Hip-Hop Mix Tape Seeks 'Multicultural' Audience
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Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014 ‘Game of Thrones’ hip-hop mix tape seeks ‘multicultural’ audience atch the Throne,” meet “Game of Thrones”: HBO has of HBO overall. Last year, the audience for its third season was It was created by a team of producers at New York’s Launch commissioned rappers including Wale, Common 13.2 percent African-American, 9.2 percent Hispanic and 76.6 Point Records, who sampled music from the show’s score and “Wand Outkast’s Big Boi for a mix tape devoted to its white, according to Nielsen figures. Overall, HBO’s overall audi- snippets of dialogue. Other rappers involved include reggaeton hit fantasy series. On one “Catch the Throne” track, Wale raps ence last year was 16.8 percent black, 12.3 percent Hispanic and star Daddy Yankee and rapper Bodega Bamz. Unfortunately about bringing “that Khaleesi heat” and decapitating other MCs. 72.9 white. Maybe it’s because the cast is so overwhelmingly absent are Kanye West and Jay-Z, the pair behind “Watch the The unlikely seeming enterprise is all part of an effort to reach the white? Throne.” “muticultural” audience of “Game of Thrones,” HBO told The Wall HBO notes that African-Americans and Latinos are overrepre- The “Game of Thrones” foray into hip-hop isn’t the show’s first Street Journal. sented in its subscriber count relative to their numbers in the collaboration with popular musicians: Both “The Hold Steady” and “Our multicultural audiences are a very important part of our population at large, and says Nielsen’s numbers don’t account for Gary Lightbody, lead singer of Snow Patrol, have sung the song subscribers, and we don’t want to take them for granted,” platforms like HBO Go. “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” for the show. The song is said to Lucinda Martinez, HBO’s senior vice president for multicultural HBO declined to say how much the campaign cost or how be one of the most popular in Westeros. — Reuters marketing, told the paper. Actually, the Journal found, the audi- much it paid the artists who took part in the 10-song mix tape, ence for “Game of Thrones” is a little less multicultural than that which will be released Friday. A Broadway musical reaches a bloody milestone ying onstage has been remarkably easy for Broadway’s “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.” The musical come- Ddy reached a bloody milestone at Wednesday’s matinee when star Jefferson Mays was knocked off for the 1,000th time since the show opened, believed to be a record for the fastest a leading actor has reached that number of deaths. The show is about an impoverished man, played by Bryce Pinkham, who discovers he’s ninth in line to inherit a fortune, so he decides to eliminate the eight heirs of the D’Ysquith family standing in his way. Mays plays all eight victims - two women and six men. Since the show opened Nov 17, Mays has been mur- Singer Akon arrives for the Breaking The Silence, dered eight times in each show or 64 times each week at the Beating The Drum concert event at United Nations Walter Kerr Theatre. At a press conference after the matinee, Headquarters. — AP Pinkham presented Mays with an honorary “death certificate” on behalf of the entire cast. It listed Mays’ marital status and age as “various” and listed his cause of death as Bryce Pinkham. Akon looks to bring “I’ve had the pleasure of working with some wonderful actors over the years, but there is no one I’d rather murder over and over and over than this man,” said Pinkham. “Even Sir Laurence electricity to homes in Africa Olivier and Richard Burton never had to die more than once an evening.” Mays, who won a Tony for “I Am My Own Wife,” was rammy-nominated singer Akon has a goal of gracious in return: “Thanks so much for this. At the risk of sound- bringing solar-powered electricity to 1 million ing gleefully genocidal, here’s to the next thousand D’Ysquith Ghomes in Africa by the end of the year, and the deaths.” “A Gentleman’s Guide” features a book by Robert L. singer is using millions of his own dollars for the cause. Freedman, rousing music by Steven Lutvak, and wry, wonderful Akon started an initiative called “Akon Lighting Africa” lyrics by Freedman and Lutvak. — AP this month. The singer, who was born in the US of Senegalese parents and was reared in both countries, said he was “pained” after seeing people in the continent without electricity. “How could you build any infrastruc- ture with no lights?” he said in a recent interview. Kevin Costner to receive “Without electricity, you can’t even operate the machines to build roads or bridges. ...That’s what created the initia- tive.” ‘CinemaCon Icon Award’ Akon’s project aims to install solar equipment in households to improve energy sufficiency. He’s partnered evin Costner, whose career is showing new signs of life, with Give1 Project, ADS Global Corporation SA and pub- will receive the “2014 Cinema Icon Award” at lic-private solar energy companies. The Senegalese- KCinemaCon this month. The annual show-and-tell finds American also met with government leaders about the studios hawking their upcoming slates to theater owners and project in Senegal, Gambia, the Ivory Coast and other unfolds in Las Vegas. Costner won an Oscar for directing countries. “After certain hours, it’s completely pitch- “Dances with Wolves” and was one of the biggest stars in the black,” he said. “Even for myself, as a child growing up in world thanks to such hits as “The Untouchables” and “Bull Africa, it wasn’t that bad, but I know how life could be so Durham.” much easier if they had those necessities.” His career went into decline following box office disap- So, far, Akon said his initiative has financed 10 light pointments such as “Waterworld” and “The Postman.” posts and power for 100 homes in Mali and Guinea However, he recently scored a small screen hit and won an Conakry. The economic and trade company China Emmy for History Channel’s record-setting mini-series “The Jiangsu International will pre-finance all of the light Hatfields and McCoys: An American Vendetta” and had a posts, the singer said. “I saw what simple lights did to memorable supporting role in “Man of Steel.” This winter, those people there,” he said. “It was like a huge festival Costner appeared in “3 Days to Kill” and “Jack Ryan.” He next when that light switch was hit. Now, kids can study dur- stars in the sports comedy “Draft Day.” He will be presented ing the afterhours. It’s a luxury. It touched me.” Akon has with this special honor at at an awards ceremony on March 27, had more than a dozen Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot in The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. — Reuters 100 chart, including “Smack That,” “I Wanna Love You” and “Locked Up.” He recently released a new single “So Blue,” and said he is working on new music. He also wants to hold a concert at the end of the year in Africa to celebrate the initiative. — AP Kevin Costner.