What is power? At its base, it’s the ability to reshape the world around you according to your vision. And who in the music industry did so better in the last year than this power couple?

Leveraging their star power to release new albums in unprecedented ways—Jay Z through Samsung and Beyoncé through iTunes—they instantly changed how the industry and fans thought about interacting with music. He gave his album away; she charged a premium price for hers. But they both used the element of surprise to restore the excitement that used to accompany a new release, before that impact was dulled by the endless thunder of carefully plotted promotion.

In short, they proved that content truly is king. Or, in this case, king and queen.
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Me and 40 work on projects and he normally hits me like, “Hey, I might need something for this.” I think at the time we were working on [Drake’s] Nothing Was the Same and then he came and said, “Yo, Beyoncé, we gotta do something.”

So then I had some ideas and he was like, “All right, that’s dope!” We had the idea, then we added some chords and we took it to the studio, Drake added some words to it and the rest is history. It was all done at Jungle City Studios, which is right in [New York City].

Initially, I didn’t really know where it was going to go. I didn’t know it was going to be for Beyoncé’s album. I figured it could have been one out of a hundred tracks she recorded or listened to. So I didn’t know it was going to be ‘that’ joint. I’ve been in the game for a little while so I’ve learned you can’t really expect anything. You usually have to wait until something happens. You can’t really have high expectations in this music industry.

I was just like, “If it happens, it happens.” Then of course it happened sort of out of the blue. I sort of knew when everyone else knew. So when everyone else found out [after Beyoncé did the surprise LP release], that’s when I found out. You have to treat it as business as usual. It’s definitely a boost because in this industry, it’s about relevancy. You’re as dope as your next record or album.

Now show us if you are reppin’ or co-sign any artists out in North Carolina! Get at us on Instagram with #sohhpix

Check out Beyoncé’s “Mine” (snippet):

Source: SOHH

Unless you’re asexual (or Keri Hilson), it’s impossible to hear Beyoncé’s “Rocket” and not feel an intense urge to invite your guy/gal/cutty buddy over to do the no-pants dance. And according to the song’s author, the song was written with that in mind.

Miguel, who penned Bey’s 2013 update to D’Angelo’s rhetorical classic “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” says he was challenged by Mrs. Carter to push the envelope with some of her most risqué lyrics yet.

“I’ll never forget the conversation I had with Beyoncé and her insisting that nothing was off-limits,” Miguel tells VIBE. “And me being like, ‘Oh yeah, you sure? Because I can really take it there.’”

And take it there he did. Once Miguel got the OK from Yonce, he came up with the song’s definitive opening line: “Let me sit this ass… on you.”
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When Beyoncé’s surprise self-titled album touched down last month, a minor mystery quickly shot out from the forest of the album’s liner notes. Among the usual suspects—Timbaland, the-Dream, Pharrell, Hit-Boy—someone by the name “Boots” was everywhere on the record. He wrote and produced “Haunted”, “Heaven”, and, perhaps most strikingly, “Blue”, the song dedicated to Beyoncé and Jay Z’s daughter. He sang backup vocals on and performed many or all of the instruments on several songs. In an interview, Beyoncé name-checked him as “an innovator,” while a member of her creative team tweeted the only currently available picture of Boots, with the note that he had “co-produced 80 percent of the album.” Within seven days, the query “Who is Boots?” had racked up 452,000,000 Google results.

So who is Boots? When I meet him at a Brooklyn restaurant down the street from his apartment, I have already agreed to some ground rules: I can’t ask about his real name—even though Complex, The Broward Palm Beach New Times, and now even his freshly-minted Wikipedia page identify him as Jordy Asher, a Miami-based musician who spent time in a number of rock bands, including Blonds. He doesn’t want to talk about any of the projects he’s worked on before now. And he’s cagey about how, exactly, Beyoncé discovered his demo, saying only, “That’s for Beyoncé and me to know.”
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Superstars Jay Z, Beyonce, Bruno Mars, Keith Urban, Taylor Swift , Hunter Hayes, Katy Perry, Lorde, Robin Thicke, and John Legend perform on The GRAMMYs, Sunday, 8/7c! Only CBS. Do not forget that you can watch it online here (January 26).

Source: CBS

Yesterday Jay Z and Beyonce took their baby Blue Ivy to lunch in a restaurant in Brooklyn.

Kevin Hart is 5-foot-2, a bonafide star and he’s feeling himself a little bit. Beyonce‘s ‘***Flawless’ just so happens to be the perfect soundtrack to his life right now.

The comedian Instagrammed himself energetically singing along to ‘***Flawless’ — complete with his own choreography. It’s hilarious — as you’d expect from Hart — but it’s definitely an earned moment of empowerment.

His buddy-cop flick ‘Ride Along,’ which the funnyman stars with rapper Ice Cube, opened at No. 1 this weekend and is expected to raked in $48 million at the box office overall after the MLK Jr. holiday. This breaks the record for a January opening.

Hart’s previous encounters with Beyonce are even funnier. The star fake fainted when Beyonce tossed him her towel during a concert. Last week on ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,’ Hart recounted a story when he accidentally spilled his drink on Jay Z and Beyonce at the club.
Will Hart be in similar spirits when his next movie drops? He will star along with Michael Ealy and Regina Hall in the romantic comedy ‘About Last Night,’ which arrives in theaters Feb. 14.

Source: The Boom Box