N.E.R.D. is coming!

N.E.R.D. (US)
JANELLE MONÁE (US)

This week we’re adding another two American acts to the 2008 bill, acts that will widen the musical scope of the festival and get the park partyin’. The trio N.E.R.D. will bring their unholy brew of hip hop, rock, and funk, and newcomer Janelle Monáe is likely to surprise a lot of festival visitors with her wicked, punk-ish R&B. During the next couple of weeks more tidbits will be added to our steadily growing bill.
N.E.R.D. will play in the Medieval Park in Friday Aug. 8, the same day as My Bloody Valentine. Day Passes are already available at Billettservice.no

N.E.R.D. (US)
This year, N.E.R.D. is back, and this time around, they’re coming to the Øya Festival. A new album is expected this spring, so you should just start looking forward to yet another display of musical fireworks compressed into album format.
Three years ago, N.E.R.D. stated that they were packing it in, but now the troops are once more lined up and ready to go. The band name is an abbreviation for “No-one Ever Really Dies”, and the trio consists of Chad Hugo, Pharrell Williams, and their childhood buddy Shay. The two former are also known the production team Neptunes. They’ve worked with i.a. Kelis, Gwen Stefani, Lupe Fiasco, Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, and a vast number of other acts. In other words, they’ve been involved in countless musical and commercial successes over the past few years. Pharrell describes the difference between their roles in Neptunes and N.E.R.D. as follows: “The Neptunes are who we are, and N.E.R.D. is what we do.”
Pharrell Williams has, despite his overbooked work calendar, managed to get a solo career going, which thus far has resulted in the album ‘In my Mind’ (2006). This insanely productive bunch made their debut in 2001 with the album ‘In Search of…’. N.E.R.D.’s second album, ‘Fly or Die’ (2004), sent them soaring towards stardom.
Now their third album is in the works, and more spontaneous, cheerful, and creative material is to be expected. The guys in N.E.R.D. are in the habit of cooking up an unholy brew of rock, funk, hip hop, and soul. Don’t miss ‘em at Øya!

JANELLE MONÁE (US)
The story goes like this: In the summer of 2005, Janelle Monáe performed Curtis Mayfield’s “Dear Mr. President” in front of Big Boi, one half of Outkast – and he was completely mesmerized. Monáe was immediately signed to the label Purple Ribbon Records, delivered two tracks for the mix tape ‘Got Purp Vol. 2’, and featured on Outkast’s latest album so far, ‘Idlewild’.
The story of how Janelle Monáe’s conceptual R&B – a mix of pop, punk, classical music, and electronica – came into being and was developed, starts long before that, though. Quickly summarized: She grew up in Kansas, moved to New York to attend a reputable music and theater school, where she became acquainted with classical music and the storytelling techniques of Broadway, and after that she moved to Atlanta, where she would have the opportunity to process all these new ideas and impressions in an open and welcoming musical climate. This information, however, is not sufficient to prepare the listener for how gloriously genre-busting Monáe is both live and on tape. The fact that she also looks like a million dollars is just a bonus.
Monáe only found time to release the first in a series of four planned suites before she was picked up by the record company Bad Boy Entertainment. Whether it was the punk bomb “Violet Stars”, the Broadwayian ballad “Cindi”, or the synth-loaded new wave track “My Favorite Nothing” that convinced label boss P. Diddy, is unknown. Nevertheless, the result is that a debut album is now in the works, a release that will probably be utterly mind-blowing. Don’t miss out on this chance to have your mind blown to smithereens!