Relapse Cover Art

A quick one for now. Just got my hands on the cover art for the new Eminem album, 'Relapse'.

Eminem recently stated in an interview that the only artists he feels that are doing hip-hop any justice are T.I. and Lil' Wayne. T.I.'s Paper Trail seems to have had an influence on the art here, as Paper Trail had T.I's face made of paper pieces, whereas here Em's face is constructed using pills.

Enjoy!

May 19th?

Relapse is coming on May 19th. (For those of you under a rock, that's Eminem's upcoming album, originally due last year)

Oh, this may be of interest to you too: Interscope Records announced that Slim Shady is dropping two albums this year, Relapse and Relapse 2.

Apparently, the first single/video will be premiering on radio and television simultaneously on April 7. This is in addition to Crack A Bottle, for which the video should be coming soon, although it's unclear whether that is actually one of the three artists' (Dre, Em, 50) song, or whether it's just a collaborative effort that may, or may not, feature on all of their albums.

Relapse 2 doesn't have a release date yet, but in a seperate statement Eminem said that he's currently in the studio working on that project and it will come out in the second half of this year:
"A lot of people were expecting Relapse to drop last year, I was one of them. Then Dre and I went back in the studio in September for a few days, and that turned into six months. We were on such a roll; we wound up with a ton of new music produced by Dre. Putting out Relapse 2 will let everyone get all of the best stuff."

In related news, 50 Cent confirmed that Before I Self Destruct will be coming after Relapse, no doubt due to the lack of hype generated, and resounding failure of the singles he has put out so far. (I actually think some of them we're decent, but there you go)

Also, turns out May 19th was the last date given for Lil' Wayne's rock album, Rebirth, but that has now been shifted to a 'TBA', as his label (Universal I think) are worried it's going to be largely crap.

On that note, the video for Prom Queen has been released and isn't too bad, the song grows on me by the day. I would add it here, but the links are all down at the moment.

An update: I have added the function below that allows you to email blog posts to people. For those of you who like what I'm doing, please use this and send it to anyone you think might enjoy it. Also, the comments will no longer be full-page and will instead appear in a pop-up window. Let me know if you prefer this, or if you want it back to full-page.

Kanye's Next Single Is Confirmed

See You In My Nightmares. The artwork for the single is over there <-

Seems that the plans for the Rihanna remix of Paranoid were shelved, for obvious reasons given the situation surrounding her at the moment.

A good move in my book, as this is one of the strongest songs on the album. Apparently, the video will be film-style affair, running longer than usual.

More later.

Things Are Picking Up...Finally

OK, so more news.

Firstly, as previously mentioned, Lupe Fiasco is releasing 'Everywhere' from the LupEND trilogy in June. Well, apparently the second disc, 'Nowhere', will arrive sometime later this year too, near Christmas. Nice.

He also addressed CRS, (the collaboration between himself, Pharrell and Kanye, which has thus far spawned only 2 songs) implying that at the moment it's not really on the agenda, but could easily be kicked off again.

Another release date, this time for Lil' Wayne. 'The Carter 3: Rebirth' is coming in April, to be specific April 7th. Not sure whether this is going to be still called TC3: Rebirth, or just Rebirth, but either way it is going to be a 'rock' album with no remakes/same songs as The Carter 3. Apparently, the reason this isn't The Carter 4 is ''cause some people are not gonna like this. We want Carter IV to be what everybody wants it to be."

The first single is called 'Prom Queen' and is certainly different. It's decent, and will probably grow on me. Sceptical about 'Autotune Rock'? It seems to work to be honest, and it's definitely rock, not some half-baked r'n'b effort with a few guitars laced in there. For that reason, I can see this successfully reaching a whole new audience for Wayne.

Another Kanye-related news item: He recently announced plans for a collaborative sneaker range with Louis Vutton. They are due to be released in June, and a few images can be found below:

Slices of News, With a Side Dish of Info.

Lupe Fiasco has returned...maybe. An indie/punk-style band randomly surfaced called Japanese Cartoon.

No idea where they just appeared from, but they had a few songs up on their Myspace account that got some reaction. The Lupe relevance is that the lead singer, 'Percival Fats' (...come on, how can that be a real name!?) sounds EXACTLY like Lupe putting on a British accent.

They released a Myspace bulletin which 'dispelled' these rumours, claiming Lupe only 'finances the band, and does their production.' Sounds ludicrous? It is. Head over to http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=440389226 and listen to their songs (especially Heirplanes) to make your own judgement.

Secondly, the battle that was hyped up on here long ago rages on. 50 Cent vs. Lil' Wayne. If you have some spare time, head to the following link to hear a radio interview with 50, whereby he goes in pretty hard on Lil' Wayne, as well as a few shots at Kanye. He does however talk some sense at certain points, especially about Wayne not acknowledging 'Louisianimal'.

Listen to the interview here: http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhaqRtC7MEvFl76jbE.

To finish with, Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 fame has done a very revealing interview with MTV.com recently which gave some clue as to whether a Blink-182 reunion would ever happen, and the future of +44.

When asked about a Blink reunion, it was said that 'the future is wide open.' I think most fans of Blink/+44/Angels and Airwaves always believed that somewhere down the line they will reunite, and this only adds to that belief.
When asked about +44, an answer was given that very few people will have expected: Hoppus is going solo. Although he didn't say +44 was over, he did say that both himself and Travis Barker want to finish their solo albums first. It was common knowledge that Travis Barker had an album coming, but Hoppus' first solo effort was not. They've been working on tracks with one another too, so I'd imagine this could turn out very well for them both.

Enough Lists: News Time

And we're back. Some of the news in the post first surfaced a couple of weeks ago, but as I'm sure you can appreciate, it's been a busy period.

First off: The 50 Cent/Lil' Wayne 'thing' I posted on last month. Well, read 50's reply to the whole thing here: http://www.sixshot.com/news/13477/. He makes a valid point, seeing Lil' Wayne has remained suspiciously silent about it all. He also compliments Kanye West...!

Secondly, Lupe Fiasco has confirmed that the first single from Everywhere, the first disc of LupEND, will be called 'Shining Down'. No news on a date yet, if I had to guess though I'd say around March/April.

Finally, a piece about someone who I've rated for a while, and probably doesn't get the credit he deserves: Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes. As well as singing from time to time, the guy is a versatile rapper.

From the earlier, more hip-hop based Gym Class stuff, to the indie-hiphop style they are known for now, and all the way down to verses on Kidz In The Hall's 'Lucifer's Joyride', Travis has always proven to be a talented MC.

He's now getting his shot at mainstream solo stuff, as he recently signed a deal with T-Pain's Nappy Boy label. Personally, I think he could bring something to the table at Kanye's G.O.O.D. Music label, but T-Pain isn't a bad producer and clearly has some good friends in the music business, so hopefully he will get some good stuff out of him.

And The Top Albums of 2008 are...

A little later than promised-sorry! However, I've built up a decent stash of news to post on here in the coming days, so keep it locked over the next week when I can get back to updating daily.

Unlike the previous list, this list will contain 15 albums. This is solely because 2008 has been nothing but music for me, most of it being old stuff that I had never heard and classics that I had skipped across.

As seems the case with a lot of older albums, they tend to be more consistent as a 'block' of music, as opposed to having one or two blindingly outstanding tracks, this being the reason that I could keep the best songs list down to 10.

The same rules apply to this list as the previous one:

-Albums that you only heard this year, the release date DOES NOT have to be 2008.
-Any genre!

Once again, please get involved, it's always good getting some interesting discussion going on.

It doesn't matter if you have or haven't commented before. You don't need to know me/any of the other regular people who comment to get involved!

Here goes, and again in no particular order:

Quietdrive, Deliverance
Nas, Illmatic
Kid Cudi, A Kid Named Cudi Mixtape
Lil' Wayne, The Leak EP/Mixtape
Lloyd, Lessons In Love
The-Dream, Love Hate
Eric B. and Rakim, Paid In Full
Jay-Z, Reasonable Doubt
Wale, Hate is the New Love Mixtape
N.E.R.D., Seeing Sounds
Sway, The Signature LP
Lloyd, Street Love
Sean Garrett, Turbo 919
Kanye West, 808s and Heartbreak
Fall Out Boy, Folie a Deux

By request, I will be posting up a list of my favourite 'songs to hear in a club' of 2008. If there are any other "top 10/15's" that you would like to see on here, let me know.

So...Best of 2008?

It's been a pretty quiet weekend for music/fashion news and exclusives, a trend that I expect to continue until the end of the week at the least.

So, let's do something that inevitably you will see all over TV: What are your favourite songs of this year (in any category)?

They don't necessarily have to have been released this year. My list contains songs that may have been released before 2008, but I only heard this year.

(In a day or two, I'll put up a similar post asking you for your albums. Save that for then.)

Don't be afraid to get involved. I seem to be getting a lot of visits, but only a tiny percentage of you are commenting!

Without further ado, 10 of my favourites (in no order):

-Kanye West, Welcome to Heartbreak Ft. Kid Cudi

-The-Dream, Falsetto

-Quietdrive, Rush Together

-Wale, W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.

-Sean Garrett, Lay Up Under Me

-The Roots, Criminal Ft. Truck North and Saigon

-Saigon, Believe It Ft. Red 5ive

-GemStones, We On Ft. Lupe Fiasco

-Lil' Wayne, I'm Me

-Mayday Parade-I'd Hate To Be You When People Find Out What This Song Is About

Get involved!

Lil' Wayne dissing 50 Cent? You decide...

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/audio/id.6184#comments

Seems that some people have discovered this song (click above), whereby Lil' Wayne apparently takes shots at 50 Cent. I can only imagine that this arises from the line 'I'll pour syrup in your Vitamin Water'.

(n.b. Vitamin Water is a drink 50 Cent released and made a lot of money off)

If it is a diss track, as much as I think Lil' Wayne is a good entertainer, 50 Cent would kill him. The most memorable diss tracks of recent times are 50 Cent's. Think about it: Fat Joe, Ja Rule, Murder Inc. and Jadakiss were all in the prime of their careers. They went back and forth with 50, and where are they now?

I don't actually like 50 Cent much, but this is his style, this is what he does. Wayne is not making a good move going after him.

Assuming this is actually a diss track of course.