DAILYSESSION

By Nancy Dillon & Frank Lombardi – Daily News

Spike Lee‘s tribute to Michael Jackson is moving from Fort Greene Park to Prospect Park because big crowds are expected.

After the director announced plans for a celebration on Aug. 29, what would have been the King of Pop’s 51st birthday, some officials and community leaders pressed for a bigger venue. [Read More]

By TimeOut NewYork

On a hot, sticky night in 1988, the three 19-year-olds who made up De La Soul were getting nervous. The trio was about to play its first-ever gig, at an Irving Plaza dance party called Payday, and the main act—Stetsasonic, Tommy Boy Records’ big draw—hadn’t shown up. But even as the band waited in the wings, its troupe of dancers clutching giant cue cards with lyrics written on them—De La Soul knew it was onto something special. “I remember that night clearly,” MC Posdnuos (Kelvin Mercer to his mom) says today. “Being nervous and like, Wow, is this gonna go over well? But then we look into the crowd, and D.M.C. [of Run-D.M.C.] is in the front row! It was just amazing.” [Read More]

By Ben Detrick – The Village Voice

With his pink wardrobe, adoption of retro video-game character Sonic the Hedgehog as a spirit animal, and languid verses, Charles Hamilton was a newcomer built to thrive in a rap environment that has learned to tolerate a splash of DayGlo whimsy. The 21-year-old was cute and contempo and sensitive, but retained enough Harlem arrogance to escape being ostracized as a total pussy. After signing with Interscope Records in the summer of 2008, Hamilton spent the next year exuberantly building a reputation as an underdog smartass: He released several mixtapes, blogged with regularity, Twittered 50-some times a day, and reveled in the real-time furor he was able to create as a hip-hop fameball. [Read More]

By Julie Shapiro – The Villager

Bar owners seeking licenses will once again face tougher restrictions under a bill passed by the state Legislature this summer. 

The bill strengthens the 500-foot rule, which applies to bars and clubs if there are three or more existing liquor licenses nearby. The new legislation was prompted by a court ruling last November, which weakened the 500-foot rule and gave bar owners more leeway in neighborhoods that are densely packed with bars. [Read More]