Hip Hop News Source

After being an independent artist, Mac Miller finally signed with Warner Bros this year. He explained his decision in a recent interview: “I don’t want to exist solely on the Internet. I think what it was for me was [it was] time to take the next step and experience what that’s like and what it is and what’s going to happen. Doing it on the independent level and taking it as far as we did is amazing… I think it just makes sense for where I’m at right now [and] where I could possibly go.”

“I’m trying to not let [the deal] factor in,” he said. “I’ve held on and been independent and done my own thing long enough that they trust me and are going to let me make what I want to make. I think that the second I let that affect the creation, it’s horrible.”

Lil B gave shout outs to Lil Wayne and Mack Maine for working with him recently: “I want to give a big shout out to Mack Maine, and to Lil Wayne. Mack Maine, I definitely give him a shout out because he was a big pivotal part of bringing me and Lil Wayne together. Being in the studio with Lil Wayne and being around him for the time that I was going to dinner and stuff like that. Just being embraced by him. To hug Lil Wayne. In 6th grade, I had a project, an iSearch project, this was middle school, and I put Lil Wayne on the cover. So to work so hard to be independent, to have no corporate backing, you know, working with Wayne and going back to moms house. I worked with then went back to the hood, went back to moms house, you know what I’m saying, that’s love that shows that you can be yourself.”

Kid Cudi took to twitter to speak about rap saying “rap music is a hustle I respect, but we need more people approaching it like an artform w some peace of mind.” Cudi is not impressed with the state of rap today posting “Anyone and everyone can rap now. Its not an impressive field to be in anymore, Ima just learn more instruments and plot more symphonies.” It looks like Kid Cudi is looking to take his music to a different level maybe even a different genre but only time can tell.

Funkmaster Flex today confirmed today will be Mister Cee’s last day at HOT 97. Cee has come close in the past to resigning after allegations that he used prostitutes. He stayed with the station at the end of the day but has finally decided to throw in the towel today by resigning. There has been no word on the reasoning for him leaving the station but he will be the second radio personality leaving HOT 97 this year following Angie Martinez a few months back.

The reason Benzino was fired from Love & Hip Hop may have actually surfaced. According to co-star on the show Stevie J he told TMZ “Benzino wouldn’t let it go … he went on a campaign of terror, threatening the lives of him and Joseline, producers and other staffers, He said flat out he was going to kill us. The threats were too much for VH1 and we’re told that’s why Benzino was banished.”

Snoop Dogg decided to take to his instagram once again to clown on another celebrity this time it being Bill Cosby. Snoop re-posted a meme of Bill Cosby with the words “Webbie – ‘Gimme That’ feat. Bill Cosby” and of course you can tell this meme is floating around because of the allegations coming out against Cosby over the past month that he sexually assaulted numerous women in the past. As a result of these allegations NBC and Netflix canceled projects that were in-development involving Bill.

A couple of days ago, Kid Cudi took it to Twitter to express his feelings about today’s rap and rappers.

“Anyone and everyone can rap now. It’s not an impressive field to be in anymore. Ima just learn more instruments and plot more symphonies. So on the rare occasion I stumble across some new shit thats powerful and has meaning, I become impressed w that artist. Because they could dumb down their music, surely connect to a larger audience and make a shit ton of money, but thats not impressive. Big whoop u sell a shit ton of records, so have many artist before you. Whatelse u got? What u got for mankind? For the human race? Rap music is a hustle I respect, But we need more people approaching it like an artform w some peace of mind.”

Insecurities kept J.Cole from performing certain songs a while back, he went in depth with his reasoning during an interview: “Some of these songs I never performed until this tour,” J. Cole said. “There was a time I was super insecure about doing these songs because nobody knew ‘em outside of the internet. You know what I mean? And it’s just funny now to come back five years later and realize that that was all—That all meant nothing. And these shows always remind me every night like ‘Oh shit, they get it. They were living by this.’ And they still do. These kids are the internet. The living, breathing, fuckin’ version of the internet. This tour and a lot of things that I do, a lot of decisions that I made come from a mentality of ‘I know what it’s like to be y’all. And I know what I would want to see.’ And on the other hand, it’s made from a selfish artist standpoint. Like ‘Yo, I just want to perform these songs.’ You know what I mean? So, it’s just as much for me as it is for them.”

After hearing the song “Vegas” from Eminem’s Shady XV, Iggy did not take Eminems lyrics about her lightly. Instead, she tweeted the following:

“im bored of the old men threatening young women as entertainment trend and much more interested in the young women getting $ trend. Zzzz.  Its especially awkward because my 14 year old brother is the biggest eminem fan and now the artist he admired says he wants to rape me. nice! Women in music have the bigger balls anyhow we endure much more harassment and critic. good morninnggggg!!!!!! off to camera block for AMAs!”

Lil Wayne admits that Nicki Minaj took it upon herself to make pop music recently, to prove herself as an artist. “Her going back to her roots. Bar for bar straight lyrical content. Honestly, don’t know what to expect because she can be unpredictable at times when she gets in the studio. She’s grown a lot. The last album was showing her versatility—how she can make a straight hood/club banger and at the same time, still be dominant in the pop industry. Now that she has tested the waters all she’s doing now is going back to where she enjoyed best.”

In Pusha T’s new song “Lunch Money” that was released yesterday Pusha said “You might have caught me on TMZ, Cameo tryin’ to sue a nigga / Fuck ‘em ‘cause I party hard like there’s three of me.” TMZ reported in September “According to a lawsuit filed in Miami, the rapper agreed to do an appearance at Cameo nightclub on August 16 — and part of the deal banned him from appearing at any other clubs within 30 miles of Miami-Dade County within 15 days … before or after his Cameo gig.” Cameo says that Pusha going to Dream Nightclub cost them $13,000 in sales.

Eminem and crew at Shady are really bringing all they got to the table for their upcoming compilation double-disc album, Shady XV. In a podcast with Dj Whoo and Paul Rosenberg a mixtape was confirmed and will have 66-tracks or 3 hours of music. If a song you loved isn’t on the mixtape then it will be on the huge mixtape that drops ahead of the “Shady XV” album.

Faith Evans had an interview with HipHollywood where she talked about plans to work on putting together another posthumous duets album with Biggie Smalls that follows Diddy’s “Duets: The Final Chapter released way back in 2005. Faiths album would be called “The King and I” and will feature Evans and B.I.G.  Faith Evans says to “Think Natalie Cole and Nat King Cole. When talking about the album and that it is still in very early stages and she hopes to have it release sometime in the next year.

Tyga had a pre-birthday celebration at Greystone Manor in West Hollywood that he didn’t end up showing up to. Reports say that Tyga’s reason for not showing up to the venue was because his female guest which was 17-year old Kylie Jenner could not get access to the venue under California law. Tyga turned 25 today (November 19^th) and has still yet to confirm his relationship status with Kylie.

Nicki goes in depth with her song Anaconda, and how the lyrics came about: “I wanted to create a song that embraced curvy women,” she said. “I wanted to be sexual but be playful with it. And I wanted it to be so melodic that even if you don’t understand English you could still go along with the melody and you would have no idea about all the raunchy shit I’m saying—I get a kick out of that. It was simple to write. I just created the melody and then I let the words happen. I started laughing when I said, ‘Boy toy named Troy.’ That whole song, I was just being dumb. It was a joke. My biggest thing was seeing how my girlfriends Sherika and Thembi were going to react. If they don’t like a song, they’ll be like, ‘No.’ As soon as they walked in the studio; we were laughing and having fun. I thought, if we’re doing this, then everybody is going to have fun with it.”