Muve Music, for Mobile Users, Thrives in Shadow of Competitors In its shadow, another service, Muve Music, has quietly built one of the largest subscriber bases in the business by going after a part of the market that most digital companies have largely ignored: people who may not have computers at all. Muve, a phone-based music plan sold through Cricket Wireless, offers unlimited song downloads for $10 a month, tucked inconspicuously into a customer’s monthly cellphone bill, which ranges from $55 to $65. In many ways its users defy the conventional profile of a digital music consumer. They are young and urban, yes, but instead of a laptop or a tablet, they use a phone for everything. Since its introduction in January 2011, Muve has signed up 600,000 users, putting it in the league of Rhapsody, which has about one million subscribers, and Spotify. “Cricket’s customer is young, is ethnic, and tends to be middle and lower income,” said Jeff Toig, the senior vice president of Muve Music. But some analysts doubt Muve’s long-term potential.
First Afghanistan female rapper debuts - Entertainment Tuesday, October 09, 2012 | 9:09 AM KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- "Listen to my story! Listen to my pain and suffering!" Afghanistan's first female rapper Sosan Firooz pleads into her microphone. With her first rap song, the outspoken 23-year-old singer is making history in her homeland where society frowns on women who take the stage. She is already shunned by some of her relatives. But for Firooz, the best way to express herself is through rap, a musical genre that is just starting to generate a following in Afghanistan. She sings about repression of women, her hopes for a peaceful Afghanistan and the misery she says she experienced as a small child living in neighbouring Iran. "I remember while we were in Iran, we were called `dirty Afghans' and told to go to the back of the line at the bakery," Firooz, who also spent time as a refugee in Pakistan and returned to Afghanistan with her family seven years ago, told The Associated Press in an interview.
6 Mixer Console Control Apps Offer Complete Control - Hospitality Tech Decisions Mixer specific console control apps recreate physical control boards on your mobile device. By Curtis Emery February 14, 2013 Omnipresence is trait possessed by none, but looked for by everyone. It is a pipe dream to be in complete control of everything, let alone be in all places at once, but it would make our jobs a whole lot easier if it were possible. When it comes to live sound, being in at least two places at once would be nice, three would be ecstasy. In an ideal world, people would communicate better, sound checks would be quicker and the mind behind the mixing console would be able to adjust the mix from any location in the environment to make sure the levels sounded great — no matter where Page 1 of 2 12Next » Comments Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
Music piracy - who’s on the moral high ground? 18 July 2012Last updated at 11:46 ET Google says it already removes two million links a month on requests from rights holders. It's a battle between one of the world's most powerful companies, Google, and the trade body representing British music labels, the BPI. The increasingly bitter confrontation over what responsibility the search firm has to help in the battle against web piracy is the subject of my film for Newsnight on Wednesday evening. The BPI says Google has become a directory for piracy - put Adele or any artist plus MP3 into the search box, and you'll find page after page of unauthorised sites before you come to anything legitimate. I suspect that many of you reading this will come down on Google's side. But don't forget that Google now earns about three times as much in the UK as the entire music industry. He has been running the UK hip-hop label Son Records for more than a decade, battling to keep afloat. "You're right," he said.
Finding musical 'diamonds' in the slums of Paradise City A program in Brazil is offering free classical music training to children in the slumsIt's empowering the children and giving them a chance at a brighter futureThere are 11 million Brazilians living in slums; more than 1 billion worldwide are in slumsTop 10 CNN Hero Thulani Madondo is educating hundreds of slum kids in South Africa Sao Paulo, Brazil (CNN) -- The violin she uses is cheap by most standards: made in China, it costs about $150. But that's an absolute fortune for Yanca Leite. On the day we visited her, the 15-year-old aspiring musician couldn't even afford breakfast. Yanca shares a one-bedroom shack with eight relatives in a sprawling shantytown on the outskirts of Sao Paulo called Paraisopolis, or Paradise City. The narrow path leading to their door is lined with the bottles and cans they collect to supplement their income. "The guy who recycles these bottles didn't pick them up and pay us," Yanca said. But Yanca thinks she has finally discovered her own way out: music.
Beethoven in the Congo: Kinshasa's classical orchestra Violin player Pauleth Masamba has been playing with the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste since the mid-1990s. "Music is one of the things that comforts me, takes off the stress and makes me happy," she says. The Kinshasa-based orchestra holds regular concerts in a bid to inspire a new generation of musicians and help locals to discover the world of classical music. Masamba, like many other members of the orchestra, lives in a typical Kinshasa neighborhood that has unpaved roads and is lined with sewage. Conductor Armand Diangienda (far right) is the founder and conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste. Their rehearsal room, in his house, can barely fit the ensemble of some 200 people. The Kinshasa orchestra does not have enough instruments so these boys must take 20-minute turns while practicing. Rehearsals are frequently interrupted by power blackouts. Rodrick Muamba joins rehearsals after work and aspires to become a world-renowned violinist Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste
Rebel salutes total wellness - Entertainment BY BASIL WALTERS Observer writer waltersb@jamaicaobserver.com Monday, December 31, 2012 MUTABARUKA... urging the media to reverse the negativity (Photos: Karl McLarty) OUTSPOKEN poet/broadcaster Mutabaruka has lauded deejay Tony Rebel for steadfastly promoting positive reggae through his annual Rebel Salute show. Speaking at last Thursday's launch of the January 18-19 show at the Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, Mutabaruka took the media to task for much of the negatives in the Jamaican society, which includes music. "Mi glad fi see Tony Rebel a use a reggae show to project the importance of disease prevention. "Just like how Rebel keep a show with cultural artistes wey a sey something positive, we need the concerted effort of everybody. Patrons attending the 20th Rebel Salute will experience a a number of firsts. The conscious showcase will also be held over two days, and will includes a health and wellness family expo offering an array of lifestyle information and services.
First Spin: Hear Oddisee's 'People Hear What They See' | SPIN | No Trivia "I'm not a star, somebody lied / I ride the subway as a car, I'm getting by." That's Oddisee on "Do It All," the collaborative track with his DC supergroup Diamond District, from his new album, People Hear What They See. The producer/rapper just kind of throws that line out there, subtly grounding Rick Ross' hammy modesty with a gentlemanly dose of honesty. I'm focusing on lyrics a bit here because everyone's well-aware of Oddisee's production chops, right? Oddisee — Ready To RockOddisee — Do It AllOddisee — That RealOddisee — Let It GoOddisee — American GreedOddisee — The Need SuperficialOddisee — Way In Way OutOddisee — Thinking MaybesOddisee — Anothers GrindOddisee — Set You FreeOddisee — You Know Who You AreOddisee — Think Of Things
Cape Verde hip hop special – African hip hop radio May 2012 | Africanhiphop.com The May edition of African hip hop radio is a rendez-vous with Revoltod from the Lod Escur crew, our long time contributor who started doing Cabo shows for us while he was living in Cape Verde. Now based in Rotterdam, he’s still very active in the hip hop scenes of Cape Verde as well as the Netherlands. In the second hour from the Red Light Radio studio he plays some of his productions and other hot Cabo stuff, talks about gang culture and police abusing hip hop artists back home, and about two products that are important to Cape Verdean identity: grog, an alcoholic drink, and zouk, the Antillean music that made it big within Cabo communities worldwide. The first hour has new tracks from all over the continent, from ‘Uko sure’ by Kenyan Man Njoro & Rabbit to ‘Afrika is not dead’ by Togolese emcee Elom and a collabo between Stephen Marley and Wale.
CBGB Owners Plan a Festival and Seek a New Location The new owners of the club’s assets — some with ties to the original Bowery establishment — say they hope that the festival will revive the wide-open artistic aesthetic associated with CBGB, which in its heyday served as an incubator for influential acts like Television, Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, Sonic Youth and Patti Smith. “We’re never going to recreate that moment in time,” said Tim Hayes, one of the investors. “We’re trying to continue the idea of supporting live music, making a lot of noise and being a part of New York City. The festival is one way we can do it. Eventually the club will be another way we can do it.” The four-day festival is scheduled to begin on July 5 and will showcase about 300 rock bands. The Cro-Mags, Vision of Disorder and Sick of It All will headline a hardcore show at Webster Hall, organizers said. It was Mr. That rebirth has been a long time coming. By October 2010, both legal battles had been settled, and Ms. She started talking to Mr. Mr. Mr.
Nelly Furtado: 'Swagger in spades' 7 May 2012Last updated at 01:12 GMT By Mark Savage BBC News entertainment reporter Nelly Furtado is releasing her first English-language album in six years It's been six years since Nelly Furtado's multi-platinum album Loose, which featured the smash hit single Maneater and collaborations with Justin Timberlake and Chris Martin. She followed it up with a Spanish language record that missed the UK top 100 altogether. So, as she returns to a commercial pop sound, the Canadian star has everything to prove. "If you wait this long to put an album out, you'd better be sure you tried your best," says Nelly Furtado. In fact, the 33-year-old devoted so much time to her new record that producer Salaam Remi accused her of being "three years pregnant" with it. The album has gone through two titles, half-a-dozen producers, and a mountain of songs - both old and new. "In the final stages I was getting really anal about it," says Furtado. Why did she get so obsessed? Nostalgia is a big part of the album.
Ska pioneer Lloyd Brevett dies 4 May 2012Last updated at 05:58 ET Lloyd Brevett helped create an identifiably Jamaican sound Jamaican double bassist Lloyd Brevett, whose band The Skatalites pioneered ska music and paved the way for reggae, has died at the age of 80. The Skatalites formed in 1964 and combined jazz, R&B and mento to create ska and take a Jamaican sound around the world for the first time. Their songs included The Guns of Navarone and they backed acts including The Wailers and Prince Buster. Brevett suffered a stroke in March, two weeks after his son was murdered. Thirty two-year-old Okine was shot outside the family's home in Kingston hours after he had accepted a Jamaican music industry award on his father's behalf. Spokeswoman and friend Maxine Stowe told the AP news agency: "He took his son's death as stoically as he could, but you knew it was devastating for him. "To say that Brevett was a creator of both ska and dub is not to use hyperbole," he said in a statement. Grammy nominations
Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back From college dorm rooms to high school sleepovers, an all-but-extinct music medium has been showing up lately. And we don't mean CDs. Vinyl records, especially the full-length LPs that helped define the golden era of rock in the 1960s and '70s, are suddenly cool again. Some of the new fans are baby boomers nostalgic for their youth. Like the comeback of Puma sneakers or vintage T shirts, vinyl's resurgence... Subscribe Now Get TIME the way you want it One Week Digital Pass — $4.99 Monthly Pay-As-You-Go DIGITAL ACCESS — $2.99 One Year ALL ACCESS — Just $30!
74 Miles Away | 74 Miles Away MPM have teamed up with the Laid Back Radio collective from Brussels to add a new chapter to the metaphysics of a jazzthing. 74 MILES AWAY is a collaboration between Belgian jazz pianist/composer Pierre Anckaert and producers Monkey Robot (previously known as Infinitskills), curated by LBR founder Julius Mourlon. Pierre Anckaert composed and recorded four electric jazz tracks with his trio. Monkey Robot have radically reworked these four songs featuring singers AHU (One Handed Music, best known from the first Flying Lotus album), Carina Andersson (the voice behind 4 Hero's epic take on Minnie Riperton's “Les Fleurs”) and Miles Bonny (MPM, DJ Day). 74 MILES AWAY take you on a trip from the days of Bob James and Herbie Hancock to the future beat and soul sound of today. If you are looking for the perfect beat in 2011, we highly recommend to check out this record. www.mpmsite.com www.laid-back.be www.pierreanckaert.com