After a five-year layoff and battling with mental-health issues, Isaiah Rashad is ready to bare his soul on his new album, The House Is Burning.
Fans quickly predicted that the album would be some of this best work yet, after the Chattanooga rapper shared the cover art and release date on Instagram on Wednesday. The cover features a house engulfed in orange flames.
“Album of the Year,” wrote one fan in the comments, while another said, “It’s about…time.” Yet another said, “Five years zay has returned.”
The House Is Burning will be Rashad’s first album since 2016’s acclaimed TheSun’s Tirade, which peaked at #4 on Billboard‘s Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart and at #2 on the Top Rap Albums chart. The new record will feature his electric single “Lay wit Ya” featuring fellow Tennessean Duke Deuce, and the smooth track “Headshots (4r Da Locals),” in which Rashad discusses being in a healthy mental space.
Ed Sheeran fans know that the singer’s body is his own personal canvas that he’s completely covered with tattoos. But somehow, he’s found space on his body for a couple more images to commemorate some of his recent milestones.
British tabloid The Sun quotes Ed as saying, “I got some vampire teeth on my shoulder for the [‘Bad Habits] video and an orca for Antarctica.” Orcas, or killer whales, can be found in Antarctica; Ed and his wife, Cherry, conceived their daughter while visiting that continent in December of 2019. They subsequently named her Lyra Antarctica.
Fans first spotted the whale tattoo in an Instagram post a few weeks ago: It’s located on the underside of Ed’s left arm, above his armpit.
As for the vampire teeth, in the “Bad Habits” video, he plays a glam-rock vampire with spiky blond hair, glittery eyes and a pink suit.
Ed reportedly added about his extensive ink, “I am completely covered in the weirdest, most colorful tattoos and that is the thing no one can get their head around, apart from my wife. Everyone says I look like a melted crayon. But I love them. I love that any time something random happens, I put it on my body.”
Ed’s other tattoos include images of a Heinz ketchup logo, an enormous lion, a koala, a goat, a painting by Henri Matisse, a teddy bear, a Kiwi bird, a gecko, a pair of glasses, a cup of tea, a maple leaf, a phoenix, two characters from the Shrek movies, three boxing gloves and around 50 more.
Old Dominion grabs your attention from the very beginning of their top-twenty hit, “I Was on a Boat That Day.” But what exactly is the seemingly nonsensical, exotic-sounding phrase that starts off the song?
There’s an amazingly simple explanation, but Brad Tursi says first, you need to understand the mood the five guys in the band were in at the time: They’d fled Nashville to isolate themselves in a house and recording studio in Asheville, North Carolina — and they were getting a little wild.
“Honestly, that song, we wrote it, obviously, the same day we recorded it,” Brad recalls. “We went upstairs, we had some tequila, we were in a fun kind of crazy mood.”
“Usually you start every song, you find the tempo, and you have a click track and it’s easier to edit…” Brad continues. “But we kind were discussing it and someone was like, ‘Forget [it]… No clicks!’ And then [lead singer] Matt [Ramsey] just went, ‘One, two!’ So we just played it right off his count off, and that’s how this crazy thing in the beginning started.”
With lyrics like “drunk as a skunk eating lunch with a cross-eyed bear,” the antics don’t end there, but Trevor Rosen reveals there is a message in the song.
“It’s just a guy who needs to put some things behind him, right?” he says. “I think this character in our story is much like the world that we live in… He’s trying to get past a tough time. So what better way to do that than to get on a boat and get away from it all?”
“I Was on a Boat That Day” is the lead single from OD’s as-yet-unannounced fourth album, the follow-up to 2019’s self-titled Old Dominion.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Beauty and the Beat, the debut album by The Go-Go’s.
The album spent six weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200, making The Go-Go’s the only all-female band whose members played their own instruments to ever top that chart.
Beauty and the Beat featured two of the group’s biggest hits, “Our Lips Are Sealed,” which peaked at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100, and “We Got the Beat,” considered the band’s signature tune, which reached #2.
Go-Go’s keyboardist/guitarist Charlotte Caffey, who wrote or co-wrote eight of the album’s 11 tracks, including “We Got the Beat,” tells ABC Audio that she’s extremely proud of Beauty and the Beat‘s success.
“The fact that it really stayed [at #1] for six weeks…Wow, come on,” she gushes. “I mean, from where we started, we were girls. No one wanted to hear from girls, did they? — I guess they did — But yeah, that was a whole overwhelming moment.”
The album was co-produced by Richard Gottehrer, who also produced Blondie‘s first two records and co-wrote such classic ’60s pop hits as “Hang On Sloopy,” “I Want Candy” and “My Boyfriend’s Back.”
Caffey says working with Gottehrer “was like being in a master class,” and credits his pop sensibilities for helping to make the album sound great.
Charlotte recalls that Gottehrer “wanted us to do slower tempos than what we were playing live, so we could really understand the lyrics and let the melodies…come through.”
Caffey says the band members initially were angry that the recordings didn’t capture the group’s live sound, but she notes that when she heard “how those songs sparkled on the radio, then I understood.”
Here’s the Beauty and the Beat track list:
“Our Lips Are Sealed”
“How Much More”
“Tonite”
“Lust to Love”
“This Town”
“We Got the Beat”
“Fading Fast”
“Automatic”
“You Can’t Walk in Your Sleep (If You Can’t Sleep)”
“Skidmarks on My Heart”
“Can’t Stop the World”
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell has revealed that The Dirty Knobs, the current band he fronts, will be back with their second album next year, when the group also is scheduled to return to touring.
In a recent message on his Twitter page, Campbell announced, “The Dirty Knobs are coming to your town next year with some special guests and a brand new album…Our second!”
The band’s debut album, Wreckless Abandon, was released in November 2020, and the group initially had a run of headlining dates in small venues, as well as a stint opening for country star Chris Stapleton, lined up for this year, but both were pushed back until 2022.
According to TheDirtyKnobs.com, the headlining concerts are scheduled from a March 9 show in Tampa, Florida, through an April 30-May 1 stand in Austin, Texas. The group then will lend support to Stapleton starting with June 2 performance in Nampa, Idaho, and mapped out through a July 23 event at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.
YouTube Originals new four-part docuseries Ice Cold— which premieres today — uses the prism of hip-hop jewelry to explore deeper issues around racial inequality and the American Dream, but it didn’t exactly start out that way. Director Karam Gill tells ABC Audio that the initial idea behind the project was to use jewelry as an entry point to explore hip hop.
“Hip hop has been explored through fashion, it’s been explored through so many different avenues but not specifically jewelry,” the LA-based filmmaker shares. “The project ended up where it’s at right now just over the course of time. That story became less about just flash and prices. It’s so much deeper.”
“… You start to realize ‘Wow this is actually a conversation about the American Dream… the perception of people based on where they come from or the economic reality of where they’re from and how our society views people,'” he explains.
Gill goes on to note how pianist Liberace and actress Elizabeth Taylor, both of European descent, were viewed differently for adorning themselves in elaborate jewelry compared to someone like Jamaican rapper Slick Rick. “Why is that? What does that say about us?” he asks.
While Ice Cold shines a light on some of society’s inequalities, it also dives into the hip hop subculture through a variety of different lenses — from the point-of-view of some of the genre’s biggest names like Migos, City Girls, and Lil Baby to top celebrity jewelers like Ben Baller and Johnny Dang.
The overall goal of the docuseries, though, is “to provide context.”
“I think people will have appreciation,” Gill says. “I don’t think people will be writing off rappers, hopefully, as much anymore for expressing themselves.”
(LONDON) — Haitian President Jovenel Moise was killed in an attack at his home before dawn on Wednesday, the country’s interim premier said.
A group of unidentified individuals raided Moise’s private residence in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, at around 1 a.m. local time. They gunned down the 53-year-old head of state and wounded his wife, Martine Moise, who remains hospitalized, according to a statement from Haitian interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph.
Joseph, who condemned what he called a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act,” said that the Caribbean country’s national police force and military had the situation under control and declared a state of emergency.
Late Wednesday, Haiti’s communications secretary said in a tweet that police have arrested the “presumed assassins,” but Frantz Exantus did not provide further details about Wednesday’s slaying or say how many suspects had been arrested. He said more information was forthcoming.
Reaction has been pouring in from around the world condemning the assassination, including from U.S. President Joe Biden, who called the situation “very worrisome.”
Reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, Haiti has also been in the midst of a constitutional crisis as Moise and opposition leaders disputed the end of his five-year presidential term and legislative elections remained interminably delayed.
Addressing the nation in a televised speech, Joseph called on the people of Haiti to “stay calm.” He chaired a meeting of the government’s ministers Wednesday morning, although the country’s line of succession is unclear, especially given its recent political turmoil.
“All the ministers and I have been working since the news broke and we want to assure you we will bring the killers of the president to justice,” he said. “Please stay calm and let the authorities do their work. We don’t want the country to plunge into chaos. This is a very sad day for our nation and for our people.”
The assailants, who remain at large, were “well-trained commandos” who were speaking Spanish and most likely came from outside Haiti, according to Bocchit Edmond, Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. The group was “highly trained and heavily armed,” according to Joseph, who called for an urgent United Nations Security Council meeting and an international investigation into the attack.
Edmond said the Haitian government had video evidence of the group speaking Spanish. He also said they claimed to be agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which Edmond rejected. He urged the U.S. to provide security assistance not just for the immediate investigation, but also to boost Haitian security forces against armed gangs and a porous border.
First lady Martine Moise is in stable but critical condition, according to Edmond, and she was to be moved to a Miami hospital for treatment at some point Wednesday.
The streets of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince were largely deserted Wednesday and Toussaint Louverture International Airport has been closed in the wake of the assassination.
The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince was also closed Wednesday, including for consular services, “due to an ongoing security situation,” it said in a security alert. The embassy also said it is restricting its American staff to its compounds “until further notice” and urged members of the public to avoid unnecessary travel to the area.
U.S. officials are “still gathering information” on the deadly attack, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, offering U.S. assistance “if there’s an investigation.”
“We’re still assessing, still gathering information, and the president of course will be briefed by his national security team this morning,” she said.
Hours later, the White House issued a statement from Biden condemning “this heinous act.”
“I am sending my sincere wishes for First Lady Moïse’s recovery. The United States offers condolences to the people of Haiti, and we stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti,” the statement said.
Haiti has been in a state of chaos for months now, with frequent gunfire and street skirmishes between armed groups, political demonstrations and strikes, and a coronavirus wave never brought under control. Cases of the virus were as high last month as they were one year ago, and the country has yet to distribute a single vaccine dose or receive any shipments from COVAX, the international program to provide vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.
That’s in part because of the governing crisis roiling Haiti. The country’s political opposition had argued that Moise’s five-year presidential term ended this February — five years after his election victory, but four years after he took office — while he said he had one more year left because the disputed 2016 election delayed his inauguration until 2017.
Moise had been governing by decree since January 2020, after the country failed to hold legislative elections and the legislature’s mandate expired. Opposition leaders accused him of wanting to return Haiti to a dictatorship.
Earlier this year, Moise ordered the retirement of three Supreme Court judges and the arrest of nearly two dozen people, including prominent officials, who he alleged were plotting a coup. Violent protests against Moise erupted, prompting the president to declare a state of emergency in parts of the country in March.
The political instability in addition to economic woes and escalating gang violence have undermined efforts to rebuild Haiti from a devastating earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
While the Biden administration backed Moise’s claim to have one more year in office, it had grown increasingly vocal in its opposition to his “one-man rule,” in the words of the top U.S. diplomat for the Western Hemisphere, including governing by decrees and refusing to hold those legislative elections.
While the White House has said it will provide Haiti some of the initial 80 million COVID-19 vaccines it has promised to share overseas, it has yet to announce when it will do so — with the worsening security situation now making it that much harder.
ABC News’s Christine Theodorou, Molly Nagle, and Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Congressional Democrats are eyeing a swift timeline for Senate approval of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan, aiming to have the legislation on the floor as early as the week of July 19, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.
The details of the timeline, including a push to have legislative language ready for consideration by Friday, were discussed among Democratic congressional aides and Louisa Terrell, the head of White House Legislative Affairs, and her deputy, Shuwanza Goff on a call Wednesday, the sources said.
The next hurdle for the bipartisan group of more than 20 co-sponsors, led by Sens Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz, and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, would be to obtain an official analysis of their bill by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which crunches the numbers to see if proposed revenue would cover the desired new spending. That process takes time and usually far longer than most think or want.
The White House call and July 19 timeline were first reported by Politico.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he wants the bipartisan package considered before the August recess. He said a sweeping — potentially $5 trillion — budget bill containing a blueprint for the top priorities of the administration and congressional Democrats, like child and elder care, Medicare expansion and climate change policies, would eventually be considered just after the monthlong summer recess.
The latter bill — a budget resolution laying the groundwork for a so-called reconciliation bill that would be crafted under arcane chamber rules that require just a simple majority — would instruct multiple committees to draft pieces of a broader bill. The final product would require unanimous Democratic support in the Senate and nearly every Democrat in the House, given that no Republican is expected to vote for it.
The budget resolution and its directives to committees, which unlocks the reconciliation process, is being crafted by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and is expected to be unveiled early next week, according to two Democratic sources familiar with the matter.
Sanders has acknowledged the broad range of views among his Democratic panel members and caucus colleagues, conceding weeks ago that his ambitious price tag might need to shrink to win support.
The timeline for all of this is incredibly bold as Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempt to appease disparate factions of their caucuses. And Pelosi has insisted that she will hold onto any bipartisan infrastructure legislation that passes the Senate until that chamber also approves the reconciliation bill.
Moderates like Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have pushed for a far smaller package and urged against dramatically raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for the plan.
And Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has made no secret of the fact that he plans to make it exceedingly difficult for his Democratic counterparts to maintain unity, urging centrist Democrats not to sign onto the sweeping, Democrats-only legislation.
“This is going to be a hell of a fight over what this country ought to look like in the future and that’s all going to unfold here in the next few weeks,” McConnell said Tuesday.”There is a process by which they could pass this bill without a single Republican, but we are going to make it hard for them,” McConnell said at an event Wednesday in his home state. “And there are a few Democrats left in rural America and some others who would like to be more in the political center who may find this offensive.”
The disaster that was Woodstock 1999 is the subject of a new HBO documentary.
The film, titled Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage, is set to premiere July 23. It’ll tell the story of the ill-fated festival, which featured performances by bands including Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit, but became infamous as it erupted into scenes of chaos, violence and sexual assault.
A newly released trailer sets up how poorly planned logistics, including expensive water and shoddy bathroom facilities — “You had kids rolling around in what they thought was mud,” shares one talking head — led to mass dehydration and health risks, which ultimately contributed to the festival’s demise.
The film also explores how Woodstock ’99 reflected what was happening socially and culturally in the U.S. at the time, and how that’s manifested itself in the country today.
“A lot of that energy just wound up in chatrooms and Reddit boards in 2021,” says The New York Times writer Wesley Morris.
Peace, Love, and Rage also features interviews with a variety of artists who performed at Woodstock ’99, including The Offspring, Korn‘s Jonathan Davis and Creed‘s Scott Stapp.
Founding Journey and former Santana member Neal Schon has decided to part with 112 of his valuable guitars, which he’ll be selling at a July 31 auction hosted by Heritage Auctions.
The sale will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Schon joining Santana, as well as celebrate Journey’s return to touring following the COVID-19 pandemic and that group’s plan to release a new album this year.
Among the many guitars going up for bid is the 1977 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Black Solid Body that Schon used to record Journey’s chart-topping 1981 album, Escape, which featured such classic tunes as “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Stone in Love” and “Who’s Crying Now.” The opening bid for the historic instrument is set at $200,000.
Another of Schon’s guitar being auctioned that holds an important spot in Journey history is his 1974 Guild F-50R Natural Acoustic model, which he used to write “Wheel in the Sky” and “Patiently,” among other tunes. The minimum bid for this instrument is $30,000.
Schon also will sell two 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard Sunburst electric guitars, the respective asking prices for which begin at $175,000 and $150,000.
Regarding his decision to sell some of his cherished instruments, Neal explains, “I don’t feel good about having them all in cases, these guitars I’m never going to really play on albums or live or anything. They’re not meant to sit there and look beautiful. Somebody should be utilizing them, and I should allow somebody to, because there are not that many of them around.”
The auction will take place on the same day Journey will perform at the 2021 Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, one of a handful of confirmed concerts the band has scheduled this year.
