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Hip-Hop will be represented during the Nobel Peace Prize Concert this year in Oslo, Norway.

Rapper/actor Will Smith will host The Nobel Peace Prize Concert this year with his wife and actress, Jada Pinkett Smith, while Wyclef Jean will be one of the feature performers.

“The opportunity to recognise the laureate’s contributions to the world peace movement will be an awe-inspiring experience – we are both humbled and honoured to take part in the Nobel Peace Prize Concert this year,” The Smiths said in a joint statement released to media today (September 29).

The Nobel Peace Prize Concert will take place December 10 in Oslo.

Other performers include Toby Keith, Donna Summer, Luis Fonsi and Amadou and Mariam.

According to reports, US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were among the record 205 nominees this year.

The Peace Prize was created by dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel.

A number of rappers, R&B singers and celebrities will gather in Atlanta tomorrow (October 1) for a special charity project to raise money for recent flood victims in the city.

Jermaine Dupri, Nelly and V-103 will present Atlanta Stand Up: Jermaine Dupri & Nelly Charity Celebrity Bowling Tournament.

The goal of the tournament is to raise funds for the victims of severe flooding in Atlanta, where 17 counties in the state have been disaster areas, making the region eligible for federal disaster assistance.

In addition to Jermaine Dupri and Nelly, rappers and artists like Outkast’s Big Boi, Polow Da Don, Nitty, Lil Ronnie, Bryan Michael Cox and T.I.’s Grand Hustle label will compete in the tournament, which will donate all proceeds to the flood victims.

Jermaine Dupri and Nelly’s Charity Celebrity Bowling Tournament takes place tomorrow at Red Carpet Lanes in Atlanta.

Hometown rappers Ludacris and T.I. have already donated $10,000 each with the Home Depot and Sam’s Club to help over 20,000 people impacted by the flooding, which has caused an estimated $61 million dollars in damages.

Photo: LaVeris/FilmMagic
“I Can Transform Ya,” Chris Brown’s first single reportedly off his upcoming Graffiti — and his first official new song since he assaulted Rihanna in February — was revealed yesterday on the singer’s Mechanical Dummy Website. Officially, it’s credited to Chris Brown featuring Lil Wayne and Swizz Beatz, but the producer and Weezy practically overpower the R&B singer on the song, which rumbles to a backing track featuring whistle blasts, metallic clanks and crunchy guitar riffs. Beatz delivers his most rocking, metallic beat yet, almost as if the tune was destined for Weezy’s own delayed Rebirth.

While some leaked songs suggested that Brown’s comeback single might be more reflective or apologetic in tone, instead Brown sing-raps about his ability to “transform ya” by wielding an American Express Black Card and buying some lucky girl anything she wants. Lil Wayne is in full-on alien mode and the track’s MVP, with Weezy name-checking both Optimus Prime and Voltron, possibly the first time that cartoon has been referenced in a rap since Raekwon did it on Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

But will radio and the clubs embrace the track following Brown’s plea deal and all the drama of the past eight months? We’ll find out soon enough. With his new single finally out, as Rolling Stone previously reported, Brown will next make his official return to the stage with an appearance at Power105’s Powerhouse concert October 27th at New Jersey’s Izod Center.

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While we knew that there would be yet another Resident Evil movie, it wasn’t official-official. Now it is.

Website ShockTillYouDrop report that the Screen Gems and Constantin Film have officially announced that production on Resident Evil: Afterlife has kicked off in Toronto, Canada.

The film will be shot entirely in 3D and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Afterlife stars Milla Jovovich as Alice, and Ali Larter and Spencer Locke will reprise their roles as Claire Redfield and K-Mart from the previous films. Actor Wentworth Miller is joining the cast as Claire’s brother, Chris Redfield. Shawn Roberts will play Wesker.

“Alice’s battle with The Umbrella Corporation isn’t finished,” says director Anderson. “Last time we saw Alice, she let them know she was coming after them. It’s time to settle the score.”

A glance at the cover of Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel is a visual insight to the musical contents of Mariah Carey’s latest release. Three surgically enhanced and photoshopped divas adorn the cover — all Mariah Carey, all representing her scandalous self. The first depicts her as drugged-out diva, the second is her attempt to show the world she’s still an innocent butterfly, while the third catches Carey and her plastic parts mid-orgasm.

Like the self-obsessed cover, Memoirs aims to take the listener through a day in the life of the seemingly schizophrenic songstress. It succeeds — if the focal points of her life including revenge over heartache, being stalked by a sex maniac, and a having passion for being tied up in ribbons and getting loved on. Surprise, the album sucks.

Carey is known as a goddess with a vocal range on par with female ballad counterpart Whitney Houston, but besides possessing a sexy bod, her beautiful vox is about all she has these days. Each song on the disc, though dripping with Mimi’s luscious voice, is worse than its predecessor, mostly thanks to lyrics more awful than the plot line/acting/overall premise of Glitter.

She opens the album with “Betcha Gon’ Know,” a track where the imperfect angel shrieks about the pain of being cheated on and her plots of revenge (marriage imperfect as well, Ms. Cannon?).

Annoying, yes, but not so terrible as “Up Out My Face (The Reprise).” The spiritless track features a Drumline re-enactment complete with a marching band full of screeching whistles, boisterous brass, and a cheese factor rivaling the lyrics of “Always Be My Baby.”

Obsessed

H.A.T.E.U.

Up Out My Face

Angels Cry

Paramore is a band from humble beginnings who sky-rocketed to the top (or close enough to it) with the release of “Misery Business,” the first single off of 2007’s Riot. Last year, “Decode” from the Twilight Soundtrack cemented its status as teens’ favourite band. This year, they release Brand New Eyes, a record that shows just why these kids are so popular with the teen crowd, but at the same time suggests that there could be a whole hell of a lot more from this band in the future. The video for the lead single “Ignorance” suggests that another of the band’s goals with this album is to take some of the spotlight away from vocalist Hayley Williams and put it on the other members of the band. Unfortunately, the cable attached to the light bulb she holds never quite reaches her band mates and instead we just realize that in the two years since Riot, Hayley has just got even hotter. And that is echoed on Brand New Eyes; Hayley’s vocal ability has grown significantly, while her band mates for the most part seem stuck in the same sort of place they were with Riot.

If you follow this band you’ll know that about eighteen months ago it came pretty close to breaking up. The guys were pissed off that Hayley was getting all the attention, she was pissed off because they just couldn’t see things from her point of view, and they were all pissed off because the writing process for album number three just wasn’t going as planned. Basically, they couldn’t handle their meteoric rise to the top. But they came through it, and put all of that tension into this record, ultimately making for a brutally honest account of the lives of these young kids. “Ignorance” sees Hayley with a new-found swagger, pointing the finger at her band mates, “where’s your gavel, your jury?” The track sounds similar to a couple of songs from the previous record, but once you give it a couple of spins it becomes ingrained in your head, creating a brand new world all of its own. Several other tracks cover the band’s near break up, and in all honesty that becomes a little tiresome. Thankfully most of those songs are good ones; “Playing God” is one of the record’s highlights, a slower track more akin to “When It Rains” from Riot. It has a hell of a catchy chorus, as Hayley warns “next time you point a finger I must just have to bend it back and break it off / next time you point a finger, I’ll point you to the mirror.”

A lot of the tracks sound like they could quite easily have come straight off of the Riot album. The record begins with the darker “Careful,” which suggests the album would contain more takes along the lines of “Decode,” but the majority of the more up-tempo songs sound not too dissimilar to “Born For This,” not that that’s a bad thing, just a little safe.

Ignorance

Brick By Boring Brick

Misguided Ghosts

Decode

A host of big-name artists are releasing albums this week, starting with Madonna’s double-disc collection dedicated to her entire tenure on Warner Music, Celebration. Packing 34 hits and two new songs onto two discs, Celebration is a dizzying, non-chronological journey through the Material Girl’s hits, from “Burning Up” to “Dress You Up” to “Hung Up.” “Her hitmaking genius is unmatched and — with the new Eurocheese blast ‘Celebration’ and the Lil Wayne duet ‘Revolver’ — undiminished,” Rob Sheffield writes in his four-star Rolling Stone review of the collection. “It’s almost enough to make you forget that they left off ‘Angel,’ which is just plain crazypants.” If by some chance you’re somehow unfamiliar with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s oeuvre, or you’re a child of the Britney era, Celebration is a perfect entry point.

Celebration

Revolver

Anyone coming into La Roux’s debut album on the basis of recent hit In for the Kill might be forgiven for worrying that Ellie Jackson and her camera-shy sidekick Ben Langmaid may be drawing from a narrow range of influences. A cursory listen to all 12 songs on here should soon set them straight. La Roux’s open-mindedness extends to all four of the bands that Vince Clark was in during the 1980s.

Joke, of course. Nevertheless, like most jokes there’s enough truth in this one – enough, certainly, to shine a truthful light on an aesthetic shift that several emerging artists are bringing to bear upon their music. In recent months the likes of Little Boots, Magistrates and Passion Pit all cite the first wave of British synth-pop as a baggage-free source of inspiration. For the almost militant purity of its execution though, La Roux inspires a peculiar sort of awe. Exclusively using keyboards is one thing, but the Brixton-based duo have gone a step further, purging their sound of any keyboard noise that bears even a passing resemblance to what your Jeremy Clarkson sort of music fan would refer to as a “real” instrument.

And in limited bursts it yields results. There’s no shortage of likely successors waiting to follow In for the Kill chartwards: the ecstatic machine pop of As if by Magic and I’m not Your Toy will surely get their turn. Right now, however, by adding that vital I Will Survive-factor, the current single Bulletproof stands every chance of killing two demographic birds with one stone. You don’t sing a hook such as “This time baby/I’ll be bulletproof” without ensnaring huge numbers of: (a) gay men; and (b) single female marketing executives in elasticated trouser suits who need something to listen to while waiting for their M&S “gastropub” meal to ping.

Similarly, relationship bother rears its head in the superb Quicksand. Propelled along by a melody that shares some of its DNA with Prince’s When Doves Cry, Jackson casts herself as the recipient of an overture from someone already in a relationship. In this context, her dogged insistence on singing in a register that appears to be too high for her makes a certain amount of sense. She sounds vulnerable and exposed – although just one song previously, Tigerlily illustrates that there are other perfectly good octaves she might want to explore in years to come.

In For The Kill

Quicksand

Bulletproof

I’m Not Your Toy

After almost five years as part of the Warner Music Group, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has relocated his Bad Boy Records imprint to Interscope Geffen A&M, Combs told AllHipHop.com Tuesday afternoon (September 29).

The first release to come from the joint venture will be Diddy’s experimental forthcoming album, Last Train to Paris.

Under the new partnership, all of Diddy’s future releases will be distributed via Interscope Records, as will albums by any future artists to join the Bad Boy roster.

All artists currently signed to Bad Boy Records will still continue to release projects through WMG.

“I had started some previous business relationships with Jimmy Iovine,” Sean “Diddy” Combs told AllHipHop.com. “We had a great chemistry with each other. When I sat down with Julie [Greenwald, Atlantic COO] and told them that I had an interest to go sign with Jimmy and they didn’t make it rough for me. Lyor [Cohen, WMG Chairman] and Julie were nice enough to let me get my [Bad Boy] name. I was able to take the name over to Interscope and to still in stay in business with them. I am not abandoning any of my artists over there, I still have that imprint. But all my future recordings, including my recording contract, that will be at Interscope Records.”

According to Combs, the new Bad Boy label with Interscope will operate like a small boutique label, with an emphasis on signing unique talent.

“We are going to take our time with the amount of acts that we sign,” Combs stated, adding that the label will cater to “superstars.”

“We want to find those very unique artists. We want to build something very special that’s not already out there,” Combs told AllHipHop.com exclusively.

Since being purchased by Warner in 2005, Bad Boy has released projects from a new generation of pop, R&B and Hip-Hop acts, including B5, Gorilla Zoe, Yung Joc and Making the Band alums Danity Kane, Donnie Klang and Day 26.

“Puff is a rare person in the music industry today, that can move the culture in many areas – fashion, TV, music – as well as making records,” commented IGA Chairman Jimmy Iovine. “Whenever a free agent like him comes along, which is rare, you grab him.”

“I was at a point where I felt like I needed a fresh start. I felt like A-Rod going to the Yankees,” Combs said of his decision to move on.

Combs’ upcoming Interscope debut Last Train to Paris comes three years after his fifth studio album, Press Play, which is certified platinum.

Last Train to Paris, which Combs has described as “electro-hip-hop-soul funk,” will follow the rapper/entrepreneur along a fictional European tour.

Along the way, he pursues the woman of his dreams, losing her twice before finding their happily ever after.

“It’s Hip-Hop and it has a lot of different ingredients going into it. As soon as people heard the word ‘electro,’ they automatically assumed it was electro-heavy. It’s not electro-heavy, it’s a musical gumbo of the different sounds I’ve experienced throughout my travels and through producing.

Diddy and Dirty Money’s new single, titled “Love Come Down” is set to be serviced to radio stations nationwide.

Hip-Hop veteran Flavor Flav is planning on jumping back into the spotlight very soon.

In a recent interview Flavor Flav told AllHipHop.com, “I’m working on a reality show and a talk show, going back to high school. I got a talk show coming, yall ain’t going to be mad at ya boy.”

Flav caught the reality TV bug when he first appeared on VH1’s “The Surreal Life” and then “Strange Love,” which stemmed from the relationship that he formed with Brigitte Nielsen.

Later Flav would go on to start is own reality series that continued for three seasons the “Flavor of Love.”

Flavor Flav’s reality TV success did not come without scrutiny. The rapper turned reality star come under fire from who labeled performance a “coon act” on “a modern day minstrel show.”

Flav gained his stardom with the rap group Public Enemy in the late ’80s as Chuck D’s hypeman.

He is known for sporting his huge trademark clock around his neck.