News

Black Rob, Rapper and Former Bad Boy Artist, Dies at 51

Black Rob, Rapper and Former Bad Boy Artist, Dies at 51

, , , ,

Black Rob, the New York City rapper formerly part of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy label, has died, according to his former label mate, Mark Curry. He was 51.

Rob’s former label mate, Mark Curry, announced Rob’s death in two videos posted to Instagram on Saturday, and Variety has confirmed his passing through additional sources. “I don’t know where to begin this,” Curry said in the first video. “But I thank everybody for the donations. Rob passed away about an hour ago.”

In a second video, Curry said that he was with the rapper when he died. “Rest in peace to my brother. I was there with him. I was there with him,” Curry said.

“Puff, I ain’t talked to Puff in 15 years — we talked today,” Curry continued, referring to Combs. “This is the beginning of a new us. Rob made sure he knew what he had to do before he parted this world to make sure we all alright, and that’s what he did. Bad boy for life, yo.”

Rob’s cause of death has not been confirmed, though Rob’s friend DJ Self posted on Instagram that he was suffering from kidney issues last week. On April 11, Curry and producer Mike Zombie started a GoFundMe to help Rob pay his medical bills. The next day, Curry said on Instagram that Rob had been released from the hospital and mentioned he planned to go see him later to help with his recovery. In another video, Curry said Rob was put on dialysis.

“This Gofundme is to help him find a home, pay for medical help & stability during these trying times. We’ve lost a lot legends and we can’t afford to lose anymore. This is my way to try and help,” its description reads. Donations poured in following the announcement of his death.

Born Robert Ross in Buffalo, N.Y., the Bad Boy rapper grew up in East Harlem where he began rapping as a preteen. He released four studio albums, his most successful being his 2000 debut “Life Story.” Rob is perhaps best known for his hit single “Whoa!,” which peaked at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100. Along with Curry, Rob was featured on Combs’ “Bad Boy 4 Life,” which charted at No. 33. Though he left Bad Boy Records in the mid-2000s, Rob reunited with the crew for select dates of the Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour in 2016.

Ellise Shafer contributed to this report.

‘Sound of Metal’ and ‘Soul’ Take Top Prizes at 2021 Cinema Audio Society Awards

‘Sound of Metal’ and ‘Soul’ Take Top Prizes at 2021 Cinema Audio Society Awards

, , , ,

The sound mixing team from “Sound of Metal” on Saturday won the top prize at the Cinema Audio Society’s annual CAS Awards for outstanding achievement in sound mixing.

In the animated feature category, Pixar’s “Soul” added another win to its shelf. The film which follows Joe as he ventures into the Great Before also won the MPSE Golden Reel Award for outstanding achievement in sound editing – feature animation is nominated in the newly combined sound category at the Academy Awards.

Additional CAS winners included “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart,”  Disney’s “The Mandalorian” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

During the virtual event, Sound Mixer William B. Kaplan, CAS was honored with the Cinema Audio Society’s highest accolade, the CAS Career Achievement Award. Kaplan has worked on over 155 feature films including “Top Gun,” “Crimson Tide,” “Back to the Future” and “Forrest Gump” which won him an Academy Award. George Clooney was also recognized for his work with the Cinema Audio Society Filmmaker Award.

The full list of winners is below.

Motion Picture – Live Action

“Sound of Metal”

Production Mixer – Phillip Bladh CAS
Re-Recording Mixer – Nicolas Becker
Re-Recording Mixer – Jaime Baksht
Re-Recording Mixer – Michelle Couttolenc
ADR Mixer – Carlos Cortez Navarrette
Foley Mixer – Kari Vähäkuopus


Motion Picture – Animated

“Soul”

Original Dialogue Mixer – Vincent Caro CAS

Re-Recording Mixer – Ren Klyce
Re-Recording Mixer – David Parker
Scoring Mixer – Atticus Ross
Scoring Mixer – David Boucher CAS
ADR Mixer – Bobby Johanson CAS
Foley Mixer – Scott Curtis

Motion Picture – Documentary

“The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart”

Re-Recording Mixer – Gary A. Rizzo CAS
Re-Recording Mixer – Jeff King


Non-Theatrical Motion Picture or Limited Series

“The Queen’s Gambit” Ep. 4 Middle Game

Production Mixer – Roland Winke
Re-Recording Mixer – Eric Hoehn CAS
Re-Recording Mixer – Eric Hirsch
Re-Recording Mixer – Leo Marcil
Scoring Mixer – Lawrence Manchester

Television Series – 1 Hour

“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” S3, Ep. 8 A Jewish Girl Walks Into the Apollo…

Production Mixer – Mathew Price CAS
Re-Recording Mixer – Ron Bochar CAS
Scoring Mixer – Stewart Lerman
ADR Mixer – David Boulton
Foley Mixer – George A. Lara CAS

Television Series 1/2 Hour

“The Mandalorian” Ep. 102 Chapter 2: The Child

Production Mixer – Shawn Holden CAS
Re-Recording Mixer – Bonnie Wild
Re-Recording Mixer – Stephen Urata
Scoring Mixer – Christopher Fogel CAS
ADR Mixer – Matthew Wood
Foley Mixer – Blake Collins CAS

Television Non-fiction, Variety or Music – Series or Specials

“Hamilton”

Production Mixer – Justin Rathbun
Re-Recording Mixer – Tony Volante
Re-Recording Mixer – Rob Fernandez
Re-Recording Mixer – Tim Latham

Outstanding Product Production

Sound Devices, LLC: CL-16 Linear Fader Control Surface for 8-Series

Outstanding Product Post Production

iZotope, Inc.: RX8

Wild Pink Cover Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Carly Rae Jepsen, and More on New EP: Listen

Wild Pink Cover Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Carly Rae Jepsen, and More on New EP: Listen

Wild Pink have released a new EP called Six Cover Songs. The record features frontman John Ross and drummer Dan Keegan’s takes on music by Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Carly Rae Jepsen, Shane MacGowan, and Coldplay, as well as a rendition of the iconic Jeopardy! theme. Listen to the full EP below.

Of his cover choices, John Ross said in a press release:

“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” is by far my favorite Taylor Swift song though “Favorite Colour” is just one of a few personal favs from Carly Rae Jepsen. Her album E•MO•TION is full of incredible songs and choosing “Favorite Colour” was a tough choice. “Lonesome Highway” is one of my favorite Shane MacGowan songs of all time. It’s such a tender and sweet song and very impactful with his unique delivery. I love the music video for this song and need the Pittsburgh Penguins jersey he’s got on in it. He has the most heartbroken face I’ve ever seen at the end of the video where everyone is singing “I love you so”… just an incredible song that I had a blast playing. “Reign of Love” is one of my favorites from Coldplay. It was kind of a hidden song from Viva la Vida but probably the best tune from that album. “When You’re Alone” is definitely one of my favorite Bruce tunes from one of my favorite Bruce albums: Tunnel of Love.

Wild Pink released their latest album A Billion Little Lights earlier this year. It followed their 2018 LP Yolk in the Fur.

Secretly Canadian Announces 25th Anniversary Campaign, Shares New Songs: Listen

Secretly Canadian Announces 25th Anniversary Campaign, Shares New Songs: Listen

Secretly Canadian has announced a forthcoming slate of releases and a fundraising campaign to celebrate the label’s 25th anniversary. Proceeds from sales of music and more will go to the nonprofit New Hope for Families, with a goal of raising $250,000. Today, the label issues the campaign’s first offerings: Stella Donnelly’s cover of Jens Lekman’s “If I Could Cry (it would feel like this)” and Porridge Radio’s reimagining of Scout Niblett’s “Wet Road”, both of which arrive as part of the label’s SC25 Singles campaign. Listen to those below.

SC25 Singles will total 25 tracks. The larger anniversary campaign will also include reissues of Secretly Canadian titles over the years in updated packaging, including the War on Drugs’ Wagonwheel Blues, Jens Lekman’s When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog, and Whitney’s Light Upon the Lake.

New Hope for Families, the program’s beneficiary, is the only shelter in Bloomington, Indiana that does not separate family members, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

[embedded content]
[embedded content]
[embedded content]
DMX Memorial Service Set for Brooklyn’s Barclays Center

DMX Memorial Service Set for Brooklyn’s Barclays Center

A public memorial for DMX will take place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, TMZ and Billboard report. It’ll reportedly occur on Saturday, April 24. Page Six reports that the event will be closed to the public but broadcast via livestream. A previous TMZ report indicated that Mike Spano—the Mayor of Yonkers, New York, where DMX spent much of his childhood—supported a memorial at his city’s Yonkers Raceway. New York State COVID-19 regulations restrict arenas like Barclays Center to 10 percent capacity.

DMX died on Friday, April 9, at the age of 50, following a heart attack. A new song featuring the late rapper, called “Been to War,” was released the following week.

Read “Remembering DMX, Who Changed Rap Forever,” as well as “How DMX Found God.”

Joshua Bassett Announces New Single ‘Feel Something’

Joshua Bassett Announces New Single ‘Feel Something’

, , , ,

A new song from Joshua Bassett will be arriving soon.

“SURPRISE ! NEW SINGLE ‘FEEL SOMETHING’ MAY 7TH !” the musician and actor revealed on Instagram Friday night (April 16).

“Feel Something,” which follows Bassett’s self-titled debut EP that was released in March, will drop just a week ahead of the May 14 season two premiere of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, the Disney+ show on which Bassett is a series regular. Bassett stars as Ricky opposite Olivia Rodrigo’s Nini.

Diane Warren Performs Her 12 Oscar-Nominated Songs in 5 Minutes

Diane Warren Performs Her 12 Oscar-Nominated Songs in 5 Minutes

, , , ,

The legendary songwriter is hoping to win for the first time this year, for “Io si (Seen)” from ‘The Life Ahead.’

The legendary songwriter Diane Warren has accumulated a dozen best original song Oscar nominations across five different decades, but she has never taken home a statuette.

No other woman in history, across all Oscar categories, has ever remained winless through this many noms.

This could all change at the 93rd Oscars on April 25, as the 64-year-old’s latest nominated tune — “Io si (Seen)” from the film The Life Ahead, which she cowrote with Laura Pausini — has already won the best original song Golden Globe award, and is competing in a distinguished but wide-open Oscar race (unlike when previous tunes of hers came up against steamrollers like “My Heart Will Go On” and “Shallow”).

Kourtney Kardashian Shows Off a Romantic Birthday Gift From Travis Barker

Kourtney Kardashian Shows Off a Romantic Birthday Gift From Travis Barker

, , , ,

Kourtney Kardashian offered a glimpse at how Travis Barker is helping to ring in her 42nd birthday.

The reality star took to Instagram on Saturday (April 17) to show off a grand floral arrangement that included an intricate hanging installation, giving Barker credit with a tag on the Instagram Story. She posted a black heart next to his name.

Barker shared the celebration with his followers the day before her birthday, too, re-posting the clip as an Instagram Story on his own account.

Visions du Réel Premiere ‘The Bubble’ Goes Behind the Facade of Florida’s Idyllic Retirement Community The Villages

Visions du Réel Premiere ‘The Bubble’ Goes Behind the Facade of Florida’s Idyllic Retirement Community The Villages

, , , , , , , ,

Visions du Reél world premiere feature “The Bubble,” playing in the festival’s International Competition, provides a candid look at the often-surreal senior citizen life within The Villages, America’s largest retirement community, in Central Florida. More than 150,000 retirees call The Villages home, and have access to its 96 recreation centers, 54 golf courses, 70 pools, three town squares and nearly 3,000 recognized social clubs.

Beneath the surface, however, the film asks important questions of class – according to one resident in the film 80% of the nation’s private wealth belongs to people over 65 years old, race – the overwhelming majority of retired people in the U.S. are white, and the impact The Villages has on surrounding communities. The film also examines how society treats those who age out of the workforce. Often neglected by family and their communities at home, many who settle in The Villages rediscover their own agency and find a new lease on life after relocating to the community.

“The Bubble” is directed by Austrian filmmaker Valerie Blankenbyl (“A Mother’s Dream”) and produced by Dario Schoch (“Split”) and Rajko Jazbec (“Goliath”).

Schoch and Blankenbyl spoke with Variety on the occasion of the film’s premiere about gaining access to The Villages, documenting a largely unknown slice of Americana and their own possible plans for life in retirement.

How were you able to gain access to The Villages, and what kind of impediments did you encounter along the way?

When we first read about The Villages we were surprised at how little media coverage they had gotten in the past. Valerie Blankenbyl, cameraman Joe Berger and producer Dario Schoch went there to research and found that people in The Villages were very open and friendly and keen to tell their stories. Soon we realized that any sort of reporting on life in the community was actively discouraged by the management of The Villages, who like to stay in control of how The Villages are portrayed. Because of that they run their own TV channel, radio and newspaper that never says anything negative about the community. We knew that The Villages were mostly paid for by taxpayers’ money and therefor accessible to the public, including us. The filming in public spaces wasn’t easy and sometimes not fun at all since the management tried to convince their residents not to talk to us, but the most important thing to us was that the people we filmed were happy to be filmed.

Was it easy to find people willing to speak on the record about The Villages?

It was easy to find people within The Villages to talk about their lives, but it wasn’t easy to find people who were willing to criticize The Villages or who even knew enough about them to criticize them. We then found Lauren Ritchie, the Orlando Sentinel columnist, who had been writing about The Villages for years and talking to her was crucial to the film to get a different perspective.

Political discourse in the U.S. has become increasingly polarized in recent years, did you notice the same in the bubble of The Villages?

Yes, this was very noticeable in The Villages. So much so that people told us they don’t talk politics with their friends, neighbors and family to prevent losing them. The political golfcart parades could get very heated, both on the republican and the democratic side, especially close to the 2020 election.

As you say, the large majority of people living in the community are Republican and there are a lot of MAGA hats in the trailer. Has there been an impact on the more progressive members of the community?

I think if you are very progressive you won’t feel that comfortable in The Villages, but there are some clubs like the Democratic Club and the Liberal Ladies Club, a club for gay Villagers etc. The Villages are so big that you will find something for everyone there. Overall, the community is mostly white and conservative though. What has been impacted are political affiliations of the surrounding area. Because of the influx of Republican voters in the area and the political power of The Villages, democratic voters have been finding it hard to even get representation in the area. They had to switch party affiliation to even be able to vote.

The socio-political story of this community is uniquely American, and it’s interesting the story is being told by a team of non-American filmmakers. What are the advantages or possible disadvantages to that dynamic, and do you think it made production any easier or more difficult?

We experienced it as a positive coming from a different cultural and generational background. People we met were keen to explain to us what they might not have to American filmmakers and we could treat each other with an open-minded, curious or even naive attitude, rather than perhaps with the weight of “insider” knowledge and experience. The downside of that is of course that you might miss out on some of the nuance that you wouldn’t as an insider.

Have members of the community seen the film, or parts of it yet? What has been their reaction so far?

We have stayed in close contact with our protagonists, and they have so far only seen the trailer, which they enjoyed. Our dream was to go back to Florida and show them the film personally but with the ongoing pandemic this has been impossible so far. I am not sure how open The Villages residents in general will be to any criticism of their community at all, but the residents we filmed knew that we were filming with people who were critical to The Villages and that we were going to show both sides.

Do you have distribution lined up for the film? What do you think the future looks like for this film in terms of theatrical, platforms, TV etc., both in the US and abroad?

Deckert Distribution as our sales agent is handling all territories except Switzerland and Austria. So far, we have seen strong interest from TV, for example NHK in Japan. In Switzerland the film is distributed by Cognito Films and in Austria by Filmladen. The cinema release in Switzerland will be right after Nyon, fitting well with the recent cinema openings in Switzerland. And yes, our main market for the film is the U.S. We are currently evaluating different options.

Are you planning to live in a retirement community when you’re done working?

We miss certain aspects of living in The Villages, like having a pool in front of your doorstep, some of the people we met there, the beautiful weather and of course, pickleball! But I think for most of us, living in a gated retirement community isn’t how we imagine our future.

Prince Philip Funeral: Hundreds Gather in Windsor to Pay Tribute to Duke

Prince Philip Funeral: Hundreds Gather in Windsor to Pay Tribute to Duke

, , , , , ,

Just over a week since his death, Prince Philip is being laid to rest today (April 17) at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, where eyes around the world will fall on the royal family, which will be together in rare public view after an especially turbulent period.

The funeral convenes 30 members of the royal family, including Prince William and Prince Harry, who traveled from California to the U.K. earlier this week for the occasion. The family reunion comes just over a month since Harry and wife Meghan Markle’s explosive CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey, though the Queen has done everything in her power to diffuse any awkwardness, including forgoing military uniforms for members of the royal family, thus allowing Prince Harry and her son, the scandalized Prince Andrew, to save face after stepping down from official duties.

More than 730 members of the armed forces are taking part in the funeral proceedings, in honor of the Duke of Edinburgh’s military background. In the hours leading up to the service, which begins at 3 p.m. local time, various branches of the armed forces have been honoring the royal with processions on the royal grounds, while the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery made its way along the Long Walk in Windsor earlier this afternoon.

Lazy loaded image

Officers of The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery arrive for the Gun Salute for Prince Philip’s funeral. AP

The BBC has carved out five hours in its Saturday afternoon schedule for coverage of the funeral, led by presenter Huw Edwards. The corporation has been in the crosshairs over the last week after pulling regularly scheduled programming on April 9, when news of the Duke of Edinburgh’s passing first broke, to air blanket coverage of his death.

The coverage, which usurped the “MasterChef” finale and other popular primetime shows, led the BBC to set up a dedicated complaints page to deal with the deluge of disgruntled viewers. More than a staggering 109,000 complaints were made.

Nonetheless, the Beeb made no apologies for its coverage and revealed on Thursday that the duke’s funeral would receive five hours of air time on flagship channel BBC One. On BBC Two, regularly scheduled programming will continue for much of the day, though the funeral will air at 8 p.m.

Stay tuned for live coverage.

Load More