Nelly Furtado

Nelly Furtado To Donate $1 Million Received From Gadhafi

01 Mar 2011 10:43:10 EST

Singer is among several stars who performed for Libyan dictator's family in recent years.
By Gil Kaufman

Nelly Furtado
Photo: Getty Images

Things are falling apart in many ways for longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. With his countrymen in uproar and demanding that he step down after more than 40 years in power as part of the freedom wave rushing through the Middle East, the dictator is also getting push back from one of the pop stars who've performed for his family over the years. According to her official Twitter feed Canadian pop star Nelly Furtado confirmed on Monday that she once did a show for the dictator's family and now plans to donate the money to charity. "In 2007, I received 1million$ from the Gadhafi clan to perform a 45 min. show for guests at a hotel in Italy," she wrote on Monday. "I am going to donate the $." Furtado isn't the only artist to perform for a member of the dictator's family. According to cables obtained by WikiLeaks and pointed out by The New York Times this week, Usher and Beyoncé performed at a New Year's Eve party for Gadhafi's son, Muatassim, on the Caribbean island of St. Barts for big checks. Mariah Carey was also reportedly hired by the family to sing at a 2009 New Year's Eve celebration where she received $1 million for singing just four songs. The site Mediaite claimed that Lindsay Lohan, Russell Simmons, Jay, Jon Bon Jovi, L.A. Reid, supermodels Miranda Kerr and Victoria Silvstedt were also in the crowd for the concert headlined by Beyoncé. The celeb-studded shows were part of the extravagant lifestyle of the dictator's sons, whose splashy parties and out-of-control spending have angered their countrymen, many of whom wallow in poverty as the Gadhafi clan benefits from the country's oil riches.

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N.E.R.D. Call 'Hot-N-Fun' Video A 'Psychedelic' Ride

29 Jun 2010 14:56:26 EDT

'We wanted something that paid homage to the Beatles,' Pharrell tells MTV News of working with artists FriendsWithYou.
By Steven Roberts

N.E.R.D. recently released the video for their new single, "Hot-N-Fun," featuring Nelly Furtado. The colorful visual was directed by Swedish film/ music video director Jonas Åkerlund, whose résumé includes videos for Madonna, the Prodigy and, most recently, Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" and "Telephone" clips. Pharrell Williams told MTV News earlier this month that N.E.R.D.'s brand-new video was a mixture of elements, but it could all be summed up with one phrase: "baba cool."

"There's a French expression which is called 'baba cool,' which is from the late '60s, early '70s, and it's like the mixture of posh, bohemian and art," P said. "That's pretty much the theme of the album." In the video, the trio is seen driving their Rolls-Royce through the desert, dressed in a mix of fur, leather, camouflage and apparently whatever else they could get their hands on that had feathers of some sort. The Rolls is painted in vivid, almost hallucinogenic-inspired colors and graphics, courtesy of artist collective FriendsWithYou. Pharrell explained how they first linked up with the talented collaborative in Miami. "We told them we wanted something that was psychedelic, something that paid homage to the Beatles' Yellow Submarine and the Magical Mystery Tour." Nelly Furtado, who provides the song's hooks, also turns up singing in a cloud formation created by FriendsWithYou. But Furtado isn't the only female keeping N.E.R.D. company: A bevy of young ladies comes along for the ride, dressed in matching boho gear, though slightly more scantily clad. "As you can see, we had a plethora of women, all shapes and sizes, all shades and colors, and they definitely added a cool, sexy element to the video," groupmate Shay Haley said. "This video is every man's dream." N.E.R.D. expect to release their fourth studio LP on September 7, and was something like a psychedelic ride. Pharrell told us Nothing. "The music is very psychedelic for the most part — 80 percent of it is definitely flower-power, counterculture, release and let yourself be free and have a great time!" What do you think of N.E.R.D.'s "Hot-N-Fun" video? Is it the perfect summer track? Let us know in the comments!

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Nelly Furtado Went On 'Musical Journey' For Mi Plan Album

06 Aug 2009 06:50:00 EDT

'On this fourth album, I got a lot more skills,' singer says of Spanish-language LP.
By Jocelyn Vena

Photo: George Pimentel/WireImage

Nelly Furtado may have found commercial success with her last album, Loose, thanks to hits like "Maneater" and "Promiscuous," but the Canadian songstress found that while working on her follow-up, Mi Plan, she preferred writing songs in Spanish over English. "I think that sometimes I'm limited when I write in English, but I found a real freedom writing in Spanish," she told MTV News. "It felt really different. It made me excited about pop again."

She added that she wanted to abandon the dance-pop vibe of her last record and try a different sound. "I think after Loose I was kind of bored of writing English pop songs. I'd go to the studio and try and write in English, but the inspiration wasn't really coming. My creative well felt really dry." Instead of abandoning the idea of making another album altogether, she decided to just abandon the English language. "So I went to the Spanish stuff and I don't know ... it just kept coming," she explained. "Every day we'd write a new song and it led me to this river and basically an ocean." According to Furtado, Mi Plan has been a real "musical journey." "I got to work with all these exciting artists from the Latin world ... I try to learn something with each album, like anybody that has a job. And for me as a musician, my job is to get better as a musician — so on this fourth album, I got a lot more skills."

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Nelly Furtado Says Singing In Spanish On Mi Plan Felt 'Natural'

05 Aug 2009 06:50:00 EDT

'As an artist, I always follow my gut,' she says of latest album.
By Jocelyn Vena

Nelly Furtado
Photo: MTV News

Nelly Furtado is embracing her Latin roots on her new album, Mi Plan, out September 15. The Portuguese-Canadian songstress felt that now was as good a time as any to release her newest album and this time do it all in Spanish.

"Everything I do is natural," she told MTV News about the decision to make the album in the language. "As an artist, I always follow my gut. I don't really follow commercial trends or sales trends. I just kind of go with what's right for me as an artist and what is going to keep me happy and healthy, so Mi Plan is like the next phase." The singer also thought the language was the right one for this album to best express her current place in life. And for her single "Manos al Aire," "It just felt right for me to write in Spanish. It felt good," she said. "It felt like I could express other emotions." "Manos al Aire" is in some ways about surrendering (the translation is "hands in the air"), and the emotion behind the song could only be expressed in Spanish, Furtado said. "It's intense and it's vulnerable and strong at the same time," she said. "And I think when I sing about those emotions in Spanish, they come off differently. I don't think I could write an English song about such a complex emotion." For her album, she also wanted to cater to people who may not understand Spanish, so the singer took it upon herself to include subtitles with the album. "I included subtitles for people that don't speak Spanish, and I included subtitles for people that only speak Spanish as well, so they might want to know the lyrics in English."

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Nelly Furtado Explains Plan Behind All-Spanish New Album

04 Aug 2009 11:26:00 EDT

'Once I started writing songs in Spanish, I had a new voice,' singer says of Mi Plan.
By Jocelyn Vena

Nelly Furtado
Photo: MTV News

Nelly Furtado burst onto the scene almost a decade ago with her Grammy-winning hit song "I'm Like a Bird." Then she became somewhat of a pop princess in 2006 with the Timbaland-produced Loose. Three years later, she's back and once again reinvented herself. Furtado is releasing her new album, Mi Plan, on September 15, and it's her first foray into singing solely in Spanish. Although she sang in English, Portuguese and Spanish on her past three albums, this time around she found a new voice by writing songs entirely in Spanish. The first single, "Manos al Aire" came out in June, and she feels this is just one step in her evolution into the type of artist who could happily grow old in the industry.

"I've always sung in, well, three languages for the past five years," she told MTV News about her work. "I've been singing in Portuguese and English since I was 2 years old, so I really love being a universal artist. I love being a world artist, so it's just my next step really. The Spanish project is just my next step to get to [being] 80 years old onstage, singing something. This is my next step in the puzzle." She described this piece in her musical puzzle as being "liberating." "Mi Plan is my first album entirely in a Latin language," she said. "My past three albums have had 80 percent English and 20 percent Latin language, either Portuguese or Spanish. The fourth record is 100 percent Spanish." Since the release of Loose three years ago, Furtado married sound engineer Demacio "Demo" Castellón and continued to raise her young daughter, Nevis. So, what else would a newlywed young mother have to sing about but love? "The songs are all about amor. They are all about love, and it's my first album with more love songs," she explained. "They're really like songs that everybody can relate to about love and life and everyday living, just the things you go through. So basically, I found that once I started writing songs in Spanish, I had a new voice."

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Nelly Furtado Reveals She's Been Married For Almost Three Months

17 Oct 2008 13:43:00 EDT

'Promiscuous' singer wed sound engineer Demacio 'Demo' Castellon on July 19.
By Jocelyn Vena

Photo: George Pimentel/ WireImage

Nelly FurtadoNelly Furtado revealed to "Entertainment Tonight Canada" that she married sound engineer Demacio "Demo" Castellon over the summer. "We got married July 19. I love it," she said, according to People.com. The couple met in 2006 while she was recording her album Loose. Furtado, who has a 5-year-old daughter from a previous relationship with DJ Jasper Gahunia, got engaged to Castellon last July. The 29-year-old, who also makes a cameo in this weekend's video game turned film "Max Payne," put the marriage rumor mill in motion when she was spotted wearing a diamond ring in Miami. "It's a nice phase of my life," the singer said on the Canadian TV show. "I just feel kind of free and relaxed and more in tune with trying not to be so stressed out. [I'm] trying to enjoy things a little more." During an interview with People.com in July of last year, Furtado explained why she and Gahunia never married. "I'm kind of modern. I don't really live by society's standards. Maybe in the next five years I'll get married, have more kids," she said. "One grandmother had eight kids, the other had 10. If I have that many kids, then I would need a hubby." In February, tabloid reports surfaced that she and Castellon were expecting, but a representative for the singer denied the rumors on UsMagazine.com. In her most recent interview, she didn't address whether she and Castellon are planning on having children anytime soon. "I'm happy. ... I'm excited about the future," Furtado said.

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Fergie Takes On Nelly Furtado In Badminton, Dodgeball, Jet Racing In New Wii Sports Game

07 Aug 2008 17:59:00 EDT

'Celebrity Sports Showdown' also has virtual stars facing off in inner-tubing, curling and more.
By Stephen Totilo

"Celebrity Sports Showdown"
Photo: EA

The wait to discover who can paddle a canoe faster — FergieFergie or Nelly FurtadoNelly Furtado — is almost over. The eternal debate about whether Boston Celtic Paul Pierce can spike a volleyball better than country music sensation LeAnn RimesFergie or LeAnn Rimes will soon be settled.

Video game publisher Electronic Arts has revealed to MTV News that a new holiday-season Nintendo Wii game, "Celebrity Sports Showdown," will settle these arguments — or at least present a virtual forum with which to do so. Modeled after the hit "Wii Sports" and developed by the creators of another mini-game compilation, "EA Playground," the new EA title will allow up to four players to control a set of celebrities in activities that range from the bizarre (inner-tubing) to the more bizarre (fighter-jet racing). The game's dozen activities will also include slalom skiing, dodgeball, "smash badminton" and curling, each featuring the aforementioned celebrities, plus soccer star Mia Hamm, country singer Keith UrbanFergie or Keith Urban, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, ice-skater Kristi Yamaguchi and more. The game is meant to be played by a group of people using a single Wii. It's a party game, starring the A-to-C-list. How Fergie-like is video game Fergie? Each celebrity appears in big-headed cartoonish form. They look like themselves — Fergie's got the right outfit, down to the tiara — but athletics-wise they're all the same. Fergie is as strong as football player Reggie Bush. Rimes is just as fast as Furtado. At a recent demonstration of the game for MTV News, an EA representative explained that none of the celebrities would have special abilities. The reason Yamaguchi obliterated Fergie, Pierce and one other celebrity in a race of speedboat-drawn inner tubes? One player knew how to make Yamaguchi avoid mines and hit the proper items for extra points and boosts of speed. It's all in the deft handling of a Wii remote. Like "Wii Sports" and many other popular games of the type, each game in "Celebrity Sports Showdown" is controlled a little differently. Controlling the inner tubes involves holding the Wii remote at its short end and tilting it to steer. Hoisting then slamming down the remote allows a player to bounce one celebrity's inner tube out of the water and onto another's. The fighter-pilot game, based on the well-received paper-airplane flying game of "Wii Playground," according to one of the games' developers, involves holding the Wii remote vertically like a joystick. Previous Wii party games, like "Wii Sports" and "Carnival Games," let users control avatars that looked like themselves or anyone else whose likeness they could replicate. Being able to control an officially licensed celebrity instead is new, at least at this scale. One-off celebrity cameos have been common in games at least since the '90s when Bill Clinton was a hidden unlockable baller in "NBA Jam." On Wednesday, EA announced Kim Kardashian as a playable fighter in the company's upcoming "Facebreaker" boxing game. EA's "Celebrity Sports Showdown" is a Wii exclusive. It's set to ship this holiday season. Check out the Multiplayer blog, updated daily, for even more gaming coverage.

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Mariah Carey, Fergie Promise To 'Love You Long Time' -- But Is The Phrase Empowering Or Insensitive?

30 Jul 2008 20:09:00 EDT

'It's so many different kinds of slurs in one,' comedian Margaret Cho says.
By Jennifer Vineyard, with additional reporting by Audrey Kim

Mariah Carey
Photo: MTV News

Mariah CareyMariah Carey and Nick CannonNick Cannon — that's lovin' you short time, so far. "Lovin' You Long Time""Lovin' You Long Time," well, that's another story (and Mariah's latest single).

But how is she using the line? And why are so many other multi-culti female singers using a phrase that some consider to be a racist and/or sexist slur? Can the meaning change over time, depending on who is using it and why? "That phrase is so loaded," said performance artist Allison Roh Park. "People don't understand the history behind that." "Me love you long time" — how the phrase is typically quoted — came into prominence with Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket,"Full "Metal Jacket," as a Vietnamese prostitute tries to pick up Matthew Modine's character with broken English. The phrase was then popularly picked up by 2 Live Crew2 Live Crew in the song "Me So Horny.""Me So Horny." "From that point on, it became a hook," said Ryan Suda, who runs clothing company Black Lava. "It's so many different kinds of slurs in one," comedian Margaret Cho said. "It's instantly putting you in the position of being a foreigner, an outsider and a sexual stereotype. It's an all-in-one combo." "Asian women get exotified and hyper-sexualized to the point where it really affects our day-to-day life," Park said. "A lot of times when people use phrases like that, they neglect the background," Suda said. "Like sex trafficking. So if a guy goes up to someone in a bar, and he's using that phrase, and he's imagining that scene for some reason, I'm sure they mean it as a fun thing. I don't think they mean it to be malicious. They know she's not a prostitute. But it's attached to that. It's a lot more than a simple phrase." But even musicians who lifted the phrase from 2 Live Crew didn't always know they got it from a depiction of a prostitute's pickup line and sometimes wrongly assumed the rappers had coined the phrase all on their own — and were therefore ignorant of the connotations. "I first heard it in the 2 Live Crew song," said FergieFergie, who used the phrase in her song "London Bridge.""London Bridge." "And then I was watching 'Full Metal Jacket,' and I'm going, 'Ohhhhhh! That's where 2 Live Crew got it. OK.' But back in the day, everybody would be saying that." And they still do — you hear it in jokes on "Family Guy" and "40-Year-Old Virgin""40-Year-Old Virgin" — but the context keeps changing. " 'Love you long time' comes out of a fairly stereotypical situation, and it's recycled itself back into the culture," said playwright David Henry Hwang. "Now it's being used as an empowerment phrase, like to deny it — 'I won't love you long time' — or women who take the phrase and use it to assert themselves." That's what Nelly FurtadoNelly Furtado was aiming to do when she put the phrase in her song "Maneater.""Maneater." "That's such a weird song," she said. "It came from this cool, dark, powerful place which all women possess. I guess I just took that and ran with it, because that phrase just came to mind. 'Love you long time' — it just seemed powerful for a woman to possess that much energy. All she has to say is four little words and she's got everybody eating out of the palm of her hand." Mariah Carey didn't just refer to the oft-quoted line — she built a whole song around it. But she corrects the grammar, so the connotation changes. "Female artists like to play with words," Furtado said. "Missy ElliottMissy Elliott did that quite well with 'bitch.''bitch.' She started saying, 'She's a bitch, I'm a bitch.' And she owned the word. Women should be grateful to her for that. She's a modern-day feminist." "It's just one of those sayings that's kind of pushed its way into our slang and our vocabulary," Fergie said. "I think it's just part of pop culture now." There's a clothing line in London called "Love You Long Time" (fashion designer Katy Horwood counts Vanessa CarltonVanessa Carlton as one of her clients), but to counteract any possible negative interpretation of the use of the phrase in fashion, Suda's Black Lava clothing line sells a shirt that reads "I Will Not Love You Long Time." "It's definitely one of the more popular shirts, by far," Suda said. "People, when they see it, they just laugh, like, 'Oh my god, I get this all the time! Guys come up to me in bars and they always say this line to me.' " "I was walking down the street and this guy yells from his car, 'Love you long time, me love you long time,' " Cho related. "And I was so horrified. Of course he's talking to me, to the Asian woman walking down the street. And he left. "I don't mind it when it's used in songs, like when women use it," Cho continued. "Fergie uses it, that doesn't bother me. But when it's shouted in the street and they don't wait to hear the response? What if I was actually going to go, 'Oh, OK'? They never stick around to hear the answer."

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Ghostface Hopes For A Killah Week; Plus Wyclef Jean, Mariah Carey, Nelly Furtado And More, In New Releases

04 Dec 2007 08:00:00 EST

Also due Tuesday: DJ Drama, 2Pac, Daft Punk, Godsmack, Too Short, Blake Lewis, Scissor Sisters, 'Live Earth,' Styles P.
By Kurt Orzeck

The eight days of Hanukkah begin at sunset Tuesday (December 4), and in commemoration of the holiday, we've lined up the week's eight biggest new releases:

Ghostface Killah's The Big Doe Rehab
December 4 matters more to Ghost than to a lot of the artists dropping new releases this week, mainly because he actually had to put up a fight to keep the date. While he told Mixtape Monday in October that his seventh studio album had been cemented for a December 4 release date "for the longest [time]," he came to discover that the new Wu-Tang Clan album, The 8 Diagrams, had been pegged for the same date. But apparently in an effort to appease Ghost, RZA delayed the latter disc a week — which likely made him as content as he appears on his new CD's album cover. He has most of his fellow Clan along for the ride — RZA's nowhere to be found, though — as well as Beanie Sigel, Chrisette Michele and others on the follow-up to Fishscale, which was widely ranked as one of the best rap releases of 2006. Wyclef Jean's Carnival II: Memoirs of an Immigrant
Ghost's guest list pales in comparison to Wyclef's, which isn't just longer but runs the gamut in terms of music genres. Mary J. Blige, Lil Wayne, Serj Tankian, T.I., Norah Jones, Akon, Shakira, Chamillionaire and even Paul Simon play a role on the release, which features a bonus big name on pretty much every track. Pick up the deluxe edition for even more guest-star goodness — Weezy, 'Kon, Raekwon and more are featured on some of the extra CD's five additional tracks and three videos. The iTunes version of Carnival II has yet another bonus track, while the Best Buy edition comes with three Rhapsody Original extras. DJ Drama's Gangsta Grillz: The Album
There's yet another red-hot guest list in the mix this week, and it's the one featured on Drama's long-overdue studio-LP debut. Diddy, Outkast, T.I., Young Jeezy, Lil Jon, Wayne, the Clipse, Yung Joc, Pharrell, Paul Wall and Nelly all piled onto the disc. The effort was delayed a few times due to Drama's much-publicized studio raid earlier this year and controversy over his well-known moniker, which left him time to come up with another banger or two. "What a better time to drop than during the holidays, a week and a half after Thanksgiving?" Drama recently told Mixtape Monday. "I call myself 'Mr. Thanksgiving.' " Mariah Carey's "The Adventures of Mimi" DVD
Mirroring Justin Timberlake — who released his new "FutureSex/LoveShow - Live From Madison Square Garden" DVD only through Best Buy a couple of weeks ago — Mimi has stepped up with her own exclusive double-DVD release for the chain. Her first video package since 2000's "#1's" collection captures her October 8, 2006, concert in Anaheim, California, with 19 performances, behind-the-scenes clips, a tour documentary, a karaoke-style feature and more. Nelly Furtado's Loose: The Concert
Furtado is feeling a bit more generous than Carey — the singer is not only releasing her concert set wide, she's also issuing it in both CD and DVD form. The former item finds Furtado running through 11 of her best-known songs while on her recent European and U.S. tours in support of Loose — including "I'm Like a Bird" and "Promiscuous" — while the expanded DVD has her covering Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" and chalking up a bunch more songs, including "Turn Off the Light" and "Powerless." In case fans need even more incentive to grab the DVD instead, it comes with a half-hour's worth of behind-the-scenes video footage with the pop star. Styles P's Super Gangster (Extraordinary Gentleman)
We've been streaming for free the third solo effort from the D-Block member, a disc that has "Blow Ya Mind" (featuring Swizz Beatz) as its first single. But that's not the only guest P has in tow — he also tapped one of his December 4 competitors, Ghostface, as well as Beanie Sigel, Akon, Jadakiss and others. "I'm just trying to be the MC and come with good, old-fashioned street soul music," he recently told Mixtape Monday of the vibe of the effort, which marks his debut on Koch Records. "I really feel like the '90s era." Godsmack's Good Times, Bad Times ... Ten Years of Godsmack
The hard-rock band has sold about 11 million albums in the U.S. since it formed 11 years ago, and with a dozen or so singles that rock radio has probably burned into your brain, a greatest-hits collection is only fitting. Also "good timing," so to speak — given Led Zeppelin's recent reunion — is Godsmack's cover of the classic-rockers' "Good Times, Bad Times," which kicks off the 16-song menu. Aficionados will likely want to grab the CD-plus-DVD edition, which features the band performing acoustically at the House of Blues in Las Vegas. Blake Lewis' Audio Day Dream
Last but not least, the beatboxing "American Idol" alumnus steps up with his first album — for which he claimed to MTV News that he had invented a whole new genre. "I call it '2080,' because it's a mix of all the great pop music that's inspired me," he said of the disc, which blends funk, soul, rock and pop. The sixth-season finalist's album is led by the single "Break Anotha," which was co-written with and produced by Ryan "Alias" Tedder of One Republic, as well as other tracks Tedder helped craft. J.R. Rotem produced and co-wrote "What'cha Got 2 Lose?" with Lewis and fellow "Idol" finalist Chris Richardson, while none other than Lupe Fiasco — who cranks out his own new album, Lupe Fiasco's "The Cool," in a couple of weeks — is featured on "Know My Name." That's a Rap: Hip-hop heads have a lot on their plate this week — in addition to all the above, there's also a new album from Scarface, Made, that features guest spots from (surprise!) Lil Wayne and T.I. Scarface's last album did well, reaching #12 on the Billboard albums chart and selling more than 300,000 copies, but with hardly any promotion behind his new effort, it's going to be tough for him to score a repeat performance. Also back in stores is Too Short, whose Get Off the Stage is coming under the radar as well — probably because it's the last release he's putting out through Jive. It features E-40, the Pack and more. There's plenty more bristling on the archival front too, chiefly the new two-part The Best of 2Pac collection. The discs are being sold separately and feature one unreleased song and one new remix apiece: Part 1: Thug has "Resist the Temptation" and a new mix of "Dear Mama" featuring Anthony Hamilton, whose original version was nominated for a Grammy Award; while Part 2: Life contains "Dopefiend's Diner," which finds 2Pac using a vocal sample of the melody line from Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner," and an acoustic remix of "Thugz Mansion." Mack 10, Fiend and Westside Connection are also getting some love from the vaults with best-of collections, while some of Eazy-E's most memorable guest spots were culled for Featuring Eazy-E. An expanded 20th-anniversary edition of N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton is also hitting stores — with five bonus slices, including a live performance of "Compton's N the House" by Dr. Dre and MC Ren, and covers of Compton tracks by Snoop Dogg, C-Murder, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Mack 10 and WC. And repping newer talent is TVT's Crunk Hits Vol. 4 comp, which has the latest crunk classics by T.I., Lil Jon, Chris Brown and more. Song Title of the Week: "Conjunctions, Conjunctions, Everybody Loves Them" from Memphis May Fire's Memphis May Fire Album Cover of the Week: Ex-Boyfriends' three different "Clue"-themed covers for In With Other Notables: Various artists' "Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis"
In case you weren't privy to the landmark 7/7/07 event, a little guy named Al Gore is trying to raise awareness about a little issue called global warming. Backing him up at the concerts were about 100 of the world's best-known musicians whose performances across the globe were whittled down for the two-hour broadcast captured on this two-DVD/one-CD set. The first video disc spotlights John Legend, Beastie Boys, Black Eyed Peas, Snow Patrol and more; the second one has Rihanna, Foo Fighters and the Smashing Pumpkins, among others; and the CD includes tunes by Madonna, John Mayer<

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Flea's House 'Burnt To A Crisp'; Plus Mary J. Blige, Nelly Furtado, AFI, Pete Wentz & More, In For The Record

26 Nov 2007 20:34:00 EST

Blige gets charitable; Furtado, AFI featured on bizarre holiday single; Wentz teams with Perez Hilton for T-shirt contest.
By MTV News staff

Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea (file)
Photo: Scott Gries/ Getty Images

Wildfires broke out in Malibu, California, again over the weekend, and among those impacted were Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, who lost a home due to the flames, and Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose, who had a close call when the fires burned his roof and singed some of his property. According to a report on KCAL-TV, Rose's assistant said the rocker "was with the hose everywhere" on his property, fighting to save his home. The Los Angeles Times reports that Flea said in a text message that his $4.8 million home in Corral Canyon was "burnt to a crisp" by the fires on Saturday morning. According to TMZ.com, a second, $10 million Malibu home owned by Flea — the one in which he currently resides — did not burn. The one that did was a $4.8 million house that the bassist rents and currently has up for sale, the site reports. ... Mary J. Blige is slated to perform at an upcoming Lifebeat benefit event honoring Stephen Hill, executive vice president of entertainment and music programming at BET. "Live Beats: A Night of Musical Mayhem and Tonal Terror Fashioned by Fun(k)," set to take place December 4 at New York's Highline Ballroom, will salute the Lifebeat board member for his work in fighting AIDS/HIV. Proceeds from the event will go to Lifebeat, and a related contest will give the winner a chance to play onstage at the venue with Blige's 10-piece backing band. For more info, go to Lifebeat.org. Adding to her good-Samaritan cred, Blige also played last week at a homeless-initiatives benefit show hosted by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and staged by the Staples Center Foundation at the city's Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE. ... Ho ho huh? Nelly Furtado has ganged up with members of AFI, LCD Soundsystem, the Faint, Panthers, the Horrors, Terror and the Black Lips for an upcoming charity release by Canadian hardcore-punk princes F---ed Up. The track is featured as the B-side on the band's new holiday single, and all proceeds will go to the George Herman House, a Toronto transitional-housing and life-skills program supporting women with mental-health issues. In more conventional news, Furtado has piled together a CD and DVD for her recent Get Loose World Tour. The items, both called Loose the Concert, will drop December 4 and feature 11 and 17 selections, respectively, from the trek. The DVD features a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" as well as 30 minutes of documentary material ... If you think Furtado's collaborative affair is out there, try this one on for size: Pete Wentz + Perez Hilton. The Fall Out Boy bassist and gossip guru have joined forces to create a new tee for Wentz's Clandestine Industries. They've come up with a name for it — "I Love Being a Sh--talker" — but are staging a contest to determine the design. The shirt will be sold at the new Clandestine Industries store in Chicago and on the company's Web site, ClandestineIndustries.com, and the winner will get a tee signed by Wentz and Hilton. The deadline to submit an original design is December 14, and the winner will be named seven days later — go to FriendsorEnemies.com for the 411 on how to enter. ... While Time has yet to decide if J.K. Rowling will best Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore and others for Person of the Year, the "Harry Potter" author has earned her place as the Entertainer of the Year in another magazine, Entertainment Weekly. The publication said she deserves the honor for getting "people to tote around her big, old-fashioned printed-on-paper books as if they were the hottest new entertainment devices on the planet." Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, George Clooney and Will Smith also made EW's list of 25 top entertainers of the year. ... Linkin Park plan to keep touring in 2008, and they'll be bringing Coheed and Cambria along for the ride. So far, just two dates have been announced for the groups' tour leg: February 16 in Detroit and February 18 in Manchester, New Hampshire. More dates will be revealed in the coming weeks. ... Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's instrumental score to the upcoming Paul Thomas Anderson film "There Will Be Blood" is due in stores December 18. The movie hits theaters eight days later. The score includes material Greenwood wrote for a previous orchestral piece, "Popcorn Superhet Receiver," which will debut in concert in the U.S. in January when he participates in New York's Wordless Music Series. ... U2's Bono and the Edge surprised about 200 fans on Friday at the small London venue Union Chapel with a 20-minute, four-song acoustic set. According to a report on the band's Web site, the duo played "Stay," "Desire," "Angel of Harlem" and the recently unearthed rarity "Wave of Sorrow," which had never been played live and for which the Edge played keyboards. The gig was part of the Little Noise Sessions put on by Mencap, a group that aids people with learning disabilities. ... Hulk Hogan said he was totally unaware that his wife of 24 years, Linda Marie Bollea, had recently filed for divorce when asked to comment on Friday by the St. Petersburg Times. According to the paper, Linda filed a petition for the dissolution of their marriage last Tuesday, unbeknownst to her husband. After learning of the development, the wrestler then reportedly thanked the reporter for the "great information" and hung up, calling back five minutes later to say he'd been "kind of shocked" by the news. "You caught me off guard. My wife has been in California for about three weeks," Hogan reportedly said. "Holy smokes. Wow, you just knocked the bottom out of me. I just pulled over to the side of the road for five minutes to find out what was going on here." According to The Associated Press, Linda Bollea requested alimony and child support for their 17-year-old son, Nick Bollea, as well as a share of the family's two multimillion-dollar properties in Florida, in her divorce petition, which calls the marriage "irretrievably broken." The couple married in 1983 and have two children, 19-year-old singer Brooke Hogan and Nick, who was involved in an August car crash that left a passenger critically injured. ... The critics and moviegoers might be loving "American Gangster," but one New York City Drug Enforcement agent apparently isn't so fond of the film. According to TMZ.com, ex-agent Gregory Korniloff is threatening legal action against the movie's studio, Universal, for what he claims are "false and defamatory statements." In a recently filed cease-and-desist letter filed by his attorney, Korniloff demands a retraction of statements made in the movie, which allegedly presents several misleading facts and incorrectly states that a third of NYC DEA agents were convicted on charges related to gangster Frank Lucas. The now-retired agent was the case agent for the DEA and, as the letter reportedly states, "personally participated in the search of Lucas' house ... and the arrest of Lucas on that same day." It was another rough weekend for Amy Winehouse. First, according to Reuters, the singer's husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, was denied bail and ordered to remain in custody until at least January 18 after appearing in a London court on Friday, charged with allegedly beating up a bartender. Fielder-Civil and another man, Michael Brown, were slated to stand trial this month in the case, in which they are accused of roughing up pub landlord James King last June. But the trial was recently delayed after police arrested Fielder-Civil and accused him of conspiracy to obstruct justice in the assault case. The news was hardly better for Winehouse, who reportedly showed up 45 minutes late for her gig Saturday night at London's Hammersmith Apollo, at which point some fans were already asking for refunds. NME reported that there was a loud chorus of boos by the time Winehouse finally took the stage and things only got worse from there, including a bit where her famous towering beehive almost toppled over and fell off. At one point, looking bored, she walked offstage and let her backup singers take over lead vocals. During the show's encore she left again, midway through a song, and didn't return. ... The mystery surrounding AlbumSix.com just keeps growing. The site, believed by many to be a stealth Weezer affair, was under scrutiny again, when the bandmembers posted on its official Web site last week that they have no affiliation with it or any news it purports to have. Weezer also disputed the site's claims that the next album would be called Tout Ensemble and that it already has an official release date. According to a post on AlbumSix, "Weezer and Geffen Records have no affiliation with www.albumsix.com. ... We are honestly surprised how long this lasted. We expected that the media would contact Interscope or Weezer, and they would squash things immediately. But somehow, we slipped through the traditions of journalism. ... We never expected anyone to believe it. We thought we'd get a few Weezer fans on the boards to get excited, but we never actually thought we'd become a legitimate news source. We can't say we blame the media. Viral marketing is the hot new thing. However, we hoped you learned a lesson. ... We are extremely excited about the new Weezer albu

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