Hip Hop News Source

DJ khaled has announced his album release date which will be called “I Changed A Lot”. The album is dropping on October 23^rd he announced just this morning. Also announced is Khaled will be letting two singles go on iTunes for pre-order tonight. The first single will be “You Mine” featuring Future, Trey Songz, and Jeremih and the second single is “Gold Slugs” featuring Fetty Wap, August Alsina, and Chris Brown so Khaled has no shortage of big names on his tracks which will surely draw a lot of people in.

Drake never disappoints when it comes to his shows and during his show at Austin City Limits Drake brought out J. Cole to perform. Cole came all the way down from Washington D.C. where he was just at the Million Man March 20^th anniversary to show up for Drake. Cole ran though some of his heavy hitting songs off of his latest album and the show ended with Drake saying it would be his last show because he is putting his all into releasing his upcoming album “Views from this 6”. Could we get J.Cole feature or even some Cole production on the album? Only time can tell.

Janet Jackson’s 7^th studio album is at the number one spot on Billboards top 200. Janet Jackson has still got it with a brand new number one album titled “Unbreakable” and is the third person in history to have a No. 1 in each of the last for decades along with Barbara Streisand and Madonna. The album did only sell 116k units in the first week but with no real competition around she easily took the top spot. These numbers are even more incredible when you realize that this is Janets first independent album so most of the money she will pocket with her people.

Moments after old school rap artist Scarface went up onto the BET Hip Hop Awards to receive his “I Am Legend” award he was arrested. The reason for the rappers arrest was unpaid child support that made it so he could not leave Texas. Since the BET Awards were being held in Atlanta the law came down on him. It went down like this according to Freddy O “Scarface was truly pleased and so thankful for his fans for supporting his career throughout the years. He graciously accepted the ‘I Am Legend Award’ and was very vocal about being full of gratitude and love for Hip Hop and his many fans. It was truly inspiring to see someone in the industry who is truly humble and full of gratitude because so many lack that trait in this industry.

After Scarface exited the stage heading back to the celebrity trailers there were 10 sheriffs waiting to arrest him. Sources revealed that Scarface had a warrant and he was not suppose to leave the State of Texas. Scarface was so concerned about accepting his award and not disappointing his fans he risked being arrested. Snoop was back stage when Scarface was arrested and was upset that the great moment ended on a sour note. The incident resulted in the show being delayed.”

Wiz Khalifa always seems to be getting into some sort of trouble. This time Wiz has been cited for urinating outside of a bar in his very own hometown of Pittsburgh. Associated Press reports that Wiz did the deed behind the bar which is called Flat’s at 2:30 AM on Saturday but was caught at cited by the police. Wiz also uploaded a photo to his Instagram of himself urinating but it is not clear if that was the exact incident.

Soundscan is now reporting that Drakes album from really early in the year “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” is the top selling digital album of the year. With Taylor Swifts album “1989” being the best overall selling album though it came out back in 2015 Drake is doing some huge things for hip-hop. The album has sold a whopping 951K digital copies which is more then Taylors album with the third best album being the soundtrack to “50 Shades of Grey”. In hip-hop alone the closest to Drake numbers this year is Kendrick Lamar with only 479K  and right behind that is Drake and Futures album “What A Time To Be Alive” at 396K. Drake is definitely taking full advantage of 2015 with two top selling “Mixtapes” and is still set to drop an album later on this month. What was Meek thinking?

While doing an interview with Tim Westwood, Young Thug talked about various subjects. First Thug talks about how things have changed for him since the days of him recording in a bedroom. “I mean, we still do it the same way, but it’s less gangster, you know what I’m saying? More white motherfuckers and important motherfuckers. There’s less gangsters, less drugs. I have a girlfriend now, so no girls. I think all of those things make me more of an artist, though. If I didn’t have a girlfriend, I’d have 10 girls at the studio and they would make me not rap. I’d be chilling and getting stoned.” Another topic touched on is all of the hate the young rap artist gets on a regular basis. “I like everything that people say. No matter what they say. You gay, you a punk. You got a nice girlfriend, you’re ugly, you can’t rap, you’re the hardest.” So it looks like Young Thug is comfortable in his own skin and in his own situation which is truly all that really matters.

Rapper out of Memphis named Koopsta Knicca who was an original member of Three 6 Mafia has passed away just last night. Koopsta passed after he had a major stroke that he had suffered on Sunday. Well known Mafia member DJ Paul shared this sad news on his twitter account saying “Yall Back Together Brothers” along with a picture of the late rapper. But Paul had posted it when Koopsta was still breathing so he had taken the post down giving an update letting everyone know that he was still fighting for his life. But he did pass soon after and fellow Mafia members sent out tweets in memory of the Koopsta Knicca including Juicy J who is no longer apart of the group said “R.I.P koopsta Knicca  we made history! You will be missed  #mafia4life  prayers up for the family”.

Chicago producer Young Chop, who is well known for making beats for Chief Keef, got into a fight with security during a show. Chop was doing a perfomance at A3C on Thursday night after Chop was on stage calling out security guards saying “y’all bitch-ass security need to stop it,” which lead to a guard running up on him and throwing punches and a that point Chops whole crews gets into it with the security. Later on Chop spoke about the fight on his instagram saying “As you can see in the video, people — the security ran up on me. I didn’t run up on the security, I just called him a bitch. You wanna know why I called him a bitch? He disrespected me as a man, and I tend to take that offensive[ly]” Check out the clip below.

Janet Jackson and N.W.A. are in the list of nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 2016 which is a pretty big deal. These nominations of course come up when both N.W.A. and Janet are back in the spotlight. Eligibilty for this honor requires nominees album to have been released at least 25 years ago and though this is N.W.A.’s forth nomination they have a really good chance this time around because of the success of the biopic “Straight Outta Compton”. Hopefully they make it in this year but there is definitely some very stiff competition.

Wiz Khalifa’s hit song from the latest Fast and Furious movies soundtrack called “See You Again” has become the first rap video to reach 1 billion views. It hit this mark just six months after releasing on youtube back in April. The song as most know by now is a tribute to the late Paul Walker and was number one instantly giving Wiz Khalifa only his second number one hit record since “Black and Yellow years ago. This is a pretty big accomplishment for hip-hop so check out the video below if you haven’t seen it already.

Sitting down for a discussion with FADER both Vince Staplez and Mac Miller give their thoughts on how white rappers fit into hip-hop. With more white rappers out now then ever before this topic is pretty interesting and it starts with Mac Miller’s side of the discussion with him being a successful white rap artist. “It’s funny because, when [my 2011 album] Blue Slide Park happened, there was a surge of all these kids, and we were able to sell 10,000 units on iTunes just out of nowhere,  I remember touring and doing shows, and I was the first rap show ever in all these colleges. Six thousand kids, and I’m the first hip-hop show because I’m white-college-friendly. That was always a demon for me. It was hard to sit here and know that, because I was a white dude, I was able to sell easier and be more marketable. That wasn’t tight to me. I wanted to go through the same shit that everyone else did. But I did that shit, and that shit was huge for me. Recently, I’ve grown up. This is my job, and I’m going to do it. It used to be so difficult for me being a white rapper, but now, it doesn’t eat at me as much.” Later in the discussion Vince gives his thoughts about giving credit. “When it comes to giving credit and showing appreciation, that’s a different conversation, If we’re talking about origins of music, if you’re talking about rock & roll, you have to give credit to Chuck Berry. He invented it; Elvis stole some shit; it’s fine. When you talk about rap, you have to give credit to the South Bronx and that whole community and Afrika Bambaataa. You have to give credit to where it’s due. If we talking about basketball, you gotta give credit to Dr. Naismith. There are people that created things, and who made things, but if we’re talking about someone’s ability to participate in something, then the color of a person should not be in the conversation, period.” Vince continues on talking about how some white rappers success comes from the fact they can be more relatable. “In general, more people can connect to things in music that are said by white people because white people aren’t as harsh, Not everybody can relate to being in the fucking ghetto and living on welfare and having to kill somebody and having to sell drugs. But they listen to, I want to shop right now, I only got 30 dollars in my pocket. It’s like, you know what, I’ve had 30 dollars in my pocket before. “Same Love,” you know what, I want people to love each other too. Rather than Hannah Montana, Hannah Montana/ I got molly, I got white. I know I don’t have that.” Overall this is a pretty interesting discussion and if you want more you can check the whole thing out at FADER.

A ton of big time celebrities are now suing a french clothing company called “Eleven Paris”. The reasoning is that Jay Z, Kanye West, Beyonce, Pharrell and Rihanna all had their names, images, plus trademarks used without their permission. It is known now that Beyonce actually sent the clothing company a bunch of cease and desist letters to no avail. Beyonce got Jay involved along with a ton of her other high power celebrity friends to take the issue to court. The company has since removed the artists clothing from their website and we’ll see where things go from there so keep it locked for updates.

50 Cent is always involved in some kind of lawsuit and he is now suing his former lawyers for a whopping $75 million. The reasoning he is giving is that they gave misinformed legal counsel which had horrible financial consequences for him. The firm he is suing is Garvey Schubert Barer which gave bad legal advice leading to him owing $16 million to Sleek Audio and his filing for bankruptcy. This lawsuit came from the fact that 50 isn’t able to actually pay the $16 million back to Sleek Audio. Keep it locked right her for any updates on any of 50 Cents major lawsuits.

While doing an interview with New York Times magazine Nicki Minaj was asked about the Drake and Meek Mill beef and how she feels about it. Nicki responded “They’re men, grown-ass men. It’s between them. I hate it. It doesn’t make me feel good. You don’t ever want to choose sides between people you love. It’s ridiculous. I just want it to be over.” After that Nicki was asked if she thrives on drama and she did not like that question one bit and she snapped at the interviewer saying  “That’s disrespectful. Why would a grown-ass woman thrive off drama. What do the four men you just named have to do with me thriving off drama? Why would you even say that? That’s so peculiar. Four grown-ass men are having issues between themselves, and you’re asking me do I thrive off drama. Women blame women for things that have nothing to do with them. I really want to know why — as a matter of fact, I don’t. Can we move on, do you have anything else to ask? To put down a woman for something that men do, as if they’re children and I’m responsible, has nothing to do with you asking stupid questions, because you know that’s not just a stupid question.” This lead to the end of the interview but it is still good to see that Nicki is not turning her back on the people she came up with.