Rapid mark-down of claims

Helly Luv! She's taken Isis.

She's done what?

Oh, alright, she's taken YouTube.

Hidden delights: All Shook Up

While we're talking about beautiful things on the iPlayer, the entire run (four episodes) of All Shook Up is currently available (again, assuming you read this before mid-July) - Jesca Hoop, Wytches, Lonelady, Jane Weaver and much more. Go see; go enjoy.

Hidden delights: Slowdive

Originally tucked away behind BBC Red Button - and now on iPlayer, but only until 7th July 2015, Simon Scott out the Charlottes and Slowdive on Springwatch Upsprung, talking a little about shoegaze haircuts, and a lot more about the music of nature.

This week just gone

The most-read stories in the first half of the year (minus two weeks, but you know we're close enough):

1. Liveblog: Brits
2. Liveblog: Eurovision
3. Grooveshark calls it a day
4. Mental health in the music industry
5. Noel Gallagher is still loved by the NME
6. What is Conor McNicholas up to these days?
7. RIP: Jess Marquis
8. Blurred Lines a rip-off - official
9. The UK's Eurovision entry
10. From Westlife to lay-by

These were interesting releases this week:


Sauna Youth - Distractions

Download Distractions



Pins - Wild Nights

Download Wild Nights



Bis - I Love Bis

Download I Love Bis



FFS - FFS

Download FFS



Act - Love & Hate

Download Love & Hate



Tove Stryke - Kiddo

Download Kiddo

TL;DR/FI Friday

So, that reunion of TFI Friday last night was a reminder of why I never watched it first time round: it's a programme that looks like everyone involved is having tremendous fun, rather than a programme which is tremendous fun.

Also: the Gallagher/Who 'supergroup' felt more like the deputy head joining the school band for the last song of the evening.

Jusin Bieber's manager makes lemonade

Scooter Braun has a thankless task; trying to take bipedial oxygen squanderer Justin Bieber and make him into an artist who people may even kind-of like.

Braun thinks he's up to it, though, and he's busily talking him up:

In his words, 'It’s like Bob Dylan: He pissed people off, but whenever he switched, he reinvented himself in a way that made him who he is today.”

Well, yes. The only thing that separates Bieber from the prospect of a long career of reinvention like Dylan's is that Dylan's reinventions were from acoustic to electric; or from sceptic to Christian. Bieber's reinvention cycle so far seems to involve turning his baseball cap around a little.

Still, good luck Scooter.

How terrible life is for some

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now for Bianca Guthrie.

She has a tormented life.

And it is all Rhianna's fault:

A girl, named Bianca Guthrie, claims that she cannot get boyfriend because of her resemblance to the famous pop star Rihanna.
[...]
She added that boyfriend who have dated her, just because she look like the pop star.

Ms. Bianca says “I’m desperate to find a man who sees past my resemblance to Rihanna”.

But if all men are interested in is that you look like Rihanna, and as that doesn't change, isn't it more that your problem is that you keep finding men who do see past your resemblance?

Anyway, best of luck carrying this burden of looking a bit like one of the most attractive people on the planet. We ugly people can only count our blessings.

It turns out that Ed Sheeran is even duller than we thought

You might have thought that Ed Sheeran was a little dull.

You might now want to recalibrate how dull he is after he paid a surprise visit to Grand Forks, North Dakota.

In a town he'd never seen before, how did he spend his time?

Sheeran’s trip around Grand Forks began with a round of golf at the King’s Walk Golf Course with his team.

Yes. Playing golf.

This was an impromptu stop-off between gigs. And he played golf.

Bearing in mind nobody knew it was going to happen in advance, I'm a bit puzzled about how warmly the Golf Club is applauding itself for not making a big deal about it:

Nelson said the staff at Eagle’s Crest tried to keep Sheeran’s appearance under wraps to be respectful of his privacy.

I suppose golf does drag on and on, so during a match there would be time for the paparazzi to hoof out to North Dakota but it seems unlikely. And given the club's spokeperson is detailing the visit to the local paper, there's not much privacy being respected after the event, either.

I only hope that Sheeran was able to top off this day in equally dull style.

Following his round of golf, Sheeran was spotted at Texas Roadhouse ordering a steak.

Yep.

Dave Grohl is a trouper

First song. Falls off stage. Breaks leg. In a cast. PLAYS ON.

Dave fell off the stage during the very first song and broke his leg. He's performing right now anyways. Legend. pic.twitter.com/CsIqnePHxM

— The Metal Core (@TheMetalCore) June 12, 2015

Dave Grohl broke his leg 20 minutes ago during a gig in Sweden and came back on in a cast! LEG END! #guitarhero pic.twitter.com/OVpqJ11XpC

— Today FM (@todayfmofficial) June 12, 2015

Smile, Citizens: Download attendees to be scanned by cops

From the "the innocent have nothing to fear" files of our police state: Download Festival goers are all going to have their faces scanned by Leicestershire Police.

You weren't supposed to know that, though:

We have also learned that the Police Oracle's publication of the interview has caused significant upset for management at Leicestershire Police, who did not want any advance publicity of their "new" surveillance project.

The public would have been informed that it had been placed under surveillance after the event had ended, presumably as part of a "you didn't know, therefore it wasn't intrusive", justification for the scheme.

This isn't really justified by any disruption at Download - indeed, last year Leicestershire Police were rightly proud of how little crime was recorded at the festival.

So, at a mostly well-behaved festival, everyone is going to be treated as a suspect and even have their faces looked at to see if they're 'wanted'.

The official site explains what police will be doing on site. As you'd expect from a sneaky surveillance project, there's no mention that they'll be scanning people to see if they're wrong 'uns.

Morrissey talks about race again. No, it's not what you think.

Without even going near the High Court endorsed viewpoint that Morrissey Is Not A Racist Nor Ever Shall Be Called Such, it's clear Mozzer has a complicated worldview that probably can't be summed up comfortably in one word.

He's just called out Obama for acting like black lives don't matter:

Obama has mystified me because he doesn’t appear to support black people when they need it most… Ferguson being an obvious example. If Michael Brown had instead been one of Obama’s daughters, I don’t think Obama would be insisting that the nation support the so-called security forces! How can they be called security forces if they make the people feel insecure? Obama seems to be white inside. There is an obvious racial division in America and it’s exploding and Obama doesn’t ever support the innocent black people who are murdered by white police officers who are never held accountable. You would expect him to be more understanding of what it means to be black. But so far, he hasn’t been.​ There’s no point in continually saying that we must support the police when it is obvious to the entire world that the police in America are out of control.

How can this Morrissey then go to London and mutter about not hearing English accents in Knightsbridge and the gates to England "being flooded". It's almost as if (pop psychology alert) that having spent so much time in America, Morrissey finds it impossible to talk about Britain except through a character - part cartoon, part one-of-the-sleeves-of-a-Smiths-record - in the same way that, say, Lousie Mensch's attempts at providing commentary on American politics is powered by a belief that she should know about this sort of thing, but without enough context to clarify into something that isn't a bit embarrassing.

And in case you're thinking "well, this is Morrissey just saying something liberal to try and offset the view in some people's minds", that doesn't seem to be the case either; it feels thought-through. Compare this with what he has to say about racism in the music industry (American music industry, of course) where he's a bit sketchier:

I think rap has scared the American white establishment to death, mainly because it’s true. James Brown once sang “Say It Loud, I’m Black And I’m Proud”. No pop artist would ever be allowed to say that today … they’d be instantly dropped from the label. If Billie Holiday approached Capitol Records in 2015 they wouldn’t entertain her for a second. Also, yes, I feel that I bring my spirit to America, and I feel very much a part of it and I’ve played in most cities big or small. America has been so important to my musical life, and the audiences have always been incredible. I’ve always felt privileged even though I know I’ve been locked out of mainstream considerations. That’s life! Me and Billie Holiday, good company, at least.

It's a pity they didn't ask him to expand a bit on what he meant by "rap" - the quote here could have come from thirty years ago; does mainstream rap really still worry the establishment in the same way? It's hard to believe that tracks like Trap Queen are going to cause too many Bank of America execs to nervously run a finger round their collar. There's a sense of the "I'd imagine" about this part of the interview; like his descriptions of Britain and immigration in the fateful NME interview, it's as if he's generating a viewpoint based on half-impressions and fractured memories.

I think we're nowhere different from where we started - Morrissey has a complex intersection with questions of race and identity in the modern world.

And while you don't need Morrissey to point out that a lot of white American cops have a problem with a lot of Americans who aren't white, the fact that he is may say something about just how bad that situation has become.

Shirley Manson isn't impressed by streaming

You know who's not excited about streaming music? Shirley Manson, tha's who:

"Now you get music for free. If people understood the economics of streaming they would be a little more sympathetic to an artist's plight," she explained.

Manson added that part of the blame lies with the record companies, who don't suffer in the same way that their artists do.

"It's a crime spree. I don't think people understand that record companies still continue to make enormous amounts of money. They strike the deals with the streaming companies," she said.

Well, yes, they do. While muscling to the front making it difficult for individuals to work directly with streaming services to get a larger share of the (face it) small royalty on offer per single play.

"It's a f**king racket," Manson added, before expressing optimism that a fairer system will emerge. "It's early days though and I do think it will be changed."

Maybe.

Although Tidal is dying on its arse, because its solution was to charge listeners more, rather than divvy up the take more fairly.

Which means hopes of a better world means either the tech companies, or the record labels, decide that they should give a bit more of their chunk to the artists.

The history of the tech and music industries suggest that Manson might be waiting for a long time for the sunny uplands.

What the pop papers say: NME pulls a surprise

This week's cover band is Wolf Alice.

Last week's cover band was Florence.

That's two female-fronted acts in two weeks.

The last time that happened? November 2003, when Kylie followed The Distillers.

If you don't think Kylie counts, and are looking for the last time two rock acts with female leads followed each other on the NME cover, you'd have to go back to the end of September 1998, for Hole followed by PJ Harvey.

And if you're wondering 'when was the last time two British female-led acts came in subsequent weeks on NME covers', if you stretch a point, November 1986 had Cilla Black followed by Swing Out Sister - but Cilla was there as a TV personality, not a musician.

More accurately, this is the first time the NME has run two subsequent covers of British female-led acts since December 1984, when Siouxsie followed the Cocteau Twins.

The first time in thirty years.

Bookmarks: Pins

Drowned In Sound meets Pins. Along with the excellent album, pronunciation is on the agenda:

DiS: You've had quite a lot of high-profile support slots. You've had The Fall and Sleater Kinney... or Slater Kinney as it's apparently pronounced... [the girls laugh] Yeah I didn't know that...

LM: Yeah I didn't know that either. Someone said "Slater" Kinney and it sounded weird.

FH: I kept hearing - what's he called on the radio on 6Music? Steve...

LM: Steve Lamacq.

FH: Yeah he kept saying "Slater" Kinney. I was like, what???

Rapobit: Pumpkinhead

Alan Diaz, the rapper Pumpkinhead, has died, according to reports from AllHipHop.

A member of both Brooklyn AC and The Plague, and (like most of his generation) a serial collaborator, Pumpkinhead explained to Latin Rapper in 2004 that if he wasn't a massive breakout name, that was fine for him:

Before Jadakiss came out with that "The Champ Is Here" sh*t, I was the peoples champion, aiight. I was the peoples champion of underground Hip Hop and that's my title.

I'm the peoples champion of underground Hip Hop. I don't try to retain the title thought, I mean, I just do what I know best. You know what I mean? My music allows me to get that respect and that acclaim from the people that like real Hip Hop. So, I don't try they just give me the title, they allow me to keep my title, basically.

Pumpkinhead was 39; the cause of his death is unclear.

Managerobit: Lewis Chin

It's a bit hard to sum up Lewis Chin, who has died, in a word. Or two. Or even a handful.

SFGate has a go:

He was deeply involved in the 1960s and ’70s San Francisco entertainment scene, from opening Drag’ On A’ Go-Go, a Chinatown disco, and developing and managing the Whispers soul group to running clubs like Basin Street West and the Mabuhay Gardens.

He also managed punk acts and disco bands - really, his flair was entrepreneurial, and if that meant selling tickets to see a spoof detective show, or getting bookings for a soul act, Chin was there.

Active into his eighties, Chin remained a golfer and skier. He died from heart failure on May 13th, at the age of 88.

Audiophiles' audio fails

NPR ran an online quiz to see if people could really tell the difference between high quality digital music files and lower quality ones. They can't. Sorry, Pono and Tidal.

No Siriprises: Apple launch streaming service

"Oh come on, you guys. Even though it's about a million years since we bought Dre's ugly headphone company to get their streaming technology, and we've been signing up DJs all over the place, couldn't you at least pretend that our new Apple streaming service is some sort of a surprise?"

Yes, after years of Spotify being posited as an iTunes killer, effectively with Apple Music, iTunes is going to try and kill Spotify.

We'll just sit here and wait for the first "have you seen the tiny royalties Apple Music are paying" stories which, with the service launching at the end of June, we're expecting some time round early September.

Apple are hoping that nobody reminds them about the can't fail music service Ping right now.

Jennifer Lopez could be going to prison (but won't)

After doing her usual thing in Morocco, Jennifer Lopez could be thrown in prison [horrible autoplay video site]:

Lopez faces a lawsuit because of her suggestive stage moves and the apparel she wore during her May 29 concert at the Mawazine Festival. The performance was in front of 160,000 and broadcast on public television.
[...]
Lopez and the show's promoter are being sued. If she is found guilty, the singer faces one month to one year in prison, according to TMZ.

Obviously, she won't be going to prison.

It's a simple enough story, but one that some readers of ABC Action News struggle with. Below the line:

Mushmouseydi Roberts
Smh, don't perform in places that don't appreciate the music .

The one thing they don't seem to be complaining about, Mushmouseydi, is the music. The music, they were happy with. They liked Jenny From The Block. It was just the frocks they had a problem with.

Ten Walls tiresome homophobe; says he isn't

Ah, Ten Walls. After people got upset with your queerbashy Facebook post, you issued one of those not-really-apologies:

‘I want to apologize for the former post in my account. I am really sorry about its insulting content which does not reflect my true opinion. I hope this misunderstanding will not provoke any more thoughts and opinions. Peace.

Ah, do you hope that this "misunderstanding" will not provoke any more thoughts? Do you?

Sorry about that, Mr Walls, because the first thought that is provoked is 'well, let's look at what it was that was "misunderstood" given that you haven't exactly cleared things up by explaining what your actual views are'.

‘I remember producing music for one Lithuanian musician, who tried to wash my brain that I don’t need to be so conservative and intolerant about them.

‘When I asked him “what would you do if you realized that your 16-year-old son’s browny (anus) is ripped by his boyfriend?” Well he was silent.’

He goes on to say in ‘the good 90s… these people of different breed where fixed’.

And the post likened homosexuality to pedophile abuse by Catholic priests.

‘One of my first gigs in Ireland, on my way to [my] hotel I saw a church with a fence decorated with hundreds of baby shoes. Naturally I wondered why?

‘Unfortunately a priest’s lie for many years was uncovered when children were massively raped.

‘Unfortunately the people of other breed continue to do it and everyone knows it but does nothing.’

I'm guessing the reason the musician was silent when you said 'what if your son had his arse ripped open' was for the same reason most people are quiet when they're harangued by a hate-filled idiot - they're working out where the nearest exit is and slowly plotting an escape.

Still, you can see why Ten Walls is hoping that people won't think about that post any more, because the more you think about it, the harder it is to see how 'different breed' and the conflation of violent, abusive rapists and people who have sex with others who share their gender could have been 'misunderstood'.

Fort Romeau has had some opinions, too:

I was due to support Ten Walls at Koko, London in November, in light of recent comments made by him on Facebook I have decided to cancel.

Its easy to romanticise electronic music culture and imagine it as a bastion of social liberalism and progressive ideology but the reality is that it simply reflects the larger social context where homophobia and (particularly) sexism are normalised and worse, codified into law. [...] Clearly there is a long way to go. Until legal parity is accorded no snappy neo-liberal sloganeering about “freedom” and “individuality” really means anything.

so while cancelling one gig is hardly going to change the world, it does stand as a personal rejection of bigotry, fear and intolerance.

Liam Gallagher and chums

TFI Friday is back for what is, effectively, its reunion gig this week. But will it be good TFI Friday, where you'd get a decent band and something inventive? Or will it be bad TFI Friday, when it had passed the point that it had forgotten it had viewers and approached its tasks with an attitude of 'if we're having fun, then the audience will enjoy us having fun, right?'

Your finger is hovering over the Record button.

But which will it be?

Which will it be, NME?

TFI Friday will return for a one-off live special at 9pm next Friday (June 12), hosted by Chris Evans. A TFI spokesman recently confirmed to The Sun that Gallagher and Daltrey will perform 'My Generation' as part of a supergroup featuring The Lightning Seeds' Ian Broudie and former Oasis drummer (and Ringo Starr's son) Zak Starkey.

Ah. Thanks for the clarification.

Suddenly, Kate Humble living with nomads on BBC2 seems very compelling indeed.

This week just gone

1. Liveblog: Eurovision
2. Grooveshark sinks
3. RIP: BB King
4. Stapp misses court date
5. Wonder what Gareth Gates is up to these days?
6. Bono tries to spin his tax avoidance as being sensible
7. Bob Collins - coming soon
8. Cranberries On A Plane
9. Academics study the charts, spot revolutions
10. Someone throws sugar at Adam Levine

These were quite new a little while back:


DuBlonde - Welcome Back To Milk

Download Welcome Back To Milk



Cinerama - Valentina

Download Valentina



Torres - Sprinter

Download Sprinter



Hot Chip - Why Makes Sense?

Download Why Makes Sense?



Mazzy Star - Ghost Highway

Download Ghost Highway

Tumblrgem: NSFW

I'm not sure anyone actually asked for this, but here's a Lady GaGa discography via tattoos in gay porn. (Nobody has yet had the Tony Bennet collaboration etched across their butts)

http://yung-ninetales.tumblr.com/post/120799848508/lady-gagas-discography-in-gay-porn-tattoos

What the pop papers said: Shampoo wash Heavenly

From 1992, Shampoo - still in the bit between being fanzine writers and bona fide pop stars - take aim at Heavenly in the NME:

If you're too young to recall 1992: 'Having a go at Sarah Records' was a way of having one foot in the Pop Establishment while making it look like you were an outsider. Shampoo would go on to, erm, help promote the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie.

Taylor Swift goes into reverse

So apparently, when faced with paparazzi and not in the mood, Taylor Swift does this:

There's two problems with this approach: firstly, as the video shows, the paps don't exactly stop taking photos. Secondly, it just means your arse is getting all the attention.

On the other hand, maybe she's just thinking of releasing a cover of this come December:

Noel Gallagher seems to think we want an Oasis reunion

If you were told that Noel Gallagher was issuing demands about the possibility of an Oasis reunion, you'd probably assume he was making threats - "give me a knighthood or I swear we'll do a four-night residency at the Albert Hall", that sort of thing.

Instead, it seems like he's convinced it's a thing people want and is trying to negotiate on that basis:

Tell [McCartney] if he writes our comeback single, it's on. Tell him to write an Oasis track and then we'll talk. I'll just put that out there.

Apparently having pretty much written the entire Oasis back catalogue isn't enough; Noel wants McCartney to actually write a song for Oasis instead of just doing all the groundwork.

Coming tomorrow: Gallagher says that if Ringo Starr agrees to do the clean-up, he'll take a dump on your living room carpet.

Mark Kozelek: Don't mess with Laura Snapes

Mark Kozelek has, sadly, form for coming across like a boor, and he's not learning from his mistakes. This week, he turned his creepy ire on Laura Snapes, who had the temerity to talk to people about him:

Last Monday (1 June), Sun Kil Moon played at the Barbican in London. During the encore, Kozelek introduced a snippet of a new song he had apparently been writing. I wasn’t there, but a friend/colleague was, and phoned me after the gig. I’ve since heard the audio and it made me feel sick. “There’s this girl named Laura Snapes, she’s a journalist. She’s out to do a story on me, has been contacting a lot of people that know me,” he told the sold-out, 1,900-capacity room. Then he started repeating the line: “Laura Snapes totally wants to fuck me / get in line, bitch … Laura Snapes totally wants to have my babies.” The audience clapped and cheered. He played another song, then said he’d only been kidding around before: I was “cute”, “sweet”, “a good kid”. “She’s written some nice things about me.” Then he sang it a few more times before chiding himself. “Better stop before I make Pitchfork headlines for myself again.”

There is, of course, no line of people wanting to have sex with Mark Kozelek, apart from in his head. Kozelek is just an asshat. Snapes would be justified in throwing something heavy at his head; instead, she marvellously takes him down using his own work:

Kozelek trades in sucker-punches. He impugns online “bitching and whining”, but hides behind one-way email exchanges, balks at the idea of his peers speaking about him and issues tirades (and sometimes, sexual advances) from the cowardly remove of the stage, with the get-out clause that it’s a performance. He can use sexually violent language to reduce female critics to the status of groupies, knowing that while male musicians’ misogynist acts are examined for nuance and defended as traits of “difficult” artists, women and those who call them out are treated as hysterics who don’t understand art. “The world don’t owe us shit, I learned that real fuckin’ young,” he sings on Universal Themes’ Little Rascals. If anything remains to separate Kozelek from his work, it’s that his music preaches that the least we owe one another is decency.

Charlotte Church gently pats critics on the head

Whenever a well-off person says they'd rather pay more tax and see better public services, there's an immediate clamour of "why don't you just write a cheque to HMRC, then?"

It happened when Charlotte Church made a call for a more redistributive tax system. But Church is smarter than those who would honk at her. She sighed, and took to Twitter to roll her eyes at them:

I'm disappointed at the vitriol directed my way, if I gave 70% of my earnings to HMRC voluntarily, not only would it not last long as our public services cost 100s of billions to fund but I doubt it would encourage the richest in this country to get a conscience and follow suit. I have no ulterior motives. The injustice and inequality in society that is pushed further by this government makes me as angry as the hulk!

You'd have to be something of an idiot to think you could patronise Charlotte Church.

Could someone please tell Charlotte Church that punitive tax rates fail to raise extra revenues, but damage investment and employment?

— Roger Helmer (@RogerHelmerMEP) June 5, 2015

I think that proves my point.

Ariana Grande against rabies controls

Clearly, Ariana Grande never saw mid-80s Saturday night drama The Mad Death, otherwise she might not be quite so blasé about trying to bring her dogs to Britain.

Not that we're suggesting Grande's dogs would necessarily be rabid, but after P&O refused to let her take the dogs on a ferry, she certainly was. A hapless P&O official tried to explain to her that without the proper paperwork, her dogs wouldn't be able to get into the UK, and... well, Grande isn't used to hearing no, it turns out:

"I begged him to let me go through, he laughed at me and said no again... I kept telling him and showing him again that the dogs were fully vaccinated and were 100% vaccinated in order to enter the UK and then, I screamed!!!," she wrote.

"I had done every ridiculous task he demanded of me... and at this point he said he would call the police and have me arrested if I tried to go through... I told him to call them and to arrest me, because that was the only way I was not getting on the ferry."

Grande doesn't seem to understand how boarding ferries even works from this, but it gets worse for Ariana, as having challenged them to arrest her, they took her at her word. Suddenly, Ariana is getting what she asked for, and she still isn't happy:

She said that after running back on to the tour bus with the dogs, "suddenly, the bus driver appeared and said that there were men outside the bus to arrest me"

"I collected myself, took a deep breath and ran out yelling: 'Take me away with the dogs and I will sue you for abuse and harassment'... I told them that they were wrong, they were targeting Americans, they were abusing their authority... they laughed....

"At this point, one man in a yellow jacket said to me, 'If you take the dogs, when you arrive in Dover, they will be killed!' ... I actually thought I disengaged from my body as tears started streaming down my face, and I felt as if I were losing my mind!!! I told him that they would have to kill me first and we would see what the US embassy would say about that."

"Mr Ambassador? Sorry to disturb you in the middle of the night, sir, but the British Customs people have shot and killed Ariana Grande. Yes, sir, it's a Code Streisand. Shall I do a quick find-and-replace on that statement we prepared the last time Mariah Carey visited?"

Fortunately, a vet was found in Calais who was able to process the proper paperwork, and the American embassy didn't have to face such a nightmare scenario; Grande and her dogs were reunited, and nobody at all had to face this sort of thing:

The most shocking aspect of this horrifying affair? Ariana Grande was catching a ferry.

Akon will power Africa

It's been a while since we've heard from Akon, who once cut a swathe through this blog, upsetting Buddhists, not quite landing a show on Capital Radio, not quite doing a duet with Michael Jackson and throwing people off stage. Oh, and dry-humping a teenage girl on stage and then blaming the parents for letting her go out dressed like that.

However, he's back to delight us again, and this time he's bringing solar energy to Africa. Good Magazine reports:

[T]he singer announced that he would be launching a Solar Academy in Bamako, Mali. The Academy will train local African engineers and entrepreneurs in order to teach them how to produce solar power. The initiative, called “Akon Lighting Africa,” aims to bring solar power to over 600 million Africans.

Lighting Africa noted that solar power electricity and micro-grids are already “really taking off in rural Africa.” The continent, their statement argues, has over 120 days of sun a year, making it that much easier to harness solar power. Akon’s goals are two-fold: both to provide clean alternative energy and great, meaningful jobs. The Academy will help empower people all across educational levels to build the electricity that’s going to light their homes."

It's a good thing to do, of course.

But 'Akon Lighting Africa' is a little at odds with the stated aims - if this is about empowering local people (both literally and figuratively) why does the branding laud Akon?

Still, good luck, Akon. Let's hope its more successful than his last high-profile business venture, Fantrace. That social networking site sank without fans. Or, indeed, trace.