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Nicki Minaj Disappointed Over Rihanna Tour; Sets Fall Release For Debut Album

(AllHipHop News) Rapper Nicki Minaj has expressed disappointment for having to drop off of Rihanna’s highly anticipated “Last Girl on Earth Tour.” Shortly after an announcement was made about her involvement with Rihanna’s tour, she broke the news to her fans via Twitter that she would sit the tour out to focus on her upcoming debut solo album. According to Nicki Minaj, the album will hit stores in Fall of 2010 on Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Motown. “When I first heard about the possibility of touring with Rihanna, I was thrilled to be included on the ticket,” Nicki Minaj stated. “ I admire Rihanna as an artist and I know it would’ve been a killer line up. I’m disappointed that the timing won’t work, but I hope we’ll be able to revisit the opportunity in the future.”Nicki is currently in the recording studio working on new material for the album. The first single is titled “Massive Attack” and features Sean Garrett. “I don’t want to do anything that sounds like what any other female rapper has done,” said Nicki Minaj. “I want to start a new lane that one day, 10 years from now, girls will say, ‘I’m more of a Nicki Minaj type.’”

The First Quarter Report: Haiti, Waka Flocka, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z…more

If time keeps on slipping into the future, why aren’t we tripping over the past? News, rumors and everyday life are moving too fast. How could it be April and 2010 has already been a blast? Let’s take you from the beginning to what happened last.It is impossible to talk about the first quarter of 2010 without looking back on the natural disaster that devastated Port-au-Prince. An earthquake, 7.0 in strength, churning 6 miles below ground, violently shook the resilient country of Haiti, taking tens of thousands of lives while leaving hundreds of thousands, homeless. People from all over the world came together to help Haiti. Social networks played a huge part in getting the word out and raising money. Hip-Hop producer and philanthropist, Wyclef Jean played the largest part in rallying the movement. Wyclef and his wife were in the trenches less than 24 hours after the tragedy, picking dead bodies up from the streets. While back at home, certain news outlets were trying to stain his name and his Yele Haiti Foundation. Wyclef stood tall under fire, addressed the accusations and continued on with helping his country; his life’s mission. If he is not a finalist for TIME Person of the Year, it is an injustice.  Waka Flocka Flame was shot on January 19. He’s alright now.Rapper Apache died on January 22nd. Apache led the new wave of Jersey artists in the early 90’s including Naughty by Nature and Queen Latifah. ‘Gangsta B*tch’ is the record that he is most known for; a song about the strong black woman of his desires, with an edge that was machete sharp. You will be remembered, Apache. Hip-Hop…January 31, Drake cracked a ‘Nicki Minaj backside’ sized smile during his heavily featured Grammy performance. And once again, if your name was Jay-Z or Eminem, you walked away with a Grammy. As long as the song was cleared, it got nominated. Really? Crack-a-Bottle? It’s time that I pay that fee to be on the voting committee next year. Hip-Hop Reform!February 15, Jay-Z explained why he turned down “We Are the World 2010”. “I know everybody is gonna take this wrong,” he said. ‘We are the World’, I love it, and I understand the point and think it’s great. But I think ‘We are the World is like [Michael Jackson’s] Thriller to me. I don’t ever want to see it touched.” Well, we’ve listened to the finished product. “We are the World 2010” wasn’t bad at all. All the reason why it shouldn’t had been remade. Now if the song was titled differently, it would’ve made a more monumental impact.February 20, Eve was the latest artist to come up on the Family Feud board of tax troubles. Over the past two years, the IRS placed four liens on the rapper/actress that total close to $370,000. This past January, Eve placed her four bedroom, five bathroom Los Angeles mansion up for sale for $2,295,000. All the best to you Eve. Get back to what you do best.February 23, remember when those two men tried to use a fake credit card to pay for $25,000 in champagne during Juelz Santana’s 27th birthday party? Sometimes society reaches a moment when enough is enough. And obviously, these ballers got blocked for not having enough. We need to do better. Like Snoop Dogg better. After all these years, Snoop (which appeared at the party) can still afford to take a 20 man entourage wherever he goes. Wait, once it was a 40 man entourage. Maybe the recession touched him just a little bit.On March 1, DJ Premier of Gangstarr confirmed reports that Guru suffered a massive heart attack in NYC. If you can recall, the weekend previous to this confirmation was flooded with #RIPGuru trends on Twitter. In the coming days, Guru’s producer and friend, Solar came above ground as a centerpiece in the story. Guru’s nephew Justin Nicholas-Elam Ruff released a video on YouTube.com in regards to Solar. Supposedly, Solar wouldn’t return calls or text messages to Guru’s family about his health. Solar would retaliate by releasing statements against Guru’s nephew and son for allegedly lying. *side note: something just didn’t and still doesn’t feel right about the drama that ensued here. I’ll reserve my judgment.March 8, Lil’ Wayne was sentenced in Manhattan to a year in Rikers for having a loaded gun on his tour bus back in 2007. His sentencing was delayed three times prior due to dental surgeries and courthouse renovations. If Lil’ Wayne can stay out of everybody’s way while incarcerated, he could be released as early as eight months. (add slang phrases of encouragement here)March 26, TI’s probation ended. He was released from house arrest and will begin three years of federal probation, as revealed by his attorney. TI has began releasing new music and it is safe to say that he hasn’t missed a beat. And please people, just because he came out of jail doesn’t mean that you must raise your standards of his new music to levels that you can’t even explain in a conversation. If you’re a fan of TI’s, enjoy the music. If you’re not a fan of TI, then your favorite rapper, on good behavior, could possibly be out of jail by the fourth quarter of this year. Contrary to popular philosophy, all news isn’t good news. That doesn’t mean it should be forgotten either. Let me know if I hit the mark with this wrap-up of the first three months in 2010. And feel free to add to it.

Rhymefest: “I Got N***as I Want To Air Out”

Rhymefest is promising to put his peers on notice publicly with the release of his revolution-inspired El Che next month.The project is Rhymefest’s second full-length album, and comes 4 years after his major-label debut Blue Collar on J Records.Because of the delay and label politics, the Chicago emcee was forced to rework the album and keep his name afloat with guest spots and mixtapes, most notably the Dangerous: 5-18 tape released last week.“We changed the whole album. The album El Che drops May 18. Ni**as been saying, ‘Aw, ni**a…that’s the Detox El Che,’” Rhymefest told AllHipHop.com. “No, it’s my album and its coming out. It’s not a legend. It’s not a fairy tale. I had to get away from that label.”Rhymefest utilizes interludes throughout the album to tell the narrative of his revolutionary activity while being tailed relentlessly by unidentified agents.On the album track “Talk My S**t,” he takes credit over former foe Charles Hamilton’s decreased output and visibility in recent months (“Wet behind the ears I make Chucky disappear…”), and criticizes Wale for not heeding his advice for his debut Attention Deficit (“Even before Wale bricked/I tried to pull him to the side and say those white boys won’t sell your s**t!”)Regarding these callouts, Rhymefest advised fans and critics to expect to hear him focused and sharp on El Che.“I got names I wanna name. I got ni**as I want to air out. I’m about to kill it,” Rhymefest explained to AllHipHop.com.El Che will be available May 18, and features guest spots from Little Brother, Glenn Lewis, and Saigon.

Rich Kids in Hip-Hop: Who Let the Gates Open?

Editor’s note: The

views expressed inside this editorial aren’t necessarily the views of

AllHipHop.com or its employees.We survived

winters, snotty nosed with no coats/

We kept it real,

but the older brother still had jokes/

… Check it,

fifteen of us in a three bedroom apartment/

Roaches

everywhere, cousins and aunts was there/

—Ghostface

Killah, “All That I Got Is You,” Ironman

(1996).

The working-class kid in me wants to

know why Hip-Hop fans would submit their precious time to the abuse of

spoon-fed, pampered, nannied, chauffeur-carried brats who know next to nothing

of growing up with no assurance “where your meal’s coming from.”

Yes, the long-awaited editorial has

arrived on schedule. Put down your shoes, pal! There’ll be no invective-hurling

today. But some frank truths have been piercing my ear for a while now; and I

know better than to disobey those voices once they get cranky.

If you’ve made it this far, there’s good chance we share core values. If not, hear

me out and prepare your profanity-laced, dimwitted e-mails thereafter.

In the last few months, I’ve had to

suppress some impulse to stave off this editorial. I figured over time the

better angels within my nature would allay my increasing worries that many Hip-Hop

fans are losing the battle to reality, but I find the need even greater now to

let out these unflattering observations—and the consequences I think lurk

around the corner if we don’t take heed.

When the young son of Rap legend Rev.

Run, Diggy Simmons, released his first mixtape last December, howls filled the

air. He was celebrated as fresh and unique and lyrical, by some AllHipHop

commenters I’ve depended on in the past for what Ernest Hemingway calls the

“built-in bullsh** detector”—a device he suggested no serious writer lacked.

You see it, feel it, and delete it. Each one dressed up their rave reviews in

contrast to his older brother, Jo Jo Simmons, and in contradiction to the tacit

presuppositions held of anyone with “Run” for a surname.

The mixtape was “an attempt by Diggy to

prove himself as more than just the son of Rev. Run,” wrote

AllHipHop co-founder and co-CEO Greg

Watkins, who filed the story. Diggy’s dad was “pleasantly surprised” to see his

son run swift with the flaming torch he lit some three decades back. Around the

time last year, I heard Diggy’s lead single, “Point to Prove,” and liked what

was coming through the speakers. I wasn’t blown apart or taken aback: I had no expectations. And whoever said

rich kids couldn’t flow? Listen to

enough Canibus or Talib Kweli, and your pattern should structure quite well.

But if hypocrisy were gold, many Hip-Hop

fans could own Vegas tonight. When Jo Jo Simmons first explored the unmapped

terrain of Hip-Hop music-making a few years back (on Run’s House), no one with a shred

of dignity let him rest at night. Blogs and forums lit up, and Armageddon marked

a minute away—all because a rich kid thought he could walk through the

executive doors of major record labels and sign on the dotted line because his

father and uncle could move mountains with a finger-snap.

I don’t know the extent of Jo Jo’s

experiences. Life, in fact, might be more complicated for him than most lacking

such access and ability available since birth. But if Jo Jo had no chance,

Diggy shouldn’t. No one believed Jo Jo had much to inform about life and

hardship, about struggle and pain, about uncertainty and destiny—and they ought

not to be hypocrites. But Diggy can spit;

Jo Jo can’t!, I can hear some yelping. Well, yes and no. Yes: Diggy handles

breath-control better, and can imitate Rakim quite well. But, no: it wasn’t the

flow that got the Hip-Hop aficionados

seething: it was the silver fork hanging from Jo Jo’s lips. It was a firm

commitment to ensure Vanilla Ice would have no reincarnation. (All due respect

to that much-maligned man aside.)

Speaking with AllHipHop right after his mixtape dropped, the “abnormally

well-spoken” 14-year-old Diggy Simmons, now an Atlanta Records recording

artist, recounted

the extent of his Rap career/passion: “I’ve been rapping since I was 5 then

I stopped. I don’t even know why I stopped. Then two years ago I got back into

just recording normal tracks. I recorded a song and posted it on my blog and it

got crazy feed back, it wasn’t even that lyrical it was more for fun. I love

music, I love making it. I’m almost in the studio everyday.” 

Once, Hip-Hop offered loud voice of

political courage to command the attention of society toward moral correction. (Ever

heard “The Message,” “By the Time I Get to Arizona,” “Evil That Men Do,” “Burn

Hollywood Burn,” “Black Korea,” “Mystery Of Iniquity,” “Strange Ways,” or “American

Terrorist”?) Today, Hip-Hop fills vacuums: it’s a hobby; it’s an emotional

alleviator; it’s a social legitimator—it means you’re cool. Once, Hip-Hop offered the only legal means of true financial

liberation for kids trapped into unlivable conditions. Today, Hip-Hop adds an

extra “0”—to the many other 0s lined up from fashion and modeling and TV deals.

Aubrey Graham, better known as “Drake,”

fares no better in my book. And though three years ago (please listen to Room for Improvement), I could vouch for

him, today I hang my head in shame at the caricature Young Money has turned him

into. But the once-Degrassi (some

suburban White middle-class drama) star doesn’t mind: He rolled out the womb

into a golden crib.

For his much-anticipated (sure-to-flop)

debut album, So Far Gone, he’s been studying

Nas (“to understand how he painted those pictures and his bar structure and all

of that”) and Andre 3000. Take a few seconds to award Mr. Graham his ovation.

But a few of us—fans and artists alike—studied Nas for quite different reasons:

for the sense of agency and empowerment he provided our struggle; for the eloquent and extensive definition he gave to

inner-city reality; for the wisdom sprawled liberally from his lips to our

ears. No doubt artists can learn a good deal of poetic structure from Nas; but

when Rap music fails to inspire anymore, when technical mastery is all left to

glean from, something is wrong—either

with the teacher or the student, the speaker or the listener.

I tend to judge the likes of Drake like

Cormega would: “I don’t like when these spoiled rich kids … just get into

rap because it’s something they can

do. … They pops got money and they put ’em in the game and then they start

rapping about something, a life they could never live. Go do something else. … Ni**as

like us rap about sh** because we

lived it. These ni**as use Rap as a hobby.”

If you’ve ever let your eardrums—and

heart—fall victim to a Cormega track, the knee-jerk he’s hatin’ reaction shouldn’t find value following those comments:

he embodies every word. And Hip-Hop fans and artists have always stood close to

that timeless axiom—“no pain: no gain.” Not in a fascistic sense—as I picked up

from Nas and Damian Marley’s “Strong Will Continue”—but meaning, if hardship to you is running late to a

video shoot, or the late arrival of a chauffeur, or a missed opportunity to

clock your closet with a limited-stock-collection-edition sneaker line, you

might as well stay clear of the mic and pick up a more appealing, less

transient hobby—like curling.

And, sure enough, Hip-Hop fans have come

down terribly harsh on rich kids who, with good muscle movement, eventually made

it onto the roster at some major label outfit trying to suck up to their

parents. It’s only right that a keeping

it real-obsessed community should take sharp swords to the ankles of anyone

whose definition of poverty has more in solidarity with Carlton from The French Prince than J.J. from Good Times. (May I take this opportunity

to plunge into Will Smith? Nah, let’s move on.)

The code shouldn’t take much to crack:

we don’t greatly appreciate rich kids

because they can tell us next to nothing of what nihilism means, of what

fatalism means: in short, of what Hip-Hop means. If I ask readers to name one born-wealthy

Hip-Hop artist whose message has poked in their hearts the perseverance to keep

keepin’ on until someday, as Lil Boosie might put it (fall out your chairs,

purists!), “selling out the store/ my money don’t fold now/,” we might be

waiting till the trumpets sound, for an acceptable answer. But I let loose the

name “Tupac Amaru Shakur,” and libations shower the earth.

Listen, folks: I hate to be that guy—you

know, the party-crasher, the stink at the board meeting, the grump at the bar

mitzvah, the atheist at church; but wipe off your lips: you’re drooling. These

folks share nothing in common with the artists by whom our lives have been made

meaningful and purposeful. So, feel free to wash over their albums at your

local store: they don’t need the money. But some do—and if you’ll rather shell out precious coin to enlarge the

coffers of some glitterati scion, please don’t show your face around here any

longer. I don’t mind one less reader.

Tolu

Olorunda is a cultural critic whose work regularly appears on AllHipHop.com,

TheDailyVoice.com, and other online

journals. He can be reached at: [email protected].

Taiwanese Company Sues Over Fake Nelly Show

(AllHipHop News) A production company based in Taiwan is suing a United States booking agency accused of illegally booking rapper Nelly and keeping tens-of-thousands of dollars in performance fees. Taiwanese company Now The Loop is suing Capital Connections Agency (CCA) for over $250,000, after the company took $40,000 to book Nelly. Now The Loop accuses CCA of being a criminal enterprise that claims to represent a variety of top celebrities ranging from Tiger Woods and Bill Gates, to Ja Rule and the Obama’s. According to the lawsuit, Now The Loop wired $40,000 to book Nelly for a December 31, 2009 party, but CCA head Durby Brandon claimed the money never arrived on time. When he did receive the money, he claimed that it was received late and that Nelly would not be showing up for the engagement. Durban allegedly then offered the services of Ja Rule, whom In The Loop had already booked through his real representatives. CCA’s name is confusingly similar to Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which represents artists like Mariah Carey,  Bow Wow, Eve, Fabolous, Usher, Jeezy and a number of other top name talent across all genres of music.

Monday Fashion Feature: Find Out Why Swizz Beatz Reps For Sabit NYC

Sabit is a brand known to create the perfect blend of Japanese and American streetwear, with superior attention to quality and detail. With fans like Chris Brown, Lil Wayne and T.I., the brand has been making waves since its launch just four years ago. Sabit’s designs have a way of being loud in a tasteful way, with creative uses of fabrics, colors, prints, washes and more. I got a chance to catch up with the brains behind the brand, founder/creative director, Shoichi Amemiya. Previous to creating Sabit, Shoichi worked with Mark Ecko as creative director of Ecko outerwear. The talented designer gave us a sneak peek at what Sabit has in store for summer, fall (including a new women’s line!), dishing on upcoming collaborations and more: DrJays.com: How did you get your start in the fashion industry? Shoichi: “I started off by attending a fashion school in Japan named Osaka Mode, where I majored in fashion design.” DrJays.com: Describe a typical day in the life of Sabit’s head designer. Shoichi: “A typical day for me in the Sabit NYC office consists of checking emails and constant communication with our Japan office and factories overseas.” DrJays.com: On your website, Swizz Beatz is described as “the face of Sabit”. How is he involved with the brand? Shoichi: “Swizz Beatz is a very good friend of ours at Sabit NYC. He simply appreciates that brand, and we appreciate him! His involvement as an ambassador keeps us in the forefront of the music industry.” Swizz Beatz and ShoichiDrJays.com: What sets Sabit apart from other popular streetwear brands? Shoichi: “Our design concepts come directly from the influences of my hometown Japan, which makes them authentic. I allow my knowledge of the culture to be infused throughout the brand. Shoichi: “We are part of the Japanese fashion movement called ‘Amercaji’ which is a blend of American and Japanese cultures. This movement allows anyone to wear our brand and feel a part of two amazing places, with a common appreciation of great fashion.” DrJays.com: What can we expect from your summer 2010 collection? Shoichi: “You can expect great fashion with inspirations coming from both the city and country. I have chosen to take elements from both places to create a look that translates into streetwear cultures all across the world.” Spring/summer 2010 DrJays.com: Any exciting news/collaborations in the works? Shoichi: “We have a collaboration coming up with Goomi Arcade, another dope brand, with heavy Japanese design influences on a few items… Which I’ll keep secret until the time is right! We have also collaboration with celebrity fashion stylist Mike B. on a very unique blazer/jacket with matching salvage denim jeans to go.” Fall 2010See more brand new gear from Sabit right HERE on DrJays.com!