(AllHipHop News) Rick Ross and Berner just launched a new marijuana brand together called Collins Ave., After the famous street in Miami.
Burner heads up Cookies, which is actually the leading international lifestyle and cannabis brand based in California.
Collins Ave is described as the “natural intersection of culture, music and cannabis.”
Collins Ave will include three specially curated strains featuring flavor profiles inspired by Rick Ross’ identity, according to TheBluntness.com.
From the Hybrid assortment is the “Pink Rozay,” while the “Collins Ave” is an Indica. And if you’re looking for a Sativa, Rick Ross is all time favorite flavors, “Lemon Pepper,” would be your choice.
When asked about why he chose Rick Ross for this partnership, owner, Berner, simply said “Ross gets it.”
“When it comes to branding and building something long term, Ross gets it. We have a very similar work ethic and both have spread our wings outside of the music business and what I like most about this partnership is it all happened 100% naturally,” he explained further.
Berner then detailed how the two initially met.
“Ross and I met back in the early 2000s at my dispensary in San Francisco. I never tried to force a music collaboration or anything. When we linked back up recently, everything fell right into place and we are both looking to kill it. Expect a crazy menu on Collins Ave side with a group project to smoke and ride to.”
For Ross, who has dominated the Hip-Hop industry for years now, he wants to mimic his music career success in his new venture.
“I want to be a force within the cannabis industry and bring a superior quality product to the masses, particularly my people in the South. I’m honored to be in partnership with Berner and Cookies, who, in my opinion, are the best in the business. I love the product and truly stand behind it. Watch what we do!”
(AllHipHop News) Last Sunday, Kanye West surprised everyone when he announced his plans to run in this year’s presidential election.
Last week, upon hearing the news, Elon Musk, pledged his support for the Hip-Hop celebrity.
However, sources have just revealed that Elon Musk has retracted his support amid growing concern regarding his mental well-being – after seeing the rapper’s worrisome interview with Forbes.
In Musk’s eyes, the erratic behavior ‘Ye displayed during his interview raised red flags.
Having publicly addressed his support for the presidential hopeful, many flocked to Elon Musk asking if he was still going to support Kanye after the bizarre interview.
“We may have more differences of opinion than I anticipated,” Elon Musk replied.
If Elon continues to stand by his statement, it appears as though Kanye has lost one of his first supporters.
According to reports, Kanye allegedly suffers from frequent episodes of “severe mania” that hinder his judgement – especially when it comes to decision-making and he’s supposedly in tmiddle on a manic episode, after the Forbes Q&A.
“It’s a health issue, this is a sprained brain, like a sprained ankle. When someone has a sprained ankle, you’re not going to push on him more. With us, once our brain gets to a point of spraining, people do everything to make it worse,” Kanye once said to David Letterman.
(AllHipHop News) YG is no longer interested in working with Nicki Minaj despite their success together on the hit single “Big Bank.”
Recently, the Compton rapper sat down with Bootleg Kev and DJ He’d on LA’s REAL 92.3 to share his thoughts and feelings on the whole situation between Nicki and controversial rapper, 6IX9INE.
During the interview, YG was asked if he’d work with Nicki again.
He quickly shook his head and answered, “I don’t know, my feelings is hurt. I’m a real street n##ga,” before proclaiming that Nicki was “canceled.”
Bootleg Kev then followed up asking that meant he was completely done with Nicki Minaj’s features.
“Yeah, I’m cool,” he said with no hesitation.
As you know, YG and 6ix9ine’s have had a longstanding feud, which was reignited a couple of years ago when YG dropped his “Bulletproof” video.
In the video, a character that appears to be portraying a jailed 6IX9INE is seen being taunted by inmates as the word “PEDOPHILE” appears on the screen.
The two have been at it since then.
After 92.3 LA posted the interview clip on their Instagram page, the Barbz went to work.
“Nicki is one of the biggest artists in the world she can do whatever she wants can’t no one cancel her,” one follower wrote.
Another chimed in saying, “Nicki gave him (YG) his two biggest hits and highest-charting single on Billboard. I promise she doesn’t care and this is hurting him more than it is her.”
Lil Marlo was the artist on the roster of Quality Control, and Hip-Hop powerhouse which comes artists like Cardi B, Lil Baby, Migos, City Girls and Lil Yachty as artists on the roster.
Lil Yachty took the Instagram to memorialize his friend, and revealed they recently recorded music together.
(AllHipHop Rumors) People that know Talib Kweli, he is more than the man that did the song “Get By.” He is an activist in real life and he also is a furious tweeter. Normally he goes at racists that troll him, but he has been charged with going after a woman over the issue of colorism.
I do not know exactly how it all started but the women apparently asked him to address the issue of colorism. I guess he didn’t want to address it, DJ EQUE, but it really went left seemingly when he brought Talib’s wife into it. I won’t lie…I didn’t know he was still married. Unless I got some bad intel, he is still married to DJ Eque! You may remember, many MOONS ago they got into a big fight at 50 Cent’s lavish mansion party. It was ugly! I was doing the rumors at the time and I didn’t even put homie’s name in the rumor.
(AllHipHop News) Rap superstar Drake has called into question the injuries allegedly sustained by a man accusing him of involvement in a 2018 Hollywood nightclub assault.
The “God’s Plan” hitmaker, real name Aubrey Graham, was listed as a defendant alongside American football star Odell Beckham Jr. and Kourtney Kardashian’s on/off boyfriend, Younes Bendjima, in legal papers filed by Bennett McBride Sipes early last year.
Drake previously attempted to have his name removed from the lawsuit by pointing out that surveillance video footage from the night in question only shows Bendjima getting physical with Sipes, and insists at no time did he instruct his security guards to get involved in the fight, as alleged by the plaintiff.
Now he has submitted new paperwork, casting doubt on Bennett’s reported injuries, noting he is “not seeking lost wages” as part of his bid for damages, while the bust-up didn’t appear to halt his “post-incident world travels,” according to documents.
Again requesting to be dismissed from the case, Drake’s lawyers write, “Contrary to Plaintiff’s allegations, Graham did not personally commit, or direct or incite anyone to commit, any tortuous conduct against Plaintiff – Graham was merely a bystander, and neither he nor people employed by him had any involvement in Plaintiff’s alleged injuries whatsoever.”
Beckham, Jr. has also denied any involvement in the clash, while Bendjima recently claimed he acted in self-defense.
The case is due to go to trial, although a start date has yet to be set.
(AllHipHop News) If you follow Kid Cudi on social media, then you’ve seen him use the acronym “DMT” from time to time.
Cudi has stated it stands for “Divine Moments of Truth,” but his fans and followers are also well aware of the psychedelic drug that goes by the same three letters, after he raved about taking the drug in 2014.
DMT was unlike anything I've ever experienced in my 30 years on this planet. Words cannot describe it. It was beyond what we know
Whichever way you’re leaning, the two are interestingly intertwined when it comes to Kid Cudi.
“I’ve done DMT a couple times and they say DMT is the experience of dying or the feeling that you get when you’re born before you’re born. So it kinda tapped me into another place. It let me know that there’s something beyond. I always felt in my heart that there was something beyond,” Kid Cudi shared on a recent episode of Young Money Radio on Apple Music.
He delved deeper into the experience, revealing that it “tapped” him into another place. “It let me know that there’s something beyond,” he said. He went on to describe the afterlife as a “peaceful place,” and “that there’s no pain, it’s bright and warm and smells like cotton candy.”
“It’s just a really peaceful place where you feel nothing but joy and you have peace. I really truly believe that there has to be something peaceful after this life.”
Cudi discussed the drug during convo with Wayne, where he also explained how doing cocaine and other drugs like DMT sent him to rehab to fight drug addiction and depression.
“I thought after rehab, my life was going to be peachy keen and everything was going to be great; but one of the things they told me in rehab was like, there will be other days where you’ll have bad days, and you’ll get depressed again, and we have to give you the tools to be able to deal with that when it happens again,” Kid Cudi explained.
Cudi also discussed how Lil Wayne’s interview with Eminem led to their first collaboration “Adventures of Moon Man & Slim Shady” after the Detroit rap legend expressed his interest in working with Cudi during his interview.
Kid Cudi says he shipped a record off to Eminem and the rapper responded back ready to work.
“He sent it right back and, man, I got him on the phone. I had to tell him, I was like, ‘Yo bro, you f-king destroyed this sh-t.’ Because I was nervous because I was like, ‘Man, I’m f-king going get him Eminem on my song, he going body me on my own sh-t.’ But I was like, f-k it. like, f-k it. I just want a joint with Em, so.
In the coming months, fans can expect new projects from an enlightened Cudi in the form of an animated series with Kanye West and Takashi Murakami, a podcast, and a role as “Richard” on the HBO series “We Are Who We Are.”
AllHipHop sits down with the man standing in back of the man, Eric Beasley. He breaks down how he and Smack met, how URL became the world’s most respected battle rap league and how the company made history with the legendary rock group, The Rolling Stones, even before the Drake deal.
AllHipHop: Can you talk about your history in business and how you were able to connect it to Smack?
Beasley: That’s a long story, but let me try to give you the shortest version of it. I started out working in the music industry many many moons ago. I got into doing radio promotion. Interning, then I did College radio, then I did radio promotion and I worked within the MCA/Geffen system for many years. From there. I went on to manage a rap group that had a single out that was really big.
That was like when I was young – like, my first real, I guess you can say taste of success. But the album didn’t really do well, so MCA merged and they took all the groups and got rid of Geffen Records, at least from the Urban side. So it kind of left me without a job and then the management didn’t really work out because the group didn’t go anywhere after the single. So I was left to start over from scratch again. From that point, I began to work with various producers that started to place tracks because I knew a lot of people from the industry. I was able to get producers’ tracks to Method Man, Redman, Lil’ Kim, Ludacris, Scarface, Kanye West and others.
When I was doing that, I was working with a group of people and I saw an edition of the S.M.A.C.K DVD. A friend of mine showed it to me, as I was trying to get artists that I was working with on the DVD. But there was no way to find Smack, and a guy who was mentoring me at the time — or got me into the music business —he was managing this group on Atlantic named Nappy Roots, and they had a video shoot. He invited me to this video shoot. As I’m walking into the video shoot, this guy is walking out of the video shoot and we bump into each other, literally. I say, “oh excuse me,” he says, “excuse me.” I’m like, “whassup, Beas” and he says, “Smack.”
I’m like, “oh s### yo homie, I’ve been looking for you, I’ve been trying to find you. We started chopping it up.
And I had told him about the people I was working with and he came up to the Bronx a day or two later. That’s where the infamous Cory Gunz video was shot with him inside the car on the S.M.A.C.K. DVD. That’s kind of like when the world really got to see Cory Gunz in action, that was from that day. From there, we just kept in contact with each other. I was doing interviews for those segments just ‘cause I knew what was going on. People liked the interview, so we just kept in contact with each other and started to kick it and work with each other from that point on. Then like Smack was technical terms of like shooting and the editing, he did all that stuff for S.M.A.C.K. DVD, but I knew a lot of people on the industry side, so I was able to help and assist with getting certain people that he didn’t know onto the DVD. He had already gotten some people on it that were already famous and poppin’ but there was a whole set of other people that didn’t know that I either knew or had access to. I had access to their management and things like that. So we just started working together and I proposed working with them and he was like, OK cool.
And then what happened was you were doing a business like that, you gotta run around, and you don’t know what it’s going to form into. It’s hard to get people who see your vision and are willing to see it through or stick it out until something happens. So I ended up just being in a situation where I was hungry and looking for something and I believe that it worked. So I was always someone contacting him, hitting them up and he saw that I had the same enthusiasm he did. So it made all the sense in the world and from that point on, we just started doing all the SMACK DVDs just coming out, coming out, ‘cause when I first met him it was only the movies. That’s when a friend of mine – well it was actually Cory Gunz and his cousin, Jims World, they told me about Lux. Lux was known as Pop at that time. He didn’t really go by Loaded Lux, but more so Pop Lux or whatever. That’s when we set up the battle with Murder Mook and Lux at the clothing store Uptown. From that point I was saying, you know people really like this battling s###, we should try to focus on it.
We were still getting all the big names like The Game, Eminem, Ludacris, these were all the people that we were interviewing. Kanye West, R. Kelly — stuff like that. But we started these little battles and over the next few years we did SMACK DVD until that kind of ran out, and in 2007.
When YouTube came out of nowhere, that really hindered everything because people were uploading the content off the DVD as soon as we would put it out. It just devalued the platform a great deal because artists could kind of push their own narrative.
Cameras were becoming cheaper and more accessible. So there was really no need for us because artists could just take their own things and put them out on YouTube, and then platforms like Worldstar started blowing up. It kind of put a real crush on the DVD market for us and the DVD market in general started to decline that year as well. Even for mainstream releases and movies. So we had to try to figure out another way to get something going.
So we tried a couple of SMACK2s, a couple of other different online things but nothing really stuck until we realized that there was one thing that was remaining exclusive. And that was the battle because a battle is like a fight. A boxing match that happens one time and that’s it.
Two guys are not going to battle on Monday and then say hey, let’s create the same exact battle with the same rhymes on Friday. On another platform. But if there’s somebody doing an interview, they’re gonna tell their story to anybody who’s willing to listen when they promote their album. If they have beef with somebody, they’re gonna get asked by every radio station they go to while they’re promoting their album.
Every kid with a blog is going to be asking them to spit on the couch and post it on their blogs. So interviews and beefs just weren’t exclusive anymore. They no longer had exclusivity, and they had no more value. The artists soon realized that they didn’t need another outlet. They could just post the stuff up, and other outlets would just share it. So it kind of really was a big blow to us, but we knew that battles people like, so that’s what we decided to form URL and do the first event on October 31st, 2009. Yeah, so that’s how it started.
AllHipHop: Do you think that your business acumen comes from being in radio promotion or being a manager or is a part of your home hustle?
Beasley: Having worked for Geffen Records, where they didn’t have an urban staff helped my hustle. We were kind of forced to wear multiple hats like A&R, promotion, marketing, a little bit everything. In regards to my work with Smack, I just kind of knew what I liked and what I knew other people would be into. It was the direction that I pushed, in terms of S.M.A.C.K. DVD because it was so raw and street, I instinctively knew that would grow.
Remember, there was no YouTube then. There weren’t a lot of websites then. It was like the “Bible of the streets.” So if you have that, and you have all these people, I just knew that I was gonna grow. But I definitely think that, a lot of the lessons that I learned along the way from working in the music business, I was able to apply.
I also utilize a lot of my contacts that enable me to push certain buttons to make things happen like get battle rap on big websites like This is 50 or AllHipHop.com. Getting guys on Funkmaster Flex. Getting guys on Sway In the Morning. Getting guys on Kay Slay and other Sirius radio shows. These were all contacts that I had prior to the URL.
I was able to utilize it to build the artists that were on URL. I did things just to bolster the brand. I worked to have that connection and that fusion between the two worlds (commercial rap industry and the battle rap industry). That and S.M.A.C.K. DVDs history as being like the realest out there on the street, helped us gain momentum tremendously.
All those things help.
A lot of it was me paying attention to similar business models like the Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC. The UFC is the closest thing to URL in a mainstream market. We can have a similar story. We have something that people weren’t paying attention to and were a smaller audience.
And they have trouble legitimizing it and proving that it was viable. They kept pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing without never looking back not and not knowing if the company was gonna last. Not knowing how long it was gonna be around. They pushed until they finally had a fork in the road, and they made the right turn and turned things into a billion dollar company. And I believe that URL is the same in a lot of ways because there were a lot of companies that wouldn’t touch us or be sponsors for us. Now those same people are calling. You had people saying “Oh, it’s too rough” but now you have Dropped the Mic. Now you have shows like Wild N Out, where it’s almost predominantly battle rap. I mean, it is. It is different. It’s in a different format and delivery, but, they are hiring battle rap battles and they are actually having battles. This shows the influence of what we’ve been able to do, and how far it’s spread. So, the long answer is it is definitely my hustle. From me trying to get in the game. Me coming up in the business (even as an intern). Me walking down to the office when I didn’t have money to get there. Me hanging out late trying to meet people and going to music seminars to shake hands and trying to figure out a way to break into the business. Definitely gave me that hustle. And Smack, himself, is a hustler as well. So the two of us together … It just works.
Smack had the technical ability for the editing and shooting. And me having the contacts was a great combination that worked out really well.
AllHipHop: How did you guys finance it?
Beasley: You have to remember at that time, there was no there was no YouTube. The web was still developing. So, you know, if you have a hot product, you have all the top rappers on it, they are giving you exclusive interviews and videos, it simply is going to go. The gift and a curse was the bootleg industry.
When you have something that is hot, the bootleggers are all over it. We were able to get the master copies, sell them and distribute them to the mom and pop stores that had our own distribution list. It’s just the world we live in, the bootleggers would have us all over the place, in Africa, in different countries around the world, different territories, around the states. They became another distribution chain for us, so the S.M.A.C.K. DVDs were getting out everywhere.
When you have something that’s raw and organic, and people believe to be authentic, it’s just gonna take off even more. You have more rappers on it, or the top entertainers on it. It’s just an undeniable force.
We got lists and attended seminars and things like that … but a lot of times material was just so hot … it was in demand. So when you have something that’s in demand, it is gonna get bootlegged and you are going to get spread around. That in turn helped us become credible and more visible to the consumer. So when we did start the URL, we branded it SMACK URL. We were letting people know “He this is the same thing that you see on Smack DVDs. Now it’s just focused on the battle aspect of it.”
I was a huge fan of UFC. I saw the growth. I saw the marketing. I saw the push. I would apply everything that I would see on UFC to URL. Their trailers and promotions. Let’s try and get rappers to come through and integrate that whole thing. They would go out and talk about it. We’d get on certain websites that you would normally cover Hip-Hop. When a blog craze happened we got on them.
The material just being so raw and people seeing the acapella format for the first time on the S.M.A.C.K. DVD kind of made us the forefathers of the new wave of battle rap culture.
As a culture, we were the first one. We were the first place where they saw a certain level of authenticity.
AllHipHop: So while you guys weren’t the first battle rap league, how can you claim to be the forefathers?
Beasley: S.M.A.C.K. DVDs, in terms of what it was known for, we had rappers and we had battles on there, we kind of influenced Fight Club and Grindtime. They all came from watching Murda Mook and all those guys on S.M.A.C.K. DVDs first and then they kind of form their own things. Fight club had their own format with the pool table and the 60 seconds. Our stuff was more raw. We’d say, “Show up with your rhymes and you show up with your rhyme, and there were no all real time limits. You just rhyme until your rhyme is over. We’re gonna do three rounds.”
Those things were derivatives that were trying to capture the feel of what we had on the S.M.A.C.K. DVDs in regards to GrindTime and Fight Club.
The reason why URL stands strong is because that’s the first place where people saw it. People have been battling for years. We didn’t invent battle rap, but in the format that it is currently today. Once S.M.A.C.K. DVD dropped, rapping over beats became antiquated. From that point on, just never saw anybody go back to that … it just went out of style.
When you see something somewhere first, they just get the credit for it.
People respected the other platforms, but S.M.A.C.K. is the first place where you saw it. So then when we came back with URL and people knew that it was Smack and he’s hosting it … there is a certain feel that we can provide, that the other guys didn’t have. I’m not saying that their stuff wasn’t good, in fact it was great. I enjoyed it and I watched … and they had their own things that they did … that we didn’t do … I am not taking anything away from them, but in terms of battle rap and getting that feel and that grimy street edge … that’s what URL is and that’s what we have. We created that and we are known for that. So when we’re doing what we do and other people are trying to be in the marketplace and trying to be competitive in the place, it’s harder for them because they can’t do what we do.
AllHipHop: What was it like when you guys were created your initial roster?
Beasley: In the beginning, we were just looking around for guys to fill up the card to get a couple the battles on. We didn’t know how long it was going to last, after we did the first one. We did the first event, and then like a week or so later, Aye Verb called and said “I already got this event set up. Y’all should come tape it.” We went down there, taped it. We got the footage and shot it. It was a “win win” for us. They were making noise in their region and we had the cameras, and had the distribution, we had the name and the brand. So when we combined together, this made all the sense in the world.
AllHipHop: Aye Verb said he started URL
Beasley: (Friendly Laughter because he gets the joke) That’s not true. Don’t listen to Aye Verb. The URL started in New York City with Math Hoffa and T-Rex, that was the very first battle. The Aye Verb battle that he’s mentioning started afterward. They were already doing a battle and we added a few more battles to the card. I mean he was around in the early stages of URL, but he didn’t form the company. (more laughter). But it’s all good. If he says he founded URL, then alright Verb you started it. People have to understand that while they say that they started it … but these guys were paid to perform. When you say that you start something that means that you started something. Put the money up, you know when you offered something in exchange, some form of equity or something like that, but if you’re demanding money for performance … You know … you were paid and facilitated the act … then well, you know. I mean, they definitely vital played a part in it because they were talented. We needed new talent or we needed to utilize their brand and their talent … just like they needed ours.
I needed Aye Verb’s talent and the guys from his region’s talents to have some variety … just like they needed the SMACK brand to authenticate. It said that they were “official.” They were on SMACK.
(Ed. Note SMACK is the brand. S.M.A.C.K. is the DVD. Smack is the man)
AllHipHop: Was URL the first league to franchise cards?
Beasley: I would say so. I know GrindTime had some names, but I’m not sure when they started to implement those names and attach them to events. But I mean, I would always want to have a name because as I said, I was a huge UFC fan and if you look at the early UFC, they had numbers, but a lot of them had names like “Redemption” or “The Final Get Back.” There were always like, names of the events. So I thought that we should name the events. I thought that we should do trailers. I thought that we should have round splitters, tales of the tape. I would say. All of those things we discussed Smack, Cheeko and I wanted to give a sports feel. In the beginning people would say, oh, you’re doing too much just let them battle. Then, over time, people were saying “Oh, the trailers. Oh my God! This is what we want to see.”
It is the build-up. It is the energy. It is the hype.
It makes it more important. And it makes the emcees know … “Oh s###, I can’t play around. This is serious. As we would move on, we started to do more things to make it feel more serious like face-offs and press conferences, you name it.
We were always coming up with different ideas, just to give it that sports feel, to make it legitimate.
AllHipHop: What was the first title?
Beasley: The first one was the “the Midwest Massacre.” That was the one with Aye Verb. It was the second card, but the first with a title.
The first one was crazy because we had ciphers in the middle of the show. It was crazy. But as we grew and got more popular we figured out what works for us.
AllHipHop: What are some of the biggest moments that you remember and how did they differ?
Beasley: Moments like NOME I, where we had a car named it and I remember we had it at this club called Santos down in New York City. That was one of the things that we always try to do, is get into clubs or places that you did not expect that a battle rap event would happen. People at the time thought that battle rap would be going to be on the Lower East Side in a basement with an illegal liquor license or something like that. I would always try to go out to these legitimate venues where industry events would be because I wanted to show the power of battle rap, pack building and show how we can pack the buildings and stuff like that.
We were mostly doing stuff at a place called the Voodoo Lounge on 66 something street … it doesn’t exist anymore … but it was a small little spot … fitting like 100 people and change in there.
So we come up with NOME. It is the year’s end. We are thinking, “How many people are going to show up?” I was snowing that day too. I said “Oh, you know, we would probably get 100 to 200 people and that would be good.” Before I left my house, I was getting calls, like “Yo, people are out here and the lines are down the block and around the corner.” I was in my hotel. I saw other people who flew in for this. We weren’t even selling advance tickets, it was all door money. When I get downtown, like hours before the doors open and the lines are like down the block and around the corner.
That was the first time that we’d ever seen that. It was so crazy. Like the police department had come and they were like, “Whose event is this?” and I was like “it is mine.” They said, “Who is performing out here? Why are there so many people out here?” I was like “it is battle rap, with URL.” They couldn’t believe it. We probably left as many people as outside, as we let inside. So many people were outside that wanted to spend money with us, but they couldn’t because of the capacity. That place might have done about 500 to 600 people but we were at full capacity. It was a bunch of artists, Waka flocka, Juelz Santana, a whole bunch of rappers were outside trying to get in and they couldn’t get in. From that point, that’s when we knew we had to get something bigger.
The next event was Summer Madness I and we were able to get Webster Hall.
NOME, you know from then on, we did one more in Chicago and it was like a medium size. It wasn’t that crazy. But then after that, it was over. NOME III to NOME X – Sold out. 1000 + or 2000 people, every time.
AllHipHop: So you took it from basically a DVD magazine and made it into an actual industry. Now there is battle rap media, spawned from people admiring you, there is battle rap fashion. What did it mean to you?
Beasley: It’s a great thing. It’s a real achievement to me personally because I love to see other people be successful. I love to see guys selling their own merch. Or having successful albums and making good music or getting all kinds of deals. So that’s really what it was created for. It is dope for us to be able to just do URL. There was a time, even after we started URL, when I was still hustling beats and selling stuff. Now for the last few years, I’ve been able to do URL soley. And it has been successful enough for me, not have to do anything else. I believe that is an achievement, especially when you have something that nobody believed in was viable. When you say battle rap, it is something that may have been done once a year at a mix conference, but it wasn’t something that was done all the time like a sport. Where guys could have a career or field in that. So, this means a lot to me. Seeing people making a living off the battle rap and guys making their own companies Seeing media outlets being formed like HipHopisReal and !5 Minutes of Fame.
Guys really making careers reporting off of what we do. They’re able to have their own platform to make their money and make a living off of the energy that we create. So, you know, I think that’s insane. One thing that has always been important to me is to have some kind of legacy within Hip-Hop. I am a huge Hip-Hop fan.
So, I don’t necessarily know in the mainstream music business. I mean, I’ve had some success and I’ve had some placements and I’ve worked with some big names before you like Kanye, Lil Kim, Scarface, people like that … but to be in a field that I am directly responsible for creating … flourishing in that field … Being a leader … and enabling other people to make careers off of our platform to go to other platforms like Wild ‘N Out or to get acting jobs, or successful music careers like Tsu Surf … is something that I’m really proud of. When it is all said and done and goes down in the books, and you talk about battle rap, the first thing you are going to say is URL. There is no way around it. Battle rap has come and gone and different stages throughout Hip-Hop, but this is the longest that’s ever been. We’ve done the biggest events consistently that there has ever been in battle rap, we’ve sold the most tickets than anyone. There are just so many things that we’ve been able to do that have made history … and not just battle rap history.
In venues like Webster Hall, we have tied in attendance with the Rolling Stones. They’ve had so many big names, like Jay-Z and Nas, to go through Webster Hall and to say that the biggest is URL in terms of Hip-Hop and they are tied with the Rolling Stones and the Killers. We have the most sales in Irvine Plaza’s history in terms of payout for a promoter, that’s us URL. We’ve brought the most people out for the highest price in that building. We’ve sold Irving Plaza out at least 10 times.
So to have those different benchmarks and those different milestones, is dynamic. Then we are traveling to places like London and that’s sold out. We’ve gone to Houston and that’s sold out. North Carolina and all kinds of markets throughout the nation and internationally … the same results … sold out. We did this independently. This is before our partnership with Caffeine. We’ve set up our own online platform, our pay per view platform and then turned around to set up an app which is essentially a Black-owned streaming service where people are paying to come in and watch exclusive content that we create is amazing to me.
Like I would have never thought that people would not only watch our stuff, but to actually pay for it and sell it independently, without investors. We did this without any help. Just solely grinding and putting forth our own dollars to make something happen is amazing.
Now, linking up with caffeine as a partner is going to propel us to the next level.
The most important part of me is not the money, it is more so about the legacy. Knowing that when you say battle rap, you have to say URL.
When my daughter grows up, she will be able to say that my father started that.
When people look back, I know that will be directly credited for battle rap being as big as it is today because we’re the ones that went and got us into the biggest venues. We’re the ones that got the most attention in the press. We’re the ones that were able to get the artists on the bigger platforms, like Hot 97, Sirius radio, the BET awards, MTV. All kinds of stuff that nobody was ever able to do (with it being as raw as it is). We did it with the language, with the rawness, with there really no sacrificing our integrity or changing anything. We did it our way. We kept it raw, rugged, street and hardcore and we were still able to permeate mainstream media. So much to the point there are shows out there imitating us using Ben Affleck battling Halle Berry and setting it up to look like a URL battle.
AllHipHop: You’re becoming a platform where people are duplicated by people imitating you in your space. Now you have competition. But also you guys are also leaders in the space, partnering with other leagues to help them become successful. Can you talk about that?
Beasley: Yeah, I mean the smaller leagues we definitely need. Those are the first platforms that a lot of our emcees touch. Then when it gets to points where they need to elevate, go to the next level and become mainstream within the battle rap industry, they always seem to point to URL. So it’s always important for us to foster those leagues and keep them around for their development. They are like essentially scouts for us. I personally advise a lot of guys on how to move and handle certain issues and certain precautions to take certain ways to deal with artists, so that they can be effective and not get taken advantage of.
Even showing guys how to promote and how to market. You know, all those things are conversations that I have often with a lot of smaller leagues. We have sometimes offered our promotional outlets to help them push things along.
Also, by elevating some of their talent, and then allowing the talent to return back to the small league from which they originated to help bolster ticket sales and visibility. We even help with streaming. For those leagues it is a plus as well.
It’s so much that we do and when we are working with some of the smaller guys on the come up. Now they have an understanding where they know and understand. Again, similar to UFC and the smaller mixed martial arts organizations where they get their guys. So they fill a void and they make money there. And then those guys are doing that here and getting their guys ready to come to URL … to really take it to the next level … they then get to come to the Proving Grounds, The Crucible and now Ultimate Madness. These are all things to build these guys profiles and make them the stars of tomorrow.
AllHipHop: Battle rappers say that the URL has literally changed their lives. How does it feel to know that you help people to be able to live?
Beasley: I’m thankful for all of those guys because without the talent, without their participation in it, without them blessing us with their talent on our platform, we wouldn’t be able to be who we are. But it definitely feels good to know that we play a part and helping others facilitate their dreams and goals. That all goes back creating our legacy. Being able to say we built something. Russell Simmons can always be like, I’m Def Jam: that first real Hip-Hop label for the street. He’ll always be able to have that ability to say, “I’ve changed lives, I gave people careers in business, I made stars out of people no one was giving opportunities to.”
I kind of feel the same way about what we do at URL. I feel that we give tons of opportunities to people that no one was paying attention to.
When I was working at Atlantic Asylum, when URL first began. I had an A&R job, and I would bring the guys up, and we would shoot a show called The Strategy Room, which is like an interview show. It’s like the first URL, and I would have everybody come up there. Remember the infamous video of K-Shine and Tsu Surf arguing and they’re like in the conference room? That was up in my office in Asylum.
I would see people and could just hear them talking, snickering, like, “Oh, what is he doing? Why is he messing with these guys? That’s not gonna get any money.”
I’m not saying that. We weren’t trying to make money but we didn’t know if we were going to make money. YouTube didn’t even have a partnership yet, where you could actually monetize on videos. That was like a crazy concept and itself.
Really all that you had was ticket and door money. We didn’t even think about pay per view or other revenue streams. We just knew we liked it, other people like this, and that there was a way for it to be successful if we stay focused.
And we knew that eventually, if you have a passion, you’re gonna find a way to monetize off of it and turn it into something. Yeah, feels great to be able to be a part of helping somebody see their dreams through.
Our legacy is more than just the influence, but by creating a big industry we have to show what that looks like. Having meetings with our employees flying and around them all around the country. Our having to bring the whole operation to Houston. Bringing the whole operation to London and putting people on airplanes for the first time. Making guys get passports and taking them out of the country for the first time. Bringing them to Funkmaster Flex to rhyme, a privilege that is usually reserved for someone that has sold albums. Putting people in the BET Ciphers, not to battle, but to rhyme. Breaking down doors and getting new artists on 106 and Park on BET. And them changing the whole format of their show to fit our needs. Taking over the 2019 BET Hip-Hop Awards, and being the most popular segment on the entire show. We are hitting these milestones all the time. I take it all in stride, but I’m definitely thankful about it and enjoying the journey the entire way. And this is not an arrogant thing, it’s just letting the Hip-Hop world, our world, know that we’re going to do this something that people thought could not be done.
Still, I feel like with all that we have done some there is still so much more that we still have to conquer.
(AllHipHop News) To kick-off the weekend, Cardi B and Offset took over Instagram with photos and videos of their daughter’s second birthday party.
Kulture turned two and it was an occasion worth every dollar spent.
For starters, Cardi & Offset had Kulture dripping in designer with her nearly $400 Balenciaga sweatshirt, paired with a pink tutu and fresh Air Force 1’s.
“My beautiful Baby KK you are a prize from God. Thank you so much @iamcardbi for this blessing 2 years went by so fast God is the Greatest,” shared Offset in a post on Instagram.
The proud mom, in return, posted her own shoutout with a video of Kulture dancing, “Go Kulture, it’s your birthday,” she shouted.
In her Instagram story, Cardi was a bit more emotional, “She don’t know how f##ked up in emotions and tears I am today. My baby deadass turning 2 today,” Cardi gushed.
As if the lavish birthday party wasn’t enough, the proud parents also dropped $100K on an iced out necklace for their daughter. Cardi credits her baby girl’s swagger to the city she’s from, New York – even though she “was born in Georgia” she wrote.
(AllHipHop Rumors) Illseed Note: 50 Cent managed to “get” the AHH news team real good! They posted a fake conversation between Will Smith and Fif! I knew it was fake, because I saw Michael “Neega” Blackston posting a very similar “DM.” For some reason, Fif’s did ring a bit more true.
Here is what we posted, but it was all fake, ‘cept for the August Alsina / Jada part!!!
50 Cent has managed to place himself smack dab in the middle of the drama between Will Smith, his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, and singer August Alsina.
After initially saying August’s amorous admissions were “absolutely not true,” Jada came clean during the Q&A with Will and admitted she became entangled in a relationship with August Alsina starting in 2015.
During a pretty uncomfortable sit-down, Will and Jada maintained they were separated during the affair and have since reconciled and taking their relationship to another level.
The internet exploded with memes mocking Jada’s explanation, the couple, and the entire affair.
Enter 50 Cent.
The Queens, New York rapper sent Will Smith a text message to check up on his famous friend, out of a concern for his well-being after the eye-popping interview.
(AllHipHop News) Jay-Z, Yo Gotti, and Roc Nation are all about that action.
The rap stars have filed a class-action lawsuit against the MS Department of Corrections over its horrendous treatment of the inmates.
The rappers are targeting Commissioner Nathan Burl Cain and the prison’s healthcare provider, Centurion for running a “medieval” style prison.
The new class-action lawsuit represents 227 inmates at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
The lawsuit claims the prison is a disaster. The rapper’s claim the facility is understaffed, filthy, and violent.
For the past year, the rap bosses have been accusing the MS Department of Corrections of failing “to meet even the most basic human rights” over the filthy conditions at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
(AllHipHop News) Kanye West wants to make America like the fictional comic book kingdom of Wakanda if he is successful in running for president.
The “Gold Digger” hitmaker announced his shock presidential run and insists he is serious and will oppose incumbent President Donald Trump, even though he still sympathizes with America’s embattled leader.
“I would run as a Republican if Trump wasn’t there. I will run as an independent if Trump is there,” he told Forbes magazine. “Trump is the closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation.”
Although he is hazy on his program as president, saying he hasn’t “done enough research” on taxes, he aims to turn America into a place like the technologically advanced kingdom of Wakanda in the film “Black Panther.”
“A lot of Africans do not like the movie and representation of themselves in…Wakanda,” he says. “But I’m gonna use the framework of Wakanda right now because it’s the best explanation of what our design group is going to feel like in the White House…
“That is a positive idea: you got Kanye West, one of the most powerful humans-I’m not saying the most because you got a lot of alien level superpowers and it’s only collectively that we can set it free.
“Let’s get back to Wakanda… like in the movie in Wakanda when the king went to visit that lead scientist to have the shoes wrap around her shoes. Just the amount of innovation that can happen, the amount of innovation in medicine-like big pharma-we are going to work, innovate, together.”
Although he wants to run, Kanye has missed the deadline to register for the ballot in some states – a fact he says he may play on by using the title of his second album Late Registration as a campaign slogan.
(AllHipHop News) Rapper and producer Lil Jon has defended taking a loan from the U.S. federal government amid the coronavirus pandemic, insisting he’s had to shell out a lot of cash to ensure his at-home DJ sets are up to par.
The 49-year-old musician was among the big names to accept a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan from the government because of COVID-19 making it impossible for him to get out on tour.
But while some artists have been at the center of backlash for their acceptance of the loan, Jon – real name Jonathan Smith – has told Rolling Stone that he had no other choice.
“With everythin goin’ on, I decided that every Saturday night I’m doin’ live DJ sets from my house – which in order to put together – I had to not only completely dive-in and learn a new skill set (with the streaming technology), but it costs money,” he said. “To do these streams right every week, there’s a lot of production and equipment involved, that I’ve actually had to acquire a new employee that does my video content and tech aspects.
“It’s been important to me that fans are able to view my DJ sets while gettin’ the best experience they can watching from home, so with that comes the expenses and labor.”
According to the Small Business Administration and Treasury Department, Lil Jon Touring received between $150,000 and $350,000 in its loan, with the rapper naming 11 employees on his application, as well as the new worker he’s hired since the pandemic.
The Eagles, Kanye West, Pearl Jam, Guns N’ Roses, and Green Day are among the other artists who have taken out PPP loans during the pandemic.
(AllHipHop News) Rapper Future is giving a helping hand to new college students in Georgia by offering up scholarships amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The “Life Is Good” hitmaker has invited high school graduates to apply for the “I’m Still a Dreamer” Georgia COVID-19 Scholarship, funded through his FreeWishes Foundation, by submitting videos detailing how the global health crisis has personally affected their lives.
“You don’t have to be in the perfect situation or come from the perfect background to reach for your dreams,” Future shared in a statement. “Despite this COVID-19 pandemic, I encourage all dreamers to continue to dream big.”
Applicants must meet certain criteria to be eligible for the grants, which are capped at $2,500, with submissions open until July 27th. The lucky recipients will be announced on 4 August.
(AllHipHop Rumors) It does not take long. The August Alsina, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Will Smith fiasco has fully been realized today. We now know that Jada Pinkett had an adulterous affair with the 27-year-old singer. This happened a few years ago when she and Will Smith thought their relationship was completely over.If you want to read more click this link that leads to our new story on the whole thing.
But as you already know, we hear so much. This is the rumor section and in the rumor section, we hear just about everything. We know almost everything! Now as far as Will and Jada, we love them to pieces! They are royalty to us! But, they are still human and they have transgressions just like everyone else. That said, there was a little rumor a few years ago about Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Do you know who Margot Robbie is? Margot Robbie is the actress that has played in a number of movies with Will Smith, most notably Harley Quinn. They played in the DC hit movie the “Suicide Squad” together. But they had a number of other roles as well. Back when they were hot and heavy professionally, there were rumors that they were hot and heavy intimately as well.
This was no secret. The Twitter-verse is on it! And the comedy is GUT BUSTING!!!! Check out some of the tweets that have been going on for the last couple of hours. Shout out to Margot Robbie she’s a pretty hot white chick but I’m still rocking with the Halle Berry’s and the Gabrielle Union’s of the world.
What about the fact that Jada is a 40 something-year-old woman that is truly in a powerful position and the fact that she is involved with this younger man that is mentally challenged and in need of help? Is there something abusive about the relationship that she took advantage of him during a period of time in which she and her husband were going through some trials and tribulations? I am asking questions because I am finding myself looking at this as some sort of abuse of power. As a man, I think people feel like August Alsina should have just been able to walk away as the “boy toy” and be good, but I think he was in love.
Here are all the tweets about Margot Robbie, Will and Jada…very entertaining. LOL!
All one has to hear is his trademark bilabial sound roll in the mic before a battle and you know that the show is about to start. The feeling is like being at a WWE event for the first time, the room has electricity in the air and the audience is abustled with excitement. The lights are moving around and then you hear his name, SMACK —crack through by sound, space, and time. You are actually there … a live Ultimate Rap League (URL) event. It is something everyone in their lifetime has to experience.
But now, with their new partnership with OVO executive and artist, Drake, and the new streaming service Caffeine TV, the same powerful experience is captured for fans for free online. Wait … the same show that people have spent upwards of $200 a ticket to see in person or $65 to witness via pay per view is free for all who care to watch? That’s impossible. No … it is what he does. Troy “Smack White” Mitchell has been creating and shaping, remixing, and re-interpreting the game for two generations now.
Tsu Surf mentioned that his father and he used to watch the SMACK DVDs together. Both Geechi Gotti and Daylyt said that they would watch the DVDs in California in the early 2000s, with no advanced distribution model but the sheer potency of hood currency, the revolutionary and digital magazine traveled close to 3,000 miles to hoods like Compton, Watts, and Inglewood.
Queens Get The Money, a borough wide-slogan, might seem to be an appropriate slogan for the grind. But money has never been the motivation for the man considered the Russell Simmons of Battle Rap. Smack wants to be a legend— leave his mark indubitable ways. The DVDs and URL are just the beginning of the legacy sparked by this kid from Queens. Check out in his own words why he joins the single name club of notoriety.
AllHipHop: It has to feel great for you to be in this space right now.
Smack: Yeah it definitely feels good to be with the space that we are in, right now. Being able to work after taking a couple of months off. Not being able to do a lot and being locked in the crib. So, to get back to some type of normalcy feels good.
AllHipHop: it seems as if you’ve never been locked has never happened to you. For the last 15 to 20 years, you have been running around preserving the culture and making people famous in Hip-Hop (commercially and through battle rap).
Smack: My career feels good. I definitely participated in helping a lot of emcees both in and out of battle rap culture complete their objective of making themselves mainstream as much as possible through my outlets and my platforms that have developed over the years. One of them being SMACK DVDs and the other URLtv platform. Being able to participate in helping these emcees in establishing their identities with their careers by doing the things that they love to do, I feel amazing. I feel great. I feel like it is my calling to help these guys and ladies get from point A to point B. I am the liaison between the underground and the mainstream. When you jump on a SMACK DVD or the Ultimate Rap League platform the visibility that you get from the fan-based that I developed for being on the ground for so many years and people recognizing my platform as a gateway or a place we can get to see the next big emcee coming out or somebody that you may not know … that got incredible rapping abilities or incredible swag or cover up credible talent when it comes to making music or performing in front of crowds, it feels amazing.
AllHipHop: If you consider the trajectory of Russell Simmons’ career and contribution to Hip-Hop culture, there is a parallel with yours. He ran the street initially with DJs and new rappers, getting them on and then transitioned into creating Def Jam, a label that defined top quality rap music for the world. While he did not create commercial rap music, d##### he set it on course 35 years ago to be the most influential genre of music in the world (dollars and culture-wise).
When you think about Smack … considering the DVD and the battle rap league … you too can be viewed as the Russell Simmons of battle rap. Is that a title you take proudly?
Smack: I look up to Russell Simmons. He is definitely one of the founding fathers of Hip-Hop. He is possibly the number one Hip-Hop ambassador for us. As an ambassador, when it comes to the culture of Hip-Hop, he has open doors for others. He is one of the few figures in Hip-Hop, on the business side that people in the culture have actually followed their lead. We can stand on their accomplishments and extend their legacy further by following their lead. Russell Simmons came into the game working with DJs and managing artists branched off and created his own record company, Def Jam. Incredible. Then he opened the door number with clothing and started Phat Farm. As you know younger guys coming up into the culture, we look at Russell as the leader and what opportunities are possible for us to take advantage of.
So, you see Sean Combs following his model with Bad Boy and Sean Jean. Then you see Jay-Z with Roc-a-Fella, Roca wear and now RocNation. These are the ambassadors of Hip-Hop that he inspired that continue to open up doors for those coming after them. Like Russell, they are actually expanding and creating opportunities for others inside this culture. So having the title of Russell Simmons of battle culture is an honor. It is a blessing and also a heavy responsibility because I too am in a position where I’m opening up doors. I’m linking up with strategic partners and corporate companies trying to expand and bring this whole art form to a worldwide audience. I am excited to have this with my partner, Caffeine. Me being on programs like Rhythm and Flow with Cardi B, T.I. and Chance The Rapper. It’s basically broadening the horizons and the audience of battle rap culture. I feel honored to be looked upon in that light.
AllHipHop: Can you share three snapshots of your career that were pivotal in you becoming this gateway for the culture?
Smack: The starting of SMACK DVD? I used to tell people about what I was about to do and many people didn’t grasp the concept of what I was explaining to them. Many people didn’t believe in the vision. That’s basically a pivotal moment, #1. Pivotal moment #2 would be the creation of the Ultimate Rap League (URL). When I had to sit down and restructure my whole movement. Where it went from physical distribution of the DVD to digital distribution of our content. Trying to get the ways to have your content monetized online was a pivotal moment too. I mean I had to restructure and re-establish a whole brand. I did that successfully you know all made it a household name and now is worldwide.
Pivotal moment #3 is basically linking up with Caffeine. To actually allow the content to be available for the masses for free. That is powerful.
AllHipHop.com: What made you look at battle rap and say, ‘that’s the next move?’
Smack: Battle rap was always something I loved. I always loved the art form. I came up in high school battling each other in the lunchroom. I mean everybody doing ciphers and someone making a table. It has always been there. I fell in love with the competition aspect of it. It was something I believed was necessary to represent on my platform so that the art form would always have some type of representation. That’s what I did with the DVDs. We always had a classic rap battle. People used to even buy the DVD and go straight to the back to see the battles. I would have a mainstream artist on the cover, Eminem, 50 Cent, Kanye West (anyone you can name) Camron, Ludacris, The Game — these dudes would be on the cover and they would have the featured story on the project, and people would actually open and go straight to the back to watch the battles first. That was because they were so exciting.
I always felt that to represent the culture on a platform once I got notoriety in the world and everybody started to get familiar with the brand. Basically, battle rap as we know it today is from people watching the SMACK DVD format. We changed everything.
Before SMACK DVDs there was battle rap, it was battles on beats, like when you watch Eminem’s 8 Mile? We introduced straight acapella … no beats … round for round. We made it into a sport.
We made it three rounds and timed those rounds for three minutes. We actually made the first official Hip-Hop sport.
AllHipHop: We know that you are responsible for creating battle rap as an industry and you are responsible for creating stars out of the artists on your roster. But you’re also responsible for mentorship, working as like a big brother to other leagues. Can you talk about that?
Smack: I am who I am. If you show love to me, I will show you love. Because I feel like I am only in competition with myself, trying to always do what I always do and be great, I am secure enough to work with others. Me helping others is helping to keep battle rap culture alive. I can see that they are influenced by what I am doing and they take elements and do it their way. 15 years ago, battle rap was almost dead. This was not even developed the way it is now and it got to a point that people were now at an all-time high, because of the energy and concentration, now you can see it everywhere. You see it on MTV with Nick Cannon’s Wild ‘N Out. They have some of the battle rappers that came through URL like Conceited, Hitman Holla, and Charlie Clips. You have shows like Drop the Mic, where the Hollywood stars are battling each other and Rhythm and Flow on Netflix and Jermaine Dupri’s Rap Game. I feel like we are responsible for the influence on all these different platforms. They get their energy and concentration from all of us.
When you talk about the Queen ring and We Go Hard and some of the other leagues that we rock with, I feel like it is our duty to actually represent this artform from many different paths. We have Queen of the Ring and they represent the female version of what we do when it comes to this art form of battle rap. The ladies are dope and have talent that needs to be represented. We bring our machine to these platforms. We link up with them and we give them the necessary push that they need to stand with us.
AllHipHop: What celebrities or influencers that shocked you by being a fan?
Smack: I mean I’m not even surprised anymore. If you are a fan of lyrics, poetry, or any performing arts, you are going to appreciate battle rap. If you are a fan of competition, you are going to be a fan of battle rap because it encompasses all that in one. It is an aggressive competition and a snaps battle or a “Your Momma” competition. They have all of those elements wrapped up in one.
AllHipHop: You have made an industry where the rappers on your roster don’t have to record to be successful. Some of your veteran artists are more financially rappers you hear in the club or radio. You could actually teach a class to some label people, commercial artists. What would you teach?
We basically created a new industry with the Hip-Hop industry, with the that we put intentional structure around battle rap. We took something that people were not getting paid for, organized it, and packaged it up and got it to the level where we generated money from ticket sales and merch. We worked to develop different sorts of creative ways to generate income and implemented into a culture that we love. We invested in it and it paid off. We created an industry where now the dudes that actually do the performing art of battle rap can get paid and travel the world and put food on their tables. They can take care of their family. That’s amazing.
AllHipHop: If I were asked to do a class on building industry it would be on brand building using SMACK DVD and the Ultimate Rap League as examples.
Smack: I would talk about building a brand and marketing a brand and how to turn it into a company where you can see income from it.
Number one thing I will say, this is a free game, is that you have to create a name that is going to automatically connect with the people instantly. So, as soon as they hear the brand, they will not know what it is. Take my name, SMACK. It stands for Street Music Art Culture and Knowledge. I flipped my name into my business. That was my name in the streets, Smack. Everybody knew me and so I was like, I am gonna rep my name, I’m not gonna spend money building something that up that is not me. So I made my name and my business famous. The same thing with my other successful brand, the Ultimate Rap League. Every time someone hears the characters of Ultimate Rap League, URL, they easily remember it. You hear it one time and you say, “Hey, let me just type in URL.” Everybody knows those three-character, but I flipped it into my own business. So when people don’t think about the three characters of a website when they hear a URL and they think of battle rap, then we have accomplished our objective. We’ve made our name more popular than the world wide three letters that you go to look up a website.
AllHipHop: Where have you not had a battle event that you want to?
Smack: There are a few places. I would like to take the league to Africa. Our fanbase is so large out there, we just have not had an opportunity to go. I wanna go to South Africa or Ghana to show them we really appreciate the support. I want to definitely go to Canada. I also want to do certain things in front of landmarks around the world, like the pyramids and the Eiffel tower. My goal is to give us a polish and diverse experience.
AllHipHop: Let’s talk about the actual artists and what it takes to be a star or successful battle rapper on URL.
Smack: Oh, they definitely have to have performance. YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW TO PERFORM. Like I said earlier, this is definitely the performing arts. There is no difference than having to get on a stage and rock the crowd if you got a hit song. You have to have crowd control. This is no different than Kevin Hart and doing a stand-up routine. You have anywhere from 3,000 to 50,000 people you have to catch the attention of. These are qualities that you’re gonna have if you are going to perform on the world’s most respected emcee stage. You need to have voice projection.
AllHipHop: I’m gonna name some artists and I want you to give me one word to describe them in your opinion.
Tay Roc: Aggression.
Miss Hustle: LyricalMiss Hustle: Lyrical
Goodz: Swag
Geechi Gotti: Realness
John John da Don: Relentless
Jey the Nitewing: Unorthodox
Jaz the Rapper: Endurance
K-Shine: Aggression
Murda Mook: Elite
Tsu Surf: Witty
Charlie Clips: Comedy
Nu Jerzey Twork: Electrifying
Arsonal: Disrespectful
Official: Hardcore
Loaded Lux: Complex
SMACK: The Goat
AllHipHop: Let’s talk about your business partners: Beasley and Chico. What is it like having brothers that you can count on for business? What makes the URL executive team work?
Smack: We all have different perspectives on certain things, but like at the end of the day, we have the ultimate goal that we are all trying to accomplish. We all share the same ultimate location that we are trying to get to. So it is good to have a group of people that you can work with. That you can rely on and depend on.
AllHipHop: Your partner for this season: Drake and Caffeine TV. How did that come about?
Smack: Drake has been a fan of the culture for so many years. Drake and I have a relationship. I met Drake a couple of years back and you know he’s always been a supporter of the SMACK DVD movement and also when I made the transition into the URL movement. When we would speak, he would always ask how he could support growing whatever I was doing, how he could play a part to help everything that I was doing. We used to just go back and forth, and we came up with the concept of how to make the viewership of battle rap that bigger. He is so much of a fan, he used to buy all of the pay-per-views, he just wanted to see how he could make the experience better from a fan’s perspective. We would talk and he would say, “Hey, I bought the pay-per-view and it was good but I thought that this should be like this.” He would come with a lot of constructive criticism on how it could be an easier process on the signups or matter of fact, “let’s make this sh*t for free. Let’s link up with a company that can make the content available where fans won’t have to pay a cover charge.” He said he felt that we could get more eyeballs on the content if fans didn’t have to pay.
That’s when he proposed that we find a partner that makes sense and that will help us do that. And he did it. We linked up with Caffeine. I sat down with the CEO. From there, there was no looking back. We put the whole infrastructure together and then we launched in February.
AllHipHop: Will you still have large events like you have in the past? Do you miss it?
Smack: Yes, I miss it now. I mean that aspect of it ain’t going nowhere. We just can’t exercise it now because we are in the middle of a pandemic and properly socially distance from each other.
AllHipHop: Are you saying that even with the partnership with Caffeine … in the future … after this coronavirus is over … we could get big events again?
Smack: Definitely. Without question! All these little events that we are doing now are just ’cause of the corona’s situation. We have to keep a small crowd and be socially responsible for our personal health, first and foremost, before we can consider packing out a building with, you know 1000 plus. But soon as we can get back to doing it and it makes sense, we will.
AllHipHop: So what’s next for Smack?
Smack: I am working on new projects here and there, but I am basically taking our brand to the next level. I can’t really expose my hand but we are definitely working on a few more things. Just watch.
Masika Kalysha is back with a banger for her fans: “Cappin.” Hailing from the South Side of Chicago, the “Love & Hip Hop” star is one of the realist b##ches you’ll ever meet. With over 2.4 million followers on Instagram alone, Masika can do it all. Whether she’s acting, modeling, creating music, being a mother, running her multiple businesses, being an activist, or simply speaking her mind, she flawlessly does everything with style and grace.
Regardless of what Masika has her hands in, her daughter Khari Barbie is the forefront of everything she does. Her beauty line KBB is named after her 4-year-old, a luxury line of beauty products available at affordable prices. Of course, you may have quickly taken a liking to Masika during her time on VH1’s “Love & Hip Hop,” showcasing a raw, unfiltered personality that remains true to her character. Most recently, she landed a role in a new television series titled “PUMP,” and even made an appearance on HBO’s#### series “Insecure.”
AllHipHop caught up with Masika, who had a lot to say about the current state of the world, while spreading knowledge and information on the importance of financial literacy.
AllHipHop: Are those helicopters? I hear them from downtown LA.
Masika Kalysha: These helicopters have been flying around me all day. Are you trying to protect us or confine us? This is the 17th time this helicopter’s circled around Hollywood. What’s going on? We’re not rioting. The only thing that happened is one of the f##king murderers of George Floyd did a GoFundMe to get a million dollars to be bailed out. That’s the only thing that’s changed, why are you circling around me all day?
AllHipHop: Being a strong black female, how are you with everything happening in the world right now?
Masika Kalysha: I’m not okay, I’m the furthest from okay I’ve ever been in my life. We’ve finally reached a place in society where people are acknowledging the fact that black people are not okay. You’re of Asian descent, I’ve seen so much hatred toward black and Asian people since Coronavirus than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Some ignorant ass governor blamed Coronavirus on nail salons. This is the life we live in where we take black, brown, yellow people and blame them for all of your digression? As minorities if we banded together, we’re actually the majority.
Black people, brown people, Mexican people, yellow people, Asian people, if all the “others” got together for the same cause, we’d literally kick this d###### s##t out. There’s no such a thing as an Aryan race. We learned about what Hitler did, but we never learned about what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma. History books don’t teach us about that. Yet Donald Trump thinks he can take Juneteenth, Black Independence Day, to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma, the sight of the #1 massacre of black people. Where Black Wall Street was bombed and thousands of our people were murdered, he’s using our city and our date for his rally and we’re going to let it happen. It’s a joke! They don’t care about us, they only care about who has the wealth. The wealth is held by such a small percentage. If we take the small amount that we have as the big percentage, we could vote them out of everything.
AllHipHop: Just having a daughter, how do you explain to her what’s happening?
Masika Kalysha: It’s the hardest thing I had to do. I used to wonder how did my grandparents deal with this? As free black people, my parents were born into the first era of freedom. You can drink from this water fountain, but there’s still people who don’t want you to. I didn’t get that. I had to explain to my 4-year-old about police brutality, oppression, slavery. I can’t explain to her where we are, I had to explain how we got there.
My daughter and the Game’s daughter are best friends. Our children chose each other organically, we have the same nanny. She’s 9, my daughter’s 4. The way she deals with my daughter, it’s like their blood sisters. It’s so beautiful. They had a playdate scheduled, it had to be changed because on their way over to our house, there’s an update that the curfew changed to 4pm. Mind you, we got the update at 5pm. You had no time to prepare to go home.
My daughter was so looking forward to this playdate. She’s 4, she’s innocent. She’s seen nothing wrong in this world. Everything she’s had has been handed to her on a silver platter. I had to explain to my child why we canceled the playdate. I couldn’t say “there’s riots.” I had to explain to her. As a mother, I had to start from the beginning. I had to go back 400 years.
AllHipHop: You just released your new single, “Cappin.”
Masika Kalysha: With the scheduled release of my record, I paused my promo because of everything going on with the state of the economy and the world. It was too much. I had already paid for certain things, so I decided to let it run but not going to promote it.
AllHipHop: I actually spoke with Supah Mario the other day, I heard his producer tag.
Masika Kalysha: He’s a dope ass producer. Where I am in my music career, I’ve made so many songs that have done very little numbers. I’ve had hit records that never hit, I never understood why until I got the politics behind it all. Once I did that, I stopped putting out music until I’m in a financial position to do what needed to be done. It wasn’t until I got with better producers who can create a sound, who knew how to get my record from a 7 to a 10 that I was ready to put out music.
I wanted to be financially stable to where I needed no man, record label, or anybody to back me. I could do it by myself. When they see you, I’m a bad ass b##ch. But when it comes to these men, you don’t have to be that. As long as you have a v#####, they’re trying to f##k you. They will either f##k you over or try to f##k you. Either way, you’re getting f##ked. I wanted to wait until I was in a position where I could afford my own career. People always ask “oh you took a hiatus?” Yeah, because I didn’t want to be a desperate f##king b##ch. Now that I can fund my own career, you can’t tell me anything. You can’t proposition me for an advertisement, it’s not going to happen.
(AllHipHop News) August Alsina has been vindicated.
After a few weeks of being questioned and dragged by the internet over his sensational claim that he had an affair with Jada Pinkett Smith during an interview on Angela Yee’s podcast.
And now the truth has finally come out.
Jada Pinkett Smith addressed the singer’s revelation that she had a long-running affair with August during an interview with her own husband Will Smith!
The conversation took place on her Red Table Talk podcast and she admitted she started sleeping with August Alsina in 2015.
The affair started after she met August through her son Jaden, and started to mentor him in an attempt to help him with his mental health.
“As time went on I got into a different kind of entanglement with August,” Jada admitted.
For years, people speculated that the couple had an open marriage, which they have both previously denied in the past.
Jada blasted reports that Will had given her “permission” to have an affair with August. She said the relationship started when she was separated from Will Smith.
But apparently August did talk to Will before their relationship started.
“One of the things I want to clear up that was kind of swirling in the press was you giving permission, which the only person who can give permission in that particular circumstance is myself…it was a relationship absolutely.”
Will said they sat down to break the silence over the media speculation and inaccurate reports.
Both Will and Jada admitted they were in a new special place in their relationship.
“I’m grateful for the journey that you and I’ve had together. Because I feel like there are a lot of couples who go through those periods, separate and think its over,” Jada said.
(AllHipHop News) With all of the talk about his presidential bid, work as an Off-Broadway producer, his deals with Adidas and the GAP, his work in ministry and just trying to keep up with his Kardashian-paced life, sometimes forget that underneath all of that acumen is a boy from Chicago that expresses himself through Hip-Hop.
Check out some of the knowledge that he spit, probably off the dome. #ChitownStandUp
First, he addressed the thuggish-ruggish 2020 COVID-19 pandemic — and the hate that it gives to the world.
Kanye raps, “This is what the COVID list made, all this hate. All this hate, Look at what the COVID list made. All this pain. Tried to keep us quiet caused riots. Look at what the COVID list made.”
In this particular freestyle, he shouted out his in-laws Kris Kardashian and Rob. He suggested that we change our diets, by considering a new “meal” plan, humanity will then get up on God’s real plan that he is a “real fan” of.
He also spoke about Pope Francis’s ability to speak 27 languages, even as there is only one language that matters: the language of love. He also spoke about someone hiding in a bunker … could that be a shot at the president? During the George Floyd demonstrations, it was shared by various news outlets that President Trump was hiding in his bunker, afraid that protesters would take the White House.
His next bit started by references Rob Kardashian, Sr. and O.J. Simpson. After sharing how happy he was as a child that O.J. was acquitted, he references one of the ten commandments, “Thou Shall Not Kill” to support his belief that government-sanctioned executions are still a form of unlawful murder in God’s eyes. He then started to recite lyrics from his latest song, “Wash Us in The Blood” featuring Travis Scott. Interestingly enough, *F**orbes* did not pick up on the remix of his song, to prove his point.
Rounding out the trilogy of creative thought is a poetic conversation on “dirt, the earth, and God’s turf.” He advocated for rebirth and even shouted out Damien Hirst.
At the end of the last rhyme, he shared with the interviewer that he had “way more” rhymes stored around his beliefs. The world cannot wait to hear what the great Ye’ dares to share. Each time he breaks stuff down, we become clearer the way we should all go.
(AllHipHop News) Jay-Z’s entertainment agency Roc Nation has entered into a new partnership aiming to revive the fortunes of Italian soccer AC MILAN.
Bosses at Jay’s firm and the soccer club announced their “unique, industry-first partnership” on Thursday, focusing on their philanthropic efforts, and partnering on music, sporting, and cultural events.
The new partnership follows the two organizations’ collaboration on the From Milan with Love charity live-stream hosted by DJ Khaled and featuring the likes of Alicia Keys, Kelly Rowland, and the Jonas Brothers, in May.
AC Milan chief revenue officer Casper Stylsvig says in a statement to Sportsbusiness.com: “AC Milan as a club has always looked to push the boundaries and do things differently. This ambitious partnership will help us to showcase the power of the AC Milan and Roc Nation brands across sports, entertainment, and lifestyle and provide us with some exciting new ways to engage with our fans and partners around the world.”
Roc Nation executive Michael Yormark adds: “Both brands possess a strong commitment to community, which was evident through the success of From Milan with Love. I am looking forward to building on that success by creating more opportunities together that combines the integrity of the club’s rich history and Roc Nation’s signature ability to create and move culture.”
The Roc Nation deal comes with Milan struggling with a title drought lasting almost a decade, with the team unlikely to qualify for next season’s Champions League tournament.
