Will.I.Am

Eric Garcetti Woos Hipster Vote With Steve Aoki Fundraiser

When a 15-year-old girl died from a drug overdose after she attended Electric Daisy Carnival at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 2010, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was quick to question whether raves should be even be allowed at such a publicly owned venue. Steve Aoki, along with will.i.am and other ... More >>

Jay-Z's Great Gatsby Soundtrack Is a Failure

When the first trailer for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby was released a year ago, it was set to the music of Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," from the sometimes duo's incredibly self-important Watch the Throne album. On the surface it made sense. Jay-Z -- who retired as a rapper i ... More >>

Paul V.'s Born This Way Blog Becomes a Book About Growing Up Gay

Long before Lady Gaga's second full-length album ever hit the charts, thousands of kids across the globe played out its title song in real life, showing friends, family members and themselves they were "Born This Way" -- namely, gay. In January, 2011 Paul V. Vitagliano (aka DJ Paul V.) launched Born ... More >>

2NE1 - Nokia Theatre - August 24, 2012

2NE1 Nokia Theatre 08-24-12 See also: K-pop Till You Drop: The Skinny on the Korean Boy and Girl Groups That Get Major Play in Koreatown 2NE1's first international tour brought the K-pop girl group to Nokia Theatre on Friday. The show felt like a stellar girls night out, and you could tell they w ... More >>

What the Dodgers' Musical Taste Says About Them

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Forget phrenology, both the overrated Roots album and the 19th-century pseudo-science. Ignore palmistry, psychotherapy and Rick Warren. The best way to b ... More >>

Sunset Strip Music Festival - Marilyn Mason, Steve Aoki - August 18, 2012

See also: *Marilyn Manson Rambles, Makes Jokes About the Dark Knight Killer *Our review of X at the Roxy for Sunset Strip Music Festival, 8/17/12 While the Sunset Strip Music fest has primarily been seen as a head-banger hullabaloo attracting faithful longhairs and babes in studded belts -- and no ... More >>

Top 10 Sexiest Hip-Hop Video Vixens

LMFAO 'Bikini Girl' Says She Was Fired For Being 'Big Boned' Top Ten Sexiest Album Covers We've Ever Seen Top 60 Worst Lil Wayne Lines on Tha Carter IV Top Ten Rap Albums For People Who Don't Know Shit About Hip-Hop Top 20 Greatest L.A. Rap Albums Of All Time: The Complete List Thoughts From A Rando ... More >>

Open Mike Eagle Talks Uganda, the Indie Rap Illuminati, and the Republican Primaries

​See also: Open Mike Eagle Unapologetically Talks About "Art Rap" Over the last two years,

Christmas Rapping: Jim Carrey, Busta Rhymes, And Eazy-E Bring The Ho, Ho, Hoes

​While visions of sugarplum fairies might be dancing in your head this time of year, it's going to take a little more to bring your Christmas party to the next level. While the traditional seasonal standards are... standard, the surefire way to put the star on your tree -- or the eggs in you ... More >>

Bud Bundy's Rap Career?! Hear David Faustino's Music

In this week's cover story, "Bud Bundy, Original Gangsta," I delve into the remarkable hip-hop trajectory of David Faustino, who, while playing Bud Bundy on Married...with Children, threw one of the most influential rap parties the west coast has ever seen. In the early '90s, along with three of h ... More >>

Bud Bundy, Original Gangsta

David Faustino parlayed his Married ... With Children fame into a hugely influential hip-hop party. Now he wants back into the scene.

Interview With The Guy Who Ranks Rich Rappers For Forbes; Dre and Snoop Are On The New List, But What About Black Eyed Peas?

​Zack O'Malley Greenburg is the Forbes writer who puts together the magazine's annual "Cash Kings" list, which estimates the earnings of the wealthiest rappers of the past year and ranks the top 20. Their newest version came out yesterday; Jay-Z topped the list with $37 million, and L.A. is ... More >>

Interview: will.i.am Discusses Science, Snoop's Quasi-Diss of Him, and the SNL Sketch Making Fun of Taboo and apl.de.ap.

​As we noted earlier in the day, Forbes does not consider the Black Eyed Peas a rap group. But that's okay, because will.i.am is a scientist! No, not a "hip hop scientist" who makes beats in the "lab." And, technically, not the real kind of scientist either. But, he thinks science is very im ... More >>

DJ Quik - Do-Over Party at Cabana Club - 8/7/11

Ben Westhoff​DJ Quik and Gaslamp Killer Cabana Club 8/7/11 Better Than...A day in the life of a player not named Quik. Long lines and folks trying to get the valet to park their Bentleys circled outside of the Cabana Club in Hollywood yesterday. It was Sunday afternoon and time for the weekl ... More >>

The Five Most Hilariously Offensive Misuses of Classic Songs For Commercial Purposes

​ We were so excited when we saw the wooden box on our desk with the words "Bob Marley" branded into the top. A CD box set? Possibly--if we are very very lucky--a box set of 7"s? With little booklets that have liner notes full of interesting and amazing facts about one of the word's seminal p ... More >>

Bouncing Cats

Dr. Dre Discusses Leaked First Single From "Detox," 'Kush,' Ft. Snoop Dogg and Akon

"Detox" is almost out of surgery ​The road to sobriety is long, arduous, and full of setbacks. No wonder Dr. Dre's highly anticipated third album, Detox, is ten years into the process, and has yet to come clean. But naysayers who'd given up on Detox as an empty promise can stop shaking thei ... More >>

Music Man Miles' Picks 'Top 5 Moments in Root Down's History' (Starring Madlib, Cut Chemist, Blackalicious, Breakestra and More), in Honor of the Influential Club's Return

Music Man Miles (far left) and Breakestra perform at the Root Down tonight.​Last week, influential L.A. funk and hip-hop club the Root Down returned from a year-long hiatus after more than a decade running. With a new location (the G-Club in Hollywood), a new host (KG Superstar), plus a handf ... More >>

Top Ten Videos to Feed Your Inner Gay Dude on Ecstasy, by DJ/VJ Ray Rhodes' Club Tigerheat

Lina Lecaro Videos and vamps- Tigerheat eye candy​Wanna see the hottest hits and soon-to-be hits really pop on the dance floor? There really is no place like Tigerheat, the exuberant, mostly gay gathering held every Thursday at Avalon. It'd been a while since we popped in, so we forgot just ho ... More >>

Sergio Mendes: Q&A

BOOM, BOOM, OW! SURVIVING GRAMMY WEEK IN L.A.

Empire Burlesque

Kid Cudi's Weird Week in Los Angeles: Handcuffs, GaGa Blowoffs, Tonight Show Let-Downs, Kanye Cameos and All

Those of you just returning from Jamaica, the French Riviera, Dubai or Missouri may have missed the interesting Christmas that singer/rapper Kid Cudi had last week during a media blitz in LA. Timothy NorrisKudi had an interesting week in LA​ On Monday, December 21, he and his entourage were ... More >>

Where Is The Love for will.i.am aka Zuper Blahq?

Was it the addition of the comely Fergie Ferg? The Justin Timberlake collab? The Saturday Night Live parody? Or "My Humps"? As a native Angeleno, we can remember the days when the Black Eyed Peas were a local hip-hop/breakdancin' act with loads of club cred. Though it was a different direction, we ... More >>

Victorians Gone Wild: Opening Night of Skingraft's New Store in Downtown

What do you do if you are edgy, avant garde, theatrical and in need of a nice, dark, gothy, neo-Victorian outfit? You're a bride, maybe, who wants a blood red gown, or a frothy black wedding dress. Options were few and far between until today. Now you go to Skingraft's couture atelier. The design tr ... More >>

Thurston and Kim Rather Rip Through MOCA

Plus, Lovers & Strangers at Hear Gallery, Mustache Mondays at La Cita and Dance at Arena

Grammy Week: Magical Music Moments All Over Town

Katy Perry Unpeeled — and Other Signs of Life in the Dead of the Grammys PressRoom

Including the buzz over Rihanna and Chris Brown, and revelations from Natalie Cole on heroin addiction

Beige Beef Breeds New Rusty's Supperclub, and Lucent Dossier Experience at the Edison

N.A.S.A. lands at Cinespace for Aoki's bash

Psst: Grammy Week Parties with MGMT, Black Eyed Peas, New York Dolls, Chelsea Girls, DJ AM and (maybe) Whitney Houston

The Grammy telecast might be a snooze, but during awards week its host city is anything but. Surprise stage jams and DJ sets, official and unofficial shindigs and a overall anything-can- happen/anyone-might-show vibe and excitement takes over LA's clubs and events... You don't need to be Jay-Z and B ... More >>

Thursday Night Music Stuff in LA: The Monks film at Silent Movie Theater, DFA at the Roxy, Rootdown Soundclash at Little Temple

I love LA. Love it love it love it (except when Indie 103 gets tossed off the airwaves). One reason: nights like tonight, when the music offerings are so far-flung and wide-open that my proto-punk gene is being pulled one direction, my turntablist strand is being pulled another, and my disco-house b ... More >>

The Conga Room Debuts Downtown, and It's a Beautiful Thing

The first thing that becomes painfully obvious as I arrive last night for the grand opening of The Conga Room, another new space at the L.A. Live complex downtown, is that I'm woefully under-dressed. What was I thinking? This isn't the reopening of the Snorkle Room or the Loser Room, this is the fr ... More >>

You Can Feel It All Over: Partying on Election Night With Hollywood's Godless Liberal Elites and Lowlifes

Keeping score at Big Wangs, the Century Plaza and the Echoplex

Godless America Celebrates Victory with DJ Jeremy Sole and Z-Trip in Century City and Diplo at the Echoplex

DJ Jeremy Sole at the California for Obama victory party in Century City. Click image for entire slideshow. (All photos by Timothy Norris) Driving down Sunset Boulevard west toward the California Obama for America victory party, National Public Radio is confirming a new reality. States are tippin ... More >>

Election Day 2008: Musical Oddities and Inspirations of the Election Cycle

Will i Am Offers Obama Handjob Via Campaign Song

As the voters of Texas, Rhode Island, Vermont and Ohio filed to the polls yesterday to help decide the Democratic Party's nomination for President, will.i.am., the capitalization averse mastermind of the Black Eyed Peas continued his steadfast efforts to help elect Senator Barack Obama of Illinois ... More >>

Kofie'One's Obama Mural

Obamanation Photos and text by Shelley Leopold A mural appeared in Mid-Wilshire on a recent morning — not on a rooftop or an overpass, but at the ninth-floor entrance to a nondescript office building. Like most pieces of graffiti art, it rose to greet its environment seemingly uninvited as it sta ... More >>

Hardcorey

Corey Hart, Moby and Tarina Tarantino's “Tokyo Hardcore”

Fall Harvest

While the media was examining a fake beef, a bounty of music dropped

Music

Fall Harvest While the media was examining a fake beef, a bounty of music dropped

will.i.am Solves Your Girl Trouble

The Black Eyed Pea doles out some Fergielicious advice on his new CD — and online?

(Powdered) Sugar Walls

The Grammy parties and the pod people

Hip-Hop Is Dead

...and other reports that have been greatly exaggerated

Kim.She.Is.

With her own studio, label and a new home in South-Central, ex—Black Eyed Pea Kim Hill is a woman reborn

Celebrated

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE at House of Blues, August 11

Bang a Bong

Dilated Peoples: L.A. b-boys hit the NBA

grammy diary

Tue., Feb. 7 LL Cool J at the House of Blues Wed., Feb. 8 The Grammys at the Staples Center Now, for my personal awards

Live in LA

Champion Birdwatchers

Rap and Revelation

Words to the wise from Blood of Abraham