Music fest sacks Azealia Banks over racist attack on Zayn

NEW YORK | A London music festival on Wednesday removed controversial New York rapper Azealia Banks from its lineup after she went on a racially charged attack against former One Direction heartthrob Zayn.

Banks, in a series of tweets that she has since deleted, accused Zayn of copying her style on his latest video “Like I Would” and grew more agitated after he did not respond.

Banks, who is African American, used epithets directed at Muslims against Zayn, a Briton who is partially of Pakistani origin.

“When your entire extended family has been obliterated by good ol the U.S of A will you still be trying to act like a white boy pretending to be black?” she said in one tweet.

The Rinse/Born & Bred Festival, which will take place next month in London, announced it was canceling Banks’ appearance.

“Rinse/Born & Bred is a celebration of rave culture and has been created for EVERYONE. We celebrate inclusivity and equality,” it said in a statement.

Zayn kept a distance from Banks, telling her in Twitter lingo that he had seen her remarks and chose not to take the bait.

“My @’s too good for you,” he tweeted.

Zayn Malik, who has chosen to go solely by his first name as a solo artist, has taken on an R&B sound since leaving One Direction with sex-filled lyrics that would have been unthinkable for the squeaky clean boy band.

Banks, in a fresh tweet on Wednesday, reiterated her accusations about Zayn’s music and cast her remarks about Muslims as a gesture of solidarity.

“He felt as if he was too good to acknowledge me yet not too good to copy my creativity,” she wrote.

“I had to remind him that we’re both in the same boat in this industry and people of color,” she wrote.

Banks won wide acclaim for her single “212″ but has become better known for her acerbic exchanges on Twitter, with her pledge in March to quit the platform proving short-lived.

She notably engaged in a long-running feud with the Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, whom she accused of exploiting black culture.

Banks also raised eyebrows when she endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a fellow prolific user of Twitter, who has little support from minorities.

However, Banks’ praise for Trump appeared backhanded as she said that the billionaire “is evil like America is evil” and hence its fitting leader.

source: interaksyon.com

Pharrell Williams, Robert Plant to play Latin Lollapaloozas

NEW YORK | Robert Plant and Pharrell Williams will be among the Lollapalooza headliners in March in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, among the first dates on the global festival calendar.

The South American editions of Lollapalooza, which started as a traveling alternative rock festival before finding a permanent home in Chicago and expanding overseas, will take place in Santiago on March 14-15, in Buenos Aires on March 21-22 and in Sao Paulo on March 28-29.

The headliners — the same for all three venues — include Williams, who is known for his global smash hit “Happy,” and Plant, the legendary vocalist of Led Zeppelin who this year released his first album of new material in a decade.

Other headliners include the Smashing Pumpkins, the 1990s alternative scene heroes who are soon releasing a new album, along with White Stripes rocker Jack White and the DJ Calvin Harris.

The Lollapalooza South American lineups, which were announced Monday by organizers, offer an idea of some of the musicians who are likely to be on the global festival circuit throughout 2015.

Lollapalooza, founded by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell in 1991, earlier announced an expansion to Europe next year with a September 12-13 edition in Berlin.

The number of festivals has grown around the world in recent years, with big musical showcases increasingly becoming a vital source of revenue for artists.

source: interaksyon.com

Red Hot Chili Peppers to headline music fest in Pampanga for benefit of Yolanda survivors

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the legendary American rock band that was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, will headline the 7107 International Music Festival that will take place in Clark, Pampanga on February 22 and 23 next year.

Formed in 1983, the Chili Peppers or RHCP as they are best known to fans, rose to prominence with their unique fusion of rock and funk with occasional elements of psychedelia, metal and punk rock thrown in for good measure.

The band reached the peak of their popularity in 1991 with their fourth studio album “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”, which was certified seven times platinum in the US, and the anthemic hit single, “Under The Bridge”. RHCP’s following never actually declined since then as all studio albums (“One Hot Minute”, “Californication”, “By The Way”, “Stadium Arcadium” and “I’m With You”) that followed all made the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 200 album chart in the US.

Aside from “Under The Bridge”, the band’s other best known songs include “Give It Away”, “Soul To Squeeze”, “Scar Tissue”, “Otherside”, “Californication”, “By The Way”, “The Zephyr Song”, “Can’t Stop”, “Dani California” and their covers of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Love” and the Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster”.

The current line-up consists of founding members and high school classmates Anthony Kiedes and Flea on vocals and bass respectively, longtime drummer Chad Smith, and Josh Klinghoffer, who officially replaced founding guitarist John Frusciante in 2009.

Aside from RHCP, other performers that are confirmed to perform at the music festival include Australian electronic duo Empire of the Sun, Danish pop band The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, American alternative group Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, who previously performed in Manila, the UK-based pop-rock outfit the Natives and local favorites Up Dharma Down and Radioactive Sago Project.





“Part of the proceeds will be used to rebuild, rehabilitate and fund relief projects for Typhoon Yolanda victims, a fantastic cause, which we’re proud to be a part of,” The Natives posted on their Facebook page.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are already doing their share for the calamity victims. The band is part of the all-star album “Songs for the Philippines” released last month to raise money for the typhoon victims in Leyte, Samar and other affected areas in the South. RHCP’s contribution to the compilation is the song, “Factory of Faith”.

The two-day outdoor music festival will officially commence at noontime of February 22 at the Global Gateway Logistics City in Clark, Pampanga. According to the event’s official website at 7107imf.com, the concert will consist of “two stages present(ing) a spectacular lineup of both international and local artists carefully handpicked to satisfy every musical craving”.

“In this world of live music, thrills, adventure, good eats, and people from around the globe, the only way to transcend the different cultures is through one language called music. Make sure to be there once the clock strikes noon,” the site also posted.

In addition to pre-selling tickets that are good for the entire duration of the festival (priced at P8,500 for general admission and P20,000 for VIP access), the event’s official site are also accepting cash donations for typhoon Yolanda survivors.

source: interaksyon.com

Afrojack soon in Manila

MANILA, Philippines - In less than two years, Afrojack has become one of electronic dance music’s major icons. From humble DJ beginnings in his native country of Holland, he has grown to become a multi-awardwinning, platinum-selling producer. His skills are some of the most sought after in the world, and with two Grammy Awards under his belt, it’s easy to see why. His DJ sets have fast become both iconic and unparalleled, providing an explosive take on the current state of dance music across the board.

On April 27, Afrojack will make his second visit to the Philippines, headlining in the CloseUp Summer Solstice Music Festival at the Mall of Asia Concert Grounds.

Starting off in his hometown of Spijkenisse, Nick van de Wall, aka Afrojack, quickly made a name for himself with a slew of hard-hitting underground releases, before exploding in 2011 with the unveiling of Take Over Control, an instant worldwide club and chart hit going platinum in the USA. This also helped solidify his own imprint Wall Recordings as a pioneering club music brand — a value he holds dear as label boss and insures with every release.

From there, the snowball continued, as well as making club hits and collaborating with the likes of David Guetta (co-writing and producing the worldwide smash Titanium). He also began to team up with and write for pop artists around the world. In 2011 he co-wrote and produced Give Me Everything for Pitbull and Ne-Yo, which to this day has sold over five million copies worldwide. Not to mention his work for Beyonce’s Run the World (Girls) and his Grammy nominated remix for Leona Lewis’ Collide.

He has been awarded with Grammy Awards for Best Remix (Madonna, Revolver) in 2011) and Best Rap/Hip Hop Track for his co-production duties on Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now” this year. 2012 continued upwards when his latest single with Shermanology Can’t Stop Me went top 10 in Holland and is now all over Top 40 radio in the US, while his newest underground club hit Rock The House topped the Beatport charts after just three days, making it one of the fastest number one records there ever.

Afrojack’s skills stretch much farther than the mixing desk however; his presence as one of the world’s top performers is solidified almost daily in a gruelling tour schedule. In 2012 alone he began his North American “Jacked” tour with multiple sold-out shows featuring his growing posse of Wall artists, before embarking on the same concept throughout Europe with seven shows a week throughout the summer. On top of his own shows he headlined both EDC NY & Las Vegas to over 300.000 people, as well as the UMF in Miami + Tomorrowland and many other major festivals throughout Europe.


His long-anticipated yet-to-be- named artist album is nearing completion, with tracks already being road- tested at clubs. A true testament to his prolific profile as a producer and an artist, the long-player will showcase multiple sides of the Afrojack sound — from aggressive to accessible yet always credible. In the pantheon of EDM greats that have risen over the years, Afrojack has earned his place already, but is far from finished with what he has to share. The adventure continues while the beat goes on.

source: philstar.com

Attention, songwriters: PhilPOP 2013 is on!

After a successful debut in 2012, the illustrious Philippine Popular Music Festival songwriting competition is gearing up for its 2nd run this 2013. Entries are already being accepted on www.philpop.com.ph, with the deadline for submission on February 28.

The group behind this this endeavor is the PhilPop Musicfest Foundation Inc, which involves itself in nation building through music. It seeks to identify deserving songwriters who can inspire and spark positive change through their songs and are given the opportunity to shine.

Expecting to break the record of 3,000 participants in the initial run, Philpop, under the baton of its executive director Maestro Ryan Cayabyab, laid out a more comprehensive and arduous screening process to find the top 14 finalists.

The competition is open to amateurs and professionals of Filipino descent so even those residing abroad can join. The song entry may be written in a popular or new song genre, or a fusion thereof, in any form or structure, as lyrics may be in Filipino, a Philippine regional language, a Philippine dialect, English, or any combination thereof.

The song entry must be entirely original. It must not be licensed to any publisher; has not been printed and distributed as hard copy; or through the internet; has never been previously recorded and must not infringe on any existing copyright or any other rights.

It must not have been performed live in any venue, on traditional radio and television, or internet, or pre-recorded and uploaded on the internet, or recorded on video or other format for future broadcast.

The million-peso champion of the first ever Philippine Popular Music Festival is former Akafellas member Karl Villuga with his song “Bawat Hakbang”. The composition, which was about overcoming a personal crisis, was interpreted by Villuga along with his former groupmates and crooner Mark Bautista.

First runner-up award went to Australia-based Soc Villanueva with his R&B song “Kontrabida” sung by Sam Concepcion. Young composer Toto Sorioso won the second runner-up prize for his composition “Tayo Tayo Lang” performed by former Sugarfree frontman Ebe Dancel while first timer James Leyte, who works in an IT department, won the Smart People’s Choice Award for his reggae-influenced song entitled “Brown” co-interpreted by Brownman Revival.

Maestro Cayabyab clarifies that even the past winners can still join the competition.

“We are continuing to promote the songs from the Philpop and the album while drawing up strategies to further thrust these songwriters and songs into the spotlight,” shares Maestro Cayabyab. “We are looking forward to again stage the biggest and most illustrious songwriting competition in Philippine history with even more songwriters vying for the 1 million peso grand prize this 2013.”

PhilPOP is supported by Maynilad, Smart, Meralco, PLDT, Resorts World Manila, TV5, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation, NLEX, Sun Cellular, the First Pacific Leadership Academy, KBP, and Philex.

source: interaksyon.com