Kingsley Ben-Adir, who starred as Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, will reportedly play another iconic figure, reggae legend Bob Marley, in an as-yet-untitled biopic.
Marley, who influenced generations of other musical acts, with songs like “Get Up, Stand Up,” “I Shot the Sheriff” and “One Love,” died of cancer at 36 in 1981.
Deadline reports that the producers of the project, including Marley’s widow Rita, son Ziggy and daughter Cedella, staged an exhaustive search with director Reinaldo Marcus Green to find the right actor to portay the influential Jamaican-born music star.
It appears Marley’s life story is certainly in good hands: Green’s King Richard — a film about sibling tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, and their tennis-coach father, Richard Williams — just earned five Oscar nominations.
Lester Cohen/Getty Images for The Recording Academy12
Miley Cyrus‘ new Super Bowl commercial is finally here, which finds her teaming with godmother Dolly Parton.
The two-part commercial for T-Mobile made its debut on Friday and was all about 5G phone technology. The ad is a complete spoof on public-service announcements, with Dolly raising awareness about 5G phones with a little help from the “Midnight Sky” singer.
Dolly aims to solve America’s “serious problem” with current 5G networks, saying they are “limited,” and she declares that she wants phones to “be able to shine their brightest like me. I have my own theme park!” That’s when she tells Miley to “use” her voice, which the two teased in Thursday’s trailer.
Miley embarks on a music writing montage and whips up a cheesy song about phones, which is a total spoof on how some causes use inspiring music to get their message across. “Let’s do it for the phones, they do so much for you/ When they’re out there all alone, there’s something we can do,” Miley and a group of backup singers belt out in the ultra campy commercial.
The ad will air during the Super Bowl, which kicks off Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
Back in December, Styx and REO Speedwagon announced plans for a 35-date 2022 North American trek dubbed the Live & Unzoomed Tour featuring Loverboy as their special guest. Now the veteran rockers have added 10 new dates to the outing.
The new concerts run from a September 3 performance in Duluth, Minnesota, through a September 18 show in Bangor, Maine.
Tickets for the new dates will go on sale to the general public on starting Friday, February 18, at 10 a.m. local time at LiveNation.com. Styx and REO Speedwagon will be making available VIP packages and exclusive pre-sales starting Tuesday, February 15, at 10 a.m. local time at StyxWorld.com and REOSpeedwagon.com.
Citi card members also will be able to buy presale tickets beginning February 15 at 10 a.m. local time; visit CitiEntertainment.com for more details.
As previously reported, the Live & Unzoomed Tour kicks off May 31 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the initially announced run of shows had been scheduled through an August 21 performance in Wantagh, New York.
When the trek was first announced, a hilarious video promoting the trek premiered on YouTube featuring Styx’s Tommy Shaw and Lawrence Gowan, REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin and Dave Amato, and Loverboy’s Mike Reno showing what they’ve been up to at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now a follow-up “bloopers” clip has debuted on YouTube featuring the various band members having fun while filming the original promo clip.
(Video contains uncensored and censored profanity.)
Bastille is once again number one in the band’s home country.
The “Pompeii” outfit’s latest effort, Give Me the Future, has debuted at number one on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart. They’ve previously earned the honor twice, with 2013’s Bad Blood and 2016’s Wild World.
“We’re so happy and excited!” Bastille tells OfficialCharts.com. “Ridiculously grateful to everyone who’s bought the album and listened to it, and to everyone who worked so hard to make this record with us.”
“We’re mega proud of Give Me the Future and beyond overjoyed that it’s had such an amazing response so far,” the group adds. “Can’t wait to head out on tour soon and play these songs in real life for everyone.”
Give Me the Future, Bastille’s fourth album, was released last Friday. It includes the singles “Distorted Light Beam” and “No Bad Days.”
Dolly Parton continues her multi-faceted, prolific rollout of new material on Friday with not one but two brand-new releases.
ABC’s Good Morning America debuted Dolly’s upcoming Super Bowl T-Mobile ad series today, where the country legend appears alongside her pop star goddaughter Miley Cyrus for a two-part ad campaign revolving around their lighthearted pledge to #DoItForThePhones.
In Dolly’s segment, she stars in a PSA-style ad spot urging customers to liberate their 5G phones from a limited 5G network by switching to T-Mobile.
“When I see a problem, I am going to fix it. America’s got a serious problem, so I’m going to get it off my chest,” the singer says. “5G phones trapped on limited 5G networks. But you can make a difference.”
In the commercial’s second half, Dolly calls on Miley for an anthemic musical call to #DoItForThePhones, with the younger star belting out an impassioned plea for phone users everywhere to make the switch.
On a more serious note, Dolly dropped the next single off her Run Rose Run album, which is a musical companion project to her upcoming new novel of the same name that she co-wrote with author James Patterson. The new song is called “Blue Bonnet Breeze,” and an animated lyric video for thee tune is out today, too.
Dolly’s next album arrives March 4, and the novel follows on March 7. In the meantime, fans can catch her T-Mobile ad during the Super Bowl, which will take place this Sunday, February 13.
If you had a song on your upcoming album called “My Valentine,” wouldn’t you release it before February 14? Of course you would — and of course, that’s just what Michael Bublé has done.
“My Valentine” was originally written and recorded by none other than Paul McCartney, and the rock legend actually produced Michael’s version of the song for Michael’s forthcoming album Higher. He’s also given it his thumbs up on social media.
Paul wrote on Twitter, “With Valentines Day approaching I’d like to turn you on to a great version of ‘My Valentine’ by @MichaelBuble. I was lucky to be at one of the recording sessions in New York when he sung [sic] it and I think he did a really good job of it so make sure you check it out.”
Meanwhile, Michael posted a photo of himself in the studio with Paul, and wrote, “It was an honor and a dream come true to work with Sir @paulmccartney on #MyValentine. Thank you so much for producing this song.”
Higher will be out March 18th.
Paul wrote “My Valentine” for his 2012 album Kisses on the Bottom, and sang it at the Grammy Awards that year. It was inspired by something his wife Nancy said to him when they were on vacation and stuck in their hotel room on a rainy day.
Rush‘s best-selling, multi-platinum 1981 album Moving Pictures is being reissued in celebration of its 40th anniversary.
The expanded package will be released in a number of different formats — including the elaborate Super Deluxe Edition — on April 15.
Inside the Super Deluxe, you’ll find the 2015 remastered version of Moving Pictures on CD for the first time, plus two discs of previously unreleased live recordings from a 1981 hometown concert in Toronto. An additional disc features Blu-ray audio of Moving Pictures, along with a new “YYZ” video and remastered video promos for “Tom Sawyer,” “Limelight” and “Vital Signs.”
The Moving Pictures album and the Toronto live recordings are also spread across five vinyl LPs.
In addition to all the music, the Super Deluxe boasts a number of exclusive memorabilia items, including a pair of signature Neil Peart drumsticks, metal-embossed guitar picks engraved with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson‘s signatures, and a 44-page hardcover book of unreleased photos and new artwork.
The book also includes liner notes by Soundgarden‘s Kim Thayil, Primus‘ Les Claypool, Foo Fighters‘ Taylor Hawkins, Mastodon‘s Bill Kelliher, and Three Days Grace‘s Neil Sanderson.
The 40th anniversary Moving Pictures reissue is available for pre-order now. For the full track-listings and all configuration details, visit Rush.com.
The wait is over! After much fan speculation, Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott have revealed the name of their new baby boy.
On Friday, Kylie shared the name on her Instagram Story: Wolf Webster.
Like his big sister Stormi, Wolf takes his dad’s last name — Travis’ birth name is Jacques Webster.
Kylie announced Wolf’s birth on Sunday night, sharing a black-and-white photo of the newborn’s hand along with the caption, “2/2/22.” The baby boy was born just a day after Stormi turned four.
Kylie, 24, and Travis, 30, revealed they were expecting baby number two back in September.
Paul McCartney has contributed a bass part to a new song called “Home” by The Umoza Music Project, an international collective featuring various singers from the African country of Malawi collaborating with over a dozen U.K. musicians.
“Home” is the lead single and title track of The Umoza Music Project’s upcoming second album, both of which are due out May 6.
The Home album, which will be available on CD, vinyl and digital formats, features the Malawian artists singing in their native language, Chichewa, and was put together remotely with the various musical contributors.
The song marks the first time that McCartney has played bass as a guest musician on an African language track. Sir Paul recorded his part while in lockdown in the U.K. during the sessions for his latest solo album, McCartney III.
“Home” will also be released as a limited-edition single on 7-inch and 10-inch vinyl. Proceeds from the discs will benefit Malawian musicians.
“I’ve always loved African music so when I was asked to do this I jumped at the chance and ended up playing my Hofner bass on this cool song,” McCartney says in a statement. “It was great to collaborate with these excellent African musicians.”
John Tobin, founder and producer of The Umoza Music Project, adds, “[Paul has] helped us create us a great track and lead single, and it’ll bring these beautiful Malawian voices to the attention of many more music lovers around the world than we would have reached otherwise.”
Tobin, who was born in Malawi but raised in the U.K., began The Umoza Music Project in 2010 as a collaboration with a Malawian singer/songwriter named Max Jere. A documentary about the project currently is in the works. Visit PaulMcCartney.com and UmozaMusic.com for more information.
Janet Jackson‘s bold new documentary has had a ripple effect on her music, boosting her streaming numbers by over 100 percent.
Billboardreports Janet’s streams have skyrocketed by 109 percent since her eponymous four-part documentary premiered on A&E and Lifetime in late January, during which she provides honest insights on her career, controversies, upbringing and more. By February 3, fans streamed her songs 10.6 million times. The most listened-to single was “That’s the Way Love Goes,” clocking 778,000 streams in the U.S. alone. Other songs enjoying a major bump in numbers are “All for You,” “Control,” “Any Time, Any Place” and “Nasty.”
Janet also enjoyed a major boost in sales. “That’s the Way Love Goes” leads the pack, with fans snatching up 1,300 copies. Securing the second-most sales was “All For You,” with 1,100 copies sold. “Rhythm Nation,” “Escapade” and “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” also sold over 1,000 downloads each.
Janet’s album sales also jumped by 17,000 units. The leader is Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, with 4,000 copies of it flying off the shelves.
According to Nielsen, 2.8 million people tuned in to watch part one of Janet Jackson, the documentary when it premiered on January 28, and it amassed an additional 1.2 million views via digital download or on demand. Parts two through four were respectively seen by 4.3 million, 3.7 million and 3.8 million people when they aired for the first time.
No other nonfiction offering on A&E and Lifetime amassed such numbers since 2019’s Surviving R. Kelly.
