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Here’s a small treat for you, I put together album covers from several Hip Hop inspired and inspirational albums of all time.  Of course I don’t have enough room to put everything up because it’s a very long list, but I did what I could with the space that I have.  Check this and let me know what you think….

Inspirational Hip Hop albums and the albums that inspire Hip Hop

Back in the late 70′s and eartly 80′s graffiti artists were king in NYC.  Graffiti artists helped shape Hip Hop into the culture that it is today.  Hip Hop consists of DJing, Rapping, Breakdancing and Graffiti art.  All of these art forms worked together to form Hip Hop.  Even though Graffiti has out a little bit since the red subway cars that washed off the ink really easy, it is still very much a part of Hip Hop.  Graffiti started out as simple tags and turned into whole subway cars and eventually a crew called the Fab 5 did a whole train (10 cars).  These bandits back in the day were like celebrities.  I remember the most famous ones like Blade, Comet, Lee, Seen, Phase, Pink and many more.  If someone said that they knew them we’d be like, “Word!”  There were also crews because you had to stick together to not get caught, crews like, TC5 (The Crazy 5), TAT (Top Artist Talent), TPA (The Public Animals) and the most famous was TF5 (The Faboulous 5ive).  TF5 made the famous whole train and had artists who appeared in the first Hip Hop movie ever made Wild Style.  The most famous member of this crew was Fab 5 Freddy (not his tag name due to protect the guilty), these artists were on the most wanted list as were a whole lot of them.  You can find some famous artists in this movie like Lee and Pink aka Lady Pink.  The most famous tag I’ve seem the most were done by Blade and Comet.  The most famous tagging place was 149th st and the Grand Concourse in the Boogie (Down Bronx for those that don’t know).  Read more about the history of NYC Graffiti writers and the history of Graffiti art at this great site that I found called @149st.  I’ve posted a few of the pics from this site below, but check out the site because they have tons more and they are great and the site is very informative.  Makes me proud to grow up in the Boogie back in these days.

Blade

Fab 5 Fred

Lee

Nicer

Pink

Seen

Malcolm McLaren

Malcom McLaren the self proclaimed inventor of Punk Rock died Thursday April, 8th in a hospital in Switzerland from mesothelioma.  He was 64.  Know most for managing the 70s punk rock bank the Sex Pistols, but us Hip Hoppers remember him more for his early 80′s smash Hip Hop hit with the World Famous Supreme Team, “Buffalo Girls.”  The Supreme Team were a group of scratch and mix DJ’s from a radio station in NYC, WHBI that played Hip Hop early in the morning during the week in the early 80s when no other station would play too much Hip Hop at all (how many times was I tired staying up for this during school).  So Malcolm hooked up with them made a Hip Hop scratch song from and old Country song and it took off.  I think we can not only call him the inventor oh Punk Rock but the first white boy in Hip Hop.  Check out the video for “Buffalo Girls” below and enjoy.

I know I said it before, but I cannot stress enough, Chicago gals are hot.  Remember us introducing the lovely and spit-fire Tina B from Chi-Town?  Well we couldn’t get enough of her and wanted to share some of her music with you.  Click the link below to check her out on Myspace, her personal website is coming soon.  Her music is raw, mad lyrics from the young lady coming from one of the roughest cities in the world.  Don’t forget the fact that she looks mad good too, what else can we ask for?  Hmmm let’s see, does she watch sports and play video games?  But let’s stay focused, check out some of her music that she bangs out, NICE!  The world needs an MC like Tina B because of all the Nicki Manaj’s out there.  Tina please show them how it’s done star!

Tina’s Myspace

Erykah Badu

Erykah Badu has been Hip Hop’s sweetheart for a very long time.  Her weirdness, beauty and soulful voice is somethingwe couldn’t resist.  But Feb 2008 was a terrible year for Ms Badu.  After not coming out with any new music since Sept 2003, she comes out with the album New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War.  Until then Badu has been known for many things, making a wack album was not one of them.  But after listening to New Amerykah Pt 1 it was terrible.  Only two good songs on the whole album, not really an album more like an EP.  I was disgusted because I’m the biggest Erykah Badu fan in the world.  I even tried to listen to the album over and over to see if it would grow on me.  Nope!  But now here comes her new album New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh out March 30th, 2010.  Ahhhh a refreshing Badu is back again with her soulful Hip Hop inspired music.  She’s sounding a little Billie Holiday-ish on the album.  Very very nice!  The first track 20 Feet Tall is like a 3 minute intro to the album.  Window Seat the second track on the album is very soulful almost jazzy.  Agitation I guess is like another intro with some hot instrumentals.  But the banger on this EP is the song Turn Me Away (Get Munny) is crazy!  With Jr Mafia’s Get Money sample with a soulful music and Erykah’s Billie Holiday-sounding self is off the chain.  The next track Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long is another hot Hip Hop inspired soulful Erykah song.   Umm Hmm is another nice Badu track, sounds very Mama’s Gun like.  Love is like a funk track, nothing special, it’s just OK.  You Loving Me (Session) is Eryka’s attempt at comedy I guess, I didn’t find it very funny, I’ll let you hear it for yourself.  Fall In Love (Your Funeral) is another great song by Badu being very honest about falling in love with her.  Another Biggie sample in here, singing “There’s gonna be some slow singing, flower bringing if her burglar alarm starts ringing.”  Yeah no doubt look at Andre and Common!  Incense Feat. Kirsten Agnesta is some soulful bugged out

New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh

mostly instrumental high Badu song.  Out of My Mind Just In Time is a weird outro that you would expect from Badu.  All in all I give this album like an 85% out of 100.  I would’ve gotten a 95 or 100 if it was a full album.  Almost a classic like Mamas Gun but not enough, get it for only $10.  If you’re in NYC you can probably get it for like $6 or $8 in the village.  Check out her video for Window Seat, the path she walks is the path JFK got shot, the X is where he was shot at. The video was shot Guerrilla style, in one take with no extras.  So the people in the video were just chillin’, LOL!  Damn look at the fat ass on Badu, damn she’s fine than a muh fhuqua!

OK Badu said she was making a statement against “groupthink.”  Groupthink is a way of thinking, those who use the groupthinking ideology try to limit or eliminate conflict from a discussion without properly analyzing the opinions and ideas that were presented over the course of the conversation.  Boy oh boy, there’s going to be some highly mad people behind this video.

We’ve talked about Luda’s upcoming album Battle of the Sexes before.  As the album comes along he’s trying to recruit some other artists for his upcoming project.  So far sounds like it’s going to bang.  So far he has Nicki Manaj, Lil Kim, Eve and Trina.  But as he tried to enlist Lauryn Hill to make an appearance, she said no.  Luda sounds disappointed as he tells the associated press, “I think Lauryn Hill is like extremely talented and I can say I did try to do that , it just didn’t work itself out.”  Lauryn Hill hasn’t recorded since the 1998 Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.  Oh well I guess she’s just too busy doing other things.

Pharoahe Monch is teaming up with Duck Down Records to release his next album called WAR (We Are Renegades).  Monch is a veteran MC that has always made good music and keeps it real never making pop songs.  His most famous joint is “Simon Says,”  a song he got sued for using a Godzilla movie sample in.  Monch says about his new partnership, “I’m incredibly excited about my upcoming release W.A.R. (We Are Renegades) and my new partnership between my company W.A.R. Media, LLC, and Duck Down Music. I am working diligently to finish the work for a summer release and I am honored to join forces with the Duck Down family during their 15 year anniversary.” Man doesn’t that sound like the yearbook answer huh?  But any way the new album is going to have featured artists like Vernon Reid, Jean Grey, Styles P and Black Thought.  Sounds like another hot album from Monch, his last album Desire back in 07 was very good, not great though, but a solid album.  We look forward to another solid effort and hopefully more with the line up he has so far.

Whatever you say about Rick Ross, he doesn’t pay his child support, his baby moms is a whore pornstar, you can never say he makes wack music though.  He’s not the best rapper but he always seems to make good songs as a whole.  Remember Every Day I’m Hustling?  Damn that shit was hard!  But now he has this song with John Legend called Sweet Life, sounds pretty cool and laid back.  John Legend lends an R&B hand on the track.  This song is the first single off of his upcoming 4th album, Teflon Don.  No release date but Ross says this will be the album of his career.  Check the song and let me know what you think.  On the real if you see some of his latest pictures, he needs to loose a lot of weight, he really looks like a nasty fat pig lately.

Here’s some great marketing made famous from the independent rapper Ras Kass.  He’s asking fans to donate money so he can release his next album on CD and Vinyl.  The not titled as of yet will have 18 to 20 tracks on a limited edition CD and Vinyl.  There’s also no release date but he’s trying to raise $3800 is supposed to fund the cost of the CD’s and Vinyl.  The studio time was funded by the fans who supported his last album The Quarterly.  Check the site KickStarter.com t0 see the insentives for making donations.  For example if you pledge $15 or more you get a copy of the CD and link on Kass website.  Sounds like a great idea, and it seems like fans have his back.  There’s no official release for his album but it is supposed to drop spring of 2010.  Check for it, Kass is a great lyricist from back in the day.

Hey people, coming soon HipHope.com Radio to Shoutcast.  So check back often for the latest updates.  We’ll have guest DJ’s all types of Hip Hop and Reggae music.  We’ll play your favorites plus the undaground.  All artists hit us up to submit your songs to be played in rotation.  It will start out slow then eventually be up to 24 hours, details are being worked out as we speak.  Hit me up with any requests….

Puffy teams up with Trina and adds her to his Ciroc Vodka campaign.  He recruits her after chillin’ in Miami for the Super Bowl.  Diddy says, “She’s an official Ciroc girl.”  Not know what her official duties are going to be but Diddy explains, “She’s gonna be helping us, we gonna be doing it together. We got a new partnership that we rocking with but most importantly, the record and a video is off the chain.  You gonna see us performing the joint live, too. She’s gonna have the full-length chinchilla and just be buckey-naked with some stickies on. You know what I’m saying, because the body is thorough. Believe that, she’s in the gym!” talking about her new single, Million Dollar Girl.  Trina has a new album coming out May 4th entitled, Amazin.  With her work coming up with Luda, Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga, she’s going to be a very busy woman.

Check for Puffy and Trina’s video announcing the partnership here.

Remember Mr E 40, Bay Area rapper blazing up the early 90′s.  He’s coming back with two albums dropping on the same day, March 30th.  These albums will be his 13th and 14th albums, totaling 38 tracks some of the guests are Snoop Dogg, Gucci Mane, Mistah F.A.B., Messy Marv and Too Short.  Some of the producers are Jazzy Pha, J. Valentine, and Bobby V.  Sounds like the old school brotha is trying to keep up with the young boys.  The name of the albums are Revenue Retrievin Night Shift and Revenue Retrievin Day Shift.  Seems like a lot of old skool rappers are trying to make a come back, I’m guessing they’re tired of the quality of rap music being played all over the airwaves these days.  Even though he’s been releasing albums, his last album The Ball Street Journal released last year, this seems to be one of the most important ventures he’s made in a while.  Check for both albums due March 30th and tune into www.HipHope.com for the revue of the albums coming soon.

Game back to Aftermath Records

Twitter is becoming more official for celebrity news than ever.  Game announced through his Twitter page, that he is moving back to Aftermath Records.  Originally on Aftermath when he first came out, he left in 2006 after a beef between him and Dr Dre then he signed to Geffen Records.  He left after 50 Cent said it was either him or me that leave.  Of course Dre couldn’t let his biggest money maker go, so it had to be Game.  But in the photo you see him wearing chains with the letter A for Aftermath.  Hmmmm I’m wondering how 50 is going to take this news.

Dre isn’t scared of Mr Suge Knight any more. He’s suing over royalties from the original the Cronic album. He claims he hasn’t been paid any royalties on the album since 1996 when he split from Death Row records. Since then the Cronic has been re released without Dre’s permission. The newly revamed Death Row records now called WIDEawake Death Row records, the company WIDEawake bought into Death Row records after it filed for bankruptcy after Dre and Snoop left. There have also been other releases of the Cronic including a greatest hits and digital copies being sold that Dre wants royalties on. I’m just wondering why Dre waited so long to file suit, hopefully he has the legal rights to get paid.

We all know Styles P flow by now.  He used to run in the shadows of Jadakiss then somewhere along the lines he just turned into a beast.  His solo efforts have been good for the most part, but now he seems to have his formula down pact.  Rhyming with production from Green Lantern he came off lovely.  With his gangsta rhymes and word play is all good.  The beats on this album are hard to death.  Guest appearances are Sheek Louch (no doubt), Tre Williams, Dwayne Collins, Jadakiss (of course), Raekwon, Noreaga, Uncle Murda, June Summers, S.I. and M.O.P.  Production from the likes of Green Lantern, Scram Jones, The Alchemist, Buckwild, Dutchez Beatz, Static Selekta, Vinny Idol, Dame Grease and Poobs.  Some of these names make you say, “Who?”  But don’t worry, big names aren’t what make this album, it’s the street style, hard rhymes and ill production going on.  Make Millions From Entertainment and Time Will Tell are stand out tracks on the album, but don’t sleep on the rest of the songs.  Drug rhymes are a little played out but there’s not as many as he usually has on his albums.  I would give this album a 8 out of 10, not quite a classic, but a great album no doubt!