The Police and Smashing Pumpkins are headlining the 2007 Virgin Festival on August 4th and 5th at Pimlico Racetrack in Baltimore, MD but who else will be playing? Only some of the premiere names in rock, hip-hop and electronica.  A few of the most noteworthy acts include 311, Wu Tang Clan, Chris Cornell, Modest Mouse, Beastie Boys, Incubus, Ben Harper, Cheap Trick and Fountains of Wayne. Not too shabby… the entire lineup can be found below.
 Tickets go on sale at 10am on May 5th and cost $175 for the two-day tickets; VIP tickets are $450. If the show isn’t sold out by May 19th, then they will begin selling single day tickets for $97.50. A single day VIP ticket, if made available, will cost $250.
The Virgin Festival chose Baltimore as it’s first United States tour location in 2006 and after a tremendous first showing, Richard Bronson’s brainchild is giving the city a second go. Last year’s event headlined The Who and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and recieved a rave review by music fans who traveled cross country to get in the gates that are also home to one of the Triple Crown Horse Races - Preakness.
This concert is bound to be one of the hottest of the Summer, so leave your calender open on May 5th and pick up a few extra VIP tickets for us!
Do you remember Jin and Poster Boy - the legends from the Freestyle Friday Hall of Fame? I can remember them going from obscurity to sensations as people tuned in week after week to see who they would face next. After each victory they would get closer to the ultimate honor of induction into the Hall of Fame. Poster Boy was the first to recieve the acclaim and Jin followed suit soon after.
Even more rewarding for them were the record deals that followed. Poster Boy quickly put out a single with Swizz Beats (the hottest producer at the time) that ripped a freestyle flow over a bangin Jurassic Park sample. Jin got scooped up by the Ruff Ryders and had his Wyclef produced single - “Learn Chinese” - hit the mainstream.
But after these initial spurts of focus, neither maintained their glory or lived up to their expectations. In fact, we were unable to find much of anything about either artists’ current endeavors. Jin has reportedly dropped a couple albums and at one point changed his name to “The Emcee”, a move that seems pretty bland and boring. Review of a MySpace profile called TheRealJin made mention to Jin concerts in San Francisco and London. Poster Boy, however, seems to have fallen off the musical map entirely.
Below you’ll find one of our favorite ever Jin battles. In Week 6, Skazoo goes first and rips a ridiculous freestyle that looks like it could end Jin’s reign. At the end of the flow he calls AJ’s (the host) wardrobe “terrible” - creating a little ruckus. Jin helps put him in his place with a knockout punch that rightfully sends Skazoo out the door.
If you’ve got any news or updates on what Poster Boy or Jin are up to now… leave a reply. We’re probably not the only ones eager to know!
The guy doesn’t necessarily *look* the part of a beatboxin bboy. But when you check this out you’ll be wowed. The beats get progressively more intricate as he intertwines the sound of a gremlin into the mouth made symphony. Come to think of it… this guy kind of LOOKS like a gremlin. But still - props to him.
Petra Nemcova recently dumped star singer James Blunt after he was apparently caught cheating. Russell Simmons and his longtime wife Kimora recently split as well. It didn’t take the two long to get their love lives going again - they were seen hand in hand at a recent Masquerade Ball for JoonBug.
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If it’s true love and it lasts, that could mean children and it could mean very ugly children. Russell Simmons is an old man with tons of wrinkles! Petra deserves someone more like a MusicLeech.com writer. Hey Kimora, want to get back at Russell? We kid, we kid.
We’ve got the inside scoop on a brand new forum launching for Deejays of all types and it’s at TurntableTalk.com. Whether you’re looking for tips and techniques, product reviews, the scoop on the latest music or you want to promote your own music or business - it looks like Turntable Talk will have it all for you.
The website has a built in MP3 player feature on the top navigation bar and the owners of the forum tell us that winners of various contests will have the opportunity to stream their own music on the site.
The site has a very slick design - here is a screenshot:
The Official Launch Date isn’t set for several weeks, but feel free to stop by, Join for Free and get the conversation going. We’ll probably see you there!
Hundreds of musical lyrics sites litter the internet. Most of them are cheap knock offs hoping to make a quick buck from copying and pasting the work done from others. If you want to patronize one of the first Hip-Hop lyrics sites, possibly the best Hip-Hop lyrics site and one that is continually updated with the most recent content, then visit OHHLA.com.
The site is the Official Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive and has been around for a decade and features lyrics to every song you can possibly think of, from chart topping singles to obscure mix-tape remixes.
The system works based on the huge network of contributors, people just like yourselves, who submit lyrics to the editors, allowing them to stay on top of the hundreds of new songs released each week. User generated content has been the trend of late, with juggernaut web properties such as YouTube and Wikipedia earning all the media credit. But the creators of OHHLA.com have been doing it for years.
Give credit where credit is due. The website is clean and easy to navigate making it easy to find artists, albums and songs with a few mouse clicks. It’s a beacon of light in an industry that is dominated by advertising clutter and spam. So next time you’re looking for Hip-Hop music lyrics do everyone a favor and visit OHHLA.com.
Comedians often do impersonations of celebrities and politicians. But in this rare clip, comedian Aries Spears does a spits a flawless freestyle in the voices of LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, DMX and Jay-Z over the M.O.P instrumental “Ante Up”! Amazing stuff…
Plenty of attention was given to the 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: Van Halen, R.E.M., Patti Smith, The Ronettes and… Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five?
Credited with “fomenting the musical revolution known as hip-hop”, the group is the first of the genre elected into the Rock and Roll of Fame. Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler) and his group of 5 emcees are certainly worthy of the distinction, having pioneered the art of breakbeat deejaying, the fundamental element of remixing used prevalently in Hip-Hop today. But the landmark induction begs an important question: Why aren’t they being inducted into the Hip Hop Hall of Fame? Well… because there isn’t one.
Hip-Hop has solidified itself as not only a chart topping musical genre and multi-billion dollar industry, but a cultural phenomenon as well. The genre has more than surpassed it’s years as a slumbering giant - it has become a global powerhouse - and it’s time to recognize the accomplishments of those who made Hip-Hop what it is today.
Supposing the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame comes to fruition the first question would be the most difficult - where would it be located? In Hip-Hop’s rise, personal tension between Hip-Hop icons Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG sparked a bitter conflict between the entire East and West Coasts, eventually leading to the brutal murder of each artist. Revisiting this power struggle would inevitably lead to a volatile debate. The natural selection would be somewhere in NYC, likely the Bronx. What location would you suggest?
A far more productive and entertaining question is who would you nominate for election into the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame in it’s innaugural year? It’s a tough task, but we’d put a nice round 10 on our first ballot, consisting of the first “phase” of Hip-Hoppers:
Afrika Bambaataa - Grandfather of Hip-Hop, starts to DJ in early 1970s
Kool Herc - Father of Hip-Hop, brings DJ skills and talents from Jamaica
Cold Crush Brothers - Include pioneering DJ Grandmaster Caz
Kurtis Blow - First rapper on a major label (Mercury - Christmas Rappin)
Sugar Hill Gang -Influential artists who wrote “Rapper’s Delight”
Run DMC - Helped bring Hip-Hop Mainstream
Doug E. Fresh - One of the earliest beatboxers and rappers
NWA - Pioneer Gangsta Rap
Public Enemy - Brought political fury to the Hip-Hop world
Year two would bridge the gap into the 1990s with nominated artists such as the Beastie Boys, Tribe Called Quest, Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. Subsequent years would fill in the gaps, past and present. In the most popular “Hall of Fames” (those in professional sports) candidates aren’t elegible for election until they’ve been retired for a set amount of years. This would eliminate current artists such as Jay-Z and Nas would be virtual shoe-ins for entry into Hip-Hop’s hall.
So what group of people would be given the honor and duty of voting on artists for the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame? Should the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame extend beyond music, into of influential Hip-Hop arts such as dancing and grafitti? All viable questions, but one things for sure - no Hip-Hop Hall of Fame currently exists and that’s a problem we need to overcome.
A decade after his murder turned the Hip-Hop community upside down, Bad Boy records released the second post-humous Biggie Smalls album, titled Greatest Hits. While his musical prominence lives on, this effort seems little more than cashing in on anniversary of the legendary rapper’s death.
While the album contains two “new” tracks, it doesn’t provide any extra incentive for long time Biggie fans to dive in. The 17 track album leaves out some of his biggest hits such as Mo Money Mo Probelms, Party & Bullshit, Gimme the Loot, Goin’ Back to Cali and Sky’s The Limit. Perhaps this should have been a two disc album? I think so.
And in the age of CD Burners, there isn’t much to this album - it’s just a heavily promoted Notorious BIG mix tape. With 10 years to prepare for a Greatest Hits album for arguably the Greatest Rapper ever, one would think that P. Diddy would have greater plans for his greatest friend. Why not have a two disc compilation - the first being Biggie classics and the second featuring new artists paying tribute, with original tracks and remixes?
The answer is in the dollars. Slap a few songs together, label it Greatest Hits, put on a couple new songs and watch the dough roll in. It doesn’t do justice to how we should really be remembering one of the most influential artists in the history of music.
Washington DC Radio station Hot 99.5 picked up the $19,000 tab to bail Bobby Brown out of jail on Wednesday morning, when nobody else would. The former R&B star was in jail for failure to pay child support. While Bobby Brown has had several hit songs, he is probably best known for his rocky relationship (and current divorce) with diva Whitney Houston and his legal issues.
The $19,000 needed for bail would have, at one point, been pocket change for the fallen singer. Unable to find anyone to help him out, Hot 99.5 decided to attract some attention by bailing him out of jail in exchange for him “working at the station” for a week. The stunt was organized byKane of the Hot 99.5 morning show along with Brown’s attorney, Phaedra Parks.
According to the station, the singer was given limo service, hotel reservations for himself and friends and other amenities. But when the singer joined them live on-air via telephone, the mood changed rather quickly.Â
Kane framed the promotion as an opportunity for Bobby Brown to have a fresh start and do something positive in Washington DC, potentially winning over fans who have only seen the negative portrayed by the media. In the interview, Kane began discussing the negative portrayed in the media and the singer began a bitter dialogue which disputed the facts surrounding his jailing and release. As tempers began to escalate, Brown hung up the phone, refusing to come to DC as part of the station’s staff as originally promised and contractually obligated.
The On-Air phone conversations with Brown can be found on the station’s website at www.Hot995.com. This follows the “status quo” for Brown, who given every opportunity, refuses to reform his ways. The bitterness surrounding his fall from fame and fortune seem to have perpetuated his negative behavior.
Phone calls around the DC community have expressed anger and frustration at the singer, not only for his antics with the station, but for his continuing legal struggles. Now we know why nobody cared to bail out Bobby Brown… while he’s ashamed of nothing, anyone linked with him should feel very ashamed.
