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Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have just dropped new song ‘White Privilege II’, a follow-up to 2005’s ‘White Privilege’, taken from their upcoming album This Unruly Mess I've Made. On the track Macklemore addresses racism, Black Lives Matter, white privilege, and cultural appropriation, while also calling out Miley Cyrus and Iggy Azalea.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have just dropped song ‘White Privilege II’.

‘Take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives?’, Macklemore raps before turning his attention to artists who have been accused of appropriating black culture. ‘You've exploited and stolen the music, the moment/ The magic, the passion, the fashion, you toy with/ The culture was never yours to make better.’

Continue reading: Macklemore Calls Out Miley Cyrus And Iggy Azalea In 'White Privilege II'

The aftermath of this year's Grammy Awards on Sunday was filled with talk about Beyoncé and Jay Z's sexually-charged 'Drunk In Love' performance, Madonna's mass marriage, Taylor Swift's surprised face and the rock-tastic finale show. However, as the dust has died down, one performance in particular stands out for its explosive mash-up and unique collaboration.

Imagine Dragons' Grammys Performance With Kendrick Lamar Has Been Heralded As A Highlight.

Imagine Dragons and Kendrick Lamar performed a hybrid version of the former's hit 'Radioactive' and the latter's 'MAAD City' to considerable critical acclaim. Not only did the two songs mesh extremely well together but the rock band and the rapper brought a show to the Grammys that will be talked about for months to come.

Continue reading: Imagine Dragons And Kendrick Lamar Stole The Grammys With 'MAAD City/ Radioactive' Show? [Video]

The 56th Grammy Awards has been rewarded for its monumental live performance line-up at last night's ceremony with the news that more people tuned in to catch the show than have done since 1993. The star-studded ceremony, which showcased talent including Daft Punk, Beyoncé and Jay Z, Nine Inch Nails, Sire Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and Madonna, proved to be its most successful in 21 years with 28.5 million viewers.

Daft Punk Took Home Five Grammys & Performed At The 2014 Grammys

This year's viewing figure, provided by the Nielsen Company via the AP, mark an increase on last year's 28.4 million watchers of the telecast beamed straight from Los Angeles' Staples Center. The Grammys reached nearly 40 million people during Adele's big year two years ago and reportedly hasn't been below 25 million since 2009.

Continue reading: Grammys Scores Second Highest Ratings In 21 Years With Out-Of-This-World Show

For some stars, big award shows like the Grammys offer the chance to announce a new relationship, but Jamie Foxx stood out last night, walking the red carpet alongside his daughter Corine. The 46-year-old father of two introduced his nearly 20-year-old "seed" to the world while being interviewed by Ryan Seacrest for E!. The term is a bit cringe-worthy, but it was otherwise a sweet moment, with Foxx clearly bursting with fatherly pride, as he gushed about his daughter. Fox admitted that his daughter is indeed "growing up, trying to stay young, but she's doing her thing.”

Foxx usually walks the red carpet solo.

Of course, the topic quickly turned to Corinne’s dating history, at which point she explained: "He likes to pretend to be really strict in the beginning and then he just becomes friends with them. So he does the dad rule and then he just plays it cool."

Continue reading: Jamie Foxx Spends Quality Father/Daughter Time At Grammys

In what has to have been the most lively Grammy Awards ceremony in years, Daft Punk predictably went home with the top honors. The perennially silent robots won both Album of the Year for their Random Access Memories and Song of the Year, for the Pharell Williams collaboration Get Lucky. Taking the stage to accept the first award, the ever theatrically minded Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter kept mum, while collaborator and two-time Grammy award winner Paul Williams spoke for them. Opting for the classic “start with a joke” advice, Williams said: “Back when I was drinking and using, I used to imagine things that weren’t there… and then I got sober and two robots called me and asked me to make an album.”

The robots looked sharp on the red carpet - as sharp as anyone can, while wearing a blacked out helmet, that is.

Williams also expressed the robots’ pleasure at witnessing 33 same sex couples get married onstage to the tune of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ Same Love earlier in the night: “All that love is fantastic.”

Continue reading: As Predicted, Daft Punk, Macklemore And Lorde Win Big At The Grammys

The 56th annual Grammy awards began with two of music's biggest names taking the stage. Jay Z and Beyoncé, husband and wife, performed their latest collaboration 'Drunk In Love', which is from the 32 year-olds self-titled album, to kick off proceedings on Sunday night (Jan 26th).

The 32 year-old performed 'Drunk In Love'

As the night got underway it was hip-hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis who won the first award, as they were presented with 'Best New Artist'. Hits such as 'Thrift Shop' and 'Same Love' has garnered them a large amount of success in the music charts and helped their rise to one of hip-hop's most well-known names today.

Continue reading: Grammys 2014: Beyoncé And Jay Z Kicks Ceremony Off As Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Win Four Early Awards

Madonna and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis will be performing together at the Grammy Awards ceremony on Sunday! The organisers of the show confirmed collaboration yesterday (25th January) and the artists teaming up has pleasantly surprised a number of commentators. 

Madonna was confirmed as appearing on the show on Friday (24th January) and it was initially thought she would appear alone. However, today it has been confirmed the 55-year-old pop icon will be teaming up with Macklemore, the hip hop duo comprised of 30-year-old Ben Haggerty and 25-year-old Lewis. They will be performing Macklemore's 'Same Love' which is nominated for Song of the Year. The duo is also nominated for another six Grammy awards including Best New Artist and Album of the Year. Madonna has won numerous Grammy awards over her thirty five year career, including the award Macklemore are nominated for two occasions.

Madonna has recently been suffering from a minor injury from dancing in high heels, yet the 'Holiday' singer was not letting this get in the way of her performance. The singer posted a picture on Instagram with the caption: "It's official! I'm off my crutches and I'm looking for the perfect pair of heels to wear to the Grammys." Initially fans assumed the singer would simply be attending the Grammys as a guest but now can be certain the pop legend will once be returning to high heels in order to perform from an even more elevated position at the award ceremony. 

Continue reading: Madonna, Despite Injury, To Perform With Macklemore At Grammys

The Grammy Awards are known as the biggest night in music, the music industry equivalent to the Oscars. Unlike the Oscars, however, the Grammys are much more accepting of newcommers and in fact, the award show airing this Sunday will feature plenty of debutants, competing with seasoned artists. So with that in mind, it’s about time for everyone to place their bets. Let’s see who the favorites are to sweep this year’s Grammys.

With seven nominations, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are expected to sweep the awards this year.

Record of the Year is one of the biggest categories at the award show. Out of the five nominees, Daft Punk’s Get Lucky seems like a no-brainer, but Lorde’s Royals, the unpredictable success of 2013 could come in and sweep this up last minute.

Continue reading: Grammys 2014 Predictions: Who Will Sweep The Major Awards?

Lorde and Robin Thicke have become two of the most "shazamed" artists in the world, meaning users of the song-identification app Shazam have tagged their songs the most times. Thicke's 'Blurred Lines' not only topped tallies in the US but also worldwide with a total of 17.8 million sonic identifications.

Pop Newcomer Lorde Featured In This Year's 'Most Shazamed' List.

Though pop newcomer Lorde claimed second place in the USA with 5.1 million tags for her hit 'Royals,' her positioning dropped in the worldwide rankings. P!nk's 'Just Give Me a Reason' followed in third with 4.4 million, according to BBC Newsbeat.

Continue reading: Lorde Is Amongst The Most "Shazamed" Artists Of Year

Wacky was the word when the YouTube Awards made its debut last night at New York City’s Pier 36; we had award winner’s being announced via the medium of cake, a choose-your-own-ending performance from Avicii and Macklemore holding a baby.

YouTube's Artist of The Year, Eminem, performs at Pier 36, NY.

Various media outlets have described the awards as chaotic and messy, and most totally fell for the hype. The show’s creative director Spike Jonze was prepared by being unprepared – armed only with a bullet point list, voted on by YouTube users.

Continue reading: Forced Fun - Were The 'YouTube Awards' Just A Bit Pathetic?

The YouTube Music Awards will celebrate the achievements made online by both well-known and some more obscure (outside the world of viral videos) musicians for the first time this Sunday (3 Oct.) and the organisers have pulled out all the stops to make sure that the awards show starts with a bang. In fact, the awards show will be so extravagant that the man in charge of bringing it to life - Spike Jonze - doesn't even know what to expect.

Spike Jonze (L) and Jason Schwartzman (R) are in control of the night in their respective roles

Jonze, the director of countless award-winning music videos such as Weezer's 'Buddy Holly' and 'Sabotage' by The Beastie Boys, has been brought in as creative director of the event, tasked with making the awards show one to remember and one to challenge the established musical showcases, such as the MTV VMAs. Alongside fellow music video veteran Chris Milk and executive producers Vice Media and Sunset Lane Entertainment, Jonze isn't planning on making a showcase that can be easily compared to the VMAs or the Billboard Awards, for example, as they are going for a completely unique take on the tried and tested music awards ceremony.

Continue reading: The First Ever YouTube Music Awards Get Underway This Weekend - What Can You Expect From It?

Sunday (25 August) night saw the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York taken over by the biggest names in pop for one night only, as the 29th annual MTV Video Music Awards took the recently-completed venue by storm in an awards show that, like most VMAs, will be long remembered. In all there were eleven different winners in the sixteen different categories, whilst the ceremony itself was an onslaught of musical surprises and memorable performances, as the VMAs continued to live up to it's billing as the 'Oscars for youth.'

Justin was the biggest winner on the night

The biggest winner of the night was pop's returning prince Justin Timberlake, who not only won the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for his services to the music industry, but also took home another three awards for two of his The 20/20 Experience music videos. His comeback single 'Suit & Tie' won Best Direction, whilst the follow-up single 'Mirrors earned the former N*Sync singer the Best Editing and the coveted Video of the Year Award. And speaking of N*Sync, during Timberlake's medley of hits prior to the Video Vanguard handing over, we were finally treated to the long-overdue reunion of N*Sync, who performed their memorable hits 'Girlfriend' and 'Bye Bye Bye.' We would have been more surprised, if it wasn't such a poorly kept secret.

Continue reading: Justin Timberlake & Macklemore And Ryan Lewis Are The Toasts Of The Night: MTV VMAs FULL Winners List

The 2013 Teen Choice was held last night, Sunday 11th August, at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City. The event was star studded with attendees photographed on the red carpet including Selena Gomez, Lucy Hale, Brittany Snow, Michelle Rodriguez, Chloe Grace Moretz, Cher Lloyd and Naya Rivera.

Selena Gomez on the red carpet.

The Teen Choice Awards are an annual event held to celebrate what teenagers think deserves recognition from the world of film, TV, fashion and music. It was first held in 1999 and has gradually grown increasing popular with the passing years. This year, according to the Teen Choice Award Website, over 150 million teenagers voted on the various categories. 

Continue reading: 2013 Teen Choice Awards: On The Red Carpet And Highlights

Lady GaGa has performed before at the MTV VMAs but it seems the prestigious, explosive awards ceremony can't get enough of the 'Bad Romance' singer's outlandish outfits and stage surprises. To date the 27 year-old pop star has 13 of MTV's shiny 'Moonmen' awards to her name with probably a few more to come.

Not Convinced This Photo Is The Right Way Up...

MTV announced this year's first performer at a live event that will see huge industry names such as Justin Timberlake, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (6 nominations each) along with Miley Cyrus, Bruno Mars, Thirty Seconds to Mars and Pink plus many more all up to win an award for their music videos. Categories will include 'best pop video', 'artist to watch', 'best video with a social message', 'best cinematography plus awards for best male and female videos.

Continue reading: Lady Gaga To Mark Return At MTV VMAs With Brand New Single

The nominations for the MTV Video Music Awards 2013 have been announced, with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Justin Timberlake leading the field. Armed with their videos for 'Can't Hold Us' and 'Thrift Shop,' the hip-hop duo will square off against JT at Brooklyn's Barclays Center on August 25, 2013.

Both acts received six nominations, with Timberlake getting nods for his 'Suit and Tie' and 'Mirrors' promos. Elsewhere, Bruno Mars appears to have every chance of taking home the prize of 'Video of the Year' with 'Locked out of Heaven,' though Robin Thicke's controversial clip for 'Blurred Lines' and Taylor Swift's 'I Knew You Were Trouble' will also be popular.

The VMAs - one of the biggest events on the pop music calendar - represents the first time a major awards show has been held in Brooklyn. The place has been a mecca for art and culture for years, though the Barclays Center appears to have truly put it on the map.

Continue reading: MTV Video Music Award Nominees: Will Macklemore Clean Up?

Think of someone currently in the pop music business – no really, anyone – and they’re probably in Bonnie McKee’s new music video for American Girl. If you’re wondering who Bonnie McKee is, you wouldn’t be the first. It’s not that you haven’t heard her music, it’s just that the songwriter has so far stayed behind the scenes, writing music for people like Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Tayo Cruz, Adam Lambert and Carly Rae Jepsen.

Bonnie McKee - we might be seeing a lot of this face in the future.

Coincidentally, all of these people make cameo appearances in her American Girl video. Joining them are other stars, like Kiss (we’re not even kidding), Macklemore, Jewel, Jason Derulo, Karmin, Kelly Osbourne – seriously, it’s pretty much the 2012 Billboard chart squeezed into a single video. Plus an appearance by McKee herself, of course. In the video, she’s eating a cheeseburger and sucking on a popsicle. It’s not as bad as it sounds, though. And to be fair, the song is quite catchy.

Continue reading: "American Girl" Bonnie McKee's Musician Friends Might Help Make Her An International Pop Star

Indie rockers Vampire Weekend have topped the Billboard 200 chart with their latest record 'Modern Vampires of the City,' besting commercial efforts from the likes of X-Factor judge Demi Lovato, Lady Antebellum and the Great Gatsby soundtrack featuring music from Jay-Z and Florence and the Machine. 

The New York outfit's album sold 134,000 in its first week of sales, according to figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. It was also the first independently distributed album to debut at No.1 on the chart since country singer Jason Aldean's 'Night Train' in November last year. It was another country star - George Strait - who finished in second place this week with sales of 120,000, while Lovato's 'Demi' sold 110,000 copies to take No.3. Last week's No.1, 'Golden' by Lady Antebellum fell to No.5 while the soundtrack to Gatsby dropped to No.4 from No.2.

Meanwhile, on Billboard's Digital Songs chart, rapper and producer team Macklemore & Ryan Lewis held the top spot with 231,000 downloads of their hit 'Can't Hold Us.' Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines, featuring rapper T.I. and Pharrell Williams took second, ahead of Pink. 

Continue reading: Vampire Weekend's Billboard No.1 Is A Triumph For Independent Music

As the annual South by Southwest festival heats up over there in Austin, Texas, we’ve cast a jealous eye over the line-up and picked out five of some of the bigger names that you really should start queuing nice and early for and thrown in five hype bands for you, too, so you can get all hip with your friends, upon your return and start laying down all those “saw them first lines,” when they blow up next year.

First up, the acts that have already broken, that you really need to check out, or at least pretend that you did, if you were stuck in that queue for BBQ wings…

1. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – their ‘Thrift Shop’ song really blew up, especially online, where they challenged Carly Rae Jepsen’s chart record for ‘Call Me Maybe.’ No one can predict whether or not Macklemore’s going to be a one hit wonder or whether he’s got more up his sleeve, he’s known for putting on a good show, and all six of their shows are likely to be rammed.

Continue reading: SXSW Movers And Shakers: The Biggest Names And Best New Acts At South By Southwest 2013

For the first time in its 55-year-history , the Billboard Hot 100 will not base its chart on record sales alone, now taking on-board YouTube plays to decide who tops the weekly rundown. The move comes just in time for Baauer's song Harlem Shake, which is expected to make is debut at No.1 this weekend after becoming the latest viral video phenomenon.

The bass heavy hip-hop track got almost no mainstream attention following its release as a free download last May, though its popularity exploded this month after thousands of fans uploaded YouTube videos of themselves dancing along. Around 4,000 Harlem Shake videos are being uploaded each day. "The notion that a song has to sell in order to be a hit feels a little two or three years ago to me," said Billboard's editorial director Bill Werde, "The music business today - much to its credit - has started to learn that there are lots of different ways a song can be a hit, and lots of different ways that the business can benefit from it being a hit."

Continue reading: But...How? Harlem Shake To Top Billboard Hot 100 After Rules Change