Jay-Z announce “Magna Carta Holy Grail” out July 4th!

During tonight’s NBA Finals Jay-Z in a partnership with Samsung aired a commercial announcing his new album Magna Carta Holy Grail. The album is expected to be out July 4th. Samsung has purchased 1 million copies of the album and plan on releasing it to the Galaxy smart phone users through an app. The album will be available prior to the official release for S4 owners.

This is exciting since I purchased the S4 just a few weeks ago so I’m hoping to be part of this promotion.

The commercial features heavy hitters in the Hip-Hop game Pharrell, Timbaland, Swizz Beatz, and the legendary Rick Robin. This all star collaboration is definitely sparking interest throughout the Internet!

Jay-Z releases “Open Letter” in response to those criticizing his trip to Cuba

Jay-Z and Beyonce created quite a stir with their trip to Cuba last week. Many didn’t understand why the couple would choose to spend their 5th anniversary in the communist country. Well just when you thought the story couldn’t get any crazier it has. With the release of Jay-Z’s song “Open Letter” he openly talks about his trip and the unnecessary controversy surrounding it. The trip was in fact sanctioned by the U.S. Government as part of an educational trip set up by an organization here in the states.

The song “Open Letter” was recorded late last night and produced by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz. It addresses everything from the buying of the Brooklyn Nets to a line that says Obama should just chill out when it comes to any political backlash stemming from the Cuba trip. I especially like the line where Jay-Z admits to not really understanding anything about Communism. This is probably the reason he doesn’t understand what a big deal it was for him to be there and why this has become such a controversy. First Dennis Rodman to North Korea and now Jay-Z to Cuba we are so lucky to have such wonderful humanitarians…then you wonder why other countries hate us so much.   I would really like to know what this educational trip fully entailed because it seems more like a celebrity couple got tired of visiting all the same exotic islands and opted to pay a premium to do something that other people can’t.

If you want to check out the song I’ve posted it below as always feel free to let me know what you think!

 

Justin Timberlake: Suit & Tie (Official Video)

Everyone had been talking about the return of Justin Timberlake to music for weeks now. The build up to the release of The 20/20 Experience has been non stop. Justin appeared on the Grammy’s with Jay-Z in a performance much like what you see in the official video out today.

This song has it’s moments…Like everything prior to Justin singing. The beginning catches my attention. It is clearly a Timbaland beat and what you expect to hear. The track is well produced and there are defiantly parts that show great musicality. As much as I enjoy the track my favorite part is when Jay-Z comes in. The video leaves me feeling the same way.

This is clearly a comeback for Justin Timberlake he’s back to making music and he has am even greater following now than he did before. I’m hoping this song will eventually grow on me, but so far it hasn’t.  I’m actually already tired of hearing it which isn’t a good thing. The Album is out March 19th so I’m sure there will be lots more buzz brewing in the near future.

The rumor is he will be at SXSW…I’ll keep you posted on what happens!

Justin Timberlake Suit & Tie (Feat. Jay-Z)

The internet blew up earlier this week when a cryptic Tweet from Justin Timberlake announced that at 9:01 PST he would be making some sort of announcement. After not having released any new music in 6 1/2 years the internet blew up with lots of speculation and the consensus seemed to be that a new song was going to be debuted for all his fans. Thursday came and went and the only release that came was a video clip eluding to the fact that he indeed was working on music and was collaborating with Timberland on an upcoming project. That didn’t really seem like news considering Timbaland had already previously stated that they were planning on working together. So many felt that Justin had “Punked the Internet” because there was no new music to be heard. Fast forward to this evening and now the wait is over…”Suit & Tie” Feat. Jay Z was released a little after 11 CST and is now a trending topic on twitter! So this is what everyone has been waiting for! The new Single is available for Download on itunes NOW! The  20/20 Experience will be the new album from Justin Timberlake!

Timbaland Thursdays

Finally home from vacation and trying to get back into the swing of things! Hope everyone had a great New Year! While I was gone I had trouble keeping up with my twitter feed but I did notice quite a bit of noise coming from Timbaland and his Timbaland Thursdays  This isn’t a new initiative he’s been releasing new music ever Thursday for some time now. The marketing model is taken from Kanye West and his G.O.O.D. Fridays where every week he released a new song leading up to the release of Watch the Throne. Timbaland took the advice of his brother and decided to the same and Timbaland Thursday was born in January 2011. Initially the concept was for it to lead up to the release of Shock Value III which as of today January 2, 2013 doesn’t have an official release date.

Why did I go into the history of it? well mostly because it kind of surprised me that it had been going on for so long. I thought maybe at the most it had been around since the beginning of December. It’s been all over twitter for the last few days and there is now a SoundCloud page that goes along with it. I’m hoping that this last push means that the release of Shock Value III is in the near future but like with most things in the industry you can’t ever really tell.

Despite there clearly being something holding up the release the songs released on Twitter this past week sound amazing. I have always been a Timbaland Fan and find his work as a producer incredible. You can always recognize a Timbaland beat and that’s always cool to me. I love his signature sound and the way he can easily mix so many genres onto one album.

These are a few songs to check out: