Album Leaks: The Record Spill: Hip-Hop Reform
Id like to start off by saying that the term Hip-Hop Reform has been a baby of mine for the past three years. It is not a movement, its a revolution. Hip-Hop began as a form of expression between urban youth. Then it grew into a way to feed families. Now it is a billion […]

Open Letter To Slim Thug
In a recent interview, rapper Slim Thug unleashed a very disturbing attack on Black women, here’s an excerpt: …Most single Black women feel like they dont want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now. They have to understand that successful Black men are kind of extinct. Were important. Its hard to […]

“Moving On From The Industry (In Order To Mature It)”
You may think this is a strange title for an article at a website devoted to the culture and industry of music. But it has everything to do with the future of Hip-Hop. Let me explain. One day, in 1998, within 6 months of my no longer serving as a GM of Wu Tang Management, […]

Slim Thug Says Black Women Need To Support Black Men More…and then some.
Editor’s note: The views expressed inside this editorial DO NOT and ARE NOT reflective of the views of AllHipHop.com.The way Black people think in general is messed up. Both men and women need to change their way of thinking. Its hard to trust a Black woman [sometimes] because a lot of Black womens mind frame […]

Is Rick Ross Really The Teflon Don?
Teflon Don was a moniker given to John Gotti, the Boss of all Bosses, because he was able to avoid many attempts to be convicted due to being acquitted or by having a jury of his peers not able to agree on a verdict. It wasnt until 1992 when the United States Government, with the help […]

AllHipHop.com Endorses Kevin Powell For Congress (Brooklyn)
DONATE $5 to Kevin’s campaign NOW at www.kevinpowell.net (click DONATE) When you consider the intelligence and breadth of Kevin Powells writing and activism, you come to the conclusion that there may be no better spokesperson and representative for a generation that has too long been counted out. asha bandele An interesting thing happens in America […]

Lauryn Hill: Dreams of a Female Hip-Hop Messiah
This week was Lauryn Hills 35th birthday. Normally this event passes without fanfare in industry circles, except this year fans and media became prematurely excited at reports the sequestered star would be making a return by headlining this years Rock the Bells tour and performing all the tracks from her timeless debut, The Miseducation of […]

Nas: The Most Dangerous MC In The World
Nas is on a whole other level, right now. All I do is stay focused looking straight forward at the word, and beyond I feel people pulling me down I feel some pulling me up I cant get stuck I just keep moving forward I got places to go man. Lets go – Nas, […]

Meditations on Hip-Hop: Of Disposability, Death, and Destiny (Pt. III of III)
DESTINY A learning process might appear for the crushed, the forbidden-to-be, the rejected, that would teach them that, through serious, just, determined, untiring struggle, it is possible to remake the world. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: The Continuum Publishing Co., 1994), p. 198. Must survive any how […]

Whos The Real Terrorist?
Whos The Real Terrorist?April 19th marked the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh. While many gathered on that day to commemorate that tragic event, the act itself, and others like it, continues to shed light on a fundamental hypocrisy in American society. The hypocrisy […]

Republicans Buy Sneakers, Too
A popular sentiment shared among members of the sports community is that politics and sports should not mix. After all, with the vast investment of Corporate America, astronomical ticket pricing and multi-billion dollar television contracts, it is simply safer and financially more lucrative to accept the status quo than to challenge it. The Phoenix Suns […]

Africa, The Next Throne of Hip-Hop
Ive mentioned this story before because it was one of those experiences that always stays with you. In December 2009, I wrote the following in a column at AllHipHop.com: In 1996, while serving as GM of Wu-Tang Management, I participated in a private meeting with executives from RCA Records. At a certain point they brought […]

How High Can Hip-Hop Go?
People have always smoked marijuana, for one reason or another. Some people justifiable reasoning was religious/spiritual or medicinal, others used the drug-induced state to escape, some indulged to make stupidity seem gut busting hilarious, if not genius, while others just geeked and got the munchies. Im from the red light, beaded sectional dividers, burnt incense, […]

Meditations on Hip-Hop: Of Disposability, Death, and Destiny (Pt. II of III)
DEATH All deaths have causes Corpses are cut open, explored, scanned, tested, until the cause is found: a blood clot, kidney failure, hemorrhage, heart arrest, lung collapse. We do not hear of people dying of mortality. They die only of individual causes No post-mortem examination is considered complete until the individual cause has […]

Scarface: Why He Turned Down Hip-Hop Honors
Scarface has never been one to mince words, but when the rap legend refused to participate in the 2010 Hip-Hop Honors’ ode The South, he revealed to Ozone Magazine exactly why. Peep it. For more, go to ozonemag.com.Scarface: I was nominated [to be honored at the “Dirty South” VH1 Hip Hop Honors] but I declined […]

Gucci The Role Model? Really?
The views expressed inside this editorial aren’t necessarily the views of AllHipHop.com or its employees.“The term role model generally means any “person who serves as an example, whose behavior is emulated by others” – Wikipedia This is something I will make sure never happens again. My time in jail was trying, but I grew from […]

The Renaissance of The Female MC: Ana Tijoux and Queen Yonasda
Renaissance any new birth, re-birth or revival of art, thought, science, literature, or architecture. [(French for “rebirth”; Italian: Rinascimento, from ri- “again” and nascere “be born”)] Listening to the new albums from Ana Tijoux and Queen Yonasda made me think of Akinyele. I know what youre thinking so let me explain. About 11 years […]

Meditations on Hip-Hop: Of Disposability, Death, and Destiny (Pt. I of III)
DISPOSABILITY As the social state is displaced by the market, a new kind of politics is emerging in which some lives, if not whole groups, are seen as disposable and redundant. Henry A. Giroux, Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 155-156. They lack the minerals and […]

Ode To Kimbo Slice: Gone, But Remembered
Kimbo Slice is gone. The UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) has unceremoniously dismissed the Florida pugilist after he lost his second UFC fight on Saturday Night. Kimbo was beaten in classic form outlasted and convincingly. The thing is, in an odd Hip-Hop sort of way, Kimbo was us. The quintessential underdog, the dude honed his […]

Un-American America: Why Fear Mongering is So Damn Frightening
We are living in precarious and dangerous times. The economy remains unstable, joblessness is continuously skyrocketing, development is stagnant and unpredictable circumstances around the world are exacerbating the fears of many. But what is also quietly bubbling underneath the surface is a far more treacherous and detrimental push for a shift in American psychology that […]