Archive for ‘News’

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August 3, 2012

Eminem Is Working On New Album, Talks 50 Cent & Slaughterhouse

Head of Shady Records Eminem has started to work on a new LP, whilst also working on Slaughterhouse’s debut album welcome to: Our House.

“I actually started my album,” he told Channel 955 in Detroit. “But I haven’t fully went in yet because I’ve been finishing up this Slaughterhouse record. I’ve kind of been really hands-on with this album for the past year. This has kinda been a pet project for me. I’ve kind of been executive producing, producing, co-producing, mixing—very hands-on with it and just really involved. We’re actually finishing up today. We’re handing the album in today.”

There is no release date for Eminem’s new project, but he stated that he has had ‘fun’ listening to other emcees on the Shady roster such as Slaughter and Yelawolf liking their technical work.

However, he also had time to look back at his work with 50 Cent.

“Ever since we started making music with Fif, it was always like a mutual respect thing and we became friends outside of the music,” Shady shared. “50 is very big on the business aspects of his career. I would consider him a smart businessman. Not saying that I’m not, but I don’t get into as much of the technical aspect in the business sense. I have no idea what’s going on—ever. I don’t even know where I’m at right now.”

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August 2, 2012

Cashy Money Records Sign Producer RedOne

Producer RedOne hit maker for tracks such as Nicki Minaj’s Starships, Lady Gaga‘s Bad Romance and Jennifer Lopez‘s On the Floor featuring Pitbull, has signed a deal with Ronald “Slim” Williams and Bryan “Baby” Williams to put his  2101 Records under Cash Money.

“I have always been impressed with the way Slim and Baby do business,” said RedOne. “Their determination to build their artists’ careers from the ground to superstardom shows their sheer commitment. I have strived to work with the best in the industry throughout my career and this opportunity to partner my 2101 label with Cash Money on these projects is one such example. Together, we’ll be able to continue to help build global stars and make hit music that we hope fans around the world will enjoy.”

“We consider Cash Money a family, and RedOne fits right in,” said Slim. “He is a world-class producer, songwriter, musician, and now record executive who just adds to what we have built here, and look forward to expanding in the years ahead.”

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July 31, 2012

“Freeway” Ricky Ross Has Stopped Others From Confronting Rapper Rick Ross

The beef, Ricky Ross a drug kingpin feels that the rapper is using his name to succeed and get further in his career. He even took Ross to court over it in 2010, claiming copyright infringement , but lost.

Now in a recent interview Ricky Ross claims that he has had to stop Suge Knight and others from taking the issue further.

“It’s hard,” he said when asked how he keeps people from confronting Ross on the streets. “Trust me, these dudes in L.A. don’t like what he’s done…Even when I lost the lawsuit, three of the shot callers from the hood came to me and said, ‘Is it time yet?’ I was like, ‘Nah, man.’ I don’t want that. I don’t want nobody to do nothing to him. They want to put a no-fly zone on him, saying he can’t come to L.A.”

“Even Suge Knight came out. Suge stepped to me one day like, ‘Let me handle this.’ I was like, ‘Nah.’ It ain’t about that.”

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July 31, 2012

MTV Wrap Up – The UK Rap Rundown

The Olympics is what everyone was talking about last week, with the opening ceremony on Friday being rather explosive and extravagant. We saw familiar faces such as Mr Bean, James Bond and the ‘Queen’ jumping out of a helicopter…

Dizzee Rascal was given the honour of recording the official Olympic Song of the London 2012 Olympic Games. At the ceremony, he performed the track ‘Scream’ which features the first lady of Dirtee Stank, Pepper along with ‘Bonkers’. Wretch 32 opened the Olympic Torch Relay Finale in London’s Hyde Park. This was a great moment for the urban music industry, showing the popularity and strength it has.

Margate rapper Mic Righteous previously released a diss track to Tim Westwood called ‘Sack City’ which has now been taken off YouTube after the ‘Big Dawg’ put in a complaint about it. Mic tweeted a picture of the video, which has a message on it stating, “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Tim Westwood.” Considering the track came out over a month ago in June, it has taken quite a while and everybody has probably heard it by now anyway…

Hip-hop collective Caxton Press have been hard at work releasing video after video. Last week the visuals to ‘Touch The Sun’ came out, which is the eighth video from their ‘Shame The Devil’ album.

Sho Shallow showed us another side to him as he took a more laid back and melodic approach for new track ‘Weed In My Lungs,’ a refix of Kirko Bangz’s ‘Drank In My Cup’ – which has also previously seen remixes from J. Cole and 2 Chainz.

Manchester’s Lyrican put out the first joint US and UK hosted mixtape ‘The Problem Child’ with Charlie Sloth and DJ Drama. The 15 track project includes the internet hit ‘Simon Cowell’. He is becoming one of rap’s most promising figures and the mixtape proves why with his intelligent wordplay and strong delivery.

There are two freestyles that have caught my eye this week; the first one goes to USG’s youngest member 15-year-old Geko, who brought heat to Charlie Sloth’s Fire In The Booth. He tells us a few stories through the first track and then gets into an emotional freestyle.

With the re-launch of the Grime Daily website and the name change to GRM Daily, rapper DVS was the first artist after the re-launch to put out a Daily Duppy. He slows it down with some deep bars for the first half before switching it up over the ‘Rack City’ beat – check it out!

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July 24, 2012

MTV Wrap Up – The UK Rap Rundown

I’m back to give you what’s hot in the world of UK rap for the week. I went down to the premiere of Ice-T’s docufilm Something to Nothing: The Art of Rap and also to K. Koke’s video shoot for his track, ‘The Only One’. There have been some hot releases out this week too…

Tracks that caught my eye this week went to USG’s boss man Squingy, who released the visuals to his track ‘Find A Way‘. The production of the mini movie showed that Squingy is an artist in more ways than one.

Lady Leshurr and Paigey Cakey released a net video ‘Dam City’. As always with Leshurr, her energy was on point – you can always see her passion for what she does in every video. PDC’s Jaja Soze was joined by Diamond to rework the classic Warren G and Nate Dogg track ‘Regulate’, for ‘What If’, stimulating and empowering minds.

The official theme song to the Offenders film was also released courtesy of English Frank and featured Anamate. The film will be released in the cinema on August 8 and stars English Frank, G FrSH and Scorcher – it is definitely worth a watch.

Thursday saw the European premiere of Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap at the Hammersmith Apollo. I spotted many UK rappers there such as Sway, Wretch 32 and Jehst. The film itself took us back to the roots of how elements like battling started and talked business and the technicalities of rap. It was light-hearted throughout and very entertaining, with cheers erupting everytime a hip-hop legend graced the screen.

 

I went down to K. Koke’s warm up video shoot for ‘The Only One’ on Saturday in Hackney. Turning up at 3pm there were so many people there, showcasing the respect and love there is for Koke – artists such as Margs and J Spades were also present. The video itself included some very nice cars, motorbikes and of course lots of women!

I spoke to K. Koke briefly about the shoot and he said: “today is my video, it was in the hood, out of the hood, we brought the hood to another hood. This is going to come out before my first single.” Keep your eyes peeled for that one! Until next time…

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July 17, 2012

MTV Wrap Up – The UK Rap Rundown

Wow! It’s been a busy week in the world of UK rap and although I haven’t been to any shows this week, I have heard many stand-out tracks. There are also a few mixtapes and one very big album to look forward to in the coming months. Can you guess who I’m talking about?

A few days before Azealia Banks dropped her ‘Fantasea’ mixtape, we were given a taster of what was to come with ‘Neptune’, featuring London MC Shystie. Shystie was only one of two featured artists on the 19 track mixtape, the other artist being Styles P. Last Monday the south London hip-hop collective Caxton Press released the video to ‘Big Buck Star’ from their debut LP ‘Shame The Devil’ which is out now. Another collective from London, Piff Gang, also released their third 11-track mixtape called ‘Plant Life’. This will be the first of three projects we will see from them in the coming months, so watch this space.

The USG boys have been busy as we saw three tracks released from them last week. The first was K. Koke’s ‘Roc For Life’, featuring MMG’s Wale. I loved the rocky beat on this track and the video was a perfect match. K. Koke tweeted as it premiered, writing: “This ain’t no music video. It’s my journey from streets up!”

Next up was Exo who released the video ‘Way Back Home’ featuring singer Tom Prior – again this had a rocky beat and shows a very different side to Exo. Youngest member Geko slowed it down for ‘Best Friend’ as he reaches out to his old friend. Look out for K. Koke’s album ‘I Ain’t Perfect’ and Exo’s 7 track EP ‘The 7 Day Mile’ due in October.

Ard Adz and Sho Shallow jumped on Sneakbo’s ‘Still Breathing’ to give us a banging remix of the track, complete with a video. These two have been putting in a lot of work this year, so we should be expecting big things from them. G FrSH was joined by Yungen and Cashtastic for ‘Grown A** Boy’; giving us a taster of what is to come from his upcoming ‘Legoman II’ mixtape.

Lastly The Jump Off team recently had a debate, asking: ‘Should Grime Artists Make UK Rap?’ LaLa asked the question ‘If he keeps doing grime, is he not allowed to ever, ever experiment?’

Some of the team thought it was okay to make a few one-off tracks out of their genre, but came to the conclusion that their fans would be upset if they were to completely cross over. However, examples of artists that have crossed over successfully such as Chip and Tinie Tempah show that it is more than possible to start off as a grime artist and move to rap.

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July 12, 2012

DO THE BALOTELLI !!! @TheVujanic

Actor/Comedian David Vujanic dropped this funny video Do The Balotelli, using a rework of True Tiger’s Eyeball, vocals from Black The Ripper, and directed by Quason Matthews. Check it….

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July 9, 2012

Chris Brown Tops UK Album Chart with ‘Fortune’

Multi-platinum, Grammy award winning, superstar Chris Brown has reached the top of the charts, securing his first ever UK number one for his fifth studio album ‘FORTUNE’

The singer sold almost 30,000 albums, outselling his closest competitor, Maroon 5’s Overexposed, by 11,000 copies .The album features his UK number one single ‘Turn Up The Music’ as well as his current release ‘Don’t Wake Me Up’. It is Chris’ fastest selling album to date.

He tweeted:

“I’m thankful for my fans! I love you guys! I appreciate the hard work my fans put in every day! ‪#FORTUNE”

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July 9, 2012

MTV Wrap Up – THE UK RAP RUNDOWN

This is my first UK Rap Rundown column; here I will be bringing you the week’s highlights in the UK urban scene – I hope you enjoy it! I haven’t even been back from the BET Awards in L.A a week yet and have already attended a festival – Hyde Park’s Wireless. I was pleased to see underground rappers Political Peak, Sho Shallow and Ard Adz get a packed out tent and an amazing crowd reaction – it proved how well UK rap is doing…

Of course, Sneakbo smashed his set too. Sway did an old school hip-hop style set, with verses from Wu Tang, Tupac and Mobb Deep. Roc Nation signee USG member K Koke also performed on the Sunday supported by his fellow crew members.

In other news, Scorcher has replied to Dappy’s ‘Tarzan 2’ diss which hears him say: “I still roll for my hood and I wear my chain, f**k a Top Boy Scorcher he can’t do the same. Real recognise real, how many albums have you sold to date?”

Scorcher wasn’t too happy with Dappy and replied via an SB.TV video called ‘Rockstar’. The MC dropped punchline after punchline, saying that he is an “underground king, you could never be my equal” and “you could have a mill still look like a tramp.” He also mentions Tulisa and the now infamous tape that her ex-boyfriend leaked to the world.

Personally I liked Dappy’s ‘Tarzan 2’ video; unfortunately he had to re-shoot and re-release the video due to the heavy controversy it received. Props to Scorcher; he went in on the diss track and I feel he is the better man in this situation.

The video that caught my attention last week came from Donae’o. I was at the video shoot for the track ‘YDKAM’ and know there’s going to be a lot more to come from the ‘Party Hard’ singer on his album. He told me: “It’s going to have a lot more hip-hop and R&B, there’s a want for it, so I can put it out.”

The song ‘You Don’t Know About Me’ features some of UK rap’s hardest lyricists, such as Joe Black, Squeeks, Dru Blu, Ratlin and Lethal B.

Another interesting one was the Labrinth produced ‘Watchtower’ by Devlin featuring Ed Sheeran. It is the first single from his forthcoming album ‘A Moving Picture’.

Leicester based R&B singer Luke Bingham was also recently joined by Play Dirty’s Krept & Konan for the track ‘Shut It Down’. I really like the beat to this track and Krept & Konan really give the song that hip-hop edge it needed. I predict big things for Mr Bingham; he has the voice, the style and looks to match.

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July 9, 2012

Usher’s Stepson Confirmed Braindead After Jetski Accident

TMZ confirmed the news yesterday that Usher’s stepson Kyle aged 11, from estranged wife Tameka Foster Kyle has been declared braindead after a jetski accident in Georgia.

Kyle is pictured next to Usher

TMZ said…’According to our sources, Kyle Glover (son of Usher’s estranged wife Tameka Foster) has not experienced any brain activity since he was admitted to the hospital. We’re told there has been no decision yet as to whether or not to take him off life support.’

Kyle was riding an innertube when a jetski struck him leaving him unconscious.

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