Last week, Complex sat down with Rakih. During their interview, he touched on his recent Rock-N-Roll Hall Of Fame Nomination. Inductees will be announced soon, but it’s not too late to cast your vote here.
Recently, you were nominated for a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. What was your reaction when you heard the news?
I was speechless. You can almost say, “Yeah, I made it,†getting nominated to that right there. It’s a big accolade. If I get in, it’ll definitely put the icing on the cake. To be noticed on that plateau, for me, is enough. It definitely lets you know that you’re noticed, appreciated, and somewhat made it in music.But I’ve got other things to prove. I don’t know why, but now it’s like [I’m] proving you can be over 40, still be relevant, still be nice on the mic, and you can still be a beast. All of these things. It don’t stop with me. I guess with the titles that I’ve been handed through the years, it inspires me to keep that up. If not, push it further.
2. “You the Oneâ€
3. “Watch and Learnâ€
4. “Roc Me Outâ€
5. “Cockinessâ€
6. “Talk That Talkâ€
7. “Answerâ€
8. “Drunk on Loveâ€
9. “Farewellâ€
10. “We All Want Loveâ€
11. “Red Lipstickâ€
12. “Fool in Loveâ€
13. “Where Have You Beenâ€
14. “Do Ya Thangâ€
15. “Birthday Cakeâ€
A former ESPN executive is suing a one-time colleague over allegations he fondled himself underneath an iPad while sitting next to sportscaster Erin Andrews on a flight.
Keith Clinkscales claims the suggestion he masturbated in front of the ESPN and Good Morning America reporter is a ‘flat-out lie’ spread by Joan Lynch, an executive producer he fired.
The 47-year-old ex-Vibe magazine president filed a defamation lawsuit in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday, which accused Mrs Lynch, 36, of having a partly racial motive for the accusation.
Mr Clinkscales, who left his role as ESPN’s head of content development when it was announced last month that the group was disbanding, also claims Mrs Lynch was annoyed because he was promoted over her.
Once dubbed ‘the boy wonder of black magazine publishing’ by The Washington Post, Mr Clinkscales became chief operating officer of the hip-hop bible Vibe aged 29 before becoming a senior vice president at ESPN in 2007.
In her executive producer role, Mrs Lynch most notably headed the development of the Emmy-nominated documentary series ’30 for 30′.
You can see the initial story here.
Earlier this week Common’s single Sweet premiered on Hot 97. He got on the phone with XXL to discuss the rant on the end of the song.
While promoting Smirnoff Whipped Cream Flavored Vodka and Smirnoff Fluffed Marshmallow Flavored Vodka, we got a chance to talk to Amber Rose about the product. That interview is coming soon, but while we were talking to her, we just had to ask Amber about the “Runaway” performance that Kanye West dedicated to her last night. Here’s what she had to say:
I’ll say this—I didn’t even know about it. This is my 50thinterview today and every single person has asked me, and it made me go see what the hell they were talking about, because I don’t keep up on the current events of Kanye. I just don’t look him up.
A lot of is just negativity and I don’t like to bring that energy into my life. But I did look at it and he said that, he said um, “When I said that I didn’t like your dress, I was an asshole. When I said that I didn’t like your hair, I was an asshole.â€
And he was an asshole. He was. I feel like he gets that now, and he’s remorseful about being an asshole to me.
But he called me an incredible person, and I take that as an apology. And if it was an apology, I forgive him for being an asshole. I don’t hold any grudges. I don’t hate him. I want him to find a girl and for him to treat her better than he treated me.
The next girl, she doesn’t deserve that. I found pure happiness with Wiz. Why wouldn’t I want that for Kanye? I want everyone to have that, to feel the way I feel about Wiz.
Rap producer Shawty Redd can now put his legal troubles behind him. MTV News learned exclusively from Redd’s attorney Ashutosh Joshi on Thursday (November 3) that the Atlanta hitmaker has been found not guilty of murder, as well as lesser charges he was hit with after the fatal 2010 New Year’s Day shooting of Damon Martin.
The bench trial, which began Monday, was decided by a judge without a jury and concluded Wednesday. On Thursday, Judge Wade Crumbly cleared the “Who Dat” producer (real name: Demetrius Lee Stewart) on all charges relating to Martin’s death.
Redd was arrested January 1, 2010, after police responded to a call about an early morning shooting at Stewart’s home in Hampton, Georgia. According to police, the producer was involved in a physical altercation at his home with Martin, who was described as an “acquaintance.” The confrontation turned physical and Stewart shot and killed Martin, according to the report. Stewart himself called 911 to alert police about the shooting and was arrested a few hours later.
“The defense [in the trial] was clearly self-defense,” Joshi told MTV News. “We argued that Redd’s life was threatened both verbally and physically, and this occurred in his home and that he shot this gentleman as a result of that.”
Shawty Redd got his start producing a number of underground tracks for Young Jeezy, as well as six tracks from his platinum debut Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101. He got the most attention working with Snopp Dogg on his 2008 single “Sexual Eruption” and has also worked with Gucci Mane, Pusha T and Rick Ross.
His name is Mac Miller, and he’s about to become the surprise success story of the fourth quarter.
Born Malcolm McCormick, the son of a Christian architect father and Jewish mother photographer, the Pittsburgh-born rapper has elicited comparisons to Eminem while building an impressive following on social media that includes a combined 2.7 million Twitter, Facebook and MySpace followers. This year, Miller’s already put out two digitally released mixtapes and an EP, On and On and On Beyond, which has sold 60k on his hometown indie Rostrum label, home to fellow Steel City hip-hop icon Wiz Khalifa.
Miller’s YouTube channel TreeJTV has attracted almost 150 million views, with his most recent viral smash, “Donald Trump,†at 28 million views and counting. Trump himself acknowledged the song on Twitter when it reached 20 million views.
S.F.-based independent digital distributor INgrooves, which handles all of partial owner UMG’s product for that marketplace, will release Blue Slide Park, Miller’s upcoming full-length album, while using Ron Spaulding’s Fontana team to put out his physical debut. The new album hits Nov. 8, and insiders are predicting it to be in the race to become Fontana’s first-ever, six-figure #1 debut on the HITS album sales chart.
On a pretty unrelated note, the same website also expects (through first-day sales) Wale’s Ambition to sell 170-190K. Let’s hope that number keeps progressing.
2) Make My
3) One Time
4) Kool On
5) The Jump
6) Stomp
7) Lighthouse
8) I Remember
9) Tip The Scale
10) Redford
we want to get better at what we do. to get closer to realizing some ideas we’ve had for some time. to simply embrace the process of putting one foot in front of the other. I’m over 40 now and am no longer haunted by a young man’s hoop dreams but, I’m anything but resigned, just comfortable in my skin. We are fans of the work and attitude of today’s “winner-take all†rappers: Em, Wayne, Kanye, Hov, Drake, Nikki Minaj (as well as the given hip hop bench of the moment). They do what they do really well. They’re charismatic, have this outsize pop sensibility and smell like vacation but, let’s face it… the Roots don’t ball that hard, you know where to find us (30 Rock M-F) and when niggas are in Paris we spend our down time in our rooms checking emails. So no, shit ain’t cray…there will be no “President Bush don’t like Black people†moment, or fabled rides in an old Rolls Royce Corniche. We understand sweat equity, the bottom line, the importance of being present and being on time. we’ve also been lucky, we’ve never had a high swag quotient and couldn’t write a pop song if our life depended on it but, we’ve been on a major for 18 years and have been able to develop our live performances to some degree of noteworthiness and found ourselves untethered from the machinations of Black popular culture. what this has afforded us (and more specifically myself) is the luxury of doing the different drummer thing. So we find the world to be full of possibility. The music we can create–the stories we can tell–it’s fairly wide open.
Make My
Verse 1 (Big K.R.I.T.)
I did it all for the money Lord
It’s what it seems
But in the world of night terrors-it’s
Hard to dream
They hollering cash rules everything
Let’s call it cream
Cause when it rises to the top you get…
The finer things
Ocean fronts, rolling blunts
With model chick and saying grace over lobster and steak
Like please forgive us for riding Benzes with camera plates
Too busy looking backwards for jackers to pump my brakes
For help sign to symbolize the live that hunger takes
Addicted to the green if I don’t ball I get the shakes
I’d give it all for a peace of mind for heaven sakes
My heart so heavy that the ropes that hold my casket break
Cause everything that wasn’t for me I had to chase
I had to take
They told me that the ends would justify the means
they told me at the end, it would justify the dreams
That I’ve had since a child, maybe I’ll throw in the towel
And make my, make my, make my, make my
Departure from the world
Verse 2 (Black Thought)
Tryna control the fits of panic
Unwritten and unraveled
It’s the dead man’s pedantic
Whatever..
See it’s really just a matter of semantics
When everybody’s fresh out of collateral to damage and…
My splayin got me prayin like a mantis
I begin to vanish feel the pull of the blank canvas
I’m contemplating that special dedication
To whoever it concern…My letter of resignation
Fading back to black… my dark coronation
The heat of the day …the long robe of Muerte
That soul is in the atmosphere like airplay
If there’s a heaven I cant find the stairway
Chorus
Oohs
Sleep
Verse 1 (Aaron Livingston)
Like when autumn leaves fall
Down from the trees
There goes, my honey bee
I’ve lost a lot of sleep to dreams
And I do not miss them yet
I wouldn’t wish them on than worst of enemies
Let them burn, go from here
Like when autumn leaves
Verse 2 (Black Thought)
To catch a thief
Who stole the soul I prayed to keep
Insomniac
Bad dreams/Got me losing
Sleep
I’m dead tired
My mind playing tricks
Deceit
A face in the glass /Unable to admit defeat
All that I am all that I was is history
The past unraveled adding insult to this injury
I’m fighting the battle for the soul of the century
Destiny is everything that I pretend to be
Look, and what I did came back to me eventually
The music played on and…
Told me I was meant to be awake
It’s unresolved
Like everything I had at stake
Illegal activity controls
My black symphony
Orchestrated like it happened
Incidentally
Oh… there I go
From a man to memory
Damn
I wonder if my fam will remember me
Verse 3 (Aaron Livingston)
I’ve lost a lot of sleep to dreams
And I do not miss them yet
I wouldn’t wish them on the worst of enemies
Let them burn, go from here
Like when autumn leaves
The D.C. rapper Lola Monroe has been recruited by Wiz Khalifa for his Taylor Gang label revealing the deal in an interview with Greg Street of Atlanta’s V-103 radio. The video-vixen-turned-rapper announced that she is prepping for the release of her debut album and plans to drop a single in November.
Monroe agreed to sign with Khalifa’s label as the two share similar creative aspirations saying, “We got it in with Taylor Gang. We Taylored now. Wiz is like a positive free individual that’s about his business and that matches everything I’ve created on my side. When he reached out, he was like, ‘I feel as though our movements represent the same thing, so I want you to rep Taylor Gang.’ And I agreed, so it’s only right. Plus, out of all the situations that came to me, my business instincts and just the comfort level, I felt it was just the right move with him. He’s a stand-up dude and it just felt right.â€
Lola Monroe has dropped four mixtapes to date with the latest, ‘Batteries Not Included,’ landing in 2010 and received a nomination at the BET Awards for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist. The Washington-based rapper is also looking to put out two new mixtapes produced by DJ Ill Will with one called ‘Crown Ain’t Safe.’
Monroe has recently cut back on her modelling and acting career to focus on music although she has over 20 appearances in music videos on her resume including her most recent performance in the video for Lil Boosie’s ‘Green Light Special’ which came out in March this year.
How fucked up that we have evidence that the big Banks have been corrupt, yet our governments aren’t punishing those that have stolen from the pension funds.
Our Politicians are puppets for whoever pays them into office. That’s how !!ed our system is. Their broken promises for change cant happen especially when the system is corrupt
And children who need a meal go without because our politicians won’t stop thinking of themselves long enough or how to win the next election, too look around them and see how bad it is.
You aren’t helping Mr politician, things are getting worse here in the US, in Europe, Africa everywhere!
Im fuckin angry that Children are dying everyday.
There’s hard working people out there who do give a !!.
Problem is those with the power – government and big business, want this system to keep going. Its suits them
I don’t want to do business with these !!ers anymore. Do you?
if a company isn’t giving back, stop buying from them. Buy a pair of shoes from TOMS (who give another pair to someone in need), look for companies that aren’t paying lip service to community / charity
we are more powerful than the big business and politicians realize……we have the power to stop buying their products, banking with them.
your dollar, that you worked hard for, does have power.
together we can say – WAKE UP A-HOLES! The game is over.
50 cent
– want to shout out to Occupy Wall Street groups around the world. You are waking up the world, including me. Please keep up the peaceful protest, you are making a difference.
