News

It seems a joint project between Kendrick Lamar & J. Cole is still in the works.

Sean "Diddy" Combs spoke to AdWeek on Ciroc, Tequila, his music, and his business. Check out some excerpts below.

On Plans for Acting/Producing in The Future:

Danny Brown has a good feeling about 2012. The Detroit rapper – who earned praise all fall long for his release, XXX, and premiered the video for its track "Monopoly" on RollingStone.com last week – discussed his plans for maintaining his win streak as well as his feelings about pal A$AP Rocky, future tourmate Childish Gambino and Pittsburgh MC Mac Miller.

 
What’s changed most for you since releasing XXX?

Super producer Bangladesh recently offered his take on beatmakers jacking his style and why he is often more offended than flattered by his sound getting abused.


For Bang, too much biting can hurt the music industry and drain his sound's popularity.

During Pill’s interview with TheBoomBox, he clears ups the rumors of being dropped from Rick Ross’ MMG label.


“I’m not sure how they started actually. I noticed it when people started f—ing with me on Twitter, but I don’t know the source of it. I mean, it is what it is. It’s mostly Twitter — people that follow me or don’t follow me that hate on me daily, and wanna start s—.”

Common's newest album, "The Dreamer/The Believer" drops tomorrow, December 20th. However, it seems one of the features is not happy with Common's use of the N-word throughout the album.

The famed author Maya Angelou reads a poem she wrote on one of Common's tracks, and says she was unaware that Common used the N-word and that it would be used in this song particular song, called "The Dreamer." Angelou called the word "vulgar and dangerous" to the black community.

A sextape involving the late Tupac Shakur was sold to a private collector, according to TMZ, although for how much exactly it was sold for is unknown. The tape dated back to 1991,  and the background music alone, which was an unreleased, original Tupac song, had reached a bidding price of $1,000,000.

Freddie Gibbs was caught with weed in his bag on Wednesday (December 14th) and was subsequently let off the hook by a TSA agent.

In a message posted on Twitter, Gangsta Gibbs wrote, "The TSA found my weed and let me keep it. They just left me a note. 'C'mon Son'. Lol." He attached a picture of the notice of baggage inspection with the phrase written on it, surrounded by several bags of pot.

The Gary, Indiana native was not arrested and allowed to keep his marijuana.

Yung Berg stopped by Power 105’s The Breakfast Club yesterday morning to discuss a pair of incidents that resulted in physical altercations. During the interview, he recalled being in Detroit, Michigan and not wanting to go to Trick Trick’s club since a member of his entourage had a problem with him, but somehow ended up there.

Since "Stillmatic" and "Hip Hop Is Dead" are celebrating 5 and 10-year anniversaries next week, XXL spoke to Nas on the impact of "Ether." Read what he said on it below.

XXL: How do you feel about the word "Ether"transitioning from being your song title to becoming slang?

Jay-Z and Timbaland are being taken to court with a lawsuit by the children of Bollywood composer, Baligh Hamdy. In the track "Big Pimpin" from 2000,  they sampled “Khosara, Khosara,” which it seems they only had the "economic rights" for and they needed the express permission from the Hamdy children to use the sample.

A federal judge ruled earlier this month that the copyright case will go to trial.

Shyne recently spoke to Time Magazine Online about his conversion to Judaism. Shyne, who was born  Jamal Michael Barrow but has changed his name to Moshe Levi, was in jail serving a sentence for firing a gun in a club and wounding three people way back when with Diddy & J. Lo. He says he experienced a religious awakening while in prison.