Back in 1996, Mary J. Blige provided vocals to the hook of "Can't Knock the Hustle," the second single off of Jay-Z's debut album, Reasonable Doubt. 12 years, 12 Grammys and 70 million records sold later, Jigga Man and MJB are back at it again, co-headlining 25 shows across North America. Being billed as "The Heart of the City Tour," the former CEO of DefJam records and the Queen of Hip Hop Soul will......

A wonderful bird is a pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week; But I'm damned if I see how the helican. "The Pelican" (1910) by Dixon Lanire Merrith, often misattributed to Ogden Nash Modern pelicans are found on all continents except Antarctica. From the fossil record,[6] it is known that pelicans have been around for over 40 million years, the earliest......

Photographs from my plane ride back to Los Angeles....

Record shops and CD purveyors are going the way of the 8-track. Joining the now-defunct ranks of Aron's Records, Rhino Records and Tower on Sunset is the Virgin Megastore. The rent's too high (tell us something we don't know!) And maybe, the sluggish music sales don't help much, either. According to a Los Angeles Times story today: Another one bites the dust. The Virgin Megastore on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, just down the......

He's gone to Middle Earth and now he's back again: Peter Jackson has finally agreed to executive-produce not one, but TWO films of "The Hobbit." New Line Pictures, which produced the massively successful and critically acclaimed "Lord of the Rings" films, had originally dumped Jackson from the "Hobbit" sequels because of ongoing disputes over profits Jackson claimed he was owed for "The Fellowship of The Ring." But this morning's press release declares that all litigation......

Holidays have you indulging a little more than usual? Just in time for those New Year resolutions and post-holiday diets, the Wii Fit is expected to be released in North America in January. Released earlier this month in Japan, Wii Fit sold over a quarter million units in the first week. The game was designed for families to exercise with activities like stretching, yoga, step aerobics, push ups, jogging and much more. The additional......

The Geminid Meteor showers are set to peak this week, especially on Thursday and Friday. Um, great date night, anybody? Astronomers studying the phenomenon, David Levy and Stephen Edberg, are terribly enthused: "If you have not seen a mighty Geminid fireball arcing gracefully across an expanse of sky, then you have not seen a meteor.' Those guys are serious!!! "The Geminid Meteors are usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even surpassing......

This weekend I thought we'd take a break from the sea and the red thing to check out the animal kingdom version of Thanksgiving. Are these not the fattest racoons you have ever seen? It's as if they are a new species. Don't mess with Pedro racoons, man. - Elise The Raccoon (Procyon lotor), also known as the Northern Raccoon, Common Raccoon, Washer Bear or Coon, is a widespread, medium-sized, omnivorous mammal native to......

Interpol the international police organization is everywhere (186 member countries), even though you never really take notice of them. So it’s fitting that the post-punk rock band of the same name has reached similar ubiquitous status, though dipping still ever so slightly below the radar. But now it appears the secret is out. Ever since Interpol announced the release of Our Love to Admire in May, they’ve been scouring the world, touring virtually non-stop.......

On a sticky dance floor at the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Orange County this past Saturday, pretty girls screamed and jumped up and down in their too-high heels, hipster boys bobbed their heads as they sipped their Stellas, and baldish, grayish dad-types belted out memorized lyrics, flashing devil's horns of approval with both hands. They were all Iranians there to see Kiosk, a blues/rock outfit that started in the early '90s in Iran's underground......

Considering his films are rarely screened at theaters in the United States, most people haven't heard of the great Portuguese auteur and digital video innovator, Pedro Costa. Happily, a remedy for that is arriving tomorrow when the first comprehensive retrospective in North America of his work unspools at REDCAT. His documentary-style films often center on life in the slums of Lisbon and have received wide international acclaim. Screening schedule and extensive film info after......

Ever feel like you're cramped in a bus of 100 people? Imagine a bus where 100 could fit comfortably. As reported last week, the Orange Line in the Valley got a new bus to play with today. The gigantic 65-foot bus that will be in service for a one year pilot began taking passengers back and forth between the NoHo Arts District and Woodland Hills late this morning. To alleviate the high usage of......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

If you're looking for something artful to do today and not wanting the suspects, try the Mario Giacomelli exhibit, which is traveling to Carnegie Museum at the end of the week, so catch this while you can. The Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, located in Westwood, is presenting the first comprehensive exhibition of the work of Mario Giacomelli in North America. Giacomelli is considered one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. Hey,......

Q: What does an extra 5-feet in length do for bus capacity? A: 66 seated passengers, a 16 percent increase from the current 60-foot buses giving a total capacity of 100 seated and standing passengers. This morning, Metro announced via a press release that on Monday, a new demonstration bus will go into service in response to greater than anticipated customer demand. "The vehicle is the first-of-its-kind, designed exclusively to operate on the Orange Line,......

Tonight marks the first night of the Perseid meteor shower's peak viewing season in North America. Up to sixty meteors per hour will steadily begin appearing in tonight's August 11th sky around 10:00 PM, and will continue to make their presence known at least until Monday's dawn on August 13th. The Perseid meteor shower is named after the Perseus constellation and is essentially just a really long trail of cosmic debris. The shower is expected......

This is the story the record labels have always feared. Canadian rocker Matthew Good had been recording professionally in North America for the past 12 years. When his U.S. record deal with Atlantic Records expired, he had some choices to make: try to find a new label that would distribute his music in the States, try to get a new deal with Atlantic, try something totally different, or completely give up on getting his......

A park doesn't have to be hundreds of acres. It could be 100 sq. feet. A park doesn't or shouldn't have to have parking spaces available for people to access it. A park could be literally be in a parking space. And that's exactly what a group of Los Angeles activists are doing on Friday, September 21st along Wilshire Blvd. and other locations around the city for the first annual Park(ing) Day LA. Despite......

We didn't know how lucky we had it when the White Stripes came to Hollywood last month and took over the location formerly known as Tower Sunset and turned it into Icky Thump Records. OK, yes we did. But we had no idea how much more White Stripes love we were going to get compared to the other parts of North America in regards to these "secret shows". For example on their tour across......

Don't get me wrong, I love Beirut, but last Thursday I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend at Harmonia Mundi to the pre-screening of GYPSY CARAVAN...When The Road Bends. Written and directed by Jasmine Dellal of Little Dust Productions, the film is a documentary about five bands that play different kinds of Gypsy music, who united for a highly successful 6-week tour across North America. Descendents of the Roma, a group......

Show Date: Sunday 6/17/2007 Venue: the El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles $30 @ 8:00 p.m. Artist: Bebel Gilberto Album: Momento Label: Six Degrees Records I reviewed Bebel Gilberto's new CD, Momento, last month here on LAist and that CD review was supposed to coincide with her scheduled show at the El Rey but she broke her ankle in an accident and the show was rescheduled to this weekend. If her show is going to......

Breakdancers from the great continent of North America filled the Henry Fonda Theater on Saturday to battle each other at the Red Bull BC One Qualifier in Hollywood. As a white girl from suburban Philadelphia I think it's best if I let the photos and video handle most of the narrative as I would not like to embarrass myself by mixing up my coin drops with my turtle moves. That said, Spee-D of the......

Some interesting tech-related news from around the web this week. • Blackberry service had an outage this week in many parts of North America and for several tense hours, millions of users had to find something else to do with their thumbs. I feel their pain. But oddly, not in my thumbs. • Despite spending a boatload of cash to advertise Windows Vista, Microsoft has only managed to sell 244 legit copies of the......

Having achieved a degree of musical success in their pre-teen years that would make most adult musicians green with envy, Seattle indie rock duo Smoosh has become a musical sensation that manages to transcend the twin curses of both the tween and indie rock genres. Unlike the cloyingly precocious, prefab stars of Nickelodeon or the earnestly self-serious icons of indie rock, Smoosh has a unique sound that manages to be charmingly naive and authentically......

A live rehearsal and news conference to announce the Police Reunion World Tour is set for 11 am at Whisky a-Go-Go. Click here to watch the live webcast. The Police will start a world tour in Vancouver in May 28th, continuing through North America through the first week of August, then to the U.K. and Europe, returning to North America in late October. They will then continue on to Mexico, South America, Japan, Australia......

Watch as a fun party anthem is effortlessly transformed into a weirdly hostile beachfront bacchanal where Sondra Prill's command to "Make my day!" is more reminiscent of Dirty Harry than Technotronic. Oh, those sweet days when North America's beaches were dotted with neon bikinis, mirrored sunglasses and oiled musclemen.......

The Lakers are halfway through the “Coldest places in North America during the dead of winter” road trip to the Midwest and East. So far: four games, two wins. Not a stellar outcome, but not bad considering they have two starters (Luke Walton and Kwame Brown) watching games in street clothes, plus had to play one without Kobe Bryant (for an infraction far less serious than what LeBron James got away with without a suspension,......

It’s difficult to argue that KCRW, 89.9 FM, isn't one of the better things we, the citizens of Los Angeles, get to experience firsthand. Yeah, the station offers podcasts and streaming radio, but it’s not the same as actually living in the city the station is broadcast from. Not only does the station play some of the most innovative and unique music in the world, but broadcasts daily news and cultural information unable to......

Jagshemash! Borat is a hit. It's getting rave reviews, grossing millions, and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. In Shanghai, Borat would be observing Inane Learnings of Penis Photos for Make Benefit Glorious Flat World of......

Londonist prepares a Happy Birthday bath for Buddah this week and then things get all cliched. A madman goes on a rampage while axe-wiedling and London's mayor warns an American diplomat to avoid the kitchen if the heat bothers him so much. LAist has finally come around to purchasing tickets for Clipper Train. Hyper local dating sites are spamming L.A. neighborhoods and the fascinating Dame Darcy talks with LAist about art, the city and earthquakes.......