Lil Snupe, Meek Mill Protege, Dead at 18

By Billboard Staff

Lil Snupe
The rising rapper was shot and killed in Winnfield, La., early Thursday morning.

(UPDATED 4:15 p.m.) Emerging rapper Lil Snupe, a recent signee to Meek Mill's Dream Chasers label, was shot and killed early Thursday morning, June 20, in Winnfield, La.

Police say 18-year-old Addarren Ross was killed around 4 a.m. at the Maplewood Apartments in Winnfield, according to CBS affiliate KNOE 8. Ross, known as Lil Snupe, had two gunshot wounds.
A suspect has been identified but no further information has been given.

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Winnfield (pop. 4,840) is located about an hour north of Alexandria in the heart of the state. It's not immediately known why Snupe was in the small town. Sources tell Billboard the artist may have been living in Baton Rouge, while some previous articles written about the young rapper have listed Jonesboro, La., about 80 miles east of Shreveport, as his hometown.

In freestyle raps posted online, Snupe has name-dropped "225" -- the Baton Rouge area code.
His manager, DJ Smallz, tweeted of Lil Snupe's death this morning,"The call I got this morning is un real RIP 2 my Lil n---- lilsnupe."
Dream Chasers' Louie V Gutta also tweeted, "I aint gone lie i cant stop crying! I Can't Believe My Youngin Gone! RIP lil bro @LilSnupe."

Mill signed Snupe to Dream Chasers last year after listening to his mixtape for 20 minutes, the late Louisiana rapper told MTV News in February. "He was in a van, they was finna pull off. And I went and knocked on the van, on the window. They let the window down, grabbed the mixtape and it was like 10 minutes later, 20 minutes later they called me," he said.
"He was spittin' so much pain, he's from the South with a flow like an East Coast guy," Meek told MTV.
Snupe repped his home state in his last tweet, "i Hold it Down 4 Louisiana."
Snupe released his mixtape, "Real Ni--a in Charge," in April.







source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lil-snupe-meek-mill-protege-572620
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Lil Wayne: ‘Never Intended to Desecrate Flag’

By Luchina Fisher @luchina
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/06/lil-wayne-never-intended-to-desecrate-flag/

Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images

Lil Wayne took to Twitter and Facebook to deny purposely trampling on the flag in a video for his song “God Bless Amerika.”
“I didn’t step on the flag on purpose! It’s a scene in a video where the flag drops behind me and after it drop it’s just there as I perform,” he tweetedtoday. In the one-minute clip from the video which surfaced online Monday, he is seen singing and dancing in front of a large red, white and blue flag before it drops to reveal residents from his hometown Hollygrove, New Orleans. With Old Glory at his feet, Lil Wayne continues to perform, at times appearing to step on the flag.
But the 30-year-old rapper said on his Facebook page, “It was never my intention to desecrate the flag of the United States of America.”

A wide shot of the footage allowed Internet viewers to see the flag at the rapper’s feet, but he said that camera angle was never intended to be seen in the finished music video.
“The clip that surfaced on the Internet was a camera trick clip that revealed behind the American Flag was the Hoods of America,” Lil Wayne wrote on Facebook. “In the final edit of the video you will see the flag fall to reveal whats behind it but will never see it on the ground.”

After the minute-long clip surfaced, some fans were quick to express outrage: “that is extremely disrespectful! 1st dropping tha american flag on tha ground and then wayne walking all over it!!! I have now lost all respect for you wayne!” one wrote.
The song’s lyrics fanned the controversy. They include the line, “My country ’tis of thee / Sweet land of kill ‘em all and let ‘em die,” and the hook, “God bless Amerika / This so godless Amerika” Wayne explained on Facebook that the song reflects the environment that he and many others have grown up in.
“In most people eyes including my own who were raised in that environment, the Hood is the only America they know and the only America I knew growing up. I was fortunate from my God giving talents to escape the Hood and see the other beautiful places this country has to offer but most people who are born in that environment don’t get that chance. That’s their view of their America. That was Dwayne M Carter from Hollygrove New Orleans view of America. That’s who I’m speaking for in this song.”



source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/06/lil-wayne-never-intended-to-desecrate-flag/
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How I Learned to Love Mac Miller

By mtvhive.com

Photo courtesy of Mac Miller/Facebook

I was wrong about Mac Miller. Really wrong. Back in 2011, I was one of many music critics who slated the Pittsburgh-raised rapper’s Blue Slide Park debut with an enthusiastic abandon and lots of cheap puns about the tyke-like Miller. It was like slaughtering a shih-tzu; a particularly twee and yappy shitzu who becomes so annoying that you don’t feel bad about digging in to it. I even suggested it was akin to the insufferable cast of Glee making a rap album. It also saw Mac rhyme “coffee shop” with “holocaust,” which still endures as a high-point of torrid rhyming couplets.

Despite the critical lashings Blue Slide Park received, Mac Miller quickly went on to become a real-deal superstar. Today, his social media game dominates the outlets who took umbrage at his music. But despite his success, Blue Slide Park cast Mac Miller as a rapper I stopped having any interest in. He existed outside my sphere of interest. That is until earlier this year when he popped up on “21& Over,” a song with boom-bap revivalist Statik Selektah and rugged punchline king Sean Price.

I retweeted a link to the track, which somehow lead to Arthur Pitt, the vice-president of the Rostrum Records label Miller is signed to, asking myself and another blogger, “I just want to know who pays you boys for the years of slander thrown our way?” Banter ensued, which lead to an early listen to Miller’s follow up album, Watching Movies With the Sound Off. And it’s good. Really good. It sounds like the work of an entirely different rapper. It’s as if we’re finally getting to hear the real Mac Miller.

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Whereas Blue Slide Park was embossed with a poppy and playful sheen, Watching Movies is strewn with static and distortion. It opens with a wave of slow-building scuzzy atmospheric effects which morph into the song “The Star Room.” Mac talks about living inside his head, dwelling in purgatory, and dealing with demons. This endearingly eerie vibe continues through the excellently-sequenced first run of songs: “Avian” is hooked around a stripped-down piano motif and has Mac urging kids to embrace the world outside of their computer screens; “I’m Not Real” has him out-rhyming the lauded Earl Sweatshirt over an off-kilter beat.

Then comes the Flying Lotus-produced “S.D.S.” which offers up another woozy, static-sodden backdrop and Mac coining the bumptious brag, “I’m dope and I know/ My voice sound like it was a sample off of vinyl.” It one of those calling card couplets. The rest of Watching Movies continues in a similar manner, with Mac Miller’s music embracing more rugged and experimental tendencies. It winds up with another couple of highlights, the rambunctious team-up with Tyler, The Creator for “O.K.” and the closing confessional “Claymation.”

source: Read more at http://www.mtvhive.com/2013/06/18/mac-miller-watching-movies-with-the-sound-off/
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Jay-Z Announces New Album, 'Magna Carta Holy Grail,' In Samsung Commercial

The rapper's album debuts on July 4

Rap fans rejoice: Jay-Z will release a new album, "Magna Carta Holy Grail," on July 4. The icon announced the news through a Samsung commercial which played during tonight's (June 16) NBA Finals Game 5 (Miami Heat vs. San Antonio Spurs).

In the three-minute ad, Jay-Z is seen recording and brainstorming in the studio with Rick Rubin, Pharrell Williams, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz. "The album is about, like this duality of how do you navigate through this whole thing, through success, through failures, through all this and remain yourself," he tells Rubin of his twelfth studio album.



"We don't have any rules. Everyone's trying to figure it out," Jay says as a ringing, piano-driven instrumental plays in the background. "We need to write the new rules."

"Magna Carta Holy Grail" will be available for free download on July 4, 12:01 a.m. EST, to the first one million Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S 4 and Galaxy Note II users. Fans will be able to unlock the album on the phone's Magna Carta app.

"The idea is to really finish the album and drop it," Jay Z says at one point. "Giving it to the world at one time and letting them share it, and it goes out."

"Great. Beautiful," Rubin responds.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung paid $5.00 a piece for the 1 million copies that will be distributed to Samsung users.

The kick off to Jay-Z's album roll-out is similar to Beyoncé's. Queen Bey' previewed new material through commercials: Pepsi ("Grown Woman") and H&M ("Standing On the Sun").

Jay-Z has been seen in the studio with Drake, Timbaland, Nas, Pharrell and Justin Timberlake. In April, The-Dream hinted on an upcoming album from Hov when talking to Hot 97. "Jay's coming along pretty good; I don't know if I can say that yet," he told Hot 97's Angie Martinez.

source: http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/1567101/jay-z-announces-new-album-magna-carta-holy-grail-in-samsung
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