Subject: Rick Ross

• Great Moments of the Coogs' Win

  December 2, 2006

• Great Moments of the Coogs' Win

  December 2, 2006

• Bun B’s II Trill: An Underground King, alone on the throne

  May 21, 2008

• Weekend Music: Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rick Ross, Craig Kinsey, Young Jeezy and More

  August 9, 2008

• Ozone Awards Update: There Were Some Winners, Too

  August 12, 2008

• Turning the Screw: Nosaprise, (More) Trae vs. Mike Jones, Slim Thug & Devin the Dude, Jin, The Game, Kanye, GZA and More

  August 18, 2008

• Turning the Screw: D. Rose, Rap City, Beastie Boys, Marilyn Manson, Paris, Lil Kim, Ice Cube and More

  October 13, 2008

• Busted Rhymes: The Top Ten Most Preposterous Rap Songs of 2008

  Hip-hop A-listers including Rick Ross, Akon and Plies were caught grossly exaggerating their gangster credentials this year. (Turns out they were painfully law-abiding. The horror!) But even if your favorite rapper wasn't caught in a lie, you can bet he or she put out a hilariously absurd record or two in 2008. Here are the most preposterous rap songs of 2008. RICK ROSS, FEATURING T-PAIN "The Boss" (Def Jam) Though Rick Ross claimed on his debut album, Port of Miami, to know Manuel Noriega, T

  December 24, 2008

• Hitsville: The Year in Music, by the Numbers

  You don't need a half-wit music critic to tell you it's been a remarkable year for America, one historians will be discussing and researching for centuries to come. War, financial collapse, politics, technology: All have been dinner-table topics for many Americans. Racial barriers in 2008 were demolished by a Midwestern black man, and gender barriers were hurdled by an Arkansan and an Alaskan.Democracy has a few awesome new dance moves rolling into the Obama presidency, and it'll be a feast for

  December 31, 2008

• Digitalia: Discobelle

  So maybe not everyone is into the Swedish music scene, but for all you club-music enthusiasts out there, Discobelle has a number of free MP3s, videos and fun mixes. The three-year-old site posts daily tunes by producers residing anywhere from Brazil to London. You'll find selections from house kids like Lorenz Rhode, Barcelona duo Meneo and Australian quartet BMX. The site also includes some more familiar names like Rick Ross, Young Jeezy and Chicago femcee Kid Sister, adding a bit of

  January 21, 2009

• Five Spot: Big Pokey

  Welcome back to The Five Spot, a Rocks Off recurring feature. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Wednesday, RapRadar.com threw up an interview with former Roc-A-Fella rapper Freeway in which he discussed jumping ship to the Cash Money camp. Now, by most accounts, Philly's favorite bearded son has had a very solid career - there was a good two-year stretch when Free was a

  June 5, 2009

• Turning the Screw: Balls Deep, UGK, DMX, MC Hammer, Theophilus London, Run-DMC, Lil' Jon and More

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: "Hoes," Balls Deep Wire To Wire Bun B will release the final UGK album, 4 Life, this March. We have mixed feelings about this one. We mean, we're super happy for the new album and all, but damn, final? Totally sucks. DMX is in jail again. We're all out of jokes about this. Perhaps we can

  February 2, 2009

• Artist of the Week: Soulbrotha

  Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to introducingliston@gmail.com. Sitting in the ornate and magnificent chair at the head of the Artist of the Week table, we get tons (tons, tens, whatever) of submissions sent to us each week. More often than not, submissions are sent from the bands the

  February 11, 2009

• Turning the Screw: Dustin Prestige, Kid Cudi, King Tut, Rick Ross/50 Cent, Ludacris, Lil' Kim, T.I./Chris Brown, Fat Pat and More

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: "Dope," Dustin Prestige Wire To Wire Kid Cudi was tasered at an NBA All-Star Game party in Phoenix for wearing Jordans. One day after being released from jail on bail, Dipset BFF King Tut was charged with stabbing a woman. (No word on whether or not she was wearing Jordans.) He was origina

  February 16, 2009

• Turning the Screw: G.R.I.T Boys, Coolio, Nas, Eminem, Tupac, Lil' Kim, Chris Brown, R. Kelly, Snoop Dogg, Scarface and More

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week "I'm Fresh," G.R.I.T. Boys ft. Trae and Tum Tum Wire to Wire Brooklyn's Uncle Murda was convicted of ID fraud. Said the airport employee who figured out the ID Murda presented was not his own, "I don't know why he did that. I mean, I've never even heard of the guy.His own ID would've been a good en

  March 9, 2009

• Turning The Screw: Spitten King, Paul Wall, The Kanye, KiD CuDi, Steve Lobel, Common, Weezy, Rick Ross, Pastor Troy, Mos Def, Grand Puba, The Chuck E. Cheese Conspiracy

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: "The Gold Room," Spitten King Wire To Wire: A regular reader of Turning the Screw (who asked to remain anonymous) passed along a 2008 mixtape of Paul Wall's greatest hits. (Available here.) We made it through, like, four songs, and then, inexplicably, we started making I'm-[adjective]-like-[noun]

  March 23, 2009

• Musicians on Twitter

  Is the "microblog" Internet phenomenon the next leap forward or just a tweeting waste of time?

  February 12, 2009

• Crash Into Me: Predicting the Economy's Impact on the Music Biz

  April 16, 2009

• Lil Keke: Loved by Few, Hated by Many

  December 4, 2008

• Club 26Ten Looks to Spend Its Way to The Top

  September 11, 2008

• Rick Ross

  August 7, 2008

• Bun B's II Trill

  May 29, 2008

• Naked Men: The ManKind Project and Michael Scinto

  October 4, 2007

• Real Recognize Real?

  Promotional Cacophony at Miami's Ozone Awards

  August 23, 2007

• Underground Kingz

  August 16, 2007

• Bayou Blow

  Coke is the new weed

  July 5, 2007

• Immigrant Song

  Watch out for Miami rapper Pitbull's bite

  May 31, 2007

• Turning the Screw: J-Dawg, DMX, Birdman/Weezy, Kelis/Nas, Weezy/Obama, Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J, Geto Boys and More

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: J-Dawg, "Never" Wire To Wire Did you know that it costs $240,000 to impersonate an FBI agent? DMX does. Birdman says he will totally kiss Weezy on the mouth again. Adds, "Big whoop, wanna fight about it?" The real Ricky Ross is getting released from prison. Somewhere, the fake Rick Ross is crapping him

  May 4, 2009

• Local Album of the Week: Mike Jones' The Voice

  Mike Jones The Voice www.whomikejones.comHere's the thing about The Voice, Mike Jones' follow-up to double-platinum debut Who Is Mike Jones?: People automatically want to hate it. Perhaps even more interesting, though, is that Jones knows this. The Voice's most meaningful song is a cathartic track aptly titled "Hate On Me," which even goes so far as to glance at the Ozone Awards debacle, where Jones more or less got his clock cleaned by Trae. But you know what? Objectively, The Voice is not all

  May 5, 2009

• Mike Jones: The Voice

  May 14, 2009

• Creep Show

  May 14, 2009

• Turning the Screw: Slim Thug Associates, Willie D, Jay-Z vs. Auto-Tune, 50 Cent, Paul Wall, Big Hawk, Jazzy Jeff, Trae & Z-Ro and More

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: "Associates" Wire To Wire Poor, poor Willie D. We were excited the other day when we read this thing about how vinyl sales had ballooned up to nearly 3 million(!) in 2009 - ever since Chris Gray's vinyl feature ran in 2007, we've been stoked about the increasing possibility of being able to build up a

  June 15, 2009

• Rick Ross: Deeper Than Rap

  June 25, 2009

• Ask a Rapper: K-Rino

  The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place - lots of times, you're even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good - so once a week we're going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email introducingliston@gmail.com. "Split you into quintuplets and then murder all five of you." This Week's Rapper: K-Rino This Week's Subject(s): What percent of rappers are really drug dealers and/or murdering sociopaths; does it

  July 7, 2009

• It's Trae Day... and Everybody's Celebratin'

  To commemorate the one-year anniversary of the City of Houston's proclamation of "Trae Day," the chairman and CEO of Houston's Assholes by Nature is throwing a giant block party from 3-9 p.m. in the parking lot of TSU Stadium at Cleburne and Tierwester in the Third Ward (or, appropriately enough, the Trey). Scheduled to appear are U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee - try to contain your surprise - City Councilmembers Peter Brown and Ron Green, and a Lil Wayne album's worth of rappers including Bun B,

  July 22, 2009

• Slide Show: Trae Day at TSU Stadium

  Shea Serrano  Once upon a time, before it was a shooting gallery, national news and the talk of Twitter, the first annual Trae Day celebration was just a rap concert and family festival. Bun B, Rick Ross, a newly shorn Slim Thug and Houston mayoral candidate Peter Brown all came out to salute the man of the hour before things got all crazy. See our slideshow here.

  July 23, 2009

• Aftermath: Trae Day (Pre-Shooting) at TSU Stadium

  [Note: These are the notes from Trae Day prior to that whole pesky "six people getting shot" thing. For more info on that, check out our reports here and here.]Photos by Henry Rizoh/ Click here for a slideshow  Aftermath and hip-hop blogger Rizoh from The Rap Up arrived nearly two hours after Trae Day was supposed to start, and we're still too early. There are maybe 200 people here. On the bright side, at least it's really hot. There are two ambulances parked near the entrance of the parkin

  July 23, 2009

• Inquiring Minds: Trae tha Truth on the Trae Day Shootings and More

  Photos by Henry Rizoh  As you no doubt have heard, this past Wednesday's Trae Day, a celebratory day established last year by the city of Houston recognizing rapper Trae tha Truth's work with at-risk youth, was sullied by post-festivities gunshots. Rocks Off was able to steal a few minutes out of Trae's day Friday to briefly discuss how it affected him as a father, whether or not he's planning on doing it again next year and our own fandom. Rocks Off: Guess we'll talk about the unfortunate

  July 25, 2009

• The Katy Perry Experiment

  July 30, 2009

• Rick Ross Is Completely Innocent and the Greatest Rapper Alive

  Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.​Last year, president of Don Diva magazine Sam Ferguson played a major role in breaking the news that Miami-based rapper/self-described drug kingpin Rick Ross was once a correctional officer. It started up a nice little writer vs. rapper feud between the two and was hot, hot

  August 21, 2009

• Five Spot: A Crap N.O.R.E. Track Reminds Us of Bun B's Better Days

  Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.Marco Torres​ Yesterday, N.O.R.E. released "Set Trip," a wispy, "Look How Tough I Am," available-via-Internet track that nobody's going to care about in four or five days. We mention it though, because it features a swift contribution from one of Houston's hip-hop archetypes: Bun B. We actually saw Bun B not to

  September 11, 2009

• Aftermath: John Legend (Pre-ACL) at Verizon Wireless Theater - Hey, Better Late Than Never

  [Ed. Note: We temporarily interrupt our postmortem ACL coverage to bring you this review of John Legend's show at Verizon Wireless Theater last Wednesday.] Photos by Daniel Kramer​ 9:03 p.m.: So we're here at Verizon Wireless Theater for the show. Going to a concert where you're not allowed to stand and move around freely (ala House of Blues) is weird. Like, it's hard to enthusiastically clap while sitting down (the tall fellow sitting next to us looks particularly awkward while doing so).

  October 5, 2009

• Houston's Choice for Mayor

  October 22, 2009

• Turning the Screw: Lil Keke, Trae, Dre vs. Rush Limbaugh, Weezer, Weezy, Chamillionaire, 50 vs. Jay-Z, The Kanye, Nas, DMX, Big Pokey, etc.

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: "Still Here," Lil' Keke Wire To Wire Again, congratulations to Trae and the newest tiny Trae. Hey, Rush: Fuck off. Sincerely, Dr. Dre.

  October 26, 2009