Music

October 15, 2018 10:26AM PT Rapper Yella Beezy was shot three times early Sunday while driving on a highway near Dallas, according to the Dallas Morning News. He has been hospitalized and is expected to recover, according to CBS Dallas affiliate 11/21 DFW. The 26-year-old MC, whose real name is Deandre Conway, was fired upon

October 15, 2018 9:47AM PT Public conversation with Charlamagna Tha God was scheduled for Wednesday at New York’s Town Hall. Amid the countless headlines about Kanye West in recent months, one that may have been overlooked is that he was scheduled to give a TimesTalk on mental health with his friend and past interviewer Charlamagne

Last week, veteran British singer-songwriter Paul Weller looked back on his 40-plus-year career with a pair of elaborate shows at London’s Royal Festival Hall that found him accompanied by an orchestra and horns as well as his usual band, and performing a set that included most of his latest album “True Meanings” as well as

October 15, 2018 6:55AM PT Eesean Bolden has been promoted to Senior Vice President of A&R at Warner Bros. Records, the company’s co-chairman & CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck announced today. The move is the first major staff announcement since Bay-Schuck officially took the helm at the label on Oct. 1. Bolden, who has served as VP of A&R at the label

No Doubt’s Adrian Young beautifully summed up Strange ’80s 2, held at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles on Friday night (Oct. 12). Speaking to Variety before the show, Young remarked: “When else would you be able to see guys from Slipknot, Offspring and No Doubt with David Hasselhoff? I couldn’t have thought of that.”

October 13, 2018 7:52PM PT “All of us at CMG are incredibly shocked and saddened to learn of the untimely passing of our colleague and friend,” EVP Greg Marella says. Joe Rainey, Vice President of Pop Promotion and Marketing at Capitol Records, passed away suddenly on Friday, at the age of 43. Capitol Music Group

Kanye West returned from his brief self-imposed social media hiatus on Saturday with a series of videos apparently posted from Africa, including a nine-minute one titled “Mind Control.” In it, he delivered a now-familiar free-associative rant that touched on such topics as mind control, social media, “positive energy” and what he described as a request

Damon Albarn likes sending mixed messages. Take what’s going on with his now 20-year-old, dub-pop-hop cartoon act, Gorillaz. Before the start of Gorillaz’s arena-sized “The Now Now Tour” — which had its U.S. debut at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center on Thursday (Oct. 11) — Albarn announced everything from a new Gorillaz album for 2019, to

After an abrupt and chaotic end to Day 1 of the Desert Daze festival that had Tame Impala’s headlining set cut off just three songs in, organizers have announced that the second and third days will proceed, as thunderstorms move out of southern California. Nerves were already on edge among some fest-goers on Friday even

October 13, 2018 1:24AM PT The Aubrey & the Three Migos Tour plays for seven nights in Los Angeles. Drake kicked off the first of a series of Los Angeles shows at the Staples Center tonight (Oct. 12) and among those in the crowd was none other than Adele. Writing on Twitter, the Grammy-winning singer cheered

Beyonce and Tiffany Haddish have moved on from the headlines that the “Girls Trip” star stirred up when she revealed earlier this year that she saw an unnamed actress bite the singer at a private party. Variety caught up with Haddish on Thursday night at the City of Hope gala in Los Angeles, where Beyonce performed in honor

October 12, 2018 2:56PM PT One of the top agents in country music, Rob Beckham, is out as co-head of the WME Nashville office, Variety has confirmed. No official announcements have been made, and sources confirming the split gave no reason for the exit. Beckham’s past or current clients have included Chris Young, Rascal Flatts, Brett

The new boxed set from David Bowie, “Loving the Alien (1983 – 1988),” encompasses an era that brought out some of the chameleonic artist’s best-loved work — starting right off with the massive “Let’s Dance” album — and also some of his least loved. In the latter case, we’re talking about Bowie’s own lack of

It should come as no surprise that 85-year-old Yoko Ono, who through the years has carefully guarded the legacy of John Lennon in whatever new releases or products she has authorized, oversaw the production and creative direction of “Imagine: The Ultimate Collection.” In a recent interview with Variety, Elliott Mintz said, “The whole box set was Yoko’s

October 12, 2018 6:00AM PT The clip for “1999” features close to 20 pop culture references from the turn of the millennium. [embedded content] Charli XCX and Troye Sivan want to party like it’s 1999 and do so in spectacular fashion with a new video that celebrates ’90s pop culture. In the clip for the

For reasons both understandable and not, Paul Weller is a prominent member of what we’ll call the Cliff Richard Club: Artists who are revered career superstars in Britain but cult artists in the U.S. While the default explanation that his music is “too British” is valid in some ways, Weller — a 40-plus-year soulful rock

If you’re headed to the Fleetwood Mac tour that began just over a week ago, “don’t stop” thinking about the bad vibes that exist between the four long-standing members on stage and exiled Lindsey Buckingham. That may be the effect, anyway, if not the actual intent of the lawsuit that the banished singer/guitarist filed against

Netflix unveiled its first unscripted music show today. “Westside,” which premieres globally on Nov. 9, is a genre-defining eight-episode series that follows the lives, loves and assorted struggles of nine aspiring artists (including former “American Idol” finalist Pia Toscano) as they pursue ever-elusive success in the modern-day music industry. Eschewing the standard competition-style format, this

October 11, 2018 2:52PM PT The rocker is suffering from a hand injury. Ozzy Osbourne has canceled the rest of the North American leg of his “No More Tours 2” tour due to an infection in his right hand, Rolling Stone reports.  Two California dates were previously postponed so the singer could undergo surgery to

Somewhere along the way — well, actually, we can pinpoint the time: about 10 years ago — Elvis Costello went from being rock’s most prolific great recording artist to its least prolific. (No, we’re not counting Steve Perry in this.) That’s how we reconcile two seemingly irreconcilable numbers, one of them being that “Look Now”

October 11, 2018 11:40AM PT The festival from hell has resulted in its organizer going to jail. The 2017 Fyre Festival in the Bahamas was the ultimate example of everything that could go wrong with a music event actually going much, much worse — and now Billy McFarland, its promoter, has been sentenced to six

Loretta. Dolly. Tammy. Reba. Faith. Shania. The Chicks. When we think of the all-time greats of country music, or the genre’s biggest sellers, gender parity isn’t a question; if anything, history has been on more of a first-name basis with the women than the men. But female performers are an even rarer commodity than fiddles on

Hulu has given a straight-to-series order to a scripted drama that will explore the rise of the Wu-Tang Clan, Variety has learned. “Wu-Tang: An American Saga,” which has received a 10-episode order, is inspired by “The Wu-Tang Manual” and “Tao of Wu”, and based on the true story of the Wu-Tang Clan. Set in early ’90s

October 11, 2018 10:00AM PT As CMT turns over the “Artists of the Year” microphone to female singers, Variety recognizes the women who are stars behind the scenes. The 2018 CMT “Artists of the Year” event, which airs live from Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center on Oct. 17,  will be a celebration of the influence and

Retro-soul crooner and songwriter Leon Bridges has a lot to consider this month. The 29-year old Texan recently wrapped the first leg of a U.S tour in support of his sophomore album “Good Thing,” has a nice role in a major motion picture (Damien Chazelle’s “First Man” opening Friday, Oct. 12), a new music video for his

Artist and producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has signed a new four-year overall deal with Starz. Under the agreement, Jackson will continue to develop new scripted and unscripted projects exclusively for the premium service through his G-Unit Film & Television, Inc. banner. The deal represents a significant increase to Starz’s investment in Jackson, executive producer

Frank Sinatra spent a lot of time pining for the one that got away on “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely,” the 1958 album that many consider the finest of his career. And, legendarily, the recording sessions for the collection included the song that got away — the classic “Lush Life,” which Sinatra took

As women in music production, engineering and songwriting increasingly look to each other to collaborate, ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is jumping in with its first ever “She Is the Music” song camp. Scheduled for October 17 to 19 at producer Ron Fair’s Faircraft Studio in Nashville, the performance rights organization recruited Mary J.

October 11, 2018 3:16AM PT Oscar-nominated actress Hailee Steinfeld will front this year’s MTV EMAs. Steinfeld, who also has a successful music career, will also perform at the show, which this year will take place in Bilbao, Spain. Viacom’s MTV announced its 2018 host with a sketch on Facebook (see below). Steinfeld scooped the “Best

In one of the more controversial moves in an already controversy-filled 2018 for the Grammy Awards, Post Malone, one of the breakthrough artists of the year, will not be a Best New Artist nominee at the next awards, according to two sources and media reports. Many Grammy categories, including Best New Artist, are determined by