New Music Monday

Young Dii - Rockstar
D-Dub Ft. Young Dii and Raw Blake - Mid Life Crisis
Snoop Dogg - That Tree (Feat. KiD CuDi)
Tyga - Im So Raw
Juice - Alive Ft. Ace Hood
G4 Boyz ft. Roscoe Dash -She Likes (Remix)
Soulja Boy Tell em - Forget About The Past

Nicki Minaj Explains All Those Crazy Faces she makes ["I'm trying to entertain...]

Bossip reports:

Nicki Minaj started out talking to FADER Magazine about her Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape track, “Itty Bitty Piggy” and ended by revealing the secret behind her funny facial expressions.

“That’s the craziest one I’ve written yet. I sound like a Martian. I just really didn’t give a d*mn, just being crazy as I could possibly be…I don’t know where I fit in the spectrum of rap yet, I think now I’m kind of proving myself, but before, people thought I was more of a sex symbol or wannabe sex symbol. Now they’re seeing. That’s why I make the goofiest faces, I don’t want people to think I’m up here trying to be cute. I’m trying to entertain, and entertaining is more than exuding sex appeal. I don’t think that’s fun. I don’t find it fun watching someone trying to be sexy. It’s wack. I’m trying to just show my true personality, and I think that means more than anything else. I think when personality is at the forefront, its not about male or female, its just about, who is this weird character?”

Obama Says Blueprint 3 is his favorite album of the year

(AllHipHop News) Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3 album has received its biggest endorsement via President Barack Obama. In a recent interview with BBC One, Jay-Z disclosed that the President loved the LP and was playing it during their recent phone conversation.

“Barack loves Hip-Hop, when I called him he was playing Blueprint in the gym,” he explained. “I’ve been invited to the White House a couple of times. Hopefully we’ll keep him in for 8 years so I’ll have time to get there.”

Obama has been a self-admitted Hip-Hop fan for years, and first met Jay-Z in 2008 as part of his goal to help emcees use their art to spark critical thinking and bridge generational rifts.

Also, the then U.S. senator was hopeful to see Hip-Hop artists as a whole move away from the misogyny and materialistic slant that’s gripped the art form’s mainstream in recent years.

“I’ve met with Jay-Z, I’ve met with Kanye [West]. And I’ve talked to other artists about how potentially to bridge that gap. I think the potential for them to deliver a message of extraordinary power that gets people thinking [is great],”Obama told BET on the special What’s In It For Us? “There are times, even on the artists I’ve named, the artists that I love, that there is a message that’s sometimes degrading to women, uses the N-word a little too frequently. But also something that I’m really concerned about is they’re always talking about material things about how I can get something; more money, more cars.”

Jay-Z acknowledged the Hip-Hop nation’s potential political power, but rejected the notion that artists should tone down their messages. Instead, he insisted that artists have a responsibility to speak on the uncomfortable truths of society, and not relegate their art to propaganda.

“Sometimes there are hard truths in rap, they’re not packaged with pretty ribbons. Sometimes the realities of the situations are harsh and they need to be told,” Jay reasoned to the BBC. “We’re the poets of our generation! Those truths and those honesties need to be told and sometimes that will rub people the wrong way but that don’t mean you don’t tell them. I think when rap is done brilliantly it can inform you of a problem, things that are going on.”

Even as the pro-Obama Hip-Hop songs slowed following the President’s January 2009 inauguration, Jay-Z has remained one of his strongest supporters.

The Brooklyn native spoke favorably of Obama throughout Blueprint 3, including the songs “What We Talkin’ About,” “On to the Next One,” and “Reminder.”