The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

Posted: 28 May 2013 06:13 AM PDT

Kanye West, who's grown accustomed to seeing his face on tabloid covers with his socialite partner Kim Kardashian, is gearing up for a return to centre stage in the international music scene with a new studio album, Yeezus, due out June 18. Over the past few days, rumours and conjectures have given way to some specifics divulged on TV shows and on social networks.

Three years after My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the rapper will be putting out his latest brainchild, christened Yeezus, on June 18. His sixth studio album to date, Yeezus comprises 15 tracks and features guest artistes Daft Punk, Frank Ocean, DJ Skrillex and the American alternative hip hop collective Odd Future.

West has just divulged the album title and release date on Twitter. The CD cover has already been designed and has been previewed on Kim Kardashian's Instagram account .

The prolific recording artiste, whose new album is one of the most eagerly awaited music releases of the year, has displayed marked prowess in seizing public attention using a whole armada of communication tools, particularly by posting information on several different social networks. This past weekend he made a splash with live performances of two titles, New Slave and Black Skinhead, on US TV show Saturday Night Live. From Friday to Sunday, the clip to his single New Slave was projected onto the facades of 66 buildings in ten major cities around the world, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Berlin and Paris. – AFP Relaxnews

Forget him not

Posted: 28 May 2013 06:17 AM PDT

Cee Lo Green is set to release a new album, Girl Power, which pays homage to women.

Soul-pop singer Cee Lo Green loves the ladies and makes no secret about it. In fact, his upcoming album will be titled Girl Power.

"Women are our greatest muse," the five-time Grammy winner says in a telephone interview from Florida.

"They are an enchanted intangibility that encourages all art, you know. And so Girl Power is a homage to women and their power of influence, an appreciation."

He is best known for the catchy single Forget You from 2010, the uncensored version of which is called F*** You which made him an Internet star; the mainstream traditional media would play only the version without expletive.

But that kind of social media success means his fanbase has expanded to include many who do not know the extent of his work.

"A lot of people don't know that my career dates back 18 years prior," he says referring to his early years with Atlanta rap group Goodie Mob, whom he was active with from 1991 to 1999.

Goodie Mob is back together and set to release a new album this year.

The 38-year-old Green says: "We reunited after a 10-year hiatus and we are almost finished with a new album entitled Age Against The Machine."

He sure is prolific. Besides the upcoming Girl Power, which will be his fifth solo effort, he has also released two commercially successful albums as one-half of soul-pop act Gnarls Barkley, his collaboration with eclectic producer Danger Mouse.

His various music projects, which include collaborations with veteran guitarist Santana, have won him multiple accolades including Grammy, Brit, Billboard Music and Soul Train Music awards.

Green is also familiar to television viewers as a judge/mentor for the first three seasons of popular reality television singing show The Voice in the United States.

He took a break from the show's current season to work on his own projects but is expected to return to the series next season.

The Voice, he explains, is different from all the other reality singing programmes on television because it is "a show with its priority in the right order".

Green and the other judges on the show, which include music stars such as country singer Blake Shelton, choose whom to mentor based on their voice alone.

"When you hear someone's voice being used purposefully, you want to partner with him, you want to push him forward, because it can really be something promising to share with all mankind," he says.

"I mean, music can affect mankind in the largest way possible, so to aid and abet that is gratifying, it's very rewarding."

Viewers of The Voice know that Green regularly wears outlandish wigs, loud-coloured clothes and gaudy Liberace-worthy spectacles to perform.

As outrageously flamboyant as he is, Green insists that he does not "overproduce" his style.

"Sometimes it's just what I have available. I don't have these large stores of so many wild and wonderful things.

"I'm inspired by what's been done and also what hasn't been done and of course, my aspiration has always been to be original and it's just like, I'm not shy."

Green, who performed at the Social Star Awards in Singapore last week, is a champion of social media and uses tools like Twitter to reach out to his fanbase.

"It's definitely a way to mass promote and have an intimate relationship with the audience and have personalised accounts of your thoughts and activities. It's a way to show your consistency, your commitment."

And instead of checking out what other celebrities have to say on their accounts, the singer, who has a 13-year-old son from a former marriage, prefers to tune in to what people are saying on the ground.

"I just think that everyday people sometimes have the most profound, pointed things to say, when artistes like myself and people in my position have to be politically correct all the time.

"So, to hear real people speak and talk in the raw, unfiltered opinion, it's very inspiring to me." – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Selasa, 28 Mei 2013

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

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