A Culture of Change | Memorial Day Weekend May 24 – 25, 2009 

Los Angeles, CA – As Memorial Day Weekend approaches, anticipation and excitement is rapidly mounting for The 23rd Annual Jazz Reggae Festival at UCLA presented by SCION. The student run festival, which has attracted an average of 30,000 attendees annually over the past 6 years, features the most prominent and critically acclaimed artists from around the world, along with an international food, arts, and crafts fair. As we enter a new era, this year’s festival has been carefully programmed as “A Culture of Change” with all artists, vendors, sponsors and messages cohesive in support of social and environmental change. With this in mind, the festival’s production team is proud to present this year’s line-up for both days: click here.

In addition to booking this elite line up and maintaining the art production value with a huge LED screen, the production team has continued efforts to make the festival environmentally progressive. Our specified Sustainability Team is working alongside many non-profit organizations to ensure that all aspects of the show are eco-friendly through means such as waste-separation and direct recycling, along with strong encouragement to our vendors to use biodegradable materials. A sustainability tent will provide attendees with information on fair-trade products, energy and water conservation, and the benefits of using locally grown products. There will also be a tent for children that will provide educational activities that emphasize environmental issues.

Tickets Available Now: 

Advanced Tickets $25, Day of Event Tickets $35, Two-day passes $45, Deluxe Two-day passes $115. Ticketmaster and the UCLA Central Ticket Office. Online presale tickets available until May 24, 2009. (click here for Ticketmaster)

assist: as⋅sist / [uh-sist] / –verb (used with object)

1. to give support or aid to

2. to be associated with as an assistant or helper.

Interesting.

I searched through the NCAA and NBA record books to see if there was any mention of Maxwell’s assist record. Arguably one of the greatest point guards of all-time: the man, the myth, the legend is [coming] back. This man is quite the talent, furnishing some of our generation’s most creative music.

Two things to note: 1) his album is coming out this summer, not sure when, but a MUST cop 2) he’s headlining Essence Fest this year in New Orleans.

This is just an fyi, cheers to one of the best out there. He’s up there in my Sade category.

New video: http://www.musze.com/

Florida A&M University’s Marching 100 band will perform as part of inauguration activities of President-elect Barack Obama, said Sharon Saunders, FAMU spokeswoman.

FAMU received the invitation to perform in the inaugural parade Friday night. The parade is scheduled for Jan. 20, 2009.

More than 20 years after making his first splash with “She’s Gotta Have It,” Spike Lee is finally going to make it to Sundance. His belated debut — in the 25th year of the Sundance Film Festival – comes as director and co-producer of the film version of “Passing Strange,” the stage musical by L.A. indy-rockers Stew (Mark Stewart) and Heidi Rodewald that took an unlikely passage from New York’s nonprofit Public Theater to Broadway in February. It ran for 165 performances at the Belasco Theatre, with Stew nabbing a Tony Award for best book of a musical before it closed July 20.

Among those captivated was Lee, who said Friday that he saw the show several times at the Public, then came back for repeat viewings at the Belasco — even before producers approached him about capturing it on film before it closed. The film will premiere in the Jan. 15-25 festival’s noncompetitive Spectrum Documentary Spotlight program, where Lee is hoping it will attract a distributor. The filmmaker said he’s been invited to the Sundance festival before, but wasn’t able to make it. Stew and Rodewald, who is co-composer of the songs, are well-connected at Sundance, having developed “Passing Strange” at its annual Sundance Theatre Lab in 2004 and 2005.

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Expectations for the high-end entertainment complex have been high since work began three years ago, but the downturn is putting more pressure on it to be a success.

By Cara Mia DiMassa (LA Times)

When L.A. Live, the $2.5-billion entertainment district across from Staples Center, first broke ground in September 2005, downtown Los Angeles was riding high, and the sky seemed the limit.

Block by block, decades of grime were being replaced by trendy eateries, loft dwellers and their dogs. Thirty-two skyscrapers were in the planning phases. And L.A. Live, with clubs, restaurants, convention-center hotels and a 30,000-square-foot Grammy museum, was being called Times Square West.

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this was very impressive. enjoy: