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Coldplay spiced up their set Saturday night (Oct. 23) with a little help from Sporty Spice herself. Mel C and Chris Martin took the stage together to perform the sultry Spice Girls classic “2 Become 1″ at Audacy’s 8th annual We Can Survive concert and benefit at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
“We were thinking about what we could do to make this show extra special in 40 minutes, and we thought, ‘Well, this is Hollywood, this is Los Angeles, this is where when you make a wish, it may just come true,’” Martin teased the crowd before introducing Mel C. “One of our dreams is to be able to play a song with a Spice Girl. We’ve been waiting for this for 24 years. So, I don’t know if it’s possible, but if we all just went super quiet and just said that wish out: ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if a Spice Girl just appeared out of nowhere?’”
“Please welcome from England and Great Britain and the Spice Girls Melanie Chisholm, aka Mel C, aka Sporty Spice, aka a total legend,” he announced before the pair began their duet of “2 Become 1,” which Martin referred to as “a sexual anthem.”
“2 Become 1″ is a ballad from the group’s chart-topping debut album, Spice, released in 1996. The single peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart in 1997, while the album went on to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
For those wondering how the seemingly impromptu collab came about, Mel C was thrilled to share the story.
“What a fantastic, unexpected night!” she tweeted on Sunday. “I gave Chris a text to tell him we would be coming to his @imlistening @audacy #wecansurvive gig, at the @HollywoodBowl and the next thing I know, he’s on FaceTime while I’m in the nail salon, asking me to come up on stage with him!”
“Well, what could I say to an offer like that! Thank you @coldplay for such an amazing night and experience. Hopefully I can get back to @HollywoodBowl soon with three certain ladies for company!” Mel C wrote.
A portion of the proceeds from the show will go to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Watch a clip of their rehearsal backstage, a short highlight of their onstage performance and a video of the whole song below.
Adele’s comeback is complete, as the superstar English singer sets a U.K. sales record on her return.
“Easy On Me” (Columbia) cruises to No. 1 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, Adele’s third leader in her homeland after “Someone Like You” (2011) and “Hello” (2015).
The new track carves up the competition with 217,300 chart sales in its first week, a tally not seen since Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” packed-in 226,800 combined sales back in January 2017.
Today, “Shape Of You” is the most-streamed song ever on Spotify.
In its debut week, Adele’s “Easy On Me” accumulates 24 million streams in the U.K., a new mark beating the record set by Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings,” which registered 16.9 million U.K. streams back in January 2019.
Also, according to the OCC, “Easy On Me” bags the biggest sum of digital download sales for 2021, with 23,500.
“Easy On Me” is Adele’s first music release in six years, and it’s the first track taken from her forthcoming fourth album 30, due out Nov. 19. As anticipation builds, two of her earlier hits power back into the U.K. Top 40: “When We Were Young” (at No. 25) and “Someone Like You” (at No. 34).
Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, MC Lyte, Trae Tha Truth, Questlove, Big Freedia, Erica Campbell and Recording Academy chairman Harvey Mason Jr. were among the honorees accepting their formal induction into Ebony magazine’s Power 100 Class of 2021 at an event held Saturday evening (Oct. 23) at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. The event marked the culmination of the iconic magazine’s 75th anniversary year celebration.
Entertainer Wayne Brady hosted the ceremony, introducing himself as the “traffic cop for the evening — not the way like when you get stopped, but in a loving way to make things flow.” Among the evening’s highlights were individual tributes to rap pioneer MC Lyte and songwriting-production duo Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis.
Accepting the trailblazer award from fellow hip-hop legend Salt of Salt-N-Pepa, Lyte noted following the audience’s standing ovation, “Let me acknowledge this room of talented, astute, spiritual and wise kinfolk … it’s been so long since we had a communion like this. There’s nothing we can’t do. Give us an inch and we will take a mile —because we know what to do with it.”
Jam & Lewis were presented with the lifetime achievement award by Janet Jackson via video and singer MAJOR. onstage. Thanking “God in the sky and god on earth, Clarence Avant — the Black Godfather,” his family and Ebony (“I saw people that looked like myself”), Jam said the pair’s award “isn’t a place to stop but a bar set high that we will continue to try to raise every day.” After doing a quick “happy dance,” Lewis thanked his family as well, adding, “You could be in Billboard, Variety or any other magazine, but you didn’t make it until you were in Ebony or Jet. That was the bar. I love awards, but I love the journey that I’ve been on … and the journey that I’m going to be on with you.”
Also among the individual honorees were entertainers of the year Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris as hosts of Red Table Talk (presented onstage to Banfield-Norris) and Colin Kaepernick, who accepted the chairman’s humanitarian award from Ebony chairman Eden Bridgeman Sklenar in a videotaped speech. Brady was recognized as well, with the vanguard award, for his outstanding achievements as an “all-around entertainer and performer.” Doing the presentation honors was Broadway veteran and legendary performer Ben Vereen, whose appearance onstage to honor his “adopted son” elicited another standing ovation.
“Give yourselves a standing ovation,” Vereen declared. “Too many of us have trudged through the dirt for us to be here tonight … and babies, you look good!”
Revealed earlier this month, Ebony’s 2021 power class — rooted in the theme “Bold. Brilliant. Black.” — also saluted honorees in categories such as music impact, entertainment powerhouses, next gen, ceiling breaker, excellence in journalism, social justice champions and community builders. Ebony’s last Power 100 celebration was held in 2018.
Speaking on behalf of the 12 artists and executives recognized in the music impact category, including Travis Scott, Lil Baby, MBK Entertainment president Jeanine McLean and ICM Partners head of strategic partnerships Joi Brown, Big Freedia commented before a cheering ballroom, “This feels amazing to know that the work we do is not in vain. As storytellers, we’re forever grateful to tell our stories and keep making fans live through the music.”
Interspersed throughout the evening were spirited performances by Justine Skye, Lucky Daye, MAJOR. and Power 100 inductees Campbell and Deon Jones. Ebony CEO Michele Ghee closed the evening, pledging that with the magazine’s relaunch earlier this year the push is now on to “Move Black Forward” in 2022. As such, she announced plans to relaunch sister publication Jet next year and release its NFT collection, Ebony X, in April.
“The last two years have been challenging, but we are still standing,” said Ghee. “Ebony 2.0 understands that there’s still so much to do. And Team Ebony is here for all of it to hold the world accountable.”
J Balvin has released a statement about his “Perra” music video, which was removed from YouTube last weekend.
The music video, in collaboration with Tokischa, showed the Colombian artist entering “el bajo mundo,” where he met up with the Dominican newcomer. The Raymi Paulus-directed visual had Balvin tugging at two Black women on leashes, a group of Black people that were made up to look like dogs and Tokischa posing on all fours inside a doghouse.
“I want to say sorry to whomever felt offended, especially to the Black community,” Balvin said in an Instagram Story clip on Sunday (Oct. 24), several days after the video was taken down. “That’s not who I am. I’m about tolerance, love and inclusivity. I also like to support new artists, in this case Tokischa, a woman who supports her people, her community and also empowers women.”
When the “Perra” video was removed from YouTube, it was unclear whether it was the artist or the video-sharing platform that had taken it down. In Balvin’s apology on Sunday, he explained what happened.
“As a form of respect, I removed the video eight days ago,” said Balvin. “But because the criticism continued, I’m here making a statement.”
“Mom, I’m sorry too. Life gets better each day. Thank you for listening to me,” he added.
The removal of the music video came after Colombia’s vice president and chancellor, Marta Lucía Ramírez, called the visual “sexist, racist, machista, and misogynistic” in an open letter published on Oct. 11.
The track first premiered on Sept. 10 and is featured on Balvin’s José album, which earned him his fourth No. 1 on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart. “Perra,” with a chorus that says “I am a female dog in heat/ I’m looking for a dog to hit it/ Hey, you’re a hot dog in heat/ And you are looking for a dog to hit it,” debuted at No. 48 on the Hot Latin Songs chart. The audio track for “Perra” is still available on YouTube.
See Balvin’s video apology from Instagram captured below.
“Moth to a Flame,” Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd’s new collab, has topped this week’s fan-voted new music poll.
Music fans voted in a poll that was published Friday (Oct. 22) on Billboard, choosing “Moth to a Flame” as their favorite new music release of the past week.
Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd’s shimmering club banger brought in 54.05% of the vote. In second place on the poll results was another hot new collaboration, “Pa Mis Muchachas,” Christina Aguilera’s latest Spanish-language single with Becky G, Nicki Nicole and Nathy Peluso, which had 25.57% of the vote. Lana Del Rey’s new Blue Banisters album came in third place, and Elton John’s The Lockdown Sessions followed in fourth.
“Moth to a Flame” brings pop superstar The Weeknd into Swedish House Mafia’s dance revival; the trio is back together after several years apart and looking forward to an upcoming tour that includes a performance at Coachella.
“When we came back together again, it was like we had to rediscover what this was,” the group’s Steve Angello said in an interview published by Billboard over the summer. “We all have our different likings, obviously. [But then] Seb shows me something, or Ax shows me something I have never seen or heard, and it becomes this magic again that we had when we were young.”
See the final results of this week’s poll and listen to “Moth to a Flame” below.
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