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 [email protected]. Thanks, homies.
Single of the Week: “Break of Dawn,” Hueston Independent Spit District
Wire To Wire
We’re not sure how we missed this, but Trae is getting his own cartoon. We’re a little uncertain about how to feel about it so, in lieu of a half-baked joke identifying the irony of the king of the streets having a cartoon and an Ice Cube/Are We There Yet reference, here’s “No Help,” arguably Trae’s best song.
Video of Lupe Fiasco announcing that his last LP, LupE.N.D., will be a three disc set. Depending on how you feel about the Grammy-winning rapper, this is either three times dope or three times bothersome.
URB has some scans of a letter from the still-incarcerated HNIC Prodigy, half of the overrated New York duo Mobb Deep. Said letters put Jigga on blast, accusing him of choosing “sides with evil in order to be accepted in the corporate world,” and concealing “the truth from the black community.” Sadly, there were no threats of stabbing Jigga in his brain with his nose bone.
Soulja Boy shows a remarkably lucid grasp of cause and effect with this recent quote: “Oh wait! Hold up! Shout out to the slave masters! Without them we'd still be in Africa. We wouldn't be here to get this ice and tattoos.” Surely, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would see nothing wrong with this comment.
Roy Jones Jr., exhibiting his stature as quite possibly the greatest boxer/rapper of all time, rhymes “best” with “rest” in new music video “Battle of the Super Powers.” Jones must have forgot how horrible “Y'all Must Have Forgot” was.
Hip Hop DX is doing “30 reviews in 30 days” for November. Feel free to make your own “30 inaccurately placed prepositions in 30 reviews in 30 days” jokes now.
Oh. Mah. Ga. Sam Jackson is set to play the legendary Shogun of Harlem in a (what is sure to be a horrible) remake of Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. Will this movie be the shittiest?! Shonuff! I can’t hear you. Shonuff!
Jadakiss denies rumors of his impending retirement. Thank goodness. Now we can go to back still not giving a shit about him.
A-Alikes have a documentary coming out that we’re going to watch for the sole reason that we think the title is dope: The Ballot or the Bullet. And yes, we know this is the title of the famed Malcolm X speech. And no, we don’t care how bloated and purposefully incendiary “They Wanna Murder Me” was, it’s still makes us feel cool that we know all the words to it.
LL Cool J and Janet Jackson are not BFFs, apparently: Cool James quits Miss Jackson's tour.
TI teaming up with an Anti-Violence Campaign seems a tad off to us. It’s kinda like having Beyonce team up with an Anti-Annoying Campaign.
Three Pointers
Fat Pat, I Had A Ghetto Dream
Prodigy, H.N.I.C. Pt. 2
Little Brother, Separate But Equal - Shea Serrano