Real Music People

We have been duped by marketing once again kiddies! The Smoking Gun has unearthed police, court and corrections records that prove that multi-platinum selling musician Akon has been blowing a lot of smoke up our butts. There has been no conviction and he wasn’t locked up between 1999 and 2002. They say that Akon “’created a fictionalized back story that serves as the narrative anchor for his recorded tales of isolation, violence, woe, and regret. Akon has overdubbed his biography with the kind of grit and menace that he apparently believes music consumers desire from their hip-hop stars.” The Smoking Gun also expresses shock that the media failed to look into Akon’s claim before he got huge.

Well those are two names that you never thought you’d hear together in the same sentence. But it seems that it’s not at all impossible. Retired rapper Eminem has reportedly been approached to play Nelson Mandela’s upcoming 90th birthday party. I never knew Nelson was a hip hop fan. Reports are also saying that it’s a done deal but the rapper’s camp is saying they haven’t accepted the invite just yet. Let’s hope that there won’t be any talk about street cred. Em’s been arrested. Nelson spent 27 years in jail. Em clearly loses. But then again, he can issue a rap battle challenge and then all hell will break loose!

Jay-Z has retired from hip hop and came out of retirement about three times already. He’s also just retired from the record exec racket a few months ago. But as his track record goes, he’s coming out of retirement from that too.

Rush & Molloy report that the rap mogul could be on his way back to starting his own label again. This time, with a guy who used to be his rival. He and Lyor Cohen of Warner Music are in talks about putting together the Carter Music Group which is a reference to Jay-Z’s real name of Shawn Carter.

Ne-Yo recently had an interview with Essence magazine where he talked about his mom and a couple of issues and rumors about him. He started talking about his mom and made a great segue into the gay rumors about him saying “Yeah, my mom is my dawg. When she heard the rumors that I was gay she was like, ‘Who do I have to pay a visit? Who’s ass do I have to kick?’” It looks like Ne-Yo has a bad ass mom. Cool! No one’s going to call him gay anytime soon. They’re just going to start calling him mama’s boy.

Drop it like it’s hot! Drop the knish like it’s hot! Rapper and producer extraordinaire Pharell was just driving his car around Miami when he happened to pass a big Jewish Orthodox wedding going on. I guess he smelled a party because he decided to get in on it.

The wedding between Rachel and Tuvia Lind took place last month at a private residence in Miami Beach. Pharell spotted men dancing in the front yard and stopped to watch but was later invited to participate. Who knew that hip hop was big with the Jewish people? It’s a fact now – hip hop is universal!

No, there’s nothing wrong with your computer. I really did entitle the post with that. Crisco Adler is the unnamed half of Shwayze. Like the so-called producer, Shwayze hails from Malibu, California. His music could best be described as the love child between indie and hip hop. Shwayze does the raps while Crisco sings the hooks.

I’m really hesitant to say it and fear future humiliation but it’s really good. It’s different, fresh and fun. I guess you really just have to get over the Crisco thing. So it’s a great big help that the music only takes Shwayze’s name and not his.

Another year yet it still seems that it’s going to be filled with lawsuits for the hip hop industry. Rapper Birdman is the most recent one being sued. He just got slapped with a lawsuit for allegedly taking other artists’ songs without paying a red cent for them.

The lawsuit was filed in New Orleans and it alleges that Bryan ‘Birdman’ Williams owes several music publishers an unspecified amount of money for using copyrighted songs without permission. However, Birdman and his brother Ronald, founders of Cash Money Records, have been paid for their work. Let’s hope Birdman doesn’t turn chicken yellow and run.

Mary J. Blige performed on Thursday night at “CNN Heroes: All Star Tribute”. She sang “Come To Me (Peace)”, a new song from her upcoming studio album entitled “Growing Pains”

Baby Boom

There appears to be congratulations in order for singer Usher and his wife; as their first child arrived into the world at 9.30pm on Monday (26-11-07). Originally, they named baby son, Usher. Usher Raymond V to be precise.

So is that like calling him Junior? Well, if so, little Jr. was a healthy 7lb 9oz; and the couple are overjoyed. “We are so happy and proud of our beautiful son. What a blessing!”

I have to say it’s lovely and refreshing to not be writing about crazy stars doing drug related, alcohol related or generally weird related things for once. I have already mentioned this week the planned wedding of Kanye West and his girlfriend; and now the happy family here. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy… until tomorrow when someone is bound to have done something stupid. Again.

Out of four albums released over the span of her career, all four have debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. Her most recent album was released last week, entitled As I Am.

A #1 debut is not her only Thanksgiving blessing this week, though. Keys has already sold 742,400 copies and is her highest performing debut yet. Her first album Songs in a Minor (2001) sold 235,800 copies while her sophomore album The Diary of Alicia Keys sold 618,300. Unplugged (2005) sold approximately 196,000 copies. This year, her closest competition was Josh Groban’s Neel, a Christmas themed album, which hit #2 with around 223,000 copies.

This recent increase in album sales has shown us that it is indeed beginning to look at a lot like Christmas. And a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised to find a copy of the R&B songster’s latest gift in their stockings!

The coast is clear for Diddy in New York for the mean time. The hip hop mogul is not going to be charged by the Manhattan DA for allegedly punching someone in a nightclub with said someone being his so-called friend.

Diddy’s attorney Benjamin Brafman has released a statement regarding the matter saying “I’ve been informed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office that after a thorough investigation, they have made a decision not to authorize any arrests in connection with the incident involving Mr. Combs and Steven Acevedo on October 13. I want to commend the DA’s office and the New York City Police Department for conducting a thorough and very fair investigation into this incident and not allowing this private disagreement between two acquaintances to turn into a criminal charge.”

Rapper David Banner defended his controversial lyrics on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, as fellow hip-hop star Master P apologized for using the word ‘bitch’ on his past hits. “Drugs, violence and the criminal element were around long before hip-hop existed.” Yeah, and nobody used adjectives like “b*tch, ho, and [the n-word] to describe that criminal element. What a *ahem* douche. What an idiot. Does he think his “hip-hop” is doing anything to eradicate Drugs, violence and the criminal element with his music? Sure they’ve been around a long time…..but why promote it in that fashion? D*ck. All these words existed and many more exist even today and those that do not exist can be created and used as often as one likes, but game on assholes would you ever use those same words to describe your current relations. People use abusive words ok, but if you are a singer then your music release has the words in the lyrics and the album is circulated all over the world, people buy and then they use the lyrics and hurt others. In a way these rappers are highly responsible for young kids violent acts.

I dislike all this feuding when there is so much more to think about. We have a war going on and president who has no clue of what he is doing. With the money you all have should invest in putting music back in schools. You are role models for not just the young but everyone. Step back and stop thinking about self. In the dope game it is said, “There is a lot of money for all of us.” Greed is the problem. Can’t we all get along anymore? The war is not against one another it is those who did the 911 attacks. Get your mind in the swing of things. We all have little people looking at our behavior, what message are you sending them? It is time to grow and take a stand as adults. Ridiculous, but this was going to happen, all long Kanye and Curtis have been saying that who will be outselling whom. And now the game has just begun.

Finally! I was wondering when something… anything… would come along and deflate Kanye West’s huge, bloated, retarded ego. And I think this competition just may be it! In the hip-hop world, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is facing off against Kanye West to see who the King of Hip-Hop is. The two are currently gracing the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in an obvious face-off. The two artists have new albums dropping on September 11, 2007. But let’s accept the fact though the whole release date thing has been blown out of proportion, the two singers have been the real ones trying to be in the news all the time for their respective release. If these things don’t prove he’s a complete tool, then I’m not sure what to tell you!) Kanye has said of the competition, “This is real. It’s a moment.” Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson said, “From a hip-hop perspective, it’s the biggest event possible.” It’s nice to have to wacky person fight it out in the media as this is what gives us blokes the material to make fun on their speaks. Go on you guys, you driving us too.

Is a must buy for real hip hop fans. Album drops July 31
Common ft. Lily Allen - Drivin’ Me Wild
The track is the second single off his new album “Findin Forever” in stores now and the video premiered today via MT

Scottish rocker KT Tunstall longs for a split with her boyfriend - because it will give her inspiration for songs. The singer briefly split with long-term boyfriend Luke Bullen - and it inspired her to write song Someday Soon which features on new album Drastic Fantastic. And she now plans to have more arguments in a bid for musical success. Nonsense that you need to have split with your boyfriend to find inspiration to write love and emotional songs, that way to write rock and rap songs one would have to spend a few nights with a prostitute or a gay to write these woeful songs. I thing she’s completely looking at the wrong way to find inspiration to write songs, rather than a break up she could well sit on the pot and find better inspiration. We are looking for love songs that make us happy not sad and remorseful about our past relationships gone wrong. KT don’t spoil a relation for just trying to find inspiration dear, go have some coke and cheer up.

Kanye West says he isn’t political and has no interest in “who’s running with who” in the 2008 election. But the 30-year-old hip-hop mogul filmed a public service announcement Friday for an advocacy group trying to make education the top priority for the next president.

“Politics is a business,” the six-time Grammy winner told The Associated Press Friday. “I’m more social. I just care about people.”

During the filming of the television commercial, sponsored by Strong American Schools and his own Kanye West Foundation, West read from a script at the front of a mock classroom filled with real Chicago students.

“Yo. Becoming a music superstar took hard work but it also took a solid education,” West said dryly into the camera, his hands half inside his pockets.

“Say it with a little more meaning, Kanye,” a director prodded.

West took his hands out of his pockets and started gesturing with his hands as he talked, taking several more stabs at the script.

Strong American Schools is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. The group, which says it is nonpartisan and doesn’t endorse candidates, is promoting three goals for education: higher standards, effective teachers and more support for learning, according to Executive Director Marc Lampkin, who worked on President Bush’s 2000 campaign.

Other celebrities making public-service announcements for the organization’s $60 million “Ed in ‘08″ campaign include actors Ron Livingston from “Sex and the City” and Maura Tierney from “ER.”

West, who grew up in Chicago, quit classes at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and later left Chicago State University for the music business. His 2004 Grammy-award winning album was titled “The College Dropout.”

His new album, “Graduation,” comes out Sept. 11, the same day as the release of “Curtis,” the new album from 50 Cent, who promised to retire if West’s new album outsells his.

West denied any feud between the two and said he talks to 50 Cent, “all the time.”

Hip-hop star Snoop Dogg has been branded a nightmare neighbor by the residents whose road he deserted seven years ago. The rapper sold his lavish Claremont, California home earlier this week - despite moving out in 2000 after it featured on an episode of MTV’s Cribs. I wonder what it is about some celebs that just don’t recognize and care for their neighbors. Neighbors make up a neighborhood that in turn makes up the community and so on until you have a country. Take care of your neighbor and sometimes they take care of you…! But these idiot singers never may be care for their parents so how could we expect them to ever care for their neighbors. Most of the neighbors might know that he used to live beside them but he would never have known anyone in the neighborhood and would never have tried to make friends. Now that he lives some place else where, the neighborhood in that place would be having a sound sleep too.