Jem Aswad: Celebs Rumors

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music After months of speculation, TikTok is finally launching its own “social music streaming service,” initially in Indonesia and Brazil, the company announced Thursday, with licensing from all three major music companies. The service, hich is premium-only, will allow users to synch with their existing accounts and also share and download the tracks they discover on TikTok. The service is now available in both countries with a one-month free trial, according to The new service will replace the company’s existing streaming service, Resso, on Sept. 5. The transition began in May, which TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, announced that Resso would become a premium-only service.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The Eagles, one of the most successful and longest-running acts in the history of popular music, have announced the first of what they say are their “final” tour dates. After 52 years, more than a thousand concerts and over 150 million albums sold, the group has announced the initial 13 dates of their final farewell tour, beginning on Sept. 7 in New York, with more to be added. According to the announcement, the Eagles — Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit, with Vince Gill and Deacon Frey — will perform “as many shows in each market as their audience demands.” The tour is expected to continue into 2025. 

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music HarbourView Equity Partners, the asset-management company founded by Sherrese Clarke Soares, announced today it has agreed to partner with and purchase “select” recorded-music assets of Grammy-winning rapper-singer Nelly, a rep for the company confirms to Variety. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed, although TMZ reported that the deal was for $50 million and covered half of Nelly’s recorded-music assets. Nelly was represented by Steven Shapiro of Davis Shapiro Lewit & Grabel LLP. The deal includes some of Nelly’s most iconic tracks such as “Ride Wit Me,” “Dilemma” featuring Kelly Rowland, and “Hot in Herre,” both of which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for multiple weeks.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music When the Recording Academy announced its latest updates to the Grammy Awards rules last month, there was a frantic, last-minute tweak to the wording of a new rule governing the eligilibity of recordings that used AI — so last-minute that a rep was contacting journalists beginning at 4:30 a.m. Pacific time. A new rule governing music that used AI technology, which the Academy had hoped to keep simple by saying that only human-generated music would be eligible, had been extensively revised, although the upshot remained the same: Yes, recordings that use one of the multiple types of AI technology will be eligible, but “we’re not going to be giving a nomination or an award to AI computer or someone who just prompted AI,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. clarified to Variety late last month. “That’s the distinction that we’re trying to make. It’s the human award highlighting excellence, driven by human creativity.”

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The No.1 albums never stopped for Kylie Minogue in the U.K. – but in recent years that hasn’t been the case with her singles. All that has changed with the lead track from Minogue’s forthcoming 16th album, “Tension,” due out September 22. “Padam Padam” has become her first Top 10 U.K. hit as a lead artist since 2010, and her first appearance in the chart’s top tier of any kind since 2011. That means she has now had Top 10 British hits across a remarkable five consecutive decades. “We were all confident we were going to have a great result,” says Jamie Nelson, SVP of U.K. Recordings at Minogue’s label, BMG, who has worked with the star for over 20 years. “But it’s now flipping into an area that’s unprecedented, not just for her, but for a lot of projects that have got so much history.”

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Fifty years ago today, on the stage of London’s Hammersmith Odeon, David Bowie killed Ziggy Stardust. Of course, it was not a conventional murder: Ziggy was Bowie’s creation, a character he’d created, a vessel for his rise to fame behind his blockbuster 1972 album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,” which led to one of the fastest and most meteoric rises to superstardom in pop-culture history and created something of a self-fulfilling paradigm, involving the rise of the titular rock star whose fame went to his head and maybe died, maybe didn’t. After nearly a decade of trying and mostly failing to become famous as himself, Bowie apparently figured it might be easier to do it as someone else — as a “totally credible plastic rock star,” as he would later describe it.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Travis Scott and organizers behind the Astroworld Festival will not face criminal charges related to the deaths of 10 people who were suffocated when the crowd rushed the stage during his performance at the festival in October 2021. A grand Jury in Houston made the ruling on Thursday, according to the Houston Chronicle. 50,000 fans attended the show, which led to a surge during Scott’s performance at the festival outside NRG Park.  At a press conference following the concert, Houston fire chief Samuel Peña clarified the timeline. He said that the crowd began surging forward at 9 p.m., as there was panic involving people running for safety. At that point, Scott paused his set several times to ask security to help out fans, and members of the fire department were sent into the dense crowd to rescue the injured.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Sony Pictures Television has announced a new division focusing on music development, headed by Palash Ahmed, who worked as a music producer before joining the company in 2017. The move is intended to leverage the company’s ties to Sony Music Group and the larger music industry. In this role, Ahmed will be collaborating on music-related projects across SPT’s production groups (U.S. scripted, international production, nonfiction and kids divisions).  SPT Chairman Ravi Ahuja made the announcement in an internal note to staff, obtained by Variety. 

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Puerto Rican superstar singer Ozuna has signed with Scooter Braun’s SB Projects, in partnership with his longtime manager Edgar Andino, CEO of Andino Marketing Group, the companies announced on Thursday. Ozuna, one of Latin music’s most popular artists, joins a roster that includes Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, The Kid Laroi and others. Colombian singer J Balvin signed with the company in 2020 but left recently. “We’ve been following Ozuna’s career for years and we’re excited to be bringing him into the family to work with him and Edgar. Ozuna’s music is unmatched.  His ability to work across genres including reggaeton, Latin pop, and more, is phenomenal. With unique songs offering fresh perspective and beautiful sounds, We’re thrilled to amplify his artistry with this partnership,” offered Jennifer McDaniels, President of Management, SB Projects.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Madonna’s forthcoming “Celebration” tour has been postponed, according to an Instagram post from her manager Guy Oseary. The tour had been scheduled to launch in Vancouver on July 15. “On Saturday, June 24, Madonna developed a serious bacterial infection which led to a several-day stay in the ICU,” he wrote. “Her health is improving, however she is still under medical care. A full recovery is expected. “At this time we will need to pause all commitments, which includes the tour. “We will share more details with you as soon as we have them, including a new start date for the tour and for rescheduled shows.”

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Hairspray. Spandex. Leather pants. Makeup. The ‘80s metal scene left a long and lasting legacy, and the stories of five of its top artists are told in “I Wanna Rock: The ‘80s Metal Dream.” Paramount+ has announced that the new three-part docuseries will premiere exclusively on the service on Tuesday, July 18 in the U.S. and Canada and internationally on Wednesday, July 19 in the U.K. and Australia, with further international markets to follow later this summer. The series follows members of the bands Skid Row, Winger, Twisted Sister, Vixen and the Scream as they chased fame and found it. While artists like Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses and others found even bigger and more lasting success, these artists’ stories are more suited to tell the story of struggle, success, and struggle again.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The estate of legendary British singer Joe Cocker has entered into an agreement with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group to acquire and develop the singer’s five-decade catalog. The acquisition includes the singer’s music intellectual property assets, including his interest in his sound recordings, compositions, and his name, image and likeness; further terms were not disclosed. After working as a singer through the early 1960s, Cocker burst into the mainstream in 1969 with his electrifying cover of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends,” which topped the British charts and sparked a major U.S. following, thanks in large part to his show-stopping performance at the Woodstock festival (and subsequent film). With his powerful and unmistakable soul-blues voice and explosive stage presence, Cocker’s popularity grew with the “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour, live album and film, which featured an all-star band helmed by Leon Russell.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Three hours and 52 minutes is a long time to be doing anything except sleeping — driving, cooking, painting a room — and it’s an excruciatingly long time to spend watching an awards show. But unlike those other activities, spending 3:52 watching a televised awards show (and that total doesn’t even include the hour-long red-carpet pre-show) leaves a person with little sense of accomplishment or rejuvenation. The BET Awards are always unusually long for an awards show that isn’t an Oscars or a Grammys — the network traditionally blocks out three-and-a-half hours on the last Sunday night in June — and most years it delivers with either a stacked talent lineup and/or a series of water-cooler moments. But whether due to the ongoing writers’ strike — which got at least two statements of support from people on the BET stage — or the fact that many artists, including Sunday’s big winners, SZA and Beyonce, are on the road, making up for touring time lost to the pandemic, there was little of either in evidence on Sunday night, in a show that, without naming names, was dominated by mediocre talent, over-long speeches or paid programming of some kind. It’s a safe bet that even the biggest fans of hip-hop and R&B had no idea who was on stage for a large percentage of the time. (The full winners list appears below.)

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Those who wondered if or when Migos might perform together again after the tragic death of cofounder Takeoff got their answer on Sunday night, in a total surprise performance by surviving group members Quavo and Offset. The show returned from a commercial break with a curtain raised on a darkened stage with two shoadwed figures emerging — who turned out to be Quavo and Offset, standing before an image of the Space Shuttle. As a recording of Takeoff’s verse on the song “Hotel Lobby” began (as recorded by his duo with Quavo, Unc & Phew), it became clear who they were and the crowd erupted. “BET!” the announcer shouted. “Doin’ this for Take!” The image of the Space Shuttle took off and was replaced by an image of Takeoff with his hand reaching skyward, and the pair launched into the group’s biggest hit, “Bad & Boujee.”

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Young Thug — who has been awaiting trial in an Atlanta jail for over a year — may not belong in an orange jumpsuit, but he’ll probably reinvent the attire at some fashion show when he gets out. Thugger is one of the top rappers in the game, and yet he’s been sidelined by allegations from Georgia’s Fulton County that his Young Stoner Life label is actually a criminal gang. Thug’s response: a surprise album, as he awaits jury selection, that doubles as a kind of opening statement, not for the “peers” to be selected by the court, but for his friends, fans and family rooting for him from the sidelines.  Arriving just a week after “Gift & a Curse,” the new album from labelmate and former associate Gunna — who was also indicted but pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering and has been freed — “Business Is Business” is Thug’s first solo release since 2021’s “Punk,” and since his was incarcerated. Despite its “Godfather”-ish title, the album reflects the divides in the YSK camp: BSlime, Lil Gotit and Yak Gotti are the only featured crew members, Gunna is nowhere to be seen, and Wheezy has three production credits on the album but none on a “Gift & a Curse.” Consequently, it’s missing the camaraderie that has been a hallmark of Thug’s career, from “Best Friend” to the YSL collaborative album, “Slime Language 2” — although it does feature guest verses from Travis Scott, Future, 21 Savage, Lil Uzi Vert and more.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music In what may be the first AI-specific senior executive role in the music industry, Sony has hired former BPI CEO Geoff Taylor as executive vice president of AI, according to an internal memo obtained by Variety. In his new role, Taylor, who was CEO of the British Phonographic Industry trade organization for 15 years and is a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), will report to Sony Music Entertainment COO Kevin Kelleher. According to the memo, Taylor’s responsibilities will include coordinating the company’s business efforts surrounding artificial intelligence, and coordinate across the global digital business and business and legal affairs division.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles has announced a special initiative to help save Rockwood Music Hall, the long-running independent New York City music venue, which is in danger of closing. The #PreserveRockwood benefit concert series will launch on June 30 with Bareilles and will be an opportunity to see artists perform in the venue’s intimate setting while helping to keep it alive. 100% of the proceeds from the shows will be donated to Rockwood to help continue a space for independent and emerging artists to perform. Other artists initially joining the series include Chris Thile and Michael Daves (July 1), Amy Helm (July 6), Isabel Hagen (July 10), Ingrid Michaelson (July 20), Elle King (July 31) and The Lone Bellow (August 10), and more.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Warner Bros. Discovery is negotiating to sell around half of the storied Warner studio’s film and TV music-publishing assets for approximately $500 million, three sources confirm to Variety. The news was first reported by Hits. While it is unclear exactly which assets are on the table, one source says that the rights to “slightly less than half” of the catalog, with a price of around $500 million, are likely to go to a major label, with Sony said to be in the lead. The catalog is believed to include music from such films as “Purple Rain,” “Evita,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Rent” several “Batman” films and many more titles, as well as songs included in iconic films such as “As Time Goes By” from “Casablanca” — iconic titles to be sure, but again, it is unclear exactly which rights are in play. Top attorney Allen Grubman is said to be overseeing the deal for Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Unless you’ve got a “Succession”-sized story of ludicrous wealth combined with horrible behavior, it can be very challenging for a documentarian to make the life of an executive seem exciting — even one as colorful as that of Ron Delsener, one of the greatest concert promoters of all time… which is what makes “Ron Delsener Presents,” a documentary on that colorful life, all the more impressive. While the 90-odd-minute doc is a bit overlong and based largely on wealthy old music-biz veterans telling war stories from their rough-and-tumble years, director Jake Sumner uses deep research, fascinating concert and other archival footage, animation and snappy editing to create a very entertaining, if slightly smoothed-over, film that doubles as a sort of mini-history of the American concert business.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Highly touted British rapper Central Cee has signed a joint venture agreement with Columbia Records in partnership with Sony Music U.K., Variety has confirmed. Known to fans as “Cench,” the rapper became the first-ever British male rapper to be included in XXL magazine’s influential annual “Freshman Class” list, which was unveiled on Wednesday. Central Cee will also perform at this week’s 2023 Glastonbury festival, the largest festival in the U.K. The deal was led by Columbia executive vice president Bu Thiam with Central Cee’s manager, Bello. The fiercely independent rapper was the object of a heated bidding war in recent weeks; while terms of the Columbia deal were not announced, the joint venture suggests that he is likely to retain ownership of his recordings, as he has to date.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Paul McCartney has somewhat belatedly responded to the hysterical speculation that followed his announcement earlier this month that a “new” Beatles song has been created from a late ‘70s John Lennon demo recording with the assistance of AI. “Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project,” he wrote on social media. “No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year. “We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it,” he continued. “Seems to be a lot of guess work out there. Can’t say too much at this stage but to be clear, nothing has been artificially or synthetically created. It’s all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings – a process which has gone on for years.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music BMG has acquired a “substantial stake” in the work of legendary songwriter and two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Paul Simon, the company announced Thursday. The acquisition includes his royalty income in Simon & Garfunkel recordings as well as his neighboring rights income; Simon sold his publishing catalog to Sony Music Publishing in 2021. According the the announcement, the deal includes such songs as ‘The Sound Of Silence’, ‘The Boxer’, ‘Mrs Robinson’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Paul Simon was represented in the transaction by Gene Salomon and Don Passman at Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman. 

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Nearly 100 people were injured by “golf-ball sized” hail before a Louis Tomlinson concert scheduled for Wednesday night at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver, the West Metro Fire Department told CNN. At least seven people were transported to area hospitals with “non-life-threatening” injuries, the fire department tweeted, with as many as 90 people treated at the venue for abrasions and broken bones. “I managed to hide where they were selling drinks and I used my backpack to protect myself and another girl,” one fan told CNN, saying she experienced minor injuries. The National Weather Service office in nearby Boulder issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the areas at around 9 p.m., noting the venue would be affected.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Empire has promoted veteran music executive Tina Davis to president, the independent record label, distributor and publisher announced today. In her new role, Davis will continue to lead Empire’s A&R team as well as help with the strategic planning and day-to-day operations of the company. Most recently, Davis served as the company’s senior vice president of A&R. Prior to joining Empire, Davis was the first woman to lead Def Jam’s A&R department — a role she held for more than 10 years, working closely with such artists as Jay-Z, DMX, Method Man and many others. Following Def Jam, she worked closely with Chris Brown, and has been featured on Variety Women’s Impact Report and Dealmakers lists, as well as Billboard;s Women in Music and Hip-Hop/R&B Power Players lists. She also works on Live Nation’s Femme It Forward endeavor for young women and Solano County School District.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music It is an interesting time to be Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. the Weeknd. Last summer, he was criss-crossing North America on his “After Hours Til Dawn” stadium tour while simultaneously doing reshoots for his HBO series, “The Idol.” This summer, he’s watching the reactions to the deeply controversial show while criss-crossing Europe on the second leg of the tour, which will move to Latin America and Asia into next year. He’s also doing press for the Emmy campaign for his HBO concert documentary released earlier this year, “The Weeknd: Live at SoFi Stadium.” All the while, he’s been recording, as he always is. Despite, and because of, the polarized reactions to the first episodes of “The Idol,” the show has scored big ratings and even bigger conversation.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music We say every year that the Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction ceremony is the music industry’s best-kept secret — an invite-only, insider combination of a superstar awards show and a family reunion for the tight-knit songwriting and music-publishing community that is in its 52nd year and has never been televised or livestreamed. In fact, we’ve said it so many times that longtime SHOF CEO Linda Moran quoted us in her opening remarks on Thursday night. While the show has had honorees pull out in the past — Jay-Z due to the impending birth of his and Beyonce’s twins, less happily the Kinks’ Ray Davies due to the death of his sister — this year’s event was the first time two honorees canceled, deferring their inductions to next year: the reclusive Sade, who everyone figured had about a 40% chance of showing up, postponed several months ago due to a scheduling conflict, and Snoop Dogg, who pulled out abruptly for undisclosed reasons earlier in the week. But the SHOF is such a star-studded evening that the event was a rousing success filled with great music regardless — and the silver lining was the fact that it was over in a relatively tidy three hours (it often stretches toward five).

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Those with long memories can recall when the otherworldly Icelandic combo Sigur Ros’ music first began filtering over to these shores at the turn of this century — maybe on Napster or Limewire after Radiohead’s Thom Yorke began mentioning them in interviews, or on a burned CD from a friend who had one of their hard-to-find-even-in-metropolises imports. Hearing them for the first time was like taking a voyage to a different musical planet, guided by a vocalist named Jonsi who sang in both Icelandic and an invented language over lush, towering, majestic music that evoked National Geographic landscapes and summoned purple prose from critics even more pretentious than the line you just read. While there were certainly influences — Cocteau Twins, Eno, electronic music and film soundtracks — Sigur Ros were like absolutely no one else, and their sound (and lineup) evolved over the early ‘00s and beyond, incorporating orchestras on one album, rock-centric structures on the next, ambient on the one after, while still remaining unmistakably them.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Grammys Reduce Album, Song, Record of the Year and Best New Artist From 10 to Eight Nominees As it does every year, the Recording Academy has updated its rules and guidelines following its semiannual board of trustees meeting, and while three new categories were announced earlier this week, one major change was unveiled today among several less-impactful ones: The four top categories — album, song and record of the year and best new artist — have been reduced to eight categories from 10. An AI-related rule was also introduced, which effectively states that only human creators are eligible for awards, but, like all things AI, requires an extensive series of caveats to cover the vast possibilities that the technology makes possible in this still-developing area; the full list appears below.)

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Grammy-winning Songwriters Hall of Fame member Cynthia Weil — who co-wrote “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway,” “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” “Walking in the Rain,” “You’re My Soul and Inspiration,” “Uptown,” “He’s So Shy,” “Kicks,” “Here You Come Again,” “Through the Fire,” “Somewhere Out There” and many other hits, mostly with her husband and Brill Building colleague Barry Mann — died earlier this month at the age of 82. She was one of the top “Brill Building” songwriters that came out of the Midtown Manhattan building of the same name (although much of the work actually was done a couple of blocks uptown at 1650 Broadway) and spawned literally hundreds of hits throughout the 1960s for the Righteous Brothers, the Ronettes, the Drifters, the Monkees, the Animals, multiple Phil Spector productions and many others. Along with Mann — to whom Weil was married for some 62 years — the coterie included another young married couple, Carole King and the late Gerry Goffin.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Halsey has signed with Columbia Records, Variety has confirmed. The move comes just two months after the singer parted ways with her longtime label, Capitol Music Group. The move actually reunites Halsey, who uses she/they pronouns, with the label behind one of the two biggest hits of their career: “Closer,” the Chainsmokers song featuring her on co-lead vocals, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for some 12 weeks in 2016. Halsey also reached No. 1 in 2018 with “Without You.” Halsey first signed with Capitol’s Astralwerks imprint in 2013 and quickly became one of the company’s hottest acts. Yet their fierce independent streak — she often tells a story about a label exec saying she wasn’t ready to make an album, so she asked her fans via Twitter whether they wanted one, to rapturous response — often put them at odds with it.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music President Biden will announce at a press conference on Thursday that Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary, along with other ticketing companies, have pledged to give U.S. consumers the ability to see the full price of tickets up front — eliminating the practice of last-minute service fees and other additional expenses suddenly being added to ticket prices late in the online purchase process. It is important to note that the fees themselves are not necessarily being eliminated, but rather the practice of not revealing them until the final steps of the purchase. At this afternoon’s scheduled announcement, President Biden will be joined by representatives from Live Nation, SeatGeek, xBk, Airbnb, the Pablo Center at the Confluence, TickPick, DICE, and the Newport Festivals Foundation, all of which are currently provide all-in pricing or are announcing a new commitment to do so in the coming months.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The National Music Publishers Assn., acting on behalf of 17 major music publishers, is filing a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter for its failure to license and pay for the music widely available on its platform.  The complaint seeks more than $250 million in damages for hundreds of thousands of noticed infringements of approximately 1,700 works. “Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law,” the complaint reads in part. “While numerous Twitter competitors recognize the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platforms, Twitter does not, and instead breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators…

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Omar Apollo, Brandy Clark and Coco Jones performed and three people were honored Tuesday night at the first T.J. Martell Foundation since 2019, which raised more than $1.3 million for cancer research. The honorees included Warner Records Co-Chairman and COO Tom Corson, who received the Lifetime Music Industry Award; Def Jam Chief Creative Officer and executive VP Archie Davis, who received the Rising Music Superstar Award; Grammy Award-winning and Tony-nominated songwriter/producer Shane McAnally, who received the Spirit of Music Award. The event was hosted by Gala Co-Chairs and Board Chairman John Esposito, Tunji Balogun, Aaron Bay-Schuck, Robert Carlton, Steve Gawley, Laura Swanson and Julie Swidler.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music At the beginning of the pandemic, Sofar Sounds — which has made a name and a business for itself by staging “secret gigs and intimate concerts” featuring emerging artists for an invited, engaged audience — seemed to be one of the worst-positioned businesses in the music industry to survive it: many of its shows take place in people’s homes. Yet not only did they come through the pandemic intact, they hosted multiple livestreams and even says it managed to pay some 3,000 artists whose scheduled shows were canceled due to lockdown, paying out more than $1.5 million to artists over the course of the pandemic. And after a low-key, year-long ramping up, they’re now hosting more shows than ever.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The Recording Academy has added three new categories for the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, it announced today: Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album, and Best Pop Dance Recording. Last year’s new additions included songwriter of the year and song for social change. Additionally, the existing categories of producer of the year, non-classical and songwriter of the year, non-classical will be moved to the general field — meaning that all Grammy voters will be allowed to vote in those categories, which previously were “craft” or specialized categories, along with engineering, packaging and the like, for which only members working in those areas voted.

William Earl Variety has promoted Jem Aswad to lead all music content across digital, print and live media platforms as executive editor, music. Aswad will oversee all aspects of Variety‘s music-related editorial operations and staff. He will also continue to serve as Variety‘s leading voice on the business of music, penning cover stories, deep-dive features, investigative stories, personality profiles and reviews. With his promotion, Aswad will also help steer Variety‘s music-related event franchises, including Hitmakers and Music Mogul of the Year, and contribute significantly to developing music programming for live media events. Aswad is based in Variety‘s New York office and reports to co-editors in chief Cynthia Littleton and Ramin Setoodeh. Shirley Halperin, Variety’s executive editor, music since 2017, is stepping down to become editor in chief of Los Angeles magazine.