Month: January 2020

DJ Khaled will be celebrating his first-ever Grammy win in the city where the former radio host built his career: Miami.The hitmaker will perform at multiple pre-Super Bowl events this week, which will be jam-packed with other A-list celebrities, including Diddy, Shaquille O’Neal, Lady Gaga, Lizzo, Post Malone, Kevin Hart, Vin Diesel, Cardi B, Chris Brown, Guns N’ Roses and Maroon 5.“Oh yeah, we’re definitely celebrating (this) week. I remember Super Bowl came here 10 years ago and it was a special time. We want to make this special, too,” Khaled said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m excited it’s in Miami.”Khaled is fresh off winning a Grammy Award for best rap/sung performance for “Higher,” a collaboration with late rapper Nipsey Hussle and R&B star John Legend.Super Bowl week will mirror the Grammys, which took place Jan. 26, with the number of big music stars performing ahead of Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s halftime show Sunday at the Hard Rock Stadium, where the San Francisco 49ers will take on the Kansas City Chiefs.Khaled will perform at Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest’s EA Sports Bowl, the VEWTOPIA Music Festival and Rolling Stone’s party.Others, too, will perform several times throughout the week, including Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, the Chainsmokers, DaBaby, Marshmello, Megan Thee Stallion, Meek Mill and Tiesto.Cardi B will perform at a concert celebrating the trailer for the upcoming film “Fast & Furious 9”; Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, John Cena and Tyrese will also attend, while Ludacris, Wiz Khalifa, Charlie Puth and Ozuna will hit the stage. The Grammy-winning rapper will also hold a late-night performance at LIV and headline VEWTOPIA.Lizzo will also double up with performances: She will sing at SiriusXM & Pandora Opening Drive Super Concert Series and then at the Planet Pepsi Zero Sugar party, which will also feature Harry Styles and Mark Ronson at Meridian at Island Gardens.Gaga, who headlined the halftime show in 2017, will perform at the same venue for AT&T TV Super Saturday Night, held a day before Super Bowl 54.Post Malone will hit the stage for Bootsy On the Water, a Bootsy Bellows pop-up, which will be hosted by Kevin Hart. Swae Lee, who collaborated with Malone on the hit “Sunflower,” will host an event to launch his shoe collection with Giuseppe Zanotti.Budweiser will launch the Budx Hotel on South Beach with events featuring Dwyane Wade and Halsey; Karamo Brown of “Queer Eye” is part of an event for Stella Artois; and Guy Fieri will host 2020 The Players Tailgate.Shaq’s Fun House, the NBA legend’s carnival-themed music festival, is coming back to Miami and will feature performances by Diddy, Pitbull, Diplo and Shaq himself, a.k.a. DJ Diesel.“Big Game Weekend has never seen a lineup like this!,” O’Neal said in a statement. “Bigger venue, bigger state fair sized carnival, bigger line-up.”O’Neal made his statement before the death of Kobe Bryant on Sunday in a helicopter crash that also killed Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people.In an Instagram post on Wednesday, O’Neal, who has been distraught since the tragedy, said he was debating whether he should still go to Miami.“Part of me wanted to stay to myself as I reflect what my brother and his family mean to me and my family,” he wrote. “But in thinking what would Kobe want, what would he do? Kobe would want us to push through and celebrate life. So let’s just do that.”He added he would donate all his proceeds to “all the families who lost loved ones and to the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Foundation.”
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Almost three years ago, Missy Elliott sent a tweet to a then under-the-radar artist whose music she admired and told her that “she was going to blow up.”
    
Fast forward to this week and H.E.R. has been nominated for 10 Grammys, won two and is now starring with the rap legend in a new Pepsi commercial that will debut for the Super Bowl.
    
“When Pepsi reached out and said we want to have you on the Super Bowl commercial and the other person would be H.E.R. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is major’” Elliott said.
    
Elliott first heard of the “Best Part” singer from a friend who had her debut album on repeat. Elliott thought the record was “hot” and “immediately started Googling her,” but couldn’t find much information beyond her mixtape.
    
“It made me fall in love with her music,” Elliott told The Associated Press in a recent phone interview. “I didn’t get into what she looked like, what she said, what she had on, it was just the lyrics and the tracks and all that and I was like, `This girl is really talented’.”
    
Now the pair are collaborating on a cover of the Rolling Stones’ classic “Paint it Black” for the commercial.
    
The animated ad features H.E.R’s sultry sound awash in red, surrounded by fluid dancers swishing long, red trains before it melds into a black stage punctuated by an upbeat rap from Elliott. The new track was co-produced by Elliott and longtime collaborator Timbaland with original lyrics from both artists and guitar and vocals from H.E.R.
    
“ It’s scary when you’re having to recreate something that is so iconic and make sure that you do it justice,” said Elliott, who performed at the Super Bowl with Katy Perry in 2015.
    
The two are the latest to join Pepsi’s ad lineup, joining the ranks of Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner and Britney Spears.
    
They bonded in the studio, where H.E.R. said they got to know each other on a more personal level.
    
“She was telling me tour stories … I felt like I had the inside scoop. It was really cool to peek into her world,” said H.E.R. “She’s just dope musically. There’s nobody like Missy.”
    
She added she’s always admired Elliott’s individuality and creativity as a producer.
    
“Missy’s vibe is what I really loved and looked up to growing up, just how different she dared to be.”
    
So can fans expect to see the artists make an appearance in Miami for the big game?
    
H.E.R. is still recovering from her whirlwind Grammy weekend: She performed on the telecast and was nominated for five Grammys, including record, song and album of the year. And Elliott is, um well, a little afraid to come to Miami even though she owns two houses here.
   
 “Last time I was there I went to open the door and a gecko lizard jumped on my shoulder and I swore I’d never come back. I was so scared … those little gecko lizards are everywhere.”
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Florida and federal law enforcement agencies preparing for the Super Bowl this Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens say they are ready for anything, including a detonated bomb or massive food poisoning, but haven’t identified any threats.
    
Events for the 54th Super Bowl, between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, kicked off Monday around South Florida, with an interactive Super Bowl Experience in Miami Beach and Super Bowl Live at Miami’s Bayfront Park. It’s a lot of mileage to patrol, but officials say they are well prepared. They had been planning for months and running drills.
    
Maj. Ed Caneva, the Miami-Dade Police Department operations commander for the NFL title game, said they identify a raft of different scenarios.
    
“We have been training and addressing anything,” Caneva said.
    
The Super Bowl has long been considered a potential target for terrorists or other violent extremists, and this year the game will be played amid rising tensions with Iran. But none of the games has ever been attacked. Anthony Salisbury, chief of the Homeland Security Investigations office in Miami, said law enforcement agencies nonetheless must be prepared.
    
“It’s all hands on deck,” Salisbury said. “This is a high-profile event. It’s the same with every Super Bowl. Nothing is being taken for granted.”
    
Several thousand federal, state and local law enforcement officials are involved in the game and the events leading up to it. Brian Swain, chief of the Miami Secret Service office and lead federal coordinator for the event, said there’s no intelligence thus far indicating any kind of threat.
    
“There is no specific credible threat right now,” Swain said. “I’m confident in our security plan.”
    
Streets will be blocked off. There will be scores of uniformed police officers and others in plainclothes roaming the stadium to ensure safety. Bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol, and fans must go through metal detectors.
    
The Federal Aviation Administration has imposed flight restrictions over Hard Rock Stadium and around some of the other events. The FAA has even produced a video called “No Drone Zone,” intended to curb the devices around game activities.
    
‘Enjoy the Super Bowl. Leave your drone at home,” the video says.
    
Commercial flights at Miami International Airport are unaffected.
    
There has been one potential close call in a past Super Bowl: Five years ago, federal authorities said they encountered a plot in Phoenix by a man who wanted to attack the Super Bowl and an adjacent mall and entertainment district in Glendale, Arizona, with pipe bombs. They said the man, Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, was unable to obtain the explosives, and the game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks was not hit.
    
Kareem later was convicted of conspiring to provide the guns used in an attack on a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas in which two heavily armed associates were killed by local police officers. He also was convicted of providing support to the Islamic State group. His lawyers asked a judge to grant him a new trial or throw out his convictions.
    
This year’s Super Bowl will be the Miami area’s 11th, the most ever. Hard Rock Stadium is home to the Miami Dolphins and the University of Miami Hurricanes and hosts concerts for major acts including The Rolling Stones. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said he’s confident the area is ready for this game as well.
    
“We know how to do it,” Gimenez said. “We’ve done this before, and we’re pretty good at it.” 
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Miami, Florida will host the 54th Super Bowl this Sunday. The Super Bowl is the championship American football  game for the top two teams in the sport’s two separate divisions. Thousands of fans, hotels and restaurants are getting ready for an entire weekend of celebrations. And there’s high security to match this giant event. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit reports. 
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Archaeologists on Thursday unveiled 16 ancient Egyptian tombs filled with sarcophagi and other artifacts from a vast burial ground.Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry announced the discoveries in the village of Tuna al-Gabal, near the Nile Valley city of Minya in central Egypt. The site boasts an array of previously excavated finds, including funerary buildings and catacombs filled with thousands of mummified ibis and baboon birds.The long-abandoned tombs date back to three dynasties, from 664-399 BC, in the Pharaonic Late Period.Among the new treasures presented: 20 sarcophagi made from limestone and etched with hieroglyphic texts, five wooden coffins, hundreds of amulets and 10,000 blue funerary statues, known as ushabti figurines, which are fixtures in the ancient tombs of the area. The sarcophagus lids are molded into mummy-like figures of men.While such contents can be looted or decay over time, Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, described the tombs as “in good condition” and the sarcophagi stone as “well-polished.”Waziri said the tombs likely belonged to the high priests of Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of writing and wisdom, among other senior officials.The Ministry of Antiquities invited journalists to tour the site, shepherding film crews down ladders into dark, narrow shafts full of skeletons and sarcophagi.The Egyptian government frequently promotes archaeological finds to boost its vital tourism sector. The industry was hard hit by political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak.
 
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