After a recent altercation in New York City, Jim Jones’ lawyer Scott Leemon has confirmed with XXLmag.com that the Dipset rapper was charged with misdemeanor assault charges today.

Leemon said that the Harlem rep voluntarily turned himself in to authorities. “He was charged with misdemeanor assault this morning,” he revealed, “Last week before the holiday I made arrangements with [the] NYPD to surrender him at 10 o’clock this morning. He was released on a desk appearance ticket.”

While Leemon would not get into any specifics about the case, MTV news reports that the Dispet Capo got into a fight with a man traveling with Ne-Yo at the 5th Avenue Louis Vuitton Store in Manhattan. The man’s identity is unconfirmed but many speculate it’s the R&B singer’s manager, who is also brother to longtime Jay-Z associate Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith. Jones’ distaste for Hov is no secret as he has publicly dissed the Brooklyn mogul countless times.

MTV was able to catch up with Jimmy to get his take on the fight. “I don’t know what this is for,” he said. “All I know is I was shopping. I don’t know what happened. “

What he does know is that his reputation on the street puts him in an awkward position now that he’s in the public eye. “Being a gangsta rapper or a ‘hardcore’ rapper, you find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he continued. “It’s a thin line, because there’s things I’ve done in my career to get where I am today, and I’ve benefited off it. For me to make a transition and take my career to the next level, there’s some things I can’t obviously do anymore. What I mean by that is, you play the tough guy and put yourself into those positions, and things can happen. You end up like this, [with] a big inconvenience.

Jones is scheduled to appear in court on February 4. His major label debut, Pray for Reign is set to hit stores on February 20. - Elan Mancini with additional reporting by Jesse Gissen

XXLmag.com recently caught up with incarcerated rapper Black Rob to find out if he is still signed with Bad Boy Records and when he expects to get out of jail.

Rob (born Robert Ross) was arrested in 2004 for burglary and criminal possession after he was caught on tape stealing a pocketbook from a hotel room. According to the New York Post, the bag contained over $6,000 worth of jewelry and cash and the Harlem bred MC was sentenced to two to six years in ‘06 for the charges.

While he’s been serving time, Rob says he has not been in communication with his label, but until he gets the call he’s still with Diddy. “I haven’t heard from these dudes, they might’ve took me off the Bad Boy website or whatever but I haven’t heard from anyone telling me what the deal is. So until I get a piece of paper saying that I’m no longer a Bad Boy artist, I’m still reppin’ that flag. I’m a team player man.”

And fans may be hearing from Rob soon. BR has been using his time to write constantly and believes he may be released shortly. “Right now I’m looking at like 90 Days before I touch the streets,” he said.

As of press time, there has been no official release date. – Elan Mancini with additional reporting by Rob Markman

Stay tuned for a full length feature with Black Rob on XXLmag.com shortly.

Like my homies on staff at XXL, I too wish for change in 2009. Alas, a change is not going to come. Or well, at least not the one diehard hip-hop fans want.

Maybe, just maybe, one of those Freshman 10 is going to blow up, or at the very least become very popular very soon. And I mean popular in the modern sense of the word, as in having mad myspace friends, millions of youtube parody videos, and about 6 months of relevance, tops (ask Soulja Boy how that feels, his career is officially dead and he will be a Vanilla Ice-like punchline in rap shortly, if rappers ever get back to using punchlines, that is). That artist is going to be Kid Cudi.

Now I’m not saying Asher Roth isn’t talented, that Mickey Factz isn’t going to wind up on your television set shortly (mums the word), that B.O.B. isn’t the 2nd coming of Andre 3K, that Wale won’t put DC on the map…. no no no. Everyone on that cover deserved to be there, and I think they will all have careers.

The difference between Cudi and these other guys, at least for the time being, is one thing. He, unlike his compadres, has a bona fide hit record. Bona fide in the sense that a) the song is popular b) it will be on every radio station, literally, day n nite, shortly.

I point this song out for one specific reason- it’s not even a rap song. Sure it’s got a few words that rhyme, but that’s just the poetic nature of music for ya. Ok, the rap version has kind of a hip-hop drum beat to it, but what modern form of pop music other than straight up rock doesn’t?

XXL’s Editor in Chief, Datwon Thomas, and I, were exchanging texts some time last week (I want to say, New Year’s Eve?). We were talking about Ludacris’ Theater of the Mind LP, and how it was one of the best albums of 2008, but that nobody really fucked with it. My assessment was that Luda, unlike his contemporaries (TI and…. TI?) opted to re-enter the rap game straight spitting, while TI, for example, came out harmonizing like he was Teddy Pendergrass on “Whatever U Like.” Sure, TI still raps. But the song that put him over the top for his Paper Trail LP was a song he practically “sang.”

Then the strangest thing happened.

I got an email to my blackberry from god knows who, talking about how Lupe Fiasco had formed a new band called Japanese Cartoon, and was singing with a British accent while calling himself Percival Fats.

I listened to the Japanese Cartoon songs and scratched my head, thinking about where rap is going in 2009.

And it’s clearly moving even further away from traditional rap. Artists are jumping ship from the hip-hop genre left and right, heading towards doing other forms of music, and embracing their creative selves.

I interviewed 50 Cent a few months before G-Unit’s T.O.S. dropped, and asked Curtis if he felt like he and his compatriots felt creatively stuck in a box. He replied:

Yayo gotta do some gangsta shit, Banks gotta be lyrical, and I gotta do something that works in the club. That is probably one of the bigger and broadest descriptions of this actual group. We’ve been typecast in that way.

It was an interesting response from Fif, because he was kind of acknowledging that a lot of what G-Unit does creatively comes from what people expect of them. And I sensed a bit of frustration about that fact when i asked the question.

But at the time, Lil Wayne was tearing up the charts with “Lollilop,” on a song where he too, practically sings the whole track. T-Pain and Akon have made their careers harmonizing songs into sort of an R&B/rap hybrid form of music.

And Kanye closed out the year with 808s and Heartbreak, which rap fans hated, but regular music fans loved. Correlation? Perhaps.

Maybe it’s that fans and critics of rap resist change. I really cannot, for the life of me, find a genre of music and an industry other than rap- most glaringly at the mainstream level- that is so behind the times. Talk about stuck in the mud.

And that’s why in 2009, you’ll see the Kanye effect ripple through the urban side of the music business, with more artists going the Lupe route, espousing rap for singing in foreign accents and just doing whatever the fuck they want.

Because see, right now, opinion leaders and gatekeepers within the music business don’t have nearly don’t have nearly as much value as they once did. This is the Pro Tools era, and the social networking era. Where the technology allows you to make any kind of music you want, day n nite…. and when you’re looking for someone to play a little guitar riff on your track, you simply send out a Myspace bulletin or a Twitter.

The true creative people in hip-hop, they just want to do whatever the fuck they want. And that’s the bottom line. The people who are trying to fit them into some neat little box, prepare to be seriously disappointed. You’re just seeing the start of this shift. The exodus from rap has officially begun.

As Christmas inched toward New Year’s Day, Dark & Lovely spokes-leprechaun Katt Williams confused the fuck out of me by attacking Steve Harvey and threatening to steal his comedy crown during a joint NYE performance in the coooold-ass D.

While Jamie Foxx chose to endorse his former Dubba-dubba-WB slotmate, I maintain that Steve Harvey is a major-league coon. I don’t care how lean a nigga pockets get, there is some shit I just can’t endorse. Fucking Denny’s is high atop that list.

I also agree that it’s impossible for Steve Harvey to be one of the Original Kings of Comedy when countless comics before him took this shit to heights Mr. Hightower has never seen. All I remember from Harvey’s portion of the inaptly-named special is a tired-ass chuuuch routine and his official audition for the position of oldies station on-air personality.

[Blogger's Note: Bernie motherfuckin' Mac earned the motherfuckin' namesake that motherfuckin' night.]

“Awwwww, this was my jam back in the damn day! What y’all young bucks know about this Earth, Wind & Fire?! *snickering alone*“

For all of the stones thrown before and during the Detriot NYE performance, Katt Williams speaks like a man who wasn’t sitting Indian-style in a padded cell singing “Endless Love” into a limited-edition Marsha Brady hairbrush just a week ago.

As soon as he started poppin off, all I could remember was how this nigga couldn’t so much as order a cheeseburger from room service without forgetting his own name. I done seent the video. Holler if you hear me, now.

Katt Williams just came out the damn crazy house. Why aren’t niggas just ignoring him like society does the rest of the mentally ill? His tactics now include those seen from desperate rappers on the verge of moving back into the projects with grandma-nana’nem. I guess he hasn’t exactly been on the streets to see how well the kicking and screaming routine has been working out for 50 Cent and Soulja Boy, but pimps are supposed to be naturally intuitive creatures.

Maybe when Williams finally came to, the Dipset chain on his dresser was the only clue to remind him of who he was. That’s pretty fucking sad as Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and Freekey Zeekey have long since redeemed their shits at the recycling center.

This back-and-forth EweToube beef doesn’t go over well for rappers. It’s damn sure not gonna work for comedians.

As much disdain as I harbor for T-Pain’s incessant Auto-Tune whining, as far as we all know he discretely covered for Williams at the onset of his toddler spaz. I’m not gonna go as far as to say homeboy’s been on drugs or anything, because I don’t know the man. But given the series of events in Money Mike’s life to end 2008, it’s looking more and more like Teddy Pizzle was just the temp who filled in for that one co-worker who “had a little too much fun, Charlie Murphy.” He likely could have told the world some pretty foul shit after The Negro Channel Hip-Hop Awards, instead he made up that bullshit story about the breaking contest.

What this nigga Katt should have done was capitalize properly on the initial buzz that came from The Pimp Chronicles, Part 1. That shit was incredible. I have it on my DVR to this fucking day! His Lilliputian ass kicked the door wide-the-fuck open then. All he had to do was come up with some new material, tour a bit and watch the money pile up. Apparently he did all but the foremost, then broke the fuck down before our disappointed eyes.

I love Katt Williams. Some niggas back on Big Green even accused me of being Katt Williams blog alter-ego, but I can’t rock with A Pimp Named Slickback on this type of behavior. I do hope he makes a full recovery someday in the not-so-distant future, though.

The first sign would likely be the perm looking correct again, because that shit was looking a little Whitney Houston-ish in the NYE video.

Questions? Comments? Requests? Ready for the 2008 Negro Please Awards set to begin this week? *GASP!* ron@ronmexicocity.com

P.S.: Judges also would have accepted, “That [perm] was looking like a lost member of Total.”

With thousands of unheard songs by hip-hop heavyweights Tupac and Snoop Dogg, among others hitting the auction block later this month, fans would think they would have no problem finding buyers, but it seems as if former owner, Suge Knight, is a real turnoff.

New York’s Daily News reports that Knight’s Death Row Records will be going up for sale on January 15 but the label founder’s shady reputation may make it a tough sell. A source tells the paper that, “Some people don’t want to go near the catalog because they think Suge still believes it’s his.”

The former hip-hop mogul was forced to put the music up for sale after filing for bankruptcy in ’06. Authorities have tried unsuccessfully to put the extensive library on the auction block before, but all the prior deals have fell through. As XXLmag.com previously reported, Suge was accused of hiding a portion of Death Row’s catalog from Global Music Group, an indie that tried to buy the West Coast label last year.

Along with Death Row going up for sale, Knight’s Malibu mansion was auctioned off for $4.5 million just last month. The 8,272 square-feet house was built seven years ago and has 9.5 bathrooms, a pool, a spa and mountain and ocean views. It’s estimated value is over $6.2 million. – Elan Mancini

DMX’s Arizona estate, which was featured throughout his BET show “DMX: Soul Of A Man,” has gone on the market.

While it may not be as glamourous as you remember it, the house still has a beautiful view, real estate agent Andrew Wheeler insisted to AZ’s 3TV. The house is going for a $429,000 - close to $200K less than X paid 6 years ago due to it’s current condition.

3TV reports that the house is the epitome of a fixer upper. Since the SWAT team raided the home last May, investigating charges of animal cruelty, it hasn’t been the same. The raid left the house unsecured, leaving the place open for burglars to take whatever they pleased, including X’s prized ATV’s.

The troubled rapper, who is currently awaiting sentencing for drug, theft and animal cruelty charges in the state, said since he broke up with his wife, the house failed to be taken care of. X’s next court appearance is scheduled for January 30. - Elan Mancini

What’s beef ? B.I.G. might have described it best, but Tru Life knows it just as well. Known probably more for altercations with New York Giants Prodigy and Cam’ron than his equally formidable mic skills, the Lower East Side MC has garnered a reputation for being a loose cannon even before ever releasing an album. Now after a one-year hiatus from the game, the Rocafella upstart has broken his silence after XXL put the rhyme sayer on a milk carton in a recent issue. In this two-part feature, Tru Life goes in on everything from where he’s been, choosing between Dame and Jay, fatherhood, former beefs, his highly anticipated album and more.

XXLMag.com: Alright, first I saw the Youtube video you posted in response to XXL putting you on the “missing” milk carton. How did you find out and feel about that ?

Tru Life: My brother called me, I think he was more upset than I was. We laughed about it. To be honest I had just took a little break. I didn’t feel like I was missing, I felt like the game was missing me. They just letting me know that they missing me right now. I didn’t really take it no other way, it wasn’t a big deal to me. The weird part to me was, it wasn’t like I’m an artist who had an album out or I been in the game fifty years or something like that. Niggas made it seem like I was Nature or somebody like that that’s been gone for years. I only been gone for a year. But it wasn’t like I was mad at XXL. I even heard they playing the footage on the radio, trying to say I was going hard on XXL. I wasn’t going hard, I’m just a marketing genius and know how to flip things in my favor.

XXL: I heard you say in the video that you were in a suite that was 15K a night. You’ve obviously been laying low, where have you been ?

Tru: Honestly, I been doing the Daddy Daycare thing. In the crib running around with my two little short mans and all that. Taking my sons to boxing classes, karate classes, cub scouts, doing regular father shit. I took a break too because I had to find new inspiration to do this. When you’re not inspired to do music, then you force music. When you force music, then it comes out wack. So it wasn’t like I was on the shelf or like Jay-Z wasn’t fucking with me. Jay and them niggas breathing down my neck trying to get me out like ‘come on, lets do this.’ I had the streets on fire, had everybody in the game fucking with me from 50 [Cent] to Jada to everybody. I wasn’t inspired so I just fell back. I don’t know if people thought [the video] was staged like I asked somebody to let me pose with some money….I had to let niggas know I ain’t starving. I own three houses and all of them are paid for. I’ve been able to do good business and make smart decisions without even putting out a record.

XXL: So are you still uninspired to do music ?

Tru: Nah, I’m so inspired. Because when people doubt me, that’s when I’m at my best. I’m back. I just got in the trenches but I’m into quality, not quantity. I don’t care about throwing out a million records. Niggas is like ‘oh, so and so’s feeding the streets, they got a thousand mixtapes out.’ Yea, that’s a thousand mixtapes of trash my nigga. That’s microwave music. Niggas just throw it in there real quick, it aint even done yet. They eating that shit raw. Mine is in the oven, so when I pull it out, its like Thanksgiving dinner.

XXL: So with that being said, when can fans expect to finally hear that proper Tru Life debut LP ?

Tru: It’s coming. It’s been long awaited and long hated and now I just had to update it. Shout to the homie Nas, I got him on the album, I got Jay-Z on the album, I got Snoop. I got all the living legends on there. I’m just taking my time. Look how long Dre been taking…look how long that nigga Detox album is taking to come out. Niggas ain’t throw him on that milk carton did they? [laughs]. It’d be different if I was in a different era. Picture me coming out when you can go in the studio and you just copped the Wu-Tang album and the Biggie album and the Chronic album is out and Doggystyle. Where there were classics out and everybody was being competitive. That makes you wanna rap. Now look what I got to come out to. I don’t wanna throw nobody names out there but…when you go against what’s out there now, [it] make you not even wanna do this shit.

XXL: You say hip-hop in general but you hinted at New York hip-hop specifically having continued to be on the decline. Why ?

Tru: Like, I was on bringing that New York sound back but you can’t bring that old sound back, shit is dated. It’s played out. A lot of the producers in New York, it’s like they lost they swagger. They would give me beats and it sounded like Lil Jon CD’s. I got a joint called “New York City” that Just Blaze did with everybody repping they borough. It’s me repping Manhattan, Fat Joe repping the Bronx, Fab repping Brooklyn, Nas repping Queens and Ghostface repping Staten Island. I’m trying to change the game. Like, my next shit that I put out, whether it’s a mixtape or whatever, it’s going to be very visual. Like, I’m going to have a visual for every song and if you’re in the car or something you can turn it over and listen to the records. You know how you be like ‘this my shit’ and you wish they did a video for that record but they never do ? That’s the type of shit I’m putting out. -Anthony Roberts

Make sure to tune in for Tru Hollywood Stories Pt.2 this Wednesday (01/07/09).

It’s 2009, finally! All this preparing and waiting and the shut down of the industry has killed me. It’s January 5, 2009, we are back in business. And with a new year there can be many changes. At the office we always talk about things we’d love to see in hip-hop, if they happened. And lately the talk isn’t that exciting. There’s something up with hip-hop. It’s not as fun as it used to be. I can’t really decide why. You can point at all sorts of different reasons—ringtone rappers, one hit wonders, rappers singing, fake thugs—of what’s fucked up about it but each one of those issues can be flipped into a reason why hip-hop has done well to a degree.

So because I don’t know what is actually wrong with hip-hop (besides the sales, which is really a reflection of technology and not actual content. Okay, maybe a little content…) here’s a list of 9 things that I think would be right for hip-hop in 2009. In no particular order. [Note: This list does not include anything about the end of auto-tunes because that is too obvious at this point.]-VS

A New Crew - There hasn’t been a new big, powerful rap crew in a long time. Not really since G-Unit. Yeah, sure, there was Trill Ent. but that really wasn’t a crew, it had the budding potential but was a few MCs short and then G.O.O.D. Music doesn’t really fit the definition. And Grand Hustle hasn’t really taken off like Cash Money or No Limit or N.W.A or Bad Boy or Death Row (check the March issue of XXL for more of this list and topic). It would be great to see a new movement come out and dominate and get all the other crews revved up going again.

A Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown Collabo - I am not going to say we need a new star female MC. I don’t know if we are really even checking for one. We didn’t want Shawnna and she could rhyme and looked good. We said no to Lil’ Mama even though she was the only female rapper in how long to not be the first lady of a crew and get her own record deal? We stay saying no to Jean Grae though she tries to give us something different. So forget a new female MC. What we need is for Foxy and Kim, to get over their notorious mysterious beef and get on a song together—a real one. One strong enough for a video. Then make a video! Do they understand how great this would be? For their (careers…) and for us! And for female rappers? They have the power. (Not to mention what a nice XXL cover it would make). Someone call Gavin.

Diplomats Back Together - Jimmy without Cam and Cam without Jimmy is fucked up. Enough said. But since I’m wordy, we need all four of the core back together. Then let the new crew (mentioned above) get their blood pumping mixed with Jim’s new stardom and everything will fall into place.

Shyne Comes Home - After what feels like a zillion years Shyne is gonna come home. Really it’s gonna be like seven years, and no one knows what to expect. Let’s not forget that at some point along the way Shyne Po, who was Jamal Barrow, changed his name to Moses Michael Leviy, in honor of his Jewish heritage. (?!) It would be amazing to see Shyne get out and go back to rap, and still be able to rap. Then blow us away with mixtapes and Internet tracks in preparation for 2010 when he drops one classic album then retires. (Of course one track on the LP would feature Matisyahu.)

Lil’ Boosie Steps It Up - I am a Lil’ Boosie fan. B-O-O-S-I-E B-A-D-A-Z-Z, that’s me! And most people I ask seem to like Boosie so where the fuck is he? He’s got the set up to go out there and make a spot for himself. He’s developed a fan base. Go look up some of his live performances on YouTube and the crowd is there. Boosie just needs to follow in the footsteps of his fellow New Orleans MC, Lil’ Wayne and collaborate, record and release shit like crazy. He needs to do like Crooked I and his Hip-Hop Weekly’s. He needs to help balance some of this out. And he needs to just go by Boosie.

A New All Star Hip-Hop Producer - We need a new producer with his (or her) sound to come out and take over. But it needs to be someone with the confidence to carry the character without getting carried away. You know what we need? Mannie Fresh 2009. Or something like that. A new star producer. Mannie doesn’t make beats often enough anymore and Kanye, Dr. Dre, Scott Storch, Swizz Beatz, Pharrell and Timbaland all have their own stories, drama and costs. Sure there are a lot of up and coming producers and bigger names out there but we need one of those to pop out as a leader, a fresh face and new sound with talent and personality to make him a star but the ego to keep him in check.

An Album from Eminem or Dr. Dre - We need an Eminem album or we need Detox. Period. With Eminem, the guy has grown up, been through so much and so has the country that if anyone can come up with some great lyrics right now I am pretty sure it’s Eminem. I’m counting on him. And as far as Detox, Fall 2010 would be the 10th anniversary of 2001 so it makes sense to be this year. And we need to see what Dr. Dre is capable of anymore. Is he the hip-hop hero we’ve created him to be or not really anymore? All I know is we need one of those albums.

New Independent Record Label – A rich rapper needs to start his own independent record label and scoop up all these unsigned, disgruntled MCs. Not have a rapper get a gig at a major label and sign other rappers, no. Make their own label, maybe even make it completely digital, and run it without all the clueless label people. Who knows what a rapper needs better than an accomplished rapper? Let them run the business and be the first to find out how to control or work with the Internet. Be the pioneer.

One of the Freshmen To Blow Up
We need a new rap star. New blood! We haven’t had one since when? It depends on your definition of a star. Since 50 Cent there’s been Young Jeezy and Kanye, correct? Who have been the big stars in addition to them? Soulja Boy? T.I. had already been around and so had Lil Wayne. So it would be very important for hip-hop if a new rap star emerged in the next year. And it would be great for XXL if that star were one of XXL’s Top 10 Freshman of 2009. Who would you bet on?

Here are a few from XXL staff –
Datwon Thomas, Editor-In-Chief:
I’d say Detox needs to drop. Em can go another year without an album; this Dr. Mystery of an album needs to happen by 2nd quarter already…

Rob Markman, Music Editor:
My personal list is 1. Detox, 2. An Andre 3000 solo disc, 3. The emergence of a new superstar (so we don’t have to rely on the old ones.)

Carl Chery, Digital Content Director: We need a new superstar. Also, someone needs to drop an undeniable classic. There needs to be a significant release from a female MC.

Anslem Samuel, Senior Editor: With Barack in office (16 days) we need more positive music. Positive is wrong word, but tired of the same shuckin a jivin rhetoric. We need real music. Albums from Dre and Andre 3000 will be welcome. Lauryn Hill too. Most importantly, we need less egos. Kinda like how T.I. and Jay did “Swagger Like Us” together. Having stars on same track is big step. What happened to the real posse cuts?

Clover Hope, News Editor: Speaking of egos, how bout rappers stop turning down XXL covers and features! Judging from sales, they need us more than ever. Also, for Ron Browz to go away.

Jesse Gissen, Digital News Editor: We need a new cam album and that Juelz/ Lil Weezy collabo to drop.

Starrene Rhett, Editorial Associate: 1. Rappers being dumb enough to jump on Jim Jones’ calling people “Obama” trend. 2. An album will actually come out when scheduled. 3. The emergence of a significant female emcee. 4. T-Pain gives up autotune, while everyone else continues to rape it.

Dave Bry, Features Editor: 1) moratorium on autotune. 2) increased investment (on the part of artists, fans and media outlets) in indie-scale music. 3) the popularization of a radical new sound (a la wu-tang, 1994). 4) further optimization of the internet (a la lil wayne, 2007). 5) and yeah, “detox” would definitely be nice.

What do you guys think needs to happen in ‘09?

If you asked your average rap music fan in between the ages of 28yo and 35yo what is the album they anticipate the most I bet the answer would be ‘Detox’ from Dr. Dre. I’m not even hypothesizing that answer. I know this for a fact. It has only been talked about for the last seven years. The question has been what is taking so long for this album to be released?

There have been some hiccups and roadblocks in front of the arrival of this album. None greater than the death of Dr. Dre’s eldest child from what has been ruled an accidental drug overdose. In this particular case, detox certainly did not arrive on time. The irony of the album’s projected title should be lost on no one. But I believe that from this tragedy we will receive a landmark musical lesson from Dr. Dre.

KanYe West found a way to condense the pain he felt inside and deliver what was prA’li the best hip-pop album of all time. Filled with passion, rhymes, new wave synth grooves, vocoder vocal pitch tricks, hissy bitch fits and just generally all around G.O.O.D. music. What do you think a producer of Dr. Dre’s caliber could do if he released the same amount of raw emotion that KanYe exuded? I think he could make an album that might cause a lot of heads to overdose the day it is leaked.

Think about how many of you switched your swagger up because of Dre’s influence? That is the power of music. It shapes how you view the world and you place inside of it. It tells you to wear a black hoody or to sk8board down the street. It teaches you how to speak to one another and how to treat one another. Music is that powerful in its ability to socialize us all. The best musicians are teachers and the best teachers and music lovers. You can not separate the two.

I hope that when Dr. Dre finally releases the ‘Detox’ album he chooses to include all the lessons he has learned from his time spent making music. The friends he has had to watch come into his leave and then abruptly leave without affording him the chance to say goodbye. None of these losses greater than that of Andre Young Jr. who wanted nothing more than to make music that influenced people just like his father. You will never get the pain from loss out of your blood system. You can only hope to make some music to give you a brief detox.

Just one day before New Year’s Eve, teen rap sensation Soulja Boy was robbed at his Atlanta home.

Despite suspicions from fans after several videos hit the net from the alleged thugs describing the crime, TMZ has confirmed that the 18-year-old was indeed robbed. A rep for SB said the house was broken into but luckily no one was injured.

As of press time it is unclear what the assailants stole.

SB made headlines last week when he shockingly called out Queenbridge vet Nas, blaming him for killing hip-hop. These statements were made less then a week after the disappointing record sales of the young rapper’s sophomore disc, iSouljaboytellem, was released. – Elan Mancini

As I head to the airport where my flight is gonna whisk me off to an exotic location where no mosquitos are at, I’m still in Hip-Hop mode. I’m wondering if this spot I’m headed to will have dope international hip-hop acts. If they do, I’ll find them. I feel that as Americans we don’t give a fair shake to those across the water that embrace the culture of hip-hop, most times more so than we do! Some of these African, French and Japanese MCs be killing freestyle ciphers. I don’t know what they are saying but shit, I don’t know what some of them southern artists be saying half the time either.

I’m going to this new breeding ground for talent with a clear mind, and hopeful ear. I suggest that this year you also expand your hip-hop horizons to include international MCs and introduce them to us in this forum. My drinks are waiting for me fam, so I’ll holla back when I’m back in the states. Stay tuned. -DT

I think I will zag while most people are zigging. I will still Zig-Zag in 2009, actually, I am doing more bonging and bowling. I never really zagged at all. Especially since the Gonzaga basketball team is affectionately nicknamed the ‘Zags in the mainstream sports media. White men can’t jump. My point is that I like to do shit different not just to do shit different but to do shit on a more futuristic level.

How many nickel and dime fools are talking about 2008 like that shit was all that? Nothing happened in 2008 that is gonna change shit in 2009, but in 2016 we will have the first woman president of the United States of America and that will bring all kinds of crazy shit into our lives. We won’t even hardly be listening to rap music by then. The kids will be listening to this crazy melding of country music, salsa and R-n-B that was created by WyClef, T-Pain and Taylor Swift during a threesome they had in Mexico.

If you hate auto-tune you might should kill yourself today. The hottest christmas present in 2010 was this cellphone that converts all voices into that robotix sound you hear next to the MySpace captchas. That shit is fresh homeys. The best part is that all the people with emphysema that have had their tracheas removed don’t feel so fucked the fuck up anymore when they speak in public.

In 2029 some of us celebrate the 20th anniversary of the demise of MTV. It was a tough pill for MTV to swallow in 2009 that upon turning 28yrs old they were irrelevant and laughed at for their vain attempts to control the younger and stronger YouTube and its cousins like MetaCafe, Kyte and Vimeo. That and the legions of disgruntled former Viacom employees who help found the indie artist music network called fMtv (<– I pray one of my friends copyrights this).

Thankfully there are still some headlines that harken back to the simpler years like 2008…

Poor black women… It’s like they can’t win for losing!

The ones who don’t look like shit are destined to die poor and lonely, just like yours truly. And the ones who do have a little something to offer the world can hardly walk down the street without receiving catcalls.

I tell you, it just ain’t right!

(On a semi-related note, I’ve also read that black women are shrinking. According to this story from ABC News, young black women today are nearly an inch shorter than white women their age and about half an inch shorter than black women born in the late ’60s. Scientists aren’t sure why. Hopefully, black women don’t just start dying out, like the bees did.)

I was over at World Star the other day, checking to see if there were any new videos with my new favorite DJ evar, Kay Slay, and I stumbled upon a brief documentary film called Black Woman Walking. In it, a group of black women and one random stoner-looking white chick (so cute with her little Daria glasses… but I digress) complain about how they can’t walk down the street without being verbally, if not physically harassed by black men.

Elliott Wilson-style sidebar: People who’ve been following this space for more than a few weeks now will perhaps recall that I recently commented on a story I read in the New York Times about how white chicks were moving out of Harlem because they got tired of being hollered at by black guys. Actually, the story was about the demographic changes going on in that area in general, but I thought the part about the catcalling was especially interesting. If I were the editor at the Times, I would have insisted that the entire story be about white chicks who moved to Harlem for the cheap real estate and then left because they didn’t like hearing that they had a nice ass. (Pshaw!)

The white chicks quoted in the story were careful to note that they hadn’t had anything happen to them worse than just a little verbal harassment. And one broad even went so far as to admit that she would have stayed put, if it had been white guys in business suits trying to get their mack on. I guess at least she was honest. It’s too bad there wasn’t a slideshow or video to go along with the story, which I know they’ve been getting into over at the Times. If she was getting hollered at by a lot of black guys, something tells me she’s the kind of white chick a lot of white guys might not be interested in. Anyway, I just thought it was fascinating that a woman would go so far as to sell a house she got a good deal on and uproot her life just because the wrong guys were attracted to her. It just goes to show the profound commitment amongst many women to controlling other people’s behavior.

Speaking of a woman’s ego, the first sign that Black Woman Walking is mostly a crock of shit is the fact that none of the women in it are particularly attractive. If you’ve ever seen that great VH1 special on video hoes, you know they could have gotten Esther Baxter or Buffie the Body or somebody to talk about how they get hollered at when they walk down the street, which I’m sure they do, for hardly any money at all. A lot of these women who shake their asses in rap videos work for free, just for the exposure. And the ones that don’t work for professional blogger money.

The one main woman featured looks like Buh Weet. And I don’t mean that in the sense that I’ve found a woman that I don’t personally find attractive, and who probably has an awful personality, so I’m gonna say she looks like Buh Weet, as an insult. No, this woman really does look like Eddie Murphy’s classic Buh Weet character from Saturday Night Live, right down to the huge eyes and the crazy homeless person hair cut - like Cynthia McKinney that week she tried to beat up a Capital Police with her cell phone.

Ironically enough, this woman from the film claims that her hair is one of the main reasons guys try to holler at her while she’s walking down the street. Seriously? Perhaps this is another one of these cases where I’m a bit too disconnected from my own culture (never mind whether or not that was the culture I was born into) to know. Distinctly ethnic black guys in the comments section, and white guys who aspire to that classification, feel free to clue me in: Are black dudes really feeling the whole Cynthia McKinney look, or is this woman suffering from delusions of grandeur?

I mean, I’d be willing to put up with that kind of hair style, if the rest of her body was… you know, built like a brick shithouse. But of course the film doesn’t give you a very good look at these women’s bodies, as if the filmmakers were actually concerned with believability. I’m sure they were mostly only concerned with preaching to the choir: lonely, desperate black chicks; dirty college feminist broads, and what have you. Hence, the otherwise seemingly random inclusion of my new fantasy girlfriend, with the glasses. They didn’t count on a lot of guys seeing Black Woman Walking. And indeed, I wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been posted on World Star.

Do I mean to suggest that there isn’t an epidemic of black men harassing women on the street, or that women are wrong to complain about it? No, I don’t. I don’t engage in that sort of thing myself, but I’m sure it happens. I’m not gonna lie. The idea of standing on a street corner all day, perhaps with a tall boy of MGD, making puerile comments about a woman’s figure seems way more fun than blogging. If only there was a way to “monetize” it. I might have to think about making a career move. I’m just saying. Something tells me the problem isn’t nearly as bad as it’s made out to be in this film.

Let’s keep it real. A woman fine enough that she can’t walk down the street without constantly being propositioned can probably afford to get a cab anyway. The right man probably hollered at her a long time ago.