Kanye West has finished filming of the music video for his new single Power. Its director Marco Brambilla described the clip as “apocalyptic”, adding that it features Kanye West with a chain around his neck, nude females and an executioner.

“It had this very dark, personal conflict within it. Because of Kanye West’s own concept of celebrity and his own notoriety, he’s keenly self-aware of all these things. And it all came out in the music”, said Marco Brambilla.

Director added that Kanye West himself suggested an idea for music video and he liked it very much because it was “very personal”.

Power is the first single from Kanye West’s upcoming new album. This week rapper announced that the record would not be released under the name Good Ass Job – although he is still thinking about new title.

Kanye West already performed three songs from his upcoming album at the Facebook headquarters. Rapper played tracks Lost In The World, Chain Gang and Mama’s Boyfriend during a special show for the companies’ employees.

Rapper’s new album is set to be released in September. According to Billboard, the album will feature tracks produced by Q-Tip, Pete Rock and Wu Tang Clan’s RZA.

Kanye West’s previous album 808′s And Heartbreak hit the stores in 2008.

Some new information about upcoming Michael Jackson’s album was revealed. It will feature 10 remastered versions of earlier unreleased songs by late King of Pop. The album is set to hit the stores in November.

It will be produced by Michael Jackson’s brother Jackie and Rodney Jerkins, who is famous for his work with such artists as Britney Spears, Spice Girls, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Janet Jackson, Beyonce and others. Jerkins also produced Michael Jackson’s album Invincible that hit the stores in 2001.

There were rumors earlier that Michael Jackson was working on the new album before his death.

Michael Jackson has died from a heart attack last year on June 25 at the age of 50.

To be in love is like jumping off a cliff with no intent on looking down at the bottom. You don t care its going to hurt like hell if you hit the bottom, all you care about is that for just that moment of time…you felt like you could fly. ~Rain~

Jimi Hendrix, a guitar-riff master, instrumental virtuoso and musical revolutionist, leaf us a huge legacy that we are unable to measure, or value in its full scale. Now that we are living in 2010, and several decades have passed after his death, what else can we require or expect from the great musician? It occurred that even nowadays the music market may offer us a new Jimi Hendrix album. And this is Valleys Of Neptune, a record released by the Experience Xendrix company. It is owned by the legend’s stepsister named Janie. This CD features twelve tracks. They are peculiar due to the fact that every one of them was recorded by Jimi and his band The Experience shortly before the outfit’s collapse. This world is one more relic excavated to tell us something else about one of the most outstanding musicians and his art that formed a whole separate civilization named Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix means perfect

The songs off Valleys Of Neptune were collected separately from different sets made by Jimi during his working with The Experience. By that moment, the celebrated guitarist seemed to have used every single advantage of that cooperation; and some of the compositions clearly demonstrate his desire to work individually. You can hear it particularly well when Jimi rages through the drums and bass sections with his blues solos specially put ahead of the other instruments as if he was trying to get out of the music played by The Experience. Hendrix’s most loyal fans will recognize some of the presented songs because they might have heard them, named differently, before. The best known pieces are Stone Free, Fire, and Red House. However, this album has all the tracks mixed so that they sound to make you feel standing in the first row almost reaching the star. The rest of the material is worth listening at least because this is Jimi’s material. Even when he is straightforwardly improvising or fooling around with his guitar, his performance drives crazy. These songs are impossible to form an integral stylistic unity for eve their own existence is the result of Jimi Hendrix’s creative research and experimentation.

Genius has no rating

How can we rate a wok of a genius, if this is the genius who has set the bar for all the others to try to reach? What is the scale, the system of rating for us to use to evaluate Jimi Hendrix’s songs, if even the best pieces performed by his follower were made with the focus on his own music? Valleys Of Neptune does not need a thorough analysis, criticizing or studying. What this album needs is your listening because it is made to bring you a sheer pleasure. The given studio work is just an unexpected present to the great guitarist’s fans, one more walk with the legend. This is not the artist’s best or worst effort. You will be wrong to say that Jimi’s discography would suffer a great loss without it as it is full of masterful examples of rock-music. But will there be a single Jimi Hendrix fan who will say this album should not be in his CD collection? This because you are always ready to have another record of your favorite artist, one like Jimi, even if you have already got a great lot of CDs. Those unfamiliar with this kind of music may easily skip this release. But those who love this guy’s music and rock-music in general, will certainly not regret the time spent on Valleys Of Neptune.

Alex Bartholomew

Alicia Keys, Shakira and The Black Eyed Peas are set to perform at the upcoming concert at the Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg. This event will take place to mark the start of the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa. The show is scheduled for June 10 – the day before the official opening ceremony.

Named Kick-Off Celebration, the concert will also feature John Legend, The Parlotones and a number of African musicians.

FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke said: «We are thrilled to have a concert of such magnitude and performing talent raise the curtain on the FIFA World Cup in Africa. It is testament to the universal and unifying power of football and music, and will start the competition off on the right note – of celebration».

Upcoming tournament will be the 19th FIFA World Cup and the first one to be held in Africa.

Michael Jackson’s public memorial service is set to be visited by a number of music celebrities. Stevie Wonder and Mariah Carey were announced to take part in it, as well as Jennifer Hudson and Usher. Basketball stars Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson will also participate in the ceremony.

Earlier it was announced that memorial service would be visited only by Jackson’s family and close friends, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Diana Ross.

The ceremony itself will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles today, on July 7. 11,000 free tickets for the memorial service were raffled through the Web, as well as an additional 6,500 tickets to Nokia Theatre, where the service will be shown on video screens. The ceremony will be also broadcasted live all over the world.

The event was staged by Grammy Awards producer Ken Ehrlich and Kenny Ortega, the director of the Michael Jackson’s series of concerts in London.

US rapper Dizzee Rascal announced plans to release a biography book this year. Titled The Dizzee Rascal Story, it will be published in October by Dirtee Books – recently established publishing brunch of the rapper’s Dirtee Stank label.

It is not clear if Dizzee Rascal will write the book himself or not. The official statement says: «Not only is Dizzee Rascal is one of the most talented and innovative musicians alive today, he is one of the most articulate and opinionated – as his lyrics testify… It promises to be a genuinely groundbreaking book».

The biography will be released in audiobook format. Hardback version is set to hit the stores in 2011, featuring exclusive photos and lyrics by Dizzee Rascal.

Dizzee Rascal’s last to date album Tongue N’ Cheek hit the stores in 2009.

Justin Timberlake revealed that new clothing line, which he designed for fashion house William Rast, was inspired by The Rolling Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger. According to former ‘N Sync member, Jagger represents «blatant correlation between music and fashion», and he tried to follow this fashion in his designs.

«I think since the beginning of rock and roll, people have wanted to dress like rock stars. I still find old Mick Jagger jackets that I wish I could pull out of his closet or something. Of course, they wouldn’t fit me», claimed he.

Timberlake also agreed that he was more interested in fashion than in music in recent times. His last studio album FutureSex/LoveSounds was released in 2006. However, he performed a number of notable collaborations during last years, such as working on Madonna’s Hard Candy album in 2008.

This has finally happened! The R&B veterans, Britain-based outfit Sade, did deliver one more studio effort. It is almost eternity that lies between this release and the previous album, Lovers Rock (2000). Might be that the amazing band’s followers did spend eternity waiting for this sacred day. On the other hand, they should have been ready for that. Sade make their albums according to a very specific schedule; and you never know when they will be through with their next record. Indeed, within the last twenty years, the British R&B stars have released only three long-players. And you are wrong if you think the reason for that is a packed concert timetable and an endless festival streak. The true reason is that the ensemble’s leader, singer Sade Adu is a very peculiar person who needs a hard-to-reach soul condition to do music; and this inspiration sometimes takes years to find. So, now, that many assumed Sade had finally vanished off the stage, the band surfaced all of a sudden with the sixth album, Soldier Of Love.

Soldier Of Love: a different music from the same Sade

The first thing to say is that the Sade music, once and long ago established as R&B, in fact goes far beyond the boundaries of the genre. There is no surprise that the new album’s material has many things not be found on the previous works by the British musicians. The very first composition, the impressive The Moon And The Sky, is a full demonstration of that as it is opened with a guitar intro so strange for the band’s manner. However, the following track, the title song Soldier Of Love, begins with a drumbeat taking us right to the battle field, and reminds us of the band’s classical hits. It is very likely that it will become the CD’s trademark. After that, Sade carefully cross the line and step into the realm they did not search before. Long Hard Road features Sade’s vocals that bring some associations with spiritual; while Be That Easy is a tribute to the country music. It is amazing how inconspicuous nuances diversify Sade’s sounding and widen their stylistic horizons. In the meantime, the singer does a tremendous job putting her soul and heart into every verse and word. If Soldier Of Love is the beginning of a story, The Safest Place is a perfect logical conclusion of it. Thus, on listening to this record, you do not feel that the musicians have kept something in secret, or, visa versa, said too much to bore you with something that should not be here.

A masterpiece every ten years?

The Sade’s new record lasts less than forty three minutes and includes ten tracks. This means that the band could not alternate good songs with mere fillers as the listener does not have much music left to enjoy. Anyway, you may forget to worry about improper compositions on the CD. Soldier Of Love is a powerful work whose parts can and should be taken as a whole. From the beginning of the first track up to the ending of the last one, it is a top quality piece of music crowned by Sade’s vocals. Those who adore the British band’s old albums like Promise (1985) or Stronger Than Pride (1987), will find here something that will please them too. You have to admit, the Sade’s fresh long player is far from continuation of what was sung and played on those CDs. Yet the band was courageous enough to add new elements to the music; and it was done so skillfully that the classic sound of Sade’s was not harmed. It became more diversified, interesting; and everything that fascinated the British ensemble’s old supporters is still preserved here. In a word, the record where love is another was and a broken hearts is another soldier to die there is a complete success. Will this be another ten-year waiting?

Alex Bartholomew

Gil Scott-Heron is a person whom many established representatives of the today hip-hop culture name as their teacher and precursor of the music they work with now. Of course, Gil himself never did rap, yet his art prepared what was needed for the birth of this genre. This musician’s best works came from the remote seventies and eighties when Gil was actively performing a music fusing elements of soul, blues and jazz. His lyrics were strongly political and often associated with the black militant movement. You may ask yourself endless times why the sixty-year-old Scott-Heron decided to come back; yet you got to face the fact: his new work, I’m New Here, is his first studio effort in the last fifteen years. May the number of the featured tracks not misguide you! All the fifteen songs presented here are tightly packed within the limits of thirty minutes. But you may be sure: the old timer Gil did say what he wanted and felt necessary to say.

A half-an-hour story of all life

It does not take a genius to understand that there is a vast stylistic abyss lying between this record and the artist’s other efforts released so many years ago. Jazz and soul are rather obscure ghost-like shapes here than distinct and prominent characters. You’ll get it when you taste the opener, On Coming From A Broken Home (Part 1) backed by Kanye West’s sample. The music fabric of Scott-Heron’s new album is made of quite simplistic electronic beats while the leading part, as always before, is assigned to the vocals that even in the best years were never technically flawless. But there is no need for singing perfection here. The listener will be touched not by the undoubted sincerity of the one who sings. Although many tracks on the new record were not penned by Gil himself, the selection of the composition was conducted in such way that together they sound like the singer’s autobiographical work. I’ll Take Care of You is a smashing soul-styled composition that turned in the artist’s confession to all fatal mistakes he has made. It is not an easy task to adjust oneself to understand and accept New York Is Killing Me. The gloomy spirit of the song makes you believe that Gil is not acting like somebody, but merely lets out all the remorse and regret accumulated throughout these uneasy years.

New songs in the old manner

The times have changed; and Gil Scott-Heron could no longer sing about what once was the core of his artistic ideology. I’m New Here is not a moral code or collection of political slogans. Sixty is an age when many start looking back and rethinking what they wanted to do and what they eventually have done. These are thoughts that are put into Scott-Heron’s new album. However, while these songs are filled with new themes and problems, all of them preserved the unchangeable manner of performance, gust of emotions, flame of passion, impartiality and frankness. Who is the one to listen to the confession of the Godfather of Rap? Is it God? Listeners? Himself? These thirty minutes are enough for everyone to find his or her own answer to this question. This record is not easy to perceive as it gives more thoughts to ponder over than music to listen to. Chances are tiny that it will please all those who like the music Gil once helped to enter this world. Yet this work is interesting by its definition and may find its fans even among those who have never associated themselves with such music.

Alex Bartholomew