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Fire Starter: LV
LV is more than Fat Joe's DJ: He's blossoming into a skillful producer. He did the beat for Joey Crack's latest record, "Damn," and Ne-Yo and Remy Martin’s duet “So Good.” LV is also in the studio on the daily, helping to put together the debut for Bad Boy MC Aasim, and he has tracks on the upcoming albums by Diddy and Dre of Cool and Dre. His work can also be found on current projects by DJ Khaled, Ice Cube and Ghostface.
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— Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes
Artist: Boyz N Da Hood
Representing: ATL and MIA
Mixtape: Coming Straight Out the A
411: We've heard this before: A hustler from the 'hood signs to Def Jam and Bad Boy South to be a part of Diddy's Boyz N Da Hood. Last year, it was Young Jeezy, and this year it could Rick Ross.
According to Ross' camp, Rick has been close friends with Russell "Block" Spencer of Block Entertainment (the exec behind Boyz and Yung Joc) for years, and there has been talk about Rick officially being in Boyz N Da Hood. But no paperwork with Diddy or Ross' record label has been worked out, so everything is just done on love right now.
Boyz member Jody Breeze says that Ross is like a big brother to the group and will appear on Boyz's singles when they drop, but maintains that Ross is not an official member — just family doing a guest spot. Breeze also says to look for other guest spots from Lil Wayne and the Game when Boyz's next LP comes out in late 2006 or early 2007.
However it pans out, DJ Ideal and dem Boyz have put together a mixtape that heavily features Ross. For his part, Ross spells it out clearly in his rhymes: He's down with Block and the Boyz.
Joints To Check For:
- "Kush" by Rick Ross. Ross says he's definitely down with the Boyz and talks about his hustling lifestyle. "A million dollars ain't changing me/ I got the same 20 junkies still paging me/ This Boyz N Da Hood/ We the Gs with the toys in the 'hood/ ... I f---s with Block, n---a, 'cause he's a block n---a.'
- "Boyz N Da Hood Freestyle" with Rick Ross and Jim Jones. You may have heard this freestyle — which uses Jeezy's "Soul Survivor" — last year, but they've added a previously recorded (for another mixtape) Ross verse to let you hear how he'd sound with his crew.
- "Superstar" by Boys in Da Hood featuring Jim Jones and Max B. Plenty of smoke, six figures spent on cars and women. Boyz and Harlem's Byrd Gang ballyhoo their riches.
Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week
- Show Hunger's Get Rich Or Die Rhyming
- DJ Mickey Knox's Rawkus Classics
- Meddafore's Bang This 2
- Dutty Laundry's Leaders of the New South, Volume III
- DJ Scream & Sqad Up's We Do This
- The Don Bishop Agallah's Propane Piff
Click here for more of Mixtape Monday ...
'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar
- "It's Goin Down" remix by Yung Joc (featuring Slim Thug, Jody Breeze and Rick Ross)
- "All Summer" by the Bravehearts (featuring Nas)
- "The Chosen One" remix by Jaheim (featuring Ghostface Killah and Talib Kweli)
- "Feel It in the Air" by the LOX
- "Smilin' " by Field Mob (featuring Ludacris)
Celebrity Faves
Baller Darnellia Russell, whose former team, the Roosevelt High School Rough Riders, are the center of the documentary "The Heart of the Game," listens to Ludacris and Lil Jon in the locker room and has an idol on the court.
So who will take the Miami Heat/Dallas Mavericks NBA final? "Miami, 'cause I love Gary Payton," she said last week at the New York premiere of "The Heart of the Game." "I love Gary's style of play. I play like him. He's 'The Glove,' I'm 'The Mitt.' " Russell, who has dreams of making it to the WNBA, also loves Sheryl Swoopes. "She's aggressive and she wants to win. That's how I play."
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
Lupe Fiasco says he's not finished kicking and pushing by any means. A remix of his buzz record "Kick Push" with Pharrell Williams is already on mixtapes and the 'net, and Fiasco says he's trying to make a trilogy.
"There's a remix for 'Kick Push,' but then there's a 'Kick Push 2' as well," he said last week in New York. "We're not done wit the 'Kick Push' franchise yet. 'Kick Push' is poppin', but it's not over yet."
Lupe, who has been playing shows overseas, was in NYC last week, performing at Central Park and recording tracks for his upcoming Food & Liquor. A rough version of the record was leaked weeks ago, and Lupe was heated. The debut was originally slated for a June 27 release but has been pushed back to later this summer. When the final version comes out, Lupe says only about six of the songs off the bootleg will be included. He's since made several new songs with the likes of Pharrell, Kanye West, Jill Scott and Jay-Z.
"When I first heard it got bootlegged, I was upset," Fiasco explained. "It's like your work of art getting unveiled before it's finished. Somebody snatched the veil off, so that threw me into a little tizzy. The feedback from it was good, though. It's just weird to see people reviewing the album in a public format and you know they downloaded it illegally. They don't have the song titles right. You see that in a major publication, you're like, 'Wow. We didn't give nobody that song.' Then I'll be walking through the airport and people will be like 'Number six!' What is number six?' I don't even know what that is.
"But going back [to record] was excellent," he added. "It wasn't even a serious going-back-in thing. The songs we had scheduled to record — if the leak happened or not — we just went and did them. Like the song with Pharrell, the song with Jill Scott, the song with Kanye, the song with Jay-Z. We were still going to do them songs regardless."
Lupe says his song with Hov is more or less the two of them dueling lyrically, and the song with Skateboard P has a real throwback vibe.
"It's weird," he said, "when I talk to people, producers, [they] have their idea of what they think I am. I've heard, 'You're that new Tribe Called Quest, the new Q-Tip/ De La Soul.' Then others are like, 'No, he's the new Jay-Z, Nas.' Then some be like, 'He's in his own lane. He's this skateboarder.' Pharrell sees me as this new Q-Tip rapper, conscious, MF Doom-type, left rapper. So he gave me this real jazzy old-school joint. But [producers like] Needlez think something else. Three 6 Mafia think something else. Mike Shinoda thinks something else. Pharrell's vision was this old school, take-it-back jump off. It's fresh, though." ...
Young Jeezy says he's slowing down on doing guest appearances, he really wants to focus on finishing his LP, The Inspiration: Thug Motivation 102 (due in October) and various other projects from his CTE (Corporate Thugz Entertainment) label.
"I really been just chillin'," Jeezy said last week. "I'm just really working on the Slick Pulla album, my album, the Blood Raw album. And I just got a clothing line over at Rocawear called 8732. I'm just working." ...
Street DVD king Smack says he felt he got as big as he could on the street level, so he decided to expand his business. Last week, he released his first official "Smack" DVD, which is accompanied by an album that features the likes of DMX, Young Jeezy and Stack Bundles.
"Ain't really no difference," Smack said, comparing this DVD to the previous 11 volumes. "My production stepped up; that's about it. The format is still the same. It's a 'Smack' DVD. I had to sneak an album inside the package to get my product inside the music shelves instead of being in the back on the DVD shelves. Everybody could find it."
Smack says he basically taught himself how to shoot and edit video when he came up with the plan to start putting out street DVDs. The first people to show him love were the State Property crew at the "Hey Ma" video shoot, and the rest is history.
Since Smack's DVDs got so popular a few years ago, there have been various other 'hood entrepreneurs following in his footsteps.
"I know dudes' grandmothers that got DVDs," Smack said of the craze. "I just stay focused in what I'm doing. I be watching some DVDs out there, but I don't let other DVDs influence what I do. For the whole DVD culture, I feel that basically I started a market. I'm not saying I made the first DVD, but it was the first hip-hop DVD to do it the way I did it and make everybody pay attention to hip-hop DVDs. I made history."
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Photo: MTV News
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