March 2006 Archives

According to an item in today's New York Daily News, Busta may have had a more eventful week in Miami than we previously thought. There's been a rumor floating around that newly ousted Source magazine owner Dave Mays caught a bad one in club Opium in Miami, and according to the News, Busta was the unamed rapper who handed out the asswhupping:

Busta Rhymes took a page out of Naomi Campbell's playbook and sent an adversary to the hospital this week after braining him with a Champagne bottle.

The rapper, who was in Miami for the Winter Music Conference, has a serious beef with deposed Source magazine publisher David Mays. The pair got into a brawl Sunday night at the Miami hot spot Opium, sending Mays to the hospital to clean up a gash in his noggin, two sources tell us.

In preparation for the release of his much hyped upcoming album, The Big Bang, a couple of Busta tracks have leaked this week, one of which pays tribute to New York and the countless other hip hop legends who call the city home. The track, called New York Shit, has Busta rhyming over a slow, very un-Swizz sounding beat from Swizz Beatz, and basically just paying homage to hip hop's most important city. The track is pretty good, although it may be a little too laid back to really qualify for 'anthem' status, but I'm guessing it will do well in the NY market if nowhere else.

Downolad it here.

In other Busta news, the rowdy rapper reportedly wild out on yet another fan recently in South Beach, this time possibly because of the man's sexual orientation. According to the New York Post, Busta was up in a diner that was "packed with transvestites, gay men and drag queens" which an eyewitness reported "obviously made Busta a little edgy." When a young gay fan approached the rapper for an autograph and tapped him on the shoulder, he allegedly yelled out "Why the fuck you touchin' me, man? Get the fuck away from me."

I know I'm not the only person who's heard this Jay-Z swagger jacker Noe Money (yeah that's really his name) that is signed to Dipset. I haven't seen anybody really talking about him, and I wonder what the Dipset cult members have to say about this. This guy sounds even more like Jay-Z than that kid Angelous that was out a while back, and of all of the places he could've landed, he ended up on Cam's label.

He wouldn't be the first rapper who tried to get on by jacking a proven vet's style, Gureilla Black and Shyne are two names that immediately come to mind. But in this case, I don't understand what this dude's purpose on Dipset could possibly be. Are they seriously going to put out a rapper who sounds just like their sworn enemy, or are they just gonna keep him around to do fake Jay-Z voice overs on their skits and what not?

50 Cent has been called a marketing genius by alot of people for his ability to manufacture beef with just about anybody, anytime, for whatever reason and use it to his advantage. With his movie Get Rich or Die Trying coming to DVD this week and a Mobb Deep album ready to drop in May, we were about due for some controversial words of wisdom from the man who shares his middle name with rap's biggest record company. On Monday morning 50 called into Hot 97's morning show with Ms. Jones and cleared the air about some rumors, aired some people out, and most importantly made sure his name would be a topic of conversation over the next couple of weeks.

One of the victims of his wrath was Spike Lee, who just came off the biggest opening weekend of his career, and has publicly criticized Fifth for the message his music, movie, and video game sends to kids. When the morning show staff played a clip of Spike offering 50 a seat in one of the film classes he teaches, 50 responded that his own movie earned 80 million last year and that he doesn't think the legendary director has anything to offer him. He also went on to wonder why Spike is so quick to criticize his video game, but ignores other equally violent games such as Grand Theft Auto that aren't put out by black rappers.

Check out this audio of Kay Slay and Papoose on the radio complaining about how some random dude created a fake Papoose Myspace page. Pap is mad because when he was trying to get his own page set up, the impostor reported him to the Myspace police as a fake. He also says that the fake page has accumulated some 400,000 friends, although none of the 30 or so bootleg Papoose pages I came across had more than a couple hundred.

The page that I assume is his official one, has almost 29,000 friends which isn't a bad number at all, so I guess this has all been cleared up by now. As stupid as it sounds, it's pretty hilarious that a rapper would even care about something like this, and I had to laugh when they wondered if maybe the Myspace staff themselves were behind the fake page, as if any 15 year old with a computer couldn't have made it. The best part though is when Pap calls out that guy Tom and tells him he's gonna put him on blast everytime he's on the radio, I'm telling you, it's pure comedy.

Audio: Papoose and Kay Slay mad about Myspace

Nore has to be one of the greatest examples of how an M.C. can fall off that you'll ever see in your life. We all know that most of his recent stuff isn't exactly up to par, but if you try to tell me that he was never all that, then you obviously didn't spend enough time studying the first CNN album, The War Report. After Capone got locked up and left him to finish the album alone, a young Nore stepped up and managed to make their debut one of the true underground classics to come out of NY in the 90's.

Granted, he was never what I'd consider a top 5 M.C., but I don't know anyone who was around during that era that can deny that his lyrics and flow on that album were nothing short of incredible. On joint's like Bloody Money and Drivers Seat, he spit some of the realest, nastiest, verses I'd ever heard at the time and to this day that album can be held up against most of the dime a dozen, bang bag shoot-em-up garbage flooding the market nowadays. Then, sometime after his solo and the second CNN album, his flow really just started to fall off out of nowhere and he started saying shit like "It's all goodnud do my songs for the hoodnud/platinum nigga while yall thangs go woodnud."

In a recent interview Rakim, considered by many to be the greatest M.C. to ever hold a microphone, expressed his admiration for Dipset and announced that he even plans on working with them in the near future. If Ra had been talking about any other crew in hip hop, it may not have been that big of a deal, but Dipset being who they are, the statements have caused a small uproar on blogs and message boards across the internet. With this particular crew it's usually either you love them or you hate them, and the people on the hate side of the argument seem to think these statements signal the beginning of the end of hip hop as we know it.

Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle with the Dips, I can respect their hustle and I enjoy some of their music, but I wouldn't exactly consider their stuff groundbreaking or anything. At the same time I don't think they're the downfall of hip hop, and I don't find it at all surprising that the R is feeling them on some collaboration shit. It's a new age in hip hop the god has to eat too, so why shouldn't he work with a crew from his hometown that does its numbers?

I know he popped up in the Cam video and he recently regulated on some kids that robbed his son, but I mean other than that, what is he doing with his life? When the Rocafella split went down at first he seemed like he would rebound, but then he lost his deal with IDJ for the Dame Dash Music Group, and he's been awfully quiet ever since. I know this guy's a mulitmillionaire with a gorgeous wife and everything, but damn if I don't kind of feel sorry for him sometimes.

He held Beanie down something fierce during his trial, only to see him come out and eventually realign himself with the Rocafella side of the family. His Ultimate Hustler show, didn't make a whole lot of noise, and according to Cam, he got Rocawear "stolen" from him by Jay (I wish I'd get robbed and walk away with 30 million in my pocket). It's like the poor guy has had this black cloud following him around since him and Jay fell out and he just can't manage to get himself out from under it.

By now you may have heard that New York production god, DJ Premier, will be collaborating with Christina Aguilera of all people on a whopping 5 tracks for her upcoming album. When I first heard about this unlikely matchup, I was a little shocked, but mostly curious as to why one of hip hop's most sought after producers would ever bother with a project so far out of his depth. Around the same time, he announced that he would also be contributing heavily to Nas's next album, and the prospect of more incredible music from those two made a pop side project that much easier to swallow.

I guess as the resident New York blogger around here, I should speak on 50 Cent's recent comments about Southern Hip Hop. In case you missed it, during a recent interview 50 had some less than flattering words about the quality of music coming from the South. This guy loves to make controversial statements, especially when he has an album coming out, and I guess this little speech is meant to prepare us for the Mobb Deep album:

"A lot of the music that comes out of the South is kind of simplified and I think it's kinda 'cause they just wanna have a good time...They don't wanna think about what (they) just said. ... They really didn't make sense, but they made sense in a way and they just wanna hear something while they're actually partying and it works for them. But when they don't take the time to make it the highest quality possible, it hurts the actual hip-hop (genre). People wanna make music they can get away with as opposed to the best possible music they can make."

Now that the rumor about Fat Joe getting dropped from Atlantic has been proven to be false, I'd like to take a minute to share some words of advice with our overweight friend from The Bronx. I don't know if you've been paying attention Joe, but over the past few years you've lost a lot of love in the streets, particularly in your hometown which as you know, has held you down through some of the roughest times of your career. This loss of love really came to light when this Atlantic rumor started making the rounds and all of a sudden a whole bunch of people who had kept their feelings quiet suddenly seemed happy that you might be out of a job.

I think there are probably two main reasons for this fresh wave of hate that you're gonna need to address as soon as possible. First off, you need to go back to the old Joe we knew and loved, because in case you haven't figured it out yet, the reason why your albums didn't do well is because you tried to be something you weren't and the fanbase that would normally cop your stuff wasn't having it. Me personally, I know there's no way I'd ever be caught buying anything that features a Nelly collaboration. I'm just saying.

Do you realize that it's about to be April and not only do we still not have a new Styles P album, but we don't have anything that even looks like a release date for Time Is Money? Interscope used to at least tease us with release dates, but now they're not even pretending like they're ever going to put it out anymore. Realistically it probably doesn't even make sense to ever release it now, since they already burned up a couple of good singles, let reviews run too early, and watched whatever buzz there was for the album fizzle out.

This is the type of nonsense that is killing the record industry, not people downloading mp3's. They put out all types of garbage albums that nobody asked for and everybody could've lived without, watch them flop, then hold out on a project that actually has some buzz until it's dead in the water. Of course everybody wants to blame 50 Cent for this delay, and they're right, but at this point you can't even really blame Interscope Jackson anymore. Now you have to wonder how Jimmy Iovine and his people could let some petty rap beef influence what records they release and when.

So BET did it's best numbers ever last Thursday when Lil Kim's Reality show, Countdown to Lockdown, debuted to nearly 2 million viewers. Two million doesn't really sound like all that much, especially when you figure that American Idol had like 17 million viewers that same night, but I guess for a cable network aimed at a black audience that's really good. I think the draw of this show is probably that unlike most "reality" TV, it focuses on a real situation that we're familiar with, so even if most of the scenes and situations are kind of scripted, at least we know that when Kim cries about having to go to prison, she probably isn't acting.

I was kind of surprised by the amount of time dedicated to pointing out how much of a snitch Lil Cease was for testifying against Kim, and I felt like BET might have been telling it's target audience what it wanted to hear and capatilizing off the heavy Stop Snitching climate that's been in the air lately. I had to laugh when Ja Rule popped up out of his hole to scold Cease for testifying at Kim's trial, saying he doesn't want to hear anything about him being subpoeaned, and that he knows what he did was wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since when is Ja Rule an authority on the code of the streets, last time I checked he's a washed up former R&B singer whose name barely even came up during the Gotti trial.

There's alot of anticipation built up for Ghostface's Fishscale album and I have a feeling people may be getting their hopes up a little too high. I don't mean as far as the quality of the album, because if you're lucky enough to have heard the album already or sampled the advance that's been floating around, then you know that we're about to be blessed with some of Ghost's best work to date. I'm talking about all of this talk of how this album, and possibly Raekwon's Only Built for Cuban Links 2, are going to "bring New York back".

First off, I don't agree with the idea that New York needs to be brought back from anywhere in the first place. Our place in hip hop history was written a long time ago and it'll take alot more than some songs about chewy candy or platinum dental wear to ever tarnish our legacy. Sure we may not run the charts or sell the most records, but we still make great music and at the end of the day we can feel proud of the stuff we put out (well most of it anyway).

Am I the only one who's wondering why no serious beef between 50 and Cam's camps has popped off yet? I thought for sure that when that J.R Writer freestyle dropped a little while ago, things would get going but it's been pretty quiet on both ends snce then. On the track J.R. wonders why anybody would ever "bring Mase to a war" and advises the G-Unit to "change your name to Ninja Turtles 'cuz your leader is a rat."

But even before Mase started running around with G-Unit, I remember 50 making statements dissing the Diplomats after The Game did that Certified Gangsters joint with Jim Jones. He said something like Game played himself by doing a feature with artists that were on Koch because they were lower than him. And then at Cam's press conference when dismissed questions about potential problems with 50, which makes me wonder if maybe he might not want to bring it to the Unit.

One thing about Cam, you may hate him or love him, but you damn sure can't ignore him. Here's his new video for Touch It Or Not/Wet Wipes which features Jimmie "J.J." Walker as Jay-Z and a bootleg looking Beyonce impostor that looks nothing like her. Let's just say that if Killa ever decides to quit rap, he can probably make a good buck doing comedy.

The first half of the video is a standard club scene with the Dips and a bunch of voluptuous stripper looking chicks partying while Cam spits Touch It Or Not with the fake Beyonce bouncing on his lap. If you've never heard the song, it's pretty much about what the title sounds like it's about, so I don't know how much daytime airplay Cam thinks he's going to get with this one.

Damn Big, I can't believe it's almost 10 years you've been gone. You probably hear this all the time but, things just haven't been the same since you and Pac left us. As soon as you were gone a whole bunch of wannabe you type dudes tried to step into your shoes. Your boy Hov held us down six summers, but somehow it just hasn't been the same, something's been missing.

After a very public fallout over a Jadakiss  interview ended up costing him his spot as G-Unit's Shady's official DJ, Green Lantern has been keeping a pretty low profile. He quietly signed to the Russell Simmons Music Group and hasn't made much noise on the mixtape scene since his collaboration with Fort Minor on last year's We Major mixtape. This month The Evil Genius joins forces with Ghostface for a special mixtape that is sure to generate buzz around his own name, as well as for the Fishscale album it's meant to create hype for. 

It's been a minute since we've heard much out of Fabolous, but with a Def Jam deal in the works and a high profile beef with Mase about to pop off, it seems like the Brookyln M.C. is about ready to jump back into the mix in a big way this year. This week Fab dropped a 2 CD mixtape entitled Loso's Way: Rise to Power, in conjunction with DJ Clue and his own newly formed Street Family label.

If you're a fan of Fab, you're going to want to pick this up because the boy's flow and lyric game are as tight as they've ever been and he puts it all out there over some of the hottest beats on the street.

Fab has always walked a fine line between the streets and the pop charts and he's paid a little bit of a price for it in the hood, but I'll give it to him, he kept this joint mostly in the gutter. Except for a remix with Lil Mo, most of these tracks are straight up corner and barbershop bangers with very little that will appeal to his large female fanbase. The track that will have everybody talking though, will definitely be Murda (We Don't Believe You) with longtime associate Paul Cain. Over 50 Cent's Life On the Line beat, Fab and Cain spit some hot fire at the former minister/current G-unit groupie that are sure to make make his soul burn slow, or at least make him say something more creative than 'I'm your daddy'.

Last week, Shyne a practicing Jew, announced that he would be legally changing his name from Jamal Barrow, to Moses Michael Levy and went so far as to take out a classified ad in the NY Post to tell the world. When he makes the change, Shyne will join several other public figures who've done the same for religious reasons, such as Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul Jabar, and Rakim. More power to you Shyne, whatever you have to do to get through your predicament homey.

Shyne also made headlines recently by claiming that his family is broke and demanding that his half million dollar Def Jam advance and the royalties from his album, Godfather Buried Alive, be released to his struggling family. The money is being held by the government under New York's Son of Sam Law, which prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes. Now, I don't think anybody can argue that Shyne was wrong when he let off in a crowded club and injured 3 innocent people, but I don't see what his advance and album have to do with the crime.

Damn, I feel like everytime I turn around something is going wrong for Busta. As if the whole bodyguard getting murdered, grand jury subpoena thing wasn't bad enough, this week he got hit with a lawsuit from a fan that alleges he was beaten by the rappers bodyguards when he approached him for an autograph. This type of thing happens to celebrities all the time, and sometimes the victim's claims are legit, but I have to question the timing of this particular allegation. You're going to tell me that it's just a coincidence that this lawsuit popped up this week when the incident supposedly happened over 6 months ago?

It looks to me like somebody's lawyer is trying to take advantage of the black cloud that's been following Busta around since last month. Let me just say though, that if the bodyguards did rough homey up, that's not a good look at all. I understand that fans and autograph seekers can probably get pretty annoying sometimes, but beating them down is a good way to make sure nobody ever asks you for your autograph again.

Rumor has it that the first Jay-Z/Nas collaboration will be a remix of L.E.S rapper Tru-Life's 2005 anthem The New New York. I don't know if there's any truth to that or what, but if so, that kid just hit the collaboration jackpot. Just imagine being a newly signed rapper who's never dropped a solo album, and the two biggest names in rap decide to jump on one of your joints for a remix.

Tru-Life himself is a decent rapper, not spectacular, but he came correct on the mixtape he had out last year with Green Lantern and his loyalty to his hometown is something some of our established artists could use a lesson in. That doesn't matter though, because a song like this is still going to generate all types of hate from those who would rather see New York fall off the face of the earth than "take back the top spot", whatever that's supposed to mean. Last time I checked the top selling rapper in the game hailed from Queens, NY.