The philosopher Jiminy Cricket once famously said, "Just look at the morning paper. Turn to any page. You'll find the whole world worryin' about some future age. But why get so excited? What's gonna be is gonna be. The end of the world's been comin' since 1903. That's, uh, B.C., of course." Dr. Cricket, Esq.'s argument was simple: every generation thinks the next signals Armageddon. But hip-hop's gradual deterioration has been overstated; rappers who are barely able to drink, like Black Hippy and Joey Bada$$, are putting out incredible music. Which isn't to slight the elder statesmen who are holding it down—like Jay-Z, who lends some bars to a track from Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music compilation.

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Let me indulge in a little bit of Jay-Z/Kanye fan fiction in the least 50 Shades of Grey way possible:

Def Jam President and retired rapper Jay-Z was fed up.

50 Cent had been sending subliminal barbs Jay's way for eight years, starting with a shot Mr. Carter's way on "How To Rob" when they were both climbing their respective hip-hop ladders. In 2007, with both at the peak of their careers, Fiddy was back at it, baiting Jay-Z with braggadocio lyrics and interviews about his then-fiancé, his money, and how he'd sold out.

Jay didn't know what to do, although he was well aware that a nasty feud with the Queens-born MC in the middle of his own corporate ascension would be PR suicide.

Enter Kanye West, who had been working on the follow-up to his mega-successful Late Registration and who was looking at a fourth-quarter release date.

"What if I dropped my album on the same day at 50 Cent's?" Kanye asked. "Yeah, I'll put my album out on the same day as 50's, start a sales battle."

A solution! And one that would take Jay out of the fray. After oodles of hoopla, September 11, 2007, rolled around, and Graduation and Curtis both hit shelves. A week later, the dust cleared, and 50 Cent was defeated—without Jay having to lift a finger.

While it's unclear how Kanye (and Jay) came to the decision to release Graduation exactly five years ago today, it's pretty easy to speculate that 50 and Jay's cold war was a prime motivator behind the biggest rap marketing circus this side of pretending Detox will ever come out.

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The "b word" has been a staple of hip-hop for decades, although there's some linguistic shading as far as its use: women that aren't particularly awesome are called "bitches"; really awesome women are "bad bitches"; respected dignitaries like moms are "ladies" and "females"—unless they're the mother of a foe, in which case they're back to being a a "bitch." (Got it?)

In the last few months, though, a few MCs have begun to question if using such a term is the best way to go about things. Lupe Fiasco's "Bad Bitch" shook up the hip-hop world with its analysis of negative portrayals of women in the black community; this prompted Kanye West to contemplate his own use of the word on Twitter over the weekend.

This fraught relationship is evident in the six songs listed below: We have collaborations between men and women, the grimiest song about stripper sex, and a track from a few MCs that have catalogues full of music praising women in their lives. There is also a Shyne song.

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Rap has always had a dividing line between the rapper and the guy that yells out things on stage because it's America, damn it. That man used to be the DJ, who'd spin records for the rapper and rap along to his verses to get the crowd hype. As the years went by and quality DJing became more rare, the sidekick became some guy the rapper grew up with who had comparatively marginal talent, but who made for a great hypeman.

Eventually, though, the sidekick would eventually make one major mistake: He'd try to make his own way as a rapper, to less than stellar results. Memphis Bleek hasn't come out of Jay-Z's shadow after 15 years. Spliff Star has seemingly disappeared after trying his hand at something more than being Busta Rhymes' energetic rapping Smeagol. The less said about the non-Eminem members of D12, the better.

But every once in a while, they put together music that's not an embarrassing reminder that most of their success comes from being a friend of a superior rapper. This week, we focus on a few of those people: Method Man's marijuana-holder Streetlife; A$AP Mob; and Fat Joe (who, while not a weed carrier, was Big Pun's less talented homie).

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There are two ways to tell if an upcoming album is going to be a letdown:

• When the artist starts talking about his next project before the new project even comes out. See: Common hyping up his No I.D.-helmed The Dreamer/The Believer even before Universal Mind Control was released. And what happened? UMC was easily one of the five worst things to happen to human ears. (That is not an exaggeration.)
• When the artist puts out a free project immediately before or after the album drops. See Lil Wayne putting out the mildly disappointing Sorry 4 The Wait right before the vastly disappointing Tha Carter IV.

That's why we should all temper our excitement about Slaughterhouse's upcoming major-label debut Welcome To Our House, which has been preceded by a mixtape full of non-stop bars called On The House. Chances are it'll end up being far more entertaining than the actual album; Whereas Welcome will have a few grasps for radio play and some standard major-label tropes, On The House is mostly just an endless rap orgy. Which makes it perfect for a Slaughterhouse challenge! Here's how it works: We'll give each individual rapper's performance on each song that features at least 75% of the group one to four points; the best verse gets four, the worst one. At the end, we'll average out the scores and see who Slaughterhouse'd it hardest.

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Earlier this week, one tweet and one blog post alleging that Nas had used ghostwriters—specifically, Jay Electronica and stic of Dead Prez—on his 2007 album Untitled. The tweet, by Jay-Z biographer dream hampton, came first; after that, former Hot 97 art director Frank William Miller Jr. (a.k.a. FWMJ) detailed a 2007 phone conversation in which Jay Electronica informed him that he was indeed writing for Nas' controversial Untitled album.

Hardcore rap fans expressed disbelief, weeping, and fury, aiming hundreds of pitchforks at FWMJ's twitter account. How could one of rap's great lyricists relegate himself to using a ghostwriter—the performance-enhancing drug of hip-hop? This is a cardinal sin!

Or is it?

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Hip-hop is at its best when artists collaborate, challenging one another to create their best work, and this week's best hip-hop tracks are highlighted by a collection of odd couples. DJ Khaled, of incessant yelling and inexplicably giving Ace Hood work, managed to put Nas, Scarface and DJ Premier on the same song; meanwhile, Odd Future upstart Domo Genesis linked up with New York producer legend Alchemist.

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Action Bronson.

There was a time when the best place to hear new music was Hot 97, when the sound of bombs going off would signal a song debuting across the city. But if anyone wanted those songs for themselves, they'd have to buy a whole damn album or sit around and wait until it came on the radio again. Yes, these were dark days indeed.

Until knights in shiny faux-velour Coogi sweats rode in to save the day. They were called mixtape DJs, and they offered collections of hard-to-find songs and mixes. They were awesome humanitarians snubbed from Nobel consideration due to dirty politics. But the Internet, like it tends to do to great things, basically killed that whole operation. Now, the iPod has made the mixtape an endlessly personal idea, blogs have songs the minute they're released, and Funkmaster Flex and DJ Clue are fighting like starving hyenas over scraps for the chance to "debut" a song on live radio.

Some DJs, though, still have enough restraint to hold on to a few gems long enough and turn them into a full-on compilation of quality unreleased music. Mick Boogie is one of the best of the remaining traditional mixtape DJs, and his latest, Represent The Stripes, is a hip-hop ode to the U.S. Olympic team. I'm not quite sure exactly how the collection as a whole ties into the Olympics, but if Mick Boogie says it does, then it does. Here are the songs that would best go along with cheering on the country's pole-vaulters and handballers.

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Welcome to Sound of the City's scouring of the many hip-hop songs that drop every week in hopes of finding a couple of songs that stand out. This week we managed to get our hands on three and three-quarters of them—not bad at all.

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The worst result of 21st-century technological advances, at least from a musical point of view, is the dual proliferation of DIY recording equipment and social media, allowing millions of—notice the quotation marks—"musicians" to flood inboxes, festival backpacks, Facebook timelines and Twitter mentions with "hot" tracks. Rappers could be seen as the worst offenders, since rap songs are the easiest to record, needing only a mic, an instrumental and minimal mastering to work.

As a result, Internet browsers are all being transformed into freelance (and usually unpaid) A&R reps, sifting through hundreds of songs before finding something that's worth loading into an iPod. The job can be quite overwhelming—but have no fear. Every Wednesday, we'll bring you the week's best hip-hop tracks so you can clear your inbox and stop playing the guessing game. Here are the three and a half great songs that popped up this week.

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