Puff TV:

Sean Combs is branching out from hip-hop and clothing lines to get all Oprah on television with his own cable networked dubbed “Revolt” reports The New York Times. Hypothetically 24/7 music vids and news abound a la the glory days of MTV, Comcast will house the fledgeling station, with Time-Warner courting as well. Speaking of MTV, this would actually be Combs’s second toe-dip into television, following the made-for-drama “Making the Band” that the veritable music television station is still hosting.

Freeing Fiona:

Consistently hindered singer/songwriter Fiona Apple is moving forward following a tweet by an Epic Records exec that a response to 2005’s Extraordinary Machine is imminent. We still have yet to hear any of the said tunes that she’s purportedly been done with for over a year. Though that’s not stopping the smoldering pianist from booking a select seven-date tour, kicking off in Austin for SXSW. For now, let us collectively wax on how much the “hunger hurts.”

Shackled And Drawn:

On more bossmen speak, the bossman of BOSS just dropped another single from forthcoming 17th career effort Wrecking Ball (March 6; Columbia), “Shackled and Drawn,” as part of a limited 24-hour stream of each tune from the record per day from February 20 through March 2. Per the conceptual post-recession theme of the record, “workingman” angst await as Bruce knows best, riding the line between “American reality and the American Dream.”

The Rise of Rih Rih:

Here’s a moral thread via Billboard‘s “Open Letter to Rihanna” regarding the news of a Chris Brown/Rihanna collab on a remix of her tune “Birthday Cake.” If you remember, Brown and Rihanna, an item back in 2009, made headlines with Brown’s infamous pre-red carpet Grammy night beating of the young pop starlet, of which he is still serving a five-year probation sentence. Two questions: 1.) how does this comply with the 100-yard perimeter still in effect Brown is supposed to be distancing and more importantly 2.) regardless of the weight of the virtue forgiveness, how is this being internalized by the millions of young women following her career?

Lyricapsule:

“It takes a lot of money to look this cheap,” goes the wry one-liner Dolly Parton so infamously slings upon herself, a comedic knife she was so well at thrusting into her songs, as well, as with her ’81 country-pop crossover hit, “9 to 5.” Peaking at number one on the Billboard charts this day in 1981, bossmen worldwide got a sticking to via Parton’s sing-song verse, “You’re just a step on the boss man’s ladder/But you got dreams he’ll never take away.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5i1aPaxwh8