Tag Archives: hip-hop

The Associated Press reports: DMX, the raspy, growling New York rapper who rose to fame with his 1998 blockbuster debut, “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot,” and became a chart and tabloid mainstay for years after, has died at age 50. He was hospitalized on April 2 after suffering a heart attack following a reported drug overdose, and had been …

The New York Daily News reports: Rapper Lil’ Pump, born Gazzy Garcia, gave his full-throated support to President Trump’s run for re-election. He didn’t, however, bother registering to vote, according to The Smoking Gun. The 20-year-old posted a video on Instagram where he has 17-million followers declaring “All I gotta say is Trump 2020, b-tch!.” It’s no longer online. The …

Rolling Stone reports: Public Enemy announced they are permanently “moving forward” without Flavor Flav, firing one of hip-hop’s most memorable hypemen after more than 35 years. The abrupt dismissal comes just two days after the rapper sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bernie Sanders over Chuck D’s concert at the campaign’s Los Angeles rally Sunday. “Public Enemy and Public Enemy Radio …

The Associated Press reports: The director of Iowa’s social services agency was a huge fan of the late rapper Tupac Shakur, and he frequently let his subordinates know it. Emails obtained by The Associated Press show that Iowa Department of Human Services Director Jerry Foxhoven routinely sent messages to employees lauding Shakur’s music and lyrics even after at least one …

Forbes reports: Jay-Z has accumulated a fortune that conservatively totals $1 billion, making him one of only a handful of entertainers to become a billionaire—and the first hip-hop artist to do so. Jay-Z’s steadily growing kingdom is expansive, encompassing liquor, art, real estate (homes in Los Angeles, the Hamptons, Tribeca) and stakes in companies like Uber. To calculate his net …

For several days New York City’s music sites have been consumed with explosive allegations of child molestation against hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, whose 1982 global smash Planet Rock virtually created the electro and freestyle genres that dominated airwaves in the 80s and continues to influence much of current dance music. From today’s New York Daily News: Afrika Bambaataa was not …

The marionettes are an interesting touch. TIME recaps: In the decade between her last solo album and her show-stealing appearance at Katy Perry’s Super Bowl halftime show this year, Missy Elliott has been relatively quiet, writing and producing for other artists and making the occasional guest appearance. But on Thursday, she released “WTF (Where They From),” which features her old …

Superfruit, who are the two gay members of the Grammy-winning Pentatonix, are closing in on a million views with their Broadway take on some recent hip-hop hits.

Clip recap: Sampling isn’t about “hijacking nostalgia wholesale,” says Mark Ronson. It’s about inserting yourself into the narrative of a song while also pushing that story forward. Watch the DJ scramble 15 TED Talks into an audio-visual omelette, and trace the evolution of “La Di Da Di,” Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s 1984 hit that has been reimagined for …

Yesterday New York City hip-hop radio star Mr. Cee acknowledged having sex with a transgender sex worker in a tearful 30-minute interview on his own station, which then published a statement accepting his resignation and wishing him well. But almost immediately, there was another development. On Thursday afternoon, following the urging of Mr. Darden during the morning interview, Mister Cee …

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, the hip-hop duo who rocketed to national prominence via Same Love, their message of gay acceptance, today topped Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart with their follow-up single, Thrift Shop.  The track is also #1 on the magazine’s R&B/Hip-Hop chart.  If, somehow, you have not yet heard the impossibly catchy Thrift Shop, here it is.

    Yesterday former Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears took on his one-time collaborator Azealia Banks over her “faggot” attack on Perez Hilton.  GLAAD also responded yesterday on their blog: Our society knows that “fa**ot” is a derogatory word for gay men, and in this case it was used to attack someone in a very public altercation with hundreds of …

The above tweet from hip-hop/dance artist Azealia Banks came after this: US rapper Azealia Banks has defended calling the US entertainment blogger Perez Hilton a faggot during a Twitter argument. The argument began after Hilton posted a criticism of Banks’s feuds with other artists. She then called him “dickbreath” and told him to “gobble a dick”. Hilton told Banks, who …

“The night I posted it, I cried like a fucking baby. It was like all the frequency just clicked to a change in my head. All the receptors were now receiving a different signal, and I was happy. I hadn’t been happy in so long. I’ve been sad again since, but it’s a totally different take on sad. There’s just …

From today’s Obama rally. Wingnuts are already screaming.

Details.

(Tipped by JMG reader Casey)

Carey’s publicist says this might be “too urban for JMG” but assures me that there are “slamming club mixes” coming. Let’s hope so because I couldn’t make it halfway through this version. The publicist is right about Mariah’s club mixes though, they usually turn me around on tracks I’d been “meh” on. Example.

Newly out R&B star Frank Ocean debuted at the pinnacle of Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart this week. (I’m fairly sure this is the first time that an already out artist has achieved this.) In fact, Billboard’s chart-watch column notes that Ocean’s first week sales are more than three times what had been forecast before he came out. Ocean also debuted …

“4 summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. Every day almost. And on the days we were together, time would glide. By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiating with feeling. No …