Hip-Hop artists are trying to double their Benjamins by investing in soccer teams. Jay-Z is the latest star to show interest in investing in a European soccer team when he revealed he would consider investing $500 million in Arsenal. The Hip-Hop icon told Mail Online he's willing to learn the business rules of the world's biggest sport. “I don't know a lot about the business of soccer, but in the future if the right opportunity presented itself, then who knows? I am a businessman, and I will always look at an opportunity, and if it feels right, great.”
HOVA became a fan of the sport while watching Thierry Henry play when he was with Arsenal. ”When Thierry Henry was at the club, I just thought he was an amazing player. Ever since then I have been a big fan of the club and still today you play the beautiful football that Thierry did. I think he had a real long term-effect on the team.” Something to keep in mind, Jay-Z already part-owns the New Jersey Nets, making him no stranger to these types of purchases.
Jay-Z isn’t the only hip-hop mogul who wants to invest his dollars in a soccer team, P.Diddy himself has expressed the same interest. Diddy is looking at purchasing one of two struggling British “football clubs”: the London-based Crystal Palace and the South England team Portsmouth. Is owning a soccer team the new hip-hop thing to do?
(via Mail Online)
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After a few fake leaks in the past 24 hours (check out that 5:45 update, it's so close it could have come from Earth-2) the lineup for Coachella 2010 has been announced.
As always, reading the Coachella lineup is like sneaking a peek at your super-obsessed record store junkie best friend's iPod -- which he only uses while commuting, and only because his vintage Walkman was stolen by a gang of hipster neer-do-wells who hang out in front of the organic cafe where that cure vegan indie girl works-- but I digress...
JAY-Z! MUSE! GORILLAZ!
Those are your headliners folks. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. ZOMG! The lineup also has Wale, Echo & The Bunnymen, LCD Soundsystem, She & Him, Grizzly Bear, and Grace FREAKIN Jones. And that's just part of Friday.
So get ready to head out to the armpit of California, listen to some music, and watch out-of-shape guys on acid get tased by bored rent-a-cops.
The only real question now is if the Gorillaz will be appearing in holographic form as they did at the 2005 MTV Europe Awards.
N.E.R.D. make progressive rock for the punk/hiphop/hipster generation. Everyone doesn’t get it but if you do, you're certified "cool".
While on Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 Tour, N.E.R.D. announced they're working on their 4th album 'Instant Gratification' and that they had added female singer Rhea to the group. This news has hit fans hard. The responses on fan sites and music blogs have been mostly outrage that N.E.R.D. sold out its core fans to "go pop".
You can't mention this type of thing without talking about the Black Eyed Peas. Some would say that BEP left their core b-boy, hip hop fan base after adding Fergie in 2003. But I would argue that BEP was always “Pop”! Considering the musical climate in the late 90’s their debut single “Joints & Jam” was a pop song. “We about mass appeal not segregation,” raps BEP frontman Will.I.Am on that very track. BEP's natural evolution as a group proved to be hella profitable.
Would it be selling out if N.E.R.D. made a simple song about "love" or "having a good ol’ time"? YES. But we all know that’s not the case. N.E.R.D.'s version of a pop song is still wildly abstract.
Read more...There's not much anyone can say or do when Jay-Z calls you out in the manner he did Mr. O'Reilly. That should explain why his come back was so weak. "Ottis Redding?" Come on dude.
Read more..."Escape From New York" meets "Warriors" in this esthetically pleasing yet pointless video for Jay-Z's "Run This Town" featuring Rihanna and Kanye West directed by Anthony Mandler.
Read more...Shooting Star(s): The Rise of Hip Hop Photographer Johnny Nunez is a documentary of Johnny Nunez from a black orphan in Brooklyn to the worlds most prominent Hip Hop Celebrity Photographer.
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Jay-Z is one of- if not the- biggest celebrity in urban music. For over a decade not only has Jay-Z challenged the limits of his own craft, but he has challenged hip-hop culture itself. It is because the rapper/ mogul, born Shawn Carter, challenged the genre and culture on so many occasions, that he has been identified as a tastemaker. When Jay-Z started stressing in his raps that others should make their appearance more professional, people began getting their “grown man on” (a term used to described one who dresses in button up shirts). When Jay-Z said Cristal is his champagne of choice, rappers and consumers followed suit. When it was discovered that the makers of Cristal held negative views of their urban consumer base, he announced his boycott of the champagne. Again, others followed suit.
Now Jay-Z and his ability to influence urban culture is being put to the test in his latest anti Auto-Tune campaign.
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I wish I could have been a fly on the corner of Sedgwick and Cedar in the late 70’s. I can see it now: chilling, in my B-Boy stance, watching Kool Herc spinning vinyl, while the birth pains of the new born baby named hip-hop blast through Herc’s parents’ speakers. I wish I could have been there It would have been an amazing opportunity to be that fly, don’t get me wrong- I’m fly, sitting there for hip-hop’s umbilical cord being cut, just so I could ask the crowd: “are all of yall some followers?”
