Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Blog, page 114

Birdman's Billion Dollar Dreams

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Bryan "Birdman" Williams ranks 4th on this year's Hip-Hop Cash Kings list.

Bryan "Birdman" Williams might be best described as a Frankenstein of conspicuous consumption. Standing outside the studios of 106 & Park in midtown Manhattan, he sports a necklace of gumball-sized diamonds; gems cling to ...

The Incredible Business of Hip-Hop's Favorite DJ

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Click for full photo gallery: DJ Cassidy At Work

If you happened to be driving down Manhattan's West Side Highway a little before midnight on July 7th, you might have noticed a herd of black SUVs idling conspicuously outside the U.S.S. Intrepid. You might have seen the swirling spotlights, and the photographers snooping around the entrance, and the women in slinky black dresses leading seersucker-clad men up a flight of stairs into the vessel.

You probably wouldn't have guessed that, ...

Hip-Hop Cash Kings 2011: Preview & Contest

Who will claim hip-hop's Cash Kings crown? Tune in on Tuesday to find out.

Every year since 2007, FORBES has ranked rap's top 20 earners in the Hip-Hop Cash Kings special. This year's list will be unveiled by the end of the day on Tuesday, August 9th — and for the fifth anniversary of the definitive list of hip-hop's top earners, we're pulling out all the proverbial stops.

As usual, you can expect to see our ranking of who made the most over the past year, and you'll get answers to a wide...

A Double-Standard for Jay-Z and Kanye West?

More money, more problems.

Most kings get their heads cut off — or at least, so goes the chorus of Jay-Z and Chris Martin's duet "Most Kings." For the Empire State of Mind rapper, though, the sentiment appears to be figuratively true of late.

Yesterday a group of independent record store owners released an open letter to Jay-Z and Kanye West in protest of the duo's plans for collaborative album Watch the Throne, due out in August. At issue: a four-day window granted to Apple's iTunes from...

The Sad Business of Amy Winehouse

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Click for full photo gallery: In Pictures: Amy Winehouse

About five years ago, a dear friend of mine introduced me to Amy Winehouse's music with a grim prophecy: "You should check out her stuff. And she's probably going to die soon." Three seconds into "Me and Mr. Jones," I was hooked. It didn't really matter that I couldn't quite comprehend all her words, slurred and bent with a thick English accent. It was the voice that got me — soaring from the speakers, big and bold...

The Top-Earning American Idols

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Click for full photo gallery: The 10 Top-Earning American Idols

Five years ago Jordin Sparks was just another teenager with dreams of becoming a singer. Then, in the summer of 2006, she auditioned for American Idol–and became the contest's youngest winner at the age of 17.

She's gone on to record two full-length albums, develop her own clothing line and star in Broadway's In The Heights. Her single "No Air," a duet with Chris Brown, has sold 4 million digital copies to date...

U2 Rocks Meadowlands As $700 Million Tour Winds Down

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Click for full photo gallery: U2 In Concert

Last night, U2 arrived at New Jersey's New Meadowlands Stadium in a giant green-and-orange spaceship. At least that's what the nearly 100,000 people in attendance might have assumed upon first seeing the blinking, glowing, four-legged, 167 foot tall contraption straddling the area that otherwise serves as the Jets' and Giants' home turf.

More confusion may have ensued around half past nine when the base of the structure began...

Beyonce, Mathew Knowles, Live Nation: How Much Is At Stake?

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Click for full photo gallery: Beyonce Knowles - The Celebrity 100

Never do business with family, the old saying goes. For the Knowles family, it seems, the case is no different.

Earlier this week, TMZ reported that Beyoncé's father, Mathew Knowles, had filed legal papers claiming that Live Nation officials falsely informed his daughter that he'd stolen or improperly used her money in his role as her manager. Knowles has asked for the right to take depositions of Live...

Vinyl vs. CDs: The Tables Are Turning

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Click for full photo gallery: Five Super-Expensive Record Players

This article appeared in the July 18th issue of FORBES.

Put a psychedelic pop band and a bird-obsessed electronic duo together, and you get sensory overload. That's what happened when the groups Dom and Ratatat played Manhattan's Terminal 5 last fall: Throngs of teenagers in fluorescent sunglasses bobbed to seizure-inducing videos of gyrating white budgies. Though calmer, the scene at the merch table came...

Jay-Z's 40/40 Clubs Still In A Holding Pattern

Jay-Z: Waiting for the 40/40 Club's encore.

Yesterday, news outlets reported that Jay-Z is set to bring his 40/40 Club chain to London sometime in the coming year. The deal, a partnership with Chelsea soccer star Ashley Cole, was described as a "multi-million pound" agreement.

The club is supposed to be ready by the start of the 2012 Summer Olympics, according to 40/40 spokesperson Ron Berkowitz. But don't start queuing up to get into the nightclub just yet.

Though Jay-Z's business smarts are ...