The attempt to send Lil’ Wayne to jail has been amusing to watch.  First, Wayne decided that he needed to prep for a year in jail by shooting nine videos in one weekend.  That way we’ll all see a lot of the tear-tatooed rapper even when he’s serving time.
But that wasn’t enough.  Before he could go in, Wayne also underwent eight root canals in one day.  Pitchfork also says that Wayne had his diamond-encrusted teeth fixed up before he went in.  Those procedures delayed his sentence for a couple of …

At the Grammy’s a few nights ago, a very pregnant M.I.A. performed.  In fact, it was actually her due date!
In the words of Queen Latifah, this was a hip hop ‘rap pack’.  Yes, that was a Latifah play on the ‘rat pack’ nickname.  Still, it’s not everyday you’ll see M.I.A, Jay-Z, Kanye, TI and Lil’ Wayne all perform together on the same track.
It seemed to be one of the biggest hip hop Grammy performances in recent memory, which is definitely a good thing.  Plus, it’s not really that bad.

WPvideo 1.10

Lil’ Wayne has decided that his next venture needs to be into the realm of rock music.  The album, titled Rebirth, has been getting surprisingly good press so far.  The first two singles (Prom Queen and Hot Revolver) have been getting all kinds of love from Pitchfork.
Pitchfork, quite frankly, is the last site I thought would get on the Wayne rock train, but I guess they were swayed by him somehow.
Critically, I should note that without a doubt I dig this album more than Kayne’s 808 and Heartbreaks.  At least …

Raise your hands if you’ve heard of Busta’s new track.  If you haven’t, you’ll hear about it soon.  This thing is catching fire, and not for good reasons.
First of all, having a track with a chorus that says “We’re getting A-rab money” is just silly.  Second, if you’re going to do it, at least be smart enough not to sample the Qur’an in it.   Worst of all, they Kanyed the sample (a new term I’m trying out for the gratuitous use of auto-tune).  Now, Islam is pretty strict about using …

Seriously, it’s a phenomena I didn’t even really see coming unti this post by SepiaMutiny.  All of a sudden I could see it everywhere.  Honestly, M.I.A’s supposedly social-commentary-laced track Paper Planes has been really getting a lot of attention lately.
First up there’s a Lil Wayne remix, which is just awful.

Then there’s Rihanna:

Rihanna – Paper Planes

There’s even a bunch of acoustic versions released by no-name Youtube comedians. Here’s one such example:

Oh, and there’s more.
50 Cent’s remix is even less impressive than the ones above.  [Courtesy of 2DopeBoyz]
And for you indie …

This is barely worthy of 4080 News, but it’s at least a little entertaining.  Apparently Lil Wayne just got hired to blog for ESPN.
That’s right, Weezy will now be serenading you with his ridiculous opinions about all things sports-related.  As you can see here, he’s all over the place.  And frankly, it’s not all that terrible.  He shows a surprisingly human side of himself, as you can see here wherehe talks about his fantasy sports teams.
Not something you generally think of with celebrities, but apparently they can be just as …

Lil’ Wayne has been getting mad love recently. The CBC, Canada’s venerable national news service, compared his newest album, Tha Carter III, to “the 1990s opuses of 2Pac, the Notorious B.I.G. and OutKast – mega-selling, landmark releases that altered the course of rap music.” Diddy has called him the “best youngest rapper alive” and Jay-Z has annointed the New Orleans emcee his heir apparent: “As I share mic time with my heir/Young Carter, go farher, go further, go harder” Hov raps on “Mr. Carter”, a track on Tha Carter III.
So …