November 1, 2024

Review Category : TMZ Music News

WTF? The Black Keys Announce New Album, With Help From Mike Tyson

The Black Keys are back ... and they're turning blue.

With a little help from Mike Tyson — yes, Mike Tyson (who apparently put aside his admiration for Patrick Carney's sparring partner, Justin Bieber) — and a series of thoroughly weird, decidedly creepy YouTube videos, the Keys have announced the title and release date for their new album: Turn Blue, due May 13.

Confused? Hey, join the club. But here's what we know — on Friday afternoon, Tyson tweeted a link to a mysterious YT clip that features a motivational speaker/maniac in an ill-fitting suit slowly hypnotizing his audience ("I am inside you now ... you can feel me ... I will breathe life into our hopelessness, I will be your messiah, your God, your therapist, your lover, your mother, your father, and you are my son, and you will obey me") while a record spins.

At the very end of the clip, Turn Blue, a "special new album by rock musicians the Black Keys" is advertised, along with the May 13 date. And, uh ... yeah. Maybe you should just watch the clip for yourself.

A rep for the band confirmed both the album's title and release date to MTV News. The clip also explains why Carney has spent the past few days posting Instagram pics like this:

According to reports, the Black Keys will premiere the first single from Turn Blue, a track called "Fever" on Monday at precisely 3:30 p.m. ET.

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YG And Kendrick Lamar: ‘It’s All Love’ On ‘Really Be’

YG has a ton of great records on his critically acclaimed debut My Krazy Life, but when it came time to pick a favorite, his fellow Compton MC Kendrick Lamar felt one really stood out— the bassy "Really Be (Smokin N Drinkin)."

"Kendrick told me that when it was time to put out my album he was gonna hop on one of my records," YG told MTV News on Tuesday, while he was in Los Angeles celebrating his release day. "He wanted to hear the whole album, so we played him the whole album and then he heard that song and was like, 'I'm hopping on that, that's the best song on there.'"

Like Kendrick, YG hails from Compton, California, but his major debut tells a drastically different story than Lamar's Grammy-nominated good kid, m.A.A.d. city. On the surface YG's MKL plays more like bad kid, mad city as he plays up his gang affiliations and raps about the time he spent locked up in jail.

To simply position YG's debut as the other side to Kendrick's coin is only to tell a part of the story. With the help of producer DJ Mustard, who produced on eight out of the LP's 14 tracks, the Young Gangsta created a lane of his own.

"It's A-1 to be able to get somebody like that on my record," YG said of Kendrick. "I knew Kendrick before I blew up, he knew me before he blew up and be rocking with what I was doin' and I been rocking with what they was doin' so ...

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‘Divergent’ Sequel Officially Happening! Get Ready For ‘Insurgent’

"

The sequel to the Shailene Woodley-led YA adaptation was previously scheduled for a March 2015 release date with director Robert Schwentke ("R.I.P.D.") taking over for Neil Burger and a script by Brian Duffield and Akiva Goldsman, and now quick follow-up has been officially greenlighted.

This puts the series on-track for the previous plan of one installment a year, and if all goes according to schedule, the series will close out with "Allegiant" in 2016.

Based on early box office estimations, according to The Hollywood Reporter, "Divergent" on-pace for a possible $60 million weekend. That would make it the second biggest opening of the year behind "The LEGO Movie."

"We're off to a great start with strong numbers from all regions of the country, urban, suburban and rural alike," said Jon Feltheimer, the CEO of Summit's parent company, Lionsgate, in a statement. "We're confident that 'Divergent' is on its way to becoming another important franchise for us, and we have just greenlighted the second film, 'Insurgent.' "

Summit and Lionsgate were keen to find another successful YA series to bank now that the "Twilight Saga" is over and "The Hunger Games" will be ending next year.

The films are based on the hit series of YA novels by Veronica Roth and tell the story of a young heroine living in a society split up into personality-based factions.

"Divergent" is in theaters now.

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Lil Wayne Doesn’t Want To Be ‘Best Rapper Alive’: 12 CRWN Revelations

As Young Money's CEO, Lil Wayne — who's been rapping since he was first signed to Cash Money at age 9 — now oversees one of the hottest record labels in the game with a star-studded roster that includes Nicki Minaj and Drake. Now, though, the 31-year-old is gearing up for his Tha Carter V LP and rap retirement.

Maybe that's what got Tunechi in a reflective mood when he sat down with Elliott Wilson for the latest installment of his CRWN series. Weezy opened up about his rise to hip-hop superstardom and how he wants to be remembered when he hangs up his mic for good, among other eye-opening topics.

Here are 12 things we learned:

1. Lil Wayne Took A Meeting With Jay Z, But Didn't Sign
According to urban legend, back when Jay Z became the president of Def Jam, he tried to sign Wayne. But Wayne clarified that, saying, "It wasn't like that. It wasn't like Jay was reaching out for me, like I want you over here. He expressed interest and you know me, I was a super [Jay Z] fanatic, I was on the first thing smokin'. I went over there, we met, I met with Jay, but history turned out to be what history is."

2. Lil Wayne Hears All Your Criticism
All the hip-hop greats have been criticized, so Wayne doesn't expect to escape the same fate. "Who am I to be any different?" he said. "They gon compare my new stuff to my old stuff like an athlete. They compared their new play to ...

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Celebrate Hellboy Day With These Exclusive B.P.R.D. Artifacts

Have you made your Hellboy Day plans yet? Better hurry up, because March 22 is the 20th anniversary of the big red hero who has graced comics' pages and movie screens for the past two decades.

Created by writer/artist Mike Mignola, Hellboy has spawned a mini empire of graphic novels and collectibles, with new issues of "Hellboy" and its spin-off comics — most notably "B.P.R.D." which follows the adventures of Hellboy's former team-mates as they battle apocalyptic monsters — hitting stands weekly.

And sure you could celebrate the festivities at your local comic book shop wearing a lightly used "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" T-shirt; or you could go a little more high end, with one of Skelton Crew Studio's many superbly crafted collectibles based on the Mignola-verse.

The company is known for their finely manufactured pieces based on comics properties, including "Locke & Key," "Chew," "Mouse Guard" and most appropriately for the topic at hand, "Hellboy/B.P.R.D."

They've previously released four items from that last collection, all packaged as if they were artifacts rescued from supernatural sites by the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. And now, in honor of Hellboy Day, MTV News is exclusively revealing two more items in the collection.

The two new releases in Skelton Crew Studio's Artifact Archive line, in conjunction with Mike Mignola himself are: Vasilisa's Comb and Handkerchief; and the Ogdru Jahad Amulet from "Hellboy: The Island."

Both are based on storylines/items from the comics themselves. The pewter replicas are hand-numbered, limited to 1,000 ...

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This Civil Rights Leader’s Reaction To Lil Wayne’s Emmett Till Lyric Might Surprise You

Lil Wayne landed in hot water last February when a line name-checking tragic civil rights figure Emmett Till on Future's 
 raised eyebrows and drew complaints from Till's family.

The verse featured the line: "Beat the p---y up like Emmett Till," drawing a dark reference to the teen who was brutally murdered after he whistled at a white woman in 1955. Till was beaten beyond recognition, but his mother insisted that he have an open casket funeral, so the world can see and remember the brutality. Future's label quickly removed the lyric and then remixed the song again in a version featuring Birdman, Rick Ross and French Montana, but no Weezy.

At the time, the rapper attempted to reach out to the Till family in an apologetic open letter
, a gesture the family said at the time 
 The controversy also lost Wayne an endorsement deal with Mountain Dew
.

But a year later, does the lyric still sting?

MTV News recently sat down with civil rights icon and Congressman Rep. John Lewis to get his take on the incident. "I think when a star, a singer, uses the name of someone like an Emmett Till in music ... a lot of young people grow up not even knowing anything about Emmett Till," he said. "So maybe it would help people go and [say], 'Who was Emmett Till?'"

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Lil Wayne, Music News

In fact, Lewis said that if it hadn't been for music the civil rights movement might have been like "a bird without wings." Imagine not ...

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