Rap Radar

Rakim celebrated the 25th anniversary of Paid In Full two nights ago with two shows at the Blue Note Jazz Club in Manhattan. Backstage, MTV caught up with the God and his esteemed back-up band, The Roots, as they spoke on the event.

“The Roots is hip-hop royalty right now,” Rakim said. “From what they do, what they bring to the table, for them to holla at me, put this together, invite me out, that let me know, ‘Yo, it’s official.’ Otherwise, they wouldn’t. It’s a good feeling to be around this long and still get that love.”

The lovely Jill Scott graces the cover of the latest issue of Billboard magazine. If you don’t know, her latest LP dropped this past Tuesday, so follow The Light Of The Sun and cop it here.

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This past week, Big Sean appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and was performing during the commercial breaks with The Roots. Up top is footage of him talking about how he got signed with Kanye West. Finally Famous on Tuesday.

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On Tuesday, Droga5, the advertising company responsible for marketing Jay-Z’s Decoded won an Outdoor Grand Prix Award for the campaign. Here’s footage of Bing doing a breakdown on the promo of the book. Check out the Double R at the 2:18 mark. Homie, we major. Ha!

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Once again,  Mr. Green hopped out the judge’s chair last night and lit up the stage on NBC’s The Voice with a performance. The Lady Killer in stores now. Hey Cee, nice toupee.

A few weeks back, Kid Cudi released his new video directed by actor, Shia LaBeouf. During a press run for Transformers 3, Shia explains how the clip came together.

“[Cage] is one of my good friends. Cage, Chris Palko, and I had been trying to make a movie about him for a while,” LaBeouf explained. “Cudi hit [Cage] up and did a song with him. Cage sent me the song, called ‘Maniac,’ so initially, we started prepping this video, which is really like a short horror movie that I made that comes out on Halloween,” he said. “In the interim, while we were finishing up the effects on it, [Cudi] told me he was going to Amsterdam for the Cannabis Cup…And to do that with Cudi when he’s a judge, and I get to roll with him with my 8mm camera [like] an ‘Easy Rider’ documentarian, I felt like Cameron Crowe or something.”

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Rozay keeps the transactions coming with just a click of an iPhone. Full video premieres this Friday on VEVO.

UPDATE: Now with full version.

Freddie & Statik released their new 7 track EP, Lord Giveth, Lord Taketh Away at midnight but before shelling out cash, here’s a track featuring Trae Tha Truth. You can purchase the project in its entirety here.

YN (that stands for Yellow Nigga, guys) was recently in the hot seat with Ms. Drama. Elliott speaks on how we filter content on the site, XXL, and his relationship with Jay-Z and Eminem. Part two after the jump.

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LA Weekly was on the set of Pusha’s upcoming video with Odd Future’s Tyler, The Creator (foot cast included). The Neptunes-produced track will be featured on Pusha’s upcoming EP which will drop in August. Director Jason Goldwatch explains the concept below.

For the “Trouble on My Mind” video, the art is just as much in the destruction as in the creation. The dingy hotel room set will be demolished by a bunch of Odd Future’s crew, including members Taco and Jasper Dolphin, within a couple of hours. As they begin to trash the room for the camera, Goldwatch repeatedly tells them to calm down, almost like a dad telling his kids to use their indoor voices. Teenage-boy testosterone sucks the air out of the space almost as much as the fumes of fireworks and spray paint do. Pusha T has disappeared. Tyler’s tricks, like purposefully stumbling off his crutches and into the bedside dresser, are funny to newcomers, but it’s getting late.

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