Weekly Re-Up: Kanye Goes South, Booty Galore & More Posted by Lucas G. on 02/28/14 | Filed under Humor, General Awesomeness, Weekly Re-Up, Fails

Listen, it's Friday, we get it. Nobody really wants to do anything that involves using your brain. So the new "Weekly Re-Up" will provide you with both the biggest "Fails" and the most awesome "General Awesomeness", as well as some other must see shit from the week, and of course some boobs. We will also be including a "Weekend Rewind" selection to give you something to listen to this weekend. It's a whole lot of everything.

Now let's get started...

General Awesomeness:

Hip-Hop Superhero:
When it comes to general awesomenesses, there are a few things I'm a sucker for: Rob Ford doing something awesome (see Best Of The Rest), news reporters getting rapified, and hip-hop making a difference in the world (showing people it can be more than just clothes and drugs). I spend literally all my time thinking about hip-hop, but it's always about a new song, a album leak, or samples. More often than not though, I should be thinking about more important things, like hip-hop can make a difference and how I can help; I forget what a powerful tool music can be. Sometimes it takes an article like Forbes' Hip Hop Puts America In A Good Light Through The State Department's Cultural Ambassador Program  remind me.

Forbes, is not your likely source for hip-hop news (perhaps that's why this is so great to see)  but they did an interview with Toni Blackman, a "veteran hip hop performer and educator" and is our nation's first hip-hop ambassador. Basically her job is to use hip-hop as a tool for connecting and educating people, and spreading good will with beats and rhymes. If you love hip-hop, I highly recommend reading the whole thing but a few things that stood out to me were:

In the Congo, the assignment was to do an artist residency working with artists to create a public service announcement to stop violence against women. Women are used as war weapons in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There have been more rapes than can be counted at this point and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, and it’s systematic rape. I was partnered with a Congolese hip hop leader and we coordinated and we worked with male and female artists and then we created a song and did a music video for those folks.

I’ve been facilitating ciphers for 20 years and a cipher is when artists gather in a circle and they create together. It’s about giving and exchanging information, energy and ideas. So that has always been my commitment as an artist. We sit in a circle and there are basic ground rules that I announce, and then I give out topics. Then we do introductions, storytelling, we might analyze a proverb, debate current events, but it’s all improvised. 

There are people who love hip hop, and they respond to the beat in the same way. No matter what language you speak, the heads nod, the heads start to nod, the body starts to rock back and forth and you start to think in terms of flow whether you’re a dancer or a DJ, or an emcee, and then it all comes together and people connect around that.

Hip hop can convey any emotion from anger to sadness, to joy, to love. Hip hop can be very introspective and lyrically you can tell stories. You can talk about family. You can talk about social issues and concerns. I think there’s a stereotype and a negative stigma attached to rap music now because of the excessive commoditisation and over-commercialization of the music and because it’s been narrowed down to this one narrow lane of clichés. But that’s the mainstream.

Underneath the radar, there is hip hop happening and occurring every single day that has more varied content, that has more of a creative focus, that has a community of artists that are focused on the craft and on expressing themselves just because it makes them feel good. That’s why you can land in any country and you can find your kindred spirits who do hip hop because it makes them feel good. They dance because it makes them feel good. The DJ spins beats, makes beats records because it makes them feel good

I have to admit, part of me feels bad sometimes that I don't use my outlet to make a positive change in hip-hop. It can be such an influential tool and I am given a rare chance to reach people with it, that i feel guilty. I love hip-hop more than anything, so I should be doing more for it. I try to explain to people why I love hip-hop and Toni is the biggest reason why. She uses the music to reach people who wouldn't otherwise be reached. We just talked about who the most influential figures in hip-hop are and though she isn't selling headphones or topping charts Toni is influence people in a much more significant meaningful way than any other the emcees we discussed. She makes me proud to be a hip-hop head.

Shower me with rap:
When I'm home, I'm listening to music. When I get in the car I'm listening to music. When I am at the gym, grocery shopping, getting food, or on the metro, or going to bed you guessed it, I am listening to music. Really the only time I am not listening to music is when I take a shower. At least it was until I got this fucking awesome little gadget.

                                                        

Just what is it? Well, it is the greatest technological advancement since the cotton gin. Finally, Fresh Tech came up with a product that will help end boring showers. Using magic (AKA bluetooth) you can connect your phone or computer to the Splash Shower Tunes which lets you listen to music (and answer phone calls) while in the shower.  This might seem like a cheap, sneaky advertisement, but I assure you this comes from the heart. For years, I have been writing letters to science to find a way to make it so I can listen to music in the shower. I have tried everything from leaving the door open and putting my phone one in the bathroom  to putting my phone in a plastic bag, wrapping it in rubber bands opening the window in my shower a crack and wedging it in like some Macgyver type shit. None of my attempts have worked. Finally, after that last little venture, I realized enough was enough and did some online shopping; boom! I came across this nifty little product. They are like 40 buck on the website but over at Amazon you can get them for anywhere from 15-30 bucks. The speaker is loud, the USB charging is easy, and you can even skip songs and adjust the volume; hands down the best purchase I have made in a while. I don;t often buy shit online or spend my money on stuff I don't need, but I am really glad I got this.

In Case You Missed It:

Best Of The Rest:
Watch The Toronto Mayor Make A Beat Live On Stage
Girl plays Super Mario theme on an Ancient Chinese Flute
Insane tongue twisting rap ‘Alphabet Insanity
Watch the Goodie Mob Teach Two Kids About Interracial Love in This Funny Or Die Clip
It’s All Good: Dad in a Box

Fails Of The Week:

Kanye Goes South:

Kanye performing on the second episode of Late Night With Seth Myers? Dope! Kanye is an executive producer on a rappers new album? Even doper! Wrong! The performance was an awkward hodgepodge and the rapper is Tyga. Ugh. I'll get to Tyga but lets start with the performance. Now, A medley of "Jesus Walks", "Touch the Sky", "Stronger", "Heartless", "All of the Lights", "Mercy", and "Black Skinhead" sounds really cool, but not when it is done as sloppy and awkward as this. There were points where I wondered if Kanye was sober and then I wondered if there was some issue with mic or something; it was really weird. "Heartless" sounded weird and on "All Of The Lights" they played Rihanna's part; Kanye literally only awkwardly sung two lines,  "turn up the lights in here " and " "Everywhere we are"...thats it? No "MJ Gone" nothing? It was two seconds of a song, and awkward pause then more segments. Medley's are supposed to have some flow to them, this went song, silence, song, silence, Kanye doing nothing, silence, screaming, throw mic stand. I would rather have heard a verse from two songs than 4 seconds of 7 songs.

And to make matters worse he is executive producing Tyga's album? C'mon Kanye! We just dedicated a week to your fucking album and this is how you repay us? Kanye could produce literally anybody's album in music, and he picks Tyga. If you like to kill brain cells and listen to Tyga, you can watch the video here, but MTV summed it up:

"Kanye executive producing that, so it's gonna be a crazy album," Tyga revealed during a visit to Power 106 in LA. "It's just good to have people like him [and] Wayne. They're all these people I grew up on. To really be mentored by the greats, it just puts you in that running."

The only reason this can be a thing is if Kanye is proving to himself that he can make anybody tolerable. He has done it witht\ plenty of emcees who i hate (Rick Ross) so maybe he can do it with Tyga. Still, though, what's even the point. It's not like Tyga is somehow going to be a great rapper; you can't polish a turd, so why waste your time Kanye? Remember when he used to work with Talib, Mos Def, and Common?

Practice? We Talking Bout Practice?!

At this point, when ever something about Detox comes up, I just have to ignore it. We have already said everything that can be said  so there is no point in talking about how this album still isn't going to be released. I just gotta breathe and let that shit go, but I couldn't bite my tongue on this one. HipHopDX talked to Stat Quo about it, and while he is fucking awesome and brutally honest, the story makes me sick; especially what Jimmy Lovine said.

“I remember Jimmy Iovine said, ‘It’s like the greatest practice team of all time,’” Stat Quo says. “’Imagine a team that just practices and never plays the game. That’s what you guys do in here. All these great songs, nobody’s ever going to hear them.’ It was true. It’s so much music. I started getting frustrated with it. The mental strain on me and not having my album come out, shit started hitting me. I just distanced myself and stopped coming around.”

For anybody who still thinks Detox is dropping, just listen to what Lovine said; "the greatest practice team of all time".  You know when this guy is calling Dre on his shit, it's over. Think you are mad? Dre made Stat Quo so fed up with Detox, that Stat lost his passion for rapping; Dre literally broke his will. I honestly feel bad for him. Imagine puting in months and months of daily hard work and never having it see the light of day. Everyone says they know some one who knows some one, who works at the 7-11 down the street from Dre's studio and he says Detox is on it's way, but here you have someone who is telling you straight up that nobody is ever going to hear this. He even quotes another guy who has a cute little name for it. I should just let it roll of my back, but this was just too much.

Worst Of The Rest: 
Future Freestyles on Tim Westwood
Rawest Of Them All: Ice JJ Fish on ‘Tosh.0'
Report: Richie Incognito Beat Up His Own Ferrari
Arizona's Awful "Anti-Gay Jim Crow" Bill Is a Signature Away from Law

Comment of the Week: "THE RIHANNA BOOBS CONSPIRACY IS SOLVED...WE HAVE IRREFUTABLE PROOF NOW! RIHANNAS BOOB SIZE IS....."meh"" - HaddyBoy on Rihanna's Topless Pics

Weekend Soundtrack:
 

You might think Oxymoron or Mastermind is the play here. You would be wrong. I mean I'm sure I'll play 'em here and there, but  have a feeling it'll be a blues weekend. Sometimes, no matter how much music drops, you need a little B.B. King In your earholes. The man says more with a guitar than most rappers say with their words.

Double Booty Of The Week:

I know what all of you none of you are thinking, "Hey, this was already a booty of the week back when the album dropped". Well, creepy bootyologist, you are right, but are you seriously going to complain? The video was officially released, so, of course, I had to feature Peaches again. You can make any excuse you want, name any girl you want, but nobody, and I mean nobody is sexier than Beyonce. Even Jhene Aiko and Rihanna posing together in lingerie and smoking is not as sexy as Beyonce. Although it's close, so I had to include that too. Still...Beyonce...but also Jhene...but Beyonce more...but Jhene doe.

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