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24 Feb 2023

Master P Clears Up Talk That He Did Not Pay Fat Trel And Jess Hilarious

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Master P

Source: UNCENSORED / TV One

Master P continues to have to keep his good name clean. He has responded to claims that he finessed both Fat Trel and Jess Hilarious.

As per Vibe Magazine the mogul is back on social media to clear up some misconceptions on how others say he conducts business. Recently Fat Trel was a guest on No Jumper podcast. In it he discussed his dealings with Percy during his brief stint as a member of the Louie V Mob and claimed he was never paid for his contributions to a mixtape release. “You know we doing video shoots and photo shoots and we got shirts pressed up that say Louie V Mob and he calling us the Louie V Mob and outside of the money that he was paying me monthly, I was receiving nothing for all of the music I’m putting out!” he explained.

Well Master P gave some more context behind the release on a very detailed Instagram post. “I wish Fat Trel the best. But he is owed nothing from me or my company” he stated. “The only business we ever did was put out a free mixtape on Livemixtapes.com in 2013, which is available to download for free today. We also put it on iTunes, which it didn’t [sell] because you could get it free from Livemixtapes,” he continued. “I covered the entire production costs, paid for flights, an apartment, and rental cars that were trashed and damaged. I’m the only one that made a financial investment in this project and took a loss”.

As the guest host on The Breakfast Club comedian Jess Hilarious also shared her story about allegedly being shorted by Miller when it came to her role in I Got The Hook Up 2. “That man will talk a good game to you, like even with me, I Got The Hook-Up, I’m still owed some bread for that, I’m not gonna lie to you,” she explained. “I did two scenes. He thought you used one scene, you don’t got [to] pay for both of them. No, I stayed there 13 hours to do two scenes.”

The No Limit CEO addressed that claim as well. “For the cowards hiding behind their computers enforcing fake news, I do have @jesshilarious_official contract from 5 years ago for I Got The Hook Up 2 and the copy of the check that was cashed and paid” he responded. “She was joking about a second check that was never in her contract. That’s the narrative they ran with for clickbait and fake headlines. Thank God for receipts!”.

Jess Hilarious has since doubled down on her claim stating she has yet to receive the second half of her payment and also says that his son Romeo also has not been paid. Master P has yet to respond to these claims.

Photo: UNCENSORED

24 Feb 2023

90% Of Drivers Stopped By NYPD In 2022 Black & Latino: Report

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Immigrant Construction Workers Hold Fallen Worker Day March In New York City

Source: Michael M. Santiago / Getty

A new report discloses that the majority of stops made by the New York Police Department last year consisted of Black & Latino drivers, furthering concern from social justice advocates.

According to reports, findings from a comprehensive compilation of data from the New York Civil Liberties Union showed that NYPD officers stopped, searched, and arrested Black & Latino drivers at a far higher rate than white drivers last year. The report showed that more than over 670,000 drivers were stopped last year. 15,000 of those stops led to arrests, with 49% of those drivers being Black and 39% being Latino.

“Race plays a big role in what happens to motorists after they get stopped and that number just jumps off the page,” NYCLU Legal Director Chris Dunn said. “Something is wrong when you see 9 out of ten people getting arrested are Black or Latino.” The report also detailed how the amount of those stopped was equal to the amount recorded at the height of the city’s stop-and-frisk era under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2011.

The data revealed more disturbing facts about these stops by law enforcement. The Policing Project, a research group founded at New York University, found that the NYPD only recorded data concerning the race of the driver for just over 620,000 of the stops. Another fact was that in those stops where force was used and race was recorded, 92% of the cases reported involved Black and Latino drivers. It was also found that arrests occurred only 2.2% of the time after these stops.

The news comes as the NYPD is being criticized for its actions during these traffic stops, with reports of excessive force being inflicted and civilians being shot as they’re taking place. The Civilian Complaint Review Board has investigated numerous complaints by civilians over their treatment during these stops and substantiated hundreds of them by charging officers with violating policy. 

“We know that doesn’t work. We know that does not fix crime problems and we see year after year, very few people are getting arrested as a result of stop and frisk,” Dunn concluded. “Most people are getting stopped and frisked are innocent people and they’re Black and brown New Yorkers.”

More scrutiny of this report comes weeks after the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis after he was detained at a traffic stop on January 7th. To date, five officers involved in the beating that led to his death are currently awaiting trial after being fired, then indicted. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has defended the stops in the past on several occasions. 

24 Feb 2023

Thomas H. Lee, Billionaire Investor Who Helped Acquire Warner Music From Time Warner in 2004, Dies at 78

Thomas H. Lee, a billionaire private equity investor and part of the group that acquired Warner Music from Time Warner in 2004, died Thursday (Feb. 24) in New York at age 78, his family said in a statement.

A pioneer in the private equity world, Lee was the chairman of Lee Equity and formerly the chief executive of Thomas H. Lee Partners, the namesake firm he founded in 1974. Over nearly five decades in finance, Lee invested $15 billion in hundreds of companies and transactions, including the acquisition and sale of household brands like Snapple.

The Wall Street Journal, citing a New York Police Department source, said Lee was found dead in a bathroom at his Fifth Avenue office from what first responders believe to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. They were responding to an emergency call placed Thursday morning by Lee’s office assistant, the WSJ reported.

“The family is extremely saddened by Tom’s death,” Lee’s family said. “Our hearts are broken. We ask that our privacy be respected and that we be allowed to grieve.”

Lee’s Thomas H. Lee Partners, Bain Capital, Providence Equity Partners and Edgar Bronfman Jr. bought Warner Music from Time Warner Inc. for $2.6 billion in 2004. The group took the company public the following year, and Lee’s firm, Bain Capital Partners and Bronfman controlled 56% of Warner’s outstanding shares when it was sold to Len Blavatnik‘s Access Industries in 2011 in a deal valued at $3.3 billion.

Lee sat on WMG’s board as a director from 2004 to 2021, when he became a director emeritus.

“We are deeply saddened by the passing of our friend and colleague Tom Lee,” Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl said in an emailed statement. “Tom made valuable contributions to WMG’s trajectory for almost two decades. Tom’s experience, wisdom, and enthusiastic support helped guide WMG through periods of major transformation, both within our company and in the music industry at large. Our condolences go out to his family and many friends.”

When Lee announced he would retire from the role of WMG board director in 2021, he described the company as having “undergone an extraordinary evolution,” and said he was gratified to have helped it transform and grow.

Lee was worth an estimated $2 billion, according to Forbes, and he was an active philanthropist involved in several New York City cultural institutions, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Museum of Modern Art.

24 Feb 2023

These Were the Top 50 Most-Played Artists at Dutch Electronic Music Festivals in 2022

With The Netherlands hosting more than 200 electronic music festivals every year, it’s reasonable to figure that music by thousands and thousands of artists is played during the Dutch dance festival season.

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But in 2022, 50 artists were played more than all the others, with the list below representing the most-played acts at Dutch dance fests last year. This list was compiled based on plays and performances from 211 events from February to November, across roughly 800 stages at events throughout the Netherlands. Data was collected by DJ Monitor, a global leader in electronic music monitoring with exclusive access to performance data from festivals, clubs, venues and online streams. DJ Monitor identifies music for Collective Management Organizations, rights users, and technology companies worldwide.

Topping the list is afrobeats star Burna Boy, who’s followed by Colombian phenom J Balvin and UK hardstyle producer Act of Rage. Puerto Rico’s eternal favorite Daddy Yankee follows in fourth, with Dutch hip-hop outfit Broederliefde rounding out the top five. The rest of the list spans techno, hardstyle, disco, dubstep and more.

These were the top 50 artists compiled from the data, with tracks with the same list number indicating a tie.

1. Burna Boy

2. J Balvin

3. Act of Rage

4. Daddy Yankee

5. Broederliefde

6. D-Block & S-te-Fan

7. Bizzey

8. Warface

9. Rihanna

10. Frenna

11. Beyoncé

12. Sean Paul

13. Angerfist

14. Rema

15. DSturb

16. Drake

17. Rebelion

18. Dopebwoy

19. Sickmode

20. Rejecta

21. Bad Bunny

22. Chris Brown

23. Ran-D

24. Farruko

25. Tha Playah

26. WizKid

27. Rooler

28. Sub Zero Project

29. DJ Snake

30. Skrillex

30. SFB

32. Usher

32. Kris Kross Amsterdam

32. Radical Redemption

35. Afro Bros

36. Ronnie Flex

36. Vertile

38. Da Tweekaz

39. Headhunterz

40. Jonna Fraser

40. Dr. Peacock

42. Frequencerz

43. Deadly Guns

44. Tekno

45. ABBA

46. CHO

47. Charly Black

47. Don Omar

47. David Guetta

50. Armin van Buuren

24 Feb 2023

Miley Cyrus’ Fans Have Theories About the New Countdown Clock on Her Website

Miley Cyrus quietly dropped a new countdown onto her website Friday (Feb. 24) and promptly sent fans buzzing with anticipation.

The clock will end on Monday (Feb. 27), leading Smilers to speculate that something new is coming down the pipeline from their queen, even if they’re not quite sure what it could be. “What is the new Miley Cyrus countdown for? Let’s bet,” one fan tweeted alongside a poll with several different options, including a new single or tour announcement.

“A countdown for ENDLESS SUMMER VACATION tracklist would be a good idea…,” another user suggested, while a third speculated that the surprise could be a remix of her hit single “Flowers” featuring Bruno Mars.

Speaking of “Flowers,” the Endless Summer Vacation lead single is currently spending its fifth consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Additionally, the empowering anthem recently notched Cyrus her third leader on the Pop Airplay chart (dated Feb. 25), becoming the fastest song to reach No. 1 on the chart since 2016 when Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” made the same leap to the top.

Once it arrives on March 10, Endless Summer Vacation will serve as Cyrus’ eighth studio album and follow-up to 2020’s Plastic Hearts, which bowed at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and featured singles “Midnight Sky,” “Prisoner” with Dua Lipa and “Angel Like You.” In the interim, she also released her 2022 live album Attention: Miley Live.

Check out the countdown on Cyrus’ website here and scroll through some of the fan theories as to what it could mean below.

24 Feb 2023

Black Excellence: Howard Bison’s Swim & Dive Team Make History With Sports Illustrated Cover Feature

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Howard University Swim & Dive Team Makes History

Source: The Washington Post / Getty / Howard University

Who said Black people couldn’t swim? Howard University’s swim and dive team is making a big splash and history at the same damn time.

The Howard Bison have made history after becoming the first all-Black swim and dive team to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, earning a well-deserved spotlight in the sports publication while kick-splashing the idea that Black people are no fans of water and swimming.

Howard is the only Historical Black College or University with a swim team. While racking up wins, The Bison are also breaking records.

Sports Illustrated highlighted the team to kick off Black History Month to spotlight the team’s accomplishments in the predominately white sport. The magazine spoke with the Bison’s coach Nic Askew.

“This is about our mission as a university and the message we want to send as an HBCU…,” Askew told Sports Illustrated. “This isn’t a bunch of Black people in a pool; it’s young Black men and women succeeding in a sport that, for years, has shut them out of this experience.

The Howard University Swim Team Features Athletes From Different Countries

Per Hilltop, the team brings together many athletes from different countries in the Americas and the Caribbean, with each team member already being accomplished athletes before joining Howard’s team.

Blavity spoke with women’s team captain Raychel Fauntroy, a Miami native who is a senior at Howard University. She has been swimming competitively for the past decade.

“We love what we do. We chose a sport and stuck to it for around 10+ years, which most of us have. We love it so much … there are people on the team willing to teach people how to swim and water safety,” she detailed. We volunteer at swim clubs and teach them tips and tricks to be successful. I’m proud to say that I’ve been a part of the team and am very grateful to have had this experience. Howard University swim and dive has a familial bond and a team unlike any other,” she told the website.

Currently, the men’s (6-2) and women’s (5-3) have an excellent chance to capture the Northeast Conference crown.

Black excellence we love to see.

—

Photo: The Washington Post / Getty

24 Feb 2023

The Ledger: Can Ticket Fees Really Be Killed?

The Ledger is a weekly newsletter that covers the financial and economic side of the music business. An abridged version appears at Billboard Pro. Sign up here to receive the newsletter.

Ticket fees have been called everything from “exorbitant” (Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Amy Klobuchar) to “completely bats—” (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver). And they can increase the price of a concert ticket by an average of 27-31%, according to a 2017 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Unfortunately for ticket buyers, those fees aren’t going anywhere quickly. They may change or disappear completely, but consumers won’t reap any savings in the end, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino explained during Live Nation’s fourth quarter 2022 earnings call on Thursday.

Say, for example, a venue is prohibited from charging fees on top of a ticket’s face value. “Well, then the venue would say, ‘Okay, artists, the rent isn’t $50,000 anymore. It’s $100,000,’” Rapino said.

The ticket fee is a surcharge that helps cover a venue’s costs. Rapino’s point is that the venue needs to cover its costs, so it’s going to collect money to cover them, no matter what. In a normal scenario, the consumer helps cover those costs by paying a surcharge directly to the venue.

If fees were eliminated, artists — who are the final authority on primary ticket prices — would be forced to raise them to cover the additional cost. The surcharge may have disappeared, but that cost would still exist in the form of a higher face value. Regardless of the approach, the consumer’s expense and the venue’s revenues would be unchanged.

“The true cost of going to a show and making the show happen is the full price all-in,” said Rapino. The concept is apparent to anybody who has pondered how airlines set prices. If airlines charged an all-in fee that encompassed all its costs, ticket prices would be dramatically higher. Legislation that banned fees for checked baggage could result in higher prices for everything from flight themselves to in-flight beverages. Airlines that previously allowed free carry-on bags might start imposing fees on those. They could also charge more to change your travel plans (which used to cost the consumer nothing).

Rapino acknowledged that Live Nation, which owns and operates venues, would do the same. “If tomorrow someone said, ‘You know, you can’t charge 20% service fees on your amphitheater, you have to [charge] 10%.’ Well, then the $75,000 house rent that we charge artists would be $100,000,” he said as an example. Live Nation couldn’t simply absorb the cost, he explained. Since the company requires money to pay staff and operate the venue, it would find a way to recoup the lost fees.

While what consumers pay won’t change, they may get more transparency. In the wake of Ticketmaster’s disastrous Taylor Swift Eras Tour pre-sale, President Joe Biden unveiled an initiative to limit, among other types of fees, mandatory, back-end fees that “often hide the full price” of a good or service. The White House pointed to research that found hiding the full price encourages consumers to spend more than they would have otherwise.

Live Nation has also come out publicly — and forcefully — against hidden fees. On Thursday, Rapino called numerous times for the industry to adopt all-in pricing that show the ticket buyer a single price at the beginning of the transaction. Also on Thursday, Live Nation issued a press release that encouraged lawmakers to introduce legislation that includes, among other things, mandatory all-in pricing.

The uproar against Live Nation and Ticketmaster over ticket fees is just one of many criticisms to gain momentum in recent months. Some members of Congress have called Live Nation a monopoly that limits competition in the touring business and harms consumers by charging high prices and leaving some unable to purchase tickets for in-demand concerts like Swift’s Eras tour. Many inside and outside of Washington have called for the Department of Justice to break up the company’s concert promotion and ticketing operations. On Thursday, Sens. Klobuchar and Mike Lee sent evidence of the Jan. 24 Senate hearing on the ticketing market to the Department of Justice and encouraged its antitrust division “to take action if it finds that Ticketmaster has walled itself off from competitive pressure at the expense of the industry and fans.” Others have suggested Ticketmaster improve its security practices to deal with the bot attacks that derailed Swift’s pre-sale.

Ticketmaster may be most reviled for its fees, though. And as Rapino pointed out, those aren’t going away anytime soon.

24 Feb 2023

Luke Combs’ New Song ‘Joe’ Addresses Those Struggling With Alcohol Addiction

Reigning CMA entertainer of the year Luke Combs‘ new song “Joe” speaks to themes of alcohol addiction and sobriety.

“Joe” is featured on the singer-songwriter’s upcoming album, Gettin’ Old (out March 24), and was written by Combs, Erik Dylan and James Slater.

Combs posted a note on Instagram, detailing what the song means to him.

“There have been some folks in my family that have struggled with alcoholism and addiction through the years,” Combs wrote. “I’ve got buddies who live a sober lifestyle, and I’m sure y’all know someone who has struggled with these type of things, or maybe you, yourself do. This song is really important to me for that reason.”

Combs also spoke to the longstanding history of drinking songs as a bedrock of country music and its potential impact those struggling with alcohol dependency.

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“Our genre has so many songs about drinking and partying, hell, I’m probably one of the worst culprits of it,” he said in his note. “There’s nothing wrong with that I don’t think, but sometimes I wonder what someone in the crowd who doesn’t drink, or struggles with addiction, is thinking or feeling when there’s thousands of people around them screaming ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’ or ‘1, 2 Many.’

“I’ve always wanted a song for those people to have for themselves,” said, adding, “to have a song they can sing at the top of their lungs and feel like they’re not forgotten.”

Gettin’ Old follows Combs’ 2022 album Growin’ Up and includes songs such as his recent release “Love You Anyway” as well as a cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 hit “Fast Car.” Another fan-favorite, “5 Leaf Clover,” will debut on St. Patrick’s Day on March 17.

24 Feb 2023

How Much Has Bonnie Raitt Made From Her Grammy-Winning Song of the Year?

When Bonnie Raitt‘s touching ballad “Just Like That” won the Grammy for song of the year, the singer-songwriter seemed just as shocked as the crowd. “I am just totally humbled,” she said while accepting the award.

Though she is a decorated and critically acclaimed musician, with 11 Grammys and five top 40 hits on the Hot 100 to her name, Raitt’s “Just Like That” was the least commercially successful song up for the category this year by a long shot. Despite not cracking the Hot 100 chart, “Just Like That” managed to beat out the nine other nominated songs, each of which ranked in the top 20 of the Hot 100 this year, including two No. 1 tracks (“As it Was” by Harry Styles and “About Damn Time” by Lizzo). Many see Raitt’s win as proof that the top Grammy awards do not necessarily always go to those with the most commercial or widespread success.

This particular award win is surprising for Raitt in more ways than one. Song of the year is one of four top awards given out each year by the Recording Academy, along with record of the year, album of the year and best new artist, and it is the only one of the big four that honors the craft of songwriting specifically. Raitt, as she admitted in her acceptance speech, “[doesn’t] write a lot of songs,” but she did write “Just Like That” singlehandedly.

So how much did “Just Like That” earn in publishing royalties for Raitt as its only songwriter, and how much did the Grammy win help the song commercially?

Billboard estimates that before the Grammys, “Just Like That” had earned Raitt over $6,000 in publishing royalties from its release date (April 22, 2022) to the week of the Grammys, which aired on Feb. 5, 2023, for her work as a songwriter from U.S. streaming, sales and airplay combined. In the two weeks following the show, those formats earned her another nearly $6,000. In other words, Raitt earned almost as much from the song in just two weeks as she did in the more than nine months prior to the broadcast.

Raitt owns her publishing, and she houses her songwriting catalog under two entities, Kokomo Music and Open Secret Music. In 2018, she entered an arrangement with indie publishing house Bluewater Music to administer her publishing catalog worldwide. Because she owns her publishing and wrote “Just Like That” by herself, the vast majority of the money she earns from the song will end up in Raitt’s pocket, with deductions likely only made to pay Bluewater Music administration fees and whatever cut her manager makes.

Overall, since the release of “Just Like That,” Billboard estimates that Raitt has earned a total of about $12,000 in publishing royalties from streams and sales of the song. The majority of that came from both physical sales of the album on which the song appears — also called Just Like That — and U.S. on-demand audio streams, according to Luminate. In the two-week period after the Grammys, song downloads and streaming were the biggest source of royalties by far.

In terms of streaming alone, Raitt earned only about $975 worth of publishing royalties from U.S. on-demand audio streams in the almost 10 months that elapsed between the song’s release and the week of the Grammys. But in just the two weeks since her song of the year win, she has earned a little over $2,000 in publishing royalties for U.S. on-demand audio streams.

The week before the Grammys, dated Jan. 27-Feb. 2, “Just Like That” was racked up 44,000 on-demand audio streams in the U.S. The week after the Grammys, dated Feb. 3-9, on-demand U.S. audio streams increased by 3,028% to 1.377 million, according to Luminate. The massive spike, however, did not hold steady in the following week, dated Feb. 10-16, when the number of U.S. on-demand audio streams fell to just over 410,000.

On the physical sales side, Raitt earned over $4,000 in publishing royalties from selling copies of her albums through to the night of the Grammys. In the two weeks after the awards show, Raitt earned about $700.

Along with increased consumption in the sales and streaming categories, “Just Like That” has also sparked interest at radio. The week before the Grammys, it was played just a handful of times, but in the two weeks after her win, she received a total of 144 radio spins, according to Luminate. While still not significant enough to push her to the top of any charts, airplay could contribute solidly toward her future publishing earnings if it continues to gain traction.

So far, the big Grammy win for “Just Like That” doesn’t appear to be boosting sales and streaming activity for Raitt’s overall catalog in the U.S. While weekly catalog album consumption activity jumped to over 9,000 copies on average in each of the two weeks after the show — up from the weekly average of over 3,000 copies before the show — all of that gain is coming from the Just Like That album.