Jay-Z Heading On Five City Tour With U2…

August 23, 2010 JUKEBOXDC Staff News No Comments  

…that those of you without a passport or some money for a fat plane ticket won’t be able to see. Rejoice!

From Billboard:

Live Nation Australia’s hugely anticipated first assignment will feature the biggest band in the world and the No. 1 hip-hop artist on the planet, Billboard.biz can reveal.

The promoter giant’s newly formed Australian affiliate is behind the upcoming U2 360 tour, which will take a detour down under in November. Rapper Jay-Z will join the party as a special guest.

U2’s 360 tour will pull in to Auckland’s Mount Smart Stadium on Nov. 25, then move on to open-air venues in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and conclude Dec. 18 at Perth’s Subiaco Oval, marking the first time the Irish group has played the Western Australian capital since the “Popmart” tour in 1998.

The Australasian dates announced today are produced by Live Nation Global Touring in association with Michael Coppel Presents (MCP) and Live Nation Australia.

In all five cities, tickets will be available from $39.90 ($35.70). Billboard.biz can report that roughly 45% of all tickets will priced under $100 ($89). Tickets go on sale Sept. 3, while U2.com subscribers can snap-up tickets ahead of the public on-sale.

Live Nation Australia opened for business on July 1. Based in Melbourne, the company is headed-up by two experienced hands in company veteran Luke Hede and former MCP executive Roger Field.

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The Foriegn Exchange – Authenticity (Artwork & Tracklisting)

August 23, 2010 JUKEBOXDC Staff News No Comments  

10/12. Press release and tracklisting after the jump.

“Authenticity” is the 3rd full-length from indie-soul duo The Foreign Exchange.

Picking up where their 2008 Grammy-nominated “Leave It All Behind” set left off, “Authenticity” is the group’s most diverse work to date, with a tight, 11-track song cycle spanning the duo’s trademark brand of lush electronic soul, to stripped down acoustic pieces that recall the heyday of 70′s singer-songwriter driven folk.

Lead single “Maybe She’ll Dream Of Me” is a playful, synth-driven hip-hop groove featuring a rapped verse from Phonte that evokes the band’s “Connected” era, while the epic opener “The Last Fall” finds some of the band’s most cynical lyrics to date (“Love is at worst an excuse/at best it’s a truce…”) over a frenzied Nicolay production jammed with layers of strings, guitars, and dense choral harmonies.

“I think every band reaches that point when they come into their own and find a sound that is distinctively theirs,” says Phonte in reference to the album’s title. “The title refers to me and Nic’s journey to find our own unique space within this vast musical landscape. The biggest challenge as a musician is to find that ‘thing’ that makes you who you are. But I think we’re getting there, and we’re finding our way more and more with each record.”

Featuring guest appearances from longtime contributors YahZarah, Darien Brockington, Zo! and Median, and also relative newcomers Chantae Cann and Jesse Boykins III, “Authenticity” hits stores 10/12 on +FE Music.

1. The Last Fall

2. Authenticity
3. Eyes To The Sky
4. All Roads
5. Fight For Love
6. Maybe She’ll Dream Of Me
7. Don’t Wait f. Darien Brockington
8. Make Me A Fool f. Jesse Boykins III & Median
9. Everything Must Go
10. Laughing At Your Plans f. Chantae Cann
11. This City Ain’t The Same Without You f. YahZarah

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Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts

August 23, 2010 JUKEBOXDC Staff News No Comments  
This is actually pretty funny…and yes, that’s the actual heading to this article. From The Smoking Gun:
The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.
A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media”
The DEA’s need for full-time linguists specializing in Ebonics is detailed in bid documents related to the agency’s mid-May issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) covering the provision of as many as 2100 linguists for the drug agency’s various field offices. Answers to the proposal were due from contractors on July 29.
In contract documents, which are excerpted here, Ebonics is listed among 114 languages for which prospective contractors must be able to provide linguists. The 114 languages are divided between “common languages” and “exotic languages.” Ebonics is listed as a “common language” spoken solely in the United States.
Ebonics has widely been described as a nonstandard variant of English spoken largely by African Americans. John R. Rickford, a Stanford University professor of linguistics, has described it as “Black English” and noted that “Ebonics pronunciation includes features like the omission of the final consonant in words like ‘past’ (pas’ ) and ‘hand’ (han’), the pronunciation of the th in ‘bath’ as t (bat) or f (baf), and the pronunciation of the vowel in words like ‘my’ and ‘ride’ as a long ah (mah, rahd).”
Detractors reject the notion that Ebonics is a dialect, instead considering it a bastardization of the English language.
The Department of Justice RFP does not, of course, address questions of vernacular, dialect, or linguistic merit. It simply sought proposals covering the award of separate linguist contracts for seven DEA regions. The agency spends about $70 million annually on linguistic service programs, according to contract records.
In addition to the nine Ebonics experts, the DEA’s Atlanta office also requires linguists for eight other languages, including Spanish (144 linguists needed); Vietnamese (12); Korean (9); Farsi (9); and Jamaican patois (4). The Atlanta field division, one of the DEA’s busiest, is the only office seeking linguists well-versed in Ebonics. Overall, the “majority of DEA’s language requirements will be for Spanish originating in Central and South America and the Caribbean,” according to one contract document.
The Department of Justice RFP includes a detailed description of the crucial role a linguist can play in narcotics investigations. They are responsible for listening to “oral intercepts in English and foreign languages,” from which they provide verbal and typed summaries. “Subsequently, all pertinent calls identified by the supervising law enforcement officer will be transcribed verbatim in the required federal or state format,” the RFP notes.
Additionally, while “technology plays a major role in the DEA’s efforts, much of its success is increasingly dependent upon rapid and meticulous understanding of foreign languages used in conversations by speakers of languages other than English and in the translation, transcription and preparation of written documents.”
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