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Rapper Ludacris runs his own show

Ludacris removes his shades as he awaits his lunch at the restaurant in the posh Mandarin Oriental Hotel. He concedes he is a little tired with a concert at the nearby Verizon Center just a few hours away, but he really doesn't have time for rest. The Atlanta rapper also known as Chris Bridges is a busy man.

The Grammy-winning, platinum-selling artist has his hands full promoting his star-studded new album, Battle of the Sexes, out today, while also touring with the Black Eyed Peas and collaborating on current hits by Justin Bieber (Baby), Raheem DeVaughn (Bulletproof) and Taio Cruz (Break Your Heart). On the side, he's juggling a slew of charity and business ventures, including his Disturbing Tha Peace record label and a popular Atlanta restaurant. Parenthood and a thriving acting career also vie for his attention.

"I know I'm working hard, but it's hard for me to think about all I'm doing because I'm constantly on the move," says Ludacris, 32. "How do I do it? I take it one minute at a time. I've got a great team of people around me, I designate my time intelligently, and I'm a great multitasker."

He's also passionate about applying creative tweaks to his latest projects. On Battle, he enlists several female artists to engage him in lyrical conversations on gender. That novel concept initially was hatched for a duet with former DTP labelmate Shawnna, but it was broadened to include a range of female and male artists.

"Hip-hop is such a male-dominated industry," says Ludacris, who has been criticized for less-than-flattering references to women in his lyrics. "There's a female voice that's sometimes kind of missing."

His collaborators welcomed the opportunity to fire back.

"Guys and girls have been having this battle of the sexes from the beginning of time," says newcomer Nicki Manaj, who rhymes on the song My Chick Bad. "So when you put that to the music, it's fun."

Says Eve, who has heard on a remix of the same song: "This is a great concept. I wish I'd thought of it."

Another track, Hey Ho with Lil' Kim, addresses the double standards of promiscuity. Can't Live With You, featuring his cousin Monica, deals with a couple in an edgy though loving relationship, and B.O.T.S. Radio finds him and Shawnna giving callers advice on love.

He doesn't have a counterpart on the current club banger How Low, which went No. 1 on USA TODAY's urban airplay chart and has sold 1.2 million downloads, but it has inspired numerous remixes featuring Ciara and Pitbull, Rick Ross and Twista, and Flo Rida. "Everybody is sending me verses, which is flattering," he says. "We have so many versions of that song it's ridiculous."

Chuck Creekmur of music news site AllHipHop.com says Battle is continued evidence of Ludacris' musical growth after six hit albums and 14 top-10 R&B singles. He has sold more than 14 million albums in the USA.

"He's a real artist who commits to a concept and seeing it through," Creekmur says. "A lot of artists string together a bunch of songs and call it an album."

Ludacris, who got his start in the late 1990s at an Atlanta radio station as DJ Chris Lova Lova, was known as a brash party animal when he made his debut in 2000 with Back for the First Time. But in recent years, he has varied his themes to keep his music fresh. The still playful but more mature The Red Light District came out in 2004 and was followed by the somewhat darker Release Therapy two years later.

"He could have easily fallen victim to some of the traps other artists fall into by trying to stay the same," Creekmur says. "He's grown from kind of cartoonish rapper to a grown-up hip-hop artist. He's very lyrical, but some people forget that because of some of his more pop songs."

Building respect

That's a misconception Ludacris set out to change with 2008's Theater of the Mind, which went gold but was his first album to fall short of selling 1 million copies. It coincidentally came out at a time when he was getting notices as an actor. He calls the cinematically themed opus his favorite album to date.

"With that album, I set out to be respected as a lyricist," Ludacris says. "I feel like I accomplished that because even though I had sold a lot of records, people didn't start calling me a lyricist until after Theater of the Mind came out. I just love to re-invent and challenge myself to do things that I haven't done."

He applies that drive to all his projects. He was already a connoisseur of fine spirits when he was approached two years ago by the venerable French/Norwegian winery Birkedal Hartmann about bringing a new Cognac brand, Conjure, to the USA in a 50/50 venture. He didn't want to simply lend his name to the product's marketing, so he learned everything he could about the company and the process, then went to Europe to see it firsthand.

"We wanted somebody who would be really involved," says Kim Birkedal Hartmann, fourth-generation owner of the Cognac, France-based company established in 1887. "We just didn't want any endorsement deal. It was fascinating to see how interested he was. He wanted to know everything, and our master blender helped him select and blend the Cognacs he wanted."

Ludacris proudly declares that the custom-made liquor "tastes like luxury."

Forging such partnerships is one of the rapper's fortes. He got into business with San Francisco chef Chris Yeo, whose Straits restaurants serve spicy Singaporean cuisine, three years ago after meeting him at a charitable dinner. Straits Atlanta, which opened in April 2008, is now one of the city's more popular upscale restaurants. This year, he signed on with MTV to host and executive produce the Sprite Step Off, a documentary-style series that aired in February and followed step teams from three fraternities and three sororities competing for $100,000 in scholarships.

"I just treat people the way I want to be treated, and I respect my elders," he says. "Relationships are extremely important. Whether it's making records or in business, if we combine our efforts, intelligence and resources, there is no limit to the things we can do."

But time does limit the things he can do, and he has put his film career on hold until he finishes his tour in mid-April. He says his next role may be in the fifth installment of The Fast and The Furious franchise (he was in the first sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious), which is still in development. His acting résumé includes Max Payne, RocknRolla, Fred Claus and Gamer and TV's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and he won a Screen Actors Guild outstanding cast award for Crash and was nominated for another with Hustle & Flow. He says he has been careful not to accept stereotypically thuggish "rapper" roles and even thought of turning down Hustle & Flow until producer John Singleton convinced him that the down-and-out rapper he portrayed differed greatly from his own personality.

"As it turned out, I'm glad that I did do it," he says. "But I definitely want to continue to take roles that people would not expect me to take."

Parenthood in the picture

His face lights up when asked about his role as a parent. He calls his daughter, Karma, 8, "my best friend."

"She rolls with me," he says. "Whenever I'm at the restaurant, she's there trying to help out the servers and she gets paid for that. And whenever I'm acting, she'll come on set and root me on. I'll bring her to some of my shows — the clean ones I do at festivals where there are other kids. She's my road dog and she loves it."

He says he won't be slowing down in the foreseeable future. He already has decided on Ludaversal— a play on Universal Records, DTP's parent company — as the title for his next album, which he says could arrive by year's end. In the meantime, he's ready for any other opportunities that come his way.

"It's just the rush that I get from working toward a goal and really loving what I do," he says. "I love it so much it's almost a crime, because not everybody is so blessed. I will keep going until I can't do any more."

Will Universal Music's New Boss Keep the Hits Coming?

Lucian Grainge's management style is not short on theatrical flourish. Four years ago, the Briton who is about to become the world's most powerful music industry executive, arrived late to the boardroom of Universal Music Group's international head office in London after the company had suffered a particularly poor sales period. As he entered, he turned off the lights, leaving his executive team sitting nervously in the dark. He then paced around the room until finally uttering the words: "See that. Better get used to it. That's what it's like when you don't have any hit records."

New York will have to get used to Grainge this summer when the 49-year-old takes over as head of Universal Music worldwide, the largest record company on the planet with a market share of nearly 29% and such acts in its stable as U2, Lady Gaga, Eminem and Amy Winehouse. Grainge has been groomed for the role for several years and says his fingers will remain close to the light switch. "It will depend if they have any hits or not," he tells TIME.  

Grainge is one of a trio of talented British music executives — all born within six months of each other — who have landed at the heart of the industry, even though none had any college education. Simon Cowell, the elder of the group and the only one who has turned 50, is perhaps the most famous name in the business, with a television and music operation that generates significant profits for rival Sony Music. Simon Fuller, the youngest, is the impresario who devised American Idol and managed the Spice Girls.

Grainge, though, describes himself as "the powerful one." He may not appear on television, but the turn-off-the-lights story is typical of a man who is both fiercely competitive and entertainingly playful. He chases artists signed to other music companies with fervor, personally persuading the Rolling Stones to switch over from rival record company EMI two years ago. And once he's wooed acts, he can keep them on board — no small achievement in an industry not short of ego. When he was honored at London's Grosvenor Hotel with a Music Industry Trust Award in November 2008, he was feted by some of the biggest names in the business. Bono and the rest of U2 presented the award, Take That performed, and Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, the male half of ABBA, tried to outbid British rock band Snow Patrol in the fundraising auction that followed. 

Paul McGuinness, the manager of U2, probably Universal's biggest single act, has worked with Grainge for decades. "Making it in the United States is the biggest challenge of all for any British talent in the music business. He will need all his intelligence and skill to pull it off," he says. At a time when many major acts are breaking away from Universal, U2 has stayed loyal to the label, in part because Grainge has earned the respect of the band. "Lucian's advantage is that he has got a strong musical record of his own, so his opinion on a song, as well as business, is taken seriously," McGuinness says.

That comes from a long career working his way up through the London music scene. After leaving school at the age of 18, he started as a runner at a talent-scout company called MPC and says he was so junior he was "getting the secretaries sandwiches." Desperate for a job in music, he started cold-calling record-label bosses in the Music Week directory until he got through by chance to Maurice Oberstein, a senior executive at CBS Records. His persistence was rewarded with a job in the company's artists and repertoire (A&R) division, hunting for new songwriters and building their careers. Soon after, he moved over to RCA to do the same job and scored his first hit single in the U.S. — Olivia Newton-John's "Heart Attack," which was written by a Briton he had signed, Paul Bliss.

In 1986, Grainge joined Polygram's songwriting division and gradually moved up the ranks at the company, which would later become Universal following a merger with MCA. Eventually, under the tutelage of Doug Morris, the Universal chief executive he'll be replacing, Grainge rose to run the company's U.K. headquarters and then its international operations. As EMI has faltered in recent years, he has become a key force behind helping British acts break into the U.S. market, most notably, the troubled Winehouse. 

Grainge's plans for his new position remain somewhat of a mystery. His approach emphasizes artist relations at a time when other companies would rather talk about formulating an effective digital-distribution strategy to combat music piracy. It's not that Grainge doesn't care about this issue — indeed, he wants the U.S. to become tougher on piracy. He says, however, that there is "no platinum-tipped magic bullet" to solve the problem. One thing that will help: forming a coalition of music, film and publishing companies to lobby both Congress and Internet service providers to enact tougher sanctions against music pirates. "English-speaking content has most to lose [from file-sharing]," he says.

As for expanding Universal Music's operations, he wants to turn it into a "content-owning rights company," which means developing television and film formats to vie with the two Simons' TV franchises: Fuller's American Idol and Cowell's soon-to-be-arriving X Factor, which is already a big hit in Britain. Among Universal's television projects in Britain is a show called Popstar to Operastar, which features Meatloaf as a judge of La Scala wannabes. And on the theater front, Universal is backing Judy Craymer, the producer of the stage and film musical Mamma Mia!, in her efforts to create a musical about the Spice Girls called Viva Forever.

Whether either format produces the next Susan Boyle remains to be seen. But if anybody is going to keep the lights on in the U.S. music business, it's likely to be Grainge.

 

Jelli puts social networks to work picking radio tunes

Think of Jelli as American Idol, radio style, where the songs you hear on a station aren't picked by a DJ or program director, but by you.

"The future of radio is based on being relevant to a younger demographic," says Mike Dougherty, a former Microsoft executive who co-founded Jelli. "This is a way to reach them."

Jelli is a start-up that combines a website and syndicated radio format. It's a new twist on all-request radio — except these requests are logged online, on the Jelli.net website. The songs that get the most votes get played on the air.

Traditional broadcast radio stations in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Syracuse, N.Y., and a handful of smaller markets have signed with Jelli to bring "crowd-sourcing" music decisions to the people, and away from professional programmers.

Jelli's website streams personalized music to registered users and provides a home for radio listeners to vote for songs. Where Dougherty hopes to profit is through traditional commercial on-air advertising. Jelli's all-request radio format — a variation on Top 40 — is given to stations for free, in exchange for two minutes of commercial airtime each day that Jelli gets to sell.

Jelli began in summer 2009 with a trial Sunday-night run in San Francisco on CBS-owned Live 105; in February it expanded to seven nights a week.

This week, a handful of new stations will add Jelli, including the outlets in Philadelphia and Las Vegas.

Stations are looking to marry social media and traditional radio broadcasting to stem declining ratings. According to the Radio And Internet Newsletter, broadcast radio ratings in aggregate declined 30% from 1990 through 2010.

Power of the group

Radio needs all the help it can get, as once-loyal radio fans have turned to other sources, such as iTunes, Facebook and Pandora, to hear new music.

Jelli's challenge is the free availability of music. Back in radio's pre-digital heyday, music fans might wait a long time to hear a specific song. But now, anyone with an Internet connection can locate and listen to the song of their choice within seconds. A Google search for a tune pops it up instantly, with full listening capability. And if Google doesn't have it, there's always 30-second samples at Amazon.com or Apple's iTunes.

Voting for a song on Jelli is more than just wanting to listen, Gartner analyst Mike McGuire says: "It's a way to display your affection for a band. It's for someone who wants to tell everybody and anybody, 'By the way, AC/DC is the most awesome classic rock band ever.' "

Kurt Hanson, editor of the Radio And Internet Newsletter blog, calls the Jelli radio format a "high-tech gimmick" that's little different from on-air request lines. "People aren't really controlling what's played on the station," he says. "They're just voting up or down on songs, like they do on Pandora and Slacker." He believes that, as with request lines, a "tiny subset' of listeners will choose to participate.

Dougherty and business partner Jateen Parekh, a former Amazon executive, first kicked around ideas for a website when they were both still in Seattle. "What if Google ran a radio station?" Dougherty wondered. "What would it look like?"

Like YouTube, they figured, it would have an active community of participants, venturing forth thousands of comments. But unlike YouTube, the material wouldn't be created by the masses. Instead, the crowd would pick the playlist.

Blissfully ignorant

The pair raised $2 million from friends and angel investors. Even though they knew nothing about radio, and had no contacts in the closely knit community of broadcasters, they got in the door to make their pitch.

"We came to it with an outsider perspective, not knowing what we couldn't do," says Dougherty, who serves as CEO.

(Dougherty and Parekh weren't the first to come up with the notion of crowd-sourced radio. Radio consultant Mike McVay is marketing a similar format called Listener Driven Radio, which is currently available in Minneapolis.)

Donovan Short oversees three stations in Montana and Wyoming for GAP West Broadcasting, which will add Jelli shortly. "Any programmer is just trying to find more ways to reach his listeners," he says. "This isn't just one guy with eclectic tastes taking over your playlist — it's the power of the group."

The music selected by the crowds tends to be not that different from what a programmer would pick, says Aaron Axelson, Live 105's music director. It's still the hits, but a little more eclectic.

"This is the iPod generation," he says. "They're more open to hearing everything from hip-hop to electronica."

EMI's Debt Load Makes Survival Doubtful

Katy Perry may have turned up to EMI's post-Grammys party in a revealing silver dress, but even the "I Kissed a Girl" singer (who is signed to Capitol Records, a subsidiary of EMI) could not monopolize all the attention. Despite the lavish affair at the W Hotel in Hollywood, EMI is in desperate financial trouble. So deep, in fact, that some were wondering how it could afford to host a party at all.

A few days after last month's Grammy Awards, Terra Firma, the venture-capital firm that owns EMI, announced that the record giant had lost nearly $2.5 billion last year. Not only that, a brick wall looms: EMI has to raise more than $200 million in the next six months to ensure that it does not fall into the hands of Citigroup — the bank that lent Terra Firma, controlled by British financier Guy Hands, the cash to buy it 2½ years ago. 

Given that finances are so tight, it is hardly surprising that EMI executives aggressively reminded journalists that the Grammy party did not cost the company a penny, thanks to sponsorship deals with the likes of Samsung and Xbox. The concern is an indication of how far EMI has fallen since the days when the Spice Girls topped the charts. The world's fourth largest record company, which also has the Beatles and Coldplay on its books, can't afford — or rather can't be seen as being able to afford — its own party.

EMI's financial problem is simple. When Hands bought the 113-year-old British company in August 2007 — just before the credit crunch hit — both he and Citigroup expected he'd be able to finance the $4.2 billion in debt he'd taken on to close the deal. Hands also believed he could quickly turn around EMI's long-struggling record division.

Since then, the company's finances have improved marginally. The record division made nearly $250 million in underlying profit in the fiscal year 2009, while the company's music-publishing arm, which oversees songwriters, generated $208 million. Both profits, though, were wiped out by massive write-downs, which created a largely paper loss of $2.4 billion. "With that level of debt in the business, the reality is that EMI is now almost worthless," says Simon Dyson, editor of the London-based industry newsletter Music & Copyright.  

This fiscal year, aided by sales of 13 million rereleased Beatles albums, EMI's record division is expected to make $312 million, with the publishing sector bringing in an additional $218 million. That will cover Terra Firma's interest bill of about $350 million. But it's not enough to keep Citigroup happy — the bank had agreed to lend the venture-capital firm $4.2 billion only if EMI could hit certain performance targets. As EMI's accounts dolefully note, there is a "significant shortfall" between the profit likely to be generated in 2010 and the target previously agreed upon.

Hands, now living as a tax exile on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel, needs to inject about $200 million into the business by the summer; otherwise, Citigroup gets the keys. His allies say he can raise the money from third-party investors, but that is only enough to keep EMI out of the bank's hands for 12 more months. What Hands really needs is a deal with Citigroup to slash EMI's debts. But like any good band in crisis, Hands and his onetime partners at Citigroup have fallen out. 

Last summer, Hands proposed a deal in which he would inject $1.56 billion into EMI if Citigroup wrote off about the same amount in debt. Citigroup said no and offered instead to write off $1.56 billion in debt in return for controlling ownership of the company. Hands refused and then sued Citigroup, claiming the bank had persuaded him to pay too much for EMI in the first place. Now the two sides aren't speaking. Hands says Citigroup is playing "hardball for no good reason," while the bank feels that Hands is being unrealistic in his demand to remain in control.

Meanwhile, one possible buyer lurks on the sidelines: Warner Music, the third largest record company in the world. CEO Edgar Bronfman has long coveted EMI, but mutual intransigence has thus far prevented a merger. Some Terra Firma officials fear that Citigroup simply wants to "flip" EMI by making a quick sale to Warner — a plan Citigroup denies. In its present state, however, EMI's future as an independent company is far from certain. "The trouble is that the future of EMI would look quite good if it wasn't for all the debt," Dyson says. "But it doesn't look like Terra Firma has a chance of hanging on in the current circumstances." There will probably be far fewer champagne parties in the future.

 

Lil Wayne's Jail Time: All Part Of The Plan

Today, a New York judge told the rapper Lil Wayne he can't postpone going to jail past March 2nd. He's a star whose influence reaches well beyond the hip-hop world. He's been in a Nike commercial with LeBron James, interviewed by Katie Couric. Even President Obama's mentioned his name—a few times. And he may even represent a new model for rappers who get sent to jail.

It's no secret that you can gain credibility as a rapper by having a pedigree in the pen, which is sort of sad. Lil Wayne was busted for having a gun — a mundane offense in the world of hip-hop. At this point, people have grown accustomed to the idea of a rapper going to jail.

But Wayne is different because, while his music is down and dirty, there's always been instruction to his rapping. There's an element of uplift in all the criming and rhyming. For example, in "The Profit," which he recorded with Fat Joe, he follows a verse of braggadocio with the words, "Stop hating and get your money on."

The fact of the matter is, it's easy to be down in the dumps about being broke, and to hate on other people — to be jealous. But if you really focus on getting your career and your life straight, there isn't a lot to stop you. I don't think a lot of rappers today take the time to tell you to move forward with your life.

Part of what has made Lil Wayne's success so striking is the way it's coincided with the fracturing of the media. While we've all been Twittering and Facebooking, he's been a monster on the mixtape circuit. You don't have to own a single Lil Wayne song to have his voice in your head. He's been on dozens of other artists' recordings and mixtapes. They keep him current in a way that transcends traditional media.

He's had an amazing run-up to lockup. He's been part of the "We Are the World" remix for Haiti. There was his performance at the Grammys less than two weeks ago: He brought down the house with Eminem and Drake, one of the young artists on Wayne's label. People didn't even notice that Kanye West wasn't there; it was that big a hit.

Where going to jail once represented part of a rapper's persona, for Wayne it's part of a business plan. He has a label, Young Money Entertainment, that's going to keep him front and center while he's in jail. They are moving from their headquarters in New Orleans to New York, to be close to him while he's at Rikers Island. He's already recorded an album's worth of material. It's a rock album, so it represents his big venture into crossing over even more.

His label has made every effort to make it seem like he isn't gone while he's actually gone. When he gets out, he may be bigger than he was when he left.

Lil Wayne plans to work straight through prison term

For a decade, Lil Wayne has been hip-hop’s great unstoppable force, a 24-hour-a-day recording machine without an off button. But on February 9th, Lil Wayne will have to stop — for 12 months, when he reports to prison to serve a sentence for gun possession stemming from a 2007 arrest in New York City. 

“I don’t like to stop,” Wayne tells RS‘ Chris Norris. “I believe you stop when you die.” So in the weeks before he reports to Rikers Island, Wayne is keeping busy — recording tracks bound for Tha Carter IV (the album Cash Money staffers call “C4″ because it’ll be the bomb), shooting videos with his Young Money protégés, spending time with his growing family, and deliberately not asking anyone for advice about life on the inside. “This is Lil Wayne going to jail. Nobody I can talk to can tell me what that’s like,” he says. “I just say I’m looking forward to it.” 

While Weezy’s away, his label is relocating to New York to be near him, and his manager Cortez Bryant is exploring ways to keep Wayne in his fans’ minds for the duration — from jailhouse Twitter accounts to endorsements. “I’ll have an iPod, and I”ll make sure they keep sending me beats,” Lil Wayne says. Tha Carter IV — which Norris is told features tougher, faster beats — is scheduled to arrive shortly after he gets out.

 

Michael Jackson's Children Accept Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award On Father's Behalf

Amid all the glitz and glamour and high-energy performances inside the Staples Center during the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, it was two children who have never sang a note professionally who stole the show.

Following a 3-D tribute to Michael Jackson, the King of Pop's eldest children - Prince Michael and Paris Jackson - took the stage to accept the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of their late father.

"We are proud to be here to accept this award on behalf of our father, Michael Jackson," Michael's 12-year-old son, Prince, told the captivated audience.

"First of all, we'd like to thank God for watching over us for these past seven months, and our grandma and grandpa for their loving support," he continued. "We'd also like to thank the fans - our father loved you so much because you were always there for him."

Prince and sister Paris took the stage, along with a few of their cousins, following a tribute performance to Michael of "Earth Song" performed by Carrie Underwood, Usher, Smokey Robinson, Celine Dion and Jennifer Hudson.

As the group of stars paid homage to the King of Pop in song, a 3-D video (using footage which was used during Michael's concert film,"This Is It") played in the background showing young children playing in a peaceful, green surrounding - a theme which Prince Michael reiterated during his speech.

"Our father was always concerned about the planet and humanity," he said. "Through all his hard work and dedication, he has helped many charities."

The child closed his speech with a vow to continue to spread his father's message of love.

"Through all his songs, his message was simple - love. We will continue to spread his message and help the world," an emotional Prince Michael said. "Thank you. We love you daddy."

His younger sister, 11-year-old Paris - who so memorably spoke during the public memorial for Michael over the summer -- then took to the microphone with a brief comment before exiting the stage.

"Daddy was supposed to be here and Daddy was going to perform this year [because he] couldn't perform last year," she said. "Thank you. We love you Daddy."

R&B At The Grammys

For all the high drama that this Sunday's Grammy Awards may bring — Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift, Round 2? — there's little question of who's going to walk away with "Best Female R&B Performance." Beyonce's "Single Ladies" almost surely has the award on lock; never mind that the song came out in 2008 and is somehow up for a 2010 award. Given that 3-D chipmunks are parodying the song, "Single Ladies" is far past overexposed. But it's arguably the most influential R&B song of the past decade, excluding Beyonce's previous mega-anthem, 2003's "Crazy In Love."

But what makes this even less of a horse race is the imbalance in the competition. This isn't meant to slight talents such as Lalah Hathaway or Jazmine Sullivan; both of their nominated songs are better written than "Single Ladies." But this award, in particular, almost never goes to the underdog.

One of the striking things about the "Best Female R&B Performance" category is that it's exceptionally prone to blocks of wins by the same artists. Through the magic of YouTube, you can

see the Grammy award given out for the category from 39 years back. Aretha Franklin won in 1971 for "Don't Play That Song" off of her Spirit in the Dark album, and she jokes, "Call me the moment you have another one for me!"

It was a cruel joke — at least for her competition, which now reads like a who's-who of great R&B figures: Nina Simone ("Black Gold"), Candi Staton ("Stand by Your Man"), Esther Phillips ("Set Me Free") and Dee Dee Warwick ("She Didn't Know"). As impressive a lineup as that seems, Franklin was unstoppable in that era. The Grammys created the category in 1968, and between then and 1978, she won every year.

That seemed to set up a trend in which the award ping-ponged among the same usual suspects in any given era. After Franklin, Natalie Cole won twice in a row. Chaka Khan racked up three between 1984 and '93. Anita Baker won five times between 1989 and '96, only to be followed by Toni Braxton's four awards from 1994 to 2001. In the last 10 years, Alicia Keys and Mary J. Blige have won four times and twice, respectively.

The male counterpart to this award has some dominant figures, too (never bet against Stevie Wonder), but there aren't the same runs on winning. The difference is even more stark compared to the (ill-defined) "Best Female Pop Performance," where only Whitney Houston has won more than twice in the last 30 years.

To be sure, this probably reveals a lack of imagination amongst Grammy voters in the category. But it may also say something about the landscape of female R&B in particular. The icon of the soul diva lingers in the popular imagination in a way that doesn't exist amongst soul men, let alone the mercurial climate of Top 40 pop. Aretha Franklin almost certainly didn't have the best R&B songs in every year from 1968 to '78, but as a presence, she looms in our memory in a way that Warwick (no slouch of a voice herself) and Phillips do not. Similarly, Beyonce or Alicia Keys likely overshadow compelling but less commanding artists such as Ledisi or Jill Scott.

We seem to desire — need? — a consistent female soul voice to fall back on. As my friend and colleague Ann Powers at the L.A. Times recently put it, "The soul diva role has a strong maternal cast, and we want our mommies to be consistent." In other words, their constant presence is a source of reassurance -- the —ice that shines out of the darkness -- and —at comfort-giving quality may help explain why single voices tend to dominate over time. As Powers also noted, "The soul singer is a heroine, and survival is heroic," a quality certainly taken up by Gloria Gaynor's 1978 Grammy-winner "I Will Survive" or Destiny's Child's Grammy-nominated 2000 album Survivor.

Whatever the explanation, more so than in other genres, R&B seems to only have room for one reigning queen at a time. Don’t expect 2010 to be much different, as Beyonce’s well-kept coif has surely already been measured for this year's Grammy crown.

Settlement Rejected in ‘Shocking’ RIAA File Sharing Verdict

 

Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Bono To Headline MTV's 'Hope For Haiti' Telethon

Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Alicia Keys and Christina Aguilera will also perform at the show, airing live Friday at 8 p.m. ET.

Justin Timberlake, Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Bruce Springsteen, Wyclef Jean, Bono, The Edge and Jay-Z will lead the all-star lineup of performers for Friday night's "Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief" telethon. More than 100 stars have signed on to help raise funds for the MTV Networks-sponsored show, which will benefit the victims of last week's devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake on the impoverished island.

 

Several one-of-a-kind collaborations will highlight the event, including a hookup between U2's Bono and The Edge with Jay-Z and Rihanna in London and a jam featuring Kid Rock, Keith Urban and Sheryl Crow in Los Angeles; like all the night's performances, the collabos will be available for download on iTunes for 99 cents the next day.

Also appearing in New York with Wyclef and Springsteen will be Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Shakira and Sting, while the Los Angeles show will feature performances from Keys, Christina Aguilera, Dave Matthews, John Legend, Timberlake, Stevie Wonder and Taylor Swift.

Jean, a native of Haiti, George Clooney and CNN's Anderson Cooper will appear on the show, which will be broadcast from New York, London, Los Angeles and Haiti and feature more than 100 of the biggest names in film, television and music providing testimonials and answering phones. The two-hour program will air commercial-free across ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, BET, the CW, HBO, MTV, VH1 and CMT on Friday at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The special will also air on PBS, TNT, Showtime, Comedy Central, Bravo, E! Entertainment Network, National Geographic Channel, Oxygen, G4, Centric, Current TV, Fuse, MLB Network, Epix, Palladia, SoapNet, Style, Discovery Health and Planet Green, as well as Canada's CTV, CBC Television, Global Television and MuchMusic. It will also air internationally on BET International, CNN International, National Geographic and MTV Networks International, available in 640 million homes worldwide. "Hope for Haiti" will be the first U.S.-based telethon airing on MTV in China. Facebook and Twitter are the official social media partners who will help to drive donations and tune-in to the telethon.

All donations will directly benefit Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF and Wyclef's Yele Haiti Foundation. Facebook and MySpace have signed on as official social-media partners to help steer viewers to the telethon and drive donations.

Additionally, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and United Nations World Food Programme have joined the list of relief organizations that will benefit from the show, with proceeds to be split evenly among each organization's individual Haiti relief funds. "Hope For Haiti Now" will be the most widely distributed telethon in history, internationally and across media platforms, including live streaming globally on sites including YouTube, Hulu, MySpace, Fancast, AOL, MSN.com, Yahoo, Bing.com, BET.com, MTV.com, and Rhapsody and on mobile via Alltel, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and FloTV.

On the red carpet at Sunday night's Golden Globe Awards, George Clooney revealed how the global fundraiser came together. "You guys started it," the actor said. "The first call I made was to Judy [McGrath, MTV Networks' chief executive]. She said, 'Yes, everybody will do it, everybody's in' and that they were thinking of doing it too. They got the ball rolling and we got every single network after that. So congratulations to you!"

Before the telethon airs, Clooney wanted to remind young people that there are many ways to help the people of Haiti.

"I would say, 'Get involved, whatever you do,' " the Oscar-winner said. "This is about compassion. There are times in our lives when people are really without help and in real danger, and this is one of those times. So whatever they can do -- give money to one of the organizations that they like the best."