In keeping with the culture of “Everything’s bigger in Texas,” the Houston Department of Health & Human Services has teamed up with H-Town’s top hip-hop radio station KBXX-FM 97.9 The Box and the NAACP Houston Branch to host the largest HIV/STD screening event in Houston. Amerigroup Community Care is sponsoring the effort which is dubbed Hip Hop for HIV Awareness.

Jump in for the full press release and event details. Read the rest of this entry »

While driving home yesterday, I came across a legion of brave Iranians protesting the invasion of Hitler in Iran or something. I hopped out of my car and hung around to capture the historic moment on camera. I also learned something new yesterday: Iranians are possibly the most stylish people on earth. Proceed for some pics.
Read the rest of this entry »

By the time you read this, one of Canada’s finest lyricists Cadence Weapon (aka Rollie Pemberton) will have assumed his place as the new Poet laureate of Edmonton. To put it in perspective, his predecessor is a 74 year old professor emeritus of comparative literature at the University of Alberta who has 29 published books, including 17 collections of poetry, under his belt. Read the rest of this entry »

The trusty Google Reader. Always faithful to bring me my news - best part is I don’t have to let him slobber all over my slippers as payment.  I came across a story the other day talking about how hip-hop’s power is on the decline because the quality of the music is as well. The solution? Black rock. Read the rest of this entry »

West coast rap icon Ice-T has decided to stop bad mouthing teen hip-hop sensations on YouTube and do something about the state of our favorite musical genre. Iceberg is starting his own label. The Law & Order: SVU detective plans on readying a digitally-based label through EMI to bring artists that have a more “classic” sound into mainstream exposure.

Ice-T, who has been a very vocal opponent of today’s “bubblegum pop” sound in rap music, has already claimed to  have an artist from Los Angeles, a group called Certified from Washington State, another group named Born Twice from Houston and an emcee from New York, signed to his still unnamed label.

As reported last week, New York DJ Funkmaster Flex declared that he was boycotting any and all artists signed to Interscope Records and would not spin any of their records/songs on his program. The higher ups at Hot 97 had something else to say about it.

“We’ve never held back on a whole label’s music,” said Ebro Darden, program director at Hot 97, in an interview with the New York Daily News. “And we won’t. We’ve got good relationships with labels…We had to muzzle Flex…People know a lot of what he says is showmanship, but that went too far.”

Showmanship is one thing, but having your boss say you needed to be muzzled is pretty rough and quite another. I hope for Flex’s sake there isn’t any additional blowback from Interscope or anyone else over this - that might be a little idealistic though.

Wendell Tucker, a Chicago native and gradutate of Southern Illinois and Chicago State Universities, has taken hip-hop and put it on stage. Basing his play off of Common’s “I Used To Love H.E.R.,” Tucker has utilized the personification of hip-hop as a woman and played off of how money and fame influences her direction. Read the rest of this entry »

[Raise a can of Red Bull to explicitmemory]

In a rare display of “sticking it to the man,” legendary New York DJ Funkmaster Flex threatened to ban all Interscope artists from his Hot 97 show due to the label mismanaging their music and influence. Flex went on about trying to start a movement with his actions and even called out 50 Cent to walk away from his deal with Interscope.

Sounds like Mr. Hot 97 has gotten pretty hot and bothered about the direction the industry has been taking and decided that he was going to carry the banner for change. The hip-hop Obama? Not quite but if he does stick to his word there will be no Detox or Relapse in the rotation while the Funkmaster is spinning.

There’s a pivotal scene in Slumdog Millionaire where a slum kid locks another slum kid in a portable toilet. The poor kid eventually jumps into a pile of sh!t just so he can run and get an autograph of his beloved Amitabh ji. There he is, drenched in poop standing next to his hero, who signs on his dog eared photograph. After seeing this post, I started wondering if there’s any artist worth jumping in a pile of sh!t for? Obviously, I wouldn’t jump in a pile of doo doo for an autograph from…oh f_ck, I’d probably do it for an autograph from Left-Eye. But I would also have to jump over the pearly gates for that one, since she’s dead and all.

My Slumdog sh!t list would also consist of:

1. Stevie Wonder
2. Nas
3. Prince
4. Thom Yorke
5. DJ Premier

So, here’s my question to you: What artist’s autograph would you pull a ‘Slumdog’ to get?