I guess P. Diddy really does know what he's doing...his Making of the Band creation Danity Kane managed to score this past week's #1 album with their eponyous release, handily beat out Outkast's Idlewild psuedo-soundtrack, 234,000 to 196,000. This is both surprising yet not: Outkast have had a phenomenal string of hit records over the last 12 years, scaring up over 20,000,000 in album sales (best believe Danity won't see a fraction of that, ever) and their last album, 2003's  went gold it's very first week. Especially with the movie coming out the same week, expectations were high. However, the album suffered from weaker promotion than normally – most of those resources went to the movie – and the album lacked a stand-out single in the way that "I Love the Way You Move," from Speakerboxxx helped build anticipation for that album.

It doesn't help that the Idlewild album, while adventurous, is also inconsistent and far from the group's best work. Critic reviews have been middling and it doesn't seem like word of mouth is bubbling too crazy over it too. All these factors gave Danity Kane an edge to become #1 and certainly, nearly a quarter million in sales is not shabby.

Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics took a 61% hit, dropping to #3 after topping the chart last week. R&B-wise, the bottom two spots in the Top 10 were claimed by Luther Vandross and Kelis respective. A boxset, The Ultimate Luther Vandross, celebrating the music of the late R&B singer, was a hit with his many fans though Kelis' fans just don't seem to be as legion as her "Milkshake" days.

For this upcoming week, keep an eye on The Roots' latest release, Game Theory which dropped on Tuesday.

The Outkast period musical, Idlewild posted up respectable numbers this past weekend. Though the film was technically, #9 on the weekend box office, one needs to remember that it didn't come out in huge, wide release but rather, was shown in less than 1,000 theaters around the country. Based on its per-screen average, Outkast was actually the #1 film over the weekend, averaging $6,000 a screen. In contrast, the nation's highest grossing film over the weekend, the football drama Invincible, appeared on nearly three times the screens but made only $5800 per screen.

This bodes well for Idlewild's long(er) term prospects as it's likely to expand to more screens over the next few weeks and with good word of mouth (despite lukewarm critical responses), it may show good legs through September.

In related news, NPR had an interesting story over the weekend about the "real" Idlewild, a resort town, known as the "Black Eden of Michigan" by one scholar who was interviewed to give the town's history. While the fictional Idlewild of the movie was set in 1930s Georgia, the real Idlewild thrived from the 1920s through 1960s until – ironically – civil rights and integration laws undercut the town's rationale as a haven for Black vactioneers shut out of other places due to Jim Crow era segregation laws and discrimination.

(Sources: Vibe.com, NPR)

--O.W.

We've heard of people's fan-dom extending beyond the grave but maybe not so literally: the late Bay Area rapper Mac Dre suffered a posthumous indignity when the 50 pound tombstone marking his grave in an Oakland cemetary was stolen last week. According to family and police reports, an unidentified fan had been trying to find the rapper's gravesite in the Mountain View Cemetery (a very, very nice cemetery, by the way – I used to live down the street from it) and later that evening, officials discovered Dre's tombstone missing. Dre's uncle, Bernard Hicks, told a local newspaper, ""We just think it's some kind of fan. Some crazed fan who put it in their house." (That's one helluva fan prop).

Dre's family has put up a $10,000, no-questions-asked, reward for the recovery of the headstone and are contemplating having his remains moved back to Vallejo (30 minutes north of Oakland) so they can keep a closer eye on his gravesite.

(Source: Allhiphop.com)
--O.W.

With an album that's part urban/part pop/part cabaret, Christina Aguilera crushed the competition to take the #1 album spot this past week with Back to Basics. Her third studio album, it's nealry 350,000 units sold outpaces both her last albums, including her eponymous 1999 debut (also a #1). It's a good showing for Xtina and it's also good news for the record industry after a few rather anemic weeks when albums selling half of Xtina's numbers were still charting at #1. It helped that she had no real competition from other new releases, plus her single, "Ain't No Other Man" is climbing the pop charts nicely.

The rest of the Top 10, urban-wise, is filled with newer B-listers such as Lyfe Jennings whose The Phoenix didn't muster half of Aguilera's sales but still came in second. Atlanta's Cherish scored the #4 spot while Rick Ross' Port of Miami slides down to #7. Obie Trice, the Detroit rapper who surived being shot in the head, made a decent showing with his sophomore album, the cleverly (if not darkly) titled Second Round's On Me and it was good enough to make #8.

For this upcoming week, all eyes, er, ears will be on Outkast's Idlewild. Their last album went diamond (i.e. 10,000,000 copies sold) so it will be curious to see if Idlewild, the movie, ends up overshadowing the album (which isn't really a soundtrack despite being billed as one. Only a small handful of the songs on the album appear in the movie).
(Source: MTV News)

--O.W.

The NY Times ran a solid profile of once (and future?) hip-hop mogual Irv Gotti (aka Irving Lorenzo). For those who need a refresher course, in the late '90s, as head of Murder Inc., Irv looked like he could do no wrong with a string of hit artists on his roster and an uncanny sense of what kind of songs and singles would hit. He was fast flying to join an inner sanctum of hip-hop record exec/producer types that include P. Diddy, Jermanie Dupri, and scant others.

Then came accusations that Murder Inc. was helping launder money for a convicted drug lord and with that, The Inc's (they dropped the "Murder" part in order to avoid further controversy) prospects deflated. Today, Gotti has gotten himself a solid deal thorugh Universal: $10,000,000 in development funds, but neither he nor the label are the giants they once were. As the Times' Jeff Leeds notes, Inc.'s two former big cash cows, Ashanti and Ja Rule, have seemingly fallen out of favor with the pop public. However, Gotti managed to build up his label from relative scratch and if forced to do it again, he can still prove himself to be a self-made success story if his musical acumen is as sharp as it once was. Says Gotti: "“It’s like a rebirth. It feels like God put me through hell, showed me a lot of things, showed me who the good people and bad people are around me, and lined me up to do what I’m put here to do.”
(Source: NY Tines)

--O.W.

Uh oh...Busta Rhymes, already at the center of a controversial investigation into the shooting death of his former bodyguard (note: Busta is not a suspect in the case), has gotten into more direct legal trouble this weekend. Details are still rolling out but apparently, Busta was performing at the AmsterJam Festival in New York and got into an altercation wtih a concert-goer. That person allegedly spat on Busta's car which precipitated the assault. When the alleged victim reported this to police, Busta and his entourage tried to casually slip out but police found the rapper, arrested him and detained him for several hours before allowing him to leave.

News reports claim that during his time with the police, they tried to question Busta about his bodyguard's death but again, Busta refused to speak on that case. Busta is still the midst of promoting his recent album, The Big Bang which has underperformed expectations. Maybe that whole "even bad publicity is good publicity" theory will help him out here.
(Source: Billboard.com)

--O.W.

True, the song's lyrics make little sense (and as noted before, we really don't want to know what Fergie means by her "London Bridge," since it's probably not PG safe regardless) but the single has generated enough heat to stay a second week on top of the pop charts. This is good news for Fergie and even better news for producer Polow who saw two of his singles, "London Bridge" and the Pussycat Dolls' "Buttons" manage to squeeze out a #1 and #5 positions two weeks in a row. Considering that he only had about two major productions before this (Ludacris' "Pimpin' All Over the World" and Jamie Foxx's "DJ Play a Love Song"), Polow's having an amazing summer. Even his mentors like Timbaland can't boast two top 5 singles right now even though his pairing with Nelly Furtado on "Promiscious" is still good for #3.

The Top 5 are identical to last week and it's been solid for the R&B/hip-hop crowd: #2 is Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," Cassie's "Me & U" is at #4 and jumping up to #6 is Sean Paul's latest, the duet with Keyshia Cole, "Give It Up To Me."

Meanwhile, towards the bottom of the chart, Christina Aguilera and DJ Premier's "Ain't No Other Man" reaches #8 while Ne-Yo's new "Sexy Love" is at #9. At the bottom is yet another urban track: Young Dro's "Shoulder Lean" (didn't Fat Joe already knock out "Lean Back" two summers ago?) feat. T.I. Look for Justin Timberland + Timberlake's "Sexy Back" to make a move towards the Top 10 as it up jumped the boogie from #52 to #35 - a nice rise but nowhere as meteroic as Fergie's "London Bridge" which managed to go from #82 to #1 in just two weeks.
(Source: Billboard.com)

--O.W.

"Vans," the break-out song by Berkeley, CA rappers, The Pack, has been denied video rotation on the MTV networks despite fitting every critieria of "buzz" that's out there. The song initially began to creep onto people's radar early in the year, especially given its sparse beats and a chorus that had many – skaters or otherwise – chanting, "got my Vans on/but they look like sneakers." However, despite how "Vans" has attained major cult status – plus the blessing of Too Short who signed the group to one of his sudsidiary labels – MTV has argued that the video can't be screened in its current state unless 1) edits were made to the video and more drastically, 2) the chorus would have to be changed.

MTV's reasoning is that in its original state, "Vans" sounds too much like product placement (well, it is a song about shoes, after all) and they were uncomfortable with airing something that, to them, sounded like one long ad for Vans shoes. It is worth noting that MTV took a similar stance against the wildly popular track from Nelly, "Air Force Ones" even though BET had few qualms of playing it.

This does beg the question: if Run DMC had ever made a video for "My Adidas," would MTV have shown that back in the day?
(Source: Prohiphop.com)

--O.W.

New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne, who named his last album, Tha Carter II after the fictional crack house in the movie New Jack City, was caught up in some real-life drug drama in Atlanta earlier this week when he was arrested for drug possessionee who then got into an altercation with Wayne. Upon being asked to leave the room, the employee contacted the police who arrived at the hotel and ended up charging Weezy "with possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, purchase of a controlled substance and other, minor offenses ."

All in all, not the greatest look for Weezy – him carrying marijuana should hardly be that controversial but getting dimed out by a hotel clerk? Not exactly going out in a blaze a glory with that one. Still, it might make good fodder for Tha Carter III or some requisite mixtape. That plus Wayne needs to find someone else to carry his
(Source: RWD Magazine)

--O.W.

As many anticipated, Port of Miami, the debut album by Florida's Rick Ross, landed the coveted #1 spot atop the album charts this past week. It's been a slow summer for hip-hop but Ross managed to shake people out of the duldrums ... well, at least 187,000 of them which gave him fairly decent, if not stellar, numbers for an August release. Hey, at the very least he, along with Breaking Benjamin, managed to keep Now That's What I Call Music 22 from claiming yet another week as #1.

Ciaramerie, er, we mean Cassie had respectable numbers for her debut – 100,000 to be exact – good enough for #4 but still behind what LeToya Luckett was able to do a month ago (and unlike LeToya, Cassie's had a hot single burning up the charts but looks like it wasn't generating enough heat. Also urban related – the soundtrack for the dance film, Step Up jumped in at #6 even if the NY Times described it as, "It doesn’t seem right to ask anyone to pay $18.98 for a scattershot CD". Meanwhile, DMX's Year Of the Dog...Again took a big tumble from #2 to #9 (I'd make a "bark/bite" joke but I did that last week).

This current week has few huge releases but next week brings Outkast's long-awaited Idlewild, both the soundtrack (which actually isn't really a soundtrack insofar as the songs aren't in the movie) and the movie itself.
(Source: MTV News)

--O.W.

50 Cent came out with his own vitamin water but Jay-Z used no less than the platform of the United Nations – sitting next to U.N. Chief Kofi Annan – to announce a campaign designed to bring attention to a crisis in clean drinking water available in many poor countries. This is a partnership between the U.N. and MTV – the video channel is developing a documentary called "Diary of Jay-Z: Water for Life" that will follow Jay on an int'l tour, including to several of the countries most adversely affected by the lack of drinking water.

During the press conference where this was announced, Jay told reporters,

"It's a huge responsibility, and humbling at the same time. I wanted to go to these [countries I've never visited before] to just tour and play music. Of course, I can't go to any place without touching the culture and seeing what's going on. When you start getting down to Africa and places like that, you see that billions of people don't have access to water."

It's easily to think a little cynically about this – is it just a smart P.R. campaign? – but even if Jay obviously stands to benefit from the added attention with such a good will campaign you have to admire how he's putting his fame to use especially in an international context. American hip-hoppers are some of the most remarkably parochially minded entertainers around, barking their block in lyrics but sometimes failing to appreciate the wider world that is also struggling around them. Not to overstqate things but it's hard not to compare this to similar international tours taken up by folks from James Brown to Muhammed Ali that served as good will gestures (though not with the same kind of U.N. backing that Jay is getting) and of course, elevating the iconic status of the performers from local to global.
(Source: MTV News)

--O.W.

DMX's new Year of the Dog...Again did not come in as the top album in the nation unlike his previous five albums (an incredible run no matter what you may think of the gruff rapper) but the fact that it even charted at #2 (albeit in a very slow week) is remarkable enough. DMX's first new album in three years, Year of the Dog lacked a strong promotional push, had no major single burning up the charts and in general, it's felt like the hip-hop faithful had more or less forgotten about the X as the troubled rapper appeared less on radio and video shows and more in the news for his time in rehab and frequent arrests.

Yet, it's clear that he still has a loyal fan base, enough to scare up over 100,000 albums sold for the new album. It's not a stellar number – even this week's #1, the Now That's What I Call Music 22 compilation barely limped into that top spot, only a 1,000 units ahead of DMX's 126,000 – but that said, under the circumstances, you can take this as evidence that DMX's loyal fans are still in the proverbial dog pound, rooting for their hero.

Elsewhere on the album charts, last week's #1 from R&B singer LeToya Luckett, LeToya fell to #5 while Pharrell Williams' underperforming In My Mind went from 3 to 9 and is likely to duck out of the Top 10 completely by next week. No big releases on the immediate horizon in the R&B and hip-hop world for this week though Christina Aguilera's pop/R&B double CD Back to Basics drops next week.
(Source: Billboard.com)

--O.W.

In today's "why you wanna go and do that?" news, quick-witted rhymer Supernatural set a new world record when he managed to freestyle for nine hours straight, beating the old record held by Canadian MC D.O. by 15 minutes. If anyone remembers Supernat from back in the '90s, he was the freestyle wizard who blew away minds on The Wake-Up Show and other places but when it came time to record his debut album, like a lot of battle MCs, he couldn't kick songwriting strong enough to maintain a larger audience interest. Heck, we didn't even know he was still around but apparently, Supernat still has it in him.

We have no idea what would possess one to freestyle for that long or what possible point there'd be to prove but hey, whatever floats thy boat. Supernat did this at the Rock the Bells Festival over the weekend in San Bernadino and was handed topics by lookie-loos who wrote down topics on a dry erase board and handed it to the rapper to work into his off-the-dome flow. What we want to know is: what's the longest any fan stood around to witness this? That'd be an endurance feat too (I mean, we like freestyling as much as the next guy but for nine hours?)
(Source: SOHH.com)

--O.W.

True to the latest fad to return to hip-hop, the community blog, Oh Word, has devoted an entire week to a celebration (of sorts) of rap's love affair with crack. It's not just all about cocaine however as Oh Word takes a few liberties in creating posts that are tangentially about crack yet still pretty brilliant regardless.

One of the best is this fake story about the NY Times new graffiti logo campaign which actually had me going for a few minutes until I realized it was just a touch too crazy to seem true. There's also a post on the story behind Funkmaster Wizard Wiz's forgotten anti-crack rap song, "Crack It Up", including scans.

However, our favorite might just be the Wu-Tang meets Peanuts comic series, especially this episode where Da Snowman pays a visit to Snoopface Killah and Charlie Braekwon. Inspired, f'real.
(Source: del.icio.us)

--O.W.

Where have we heard this before? The Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, TX sponsored an event where people were invited to throw their rap CDs onto a heaping pile and then watch as a bulldozer came by and crushed the mountain of music. When asked why the church would host such an event, one congregation member explained:

""It's a culture of hypnosis, brainwashing kids into mimicking degrading values. It's all about, you know, selling drugs, getting money, cheating on your girl."

. This comes in the wake of a recent set of shootings in a Dallas club which left two members of rival gangs dead after Lil' Jon's set-boosting "Put Yo Hood Up" allegedly fanned tensions between gang members. However, the event also smacks of how radio stations used to sponsor events to destroy disco records in the late '70s during the height of that music's popularity and the backlash towards it. Plus, who's gonna clean up that mess?
(Source: SOHH.com)

--O.W.

Many were surprised when the cinematic debut of Atlanta rapper T.I. in ATL wasn't in a so-called "hood film" but rather, a light, romantic drama centered around...a roller-rink. The only trap game there was the trap of love (sorry, we just had to go there). For his next film however, T.I.'s getting a bit more serious, playing the nephew of a drug lord played by Denzel Washington in a project called American Gangster. Like the Hughes Brothers popular '90s cult film, Dead Presidents, American Gangster takes places during the Vietnam War era and Washington's character smuggles drugs into the U.S. by stashing them in the coffins of returning GIs.

The picture also stars Russell Crowe and T.I. is aware that he's got a few heavy-hitters around him, noting to Billboard:

""Right now I'm learning everything I can about my character. I'm just there to soak things up. There's a bunch of Academy Award-winners on this cast and I'm just there to learn. I'm in school."

Tip is also at work on his next album, tentatively entitled "T.I. vs. Tip." (He's just gotta get a Q-Tip cameo in there; it's only right).
(Source: Billboard)

--O.W.

People expected for a big R&B/hip-hop album to pop up this past week but everyone thought it'd be Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes. It turned out, instead, to be the debut album by LeToya Luckett, aka the Mary Wells of Destiny's Child. She claimed the #1 spot with LeToya – a dark-horse winner if there ever was one given Pharrell's more high-profile stature. However, Pharrell's In My Mind lacked a surefire single – nothing remotely on the level of his summer hit "Frontin'" or the single he produced last year for Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl."

As a result, even despite strong sales, In My Mind floated in at #3, behind Now That's What I Call Music 22. It could be that Pharrell could get a boost later this summer with a better single but we wouldn't bet on that happening. Elsewhere on the charts, the Gnarls Barkley album continues to do well, just slipping one notch from #4 to 5. Not too many big new releases otherwise except for the Jurassic 5 album, Feedback which came in at a decent #15 and could yet rise.
(Source: MTV News)

--O.W.

While no one should be surprised by the move, Los Angeles rapper The Game has left Dr. Dre's Aftermath label as a way to avoid having to release his second album, The Doctor's Advocate, the follow-up to his breakout debut in 2005, The Documentary, on G-Unit Records. In case people forgot this huge blow-up of last year, G-Unit's 50 Cent and The Game had a major, shots bucked, falling out and had The Game's new album come out on G-Unit, as The Documentary did, it's likely that 50 would have seen profit off of it despite their poor personal relationship and The Game wasn't about to see that happen.

No official notice has been made yet but rumors say that The Game will be signing with Geffen instead. Because G-Unit is a subsidiary of Aftermath, ironically, by leaving G-Unit, he's also forcing Aftermath to take a financial hit despite the full involvement of Dr. Dre on the new album.
(Source: SOHH.com)

--O.W.

The Black Eyed Peas might walk away with Grammys and sales awards but they recently were honored with something very different: a Presidential Medal of Merit from the government of the Philippines, acknowledging what the group has done to "bring positive attention to the country in literature, science, the arts or entertainment." If you're a little confused as to what BEP has done to earn this kind of award, you have to remember that founding member Apl.de.app is, himself, of Filipino descent and a few years back, helped compose a song that BEP released called, appropriately, "The Apl Song" which was about the rapper's experience growing up as a child in the Philippines and his journey to America.

While there for the award, the group also performed at a charity concert with proceeds going to help victims of a massive series of landslides that hit the region of Southern Leyte back in February.
(Source: Allhiphop.com)

--O.W.

MTV News is reporting that the Clipse, whose sophomore album has seemingly been waiting in the wings for years now, will finally see Hell Hath No Fury get a formal release on October 31st (aka Halloween). For the occasion, or perhaps because of it, the album will have a darker, more sinister feel than what was originally plotted. However, because the album took so long to come out, Pusha T and Malice decided to trash their original idea and whip out a new effort.

This has been an on-going drama since their label, Jive/Zomba had inexplicably kept the group's follow-up to 2002's Lord Willin shelved, inviting scorn from the Clipse on their mega-popular We Got It 4 Cheap mixtapes from last year (sample lyric: "f--- Zomba/I sell nose candy/Willy Wonka"). However, it looks like everything has been settled and while the Clipse album was originally due out in late summer, a late October release is definitely preferable to a winter release as had been rumored as well. Said Malice: "It's just fitting. Halloween — let the demons loose." Scary.
(Source: MTV News)

--O.W.