Morning Music Notes – When Bad Press is Bad Press

Azealia Banks Flies Off the Handle, Possibly Loses Record Contract

Azealia Banks is a hot young rapper from New York – we tipped her for a big breakout in 2013. The last few days have been easy to fill for a blogger like me, as she started dissing another hot, young rapper – Angel Haze – on Twitter. This led to Angel Haze posting a track making fun of Azealia.

Azealia responded by posting her own diss track. A mere 3 hours later, Angel Haze responded with a response to the diss track. Maybe if Radiohead feuded with Tool, we’d get a shitload of tracks in a short period of time – someone make it happen.

Time to check our heads and reset all these online feuds, right? Not if you’re Azealia, and not if people are taking sides with Angel Haze. On Twitter on Friday, she used a homophobic slur against blogger Perez Hilton (although Louis CK might disagree about faggot being a slur). Azealia tweeted “@PerezHilton lol what a messy faggot you are.” Subsequent tweets called Perez “dickbreath” and suggested he “gobble a dick”. No word if he took her advice. She also suggested that he kill himself. Based on his response to her tweets, he did not take her advice for that. Azealia has since apologized if she offended anyone (which was the intent of the comment to begin with, no?).

I know what you’re thinking – big deal, people argue all the time on Twitter. But there might be consequences, besides the obvious anti-gay backlash. Word on the street (well, cyberstreet) is that Interscope have dropped Azealia Banks from their label (via Gigwise). Zimbio notes that “Interscope Records, the Universal Music Group label founded by Jimmy Iovine is reportedly not picking up the much-buzzed-about the 21-year-old rapper’s option for future recordings, says a source close to the situation. When approached today about Banks’ current debut album situation, the label insider simply stated, “Azealia Banks will no longer be releasing her LP under Interscope.”

I guess Azealia needs to change her No Problems diss track title name.

M.I.A.’s New Album Out in April, Delayed Because It Was Too Happy Sounding

M.I.A. has confirmed that her fourth album, called Matangi, will be out in April (via Rolling Stone). M.I.A. claims her record company delayed the record because it sounds too positive. Because who the hell likes happy music??

M.I.A. told Australia’s Gold Coast Bulletin, “I thought I’d finished it. I finished it and then I handed the record in, like a couple of months ago.” She added she was told to “darken it up a bit.” “It’s like ‘We just built you up as the public enemy No. 1 and now you’re coming out with all this positive stuff.'” M.I.A. is taking the time to figure out what they mean, and is removing all angelic harps and piccolos from the record.

George Clinton Hands Over Music Copyright to Pay Off Debts

Funk master George Clinton owed his lawyers some cash for work in the past few years. He only paid them $340,000 of the $1.5 million owed. He was taken to court by the lawyers (who just love going to court) and was ordered to give the judges copyrights to four of his songs (via Spinner). No word on if Clinton just quickly recorded four songs of bowel movements and handed it over.

In actuality, the tracks were Hardcore Jollies, The Electric Spanking of War Babies, Uncle Jam Wants You, and One Nation Under A Groove. The lawyers can now do whatever they want to license and sell these tracks. However, once the debt is paid off, the songs are returned to Clinton. This sounds like that made up Seinfeld episode, where they want the guy to repay his debt by becoming their butler – is this case even real?! It seems ridiculous – basically, the lawyers need to do all the hard work, bust their asses figuring out a way to make a million dollars with these 4 tracks, and then turn the tracks back over?! Surely the lawyers could’ve gotten a better deal than that?