Lil Dicky is out here trying to save the Earth one song at a time.

On Friday (April 19), the 2016 XXL Freshman unloaded “Earth,” a new song and video that includes help from his famous friends. In the music video for the Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat-produced song, an animated Dicky ventures the globe while expressing his love for every Earth-bound entity in existence. Dicky’s love extends to his favorite animals to marijuana and more.

Each living being is voiced by the likes of various artists like Wiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg and Justin Bieber. Even Kevin Hart makes a cameo by doing his best Kanye West impression. Wiz Khalifa raps as a skunk while Uncle Snoop takes on the form of his beloved weed planet. Later on, Lil Jon appears as a clam, Miguel portrays a squirrel, and Rita Ora becomes a howling wolf.

posted David Miller (via XXL)

Take your performance anywhere with the DDJ-800. Designed exclusively for use with our professional performance application, rekordbox dj (a license key worth € 139 is included), the new portable 2-channel DJ controller enables you to craft slick sets, wherever you go.

The DDJ-800 is the perfect controller for those who love to travel. It comes packed with features and the ability to integrate into bigger club setups. Plus, it inherits the layout design from the DDJ-1000 so you can keep an eye on all the information you need via the Color On Jog Display in the center of each jog wheel and bring your mixes to life with the 14 Beat FX, 16 Performance Pads and 4 Sound Color FX.

Thanks to the compatible Feedback Reducer feature in rekordbox dj, you can stop worrying about MCs walking in front of the speakers, as the system will automatically bring down the ‘howling’ sound from the mic – especially handy when you have two mics connected. Use the DDJ-800 to mix audio from external sources – adding Sound Color FX and Beat FX when connected to rekordbox dj – and make all your shows unique.

posted by David Miller (via Pioneer DJ)

On Monday (April 15), the folks at the publication reported their latest Billboard Hot 100 updates, and while doing so, they revealed that Lil Nas X, who retained his No. 1 spot from last week, broke Drake’s record for most U.S. streams in one week. Drizzy previously held that record after his Scorpion single, “In My Feelings,” earned 116.2 million streams for the week ending in July 28, 2018.

According to Billboard, “Old Town Road,” which they now classify as being the same song as the Billy Ray Cyrus-assisted remix, broke the all-time U.S. single-week audio streaming record by earning 143 million streams for the week ending in April 20.
Before Billboard made the official announcement about the viral hit, Lil Nas X celebrated the W with a simple IG post with a screenshot of Chart Data’s prediction for the song. “Legendary,” he wrote in the caption.

Last week, Billboard reported that “Old Town Road” is the latest No. 1 song on their Hot 100 chart. The publication confirms that Lil Nas X is the first artist since Cardi B to hit No. 1 on the chart with their first song to enter the list. The rare feat comes just a little over two weeks after hip-hop came Lil Nas X’s defense when Billboard removed his song from the Hot Country Songs after deeming it “not country enough” to be on said chart.
“Wow, Discrimination At It’s Finest,” Ski Mask The Slump God tweeted. “This Didn’t Come From Me But If My Song Was Taken Off Of A Platform Because They Decided It Doesn’t Live Up To The Genre Enough For Them I’m suing.”

At the time of the report about the song being removed from the Hot Country Songs chart, Billboard emphasized that the song’s removal was not race related. Clearly, it hasn’t stopped Lil Nas X from obliterating more streaming and chart records.

posted by David Miller (via Billboard)

Artist Relations Manager OP gives you everything you need to know about the new MWM Phase in this unboxing and set up video.

posted by David Miller (via Serato)

“SOS,” the first song from the forthcoming posthumous Avicii album, dropped today. The song, which features vocals from “Wake Me Up” singer Aloe Blacc and is quite distinctively an Avicii track, is the first to arrive from the album, which is called “Tim” and is due in June. Collaborators said was nearly finished at the time of the artist’s death from an apparent suicide on April 20 of last year.

The track was produced by Avicii (legal name: Tim Bergling), Albin Nedler and Kristoffer Fogelmark. The two collaborators talked about the challenges of completing the work Avicii had started.

“Afterwards, finishing them was … I just get paralyzed by talking about it, but everything was about completing Tim’s version,” says Fogelmark.

Through the program Fruity Loops, Nedler and Fogelmark were able to track and preserve Bergling’s keystrokes. “He had a completely different way of playing piano and keyboard,” says Nedler. “As a result his fingers would sometimes strike an unusual key, which added to his unique sound. Tim’s fingerprints are literally across the entirety of ‘SOS.’”

posted by David Miller (via variety)

For those unable to make it to the desert romp known as Coachella this weekend, thankfully the festival will be live streaming some of its biggest acts.

66 acts have been confirmed so far for the live stream, with more being added every day. Headliners like Ariana Grande, Childish Gambino and Tame Impala are confirmed, as well as buzzing names like Blackpink, Billie Eilish, Wiz Khalifa and Kacey Musgraves. On the electronic front, you can tune into Bassnectar’s explosive Saturday night closing set, as well as Gorgon City, Four Tet, Dillon Francis, DJ Snake, Nora En Pure and more. Find the live stream HERE as well as the list of artists to catch.

The live stream will consist of three channels, and this year will also be broadcasted in New York City’s Time Square screen, making it the first festival in history to do so.

Click HERE to watch

posted by David Miller

We got to speak to the legends Kenny Dope and DJ Jazzy Jeff while we were at SXSW2019. They speak on meeting each other, their first tour, getting into production, and the discovery of lost vinyl gems.

posted by David Miller (via Serato)

Festivals have grown into a hugely popular facet of the music events industry, with around 3.5 million people attending the 1000+ number of festivals that take place in the UK alone each year.

A number of festival organisers and industry experts from across the world are interviewed in the documentary, including Glastonbury festival’s Michael and Emily Eavis and Love International founders Dave Harvey and Tom Paine.

Artists who play regularly on the festival circuit are also featured, including Eats Everything, NERVO and Rudimental members Piers Aggett and Amir Amor.

The 30-minute documentary investigates how the scene has evolved from primitive beginning to big budget productions offering a kaleidoscopic range of activities beyond music, how festivals compare to clubs, and the impact festivals have on artist’s careers.

posted by David Miller (via mixmag)

Last year, Beyoncé performed at Coachella and became the first black woman to ever headline the festival. (She was scheduled to headline the year prior, but had to drop out because she was having twins. Lady Gaga performed in her place.) The performance was epic: She was joined by Jay-Z and Solange, she reunited with Destiny’s Child, the livestream of the set was shared far and wide as an example of Beyoncé’s boundless energy and expertise.

Now, almost a year to the day later of that first performance, Netflix will debut Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé, an intimate behind-the-scenes look at the performance from conception to completion. Judging from the trailer, it’ll be a highly stylized at how it all came together.

posted by David Miller (via Spin)

Nipsey Hussle’s Victory Lap album is aiming to re-enter next week’s Billboard 200 chart straight into the top 10, according to industry forecasters.

Prognosticators suggest the late rapper’s album could earn between 40,000 and 60,000 equivalent album units in the week ending April 4, following a surge of interest in the set after his death on Sunday (March 31). The album tallied about 3,000 units in the week ending March 28, according to Nielsen Music.

The album, which debuted and peaked at No. 4 on the March 3, 2018-dated chart, has been absent from the tally since the May 5, 2018 chart, where it ranked at No. 195.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the April 13-dated Billboard 200 chart (where Victory Lap could re-enter the top 10) is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Sunday, April 7.

According to initial reports to Nielsen Music, Victory Lap earned 6 million on-demand audio streams for its songs on March 31 — up 638 percent compared to the day previous (810,000 streams). The set’s most-streamed song on Sunday was “Dedication,” featuring Kendrick Lamar, which tallied 1.23 million on-demand audio streams. (The track was also Hussle’s most-streamed song, by on-demand audio streams, of his entire catalog on the day of his death.)

Hussle died on March 31 after being shot outside of his Marathon Clothing store in Los Angeles.

posted by David Miller (via billboard)

As the digital age has progressed, and the tools available to DJs have expanded outside of just vinyl, a Portastudio, and some second-hand Roland gear, it has become a mantra that to be a successful DJ, you must also be a successful producer. Thus we have collectively thrown ourselves at Ableton Live, and been largely stopped in our tracks by the learning wall. But Serato is here to help us make more sense of laying down tracks. They made a good start with Serato Sample, and now have announced a public beta of their new Serato Studio software — the full fat Sample that aims to introduce production to Serato DJ Pro users, and it does it in a considerably more DJ friendly way.

Posted David Miller (via djworx)

This week, Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” continued its ride up the Billboard Hot 100 charts, moving from No. 51 to No. 32. X’s clever, meme-ready lyrics are driving the success, but you also have to give credit to the trap production from Netherlands-bred producer YoungKio.

After being gifted production software Fl Studio in late 2016, Kio quickly progressed as a beatmaker, hungry to stitch his name alongside music savants. Last December, he reached a pivotal milestone. Memes of people dressed in cowboy attire began surfacing through the video-sharing app TikTok with his instrumental playing in the background. After a girl tagged him in one of her meme videos, Kio did some digging and learned that his “throwaway” beat had transformed into a full-fledged track titled “Old Town Road.”

“When I heard the song, I DM’d Nas on Instagram and said, ‘Yo, bro. This shit is fire. I wanna help promote it,'” Kio tells Billboard. “If you can just put produced by YoungKio in the title, this will help me grow as well.'” So he was cool with it. That’s how it just went. We didn’t really have any connection. It was just him buying it from my beats store and me finding out after.”

posted by David Miller (via billboard)