Chadwick Boseman (42) is no stranger to biopics. He’ll be starring in another big one soon, this time playing the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. The 31-year actor has been cast as the lead in the biopic chronicling the singer’s meteoric rise from poverty to music glory in the 1960s and 70s. James Brown died in 2006 at the age of 73. It is not yet known if Boseman will be singing the songs himself or lip-synching to Brown tracks in the film. Mick Jagger and Brian Grazer are also on board as producers, while Tate Taylor will direct. Filming on the project is expected to begin this fall. Prior to starring in 42 as Jackie Robinson, Boseman had appeared mostly on TV. Boseman is also a playwright and director of several short films.
Django Unchained had its New York City premiere last night, and like me you probably weren’t there. Sorry on all our behalves, everyone! Luckily we can console ourselves with the ongoing reveals of tracks from Django ‘s soundtrack. The latest is Unchained (The Payback/Untouchable) , a mashup of James Brown’s The Payback and Tupac’s Untouchable . Ready for a listen? You guys, I really want to love this. But despite the fact that James Brown and Tupac are both insanely dope, the track sounds like exactly half of awesome. Blame for that goes to Swizz Beats, who produced Untouchable for the 2006 album Pac’s Life , AKA the moment when the dead horse that is Tupac’s posthumous career was finally flogged into its component atoms. Tupac was a genius, but that doesn’t mean he’s a cipher that can be fitted into whatever era wants him. His flow was built on bomb-squad influenced beats and g-funk. Warping his rap style around the bob-free beats that popped up in the aughts is like releasing a disco remix of Paul Whiteman’s version of You’re The Tops . Frankly, Untouchable is in strong contention for the absolute worst of Tupac songs. Particularly hilarious is the fact that Swizz looped Pac to make him fit the track, so we get Tupac shouting “Y’all know me Y’a-Y’all know me” like a Shep Pettibone remix from 1988. Meanwhile, James Brown’s music was tailor made for a remix like the one used to make Unchained (The Payback/Untouchable) , and the combination only makes the molestation of Pac sound even worse. I wish they’d just requested access to Pac’s original vocals instead mashing up a superior song with an inferior song. Luckily, the beats and the remix of “The Payback” are great, and once you get used to how Tupac is criminally misused, you can enjoy the other more solid moments unfettered. No doubt it’s going to sound even better when it plays over scenes of blood-spattered cotton fields, so I’m in. RATING: The original Tupac track: 10 out of 100 black coffins for making one of the greatest MCs in the game sound wack. This mashup: 80 out of 100 black coffins for proving once again that James Brown’s music can always be used to make everything sound cool, despite the wackness. The original version of “Untouchable”: “The Payback”: [Source: A.V. Club ] READ MORE ON DJANGO UNCHAINED : REVIEW: Tarantino’s Django Unchained A Bloody But Bloated Affair From ‘100 Black Coffins’ To ‘Casa De Mi Padre,’ 5 Oscar Best Song Dark Horses We’re Rooting For Quentin Tarantino Tackles Slavery: ‘You’re Going to Want to Talk After’ Django Unchained Ross Lincoln is a LA-based freelance writer from Oklahoma with an unhealthy obsession with comics, movies, video games, ancient history, Gore Vidal, and wine. Follow him on twitter (@rossalincoln). Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Last week John Legend premiered the first song from the “Django Unchained” soundtrack called “Who Did That To You?” The newest track Quentin Tarantino’s film…
Much-hyped band, opening for Jack White, releases debut, Boys & Girls . By James Montgomery Alabama Shakes Photo: MTV News It’s not exactly a stretch to say the Alabama Shakes have come out of nowhere — it would, however, be incorrect. After all, they hail from the town of Athens, Alabama (pop. 21,897), and, since forming in 2009, they’ve logged thousands of hours playing sweaty, soulful gigs throughout the Southeast — though Egan’s Bar in nearby Tuscaloosa remains their spiritual home. Since January 2011, they’ve been working on their debut album, paying for recording sessions themselves using money from their various day jobs (painting houses, delivering mail), and slowly but surely building a bit of buzz, namely on blogs like Aquarium Drunkard , which posted an MP3 of the band last summer and inadvertently got them a deal with ATO Records. In November 2011, they finished that debut disc, and in March 2012, the Shakes tore through the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. On Tuesday, their journey finally came to a head with the release of Boys & Girls, a crackling, creaky collection of ringing, downright retro guitars, pealing organs and, of course, frontwoman Brittany Howard’s voluminous, velvety voice. Not surprisingly — given the Shakes’ Southern roots and the laundry list of adjectives their music inspires — long-suffering rock critics have already embraced both the band and their sound, dubbing them everything from the genre’s next great saviors to the new kings and queens of retro soul. But, as Howard explains, she prefers to call it one thing, and one thing only: “It’s rock and roll. Think about Chuck Berry … rock and roll. AC/DC, rock and roll. Little Richard. James Brown was doing some rock and roll. That’s what it is,” she told MTV News. “R&B and rock and roll go more hand in hand than I think a lot of people want to admit.” MTV News caught up with the Shakes, MTV PUSH Artist of the Week , on Tuesday at New York’s Studio at Webster Hall before they took the stage for Live in NYC, MTV Hive’s concert series . Their performance will be available on-demand next week. Howard and bandmates Steve Johnson and Heath Fogg told us they are proud of everything that’s lead them to this point and that they did everything their way. “We’d go up to Nashville once a month, at most, to make the album,” Fogg shared. “We’d get up there Friday night, work all day Saturday, head back home Saturday night … It was a long process. “We’ve been wanting this record to come out for a long time,” he continued. “To get the opportunities we’ve gotten, we were all pretty shocked. We’d get taken out to dinner by all these big labels, and the whole time I kept thinking I’d have to pay for these meals, like, I’d stand up and kinda grab for my wallet, and they’d be like, ‘No no no.’ ” Johnson added: “When we were making [ Boys & Girls ], there were certain recordings where it felt like you were almost in the room with the band while they were being recorded. Just background voices, the stir of the room; it felt like there were other people in there, and we were all fans of that kind of stuff, so we decided to leave little things in. “The songs have a feel to ’em: There’s kind of a sway of the rhythm, it picks up and slows down. We weren’t sitting there on a metronome, playing to a click track or something like that, and I think that was the overall goal: to make a good-sounding, good-feeling album. And if there was a mistake, but it didn’t mess with the groove of the song: leave it in.” Of course, the Shakes are trying very hard to come to terms with their newfound fame, which includes a sold-out North American tour, dates in Europe and the U.K. and an opening slot for avowed-admirer Jack White on his solo trek. Mixed in with all of this is the very real struggle to remain attached to their roots, which are as far-reaching as they are humble. After all, they’re not a “retro soul” band, they’re a rock and roll band. One whose time has finally come. “A lot of people listened to James Brown and Elvis Presley when I was growing up,” Howard explained. “We had a station called Solid Golden Oldies, and I would spend a lot of time with my grandmother, and that’s what we would listen to. We’d be in the kitchen cooking or cleaning, listening to Solid Golden Oldies, and she’d tell me about Dion and Elvis Presley, how her and her friends would go dance to Elvis records. “I just grew up loving it and understanding it and just the sound and the honesty of the music was something I’ll never forget,” she explained. “And I ran into these guys, and they all get it too. But, we also listen to a lot of other stuff — it doesn’t stop there. That’s why we don’t say we’re retro soul, because I also love MMJ [My Morning Jacket], the White Stripes, Kings of Leon … I’m not stuck under a rock or anything. I don’t think any of us are.” Related Videos PUSH: Alabama Shakes Related Artists Alabama Shakes
The James Brown biopic has been in the works for some time now. Back in 2006, Spike Lee joined the Paramount project to direct and rewrite a script that had already been revised by Feeling Minnesota scribe Steve Baigelman and Jezz and John-Henry Butterworth ( Fair Game ). In the most exciting (and recent) development yet though, producers have begun meeting with actors about the lead part — including Eddie Murphy and one recording artist that will definitely surprise you.
Filed under: Celebrity Justice There are reports that James Brown’s body is missing from his crypt — as in, stolen — but TMZ has learned the Godfather of Soul never left the building. The morbid dispute arose when one of Brown’s illegitimate daughters, LaRhonda Pettit, told a UK … Permalink
Tonight 60 Minutes aired its much-anticipated Michael Vick interview, conducted by James Brown of CBS Sports, the first time Vick has spoken publicly about his crimes since being sent to prison for running a brutal dog-fighting ring. The segment began with Vick telling the world how he realizes what he did was wrong and how so very sorry he is for having done it: The first day I walked into prison, and he slammed that door, I knew the magnitude of the decision that I made, and the poor judgment, and what I allowed to happen to the animals. And, you know, it’s no way of explaining the hurt and the guilt that I felt
