HipHope.com

Eminem had a leak of a record this week with a verse saying he sold more albums than Jay Z and Kanye West.  The single “I Get Money” was leaked over the internet sometime last weekend.  Check out this verse from the song.  “They keep on saying the same rappers are the best, Jay-Z and Kanye West/ Maybe they’re just trying to distract you from the fact that I’m coming back/ Or maybe it’s cause I ain’t black/ Maybe it’s because of that/ Maybe it’s because I’m the highest selling artist in rap.”  They say it wasn’t meant to be a dis to Kanye and Jay, but I don’t know, you particularly call someones name out and say you sell more records then them sounds like a dis to me….

David Ortiz from the Boston Red Sox has a club in the Dominican Republic called the 40/40 club.  Everyone knows Jay Z has clubs in NY, Atlantic City and Las Vegas named the 40/40 Club.   The lawsuit claims that Ortiz cannot claim ignorance to the name because he’s been a guest at the 40/40 Club before,  Jay Z is suing for $5 million.  This lawsuit shouldn’t hold water because first of all 40/40 club is originally used for baseball players who hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season.  So should Major League Baseball sue Jay Z for using the 40/40 Club as a name too.  It just doesn’t make sense, Jay Z has been known for his business sense but this is taking it a bit too far.  What the heck is Ortiz using the name 40/40 Club for his business any way, he never stole 40 bases in his life?!?

Here’s a small treat for you, I put together album covers from several Hip Hop inspired and inspirational albums of all time.  Of course I don’t have enough room to put everything up because it’s a very long list, but I did what I could with the space that I have.  Check this and let me know what you think….

Inspirational Hip Hop albums and the albums that inspire Hip Hop

Foxy Boogie Brown is back with a new single “Let Em Know” featuring Easy Mo Bee and Bam.  Song sounds OK, some ol’ Foxy Brown rap style, not too bad, but nothing to write home about.  But what stands out on the track is her diss of Lil Kim talking about her selling out and going on Dancing with the stars.  Here’s the verse, “I’d rather be in the club at the bar, then go disrespect my hood by dancing with the stars… I’m BK’s Don Diva/ Give the whole hood face lifts/ G’wan I fix your face b—-.”  Good one Fox, but why did she disrespect BK by appearing on Dancing With the Stars?  Then she raps about Jay Z, “The streets talking/ Got the hood crazy,” N—- heard I fucked with Ross and had the n—- baby/ They said I f—– with Nas and now they say it’s AZ/ but on the law, the real n—- was Jay-Z.  Oh she put her and Jay Z’s business out in the streets, why we’ll never know, I guess to sell records.  Check out the song below….

When Jay Z has an album coming out, his biggest problem (or maybe not depending on how you look at it) are leaks.  When the American Gangster album came out, I had a full album of entitled American Gangster about two or three months before it came out.  The album that I actually bought had only like one or two songs from the bootleg.  So he seems to do a good job of not having his music leaked.  Memphis Bleek says he thinks Timbaland is the one leaking the songs out but didn’t really give a good reason why he thinks that.  Personally the leaks can come from anywhere in this digital age.  When Death of Autotune came out I gave you a link to download it because it was a freebee from Jay Z.  His latest song Venus vs Mars is song that is actually out so I can let you hear it but can’t let you download it.  Check it out on the player below.

Jay Z will replace the Beastie Boys at the All Points West Music Festival in Jersey City this weekend (August 1st, 09).  As stated in the post below, there has been an opening due to MCA having found a cancerous tumor in his salivary gland.  Other performers  to perform at the music and arts festival are Tool and Coldplay as the premier headliners at the festival including Jay.  There will be other performers as well.  So if you’re in the NYC area head on over to JC to check this out, should be hot to death.  You can get there for $89 for one of the days or $219 for the whole 3 days.

The weekend of June 6, 2009, Jay Z is performing at his Summer Jam concert when out of no where T Pain jumps on stage as a total suprise to Jay Z while performing his hit Death to Autotune. As meantioned before this song is about everyone biting T Pain’s style and murdering the Autotune plugin on every song that comes out instead of being original. Jay Z describes in an interview that he thought it was a fan jumping onstage to hug him during an interview with Angie Martinez on Hot 97 in NYC. So check out the video of Jay Z performing and check out the interview with Angie Martinez. This Jay Z shit is getting so hot!

T Pain Jumps on stage with Jay Z unrehersed

Jay Z interview with Angie Martinez on Hot 97 regarding T Pain

Jay Z went off on all the rappers using the autotune plugin for Pro Tools. Autotune is a plugin that mimicks a vocordo, think Roger Troutman’s More Bounce to the Ounce with the Zapp Band. He used an actual hardware called a vocordor that makes your voice sound like that. T Pain is the pretty much the first rapper to use the style and the rest of the industry ran with it. Recently I recorded a singer from India that asked me to make his hook sound like T Pain. I’m posting the lyrics and the song for Death of Autotune so you can hear the reference Jay Z made said about T Paining it. So basically, I Jay Z feels like I do regarding this, like everyone in the industry taking his style and running with it. Pretty much playing the Autotune sound out. This song by Jay Z is so hot, the beat is crazy and the lyrics are so on point it’s ridiculous. Check out the song and let me know what you think about the song and your thoughts on the whole T Pain sound a likes out there.  He really ripped Kanye on this single also.

Download this song (don’t worry this one’s on Jay Z)

If rappers of today want to keep it real and need someone to look up too.  Mos Def would be that man.  Lyrically awesome, culturally aware and damn he can act for real too.  Most rappers act, but don’t do great jobs, he seems like he took classes or something.  But since Mos came out, he always had lyrics that sound good, has a good flow and makes you think about what he says.  Goes against the grain of the latest Hip Hop format, that’s the irony, Hip Hop isn’t supposed to have formats.  Hip Hop is supposed to be an expression of yourself through where you’re from and what you been through.  Not everyone in the world is a gangsta or Don Juan.  Through all the 50 Cent and Jay Z wanna bees, here’s Mos Def with the reallness.  True magic released in ’06 was his last album, it was a wonderful effort and showed the lyrical greatness of the rapper.  His new album which is titled, “The Estatic” set for release August 24th, 2009.  The last few albums Mos released were good, some of his production choices weren’t that great.  I guess he plans to change all of that this time because the producers he’s enlisted are all great so far.  Chad Hugo (the other Neptune), Oh No, J Dilla, Mr Flash, Madlib, Preservation are just the producers I’ve heard about thus far.  So his long awaited comeback should be chock full of good beats and rhymes.

Cam’Ron keeps it real, with his taste in music.  Recently asked by MTV what he bumps personally this was his reply, “To be honest, I’ve been listening to a variety of stuff.  The last album I bought was Plies’ album. I like Plies a lot. Basically, being in Florida, you feel him even more when you’re in that atmosphere. [Lil] Wayne is my man. I got stuff like Jay-Z’s first album, Reasonable Doubt, [Nas'] infamous Illmatic, stuff that makes me think. [A lot of] new albums are like, ‘Eh, whatever.’ But I got a lot of ‘97, ‘98 stuff in my car, ‘96. Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. … I always listen to DeBarge. DeBarge is always in the loop. John Legend. Beyoncé’s new CD is in there. I do a lot of mixtape R&B stuff. I even got the Force M.D.s.”  Yeah I have to agree with you, I’ve been hearing a lot of new stuff as blah also and really bumping the old skool too.  Another thing we and Cam have in common is we both like Debarge.  So with that said his latest album is good and not wack like his double album “Public Enemy #1.”  His latest effort called “Crime Pays” came out May 12th, 2009.  It’s a good (not great) album.  I especially liked the song “Cookies and Apple Juice,” “Silky (No Home)” is mad funky.  There’s 23 tracks on the CD, 5 are skits.  It’s a good purchase for the money.  But if you don’t like Cams flow then you still won’t like this album, he really kills his studder-step-stop-and-go style (hahaha, that’s what I call it).   All in all I give the album a 65% which is passing, but not great.  Do ya thing sun!  Oh yeah We’re also glad he took wack ass pink clothing off.  Man that was really hurting your image back then.