Nas to Remix ‘If I Ruled the World’

1996 was a good year for many HipHop artists. Nas was no exception with his Grammy nominated, Top 20 hit, “If I Ruled the World” featuring Lauryn Hill. This song lent itself as the plateau for Nas’ career being his first single to ever receive mainstream notice. Well, for those of you who enjoyed this single, Nas has dug into the vault (almost twelve years after the original) and emerged with a unique remake of the song featuring Marsha Ambrosius, formerly of Floetry. It was undoubtedly a good look to have these two on the same track again. This remake will be featured on the Smirnoff Signature Mix Series along with several other artists such as Buckshot, Kardinal Offishal, Nice & Smooth, and Pac Div, all putting a twist on some of their hottest underground hits.

Last year’s mixtape stirred quite a buzz, reaching millions of radio listeners and nearly 90,000 downloads. This 2008 Smirnoff Signature Mix Series included revamped Hip-Hop classics from big time artists like, Common, Q-Tip and KRS-One. Some of the producers creating these hot remakes included Just Blaze, DJ Premier, and Cool & Dre. Buckshot and Kardinal Offishall are putting an original spin on Buckshot’s memorable underground hit “I Got Cha Opin”; and Nice & Smooth are joining musical forces with Pac Div to create a new interpretation of “Funky For You”.

The mixtape’s first single was released on March 5th and all three singles can be found on the Smirnoff website with free downloads. No doubt that this year’s mixtape will have as much, if not much more success than the previous. Hip-Hop classics with a twist, hot production mixed with blazing vocals and lyrics, you can’t help but love it!

T.I. Talks to VIBE about The Plea Deal

On March 24th, 2009 it is unquestionably about to go down. Vibe magazine’s April issue will be released on that day and will include the full story behind T.I’s plea deal. For those of you who have been asleep, in 2007, this Grammy award-winning star was arrested (following his BET Hip Hop Awards performance rehearsal) for his attempt to collect three unregistered machine guns and two silencers.

Rumors started suffering shortly after T.I. was sentenced to only a year and a day of jail time and 1500 hundred hours of community service. Reasoning for such a light sentence was given by US Attorney David Nahmias who had this to say, “What [the defense] proposed, and what I ultimately thought was reasonable, is that Mr. Harris has the ability to reach thousands, probably tens of thousands of people, particularly at-risk young people. And that out of the tens of thousands of people he could reach, he has the real possibility of getting at least a few of them not to commit the kinds of crimes we would prosecute.” While some may believe this, others questioned T.I’s loyalty to the streets claiming that he was a snitch. T.I. fired back simply by saying, “Ain’t no such thing as a secret snitch…Pull up my agreement. It’s public record.”
 

Whatever you believe is up to you but this magazine is definitely about to spill the beans. This issue of Vibe will also feature “The 51 Best Albums That Never Were,” which is a list of some of the greatest and highly anticipated albums that were never released. Unfortunately, T.I’s story will most likely be the main focus of April’s issue.

DirtBag Disses Ross, Plies and Ted Lucas

So I’m sure many of you have heard about the buzz surrounding 50 Cent and Rick Ross. Now Dirt Bag, a Hip-Hop artist out of Miami, is putting his two cents into the situation. This former Slip N Slide/Def Jam artist has made several special appearances on BET’s 106 & Park and MTV2, featured on Fat Joe’s “Take me Home” video and has worked with artists such as Timbaland and R&B diva Monica. Now, his latest claim to fame, is this consequential interview boldly dissing both Plies and Rick Ross.

Allegedly, he and Ross have been having an exchange of words for years and he sealed the deal by making it public. Dirt Bag decided to strike back with a vicious youtube video posted on February 25th 2009. Already this video has received an explosive response by the public with over 62,000 views in one week and some hilarious comments. Not only does he insult Rick Ross and Plies, he adds to it by saying Ross called Ted Lucas’ (CEO and founder of Miami, Florida’s Slip-N-Slide records) wife a hoe. There has been no official statement by either party as of yet. According to this video, Dirt Bag said he won’t stop until he ends the careers of Ross, Plies, and Slip N Slide. No need to go into detail about exactly what was said; already this has received too much attention. It sounds as if Dirt Bag feels there is a conspiracy against him, as he claims that once he and Ross had problems, the whole Slip N Slide family turned against him. Perhaps if everyone stuck to music and not beef, this wouldn’t even be an issue. 

Check out this crazy Youtube video for yourself

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