KATY PERRY

Rihanna Didn’t Call Katy Perry, Friend And Fellow Super Bowl Halftime Show Performer, For Advice (Which Perry Understands)

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Rihanna is of course fresh off performing the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Just a few years ago, though, it was Katy Perry’s turn in the NFL spotlight, when she put on a memorable Super Bowl performance of her own (never forget Left Shark) in 2015. Rihanna and Perry are friends, but despite having a former Super Bowl halftime performer at her disposal, Rihanna opted not to seek advice about the big show from Perry (which Perry totally gets, by the way).

Perry and Lionel Richie were on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night (February 16) to promote American Idol. During the interview, Kimmel asked Perry if Rihanna called her before the Super Bowl looking for some halftime show insight, and Perry said, “She don’t need no pointers: she’s Rihanna!”

The host then wondered if Perry knew about Rihanna’s pregnancy beforehand. She noted that she was filming American Idol in Hawaii on the day of the Super Bowl, and that she had to go to set right when Rihanna was about to start her performance. She continued, “So we were trying to drag our feet, because we all want to see Rihanna play the Super Bowl. We actually had to film and then it happened and we came back, and we found a cut of it, and no, we all saw it then for the first time then, and it was amazing! It was so beautiful.”

Watch Perry and Richie’s Kimmel interview above.

Megan Thee Stallion Sang Katy Perry’s ‘Thinking Of You’ And It Might Lead To Them Collaborating On A Song

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Megan Thee Stallion is never afraid to show off her fun side as we’ve seen multiple times in her career. She recently teamed up with Cardi B to display her football skills with some help from the Los Angeles Chargers, and prior to that, Megan and Normani had a grand ol’ time at prom for the former’s Off Thee Leash Snapchat series. Recently, Megan showed off her laid-back spirits during some time on Instagram Live as she was seemingly doing her hair and makeup. It was here that she launched into singing mode as she delivered a cover of Katy Perry’s “Thinking Of You.”

It was quite the entertaining moment as Megan was hilariously off-key as she cruised through the 2008 song’s chorus with a bottle of hairspray in hand as her microphone. Towards the end of the video, Megan noted that the song was one of her favorites as an eighth grader. A fan recorded the livestream moment and posted it on Twitter, and soon enough, Katy Perry herself caught wind of it and shared a response. “Omg lez duet ily Meg THEE katycat @theestallion [blowing a kiss emoji],” Perry wrote. Megan replied, “Omg yes hot girl Katy ! Let’s do a song [fire emojis].”

With that, it’s only a matter of time until Megan and Katy release a song, one that would be their first collaboration together.

You can view Megan’s cover of “Thinking Of You” and Katy’s response in the posts above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

‘SNL’ Embraces Chaos And Books Willem Dafoe And Katy Perry For The Same Episode

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Over its four-and-a-half decades, Saturday Night Live has had plenty of Mad Libs-y host-musical guest(s) pairings. Al Gore and Phish. Tony Danza and Laurie Anderson. Old school entertainer Milton Berle and free jazz legend Ornette Coleman. Business magazine founder Steve Forbes and anti-capitalist rockers Rage Against the Machine. Some even become memes. There’s even an entire Twitter account dedicated to hosts improbably introducing musicians. So here’s another.

As per Deadline, for the episode of Jan. 29, the live sketch show has recruited beloved character actor Willem Dafoe and — why not! — pop goddess Katy Perry. For Perry, who is in the midst of her first Las Vegas residency, it’s her fourth time on the show. For Dafoe, it’s his first. Dafoe isn’t exactly a comedic actor, preferring serious art cinema and cutting up the occasional blockbuster, but he can be very funny. Witness The Lighthouse, in which he out-there enough to inspire an SNL sketch, well before they finally invited him on.

Besides, who doesn’t look Willem Dafoe? He can currently be seen in two big movies: dusting off his old Green Goblin duds in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is making all the money, and Guillermo del Toro’s star-studded remake of Nightmare Alley, which is not. He had a busy 2021, appearing in yet another Wes Anderson movie (The French Dispatch), yet another Paul Schrader (The Card Counter), and yet another with perhaps his most frequent collaborator, eccentric weirdo Abel Ferrara (Siberia).

Before this hot mess begins, feel free to visit the aforementioned SNL host/musical guest(s) Twitter account, where you see such inventive sights as this.

(Via Deadline)

Nas And Pusha T Invest In Audius Streaming Service, Which Plans To Increase ‘Significant Revenue Streams’ For Artists

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Artists from all corners of the music world have long voiced their frustration with the current format of the music streaming business. In short, artists want a higher share of the revenue made from streams and it’s something an up-and-coming streaming platform, Audius, is aiming to accomplish.

This goal seemingly convinced Nas and Pusha T to sign on as investors, as the company recently announced. The rappers join a list of artists that include Katy Perry, Jason Derulo, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, Steve Aoki, Chainsmokers, and Disclosure — according to a press release — as names who invested in the company.

“I believe [blockchains] might be the most important technology to ever hit the music industry,” Nas said in a statement. “Everyone who uploads to Audius can be an owner. You can’t say that about any other platform.” The company launched back in 2018 as a streaming service based on blockchain technology, which is also used to support NFTs and cryptocurrency. Audius also announced a $5 million round of strategic funding that would begin today.

Audius also boasts a sizable cast of investors that are music executives. They include Sony/ATV Music Publishing CEO Martin Bandier, Madonna and U2’s longtime manager Guy Oseary, and manager Mark Gillespie, whose clients include Frank Ocean and Calvin Harris. Speaking about Audius, Bandier said, “The blockchain is enabling entirely new revenue streams for artists and creators, like NFTs, social currency, and curation.” He added, “Audius is not only using the blockchain to add potentially significant revenue streams for artists, but it also allows them to cooperatively own the platform itself.”

The company’s highlight aspect is the fact that through blockchain technology, 90% of earnings from monetized streams would go to the artists and the remaining 10% would be given to the community that keeps Audius alive.

Hour-Long Versions Of Post Malone And Ariana Grande Songs Are Coming Via The Calm App

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It was reported in 2019 that the average length of a song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was three-and-a-half minutes and that songs that run for under three minutes are becoming increasingly common. So, in general, songs are getting shorter, but now meditation app Calm and Universal Music Group (UMG) taking things in the opposite direction, as they have announced a series of remixed songs that will push their lengths up to an hour.

This Friday (March 19, which is World Sleep Day), Calm will release seven extended tracks: Ariana Grande’s “Breathin’,” Jhené Aiko’s “While We’re Young,” Kacey Musgraves’ “Golden Hour,” Katy Perry’s “Double Rainbow,” Luis Fonsi’s “Sola,” Post Malone’s “Circles,” and Shawn Mendes’ “Wonder.” For three months, the hour-long tracks will be exclusive to the app, but after that, UMG will be allowed to share the songs to streaming platforms.

Calm co-founder and co-CEO Michael Acton Smith told Rolling Stone, “The problem with most music is it’s quite short: When built for the streaming era or even the radio era, it’s three or four minutes long. Even if something is really soothing, you can’t always get into a flow state and drift off to sleep. You have a song for a few minutes and then you go onto the next one and the next one.” He added of the new remixes, “If they’re boring, you’re [less likely] to play them in the first place, and we want your attention. We want you stop thinking about your to-do lists and that silly comment you made at work.”

Courtney Phillips, Calm’s Head of Music also noted, “I was just on a call with an artist’s team talking about tracks. I asked, ‘Would it be cool if he made longer versions?’ And they were like, “Oh my god, he’s been killing us! We keep trying to get him to shorten these down because they’re so long. He would love to make a longer version.’ That’s what we want to be here for. We want to give artists that creative freedom, let them think out of the box and go, ‘Yes! I get to make something really weird, long, and beautiful.” She added, “We didn’t have any comments at all from any of our artists not liking the final mixes. Not one.”