NEW YORK, NY, July 10, 2007 – On the heels of its successful inaugural "You Oughta Know" tour, VH1 is hitting the road again with two different upcoming tours to bring the music and artists that VH1 viewers love directly to their hometowns.

The first-ever "VH1 Hip Hop Honors" tour will feature The Roots with MC Lyte and Big Daddy Kane along with special guests in every city.  This is the first tour that will help support a VH1 tentpole event and The Roots are presenting this tour in conjunction with VH1.   The Roots are also producing the tour and providing musical direction for all performances .  All headliners have a connection with VH1's Hip Hop Honors show.  MC Lyte and Big Daddy Kane are both former honorees and The Roots have previously performed and provided musical backing with drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, acting as Musical Director.   VH1.com will offer an exclusive ticket pre-sale beginning Wednesday, July 11 for the month-long tour which kicks off the first show in San Francisco on September 13.  The final show of the tour will be in New York City on October 5 at the Nokia Theatre, kicking off Hip Hop Honors Weekend in New York.

Last spring, VH1 expanded its successful "You Oughta Know" new music promotion franchise to concert halls across the country with its first-ever "You Oughta Know" tour featuring Mat Kearney and special guests The Feeling and Rocco DeLuca & The Burden.  The tour was a hit and VH1 is proud to give the ladies a turn this time with the second YOK tour featuring Brandi Carlile with special guest A Fine Frenzy.  VH1.com will offer an exclusive ticket pre-sale beginning Wednesday, July 11 for the 2 month-long tour which will cover 32 markets and kicks off September 6 in Eugene, Oregon.

VH1's You Oughta Know franchise, launched originally on VH1.com in late 2004 introduces artists on the rise to the channel's adult music lover base via VH1, VH1.com and off-air marketing campaigns.  This highly acclaimed franchise has helped break many artists such as Amy Winehouse, James Blunt, The Fray, KT Tunstall and Corinne Bailey Rae and has proven to have an impact on their record sales.

Tickets for both tours can be purchased beginning July 11 through an exclusive online pre-sale at tours.vh1.com.  Beginning July 13, tickets will also be made available in select cities through Ticketmaster in addition to tours.vh1.com.   Please check with each individual club for its specific ticketing information.

By taking the sounds traditionally produced by old-school DJs--spare breakbeats, scratch squiggles, burly bass lines--and recreating them in the organic context of a traditional live band, the Roots presented themselves at once as visionaries and rigid traditionalists. In the process, they also helped raise the barometer of possibilities for rap in a live context.  The Roots rose out of Philly, where lyricist Tariq Trotter (Black Thought) and drummer Ahmir-Khalib Thompson (?uestlove) attended the Philadelphia High School For Creative And Performing Arts with members of Boyz II Men, as well as bassist Christian McBride and organist Joey DeFrancesco, both of whom would go on to become jazz stars. In 1989, the two organized a loose-knit crew of rappers called the Foreign Objects and started playing gigs in Philly as the Roots. The members' familiarity with styles outside of hip-hop became evident as the band evolved, and by the time they dropped Organix (released independently overseas) and then their major label debut Do You Want More?!!!??!, the Roots' music had become a heady hybrid of rap and jazz.  

As a 2006 VH1 Hip Hop Honors honoree, MC Lyte (born Lana Michele Moorer) hails from Brooklyn, New York, and is considered to be one of the greatest female emcees. She released her first single, "I Cram to Understand U (Sam)", at the age of 12 which led to a record contract with First Priority records. She was one of the first female rappers to acknowledge the sexism and misogyny that often runs rampant in hip-hop, often taking the subject head on lyrically in her songs.  Her success also helped open the door for future female artists like Queen Latifah and Missy Elliott.  She was also the first rapper to perform at Carnegie Hall, as well as the first rap artist to tour for the USO, performing for troops stationed in Italy, Greece, Sicily, and Sardinia.  Like many of her music contemporaries, Lyte's successful run as a hip hop artist has also opened up doors for her on the small screen.  She starred as Kai, which was a recurring role on UPN's sitcom "Half and Half." In February of 2006, her diary was donated to the Smithsonian Institution for a collection that will trace the history of the Bronx-born music genre.

Emerging during hip-hop's massive creative expansion of the late '80s, Big Daddy Kane was the ultimate lover man of rap's first decade.  B orn in Brooklyn as Antonio Hardy, the stage name "Kane" was an acronym for King Asiatic Nobody's Equal. In 1984, he met Biz Markie, and   Kane would go on to co-write some of  Biz 's best-known raps, and both eventually became important members of the Queens-based Juice Crew, a collective headed by renowned producer Marley Marl . Kane signed with Marl 's Cold Chillin' label in 1987 and debuted the following year with the 12" single "Raw," which became an underground sensation. His first album, "Long Live the Kane," was equally well-received, producing another underground classic in "Ain't No Half-Steppin'."

Kane consolidated his success with 1989's "It's a Big Daddy Thing," which spawned his most effective love-man song in "Smooth Operator." Kane possessed a rhyming technique honed from numerous B-boy battles and laced with Afrocentric consciousness-raising verses in the philosophy of the Nation of Islam's Five Percent school. He maintained his sex-symbol status by posing for Madonna's notorious 1992 photo book "Sex," as well as Playgirl magazine. His best material ranks among the finest hip-hop of its era, and his sex-drenched persona was enormously influential on countless future would-be players.

Brandi Carlile was named one of Rolling Stone magazine's "10 Artists to Watch in 2005" after the release of her eponymous debut album.  Brandi has since upped the ante on that designation with the release of her follow-up  The Story.   Produced by Grammy Award-winner T Bone Burnett (Counting Crows, Roy Orbison) The Story captures the intensity and authenticity of Carlile's live concerts in 13 unforgettable songs.  The album's first single, "The Story," is sitting in the top-5 song on AAA radio while it continues to develop and move up the Hot AC charts.  In the true sense of artist development, Brandi has spent the better part of two years on the road selling out headlining shows from coast to coast and supporting a wide variety of artists such as the Indigo Girls, Ray LaMontagne, The Fray and Shawn Colvin.  The hit ABC television series "Grey's Anatomy" featured a special version of "The Story" music video by combining series highlights with Brandi's performance video.  Brandi has also garnered national and regional press through out the country including a national television run on late night and morning shows and what USA Today describes her voice as "…undeniably impressive and distinctive, mixing a catch-in-the-throat rootsiness with a full, slightly brassy vibrato…"

A Fine Frenzy is the music of 22 year-old Alison Sudol.  Born in Seattle to dramatic-arts teacher parents, she developed a strong love for the fantastic literary worlds of CS Lewis, Charles Dickens and others, while becoming a passionate author in her own right. She immersed herself in classical music, Motown, Aretha Franklin, swing bands, Ella Fitzgerald, Elton John, Louis Armstrong, the Beatles, Technicolor movies and classic 1950's television. After teaching herself to play piano, she found solace in the new global British bands Aqualung, Radiohead, Coldplay and Keane, etc... She was also moved by the diatonic minimalism of Philip Glass and the transportive allure of Icelandic music (Bjork, Sigur Ros.) Inspired, Alison developed the sound of A Fine Frenzy - hypnotic piano arrangements under classic American melody fused into irresistible, atmospheric songs with the power to reach around the world.  A Fine Frenzy's debut album "One Cell in the Sea" will be released by Capitol Records Group on July 17, 2007.

Please log onto tours. VH1.com for more information about all the artists, tour dates, and to buy tickets.

VH1 "HIP HOP HONORS TOUR " FEATURING THE ROOTS

WITH MC LYTE AND BIG DADDY KANE
9/13 /07         San Francisco, CA        The Fillmore
9/14/07         Anaheim, CA              House of Blues
9/15/07         Los Angeles, CA         House of Blues
9/17/07         Denver, CO              Paramount Theater
9/19/07         Dallas, TX              House of Blues
9/20/07         New Orleans, LA House of Blues
9/ 23/07         Chicago, IL              House of Blues
9/24/07         Cleveland, OH            House of Blues
9/27/07         Norfolk, VA             The Norva              
9/29/07         Washington, DC  930 Club-11pm Start
9/30/07         Baltimore, MD           Rams Head Live !
10/2/07         Worcester, MA           Palladium
10/3/07         Philadelphia, PA        Electric Factory
10/5/07         New York, NY            Nokia Theater

VH1 "YOU OUGHTA KNOW TOUR" FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE

WITH SPECIAL GUEST A FINE FRENZY
9/6/07          Eugene, OR              W.O.W. Music Hall              
9/8/07          San Francisco, CA       Fillmore                       
9/11–9/12/07    Los Angeles, CA         House of Blues