By BRETT JOHNSON, For The Associated Press 29 minutes ago

Erykah Badu, “New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War)” (Universal/Motown)

On her fourth studio album, “New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War),” Erykah Badu moves even further away from the neo-soul conventions she helped usher in more than a decade ago.

Instead of re-treading the simple melodies and succinct, pop song structures from her 1997 debut, “Baduizm,” she has mined an increasingly looser approach with each subsequent release. “Mama’s Gun” (2000) ends with a 10-minute suite, and “Worldwide Underground” (2003) is a moody, 50-minute EP full of rambling grooves and hazy lyrics.

More than ever though, Badu challenges fans to keep up with her creative impulses. Those who do will be richly rewarded for their effort. The CD is more daring than the album’s current single, “Honey.” Hidden as the disc’s closing bonus track, it’s almost an anomaly given the preceding material.

Dark, mesmerizing head-nodders largely produced by hip-hop eccentrics Madlib and Shafiq Husayn and Taz Arnold of Sa-Ra Creative Partners dominate “New Amerykah.” Incantatory chants, esoteric spoken-word rants and Badu’s quirky vocals — whether achy blues or mumbled coos — add to the funky jumble.

Indeed, it’s a brilliant mess where songs often switch tempo midstream then settle back on-track. Yet the disc is also where Badu’s lefty socio-politics (”The Cell”), messages of self-acceptance (”Me”) and the power of perseverance (”Soldier”) reveal an artist willing to share herself as the unfinished article. On the hypnotic “Master Teacher,” she confesses: “See, I’ve been in search of myself/ for it’s just too hard for me to find … cause I’m in the search of something new.” This effort is certainly a huge step in the right direction.

CHECK THIS OUT: Over the horn-accented “Me,” a strikingly honest Badu reflects on past relationships with her baby-daddies, Andre 3000 and the D.O.C.: “Had two babies, different dudes/ and thought for both my love was true … hey, that’s me.”

By DERRIK J. LANG, AP Entertainment Writer 13 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - It could’ve gone down as one of the harshest moments in Oscar history.

The orchestra swelled just as petite Best Original Song co-winner Marketa Irglova stepped up to the microphone to speak following partner Glen Hasard. The pair won for their tune “Falling Slowly” from indie musical “Once,” but only Hasard was granted speech time during the ceremony.

“This is amazing. Make art. Make art. Thanks,” he said.

A polite “thank you” was all Irglova could muster before being played out by the orchestra, led by conductor Bill Conti. After a commercial break, host Jon Stewart brought the 19-year-old Czech musician back on stage for a second chance to give an acceptance speech.

She took full advantage.

“The fact that we’re standing here tonight, the fact that we’re able to hold this, it’s just proof that no matter how far out your dreams are, it’s possible,” Irglova said during take two. “And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream, and don’t give up. This song was written from the perspective of hope, and hope, at the end of the day, connects us all, no matter how different we are.”

Irglova’s second-chance speech lasted just over a minute. She says she was just as surprised as everyone else in the audience about the spontaneous and rare reprieve.

“When I went backstage, they said they were going to have me go back out,” Irglova said after the incident. “It was great to get that chance, and I’m very grateful to them for doing that.”

___

AP writer Beth Harris in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer 48 minutes ago

PYONGYANG, North Korea - The New York Philharmonic arrived in North Korea Monday, becoming the most prominent American cultural institution to visit the isolated, nuclear-armed country.

North Korea made unprecedented accommodations for the orchestra, allowing a delegation of nearly 300 people, including musicians, staff and journalists to fly into Pyongyang on a chartered plane for 48 hours.

The Philharmonic’s concert Tuesday will be broadcast live on North Korea’s state-run TV and radio, unheard of in the impoverished country, where events are carefully choreographed to bolster the personality cult of leader Kim Jong Il.

The Philharmonic accepted the North’s invitation to play last year with the encouragement of the U.S. government at a time of rare optimism in the long-running nuclear standoff involving the two countries.

After successfully testing an atomic bomb in October 2006, North Korea shut down its main nuclear reactor in July and is working to disable it in exchange for aid and removal from U.S. terrorism and sanctions blacklists.

But disarmament has stalled this year due to what Washington says is North Korea’s failure to give a full declaration of its atomic programs to be eventually dismantled, something it promised to do under an international agreement.

The visit comes as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended Monday’s inauguration of South Korea’s new president, Lee Myung-bak. She said before leaving Washington that she had no plans to stop in Pyongyang during a trip that also takes her to China and Japan.

“I don’t think we should get carried away with what listening to Dvorak is going to do in North Korea,” Rice, a classical pianist herself, said Friday, while also conceding the benefit of the event in giving North Koreans a window to the outside world.

The concert will feature Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 and “An American in Paris” by George Gershwin. Among the encores planned is the Korean folk song “Arirang,” beloved in both the North and South.

The performance will begin with the orchestra playing the national anthems of both countries and the U.S. and North Korean flags will stand together on stage, said the Philharmonic’s president and executive director, Zarin Mehta.

Ahead of their arrival, North Korea was even tearing down the anti-American posters that line the streets of Pyongyang, Mehta said Sunday, citing a diplomat based there who briefed the orchestra before its departure from Beijing, the last stop on a tour of the greater China region.

Such posters typically portray iron-faced North Korean soldiers with rifles poised to strike cowering Americans or crushing Washington’s Capitol dome.

Mehta told reporters Monday before leaving Beijing that politics was not part of the trip. “We are going to do master classes, we’ll do chamber music, rehearsals … that’s what we’re there for. Politics is not our game, we play music,” he said.

Besides the master classes for North Korean students, members of the orchestra will also play chamber music with members of the North’s State Symphony Orchestra.

The Asiana Airlines plane from South Korea landed in overcast conditions with light snow. Footage from broadcaster APTN showed North Korean officials putting a staircase next to the plane and holding a discussion for several minutes before people started to get off the plane.

It was not known whether North Korean leader Kim would attend the concert, and Philharmonic spokesman Eric Latzky said the group had not directly extended an invitation to him.

The Swedish Embassy, which handles U.S. interests in the North because the countries have no formal diplomatic relations, was discussing the guest list for the event with the North Korean Foreign Ministry, he said.

Musicians preparing for the trip said they hoped personal contacts with North Koreans could help bring the countries closer.

“I think the openness is the most important issue here, and this is going to be the groundbreaking start of the whole thing. We’re making music together and playing for the people and I think that this will be a great, great contribution,” Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow said at the Beijing airport.

But some also worried their performance would fail to cause any positive change in the country where famine in the 1990s is believed to have killed as many as 2 million people.

“I’ve had a lot of moral reservations based on wondering what a concert for the elite is going to do to help the people starving in the street,” said Irene Breslau, 58, a violist.

50 minutes ago

BEIJING (Reuters) - The New York Philharmonic arrives in Pyongyang on Monday to play the symphony "From the New World" in an overture to thaw still frozen ties from the Cold War era between the United States and North Korea.

The unprecedented visit comes as international pressure mounts on the communist state to stop dragging its heels and stick to its side of a deal to eventually discard its nuclear weapons programme.

The oldest U.S. orchestra will stay in North Korea for about 48 hours that will culminate in a concert on Tuesday featuring the works of Antonin Dvorak's New World symphony and George Gershwin's "An American in Paris."

It is not known if the North's enigmatic and bouffant-haired leader Kim Jong-il will attend the concert, but analysts said the North's propaganda machine is almost certain to spin the event as U.S. homage to a man Washington accuses of sponsoring terrorism.

"This is a sign of prestige. It can be presented to the public as Westerners paying tribute to the Dear Leader," said Andrei Lankov, of the South's Kookmin University who specializes on North Korea.

Lankov, who has studied in the North , said the visit was not likely to change the views of the general and leading cadres expected to be in the audience but it could change perceptions among the small class of intellectual elite in the impoverished country.

"North Korea needs isolation to control their population," Lankov said.

"I am not saying the North Korean regime will collapse or be frightened by one such visit, but hundreds and thousands of exchanges like that will greatly contribute to promoting change within North Korea."

The two states have no formal diplomatic ties, are technically still at war and have troops staring each other down across the heavily fortified border that has divided North and South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease fire.

The New York Philharmonic will be the biggest group from the United States since North Korea seized the U.S. spy ship Pueblo 40 years ago and held its 82 crew members for months.

The team were due to leave Beijing on a South Korean chartered plane at 0500 GMT on Monday for the two-hour flight to Pyongyang.

(Writing by Jon Herskovitz, editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Sanjeev Miglani)

6 minutes ago

BEIJING (Reuters) - A program launched in China to teach traditional Peking opera in schools has drawn criticism from some Internet users who said untrained teachers and forced instruction might put off students from the 200-year-old art.

Classic Peking Opera items will be added to the music curriculum in 200 schools across 10 provinces in China to promote traditional culture among its younger generation, the Beijing News said on Monday.

"The aim of this program is to help the children to develop an interest in the nation's unique cultural treasures," the paper quoted Wang Jun, a culture official in Beijing's education bureau, as saying.

In media commentaries, people questioned how music teachers, themselves untrained in Peking Opera, would educate students in the complex gestures and trilling vocals that characterize the art.

Only 27 percent of some 21,000 respondents to an opinion poll carried by popular web portal Sina.com, believed the course would help promote traditional Chinese culture.

"If the students are forced to learn, it might backfire and make them totally lose interest," said a post by an Internet user who called himself "Little Monkey."

China's education ministry has been criticized for other attempts to give students' a broader scope of learning.

A plan to introduce compulsory dance classes aimed at improving primary and high school children's social skills and fitness, drew fire from some parents concerned the waltz and other ballroom steps might foster puppy love between their children and dance partners.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Ken Wills/Sugita Katyal

Ken Baker and Marcus Errico Sun Feb 24, 11:06 AM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - Reunited and it feels so good for Britney Spears and her boys.

For the first time in nearly two months, the beleaguered pop star had face-to-face contact with sons Sean Preston and Jayden James, during a Saturday morning, court-monitored visit, sources confirm to E! News.

The boys, who have primarily resided at Federline's home in Tarzana since October, were packed into his gray Dodge Viper truck by a bodyguard and shuttled to Spears' home on the Studio City-Beverly Hills border around 9 a.m.

The visit lasted until noon, at which point the boys were driven back to Federline's, wearing smiles on their faces. 

Aside from Spears and a court-appointed monitor, there were several other key personnel on hand, including: Britney's father, Jamie Spears; a Federline security guard; and a lawyer from the Luce Forward law firm, which is handling Britney's conservatorship for Jamie Spears.  

According to an insider, the 26-year-old pop star was not permitted to take the boys, ages two and one, into another room without the others watching.

The ground rules for the visitation were hammered out Friday night, by lawyers for Luce Forward and ex-husband Kevin Federline.

"None of this would have happened if Jamie Spears had not been involved. That's for sure," Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan told E! News Friday. "He gets a lot of credit for helping make this happen. But we've worked very hard with the conservator lawyers, as well, to make this all work."

Federline has had sole custody since October, and Spears hadn't seen Sean and Jayden since Jan. 3, after she refused to allow Federline's bodyguard to pick up the boys after one of her monitored visits and ended up under observation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The troubled songstress was stripped of her visitation privileges and has only been allowed to contact the boys by phone, but even those conversations have been few and far between, sources tell E! News.

Spears is not slated to see the boys tomorrow, according to a source, and plans to stay home and watch the Oscars in the company of her dad and Adnan Ghalib.