Enrique Iglesias suffered a drone slice …
Enrique probably could have done with a hero of his own on Sunday night when his hand was sliced on stage by the rotor blades of a drone. Showing his technological prowess during recent live shows, the pop star has been incorporating a quadcopter camera drone, lifting the flying device above his head as it films him and the audience. During a Tijuana gig, however, it all went wrong when he tried to let go of the pesky thing, got his fingers cut and ended up bleeding profusely as confetti rocketed out into the crowd.
… And now may need weeks to recover
Oh, right – maybe this wasn’t just a quirky, light-hearted story after all. Enrique’s drone injury turned out to be more serious than we’d initially thought. He suffered a fracture and will need weeks to recover, according to an official statement from “Team Enrique”, posted on his website. One insider has said that he may never fully recover the full sensation in the injured digit.
Ennio Morricone said the standard of film scores has fallen
We can’t all be 88-year-old legendary composers with honorary lifetime achievement Oscars on our mantlepieces and hundreds of credits on the scores of monumental films. But Morricone certainly is, and that puts him in a better position than most to throw shade at modern-day film score composers. He lambasted the use of “amateur” composers and electronic instrumentation, believing it’s a cost-cutting enterprise that ultimately brings down the quality of the final result. Fair play, Ennio.
Wu-Tang’s GZA wrote about the loss of lyricism in rap
It’s hard out there for a true lyricist, if we’re to believe the general thrust of Wu-Tang Clan rapper GZA’s argument in a recent blogpost. He wrote about mainstream rap’s intellectual void in a piece on self-publishing site Medium – perhaps he’s not enjoying the new Kendrick Lamar album? In any case, here’s a quote from the article:
I think sometimes most rappers’ imaginations are sterile. I can write about anything and it will be interesting.
The 1975 pulled off a publicity stunt
In what some have labelled a pointless attention grab, and others a brilliant stunt, indie-rock band the 1975 erased themselves from social media … before returning a day later. You’d be forgiven for not knowing who this band are or why this is news, but it’s nice to know that bands are still willing to play around with the usual PR shtick.
Idris Elba rapped on a remix of Skepta’s Shutdown
Skepta made good on one of Elba’s tweets from earlier this year, using him as a featured vocalist on track Shutdown. The song’s already had its dose of star treatment outside the grime scene: Skepta performed it during a last-minute Kanye West gig in London in March, and now it’s been opened up to Luther and Wire fans, who may not previously have been aware of Skepta’s work.
@Skepta Put me on the Remix!!!!!! cus I SHUT DOWN prime TV on the Regular😎. pic.twitter.com/z6DprRSmSt
— Idris Elba (@idriselba) March 19, 2015
Janet Jackson announced her return
Janet Jackson may have been largely absent from the music scene in the years since 2008’s Discipline – but her influence can be found throughout the worlds of R&B and pop. The singer’s first new material in seven years was confirmed this week, with the artist announcing a “worldwide partnership” with BMG, including an autumn album and the launch of her own new label, Rhythm Nation. Not much else is known about the music, although a teaser video has promised “new music, new world tour, a new movement”. She also added, “I’ve been listening”, which presumably suggests she will be further developing her ever-experimental future-R&B sound, or could be a wry warning to the likes of Ciara, FKA twigs, Tinashe et al.
Iggy Azalea is knackered
Barely a week goes by without the Aussie rapper’s involvement in some kind of media monsoon – be it musically, personally or Papa Johns-related. The last two years appear to have taken it out of Azalea, who has cancelled the remainder of her arena tour owing to the strains of bring a pop star. “To be honest with you, I just feel I deserve a break,” she explained to a teen magazine. “I’ve been going non-stop for the past two years, nearly every single day. I’m not in a bad place. I think sometimes when you say you need a mental break, people are like, ‘A mental break? Be sure you don’t have a breakdown because you’re sad.’” She also cited her “creative change of heart”, which we can only presume is the dawning realisation that she is partly responsible for Pretty Girls.
The birthplace of garage gets a Foxtons makeover
The estate agents we love to hate inspired some additional vitriol this week when news got out that a 250-year-old London pub, said to be the birthplace of UK garage, is to be turned into a Foxtons estate agents. The Elephant & Castle pub was the home of Happy Days in the 90s, a legendary indoor rave, and will soon become a sterile shop floor replete with mini fridges full of fizzy drinks. Hopefully, the ghosts of Matt Jam Lamont and other seminal figures will haunt the Foxtons bogs for life.
Sun Kil Moon singer Mark Kozelek got served
When journalist Laura Snapes posed Kozelek some questions for an email interview, it prompted a surprisingly spiteful response from the Sun Kil Moon singer. “There’s this girl named Laura Snapes, she’s a journalist. She’s out to do a story on me, has been contacting a lot of people that know me,” he told a London audience earlier this week, before repeating the line: “Laura Snapes totally wants to fuck me / get in line, bitch … Laura Snapes totally wants to have my babies.”
Her full interview with the artist was published in G2 – but we’ll leave you with this particularly poignant excerpt to wrap up the week:
In this life, Kozelek trades in sucker-punches. He impugns online “bitching and whining”, but hides behind one-way email exchanges, balks at the idea of his peers speaking about him and issues tirades (and, sometimes, sexual advances) from the cowardly remove of the stage, with the get-out clause that it’s a performance. He can use sexually violent language to reduce female critics to the status of groupies, knowing that while male musicians’ misogynist acts are examined for nuance and defended as traits of “difficult” artists, women and those who call them out are treated as hysterics who don’t understand art.
