Just to prove that there is no universal justice, everyone’s favorite spotlight-stealing, autotune-abusing rapper (if you can’t pick it up from that go ask Taylor Swift who she’s NOT a fan of right now)  leads the pack  for this year’s BET Hip-Hop Awards with nine (9) nominations.  Jay-Z and Weezy F. tie for second place with seven (7) thumbs-up each. BET plans on awarding West Coast legend Ice Cube with the “I Am Hip-Hop” Icon Award for his contributions to hip-hop. The show will be taped in Atlanta and premieres on BET Tuesday, October 27 at 8:00 p.m.

• Click Here To Check This Year’s Nominations.

 
The Unsung Hero and Mr. Viagra keep being spotted all over town, toating guitar and keys, and peddling their musical collaboration, “Last Cause”. Here they are at Diesel U Music (Yes, the people with the jeans) entertaining and taking some pics. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m watching this entire meeting via Youtube right now, but this one stuck out to me because I was surprised to see that cop-out being used. AllHipHop.com CEO, Chuck Creekmur (in the red v-neck sweater vest) attempts to correct this statement, but doesn’t really go as far as he could have.

Hip-hop is not just entertainment in my opinion. If you say that, then you give a green light for artists to never have to care about what they say. For some people, this actually means something. For some people, hip-hop is a culture and this music should be the flagship that represents it.

At the end of the day, hip hop is us both celebrating and also marketing our culture. Why wouldn’t we want it to be a true, full, honest, and simultaneously uplifting picture of our people.

The boys from Slaughterhouse are putting their first music video together from their upcoming, self-titled release set to come out August 11, 2009. Yesterday at the Night Hotel  in New York City, Slaughterhouse shot their first official music video directed by Rik Cordero. The theme? Well, peep the pictures after the jump but if you’ve seen The Hangover it’s going to be pretty obvious.
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 »

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.