Results tagged “hiphop”

Jay-Z's show at UCLA this Sunday has long been sold out. Damn college kids and their disposable incomes! Don't worry, LA-based Hova fans. Sean Carter just announced he's coming back. This time he's bringing his show to the Staples Center, March 26th. The rap icon who's currently on the road with Wale and N.E.R.D. finishing up the final dates of his college tour, will pack up his Yankee hat and hit the road again for "The Blueprint 3 North American Tour." The BP3 tour starts on February 22nd in Houston and takes Jay's "Empire State of Mind" to arenas across the country to places like New Orleans, Boston and San Jose before wrapping it up right here in LA. Young Jeezy will serve as the opening act. Tickets go on sale November 13th, with various pre-sales beginning November 10th.

Ladies of Burbank, your chances of becoming a millionaire have significantly improved. Why? Because 50 Cent is coming to town. The rapper who claims "Have a baby by me, baby, be a millionaire" in his latest single has embarked on a 10-city screening tour of his new film, Before I Self Destruct. The film will be released on DVD on November 16th along with his new album, also titled Before I Self Destruct, but you can see it for free on November 11th (a week from today) at the AMC Burbank at 8:30 p.m. 50 stars in, wrote and directed the film, which has been described as a "coming of age story." Pick up your tickets at MovieTickets.com/50.

LA Dream Team was a hip-hop group from back in the day. Here's one of their floor-shakers from 1985, "Dream Team Is In The House." It's the type of thing you'll hear on the new-old 93.5 FM K-Day or at the sort of barbecue that I've always wanted to attend. LA hip-hop wasn't always gangsta, you know.

Whether or not you really ever believed Hip Hop was Dead, there’s no denying the changes it’s undergone in the past decade. Bass-y beats and mean muggin’ thug rhyme runners are so cliche they’ve become a caricature of themselves; how else can you explain 50 Cent having his own video game? So where does a real hip hop head turn? Like an ostrich: underground.

There’s an opening reception tonight for Bryan Cunningham’s Wander Lost exhibit at La Luz de Jesus Gallery starting at 8 pm. His inspiration for the art was born out of a road trip across America. He got sick of seeing gentrified towns with megastores and chain restaurants, so he got off the freeways and took forgotten roads with “mom & pop diners, picturesque motels and backyard shrines (to anonymous deities) that gave an indigenous face back to the road.”

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..." If you have a suggestion for a future Seven Questions subject send us an email.

When Kenan Bell isn't in the classroom of a local Montessori school teaching youngsters language arts, he's on stage schooling crowds with his own unique brand of hip-hop that blends indie-rock with electronica, a style URB called "his very own genre of nu-gaze, emo-hip-hop." In March, the La Crescenta native put on full display his eclectic musical taste and range when he dropped the “Good News: The Mix-Tape,” which features remixes of songs by artists as wide-ranging as Pink Floyd, Lily Allen, Gang Gang Dance, Jose Gonzalez, Peter, Bjorn & John, Duran Duran, and Neil Diamond. Yes, you read that right, Neil Diamond.

First "Rap Chop," then "Jam Wow," and now "Press Hop." Thank you mad-mashup-genius Steve Porter.

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..."

Racking up over ten million YouTube views, and signed to Kanye West's GOOD Music imprint, hip-hopper Kid Cudi is well on his way. The recent video for "Day 'n Night" features the lonely stoner meandering around Los Angeles. Can you recognize any of the locations? Comment below!

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..."

Usually Goldstar Events sells tickets to big name events for half price, but hey, with the economy sucking, why not give tickets away to this weekend's Hip Hop 101 Music and Arts Festival featuring Ludacris and Common, among others. $45 and Ticketmaster fees of free (well, it is $9 in their ticket fees)? They only have a 100 tickets, so we thought we'd warn ya. The Saturday night event is at the LA Sports Arena.

I was first introduced to The Knux on a late Monday night back in June 2007. Instead of staying at home and resting up for the next work day, I decided to take Interscope up on their invitation to check out the latest addition to their roster perform at the Viper Room. That was a brilliant decision. As I said in my review of their show, "the hours of shut eye lost were worth the chance to have my eyes open to something new and fresh from a genre of music that has been putting me to sleep."

      

Thursday night Xbox 360 and Activision unveiled two of their most highly anticipated games, "Guitar Hero World Tour" (which hit shelves today) and "Call of Duty: World at War" to a jam packed crowd atCentral.

For the second straight year, the Hip Hop Live tour, which teamed up top emcees with the instrumentation of ten plus piece band, rolled into the House of Blues. The lineup for this year's tour featured Little Brother, David Banner and Talib Kweli. Once again the band backing the three acts was the Los Angeles-based Rhythm Roots Allstars.

LAist got some time in with Los Angeles rapper MURS. MURS has just released 'MURS FOR PRESIDENT' on Warner Bros Records, and is a member of the rap groups Living Legends, and Felt. He hails from the Los Angeles neighborhood of Mid-City. I call him a homie-by-proxy! MURS stands for Making Underground Raw Shit - but it should stand for My Ultimate Rare Sit-down.

Just like many of his peers, T.I. has a roster of nicknames as long as the chain around his neck. One of the most popular of those nicknames is "The King of the South," but on Friday night, at the Key Club T.I. was simply the King.

Tonight (10pm) marks the fifth annual installment of VH-1's Hip Hop Honors, a program saluting the contributions of the genre's pioneers and players. This year's honorees include: De La Soul, Slick Rick, Naughty by Nature, Too Shot and Los Angeles' own Cypress Hill.

To promote the release of MURS for President, which hit stores today, the LA native will be signing copies and performing at Amoeba tonight at 6:30 pm.

Because there is a Michael Strahan-like gap between the amount of fun had in playing a video game and watching someone else play a video game, the answer I most frequently give when posed with the question "Want to watch two guys play Madden in Hollywood?" is "No."

              

If you put together a dream lineup for a hip hop show, chances are it would look something like this year’s Rock the Bells festival. This year’s incarnation featured the reunion (finally!) of one of the most acclaimed hip hop outfits in history, A Tribe Called Quest as well as the first performance in years from California’s own Pharcyde. But was from top to bottom a who’s who of Hip Hop both past and present. (Story continued below photo gallery)

Aesop Rock - the tall man of the NY weathermen rap cliq - consistently breathes fresh air into everything he touches. He's the only man that could have a music video with zombies, and yet still is that proverbial, (or fabled) fresh prince of fresh air. His artistry on the mic, coupled with his abilities working the production tip, makes my heart float. I wish I was like Aes-Rizzle, and the only thing getting in between me and GTA4 was a flourishing rap career & touring. Instead, I beat it last week. At least this Aesop Rock cd has replayability. Lucky for you, Aesop is currently touring the states, and lucky for me, he found time on the road to play one-sided twenty-questions.

Del flipped the script on mainstream rap in the 90's, and has since moved onto bigger and better things with each project, including working with Dan the Automator on Deltron 3030, and Damon Albarn on the Gorillaz. Del has a new CD out and is playing a free show this Saturday @ USC, and let LAist call and bug him with an interview.

If you aren't familiar, Clinton Sparks has rapidly risen from the basement of his mother's house in Boston to an elite DJ, producer and on-air personality. Recently, the host of the nationally syndicated Smashtime Radio and producer of numerous classic mixtapes like the first two volumes of the "We Got it 4 Cheap" series by The Clipse and The Re-Up Gang, has crossed over into cable television as the music correspondent for E!'s The Daily 10. A man on the go, criss-crossing the country from coast-to-coast to throw down some of the biggest parties in the country's top clubs, to producing beats for A-list artists to appearing on your television screen, Clinton took a little time to talk with LAist prior to boarding his flight from Las Vegas, where he hosts Daily 10 Smashtime Saturdays at Body English, to LA.

Release Date: 03/04/08

The duo of Ant and Slug are heading back out on the road this spring for a 19 show North American tour to support their highly anticipated sixth official studio album, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold. On May 6th and 7th, Atmosphere brings their unique brand of Midwestern underground hip hop to Hollywood's Henry Fonda for back-to-back nights of backpack rap.

As we mentioned in our interview with Questlove, LAist was on the red carpet for the 5th Annual Roots Jam Session at the Key Club in West Hollywood. While we were hoping that this post would serve as a review of the best live band in the world jamming the night away with a little help from some of their friends, we'll happily settle for the chance to rub elbows with the big names, not-so-big names, and what's their names? that walked the red carpet on Saturday night in support of Rock the Vote and The Roots.

Last night, LAist had a spot on the red carpet of the Key Club in West Hollywood, host of The Roots Jam Session sponsored by Rock the Vote, Okayplayer and Keldof.