As part of their Best New Artist series, The Grammys teams up with Pepsi and Pandora to give viewers an inside look at this year's nominees. This episode features Roc Nation's J. Cole, who will battle it out with Nicki Minaj, The Band Perry, Bon Iver and Skrillex for the coveted trophy.
Cole talks about his early influences like Nas and Tupac, getting his demo tape rejected by Jay-Z initially and what it was like to move from Fayetteville, North Carolina to New York City to attend St. John's University and get his rap career started.
Cyssero is getting ready to drop a brand new mixtape and EP entitled Libra Scale. Check out his latest video and the Virus proves he's still got bars for days.
Libra Scale on iTunes coming sooner than you think!
San Diego star in the making Cals just dropped his Paper Trail Gang album. Check out this track from the cd "My Way" featuring G. Truth and Ethan Avery.
You can purchase Paper Trail Gang now from Amazon.
Common recently visited Cosmic Kev's show on Philadelphia's Power99 radio station. The Chicago spitta goes in over Jay-Z's "Streets Is Watching" and French Montana's "Shot Callers."
Drake's song The Motto has been remixed by just about every rapper under the sun. The catchy track, a tribute to the Bay Area has been sitting on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart for 11 weeks, and has now passed the platinum mark in sales.
The album the song is featured on, Take Care, went past a million in sales last month.
T.I. and Tiny visited 106 & Park yesterday (February 1) to talk about the passing of "Soul Train" creator Don Cornelius, and what he meant to the culture.
"It was about him creating a platform for us to be able to see ourselves," Tip said. "Every Saturday morning after cartoons I was waiting and hoping Run DMC or somebody was on there. If not for him, we wouldn’t have had that. And not just my generation, but generations before me.”
Tiny actually appeared on "Soul Train" as a member of the group Xscape. She remembered what the experience was like.
"When I first started out we were on Soul Train and it was a great experience. It was the first time I realized they lip sync. So, you know it was something different," she said. "He paved the way for a lot of us to make it."
The couple was asked about rumors that tiny was pregnant. Rocsi tried to pry the information out of Tiny without success.
"Well, now y'all know I can't give it away," Tiny said, before T,I. interrupted.
"Hold up, wait a minute. The television channel said y'all gonna have to watch the t.v. show."
I guess we'll find that news out on VH1's "T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle."
2 Chainz ended all of the rumors and speculation about his new recording home yesterday (February 1) by announcing he has signed with Def Jam Records.
"At the end of the day, my new home where I've been comfortable with for a minute is Def Jam," he told Sway on MTV's RapFix Live.
Tity Boi also revealed that he and Kanye West have secretly been in the lab cooking up new music for the past year.
"One thing that people may not know is that I've been working with Kanye West for the past year," He said. "We have records together, we have ideas that we're planning on releasing to the world real soon. I'm tryna get my 'N in Paris' swag up."
The Atlanta rapper said he and Yeezy have a good working relationship.
"For the most part, when we started building our relationship, we found out we had more things in common than different from a musical standpoint," he said. "It's no secret that I came from the hustle background, from that trap, and it's no secret that he's maybe more of a hipster swag, backpack kinda guy. So I think it'll be interesting when you just drop that in the pot, in the blender, and see the outcome and results of some of that. We're gonna shake up hip hop a little bit."
Next up for Two Chainz is his solo debut album T.R.U. 2, which will drop later this year.
Gucci Mane is preparing to follow up his Baytl album with a mixtape entitled Trap Back. Check out his new video for "Face Time" directed by Mr Boomtown.
Mike Knox pours his heart out on paper in his latest freestyle. The Philly rapper lets fans know that even when you're going through difficult times you can still make it.
His new mixtape, Boston George 2, hosted by 50 Cent and DJ Kay Slay coming soon.
Taurus Scott has has produced and engineered for 50 cent, Tony Yayo, Lloyd Banks, M.O.P, Spider Loc, and more. He drops a new EP entitled The Introduction, with all new hard hitting instrumentals. Check it out below and cop it if you did it.
Extreme violence erupted in Egypt Wednesday (February 1) following a soccer game leaving at least 73 people dead and possibly as many as 1000 injured according to CBC.
CNN is reporting that Egypt's health minister has confirmed a conservative estimate of at least 200 injured.
The fights broke out after a match in Port Said between the Al-Ahly team and Port Said's Al-Masry team.
"It's kind of a security vacuum in the football stadium. ... It's not unheard of to have organized violence between football clubs, but something on this scale has never been seen before," said James Montague, who researched soccer in the Middle East for his book "When Friday Comes: Football in the War Zone."
Witnesses say most of the injuries occurred during a stampede after fans of the home team, Al-Masry, stormed on to the field following a rare 3-1 win against Al-Ahly, Egypt's top team. They then chased players and fans from the rival team.
Another match in Cairo was halted due to the violence in Port Said. Upset fans are said to have set fire to parts of the stadium there causing more injuries.
Raekwon the Chef teams up with JD Era for the Cartel-directed video for "Just A Toast." The song is featured on Raekwon's latest mixtape Unexpected Victory.
Bow Wow'sUnderrated cd is due out March 13th. The official tracklist was released today and revealed some interesting features.
Ace Hood, Miguel, Chris Brown, Musiq Soulchild, Talib Kweli, Meek Mill, Jadakiss, Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J all make appearances. Machine Gun Kelly and Boys II Men are featured on the deluxe edition.
On the production side Bow recruited Cardiak, No I.D., Bei Major, Drumma Boy and Jahlil Beats among others.
T.I. and Young Jeezy hop on the official remix to Bobby Ray's "Strange Clouds." The song is the lead single off of B.o.B's sophomore album of the same name.
Grammy nominated rapper J. Cole appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon yesterday (January 31) to perform "Can't Get Enough" off of his debut album Cole World: The Sideline Story. The Roc Nation artist got an assist from the best house band in the business, The Roots.
Don Cornelius, the creator of the ground breaking television show "Soul Train" has been found dead.
TMZ is reporting that the body of the 75-year old was discovered this morning at around 4 AM PT in his Sherman Oaks, California home. According to the report police believe Cornelius died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Sources said there was no sign of foul play, but the Los Angeles Police Department is investigating.
"Soul Train" was a very popular variety show that featured performances from many star R&B, soul and hip hop acts. It aired from October 1971 to until March 2006.
As the show's host, Cornelius ended each episode with the popular catchphrase: "I’m Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!”
Nicki Minaj's "Stupid H*e" music video has racked up over 20 million youtube hits since it premiered January 20, but it won't be seen on BET.
The cable network is refusing to air it according to TMZ because it's too explicit for television. Nicki tweeted on Saturday that the video would be seen on MTV Jams, which is also owned by Viacom so that wouldn't seem to make any sense.
Fans of the video can still see it unedited on youtube. The video-sharing website hasn't flagged it as being inappropriate or age-restricted.
BET has yet to release an official statement on the ban.
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