PICTURE OF THE DAY

Drake's Father Speaks on Son's Success

Drake's father, Dennis Graham, was featured on Fox News' Action News 5 in Memphis, Tennessee, speaking for the first time about his son's success. In the segment, Graham explains that although Drake reps Toronto as his home town, the summer's he spent visiting his dad in the White Haven area of Memphis played a huge role in influencing his music. That's why his metaphors are so phenomenal now because he's been in Memphis," he says. "[Drake] considers Memphis home more than he does Toronto. Graham, the brother of soul singer Larry Graham, is also a musician and a former drummer for legendary rocker Jerry Lee Lewis. He says that he exposed Drake to music, taking him to the infamous Royal Studios where artists like Al Green recorded. The elder Graham recalls encouraging his young son to pursue music. Appleville, which is Shelby Drive and Nealy, that's where we always came to … I used to hold him in my office, while I played the piano … I told him, I said, 'Drake, you got a beautiful voice. Although Graham doesn't speak to the media often, he took the time out to express how proud he is of Drake's success. "My god, I look at him and I think, 'Oh my god! This kid's got it.' I said, 'Drake, you've done it, man,'" Graham said.
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Ruff Ryders New Album Tracklist Revealed

The Ruff Ryders may have been out of the game as a collective since 2005’s The Redemption Vol. 4, but that’s not stopping them from releasing a new album next week. Titled Past, Present, Future, the project will include tracks from veteran label mates DMX, Swizz Beats, Eve, Drag-On, Cassidy and The LOX, alongside songs from newcomers Mook, Q, Hugo, Lil Waah and Shella. You can pre-order the album, which will be released on November 21, here.

Tracklist:
1. World`s Greatest—Mook (feat. Sheek Louch, Styles P and Swizz Beatz)
2. Get Your Money Up—DMX
3. Hot Steppa—Eve
4. Hip Hop—Drag-On
5. Beat and a Microphone—Mook
6. You Know—Mook
7. Freaky—Mook (feat. Jadakiss, Shella and Akon)
8. I`m Gone—Shella
9. Want Me—Shella
10. Off the Cuff—Swizz Beatz
11. Showtime—Lil` Waah
12. Watcha You Gonna Do—Swizz Beatz (feat. Cassidy)
13. Love Potion—Hugo
14. What To Do—The LOX (feat. Shella)
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Usher, Rihanna Added to Grammy Nominations Concert

The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live!!—Countdown to Music’s Biggest Night just got a little hotter. The show, which will feature the nominations for the 54th annual awards celebration, has added two new singers to the lineup. Usher and Rihanna will hit the Nokia Theatre stage in Los Angeles alongside previously announced artists, including Lupe Fiasco, Ludacris and Lady Gaga. LL Cool J will host for the second year. The show will air on CBS on November 30 at 10 p.m. ET.
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Kas -Iyawo Wind Feat. Tonto Dikeh

Guys check this out new single from Kas featuring Nollywood actress Tonto Dikeh. Well nobody ever saw this coming but its here anyway. guys let me have your feed back on what you think about Tonto Dikeh’s delivery?

Terry G – My Lord

Terry G continues to do what he does best; churning out party hits after hits. “My Lord” Hate him or love him,Check it out.
Get luck down

Terry Tha Rapman – Zombie

New single from Terry Tha Rapman and its titled Zombie. This record goes hard and its off The World Domination Mixtape and will most likely be on the BANS 2.0 album. Zombie is a response to the (in)famous Hip-Hop phrase; “Hip Hop Is Dead.

Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa Team Up For Tour

Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa are going on a nationwide tour in support of their collaborative album and film titledMac and Devin Go To High School. The High School Tour kicks off Dec. 5 in New York at Terminal 5. Their film centers around a Los Angeles high school valedictorian hopeful named Devin Overstreet, played by Khalifa, who can't write a graduation speech do to too much focus on his studies and a lack of real life experiences. Mac, on the other hand, is a 15-year-old ladies man (played by Snoop Dogg) who wants to win the heart of his substitute chemistry teacher by graduating high school in just three weeks. The two students team up to help one another achieve what he needs. The soundtrack for the movie will be released Dec. 13 and the first single, titled "Young, Wild & Free," features Bruno Mars and was produced by The Smeezingtons.  After starting off the tour in New York, the pair will head to Philadelphia's Electric Factory on Dec. 6, the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 7, Atlanta's Tabernacle on Dec. 10, The Warfield Theater in San Francisco on Dec 12, and The Wiltern in Los Angeles on Dec. 13.

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Jay-Z's "Occupy All Streets" T-Shirts On Sale Again

Jay-Z was criticized last week when his "Occupy All Streets" t-shirts hit his clothing site, Rocawear.com, with news that revenue from sales would not go towards the Occupy Wall Street movement. The shirts were to be sold starting Friday, but then seemed to be taken down from the site on Saturday. Turns out the T-shirts were simply sold out quickly for a few days, but are now back in stock. Holy smokes. Those 'Occupy All Streets' t-shirts sold out faster than Rick Perry can name three agencies," states a post on Roc4Life. "If you missed out on the first batch, we've got your back like scoliosis. Rocawear has already restocked the fancy black tops — available in all sizes via Rocawear.com. Russell Simmons had come to Jay-Z's defense by tweeting "No one ever said the proceeds were not going to the cause that's media's spin. We'll have to wait and see if they send proceeds to the cause or if they're merely profiting from the social movement.
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Drake - Cover of Complex

Drake is on this month cover of Complex. Here are a few things he had to say in his interview. I’d love for you to explain that line “My top 5 either lost it or they ain’t alive. Drake: I just felt like at that time, my favorite rappers weren’t moving me. I was like, do I really rap better than this guy that I look up to? What happened, did something change? I won’t even say names, just based off the fact that, it wasn’t meant to, it could be anybody. You put your top 5 in there. You ask yourself, are they still going as hard as they were? Or did something change in our ears or our minds? I don’t know. And just me kind of realizing like damn, has it really been that long, do my favorite rappers really only have like one or two albums left before it’s time to call it quits? Or it gets awkward because they are rapping at a certain age about shit that isn’t relateable? Do you want to stop before you get a point where people are like, “Why is Drake still rapping? Yeah, I know I’m going to get to that point. Only because my career is thriving at 24. The only other person reminiscent of that is Wayne’s who had an opportunity when he was super young. That’s very different from all these other rappers. A lot of these careers took off at 28, 29.

Jay-Z’s "Occupy All Streets" T-Shirts Pulled From Rocawear Website

Is Jay-Z getting the shakedown?

A few days after his company Rocawear came under fire for admitting there were no plans to donate any of the profits from their “Occupy All Streets” T-shirt line to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the shirts mysteriously disappeared from the website. Rocawear announced that the $22 T-shirts would go on sale last Friday (November 11), but they were pulled from the site by Saturday after critics accused the company of exploiting the OWS movement by profiting off of the shirts. Critics bashed Jay-Z for not offering a cut of the proceeds to the Occupy movement. To attempt to profit off of the first important social moment of 50 years with an overpriced piece of cotton is an insult to the fight for economic civil rights known as #occupywallstreet," an Occupy Wall Street leader who goes by the pseudonym Grim told TMZ. What do you think of the decision to stop selling the shirts? Vote in our poll.

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Box Office: Immortals Crushes Jack and Jill

If you're a man under the age of 30, or a woman dating a man under the age of 30, chances are you spent your movie and popcorn dollars on Immortals this weekend. The action epic raked in a whopping $68 million at the box office, says the Hollywood Reporter, slaying the competition which included Adam Sandler'sJack and Jill ($26 million), Leonardo DiCaprio's J. Edgar ($11.5 million) and a very tenacious Puss in Boots ($25.5 million in its third week of release). One might think a typical Immortals audience contains hundreds of middle American frat boys and gamers, but in fact more than one-third of the audience for the R-rated film was Hispanic and Black. Another interesting tidbit? While Sandler's Jack and Jill got massacred by critics and gave him one of his weakest openings in recent memory, it became his biggest hit in Mexico (likely on the strength of his co-star, Mexican comedian Eugenio Derbez). By contrast, older folks flocked (well, strolled) to Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar and families were divided between Jack and Jill and Puss in Boots, which basically came in at a draw.

Beats by Dr. Dre Executive

The new premium headphone looks to be aimed right at the Bowers & Wilkins/Bose crowd with a refined design that swaps the trademark red & black colorway for a black leather and brushed metal finish. The headphones are said to boast accurate highs, mids, and of course, deep bass. The Executives will also feature noise canceling technology and automatic shutoff conserves battery life to keep you charged up on your travels

NEW JOINT: Durella – Gaga ft Wizkid

Durella, the King of the Zanga, has dropped his first official single from his Back/Better/Bada album. Gaga features Wizkid and together they do what they know how to do best. 
In a matter of weeks Durella will begin his European tour by the end of the month. Countries included are Belgium, France, Italy and UK. His upcoming album Back/Better/Bada is scheduled to drop on the first week of next year. On the business side of things be on the lookout for Durella condoms.

BEHIND THE SCENES: STILLS FROM PRAIZ’s ‘I LOVE YOU’ VIDEO SHOOT

Fast rising R&B/Soul Singer Praiz recently travelled all the way to Johannesburg to shoot the videos to two of his singles ‘I Love you’ and ‘Jekalo’. The videos will be premiered before the end of the month.

But before then, we would like to share with you a couple of still shots from the ‘I Love You’ video shoot, The video features only two people – Praiz and a South African model Khumi.

The video is directed by Jonathan Josh Clark.  Praiz is currently signed to X3M Music.

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Jay-Z -Covers GQ’s Men Of The Year

Jay says that even songs like “Niggas in Paris”—the one with the Blades of Glory samples and the crazy-consumptive What’s Gucci, my nigga? What’s Louis, my killa? hook—or “Otis,” where Kanye actually refers to what they’re doing as “luxury rap,” effectively handing detractors a stick to beat the record with, come from a humble place. “It’s not, like, ‘We’re here! We’re balling harder than everybody,’ ” he says. “It’s like, ‘I’m shocked that we’re here.’ Still being amazed, still not being jaded. Having so much fun and then stopping and saying, ‘What are we doing here? How did we get here?’ ”

The key line, Jay says, is the one that goes If you escaped what I escaped, you’d be in Paris getting fucked up too.

“I’ve known so many people that didn’t make it,” he says. “Most people can look at a picture of the kids they grew up with and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah—Adam went away to Harvard.’ This is a whole different conversation.

Do you agree with the latest Chika Ike assertion?

I really do not know why am suddenly in the news now. I don’t have an idea but the thing is I keep telling everybody that interview me right from the beginning of my career, I keep saying that you cannot escape it.”

“They keep asking me as an artiste, why have you not had anything in the news or whatever but I say it will come one of these days and here we are right now. I know it was going to happen one of these days. To me, I was actually prepared for it, I knew it was going to come.”

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William Okpo Spring/Summer 2012 Look Book