Almost a year after he revealed he was making "sexier" songs, we'll get to see how much of a love daddy Wyclef Jean really is when he releases his third solo album, Masquerade, on June 18. ... Q-Tip and Spike Lee have been hard at work shooting what will be a 12- to 15-minute short film/video for Tip's second solo album, Kamaal the Abstract, due April 23. Filming began in December and will resume shortly. ... Beck will perform two shows in the Los Angeles area this week to warm up for his February 26 Recording Artists Coalition benefit with Eddie Vedder and Mike Ness. Beck's official Web site, www.beck.com, is giving away five pairs of tickets to each of the gigs in San Juan Capistrano (February 21) and Hollywood (February 24). ...

Ginuwine joined P. Diddy as the mogul shot the sequel to his "I Need a Girl" remix video this weekend in Miami with director Benny Boom. It will be the second release from Diddy's P. Diddy and the Family Present: This Is the Remix, which is now set to drop May 7. ... No Doubt's Adrian Young and his wife welcomed a son, Mason James Young, into their lives on February 16. The Mohawked drummer, dressed in hospital attire at Thursday's Love Rocks concert, said he had been in the hospital with his newborn son all week and was going to bring him home after their show. ...

He can plant a house, he can build a tree: A cover of Nirvana's "Breed" is among the nuggets featured on roots rocker Steve Earle's rarities collection, Side Tracks, due April 9. The LP also features Earle's new single, "Some Dreams," which will be featured in the Dennis Quaid movie "The Rookie." ... Rancid's Tim Armstrong and New Found Glory's Jordan Pundik provide guest vocals on a track tentatively titled "Don't Leave Her" on the debut album from Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge's side project, Boxcar Racer. Blink bassist Mark Hoppus also sings on the record. ... Chaos Comics will launch a Static-X comic book series in July. In other Static-X news, the band announced they will hold meet-and-greets with their fans on the remaining dates of their current tour. ...

"Scratch," a turntablism documentary from director Doug Pray ("Hype!"), will be screened to hip-hop audiences before Dilated Peoples take the stage each night on their upcoming tour, which kicks off March 5 in San Francisco and is running through the Winter Music Conference in Miami later in the month. Turntablists GrandWizzard Theodore, Z-Trip and Jazzy Jay are scheduled for all of the dates, while Mix Master Mike, DJ Swamp, DJ Craze and Q-Bert will perform in various cities. ... Back and Forth, the first full-length studio album from English DJ Tall Paul, will feature the hit club single "Precious Heart," which samples INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart." The album is due April 23. ...

02.19.02

Ja Rule and Charli Baltimore are setting out to be the hip-hop version of Mickey and Mallory — the clip for Ja's "Down Ass Chick," featuring Charli B-more, will be a takeoff of Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers," according to a source close to Ja. Over the course of the three-day shoot, which begins February 22 in L.A., he'll also film the remix video with Baltimore, Vita and Ashanti, according to Def Jam; Murder Inc. CEO Irv Gotti will direct both. ... If you're dreaming of becoming a professional DJ, it's time to take your skills out of the bedroom and into the classroom. For the next two months in New York City, celebrity DJs including Jam Master Jay, Kuttin' Kandi, Mista Sinista and Evil Dee will lead courses in disciplines such as battle, mixtape and performance (visit www.scratch.com for more information). ...

Indie music festival Noise Pop 2002 takes place next week (February 26-March 3) in San Francisco with performances by the Dismemberment Plan, New Pornographers and Big Star, among others, and to commemorate its decade-long tenure, a double-disc Ten Years of Noise Pop will be available locally and through the festival's Web site (www.noisepop.com). A portion of the proceeds from the album, which features cuts from past performers including Guided by Voices, the Flaming Lips and Creeper Lagoon, benefits the Popular Noise Foundation (www.popularnoise.org), a nonprofit charity that provides aid to the Bay Area music scene. ... Dixie Chick Natalie Maines will appear in the first celebrity edition of the TLC series "Trading Spaces," according to The Associated Press. Maines will race to redecorate a room in her mother's home (and vice versa) in 48 hours for $1,000 or less in an episode airing April 20. ...

P. Diddy, Rah Digga and female R&B quartet LovHer were among the guests who came out to support Jay-Z and the Roc-A-Fella family at a Roc-A-Wear fashion show in New York Thursday night. Jay and company partied up at the Metropolitan Pavilion while the men's and women's fall 2002 lines were introduced. ... "Rush Hour" star Chris Tucker will host the 33rd annual NAACP Image Awards on February 23 at the Universal Amphitheater. The ceremony, scheduled to air March 1 on Fox, will feature music-world appearances by Alicia Keys, India.Arie and the Isley Brothers as well as Steve Harvey, the Rock, Jamie Foxx and Angela Bassett. ...

There's nothing funny about the popular appeal of crossover heavyweight Jennifer Lopez — she'll be crowned Female Star of the Year by the film industry's power elite at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas. She and previously announced Male Star of the Year Will Smith will be honored at a banquet next month in recognition of their drawing power at the box office. ... The soundtrack for Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz" — a filmed concert by the Band which featured a cavalcade of special guests including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and Muddy Waters — will be remixed and released with bonus tracks on April 16. The movie will be released on DVD May 7. ...

Liverpool's arty synth-poppers Clinic will support their second album, Walking With Thee (due February 26), with a three-week Stateside jaunt that begins March 13 in Atlanta. The tour includes a showcase at music-biz conference South by Southwest on March 15. ... El Meswy, Spain's best-selling hip-hop artist, was in the studio recently recording Se Habla Español, his follow-up to 2000's Nadie. M-1 and Stic.man of Dead Prez were on hand to lend lyrical support to the as-yet-untitled project. ...

My Bloody Valentine founder Kevin Shields has recorded "Outro," an instrumental, for the compilation album You Don't Need Darkness to Do What You Think Is Right, which comes out April 1. Other artists who will appear on the LP include the Pastels, Future Pilot AKA and Jesus and Mary Chain partners Jim and William Reid recording as Sister Vanilla. ... Sting, Elton John, James Taylor and Ravi Shankar comprise the first wave of artists announced to perform at the Police-man's annual Rainforest Foundation Benefit Concert, which will take place at New York's Carnegie Hall on April 13.

• Wyclef Jean
• Q-Tip
• Beck
• Ginuwine
• Diddy

Just in time for Tuesday's presidential election, Steve Earle has released a video to accompany "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)," a tune sung from the perspective of a man about to be executed.

"It seemed like a good time to release it," Earle said of the video, which features pictures and names of 140 prisoners executed in Texas since presidential candidate George W. Bush became the state¹s governor in 1995.

The clip ends with the words "Under George W. Bush, the state of Texas has executed 140 men and women, more than any other state in the nation. Almost every executed person was poor."

Representatives for the Bush campaign did not return phone calls by press time.

"Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)," from the singer's latest album Transcendental Blues, is based on Earle's relationship with Jonathan Nobles, who was executed on October 7, 1998 for the murders of two women. The video, which can be found at www.steveearle.com/yonder.ram, includes Nobles' picture.

The video has not been sent to major music networks like Country Music Television or VH1, said a spokesperson for the singer. A portion of it was included in an October 20 "Nightline" episode profiling Earle.

The clip is available on the commercial video "Steve Earle and the Dukes: Transcendental Blues Live," filmed at a July 26 concert at Convocation Hall in Toronto, Ontario. Both the "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)" and "Transcendental Blues" [RealVideo] clips are included at the end of the tape.

Earle befriended Nobles in 1988, and wrote in an article in the September/October issue of Tikkun magazine that while he was certain that Nobles was guilty, he was equally sure Nobles had become a changed man by the time of his death, having converted to Christianity and become a lay minister in prison. Earle was present as a witness at Nobles' execution at Huntsville Prison.

The article is scheduled to be reprinted in the January issue of the Utne Reader.

While Nobles' is the only execution the singer has witnessed, Earle has befriended other convicts on death row.

"Sometimes I regret having gotten into it," he said from his Nashville office, because of the emotional cost. "It's very hard."

Earle has long advocated the abolition of the death penalty, and has worked with Journey of Hope, an anti-capital punishment organization comprised of families of victims whose killers received death sentences. He was also active in the Illinois Moratorium Project, which advocated a halt to executions in Illinois after it was revealed that several convicted offenders on death row were innocent. Illinois Governor George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions on January 31.

Earle said he understands politicians who say they support the death penalty for political reasons. "Most of the people I worked with on the moratorium weren't abolitionists," he said. "They were people who support the death penalty but were willing to admit that the system had problems."

But he said that the number of executions in Texas far exceeds the number in other states with comparable populations, and that he's disturbed by Bush's attitude toward the death penalty. In an interview with Talk magazine, Bush mocked Karla Faye Tucker, who was executed in 1998, and in the first presidential debate (October 3) smirked when talking about the death penalty.

"Anyone who takes pleasure in the death penalty f---ing frightens me," Earle said. Earle is writing a play about Tucker.

At the October 17 debate in St. Louis, Missouri, Bush adamantly denied that he was proud of the death penalty, and said "some of the hardest moments since I've been the governor of the state of Texas is to deal with those cases."

The total number of executions since Bush took office rose to 145 on Wednesday (November 1), when Jeffrey Dillingham was put to death for the 1992 murder of a Fort Worth woman. Ten more executions are scheduled between November 8 and January 22, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Web site.

Between 1982 and early 1995, 88 prisoners were executed in Texas.

"Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)," isn't Earle's first song about the death penalty. His 1990 album The Hard Way included the tune "Billy Austin," also sung from the point of view of a man on death row. He also wrote the song "Ellis Unit One," about a prison worker on death row, for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack.

But even though Earle is well known for his political songs, he's no one-trick pony, he said.

"I've written way more songs about girls than about anything else," he said. "But I do write about other things. That's how I was brought up, and that's how it should be."

In concert, Earle often prefaces the song with brief comments describing his opposition to the death penalty, which occasionally brings jeers or shouts of disagreement from the crowd.

"Sometimes I handle it better than others," Earle laughed. "But people who think they can shout down somebody with a microphone really irritate the f--- out of me."

Earle said he hasn't made up his mind about the presidential election, but said he'll probably end up voting for Vice President Al Gore.

"My politics are just slightly to the left of anybody who's running," he said. "Actually, they're way to the left."

• Steve Earle

This year's legendary Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island will have a decidedly modern twist with the addition of contemporary artists Wilco, Beth Orton, and Steve Earle to the lineup.

• Steve Earle
• Beth Orton
• Wilco