Miami native, Supa, also known as Supa Mario, possesses an abundance of talents.
Teaming up with Mike Bless for “She Wanna Go,” the rapper emerges on the, Evil G beat. He fluidly coerces sixteens and sounds which earns the heater of the day.
For the troops stationed overseas during the holidays, being thousands of miles away from your family on New Year’s Eve is hard, so Beyonce and Jay Z thought they would try to brighten their day. They surprised the U.S troops stationed in Kuwait and Afghanistan with a screening of their On the Run concert special that aired on HBO.
Beyonce also had a special message for the troops.
“I just want to say a big thank you to our troops for everything you do to keep our country safe,” she said during the USO countdown to 2015 . “We all sleep better at night knowing that you guys are protecting us, and we’re filled with gratitude.”
After remaining silent during much of the fiasco, Phylicia Rashad has broken her silence about the sexual assault allegations against her former TV husband Bill Cosby.
In a recent interview, Rashad expressed concern for what these allegations were doing to the 77-year-old comedian’s legacy.
“Forget these women,” Rashad told Showbiz 411. “What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy and I think it’s orchestrated. I don’t know why or who’s doing it, but it’s the legacy. And it’s a legacy that is so important to the culture.”
When asked how she felt about Beverly Johnson and Janice Dickinson claims of being drugged by Cosby, she responded with a dismissive “Oh please.”
The former Mrs. Huxtable also defended Cosby’s wife Camille, saying that she “is a tough woman, a smart woman” and that “she’s no pushover.” Rashad said she firmly believes that Mrs. Cosby has not been turning the other cheek while her husband violated woman for the past 50 years.
She also implied that someone other than the two dozen women who accused Cosby of rape are trying to keep him off of television. “And it’s worked. All his contracts have been cancelled.”
Due to these allegations, TV Land has taken The Cosby Show off of the air, NBC pulled the plug on a sitcom they were working on with Cosby and Netflix postponed the launch of one of his stand-up specials. Rashad questioned why someone would want to destroy the legacy of not only Cosby but The Cosby Show.
“This show represented America to the outside world. This was the American family. And now you’re seeing it being destroyed. Why?”
Bill Cosby’s wife, daughter and TV daughter Keisha Knight-Pulliam have come to his defense, but Cobsy himself has yet to issue a statement.
(AllHipHop News) Back in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s the melding of rap and rock reached new mainstream heights when acts like Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Papa Roach, and Korn dominated the charts and MTV’s TRL countdown. One of the top artists of that cross-genre movement now looks back on the rap-rock era in a negative light.
Kid Rock’s 1998 diamond-certified Devil Without A Cause was one of the leading albums for rap-rock’s rise to crossover success. The Detroit native recently spoke with The Guardian about the sub-genre he helped popularize.
Rock said:
Rap-rock was what people wanted at the time, and they still love those songs at shows. But it turned into a lot of bulls**t and it turned out to be pretty gay… If someone says you can’t say “gay” like that you tell them to go f**k themselves. You’re not going to get anything politically correct out of me.
The turn of the century version of rapping mixed with rock was not the first time the two musical styles were combined. Perhaps the most famous early example of rap-rock is Run-DMC collaborating with Aerosmith for the remake of “Walk This Way” in 1986.
Other groups like the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Rage Against the Machine, Body Count, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Cypress Hill have blended elements of rap and rock together in their music as well.
(AllHipHop News) R&B singers Tinashe and FKA twigs may not break the internet à la Kim Kardashian’s fully naked spread in Paper, but both ladies are sure to grab some attention for their new cover photos in V Magazine.
The singer-songwriters were two of the featured artists for V’s “The New Sound Of Soul” issue; they were joined by Sam Smith and Jessie Ware. Each performer was given individual covers, but Tinashe and twigs dropped their tops for their respective photos.
Tinashe burst onto the music scene in 2014 with her platinum-selling hit single “2 On.” She released her debut studio album Aquariusto critical acclaim.
FKA twigs also dazzled music critics with her debut album LP1. The English songstress’ project was included on numerous publications “Best Albums Of 2014” lists including being ranked #1 by Time.
The fourth floor of 320 West 37th Street is is a Hip-Hop landmark. D&D Studios. For close to a quarter of a century, some of the best Hip-Hop music ever made was recorded there. Sadly though, due to new building ownership, the studio recently closed. And according to reports, by today, January 7, DJ Premier (who has the most storied history there dating back to 1991) will have completed moving everything out in order to relocate to Kaufman Astoria Studios in Long Island City, Queens.
So much classic music was recorded here that it would be impractical to try and rank all or any of the records. Instead, AllHipHop.com has decided to pay homage to D&D by putting together a collection of a few stories about D&D that makes the studio itself and the people in it as memorable as the songs recorded there.
“R.E.A.L.I.T.Y.” Captures the Sounds of Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan: A then internat D&D, at the request of The Blastmaster himself, went out into the streets and yelled, “These are the streets. S**t is real out here. This ain’t no f***ing joke!” The final cut captures the intern’s voice and the street sounds. It gets no realer than that.
Jeru the Damaja and DJ Premier Record “Come Clean”: DJ Premier’s catalog of hits is seemingly endless, but one record that definitely changed the course of his career was Jeru the Damaja’s classic “Come Clean.” The precedent had been set. The authenticity of a Premier beat had to be as uncompromising as the graffiti on the wall. Studios like D&D hardly exist anymore, and the same can be said for the top tier quality of music that they helped create.
Nas Spits the First Verse of “N.Y. State of Mind” in One Take: When doing press for the 15th anniversary of Illmatic in ’09, DJ Premier recalled Nas recording part of one of the album’s most memorable cuts on the first try. “He did the whole first verse in one take, and I remember when he finished the first verse, he stopped and said, ‘Does that sound cool?’ And we were all like, “Oh my God!” It was like, I don’t even care what else you write.”
Biggie Gets Oral Sex Before Laying the Vocals to “Unbelievable”: The Notorious B.I.G. had two women with their heads between his legs in the lounge for Studio B at D&D Studios when Premier fine tuned the beat for their first of three classic collaborations. Not long after, on that same night, Biggie stepped in the booth with no paper and spit, “… Bastards duckin’ when Big be buckin’ / Chickenheads be cluckin’ in my back room f***in’ / It ain’t nothin’.”
Foxy Brown Goes From School to D&D Studios with Jay Z: In 1995, Jay Z picked a then 15-year-old Foxy Brown up from school after she completed a day of ninth grade and took her to record what would become track 9 on his Reasonable Doubt album, “Ain’t No N***a.” DJ Funkmaster Flex and the song’s appearance on The Nutty Professor Soundtrack helped make the record a smash. The rest is history.
Biggie Finishes Life After Death: The last song recorded for The Notorious B.I.G.’s sophomore album was the DJ Premier-produced “Ten Crack Commandments.” After he finished the verse, B.I.G. yelled, “Preme, it’s over! It’s over! I’m the greatest. I did it!”
Gang Starr Goes Gold with Moment of Truth: In an interview about Gang Starr’s discography, DJ Premier identified Moment of Truthas “the most emotional album” he and Guru (R.I.P.) put out together. At the time, Guru was facing a gun charge and DJ Premier’s accountant and friend had recently passed away. All those feelings and then some found their way in to the booth and onto the duo’s fifth album. Premo also said that Guru used to say, “All I want is a gold album.” And they got one with Moment of Truth.
September 12, 2001: Just one day after the tragic events of 9/11, there is a bomb threat made on The Empire State Building. The already dark mood coupled with another potential disaster gets everyone out of D&D Studios immediately.
DJ Premier Buys D&D Studios: Back in ’03, Douglas Grama and David Lotwin (the D’s in D&D)sold the studio to DJ Premier. He renamed it “HeadQCourterz” in honor of his friend Kenneth “HeadQCourterz” Walker who was fatally shot in the fall of 2002.
The Legacy of Gang Starr Lives On: On a wooden wall in D&D, Guru’s lyrics were up there on display – written on yellow notepad paper. According to Premo, they were rhymes to some of the last songs they did together. Because of all that those words represent, those raps won’t be demolished with other parts of the building. The paper with lyrics is going to be made into a table in the new studio.
What’s your favorite record to come out of D&D? Please share your thoughts in the comments section!
(AllHipHop News) Drake will have a busy festival season in 2015. After it was announced the Young Money performer will headline Coachella this year, it has now been revealed Drake will also be one of the top acts at the Governors Ball Music Festival in NYC.
Other Hip Hop representatives scheduled to appear at Randall’s Island Park on June 5-7 include Los Angeles native Flying Lotus, the DMV’s Logic, and Bishop Nehru of New York. Artists from other genres including Rock, EDM, and alternative will be on hand as well.
Tickets for Governors Ball Music Festival 2015 go on sale January 9th at 12 pm EST. For more information visit govball.com.
(AllHipHop News) Big K.R.I.T. has always stood tall for his home state of Mississippi, despite the racial stereotypes often associated with Southern culture. The rapper/producer stopped by Ebro In The Morning to discuss his new album Cadillactica, but he also took time to defend the Deep South that he knows.
“Normally the first thing they talk about when they talk about Mississippi is the racism, and everything else is just ignored as far as our background with Blues and Jazz,” said Krit. “It’s not what you see on television. Until you go down there you really won’t understand the gravity of my music or who I am as a person, and why I’m so adamant about – it’s positive, we’re educated, there’s a lot of constructive things going on.”
The show’s host Ebro then claimed that southern bigots are just “hiding it” now. Krit responded by pointing out that there are people with prejudice thoughts beyond the Southern states.
“Racism is hiding everywhere. Nobody expected Donald Sterling to pop off. It don’t matter where you’re at,” added Krit. “It’s everywhere. It’s not just in the Deep South.”
The conversation later turned to Krit’s involvement with Hot 97. The station’s Deanii Digital confronted the emcee about appearing on a rival station before coming to Hot even though she claims Hot was more supportive of Krit.
He answered by saying he had scheduling conflicts and by referring to what he saw as a lack of support for his track “Mt. Olympus.” The song was a response to Kendrick Lamar’s highly publicized “Control” verse.
“When it comes to schedules, and I’m in the midst of a tour, they say ‘We need you to do all of this here’ – I’m literally in the mindset, ‘Okay, boom, boom, boom… then I’m gonna go do this show,'” Krit stated. “Then I dropped a record called ‘Mt Olympus.’ Nobody talked about that record [on Hot 97] if I’m not mistaken. Then when it came time for other artists to come up, that I know might have heard that record, that record wasn’t posed. I get asked about rappers all the time – most of them I have real relationships with – but people never ask those rappers about me.”
(AllHipHop News) Reports that Ackquille “Bobby Shumurda” Pollard is currently out on bail are apparently untrue. The Brooklyn rapper’s lawyer spoke with Revolt. At first attorney Howard Greenberg said he needed to confirm whether his client was still locked up, but he then revealed Bobby would not be free until January 29.
Shmurda was arrested in December on weapons and conspiracy charges. There were also reports at the time that his label head, Sha Money XL of Epic Records, planned to bail him out of jail, but at the moment Bobby is still at NYC’s Rikers correctional facility.
“The bail was set. But then it’s just a matter of putting the package together,” said Greenberg. He also stated last month that the indictment against Shmurda is “a bunch of bulls**t” in his opinion.
(AllHipHop News) The cover art and tracklist for a supposed new DMX album began to circulate on the internet this week, but Ruff Ryders fans should not get excited just yet. The Dark Man’s producing partner Swizz Beatz took to Instagram to make it clear the reported Redemption Of The Beast album is not an official DMX project.
I see a lot of people hitting me about this album!!! I can tell you 100% this is not the album X and I are working on!!!! (I feel like Timbo with the Aaliyah movie rite now) SMH !!!!!! #DontdisrespecttheDog We Got Fire coming
This is the second time in as many weeks that X has been the victim of a fraud news story about him. The “satirical” website Infossip recently posted a fake article claiming the New York rapper was arrested for dog fighting.
Ca$his drops off his latest track “Work” featuring Young Buck, Project Pat & Sullee J. Produced by Rikanatti and The Punisher. Ca$his’ new album “County Hound 3” coming soon.
2 Chainz teams up with Young Dolph & Cap 1 for “Trap House Stalkin” off the upcoming “T.R.U. The Real University (#TRUJackCity)” mixtape dropping January 27.
This Kiesza collaboration shows Joey stepping into new territory on the upbeat ASTR & Chuck Strangers produced “Teach Me.” The track is now available as a instant gratification download when the album is pre-ordered on iTunes. The album will arrive on Joey’s 20th birthday, January 20, 2015 via Cinematic Music Group/Pro Era. Listen to “Teach Me” below.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of AllHipHop.com.
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One of the most insidious ways the ruling class fosters unending loyalty to their “power elite” enterprise of global management is through veneration of their dead. The media and the chattering class will wax rhapsodic about the generosity and greatness of these towering figures who wielded their power to further the enterprise of American empire in a way that seemed so humane. This process is ultimately a trap for the millions of poor and working class folk scrambling to function in this society. It deludes them from a clear understanding that the American project is premised on protecting capital and the interests of capital. As former president Calvin Coolidge himself admitted, “The business of America is business.”
The latest example of this postmortem lionization started on January 1, 2015 when New York’s well regarded Governor, Mario Cuomo died at the age of 82. As one born and raised in New York City, Mario Cuomo’s administration ruled from my youth to adulthood. He projected the image of the good hearted liberal Democratic patriarch who gave speeches about the duty to the poor while brandishing his “working class immigrant roots.” This type of Horatio Alger mythology is a common trope used to create even more fidelity in the hearts of the urban underclass as if to say, “I’m one you guys, the little people.”
The ultimate hypocrisy of the Cuomo brand as some great champion of the working class is that Cuomo’s administration built more prisons in New York State than all prior Governors combined, at a time when prison construction was quite unpopular with both the citizenry and the state legislature. In the twelve years of his administration Cuomo added more prison beds than all the prior Governors who held his office. One could argue that crime was on the rise, prisons were overcrowded, and the Governor was responding to a reality. What is naive about this interpretation is that it fails to realize that crime is as much a function of policy as the prisons built to house those offenders As this revealing article in “The Atlantic,” entitled “The Prison Industrial Complex,” illustrates:
“Senator Barry Goldwater had used the fear of crime to attract white middle-class voters a decade earlier, and Richard Nixon had revived the theme during the 1968 presidential campaign, but little that was concrete emerged from their demands for law and order. On the contrary, Congress voted decisively in 1970 to eliminate almost all federal mandatory-minimum sentences for drug offenders. Leading members of both political parties applauded the move. Mainstream opinion considered drug addiction to be largely a public-health problem, not an issue for the criminal courts. The Federal Bureau of Prisons was preparing to close large penitentiaries in Georgia, Kansas, and Washington. From 1963 to 1972 the number of inmates in California had declined by more than a fourth, despite the state’s growing population. The number of inmates in New York had fallen to its lowest level since at least 1950. Prisons were widely viewed as a barbaric and ineffective means of controlling deviant behavior. Then, on January 3, 1973, Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York, gave a State of the State address demanding that every illegal-drug dealer be punished with a mandatory prison sentence of life without parole.”
Let us understand that Mass Incarceration of particularly poor Black and Brown communities was a strategic tactic used after the urban rebellions and Black Power era when Black people were prepared to force America to come to terms with the sheer brutality they were experiencing at the hands of the police. Moreover, the Black Power movement created an awareness of the horrible inner city conditions Black people who had been left out of the New Deal, were experiencing. Mass Incarceration was not merely a tool of community control, it was a strategy of political neutralization.
In her great book, “The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America,” Naomi Murakawa does an excellent job of illustrating how warehousing poor Black and Brown communities in prison was not simply an agenda of the evil Republicans, but also the imperative of bleeding heart liberals like Mario Cuomo, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden.
What is more vile than Cuomo simply building more prisons is how he actually financed his endeavor. Cuomo used an initiative to create housing for the poor as a method to gain financing for prisons. The initiative was actually put in place the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was buried as stated in the “The Atlantic,” article referenced above:
“In 1981 New York’s voters had defeated a $500 million bond issue for new prison construction. Cuomo searched for an alternate source of financing, and decided to use the state’s Urban Development Corporation to build prisons. The corporation was a public agency that had been created in 1968 to build housing for the poor. Despite strong opposition from upstate Republicans, among others, it had been legislated into existence on the day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral, to honor his legacy. The corporation was an attractive means of financing prison construction for one simple reason: it had the authority to issue state bonds without gaining approval from the voters.
Over the next twelve years Mario Cuomo added more prison beds in New York than all the previous governors in the state’s history combined. Their total cost, including interest, would eventually reach about $7 billion. Cuomo’s use of the Urban Development Corporation drew criticism from both liberals and conservatives. Robert Gangi, the head of the Correctional Association of New York, argued that Cuomo was building altogether the wrong sort of housing for the poor. The state comptroller, Edward V. Regan, a Republican, said that Cuomo was defying the wishes of the electorate, which had voted not to spend money on prisons, and that his financing scheme was costly and improper. Bonds issued by the Urban Development Corporation carried a higher rate of interest than the state’s general-issue bonds.”
This is the legacy of Mario Cuomo you won’t see on MSNBC or CNN, as they ramble on about how he stood up to the onslaught of the Reagan revolution with nothing but a speech at the Democratic convention in 1984.
To digress, another reason Cuomo should never be forgotten is that we can thank him for the advent of Rudolph Giuliani as Mayor of New York City. Giuliani governed over the city when the police used “Giuliani Time” as a refrain to crack even more skulls. Remember Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo? Most people outside New York City would not remember that Mayor David Dinkins, the cities first and only Black mayor, was running for re-election against Rudy Giuliani in the 1993 Mayor’s race. Democrat Mario Cuomo stabbed fellow Democrat David Dinkins in the back by signing a law in 1989, the year Dinkins was elected, to allow Staten Island to secede from New York City. The issue would be raised in the election in 1993 by Staten Island Referendum. This is the most conservative borough in New York City and is filled with Italian Americans who supported the referendum. Their increased number created the slim margin that gave Giuliani the election, as even stated in the New York Post. So one of the most noxious political figures that plagues Black America to this day is a direct product of the kind hearted liberal Mario Cuomo. Giuliani was supposedly requested to support Cuomo in his fourth term re-election bid in exchange for all of Cuomo’s good will.
Crime is a function of poverty, lack of community capital, and a need to create underground illegal economies where traditional employment avenues become scarce. This is especially the case when urban centers de-industrialize by shipping good union and factory jobs to other locations. The American project has long since abandoned notions of a “Marshall Plan for the ghettoes,” or a New Deal 2.0 to finally do justice to those people left out of the first New Deal. The bleeding heart liberal claptrap of the Cuomos, Clintons, Bidens and Obamas is merely a smokescreen to keep those on the margins believing something will be done. We are now in the age of Neoliberal Capitalism. This is merely a fancy way of saying the government is giving up all its functions and obligations over to private corporations. Government is completely abandoning the project of building human skills among those not previously positioned to acquire them because they’re born on the low rung of the economic ladder. We are moving to the age of American feudalism.
Let me preface this article by emphatically stating that I am the biggest Q-Tip and Tribe fan on the planet hands down. I could go on and on about how I think the few albums Tribe crafted in my mind surpass the greatest achievements of The Beatles, David Bowie, etc. Midnight Maurauders, in my humble opinion, is the definition of absolute perfection on wax. I even own a physical copy of The Love Movement. But in regards to Iggy Azalea, my main man Tip is buggin’ out.
By now, I’m sure you’ve combed through Tip’s lengthy tweeting session to Iggy, but here is a snippet:
“U may ask why … Well once you are born black your existence I believe is joined with socio-political epitaph and philos based on the tangled and treacherous history SLAVERY alone this is the case it never leaves our conversation… Ever. WeAther in our universities our dinner tables our studios or jail cells… the effects still resononates with us. It hurts… We get emotional and angry and melancholy… did u know president Clinton was the ONLY PRESIDENT to apologize for it? did u know that remnants of slavery exist today thru white privilege? When certain “niceties” r extended your way because of how u look? Isn’t that crazy?”
Q-Tip did go on to say that he respects Iggy and believes she should be allowed to make the music she feels comfortable making, but at the end of the day I ultimately feel that his criticisms are being issued at the wrong person. I don’t believe Azealia Banks was on a social crusade to save the culture when she called out Iggy, ultimately commencing this whole nonsensical mess, but more about that later.
Nicki Minaj currently has a song on the radio called “Only.” To my knowledge, there is not a grand attack against her as far as misrepresenting the genre goes. Possibly, Nicki’s version U-N-I-T-Y is the shared-level of thirst both Drake and Lil Wayne have in regards to f###### her. Is Nicki aware of MC Lyte, Bahamadia, Queen Latifah, and a slew of other female artists that paved the way for her so that we could enjoy the “Anaconda” video in the 21st century in its glorious entirety? Regardless of whether Nicki knows her origins or not, the fact that these questions are not being asked of her is the problem. Why is she immune to the same criticism?
First off, I have no ties with Iggy Azalea (unfortunately). A lot of people are under the misguided impression that artists and journalists work hand-in-hand together. The exact opposite is true in fact. In short, they hate us, especially when artists we love release wack material and get criticized for pointing out the wackness. For instance, I like the rest of the world banged the s### out of Kush & OJ, but bashed my head against the wall when I heard “Roll Up” for the first time. In short, journalism is a thankless job, and only the crazy ones get involved in the first place.
But I digress. The crimes being issued at Iggy aren’t really crimes at all. When a new Hip-Hop artist appears on the scene, nobody’s initial reaction is to question whether or not they know their history. I won’t name specific names, but I doubt most of the artists (the black ones) dominating the radio right now probably think Erick Sermon is some television evangelist who sells overpriced self-help books. Iggy is being targeted because she is an Australian white girl– period. It’s akin to the f##### up citizenship policy of ours. Regardless of the fact that the names of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and even the Vice President of the United States are elusive facts to most Americans populating the streets, immigrants that arrive in this country are supposed to learn this information before they become citizens. Metaphorically, this is exactly what the Hip-Hop world is doing to Iggy, and it’s 100% unfair.
Hip-Hop has come a long way and is by far the most popular genre on the planet today. Recent releases by Katy Perry and Lady Gaga featured Hip-Hop artists Juicy J and Too $hort, respectively. Even former Disney princess Miley Cyrus is busy perfecting her twerking technique. It’s almost comical to listen to Ice Cube’s lamentation of radio stations refusing to play Hip-Hop on his song “Turn Off The Radio” in retrospect. The genre will always be copyrighted by African Americans, but to limit others from participating in the genre is ass backwards, and defeats the purpose altogether. In terms of the actual music, Hip-Hop is a blend of variegated musical genres re-purposed for fresh sounds (A Tribe Called Quest anyone?). Hip-Hop has always been about inviting people to the party, regardless of skin tone or origin.
By all indications, Iggy has a genuine love for Hip-Hop. Her comeuppance has been well-documented, but surprisingly, it took a lot more than a big booty and a T.I. co-sign to get her to her current state. Regardless of whether you appreciate her music or not, she should not be accused of raping the culture when all her actions point to the contrary. There is not one single artist in the game right now that I couldn’t quickly rifle off a criticism in terms of them damaging the culture. Iggy should be able to do what she loves without having to memorize 2pac’s “Oldschool,” because let’s face it, neither have a lot of the individuals populating the current generation.
“White chick on that Pac s###
My passion was ironic
And my dreams were uncommon
Guess I gone crazy, first deal changed me
Robbed blind, basically raped me
Ran through the b####### like a Matador
Just made me madder and adamant to go at em
And even the score
So, I went harder
Studied Tha Carters till a deal was offered
Slept cold on the floor recording
At 4 in the morning and now I’m passing the bar like a lawyer
Immigrant, art ignorant
Ya ill intent was insurance for my benefit Hate be inconsiderate, but the industry took my innocence Too late, now I’m in this, b####”
-Iggy Azalea “Work”
This entire thing started when Azealia Banks went on a rampage against Iggy via social media. In regards to how the “beef” started, she stated: “It actually started at CMJ Music Festival back in September when she went on Twitter and said, ‘I’m next level, I had a song about being a Barbie before Nicki Minaj had a song about being a Barbie. Here’s the link to my song. And f### Iggy Azalea, I had a song called ‘P####’ before she ever did. Here’s a link to my song. It’s better.” These are the fiery words of a cocky Hip Hop artist, the likes of which are endless. After she released 212 Banks should have blown up realistically speaking. She can truly rap her ass off, with a unique style to boot, but her mainstream pushes have been less than extraordinary to be as euphemistic as possible. Not long ago I was commissioned to write a review of her “Heavy Metal And Reflective” track. After listening to the track several times, I wrote:
“This is ass cheeks.”
Obviously my editor was less than pleased, but Banks argument that Iggy is stagnating her own career trajectory because of her skin tone is ridiculous. Ms. Banks, if you are reading this, revisit your old material and stop with the neo-Missy Elliot meets Foxy Brown shtick. You are supremely talented but the majority of your singles have been, well, ass cheeks. Just being honest.
Artists should know where they came from, that much cannot be denied. But if Iggy requires a history lesson, I’m sure 99% of the game does as well. Q-Tip can fund his own Hip-Hop camp, where potential artists must study the legendary showdown between MC Shan and KRS-1, Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines,” Rakim’s birth of the “lyrical MC,” and why Jay-Z feels the need to overcharge n##### for what they did to the Cold Crush. But if this doesn’t happen, then Iggy should be able to cook without being bumrushed by the Hip-Hop sect of the N.A.A.C.P. Of all people, one of the founding members of the Zulu Nation (built on the principles of love, understanding, and unity across all races) should understand this better than anyone.
Luckily, Azelia Banks is being questioned (particularly by Ebro of Hot 97) about her true motives behind her attack, and her story has flip-flopped so many times to the point where John Kerry would be double-emoji-face disgusted. Iggy’s instinctive travel to the path of ass-shaking rhymes (or the art of moving butts) has a different origin story than most MCs, but people should not be so quick to question her artistic motives. Her recent tirade against the industry is the rational response to a nation of millions (quick Iggy, name that reference) attempting to revoke her Hip-Hop green card. Hip-Hop has grown from the street corner to the far corners of the world, and it’s only natural that people would want to aspire to be apart of this rich culture. To prevent Iggy from doing Iggy is the same sort of reverse racism your sociology professor erroneously told you doesn’t exist. As long as there are artists like J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Freddie Gibbs, Logic, etc. who really cares if Iggy is providing the soundtrack to our evenings of unabashed ratchedness? Rooftop like we bringing ’88 back?
Monster has sued Beats By Dre, a move which could result in an epic legal battle over the rival headphone companies.
Monster was the original co-designer of Beats By Dr. Dre and also invented the technology, according to Monster CEO Noel Lee. In a lawsuit acquired by USA Today, Lee charges that “Iovine and Dre (Andre Young) committed fraud in pirating the headphones away from Lee and Monster.”
Lee says, in papers filed in San Mateo (Calif.) County Superior Court, that Beats Electronics, Beats By Dre’s parent company, hid the comprehensive totality of his and Monster’s role in the creation of his eventual rival.
Apple bought Beats for $3 billion after they severed ties with Lee. To further punctuate the matter, Lee once had a 5% stake in Beats, but wasn’t able to participate in the millions of dollars earned in the buy-out. He would have made roughly $100, the lawsuit says.
In 2013, Dre and Jimmy Iovine bought back Beats and then it was purchased by Apple a year later.
In an interview with AllHipHop, Noel Lee explained the nature of the relationship with Beats before the Apple deal went through.
“When I hooked up with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, almost 6 years ago, headphones weren’t a thing. They were an accessory. What I really learned from Jimmy and Dre was how to market to basically pop culture. They had the power to do that. I had the technology to make everything,” Lee told AllHipHop. “We designed everything…we worked together as partners. And we changed the world.”
Here is an interview with Noel Lee, the head Monster.
Representing the northside, southside, and 5th ward of Houston, TX, “Errrybody,” solidifies the South’s grit and creativity.
Standing tall on ten toes, Slim Thug, has been firmly planted in Hip-Hop since his days with Swishahouse. Now the Hogg Life entrepreneur helps to shine the light on The Sauce Factory.
