Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli has been working on his new album, Prisoner of Conscious since before the release of 2011's Gutter Rainbows, and after continuously delaying it, he's finally set to release it for real this time. It comes out next week (5/7). The record features contributions from some pretty hot of-the-moment guests, including Miguel ("Come Here") and Kendrick Lamar & Curren$y ("Push Thru"). It's also got a track produced by Harry Fraud ("Upper Echelon"), one produced by RZA with a verse from Busta Rhymes ("Rocket Ships"), and a handful of tracks produced by Oh No. You can stream/watch videos for "Come Here," "Push Thru," "Upper Echelon," "Rocket Ships" and two other cuts from the album below, along with the full tracklist. That's the artwork above.

Talib's next hometown gig is this weekend on Sunday (5/5) at Union Hall, where he'll be providing "music and monologues" followed by improv comedy from Coal, Swag, and Sandino, which will be inspired by Talib's set. Tickets for that show are on sale now.

All dates are listed, along with song streams and the album tracklist, below...

Continue reading "Talib Kweli finally releasing 'Prisoner of Conscious' (Kendrick, Miguel, Curren$y, Busta, RZA & more included), playing shows"

Man these Texas cops have it out for touring musicians!

Rapper Nelly was detained last night in Texas while police officers searched his tour bus -- and found HEROIN in addition to a loaded gun ... and MASSIVE amounts of weed ... law enforcement sources tell TMZ.

According to law enforcement sources, Nelly's bus was stopped at a border patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca -- and a police canine detected the presence of drugs.

We're told cops pulled the bus over -- and after performing a search, they found 36 small baggies of heroin (totaling .64 ounces) and over TEN POUNDS of marijuana inside a large green duffel bag (an amount roughly the size of a large bed pillow).

Cops also say they found a loaded .45 caliber pistol.

There were seven people riding on Nelly's bus at the time -- including the rapper -- and they were all detained during the search.

According to law enforcement sources, one of the passengers -- a guy named Brian Keith Jones -- admitted the drugs and the gun were his. He was subsequently placed under arrest.

Nelly and the remaining five were let go. Calls to Nelly's reps were not returned.

FYI -- this is the same checkpoint where multitudes of celebs have been busted for drugs in recent years ... including Willie Nelson, Armie Hammer, Snoop Dogg, and Fiona Apple. [TMZ]

In somewhat related news, Fiona Apple's Austin show has changed status from "postponed" to "cancelled". her NJ, Long Island and NYC shows this week are still all on though.

by Bill Pearis

It was an exciting night for seeing chilled-out indie rock big shots on late night talk shows last night (7/24). Fresh off their Summerstage performance, Beach House stopped by Late Light with Jimmy Fallon to perform "Wild," perhaps the most urgent track on Bloom. Meanwhile on the other coast, The xx stopped by Conan to perform their new single "Angels," which does indeed have a little bit of a Beach House guitar vibe at the start. Both bands sound pretty great. You can check out video below.

The xx will be in NYC next week for their sold-out Terminal 5 show. If you didn't get tickets to that, they'll be back October for two shows at The Paradise Theatre in The Bronx and there are still tickets available for both.

While we're on the subject of talk shows, Beach House weren't the only musical guests on Fallon last night. Nelly swung by the desk for a chat with Jimmy and then performed his early-'00s smash "Hot in Herre" with The Roots. You can watch that below too.

Continue reading "The xx played 'Conan'; Beach House played 'Fallon'; Nelly too (videos)"