Alot of chains went missing in 2008, most notably that of hip hop’s punching bag in 08….Yung berg, and then his “Chain went on tour, by itslef” as Skillz put it. What about the 50 cent on stage snatching…. pretty good hustle on that mans part, he ran up on 50 like it was nothin,’ 50 just stood there dumbfounded….

(Video Courtesy of jumpofftv.com and vladtv.com)

The New York Daily News reports a substantial amount of unreleased recordings by 2Pac, Snoop Dogg and other former Death Row artists will be auctioned off on January 15. The material stems from the 2006 bankruptcy sale of Death Row Records’ assets after Marion “Suge” Knight filed for Chapter 11 protection. Todd Nielsen, the Chapter 11 trustee of the Death Row Estate, tells the Daily News that the catalogue contains thousands of unreleased recordings.

Similar sales to Warner Music Group in February of 2008 and Global Music Group in June were never completed. Analysts believe the economic recession and the reputation Knight built during his run while head of Death Row could affect the asking price, which was previously at $25 million.

“It could be a tough sale,” an unnamed source added. “Some people don’t want to go near the catalogue because they think Suge still believes it’s his.”

While Death Row’s immediate future is still being decided in the courts, the label’s vaults of unreleased recordings have been a cash cow. Since his death in September of 1996, there have been at least 10 posthumously released albums from Tupac Shakur alone.

According to Hiphopdx.com

I’m sure that most of you have seen this commercial by now. It’s narrarated by Lil Wayne and basically just a black and white faceshot of different athletes sitting in a row akwardly smiling. So what is G? What is the commercialy even promoting…Gatorade? if so why not just say ‘Gatorade’ instead of ‘G’. Either the people who made this are just retarded, or they are doing a hell of a job grabbing peoples attention…….You decide.

Katt Williams is making some STARTLING accusations against rapper T-Pain. In a comedy set on New Year’s Eve, Katt suggested that the rapper “sucked d*@k.”

Here are Katt’s exact words – excerpted from his act on Wednesday night:

Some of you may have heard a rumor that for the BET Hip Hop Awards that I lost a breakdancing competition to T-Pain. And this [was] how he ended up hosting the show.

Let me explain a few crucial facts about me … I don’t hang out with n*ggas who suck d*ck or breakdance for a living. I have nothing against homosexuals, I just don’t hang with them.

And the Katt clarified who he was talking about. He added:

I didn’t mean T-Pain, until the day after the BET Awards.

Damn….

You know that douche from the MTV show ‘The Hills’…. the one that tries to act like a gay, hip, chilled out retarded kid? Anyway, recently he was on the Letterman show and Dave blasted this kid on national t.v. Who the fuck is Spencer Pratt? This kid sayin he gets 100k per nightclub appearence?! He MUST be fucking retarded….

Oh, and we’re really excited you think you’ve found the next Jay-Z and Michael Jackson, but if your taste in music is anything like your taste in personality, im sure your ‘artists’ suck worse than your lame-ass.

Thats the Styles P we’ve come to know, always keepin it real. Check out at 3:31 when he says ” Cop the Call of Mix Duty” ….. It’s all good though P, we’ve all had that moment….

Lil Wayne Performs ‘Pop Champagne” In Chicago and takes a big slide on stage. I can’t front tho, at least he fell in style…..

Ever since Nas dropped the single ‘hip hop is dead,’ we’ve all been caught up on putting hip hop under the microscope, while RnB music has slowly faded into non-existence.

I’m a product of the 80’s just like I’m sure alot of you reading are, I grew up off the Boyz 2 Men, Jodeci, Genuine, R Kelly, 112 etc, and of course the legends like Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Stevie Wonder….you get the point. R&B used to have meaning behind it, every song was a story whether it was about a relationship a love song or whatever. Not to discount the direction that the new R&B may be heading, but it almost as though we cant call it “Rhythym & Blues.” Nowadays you gotta sound good on Auto-Tune or be a ‘rapper-turned-singer’ to make it in the ‘new’ era of R&B.

Even artists like Justin Timberlake are feeling the demise, 112, R Kelly and I cant even name a successful R&B group in recent years. It’d be hard for alot of these artists to even fill a show at high school gymnasium. People aren’t interested in it, they want to dance, they want to head bob they want to jump around, not sit and listen to another guy/girl singing love songs and putting everyone to sleep. Think about it, the only time you hear an R&B song is if it has an extremely catchy hook, or if its been remixed or blended into some form of hip hop or club song.

Again, Im not saying that R&B is completely dead. This recent Soulja Boy comment about Nas and the whole ‘hip hop is dead’ saying and a conversation I had with DJ Far had me thinking. As it stands now, I think R&B is in alot worse shape then hip hop….will it ever die out like Raggeton did? Not likely, but it’s definately something to think about it. Are T-Pain, Akon, Trey Songz, Chris Brown, Rhianna, Beyonce, should they really be considered R&B artist?

Below is an interview I found where R&B singer Bobby Valentino talks about this very topic….

Your thoughts?

Looks like J Hood has some things to get off of his chest as he addresses Jim Jones, Royce Da 5′9″, Jadakiss & 50 Cent on his latest track

Classic……and we wonder why our economy is in the toilet.

So where did Hip Hop really start from? Some would say it started in The Bronx, some would say it started when “Rappers Delight” was a hit, some would even say James Brown started hip hop. But a professor from The University of Mexico says it started in Midevil Scottish Pubs in the 1600’s. Here’s what he says:

Professor Ferenc Szasz argued that so-called rap battles, where two or more performers trade elaborate insults, derive from the ancient Caledonian art of “flyting”.

According to the theory, Scottish slave owners took the tradition with them to the United States, where it was adopted and developed by slaves, emerging many years later as rap.

Professor Szasz is convinced there is a clear link between this tradition for settling scores in Scotland and rap battles, which were famously portrayed in Eminem’s 2002 movie 8 Mile.

He said: “The Scots have a lengthy tradition of flyting - intense verbal jousting, often laced with vulgarity, that is similar to the dozens that one finds among contemporary inner-city black youth.

“Both cultures accord high marks to satire. The skilled use of satire takes this verbal jousting to its ultimate level - one step short of a fist fight.”

The academic, who specialises in American and Scottish culture at the University of New Mexico, made the link in a new study examining the historical context of Robert Burn’s work.

The most famous surviving example of flyting comes from a 16th-century piece in which two rival poets hurl increasingly obscene rhyming insults at one another before the Court of King James IV.

Titled the Flyting Of Dunbar And Kennedy, it has been described by academics as “just over 500 lines of filth”.

Professor Szasz cites an American civil war poem, printed in the New York Vanity Fair magazine on November 9, 1861, as the first recorded example of the battles being used in the United States.

Professor Willie Ruff, of Yale University, agreed that Scottish slave owners had a profound impact on the development of African American music traditions.

Comparing flyting and rap battles, he said: “Two people engage in ritual verbal duelling and the winner has the last word in the argument, with the loser falling conspicuously silent.”

Is it true? Did hip hop really start over 400 years ago? We’ll probably never know for sure, but this is an interesting theory…..

This women apparently is what we call a “Good samaritan.” In a situation like that I feel it’s necessary to at least take 50% of the money as a ” Incompetence Fee” for the dumbass that left that shit behind, but not this women, she woluldnt even take the 1,000 the dumbass offered her.

“She came up and hugged me. She offered me $1,000, but told me she needed every penny she could so I thought, it’s not my money. If she needs it that badly, it knew she didn’t really want to give it, so I didn’t take it,” said Watts.

But when you think about it, how shady is 100k in a nice handbag left in a bathroom…coincidence? Probably not.