Who sang New York City’s true anthem better? Frank Sinatra and Jay-Z both have recorded sensational hits declaring their love for the city that never sleeps. Sinatra’s 1980’s hit, “New York, New York” still lives in on people’s hearts today while Jay-Z’s catchy hip-hop tune, “Empire State of Mind,”has become the anthem for all celebrated NY sport victories. Jay-Z claims he’s “the new Sinatra” in the hit song also, but does the Hoboken-native Frankie still hold the title for the city’s anthem.

Leading off is Jay-Z’s “Answer the Call” September 11th performance, followed at 11:30 p.m. by “Frank Sinatra: The Main Event”, a concert which originally aired live Oct. 13, 1974.

Check your local listing for Fuse Channel or the MSG Network, I suggest you get DVR’d up too!

after the jump, Jays tribute to Frank at the AMAs….

I will go on record as saying I have always like Dame Dash. He’s the kind of dude that seemed to always have fun while matriculating through the business. Maybe it caught up to him somewhat because he trusted dudes that maybe he shouldn’t have once the money got to big, but you can’t fault a dude for being true to who he is and believing in his dudes.

I’m sure we will never get the full story on what happened with Roc-a-fella, but recently we are hearing a lot of chatter of what went down back in the day. To me it was great, they built it up, and everything was everything until it got too big for its own good. Here Dame speaks on a lot of stuff that has been floating around lately. His side, good to hear. He’s one of the cats that I believe actually, because his story seems so real.

After just 20 minutes in a helicopter above the Manhattan skyline, autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire was ready to re-create a city that took hundreds of years to build. Wiltshire is drawing a 20-foot panoramic view of New York – all from memory. The 35-year-old artist’s autistic disorder affects his ability to interact with other people. It has also given him a photographic memory – and a gift for putting it on paper. “I just looked without drawing,” said Wiltshire as he explained how he is able to draw the skyline without referring back to a photograph of the city. “Everything is like a TV show,” he said. “I have never drawn from a sketchbook.”

New York is the last in a series of eight panoramas of major cities across the world, including Dubai and Tokyo.

Bio after the jump…
Stephen Wiltshire is an artist who draws and paints detailed cityscapes. He has a particular talent for drawing lifelike, accurate representations of cities, sometimes after having only observed them briefly. He was awarded an MBE for services to the art world in 2006. He studied Fine Art at City & Guilds Art College. His work is popular all over the world, and is held in a number of important collections.

Stephen was born in London to West Indian parents on 24th April, 1974. As a child he was mute, and did not relate to other human beings. Aged three, he was diagnosed as autistic. He had no language and lived entirely in his own world.

At the age of five, Stephen was sent to Queensmill School in London, where it was noticed that the only pastime he enjoyed was drawing. It soon became apparent he communicated with the world through the language of drawing; first animals, then London buses, and finally buildings. These drawings show a masterful perspective, a whimsical line, and reveal a natural innate artistry.

Aged eight, Stephen started drawing cityscapes after the effects of an earthquake (all imaginary), as a result of being shown photographs of earthquakes in a book at school. He also became obsessed with illustrations of classic American cars at this time (his knowledge of them is encyclopaedic), and he drew most of the major London landmarks.

The teachers at Queensmill School encouraged him to speak by temporarily taking away his art supplies so that he would be forced to ask for them. Stephen responded by making sounds and eventually uttered his first word – “paper.” He learned to speak fully at the age of nine.

In 1987, the BBC QED programme, ‘The Foolish Wise Ones’, featured Stephen’s astounding talent. Stephen was introduced by Sir Hugh Casson (past president of the Royal Academy), who described him as “the best child artist in Britain”. Stephen’s work has since been the subject of numerous television programmes around the world. He has been featured in many books, and his own third book Floating Cities (1991) was number one in the Sunday Times Bestseller List.

Meanwhile, Stephen’s artworks were being exhibited frequently in venues all over the world. In 2001 he appeared in another BBC documentary, ‘Fragments of Genius’, for which he was filmed flying over London aboard a helicopter, and subsequently completing a detailed and perfectly scaled aerial illustration of a four-square-mile area within three hours. His drawing included 12 historic landmarks and 200 other structures.

In October and November 2003, thousands flocked to the Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham, near London, England, to see the first major retrospective of Stephen’s work. The exhibition covered the 20-year period, from 1983 to 2003, and comprised 150 examples of Stephen’s drawings, paintings and prints.

In May 2005, following a short helicopter ride over Tokyo, he drew a stunningly detailed panoramic view of the city on a 10-meter-long canvas, from memory. Since then he has drawn Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem and London on giant canvasses. The last drawing in the series was of his spiritual home, New York. He completed his masterpiece at Pratt Institute, the world-famous college of art and design, in New York in October 2009.

source and image, bio taken from his website

The OBEY X LEVI’S® Project – 10/29 – Times Square Live Installation Event and Collaboration is the latest result of the ongoing collaborative relationship between Levi’s® and Fairey relationship.

OBEY X LEVI’S scaffolding went up in Times Sq this week –Traffic stopped at the huge plywood signage was hoisted on to the steel frames, as groups of fans gathered to capture the moment. On 10/29, Shepard created a live art installation on the outside façade of this scaffolding in front of the Levi’s store in Times Square.

Inspired by the Levi’s GO FORTH campaign shot by Ryan McGinley, and the words of poet Walt Whitman, Shepard’s version of the American Pioneer will debut at this event and he will sign this new graphic-immediately after the live installation. The PIONEER graphic is featured on the reverse side of four stand-alone images that combine to showcase the new image.

The OBEY X LEVI’S line is extremely limited and consists of 8 pieces that showcase with details selected by Fairey and inspired by his personal collection of Levi’s® denim. The collection even has an “Obey” Giant red tab- next to the Levi’s Tab. Each piece of the Obey x Levi’s® collection, jeans, denim jacket and flannel shirt comes with a specially designed, co-branded bandana with the OBEY MANIFESTO.