Hip-Hop Media Training

  • After years of critical acclaim, Sri Lankan-bred rapper M.I.A. scored a hit when her song "Paper Planes" was featured in the trailer for the Seth Rogen film Pineapple Express. It didn't matter that the song had been released more than a year earlier on her album Kala.The new found hype even earned her a Grammy nomination for record of the Year.

    Well, there is a new female MC from South Asia on the horizon, and she too raps politics.

    Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari is the18-year-old daughter of assassinated Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto, the first woman to head a Muslim state, served as prime minster from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996. Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, became president in September.

    Bakhtawar wrote and produced a rap "I Would Take Away The Pain" about her mother, who was fatally shot in December 2007. Bakhtawar's tribute was uploaded to YouTube last week and gives a chilling account of her mother's slaying and also praises her for her courage as an activist.

    When I saw

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  • The internet is flooded with 2008 lists--top news, best albums and wildest moments. But for the past five years, none have summed things up better than Skillz.

    The Virginia based MC has dropped his "Wrap Up 2008" that compiles the year's hip-hop highlights. As usual, Skillz' brutally honest account of the year spares no mercy on the newsmakers, leaving Suge Knight, 50 Cent, Rick Ross, R. Kelly and dozens of others victims of Skillz' comic wrath.

    My favorite lyrics are about K-Ci & JoJo and Keyshia Cole's The Way It Is BET reality series. I won't spoil them for you. Check it out.

    Watch an outtake from Keyshia Cole's The Way It Is and see if you agree with Skillz' opinion about the show. 

    Below, see the clip that earned R&B duo K-Ci & JoJo a mention in the song. 

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  • LL Cool J has become a victim of identity theft, and the authorities at Hip Hop Media Training have found the culprits.

    Basically, every rap artist who has released a song this year has borrowed LL Cool J's "I Need Love" hip-hop ballad formula to find their way on the charts. The hip-hop ballad has been the hip-hop artist's no-brainer way to secure radio play for several years, but things have recently intensified.

    Rap artists have continued to produce more easygoing, melodic songs with R&B choruses. However, the likes of Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Nelly have gone as far as to not only sing the hooks themselves, but to sing entire songs.

    Additionally, almost across the board, rappers from T.I. to Plies to Soulja Boy Tell'em have released songs with the female fans in mind, boasting about their ability to satisfy their women physically, emotionally and/or materialistically.

    Have rappers gone soft?

    Here is my assessment on a few recent examples.

    Kanye West
    "Love Lockdown"

    Kanye has never

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  • Did you see the viral video about a concertgoer who threw a penny on stage during a Kanye West performance?

    Instead of stopping the show, a justifiably angry Kanye just kept singing, but changed the words. "What if that sh-t had hit me in my pretty ass-face," he sang. "If you want to make yourself known, I'll smack you in your f--king face."

    The crowd freaked out with applause. They loved it. They got off on seeing Kanye lose it live. Their near $100 tickets were worth it.

    If you feel even a little bit envious of the troublemaker who interrupted Kanye's set and wish that you too could do something to remind the overconfident rapper and producer that he needs to chill, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert has an assignment for you.

    Click right here and purchase A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift Of All.

    Last week, The Colbert Report host announced the Humble Kanye campaign where he sought to quiet the egotistical West by knocking his 808s And Heartbreak album out of the Number 1 spot on

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  • Amy Winehouse's marriagewasn't just the worst thing to happen to her music. It appears to be the worstthing to happen to her personally.

    The controversial singer finallyhas an alibi for being hooked on drugs, and it's a good one. Her husband BlakeFielder-Civil recently admitted to introducing her to hardcore drugs.

    In the U.K.publication News of the World, aremorseful Fielder-Civil takes responsibility for giving his wife crack cocainein addition to other illegal substances. He claims he would divorce her if itcould help save her life.

    Us magazinepicked up the News of the Worldreport in which, in my opinion, Fielder-Civil is conveyed as someone lookingfor sympathy.

    I appreciate Fielder-Civilfor being man enough to admit his wrong. That's always a good starting point.But I question his being so willing to walk away from the marriage. I believethat people need to clean up their own messes. If he is cognizant enough toacknowledge his role in her demise, he should be just as willing to

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  • Someone just asked me what I thought of Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak and it was hard for me to answer.

    Last month I blogged that I liked the album's first single "Love Lockdown" but could not get past the fact that the outspoken rap star could not sing. I even joked that "Love Lockdown" was cool, but that Kanye should stick to rapping and absolutely not release an R&B album. Two days later, I found out that 808s & Heartbreak mainly featured Kanye singing, as opposed to rapping.

    808s & Heartbreak isn't so much an R&B album as much as it just features Kanye West singing on the majority of the songs. A lot of rappers sing their way through their rhymes-Nelly, Snoop, will.i.am-so this isn't the first time a rapper has tried this. However, it has to be among the first times that a rapper has released an entire singing album.

    Though Kanye's singing talent is suspect, his production is still among the best. The music is consistently good throughout the album, and Kanye tries keep his

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  • I wasn't sure what to think when I heard that Beyonce was already releasing a new CD, a double CD at that. I immediately liked "If I Were A Boy" but wasn't so sure about "Single Ladies." But after listening to the entire double CD set, I have to give her props. Here are my reasons why:

    5. It's a double CD, sorta - There are only 16 songs. Artists generally use the double CDs to force die-hard fans to pay extra to purchase even more wack filler tracks. But I Am...Sasha Fierce is just 16 songs, the length of a regular album. It sequences separately her club and dance tracks which make for a better listening experience.

    4. The quality of Beyonce's ballads evolves - Instead of sophomore lyrics about love, I Am...Sasha Fierce slow jams like "If I Were A Boy," "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Disappear" are more sophisticated. Beyonce's spin on the classical song "Ave Maria" is dope. In one sense, the thought of attempting to modernize such a classic song is a bad idea. But she pulls it off.

    3.

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  • Consider this...

    Oprah premiered will.i.am's "It's A New Day" song Friday. The song is the Black Eyed Peas frontman's reaction to Barack Obama's Tuesday night win as the 44th president of the United States.

    Obama's win was a milestone as he became the first African-American president.

    Oprah, an early Obama supporter, who was captured on the news in tears election night, clearly was selective when planning her post-election coverage. Yet, she welcomed will.i.am on her show to help the nation celebrate.

    It's great that Oprah featured a hip-hop artist in this capacity to share this triumphant message. The hip-hop community had been convinced that she didn't like them.

    Ice Cube was vocal when Oprah invited cast members from his film the Barbershop on her show, but excluded him. Ludacris has complained that when he was on her show along with co-stars from the Oscar winning Crash that the media mogul only asked him questions about his misogynistic lyrics. And others were upset last year

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  • T-Pain is not dissing Kanye, DJ Khaled or Akon. They appear in the video for his new swagger jacker diss track "Karaoke." T-Pain has also excluded Lil' Wayne from any of the venom he spews on the song that claims that unidentified artists have borrowed his style without permission. But even without naming names, the rappa ternt singa manages to create one of the year's funniest viral videos.

     

    The video opens with T-Pain and Kanye in a men's restroom, suggesting Auto-Tune abuse. T-Pain exits to find a middle aged Asian man in a business suit performing his hit "Can't Believe It" on a karaoke stage. A frustrated T-Pain bum rushes the performance to salvage his song as his animated hype man DJ Khaled verbally assaults the audience of mainly elderly, seemingly out of place white people.

    There is obviously genuine beef behind T-Pain's profanity filled accusations. But this may be the first hip-hop diss so funny (in video at least) that the attacks on other nameless rappers get lost in the

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  • Mariah Carey's husband Nick Cannon just one upped Usher's wife Tameka Foster.

    Earlier this month, I questioned whether or not Usher disrespected Tameka in his "Trading Places" video that features him rolling around in his boxers with a half naked video vixen.

    Many of you thought that Usher's video was par for the course and that Tameka, newlywed or not, should not take offense. You argued that Usher was acting and it was simply work.

    Apparently, Nick feels the same way about Mariah's "work" in her brand new video "I Stay In Love" that features a scantily clad Mariah acting like she has a jones for the male lead with whom she gropes and kisses.

    I know that Nick approved of his wife's love scenes because he directed the video.

    Yup. Nick had a say in the video's storyline, the choice for male lead, the costuming (or lack thereof), and most interestingly, he was the guy who announced when it was time for some "action" or to "cut." Judging by some of the racy scenes, the video set must

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News for You

  • The new consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony

    NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft is the last of the three big video game console makers to unveil its latest gaming system. The unveiling comes nearly eight years after the Xbox 360 went on sale. It follows last fall's debut of Nintendo's Wii U and a preview in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4 from Sony.

  • Singer Kellie Pickler named new 'Dancing' champ

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kellie Pickler came into the final "Dancing With the Stars" episode in second place but finished in first.

  • Woman on Trump: 'Somebody had to stand up to him'

    CHICAGO (AP) — An 87-year-old woman who alleges Donald Trump cheated her in a skyscraper-condo sale told jurors Monday she had qualms about suing the real estate mogul and TV celebrity. But, she quickly added, "Somebody had to stand up to him."

  • Disney-owned ESPN cutting hundreds of jobs: source

    By Liana B. Baker (Reuters) - ESPN, the sports channel that is Walt Disney Co's most profitable unit, is cutting 300 to 400 jobs across the company and closing a small Denver office, a person with knowledge of the cuts said. The job cuts, comprising 4 to 6 percent of ESPN's staff of 7,000, include open positions that will not be filled, said the source, who asked not to be named because the information is not public. But ESPN will continue hiring for other open positions, the person said. The channel has recently won rights to exclusive coverage of the U.S. ...

  • Man pleads guilty in Picasso vandalism case

    HOUSTON (AP) — A man accused of vandalizing a 1929 Pablo Picasso painting in a Houston museum — an act that was caught on cellphone video — agreed Tuesday to a two-year prison term as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.

  • NY Cuomo letter warns Kardashian over T-shirt logo

    ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's sent a letter to Khloe Kardashian informing the reality star the logo on her T-shirt line may be violating copyright law.

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