QUEENS (170)
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Independent Album: The War Report 2
Headliners: Capone-N-Noreaga
Key Collaborations: "Bodega Stories" (featuring the LOX); "With Me" (featuring Nas); and "The Corner" (featuring Avery Storm)
Essential Info: N.O.R.E. says he's grown volumes since his debut, 1997's The War Report, but he couldn't stray too far from his roots on the sequel, released Tuesday (July 13).
"We ain't make something for the radio and we didn't make something for the clubs. We just really made something for the streets," Nore explained to Mixtape Daily.
"Originally, when we made The War Report, I didn't know that Manhattan existed. I didn't know that there was a Brazil. I never been to a Brazil when I made War Report. I might have never been to Brooklyn — I was Queens-ed out! Every verse I wrote, when I wrote for War Report, it was for my 'hood or for Queens. It really was for nothing else, because I never saw nothing else. That's why when you hear that [first album], you be like, 'This dude needs to travel.' It's like, wow, 'Lefrak, Lefrak, Iraq' all over it.
"You can't knock me because I never went anywhere," Nore continued. "The worst people in the 'hood are the people who never go anywhere. Those are the most miserable people because they don't plan on never going nowhere. That's who that kid was [on that album]. That kid you hear spitting on The War Report, he never went nowhere. The furthest he went was to Jamaica — and I mean Queens, not the island. I wasn't crossing these bridges."
While making the new LP, Nore was cognizant that he couldn't be the same rough-around-the-edges teenager again.
"So when I went back and did it this time, I said, 'I have to be cautious. I can't act like that. I done seen the world,' " he remembered.
Asked which War Report 2 cuts he holds in the highest regard, N.O. started with the album's lead record.
"My favorite joint is 'Pain' and 'Brother From Another,' " the LeFrak, Queens, veteran said. " 'Pain' is just like, you know when you get on the Scream Machine [at Six Flags Great Adventure], and there's a certain feel you get in your stomach, 'cause you know, for guys, our ba--s come up. Your ba--s twitter. When I hear 'Pain,' that's that feeling I get over there. It's a certain feeling like, 'Holy sh--. It's about to drop.' "
"Nah, 'Pain' is ill," Nore's partner for 20 years, Capone, offers up. "The first time I heard 'Pain,' I got goose bumps. That song, if you close your eyes and turn off all the lights, you might get scared listening to that joint. We got a joint called 'The Oath.' When you think of an oath, you think of pricked fingers. When you hear this record, you gonna definitely feel like you took an oath. Like you down with us, like you took an oath to be down with C-N-N."
" 'My Attribute' is a great performance record. It's uptempo, has energy. 'Hood Pride' will be a great performance record," Nore added.
With the release of War Report 2, the friendship between these two Queens natives comes full circle. Their bond stood the test of time, and the duo still has many years ahead of them.
"For me, it's like Nore said, our friendship is always gonna get tested," 'Pone explained. "Everybody knows at one point, our friendship got tested. That was publicly noticeable. But we came back stronger. A lot of people, their friendship gets tested. ... When you have a brother and you get older, y'all not always gonna live together for the rest of your life: You move out the house, he goes one way, you go the other way. But y'all still brothers."
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Kelis is moving on from the drama of the last year.
With her divorce from rapper Nas behind her, a new label home and new album, the singer feels like she has a new lease on life.
Because of the bitterness of the divorce, some people might expect her to pass on any anger she still feels towards Nas to their young son Knight, but Kelis insists that's not the case.
"He'll [Knight] never read anywhere that I said anything negative about his father," she says. "It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. He's not gonna see that because at the end of the day he needs to know that he did come from love. My opinion of him [Nas] is irrelevant because whoever he was with me is not who he's gonna be with him and that's like you know, childish."
Kelis' new album 'Flesh Tone' is out now.
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This is the horrific moment a couple became human fireballs as they were engulfed in flames in a New York street.
William Salazar, 32, is pictured with his clothes alight as he desperately tried to put out the fire. He died four days later in hospital from 50 per cent burns.
On the floor, his 50-year-old lover Agnes Bermudez lies screaming in pain as flames roar along her body.
The terrifying images, captured on CCTV cameras, show Mr Salazar desperately running into a shop, where he opens a fridge door in a desperate search for water.
The shopkeeper and his assistant lurch out the way of his flaming body and grab gallon-sized jugs to throw over both of them, sending smoke pouring into the air.
But the blaze had caught hold of their apartment block in the Queens area of New York, and three people died in the ensuing fire.
The shocking video was shown to a jury at the trial of Bermudez, who was horribly disfigured in the blaze.
She is charged with four counts of murder for allegedly dousing Mr Salazar in carpet cleaning solution and igniting him, killing him and three of his upstairs neighbours in the June 2008 fire.
A third-floor tenant, Flor Sandoval, 48, tried to get out and hung from her window screaming, 'Help Me! Help me! Catch me in your arms,' as the flames inched closer to her.
Horrendous: Mr Salazar screams in pain as he runs outside. He was followed by deli owner Mohammed Almatari and good Samaritan George Zugajewicz who throw water over him
Onlookers on the ground shouted up to her to hold on because help was minutes away but she lost her grip and fell to her death.
Also killed was Sandoval's husband, Heriberto Garcia, 57, and their 20-year-old son, Felipe Garcia Sandoval.
As Mr Salazar was being treated for his injuries he told a friend at the scene that it was Bermudez who attacked him, a court in New York was told.
'Agnes is crazy. She threw that s*** on me and the whole place went on fire,' he is said to have told Sebastian Castro.
The jury was told that Mr Salazar and his ex-girlfriend had a drunken brawl the weekend before the incident.
Raul Palacios, Mr Salazar's flatmate, said he had punched Bermudez in the face in a row over a laptop computer,
Mr Palacios said: 'He jumped on her. He was mad. He was drunk.'
He also claimed that Bermudez attacked Mr Salazar in a nightclub because he was dancing with another girl.
'She started to yell at him, "You are nothing. You owe me everything." She gave him a slap,' Mr Palacios said
Grim: Mr Almatari pours water over him, as Bermudez lies on the ground still burning
The court was also told that Salazar's roommate, José Chacon, told police he'd heard the couple arguing before the inferno and that he had screamed: 'Kill me, Kill me!' before the fire broke out.
She allegedly replied: 'I'm going to kill you. I already know about the girl. You think I'm stupid? You're going to pay for this!'
Bermudez appeared in court wearing a black suit but the skin around her neck and face was badly scarred by the burns.
In his opening statement her lawyer, David McGruder, claimed that Salazar had set her client on fire, not the other way round.
He asked State Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter to block the release of the video of the incident - claiming that the material was 'inflammatory.'
Source: Daily Mail
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The Bronx meets Houston in the latest music video from French Montana.
French lays down a dope hook and verse and of course Bun-B kills it as always.
This joint is from French's upcoming mixtape 'Mac Wit Da Cheese 2'
Make sure you check out the end of the video to see some of the last video footage of G. Baby who lost his life to senseless violence recently. Watch as he kicks it in the studio with Roscoe Dash, Frenchie from So Icey Entertainment and Montana.
R.I.P. G. Baby
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The O.D.: A Mixtape Daily Exclusive
French Montana is in no rush to put out his debut album. One of Akon's newest signees said he has enough money to continue serving up material through mixtapes, such as his latest, Mac Wit Da Cheese 2. His first album has to be classic, French said.
"My album is set for late summer," French said last week while shooting a video for his mixtape track "Bad Habits," with guest Bun B. "It's called Excuse My French. I'm just working. I wanna come with a masterpiece, man. I'm not no overnight rapper. I'm comfortable with where I'm at. My followers are my real followers. I ain't no phase. I'm here to stay. [The release] could be late summer, it could come out past then, as long as it's a masterpiece when we put it out. ... You gotta understand, that's what they gonna remember you for, your first album. Biggie's Ready to Die, UGK's first album — you wanna come with the same thing. The title gotta live up to the music."
Bun and French share a mutual respect for each other's grinds, Montana said.
"The video is called 'Bad Habits,' " Montana explained. "Everybody got a bad habit. I sent [the track] to Bun. Bun heard it, laid the verse in like five minutes. I sent it to him, he called me back in five minutes. I was like, 'Oh my God.' "
"I was in the lab, I was already in that zone," Bun added. "It was something that I felt made sense, that I felt represented his movement, repped my movement, and we spoke to people on a real level. That's one thing about UGK music. We can't be fabricating sh--. We kept it real with each other.
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