Music

“You ready B?” 

Twenty years ago on October 10, 2002, Jay-Z teamed up with his then-girlfriend, now-wife, Beyoncé Knowles–Carter, to release one of the most iconic hits in hip-hop history. 

“‘03 Bonnie & Clyde” landed at number four on Hov’s 3x Multi-Platinum RIAA-certified seventh studio album, The Blueprint 2: The Gift and the Curse. The hit single notched a top five spot on the Billboard chart and went on to become certified Gold. 

With writing and producing credits from Jay, Kanye West and Tupac, the song sampled the beat from and was inspired by Pac’s 1996 single, “Me and My Girlfriend.” Jay-Z and Beyoncé pay homage to Tupac with a mural of the late rapper’s face during a scene of the music video. 

The close-to-five-minute visual features the duo in a modern take of the infamous real-life criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. The cop-and-robber short was nominated for Video of the Year at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards but lost to Missy Elliott‘s “Work It.”

In celebration of the song’s 15-year anniversary in 2017, Beyoncé posted a few throwback clips of the iconic video. 

“I can’t believe its been 15years since Bonnie and Clyde 🙏🏽 You ready 😊🙏🏾? Lets go get em❤️💛💙💜💚,” she wrote in the captions, referencing some of the song’s lyrics. 

“’03 Bonnie & Clyde” marked the first official collaboration between Hov and B and the start of their romantic relationship. The couple is now married and share three children: 10-year-old Blue Ivy and five-year-old twins, Rumi and Sir. 

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Brett Young noticed a big shift in his songwriting process when he went in to create his third album, Weekends Look a Little Different These Days, in 2021: Instead of writing songs about what he was going through at that moment, he started drawing from the past.

“This album was all about learning to go back and draw from past experiences,” Young explains, pointing out that if he’d only written about his current life stage — as a happily married father — the songs might’ve gotten a little repetitive.

“So that there was something for everybody, and you didn’t get a lullaby record about my babies and my happy marriage. You got a little bit of everything,” he continues.

That’s not to say the songs weren’t personal: For example, “You Didn’t” was written about a time in his life when he and his now-wife Taylor called it quits for a while.

“We didn’t fight. Nobody cheated. It was none of that. We just broke up,” Brett remembers. “I was in a different place than she was.”

And even though this breakup happened years before he wrote a song about it, the singer says he was still able to tap into that pain. “I went through that. I felt that,” he notes.

What started with the dilemma of needing to write more than his current life stage became an important process of growth and learning, Brett goes on to say.

“This whole album has been a challenge for me,” he explains. “In a good way. It’s really grown and stretched me as a writer, because up until album number three, I’d written what I was going through in the moment.”

Weekends Look a Little Different These Days came out in June 2021.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

After getting her best scores ever last week on Dancing with the Stars, Jordin Sparks and her partner Brandon Armstrong will dance Monday night starting at 8 p.m. ET, as the show presents “Disney+ Night.” Jordin says she’s excited about the theme, especially because it’s allowed her to do a special dance inspired by her four-year-old son DJ.

“I’m grateful that I’m still around to be able to do Disney Night. And it’s been opened up even more because now it’s Disney+, so it’s like Marvel and Star Wars and all those things,” Jordin tells ABC Audio, adding, “But for me, it’s very personal…the song I’m doing is ‘Remember Me‘ from Coco. I’m doing the song because it’s something I sing to [my son] every single night before he goes to sleep.”

The Oscar-winning song from the 2017 Pixar film is sung from the point of view of a musician who leaves his daughter to go on the road. It features lyrics like, “For ever if I’m far away/I hold you in my heart/I sing a secret song to you/Each night we are apart.”

“When I heard that song and I saw the movie, I related to it so much,” Jordin explains. “Being a musician, being on the road, having to be away for, you know, long hours. And so I’m doing that song for him.”

“He’s actually getting to come to the show for the first time, so I can’t wait for him to actually be there and see it!” she says excitedly. “So there’s a little bit more pressure about it because it is so personal. I really want to do well.”

Outside of the ballroom, Jordin’s just released a collaboration with the Australian duo for KING + COUNTRY called “Love Me Like I Am.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Taylor Swift did a bang-up job on the set of her new movie, Amsterdam, says her Oscar-winning co-star — and was even nice enough not to tell him he’s an “awful” singer.

Oscar winner Christian Bale stars in the David O. Russell film, along with John David Washington and Margot Robbie.  Taylor plays Elizabeth Meekins, who wants Bale and Washington’s characters — a doctor and an attorney, respectively — to investigate the suspicious death of her father, an Army general who founded the regiment where the two men first met.

“She just became part of the team. She was fantastic,” Bale tells ABC Audio. “You know, she just showed up and she was playing her character and she fit right in….movies, they move pretty quickly, y’know, you gotta get going [right away].”

Bale says he also had “the great privilege and sort of surprise of finding myself singing alongside of Taylor,” in the film.  In fact, he and Washington both sang with Taylor, despite the fact that they’re not exactly on her level, vocal-wise.

“She was incredibly generous in just not looking at me and going, ‘Please shut up. You are awful!’ because I am!” Bale laughs. “Me and JD [Washington], half the time [we were] forgetting the lyrics, being-off key.”

At one point after he, Taylor and Washington had been trying to film the singing scene for hours, Bale says David O. Russell told them, “Hey, I just got an idea: Christian and JD, how about you just shut up for a second? We’ll just record Taylor.'”

Bale laughs, “Oh, my God, we suddenly realized we had been destroying this song all day long when there was this angel right next to us singing it beautifully. And it gave me goosebumps. Her talent is incredible!”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The 2004 compilation The Animals Retrospective, featuring classic songs that famed British Invasion band The Animals and its lead singer, Eric Burdon, recorded from 1964 to 1970, will be released on vinyl for the first time on November 18.

The album, which can be preordered now, will be issued as a two-LP set on standard black vinyl, while Target also will offer an exclusive, limited-edition orange-vinyl version.

Retrospective is a 22-track collection that includes classic tunes by The Animals’ original lineup and by the group’s late-1960s Eric Burdon & The Animals incarnation, as well as “Spill the Wine,” the 1970 smash that Burdon recorded with the band War.

Hailing from Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., The Animals started as a blues-influenced rock ‘n’ roll act. The band quickly found fame in 1964 thanks to their chart-topping version of the traditional folk song “The House of the Rising Sun,” and followed that with such hits as “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” “It’s My Life” and “Don’t Bring Me Down.”

In 1966, Burdon reformed the band with a new lineup and the group, rechristened Eric Burdon & The Animals, relocated to California and began exploring a more psychedelic-influenced sound. Among this version of the band’s hits were “When I Was Young,” “San Franciscan Nights,” “Monterey” and “Sky Pilot.”

After the group’s 1968 breakup, Burdon began collaborating with the San Francisco-based funk-rock band War, scoring a #3 hit in ’70 with “Spill the Wine.”

Reflecting on the original Animals in Retrospective‘s liner notes, Burdon said, “We were the ultimate club band. We had our differences and sometimes came to blows, but we all stood together when anybody attacked us from the outside.”

Here’s the compilation’s full track list:

Side 1
“House of the Rising Sun”
“I’m Crying”
“Baby Let Me Take You Home”
“Gonna Send You Back to Walker”
“Boom Boom”
“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”

Side 2
“Bring It On Home to Me”
“We Gotta Get Out of This Place” (U.S. single version)
“It’s My Life”
“Don’t Bring Me Down”
“See See Rider”
“Inside-Looking Out”

Side 3
“Hey Gyp”
“Help Me Girl”*
“When I Was Young”*
“A Girl Named Sandoz”*
“San Franciscan Nights”*
“Monterey”*

Side 4
“Anything”*
“Sky Pilot”*
“White Houses”*
“Spill the Wine”**

* = Eric Burdon & The Animals
** = Eric Burdon & War

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Skateboarding icon Tony Hawk is famous for not being recognized in public, but one person who will always recognize him is Goldfinger frontman John Feldmann.

“Tony Hawk really changed the trajectory of my career,” Feldmann tells ABC Audio.

Feldmann is, of course, talking about Hawk’s Pro Skater video game series, the first installment of which featured Goldfinger’s song “Superman” on the soundtrack. Thanks to its placement in the game, “Superman” has become one of Goldfinger’s signature and most beloved songs.

“So many kids played that game,” Feldmann laughs. “So many people played that game.”

Initially, Feldmann didn’t even know that “Superman” was even in Pro Skater, but he soon realized it was about to become a phenomenon when he and Goldfinger played the song while on tour in England shortly after the game was released.

“We played, like, five, six songs that I thought were gonna be our biggest hits,” Feldmann recalls. “Then we played ‘Superman,’ and the whole crowd just [formed] the biggest the circle pit of the night, it was just this wild moment…It’s just become this huge thing.”

Both the first and second Pro Skater games were remastered in 2020, and brought back “Superman” for the soundtrack while also adding a few other, newer songs, including Machine Gun Kelly‘s “Bloody Valentine.” Feldmann feels that the spirit of the Pro Skater soundtrack continues to live on in today’s music.

“There’s definitely a movement happening, that’s been happening for the last year with all these artists,” Feldmann says, name-checking blackbear and WILLOW. “It’s just amazing to watch all these younger kids making music that I grew up on, that changed my life.” 

Goldfinger released a rerecorded version of “Superman” featuring Biffy Clyro‘s Simon Neil in August.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

In honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, BET Her will kick off its fourth season of The Waiting Room — a series of stories about Black women and their life altering medial diagnosis. This season’s short films, Oh Baby Baby and The Pink Fight, follow the journeys of women battling breast cancer from diagnosis to coping and healing. 

If Loving You is Wrong actress Edwina Findley stars in Oh Baby Baby, a story about a fashion entrepreneur who develops breast cancer from IVF treatments while trying to conceive a baby. Co-written by Maggy Francois and Maimah Karmo, the Tichina Arnold-directed short airs Saturday, October 8, at 10 p.m. ET. 

In an interview with BlackFilm.com, Arnold discusses why she decided to take part in the project. 

“Now I’m older, I have more of an experience with life,” she says of her directorial debut. “Even though I am not a breast cancer survivor, even though I’ve never been diagnosed with breast cancer … never used IVF treatments, I thought this situation was a great time for me … because of the great content,” she said. “We finally get to tell our own stories.”

Actress LisaRaye McCoy takes on directing duties in The Pink Fight, a story revolving around a boxer diagnosed with breast cancer. Written by K. Senay, the film follows the boxer and her wife as they fight for survival both in and out of the ring. 

Season 4 of The Waiting Room airs Saturday, October 8, on BET Her. 

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.