• 5 Surprising Hip-Hop Ghostwriters: Will Smith, Dr. Dre and Jim Jones Had Curious Helpers with These Hits

    The hot news in hip-hop today is the rumor that Compton rapper Skeme may have ghostwritten songs for Iggy Azalea, including "Fancy," the no. 4 song of 2014. This news probably surprises no one, despite denials from the performer herself and mentor T.I. that anyone else had a hand in crafting her hits. And if anyone is that shocked or appalled by the news...perhaps they should check out the history of hip-hop. You'll be surprised at how many songs are actually written by the least likely of performers. Here are just a few examples.

  • Ottawa Bluesfest Lineup: Chance the Rapper, Iggy Azalea, Jason Aldean

    The Ottawa Bluesfest has announced its lineup for this year's event, which is scheduled to take place July 8 to 19. Iggy Azalea, Chance the Rapper and Jason Aldean are among some of the big names slated to perform at the 2015 edition. Tickets go on sale Thursday, March 26, for the Ontario festival.

  • Nas Performs With Christina Aguilera Before NBA All-Star Game

    Christina Aguilera performed a tribute to New York City at the NBA All-Star Game this past weekend in honor of the contest's return to the Big Apple. Midway through Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind," Aguilera introduced a special guest: Nas. The Brooklyn-born rapper went straight into his own "N.Y. State of Mind" from 1994's "Illmatic" album, Vibe noted.

  • 2 Chainz, Tyrese Gibson, Mýa Appear in Eric Bellinger's 'Focused on You' Vid [WATCH]

    Los Angeles rapper Eric Bellinger has shared the music video for his Nas-sampling track "Focused on You" featuring 2 Chainz, which you can check out below. The Daniel CZ-directed clip finds Bellinger and 2 Chainz rapping in a mansion while some sort of business deal involving briefcases is going down out by the pool. Singer and actor Tyrese Gibson makes a cameo, and just in case he was not enough of an early 2000s throwback for you, R&B singer Mýa also makes an appearance as Bellinger's love interest — though she seems to be a bit of a forbidden love interest. You can check out Eric Bellinger's "Focused on You" video featuring 2 Chainz here, via MTV:

  • Beastie Boys' Lost "Too Many Rappers" Video Featuring Nas Finally Surfaces [WATCH]

    The Beastie Boys' final studio album, 'Hot Sauce Committee Part Two,' was released all the way back in 2011, but recently, the music video for one of the album's singles, "Too Many Rappers" featuring Nas, finally surfaced online, which you can check out here. The video, directed by Roman Coppola (screenwriting partner of Wes Anderson and son of Francis Ford Coppola), shows the Beasties and Nas rapping in a supermarket, intercut with some concert, studio and home video footage. Seeing as how this was probably the last music video that the late MCA ever shot, it's nice to see him one last time.

  • Nas Performs 'Children's Story' as Part of Slick Rick's 50th Birthday Party [WATCH]

    Last night, The Ruler celebrated his 50th birthday in style, bringing along a handful of special guests, including the infamous Nas. Slick Rick, also known as Rick The Ruler, celebrated his special day at the Brooklyn Bowl, alongside Nas, who wore a generous amount of gold chains in honor of the birthday boy’s standard style.

  • 8 Album Covers With A Childhood Photo Of The Artist

    Childhood is generally not the most badass part of a person's life, which is why childhood photos are often brought out by your parents when they feel like embarrassing you. However, these eight artists embraced these childhood photos, and ended up using them to create iconic album covers.

  • Killer Mike, Young Thug, 34 Others Featured On 42-Minute Track "The Rap Monument" [WATCH]

    Have you ever listened to a rap song and found yourself wishing that it was about 40 minutes longer and had a thousand guest verses? If you have, then you're in luck, because Noisey has released its massive, Hudson Mohawke-produced "The Rap Monument," which features 36 rappers doing what they do best (rapping) for 42 minutes, more than twice as long as Eminem's 16-minute "Detroit vs. Everybody" remix. If you'd like some context, it's about two minutes longer than the entirety of Illmatic.

  • Nas Calls America's Racial Divide 'Embarrassing'

    Ever since he burst onto the scene in the early 1990s, Nas has been one of the most socially and politically conscious artists in hip-hop, which means he has been particularly vocal in recent months about the ever-increasing racial tensions in this country. In a new interview with "Time," the Queensbridge rapper discusses the racial divide in the United States and compares our country to South Africa during its oppressive apartheid era. "It's not cool to look like apartheid South Africa 1988," the rapper laments. "How are we going to be the free world or the most powerful country when inside this country we're fighting because of skin color? That's just embarrassing. I'm one of the guys that's out there saying, 'Listen, it has to stop.'" "America, we are really smart enough to figure it out," Nas continues, "but I guess it's safer to hang out and be ignorant, be hateful and think that one person is better than the other." Recently, Nas has joined Russell Simmons in the New York City protests in response to the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown at the hands of police officers.

  • Wiz Khalifa Samples Mac DeMarco For "Smoke Chambers" [LISTEN]

    asdEven though he has no upcoming album or mixtape projects that we know about, Wiz Khalifa keeps dropping new songs, his latest being the exceptionally trippy and laidback "Smoke Chambers," which you can check out below. The song heavily samples fellow stoner Mac DeMarco's synthpop number "Chamber of Reflection" from his latest album Salad Days, even keeping DeMarco's original "alone again" vocal hook, which ties in to Khalifa's theme of the alienation his fame has brought him. This is the sort of hazy production that Khalifa should be using more often.

  • Kendrick Lamar To Appear As Guest on Final Week of 'The Colbert Report'

    Next week, "The Colbert Report" will sadly be going off the air as Stephen Colbert prepares for his new job as host of "The Late Show" on CBS, but he's determined to go out on top. As revealed in a tweet sent out by "The New York Times" writer Dave Itzkoff, Colbert's guest next Tuesday, Dec. 16, will be Kendrick Lamar. Since Lamar recently performed two songs on "Saturday Night Live," let's hope that he uses his performance on "The Colbert Report" to debut another new song from his upcoming, highly anticipated album (or even reveal its title and release date).
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