Tag Archives: Rap

Check out your Valentine’s Day message from Outkast here. Outkast will win big at the Grammys tomorrow night – here’s why: Outkast’s double-CD extravaganza, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below their fifth album, the two members of Outkast (winners of three previous rap Grammys) have taken the audacious gamble of recording two completely …

Although we are all still aghast about abreast (I amuse myself), the Grammys are this Sunday, February 8 on CBS. I have two previews on MSNBC.com, country music and on rap – eclectic, no? The country music preview: The vitality of what has come to be called “country music” is …

Adam Mansbach with a treatise on the intellectual state of hip-hop: In ever-evolving forms, hip-hop rules planet Earth, or at least the global entertainment economy from Japan to Cuba. But is there something deeper going on than the flash of 50 Cent’s platinum chains and Eminem’s silver tongue? Where is …

Wouldn’t it be more realistic if they just shot each other? Hardcore brawling with the Def Jam peeps: What happens when you bring together the world’s hottest music label and the world’s biggest videogame publisher? “Culture clash” doesn’t begin to describe it. In November, Def Jam Records and Electronic Arts …

Federal appeals court revives lawsuit by civil rights icon Rosa Parks against the rap group OutKast over their song “Rosa Parks”: A federal judge in Detroit had dismissed Parks’ lawsuit in 1999 over the song “Rosa Parks,” saying OutKast’s use of her name was protected by free speech, and the …

$1.5 million to the copyright holder of Fatback Band’s 1980 song “Backstrokin'” for bassline Dr. Dre copied for his 2001 track “Let’s Get High”: Los Angeles jury awarded London-based Minder Music Ltd. less than half of the $3.5 million originally sought after hearing testimony from the music publisher as well …

Arista’s press release virtually screams: DA BRAT’S IN LOVE WITH DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION, AS ARISTA ENTERS CUTTING EDGE ARENA !!! “I’M IN LOVE WIT CHU” BECOMES ARISTA’S FIRST SINGLE TO BE RELEASED SIMULTANEOUSLY AS A COMMERCIAL DOWNLOAD ONLINE AND AT tRADITIONAL RETAIL, ON MAY 13th LIMELITE, LUV & NITECLUBZ, Da Brat’s …

We mentioned back in January that hot rap label Murder Inc., partly owned by Universal, was under investigation for “murder, money-laundering, gun charges and a variety of strong-arm tactics,” none of which is nice. Court documents into the investigation were unsealed last week: The document, filed in January in Brooklyn …

Oxford English Dictionary recognizes another hip-hop term: The venerable definitions resource has already added other hip-hop-turned-mainstream terms like “jiggy,” “breakbeat,” “dope” and “phat” to the online updates of the 20-volume dictionary, and now it has started drafting an entry for the latest OED-approved term, “bling bling.” The term, which is …

The LA Times has a nice history of the commercial “mix tape” (now on CD) and its role in promoting new hip-hop talent: New York — On clear weekends here, a boisterous bazaar sets up along the sidewalks that bracket Broadway and Canal Street, and anyone in the market for …