– Another track from Jay-Z’s American Gangster album has leaked. It’s called, “Roc Boys,” it was produced by P.Diddy’s hitmaker stable (though Diddy likes to take all the credit), and sounds like early J with lots of punctuated horns, and ’70s soul inflections and black Jewish toasting. Hov has also regretted announcing his retirement. “I was watching “Fade to Black” on VH1, and I was cringing, because I kept saying, ‘It may be the last album’ — I’ve made two albums already!” [Mixtape Maestro] The video for “Blue Magic” is out too (see below)
– ‘The last I heard, the lead singer was dead but I’ll give them a ring and see if anything has changed’,” Some ignoramus jackass film distributor asked Peter Hook if Joy Division would play the New York premiere of “Control.”[Spinner]
– Michel Gondry is going to co-direct an animated film with his 16-year-old son Paul. “We’re translating our relationship into a futuristic story with a dictator and a rebel,” he explained of the film’s rudimentary outline. “He’s the dictator in the story [and] it will be based on [his] art.” Gondry is currently shooting a 30-minute segement for ashort-film vignettes series called, “Toyko.”[MTV]
– Lou Reed sullies his career (a meditation record, c’mon! that much by recording with the Killers. To be fair the tune isn’t as wretched as we thought it would be. [YouTube]
– J.J. Abrams has cast “Hot Fuzz”‘s Simon Pegg as Scotty in the upcoming Star Trek reboot? [Ain’t It Cool] Oh the guy from “Harold & Kumar” is also gonna be Sulu, heh.
Hunter S. Thompson’s widow is writing a book about her experience of being married to “journalism’s” wildest writer. “I don’t deny his lifestyle, because his lifestyle was pretty extreme,” she said. [AP]
Download: Jay-Z – “Roc Boys”
Jay-Z – “Blue Magic” video