Los Angeles
Page: 3
HipHopWired Featured Video
It seems like whenever Lil Reese begins to trend on social media it’s almost never for anything positive and unfortunately that once again happens to be the case.
According to TMZ, the Chicago rapper was just arrested and booked in Los Angeles for allegedly raping a woman he went on a date with.
Reese and the woman in question went out on a dinner date this past Saturday night (July 13) before he took her to a hotel in Downtown Los Angeles where the sexual assault allegedly occurred. Once in the hotel room, the woman rejected Reese’s sexual advances before she said he forced himself on top of her and sexually assaulted her.
TMZ reports:
We’re told the woman then went straight down to the hotel lobby, and called the police around 3:30 AM Sunday.
We’re told officers promptly arrived on the scene and arrested Reese on suspicion of sexual assault and rape.
Boosie Badazz was an apparent witness to the arrest and put out an APB on Reese’s friends to bail him out.
Lil Boosie being there at the same time and seeing Reese hauled off to jail was hella random.
Lil Reese was eventually released on a $100K bond.
What do y’all think of the situation that Lil Reese finds himself in? Let us know in the comments section below.
—
Photo: Johnny Nunez / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Araya Doheny / Getty
The boss lady is bossing up again. Snoop Dogg’s wife is opening a gentleman’s club in Los Angeles, and we are here for it.
As reported by TMZ, Shante Broadus has her sights set on the nightlife industry. Last week, she announced the Players Club, a jiggle joint in downtown L.A. Shante hosted a private soft opening with the likes of her husband Snoop Dogg, Daz Dillinger, friends and family in attendance. The venue is billed as the “newest and most exclusive,” and “is poised to redefine luxury and liberation in the city’s nightlife scene.”
Shante expressed her excitement in a formal press statement. “I am thrilled to introduce The Players Club to Los Angeles” she said. “This club is more than just a venue; it’s a celebration of empowerment, beauty, and entrepreneurship, providing a space where everyone can feel like a boss.” The grand opening is slotted for Wednesday, May 29. Guests expected to attend include Tiffany Haddish, Too $hort, radio personality Big Boy and Cedric the Entertainer. Additionally, music will be curated by DJ Sky High Baby and DJ Drama.
Entrepreneurship seems to run in the Broadus family. Over the last decade, her husband Snoop Dogg has served as a brand ambassador with several companies including Petco, Corona, Burger King, Bic and AirBNB. In 2023, he released his Snoop Cereal in partnership with Post Foods. Earlier this year, he and Master P alleged Walmart purposely refused to stock their shelves with the breakfast food in an effort to maliciously sabotage their brand.
Ricky Martin will headline LA Pride in the Park, which will return to the Los Angeles State Historic Park on Saturday, June 8. This marks Martin’s first-ever headlining Pride performance. Moreover, Martin will be the first openly gay Latin artist to take center stage at the popular Pride event.
The theme for this year’s Pride season is “Power in Pride,” which celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community’s ability to live authentically.
“I am thrilled to be headlining LA Pride in the Park because it’s an incredible opportunity to celebrate love, diversity, and equality,” Martin said in a statement. “LA Pride is a testament to the power of community, the power of visibility, and the power of standing up for our rights. Being part of this vibrant community fills me with pride and purpose.”
Trending on Billboard
“With his electrifying stage presence and chart-topping hits, Ricky Martin has long been an inspiration to millions around the world,” said Gerald Garth, board president of CSW/LA Pride. “His participation in LA Pride in the Park goes beyond mere entertainment; it symbolizes a powerful affirmation of queer Latin identity and a celebration of diversity within the LGBTQ+ community. We cannot wait to be ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ while beaming with Pride!”
Across 20 acres and with a capacity of 25,000, LA Pride in the Park is one of the largest official Pride concerts in the country. The nonprofit Christopher Street West Association has produced the LA Pride celebration for more than 50 years. General admission and VIP passes are now available to purchase at lapride.org.
Throughout his nearly four-decade career, Martin has brought Latin music and culture to the mainstream, paving the way for an explosion of crossover talent.
Born in Puerto Rico in 1971, Martin gained fame as a member of Menudo before embarking on a highly successful solo career, which has brought him two Grammy Awards and four Latin Grammy Awards.
Martin’s 1999 smash “Livin’ La Vida Loca” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks and received Grammy nods for record and song of the year. It was also nominated for record of the year at the inaugural Latin Grammys in 2000 – a show that became a reality because of the undeniable crossover success of artists like Martin, Santana and Marc Anthony, among others.
In May 1999, Martin appeared on the cover of Time in a story headlined “Latin Music Goes Pop!” In November 2006, at age 34, he became the youngest-ever person of the year recipient at the annual gala put on by the Latin Recording Academy.
Martin is also an accomplished actor, earning a Primetime Emmy nod for his role in FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story and displaying his talent on Broadway. He starred in Jingle Jangle for Netflix, opposite Forest Whitaker and Anika Noni Rose and can now be seen in the Apple TV series Palm Royale alongside Laura Dern, Kristen Wiig, Allison Janney and Carol Burnett.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: frankpeters / Getty
A group of criminals pulled off the biggest heist ever in Los Angeles. Thieves stole almost $30 million in cash from a holding facility on Easter Sunday.
As spotted on Raw Story, the burglars brought the plot from the Ocean’s Eleven to real life. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) say that the crew broke into a money holding facility in the neighborhood of Sylmar. According to a source who spoke to the Los Angeles Times, the unidentified individuals broke into the building’s roof and evaded the security system all together. Once inside, they reportedly accessed the vault without issue and made off with close to $30 million dollars in cash.
The perpetrators were so experienced that the staff at the facility didn’t notice the money missing right away. “It’s just mind blowing that you would never suspect it,” an anonymous employee told ABC News. “$30 million in the Valley, gone. How? Why? I’m still trying to process it. Was it an inside job? Was it just one person? Was it a group? You know, there’s a lot of questions.” The LAPD and FBI have confirmed they are working and “have a joint investigation into an alleged burglary that occurred on Sunday evening, March 31, 2024. No additional information related to the incident is being released,” the agencies confirmed in a joint statement.
You can view reporting live from the scene below.
[embedded content]
Music legend Mavis Staples will celebrate her 85th birthday in style, with a star-studded celebration to be held Thursday, April 18, at YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California, and produced by Blackbird Presents. The lineup features a who’s who of artists who have been inspired and influenced by the soul/gospel/R&B pioneer and civil rights activist, including Black Pumas, Chris Stapleton, Grace Potter, The War and Treaty and Keb’ Mo’. Staples herself will also take the stage during the event.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The lineup also includes Hozier, Jackson Browne, Jeff Tweedy, Michael McDonald, Nathaniel Rateliff, Norah Jones, Robert Randolph and Taj Mahal, with more artists to be announced.
Staples, who will turn 85 on July 10, is a member of both the Blues and Rock and Roll Hall of Fames and is a three-time Grammy Award winner, as well as a recipient of the Grammy lifetime achievement award (as part of The Staple Singers). She is also a National Arts Awards Lifetime Achievement recipient and a Kennedy Center honoree.
At age 11, Staples joined The Staple Singers, a group led by her father Roebuck “Pops” Staples. The group began in gospel before releasing soul and R&B music in the 1960s. In 1969, she released her debut eponymous solo album and earned a string of top 40 hits with the family group in the 1970s, including “I’ll Take You There” and “Let’s Do It Again.” Staples continued to release solo albums in the 1990s and 2000s; in 2010, her album You Are Not Alone, a collection of gospel standards, reached the pinnacle of the top gospel albums chart, and earned Staples her first Grammy Award win, for best Americana album.
During her decadeslong career as both part of The Staple Singers and as a solo performer, Staples has also marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., performed at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration and performed at the White House for President Barack Obama.
“I am so grateful to all the my friends, fans and these incredible artists that are coming to my 85th birthday concert celebration,” Staples said in a statement. “I can’t wait to be a part of this once in a lifetime show!”
Blackbird Presents CEO/Chief Creative Officer Keith Wortman said in a statement, “Producing this show is the honor of my life, as we all come together to celebrate a woman whom has given so much to so many over the years through her actions, her music, and her magic.”
Tickets for the concert will go on sale to the public on Friday, Feb. 16 at 10 a.m. PT at Ticketmaster.
In 1957, less than a decade after writer Stuart K. Hine wrote the 1949 hymn “How Great Thou Art,” vocalist George Beverly Shea introduced the song to U.S. audiences during one of preacher Billy Graham’s crusades at New York’s Madison Square Garden. According to author Don Cusic’s book The Sound of Light, Shea performed the song nearly 100 times during the 16-week crusade, which averaged 19,000 in attendance each night.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Since then, “How Great Thou Art” has become one of the most well-known hymns, sung weekly in congregations around the world and performed by notable artists such as Elvis Presley, who made the song the title track to his second gospel project in 1967 and won two Grammys for his recordings of the song, including best inspirational performance and best sacred performance. In 2011, Carrie Underwood earned a hit with her version of the song, and later included it on her 2021 gospel album, My Savior. The song was included on a list of “365 Songs of the Century” released in 2001 by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
To honor the 75-year anniversary of “How Great Thou Art,” sixteen CCM and country artists came together to update the song with a new verse and creating “How Great Thou Art (Until That Day),” which releases today. Chris Tomlin (“Holy Forever,” “How Great Is Our God”), Matt Redman (“10,000 Reasons”), Lady A member Hillary Scott (“Thy Will”), Cody Carnes, Kari Jobe, solo artist and Maverick City Music member Naomi Raine, TAYA, Ryan Ellis, Jon Reddick, Blessing Offor, Brian Johnson, Jenn Johnson, Matt Maher, Pat Barrett, Benjamin William Hastings, and Mitch Wong joined together to record the new version.
The Stuart Hine Trust, which owns and administers Hine’s catalog, commissioned Redman, as well as writer-artist Wong (a writer on CeCe Winans’ Grammy-winning hit “Believe For It”) to craft a new verse to the song, one that would lend hope and resonance with current events. Maher and Steve Marcia produced the new version, with string arrangement by Tommee Profitt.
“Normally, you can’t adapt this hymn,” Redman tells Billboard. “There is a pattern with old hymns, if they are in the public domain, of adapting them, adding a chorus, reworking them. But with ‘How Great Thou Art,’ the Stuart Hine Trust is still the publisher and normally they would deny anyone who tried to mess with it. So I was quite surprised when they approached and said, ‘Would you like to write a new section?’”
[embedded content]
Hine wrote the song in 1949, though its origins stretch back to an 1800s Swedish hymn. Hine was a missionary in the 1930s, living and traveling in the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe, which now includes Ukraine. Proceeds from the new version of the song will support humanitarian efforts to aid those impacted in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
“We tried to tie into the old verse structure, but with a melodic lift and words saying, ‘Hey, we can’t avoid or ignore that we live in a broken, warring world, and we have to face that, but we’re also going to sing with hope,” Redman says, adding, “I feels like a bit of a weird word, ‘War,’ to put in a hymn, but that’s our reality, whether it’s on a personal level or on a national, actual war level, that’s the world we live in. I don’t want to sing a song that feels escapist or doesn’t engage with reality.”
The artists came together to record vocals at both Gold Pacific Studios in Los Angeles, as well as Nashville’s RCA Studio B — the same Music City studio where Presley recorded his version of “How Great Thou Art” in 1966. “Matt Maher got to play the piano from the Elvis version, so it was quite a special full-circle moment,” Redman notess.
“I felt like we landed on a fresh approach that felt very true to the old hymn,” Redman says. Tomlin begins the song with a solo vocal, followed by Scott. From there, vocalist after vocalist lends their vocal, sometimes solo and other times wrapping in harmonies, building into full-on vocal choruses. “The most wonderful thing for me was all of these people are fantastic vocalists. We’d have Naomi Raine sing, and Kari Jobe and Blessing Offor, then Hillary Scott comes in — I don’t know quite how she carries that completely pure voice, but with that tiny edge to it. The vocals all work so well together.”
Looking ahead in celebrating the song’s 75th anniversary, Redman says that there could be additional versions of “How Great Thou Art” (including the new verse) on the way: “The Stuart Hine Trust has commissioned, I believe, an orchestral version, a choir version, welcoming different versions of the new arrangement as a way of resourcing out to the wider church.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
The Roots and Live Nation Urban have announced a new event for next year that will be one of the hottest tickets around. The inaugural Roots Picnic: Hip-Hop is the Love of My Life event will take place next summer in Los Angeles and tickets go on sale this week.
The Roots have annually hosted the Roots Picnic in the band’s hometown of Philadelphia for years and is typically a star-studded affair with some of music’s best and brightest acts joining the band in delighting fans from all over.
For the Roots Picnic: Hip-Hop is the Love of My Life event, they’ll be joined by other musical giants such as Queen Latifah, Common, Digable Planets, Arrested Development, and other acts. The event will be held next June at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Calif.
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the drummer for The Roots, shared a statement about the upcoming Roots Picnic.
“The first time we played Hollywood Bowl was way back in 2011, and there was nothing like it. We came back to headline in 2019, and we’ve been talking about doing something there since. This idea for Hip-Hop is the Love of My Life came up, and we knew there was no better spot,” Questlove said.
This announcement comes just after many of the guest performers for the event showed up and rocked the house for the airing of the A GRAMMY Salute to 50 Years of Hip-Hop last Sunday.
Tickets for Roots Picnic: Hip-Hop is the Love of My Life go on sale this Thursday at 10 AM local time PST. You can purchase the tickets here.
The Roots Picnic: Hip-Hop is the Love of My Life Lineup is below:
The Roots
Queen Latifah
Common
Digable Planets
Arrested Development
The Pharcyde
Black Sheep (Dres from Black Sheep)
& more to be announced
—
Photo: Getty
The electronic music industry’s premier soccer tournament, Copa del Rave, is returning to Los Angeles on November 2 with teams forged from electronic music artists and industry figures.
Confirmed DJ players include Copa co-founder Ardalan, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Xie, Zomboy, Zen Freeman, EDDIE and Borgore, with more to be announced.
The tournament will also feature teams from CREATE Music Group, Capitol Music Group, Downtown Music, INFAMOUS, Red Light Management, Symphonic Distribution, YourArmy/ATC and The Free Agents.
The tournament is once again happening at Evolve L.A., in the city’s Frogtown neighborhood. Games begin at 3p.m. and run until 8p.m. A spectator donation is requested. A donation is also required from each competing team, with the winning team getting to select the charity that will receive the money raised.
The first three installments of Copa del Rave raised more than $40,000 in donations for the LA Mission, which provides support to homeless people in L.A.; MusicCares, a Recording Academy organization that helps people in the music industry going through hard times; and Give a Beat, which uses music to help people impacted by the criminal justice system.
Previous players include Diplo, GG Magree, Wax Motif, Ardalan, TEED, The Chainsmokers and more. Kappa won last year’s tournament, with the previous two editions won by Red Light Management.
“Copa del Rave is back! We might be older and slightly more injury-prone, but the hunger out on the field is still real,” tournament co-founders Alastair Duncan, Jonathan McDonald and Ardalan said in a joint statement. “We’re truly grateful for all the teams and DJs participating, who are willing to get out there and play for a good cause.”
Courtesy Photo
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Brian Stukes / Getty
Mase rarely does interviews, but whenever he speaks the people listen. He recently revealed Blood gang members were after him right after The Notorious B.I.G. was murdered.
According to HipHopDX, the latest episode of It Is What It Is offered some more context on the Harlem MC’s wellbeing shortly after his labelmate was killed. As a new reoccurring segment Cam’ron asks the “Feels So Good” rapper questions he is frequently asked by fans. Mase recalled being abandoned by his team and was literally trapped in his room.
“I was in a hotel. I was actually in a hotel with a young lady,” he recalled. “I was trapped in the hotel. It was about, probably like, 70 or so Bloods in the hallway. I couldn’t even leave my room. After B.I.G. got killed, they were probably looking for more Bad Boy artists. And I couldn’t even leave the room ’til Gene Deal [former bodyguard for Diddy] had to come get me.”
Mase went on to detail how he got out of town. “I was left in LA and from that day, I always said, ‘I’m out of here,’” he added. “I was left! I came there with people; I ain’t leave with those people. You know how it goes. Find your way home.” He also disclosed he did not fly out of a Los Angeles airport to get home. “To my recollection, I think we had to go to Vegas or something like that to get back to New York.”
You can watch Mase discuss the matter below.
HipHopWired Featured Video
The BET Awards takes place this weekend in Los Angeles, Calif. at the Microsoft Theater and the star-studded event is poised to draw large crowds online and in person to take in the festivities. American Express and BET are partnering to present The Watch Party at the House of BET ahead of the awards program with fun surprises, drinks, and special performances on deck.
American Express & BET Present: The Watch Party at House of BET will go down Sunday, June 25, from 3 PM to 8 PM local time, and features a live performance from R&B star 6LACK with DJ Earry Hall on the tables providing the vibes. Hosted by La La Anthony, the House of BET will be located inside Hollywood’s Nya Studios and will have refreshments for fans and more.
The event will be interactive and designed for comfort as attendees will be encouraged to take in the lush scenery, relax in style, and watch the BET Awards together as a family and crew.
The event was open to all but Amex cardholders and their plus ones will have their own expedited entry point to the party. We would like to add that RSVPs for the event are now closed. Our apologies.
In addition to the party, American Express is offering cardholders the Shop Small Excellence Guide, which lists a number of Black-owned business establishments throughout Los Angeles. For guests who use their Amex card to check in at hotels near the event space, they will get a copy of the guide.
Last but not least American Express will present the BET Viewer’s Choice Award on-air and fans will have an opportunity to vote on their top “Song Of The Year” selection by placing their votes here.
To learn more about the 2023 BET Awards, click here.
—
Photo: Getty
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…