany - Olympia Reitstadion Riem
June 8, 2010 Berlin, Germany - Waldbühne
June 12, 2010 Bolton, England - Reebok Stadium
June 13, 2010 Seaclose Park, Newport – Isle of Wight Festival

June 16, 2010 Belfast, Northern Ireland - King's Hall
June 19, 2010 Dublin, Ireland - RDS Arena
June 20, 2010 Limerick, Ireland - Thomond Park
June 23, 2010 Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom - Liberty Stadium
June 24, 2010 Coventry, England, United Kingdom - Ricoh Arena
June 26, 2010 Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom - Hampden Park
June 27, 2010 Alton, England, United Kingdom - Alton Towers
June 29, 2010 Ipswich, England, United Kingdom - Portman Road
July 2, 2010 Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom - Wireless festival

July 8, 2010 Linz, Austria - Linzer Stadion
July 10, 2010 Bern, Switzerland -Stade de Suisse

Tickets to the festivals and the tour can be bought here:
http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk
http://www.seetickets.com
http://www.theticketfactory.com
http://www.pinkpop.nl/page.php?pagID=517

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Brian J White, our new sex symbol (Krave Magazine; unpublished)

The Astonishing Mr. White
Mr. White’s Got an Axe to Grind about… children?
By Marcus Scott

Brian J. White is arguably the new face of levelheaded, offbeat cool. Let’s face it, with a gridiron torso and blitzed confidence in himself from years of rehearsal and tuning his craft, Mr. White’s developed the X factor. He’s a dash of the shaken-not-stirred vodka martini swigging James Bond, a sliver of smoky-eyed black eyeliner Duran Duran, a zest of militant motherland hype man Malcolm X and has the gusto of Harry Belafonte. Being the son of 1976 NBA Finals MVP Boston Celtics iron man Jo Jo White and his wife Estelle as the only male of six, could be a heavy burden for some. But the Dartmouth College grad paved a path of his own, eventually parting his Boston home to study Political Science, Psychology and Theater Arts in Hanover, NH. With his virtuosi knack for games, this sports wunderkind signed with both the National Football League and National Lacrosse League team, joining the New England Patriots and Boston Blazers teams, respectively. Not too shabby, and with his debonair Steve McQueen arrow collar kink and rough-as-nails machismo swagger, he has slowly become one the most underrated poster boy to headline the new age of black Hollywood, leaving a dint as a gentleman’s gentleman.

However, when White sustained an injury, damaging his athletic career, he moved on to modeling after a scout approached him, landing him on the hit teen soap Moesha opposite R&B teen icon Brandy. The 6’2” paper tiger paladin has since manufactured a rather wide-ranging résumé as a model-turned-actor before he branched out to his first passion—dance—and co-found the Phunk Phenomenon Urban Dance Theater Company, coaching kids to stray from the path of drinking and driving motor vehicles, and to open up about race relations, sex and pregnancy, drug use, peer pressure and hazing. Getting his SAG card after landing his first union job—after he tried landing a gig for his dancers—one might say he was teleported to the moon, in this case, Hollywood. Like a global recession, Mr. White’s face was everywhere—an unaccredited role in The Best Man, a role in MTV’s Undressed—and then in fat parts, as the emerald fauxhawk fighting Zac in the of the sleazy Skinemax videogame cybergeek joyride DOA: Dead or Alive and working opposite Bernie Mac in Mr. 3000 as baseball divo Rex “T-Rex” Pennebaker. After taking bit parts as dim-witted baby daddies in Tyler Perry’s Little Girls opposite black Barbie doll Gabrielle Union, or as conservative mustachio eye candy in The Family Stone opposite Sex and the City fave Sarah Jessica Parker or as loose-cannon sweethearts in The Game Plan opposite wrestling icon Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, White was still an unknown. Then came his “big break,” playing the fired up academia-ambitious and militant street-stomping TNT leader Sylvester in the Chippendales-for-teens drama Stomp The Yard. We knew it wouldn’t be long until his face would be plastered on billboards and the coffee tables of soccer moms.

“Ninety five percent of the cast had a professional dance background,” White says jovially recounting his experience. “[Most of which were] dancers or choreographers. [We] went through a 6 week boot camp, separated [into] two frats and [we] didn't see each other for 6 weeks. [We] didn't socialize or anything. It was a great experience, but the camaraderie [we] built was the best.”

No doubt his skills as a born athlete aided him in his adventures on set. White along with other Krave cover boy Columbus Short would walk away rock stars after they won the legendary stomp battle at the film’s climax. And White would do the same in other films, showing off his guns and beating the competition to a pulp he in the heartbeat-banger Fighting and the ballistic 12 Rounds. But he really took the cake with a critically praised performance as damaged goods Randy in Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself opposite Oscar-nominated Taraji P. Henson, whom he cites as one of the best actresses in Hollywood with incredible integrity.

“It was a very different role from Stomp The Yard. Sly was a big brother type of character, so that's who he was on set... Even off camera he was kind of a big brother to the cast,” White says, discussing his method acting techniques in his recent incarnation as a shady adulterer to that of his adorable Boy Scout claim-to-fame. “Randy was a bad guy, so he stayed more to himself on set. When shooting it was very light, though. It was [my] second time working with Tyler; [I am] a huge fan of Tyler’s.”

Working on TV shows in the past like the hard-boiled The Shield, the ill-missed Second Time Around and paranormal romance Moonlight, White was a shoo-in when he was tapped to stars as a recurring member on the acclaimed Men of a Certain Age. With an eye for good scripts, White took the job and has been gracing fashion iconoclast with his snazzy style on-and-off screen. Not a follower of trends, he goes for “upscale, progressive and clean” threads, opting for wing tip and shell toe “kicks,” silver Russell Simmons dog tags or a silver watch, a pair of shades and incorporating as much blue—his favorite color—into his wardrobe as possible. “Urban has merged with mainstream,” White notes with posh sophistication. “There is a fashion renaissance going on, much like in art and music. He just likes to be himself.”

Expanding his palette with the 2011 Danny Glover-billed horror feature The Cabin In the Woods, White is a busy man strutting the gold-dusted red carpets of the Hollywood elite. Despite his duties cranking out episodes of Men of a Certain Age, he is producing three films under his company Media 3 Films, shooting his next project in early 2010, titled Hickory Nation in England. In his spare time, he will be aiding his Boston Celtics dad in running their restaurant “Jo Jo's,” an upscale membership driven sports bar. White will also be working on the Helping Hands Celebrity Weekend between July 21 and July 26 in St. Thomas, where he and other celebs will compete in a friendly battle royale to raise money for each of their charities; all proceeds are to benefit children—another passion of White’s. If one were to go to the website, http://www.helpinghandscelebrityweekend.org/, they can go on the site and pledge $5 during the “$5 Challenge” which kicks off in February, where a winner will be selected for an all expenses paid trip to St. Thomas. Keisha Whitaker and White are also hosting an essay contest for youth at http://www.wordsmatternow.org/ , teaching youth that the way to be in the industry is to control one’s own content.

Far from the Bloody Mary-guzzling movie stars of his era or the star struck wannabes that call themselves professionals, it’s White’s remarkable quiet storm serenity that makes him the ultimate Atlas man of kick ass. Is it the cocky swagger? Is it his leading man bravado? No. He’s just a do-right man and that’s why he’s totally Krave material. Who knew?

Follow him at http://www.brianwhiteonline.com/ and on Twitter at actorbrianwhite.

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Wayne's World, Behind Bars (Trace.tv)

The Reincarnation of Lil’ Wayne
He sure ain’t Bruce Wayne but this hip-hop crusader worked wonders in 2009 and now, he’s back, with a vengeance with the eagerly-awaited Rebirth.
By Marcus Scott
Submission: TRACE.tv
News Feature

Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr., better known to the world as Lil’ Wayne, became a hip-hop martyr in 2008 after releasing what rock and rap critics have called his magnum opus, Tha Carter III to critical rave reviews. Sweeping three Grammys, he was crowned the go-to rapper, making cameos with various artists like Amerie, Drake, Cassie, Keri Hilson, Shakira and Chris Brown, and it wasn’t long until fans started to speculate when the next record would drop. Well, wait no more: His highly anticipated follow-up Rebirth, hit stores February 2nd.

No doubt, Lil Wayne is on top of the hip-hop apex. With a hectic schedule ahead in 2010, he looks to drop the heavily-awaited sequel to his 2008 magnum opus with Tha Carter IV later this year, but he maybe promoting his work behind bars.

On October 22, 2009, CNN reported the Auto-Tune hip-hopper pleaded guilty on gun charges and is expected to go to trial later this month. The incident appears to stem from a 2007 traffic stop of his tour bus. If the court decides against him, he is looking to receive a one-year jail sentence in February. That still didn’t keep Carter, 27, who has admitted several times in interviews that he smokes marijuana recreationally, to behave. The “Lollipop” rapper, who has been arrested several times for drug possession, was detained at a Texas Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias, after federal agents found marijuana inside two of his tour buses.
In a seppuku career move, the rapper launched “The Farewell Tour” at the Desoto Civic Center this past Sunday, January 10, alongside Birdman, Young Money and special guests.

Don’t get yourself down in the dumps. Lil’ Wayne is indeed a busy man and looks to release I Can’t Feel My Face, an eagerly-awaited collaboration effort with hip-hop upstart Juelz Santana. Recently, The “Dipset” rapper stated there are over 25 songs sitting on a computer and will release the record as a mix tape, if it can’t be released on their label.

That’s not all folks! Louisiana rapper Turk, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison after entering an Alford plea for his part in the attempted murder involving a Swat team deputy, confirmed behind bars that there will be a Cash Money Hot Boys group reunion. 90s Dirty South bad boy Juvenile also confirmed, even stating why the group was held up. In a recent interview, the “Back That Thang Up” rapper stated that a riff had to be settled between him and Birdman first before they went to work. The album is expected soon, with Juvenile stating he’s already received alimony.

To keep us on the edge of our seats, Carter’s latest album Rebirth, is due for release Feb. 2, a week before the rapper is due in a New York City court for the sentencing on attempted criminal possession of a weapon.

His latest rap rock Cool & Dre produced single “On Fire,” is quickly heating up the charts and with the sexy bubblegum goth Chris Robinson-directed music video hitting the airwaves only days ago, we’re sure to hear a lot from the hip-hop monster that is Lil’ Wayne. Also a strong contender for music accolades in 2011, the charming synth-techno electro-hop club blaster “Drop The World” featuring hip-hop magistrate Eminem, is also working wonders.

This is not farewell, just a long goodbye.
For the link and the edited story, go to:
http://eng.trace.tv/article.php?id=985