Jay Dee Passes On

Rapper/producer and member of Slum Village Jay Dee/J Dilla passed away Friday morning from kidney failure.

Many are expressing their feelings at Okayplayer.

Wikipedia: Jay Dee

3rd Delay for Outkast's Idlewild Soundtrack

Making next week a pretty slow one for new releases, the soundtrack for Idlewild has been delayed till April.  Though some movie trailers have it coming next week, the soundtrack won't be here yet and, as far as I know, there are no big dramatic reasons for the delay, though this is at least the third one to date.

Official site: Idlewild

Web Marketing Lupe Fiasco

Lynne d Johnson drops some observations on the topic of "how to market a music artist in the now" using web marketing efforts for Lupe Fiasco as an example.

Full Sail Grads With Grammy Connects

I meant to congratulate Full Sail on the large number of their graduates involved in Grammy nominated projects.  According to the press release:
In 2005, an incredible 110 graduates from Full Sail Real World Education were involved in the production of 76 individual projects nominated for a GRAMMY Award in 66 separate categories. This is a record number of Full Sail Graduates who have worked on nominated projects in any single year.

That's quite an achievement as is the information that for the "last 12 years, a Full Sail graduate has worked on every GRAMMY Award-winning Album of the Year."

Beyoncé in 3rd Week at No. 1

Beyoncé's Check on It featuring Slim Thug takes its 3rd week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart followed by James Blunt's You're Beautiful at no. 2 and Nelly's Grillz featuring Paul Wall and Ali & Gipp at no. 3.

4. Mary J. Blige - Be Without You
5. T-Pain - I'm Sprung
6. Ne-Yo - So Sick
7. Chris Brown - Yo (Excuse Me Miss)
8. Jamie Foxx - Unpredictable
9. Eminem - Shake That featuring Nate Dogg
10. Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten

Forbes Music Money Makers of 2005

Forbes.com takes a look at the Top Music Money Makers of 2005 using a similar approach to Billboard's Money Makers chart but comes up with rather different results. That may be because the Billboard chart had a weird time frame but the Forbes slideshow of earnings has some oddities in it as well.

In both cases the charts of top money makers are focusing on ticket and music product sales, which are fairly easy to tally up once received from Nielsen or Pollstar. What would be interesting would be to see a more in-depth accounting of the money generated by endorsements, businesses and so forth.

50 Cent was the only rapper on both lists with Billboard bringing him in at $75+ million and Forbes at $79+ million.

NPR.org Music Seeks Producer

Listed under the Online Positions at NPR's job site is the following:

Online Supervising Music Producer
NPR.org is looking for a dynamic music producer, journalist and new-media thinker to lead the team that will turn NPR.org Music into a premier online destination for musical exploration and enjoyment. Help define the strategy and produce the musical and journalistic offerings that will translate the NPR sensibility into an online experience. This is a full-time position in Washington, DC. JOB DESCRIPTION: Develops and implements an online music strategy. Plans and creates online music events and programming. Edits and produces music-section pages. Assigns, writes and edits stories. Creates multimedia content. Supervises online music staff.

Check the site for the rest of the requirements which are pretty high. I liked this bit the best:
Demonstrated ability to imagine audacious projects and then make them real.

Official site: NPR: Jobs and Training Opportunities

The Game's Hurricane Sneaker to Debut in Europe

The Game's Hurricane by 310 sneaker line launches in Europe in March and it gives me the opportunity to play with adding pictures to ProHipHop.  You know, The Game has a lot of odd expressions and this publicity photo is definitely one of them.  It's like, "you can have one if you want one, I don't care."

Ooh, but look at the strong wind in the background!  He stands so tall!

And you will too in Hurricane by 310 sneaks!!

Official site: 310 Motoring

Complete List of Grammy Winners

A complete list of the Grammy nominees and winners is available at the official site.

The Wu-Tang Clan Rediscover Each Other

Wu-Tang kicks off its tour in New Haven with what sounds like a show that revealed how long they've all been functioning as independent entities. 

As discussed in The Wu-Tang Manual, the early structure of Wu-Tang as envisioned by RZA involved them each finding separate label homes as solo artists in addition to a group deal in order to create an overwhelming network from within the industry.  Ultimately that initial development, allied with the more profitable realities of solo and duet performance, led them down separate paths.

A piece on the tour in the Village Voice reminds us that the early Wu-Tang deal with Loud Records:
was revolutionary in that it allowed for the different Clan members to sign solo deals with whatever label they chose rather than Loud itself. Rappers were able to receive royalties both from group projects and their own solo projects, and before long, all nine had contracts with almost as many labels. "Now it's the norm," says longtime Wu-Tang DJ and producer Mathematics, on the phone from a midtown studio. "Everybody come in with a crew and they want to go solo, or they come in solo with a crew, and they want a Wu-Tang deal. They don't really call it that no more."

Tom Breihan's account in the Voice reveal that there were also some concerns from some Wu-Tang members regarding the relatively small venues and some issues with the initial management of the tour.  However, smaller venues may be a good thing for a gathering of individuals remembering what it is to be a group.

I'll Take Phil Jackson Over Mark Cuban Any Day

I love the fact that Phil Jackson is so deep in Mark Cuban's head that Mark thinks he owns Phil!

I admire Mark Cuban for many reasons but his schoolyard bravado is no match for Phil's psychic kung fu.

Barry Tops Albums, Franchize Boyz Wait a Week

Well, Barry Manilow's topping the Billboard 200 album chart and most of the rest of the top 10 is a battleground for classical and R&B acts.

Eminem's Curtain Call is at no. 7 but that's about it for hip hop excitement.  Guess we'll just have to wait till next week's report reflecting the release of Dem Franchize Boyz' On Top Of Our Game. 

On the other hand, since snap music is really a singles/ringtone phenomenon, the album may not have the impact Dem Franchize Boyz would like.  In fact, though D4L's Laffy Taffy broke one week digital download records, their album Down 4 Life did ok without being anything special.

Although Dem Franchize Boyz member Pimpin' thinks that they'll beat out D4L's sales due to the fact that "people recognize" that they're the "originators", respecting someone's place in history has never assured decent album sales.

Kelefa Sanneh took a closer look last month in the NY Times at D4L's singles/album dichotomy and pondered the place of digital downloads.

Jermaine Dupri's Strip Club Research

In an article about Jermaine's Dupri's surprising lack of nomination for Producer of the Year at the Grammys, he confirms what Tamara Palmer discusses in Country Fried Soul: Adventures In Dirty South Hip-Hop, that strip clubs are like research centers for many Southern producers:

The strip club, Mr. Dupri earnestly explained, serves as his de facto research lab. Here, he said, where skirt hems are high and inhibitions are low, he is better able to assess what really makes a crowd move, and to discover new music. "In the strip club, the music is more grimier than what you hear on the radio," he said. "It's like a D.J. in New York playing a mixtape."

Hip Hop Album Releases for Feb. 7

The following new releases are available from Amazon:

Aceyalone with RJD2 - Magnificent City
Brotha Lynch Hung & MC Eiht - The New Season
Chamillionaire - Sound of Revenge
[Screwed & Chopped by OG Ron C]
Dem Franchize Boyz - On Top of Our Game
Dem Franchize Boyz - On Top of Our Game [Deluxe w/DVD]
J Dilla - Donuts
Keak Da Sneak - Contact Sport
Layzie Bone & Young Noble - Thug Brothers
Lil Al - Hood Raised
Penuckle - The Sun Beckons
Prefuse 73 - Security Screenings
Remy Ma - There's Something About Remy: Based on a True Story
San Quinn - The Rock: Pressure Makes Diamonds

For more current releases, see Hip Hop Albums.

Former Gang Members in Startup TV

In Guatemala City, an effort to inspire gang rehabilitation via the creation of small businesses by gang members is shared with others in what is described as a reality tv show.  Guatemela's small biz reality tv show may be more of a documentary of a project in which former gang members live in what sounds like a halfway house for two weeks and are guided in the creation of two small businesses, a car wash and shoe repair shop.  Though they received startup funding along with lessons in accounting and related skills, they are on their own after the businesses launch.

At the newly opened car wash, co-owner Marcos Perez related that he was proud, "not just for myself, but for those that are down, that are in prison, and lost and want to take that step, to show them that there's another way out."