Music
Waka Flocka Flame is no longer performing at a free concert for students at UNC Charlotte ... the show's canceled following a deadly shooting on campus. Waka was scheduled to perform Tuesday night at Jerry Richardson Stadium on campus, but the concert just got scrapped. The University remains on lock down after 2 people were shot dead and 4 others were injured in the shooting. Waka says he's praying for everyone affected by the shooting ... and says he wasn't aware of the tragic news until he landed in Charlotte ahead of his scheduled gig. Waka says he wasn't even going to be able to make it to the venue. Saweetie and Next Town Down were also scheduled to perform at the free show. No word on if it will be rescheduled. (TMZ)
Carrie Underwood Lifting up Women on 'Cry Pretty Tour 360'. When Carrie Underwood was plotting out her upcoming Cry Pretty Tour 360, she realized she had selected an all-female lineup with opening acts Maddie & Tae and Runaway June. But then she wondered: "Can we do that?" And then told herself: "OK, we have to do this!" In a genre that often only designates one or two slots to female acts for festivals or tours, Underwood's arena tour kicks off Wednesday in Greensboro, North Carolina, with six women behind the mic throughout the show. It's becoming a pattern for women in country music, as Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves all have had all-female or mostly-female tours recently. "I feel like it's been a really great time for women to kind of come together and be like, 'Let's support each other. We're all in this together. Let's be all in this together,'" Underwood said. After her No. 1 album Cry Pretty came out last year, Underwood is hitting the road again and playing in more than 50 cities through October. Sitting down in a Nashville rehearsal hall where they were practicing for the tour, Underwood blushed when her supporting acts recounted how her songs were intertwined with their own careers. Naomi Cooke from Runaway June remembers always getting requests to cover "Before He Cheats" when she played at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, a downtown honky tonk. Taylor Dye of Maddie & Tae recalled that she often won local talent shows when she sang "Cowboy Casanova" or "Temporary Home." Typically, women only get one or two slots on a country music festival or tour, but Carrie Underwood's Cry Pretty Tour 360 will include six women behind the mic as she hits the road with Maddie & Tae and Runaway June. Underwood will be returning to the center of the arenas for this tour, following her 2016 Storyteller Tour that also featured a center stage that allowed her to spread out. The seven-time Grammy winner is an energetic performer, typically sprinting around and singing from all sides of the stage and blowing away fans with her impressive vocal chops. "I loved being able to see so much more of the audience and be able to connect so much with so many more people," Underwood said. She's bringing the whole family on the road with her, including 4-year-old Isaiah, three-month old Jacob Bryan, and her husband, former NHL player Mike Fisher. "Somebody's got to watch the kids when I am onstage," Underwood said with a laugh. The music industry isn't always supportive of working moms and Underwood has been blunt and honest about those pressures, posting on Instagram about her post-baby body or having to pump as she was getting ready for the Academy of Country Music Awards. ?(Isaiah) was 11 months old when we started the last tour," Underwood said. "So it was very much like: do a little makeup, make him dinner, come back and do my hair, then get him ready for bed. So it was worlds colliding, but it was great. I'm so lucky I get to take my kids to work with me and not everybody gets to do that." The tour comes at an important time for both Maddie & Tae and Runaway June, who both have new albums coming this year. "We've never performed our music in a lot of these cities," said Cooke of Runaway June (Hannah Mulholland and Jennifer Wayne round out the trio). "We literally couldn't have dreamed up a better platform for us to be releasing new music and playing new songs." In a year when no women were nominated for entertainer of the year at the ACMs, Underwood -- who has won that award twice -- has a chance to prove that women deserve to be in that category again. "It's gonna be a great show from start to finish. That's our main objective," Underwood said. "I want them to leave saying, 'That's the best show I've ever been to.'" And Maddie Marlow, of Maddie and Tae, added: "Watch all these chicks sell out arenas." (Billboard)
Rapper YNW Melly to release new mixtape from jail. Rapper YNW Melly has been locked up in Florida since being accused of gunning down two of his friends -- but that's not stopping him from dropping a new mixtape, he announced on Tuesday. In a video on Instagram, Melly's team said they're releasing a mixtape titled "Free M&M" Wednesday night during a party at an Orlando nightclub called "GILT." The release bash will also double as a 20th birthday party for the imprisoned rapper. "I'm not gon' be there physically but I'm gon' be there officially," Melly can be heard saying in a message recorded from jail. "I need everybody to come show a n -- a some love, man! Thank y'all to all my fans and supporters! I love y'all!" Melly's 2017 track "Murder On My Mind" can be heard playing in the background of the Instagram video. The announcement comes after Melly's team posted a clip from a previously unreleased collaboration with rapper Lil Uzi Vert. Melly, whose real name is Jamell Demons, is facing the death penalty for allegedly killing two other rappers last year and staging the crime scene to look like a drive-by shooting. He was arrested in February and jailed without bond. His next court date is July 11. (PageSix)
Woodstock 50's investor pulled the plug on the festival cause the company was fearful of financial disaster. Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ ... Amplifi Live -- the investment arm of Dentsu Aegis Network -- pulled out after it got word capacity for the concert venue shrunk by 50% -- from 150,000 to 75,000. The reason for the change -- Watkins Glen city officials said a big chunk of the land needed to be used as campgrounds to accommodate concertgoers. We're told Amplifi Live needed a minimum of 100,000 attendees to make a go of it, so the company pulled the plug. It's kind of weird ... no one seemed to factor in that there aren't a whole lot of hotels or Airbnb's in the small New York town with a population of around 2,000. Woodstock organizers scrambled to score a mass gathering permit several weeks ago, to no avail. After Amplifi pulled out, Lang told us he wasn't throwing in the towel, hoping to snag another investor. But he just ran into even more problems, because we're told the festival's production company, Superfly, has just pulled the plug. We reached out to Lang and his attorney, Marc Kasowitz, got back to us ... saying, "Woodstock 50 is proceeding with the planning and production of the festival. Dentsu has no legal right or ability to cancel it. All stakeholders, including the entertainers, should proceed with the understanding that the event will take place as planned and it they have any questions, they should reach out directly." (PageSix)
Rosala Ascends With Electrifying, Sold-Out Webster Hall Takeover. When Rosala took the stage at New York's reopened Webster Hall for the final of two sold-out shows on Tuesday (April 30), part of the 2019 Red Bull Music Festival, it was hard to believe the Catalan singer is barely six months removed from her breakthrough project. The artist's Spanish-language El Mal Querer arrived last November, enveloping listeners in its mesmerizing current of classic flamenco and futuristic pop. Already a star in her native Spain, the singer earned praise from tastemakers like soon-to-be collaborator James Blake for the LP, which was nominated for five Latin Grammys. And on this occasion, each fan in the surging crowd -- which included Dua Lipa and Frank Ocean (and last night, Gigi Hadid) -- seemed to know every word to every song. That is, when they weren't using every bit of strength in their vocal cords to scream. The reaction took Rosala off guard, too. "I want to say this is the second night I'm here, and you know, this isn't normal," the singer admitted a few songs into her set. "It's a big honor to be here tonight, and it means a lot to me, and it means a lot to my people." Similar to the experience of listening to her music, Rosala doesn't own her space onstage so much as create a world within it. In this one, every relationship is a passionate, doomed romance and the tear-streaked heroine sported red vinyl pants, a sports bra and bedazzled acrylic nails. Emerging from the spotlight in just that, the 25-year-old kicked off her performance with a slick choreography sequence, flanked by six dancers in matching all-white outfits. Mini dance routines were interspersed throughout the concert, during which Rosala belted out hits like the jealous "Pienso En Tu Mir" and Justin Timberlake-sampling "Bagdad," holding her own through renditions of collabs "Barefoot In The Garden"(sans James Blake) and "Con Altura" (sans J Balvin). Rosala's two-night stand at Webster, the newly-renovated venue which Jay-Z had christened just days earlier, marked the latest of several high-profile gigs for the singer. Earlier this month, she made her Coachella debut amid a seemingly unprecedented slate of Latin acts at the festival, including Balvin, Bad Bunny and Mon Laferte. Just last week, she took the stage at the Billboard Latin Music Awards to perform "Con Altura" with Balvin. And she'll hit the stage at Chicago's Lollapalooza come August. Still, gazing out into Tuesday night's crowd, a teary-eyed Rosala told fans: "I have never felt what I feel onstage with you." After closing her set with -- of course -- fan favorite "Malamente," the singer was goaded back onstage by fans demanding otra track, for which she chose to cover tango great Carlos Gardel's classic "Volver." In a rare quiet moment, the singer dropped her fierce stare to tighten her high ponytail and flash an almost bashful smile, letting the crowd's screams fill the silence, and reveling in it. El Mal Querer -- the bad love -- may be an omen, but the singer's future is looking pretty bright. (Billboard)
Carrie Underwood Lifting up Women on 'Cry Pretty Tour 360'. When Carrie Underwood was plotting out her upcoming Cry Pretty Tour 360, she realized she had selected an all-female lineup with opening acts Maddie & Tae and Runaway June. But then she wondered: "Can we do that?" And then told herself: "OK, we have to do this!" In a genre that often only designates one or two slots to female acts for festivals or tours, Underwood's arena tour kicks off Wednesday in Greensboro, North Carolina, with six women behind the mic throughout the show. It's becoming a pattern for women in country music, as Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves all have had all-female or mostly-female tours recently. "I feel like it's been a really great time for women to kind of come together and be like, 'Let's support each other. We're all in this together. Let's be all in this together,'" Underwood said. After her No. 1 album Cry Pretty came out last year, Underwood is hitting the road again and playing in more than 50 cities through October. Sitting down in a Nashville rehearsal hall where they were practicing for the tour, Underwood blushed when her supporting acts recounted how her songs were intertwined with their own careers. Naomi Cooke from Runaway June remembers always getting requests to cover "Before He Cheats" when she played at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, a downtown honky tonk. Taylor Dye of Maddie & Tae recalled that she often won local talent shows when she sang "Cowboy Casanova" or "Temporary Home." Typically, women only get one or two slots on a country music festival or tour, but Carrie Underwood's Cry Pretty Tour 360 will include six women behind the mic as she hits the road with Maddie & Tae and Runaway June. Underwood will be returning to the center of the arenas for this tour, following her 2016 Storyteller Tour that also featured a center stage that allowed her to spread out. The seven-time Grammy winner is an energetic performer, typically sprinting around and singing from all sides of the stage and blowing away fans with her impressive vocal chops. "I loved being able to see so much more of the audience and be able to connect so much with so many more people," Underwood said. She's bringing the whole family on the road with her, including 4-year-old Isaiah, three-month old Jacob Bryan, and her husband, former NHL player Mike Fisher. "Somebody's got to watch the kids when I am onstage," Underwood said with a laugh. The music industry isn't always supportive of working moms and Underwood has been blunt and honest about those pressures, posting on Instagram about her post-baby body or having to pump as she was getting ready for the Academy of Country Music Awards. ?(Isaiah) was 11 months old when we started the last tour," Underwood said. "So it was very much like: do a little makeup, make him dinner, come back and do my hair, then get him ready for bed. So it was worlds colliding, but it was great. I'm so lucky I get to take my kids to work with me and not everybody gets to do that." The tour comes at an important time for both Maddie & Tae and Runaway June, who both have new albums coming this year. "We've never performed our music in a lot of these cities," said Cooke of Runaway June (Hannah Mulholland and Jennifer Wayne round out the trio). "We literally couldn't have dreamed up a better platform for us to be releasing new music and playing new songs." In a year when no women were nominated for entertainer of the year at the ACMs, Underwood -- who has won that award twice -- has a chance to prove that women deserve to be in that category again. "It's gonna be a great show from start to finish. That's our main objective," Underwood said. "I want them to leave saying, 'That's the best show I've ever been to.'" And Maddie Marlow, of Maddie and Tae, added: "Watch all these chicks sell out arenas." (Billboard)
Rapper YNW Melly to release new mixtape from jail. Rapper YNW Melly has been locked up in Florida since being accused of gunning down two of his friends -- but that's not stopping him from dropping a new mixtape, he announced on Tuesday. In a video on Instagram, Melly's team said they're releasing a mixtape titled "Free M&M" Wednesday night during a party at an Orlando nightclub called "GILT." The release bash will also double as a 20th birthday party for the imprisoned rapper. "I'm not gon' be there physically but I'm gon' be there officially," Melly can be heard saying in a message recorded from jail. "I need everybody to come show a n -- a some love, man! Thank y'all to all my fans and supporters! I love y'all!" Melly's 2017 track "Murder On My Mind" can be heard playing in the background of the Instagram video. The announcement comes after Melly's team posted a clip from a previously unreleased collaboration with rapper Lil Uzi Vert. Melly, whose real name is Jamell Demons, is facing the death penalty for allegedly killing two other rappers last year and staging the crime scene to look like a drive-by shooting. He was arrested in February and jailed without bond. His next court date is July 11. (PageSix)
Woodstock 50's investor pulled the plug on the festival cause the company was fearful of financial disaster. Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ ... Amplifi Live -- the investment arm of Dentsu Aegis Network -- pulled out after it got word capacity for the concert venue shrunk by 50% -- from 150,000 to 75,000. The reason for the change -- Watkins Glen city officials said a big chunk of the land needed to be used as campgrounds to accommodate concertgoers. We're told Amplifi Live needed a minimum of 100,000 attendees to make a go of it, so the company pulled the plug. It's kind of weird ... no one seemed to factor in that there aren't a whole lot of hotels or Airbnb's in the small New York town with a population of around 2,000. Woodstock organizers scrambled to score a mass gathering permit several weeks ago, to no avail. After Amplifi pulled out, Lang told us he wasn't throwing in the towel, hoping to snag another investor. But he just ran into even more problems, because we're told the festival's production company, Superfly, has just pulled the plug. We reached out to Lang and his attorney, Marc Kasowitz, got back to us ... saying, "Woodstock 50 is proceeding with the planning and production of the festival. Dentsu has no legal right or ability to cancel it. All stakeholders, including the entertainers, should proceed with the understanding that the event will take place as planned and it they have any questions, they should reach out directly." (PageSix)
Rosala Ascends With Electrifying, Sold-Out Webster Hall Takeover. When Rosala took the stage at New York's reopened Webster Hall for the final of two sold-out shows on Tuesday (April 30), part of the 2019 Red Bull Music Festival, it was hard to believe the Catalan singer is barely six months removed from her breakthrough project. The artist's Spanish-language El Mal Querer arrived last November, enveloping listeners in its mesmerizing current of classic flamenco and futuristic pop. Already a star in her native Spain, the singer earned praise from tastemakers like soon-to-be collaborator James Blake for the LP, which was nominated for five Latin Grammys. And on this occasion, each fan in the surging crowd -- which included Dua Lipa and Frank Ocean (and last night, Gigi Hadid) -- seemed to know every word to every song. That is, when they weren't using every bit of strength in their vocal cords to scream. The reaction took Rosala off guard, too. "I want to say this is the second night I'm here, and you know, this isn't normal," the singer admitted a few songs into her set. "It's a big honor to be here tonight, and it means a lot to me, and it means a lot to my people." Similar to the experience of listening to her music, Rosala doesn't own her space onstage so much as create a world within it. In this one, every relationship is a passionate, doomed romance and the tear-streaked heroine sported red vinyl pants, a sports bra and bedazzled acrylic nails. Emerging from the spotlight in just that, the 25-year-old kicked off her performance with a slick choreography sequence, flanked by six dancers in matching all-white outfits. Mini dance routines were interspersed throughout the concert, during which Rosala belted out hits like the jealous "Pienso En Tu Mir" and Justin Timberlake-sampling "Bagdad," holding her own through renditions of collabs "Barefoot In The Garden"(sans James Blake) and "Con Altura" (sans J Balvin). Rosala's two-night stand at Webster, the newly-renovated venue which Jay-Z had christened just days earlier, marked the latest of several high-profile gigs for the singer. Earlier this month, she made her Coachella debut amid a seemingly unprecedented slate of Latin acts at the festival, including Balvin, Bad Bunny and Mon Laferte. Just last week, she took the stage at the Billboard Latin Music Awards to perform "Con Altura" with Balvin. And she'll hit the stage at Chicago's Lollapalooza come August. Still, gazing out into Tuesday night's crowd, a teary-eyed Rosala told fans: "I have never felt what I feel onstage with you." After closing her set with -- of course -- fan favorite "Malamente," the singer was goaded back onstage by fans demanding otra track, for which she chose to cover tango great Carlos Gardel's classic "Volver." In a rare quiet moment, the singer dropped her fierce stare to tighten her high ponytail and flash an almost bashful smile, letting the crowd's screams fill the silence, and reveling in it. El Mal Querer -- the bad love -- may be an omen, but the singer's future is looking pretty bright. (Billboard)
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