Despre ei...

[snatch_1992]

KRS-One
Biography
Born Lawrence Parker in Park Slope, Brooklyn in the summer of 1965, the rapper left home at 14 to play basketball and read books free of the gaze of the authorities (his mother and the New York City public school system). He landed in a homeless shelter in the South Bronx, where he was dubbed Krishna by residents because of his interest in the Hare Krishna spirituality of some of the antipoverty workers. By the time Krishna met youth counselor Scott Sterling, he was also writing graffiti as KRS-One (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone). Together he and Sterling, a.k.a. DJ Scott La Rock, created Boogie Down Productions, releasing their landmark debut album, Criminal Minded, in 1987.

In the summer of 1984, KRS-One hit the music scene with a rap group called "Scott La rock and the Celebrity Three" with a record called "Advance". And that was, in a time when most rappers rhymed about cars, jewelry, alcohol, and the latest dance, KRS-One was rhyming about nuclear war prevention. Scott La Rock and the Celebrity Three was comprised of Scott La Rock, Levi167,MC Quality, and KRS-One. After legal problems with the head of the label, Scott La Rock and the Celebrity Three were released from their contract. In the winter of 1984, KRS-One wrote a song called "Stop The Violence" although by this time The Celebrity Three had broken up and only KRS-One and Scott La Rock remained. Both realized they had to change the name of the group and they did: the new group was called The Boogie Down Crew.

In 1985, Scott La Rock was asked to do an already written and produced record for Sleeping Bag Records. Of course Kris and Scott wanted to concentrate on their own Boogie Down Crew but first they had to go through this. For this project they were paid nothing and had no rights or claims to anything. It was this project that educated Kris and Scott as to the importance of being producers of their music, as well as the artists, so at this point they decided to change the name of their own Boogie Down Crew to Boogie Down Productions.

At the close of 1987, the B.D.P lifestyle got real and Scott La Rock was killed trying to break up a dispute in the Bronx. This shocked the hip hop communitity and as a result rap and violence became a topic in the mainstream press. The rap community thought Boogie Down Productions was over but this only led to new plans for KRS-One. In 1988, KRS-One left B. Boy Records to sign with Jive Records and "By All Means Necessary" was released. Rap music was under a mainstream microscope and KRS-One now was able to release what he and Scott always dreamed about, an album that gave rap a different image. His first video on Jive Records was for "My Philosophy", a song that re-established his presence in the rap world.

In order to understand KRS-One, it is imperative that you either understand hip hop as opposed to rap or open your mind to the reality of what is going on around you. KRS-One is not a bullshit artist. His career began in 1986 and since then no other rap or hip hop artist has come close to his consistency with hit albums. 1987, Criminal Minded, 1988, By All Means Necessary, 1989, Ghetto Music, 1990, Edutainment, 1991, BDP Live Hardcore, 1992, Sex And Violence, 1993, Return of the Boom Bap, 1995, KRS ONE.

Having lectured at Harvard, Yale, Vassar, Columbia, N.Y.U. and Stanford, KRS-One is nicknamed "THE TEACHER." There is only one KRS-One. That's it, that's all, solo, single, no more, no less. KRS-One has been quoted as saying "This is rebellious music, not gangster music." KRS-One is beyond rap, he is a manifestation of hip hop culture. KRS-One is a force in rap so powerful that his songs are sampled by many artists, giving rise to other hit records for these artists.

KRS-One, through Boogie Down Productions hasn't been an artist that jumps on any passing bandwagon. KRS-One stands as a trendsetter in the hip hop world. He is a producer that specialized in breaking new ground and new artists. For example, KRS-One in 1986 introduced the hip hop reggae style to rap music and things have not been the same since. KRS-One is the first artist to rap in an "off beat" style, influencing hundreds of rappers to do the same. KRS-One is responsible for pushing hip hop culture and rap music to some of its most advanced levels. He has influenced the reggae market with his work on the first Shabba Ranks album.

He also has done ground breaking work with R.E.M. With this, as with many other things today like Ol' Dirty with Mariah Carey and Fugees with Simply Red, comes criticism from fans of "not keeping it real" but these fans in the eyes of many "real fans" are just contradicting those words in that they should like the music for what it is and should not ctiticise the artists for their work out of the hip hop industry.

KRS-One also has the best live hip hop show in the world. You can ask the critics of Japan, England, Denmark, Holland, France, Germany and Italy. Everywhere KRS-One goes, he packs them in for an hour long classical hip hop performance. Ask the critics in America, KRS-One has performed for some of the hardest audiences to please and left them gasping for air and drenched with sweat.

After all these projects, KRS ONE is still going strong in 1997. He can still please the hardcore hip hop fans with tracks like "The MC", "Can't Stop, Won't Stop and "Step Into A World". Who knows how long he'll keep going on, one thing we do know is that KRS ONE is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, names of all time in hip hop. In his own words in "If you don't know me by now, I doubt you'll ever know me".

[snatch_1992]

Tupac Shakur
Biography
Tupac Shakur will go down in history as the rapper who always lived up to his wild reputation. He rapped of gunfights, rough sex, gang rivalries and "Thug Life," and was arrested, jailed, shot and later killed over these very issues. Always known as a gifted rapper and a brilliant lyricist, Tupac was often touted as being the Marvin Gaye of hip-hop, complex and talented, but a "Trouble Man" to the core. He parlayed his music career into a successful film career and was one of the hardest working men in show biz, churning out five albums, five films and numerous guest appearances in just under five years. Tupac lead a full life and accomplished a great deal before his murder in 1996.
Born in jail and raised in Oakland, Calif. by a former member of the Black Panthers, Tupac began his career as a back up dancer for Digital Underground, a Northern California rap group best known for their P-Funk inspired sex songs. Soon, the charismatic Tupac began rapping in the group and left to pursue a solo career. His brilliant 1991 debut, 2Pacalypse Now, featuring "Brenda's Having A Baby," was released to parental uproar, threats of censorship and a slew of controversies. The shooting of a Texas police officer to his music and a public admonishment by Vice President Dan Quayle, quickly made Tupac the most controversial rapper in hip-hop. The album set the tone for Tupac's soon-to-be platinum formula: a mix of hardcore, gun toting, misogynist, Thug Life anthems, and a tender, caring, troubled side that exposed the light side of Tupac's darker image. He also began a successful acting career with the equally controversial film Juice, a movie that opened to gunfire in theaters and censorship of the movie poster. Tupac followed up his debut with the powerful Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., a hardcore masterpiece that responded to the controversies surrounding him and featured appearances by the other two most controversial West Coast rappers, Ice-T and Ice Cube. It also spawned two breakthrough singles "Keep Ya Head Up" and "I Get Around." Tupac also starred in the Janet Jackson vehicle Poetic Justice, another glimpse into the vulnerable side of this multi-faceted artist and Above The Rim, a basketball movie with a soundtrack produced by former N.W.A. rapper, and current A-list rap producer Dr. Dre. However, a slew of controversy ensued when Tupac was arrested in a variety of incidents including an assault and a rape charge, and was shot and wounded while recording tracks in the studio. Tupac recorded his next record, Me Against The World, for Dre's Death Row Records, but found himself in prison when it was released. Featuring the hit single "Dear Mama," Me Against The World was a moodier, more introspective album, finding Tupac looking and sounding less like a thug and more like the sensitive man he claimed to have become. Once out of prison, the freshly energized rapper spent months in the studio recording his double album opus, the first of its kind in hip-hop, All Eyez On Me , which featured a duet with Dr. Dre titled "California Love" and guest turns by Snoop Doggy Dogg, George Clinton, Roger Troutman and Method Man. He also managed to shoot two more films (Gridlock'd and Gang Related), make numerous guest appearances on other rappers' records and record a pseudo-follow up entitled The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory before he was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996. He death was a major blow to the rap community and heated up the already steaming East vs. West rivalry. Many people believed his death was orchestrated by rival label Bad Boy and their main players Sean "Puffy" Combs and rapper Notorious B.I.G., who was later gunned down himself in Los Angeles. These theories remained rumors in the already legendary, iconoclastic story of Tupac Shakur.

Tupac recorded so much material before he died that more Tupac albums have been released since his death that were released while he was alive, thanks to his mother Afeni Shakur's efforts to keep his memory and music alive. These posthumous albums include R U Still Down? (Remember Me?), Lost Tapes 1989, One Million Strong, Still I Rise, Rose That Grew From Concrete, Until The End Of Time, and 2002's Better Dayz, along with his one disc released under the Makaveli alias, Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. A prophetic and prolific artist to say the least, Tupac led a career of constant controversy, but one also filled with many accomplishments and achievements. He is considered a hero to some, a martyr to others, and a legend by all.

REST IN PEACE TUPAC!
-------------------------------
am si eu posterul (mozaicul)

[sunrah]

Necro: Necrotics

By Fat Tony

Take a walk in Necro??€�s shoes. It may sound scary at first; it may even seem distasteful. But for those intrepid enough to slip into the bizarre and sometimes vulgar world of a man who divides his time between producing extreme, aggressive music and flooding the underground with his own brand of hard-core pornography, the sights along the way are usually twisted enough to make the trip interesting. There is the music. With a new album titled Necro Presents: Brutality Pt 1 it??€�s pretty easy to see where he is coming from. Then there is the family tree that has some pretty twisted roots which include older brother Ill Bill (Non Phixion) and the notorious derelict known as ??€?Uncle Howie.??€? And then, of course, there is the porn. Necro??€�s Sexpert Video company recently launched its first foray (as well as Necro??€�s directorial debut) into the world of hard-core pornography. He even won an AVN (Adult Video News) Editor??€�s pick for his film.

Necro is a visual artist; it seems that everything he does (from producing and beat-making to rhyming to directing) is always tinged with a raw vividness that often crosses the line into pure brutality. His songs and lyrics virtually explode from the speakers with vivid descriptions and visual liveliness. It would be easy to dismiss Necro??€�s music as all blood and gore without any substance; most of the hip-hop community (those above ground, anyway) would probably be very surprised to learn that Necro has sold tens of thousands of CD??€�s independently. But to take him at face value and nothing more is to risk missing out on one of the most original and innovative producers in the game today. Through his own Psycho+Logical label Necro has been able to release and distribute his vision in an uncompromising and uninhibited manner, and without the pressures of having a major breathing down his neck he has been free to explore some of the sickest impulses his mind can create.

The foundation is Necro??€�s production work; he has established himself as one of the best kept secrets when it comes to cranking out heaters.

??€?That??€�s my shit; I??€�m ill. I got bangers for years; I fuck with anybody on that shit. The best of them. Producing is a love of mine. I got crazy influences; shit like metal, mad heavy metal. From death metal to shit like Metallica. Also shit like Marly Marl, Large Professor, early Tribe, Primo. Step into the Arena; shit like that, where the drums were flipped ill influenced me. I started out being influenced by hip-hop and metal, so right off the bat I took stuff from both genres. And then my brain is just musical, so I don??€�t make a beat because of anything except what my brain says and I can come up with ill shit non-stop. My ear is tuned for sickness. It??€�s hard to explain but I am good at beat-making and I love it, so it is what it is. I??€�m not one to kiss people??€�s asses for beats. So for me to have non-stop bangers I have to produce shit for myself. And that??€�s why Non Phixion fucks with me, not because I??€�m Bill??€�s brother. My brother don??€�t give a fuck, he just wants bangers. And since he??€�s my brother I have to lace him like no one else would, ya??€� see? For me, I love making beats so I take joy in producing all my own shit. Plus, I see what others are doing and I don??€�t see any with my style. I??€�m not biting anyone, so I don??€�t sound like Primo, or Large Professor or Peter Rock or 4th Disciple or Havoc. I don??€�t even sound close to a rip-off of anyone, like some other beat makers in the game now do. My shit is my shit because I don??€�t make beats like other dudes. I make beats that I wanna??€� hear. So I drop the shit that I feel is not out there. Some beat-makers use the same drum kits or the same formula. I don??€�t. I feel that every beat is its own human. I don??€�t clone my beats. It??€�s not possible. I can??€�t feel it if it??€�s not new. It might sound like I??€�m tooting my own horn, but this is how I feel. I can??€�t feel any different about it. I always think I can come better and I??€�m always hungry to get iller. I also produce sperm cells that go into girls??€� mouths??€�??€¦I do that a lot.??€?

So what is the formula for these grizzly tracks?

??€?I won??€�t say. I don??€�t want to give people the jewels of how I think. Then they will bite me. A banger is a banger. If you can??€�t make ??€?em then don??€�t drop ??€?em. Keep working. It??€�s possible to make bangers. I hear many. I??€�m not the only one who got bangers. I??€�ll never claim I??€�m the only one.??€?

But there is a definite plan in place. Necro??€�s recipe for a dope album is very basic.

??€?For any album to be classic it needs to have at least 8 bangers. Most albums don??€�t even have 4. Nas??€�s Illmatic, which is a classic, had only 10 songs on it but at least 8 of them were bangers. Only two of them were just OK. When something has 8 bangers for sure on it, it will make you wanna??€� hear it. Every record I have dropped has had at least 8 bangers on it (at least that??€�s what Necro fans say) and most say they can listen to it from start to finish and love it. Brutality Pt.1 has at least 8 bangers on it, so it??€�s classic.??€?

It seemed like working behind the boards was calling to Necro from an early age. Like a lot of people he got his first taste of hip-hop from an older sibling.

??€?I was living in the projects and the first thing I started doing was looping beats and sounds and breaks. Me and Goretex would do it. It??€�s funny: this was when Gore didn??€�t smoke. I used to be high as a motherfucker, I would get stoned and me and Gore would listen to loop tapes. I got my first taste when Bill and Goretex brought some broken records up into the house that they had found in the garbage of the PJ??€�s. They played some ill shit and I just loved the art, the hip-hop shit was ill. I loved the idea of digging up rare, obscure shit and I became a fiend.??€?

At the time, though, Necro was more likely to be seen working his magic with an electric guitar than a pair of Technics or an ASR 10.

??€?You have to realize that at this point I was super dope on guitar. I had been in a band playing technical death metal, like super hard riffs, galloping and triplets and solos, and I was able to play Bach and Chopin with my fingers on guitar. At 12 I opened up for crazy bands: Biohazard, Sepultura, Napalm Death. It was just dusted. Plus I was thugged out, on a kid level. Hip-hop just grabbed me. It was ill. I don??€�t think most hip-hop fans can relate to this. Not ya??€� average backpacker homo, anyway. They can??€�t fathom what a hard-core metal show is, or how dope the scene was, the love.??€?

The result of this easy stepping between two worlds has become the hybrid sound that Necro has pioneered; taking the energy and aggression of the metal scene and fusing it with vicious rhythms and a dynamic energy that is not usually found on most hip-hop tracks.

??€?It??€�s a mixture of everything the street cats are but with the influence of metal. Metal was everything; pure brutality, freedom of speech, crazy crowds, fan loyalty. I mean, I just wanna??€� shred people on some hip-hop shit. Regardless of content or violence it??€�s still lyrics over beats in the basic hip-hop way, just cooked into a new meal.??€?

That meal is kind of like a rancid potluck stew concocted by chefs with severely twisted appetites like Jeffery Dahmer or Gary Heidnick. You can find a little bit of everything on a Necro record. As a writer Necro is kind of like a Clive Barker without all the long-winded poetry. It can be brutal and bloody, but it??€�s always vivid and visceral and literal, in both sound and content. He is easily adept at switching from the horror-core to the real, and it ain??€�t nothing for him to turn around and drop the kind of street knowledge that can only be attained from a life lived in the Brooklyn projects from which he comes.

??€?Well, I come from an ill background. My father had already killed people when he came here to America from the Israeli army and the beefs and wars that went on there, so he was sick. He would get into drama with people for nothing. I lived in the projects from a young age. When I was young I cracked my head open and saw my brain. I was riding down a hill and I smashed my head into a fence and the tip opened my head up. The projects was always drama, every corner you turn there was a potential enemy waiting for drama. I mean, my father was grim, and my brother used to kick my ass everyday, so I had a lot to be pissed at. Uncle Howie was always high, so if I had beef downstairs in the projects he was always stoned and I would have to go fight by myself. Other kids in the PJ??€�s had family members to help them, I only had my brother, and Bill used to fuck up a lot of kids. In the projects someone 4 to 6 years older than you would actually try to bring it to you, and you know how it is when you??€�re 10 and someone is 16. You don??€�t got much wins. But Brooklyn New York has an effect on children that makes them ill. That??€�s why so many legends are from Brooklyn.??€?

It was those hard Brooklyn streets that raised Necro and everything that he puts out reflects that. But there is always a price to pay. Industry-wise there are a lot of people who sleep on Necro, or worse, there are those who refuse to even consider him as a legitimate artist in the game. This is mostly due to the unflinching, violent content of his music and his reputation as a madman. A lot of the time heads are so focused on one aspect of Necro that they completely overlook his obvious talents.

??€?I will say I deserve props (as a producer). I should be in the top 20. But in the world of the majors I wouldn??€�t reach the top 20. For the underground I would say that I should get in the top 5. But I do feel my shit most in the underground. Necro is not recognized in the Source??€�s world, or in XXL??€�s world. Not yet. I??€�m in the elite of the underground. Are they ready for Necro? They can suck a dick. I could care less if they are ready. You know who is ready? The fans. The white kids. All over the earth. Pretty much any human with an open mind for sickness is ready. Fuck the industry if they ain??€�t ready. The industry is run by dollars. If I have money then I run the industry also. But not yet.??€?

And what about encounters with censorship?

??€?In a way. Like every female PR agent I??€�ve ever had or tried to hire fronts and never gets me press. I??€�m sure mad people front on Necro for all kinds of reasons. Just me being me brings a lot of hate out in people. They either can??€�t stop talking about me or they won??€�t mention a peep about me. I bring that kind of reaction. They either love me or hate me, no in between. People that hate me only act nice to me because they know I will fuck them up. And if not me, then someone I roll with will fuck them up. And they know this, so they act cordial to my face. Even the ones that secretly despise Necro. Lucky for me I picked up a good trait from my father: reading through people. I got X-ray vision. The content of my music shouldn??€�t take away from its validity. It shouldn??€�t if people are about hip-hop. I don??€�t feel that many people are about hip-hop. I know I am, but I can??€�t speak for others. I know I rep hip-hop in the rawest form. I don??€�t think that a lot of others do. I think a lot of people are faking it. Not most people, just the soft, backpacker type homos look at me as one-dimensional. Hard-core hip-hop heads, metal heads, sickos all look at me as awesome at first. It??€�s the queers that have this mentality. Remember, these are the kids that got beat up in school taking revenge. But these are just my opinions. I??€�m a real hustler and a go-getter. I make shit happen. So at least you can say this is coming from someone that does shit.??€?

No doubt is Necro a hustler. In addition to his own music he is busy producing for the select few that are down with him. Non Phixion, of course, but there??€�s also the extended family at Uncle Howie Records.

??€?I just laced my brother with six joints for Q-Unique??€�s new album??€?

One of which being the lead single: ??€?The Ugly Place,??€? which is a classic example of a Necro beat. It??€�s all creepy strings over some fiercely hard drums. He is also busy producing his brother??€�s solo joint which is set to drop on Psycho+Logical in 2004. Still, with all the outside work, sibling rivalry is never a problem between the two brothers

??€?We never fight over who gets the best beats because every beat I make is a banger. So if someone can??€�t have a beat I just need to make them a new one. Making bangers ain??€�t a problem for me. Selling a million records is, and that??€�s a problem I will solve.??€?

And then there is the budding career as a porn director. For true connoisseurs of the art of pornography, Necro??€�s vision is perfect. It caters to all the deviants who are fed up with a porn industry that has gone limp and soft with actresses who are convinced that they are stars. Like everything else Necro does, his porn is raw. Throughout the scenes (which are all underscored by Necro beats and rhymes) you can hear him in the background directing the action and degrading the hapless female stars.

??€?I decided it was time to drop a real porn. I see all these people dropping soft-core shit, so I??€�m like: ??€?aiight, it??€�s time for some hard-core shit.??€� The fans want it. I??€�m hustling, why not? So I made it happen. I got a Penthouse Pet to take it in her ass, that fucking rat skeeze. And then I got Jerry Butler to host it and I interviewed him. It??€�s all pretty sick, especially if you??€�re a Necro fan. They are open; it??€�s right up their alley. I plan to make more, but I got albums to drop first. But I figure I got dues to pay. Once I pay dues I can move up the porn ladder. You can??€�t just make a porn and then voila you??€�re the porn king. It??€�s a business, like making music. They are all about dollars. And the people in porn are talentless, so they have no respect for art. It??€�s all money and covering up the fact that they are derelicts. I laugh when a guy like me, a hip-hop sicko is peeping out their attitudes like ??€?y??€�all think you??€�re hot shit???€� You take a dick in your ass. Shut ya??€� skank trap. Sign this fucking release so I can own your ass for the next hundred years. These bitches wake up 7 days a week and fuck two guys a day. That??€�s 14 guys a week!??€?

Necro has plans to keep it going for the future. Constantly on the move, he??€�s always got something cooking. Porn isn??€�t the only visual medium he plans to invade. For someone who thinks and creates on such a visual level the concept isn??€�t at all far-fetched. His songs are already like movies on wax.

??€?Yeah, I wanna??€� make real Scorsesse-type films in the future. In time, when I get real budgets. All in time, Brooklyn wasn??€�t built in a day. I need MONEY to make flicks. You can??€�t just say ??€?hey, I wanna??€� make a movie??€� and do it. It??€�s heavy concentration, like ten times that of making an album.??€?

Still, the idea is there, fueled by a serious knowledge and love of splatter and horror films.

??€?Of course Scarface is my favorite, I can even act scenes and dialogue. I used to study that movie word for word. Casino and Goodfellas are awesome. There are mad gore flicks I love, from H.G. Lewis to Joel Reed (who directed crazy gore flicks). I like shit like Gladiator??€¦ I am a movie guy, I love movies. I will make movies in the future, real dusted, exploitation shit.??€?

All in all, Necro is an artistically well rounded kind of Renaissance man who happens to dwell in places where most people won??€�t go. His music is kind of like therapy for those that don??€�t respond to conventional treatment. Life is a brutal experience sometimes, and Necro is just the reflection of our times. If you dig deep enough, Necro just might surprise you.

??€?Something that your average Necro fan wouldn??€�t guess about me? That I??€�m human. Just like everyone else.??€?

[sunrah]

Descrierea concertului sustinut de Common saptamana trecuta . . .

Common performed out here the other night.... that shit was just incredible, probably in my Top 3 of all the shows I ever been to. he was all by himself and rocked the stage for like 2 hours. he had his dj dummy (funny as hell) ( aiii ), and his 2 dudes on the keys and percussion. so they played a few tracks live and the rest from the tables. he performed like the entire new album, even tracks like "real people" and "its your world". they started off the show with the "be" intro. they turned the lights off and played the melody of the intro and then Comm came out right in time for his verse with so much energy as if they kept him waiting for years for this moment, he had everybody jumpin like a mothafucker.

The entire show was so diverse, comm was freestylin for a bit, then brought the band back in motion and then said how the dj is the most important element in hop hop and at the same time the most forgotten. So he had the dj cuttin it up in the back, this dude did a little 10 or so minute show. OMG that was crazy, he started scratching, at first kinda slow and went faster and faster. he did these crazy moves man shit was crazy to look at, he even got this bitch between him and the turntables and he went down on here while scratching! that was probably the best dj set I've ever seen, probably even better then Primo. then common came back and was like what yall know about breakdancing, and all of a sudden this motherfucker started breakdancing on stage! everybody was surprised like WTF common breaking up there?? dude was hella good at it too, he went faster and faster and ended it with a b-boy stance which had everybody wilding out and screaming and shit. thats like the first time Ive seen an MC of his status do that. he went and did that shit for like 5-10 minutes. Like woww

comm kept reminding people that its a basement party and he really had that basement atmosphere going, he had a couch and table on the stage along with a bottle of wine and 2 glasses. i loved the way he interacted with the public throughout the show, he had everybody involved. he went and got this girl from the public on stage, they were dancing close, like reaaal close. she was hella nervous though, that had everybody laughin and shit.

after he was done with most of the songs he left backstage and came back to do the last 2 tracks. he did "the food" and after that he went "the revolution will not be televised the revolution is here" so everybody went crazy thats when the "the 6th sense" started. (I love this one) after that common did a little piano session for a few minutes which was a beautiful way to end the show. that was everything as far as i can remember

overall a great show i must say. i paid 30 bucks to get in but this show was worth a hundred no shit. if you have the chance to see him dont even think about going anywhere else.

Sper din tot sufletul ca dupa lansarea HADES, fanii sa fie la fel de joviali

Love & Bless !

[sunrah]

Saigon - Warning Shots

He is the voice of New York. The streets love him like he does love them. He??€�s said to become the next big star from the Big Apple. The sins of his youth had cost him too much time to make the wrong decisions nowadays. BackSpin met Saigon in the S.I.R.-Studio in New York.

In jail you don??€�t have much. Grey concrete walls steal your breath as the keepers steal your pride. Brian Carenard remembers, "You feel like a slave and you feel this depressed restriction and you know what it feels like to be lawless. Guys often younger than me tell me when to go to bed and when to get up". Nearly seven years behind bars. Six years and nine month of sorrow. At the age of 15, his travels through New York??€�s penal institutions like Napanoch, Fishkill, Coxsackie or Comstock began. What do you have there? Work out? The library? First of all a lot of time for yourself admits Brian Carenard: "If they take your liberty and put you in a cell, you reflect on your whole life. Am I going to be a thug for the rest of my life? Am I going to make something better with my life? I was in the pen for such a long time to make one decision! If I commit another crime and go back to prison I would be done!" Sorrow? Fear? Or even pragmatism?
Brain Carenard speaks of insight. When he was sent to jail he had nothing, his ability to read was at the level of a little school kid. Which opportunities does he have after his bid? Inspired by his fellow inmates, he starts kicking his little raps. That gives you hope at such a place. More and more he starts to focus on reading. He gets hold of a book called "Bloods". It tells the story of black GI's in Vietnam. Twenty soldiers show their destinies in that war. "The black soldiers went to war in Saigon to fuck prostitutes and get heroine. The local people started to spread pamphlets to the blacks saying things like "That??€�s not your war! Why are you here fighting us? We don??€�t have any problem with you! We are in a conflict with the white people, with White America! You don??€�t even have rights up there. Why are you going to war for a country where you have to take seats at the back of the bus? That doesn??€�t make any sense!" Later many black soldiers stayed in Saigon, they dropped out of the Army and founded their own families!"
Young Brian Carenard absorbs this story. He chooses "Saigon" as his rapper's name. That way he keeps a dark chapter of American history alive, because after the victory of the communists in 1975 they changed the name of this 6 million inhabitants city to Ho-Chi-Minh City in honor of this Vietcong leader.
His own story is just as tragic. Born in Upstate New York and first raised by his mother, Brian later moved to his father living in Brooklyn. He is a problem since he was a little kid. His mom becomes pregnant several times and the boy lacks attention. He is in the streets, more and more. At the age of 11 he starts smoking weed and selling crack. His 4 years elder cousin becomes his surrogate father. He shows him how the whole drug game works. At the age of 13, Brian was dropped out of school. He was playing truant the whole time and his teachers were hard on his heels. At the same time his dad calls his mother a ho and bitch while having a new wife at the same time! His mother isn't able to take care of him. Even assisted living is no way out. Young Brian grounded in the streets. Only the long arm of the law is able to reach out to him??€¦

In 1994 a judge of the Juvenile Court sends him to jail for seven years for shooting two people at a party. One of the victims was beefing with Brian's homies but the other was an uninvolved pedestrian! Luckily for him, Brian was a bad shooter, otherwise he would have been in prison his whole life. While both survived the shooting, there was enough time for Brian to think about his whole situation.

When getting out of jail Saigon had nothing. Rap was the only thing that remained. "Without the music there wouldn't be any way out for me! I would hang on the streets or suffer in jail. I have no education, I didn't graduate, I had nothing! My life was fucked up!" He was forced to finance his first single called "Say Yes" with money earned hustlin' on the streets. "Before getting that deal with Rawkus, I pressed the vinyl with my own money earned from selling drugs. This money helped my career getting started!" Later his deal with Rawkus made him known. But Saigon wasn't pleased with that collabo. "I had some songs and the Rawkus A&R wanted to meet me. He wanted me to release a 12" to see how the people would react and check the sales. They didn't want to pay my studio time. I gave them what I had and this turned out to be the "Say Yes" single. They got the record, I ended up getting a little money and that was the whole deal!"

It didn't take a long time for Saigon to find a way of distributing his music. According to Saigon himself, he was the first to choose that mixtape route, even before 50 Cent brought up his whole empire based on this way of release. But Curtis Jackson showed him a few tricks. "50 told me not to be afraid of smiling on pictures. Somebody may see your face and doesn't want to hear your story. Otherwise, if you are smiling you may surprise the people and you got them! Me personally I would never think about such things!" Saigon even had an offering to join G Unit. But that wasn't his way. "50 said: Whatever you want I got it! But I never wanted to be part of G Unit. He leads the unit like an army but I'm a general. A team doesn't allow two leaders!??€?

In the light of the beef between 50 Cent and the Game, this might have been a wise decision. Knowledge of human nature is what you learn behind bars. "I was down with G Unit for a short time. Nowadays I rumble somebody much faster. I don??€�t have to know you for a long time in order to see what kind of person you are! After a month I know anything about you. I got my teachers in jail. Your facial expression, the way you sit or move. Anything a human being does, tells you something, how to get along with this person!"

There are some similarities in Saigon's and 50's careers, but Saigon says they are still different. "I care for the kids; I care for people's life! 50 doesn't give a fuck, he is just about the paper! He doesn't care about things he can't get money from! I'm a different kind of person! Money ain't everything to me. Even if I could drive any car in this world I wouldn't necessarily be happy. Money is just important for those who don't have none!??€?

Don't expect a joint like "Candyshop" from Saigon! Many things are just too marginal for him. After being in jail there is a major difference between hip hop from jail and the one you see and hear on heavy rotation on MTV and shit. "When I went in, I thought hip hop just needed a dope beat and a catchy hook. But in jail they care about the content. There's no beat, just somebody knocking on the table. There are no hooks, just the lyrics! When I say that my rhymes are jail raps, I mean that I got a message and some content in my lyrics! My words have a meaning; I'm not about a melody! There is much weight in them! If you speak them out they are like a poem!"

With his message Saigon wants to reach the kids in the hood! "I got a younger brother. He's 16 and just like me back then. Once he got caught, and now he's on probation for 5 years. A long time in the ghetto! I don't want the kids to make the same mistakes I did!" He's dead serious about his engagement besides music. For his social project he reached out to Nas. "Nas called me one day and I told him what I was doing for the community. I got foundations of public utility and book banks. Nas is a person with a lot of influence on the hood, even if his last record only sold 600k. But the people love him. Not anybody can afford $15 to buy an album, so sales don't say anything about your standing in the hood. We don't buy records nonetheless we love the artist! 50 didn't sell 8 million records in the hood. The suburban kids buy his records. Nas promised me to help my foundations, even though he's busy as always. We don't need much, he just has to show up to cheer people".

The book banks are particularly close to Saigon's heart, because they allow the kids to read and force that development. To speak from Saigon's own experience it's not cool for kids to go to school. In addition he financially supports quarter assistance with his foundations. "We support kids in social unprivileged families, we buy them toys and clothes, whatever they need. You have to give something back." Any praise for his engagement, and he remains humble.

Saigon, the refined thug who is concerned with morals and giving something back to the hood? Many accuse him of promoting violence and guns in his lyrics. He reacts affronted. "People don't want to hear what I'm saying. I don't glorify that in any song. I'm a peaceful person myself, but not a punk. People make mistakes while looking funny at a peaceful guy. If you kick my ass, I will bite you. That's how I was raised! An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If you are peaceful, I will be peaceful."

This issue seems to be really important for Saigon because he suddenly starts to rap a few bars acapella. Each of them supports his statements. "You can hear every part of my life in my records. That's the reason I still talk about shootings and guns on my records. I lived with them and went to jail for several years for those reasons. I didn't make up the fact that I shot two people. This is no fictional rap!" He suddenly yells "D-Block", in a depreciatory way, claiming that those guys have never been in jail. He doesn't care about the fact that Styles did a few months not long ago. He compares himself to black icons. "It's similar to Malcolm X. If we don't know anything about the hustler and pimp lil' Malcolm, we wouldn't hold Malcolm X in such a high regard. He had to go to jail too, to become that person and leader. He had to learn where he and his people were coming from."

After his release from prison Saigon didn't get much love. Some DJs didn't even want to play his records. "That's true. I was a nobody. Nobody gave me a chance or listened to the things I was saying. They looked at me like some jailbird. I had to do it on my own. I somehow forced the DJs to play my records by telling them to meet me later after the party??€¦ I used their fear! I told everybody they better play my records. And when they spinned them the crowd liked the songs. I often had one chance only. Nowadays I have good relations with most of the DJs in New York." Says Saigon with a smile. "I love the DJs!" Maybe Saigon wouldn??€�t have succeeded on the mixtape market without their support. Both his mixtapes "Yardfather 1 & 2" sold 40k together and "Warning Shots", distributed by SureShot Records, sold more than 50k.

Speaking of one of the reasons for his success he claims: "I never used other people's beats. That's wrong to me. The people like those known beats because they are hits already. You already won the crowd by playing the instrumental. If you use your own beat they can see who is hot or not! I put out my own work and don't rap on other people's beats. Papoose never rapped on his own beats. Grafh maybe did it once or twice. People may like at most two original songs from Jae Millz. But I got between 15 or 20 songs that the crowd really loves. All those beats are my own!"

Saigon works really close with Just Blaze, his mentor and executive producer. "Most of the time we sit together and talk about the songs. He is often there when I record new songs." Saigon tells about the production of his first official full-length album called "Greatest Story Never Told". It will be out on Atlantic Records. Saigon is really happy with Atlantic's managers Gee Roberson and Kyambo "HipHop" Joshua. "They worked with Jay-Z for nine years and they signed Kanye West. I totally trust them and their ears, and I know what they achieved in the past. They know my vision and they know that I don't want to become a pop star. They respect that I want to come up with a vision and a distinguished message. I will take it back to the hood. That's were the music is from, from the hood of the South Bronx. Nowadays they play our music in the Hamptons. But Bentleys, Ferraris and the whole bling-bling aren't real for a nigga from the hood. Let's talk about the issues that really happen in the streets. Manslaughters, robberies, crack. You destroy other people's households just to buy new kicks or cellies! I'm talking about the things that happen every day, but nobody cares about, because everybody got their own problems. Everybody talks about the clubs, but that's not our reality! I know niggas that never tasted Cristal or drove a Maybach. Often, their mothers don't even have a car!"

[sunrah]

Kev Brown Looks to the Future of Hip-Hop

By Jake Seaton
Special to Washingtonpost.com/MP3
Monday, June 20, 2005

"Hip-hop's not too great right now on a mainstream level," says Kev Brown. "I like 50 Cent; he's got some heat. But on an overall level, artists like me who are on a growing level don't really have an outlet as for videos and radio play."

The soft-spoken hip-hop producer and emcee is ready to change that as he prepares to release his debut album through Up Above Records later this summer.

Probably best known for his remix of Jay-Z's "The Black Album" -- appropriately named "The Brown Album" -- the Landover, Md., resident remembers the days when rhyming and producing weren't always so easy.

"My man used to make my beats -- my DJ used to make my beats -- and this was back when we were doing mad simple production. We didn't have the equipment or anything and that's how I actually learned how to do tracks. Later on I got more into the beats than rhyming, so I took that foundation of what I had and kind of built on that."

From that humble beginning (straight tape deck and early samplers), Brown began to grab the attention of some of the top names in the hip-hop game.

"Things got really serious in 2000/2001, I got an MPC2000XL joint," Brown recalls. "I did a song with Grap Lover called 'What Ruling Means' and around that time we went to New York and hung out with Pete Rock -- that's Grap's brother."

Brown's song was passed from Pete Rock to Marley Marl, who wanted it for his "Beat Generation" album. As Brown began to earn a name for himself working with Marley Marl, he started traveling some with DJ Jazzy Jeff -- who in turn introduced him to De La Soul and Biz Markie.

Despite his work with big-name hip-hop artists, it was his remix of "The Black Album" that earned Brown national attention.

"It did become a fad but at least I can say mine was the first remix to come out before the other ones. It came out good, I'm glad I did it. It's funny because I got a little buzz off that -- I had worked with all these other people before that, but it took a bootleg remix to turn some heads."

Since "The Brown Album," he has contributed remixes to various artists and has plans to release his own album -- "I Do What I Do" -- Sept. 20.

"It's just hip-hop that I like to do, that I was feeling at the time. It's not like a compilation where I just did all the beats and had emcees rhyme on it. I'm pretty much rhyming on every song. I have other cats from my crew Low Budget -- Cy Young, Quatermaine and Kenn Starr -- and other guest appearances."

Of the tracks on the album, Brown picks two as standouts.

"I've got a joint with Cy Young called 'Keep On' that stands out and another joint I just finished called 'Work in Progress' -- it's got a grittier sound, I used a handheld mike so it has a live sound -- but all of them are really good."

If his work on DJ Jazzy Jeff's album "The Magnificent" or even "The Brown Album" and some of his mix tapes are any indication, Brown's debut LP should be a tough act for hip-hop artists to follow.

Kev Brown releases his album "I Do What I Do" through Up Above Records on Sept. 20. Prior to that, Cy Young -- from Brown's Low Budget crew -- releases his Brown-produced single "Whatever You Like" on June 24. A single release party will be held June 24 at Club 5. Up Above label mate SonGodSuns performs June 25 at Jaxx in Springfield.

[iLL:WiLL]

www.definitivejux.com

Unde puteti gasi tot despre Aesop Rock
C Rayz
Cage
Cannibal Ox
EL-P
Hangar 18
Jux Crew
Mr. Lif
Murs
PFAC
RJD2
Rob Sonic
Sa Smash
The Perceptionists

[ronin]

The Bomb: King Giddra anti-war video (2002) with translation

Is Japanese hip-hop political?

King Giddra's "911" reflects on ground zero and it's aftermath in two eras: August 1945 and September 11, 2001. This clip of the first and third verses of the song appears on their 2002 video Saishu Heiki (Ultimate Weapon) (Defstar Records, Japan, DFVL-8052). In an effort to bring more voices to the call for peace in these troubled times, I added the translation, which captures only some of the subtlety of their lyrics.


King Giddra is Zeebra, K Dub Shine, and DJ Oasis. Another song of theirs from 1995 is featured below.




Where you at:

This site aims to give a small introduction to the world of Japanese hip-hop, including some of the music with my own translations. The music and lyrics are for educational and research purposes only. I'm an assistant professor of Japanese cultural studies at MIT in Foreign Languages and Literatures, with a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Yale (1999). I've been studying Japanese hip-hop since the summer of 1994, including intensive fieldwork in Tokyo nightclubs and recording studios for 18 months, from 1995-1997. I have returned to Japan each year since then, and I am currently writing a book about Japanese hip-hop.





A seminal moment for hip-hop in Japan was the showing of the film "Wild Style" (Dir. Charlie Ahearn) in Tokyo in the fall of 1983. The film, which follows a grafitti artist in New York City, features performances by some of the early MCs (Busy Bee, Double Trouble), DJs (Grandmaster Flash), and breakdancers (Rock Steady Crew). Some of these performers came to Japan to promote the film and performed in Tokyo department stores. Shortly thereafter, young Japanese took up breakdancing in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park, where street musicians gather every Sunday to perform. Crazy-A (pictured above with fists) was one of these first breakdancers, and now as the leader of Rock Steady Crew Japan, he organizes the annual "B-Boy Park" which happens every August, and draws upwards of 10,000 fans and dozens of groups. DJ Krush, now one of the leading world-class DJs started out performing behind breakdancers in Yoyogi Park in the mid-1980s.

DJs were the next critical step in the development of Japanese hip-hop, with a variety of DJs were performing on the radio by 1985. In 1986, the first all-hip-hop club opened in the Shibuya section of Tokyo. Rapping was slower to catch on. Why? Many in the music world doubted that it would be possible to rap in Japanese, that is, to be able to perform with the needed flow (rhythmic nuance) and rhymes, because the language itself was viewed as deficient: Japanese does not contain stress accents and sentences must end with one of a few simple verb endings. Nevertheless, from the late 1980s on, a variety of rappers experimented with different flows and rhyming styles, and a slow, but steady stream of CDs was introduced by such artists as Tinnie Punx, Ito Seiko, Vibrastone (led by Chikada Haruo), and Takagi Kan. As the 1990s progressed, a growing number of Japanese youth have been participating in Japanese hip-hop, creating a diverse and vibrant scene, that draws heavily on the music from the U.S. while also trying to make something that is innovative while participating in the global movement that hip-hop has become. Some artists I would recommend include: Rhymester, King Giddra (including Zeebra and K Dub Shine, who also have solo albums), Scha Dara Parr, DJ Krush, Tha Blue Herb, Dabo (and other performers with Def Jam Japan), and there are many others whom I plan to introduce in future updates.



Isn't it just imitation?



In an age when the global flows of media and commodities, particularly from the U.S., are clearly influencing people around the world, an important question concerns what kinds of effects these flows have. For some, the presence of hip-hop implies a "loss of Japanese culture." But what if hip-hop is used to express one's Japaneseness? In this song clip, Kohei Japan plays on the idea of what it means to be Japanese by setting up contrasts with "Western" foods. He proclaims that he eats "rice, not bread, and fish, not meat" and so on, riffing on the notion that being hip-hop and being Japanese are mutually exclusive.


Commercial or Underground?

In 1994, Scha Dara Parr, one of the must-hear groups out of Japan, created a sensation with a hit song called "Kon'ya wa Boogie Back" that featured pop guitarist-songwriter Ozawa Kenji (the nephew of famed orchestra conductor Ozawa Seiji). The next year East End X Yuri broke into mainstream consciousness with a couple of cutesy hits, "Maicca" and "Da.Yo.Ne.". With these million-selling singles, record companies briefly became interested in producing Japanese hip-hop, though there was much debate about what "hip-hop" should mean. Is pop-oriented "J-Rap," with its emphasis on party rap the best style for a Japanese teen audience? Or must hip-hoppers engage in protest as a way of respecting the struggles of African-American artists, and therefore create a "Japanese hip-hop" that is underground and hardcore? Which is more "real"?


King Giddra (1995) "Bullet of Truth"

For King Giddra, the answer was obvious. MCs Zeebra and K Dub Shine, both of whom had lived in the U.S., were convinced of the necessity for hip-hop to be about issues of social opposition. In the following example, KG questions the education system that "crushes the dreams of children" as well as the media overload, especially in terms of advertising, sex and violence, which becomes a kind of mind control.




(asta ca o dedicatie pt Vexx ) ... ca tot era topicu "de la ei"

[sunrah]

lectura placuta

every single fact/rumour i post is jacked, ive just copied and apsted from another forum, but the person who posted them there had jacked them from another forum too so dunno if itd be a problem. ive posted this same list on allhiphop's forum and they seemed to have no problem with the fact its jacked so i hope u guys dont either. if u know any other facts/ rumours, add on. anyway here u go:

Some of these are rumors, and some are very true

-LL Cool J and Kool Moe Dee came to blows one night backstage.

-Freddie Foxxx put a gun in Benzino's mouth on the Flavor Unit tour bus, because Benzino would not stop talking **** about what a thug he was

-"The bridge is over" was a Marley Marl beat that Krs One and Scott La Rock found in a studio.

-2pac was robbed and shot by some of Supreme's boys.

-"I got a story to tell" was vaguelly based on a real life incident Biggie had when he was slipping pipe to John Starks' woman.

-Paul C was murdered by his wife and his brother.

-Showbiz has almost been sent upstate for attempted murder twice.

-Big Pun hit Jay Z over the head with a bottle in a club.

-Eric. B beat down Large Professor and ran Kool G. Rap out of New York to Arizona after 'G. Rap revealed Large Pro produced most of the beats Eric B was supposed to have done on the Eric B. & Rakim albums and "wanted dead or alive".

-Biz Markie produced most of EPMD's first album.

-Ghostface, Superb and their team beat down and robbed 50 Cent and Tony Yayo after 50's dis tracks.

-Johnny Juice did all Terminator X's cuts on the Public Enemy albums.

Kool Keith met Godfather Don outside some industry event that both of them weren't allowed entry to. They snuck in through a back window and then hung out for the next month or so recording the 'Don produced tracks on "the 4 horsemen" and, of course, all the classic Cenobites tracks.

-Just Ice was a prime suspect in a murder case.

-Just Ice turned up in Queens on Poet's block after the two Rockwell Noel & The Poet tracks dissing Krs One, Red Alert and Ms. Melodie with a shotgun and waited for Poet to come out. Needless to say, Poet stayed in the crib that day.

-DJ Ready Red was kicked out of Geto Boys and shafted by J. Prince because of his lack of melanin.

-Alpo, Fritz, the original 50 Cent from Ft Greene and various other notorious hustlers/killers from the legendary Paid In Full Posse were in the crew shots on "paid in full" and "follow the leader".

-Rakim recorded a dis cut aimed at 'Kane for "let the rhythm hit 'em" and had a verse on the title track itself aimed at him. 'Kane heard about this and called Rakim to squash it and Rakim went on to scrap the track and remove the verse.

-Eric B. did security for Mike Tyson throughout much of the 90's.

-Diamond D and his old late 80's group Ultimate Force with Master Rob recorded a full album with Jazzy Jay which has never been heard.

-A young Fat Joe and his boys Tony Montana(R.I.P) and Charlie Rock L.D were one of the top two crack crews in the Bronx in the mid 80's and bringing in thousands of $$$$ per day.

-Q Tip got fuked up so bad by one of the members of Wrexx N Effect that he lost partial sight in one of his eyes. ****EDIT***^^^^^very true^^^^^

-Nas came incredibly close to being on the Large Pro produced Kool G Rap, Xtra P, Freddie Foxxx and Ant posse cut "money in the bank" as he was always hangin' around Eric B.'s studio but had gone to pick up some weed with a chick so they let the Ant kid on there instead.

- Main Source (sans Large Pro) ran up in the Wild Pitch offices with machetes looking to behead MC Serch (then working as an A&R for the label) after a West Coast promotional tour went ****ty. MC Serch got wind that they were coming and escaped by crawling over the partial walls for his office and jetting out the back door.

- Grimm was supposed to be on "Live at the Barbecue" but he was arrested on the way to the studio.

-Rza and Killah Sin and another fam member went to see 50 perform after How To Rob and 50 got wind of them being there and dipped backstage and didn't perform, I have heard this one several times.

-Redman Smacked Prodigy around the time Hell On Earth was out b/c he was dissing Keith and Def Squad.

-A member of Wu got jumped at Suge's club in Las Vegas and Pac didn't like the way it went down and told Suge to squash the beef and he agreed outta respect.

*****EDIT*****I thought it was keith that snuffed P out in front of his people at the Tunnel.(shrugs)

-When Nas came to Boston around 94/95 somebody in RSO Crew (possibly Benzino) walked up to Nas and sonned him by knocking his baseball cap off of his head.

-Freddie Foxxx went to Landspeed records like 200 deep in order to get the money they owed him.

-Kool Herc was shot around 78 or something.

-Grandmaster Caz wrote Rappers Delight.

-Pharrel use to carry records around for Teddy Riley.

-Benzino forced Mays to give him part ownership of the source. There are legends of Benzino and his people tying up Mays in his own closet.

-Benzino actually one of the main reasons why Boston had such a small homicide rate in the late 90's, the Feds put UC's on every block and had a lot crazy ish going on so Benzino got a lot of the heads of the bigger gangs together to unite so that not everyone get locked up. That saw the murder lessen and the Boston police taken credit for "doing away with crime in a big city".

-Freddie Foxxx did put Benzino in check on tour with the Flava Unit. Benzino was acting up and Foxxx pulled something out.

-The entire city of Boston was blacklisted back in the day by the industry due to crowds and Boston rappers and thugs attending shows just to cause problems. Every rapper from Audio Two to Biggie had either a bottle smashed across their head on stage or their show cancelled due to a shooting. To this day very few rappers do shows in the Boston hoods because of it.

-MF Grimm was not only suppose to be on Live at the BBQ, but his joint with Kool G Rap or 4, 5, 6 was suppose to be the lead single but he was arrested again and G Rap went with the joint with Nas.

-Grimm also admitted that he came in third at the World Supremecy battle in 93, losing to SuperNat who won but that he was also involved in a shooting earlier in the day.

-Mf Grimm was held on trial for the murder of a cop.

-Everyone in CashMoney has done at least 2 years in prison I believe.

-A boston beatboxer by the name of A-Train is said to have beaten BizMarkie, Dana Dane, and K-solo in a battle back in 88.

-Jay-z was told by Scarface to change Reasonable Doubt because he actually named names of dealers.

-Fat Joe gave Guru a place to live for awhile.

-Guru didnt leave boston in the best of terms which is why the early of stages of his carrear boston did not play a big part. Gang Starr originally started in Boston and had a few emcees in it. Guru left for NY and took the name without people knowing.

-Rakim was still in high school when paid in full dropped.

-JT the bigga Figga returned Nas chain to him when it got stolen in cali

-suge beating the sh*t out of snoop's/ dre homies cause they were using that phone that harry o had an exclusive phone line... and the dudes saying saying to suge "hey we roll wit dr. dre"! first sign of dre holding no weight

-LL Cool J was cool with Alpo and many other rappers had drug ties then.

-Tupac did have some of his enemies killed.

-Eazy-E was from a very middle class family so was Ice cube they weren't thugs

-Some people in Death Row got raped in the building.

-Suge doesnt like game because he expose some of Death Row business (stuff about Harry-O) and because he is not really blood.

-The reason Sheek wasn't around much after LOX split from Bad boy cause he was clearing up cases he had.

-The real reason Mase left hip hop & Harlem is because of heavy extortion, not an epiphany from god


Eddie Murphy lets Johnny gill sleep in his bathhouse to this day because he's broke

Jaheim is in fact gay, i hear he was spotted in atlanta arguing with his boyfriend over dropping his purse or something in the middle of the street :thefu*k:

FACT: as if i had to tell u, i hear from an insider source that Queen Latifah is certified 100% dyke, she just hasent announced it yet

FACT: ghostface killa has a brother still living in staten island, poor, with hardly a pot to piss in, and no support from his well off brother, its true 'cause i used to kno him, names Brian

Kanye West produced some of THE best hits for bad boy back in the day and Deric D-Dot Angeletti was taking all the credit for production because kanye was under him-i heard this many times

I heard Lil kim's on/off boyfriend is a hardened killer and tried to take out sombody in jersey i forget who, i think 50 cent

Artists who i heard were pus*y, most robbed more than twice
Busta Rymes
jazze phae
Nas
Dr. Dre
Shyheim from the wu
Mase(to the 20th power) got yapped for his chain at a knick game
Puff
Jermaine Dupri
camron(still my man tho)
stephon marbury got his chain yapped while takin a nap in his car in NY
Allen iverson's been robbed many times
i hear young buck did get his gunit chain yapped in chicago
DMX, i heard its all a front for image
of course Ja Rule and Irv, but i heard irv's brother holds massive weight
50's hood but i hear he has NO thorough backup
Snoop lost his juice, but is backed by the crips only because he makes songs to crip to.
Jadakiss

Artists i heard were thorough and why
Styles p- one news story i heard is that somebody tried to rob him back during the free the lox campaign, shot the man DEAD and got off on self defense

Cormega-I've heard for YEARS this cat has sh*t on lock in some places in brooklyn and queens

Ghostface & Cappadonna- Reason ghostface wore a mask in the early days is because he was wanted for robbery when the wu 1st blew up, Cappadonna owned some drug houses here on Staten island for a little while after he got money, i dont know if they're still in business

Fat Joe- i dont know any real stories but i hear things

Game-only what i hear from HIS camp, he's been shot 5 times in the chest they say.

Cashmoney CEO's Brian and Baby Williams have a brother who's LEGENDARY in new orleans, now serving 500 some odd years in jail for various murders, this is true, they do have a bro in jail who is hardcore and a lifer

Have you ever heard Eminem claim that he pulled a gun out on ICP?

Well he pulled a gun out on their road manager, trying to prove something I guess, well the sh*t was unloaded, and supposedly he was nervous and his hands were shaking so hard he dropped it.


the only reason purple haze was pushed back so long is because frekey zekey was in jail and couldnt do the skits



heres some bay gossip

e-40 and mac dre were beefin over a girl..its rumored that the two bay legends funk came when a dude from mac dres neighborhood the country club crest, took 40's girl and 40 beat the dude down fro disrespecting his brother. thats why to this day hillside and crest side dont get along...they each made several diss songs before squashing the beef--the hoods havent.

the luniz aint hard but east oakland respects that they went major and still rep the town so they got thier back

as stated earlier posts the game isnt welcomed in the bay--bay artists--but his 15 year old fans would show up

master p was ran out the bay because he didnt help none of the people that introduced him to the game. or had his back.

c-bo is in jail for shootin his baby momma--true fact

luniz and too short beef is because too short wouldnt let them be part of the dangerous crew


suge knight paid that cat $5000 dollars to assault dr dre at the vibe awards specifically during his lifetime acheivement award segment

reason why the diplomats got into the liquor business is because cam bought 3 liquor stores with confessions of fire money, he learned the in & outs & now sizzurp is blowin up

cam'rons dad used to be a singer in a old time group, i forgot the name but ive seen the album cover,kinda looks like him

ginuine's real name is Elgin Lumpkin

the real reason jay-z doesnt like camron is because dame dash gave camron temp ceo position of rocafella at one point while both dame & jay were away on business/vacation, cam was talkin sh*t on radio stations, screamin @ heads who work there like he started the business from the ground up like jay did,he didnt like that

sean paul is not allowed within 100 feet of beyonce or jigga 'cause during the shotting for baby boy,sean paul tried to scoop beyonce by dissin her man sayin somethin alomg the lines of

"get wit a cute nigga like you deserve"

50 cent tried the same thing too


everybody kno busta rymes is aftermath now? :thefu*k:

its rumored that singer houston really didnt try to kill himself, it was a cover up for something muuuch deeper........................


50 cent & ja rule's beef never started be4 they were famous, they didnt even kno each other, real reason's because ja was rollin with his posse one day just after he got famous, saw 50 cent rollin alone (after how to rob) started talkin sh*t so 50 clapped him dead in his eye, this was before ja poked him with a knife


ghost face and capodona

ran in to one of 50's boys (ZOO) at a block party in staten island
d.p from killah army took zoos watch because he was talking to his girl
and they stomped him out

few monnths later 50 seen ghost at def jam and they exchanged words
and then 50 put out that diss track

thats how that beef sh*t started

pete rock was fu*kin nas' baby momma and nas got wind of this and thats why they dont work together anymore

dmx got his chain jacked in toronto on a movie shoot

eric b use to do bodyguard work for suge

DMX used to rob old ladys for their purses cuz he didnt wanna sell drugs...maybe its true most of his crimes were done with other people...

dj premier stopped workin wit jeru the damaja...cuz jeru got pissed when premier was fu*kin his sister...

ghostface said on tony's money "this what happens when u dont give niggas they fu*kin money" in response to de la soul for not paying him for the track he was on he also jacked their beat lol

superb while in jail supposedly wrote all the rhymes for every ghostface album after ironman...lyin ass nigga...

littles jacked alchemist chain at a recording studio?

someone got jacked at a soul assasins studio session while gza was their and everyone but gza was forced to strip lol nobodys fu*kin wit the W

-Big Pun hit Jay Z over the head with a bottle in a club.
^^ my nigga jayson was there, he cosigns this, this is where the fat joe/hova "animosity" started

Jigga was on stage a lil tipsy with the mic and pun and joe came up to rock and hova didnt want to get off.. said some slick sh*t to joey and pun and Pun cracked him with a bottle of bacardi. PUN speaks on it in "100%" if you listen to the lyrics.

Don't let the liquor fool you, cause I'll stick it to you
Somethin sharp to the heart, or somethin big to move you
The Desert or the shottie, whateva you the body
that chose to be the dumb nigga at the party
Too much Bacardi started speakin dumb
Then you tried to snuff Joe - must have been Puerto Rican rum

jay-z did snuff fat joe and did get hit wit a bottle after snuffin fat joe, but after gettin hit wit the bottle pun and joe left quick, it was about to be over for dem cuz hov was strapped, then lance got stabbed, jay didnt do it, but he aint no snitch so he copped a plea, to this day fat joe hates jay, "dont even talk about the rucker"- fat joe's team has won at the rucker, jays team didnt show, "im the proud new owner of the nets, no diploma no regrets, dont even talk about no rucker motherfu*ker i am set"-jay-z, fat joe is yet to respond, and if u listen to the mind right remix jay-z, memphis bleek, h money, and beans, jay is talkin to pun and joe.-just the facts.

jay-z told bleek to put "ima ball til i fall wat u think of that" cuz jay told carmen to tell nas, when nas was callin carmen while jay was messin around with her to tell nas that, im with a real baller now. nas took offense and responded, on ready for war- memphis bleek - bleek quips - "ur life style was written (nas relased it was written)/ who u supposed to be play ur position", on is that your chick hov quips - "jus playing the cards chose for me/ jigga man, who u supposed to be?" settin the stages for one of the greatest rap beefs ever.

source sound lab, jay-z memphis bleek, and beanie sigel went to record for the dynasty and heard nas was in the studio and went to say wat up, no beef, the bleek beef was recently squashed, Nas snuck out of a back door, - Hov- "where nas went?" and niggas was like, "he heard u was comin and left during the middle of a track."

Ol Dirty Bastard and LL Cool J were supposed to work together. Then, when they were in the studio, ODB pissed on one of L's platinum plaques (he was drunk, surprise, surprise) and LL threw him out.

Master P tied up and pistol whipped Pimp C after UGK were running around and telling everyone how P didn't pay them for their guest appearances



Can someone verify this? I heard Master P was talking smack about the eastcoast or something, and Meth smashed him in the face.

Oh, and here's another gem: Mase burned a Wu Tang flag, and Ghost punched him.

Rhymesfest battled Eminem before he was famous. Rhymefest won.

afu-ra knows tae kwon do...
nas dropped outta high school...
rza used to skip class all the time and still get good grades...
OdB has his own chips---http://www.rapsnacks.com/snack_pics/sourcream.gif
afrika baambata was in a gang...
biz markie was the first artist to be sued for sampling...bad news for hip hop to come

I heard a rumor(probably not true) that Jim Jones got beat up by some blood in LA in front of his body guard when the blood asked Jim jones what set he from he said "dipset"

And Fact, Lil Bruce and Dre use to have funk cause Bruce was talkin bout Dre retarded grandma(or mom) at a club on stage.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jerzj75
I don't think shyheim is weak. I sense nothing but realness from him



there was a point were he lived down the block from me, trust me my man,he's been disrespected quite a few times

examples:
one day while playin cee-lo on the block shyheim lost & had the nerve to tell the nigga he aint payin :thefu*k: you kno what happened?

nigga: "oh word?"

he clapped him dead in his face so hard,shyheim blacked out for a few minutes this nigga was laid out,mouf wide open, dude st8 put that head to bed

ducktales? i was there,we was young but we laughed SOOOOOOOO hard


one day shyheim was on one of those motorized scooters when they 1st came out, like the razor scooters but wit a lil motor on the back

his girl was on it too holdin him by the waste

all of a sudden outta nowhere some nigga came up & clotheslined shyheim sendin him AND shorty flyin but what makes it so funny is that his lil scooter was still wobbilin down the block

oh & just so yall know, Allen iverson fu*ked nas babymoms too, thats a fact, jigga even mentioned it in a song, i forgot the name but towards the end he says something along the lines of "you know what,with you kno who"

Krayzie Bone beat up Prodigy

Puffy got caught gettin' head from a dude(rumors has it that it was Mr.Bentley) ****EDIT somebody else said this,not me

Kane & Slick Rick came to blows backstage at the Run's House tour in 88(i think). (Providence RI) Fight lasted about 1 minute before Vance Wright broke it up.

Freddie Foxxx was originally gonna be Eric B.'s rapper not Rakim



One of those Just Ice murders was for a known Drug Dealer

Mc Hammer found out 3rd Bass was coming to Cali, and ordered someone to merk them

Outlaws had beef with Capone and Noreaga, but was squashed later

Wyclef was close friends with Haitian Jack, the notorius gangster accused of sniching on tupac about the rape case,why?

"Tupac blamed Jacques Agnant AKA Haitian Jack for setting him up in the sexual assault trial. Tupac got the maximum penalty while Haitian Jack got 3 months suspended sentence. It was roumoured that Haitian Jack was a Federal informant. pac shouts him out in Makaveli-Against all odds "

play that track & he tells the story

[GANi]

Mooa cate barfe

[sunrah]

Article from 1995 Magazine where Biggie rates other rappers

Alright Heads this is the last time.

This was a question answer session Biggie did with the audience askin'
questions. It was in a free magazine called Peace! This is how he rated
the rappers asked.

Redman: The new Redman!?! Seven. I can't dis him cuase I know he got
skills. He get busy on the lyrics but i can't feel his new shit, his new
cosmic crazy shit. I'm used to the clean cut blowout fly nigga. When I met
the nigga he was a fly nigga, you know what I'm sayin', now he on some
different shit. I reallt don't like when a rapper come out and they blow
up the way they are and they come out again on some changed up shit. To
me, that's like getting some good coke from poppy and then getting some
money and then be like,'Fuck that! I'm getting some more 45ths, some brown
shit and then bag that up.' Why would you change your plan? That's what he
did to me.

E-40: No rating! Zero! I don't fuck with duke at all. At all.

Too $hort: Ten. That's my dog right there. I love that nigga. That's my
man. The calibre of shit he got. Cocktails shit, i ain't got to see that
shit yet. I know that shit it hot! I was with him in Atlanta and we were
just kickin' it and shit. That's my dog. I love that man.

Spice 1: Zero. I don't like that guy at all.

Craig Mack: I don't really like him too much either, dog. I can't give him
a zero though 'cause he got some hot shit but like five...four, since he
on some different shit, some shit I can't relate to. I'm from the hood, he
from the suburbs so it's completely different shit. I don't really like
the music too much. I like the beats but that (scats) it's not rhymes for
me, it's just some prety kid shit.

Eiht: I like Eiht's shit. I give Eiht like an eight. He got some hard
shit, some real shit.

DJ Quick: I like the shit on the soundtrack. That's shit is hot. I give
him a seven...six.

Snoop Doggy Dogg: Snoopy??? I like Snoop. I give him like an eight. I like
his shit.

He sits and reflects on what we have asked and offers, "I'm into fly pimp,
straight flat shit. I don't like no nigga that I have to decipher but some
nigga that I don dicipher I give a ten...Nas, I give Jeru a ten, I give
ummmmm?....

(Someone shouts out KRS-One.)

KRS-One: KRS-One?? Naahhh...I don't like KRS no more 'cause he just think
he's too dope. He let his ego take over his shit and that's what brings
him down. When he was like that (shouts "Blow it to yorself"), when he was
like that, then he was a ten but now, 'I am Hip Hop'!!! Eat a dick nigga.
Eat a muthaphukkin' dick!

Guru: Premier??? Umm...who else I give a ten too? I like Keith. Keith's
shit is hot.

Outkast: I like them too...six...seven.

Big Mike: Six...Seven

Scarface: Seven...eight. He got some hard shit. Face got some hard shit.

R.A. The Rugged One: The white boy??!! The one that I did the jam with???
That's who you talkin' about? Two...might be a three, I did the song, they
paid me a lot of money, that's why I did it. The beat was knockin'.

Dr.Dre & Ed Lover: Those are my boys. I just like them nigga, know what
I'm sayin'. You don't rate niggas. I just like them niggas. They just friends.

Cypress Hill: I used to like them. The first, shit, that first "How i can
just kill a man" joint, I was liking that but that new age smoke out
shit...fuck it!

New Kingdom: Who? Never heard of them.

Da Brat: I like Da Brat. I like her shit. I give her a nice six. She ain't
the dopest female MC but I like her single. I like how she comin'.

The topic of females MC's arrives and Biggie Speaks. "The dopest female MC
that has a record deal that's out right now is Rage, but my Mc that's
coming out, Little Kim, is the dopest female MC that's coming out ever. Ever.
She gets busy like a nigga that's why I like her style. Hard shit! She
speaks on suckin niggas...,shooting niggas, real shit that real bitches do
that they are just scared to talk about, just how I came out, on some real
shit."

Naughty By Nature: I like all of 'em. I got a relationship with Treach. I
got a relationship with Vinnie and I got a relationship with K, but you
know what I'm sayin', the music itself it seems that they just wanna make
that one hit. Once they got that one hit everything else don't count.
That's why I can't dig that. I want a nigga that's gonna be like, 'Yo, I
heard an album that's like nine joints I like three, I like maybe the
single, the remix. I don't want no album like that.

Coolio: I like that new joint, "Mama I'm In love with a Gangsta". I like
that joint. I just like them hard niggas, them niggas that just be leveled
out.

Ice Cube: The old one or the new one? Kickiyaya?Huh It's not hte same
shit. It's like niggas is changing too much for me and I can't keep the
love. I respect the nigga because I know back in the day he used to do
his thing so I can't dis him but the new shit right now is...

The topic of quitting before the game gets up on you is put on the table.

"I quit before it get on me like that dog!! I know my niggas keep it real.
My niggas be like,'Big, you are sleeping. That shit right there ain't no
Ready to Die type shit'. I take my niggas word. If shit ain't right, it
ain't right. I ain't putting it out. I quit before a nigga say Big was
wack. Fuck that!! I produce, get a label, do something. Fuck that!

Tupac: Pac get busy. People can't take nothing from him. On the lyrics he
get busy, straight up. That nigga got some hard shit dog for real, and
it's like the sad thing about it. When he started working on his new album
he's got now, Out on Bail, (retitled and released as Me Against The World)
he had so many raw east coast producers and shit. The shit was sounding
real tight 'cause everybody always says Pac had lyrics but his beats was
back. He was up in New York when he was working on Above the Rim shit and
he was working on his album at the same time. I put him on to Mo Bee. I
put him on to L.G. He has Action, Special Ed's DJ, he had some hard shit.
(HE) went back to the west and just started getting back into that other shit.

Dr. Dre: Beats? Incredible!

The topic of producers arrives and names are fired out for Biggie to rate.

"Who do I think every beat they make is just ridiculous??!!...

Ant Banks: I like Banks. I like that whole shit though. Ant BAnks shit,
the whole Dangerous crew shit."

Who is a ten producer?

"Ain't nobody perfect dog. Everybody got their little faults and shit but
the only one I seen that's been hitting hard with their shit is Premier.
Every joint that he be putting out right now is just ridiculous, from
Jeru's shit, to the new group he got, the Group Home shit, to the shit he
did with me. The shit is hard, yo! The beats is crazy."

Sir Mix-a-lot: Nothing! I love his coats. I would love to be in the game
like how that nigga get in the game. I wanna be just as large as those
fools but get busy, cut the bullshit. Nigga saying...I got millions but
God damn that nigga get on the mic it's just something terrible dog. I
just wanna get busy on the mic more than anything. The little bitch game
the niggas play with the girls, man! A nigga just throw some bitches in
they shit and they just sit there, like from the "Tootsie Roll" shit to
the "Whoot! There it is!" shit. It's the same shit. You get trapped up
with these hoes. That shit ain't got nothing to do with hip hop. Nothing!

The topic of wack lyrics arises and Biggie states:

"I don't wanna be a nigga paying so much attention to the fucking
networking and all that other shit and I'm not paying' no attention to
these rhymes. That's what made me get to where I'm at so I gotta make sure
the lyrics is hard."

K-Dee: "The greatest MC in the world"?? I like that track. Nigga don't
really be saying nothing to me, you know, like lyrically he don't be
saying nothing to me. What make it so bad is when they come out with some
shit that's like half ass and like you wonder like, "I wonder how the
video will be." And then they got a video with this nigga spinning this
bottle and I'm like OK, what's gonna happen when the bottle stops and the
bottle is spinning for like three fucking minutes and then it stops and
everybody laughs like ha, and he spins again!!! Who directed this? Cube,
it had to be. It's just that funny style shit that I can't fuck with. I
like flat on the table shit, like my shit. They try to stick me for my
shit I shot 'em. Period. There's no helicopter scenes with me talkin to
somebody like , 'Well, how's the record doing?' There's no shit on there
that you could be like why is that shit in there. That's how I like the
shit, just regular shit.

Easy-E: (before his untimely death)-I like Easy-E. Easy-E is a real ill
nigga. He's sharp as a tack ontop but rhymin' even he knows. He took a
group from the hood and just put them on and two million. Bing! He know
how to do that shit. Same thing with Luke and all the rest of them niggas.
Man, I just think they take another turn. I can let you hear some Easy-E
shit on some old NWA shit and niggas would think Easy was nice, you know
what I'm saying, so he know.

MC Breed: He ain't come out with nothing too wrong for me. I gotta hear
some shit. I know once when I was in L.A. I saw Breed at Fattburger and
that nigga just took me into the room and just got me smoked out. He had
me listening to some ill beats and shit that he work on production too and
I didn't know that. That's a plus for MC's. If you can make your own beats
you got props because producing is better than being an artist.

Warren G: That's my man. Nigga came to Brooklyn, he came to check me. He
just came to hood and shit, pulled up in a little Crysler, jumped out and
Warren G was on the ave. drinking Crazyhorse and shit, you know what I'm
saying''cause I ain't gonna lie, I ain't going to his hood, staight up!

Wu-Tang Clan/Method Man: Wu-Tang is hot! I like their shit. I love that
shit. I like their shit because they have a real I don't give a fuck
attitude. 'We in this game to blow the fuck up! We don't give a fuck what
happens. All of us is gonna do our thing and we just gonna do it.' And
they just did it. You can hear punches, you hear so much shit in that
album you know damn these guys is not giving a fuck. At the beginning of
CREAM, when that shit start!! Voila! Oh my God, this is some rushed shit
but I dig it.

The Roots: The Roots album. The Roots album is hot! On the strength, they
rock the whole album for a whole hour. I was definetly in dibelief. I like
the single, I really did but other people were like, 'Single was hot but I
wasn't paying attention to the album at all.'

Bonous Questions:

Did you dis The Roots on the remix for "Flavour in your ear"?

"I stepped to them about that. They heard about it but they knew I said
Gooch (a character on the Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges, Dano Plato series
Different Strokes) so that's all they cared about. As long as they knew I
wasn't trying to dis them. It's over."

Are you really the crew who will take it to that other level if someone
steps to you?

"For real! For real! We be bangin

[Shutz]

Article from 1995 Magazine where Biggie rates other rappers

Tupac: Pac get busy. People can't take nothing from him. On the lyrics he
get busy, straight up. That nigga got some hard shit dog for real, and
it's like the sad thing about it. When he started working on his new album
he's got now, Out on Bail, (retitled and released as Me Against The World)
he had so many raw east coast producers and shit. The shit was sounding
real tight 'cause everybody always says Pac had lyrics but his beats was
back. He was up in New York when he was working on Above the Rim shit and
he was working on his album at the same time. I put him on to Mo Bee. I
put him on to L.G. He has Action, Special Ed's DJ, he had some hard shit.
(HE) went back to the west and just started getting back into that other shit.

Mda.. dar asta era in 1995... inainte de hit 'em up, against all odds, made niggaz, hail mary, all out (die slow) si muuuuulte altele.. ))))))
Interviul asta ar fi trebuit dat un an mai tarziu. As fi fost curios sa aflu ce raspuns ar fi dat atunci

[Shutz]

Mergand pe aceeasi idee...

BIOGRAPHY / FACTS ABOUT TUPAC

Birth Name: Lesane Parish Crooks
Legal Name: Tupac Amaru Shakur
Born: June 16, 1971, Manhattan, New York
Died: September 13, 1996, Las Vegas, Nevada
Occupation: Rapper/Actor/Poet
Divorced: Keisha Morris
Engaged: Kidida Jones
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 168lbs
Mother: Alice Faye Williams (Afeni Shakur)
Father: William Garland
Godfather: Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt
Step Father: Jeral Wayne Williams (Mutulu Shakur)
Half Sister: Sekyiwa Shakur
Step Brother: Maurice Harding (Mopreme of Thug Life)



Tupac's given name was Lesane Crooks. He was the son of Afeni Shakur (government name Alice Fay Walker) who was one of the defendants at the Panther 21 trial.
Tupac studied drama at Baltimore's School For The Arts, where he rapped under the name MC New York.
At the Baltimore School of the arts, Tupac met Jada Pinkett, who would become a close friend of his
Tupac was planned to act in the movies Cool Runnings, Higher Learning, Menace II Society and How To Be A Player.
As a young man, Tupac also studied ballet and dance.
Tupac Amaru Shakur was named after an Inca Indian chief, "Tupac Amaru" means "Shining serpent" and "Shakur" means "thankful to god" in Arabic.
When Tupac was 12 years old, his mother enrolled him in Harlems 127thSt Ensemble. He played Travis in "A Raisin in The Sun" in his first acting role.
While he was with Digital Underground, someone once shoved a 12 gauge shotgun in Tupac's face because of a dispute over a woman at a Martin Luther King Jr festival.
Tupac said the individual letters in his THUG LIFE tattoo stood for "The Hate U Give Little Infants F-ck Everybody"
Tupac said that because of his moms ties with the Black Panthers, the FBI was always after him and his family.
Tupac wrote his hit song "Dear Mama" while in prison.
Tupac's first appearance ever was on Digital Underground's Same Song where he raps wearing West African war clothes in the video.
Kidada Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones and fianc?Š of Tupac, has a tattoo of Tupac on her arm.
Tupac was a big fan of Jim Carrey
Porn Star Spontaneous XXXStacy has a tattoo on her arm with Tupacs name and the title of the song "Keep Ya Head Up."
Naughty by Nature, also known as Treach, has a tattoo of Tupac on his left arm.
Tupac has a huge cross on his back that says Exodus 18:11 a reference to where the bible says "Now I know That the Lord is Greater Than All Gods because he delivered the people from the hands of the Egyptians when they dealt with them arrogantly."
Tupac started his career on Tommy Boy Records with Digital Underground.
Tupac was first inspired to rap when a friend of his was killed while he was playing with a gun. His first rap was about gun control.
When he first moved to California, Tupac was homeless for 2 years.
In the movie Juice, Tupac plays Bishop and said the now famous line "Yeah I'm crazy, but you know what? I don't give a f-ck."
Tupac wanted to name his first child Star if it was a daughter Michaelangelo if it was a boy.
On the song Me and My Girlfriend from Makaveli: 7Day Theory the song is actual about 2pac and his gun not actually him and his girlfriend. This song shows how lyrically talented 2pac was to make a song that would seem as if it was about him and his girlfriend but refers to his gun, its really interesting just to listen to it. For Example: I love finger fuckin you, all of a sudden I'm hearing thunder when you bust a nut, niggaz be duckin. Referring pullin the trigger of his gun

Sursa: http://www.tupachq.com

[Shutz]

De Biggie ati uitat...

NOTORIOUS BIG Biography



In just a few short years, the Notorious B.I.G. went from a Brooklyn street hustler to the savior of East Coast hip-hop to a tragic victim of the culture of violence he depicted so realistically on his records. His all-too-brief odyssey almost immediately took on mythic proportions, especially since his murder followed the shooting of rival Tupac Shakur by only six months. In death, the man also known as Biggie Smalls became a symbol of the senseless violence that plagued inner-city America in the waning years of the 20th century. Whether or not his death was really the result of a much-publicized feud between the East and West Coast hip-hop scenes, it did mark the point where both sides stepped back from a rivalry that had gone too far. Hip-hop's self-image would never be quite the same, and neither would public perception. The aura of martyrdom that surrounds the Notorious B.I.G. sometimes threatens to overshadow his musical legacy, which was actually quite significant. Helped by Sean "Puffy" Combs' radio-friendly sensibility, Biggie re-established East Coast rap's viability by leading it into the post-Dr. Dre gangsta age. Where fellow East Coasters the Wu-Tang Clan slowly built an underground following, Biggie crashed onto the charts and became a star right out of the box. In the process, he helped Combs' Bad Boy label supplant Death Row as the biggest hip-hop imprint in America, and also paved the way to popular success for other East Coast talents like Jay-Z and Nas. Biggie was a gifted storyteller with a sense of humor and an eye for detail, and his narratives about the often violent life of the streets were rarely romanticized; instead, they were told with a gritty, objective realism that won him enormous respect and credibility. The general consensus in the rap community was that when his life was cut short, sadly, Biggie was just getting started.

The Notorious B.I.G. was born Christopher Wallace on May 21, 1972, and grew up in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. He was interested in rap from a young age, performing with local groups like the Old Gold Brothers and the Techniques, the latter of which brought the teenaged Wallace his first trip to a recording studio. He had already adopted the name Biggie Smalls at this point, a reference to his ample frame, which would grow to be over six feet tall and nearly 400 pounds. Although he was a good student, he dropped out of high school at age 17 to live his life on the streets. Attracted by the money and flashy style of local drug dealers, he started selling crack for a living. He got busted on a trip to North Carolina and spent nine months in jail, and upon his release, he made some demo recordings on a friend's four-track. The resulting tape fell into the hands of Mister Cee, a DJ working with Big Daddy Kane; Cee in turn passed the tape on to hip-hop magazine The Source, which gave Biggie a positive write-up in a regular feature on unsigned artists. Thanks to the publicity, Biggie caught the attention of Uptown Records producer Sean "Puffy" Combs, who signed him immediately. With his new daughter in need of immediate financial support, Biggie kept dealing drugs for a short time until Combs found out and laid down the law. Not long after Biggie's signing, Combs split from Uptown to form his own label, Bad Boy, and took Biggie with him.

Changing his primary stage name from Biggie Smalls to the Notorious B.I.G., the newly committed rapper made his recording debut on a 1993 remix of Mary J. Blige's single "Real Love." He soon guested on another Blige remix, "What's the 411?," and contributed his first solo cut, "Party and Bullshit," to the soundtrack of the film Who's the Man?. Now with a considerable underground buzz behind him, the Notorious B.I.G. delivered his debut album, Ready to Die, in September 1994. Its lead single, "Juicy," went gold, and the follow-up smash, "Big Poppa," achieved platinum sales and went Top Ten on the pop and RB charts. Biggie's third single, "One More Chance," tied Michael Jackson's "Scream" for the highest debut ever on the pop charts; it entered at number five en route to an eventual peak at number two, and went all the way to number one on the RB side. By the time the dust settled, Ready to Die had sold over four million copies and turned the Notorious B.I.G. into a hip-hop sensation -- the first major star the East Coast had produced since the rise of Dr. Dre's West Coast G-funk.

Not long after Ready to Die} was released, Biggie married RB singer and Bad Boy labelmate Faith Evans. In November 1994, West Coast gangsta star Tupac Shakur was shot several times in the lobby of a New York recording studio and robbed of thousands of dollars in jewelry. Shakur survived and accused Combs and his onetime friend Biggie of planning the attack, a charge both of them fervently denied. The ill will gradually snowballed into a heated rivalry between West and East Coast camps, with upstart Bad Boy now challenging Suge Knight's Death Row empire for hip-hop supremacy. Meanwhile, Biggie turned his energies elsewhere. He shepherded the career of Junior M.A.F.I.A., a group consisting of some of his childhood rap partners, and guested on their singles "Player's Anthem" and "Get Money." He also boosted several singles by his labelmates, such as Total's "Can't You See" and 112's "Only You," and worked with superstars like Michael Jackson (HIStory) and R. Kelly ("[You to Be from R. Kelly). With the singles from {Ready to Die still burning up the airwaves as well, Biggie ended 1995 as not only the top-selling rap artist, but also the biggest solo male act on both the pop and RB charts. He also ran into trouble with the law on more than one occasion. A concert promoter accused Biggie and members of his entourage of assaulting him when he refused to pay the promised fee after a concert cancellation. Later in the year, Biggie pled guilty to criminal mischief after attacking two harassing autograph seekers with a baseball bat.

1996 proved to be an even more tumultuous year. More legal problems ensued after police found marijuana and weapons in a raid on Biggie's home in Teaneck, NJ. Meanwhile, Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Kim released her first solo album under Biggie's direction, and the two made little effort to disguise their concurrent love affair. 2Pac, still nursing a grudge against Biggie and Combs, recorded a vicious slam on the East Coast scene called "Hit 'Em Up," in which he taunted Biggie about having slept with Faith Evans (who was by now estranged from her husband). What was more, during the recording sessions for Biggie's second album, he suffered rather serious injuries in a car accident and was confined to a wheelchair for a time. Finally, in September 1996, Tupac Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas strip. Given their very public feud, it didn't take long for rumors of Biggie's involvement to start swirling, although none were substantiated. Biggie was also criticized for not attending an anti-violence hip-hop summit held in Harlem in the wake of Shakur's death.

Observers hoped that Shakur's murder would serve as a wake-up call for gangsta rap in general, that on-record boasting had gotten out of hand and spilled into reality. Sadly, it would take another tragedy to drive that point home. In the early morning hours of March 9, 1997, the Notorious B.I.G. was leaving a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, thrown by Vibe magazine in celebration of the Soul Train Music Awards. He sat in the passenger side of his SUV, with his bodyguard in the driver's seat and Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Cease in the back. According to most witnesses, another vehicle pulled up on the right side of the SUV while it was stopped at a red light, and 6-10 shots were fired. Biggie's bodyguard rushed him to the nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, but it was already too late. As much as Shakur was mourned, Biggie's death was perhaps even more shocking; it meant that Shakur's death was not an isolated incident, and that hip-hop's highest-profile talents might be caught in the middle of an escalating war. Naturally, speculation ran rampant that Biggie's killers were retaliating for Shakur's death, and since the case remains unsolved, the world may never know for sure.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the release of the Notorious B.I.G.'s second album went ahead as planned at the end of March. The eerily titled Life After Death was a sprawling, guest-laden double-disc set that seemed designed to compete with 2Pac's All Eyez on Me in terms of ambition and epic scope. Unsurprisingly, it entered the charts at number one, selling nearly 700,000 copies in its first week of release and spending a total of four weeks on top. The first single, "Hypnotize," went platinum and hit number one on the pop charts, and its follow-up, "Mo Money Mo Problems," duplicated both feats, making the Notorious B.I.G. the first artist ever to score two posthumous number one hits. A third single, "Sky's the Limit," went gold, and Life After Death was certified ten times platinum approximately two years after its release. Plus, Combs -- now rechristened Puff Daddy -- and Faith Evans scored one of 1997's biggest singles with their tribute, "I'll Be Missing You." In 1999, an album of previously unreleased B.I.G. material, Born Again, was released and entered the charts at number one. It eventually went double platinum, but thus far it's been the only posthumous collection in Biggie's discography (unlike the cottage industry surrounding 2Pac).

In the years following Christopher Wallace's death, little official progress was made in the LAPD's murder investigation, and it began to look as if the responsible parties would never be brought to justice. The 2Pac retaliation theory still holds sway in many quarters, and it has also been speculated that members of the Crips gang murdered Wallace in a dispute over money owed for security services. In an article for Rolling Stone, and later a full book titled -Labyrinth, journalist Randall Sullivan argued that Suge Knight hired onetime LAPD officer David Mack -- a convicted bank robber with ties to the Bloods -- to arrange a hit on Wallace, and that the gunman was a hitman and mortgage broker named Amir Muhammad. Sullivan further argued that when it became clear how many corrupt LAPD officers were involved with Death Row Records, the department hushed up as much as it could and all but abandoned detective Russell Poole's investigation recommendations. Documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield used Labyrinth as a basis for 2002's Biggie and Tupac, which featured interviews with Poole and Knight, among others. In April 2002, Faith Evans and Voletta Wallace (Biggie's mother) filed a civil suit against the LAPD alleging wrongful death, among other charges. In September of that year, the L.A. Times published a report alleging that the Notorious B.I.G. had paid members of the Crips one million dollars to murder 2Pac, and even supplied the gun used. Several of Biggie's relatives and friends stepped forward to say that the rapper had been recording in New Jersey, not masterminding a hit in Las Vegas; the report was also roundly criticized in the hip-hop community, which was anxious to avoid reopening old wounds. Steve Huey, All Music Guide

Sursa: http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Notorious_BIG/Biography/



Pe vremea cand BIG si Pac erau closest roaddogz
Rest In Peace!

[sunrah]

From the Doom site. OH MY GOOOOOOD!!!!!

Behind the Mask of a Villain: Part II

MF Doom on Dr. Zizmor, the forthcoming LP with Ghostface and Noam Chomsky-style guerrilla marketing.

by Douglas Passion | 2005.10.12

For those keeping track at home, we published the first part of the MF Doom interview trill-ogy about a week and a half ago. If you missed it, go back and read the previous jammy now. It's even got an intro to assist you in getting your mottled domepiece in the right frame of mind. Otherwise, continue on, as we discuss Dr. Zizmor, Doom's forthcoming album with Ghostface and even try to work out a Noam Chomsky-esque marketing plan.


As far as references go, you namedrop people like Dr. Zizmor [a dermatologist whose ads are famous on the subways]. Are those floating around in your head all the time, or do you watch TV and pick up a weird name and file it?

Usually it??€�s something I was thinking about for a long time. Like particularly, Dr. Zizmor, like you said. On the subway, in New York City, at the time, they had the advertisements that??€�s right above where you??€�re sitting. I don??€�t know how much dough he paid, but Zizmor had the shit sewed up, as far as advertising, for years. I??€�m going uptown, coming back downtown, so I kinda see his name. But then also, the way I come up with it is New Yorker shit. So, Dr. Zizmor? Aight, fine. Go see Dr. Zizmor, he gonna pick your skin up. So Zizmor, what does it rhyme with? Every time I find a weird word, I??€�m going to try to rhyme it with something. It??€�s natural, it just comes to me like that. The more weirder the word sounds, there??€�s gotta be something that can go with that and be funny. That one came out like that. Zizmor.

Getting into that a bit, when I listen to your old lyrics, you had an intricate flow, but it??€�s not like it is now. You have a devotion to rattling off syllables. How did that style develop?

It??€�s just a update -- it??€�s constantly going to switch. I??€�m like, ??€?Okay, how could I make it iller???€? What are the key points? I??€�m constantly looking for the key points in eliminating every extra; as I??€�m refining, I??€�m bringing out more of the thing that makes it ring ??€� whatever the flow is. There??€�s something in rhyming that makes people want to hear it. It??€�s not like you??€�re just talking on a beat, so it must be somewhere in it. It??€�s the flow of the rhyme or something. But there??€�s extra things you don??€�t need in it either. There??€�s a lot of the English language you can cut out. You can slang it, you can twist it. So I??€�m like, ??€?Whatever I don??€�t need, I??€�m taking out.??€? I??€�m putting in just the core of whatever brings the appeal to a person rhyming. As I broke it down now, it comes to the point where it??€�s just syllablistic references where the more syllables in the rhyming words the better ??€� if you can make them all rhyme with the previous rhyming words. But there??€�s something about the frame of reference. American culture has a lot of frame of references that we can all kinda relate to. So, based on how society is structured with the TV and the witty programs we all seen and grew up to and can relate to from a certain generation, if you mix that with the appeal of ??€?How you put those words together???€? or ??€?How??€�d you think of that???€?, that??€�s just the trick to it. So I try to find new and better ways to do the same trick with less filler.

Who are some other emcees you look at as dudes who string words together really well? Paul Barman does it pretty well.

Yeah, Paul is sick with it. Like, forget it. What? Yo! I think he??€�s too sick with it. People aren??€�t going to recognize how ill until later. He??€�s one of the illest, now that you mention him. Of course, Nas. He??€�s one of the kings of that; he was one of the early ones who was doing it -- or recognized it -- and started really using it. That??€�s the mark of a true emcee ??€� you fuck with words for real. You ain??€�t just trying to be on TV, or in style, or making money. That??€�s cool too, but it??€�s definitely a difference between emcees and rap motherfuckers. An emcee is the one that will fuck with the words and come and spit that shit and it will fuck with you like how he seen it would fuck with you ahead of time. It??€�s almost similar to a comedian, how he??€�ll sit back and know that shit??€�ll be funny before people heard it. But he??€�s putting it together in a way that, when you hear it in a succession of jokes, you laugh in a pattern that he predicted. So I give it to Nas, he knows what he doing when it comes to that. Rakim is one of the great starters of that whole technique of wordplay, really going into it and not just rocking the party. He??€�d go into the wordplay and keep doing it, like do it for the whole album, educated rapper-type style shit. But then you got Just Ice, another ill emcee from back then.

I felt like Lord Finesse doesn??€�t get a lot of credit for doing it either.

That??€�s another one too, yup. There??€�s a bunch of us out there. It don??€�t get as much shine as some of the other stuff, but I think it needs to be like that. You gotta dig deep to find the good shit.

There are rappers who have classics album that have just gotten into multiple syllables within the last few years.

It??€�s a constant, you can go with it forever. Language is gonna change. There??€�s words that we don??€�t even use no more, words from the ??€?40s, ??€?50s, so everything goes 360. We bringing them back too and flipping ??€?em. Even slang from the early ??€?80s that young cats right now done forgot about or never even heard. So I??€�ll spit them joints and cats be like, ??€?What you meant when you said that???€? It almost brings slang back and keeps things remembered.

Some of your stuff sounds almost like 1940??€�s gangster shit.

Oh, yeah. That??€�s funny to me, ??€?cause that??€�s my field right now. I??€�m really into how they used to talk back then in America. It almost reminds me of slang now, it??€�s as ill. So we can??€�t forget about that.

Do you watch old movies just from the linguistic perspective?

Sometimes I??€�ll do that, sometimes I??€�ll read. Most comes from reading, just researching words.

Speaking of colorful words, let??€�s get into the full project with Ghostface again. What??€�s the progress on that?

Well, it??€�s coming along. There??€�s no way to really say. It??€�s like, to me, in my mind, it??€�s already done. We got all the beats we gonna use. I already know how it??€�s gonna come out -- but then again, I don??€�t know how it??€�s gonna come out. But it??€�s coming, put it like that. It??€�s going to be that shit.

I??€�d heard that you were going to be more involved in the beats than the rhymes on the project.

You never know ??€?til the end of it. It??€�s early in the game, but right now, I??€�m definitely producing the whole shit, probably 95 percent of it, unless we hear another beat from somebody that??€�s ill while we??€�re doing the project. We ain??€�t going to go solicit beats from motherfuckers, but there??€�s cats that we fuck with. If it??€�s somebody in the family that come with an ill beat, alright, we gotta throw that on. Other than that, I??€�m producing the whole shit. As an emcee, so far, it??€�s half and half. But I don??€�t know, Ghost, he??€�s definitely really, really good comp. He??€�s the kind of motherfucker that keeps you on your toes. So I don??€�t know, he might have more rhymes than me. I might be like, ??€?That??€�s a wrap." I might can it. [chuckles] But I??€�m trying to keep up with him right now.

He??€�s another guy whose style has adapted. He sings along with hooks now and uses multiple syllables.

Yup, it does back to the old school style. Like Slick Rick, with how he used to do the singing style. Hip-Hop is coming back to a phase where the shit is starting to come back around. The corny shit is really starting to fade, it??€�s starting to lose its luster. Fake chains start to turn green after a while, people start noticing that shit.

In terms of artistic integrity, you pretty much stay in your lane. But we??€�ve seen you on records with Gorillaz or with De La ??€� have bigger labels tried to hit you up? How would they work with you?

That??€�s a good question. To me, you can??€�t sign me. The only way you can find me is if you got the paper; so usually they tempt you with the paper and there??€�s some other hitch to it. They want you to do this. So anybody with any intention of wanting anything other than giving me my paper and letting me do my thing, you ain??€�t gonna find me. There??€�s no way to sign me. I haven??€�t heard about no labels really trying to do it like that. But I??€�m like this; whatever makes it major ??€�everybody in the world hear it ??€� everybody can hear it still without it being on any particular label. So what makes a major label really a major label if it??€�s not the broadness of your spectrum or how many people you can get you music to? If that??€�s the case, we get our music to the whole world too. So it ain??€�t no difference.

If you were an A&R doing an MF Doom project on a big label, how the hell do you market it?

Hmmm.

Can you put Doom with Chingy over a Scott Storch beat?

You??€�d have to do something with colleges or the grass roots level or some Noam Chomsky-type shit. Have him speaking on panels. That??€�s the only way to market it, from the intelligent aspect of it or the wordplay aspect of it. Or the theater aspect. You couldn??€�t come from the propaganda aspect. It wouldn??€�t work at all. You??€�d burn yourself out instantly with the mask factored into it. That??€�s another reason why these cats isn??€�t getting at me ??€� the only thing they do is market shit and sell shit that you have to put propaganda on to sell. Nothing has to do with music. The way to do it though, to a smart A&R, they could G-off right now. Sign him for a few mil or whatever and come from the angle of the theater. Go back to the performance aspect, the art of it. The intellectual aspect, the words -- the etymology of it, the history of words. The way that everybody??€�s the same, but different at the same time. We??€�re all intermingled. Hit from the college aspect, the children at that learning level. That would be the way to do it.

Stay tuned for part three, which we have creatively dubbed: "Part III".