Kanye West and Jay-Z have finally offered up the first visual in support of their "Watch the Throne" joint album.

The duo premiered the Spike Jonze-directed clip for the album's lead track "Otis," Thursday night on MTV and BET platforms.

In the video, the Throne keep it simple -- if simple for them means torching and chopping up a black Maybach to transform it into some souped-up ATV hybrid, which they take for a joyride -- with models and Aziz Ansari in tow. The clip closes with a message that the customized vehicle will be auctioned off with proceeds to benefit the East African drought disaster.

Upon its much anticipated digital release Monday, the album shot straight to No. 1 on iTunes in 23 countries and will easily cement a top spot on the Billboard chart with projected sales that could top 500,000 copies, according to the trade.

Click on to watch the video. 

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-- Gerrick D. Kennedy

Photo: Kanye West and Jay-Z attend the exclusive listening event for "Watch The Throne" at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on Monday. Credit: Kevin Mazur / WireImage

Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Leona Lewis and Smokey Robinson are among the performers who will be headlining a Michael Jackson tribute concert, promoters announced Thursday.

"Michael Forever: The Tribute Concert" is slated for Oct. 8, and organizers are hoping that 75,000 Jackson fans will make the pilgrimage to Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.

Global Live Events said the the bill will also include Craig David; British boy band JLS; Alien Ant Farm,  which scored a massive hit with its rock cover of "Smooth Criminal"; and 3T, the group that features the three sons of Jackson's brother Tito. More acts are expected to be announced.

Late last month, Michael Jackson’s mother, Katherine, and siblings Marlon, Tito, Jackie and La Toya announced the concert, but were tight-lipped on details, promising only that it would be a "thriller of an event."

The concert's announcement hasn’t come without controversy. Jackson’s estate isn’t affiliated with the show, and it responded after the initial announcement that promoters and Jackson's family hadn't gotten permission to use the king of pop's name and likeness. Jackson's brothers Randy and Jermaine have denounced the event, releasing a statement questioning the appropriateness of the show, as it will conflict with the scheduled trial of Jackson’s doctor in connection with the pop star’s 2009 fatal overdose.

"We want to make clear that this does not reflect the position of the entire family," the two said in a joint statement. "While we wholeheartedly support the spirit of a tribute that honors our brother, we find it impossible to support an event that is due to take place during the criminal trial surrounding Michael's death."

The official website for the show has posted that Katherine "has agreed to attend the concert with as many of Michael's children as are available."

Purchasing tickets for the tribute is nearly as complicated as following the familial affiliations. Fans can register their interest in obtaining tickets online. At first, this was to be through offering a charitable pledge, with the higher pledges getting better chances to purchase tickets, which would range in price from 55 pounds ($88) to 240 pounds ($387). The website has since backtracked and now states that any donations, though encouraged, will have no weight in the chances of getting tickets.

Proceeds are expected to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles and the Prince’s Trust.

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How we were thrilled

-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
Twitter.com/GerrickKennedy

Photo: Michael Jackson. Credit: Joel Ryan / Associated Press

 
"What you so scared of me for?" Jill Scott asked an imaginary lover Wednesday night at the Gibson Amphitheatre. "I’m just a woman." Strictly speaking, this was true: Throughout the course of her 90-minute set -- the final act in a multi-artist R&B concert billed officially as Budweiser Superfest Presents Jill Scott’s Summer Block Party -- Scott dug deeply and nearly exclusively into the female condition, celebrating its joys and pondering its challenges in unsparing detail.

But there isn’t much "just" in her approach to this womanly business. A former spoken-word performer who first emerged as part of Philadelphia’s neo-soul scene, Scott draws from a remarkably expansive skill set, one that includes singing and rapping as well as acting, sermonizing and, as she described it Wednesday in a rundown of hip-hop’s constituent parts, "the old aunt of storytelling."

Even when she stuck to singing at the Gibson, her technique ranged wildly, from soul holler to jazz murmur to a kind of light-operatic trill. In "Le Boom Vent Suite," from her new album, "The Light of the Sun," Scott used her voice to approximate the sound of a bell, setting down a skeletal pulse that her 11-piece band eventually fleshed out into sly ’70s-style funk.

 
Rebecca Black’s latest single, “My Moment,” was a promise from the YouTube singer to prove the detractors who said she “would be nothing” wrong. 

And she has.

The single, a follow-up to her viral hit “Friday,” has topped more than 22 million views. “My Moment,” which she released only a few weeks ago, was watched nearly 2 million times in less than 24 hours.

Black's fame has had its consequences, though. She revealed on ABC's “Nightline” Wednesday that she was forced to drop out of her Orange County school after ferocious bullying and taunts reached a breaking point.

"When I walk by they'll start singing 'Friday' in a really nasally voice," she said of the constant mocking. "Or, you know, they'll be like, 'Oh hey, Rebecca, guess what day it is?' "

But, then, who needs silly high school drama when friends like Katy Perry like you enough to bring you out onstage and put you in her video?

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-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
Twitter.com/GerrickKennedy

Photo: Rebecca Black in Los Angeles. Credit: Chris Pizzello / Associated Press

Before the Power of the Riff came along, the local L.A. metal scene was in need of a unifying festival. It was something that Sam Velde -- frontman of L.A. band Night Horse -- and Greg Anderson of Southern Lord Records knew they needed to be a part of.

Raging inside the doors of the Echo and the Echoplex, the day-long L.A. festival created a new thrash of energy among heavy music acts ranging from punk to hardcore to heavy metal when it premiered last year in L.A., San Francisco and Seattle. And despite running on corporate cash courtesy of its partnership with Converse, the celebration of amp-splitting distortion carried a spirit of DIY ethos you might find at almost any backyard metal bash -- only with bigger bands and a couple hundred more long-haired headbangers.

This year, the festival is no longer a free event, though Converse remains partly involved. However, Anderson says the 19-band line-up -- running the gamut from underground '70s icons such as Pentagram to the modern-day brutality of Chicago band Pelican -- is what makes this fest worth the $30 price of admission. Add to that an underground record-swap meet, the Grill 'Em All food truck and pop-up shops curated by local indie labels.

In Anderson's view, it's a chance to provide both a memorable show and an appreciation to the community it serves. Judging by the festival's expansion this year -- with extended two-day line-ups in San Francisco and Seattle -- the Power of the Riff's format and philosophy have served as an example to like-minded metal fests in the U.S. and abroad. Pop & Hiss recently caught up with Anderson, who let us in on why paying to see the Power of the Riff ensures the long-term power of the people in the L.A. metal scene.

Last year's Power of the Riff was free due to corporate sponsorship from Converse and Scion. What changed this year?

It was kind of a unique situation [last year], where we got corporate sponsorship. Sam [Velde] had a friend at Converse that was really into what we were doing and wanted to meet with us about it. So we met with him and he said, "This idea is great, but I’d like it to be free." So he put up the money in order to make it a free event. This year, we didn’t really have that luxury. Converse is involved a bit, but it was the same old story, that their budgets just weren’t there for promotion like they were last year, so we weren’t able to make it a free event.

Los Amigos Invisibles, which is playing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl Friday and Saturday, has at least one friend who's very visible these days: Gustavo Dudamel, the Phil's music director.

Like the band, renowned for its dance-happy fusions of funk, merengue and disco, Dudamel is a Venezuela native who's well-versed in multiple musical genres. As anyone who has seen him and his wife, Eloisa, salsa dancing can attest, Dudamel -- whose father played in bands -- is as at home on a dance floor as he is conducting the Phil at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

In a phone interview from his New York home this week, Jose Luis "Cheo" Pardo, the Amigos' DJ, producer and chief songwriter, said that he and his bandmates have known Dudamel and his wife, a journalist and dancer-choreographer, for many years.

"Eloisa used to go to Los Amigos shows back in Caracas," Cheo said, adding that he met Dudamel later through a common friend. "He’s like a national icon back in Venezuela, so whenever we can get together and sit down and have a drink we do it."

It was Dudamel who helped arrange for Los Amigos to make their Bowl debut this weekend with the Phil, along with Rodrigo y Gabriela, the Mexico City "thrash metallurgists" whose dueling guitars combine a classical melodic verve with the  percussive urgency of a steam drill.

Cheo said he and his bandmates have performed with a symphony orchestra once before, and are eager to see what sort of orchestral arrangements the Phil and the program's conductor, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, have in mind.

"For us, like any music idea, we’re totally open to it. We want to take our songs to a different level," he said. "To listen to our songs with an orchestral arrangement is definitely going to blow our minds up."

Besides their Bowl gig, Los Amigos also will be performing Sept. 8 at the House of Blues in Anaheim and Sept. 9 at the Music Box in Los Angeles on a bill with Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux and Tijuana techno-wizards Nortec Collective.

Update: Dudamel will conduct Phil with Amigos Invisibles

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-- Reed Johnson

Photo: Los Amigos Invisibles. Credit: Nacional Records

We really appreciate the kindness motivating several anonymous artists associated with the music/art/activist collective FMLY to spruce up the Elliott Smith tribute wall outside of the Solutions speaker shop. The mural, seen on the cover of Smith's album "Figure 8," was under constant assault from taggers and had become an especially hurtful eyesore for fans of Smith's tender, virtuoso folk.

We even think the black and white stencil of Smith's visage, as seen on the "Figure 8" cover, was a sweet touch, especially on the occasion of his birthday last weekend. And we get it that painting murals costs time and money, and anybody who volunteers for such a job doesn't undertake it lightly, and L.A. music fans should be grateful to anyone who does it freely out of respect for an artist.

That said, would it have been that much extra work to tape off some lines for the stripe design?

-- August Brown

Photo credit: FMLY

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Spotify waited more than a year to come to the U.S. market. Metal label Century Media, which has its U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles, waited about a month to pull its content from the ad-supported streaming service.

In a detailed post, Century noted that CD and vinyl "sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active." Don Robertson, Century Media Records North American president, is on site today at the Warped Tour, but responded to questions via email. Although Robertson didn't break out his responses to each Pop & Hiss inquiry, he  was asked whether the label, which has a greater presence in Europe, had seen a specific drop-off in sales overseas before making the decision to remove its content.

"Certainly, overseas statistics influenced this choice, but it was not the only factor," Robertson wrote. "Although we whole-heartedly recognize Spotify as a new and exciting avenue for fans to gain access to music, in its current form, it does not allow for the artists on the Century Media roster and its affiliated labels to derive the profit needed to sustain their respective careers ... and it would appear to hurt both new music and catalog sales equally."

Spotify today responded to Century's decision to leave the service.

"We are sorry that Century Media have opted not to offer its music to their fans through Spotify," read a statement from the company. "Spotify was launched out of a desire to develop a better, more convenient and legal alternative to music piracy.  Spotify now monetises an audience the large majority of whom were downloading illegally (and therefore not making any money for the industry) before Spotify was available."

While neither Robertson's comment nor Century Media's published statement offers any hard numbers as evidence, the question as to whether or not ad-supported streaming services could support a label's business has long been a concern for the industry. It's not news that streaming services have long been targeted for giving labels relatively small payouts.

Brian Brandt, who runs the classical- and jazz-focused label Mode Records, today posted an essay on NewMusicBox.org, which was subsequently picked up by Billboard Magazine. Brandt posted some Spotify figures from June: "A big individual seller that month, by composer Luciano Berio, was streamed 1,326 times through Spotify; our income $4.18. So, we earn about 1/3 of a penny per stream. And these meager amounts should be split with the artists and composers."

Still, Spotify noted that the company has become a rather sizable business.

"Spotify," continued the company in its statement, "is now generating serious revenues for rights holders; since our launch just three years ago, we have paid over $100 million to labels and publishers, who, in turn, pass this on to the artists, composers and authors they represent. Indeed, a top Swedish music executive was recently quoted as saying that Spotify is currently the biggest single revenue source for the music industry in Scandinavia."

Denver's BLKHRTS describe themselves as M.O.P. meets Morrissey. A strong claim, but the union of the Mash Out Posse and Mr. Meat Is Murder does make for something noteworthy. Imagine the gladioluses  that fans would drop at Morrissey's feet, only now getting bashed by lead pipes of M.O.P. Picture a trio of vowel-averse velociraptors rapping as if the phrase "he who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain being a man" was tattoed on their foreheads.

Member King Foe described them as "a breath that you take the moment after the bungee cord is extended to its fullest extent jumping into the Grand Canyon." The words and beats hit like shrapnel, with samples from "Eraserhead," Matthew Dear and Joy Division's first incarnation, Warsaw.

They merge the crowbar rap of Brownsville with a disjointed post-Def Jux aesthetic. Their voices sound as if they’ve been slit with scythes. Denver doesn't have a subway, but somehow their songs rattle with the shuddering velocity of a train car going off the rails and killing dozens. It is rap as hard-core punk music that never forgets it's hip-hop.

Topic include sex, drugs, money and death, nightmares, demons and hearts pumping like the fury of angry slaves. At a time when the rap world is monomaniacally fixated on the throne, BLKHRTS play like a poisonous agent assassinating the tired tropes of fancy watches, foreign cars and esoteric concerns. After all, their debut EP, this year's "BLK S BTFL," examines a subtext similar to that of Jay-Z and Kanye's recent would-be opus: racial strife, temptation and gods and men. It's rap by mad villains, rawer than the fish that richer rappers feast on. Underground not because of a willfully obtuse aesthetic, but for its sense of subversion. 

Tonight, BLKHRTS play the Low End Theory -- the ideal outlet for their helter-skelter assault. I asked BLKHRT Yonnas what their plans were for the rest of the year. He wrote a mini-essay, which might be a little overwhelming, but will give readers a sense of the man's work ethic. Below the jump, his answer and an MP3 from one of most exhilarating and asphyxiating groups extant. 

Yannick “Thurzday” Koffi was only 6 when the nation was transfixed by the social uproar that was happening on the streets of Los Angeles following the 1992 verdict in the Rodney King case.

The narrative, however, left a scar on the young Koffi. King, of course, was the subject of the infamous videotaped beating by Los Angeles police in March 1991 that resulted in four officers being tried. Their acquittal led to the riots that turned about a 10-mile stretch of Los Angeles into a battleground, with torched buildings, massive looting and more than 50 casualties. 

Such a backdrop is one that Koffi, half of local rap duo U-N-I, is using for his debut solo album, “L.A. Riot,” which was released Tuesday.

“I lived in Inglewood during those times, so I remember a lot of things about it. The title just struck my interest,” he said while prepping the album’s release party at the Papillion Institute of Art. “Calling it that, you have to pay homage to the historical event that shaped a lot of L.A.”