Mobo awards, Jethro re-Tulling

MOBO Awards Lemar's five nominations

Lemar has received five nominations for this year's Mobo Awards. His nominations include Best R&B act and UK act of the year.

John Legend has three nominations and Mariah Carey and Snoop Dogg are both up for two awards. Rapper Kano, Sean Paul and Jamiroquai are also up for awards.

Lemar's 'Time to Grow' has been nominated in the best album category while his song 'If There's any Justice' is up against songs by Amerie, Lethal B, Mario and Snoop ft Pharrell in the Best Single category. It is also nominated in the Best Video category.

Joss Stone received one nomination for the UK act of the year award.
A new Mobo award for best African act has been introduced, with voting taking place in Africa itself.

The nominees include Youssou N'Dour, who recently performed at Live 8 and the Womad festival, and Ladysmith Black Mombazo.

This year's awards will feature a special tribute to soul singer Luther Vandross, who died last month.

The ceremony will take place at London's Royal Albert Hall on 22 September.
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Jethro's re-'Aqualung'

Jethro Tull's next album will be a re-recording of their 1971 classic 'Aqualung'. Ian Anderson decided to re-record the album after a suggestion from XM Radio chief Lee Abrams.

"The notion of re-recording the 'Aqualung' album began to exert its charm, especially since some of the songs had never been performed since the days when they were recorded back in January 1971" Anderson says at the Jethro Tull website. "And, of course, the current band line-up apart from Martin and me, were babes-in-arms; or even more embryonic in the case of bassist, Jon Noyce, when the original was made. And to do this in front of a small invited audience of fans picked from the replies to our web-site invitation gave an added impetus."

The album will be given away to fans who purchase tickets to the forthcoming US tour in October and November. It will be released commercially in Europe in September and then the US in March 2006.

"Yes, a little payback to 'Aqualung' and his pals" Anderson says.