Seemingly low first-week sales, and a mixed reception from critics, hasn’t deterred one-half of the Thornton brothers, Pusha T, from touting the inarguably impressive performance of his big brother Malice throughout Clipse’s new album, Til The Casket Drops.
“That was good!,” Pusha exclaimed to HipHopDX recently when Malice’s clever quip regarding the business of music and its affect on Hip Hop from TTCD selection “Showing Out” was recited back to him. “That was so fuckin’ good I was pissed! I was pissed. ‘Common loved her, I wish I never met her / They slutted her out, it’s nothing left to treasure.’ I was sick! When he said that – Yo, sometimes when we be like putting down these verses…Like I don’t hear what he does, he don’t hear what I do. He’ll go somewhere and write, I go somewhere and write. Boom, we come back, we drop it. Dog! When he said that I was so tight! And you know you can’t go back and rewrite. You can, but ya know, that ain’t fair. But I was so tight! I was pissed.”
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In an interview with XXL magazine recently, 50 Cent discussed the rap careers of G-Unit members Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo who left the Interscope record label a short time ago. “[People wonder], how do you fall out of the public eye? Because you don’t have any material that’s being marketed and promoted,” 50 explained. “Interscope is a system that’s in a different space…they got rid of sixty percent of their staff. But we’ll put [Banks and Yayo’s] projects together and find a way to put them out.”
Banks also spoke to MTV about his and Yayo’s departure from the powerhouse label. “I was ready to make a move,” he said. “I’m a brand new engine. If anything, it’s their loss. It’s been a dark shadow cast upon that. That’s why you hear [Funkmaster] Flex on the radio [boycotting Interscope], because it’s an aura created around that machine and the artists automatically get smacked in the head.”
There are no details on when G-Unit will see their next album release.
- Salima Koroma, HipHopDX
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After a nine-year wait, Oakland hip-hop group Souls of Mischief has released its fourth CD.
Since "Trilogy: Conflict, Climax, Resolution" came out in 2000, three of the four members have released solo albums, all four have released mix tapes, and they have toured extensively as a group and as solo artists.
The group is also part of a larger collective called Hieroglyphics, known for its three-eyed, straight-lipped face logo. Hieroglyphics has released two albums of old demos, two compilations, a live album and the collective's second LP in the time since the last Souls of Mischief album.
A-Plus, Opio, Phesto and Tajai, the members of Souls of Mischief, did almost everything besides release a new group album over the past nine years. "Montezuma's Revenge," the title of Souls of Mischief's new album, was worth the wait.
Listening to the album took me back to the laid-back sound of rap in the late '80s and early '90s, thanks in large part to Prince Paul's production. Prince Paul produ
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Cash Money millionaire Birdman discussed his new bread winner, Drake, and compared him to his main bread winner Lil Wayne. Baby says that Drake is undeniably a star, but has a long way to go before he reaches Weezy’s “best rapper alive” status, saying:
“Drake is already a superstar. That’s 20 years from now. Hopefully, he’ll be bigger. That’s what we’re striving for. We ain’t tripping. We’re working hard for him to be bigger than anyone else. We want the best for him. Now, I don’t see any top labels. I look around and see all those people who did it before me. To me, the labels, I don’t see no company with constant success with a clique. At some point, there was a lot of people doing this. It used to be crowded. I see a lot of people who have done it, and now don’t see them.”
I’m not the biggest Drake fan, but I doubt it’s going to take 20 years, its only been less than a year and the kid’s up for two grammy nominations with no album or label (at that time) and sold more than 180,000
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Since the early '90s, R.A. The Rugged Man (f/k/a Crustified Dibbs) has been recording dense Rap lyricism paired with top-notch production. Whereas the Long Island emcee's first release, Die Rugged Man, Die was all new material, October's Legendary Classics Volume 1 officially released material dating back as far as 15 years. In a conversation this week with HipHopDX, R.A. explained, "Even the people who have heard the songs, have never heard [them] sound this good." He continued, "They always had shitty bootlegs. The sound is muffled - the high's are shitty, the bass [isn't low enough]. The old songs on [Legendary Classics Volume 1] never had the opporunity to be properly mastered. Some of the songs sounded good, like ['Uncommon Valor'] with Jedi Mind Tricks and ['Cunt Renaissance' with Notorious B.I.G.]. But the old songs don't sound good - they sound beautiful. I'm like really fuckin' proud of this shit."
With unproductive deals with both Jive and Rawkus Records, R.A. is even impre
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50 Cent recently took more shots towards Jay-Z, saying more about how he disagrees with his business practices. 50 has been taking shots at Jay as of late and this has allowed speculation regarding Beanie Sigel joining G-Unit to grow. He also adds that Jay-Z made him not shoot his videos with Freeway.
"I think he completely has his best interests in mind," 50 told Rolling Stone. "When you commit to working with other artists -- I have to be passionate about it. Of course, you want to make money, so you only commit to the things that you're excited about, that you feel you have the chemistry with or has something there, but after you get past that point, it should be something that you actually want to see win. I tried to collaborate with him on the Freeway project. What I did was Freeway went out and found his publishing deal, and we started the album, and Jay did 'Big Spender' and I did 'Take You to the Top,' and when it came time to put the record out, he didn't want to shoot his vi
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DOWNLOAD "Smoke DZA - Substance Abuse"
01. Intro (ft. June Summers)
02. Watch Me [prod. The Heatmakerz]
03. I Like Dreaming (ft. C-Zo)
04. Marijuana Kills Skit
05. Highway (ft. Devin the Dude & Eddie B) [prod. Rob Holiday]
06. Divine Music
07. Brownies Skit
08. Substance Abuse (ft. Den 10) [prod. Bangout & Jonny Shipes]
09. Just Another Day (ft. Nipsey Hussle & 1500 or Nothing) [prod. 1500 or Nothing]
10. Time Machine (ft. Numbers & Cory Gunz) [prod. The Heatmakerz)]
11. The Rush (ft. Mickey Factz) [prod. Ibe]
12. Kilo on My Neck (Snippet) (ft. Nipsey Hussle) [prod. Scoop Deville]
13. Smoke N Dope (ft. Curt@!ns) [prod. Illphonics]
14. Our Kids Skit
15. Remember Those Days (ft. Nipsey Hussle, Nephew & The Kid Daytona) [prod. Mr. Lee]
16. That Type of Weed Skit
17. Marley & Me (ft. Devin the Dude, Curren$y & June Summers) [prod. Scoop Deville]
18. Living Your Dreams (ft. June Summers) [prod. 183rd & Jonny Shipes]
19. Ginger Rothstein [prod. DJ Pain 1]
20. Brownies Outro
Bonus 1 - Rich
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Download "Angels Remix" featuring Lupe Fiasco
First, Diddy formed an R&B group with two girls with short hair. Then, he used autotune, a good song-writer, and a Jay-Z instrumental ("Where I'm From") to make this track, "Angels". Then, he got Lupe to do the remix. Lupe Fiasco is one of the few rappers that can take a shitty song and turn it into an impressive remix. Listen to this track.
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HipHopDX:Los Angeles' Beat Club is the latest in a line of venues that claim MF DOOM sent an imposter to perform in his stead.“It’s hard to see here but you can catch glimpses of him." Explained a concert viewer who posted a video of the perfomance (shown below). "It was obvious that he was an imposter since he never once laid his hand on a microphone and just played his new tracks on a laptop.”When asked for comment by consequenceofsound.net, the rapper's label, Stones Throw - which does not handle his booking - said it was “obvious that he wasn’t going to show up at a venue that fits only 200 people when his performance fee requires venues about 10 times that size.” It should be noted that the label did not explicitly confirm nor deny that the perfomance was an imposter's.In the past, DOOM has explained that the allegations were the result of his being unrecognizable due to massive weight loss. He was also called out for the alleged practice by The Cunninlynguists' DJ Kno in an open
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AllHipHop:
Vengeful former Roc-a-Fella artist Beanie Sigel is receiving public support from fellow Philly native and boxing legend Bernard Hopkins, who verified the rumored police incident that ignited the Jay-Z/Beanie Sigel feud.
The former middleweight and light-heavyweight champion revealed in an exclusive appearance on AllHipHop Radio’s Eric B. & Friends Morning Show yesterday (November 23).
According to Hopkins, who appeared in Beanie Sigel’s State Property 2 film, Jay-Z had dozens of cops and dogs on hand to accost Sigel and remove Sigel from an October Powerhouse concert in Philadelphia.
“He had K9’s smelling, they said everybody had to move to the side to escort Beans out,” Hopkins told AllHipHop Radio. “I’m coming like yo what are all these police for? See you’re the man, you shut this sh*t down, it’s your show!”
Host Eric B attempted to defend Jay, rationalizing to Hopkins that Jay-Z has the same police presence at all his concerts, and the Sigel situation was likely ju
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HipHopDX:
Busta Rhymes, who has had fans patiently waiting for his new album, has decided to drop The Chemo. In an interview with Billboard.com, the emcee spoke on the album, the title, and why the industry may need his help to recover.
"I called the album 'The Chemo' because it seems like the industry and music overall is dying slowly," he said. "The cancer that's stricken the business is killing the music, not only from a business standpoint, but also the value of the content and the creativity behind it. I just want to start the first stage of chemotherapy treatment that needs to take place and hopefully inspire others to do their part and contribute to different stages of the cure," he noted.
Rhymes also added that he was pleased to see fellow artists like Jay-Z, Drake and Jadakiss release note worthy albums in 2009.
Earlier this year, Busta added more on the meaning behind the title of his new album through his blog.
"We're coming to kill the cancer in music. I ain't trying t
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HipHopDX:
Lupe Fiasco's new album was supposed to be his last. After all, he left his previous effort by saying he had "one more to go, L.U.P.End." Now, it seems there's a lot more coming from Fiasco and he recently spoke about this in an interview with MTV.
After being left off the network's "Hottest" list, Lupe noted that he was out to prove a point.
"The last six months, it's been like, 'I gotta really, really go out there and show that I'm nicer than all of them,' " he said. "It's like, 'Alright, so be it. If it takes three more albums to do it, then so be it.' That's what I got left with Atlantic. Three more after Lasers. I'm already done with two. The mixtape is coming Thanksgiving. It'll be another mixtape after that and an album after that. It's really to get that status and lock it in and [and have people] be like, 'Look at this positive dude, the underdog. The positive one who came and murdered all these dudes. And he's there, and he's good.'"
Adding to his hunger, he sai
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Hollyscoop:
50 Cent and Eminem have mad love for each other—in fact 50 has Eminem to thank for getting his career off the ground. The two performed on stage last night for the AMAs, and the crowd went wild.
But one person who wasn’t feeling the love was Jay Z, who was sitting in the audience during “Crack a Bottle” and Drake’s “Forever,” which Em also sings on.
A Hollyscoop spy sitting right near Jay in the audience says he wouldn’t even stand up to cheer his fellow rappers on! They tell Hollyscoop exclusively, “When 50 Cent and Eminem were performing, Jay Z didn’t stand up. And the guy next to him stood up, and Jay Z pulled the guy down. So the guy sat.”
So where does all this animosity come from? Apparently there’s a growing feud happening between 50 Cent and Jay Z. 50 recently included Jay in the lyrics to his song, claiming that he’s let all the money go to his head, and he’s forgotten that he’s a kid from Brooklyn.
Recently in an interview with MTV, they asked 50, “How aware
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