Today’s Music News: Hip Hop Hall of Fame announces plans to open two New York locations
by Staff
December 22, 2014
According to Hip Hop Hall of Fame chairman JT Thompson, $50 million has been raised towards an $80 million goal to open two museum sites in New York City: a central site in Midtown and a "satellite museum" in Harlem. Thompson, producer of BET's Hip Hop Hall of Fame Awards Show from 1992-97, has been trying to build a hip-hop museum for over two decades. Thompson tells the New York Daily News that he hopes to break ground next year, and has launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise $500,000. This is far from a done deal, though—and it may become contentious. Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Melle Mel, and Grandmaster Caz Brown have been campaigning for a hip-hop museum to be opened in the Bronx—the borough that birthed the genre—and the National Museum of Hip-Hop is also eyeing a space in Harlem.
The music world lost three behind-the-scenes greats: hip-hop producer Larry Smith, who co-produced Run-D.M.C.'s first two records and co-wrote Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks"; Grateful Dead manager Rock Scully; and Big Star producer John Fry.
After recordings that Madonna described as in-progress demos leaked on the Internet last week, she quickly released completed versions of six songs from her forthcoming album Rebel Heart, including lead single "Living for Love." (New York Times)
HBO has ordered a full first season of an untitled show about the New York music scene in the 1970s. Among the series producers will be Mick Jagger and Martin Scorcese, who will direct the first episode. Among the show's stars will be Bobby Cannavale as a record executive, Oliva Wilde as his wife, Ray Romano as one of Cannavale's partners, and Andrew "Dice" Clay as "the cocaine-fueled owner of a chain of radio stations." (Collider)
The Smith Westerns have called it quits; their last gig as a group will be in New York City on New Year's Eve. (Consequence of Sound)
Jenny Lewis was joined on Jimmy Kimmel Live by Ryan Adams, who produced Lewis's latest record The Voyager.
