Music Editorthe: Last News

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment has announced the full slate of programming for the fifth annual New York Music Month, to run throughout the month of June 2022 in New York City.This year’s NYMM will feature a combination of in-person and virtual programming, with more than 20 events, including an all-day industry conference on the future of NYC’s music industry, skill-building workshops, free rehearsal space, songwriting camp, and showcases of emerging NYC artists. This month-long series aims to support songwriters, established musicians, emerging artists, and NYC’s entire musical community, many of whom were severely impacted by the pandemic.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe new Wasserman Music agency and livestreaming service Twitch have partnered to launch “There is Light,” an indie-centric channel and concert series. The series will present 20 live concerts from independent music venues in the U.S.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe widow of Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell has sued the surviving bandmembers again, claiming that she was offered a $300,000 buyout that she considers “ludicrously low” and is calling for the group’s holdings to be professionally valued.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe three major music companies — Sony, Universal and Warner Music — have asked employees to work from home as much as possible for the rest of 2020 due to concerns over COVID-19.While the offices will be open for employees who must be there for business reasons, according to internal memos obtained by Rolling Stone (which first reported the news) and Variety, the companies, which are the largest recorded-music and music-publishing businesses in the world, have asked the staff who can do so to work from home. Reps for the companies either declined or did not respond to Variety‘s requests for comment.The news is not surprising, due to the enormous spread of coronavirus across the U.S.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe organizers of the 20th annual BET Awards know all too well that 2020 is both different from past years and, sadly, not different enough — and the show kicked off on Sunday night in fiery fashion with a song that sums up both 31 years ago and now: an incendiary new version of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” that featured new verses from Nas, YG, the Roots’ Black Thought, Rapsody joining Chuck D and Flava Flav’s classic original lines, accompanied by guest DJ Questlove. The video featured both the performers, footage from the Martin Luther King Jr.