Sunday April 7th, 2002
New CD's this week:
Two hot new artists both delivered their
debute album this week, the first is Ashanti who
is already high in the charts with her hit "Foolish" and the other one
is Missy Elliott
protegé Tweet, now scoring big with het hit "Oops (oh my)".
Short news stories this week:
Stevie Wonder Added As Honoree At Songwriters Hall Of Fame
Stevie Wonder will receive special honors
at the 33rd annual Songwriters Hall Of Fame
Awards. Wonder will be given the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award, and
Garth Brooks will accept the Hitmaker Award at this year's ceremony, slated for
June 13
at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers.
As previously announced, this year's inductees into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame
include
Micheal Jackson, Barry Manilow, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Randy
Newman and Sting.
Songwriter Hal David, the Hall's chairman and CEO, said of Brooks and Wonder:
"I am
both pleased and proud to announce Garth Brooks and Stevie Wonder as the
recipients of
this year's special Songwriters Hall Of Fame Awards. Each has contributed
mightily to
the creative and artistic community, having achieved unprecedented milestones.
They
have raised the standard of music making to a new level. I look forward to
presenting to
these huge talents their most deserved honors."
The Isley Brothers Set Tour Dates
Veteran rock/soul group the Isley Brothers
has announced a series of tour dates that begin
in early May and run until October. Among the tour's highlights is a July 5
performance
in New Orleans as part of the three-day Essence Music Festival.
The Isley Brothers began their recording career in 1958 with "Shout!"
and have been
active for the past four decades. Their most recent album, Eternal, was
certified platinum
in November. In January, the group was honored with a star on the Hollywood Rock
Walk Of Fame in recognition of their career achievements.
Missy Elliott Adds Bonus Track To Tweet's 'Southern Hummingbird'
Promising new female R&B singers Tweet
and Ashanti both released their debut albums
this week, making for a heated race to be the top urban debut for the week.
Though
Ashanti recently pushed Tweet out of the Number One position on Billboard's Hot
R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, Tweet, who is currently Number
Three, has added
a bit of fire to her promotional campaign.
Tweet's debut album, Southern Hummingbird, features a dose of what is in the
works for
Missy Elliott's next album. Elliott's song "Big Spender" appears on
Southern
Hummingbird as a bonus track.
Tweet is also preparing to release "Call Me" as the follow-up single
to the album's first
release, "Oops (Oh My)."
When we recently spoke to Tweet, she explained that Elliott, her mentor,
inspired the
album title: "Well, actually, I got it from Missy. On her credits for her
album, she said
something about, relating to me being a southern hummingbird. And I was like,
'Wow,
that's so sweet.' You know, and I have southern roots. My family's from the
south. I'm the
only one out of everybody that was born in New York. So I have all the south
stuff in me,
and it just fit. And in one of the interludes, I say something about me wanting
to just fly
away, like a bird. Like a southern hummingbird. I put that in there, and it just
stuck. I
said, 'I'm going to call the album Southern Hummingbird.'"
KeKe Wyatt Could Face 10 To 20 Years In
Prison For Allegedly Stabbing Husband
R&B singer KeKe Wyatt could face 10 to
20 years in prison for allegedly stabbing
her husband on Christmas Day at their Kentucky home. A Shelby County grand jury
indicted the singer Monday (April 1) on one count of second-degree assault.
Wyatt, who has a hit duet with Avant, "Nothing In This World," is
accused of stabbing
her husband and manager, Rahmat Morton, five times with a steak knife, cutting
his
arms, chest, hands, and back.
Shelbyville officers found Morton stabbed at 10:30 a.m. on December 25 when
responding to a domestic violence call. He was taken to the University Of
Louisville
Hospital where he had to have a piece of the knife removed from his back,
according to
the police report.
Wyatt is scheduled to be arraigned on May 9 in Shelby County Circuit Court.
Musiq Says 'Juslisen' Is A Continuation Of 'Aijuswanaseing'
Musiq is set to release his sophomore
album, Juslisen, on May 7. The new set was
produced Ivan Barris, Carvin Haggins, Darren Henson, Keith Pelzer, 88 Keys,
June,
James Poyser, Pitchback, Andre Harris, and Vidal Davis. The first single from
the
collection, "Halfcrazy," is currently Number 67 on the Billboard Hot
100 singles chart.
The Philadelphia-based soul singer-songwriter recently explained that Juslisen
is
basically a continuation of his platinum debut set, Aijuswanaseing: "This
is definitely a
sequel to Aijuswanaseing. This is definitely a sequel--this is the next step,
even so to the
point where you can match up some of the songs with some of the songs on
Aijuswanaseing, kind of like the sequel to those songs. The whole album doesn't,
you
know, but if you try hard enough you can reach and probably get it, you know,
but that's
not what I was going for. It's just ironic that, some of the songs, you can tie
them in
together. It's real interesting."
"Stopplayin," "Religious," "Babygirl,"
"Halfcrazy," "Time," "Future,"
"Reallove,"
"Onenight," "Previouscats," "Solong,"
"Bestfriend," "Dontchange," "Motherfather," and
"Something."
TLC's T-Boz Appearing On Raphael Saadiq's First Solo Album
Just as Raphael Saadiq has been working on
the TLC album, T-Boz will now be
appearing on his album as well. His solo album, called "Instant
Vintage" is scheduled to
be released May 28. "The music will always stay soulful until the day I
die, but with this
record you can expect a more gritty, dark and light sound, meaning it will have
more of
an underground vibe," Saadiq says in a statement about the new album, for
which he
wrote all the songs. "This record is shaping out to be riskier and funkier
than anything
I've ever done."