Pastor Troy

T.I., Pink, Shakira Can't Shake Rascal Flatts From Billboard #1

26 Apr 2006 10:34:00 EDT

No new releases crack the top 10 on the upcoming Billboard albums chart.
By Chris Harris

It looks like there just weren't enough fresh albums to inspire many trips to the record store last week.

Not a single new release will crack the top 40 on the next Billboard albums chart. Nine newcomers debut within the chart's top 200, but the rundown of the nation's biggest sellers remains largely unchanged from the previous list, with country trio Rascal Flatts spending a third straight week at #1 thanks to sales of their Me & My Gang coming in at just over 143,000.

According to the latest SoundScan totals, the Dresden Dolls put up the week's highest opening performance. The band's sophomore disc, Yes, Virginia ..., bows at #42 with 19,000 scans. Wolves in Wolves' Clothing, the latest offering from veteran punks NOFX, debuts at #46 with sales nearing 18,000. The Drive-By Truckers' new one, A Blessing and a Curse, comes in at #50 after selling close to 17,000 copies.

Southern hip-hop duo Da Backwudz's Wood Work opens at #94 with over 9,000 sales, and rapper Pastor Troy's Stay Tru debuts at #150 with 6,000 scans. Singer/songwriter Mat Kearney's Nothing Left to Lose makes its mark in the #161 spot, after selling close to 6,000 copies, while gospel singer Anthony Burger's Best of Anthony Burger comes in at #188 with sales of 5,000 and change. Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs' collaborative Under the Covers, Vol. 1 pops up at #192 with close to 5,000 copies sold. Blood in Blood Out, by rappers Amb, just makes the cut, selling just shy of 5,000 to claim #199.

In all, the top 200 releases racked up close to 3.1 million in total sales — a drop of nearly 2 million from the previous week. Only a handful of albums scored sales increases — Rod Stewart's 2005 release, Thanks for the Memory: The Great American Songbook, Vol. IV, is among them, returning to the chart at #58 thanks to a 253 percent sales boost and close to 15,000 copies sold. The legendary singer's appearance last week on "American Idol" also helped sales of his 2004 album, Stardust ... The Great American Songbook, Vol. III, which reappears following a long Billboard lull. That album occupies the #113 spot, selling more than 8,000 copies — a 226 percent increase in retail movement.

Sales of Fort Minor's The Rising Tide jumped up by 45 percent, ending the week with nearly 9,000 scans, which sent the disc soaring 89 chart positions to #104. The band recently released its latest single, "Where'd You Go," to rock radio and video outlets.

All of the albums that make up the top 10 suffered a sales slip from the previous week. While the Flatts LP holds the #1 slot, retail interest waned 58 percent during its third week in stores. The 21st installment in the Now That's What I Call Music! compilation series — featuring hit singles from Mariah Carey, Black Eyed Peas, Kelly Clarkson and Fall Out Boy — climbs one spot to #2 despite a 56 percent sales lag, racking up 130,000 scans. The soundtrack to the Disney Channel original movie "High School Musical" moves from #4 to #3, with 116,000 copies sold, while Toby Keith's White Trash With Money follows at #4 with week-two sales of 109,000.

T.I.'s King hangs tough at #5 with 86,000 copies sold, just in front of Tim McGraw's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2: Reflected, which netted another 59,000 scans. James Blunt's Back to Bedlam follows at #7, with sales nearing 54,000, while Shakira's Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 claims the #8 spot after moving 52,000 copies. Canadian songwriter Daniel Powter's self-titled debut holds at #9, selling 47,000 discs its second week in stores. Pink rounds out the top 10 with 42,000 copies of I'm Not Dead sold.

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For The Record: Quick News On Paris Hilton, Baby, Pastor Troy, P.O.D., Courtney Love, The Alarm & More

23 Feb 2004 17:32:00 EST

By MTV News staff report

Not that she needs the money, but Paris Hilton has sold her book proposal for just under a million dollars. The hotel heiress' book, now called "Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose," will come out as a 208-page hardcover in September via Simon & Schuster. ...

Baby's got a new pair of shoes. The Cash Money rapper/executive will launch a signature sneaker on May 15 in association with the Lugz shoe company. The design is described by Lugz as being "clean cut." Included with every pair of kicks will be a "bling bling" Cash Money stack clip, presumably for holding the leftover money that isn't spent on the $70 pair of shoes. ... Rapper Pastor Troy and two of his bodyguards were arrested in Fayetteville, Georgia, late Friday night when less than an ounce of marijuana was found in a yellow Ford F-650 truck in which they were riding. The MC, who was featured on the Lil Jon hit "Throw It Up," is accused by Fayette County sheriff's deputies of also giving a fake identity. Pastor Troy, whose real name is Micah Levar Troy, only admitted his identity after passersby kept yelling out his rap moniker and cops discovered a copy of his CD in his truck. Pastor Troy faces one count of misdemeanor drug possession and one count of giving police a fictitious name. He was brought into county jail and later posted bond. ...

P.O.D. will head out with Lacuna Coil, Blindside and Hazen Street on May 1 in Denver after they wrap up their current tour with Linkin Park. The bands will play around 40 shows in total. ... Cold will launch a tour with Sevendust on April 7. Dates will run through the first week in June, according to a post on Cold's Web site. ...

After playing two solo shows last week in Los Angeles — one at the Viper Room on Thursday, another at the Roxy on Friday — Courtney Love addressed her misdemeanor drug charges in an L.A. courtroom on Monday (February 23). Her new lawyer, Michael Rosenstein, asked for more time, which was granted despite objections from the prosecution. A trial date has been set for March 8. Meanwhile, a wedding date for the singer has been set as well — for the ceremony she's going to officiate as part of a radio contest promotion with 23 stations across the country, that is. Love will perform the wedding ceremony on May 8 in Lake Tahoe, California, for a group of winners, according to her label rep. ... Meanwhile, Scott Weiland got a trial date for his drug charges as well. The singer will stand trial for his charge of driving while under the influence of drugs starting March 15, according to the Los Angeles city attorney's office. ...

As pursuant to a settlement reached by the five major music distributors and the plaintiffs of an anti-trust lawsuit filed against them in 2000, some 3.5 million people who bought recorded music between 1995 and 2000 were mailed a refund check for $13.86 on Friday. The suit alleged that the distributors conspired to raise the prices of vinyl records, CDs and cassettes by imposing a minimum pricing policy. ... '80s rock band the Alarm have landed their first top-30 hit in their native U.K. in 15 years, and all they had to do was change their name. The band recorded the track "45RPM" under the name the Poppy Fields, and for the video used teenage stand-ins to mouth the lyrics. The Alarm claim they disguised themselves as a younger group simply to prove that the pop-music industry is biased against older musicians. ...

02.20.2004

And the New York Yankees thought they had a heck of a lineup. Don't make Dr. Dre laugh. He's bolstered his Aftermath label roster, which already includes 50 Cent and Eminem, by officially inking a deal with Busta Rhymes. No official word yet on Busta's impending LP. ...

Those who caught some recent John Mayer shows may have encountered songs they didn't know by heart. Mayer has been road-testing tracks that may surface on the successor to last year's Heavier Things. He's also stressing the "writer" part of his omnipresent "singer/songwriter" descriptor with a monthly column for Esquire magazine, set to start with the June issue. ... Courtney Love played a solo show at Los Angeles' Viper Room on Thursday. The singer, with a new band, played selections from her solo debut, America's Sweetheart, as well as material from her former band Hole. ... Serjical Strike Records, the label owned by System of a Down singer Serj Tankian, will release the second album by Bad Acid Trip on April 20. The 17-track disc was produced by SOAD guitarist Daron Malakian. ...

The Dave Matthews Band has released plans for its third consecutive summer tour, set to kick off on June 17 in Maryland Heights, Missouri, and wrap on September 5, in George, Washington. The 42-date trek will follow Matthews' solo performance at the fourth annual Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. ... Fans of Danger Mouse's The Grey Album — a mix of vocals from Jay-Z's The Black Album with music from the Beatles' The White Album — are being asked to take part in the Grey Tuesday protest (Greytuesday.org) by posting the album on fan sites for 24 hours beginning Tuesday. Downhill Battle, a music activism project, organized the protest after EMI issued a cease-and-desist order. The protest aims to act as a "day of coordinated civil disobedience" to major labels who want to "control what musicians can create" by limiting their use of samples. ...

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Bubba Sparxxx Makes New Money With Pastor Troy, Youngbloodz's Sean Paul

11 Nov 2003 21:17:00 EST

Group, which also includes G-Walk, Polo, currently has nine songs in the can.
By Joseph Patel

Much has been said about the new generation of the Dirty South, the rappers who have benefited from the success of groups like Outkast and Goodie Mob. Now, some of them are uniting under the tutelage of super-hitmaker Timbaland to form the "new South" all-star group, New Money.

Bubba Sparxxx, Sean Paul from the Youngbloodz and Pastor Troy are hooking up for the side project, which formed last summer when Sparxxx and the Youngbloodz dropped a white label of the song of the same name for a DJ Enuff mixtape. Also in the mix are newcomers G-Walk and producer Polo.

"We've got nine songs now and hopefully we'll finish up the rest real soon," Sparxxx said. He hinted that the New Money album would come out through Interscope — where he finds his home through Timbaland's Beat Club Records — in early 2004, though a label spokesperson couldn't confirm that.

"One day Bubba told me he had a dream that we and G-Walk were in a group together," Sean Paul of the Youngbloodz said. "Then it all came together. We were out one night actin' a fool, spendin' plenty of money. We were spendin' that new money because the old money was gone."

In other Bubba Sparxxx news, it seems he and Blink-182 are becoming fast friends. Not only did the punk-pop group take Bubba on tour (see "Blink-182 Mix Maturity, Mohawks While Bubba Gets Jiggly At NYC Dollar Date"), they will remix his next single, "Back in the Mud."

"It's a big thing for them to help me out," Bubba said. "I had given up on people being genuine and really doing things with the good of their heart, and here's a situation where they told me they heard the album and fell in love with it."

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The King Crowned #1 On Billboard Albums Chart

02 Oct 2002 13:23:00 EDT

Elvis 30 #1 Hits to grace top of chart after having sold more than 500,000 copies its first week in stores.
By Joe D'Angelo

Although Elvis Presley "left the building" for good some 25 years ago, the King has made his way back into record stores in a big way.

Elvis 30 #1 Hits, a best-of compilation featuring such favorites as "Hound Dog," "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Jailhouse Rock," as well as JXL's remix of "A Little Less Conversation" that became a World Cup hit in the U.K. this summer, will grace the top of next week's Billboard 200 albums chart after having sold more than half a million copies its first week in stores, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday (October 2). Contrary to the advertising slogan attached to the album, "Before anyone did anything, he did everything," Presley never had an LP debut in the #1 position on the albums chart ...until now. The King's collection also reigned supreme on charts in 16 other territories, including the U.K., Canada, France, Australia, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.

Elvis' return will keep the Dixie Chicks' Home at the #2 position, with weekly sales of more than 133,000 copies, and Avril Lavigne's Let Go at #3, totaling at 124,000 copies. The current #1 album, Disturbed's Believe, will drop three spots to #4, having sold more than 117,000 copies, less than half of its previous chart-topping total.

India.Arie's second album, Voyage to India, will make its chart debut at #6, with more than 109,000 in sales. The neo-soul diva's follow-up to last year's Acoustic Soul was met with high expectations and its first single, "Little Things," apparently didn't come up short.

Post-modern poster boy Beck will land at #8 with his seventh album and first in almost three years, Sea Change, while Peter Gabriel's Up, the successor to his soundtrack to the Australian indie film "Rabbit-Proof Fence," which was released in April, will make its chart debut at #9. Nas' The Lost Tapes, composed of hardly stale leftovers from 1999's I Am ... and last year's Stillmatic, will find itself at #10, with more than 70,000 copies sold in its first week out.

Nelly's Nellyville will take a step back to #5 and Eminem's The Eminem Show will take two to #7 to round out the top 10.

The deepest dives in next week's top 20 come courtesy of Ludacris' posse Disturbing Tha Peace, whose Golden Grain will drop six spots to #12, and Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 10, which will move the same distance down to #20.

Spiritual MC Pastor Troy's fifth album, Universal Soldier, will represent the Dirty South at #13, with more than 52,000 copies sold, while the soundtrack to "Brown Sugar," which features contributions from Mos Def, Common and the Roots, who also appear in the film about the hip-hop industry, will enter the chart at #18.

Ryan Adams' Demolition, the improper follow-up to last year's Gold, will place at #28. Constructed of songs from unreleased studio sessions following the recording of Gold, Demolition, featuring first single "Nuclear," moved more than 27,000 copies.

Kid Rock DJ Uncle Kracker's No Stranger to Shame, his second solo album, will come in at #43, thanks to first single "In a Little While," whose video features Kracker's friend and labelmate Willa Ford.

Lifehouse's Stanley Climbfall did more falling than climbing after debuting last week at #7. The band's follow-up to 2000's No Name Face will drop 23 spots to #30, while its weekly total was cut by approximately 65 percent, from almost 75,000 to more than 26,000.

Enrique Iglesias' Quizas also shows a tremendous lack of staying power, as the Spanish-language album will plummet to #52 with a 19,000 weekly tally, after debuting at #12 with more than 48,000 copies sold. A reissue of John Mayer's first EP, Inside Wants Out, doesn't fare much better. After fans without it snatched up enough copies for a #22 debut, it will slide down to #86.

Other notable chart debuts include country star Travis Tritt's Strong Enough at #27; Jackson Browne's first studio LP in six years, Naked Ride Home, at #36; Queen's three-disc best-of Greatest Hits I, II & III: The Platinum Collection at #48; the soundtrack to "Once More With Feeling," the musical episode of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," at #49; dark-side troubadour Steve Earle's Jerusalem, featuring the controversial "John Walker's Blues," at #59; Chicago's double album The Very Best Of: Only the Beginning at #63; Southern rappers UGK's fifth album, Side Hustles, at #70; firearm-fixated Tech N9ne's Absolute Power at #79; the "Sweet Home Alabama" soundtrack, featuring Jewel covering Lynyrd Skynyrd's title track and a new song from Avril Lavigne, at #97; "Jackass" affiliates CKY's Infiltrate-Destroy-Rebuild at #99; B-Legit's confessional Hard 2 B-Legit at #111; Bonnaroo Music Festival 2002, a live LP captured during this summer's jam-band festival, at #117; trance duo Underworld's A Hundred Days Off at #122; former Old 97's frontman Rhett Miller's Instigator at #126; rootsy rockers Tonic's Head on Straight at #141; Primus bassist Les Claypool's solo foray, Purple Onion, at #145; and nü-metallers Project 86's third album, Truthless Heroes, at #146.

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Pastor Troy Does For Georgia What Jay-Z Did For Marcy

23 Sep 2002 21:14:00 EDT

Rapper releases Universal Soldier on Tuesday.
By Soren Baker

Pastor Troy has an idea why he's a Georgia phenomenon but has been unable to break nationally with his ultra-crunk music.

"I kick it pretty hard, man," the Atlanta rapper/label owner said. "I had to come with something more club, more radio-friendly. I accomplished that with a joint produced by Timbaland."

Indeed, the thumping "Are We Cuttin'," which also features Ms. Jade, has been making waves in the South and was also featured on the soundtrack for "XXX." The high-energy cut, culled from Pastor Troy's Universal Soldier album, due in stores September 24, has helped Troy garner attention in regions that normally wouldn't embrace him.

"I needed that to do exactly what it's doing: broadening my horizons, pumping me up in different areas," Troy said. "It's doing that."

But there's more than a single cut to lure hip-hop fans to Troy's percolating party. Timbaland also appears on and produced the bass-heavy "Tell 'Em It's On," and UGK's Bun B teams with Troy on the bouncy "If I Wasn't Rappin'."

Long-time Troy fans will also be pleased. "Who, What, When, Where" contains the type of stripped-down drama Troy is famous for, while "I Pray For" features the spiritual son of a pastor extending a hand to God. "I pray for peace and equality, opportunity," he raps on the cut. "Everything that I feel is due to me/ Both of my parents, mother and father/ Praying to God."

For Troy, balancing street raps and God comes naturally. "There's a lot of pain in the South, a lot of history, religion," he said. "Growing up like that, it's going to be related back in the music.

"I look at it as the most personal relationship that you can have," Troy continued. "God knows my heart. I hope that one day I'll be a model citizen in his eyes. Hopefully my good will outweigh my bad and he'll let me into heaven. The good I thank Him for. The bad I apologize for."

The bad to which Troy refers was his first money-making enterprise: selling drugs. But the pain and violence which hustling brought weighed heavily on his mind, as he saw people die from the game often depicted in the most positive ways in rap songs. Troy gave up slanging when he found out he could make more money selling CDs. About four years ago, he pressed up 2,000 CDs and sold 1,000 of them in one weekend. His take-home cash: $10,000.

"That little dope that I got hidden over there, you can have that sh--," he remembered thinking. "Music got me that day. I'm rapping."

Troy quickly became a favorite in Georgia, largely because of his 1999 album, We Ready I Declare War, which included the Master P dis, "No Mo Play in GA." Although the song earned him his rep, it also caused complications when he was trying to get label deals. At the time, Master P was one of the hottest acts, and it was widely rumored that P told Universal Records — which signed Troy — not to work with the up-and-coming rapper. Even though We Ready I Declare War was pulled from record store shelves before gaining national steam, Troy had already established himself as a Southern star.

Subsequent D.S.G.B. (Down South Georgia Boys) and the Congregation compilations on his own MADD Society Records established him as an independent powerhouse before Universal re-signed him and released his Face Off album in 2001.

By staying in the streets, distributing his own CDs and repping Georgia to the fullest, Troy did for Atlanta what Jay-Z did for Marcy Projects.

"I represent Georgia so hard that little dudes that are graduating from high school tell me, 'Georgia want me to come down there to go to school. I'm going because of you,' " Troy said. "University of Georgia owes me some money. I done sent them about four or five stars. The football team down there loves me."

And there's little chance Troy's fans will get upset with their own underground champion getting the exposure he's gunning for with Universal Soldier.

"They ain't got no problem with seeing me on MTV," Troy said. "They'll love it because they know I'ma be actin' a damn fool."

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Pastor Troy

Ms. Jade, Nelly Furtado Battle Timbaland On Video Set

23 Sep 2002 15:12:00 EDT

Jade calls in salon sisters for backup in 'Ching, Ching.'
By Shaheem Reid

Now that she's chasing people with Hummers and using Nelly Furtado to help double-team Timbaland in a verbal fight, Ms. Jade has sure come far since her days making videos as a junior miss.

"I was in the house making videos before I knew I wanted to [make music for living]," Jade said last Thursday in Los Angeles, where she just finished shooting the clip for "Ching, Ching" with director Mark Classon. Currently, the first female to emerge from Timbo's Beat Club imprint can be seen acting as a daredevil in the video for Pastor Troy's "Are We Cuttin'."

"It's [about] getting comfortable in front of all the people," she said. "I used to be in the house with the Camcorder, putting on silk pajamas, doing my own videos. I was lipsynching Total and Lil' Kim, making little mini videos."

In the full-scale production for "Ching, Ching," Jade and Timbaland play a couple who are on the outs. "He's my man in the video," she iterates, so that people won't confuse their onscreen romance with their brother/sister relationship off camera. (Click here for photos from the video shoot)

"The concept is basically showing how I got to not wanting to be with him no more," the Philadelphia native explained. "The video is, I catch him with three girls just chillin' in the car. I drop the kids off. We get in a car chase. He's driving in a Hummer, I'm driving in a Hummer — it was like a video/Hummer commercial.

"I go get my girls from the hair salon," she continued. "We're about to fight the other girls. It's crazy, some regular ghetto stuff. I go to his crib and smash all types of stuff up. I get to vent on this one."

Nelly Furtado, who sings the cut's hook, also helps Jade to release some steam.

"Nelly is a girl on my side," Jade said. "You see her walking with the headphones on, and then when [me and Timbaland] are arguing, she's backing me up. Then when she's talking to him, I'm backing her up. It's like a big argument in the middle of the street. You see people coming out with shower caps and robes, then people get locked up.

"I worked with her before," Jade explained. "I was on tour with her, but we really had fun. The video was all night, and I never did no night shoot, so I was sleepy as hell."

Jade didn't get any shuteye either on the set of "Are We Cuttin'," but she did get "high."

"Man, they had me doing all types of crazy sh--, but it was cool," she said of working with director Marc Klasfeld on the Pastor Troy clip. "They cut this part out, but they had me 30 feet in the air on this harness thing. We had to go up 30 feet in the air, carrying a glass. Three times I had to do it. Then they had us jumping [off the] roof on this fake platform thing. It wasn't that far, but it was far enough. I'd seen three people do it before me, so I said I wanted to do it."

"Ching, Ching" is the second single from Jade's debut, Girl Interrupted, which is now due October 22 (see "Ms. Jade's 'Big Head' Is Meant To Move Your Big Butt"). Aside from her own solo endeavors, she has also recently laid vocals on tracks for Slum Village and Petey Pablo.

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