Dom O Briggs comes together with RockTheDub, DWND and Toy Sldrs to release his 4th full length project Always Inspire(d) EP. Features include fellow Dope League members JohnNY U. and ScienZe while production comes from Sir Flywalker, H2, BackPack NY, Stephen Spencer, Pat Streater, Go-Z and The Stuyvesants. Click the image to listen and download.
#AlwaysInspired
I think it’s amazing what’s been done for Haiti, but I also think it’s amazing what hasn’t been done for New Orleans.
“Crazy,” Swizz told us about Jay’s new work. “It’s crazy. I’m working on the intro right now, matter of fact. It’s stupid.”
Swizz hinted that the beat he gave Hov had an innovative, trailblazing sound.
“We been talking about that international vibe since the last album,” Swizz said. “But the sound changes. You got too many people trying to do too many things. They throw it off. I’m actually going out there doing the legwork, sitting there with the master composers, and we gonna pull this thing together.” – MTV
It's done. Drake's collaboration with Jay-Z, "Light Up," is finally finished. The Toronto lyricist had been hopeful all year that he and Hov could connect in the studio.
"Everybody is looking for this one joint with me and Jay, so that needs to happen," Drake told MTV News back in June. "My goal at this point is to keep making that organic music. I don't wanna feel pressure now that I have a single and music that's hot."
Drake recently sat down with MTV News in his Canadian hometown and explained how the song, produced by Tone Mason and co-produced by his October's Very Own cohort Noah "40" Shebib, came to fruition.
The track will be included on the rapper's forthcoming debut, Thank Me Later, tentatively slated for a March release.
If Drake is not a household name for everyone just yet, the 23-year-old is on the front porch, ringing the bell. That he’s done it without even putting out an official album shows just how far he’s come in 12 months. What a journey it’s been for the Toronto native in 2009.
I first met Drake last year in Los Angeles around Grammy time. Lil Wayne’s co-manager Cortez Bryant introduced me to Drake as a new “singer” that they were working with. Drizzy was cool but barely spoke: At the time, there was no way I’d envision him as having a shot at making the MTV News’ “Hottest MCs in the Game” list, let alone finishing in the top three. He was a “singer,” right?
Everyone — including Drake — is probably surprised at how much he’s achieved this year. On the basis of its quality and impact, Mixtape Daily can say that So Far Gone isn’t just the top mixtape of 2009, but one of the greatest of all time. As a body of work, the project is better than most albums from the past few years.
“The last six months, it’s been like, ‘I gotta really, really go out there and show that I’m nicer than all of them,’ ” Lupe said. “It’s like, ‘All right, so be it. If it takes three more albums to do it, then so be it.’ That’s what I got left with Atlantic. Three more after Lasers. I’m already done with two. The mixtape is coming Thanksgiving. It’ll be another mixtape after that and an album after that. It’s really to get that status and lock it in and [and have people] be like, ‘Look at this positive dude, the underdog. The positive one who came and murdered all these dudes. And he’s there, and he’s good.’ ”
Lupe said he isn’t concerned about what he has to do — he’s going to prove he’s the best.
“I’m finnin’ to house every single mode and arena I can get into,” Fiasco promised. “If y’all had somewhere where it’s live performances, I’m finnin to have the best live performances. If it’s mixtapes, I’m finnin’ to have the best mixtapes. If it’s albums again, it’s gonna be the best verse. If it’s the best dressed, I’m going hard as well.”
Lupe said the yet-untitled mixtape will be him going in over other MCs’ beats. “I got four days to figure it out,” he said about the title. “I’ve been dabbling with some names. I don’t know yet.”
Concerning the production, Lupe said he’s not going to let any original production go.
“Why waste it?” he said. “I still got my plan. I’m not finnin’ to diverge off my plan and my career and how I wanna roll my music out.”
Nicki Minaj isn’t worried about the people who criticized her for not spitting off the dome during the BET Hip-Hop Awards cyphers.
“How many people on that cypher do you think spit off the top of their head?” Minaj fumed to Richmond, Virginia, radio host TT Torrez last week. “I don’t write off the top of my head. I can’t come up with those punch lines and metaphors off the top of my head. Everybody besides KRS-One, who else can you name that spit off the top of their head? They will tear apart a female, like, ‘She did a good verse, but she wrote it.’ … The only thing that matters is that I wrote on a paper and memorized it. Wayne never wrote my sh–. No one ever wrote my stuff.”
Nicki’s Young Money family member Drake went through some of the same problems earlier this year. When he was on Funkmaster Flex’s Hot 97 show, Drake spit his rhymes while reading them from his BlackBerry. Some bloggers and fans wrote negative responses, and comedian Affion Crockett even posted a video spoof online.
“I’ll never forget the night, man, when I went up to Hot 97, and it wasn’t scheduled,” Drake explained. “It wasn’t like, you know, ‘Drake’s coming up here Tuesday.’ It was literally like, ‘Funk Flex wants to meet you,’ and bam, like, two seconds later, it was like, ‘Let’s go on the radio and just kill New York.’ I’ll never forget how nervous I was. It was such a rookie hip-hop moment — and, obviously, the controversy of me pulling out my phone and rapping off my phone because I just wasn’t prepared. A lot of people don’t know the difference between freestyle or off the top and coming to a radio show knowing you got to go there, so you got verses cued up in your head, whether they be off your upcoming album or verses just that you have laying around. A lot of artists get that preparation time.”
Drake said the moment was an important steppingstone.
“That moment, just as far as hip-hop, as far as MCing goes, that moment was one of those … it was just, ‘Whoa! I’m really here and I got to get better. I got get to be better than this. I can never be caught off guard again,’ ” Drake said. “That was probably one of the most interesting moments of my life this year. I’m a writer, man. I appreciate the elements of hip-hop. I appreciate a guy like Common who goes city to city and just spits at the crowed for 10 minutes about everything he sees. I admire talent like that, because that’s just not my creative process. So, you know, as far as moments this year go, though, I’ve had amazing stories. I don’t want to tell them all in interviews, because then Thank Me Later will just be empty, so I think I’m going to tell them in this album as vivid as I possibly can.”
