Posted: Thursday – September 9, 2010

Jay-Z has confirmed that he has signed Will Smith’s daughter Willow to a new deal on his label, Roc Nation.

The rapper/mogul appeared on Ryan Seacrest’s show this morning and confirmed rumors that he snatched up Willow, whose song “Whip My Hair” has generated an instant buzz.

“We at Roc Nation are excited to work with Willow,” Jay-Z told AllHipHop.com in a statement. “She has an energy and enthusiasm about her music that is truly infectious. It’s rare to find an artist with such innate talent and creativity at such a young age. Willow is about to embark on an incredible journey and we look forward to joining her as she grows in all aspects of her career.”

Willow, 9, already has a career, having landed roles in I Am Legend and in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

“After meeting with several record companies, it was clear that Jay-Z, Ty Ty, Jay Brown and the Roc Nation staff was the unquestionable choice,” Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith told AllHipHop.com in a statement. “Their passion for Willow combined with their boundless vision and artistic integrity made Roc Nation the perfect home for our little girl.”

According to Jay-Z, Willow’s advanced beyond her years and has a vision for her career in the music industry, despite only being nine. He noted that superstars like Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder started their careers off young.

“I heard the record first before I knew that it was recorded by a nine year old and I was like man that record’s a smash,” Jay-Z told Ryan Seacrest. “I believe in superstars. I believe on big records on superstars and I think she has both.”

Rap runs in the family’s blood.

In 1985, Will Smith started off as a rapper in known as The Fresh Prince, from the streets of Philadelphia, along with his partner DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Willow’s 12-year-old brother Jaden also raps on a song called “Never Say Never” with teen idol, Justin Bieber.

And their mother, Jada Pinkett-Smith, front a hard rock band, Wicked Wisdom.

A release date for Willow Smith’s Roc Nation debut was not available as of press time.

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Posted: Thursday – September 9, 2010

Waka Flocka Flame will release his debut LP on October 5th. The album, which is titled Flockaveli, will feature his hit singles O Let’s Do It, Hard In Da Paint, and No Hands featuring Roscoe Dash & Wale.

The southern rapper is a part of the Gucci Mane-led 1017 Brick Squad along with OJ Da Juiceman, but neither Gucci nor OJ make a guest appearance on the album. The collaborations instead include the likes of Slim Dunkin, Pastor Troy, YG Hootie, Uncle Murda, French Montana, and Gudda Gudda, amongst others, while Hard In Da Paint collaborator Lex Luger mans most of the production on the album. Despite rumors of problems between Gucci and Waka though, the former showed up at a recent listening session for the project.

In other news, Waka was nominated for the title of Hottest Breakthrough MC by MTV and also received two nods from the BET Hip Hop Awards in the categories of Rookie of the Year and Best Club Banger.

The Georgia rapper will release the music video for No Hands soon and according to him, “The concept is just girls, sexy women. No hands, we in the club, we in our party, we in our zone. It’s about the women. She’s sexy, she’s elegant. We just went from there.”

Check out the tracklisting for Flockaveli below:

1. Bustin’ At ‘Em
2. Hard In Da Paint
3. TTG (Trained To Go) Ft. French Montana, YG Hootie, Joe Moses, & Baby Bomb
4. Bang Ft. YG Hootie & Slim Dunkin
5. No Hands Ft. Roscoe Dash & Wale
6. Young Money/Bricksquad Ft. Gudda Gudda
7. Fuck The Club Up Ft. Pastor Troy & Slim Dunkin
8. Homies Ft. YG Hootie, Popa Smurf, & Slim Dunkin
9. Grove St. Party Ft. Kebo Gotti
10. O Let’s Do It
11. Karma Ft. YG Hootie & Popa Smurf
12. Live By The Gun Ft. Raw Diggs & Uncle Murda
13. For My Dawgs
14. G Check Ft. YG Hootie, Bo Deal, & Joe Moses
15. Snake In The Grass Ft. Cartier
16. Smoke, Drank Ft. Mouse & Kebo Gotti
17. Fuck This Industry

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Posted: Tuesday – September 7, 2010

When Mike Tyson looks back on his friendship with Tupac Shakur, he thinks about the rapper’s big heart, explosive anger — and the one regret he has about their relationship.

“He always wanted me to smoke weed with him, and I never did it, and I wish I did,” Tyson said in a recent phone interview.

Tyson said he declined because he was a closet smoker and didn’t want it to get out that he smoked the drug. Now, when he looks back on the lost opportunity, he says: “That’s my biggest regret.”

Tyson’s friendship with Shakur is the subject of a new documentary, “One Night in Vegas: Tyson & Tupac,” which airs Tuesday on ESPN (8 p.m. EDT).

The 25-year-old rapper was shot after a Tyson fight in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996; he died six days later.

“He didn’t last long, but the time he did last, every minute, every tenth of a moment was explosive,” Tyson said.

The documentary chronicles their relationship, which Tyson said took hold when he was imprisoned in 1992 for rape.

“Every day, he would call me or get a chance to call me or send a message,” said Tyson. “He would get word to me in prison.”

By the time Tyson was released in 1995, Shakur would be jailed for sex abuse; he was released on bond later that year. When he got out of prison, Tyson and Shakur’s friendship deepened. Both found it difficult to find people who truly cared for them, Tyson said.

“Our problem was we always had to worry about someone betraying us, our closest friends,” Tyson said.
Friendship was so important to Shakur that he criticized Tyson when he selected a song from rapper Redman as his intro music at a fight.
“He said, ‘Don’t you ever play those (expletive) songs again, they don’t give a (expletive) about you,’” Tyson recalled. “When he said that, it pierced my soul. … I felt like I did something wrong.”

After that talk, Tyson decided Shakur’s raps would be his intro music for life.

It was partly because Tyson had chosen Shakur’s music as his fight music that Shakur went to Tyson’s fight in Las Vegas. He made a special rap for

Tyson’s big night. After the fight, which Tyson won by knockout, Shakur was to join Tyson at a victory party. But he never made it.

“I felt extremely guilty because I felt if he didn’t come to this fight, that would have never have happened,” he said. “It’s just so crazy that we had talked every day for a week.”

Tyson, 44, said the world never understood the real Shakur.

“He was probably a misguided warrior. He had a heart as big as this planet,” Tyson said. “He had so much love and compassion, and you couldn’t even see it under his rage.”

It’s because of those qualities that he remains larger than life in death, he said.

“He’s going to last until the time this Earth comes to an end,” he said. “I’m glad to be a part of his life and to have known him.”

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Posted: Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Rapper Eminem and the music production company that helped launch his career are entitled to increased royalties from digital downloads of the entertainer’s music on iTunes and other online retailers, a federal appeals court panel decided Friday.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a March 2009 jury verdict that Detroit-based FBT Productions was not owed royalties by Universal Music Group for downloads and cellphone ring tones.

The lawsuit for breach of contract was brought by FBT against Universal, which distributes Eminem’s recordings and is the world’s largest music company.

Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, was not a party to the lawsuit, which went to trial in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles last year, although he could benefit from the outcome.

FBT argued that Eminem is entitled to half the net receipts Universal gets from digital downloads, instead of the lower split agreed to in the company’s first contract with the rapper, signed in 1995 before the explosion in digital downloading.

The contract was amended in 1998 when FBT made a deal with producer Dr. Dre’s Aftermath/Interscope label, which is a unit of Universal, to release and market his albums. Eminem’s breakthrough, “The Slim Shady LP,” was issued in 1999.

The appeals court ruled that the contracts were “unambiguous” with respect to digital sales.

The district court “should have granted summary judgment to FBT,” U.S. Circuit Court Judge Barry G. Silverman wrote in the opinion. “We therefore reverse the judgment and vacate the district court’s order awarding Aftermath its attorneys’ fees.” Universal argued at trial that downloads from third parties such as Apple’s iTunes are no different from any other form of retail sales and are covered by royalty provisions outlined in the initial contract.

FBT, which is owned by brothers Jeff and Mark Bass, gets a percentage of the royalties Universal pays the entertainer.

At issue are the potentially huge royalties earned when Universal licenses Eminem’s music to third-party distributors, such as iTunes and cellphone companies, which market the songs as ring tones.

During trial, Jeff Bass testified that after his brother Mark discovered a 15-year-old Eminem during an open-microphone segment on a Detroit radio station in 1995 and signed him to a contract, they cut an album with him, “Infinite.”

The album was a flop, Jeff Bass said, but he and his brother nonetheless decided “there was something there.”

Subsequently, the Bass brothers wrote and produced more than a dozen songs for later Eminem albums on Aftermath, which sold almost 30 million copies around the world, Jeff Bass said. The siblings won Grammys for their work with the rapper.

Under questioning, Mark Bass said the initial 1995 contract seemed to cover “future forms of distribution,” but at the time, nobody predicted digital would become a major revenue source for the music industry.

Source

Published: Friday – September 3, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Philadelphia, PA

Hip Hop/ R&B Supergroup KIN4LIFE and DJ Jai Syncere Release New Mixtape “Welcome To Planet Noriq”, available for free download at www.DatPiff.com.

August 25, 2010–Hip hop/R&B supergroup KIN4LIFE announces the release of their highly anticipated 20-track mixtape “Welcome to Planet Noriq”. Hosted by 5 Star DJ Jai Syncere, the mixtape showcases the exceptional lyrical skills of Atlanta based KIN4LIFE buoyed by their unique reworking of today’s hottest tracks. The project is available for download at DatPiff.com:  HYPERLINK “http://bit.ly/bpq3FX” http://bit.ly/bpq3FXA new day is upon us and hip hop’s answer to the question “what happened to the female rap game” is here. Blessed with the lyrical prowess to compete with the hottest emcees in the business, as well as singing every R&B hook on their album and being touted as the female version of The Neptunes, the female Hip Hop duo KIN4LIFE is a triple threat. Together as a group for ten years and friends for over fifteen, IQ and Nor have solidified their family ties and KIN4LIFE has never had a truer meaning.Born and raised in Mt. Vernon, NY, a town known for its contribution to hip hop in the late 80s and early 90s, KIN4LIFE is determined to bring hip hop glory back to their hometown and respect back to their genre. As young black entrepreneurs, IQ and Nor founded their label, Noriq (pronounced Nor-reek) Records in 2002. Under their imprint, KIN4LIFE released an album”KIN4LIFE Volume I” and the EP “Rock Star”.

The video for the hit single “Make Up Girl” held a spot on the Click List Countdown on MTV’s Logo for 11 consecutive weeks, and was nominated for The Click List’s Top 10 Videos of 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/tiffjones820#p/u/63/pTG-g18xgmc). With major overseas play in the UK, Italy, France, Canada, the US market is next. KIN4LIFE kicked off 2010 with the release of a new EP “I Love KIN4LIFE”, a tribute to all the die-hard fans that have supported the group on their journey. The group’s 2010 schedule includes headlining at: the GO Magazine New York Nightlife Awards show in April; Pride celebrations in Philadelphia, Toronto, South Carolina and other cities; and Inferno Dominican Republic on Labor Day weekend.KIN4LIFE admits that their first love is emceeing, but their production and songwriting skills have makes them a hot commodity behind the scenes. Working with the hottest up and coming hip hop and R&B acts, KIN4LIFE has garnered comparison to Missy, prompting them to form Noriq Records’ subsidiaries, Red Eye Productions and The KIN Factory (writing and production). KIN4LIFE recently showcased their talent as producers, winning the “King of the ATL” battle at the industry proving ground Producer’s Swap Meet in Atlanta in the fall of 2009.

Their track “Money Brings Trouble” has been selected for placement in the feature film “Changing the Game” directed by Rel Dowdell. KIN4LIFE will also serve as instructors at the Songwriters in Paradise conference and workshops in St. Croix, V.I. in October 2010.With the release of “Welcome to Planet Noriq”, KIN4LIFE closes the summer with one of the most notorious mixtape offerings of 2010.

Track listing:.
1.PLANET NORIQ INTRO
2.PLANET NORIQ
3.80′S BABY
4.BLOWING MONEY SLOW (BMS)
5.ABOUT MY BUSINESS
6.HOOD BITCH INTERLUDE
7.IN MY HOOD
8.LAUGHING AT YOU
9.HUNTING SEASON
10.SEVEN ELEVEN
11.EVERY GIRL
12.GETTIN SOME REMIX Ft Young Gattas
13.POP THAT KITTY RMX Ft Amba White
14.IM BORED REMIX
15.FUNNY HOW TIME FLIES
16.SO STUCK
17.Smell That WEED INTERLUDE
18.CHAMPAGNAY
19.SO SEXY
20.Love

KIN4LIFEOfficial Website: www.kin4life.com
EPK: www.reverbnation.com/kin4life
MySpace: www.myspace.com/kin4life
YouTube: www.youtube.com/TIFFJONES820
Twitter: www.twitter.com/KIN4LIFE
UStream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kin4life-tv-tester

Booking Inquiries:
Melody Forrester, Esq. Artists First, Inc.
mforrester@artists1st.net
(267) 252-1086

Posted: Friday – September 3, 2010

Former Atlanta Mayor Andy Young has weighed in on the arrest of T.I., claiming the rapper may have been stopped for “DWB – Driving While Black.”

T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Cottle were arrested after they were stopped in the rapper’s Maybach on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, for allegedly making an illegal U-turn.

Police allegedly smelled the odor of marijuana, searched the vehicle and uncovered a small amount of ecstasy and what is reported to be meth-amphetamines.

Young questioned the police’s initial intent when they stopped the chart-topping rapper/actor, who recently starred in the #1 hit movie, Takers.

“There’s another culture in L.A. that I don’t understand,” Young told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Most people in Los Angeles would wonder why he was stopped. I don’t know why they should have been stopped … When a black man is stopped and not speeding … you call that driving while black.”

Young, who officiated T.I.’s wedding to Tiny in July, also counseled T.I. after the rapper pleaded guilty to federal drug charges.

T.I. immediately notified his probation officer of the arrest, as required by the terms of his probation.

At press time, T.I. is heading back to Atlanta. He will most likely have to appear in court where Judge Charles Pannell Jr. could revoke his probation and send the rapper to jail.

“T.I. is going to be back on his way to Atlanta in the next 24 hours,” Don Samuel, one of T.I.’s lawyers, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s almost certain he’ll end up appearing before the court here. But without knowing all the facts, it’s premature to speculate what the court is likely to do.”

According to the terms of T.I.’s probation, the rapper cannot possess or use any narcotic, or frequent any place drugs are sold, used or administered.

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