Samsung Is Reportedly Trying To Buy TIDAL

Google and Spotify have also expressed interest in acquiring TIDAL.

Samsung is in talks to acquire the Jay Z-owned media streaming service TIDAL, the New York Post reports.
"Samsung is re-engaging," a source told the New York Post. "They are working on something really big, and they’re keeping it very quiet in case it leaks."
Jay Z acquired the streaming service for $56 million in January 2015. Two months later, he established the TIDAL Mafia by bringing on such A-listers as Kanye West, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Daft Punk, Jack White, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Rihanna, Usher, Alicia Keys, & J. Cole to become partners.
Samsung has expressed interest in acquiring TIDAL before, and they inked a $20 million deal with Jay Z in 2013 and a $25 million deal with Rihanna in October 2015. TIDAL hit the million subscriber mark in September and has gained 1.5 million subscribers since the release of The Life of Pablo. 
Acquiring TIDAL may be Samsung's best bet to enter the music streaming game. Spotify, which has 25 million subscribers, and Google have both been eyeing TIDAL as a potential acquisition. Apple, Samsung's chief rival in the phone and consumer electronics game, has already established itself with iTunes and Apple Music. Don't be surprised to see Jay Z get an excellent return on his $56 million investment if he can come to an agreement with Samsung.
[via]

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Tags: News, tidal, samsung, Jay Z

How Soca Is Absorbing Afrobeats To Create A New Subgenre

Caribbean and African artists like Olatunji, Machel Montano, and Timaya are reaching across the Atlantic to create a global Carnival sound.

By Jesse Serwer

       Rawiya Kameir

 

 

On a Friday night last February, a singer in a gold lamé suit and matching kufi stepped off a throne to pounding drums and a loud chanting of his name. As Olatunji performed his single “Ola,” dancers in feathered headdresses and face paint interpreted its rhythms with movements like the etighi, a step popularized by Nigerian artist Iyanya's 2012 hit, "Kukere." Despite the West African signifiers, the performance took place in Port of Spain, Trinidad, where Olatunji is based, during one of the most climactic moments of 2015’s International Soca Monarch competition.
The Monarch competition is a key event in the run-up to Trinidad and Tobago’s annual carnival, and one of the most prestigious music showcases in the Caribbean. Olatunji’s triumphant performance of “Ola,” already one of the most popular songs of the 2015 carnival season, earned him the title of Groovy Soca Monarch, one of two prizes awarded at the competition. Perhaps more significantly, it also confirmed the arrival of a new subgenre that's come to be termed “afrosoca”—a blend of Caribbean and African rhythms that reflects both the outward expansion of Trinidad’s signature sound and the growing influence of afrobeats on the island, and worldwide. It was Shakira Marshall, a New York-based choreographer of Guyanese descent, who coined the term afrosoca as a name for her Brooklyn-based dance class in 2012.
The emerging hybrid is the latest volley in a transatlantic conversation that began, like so many other cultural transfers, with the enslavement of millions of West Africans and their forced relocation to Caribbean colonies centuries ago. Trinidadians proved to be remarkably resilient and creative in preserving African traditions over the years, refashioning the spoken word commentary of the griot into calypso, defying colonial bans on drums by creating new percussion instruments from bamboo and turning discarded oil drums into the steelpan. Similar developments occurred across the Caribbean—notably in Jamaica, where the mento style of folk developed in parallel to calypso in the early 20th century, and where African drums later reasserted themselves in the form of Nyabinghi drumming, the rhythmic foundation of reggae.

By blending with afrobeats, a rhythmically similar but more nebulous category with less restrictions and more visibility, soca is broadening in a way that’s true to its origins and identity.

Today, Jamaican reggae and dancehall are among the most popular music forms in many parts of Africa. Along with hip-hop, house, and African sounds like highlife and kwaito, reggae and dancehall represent a major thread in the expansive category of African dance rhythms that has come to be known as afrobeats, from the patois-inflected bashment pop of Nigeria’s Burna Boy and Timaya, to the quasi-dancehall azonto beats used by Ghanaian artists like Sarkodie.
That kind of organic culture-mashing is how soca itself was born. The genre first developed in the mid-’70s through the music of calypsonian Lord Shorty (later known as Ras Shorty I), who sought to blend calypso with the chutney sounds of the polyglot island’s substantial East Indian population, creating a Trinidadian sound he called “the soul of calypso.” Abbreviated to soca, the genre crystallized in the ’80s, with synthesizers and drum machines approximating the sounds of brass bands and rhythm sections. Spreading across the Caribbean, it took on different shapes on different islands, from the rugged bashment soca of Barbadian artists like Lil Rick, to the jab jab style associated with Grenada. About a dozen Caribbean nations and island territories, including Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines—just about every English-speaking country in the region, save Jamaica—count soca as their primary musical product.
But what drives and propels soca is precisely what limits it: it is music made expressly for the Caribbean’s annual carnival celebrations. Carnival traditions have their own African roots, having originated as a means of resistance among Trinidadian slaves. Each year, a few dozen songs, mostly from Trinidad and Barbados, take hold region-wide and advance through the diaspora, where they soundtrack floats at celebrations from London to Brooklyn to Baltimore. A handful of songs—Kevin Lyttle’s “Turn Me On” and Rupee’s “Tempted to Touch”—have made it to Top 40 radio, though often in a form remixed to fit global tastes. Yet the genre remains inexorably tied to the parades, or road marches, that are the climax of every Caribbean Carnival.

 

 

 

(Video) Stay Tuned: DJ Khaled Announces Some Major Moves Are About To Be Made

 

 

 

 

The King of Snapchat has announced that some major moves will be made soon. He hasn’t released yet what they are but we know Khaled always does it big.



Khaled posted a snap today with Kim K and said theres big things coming soon! When Kim K’s involved we know this is about to be major! Cant wait to see what Khaled has up his sleeve.

#Roommates what do you think #KimKardashian & #DjKhaled are working on?

A video posted by The Shade Room (@theshaderoominc) on Feb 25, 2016 at 6:45pm PST

ZHU Announces 'Neon City' North American Tour

Zhu logo

Courtesy of Sony Music

 

 

 

ZHU is officially hitting the road this spring.

How ZHU Scored a Major-Label Deal Using Just His Logo and His Music

The anonymous artist today (Feb. 24) announced his Neon City North American headlining tour via a recorded prank call with a ticket scalper on his Soundcloud, directing fans to his NeonCityTour.com website and teasing a new original song set to debut with Apple Music's Zane Lower on Beats 1 Radio tomorrow.

 

https://soundcloud.com/zhu/neoncitytourcom



Kicking off with highly-anticipated performances at Coachella, ZHU's tour will feature brand-new stage and visual production set to feature-length film, as well as support from alternative R&B singer Gallant.

ZHU Delivers Audiovisual Odyssey in North American Debut

Neon City Tour Dates
4/16/16 - Coachella - Indio, CA
4/23/16 - Coachella - Indio, CA
4/26/16 - Fox Theatre - Oakland, CA
4/28/16 - Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, BC
4/29/16 - Showbox - Seattle, WA
4/30/16 - Roseland Theater - Portland, OR
5/4/16 - The Depot - Salt Lake City, UT
5/5/16 - Ogden - Denver, CO
5/7/16 - Skyway Theatre - Minneapolis, MN
5/8/16 - Concord - Chicago, IL
5/9/16 - Royal Oak Theater - Detroit, MI
5/12/16 - Terminal 5 - New York, NY
5/13/16 - Echostage - Washington, DC
5/14/16 - Electric Factory - Philadelphia, PA
5/16/16 - Pheonix - Toronto, ON
5/17/16 - New City Gas - Montreal, QC
5/18/16 - Royale - Boston, MA
5/20/16 - Shaky Beats Festival - Atlanta, GA
5/21/2016 - Fillmore - Miami, FL

S.L.A.P. - Why Beat Round Da Bush (Music Video)

        

This is the music video for @Slap_music Why Beat Round Da Bush
 (produced by J. Pilot). Its the 3rd single off his album "Mating Season"

Sage The Gemini Claims Dating Jordin Sparks Was Initially a Publicity Stunt

By Max Weinstein February 24, 2016 10:15 AM

In recent weeks the public has gotten an unadulterated look at the (now nonexistent) relationship between Sage The Gemini and Jordin Sparks. But according to the Bay Area rapper, they initially started seeing each other as a publicity stunt.
In a phone conversation with his ex-fiancee Curium Hurley, Sage says that his relationship with Sparks was forced at first, reports Us Weekly. “Everything was fuckin’ horrible,” he says during the phone call. “That shit was fucking dumb. She got on my nerves. I wanted to stab her. All of that shit. Don’t get me wrong, she’s cool, she’s level-headed, whatever, but she’s not no regular person . . . Everybody on the outside looking in [thinks] it’s hella perfect.” You can hear the alleged phone call above.
Sage also says his management pushed him to post pictures together with Sparks on his Instagram shortly before he was set to drop his album last spring. At one point he deleted a photo with Sparks from his Instagram only to be later scolded for doing so by his manager. “My manager was like, ‘No, bring it back. How the hell are you going to sell the album?'”
Nonetheless, Sage says their relationship eventually blossomed into something very real. If his passionate love letter towards Sparks on Instagram last week is any indication, it seems like what started as a PR stunt grew into a deep relationship for the “Red Nose” star. He even dropped a new song, “I’ll Keep Loving You,” intended for Sparks, last week.
Last year Sparks talked to Us Weekly about accepting Sage despite his Zodiac sign. “He’s actually a Gemini-Cancer cusp, which is crazy because I am a Sagittarius-Capricorn cusp. So he’s summer solstice, I’m winter solstice. But you know that whole multiple personality thing? So him,” she told Us. “But I love all of him. So that’s the good thing.”

Kanye West Addresses Debt, Twitter Controversies in New Song

"This generation's closest thing to Einstein/ But don't worry about me, I'm fine"

By

Jazz Monroe

on February 24, 2016 at 8:13 a.m. EST

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Last night, Kanye West held a private party at L.A.'s 1OAK, as Noisey points out. He took the chance to debut a new track, which has been labelled "Closest Thing to Einstein." In it, he addresses his reported personal debt and Twitter controversies, then dismisses media speculation over his mental health: "I know I'm the most influential/ That TIME cover was just confirmation/ This generation's closest thing to Einstein/ But don't worry about me, I'm fine." Watch fan footage below.

In the track, reportedly a collaboration with Sampha, West raps, "I can't say no to nobody/ At this rate we gon' both die broke/ Got friends that ask me for money knowing I'm in debt/ And like my wife said, I still didn't say no." He goes on, "People try to say I'm going crazy on Twitter/ My friends' best advice was to stay low ... The media said he's way out of control/ I just feel like I'm the only one not pretending I'm not out of control." Another lyric: "Never listen to Hollywood producers/ Don't stare at money too long, it's Medusa."
During the party, he once more refuted Amber Rose's suggestion he enjoys ass play, saying, "I don't play like that!" Watch it all below.

A video posted by ming darion ciao (@ming_myvice) on Feb 24, 2016 at 12:33am PST

When you see yeezy in the club & you don't wanna come home 😱🙌🏼 #psbreezyisheretoo

A video posted by Taryn Ostrovsky (@tazdevvva) on Feb 24, 2016 at 1:09am PST

#kanyewest #yogotti

A video posted by Megan Hazen (@meganjanehazen) on Feb 24, 2016 at 2:02am PST

#kanyewest #funny said #amberrose #never #stuckthefinger in #lol

A video posted by Mr.Make it happen!!! (@fu_bish_im_acting_brandnew) on Feb 24, 2016 at 1:37am PST

Artists: Kanye West Tagged: Kanye West, Video