By Danielle Harling

According to a new study, music fans are willing to spend more if they're presented with compelling content.

Thanks to Nielsen’s “The Buyer and the Beats: The Music Fan and How to Reach Them,” an in-depth music study that was created during South By Southwest, companies and artists now have a much better look at how music fans are spending their money in the era of social media, crowdsourcing, and other various technologies.

According to the report, fans (those responsible for 75% of music spending) could possibly spend an extra $450 million to $2.6 billion on music if they’re presented with exclusive material and other compelling content.

“It’s encouraging to see such strong demand for content from music fans,” said David Bakula, SVP Client Development & Analytics for Entertainment, Nielsen. “We are finding that there’s a lot of untapped demand for additional content, which can translate into beneficial and profitable opportunities for artists, labels, and advertisers.”

In their report, Nielsen also broke down the various types of fans: Aficionado Fans, Digital Fans, Big Box Fans, Occasional Concert Consumers, and Background Music Consumers. An infographic detailing the spending habits of each type of fan can be found below.

By Jake Paine

The Tribe vibes may be heard on new material for the first time since "The Love Movement" on Q-Tip's upcoming forth album, "The Last Zulu."

While A Tribe Called Quest has toured and performed together on and off since 2006, the famous Queens, New York collective has not released a proper song together since 1998's The Love Movement exodus. The group currently consisting of Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi appeared last weekend at South By South in Austin, Texas. A.T.C.Q. performed at a showcase with Prince, one of the week-long festival's highest profile events.

Speaking with Billboard, emcee, producer and deejay Q-Tip hoped to reunite the group on record, for his upcoming fourth solo album, The Last Zulu. "Hopefully, Phife Dog and Ali Shaheed Muhammad will make an appearance on it, and Jarobi," Tip said. The album is currently expected in 2014, his first with Kanye West's G.O.O.D Music backing, after years with Arista, Jive and later, Universal Motown Records.

Q-Tip did say that he hopes to join deejay forces with Shaheed. "I'm gonna deejay with my partner here, hopefully, if I can coerce him, 'cause he's doing joints over there in Brooklyn and I'm doing the city, so hopefully we can collide and do some stuff."

By Liz Tracy

To put it simply, Queen Latifah is a goddess. This isn't like one of those compliments you give to your dudely pal 'cause she finally put on a dress. No, Latifah is divine in the way of Athena or Yemaya: a powerful natural force.

Though everyone knows Latifah as a rapper or actress, she also performs singing cover songs and jazz standards off her Trav'lin' Light album. But, she admits, rap isn't far from her heart. "There's things that only rap music can express," she says, "or poetry can express."

A recent conversation revealed Latifah's views on feminism, self-confidence, a Living Single reunion, and females in the rap game. And, for the record, as a former high school b-ball player, she came out in support of Miami: "I'm a fan of the Heat, for sure."

New Times: What do you think about the state of female rappers in hip-hop today?

Queen Latifah: The state of hip-hop for female rappers has been anemic for a while. And I've expressed that repeatedly. We need more female rappers. When people speak about what's wrong with hip-hop, to me, that's the main problem. We have to have a voice. We have to express the things that matter to us, the things that mean something to us, and we have to have that balance, male to female.

In the last decade or so, feminism has become a dirty word. Do you consider yourself a feminist?

I'm not one for labels; the only sort of label I chose for myself was queen. I've never labeled myself a feminist. Maybe people gravitate toward me because I do share some of the same principles, by and large. The only time I'd seen the word feminist associated with media, when I was a kid growing up, before I knew what it really meant, was like a protest, and there was like an angry-looking woman, and I didn't know what that was. Later I grew to understand what it meant.

I would say that I am, I suppose, because I agree with a lot of those same principles. I want women to be able to set their goals and accomplish them. I want us to have a voice at all times. I want us to have self-confidence; I want us to have inner beauty. I want us to have equal pay for equal work. I want us to have, most importantly, a voice, which I said, that's the most important thing to me. Whatever that voice is is fine, because we're not all alike.

Where do you think confidence comes from?

For me, it started with my mother and my father instilling confidence in me, trying to teach me principles rather than a mere perception. Teaching me how to love myself. That was the first important thing. Confidence is really a form of self-love. That started with my parents, telling me I was beautiful, telling me they loved me, things like that. Putting those messages in me at an early age. Those things didn't always work when they told me; they kicked in later on when I kinda needed them -- they'd come out of nowhere. The groundwork was already laid, so those things had settled in my mind. I also think that it's a learning process for everyone. You have to find things that make you feel good about yourself. And you really have to work at it.

I don't find confidence to be something that if you find your confidence once, there it is forever. It has to be maintained. It's about being true to yourself. Being able to sleep at night and forgive yourself. Because sometimes we make mistakes, and we have to move past them, because we can beat ourselves up forever. Nobody can wage a better assault on us than ourselves. It's about treating ourselves as if we were our own best friend.

Living Single, best show ever, any chance of the cast getting back together and bringing that back?

I don't know. It would be fun. We all still get along with each other. Our lives have taken us a lot of different places.

Do you have any dream first guests for your upcoming talk show, The Queen Latifah Show?

We're kind of putting together our dream list as we speak in terms of celebrities. But really, the show celebrates everyday people who are doing extraordinary things. So it's really not about just putting celebrities on. It's about new, fun music. It's about having a good time for that hour of your day. I'm trying to bring all the worlds of who I am under one roof.

By Chaz Kangas

Teyana Taylor's Good Luck Charm pop-up store partnered nail designs with Adidas Unite All Originals.

Last Friday (March 15), as part of the Adidas Unite All Originals campaign, the athletic apparel and shoe-maker celebrated their partnership with G.O.O.D. Music’s Teyana Taylor by teaming her up with Brooklyn, New York nail artist Christina Rinaldi for the opening of her Good Luck Charm pop-up nail salon in Tribeca, New York. The salon featured exclusive original limited-edition nail art designed by Rinaldi and Taylor, as well as designs based on the women’s hero silhouette, GLC line.

Along with Taylor and Rinaldi’s original nail design, each of GLC sneaker designs, including Taylor’s Harlem colorway which was inspired by her love of retro basketball sneakers, were available in fingernail format for anybody looking to get their nails done for free over the course of the weekend. Following the initial launch on Friday, which Taylor, Rinaldi and HOT 97’s Miss Info were on hand for, the opening night festivities featured cocktails and deejay sets from Chromeo, Misshapes and Quiana.

According to Adidias’ senior PR manager Måns Ericson, the pairing was a natural fit. “Teyana [Taylor] is basically Adidas family and we wanted to bring Christina [Rinaldi] in because we heard she was good. We threw them together and they made the nails.” Ericson also described the inclusion of Chromeo as adding another layer to the spirit of the event, stating “That was also a bit of a clash because Chromeo wouldn’t normally play: A Teyana Taylor nail salon. It’s a bit of a clash, but part of the collide as well.” While the pop-up space was indicative of the campaign’s spirit, Ericson clarified this is only the beginning. “To use a temporary space is always fun, but that doesn’t mean the next thing will necessarily be a pop-up store. Nothing about nails at all, it will be a different collision.”

The Adidas Unite All Originals campaign, which looks to bring together visionary artists from different mediums for a stylish cross-boundary collaboration, continues nationwide with as-yet undisclosed events happening this Thursday (March 21) in Los Angeles California and the following week in Atlanta, Georgia.