It’s been a surprising week for World Cup fans, with reigning champion Spain eliminated, heavily-favored Brazil struggling and the U.S. somehow beating Ghana, despite Jozy Altidore’s hamstring injury. But perhaps more unexpected is Beats By Dre’s headphones being hamstrung by a ban from FIFA at the global sporting event. Or perhaps that was the plan…

The latest sneak preview for Akai Pro’s upcoming iMPC Pro takes a look at audio editing with Trim and Chop. Note: iMPC Pro is under development, so specifications, pricing and availability are still to be announced. [Synthtopia]

Ab-Soul touched on Black Hippy’s future plans during his SKEE Live appearance this week (June 17). When host DJ Skee asked the TDE-emcee about the collective’s next release, Soul said, “I’m trying to tell [Top Dawg] to tell Dr. Dre to just let us make Detox. Wouldn’t that be crazy? The Black Hippy album should…

Since being bought by private equity firm Columbus Nova, the Seattle-based Rhapsody International has gone through a rapid period of expansion and reinvention as the No. 2 streaming service looks to differentiate itself from market leader Spotify and rekindle its U.S. growth momentum. This week it unveils plans to launch an unlimited radio service. The…

In this video, via Red Bull Music Academy, Jamie Lidell walks an audience through his live set-up during Red Bull Music Academy’s Studio Science New York 2014. [Synthtopia]

Love him or hate him, whenever Kanye West speaks, people listen. Recently talking with Power 106, the super producer/rapper spoke on a few subjects including the highest office in the land. West says President Obama lacks power without money and that good ideas and “extreme genius” is cheap. “You can’t effect change from inside the…

It’s been so long, with so many false alarms, you start to lose track. D’Angelo‘s long-awaited follow-up to his classic 2000 album “Voodoo” was supposed to come out in 2007. Then 2009. Then 2010. Then he started touring, for the first time in 10 years, in 2011 and into 2012, airing four solid new songs:…

I’ve written a number of posts about tuning in the past, mostly about how our now standard A440 was arbitrarily selected. Here’s a great video by composer Alan Howarth where he describes Ra tuning (which is centered around 424Hz instead of 440), which is said to be more in tune with nature. As Howarth explains,…

The fourth-largest mobile carrier in the U.S. has made a unique entry into digital music. T-Mobile announced Wednesday it will remove all data charges from streaming music on services such as Pandora and Spotify over its 4G LTE network. Named Music Freedom, the initiative will begin with a group of seven services that also includes…

Dr. Dre has shared further details of the forthcoming NWA biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton’, confirming that the film will be released on August 14, 2015. As reported earlier this week, the film will tell the story of the hip-hop trio comprised of Dr Dre, Ice Cube and the late Eazy E. Dr Dre and Eazy…