Recently in Music Category

It seems Marvin Sapp, the talented singer and pastor who scored a huge gospel/R&B cross-over hit a couple years ago with "Never Would Have Made It," is still making it -- big time. Last week his latest CD, Here I Am, debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 charts, just below Lady Antebellum and above Ludacris.

This is a record-breaking achievement, according to Gospel Pundit and all the chart-tracking music blogs, as its the first time in Billboard history that a gospel album has debuted so high on the charts. Aretha Franklin, Kirk Franklin, and Mary Mary established the previous benchmarks, but Sapp has taken it to a new level. 

Remember back in the day when music artists and movie stars would take time away from showbiz to go to college or serve a stint in the military? In the world of hip-hop, that ritual has been replaced by stars who take time off from entertaining their audiences to serve prison sentences.

Rapper Lil Wayne is just the latest in an ever-expanding lineup of popular rappers and hip-hop artists whose fame and riches would seem to give them every motivation to stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, in hip-hop culture fame and jail time seem to go together like salt and pepper. (No offense intended to the good ladies of Salt-n-Pepa, who, as far as we know, have not been to jail.)

As you probably know, American Idol is back for its 9th season, and every year the show loves to showcase auditioning performers who have absolutely no chance of making into the competition, but who are incredibly entertaining nonetheless (think William Hung). This year's leading candidate for top prize in that category seems to be General Larry Platt, the 62-year-old spoken-word performer (you can't really call him a singer or rapper), who had the AI judges falling out last night with his original composition "Pants on the Ground." It was evident from the outset that this one would go down in AI history as one of the most memorable auditions. Top judge Simon Cowell even remarked, "I have a horrible feeling that song could be a hit." And, as might be expected, Platt has created quite the stir on Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks. (Check out a "remix" version of the tune below.)  

So here's something we didn't know. Turns out the Boys Choir of Harlem was quietly disbanded in 2007, following the death of its founder, Walter J. Turnbull. We knew the choir had run into some legal and moral tangles in recent years, but we didn't know that, for all intents and purposes, it had ceased to exist. From the New York Times report: