Will.I.Am

Beyond Playlist: Michael Jackson and More

Friday Rap-Up: Basementalism, Hip-Hop 4 Obama, 50 Cent, Fat Joe, Juvenile

Yonder Mountain String Band scores the coolest gig at the DNC

Friday Rap-Up: Scribble Jam, BET’s Rap City, Kanye West, T-Pain

Friday Rap-Up: Suge Knight, Outkast, YouTube Live

Suge Knight files lawsuit against Kanye West Former Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight has filed a $135,000 lawsuit against Kanye West for a gunshot wound and a robbery of his diamond-stud earring that occurred at West’s pre-MTV Music Awards party back in August 2005. According to TMZ, Knight bel ... More >>

Rap-Up: The Pirate Signal compared to... will.i.am?

The Pirate Signal recently got off a national tour with 3OH!3 and most of the feedback the duo is getting from their live set include everything from "passionate" to "hyper". That's the great thing about Colorado hip-hop going on tour, seeing how other cities react to the music. But in a recent revi ... More >>

Rearview: The week in review (12/22/08 - 12/25/2008)

Let's hope your Christmas was better than this.   Here's you guide to all the great content on Backbeat Online you might have missed this week while you were busy getting trampled by crazed shoppers at Walmart, heavily drinking or wishing you didn't have to hang with the in-laws.

Long Beach Dub Allstars / Rx Bandits

Wonders of the World (Dreamworks), Progress (Drive Thru)

will.i.am

Songs About Girls

Usher

Here I Stand
LaFace/Sony BMG

The Game

Doctor¹s Advocate
Geffen

John Legend

Once Again
G.O.O.D. Music/Sony Urban Music/Columbia

Fergie

The Dutchess (A&M)

Making Adjustments

What do Justin Timberlake and Thom Yorke have in common?

Critical Fatwa

will.i.am

Critical Fatwa

Michael Stipe

Listen Up

Fast reviews of recent releases

Two for the Future

To hip-hop's OutKast and Black Eyed Peas, the glass is half full.

Murs

Friday, May 29, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 303-830-8497.

Beyond Playlist: Black Eyed Peas and more

The Black Eyed Peas The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) (Interscope) For the most part, the critical intelligentsia has looked askance at the Peas' latest due to its backburnering of the hip-hop style on which the act was founded, as well as the presence of more party-hearty exhortations than consciou ... More >>

Black Eyed Peas' credibility killed in spinning class

​ The Black Eyed Peas' credibility, a mainstay in the genre since 1998's Behind the Front, died on Sunday, in a spinning class at the 24-Hour Fitness by my house. It was eleven-years-old. The credibility, once as strong as any hip-hop group's, has been in poor health since 2003, when Fergie ... More >>

Q&A with DJ Quote

​In the world of hip-hop, mixtapes are the currency of the street, the vehicles that many underground artists use to create exposure and build their names outside the confines of major-label marketing campaigns. By creating a street-level buzz, such artists as 50 Cent have forced mainstream tastem ... More >>

We Are the World 25/2010 performers pull off impressive performance

All right, so we were admittedly skeptical of how this whole "We Are the World" remake was going to turn out with the seemingly random cast of characters organizers assembled. When we first glimpsed the initial list of those present the night of the recording, there were some head scratchers in the ... More >>

Deferred Hat Tip: Belle & Sebastian's Dear Catastrophe Waitress

There's probably a specific type of hell for people like me: I who can name drop a Belle & Sebastian song off the top of their head, can toss their songs onto mix tapes, have owned the majority of their catalog for several years without ever once even thinking about the possibility of maybe listenin ... More >>

B.o.B. (sort of) wins the week

As expected, B.o.B.'s Adventures of Bobby Ray is the number one album in the country this week. Of course, it only needed to sell 84,000 copies to do it. As Billboard notes, this is the first three-week run of no albums breaking 100,000 since February of last year. Cue alarm bells, death of The I ... More >>

American Tomahawk, Chromeo, Black Milk fill our playlists this week

​As people who think about, talk about, listen to and make music, the most common question we encounter is, "What are you listening to right now?" So whether you're looking for recommendations, trying to get a feel for our individual sensibilities, or are just curious, we've compiled a list of ... More >>

If Katy Perry's a bit much for Sesame Street, here's five other acts for PBS to avoid booking

​After being urged to withhold the airing of Katy Perry's appearance on Sesame Street, someone over at PBS clearly needs a guidebook of which musicians not to hire for the show. What were they expecting exactly? Did they miss the whole bit about her kissing a girl and liking it, or that whole ... More >>

A letter to Weezy F. Baby: Welcome back!

Lil Wayne (aka Lil Tunechi, Weezy, Bird Man Jr., Mr. Carter) -- Thank god you're finally free! It has felt like a decade has passed in the pop world since you've been at Rikers. The Black Eyed Peas/Will.I.Am reign of Billboard terror has continued, most recently enveloping one of your own. And ... More >>

Are The Black Eyed Peas still world beaters?

​The last time we heard from will.i.am and friends, they were breaking every singles record known to man. In case you've purged your brain of the memory: In 2009, they had the number one song in the country from April 18 through October 17. "Boom Boom Pow" took roughly the first half of that, ... More >>

5 genres we're forcibly killing right now

Take that, Chillwave.​As we continue to look back on 2010, we are struck by how new labels for increasingly slippery kinds of music all sound like they were written by high freshman lit majors. Many of these attempts are merely useless, but some are worse than that: they wind up justifying shi ... More >>

Black Eyed Peas' 360 degree immersion iPhone video: cool idea, lame execution

​The increasingly taste-free will.i.am has put his brand behind a new company: will.i.apps. They, um, create apps. The first one, called BEP360, is basically a really high-budget ad for the band's shitty new album, The Beginning. The centerpiece of the app is a music video for "The Time (Dirty ... More >>

Super Bowl XLV halftime show prop bets

​There will never be more people watching a musical performance at one time than during the Super Bowl, so it's a good thing they always pick legends. In order, starting the year after Nipplegate: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, the Who and the Black E ... More >>

Local movie theaters back out of showing Electric Daisy Carnival Experience film

​After a riot ensued at Grauman's Chinese Theatre last week for the premiere of Electric Daisy Carnival Experience documentary, nearly all of fifteen local theaters that were originally slated to show the film have backed out of showing it. So now if you want to see the film, which is only s ... More >>

John Legend on the resurgence of soul, touring with Sade and the foibles and fortunes of fame

Catch John Legend tonight at the Pepsi Center with Sade​John Legend considers everything, especially when he's being interviewed. He pauses long enough for you to imagine him considering several inferior answers and tossing them before choosing one that sounds just right. Back in the fall of 2 ... More >>

Rihanna finds love in Calvin Harris, plus a breakdown of this week's charts

​In a weird twist of unexpected collaborations, Rihanna just released her newest single, "We Found Love," which features Calvin Harris on production, last week. Somehow it manages to sound both like a Rihanna song and a Calvin Harris song, and both in their own merit. Could Harris be the new D ... More >>

Ten pop music moments that defined 2011

With major comebacks and massive hits, 2011 was the year of the women, from Beyoncé to Miley Cyrus. Without singers like Adele, we wouldn't have songs to cry along with, and without Katy Perry, we wouldn't have any songs to hum at our nine to five. So what exactly were the biggest pop moments of 20 ... More >>

The problems with SOPA and its sweeping side effects

​Remember that mixtape you made your high school sweetheart? Or that time you taped a movie off cable? Turns out you were breaking the law - you were pirating copyrighted materials without permission. While the statute of limitations is probably long passed on your crimes of teenage passion, ... More >>