Death Row Records, the ancient and once venerable record label that brought 2Pac, Snoop and Dr. Dre to fame has finally been sold.   4080 Records has previously reported on this situation, and the failure to get a deal.
Marion “Suge” Knight has been a huge hinderance in this whole process.  His recent criminal activity has definitely not helped the selling price.  At the first auction (which had fallen apart afterwards), Death Row and the back catalogue was sold for $24 Million Dollars.
Now, a Canadian company based in Toronto has bought …

Since Kanye is running out of ways to act like a clown and get some attention, he’s decided he needs a name change.  After all, where do you go after you make an entire album with AutoTune?
Well, you try to change your name to Martin Louis the King Jr.  That’s right.  According to Contact Music.  No doubt this will result in another big rant on Kanye’s blog as he disputes the rumor, but if it’s true I have to say that I’ve lost even more respect for him.
Just to celebrate …

Busdriver is an eclectic rapper, busting out a tremendous variety of styles.  It’s hard to even pin him down to just one type of rap.
He got his start and got super into hip hop thanks to some visits to the Good Life Cafe (a place I would give my left arm to have attended) and has kept a somewhat low profile since then.
You won’t have heard Busdriver on any big label releases, but he’s become a staple of the scene that emerged from the Good Life.  He’s worked with Aceyalone, …

Thanks to Wordle, we got ourselves a little world cloud of 4080 Records.  In case you aren’t familiar, you pop a url into Wordle and it spits out this beautiful world cloud.  I’m not entirely sure if it just takes whatever is in the snippets off the main page or not, but it’s still a neat way to present the data.  And I guess I use the word “pretty” a little too often.

I just caught part of the marathon on TV and that’s what inspired this post.  An all day TV extravaganza of Vh1 presenting their list of the 100 Greatest Hip Hop Songs.  It was a pretty good show too because they seriously dug up a ridiculous collection of people to chime in.  Kool Mo Dee, Grandmaster Flash, Talib Kweli, all the way to Sir Mix-a-lot and Kid n’ Play (well, one of them, anyways).  Comedians, historians, everybody!
The list itself is reasonable, though there’s definitely at least a few songs on …

I hope at least some of you have managed to go see the new Notorious biopic in your local theatre.   The movie, based on the life of the Notorious B.I.G. is pretty entertaining and worth the couple of bucks.  But there are lots of things you should know.  I just caught the film, so I’ll do my best to give you a little review.
First of all, don’t go in thinking it’s going to be any sort of documentary.  It’s a film with plenty of poetic and creative license taken to …

It was an awe-inspiring day all around, and I have to say this is an amazing day for the United States of America.  Barack Obama was officially inaugurated as the 44th President.  He is the first black president, one of the youngest presidents elected, and a heck of a guy.
This is one of those days where you should forever remember where you were, when President Obama was sworn in at 12:00 pm EST.
Some things you may have noticed:
Rick Warren
What a guy.  Seriously!  He’s pretty notorious and controversial, but he gave …

Run DMC, the venerable hip hop group was finally honored and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
This is a huge step, and marks the second hip hop group to make it into the hall.  Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five made it in a few years ago.  Oddly enough, there’s no sign of Sugarhill Gang, which is rather surprising to me.
So this year’s inductees include both Run DMC and Metallica, as well as several lesser known groups.  It seems like an odd grouping, but I’m damn proud.
Props …

And for the record, this isn’t the start of another big bad rant on the state of hip hop today.  I’ve written many pieces on just how much I hate Lil’ Wayne, or just where Kanye can stick those shuttershades.  I’ve railed against the terrible styles of G-unit and passed more than my fair share of judgment in general.
I’m writing this more about truly bad hip hop.  Songs that are not well done, clearly amateur, and pretty much embarassing.  This hip hop schadenfreude seems to follow the general trend in …