This weekend, the team and I hit the road to New Jersey for the big Zootopia concert — an evening of music with artists like Flo Rida, All-American Rejects, Ciara, the Black Eyed Peas, Sean Paul and Kelly Clarkson.

We arrived early before the doors opened, but already, the backstage area (a corridor, basically) was a hive of activity with a mixture of label execs, managers and publicists who had seemingly brought all their kids and friends to the show.

We were scheduled for an interview with Kelly Clarkson — her first sit-down chat with MTV News in a very long while — but it was a real added bonus when we caught up with an old friend and someone who's been away for even longer: Sean Paul. Read more...

By Rahman Dukes

After almost a year of addressing and dodging his old job as a prison guard, Rick Ross' Deeper Than Rap album finally hit shelves today. Lawsuits, controversies and a heated rap battle with knockout king 50 Cent filled Ross' plate, but in the end, the MC packaged it all nicely into his best work to date.

The hip-hop community was looking for 50's next chess move against Ross, which Fif threatened to deliver on Ross' album-release day, but the blow never came. The Bawse seemed totally removed from the beef and focused on his big day, which included an in-store signing at a local chain store in North Miami called BrandsMart. Many supporters came out to show Ricky love, copping his new CD and meeting him in person.

As I sat back and watched Ross signing copies of the album for fans, flanked by pal DJ Khaled and his Carol City Cartel clique, I couldn't help but wonder if I were watching the making of the next rap superstar. Only time will tell. For the duration of his battle with Fif, real heads knew the victor would be based on two things: good music and record sales. Ross gets a point for the endless hits he's been putting out these past months, but the real deciding factor will come next Wednesday, when SoundScan releases the numbers.

I'm putting my money on another #1 debut.

FROM BUZZWORTHY.MTV.COM: Huge Jonas day yesterday! The Jonas Brothers took to Twitter to reveal the cover art for their next album, Lines, Vines And Trying Times, due out June 15. The album cover photo shoot apparently took place in Corisica, Texas at Caleb's Diner.

While I loved the bright lights/ big city album art for A Little Big Longer a little bit better, the cover of Lines, Vines And Trying Times is the perfect portrait of the boys as they cross the bridge of their career from teen musicians to mature multimedia moguls — in addition to their massive world tour, their Disney TV show, "J.O.N.A.S.," premieres May 2nd, they’re working on the "Camp Rock" sequel, they’re launching a Jonas-inspired clothing line, and there’s their Jonas Group involvement with Honor Society and Demi Lovato — gotta support your friends, after all. ...

Continue reading and see the new Jonas Brothers album art at Buzzworthy.MTV.com ...

By Daniela Capistrano

We recently caught up with globetrotter and stage siren Ebony Bones after her triumphant return to SXSW, where she met with the winners who participated in our W.A.R.R.I.O.R. contest.

Currently touring with synth-rockers Passion Pit, Ebony gave us the scoop on her upcoming debut album, now officially called Bone of My Bones. For Ebony — whose moniker was inspired by comic book character Mr. Bones — using a biblical reference from the book of Genesis as her album title holds personal meaning:

"Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

"It fit perfectly," Bones explained. "It's raw and abrasive and, like Adam to Eve, this entire album feels like an extension of me. I'm ridiculously excited about it."

Fellow Brits can purchase Bone of My Bones in June but citizens of the States will have to wait a bit longer, with a release timed for early fall.

Thankfully, her first U.K. single, "The Musik," will be out in May and we have a preview for you right here:

(Find out how 20 cities and 30 directors contributed to "The Musik," after the jump!)
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Though strongly counseled against it, I will admit here and now that I don't believe I've ever consciously sat down and listened to Pearl Jam's debut album, Ten, from beginning to end.

It's not that I don't like PJ — in fact, they've grown to be one of my favorite live bands over the past decade or so. But before I started writing about music for a living, I was much more regimented about my listening habits. I'd devour everything I could, but for some reason PJ's music just didn't grab me back in my Nirvana-centric days.

Which is why listening to the remixed reissue of Ten that hits stores Tuesday (March 24) is something of a revelation. I've been spinning it almost exclusively for the past few weeks and each time I give a song like "Once" or the ominously alluring "Garden" another try, I'm newly blown away at their power, punch and the intensity of singer Eddie Vedder's voice. I'm not telling anyone who's already a big fan anything new, but even if you've listened 1,000 times, the crispness of these tracks is like someone grabbing you from the back row and pushing you up to the sweaty pit, pulling your ear plugs out and shoving you up against the speaker as the seasick guitars start swaying crazily during "Deep."

Of course "Even Flow," "Alive" and "Jeremy" still pack a wallop — and the band continues to tear into them like they're brand new in concert to this day — but these other songs, the ones I hadn't really investigated fully before ... wow.

The remixed songs crackle with a jazzy, swinging energy I began to remember from the time I saw PJ play in a dumpy little off-campus bar in Madison, Wisconsin — called the R&R Station — in March 1992. Mike McCready's feral guitar playing on "Why Go," all coiled energy and chicken scratching bursts of ominous noise; bassist Jeff Ament's finger popping, deep funk bass and Vedder's dog snarl bellow of "Why go home!" are like my own personal discovery of a 12-million selling Rosetta Stone my friends have been trying to tell me about for more than 15 years.

Listening to the undulating, Jane's Addiction-like "Oceans" now, you can clearly see the through line to Vedder's pastoral solo soundtrack to "Into the Wild," which makes all the bizarre twists and turns the band has taken between then and now even more fascinating. The set has been remixed by producer Brendan O'Brien, who didn't work on PJ's debut, but helmed their next four albums and, for a while, was practically a sixth member of the group.

The band are also offering up all the master tracks from Ten for download at the "Rock Band" music store for use on Xbox 360 and PS3. And, if you dare, drummer Matt Cameron is playing "Rock Band 2" with Xbox Live Gold members on March 27 at 7 p.m. EST.

Mastodon rule. For proof of this, check their bludgeoningly brutal-yet-surgically precise back catalog (2002's Remission, 2004's Leviathan and 2006's Blood Mountain). For further proof, be aware that each of these efforts (well, maybe not Remission, but they were just getting started) are also concept records, about chasing metaphorical white whales and scaling terrifying mountains. They make rock mythical again, and for that, they rule even harder.

Their new album, Crack the Skye, hits stores March 24. While there's still a concept (more on that in a second), there's less pummeling this time around. Skye is still dazzlingly technical in scope, and there's plenty of riffing, but there's also newfound space. Songs are expansive, given room to breathe and explore quieter passages. For the first time, Mastodon don't sound like they're rushing to fit as many chords as possible into a song — tracks stretch to six, 10 and, in the case of album closer "The Last Baron," nearly 13 minutes. And that is most certainly a good thing.

We sat down with guitarist/singer Brent Hinds and drummer Brann Dailor last week at the Russian Tea Room in New York. We'll have a full-blown story and interview clips for you tomorrow, but we figured we'd give you a sneak preview right now. We asked Dailor to explain the rather heady concept behind Crack the Skye, and you can watch an exclusive clip of him laying it all out after the jump.
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By Daniela Capistrano

U.K. television star, fashionista and Afro-Punk-embracing songstress Ebony Thomas, a.k.a. Ebony Bones, is no stranger to the movement's DIY aesthetic, having crafted all the songs on her upcoming Spring '09 debut album — tentatively titled Bone Idle — in her bedroom.

"Different people wanted to be involved," Ebony explained. "Major labels were excited and driven by all the positive press, but the only way I could keep to my set ideas for sound and inspiration was to be the main producer myself."

Influenced by the punk credo of "Do It Yourself," Bones described the album as "schizo-sounding" and "like me, a collection of contradictions and subjects close to my heart."

During our phone interview, Ebony was working on the album art herself and described her creative process.

"The one thing about taking my time and not rushing into anything is I've been able to have so much more control creatively of the whole project, and that's the real magic for me. I love bands like Funkadelic who made their costumes in their own van and put them on the same night — very DIY."

(You can watch Ebony in our Afro-Punk news brief below.)

(More from Ebony Bones PLUS exclusive video from her recent shoot, after the jump!)
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We here at MTV News are a pretty diverse bunch, so the views expressed by some in our more official-type year-end lists (like James Montgomery's Top 25 Albums and Best Songs, and the Mixtape Monday Awards) are not necessarily shared by the rest of the newsroom. So, this week we gave everyone else a chance to chime in with their own lists and explain (or defend) their choices. You'll find all of the staff faves of 2008 here.

By Sabrina Rojas Weiss, Senior Copy Editor

10. The Ting Tings, We Started Nothing: I love singer Katie's shouty power and the way their beat makes me jump around like a little kid. "That's not my name!"

9. Chromeo, Fancy/ Fancier Footwork: With this playing on my headphones, I am instantly in an '80s movie montage. (The original came out last year, but I bought this year's "deluxe" set.)

8. Coldplay, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends: I avoided buying this for months because the hype bored me. But that soaring wall of sound in the title track finally got under my skin.

(What was Sabrina's #1 album from 2008? Find out after the jump!)
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By Daniela Capistrano

The Noisettes want Afro-Punk to come to England.

"We'll look after the lot," frontwoman Shingai winked when we last spoke to the band in October, backstage at the Afro-Punk showcase at the CMJ Festival in New York.

"[Afro-Punks] are such an amazing group of people who are doing something unbelievable," Shingai gushed. "I mean, the standard's good, man. All the events that we've been involved with have had great bands. They put on really interesting, eclectic, amazing events. It's like Earl Greyhound, Santogold, it's great. [Afro-Punk] knows how to show kids a good time. There's nothing like it in England. Nothing."

Guitarist Dan Smith sees the festival as a catalyst, helping to eradicate some old notions. "The [punk] music movement in America has always been perceived as being a white thing, and [Afro-Punk] is making it more inclusive," he said. "It's about people getting a wider understanding of rock and roll and its history and its roots, where it comes from and that anyone can do it. And it can be loads of fun, yeah?"

The CMJ crowd loved the Noisettes' live show (see some of it in the Afro-Punk video below), so we got on the phone with them Wednesday to talk about their new video for "Wild Young Hearts," their spring '09 album of the same name and their list of the artists they fell for in 2008.

We've got the goods on the Noisettes after the jump!
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By Matt Harper

Tomorrow is a big day for Baltimore "electronic" musician Dan Deacon. Please take note: I'm putting "electronic" in quotes because after tomorrow — when Dan takes the stage of the Brooklyn Masonic Temple with a full 14-piece ensemble — he can no longer be called an electronic musician ... which is the point of the whole thing, I suppose.

My co-worker and I got the opportunity to drive to Baltimore this week to check out Dan and his 14-piece entourage practice for the very first time for their upcoming show. So after two speeding tickets and a belly full of Waffle House, we made it to the practice space where Deacon would realize his vision of translating his pulsing, addictively danceable beats into live instrumentation.

(More from the Dan Deacon rehearsal, after the jump!) Read more...