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It’s been 60 years since Dominican bandleader Johnny Pacheco co-founded Fania Records with attorney Jerry Masucci. To commemorate the legacy of the Latin label that brought us legends like Willie Colón, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Héctor Lavoe, Ray Barretto, Rubén Blades, and Pacheco himself, Craft Latino announced on Tuesday (April 16) a year-long celebration with special releases, merchandise and events.
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The Latin repertoire arm of Craft Recordings, the catalog label team for Concord, Craft Latino will put out over a dozen remastered 180-gram vinyl reissues throughout the year, as well as remastered digital albums, a singles box set and curated playlists. It will also host artist spotlights and live events in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami and London.
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A newly remastered reissue for Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe’s 1970 salsa album La Gran Fuga (The Big Break) is already available. Other vinyl reissues coming in 2024 include Joe Cuba Sextet’s long-out-of-print debut album on Tico Records, Vagabundeando! Hangin’ Out (60th-anniversary edition), and the Fania All-Stars 50th-anniversary edition of the Latin-Soul-Rock album, with live recordings from the band’s 1973 concerts at New York’s Yankee Stadium and Puerto Rico’s Roberto Clemente Coliseum with guest artists Jorge Santana, Manu Dibango, Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer and more.
A Fania singles box set, Fania 45s: the Latin Sound of New York, is planned for the fall, with songs by Johnny Pacheco, Celia Cruz, Joe Bataan, Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe, Ray Barretto, Ismael Rivera, Pete Rodriguez and Eddie Palmieri. The box will include archival images, ephemera and in-depth liner notes in English and Spanish by New York–based music historian, author and producer Aurora Flores.
“Craft Latino takes pride in being good stewards of this iconic catalog that is a true American story of greatness. Keeping this element of Latin culture alive in the US and abroad is a mission we don’t take lightly as evidenced in the release of the highly curated Salsa repertoire for the 60th anniversary”, Bruce McIntosh, VP of Latin Catalog, Craft Recordings, tells Billboard. “Via our online and consumer-facing initiatives throughout this special year, we are sure that Fania fans old and new will be captivated by the rhythm and significance of this great music.”
Founded in 1964, Fania Records became a powerhouse label with a signature sound: the apex of tropical music, combined with big band jazz and American R&B, jazz, funk and soul. In 1967, Masucci bought Pacheco’s share of the label, including its subsidiary labels. When Masucci passed in 1997, the label assets remained tied up for years, and in 2005, it was sold to V2 Records and Emusica. In 2018, Fania Records’ assets were sold to Concord, including 1.2K album masters, 15K songs and 7K compositions.
Home to one of the largest collections of Latin music master recordings and compositions, Craft Latino’s repertoire includes artists such as Antonio Aguilar, Joan Sebastian, Pepe Aguilar, Celia Cruz, Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón, Ray Barretto, La Lupe, Rubén Blades and the Fania All Stars.
Summer Walker is celebrating the fifth anniversary of her critically acclaimed debut mixtape Last Day of Summer by releasing the Girls Need Love (Girls Mix) EP on Friday (Oct. 20) via LVRN and Interscope Records. The EP has five different versions of Walker’s breakout hit single “Girls Need Love,” which is five-times certified platinum by […]
It’s officially been 10 years since the release of Lorde‘s debut album Pure Heroine, on which she prophetically sings: “It feels so scary getting old.” Yep, nailed it.
In a candid email to fans, the 26-year-old pop star celebrated the bittersweet 10-year anniversary of her debut album by sharing unseen photos of her then-signature mane of untamed curls, near-black lipsticks and teenage bedroom, recalling memories of how she put together Pure Heroine a whole decade ago. (Plus, she announced that a couple pieces of limited edition Pure Heroine merch are available for purchase here.)
“I started to smoke weed, which gave me a deeper understanding of sensory pleasure, and allowed me to start to see my world as a possible work of art,” Lorde shared in her message, sent out to her subscription list Wednesday (Sept. 27). “I’d go on long walks around the neighbourhood, and began to mythologise the stuff around me (big empty floodlit rugby fields/bus rides/dark streets/boredom/isolation) into the motifs that would become Pure Heroine. I wore a lot of like, navy lipsticks from the 2 dollar shop. God, this aesthetic, It’s just TOO MUCH.”
She also gave a tender shoutout to Joel Little, who co-wrote and produced Pure Heroine with the singer-songwriter when she was just 15 years old. “When you’re a teenager, you’re particularly sensitive to adults being condescending to you, not respecting the specific and finely tuned skills you have because of the ones you don’t,” she said. “From the first day meeting Joel, I knew that he would never give me that feeling. Which I’m sure wasn’t easy — my wallet at the time was the foot of a pair of tights that I cut off and knotted at the top.”
Released Sept. 27, 2013, Pure Heroine complemented the success of Lorde’s smash debut single “Royals” — which had taken pop radio by storm and clocked a nine-week reign atop the Billboard Hot 100 — debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and remaining on the chart for 107 weeks. It earned the New Zealander her first Grammy nominations in 2014, and she took home song of the year for “Royals” that year.
“In this stage, it felt like I pulled everything off by the skin of my teeth,” she remembered in her email. “Every week was the most exciting week of my whole life, I was so tired and still didn’t have a winter coat and took everyone clamouring for a piece of me completely for granted. I had zero cultural context, had no idea if an interview or TV show was huge or small, and so breezed through it all truly not giving a f–k.”
“I just said absolutely whatever I felt like, all kinds of wild s–t, if someone did something corny I’d say so, I was ruthless in that way that only teens are,” Lorde continued. “Then through that year we went on our first tours, met you guys for the first time, hours and hours of hugs after the show, my favourite part so far and where it started to feel real for me.”
The “Green Light” musician has since released two more LPs — 2017’s Melodrama, her first No. 1 album, and 2021’s Solar Power — but she still has a soft spot for the moody ten-track record that made her a pop music mainstay in 2013. “Ten years goes really fast,” she concluded. “One minute you’re wearing a leather collar with a giant crystal hanging off it to a Chanel party, and the next you’re blonde.”
“A lot of stuff isn’t good after ten years,” Lorde added. “But I am still totally touched by this sweet record. I have deep respect for the vision of the little one making it.”
Stream Pure Heroine below:
All roads lead back to Ed Sheeran — and that much is true for Friends actress Courteney Cox! In celebration of her 10-year wedding anniversary, Cox posted a sweet video collage commemorating how Sheeran put her and her husband’s love story in motion. “10 years!!!” Cox captioned the post, which featured a collection of photos […]
Fifty years ago today (Sept. 20), Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash in Natchitoches, Louisiana, during a concert tour of southern colleges. In the previous 15 months, Croce had amassed four top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,” “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels),” “One Less Set of Footsteps” and the sing-along smash “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” which spent the final two weeks of July 1973 at No. 1.
The sudden death of someone who was so new to the mainstream was of course a shock. But few would have expected what would happen next: Croce’s death triggered one of the biggest posthumous sales booms in history. “I Got a Name,” which was released the day after Croce’s death, reached the top 10 on the Hot 100 in November. The following month, the poignant “Time in a Bottle” (which had appeared on his 1972 album You Don’t Miss Around With Jim) became his second No. 1. It made Croce just the third artist in the history of the Hot 100 to top the chart posthumously, following Otis Redding (“(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” 1968) and Janis Joplin (“Me and Bobby McGee,” 1971). Moreover, Croce became the first artist in Hot 100 history to top the chart both while living and after his death.
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Croce had even bigger success on the Billboard 200, where You Don’t Mess Around With Jim reached No. 1 on Jan. 12, 1974. Croce was just the second artist in the history of the Billboard 200 to reach No. 1 posthumously, following Joplin (Pearl, 1971). You Don’t Mess Around With Jim stayed on top for five consecutive weeks. For two of those weeks, Croce also had the No. 2 album, I Got a Name. He was the first artist to hold down the top two spots the same week since The Beatles scored in March 1969 with The Beatles (better known as The White Album) and the Yellow Submarine soundtrack.
Croce’s impact was also felt during awards season. At the first American Music Awards on Feb. 19, 1974, Croce won favorite pop/rock male artist, beating a pair of legends – Elton John and Stevie Wonder. “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” was also nominated for favorite pop/rock song, but lost to Dawn featuring Tony Orlando’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” which had been the biggest hit of 1973.
“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” was nominated for two Grammys – record of the year and best pop vocal performance, male. Croce was the first artist in Grammy history to receive a posthumous nod for record of the year. He lost in both categories at the 16th annual Grammy Awards on March 2, 1974. Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” took record of the year, while Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” took the male pop vocal prize. Wonder graciously saluted Croce in his acceptance speech: “I accept this award in memory of Jim Croce, who was a very talented man.”
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Another pop legend paid tribute to Croce that spring. Frank Sinatra covered “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” His brassy version had a seven-week run on the Hot 100 in April and May 1974, peaking at No. 83.
Wonder had two more top 40 hits on the Hot 100 in 1974 – “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song” and “Workin at the Car Wash Blues.” All of his hits were gathered in Photographs & Memories/Greatest Hits, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in November 1974, becoming his fourth top 10 album in less than a year.
Croce ranked No. 1 on Billboard’s list of Top Pop Albums Artists of 1974, ahead of Elton John, Charlie Rich and John Denver. He had three albums in the top 25 on that year’s list of Top Pop Albums.
Why did Croce’s music touch such a nerve in the year following his death? Partly, it was because of the sense of loss of a talented young artist who died just as his career was really taking off. The fact that Croce was approached to record “I Got a Name” is a sign of how quickly he was moving up to the A-list. Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox (whose hits include the aforementioned “Killing Me Softly With His Song”) wrote the song for the Jeff Bridges film The Last American Hero.
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Also, Croce had some songs that resonated in the wake of his death, and almost seemed to foreshadow it, especially “Time in a Bottle” (“But there never seems to be enough time/ To do the things you want to do once you find them”). The title of “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song” also seemed fit the circumstances. The latter song, at once polished and poignant, became Croce’s fifth and final top 10 hit on the Hot 100 in April 1974.
More broadly, Croce’s music was just right for that era, where soft-rock singer/songwriters were among the hottest acts in the business. His music was a perfect fit alongside such other hitmakers of the era as Denver, Carole King, Seals & Crofts, Gordon Lightfoot, Mac Davis and Dave Loggins.
Croce wrote all of his Hot 100 hits except “I Got a Name” and a 1976 medley of early rock and roll classics. His records were co-produced by Terry Cashman, now 82, and Tommy West, who died in 2021 at age 78.
Croce was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990, alongside Smokey Robinson and Michel Legrand. In 2013, Garth Brooks included his version of “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)” on his Billboard 200-topping box set, Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences.
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Croce’s widow, Ingrid Croce — with whom he recorded a duo album for Capitol in 1969 — is now 76. Their son A.J. Croce, who turned two eight days after the crash, is 51. A.J., who is also a singer/songwriter, has recorded 11 albums.
News of Croce’s death was reported on page 3 of the Sept. 29, 1973 issue of Billboard. The following week, there were two full-page ads paying tribute to the singer. One said simply “Jim Croce will be missed and deeply mourned by the Phonogram group of companies throughout the world.”
The other, signed by Jay Lasker, the president of Croce’s label, ABC/Dunhill, had an unusually warm and personal tone. It read, in full:
“Some people reach out and feel nothing. Jim reached out an in some way touched everyone.
“Some talk of love and goodness as if they alone remained its custodian. Jim gave his love and goodness as it if belonged to everyone.
“He told me, last New Year’s Day, that he enjoyed taking care of his son’s 2 a.m. bottle and diaper change because it gave him more time to spend with the boy, something he had precious little time for, in light of his heavy travel commitments.
“We are now all the losers for not being able to spend more time with Jim Croce.”
As we’d see in the weeks and months to come, many listeners, most of whom never met the man, felt the same way.
After 25 years in the music industry, Mýa is showing no signs of slowing down. The pop-R&B star made her debut in 1998, when she put out her self-titled studio album via Interscope Records. The debut single from the album, “It’s All About Me” with Sisqó, reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and put the world onto Mýa’s sultry, angelic voice and cutting-edge R&B sound that infiltrated the mainstream pop market while drawing influences from hip-hop, dancehall, techno and more.
She revealed in a new interview with Billboard News that the outfit she wore in the “It’s All About Me” music video, which was inspired by the traditional red Chinese wedding dress, is her all-time favorite look. “I sketched that outfit on paper, drew the designs that I wanted and I saw it come to life,” she said. “But this is something that I’ve been doing for years. I have this whole sketchbook of outfits that I wanted to create before I signed my first deal. And so, that was one of them. The seamstress brought it to life, and that was an amazing experience for me as a brand new artist.”
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In June, she re-created the UNC jersey dress from her 2000 “Best of Me (Part 2)” video, featuring Jay-Z, while she was performing at Charlotte R&B Music Experience. (This reporter also re-created the UNC jersey dress look, as well as Mýa’s outfit from the 1999 “Take Me There” video with Blackstreet, Mase and Blinky Blink, due to endless claims that she resembles the singer. Decide for yourself in the video interview above!)
Aside from her iconic looks, pop-dancehall collaborations have been another constant in Mýa’s storied career. Over the years, she’s worked with Jamaican reggae and dancehall artists like Beenie Man (“Girls Dem Sugar,” “Lie Detector,” “Docta”), Sean Paul (“Things Come & Go”), Spice (“Take Him Out”) and, most recently, Bounty Killer, on her latest steamy single “Whine.”
“Funny story is I had a solo version of the video shot two years prior to reaching out to Bounty Killer,” she says. “And I’ve always wanted a feature on that record. And so we went back down to Jamaica two years later, to the same location, and put Bounty Killer in the video, inserted him, and it all looks cohesive now.”
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Of her pop-dancehall collaborations, Mýa says they feel like a family effort. “Every time I go down there, it’s usually for music. But then my associates, music friends, become like family over the years. We understand the beauty of independency but also working together. And so, that’s a big part of the culture, too,” she explains. “I think it’s important also to just be authentic for representation, so it was important for me to be in Kingston, in the heart of Jamaica, to capture the essence of the good vibes and the music, the culture and the people and the dance.”
Outside of her debut LP’s 25th anniversary this year, Mýa also celebrated the 20th anniversary of her third album Moodring, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and earned her another Hot 100 top 20 hit with “My Love is Like…Wo.” (Missy Elliott co-produced the track two years after working with her on the five-week No. 1, Grammy-winning smash “Lady Marmalade” with Christina Aguilera, P!nk and Lil’ Kim from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack.)
Earlier this year, she collaborated with Interscope/UMe to release the digital deluxe 25th anniversary edition of Mya, the digital deluxe 20th anniversary edition of Moodring and the “25th Anniversary Remix” of “It’s All About Me,” accompanied by the Brian Friedman-directed choreography video. Come December, Mýa will ring in the 15th anniversary of her fifth album Sugar & Spice.
“I was a baby, I was a kid, everything was brand new. Working in the studio with Dru Hill for the first album was really like a family and a camp, so I had big brothers around me … I learned a lot from them, watching them,” she reflects. “It’s just a beautiful journey. I’m excited as well about what’s to come. I just love music, so it’s a blessing to just still be here 25 years later and still feel like it’s brand new.”
Watch the full video interview above.
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The Wu-Tan Clan’s debut album is about to be brought to life in historic fashion. RZA has announced a series of 36 Chambers 30th anniversary shows.
As spotted on Hypebeast The Abbot will be treating Wu fans to some distinct celebrations at an iconic venue in New York City. Slated for November 7, November 8 and November 9 the “Tragedy” rapper will be hosting a concert that is slotted to take ticket holders “deeper into the iconic 36 Chambers featuring a live orchestration”. The three date series follows his 36 Chambers of Shaolin and A Ballet Through Mud live production previously done in Denver earlier this year. This set though featured a live orchestra and a ballet.
“With the group’s classic 1993 debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), RZA established their widely imitated core sound, consisting of stark, booming beats and chilling samples (heavily drawing from vintage soul records as well as Kung Fu movies), setting the backdrop for the crew’s gritty, violent narratives” a formal press release reads.
The presale for The RZA shows started today. You buy tickets here.
Photo: JOHNNY NUNEZ
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Hip-Hop celebrates 50 years of existence on August 11, and the genre continues to expand far beyond its origins in the Bronx into what is now a global phenomenon. To honor the evolution and existence of Hip-Hop, Hip-Hop Wired compiled a 50-song playlist that we hope captures the best the music and culture has to offer.
Photo: Getty
We’ve been creating playlists for a while now but nothing was as difficult as this one. For starters, we agonized over how to group together 50 songs from over the decades and were frustrated with the fact we had to omit songs from the 1970s. The reason is, the music truly took hold of the world in the early 1980s, as we open up our playlist with one of the greatest songs created in any genre, “The Message” released in 1982.
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty
Most historians point to The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” as Hip-Hop’s first music single, while others would say The Fatback Band’s “King Tim III (Personality Jock)” gets the nod. Both tracks were released within months of each other in 1979, laying down the foundation for the MCs that emerged in the following decade.
All throughout the playlist, there will be glaring omissions, regions that didn’t get love, and other points of contention. Trust us, we’re just as upset but we wanted to include 10 songs that we feel captured each decade from the ’80s until now. If we had more time, we probably could have included 50 songs per era but who is willing to sit through that?
Photo: Hulton Archive / Getty
To all of those acts who feel like we missed them, accept our apology and understand this was difficult to compile. We are also at the mercy of the DSP we used to host the playlist as some artists and their catalogs are not available in the digital realm
That said, we’re always honoring the veterans on our site and we pledge to return with a sequel to this playlist later in the month to get to those tracks we surely missed.
Photo: maksim kulikov / Getty
For now, check out our Hip-Hop @ 50 selection of tracks below. If you’re enjoying what you hear, sound off in the comments or via our social media channels.
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Photo: Source: Al Pereira / Getty
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Justin Timberlake took to Instagram on Wednesday (Oct. 19) to celebrate 10 years of marriage with Jessica Biel — and to the pop superstar: “10 years ain’t enough!”
“You make me a better husband and father every day!” he wrote in the sweet caption. “I love you so much you beautiful human! Run it back!”
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Timberlake shared a carousel of seven photos and videos with his wife, starting with a pic from the beginning of their relationship followed by a photo from just earlier this month, when the couple took part in the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles 2022 Gala.
He also included a clip of the couple sharing a noodle Lady and the Tramp-style and a panoramic video “on top of the world” after reaching the peak of a mountain together.
Timberlake and Biel began dating in 2007 and were married on Oct. 19, 2012, in Fasano, Italy. They have two children together, both boys: 7-year-old Silas and 2-year-old Phineas.
Biel shared Timberlake’s tribute on her own Instagram Story, adding “10 years” with a red heart emoji.
Many of the couple’s famous friends chimed in with their own anniversary well-wishes, including Miguel, who wrote, “Big love to you guys ! Happy anniversary !” Quincy Jones commented with a heart emoji, while Biel’s Seventh Heaven sister Beverley Mitchell wrote, “Love you guys! Happy Anniversary to one of my favorite couples!”
See Timberlake’s post below:
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