The Best of Both Worlds

If you’re a lover of hip-hop like me, than you probably were pissed of when you discovered that Jay-Z’s six-city American tour to promote his latest album “American Gangster” sold out in five minutes. However, there were those who were fortunate enough to witness the artist who tied Elvis for the most #1 albums live on Sunday, November 11 at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom.

But for those of us who missed out on the Jigga Man’s Blue Magic, we get another chance to relive the historic moment. Partnering up with MSN’s Control Room, Jay-Z is giving his fans another opportunity to catch the performance, as well as, a back-stage interveiw and guests appearances including Diddy and Lil’ Wayne on Tuesday, November 20 at music.msn.com/jayz.

“We work to bring the most entertaining content to our 465 million monthly users, and, as one of the most entertaining performers of our time, Jay-Z is taking our list of MSN Music in Concert artists to another level,”said Rob Bennett, general manager, entertainment, video and sports, MSN.

With nearly 30 shows in 2007, the Control Room has featured artists like Rihanna, Akon and John Legend in their MSN in Music Concert series.

So, log-on, turn up your speakers and experience the best of both worlds: hip-hop and online media.

–Dana L. Oliver

New York Welcomes The Newest Beaujolais

New Years’ came early for the city’s wine connoisseurs. The first European wine of 2007 arrived in New York with great pomp and celebration.

Franck Deboeuf — head of Georges Deboeuf Vinyards — started the day with two glasses of his vinyard’s Beaujolais Nouveau while the rest of the crowd enjoyed a parade of elaborate cake creations.

Watch our video here.

Look like Venus and have money left for fries

Reporting by Tiffani Garlic, Lakshmi Gandhi and Annie Shreffler

Tennis champion and celebrity Venus Williams visited the Steve & Barry store in Manahattan today to introduce EleVen, her new line of affordable clothing, sneakers and accessories.
Williams will graduate this year with a degree in fashion from the Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and told reporters the ideas for her clothes come from her personal preferences and that the name is inspired by the address of her childhood home.
Fans lined up inside the Manattan Mall to get a glimpse of the tennis super star, saying they love her for being such a great athlete, for using her celebrity to support important causes, and for remaining so feminine.
The price doesn’t hurt either. Most of the apparel, and everything in the EleVen line, boasted prices under $20. That’s what this national retail store’s mission is about: “stripping away the gloss and giving consumers something real.” They’re hoping endorsements from celebrities like Venus Williams and Sarah Jessica Parker, who also has a line of clothing in the store, more consumers will agree that great clothes don’t have to cost a lot.

“It’s not every celebrity or athlete who remembers where they came from and what their parents had to do to clothe and feed their family,” said Howard Schacter, chief partnership officer for Steve & Barry’s, in a recent interview with NPR’s Michelle Singletary.

In a city like New York, where urban teens are known to spend well over $100 for their sneakers regardless of their families finances, hearing from a beautiful, black athlete like Venus Williams that it’s just as cool to play hard and pay less may be just what their parents needed.

New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which offers free tennis lessons to kids every summer, said in a statement that they are happy to see an athlete like Venus Williams make sports apparel more affordable and accessible to all children.

See a vido of Venus visiting here….

Leo, Fashionably Late

Leonardo DiCaprio has employees who attend to him hourly; making sure not a hair is out of place and limiting access to the star.

“If guests come around and kiss Leo every day, we’ll have to make sure that that lipstick is cleaned off,” said Brett Pidgeon, Director of Operations for Madame Tussaud’s New York.

Of course, we’re talking about Leo’s wax likeness. We have no idea how often his real handler’s check him for lipstick stains.

Today, the wax museum unveiled the long-awaited sculpture of Leo, in the “VIP Lounge,” opposite Paris Hilton, and next to Beyonce.

(Here are more pictures and an interview with Tussaud’s director of operations)

But what took so long?
“A lot of people have requested for him to be here,” said Pidgeon. Indeed, Rachael Ray, Usher, and Shakira received wax tributes before DiCaprio. The London museum even had a Leo before the “Gangs of New York” star was re-created stateside. As Americans, we should be ashamed.

Mr. Pidgeon was coy about why Leo was appearing only now. But a museum employee said that the actor didn’t sit for the museum’s London artists, who fashioned the sculpture based on 250 photos.

Even without DiCaprio’s cooperation, the statue was eerily lifelike down to a mole on his left cheek, and dimples on his forehead. Pidgeon explained that four months and $125,000 go into each figure. Oil paints are used to match skin tone, and red silk creates the veins in the sculptures’ acrylic eyes.

Leo may date models and make over $20 million per picture, but a glassy-eyed replica of him to greet Times Square tourists proves he’s truly arrived.

~Claudia Cruz, Francesca Levy, Stephen Bronner, Daniel Macht

The Philharmonic Brings China to New York

Chinese-born composer Huang Ruo had the New York premiere of two parts of his work Three Pieces for Ochestra, the “Announcement” and the “Fanfare”, this weekend at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. The New York Philharmonic attacked the percussive pieces with a ferocious gusto–so much, in fact, that a blaring gong roll at the finale sent the half of the orchestra not already wearing ear plugs to frantically cover their ears!

The composer came out after the performance to appreciative applause, although the piece may have been too modern for many in the audience. The subsequent pieces performed–Lalo’s Symphonie Espangnole (with Vadim Repin on violin) and Beethoven’s Seventh–received heartier applause by my measure. (And why not? Both pieces were fantastically performed.)

The orchestra was conducted by fellow Chinese-born Xian Zhang, the associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

Read my review here, or read The New York Times‘ grumpy old Allan Kozinn’s here.

Tibetan Music at The Cathedral of St. John The Divine

Exiled Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal and three Namgyal monks from the Dalai Lama’s monastery brought their Compassionate Mandala Tour to the Cathedral of St. John The Divine last Friday. I interviewed two of the performers and recorded some of their chants and songs. Check it out here.

One of the monks, Lobsang Kunga, began by the blowing a 10 foot longhorn called the Dung Chen. The horn’s sound was supposed to be an invocation to invite Buddhas to join us. After this, the monks began chanting.

Next Tenzin Choegyal performed. Here are some of his instruments:

And the venue itself:

Finally, here is a video that R. Ortiz posted on her blog Footnoted. It shows the monks working on their Kalachakra Mandala earlier last week:

Roald Dahls and Wes Andersons and Noah Baumbachs, Oh My!

The List is reporting that Wes Anderson (Darjeeling Limited) is collaborating with Park Slope native Noah Baumbach (Squid and the Whale) to bring Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox to the big screen.  Take THAT Tim Burton!  (I shouldn’t be so aggressive.  The musical theatre nerd in me is actually super excited for the release of Burton’s Sweeney Todd in December)

What’s not to love?

Let’s Blame Hip-Hop for Sex-Crazed Youth

A recent New York Times article entitled “For Clues on Teenage Sex, Experts Look to Hip-Hop,” explores the findings of a three-year study conducted by Dr. Miguel A. Muñoz-Laboy.

Dr. Muñoz-Laboy, an assistant professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University, jumps on the bandwagon of “safari experts” who lean on hip-hop as the source of the tragic state of youth. According to the article, he interviewed “dozens” of teens and explored the hip-hop scene. In reviewing the way they got down, his research team discovered that “The lesson for public health workers is that hip-hop is not just music but a support system and social structure that dominates youth culture. The language of hip-hop also may in fact be a more effective way to communicate with teenagers.”

His research along with that from the RAND Corporation does highlight the degrading, dwindling condition hip-hop is in; however, sociologists who examine a segment of a culture that’s existed for decades in only a few years should not be so quick to publish findings that point the finger on music for driving a nation of horny teens.

At The Tea Room, A. Ishola calls out such studies:

“They present these “findings” as if they’ve finished observing a beast in his “unhealthy” habitat.  Not to give rappers a pass or anything, but why don’t these “experts” spend the same amount of time in the hood searching for the solution to poverty, high unemployment rates, failing schools, and crime?”

Historically, hip-hop has served as an expression of a people–illustrating their joys, frustrations, dreams, and sorrows.

“Hip-hop is a generational phenomenon that has united young people,” Bakari Kitwana, author of “The Hip-Hop Generation”. “If that’s not understood, you’re going to miss a lot.”

-Dana L. Oliver

Things go Bump at MOCCA

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, or MOCCA, is currently displaying a “Things that Go Bump…” exhibition in honor of Halloween that will run through March 17th, giving everyone plenty of time to see it.

MOCCA, pronounced like the homonymous coffee drink, is a bit difficult to find; it’s housed on the fourth floor of a nondescript office building on Broadway that doesn’t even have a small sign that says “MOCCA!” It’s at 594 Broadway, just south of Houston Street. (When I went, the security guard took one look at my friends and I and asked, “MOCCA?”)

As part of the “Things Go Bump…” exhibit they’ve got two drawings by Chas Addams, creator of the Adams Family, as well as several cells from television cartoons that were popular when I was growing up, like the “Beetlejuice”, “Ghostbusters” and “Batman” animated series.

The space is only of modest gallery size, but there’s a lot to see. They’ve got inks from the famous Jack Kirby hanging up, as well as a page from Alan Moore et al’s V for Vendetta (curious in that the inks are on an acetate above the page, where the colors would go.) Another highlight for me included a two page spread from Leland Purvis’ Vulcan and Vishnu.

It’s $5 to get in and certainly a nice place to get out of the cold and kill an hour, say, before seeing Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead at the Angelika.

Food Network SWEET Dessert Party Not Far Off!

Next Friday, November 16th, the Food Network in association with Food and Wine magazine is hosting SWEET, an event they’re tagging as “New York’s biggest dessert party”. Tickets, my friends, are not running cheap. They’re $200 a pop, but, on the plus side, the money all goes to the Food Bank of New York.

It looks like a bunch of everyone’s favorite culinary talking heads will be there (Rachael Ray, Giada DeLaurentiis, Cat Cora, etc.), but I could care less. What i find orgasm-worthy is that desserts by serious NYC pastry powerhouses are all going to be under one roof. Alex Stupak (wd-50), Sebastein Rouxel/Richard Capizzi (Per Se and Bouchon Bakery), and even Danilo Zecchin (Ciao Bella Gelato) are all expected to take part. Do I dare to dream?

Now I just need to scrape up $200…