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.

More »

Hot 97 Summer Jam
New Meadowlands Stadium
Sunday, June 5

Better than: Sitting at home and moping like 50 Cent.

Rick Ross closed out Summer Jam.

Just so there's no revisionist history here, let's remember how incredible that statement is. Three years ago, Ross was the punching bag of hip-hop, the laughingstock of the streets. After recording countless verses that fetishized Tony Montana fantasies, someone pinched him—Ross' cartoonish thought bubble vanished into thin air, and he was rudely snapped back to reality. He wasn't a druglord superhero; he was William Roberts, a grown man playing dress-up, a former correctional officer who wanted to be a rapper so badly that he rewrote his personal history. Two years ago, he wasn't being played on New York radio.

And here, onstage at Giants Stadium, was Rick Ross—his chest puffed out, his black-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt open wide but still somehow stretching tight—cheered on by fifty thousand strong. They welcomed his street anthem, "B.M.F.," chanting a chorus and cadence that, in various incarnations, has blasted out of car windows on 125th ever since it came out last summer: "I think I'm Big Meech, Larry Hoover." Rick Ross can make up a lot of things, but even he couldn't make this up.

More »

Rich aliens, rich alienation. Still via connect.in.com

With sincere apologies to Chuck Eddy, my two favorite records of the year also produced my two favorite singles: funny how that happens. And though ten songs increasingly feels like about forty too few, especially when Dr. Luke is working, nothing was knocking "Runaway" off this list. What can I say? Been waiting fifteen years for rap to get this emo and for emo to get this rap. As for the rest of it, well, as Sean Fennessey noted in this space last week, most of these songs are ignorant as hell. The rest are about love. I'm not proud:

More »

As previously noted with regards to Nicki Minaj, this is an absolutely terrible week to put out a record if you are anyone other than Kanye West, who with his 10.0 reviews and $3.99 Amazon sales will be hogging every last bit of the spotlight in his (failed, ultimately, probably?) quest to outsell quasi-adversary Taylor Swift. So please spare a few dollars/clicks/seconds of your precious attention span for Lloyd Banks' The Hunger for More 2. He'd do the same for you.

More »

Posse cuts are like friendlier versions of the WWE's Royal Rumble -- a platform designed to showcase all of the stars in the game, both up-and-coming and certified. Think back to the Main Source's 1991 "Live At The Barbecue," featuring Akinyele, Joe Fatal, and the debut of a rapper named Nas, or Big Pun's "Banned From TV" remix, featuring the murderer's row of N.O.R.E., Nature, Cam'ron, Jadakiss, and Styles P. More recently, there's been 2008's "Swagger Like Us"--T.I., Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and M.I.A.--or last year's "Forever," featuring Drake, Kanye West, Eminem, and Lil Wayne.

This year in particular, the posse cut seems to be in vogue. Kanye West has been the most visible artist to use the posse cut approach recently, stacking the majority of his G.O.O.D. Friday freebies with numerous MCs and singers. West also recently announced "All Of The Lights", the third single from his upcoming album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, will feature 11 artists (including Elton John!). But it's not just West calling all MCs to the booth. For whatever reason, great rappers have been teaming up a lot lately, and the result has been a hip-hop fan's wet dream. Every week, there's either some new remix or original song with numerous MCs trying to lay down the verse fans will talk about long after the song is playing. Here are ten of 2010's best posse cuts so far, complete with a verdict on who won each one:

More »

Tony Yayo (left, under a towel), a tiny child (center), and Lloyd Banks (right).

Not much to report from last night's bizarrely curated Lloyd Banks/Reflection Eternal/Cory Gunz/Jackie Chain showcase at the Nokia Theater, besides the fact that New York still goes crazy for "Beemer, Benz or Bentley," and Talib Kweli still performs twice as long as anybody wants him to. But there was one revelation: the tiny child who took the stage with the rest of the G-Unit goons midway through Banks's set. YouTube, normally stalwart, scrupulous chronicler of every tiny little thing that happens at a rap show, is unfortunately failing us this morning, as far as yielding really prime video evidence, but if you watch from about 3:30-3:55 in the below video, you can glimpse the little man in question, decked out in a Yankee fitted and matching jacket:

More »

Still not in the least sick of hearing this song come on the radio--whether in the original, menacing Juelz Santana/Lloyd Banks vintage, the Joell Ortiz "Nissan, Honda, Chevy" remix, or the blistering Fabolous remake from There Is No Competition 2. That said, they somehow found a whips-n-vixens visual that adds virtually nothing, besides the always wonderful Juelz mugging throughout. Perhaps this was a meta move to make a stripped down, back-to-basics rap video for a stripped down, back-to-basics rap song. (It's a lot easier to love the latter than the former). Or maybe those G-Unit Records budgets just aren't what they used to be?

Months after G-Unit affiliate Lodi Mack was gunned down after taking an assault charge for his boss, Tony Yayo, 50 Cent's rap crew is in trouble with the law again--this time up north, in Ontario, Canada, where Lloyd Banks is being held on assault and robbery charges. Banks and three goons apparently kidnapped a local promoter in his own hotel room, settling a dispute "over payment for performance and an appearance fee" by beating the dude up and then taking his money. As of yesterday afternoon, Banks--who also caught a gun charge back in 2005--remains in police custody. G-Unit sure are some violent millionaires. [MTV]