Quincy Jones, the multi-talented music titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson’s historic “Thriller” album to writing prize-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists, has died at 91. 

Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, says he died Sunday night at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, surrounded by his family. Jones was to have received an honorary Academy Award later this month.

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the family said in a statement. “And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.” 

Jones rose from running with gangs on the South Side of Chicago to the very heights of show business, becoming one of the first Black executives to thrive in Hollywood and amassing an extraordinary musical catalog that includes some of the richest moments of American rhythm and song. For years, it was unlikely to find a music lover who did not own at least one record with his name on it, or a leader in the entertainment industry and beyond who did not have some connection to him.

Jones kept company with presidents and foreign leaders, movie stars and musicians, philanthropists and business leaders. He toured with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, arranged records for Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, composed the soundtracks for “Roots” and “In the Heat of the Night,” organized President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural celebration and oversaw the all-star recording of “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity record for famine relief in Africa.

Lionel Richie, who co-wrote “We Are the World” and was among the featured singers, would call Jones “the master orchestrator.”

In a career which began when records were still played on platters turning at 78 rpm, top honors likely go to his productions with Jackson: “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” were albums near-universal in their style and appeal. Jones’ versatility and imagination helped set off the explosive talents of Jackson as he transformed from child star to the “King of Pop.” On such classic tracks as “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jones and Jackson fashioned a global soundscape out of disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B and jazz and African chants. For “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches originated with Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on the genre-fusing “Beat It” and brought in Vincent Price for a ghoulish voiceover on the title track.

“Thriller” sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and has contended with the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975” among others as the best-selling album of all time.

“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it was the producers fault’; so if it does well, it should be your ‘fault,’ too,” Jones said in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2016. “The tracks don’t just all of a sudden appear. The producer has to have the skill, experience and ability to guide the vision to completion.”

The list of his honors and awards fills 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography “Q”, including 27 Grammys at the time (now 28), an honorary Academy Award (now two) and an Emmy for “Roots.” He also received France’s Legion d’Honneur, the Rudolph Valentino Award from the Republic of Italy and a Kennedy Center tribute for his contributions to American culture. He was the subject of a 1990 documentary, “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones” and a 2018 film by daughter Rashida Jones. His memoir made him a best-selling author.

Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones would cite the hymns his mother sang around the house as the first music he could remember. But he looked back sadly on his childhood, once telling Oprah Winfrey that “There are two kinds of people: those who have nurturing parents or caretakers, and those who don’t. Nothing’s in between.” Jones’ mother suffered from emotional problems and was eventually institutionalized, a loss that made the world seem “senseless” for Quincy. He spent much of his time in Chicago on the streets, with gangs, stealing and fighting.

“They nailed my hand to a fence with a switchblade, man,” he told the AP in 2018, showing a scar from his childhood.

Music saved him. As a boy, he learned that a Chicago neighbor owned a piano and he soon played it constantly himself. His father moved to Washington state when Quincy was 10 and his world changed at a neighborhood recreation center. Jones and some friends had broken into the kitchen and helped themselves to lemon meringue pie when Jones noticed a small room nearby with a stage. On the stage was a piano.

“I went up there, paused, stared, and then tinkled on it for a moment,” he wrote in his autobiography. “That’s where I began to find peace. I was 11. I knew this was it for me. Forever.”

Within a few years he was playing trumpet and befriending a young blind musician named Ray Charles, who became a lifelong friend. He was gifted enough to win a scholarship at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out when Hampton invited him to tour with his band. Jones went on to work as a freelance composer, conductor, arranger and producer. As a teen, he backed Billie Holiday. By his mid-20s, he was touring with his own band.

“We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.”

As a music executive, he overcame racial barriers by becoming a vice president at Mercury Records in the early ’60s. In 1971, he became the first Black musical director for the Academy Awards ceremony. The first movie he produced, “The Color Purple,” received 11 Oscar nominations in 1986. (But, to his great disappointment, no wins). In a partnership with Time Warner, he created Quincy Jones Entertainment, which included the pop-culture magazine Vibe and Qwest Broadcasting. The company was sold for $270 million in 1999.

“My philosophy as a businessman has always come from the same roots as my personal credo: take talented people on their own terms and treat them fairly and with respect, no matter who they are or where they come from,” Jones wrote in his autobiography.

He was at ease with virtually every form of American music, whether setting Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” to a punchy, swinging rhythm and wistful flute or opening his production of Charles’ soulful “In the Heat of the Night” with a lusty tenor sax solo. He worked with jazz giants (Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington), rappers (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J), crooners (Sinatra, Tony Bennett), pop singers (Lesley Gore) and rhythm and blues stars (Chaka Khan, Queen Latifah).

On “We are the World” alone, performers included Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. He co-wrote hits for Jackson – “P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing” – and Donna Summer – “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger) – and had songs sampled by Tupac Shakur, Kanye West and other rappers. He even composed the theme song for the sitcom “Sanford and Son.”

Jones was a facilitator and maker of the stars. He gave Will Smith a key break in the hit TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which Jones produced, and through “The Color Purple” he introduced Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg to filmgoers. Starting in the 1960s, he composed more than 35 film scores, including for “The Pawnbroker,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “In Cold Blood.”

He called scoring “a multifaceted process, an abstract combination of science and soul.”

Jones’ work on the soundtrack for “The Wiz” led to his partnership with Jackson, who starred in the 1978 movie. In an essay published in Time magazine after Jackson’s death, in 2009, Jones remembered that the singer kept slips of paper on him that contained thoughts by famous thinkers. When Jones asked about the origins of one passage, Jackson answered “Socrates,” but pronounced it “SO-crayts.” Jones corrected him, “Michael, it’s SOCK-ra-tees.”

“And the look he gave me then, it just prompted me to say, because I’d been impressed by all the things I saw in him during the rehearsal process, ‘I would love to take a shot at producing your album,’” Jones recalled. “And he went back and told the people at Epic Records, and they said, `No way — Quincy’s too jazzy.’ Michael was persistent, and he and his managers went back and said, `Quincy’s producing the album.’ And we proceeded to make ‘Off the Wall.’ Ironically, that was one of the biggest Black-selling albums at the time, and that album saved all the jobs of the people saying I was the wrong guy. That’s the way it works.”

Tensions emerged after Jackson’s death. In 2013, Jones sued Jackson’s estate, claiming he was owed millions in royalties and production fees on some of the superstar’s greatest hits. In a 2018 interview with New York magazine, he called Jackson “as Machiavellian as they come” and alleged that he lifted material from others.

Jones was hooked on work and play, and at times suffered for it. He nearly died from a brain aneurysm in 1974 and became deeply depressed in the 1980s after “The Color Purple” was snubbed by Academy Awards voters; he never received a competitive Oscar. A father of seven children by five mothers, Jones described himself as a “dog” who had countless lovers around the world. He was married three times, his wives including the actor Peggy Lipton.

“To me, loving a woman is one of the most natural, blissful, life-enhancing — and dare I say, religious — acts in the world,” he wrote.

Along with Rashida, Jones is survived by daughters Jolie Jones Levine, Rachel Jones, Martina Jones, Kidada Jones and Kenya Kinski-Jones; son Quincy Jones III; brother Richard Jones and sisters Theresa Frank and Margie Jay.

He was not an activist in his early years, but changed after attending the 1968 funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and later befriending the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jones was dedicated to philanthropy, saying “the best and only useful aspect of fame and celebrity is having a platform to help others.”

His causes included fighting HIV and AIDS, educating children and providing for the poor around the world. He founded the Quincy Jones Listen Up! Foundation to connect young people with music, culture and technology, and said he was driven throughout his life “by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism.”

“Life is like a dream, the Spanish poet and philosopher Federico Garcia Lorca said,” Jones wrote in his memoir. “Mine’s been in Technicolor, with full Dolby sound through THX amplification before they knew what these systems were.”

(AP)

A video purportedly showing popular Cameroonian singer Simon Longkana Agno, widely known as Longue Longue, being tortured has led to widespread outrage in the country.

The artist, renowned for making hits about bad governance, colonialism and other social ills, said the video was taken after he was arrested in 2019, but this is the first time it has been seen by the public.

Longue Longue shared it himself, but it is unclear why it is only coming out now or how he obtained it.

The Cameroonian authorities said in a statement they have opened an investigation into the “unfortunate incident”.

In the video, Longue Longue’s hands are cuffed behind his back, and he is sitting on the floor in his underwear as the soles of his bare feet are beaten with a flat machete.

Despite his desperate pleas for the beating to stop, the men, alleged by Longue Longue to be security agents, continue.

The BBC has been unable to verify the video. We have tried to contact the singer without success.

On his Facebook page, he said he was arrested for his “freedom of thought”, and promised to file legal complaints in both Cameroon and France.

He was arrested in 2019 after posting a video saying that long-time President Paul Biya had rigged the 2018 election.

The artist said opposition leader, Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), was the rightful winner of the polls.

At the time, the Constitutional Council rejected Kamto’s demand for a re-run because of alleged rigging.

The opposition leader is among those to have denounced the apparent torture and called for an investigation into the incident.

“The CRM strongly condemns this state barbarity and demands the urgent opening of an enquiry to arrest and immediately bring before the courts the perpetrators of these inhuman acts,” Kamto said in a statement on X.

He added that the video was “reminiscent of the horrific treatment” opposition activists faced during the crackdown in 2019 when hundreds of his supporters were detained.

Renowned Cameroonian human rights lawyer Akere Muna said Longue Longue’s treatment was a “stark reminder of the depths of depravity to which humanity can descend”.

Rights groups have criticised the government for creating an atmosphere of impunity for members of the country’s security forces.

They have also accused the authorities of cracking down on dissent ahead of next year’s presidential election.

Source: BBC

Music legend André-Marie Tala has announced the celebration of his 55-year musical career, dubbed “Avec Vous.” The 74-year-old artist made the announcement during a press conference held on October 14, 2024, in Douala. As part of the festivities, Tala is set to host two special performances: one on October 25 at Best Western Hotel in Douala, and another on November 1 at the Yaoundé Congress Hall.

“It will be an opportunity to connect, to share with those who love music, beautiful melodies, and particularly André-Marie Tala’s journey through his works,” the artist stated. Tala, who has an extensive repertoire spanning over ten albums, promised to revisit his greatest hits and deliver an unforgettable performance. He will be joined on stage by artists from different generations, including seasoned musicians like Prince Ndedi Eyango, Annie Anzouer, and Isnebo, as well as younger talents such as Stanley Enow, Krys-M, and Kareyce Fotso. “We’ll share emotions, and I’ll let them know that they can always count on me as long as I’m alive,” he added.

In addition to the concerts, a master class is scheduled for October 16 at La Chaumière cabaret in Douala, aimed at teaching younger generations the fundamentals of music. On October 19, a sporting event will be held at Douala’s Parcours Vita, followed by humanitarian activities at a social center in Yaoundé.

Blind since the age of 15, André-Marie Tala has turned his disability into “opportunities that, through hard work, have allowed me to be recognized around the world.” The artist, best known for his hit song Je vais à Yaoundé released in 1975, continues to seek recognition from the city he has celebrated globally.

Source: Sbbc

Tito Jackson, an original member of the Jackson 5 pop group and brother of the late Michael Jackson, has died aged 70, US media report.

An official cause of death is yet to be determined.

Tito performed in the famous ensemble with brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, who died in 2009.

He was recently in Munich ahead of a performance that the group were due to give.

Steve Manning, a long-time Jackson family friend and former Jackson family manager, told Entertainment Tonight that Jackson died on Monday.

The news was confirmed in an Instagram post by Jackson’s three sons, Taj, Taryll and TJ Jackson, who were themselves an R’n’B/pop trio, 3T, in the 1990s.

“We are shocked, saddened and heartbroken,” they wrote. “Our father was an incredible man who cared about everyone and their well-being.”

They continued: “He will be missed tremendously. It will forever be ‘Tito Time’ for us.

“Please remember to do what our father always preached and that is ‘Love One Another’. We love you Pops.”

The Jackson 5’s hits included ABC, The Love You Save and I Want You Back.

The group was formed in 1964. Tito played the guitar and provided backing vocals.

Jackson 5 has sold more than 150 million records worldwide.

In 1980, the siblings were presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

Days before his death, Tito posted a message on social media from Munich, Germany, where he visited a memorial to Michael with his brothers.

He wrote: “Before our show in Munich, my brothers Jackie, Marlon, and I, visited the beautiful memorial dedicated to our beloved brother, Michael Jackson.

“We’re deeply grateful for this special place that honours not only his memory but also our shared legacy. Thank you for keeping his spirit alive.”

The Jacksons performed in Germany on 10 September, days after their performance at Boogietown, a UK music festival celebrating funk, soul and disco in Surrey.

The siblings also performed at the Fool in Love Festival at Hollywood Park Grounds in Los Angeles on 31 August.

‘Devastated and speechless’

Former Jackson 5 drummer Jonathan Moffett led tributes on social media, writing on X: “There is great sadness in my heart tonight – I just found out that my brother in heart and spirit, Tito Jackson has passed.

“I’m stunned, devastated and speechless. I love you, Tito. My most sincere love & prayers for the entire Jackson family. I love you all VERY much”.

Tito was the third oldest Jackson and one of nine children. His other siblings include global stars Janet and La Toya Jackson.

All his siblings, other than Michael who died aged 50 in June 2009, are still alive.

The family’s patriarch, Joe Jackson, died at the age of 89 in 2018.

The group of performers and singers have produced a total of 27 US number one hits.

Alongside work in the band, Tito also had a solo career as a blues musician which started in 2003.

He was the final sibling to place a solo single on the Billboard charts with his 2016 hit, Get It Baby.

In 2019, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon embarked on a World Tour as The Jacksons.

Two years prior they performed a slew of shows in the UK as part of A Celebration of 50 Years, also stopping to perform at Glastonbury Festival.

Source: BBC

Although Bate Nico is the celebrated Professor of Manyu music and is now a global star, he has maintained a close relationship with the Irish State.

His sell-out concert in Ireland is fondly remembered by hundreds of Cameroonians who answered present at the height of his powers as the Manyu megastar.

But while there have been infrequent visits back to Europe for concerts, it was his less advertised time in Dublin with the Daughters of Manyu Ireland that drew massive attention.

Bate Nico fever gripped Ireland, after the singer recently visited Balbriggan, Drogheda and Swords near Dublin.

He participated in the September meeting of the Daughters of Manyu Ireland and refused to record an interview with the Cameroon Concord News Group.

Bate Nico however said Manyu Daughters of Ireland have inspired him to make a great album.

According to Cameroon Concord News London Bureau Chief Asu Isong, Bate Nico is very interested in Manyu unity and plans to tour Europe and the US on a peace mission.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

American rapper Snoop Dogg will carry the Olympic flame through Saint-Denis this Friday, marking a significant moment before the Paris Games’ opening ceremony. Joining him are French actress Laetitia Casta, French rapper MC Solaar, and retired Ukrainian pole-vaulter Sergey Bubka.

American rapper Snoop Dogg will be among the carriers of the Olympic flame this Friday as it makes its final rounds before the Paris Games’ opening ceremony.

He will carry it through the streets of Saint-Denis, the ethnically diverse northern Paris suburb that is home to the Olympic Stadium and Aquatics Centre, the town’s mayor Mathieu Hanotin told AFP on Monday.

Other carriers in Saint-Denis Friday will include French actress Laetitia Casta, French rapper MC Solaar and Ukrainian retired pole-vaulter Sergey Bubka.

The Olympic flame has spent two months crossing France, and Friday morning it will be carried through the athletes’ village which straddles Saint-Denis and neighbouring Saint-Ouen, before going to the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatics Centre a few kilometres away.

Snoop Dogg, 52, was born in greater Los Angeles, which will host the next Games in 2028.

The torch relay will not be the rapper’s only appearance at the 2024 Games as he will also be an Olympic commentator for US television station NBC.

Source: AFP

Florida rapper Julio Foolio has been killed in a shooting in Tampa, his lawyer says.

Police said four people were hit with gunfire in a hotel car park early on Sunday. One person died, whom they believed to be Foolio pending a medical examination.

The 26-year-old victim, whose legal name was Charles Jones, was identified in a statement by a law firm that represented him.

Foolio had been celebrating his birthday when the incident occurred, said the lawyer, Lewis Fusco.

The musician was “reportedly ambushed” in the hotel car park, Mr Fusco said in a statement, quoted by a local affiliate of the BBC’s US partner, CBS News.

He had been forced to relocate after being asked by authorities to leave an Airbnb property when he and his guests exceeded occupancy limits.

The rapper had been posting material to his Instagram account about the celebrations, writing that police had “shut us down”.

Two cars were hit in the shooting that took place at about 04:40 EDT (09:40 BST), police said. The three others who were injured were taken to hospital, where their condition was described as stable.

Foolio has nearly a million monthly listeners on Spotify, where his top-played track is Voo Doo.

As recently as April, he wrote in an Instagram post that recent months had been “tragic”, citing “multiple attempts on my life”.

He is said to have been open about his gang affiliations, according to local media.

Police have urged the public to provide any information that may help them with their investigation.

Source: BBC

Malian singer Rokia Traore has been arrested in Italy over an outstanding two-year prison sentence in Belgium handed down in a child custody dispute, prosectors in Brussels said Sunday. 

The singer and guitarist was sentenced in absentia in October on charges of parental abduction, after fleeing France in 2020 when she was due to be handed over to Belgian authorities.

Italian media reported that the award-winning musician was arrested at Fiumicino airport in Rome on Friday after she flew into the country for a concert.

A spokesperson for the airport told AFP that border police had confirmed her arrest. There was no official confirmation from the Italian authorities.

Prosecutors in Brussels told AFP that “Ms Traore’s arrest in Italy follows a decision by the Brussels Criminal Court on October 18, 2023, which sentenced her in absentia to two years imprisonment for failing to hand over a child to the person entitled to custody”.

Traore had been arrested in Paris in March 2020 on a European arrest warrant over a Belgian court ruling ordering her to return her daughter, now aged nine, to the child’s Belgian father. 

She later defied a ban on leaving France and flew home to Mali several months later, before she could be sent to Belgium.

A lawyer for the child’s father said he had not had any contact with his daughter, who lives in Mali, since she turned four.

The lawyer said the father had offered to draw up a new custody agreement with Traore, validated by Malian and Belgian courts, to “find a way out of this nightmare and guarantee their child a future with two parents”.

Beyond her feted music career, Traore is also known for her advocacy work for refugees, and was made a UN ambassador for refugees in 2015.

Source: AFP