Dan The Automator, aka Daniel Nakamura, knows a thing or two about setting a mood. The Bay Area-based producer has worked on projects such as Gorillaz’s debut album, Handsome Boy Modeling School (with Prince Paul) and multiple projects with rapper Kool Keith. Now, Nakamura has set his sights on film scoring, and will make his [...]

One of the biggest moments in Disney’s new live-action version of its animated classic “Aladdin” comes when Will Smith is revealed as the Genie, who emerges from a magic lamp to sing “Friend Like Me” — a make-or-break moment in audiences accepting him taking over Robin Williams’ role from the 1992 original. While another song [...]

Mixtapes, YouTube videos, dedicated playlists, ancillary products, viral marketing, epic chart stays. These are buzzwords you expect to hear from a record label discussing Cardi B or Beyoncé. Instead, this is the new world of a very old staple, the Broadway original-cast recording. Robust stats tell the tale: Atlantic’s “Hamilton” album beat the record held by Adele’s [...]

The Daily Beast today published a preview of David Letterman’s interview with Kanye West — which addresses music, fashion, West’s late mother and of course his much-criticized support of President Trump — on his Netflix show, which begins streaming next Friday, May 31. The article praises the hour-long session as “not only one of the [...]

On Thursday, nearly 22 years after the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” was released, singer Richard Ashcroft announced that the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards assigned to him the songwriter royalties and rights from the song, which samples one of their compositions, and removed their writing credits. The songwriting royalties and rights had been assigned [...]

Veteran DJ/producer/artist/rapper Flying Lotus operates in a sort of netherworld between electronic, hip-hop, jazz and funk, without being particularly anchored in any earthly genre. He’s signed to the electronic label Warp, is the nephew of jazz great Alice Coltrane and the grandson of Marilyn MacLeod (cowriter of Diana Ross’ hit “Love Hangover”), and has worked [...]