XXLmag.com caught up with Lloyd Banks at his show with Reflection Eternal in New York City on Thursday (April 29) and it seems like the G-Unit rapper is really feeling this year’s XXL Freshman Class.
Banks—who was also celebrating his 28th birthday last night—said he would love to work with three students in particular. “You got your J. Coles out there, you got Nipsey Hussle…Jay Rock. There’s so much new talent out there, I just wanna work and make classic music.”
Speaking of collaborations, LB told XXL that he recently finished the remix to his hit song “Beamer, Benz or Bentley” and the song will feature a lot of unexpected guests. Although he refused to reveal the track’s lineup, he did say it will feature six different artists.
According to Banks “Beamer, Benz” has had huge success on SoundScan and has made several labels take notice of him, now that he’s a free agent. “I done sold over a quarter million singles…completely independent…labels are calling; even my old label’s calling.”
Look out for the “Beamer, Benz or Bentley (Remix)” to be released shortly. —Amber McKynzie
Eminem has never been one to hold his tongue. And based on the title of his new single, he won’t be putting an end to his outspokenness anytime soon.
According to various reports, the first offering from Em’s seventh studio album Recovery is titled “Not Afraid” and is expected to make its debut by the end of this week. On Monday (April 26), Slim Shady tweeted, “I’m ‘Not Afraid,’” lending further validation to the whispers.
Earlier this month, the rapper announced that he would release Recovery in place of his scrapped Relapse 2 project. The disc, due June 22, is set to feature production from Jonsin, DJ Khalil, Just Blaze, Boi-1da, and more.
Slaughterhouse’s Joe Budden has said a label move to Eminem’s Shady Records is nearing completion.
Budden said his rap crew is now in the middle of negotiations.
“Naturally we want to be there,” Budden said about heading to Shady Records. “I think we’ll fit in. There’s negotiating but I really don’t want to talk about it because everybody’s been through so much when you promise things and they’re presented to you and they don’t go through for whatever reason. I think it’s done enough for us to go ahead and say it’s just about done…Ultimately, Joe Budden wants to be unsigned. I don’t want to be signed to anyone. I don’t want to have any contractual obligations anywhere. I want to have Slaughterhouse riding with Eminem and everybody over there and I just want to be [unsigned.]” (“On Air Idiots”)
Last December, Budden thought about the possible aftermath of signing to Em’s label.
“I would like that — I think if that happens, wrap it up hip-hop,” Budden told radio personality Tony Touch. “I’m f*cking great either way. I always said I would stay away from a major. Me, as a soloist. But the group? Let’s f*cking go. Let’s do it, let’s show n*ggas how to rap. Especially having the best f*cking rapper in the world behind us. That’s the important part, the [record label] and Interscope, all that’s great. Eminem though? That’s a different type of, see, that’s a different type of rapper. That’s like having the big brother that can beat everybody up.” (“Toca Tuesdays”)
In mid-January, Eve posted a brief message via Twitter confirming her departure from long-time label, Interscope, but the 31-year-old rapper has never spoken in detail about the split. However, Eve shared with VIBE the real reasons she’s currently shopping for a new label home.
“[Interscope was] stupid because they didn’t drop me at first, they [just shelfed me] and dropped the ball. After ‘Tambourine’, they straight up were like, ‘Umm, yeah, nah, we’re not putting out the record.’ After that I was like ‘Yall gotta let me go. I’ve been here 11 years and you’re frontin on me?’ It got to that point,” she reveals.
Eve who’s debut album off Interscope, Let There Be Eve… Ruff Ryders’ First Lady, debuted in 1999, says she loves the label’s chairman, Jimmy Iovine, but admits that he’s motivated by trends, no matter how much faith he’s already invested in a senior artist – “I’m not going to talk shit about him, but I don’t appreciate the fact that he didn’t go the extra mile for me.”
However, the main reason the Philly chick says she left disgruntled has everything to do with a pledge that was made to her before her 4th album, Flirt was meant to drop in 2007. “They promised me the machine. The machine is basically the roll out. It’s ‘Yo, when [Flirt] comes out, we’ll give you this, we’ll give you that. And that’s what made me mad. It’d be different if we didn’t have a mtg where people promised me shit. If they were just like ‘Oh we’re going to put the album out and see what happens,’ that would be one thing,” she says.
“But they were like ‘No, we’re making sure this happens, it’s coming out on this date.’ It was concrete. But it’s all good, everything happens how it’s supposed to, when it’s supposed to.”
Eve confesses experiencing a short surge of confusion. “I definitely went through a period of ‘Are you serious?’ I think I didn’t know how to feel. Once it finally happened, it’s like ‘Damn, so you wasn’t really fucking with me?’ I went through a lot of different thoughts, but that only lasted for two days.”
Almost immediately after getting dropped Eve went overseas for a series of club performances off her dubstep record, “Me N My”, and reached an epiphany that even without Interscope she was still on her right path.
Currently the rapper/actress is still taking major label offers and promises fans that her recharged album, Lip Lock, will be out this year.
R&B singer Trey Songz has discussed hitting the road alongside Jay-Z for their Blueprint III tour and revealed what lessons he picked up from the rap veteran.
According to Trigger Trey, Young Hov has put him on to learning how to control stadium crowds.
“He’s an excellent show man. He’s gotten to the point where he has so many hits that he could just put the mic out on certain songs. He raps with me after shows and we talk about certain areas. I’ve learned to have a little more crowd control,” Songz said about lessons he has learned from touring with Jay. “Playing arenas every night is different than what I’m used to. This is the biggest tour of my life, so I’ve learned how to demand the crowd.” (“Sucker Free Sundays”)
Roc Nation’s J. Cole recently credited Jay for helping him with his own stage presence.
“As the tour went on, I got way more comfortable, I learned a lot about doing shows and why Jay-Z is able to do shows,” Cole told radio personality DJ Whoo Kid. “I learned pretty much from him that confidence is everything. If you feel like you deserve to be up there, which of course he does, he feels like that, it shows and all the minor stuff you used to worry about like what kind of hand movements am I supposed to do, all that goes out the window when you got the confidence like ‘Yo, I deserve to be up there, people came to see me.’ So it’s really treating it like that. I used to worry about performing like, ‘Ah man, I’m trying to please every side of the crowd,’ like make sure they gettin’ love, they gettin’ love, Jay just plays wherever he wants. If he wants to play the center for the whole verse, he’ll do that. And all that comes from confidence, when you feel you deserve to be up there.” (Shade 45)
Young Money’s Nicki Minaj recently spoke on her upcoming debut album and revealed her intention to surprise fans.
According to the “Barbie,” she is still in the early parts of recording her debut.
Her first single, “Massive Attack,” generated huge buzz thanks to a flashy video by Hype Williams that landed it in the R&B charts. But now fans expect more from the rapstress, which may take time, since she admits she hasn’t gotten around to recording any other tracks yet. “Mmmmm no,” she laughs slyly. “I wish! But you know, the stuff that I’ve done — it doesn’t really reflect me anymore, so I want to have an entirely new body of work.” (New York Post)
Minaj recently said she is looking to bring originality to hip-hop.
Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Motown recording artist Nicki Minaj will release her highly anticipated solo debut album in Fall 2010. ‘I don’t want to do anything that sounds like what any other female rapper has done,’ said Nicki Minaj. ‘I want to start a new lane that one day, 10 years from now, girls will say, ‘I’m more of a Nicki Minaj type.’ (Cash Money Records Press Release)
It’s only April, but Mariah Carey is already getting in the holiday spirit. The pop diva recently shot the packaging for her new Christmas album with famed photographer David LaChapelle.
U.K. newspaper The Times interviewed LaChapelle while he was prepping for his festive shoot with the singer at his Los Angeles studio. He photographed Carey for her 1999 album Rainbow and directed her “Loverboy” music video.
The seasonal visuals called for a graffitied city backdrop, fake snow, a “hideous” silver tree, and wooden cutout reindeers. “Mariah wanted real ones,” said LaChapelle. “Flown from Nebraska. Can you imagine, real reindeer?”
Despite her request for real reindeer, he insisted the songbird “isn’t a diva,” adding, “She never pisses on the little people.”
Carey hinted that she was working on a new project after scrapping plans for her Angels Advocate remix album. She has been in the studio recording with Jermaine Dupri, but it is unknown where that material will end up.
Her first Christmas album, 1994’s Merry Christmas, has sold 12 million copies worldwide and spawned the classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
This year alone, we’ve seen Fabolous, Wiz Khalifa, Jim Jones and Asher Roth drop product off in the streets and the Internet. The next few weeks are going to be flooded with ferocity, with Young Jeezy, the Game, T.I. and Rick Ross, just to name a few, dropping soon. Long live the underground!
We asked Drake — the guy with the biggest mixtape of the past few years, So Far Gone — what he thought about the state of mixtapes right now. He said everyone has to come with their best.
“I think that when creating a mixtape, you have to approach it with a selfless mind-set,” Drake told us. “A mixtape can’t be the songs that don’t make your album, or songs that aren’t good enough to make your album make your mixtape — unless you’re that good. There aren’t that many people that are that good. I’m not that good. That mixtape [So Far Gone] is me working my hardest. It wasn’t ‘Oh, here are the songs I’m gonna give away to you ’cause I have better songs coming.’ A mixtape has become an album.
“Before, I remember people used to be in the studio cutting songs, and they would be like, ‘Oh, that song is OK. I’ll just put it on my mixtape,’ “ he added. “Now a mixtape is an actual tool. It’s a format you need. You don’t necessarily need it, but it can be useful. Like with Fab and the other guys, I know they do a lot of rapping on other guys’ beats. It’s hard to tour like that, as incredible as it may be. Now Wayne, when the No Ceilings set comes on, it’s ridiculous. It’s hard to rap over other people’s songs and have it be timeless. With So Far Gone, when I did flip other people’s songs, half the time people didn’t know what song it was. I tried to pick stuff that was new or rare or just like an album cut. But yeah, man, if I use somebody else’s beat, I try to make a song out of it.”
