Blog Posts by Jem Aswad

Patti Smith won the 2010 National Book Award in the nonfiction category for her memoir Just Kids.

"I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf," the singer said when accepting the award in New York Wednesday night. "Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book."

The Rolling Stone Interview: Patti Smith, 1996

Just Kids recounts Smith's relationship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the late Sixties and early Seventies, and includes retellings of her encounters with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, William Burroughs, the Andy Warhol crowd and other luminaries of the era. Smith and Mapplethorpe met in 1967, when both were 20, and lived together for five years, first as lovers and later platonically. During these years, the two spurred each other to new adventures in their respective fields: He as a photographer, she as a poet and later

Amy Winehouse announced her first official shows in two years via a post on her website Wednesday. The only catch is that all four shows in the January "one-off tour" are in Brazil.

Three of the dates will take place at the country's Summer Soul Festival (keep in mind that it's about to be summer south of the Equator): January 8 in Florianopolis, the 13th in Recife and the 15th in Sao Paulo, with a non-Festival show in Rio de Janeiro taking place on the 11th. Up-and-coming soul singers Janelle Monae and Mayer Hawthorne will support on all three festival dates; Hawthorne is not scheduled to perform in Rio.

Photos: A (Tumultous) Year in the Life of Amy Winehouse

The singer's troubled personal life has prevented her from playing an official gig since 2008, although she did play a surprise four-song set in October. She also joined Mark Ronson onstage at his July gig in London, singing "Valerie," from his 2007 Version LP. In addition, the pair recently collaborated on a version of Lesley

An ad for Beyoncé's perfume, Heat, has been banned from daytime TV in Britain. "Beyoncé's body movements and the camera's prolonged focus on shots of her dress slipping away to partially expose her breasts created a sexually provocative ad that was unsuitable to be seen by young children," said Advertising Standards Authority, which has ordered that the clip not be shown before 7:30 p.m.

Photos: Hip-Hop Royalty: Jay-Z and Beyoncé

The perfume company, Coty UK, said that the ad was "intended to reflect the singer Beyoncé's personal 'sexy chic' style" and is not "overtly graphic or explicitly sexual and at no point was Beyoncé naked."

'Sexually provocative' Beyoncé ad ruled unsuitable for kids [The Guardian]

Jay-Z's appearance on the Late Show With David Letterman Monday night was probably a bit more awkward than either the host or the guest had anticipated. While Jay's conversation with Dave could have just been two millionaires chatting, it ended up more like a tense debate between a resident of a tony New York suburb and someone from Brooklyn's hardscrabble Marcy Projects.

Photos: Hip-Hop Royalty: How Jay-Z and Beyoncé Run This Town

In the first few minutes of the conversation, Letterman very gingerly tiptoes up to asking Jay about his past as a drug-dealer — which is extensively discussed in his new book, Decoded . Jay describes the environment in his community during the 1980s as one stricken by "Reaganomics" and "Iran-Contra" before Letterman finally utters the word "crack." Jay also describes his neighborhood as a pleasant one that would suddenly turn "super violent" — Dave blithely asks about the source of the violence, and Jay says, "Little kids with big guns," which bizarrely

Metallica has had onstage mishaps involving pyrotechnics and falling stage props in the past, but you'd have to think balloons would be pretty low on the danger scale. Guess again: During a show in Sydney last week, guitarist Kirk Hammett was kicking balloons around the stage during "Seek and Destroy" and, in this audience-filmed footage from Liveleak, accidentally clobbered a small child as well.

The child is seen being carried away, and Blabbermouth.com reported that despite rumors that the child was the son of frontman James Hetfield, it was apparently the daughter of the group's production or tour manager.

The site also said that the child was reportedly not injured during the incident.

Metallica Guitarist Accidentally Kicks Child During Concert [Liveleak.com via Gawker]

To hear Wiz Khalifa say it, his arrest on drug charges last week was due more to his success than anything else.

"They want to try to scare you or make an example out of you before you get too far into what you're doing," Wiz told MTV News Monday, referring to authority figures. "When I started doing what I was doing [in the music industry], I was ready for it. Just being from where I'm from, I was already a target on a small scale. But as I build up and become more nationally known, that scale just gets larger."

The MC said he wasn't even present when police allegedly they smelled marijuana emanating from his tour bus, which led to a search that uncovered more than 60 grams of the substance and resulted in two felony drug charges for the MC (trafficking and marijuana storage) and one misdemeanor.

Wiz said his mother helped him through the experience.

"She never holds too much against me or makes me feel bad about it," he said. "She knows there would be all types of other people coming

T.I. may be serving out an 11-month sentence for a parole violation, but his name hasn't left the headlines: An episode of VH1 Storytellers will air on December 10, just three days after his new LP No Mercy comes out.

The show, which was filmed at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom just before he went to prison, finds the MC performing songs from his new LP as well as past hits, including "Rubber Band Man," "Live in the Sky" and "Bring 'Em Out."

At one point during the show, T.I. talks pointedly about his new LP, referring to his return to prison by saying that the album "represents some of my best work, inspired by my most recent best and worst life experiences. They say adversity brings forth inspiration, so y'all can imagine how inspired I've been."

Photos: Random Notes

A track from the album, a collaboration with Eminem called "All She Wrote," hit the Internet on Tuesday. While the two MCs spend most of the song talking about their greatness or insulting an unnamed woman, T.I. does