AP Dhillon leaves the California desert behind. Coachella has announced that the Punjabi-Canadian star will not perform on the festival's second weekend as planned. reporting scheduling conflicts. The festival made the announcement in a follow-up tweet announcing the addition of rapper Kid Cudi.
During his first performance at Coachella, the Punjabi-Canadian star paid tribute to a fallen icon. As he performed the hit 'Brown Munde', a message dominated the screen behind him across capitals: 'JUSTICE FOR SIDHU MOOSEWALA'.
Sidhu Moose Wala, the prominent Punjabi artist, actor and politician, was shot dead in India in May 2022 and his murder remains unsolved. Based in Brampton, Moose Wala helped pave the way for Punjabi music in Canada and continues to record two years after his death.
While Dhillon's opening weekend performance was well received by the Coachella audience and many of his supporters, he also received some backlash due to how he closed his set, which has been widely covered by media in India.
The artist finished his performance by smashing his guitar on stage.
Some fans have invoked India's cultural reverence for musical instruments, criticizing Dhillon's rock star move as disrespectful and arrogant.
“The guitar that gave you life, love, peace, success and respect – you end up breaking it!” reads a popular comment on Dhillon's post featuring footage of the crash.
In a subsequent post, Dhillon shared pictures of his tribute to the late Sidhu Moose Wala, with the caption “media is controlled and I'm out of control”. The final slide of the post features footage of Kurt Cobain smashing his guitar, linking Dhillon's move to a long tradition of rock and roll. – Rosie Long Decter
As Latin music grows in Canada, Live Nation aims to take it across the country
This week, Live Nation announced that Shakira's Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour will be coming to Canada in December. It will be only the third time in the Colombian superstar's illustrious 33-year career that two Canadian tours have been scheduled, and her first return since 2018.
In the six years since he last played for a Canadian audience, the country's Latin music scene has grown more than he ever expected. It's an expanded market that Live Nation has focused on in recent years.
In 2022 he was hired by Live Nation Ricky Taco as director of Latin Music in Canada, with a mandate to grow the genre in venues across the country and focus on one of the fastest growing markets in North America.
In an interview with Billboard Canada, Taco gives some numbers. “The Latin genre as a whole, in Canada, is up 48% since last year [in online streams]. In terms of airplay, Latin music across Canada has grown 2,100% in the last year. You're now playing to 37.5 million Canadians as opposed to 2.5 million last year…Over the last five years, it's been crazy. I mean, the growth was [big].”
Although they haven't had the same impact in Canada as they have in the United States, the younger generation of Latin musicians are enjoying touring success. Bad Bunny sold out Toronto's Scotiabank Arena this April, a far cry from his 2018 stint at the smaller REBEL nightclub. Peso Pluma, a 24-year-old Mexican artist making waves worldwide, made his first Canadian stops just over a year ago at Place Bell in Laval, Quebec and Toronto's Budweiser Stage. In 2024, however, she will play “LADY GAGA” in front of sold-out crowds at Montreal's Scotiabank Arena and Bell Centre.
Although Latin music has made incredible strides in recent years, there is still much work to be done as Live Nation Canada plans to bring the genre to more ears and build an even stronger fan base. Compared to Punjabi music, which has seen a similar boom in recent years and a similarly focused strategy at Live Nation in Canada, Taco says Latin music has a steeper hill to climb.
“In Toronto, there is only one Latin FM radio station [station]” says Taco. “If you compare it to an English artist or a Punjabi artist, their communities are bigger, they have more resources to play with. Although we've grown a lot in the last three to five years, we're still very limited, we're still growing.”
Beyond festivals and radio stations, Live Nation plans to bring Latin music outside of the cities Canadian fans are accustomed to seeing regularly tour announcements.
“At this point, the primary markets are definitely Montreal and Toronto, but our plan is to keep growing. [We want to] we're bringing as many gigs as we can to places like Calgary, Vancouver and even possibly places like Ottawa,” says Taco. – Pablo Gonzalez Legendre
The Guess Who's Burton Cummings Will Give Up His Rights To Stop Alleged 'Band Device'
Canadian musician Burton Cummings he waives his rights to protect his inheritance.
The “American Woman” singer and co-founder of classic Winnipeg band The Guess Who has canceled his performance licensing deals in an attempt to prevent the current iteration of The Guess Who from performing.
The move is an escalation of a legal battle that has been ongoing since last fall, when Cummings and fellow Guess Who songwriter Randy Bachman have launched a lawsuit against what they call a “cover band” and claim they are engaging in false advertising, attempting to reduce concert sales by giving the impression that Cummings and Bachman are still part of the band. This iteration of the band owns the Guess Who trademark and features original drummer Garry Peterson.
While that lawsuit is still ongoing, Cummings is taking a new approach to stopping the alleged cover band's activity. The vast majority of concert venues in the US have licensing agreements with performing rights organizations (PROs) that allow them to host live performances of any music in that PRO's catalog. Cummings has spent the past few months voiding his deals with these professionals so that his music is no longer licensed to be performed in live venues — a move Cummings can only make because he owns his publishing rights.
The move is drastic and relatively unheard of, as it will force Cummings to forfeit potential rights. He will lose payments not only for live performances, but for radio spins, TV placements, mall playlists and more. The loss applies not only to recordings on which Cummings played, but to recordings of any songs he wrote, which includes Lenny Kravitz's popular cover of The Guess Who's “American Woman.”
Cummings says it's a sacrifice worth making. “I am willing to do anything to stop the fake band,” he said Rolling rock. “They're not the people who made these records and they shouldn't act the way they did.”
Since Cummings terminated his licenses, The Guess Who have already canceled five shows in Florida and Alabama.
“This is so much more than just money, I wouldn't have pulled the catalog if it wasn't for it,” Cummings explains. “This is about the legacy of the songs and the fact that the cover band is doing everything they can to erase me and Bachman from the band's history. I see commercials for their shows and it's me singing 'American Woman'.'' – Rosie Long Decter
