Drake held the OVO (October’s Very Own) Fest in his hometown Toronto over the weekend with guests like Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Fabolous, and Bun B. But he saved the best for last.
After Drake rapped his opening verse from Forever, out came Eminem, who he called the greatest of all time.
And then Jay-Z came out to do a verse from Run This Town. Drake has stated before that Jay-Z is the most influential MC in his life.
Both superstars are getting ready for a couple of concerts they’re doing together in Detroit and New York in September.
American listeners may not know the name (or they may confuse it with that of the late glam guitar icon Mick), but Mark Ronson was the producer behind one of the hottest musical messes of the last decade, Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black album, not to mention albums and tracks by an impressive cross-genre pantheon of artists as disparate as pop diva Christina Aguilera, British rockers Kaiser Chiefs, and rapper Wale. His signature sound rejected Autotune and all sorts of other sonic CGI in favor of gritty R&B horn sections (no samples please), real life drum sets, and actual singing. The results could be thrilling, but they could also come off sounding unbecomingly gimmicky – a hazard underlined by his 2007 collection of covers called Version. Though that record did yield his biggest hit yet – a cover of the Smiths’ classic “Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before” with Daniel Merriweather on vocals – it was not without a few spectacular duds, like his tedious take on Radiohead’s “Just”, which could only have been worse if he’d recruited Paul Anka or Pat Boone to deliver it.
For his latest album called Record Collection, he’s billing himself as Mark Ronson and the Business Intl. The record’s first single features guest rapper Q-Tip and singer Amanda Warner of the California techno-pop duo MNDR – it’s called “Bang Bang Bang” and re-embraces electronics, albeit in a similarly retro way, building a sleak 80s-inspired sci-fi dance epic out of the disassembled bits of the French children’s song “Alouette”. While as a producer Ronson has been storming the U.S. charts for the last ten years, he hasn’t had an American hit in his own right. This song, as groovy as it is (seriously, it’s been ages since Q-Tip has been this much fun) isn’t likely to change that. But it’s already a Top 10 hit overseas.
J-LoJust yesterday, I wrote a small piece on the news that Nigel Lythgoe may come back to American Idol in an executive producer role. Well, that was small news compared to what the rumors are now.
By the looks of it, Ellen DeGeneres is out as judge on the show, after only one year on the job. And who’s her replacement? Um, how about Jennifer Lopez. Ok, how about maybe Jennifer Lopez? Nothing is yet confirmed, but it’s the big rumor, at least according to Lisa de Moraes, TV writer for the Washington Post.
From de Moraes:
Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez appears to be the show’s new Paula Abdul. J-Lo’s career has been on the fast track to nowhere of late and, according to the Web site Deadline.com, she’s brokered a deal to step in and replace Ellen, who, in turn, had replaced Paula last season. But some sources said it was not yet a done deal. A Fox rep declined to comment.
For Idol fans, that’s a lot of information to digest in one day. It’s quite obvious to anyone watching last season that no matter how hard they tried, Ellen was simply a bad fit for the show. I’d trust her feedback on hosting stand-up comedians, but not necessarily judging a singing contest.
It only took them one week to figure out how to hide her, but it was one week too late. If you remember during Ellen’s first week, she had to lead-off with the judging early in the show and looked like a deer in headlights. Every show after that, when she didn’t lead in the judging anymore and they had Randy as the lead-off hitter, it just showed the audience how week Ellen was.
As for J-Lo, I’m not sold on her as a judge, but for different reasons. She’s not a good singer, but she definitely knows the ups and downs of both the movie industry and the music industry. In fact, she’s kind of experiencing the downs in both industries right now.
She’ll bring a Hollywood feel to the show and will immediately be the biggest star and biggest presence. But I think that’s a bad thing. Because she’s the most famous person, she’ll be expected to replace Simon, rather than who she’s truly replacing in Ellen and Paula. If she can be the Paula/Ellen, I think she’d do fine, but her presence is too big for that role, unless they really hit on who replaces Simon.
If these are all the changes, it will be a tremendous letdown. But if they have someone huge in mind for Simon (my vote is on Justin Timberlake), then I think J-Lo can work.
I’m sure this won’t be my last update about this. Maybe it’s just begun.
Photo of Jennifer Lopez licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
