Pete Rock....stone serious

UPDATE MAY 23 1:57 P.M.: A recent phone call between Pete Rock and Lupe Fiasco has effectively put to rest the "T.R.O.Y." controversy that erupted following the premiere of "Around My Way (Freedom Ain't Free)." The hip-hop legend was angered by the remake of his classic cut from twenty years ago voicing his displeasure via Twitter on Monday.

He took to the social media platform again, only this time to relay that things had been smoothed out while hinting at a possible collaboration tweeting, "I just got off da phone lupe, we worked out our differences and we bout to get it in. Gonna be epic and we gonna give Troy and hev the Proper respect they deserve and make history with lupe."
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Brian Moghadam

UPDATE MAY 21 5:00 P.M.: Hip-hop heads can now check out the full version of "Around My Way (Freedom Ain't Free)" as Lupe Fiasco linked the YouTube world premiere from his Facebook page only a half hour ago. The track is as on point as the excerpt suggested and better yet, by the video's end a drop date is given for the first installment Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album. Mark your calendars for September 25, 2012.

ORIGINAL POST MAY 2:04 P.M.: For rapper Lupe Fiasco, there's no major label drama with Atlantic Records over his artistic endeavor this time around. When he presented his completed forthcoming album Food & Liquor II, a sequel to his acclaimed debut, it was received with approval. There was no impasse, no 'Fiasco Friday' protests, no leaked tracks or self-financed music videos like all that which came to define and ultimately characterize, if not compromise, LASERS, his previous embattled effort.
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Tina Dhamija

Too $hort is gettin' it while the gettin' is good.

Too $hort
City National Grove of Anaheim
5/18/12

Review by: Tina Dhamija

Oakland rapper Too $hort brought his tawdry bag of OG player anthems to a scarcely half-capacity crowd at the City National Grove of Anaheim last Friday night. It was hard to say whether the weak turn-out was because most locals decided to stay home and watch  the Lakers finally win, or there are just not that many $hort Dawg fans around OC to fill a venue of that size. Whatever the case, the house was definitely not packed that night. It didn't seem to matter though, because as far as live performances go, Oakland's top dog maintains his trademark laid back delivery and onstage swagger.

Kicking his set off around 12:30am, $hort Dawg emerged sporting Laker colors and spittin his signature phrase ("Beeotch"!). He anxiously delivered hits like "Gettin' It" and "Blow the Whistle" early in the set. Naturally, classics like "Shake That Monkey" and "I'm A Player,"  were brashly sung along to by just about everyone in the crowd. And to show his appreciation for SoCal hip-hop fans, the rapper born Todd Anthony Shaw gave us a sincere shout-out, or as sincere a shout-out as one can get from the player of all players. "The most love goes out to anybody from the city of Anaheim," Too Short said. "We're trying to smoke your weed and get some of them 7-1-4/9-4-9 hotties tonight! Wassup beeotch"!!

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Bone Thugs-n-Harmony

Last night, the folks at Guerilla Union announced the lineup and dates for Rock the Bells 2012 and a couple new surprises to its format.

In an obvious attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Coachella's decision to clone itself, this year's Rock the Bells will be expanding its lineup to two consecutive days in its three host cities.

Check out a full list of performers after the jump!

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Gloria Isabel Rivera

"I believe music is universal, and it responds to the context in which it was created," says Mare Advertencia Lirika--or Mare, as she's known professionally. "In my case, coming from indigenous roots, my music is the voice that speaks to this context."

In Oaxaca, Mexico, where Mare makes her home, responding to her surroundings takes on an urgent meaning, as, in the past decade, the southern Mexican state has become an epicenter for indigenous and popular struggle against economic injustice--and hip-hop has evolved to become a soundtrack to that struggle.

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Andrea Domanick

We can't believe the punks of Odd Future have never performed in punk mecca Orange County before. After all, they've been sued for hitting photographers in the pit, arrested for leaping on a venue's soundboard and damn near incited riots in every audience they rock. Sounds like our kinda shit, right?

Well, they finally figured out how at home they'd be down here -- they just announced their first-ever OC performance. The weird part? You can buy backstage access.

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You know, the "Hey Ya" guys

Our good friends over at LA Weekly ran a post today recommending ten rap albums for people whose knowledge of the genre is limited to Kanye West -- and only then because Obama called him an asshole for interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech. Naturally, the comments section has exploded with "How could you leave off [insert commenter's favorite album]?" Take a look. What do you think?

By Chaz Kangas

Hip-hop is nearly 40, but many still find this slightly-disorienting world of beats, rhymes and oversize personalities a bit daunting.

So consider this our hip-hop Cliff's notes; here are the albums you should know about if you don't want to look silly at cocktail parties. We're not saying these are necessarily the best rap albums of all time, but rather the most accessible. They're also great for dipping your toes into what has become, perhaps, the most influential genre of pop music of our time.

Let's do this!

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Theo Jemison

Joe Corrales didn't have imaginary friends when he was little, he had imaginary songs.

In fact Corrales, who performs under the stage name Yppah (pronounced "Yip-pah"), was comforted by one song in particular.

"When I was younger, I would always make up songs in my head -- and this was before I was writing music," Corrales says over the phone. "Every once in a while, there was a melodic theme and I would hear it at different times of my life. I kind of try to remember back to that."

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Kai

Much like rock stars and supermodels, hip hop and street art have a long history that spans decades. And never before has the relationship between street art and hip hop had more of a literal representation than with the soon-to-be-unveiled "Now Royalty" collection by Los Angeles-based street artist, Kai Aspire, which depicts some of hip hop's biggest names as medieval noblemen.

Kai first made an impact on the L.A. street art scene with his bold anti-smoking "Morons" mural back in 2009, which depicted what looked like a pack of Marlborough Red brand cigarettes, but with the word "Morons" where "Marlborough" should be. Needless to say, the piece sparked plenty of conversation, and ultimately inspired Kai's own father -- a smoker for many years -- to finally quit.

Since then, Kai's work has adorned the Melrose Corridor area of West Hollywood where he grew up, with each piece showboating a different social message -- everything from anti-drinking ("Abysmal Vodka" as a play on Absolute Vodka), anti-consumerism, and even an anti-technological douchiness piece ("Boundberry," a nod toward society's obsession with mobile communication).

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Press

Snoop was not in the building

Maybe it was the fact that we had to sit in downtown rush-hour Los Angeles traffic before we got to the Grammy Museum. But probably, it was the fact that we pressed through such a long, shitty day because the light at the end of the tunnel was the knowledge that after trying for so many damn years, we were finally going to get to meet Snoop Dogg -- and had just learned that tha Doggfather wouldn't be sitting on the panel discussing the new VH1 documentary titled Uprising: Hip Hop and the L.A. Riots.

Whatever the case, we was pissed when the woman next to us asked if we would stop taking pictures because the beeping on our camera was preventing her from hearing.

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