From Chris Brown to “Detox”, 5 Guaranteed Hip-Hop Bets

Last weekend I took a little trip down to ye old Las Vegas to drink heavily relax, see some strippers magic shows and gamble on March Madness hang out by the pool. (Just in case the wife is reading this). Anyway, after leaving the good state of Nevada a few bills shorter than I arrived I started wishing I could gamble on the one topic I really know best: hip-hop. And the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. If I can put money down on a football game over/under, why can't they run lines on album sales over/unders? If I can bet that Lebron will be this year's NBA MVP, why can't I bet that Jay-Z will win a Grammy? With that in mind, if Vegas were to get its shit together and expand their sights a little bit, here are five wagers I would take right now.

Usher's "Raymond vs. Raymond" will be the lowest selling of his career

There is no way, I repeat, no way this album's going to move big numbers. First, unlike his last album "Here I Stand", which is currently the lowest selling album of his career, and its breakthrough smash "Love in this Club", "Raymond vs. Raymond" doesn't have the momentum of a hit single behind it. Second, in their desperation to get said hit single Usher's people have released or leaked approximately 100 percent of the album already. As we learned from 50's "Before I Self Destruct", even if the music's good, if a significant portion of your fans already copped the album for free online, they're not going to buy it. This is my stone cold lock of the week right here.

Latino rap will take over the game

It's simple demographics really. By 2050 latinos will be the largest ethnic group in the country, and while their parents grew up on salsa/banda/etc., the new generation of U.S. born latinos and latinas are being raised on hip-hop. Believe me, I live in L.A., a city with the largest Mexican population outside of Mexico City, and the airwaves are already aimed primarily at latinos; in twenty years, it will be the same in mist major markets. I'm just saying, you might want to learn how to say "swagger" in Spanish.

Chris Brown will never have another top ten album

Before I get a brick thrown through my windshield, there's no hate here, but if I'm putting money down I have to be brutally honest. As I mentioned on yesterday's sales wrap up, Breezy's "Graffiti" album isn't even in the Top 200 right now, and he's only got one song on the Top 200 singles chart ("Transform Ya" at #135). For compare and contrast purposes, this means Brown is only slightly more popular than General Larry Platt, who also has one song in the Top 200 ("Pants on the Ground" at #155). In this case it doesn't really matter whether Brown's downfall is his own fault or the product of an industry wide black ball, the result's going to be the same. Once you lose momentum like this it's nearly impossible to get back, especially when your core fan base are teens, teens who will no longer be teens in a few years.

Lil Wayne will be arrested again

I'd like to believe that eight months in prison will teach Weezy F. to at the very least make sure other people hold his guns and drugs, but somehow I doubt that lesson will stick. Plus every cop in the country's now going to be looking to bust him. I don't know if it's going to be a drug charge, a gun charge, a parole violation or what, but I've got good money that says Wayne's back in cuffs within two years of his release. This feels like easy money.

Dr. Dre's "Detox" will never drop

It's been nearly a decade since Dre started working on "Detox", and during that time he's given about 10,000 different release dates, none of which have come true. At this point the material he first recorded would be obscenely outdated, so unless Dr. Pepper pays him a billion dollars to finish it, I can't really see it ever dropping.