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It was 1979. Hip-hop was happening, in dance halls, at high school gyms and on street corners in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Rappers such as Melle Mel and Fab Five Freddy were spitting rhymes over scratching turntables; breakdancers performed with them, throwing down acrobatic moves, stylishly posing.

Kanye West marked one year of hosting Sunday Service on Skid Row in Los Angeles. The "Jesus Is King" artist chose downtown LA's Union Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter that offers foot and spiritual guidance to those in need, to host the special service and share a short message saying he wants to end homelessness around the world. “A lot of times people say, ‘Thank you Ye for Sunday Service.’ I’m saying thank God. This thing saved my life,” West said while singing "Closed On Sunday," a song referencing Chick-fil-A and family values. “This thing was an alternative to opioids....

Kanye wasn’t lying; this is all about God. From the song titles to lyrics, Jesus Is King is centered around Christianity. If you haven’t listened yet, expect lines that illustrate Ye’s relationship to Christ and mission to spread the gospel. “I know Christ is the fountain that filled my cup/I know God is alive,” he sings on “God Is.” While some lyrics are celebratory and sound like testimony, Kanye also sprinkles in more aggressive bars that could be interpreted as commands: “Follow Jesus, listen, and obey,” he spits on “Closed on Sunday.” Later on “God Is,” he instructs fans to...

Though it's not what they want, both Cardi B and Chance The Rapper believe that Donald Trump will be re-elected in 2020. On Tuesday (Oct. 15), the pair appeared on T.I.'s new expediTIously podcast to discuss their new Netflix show, Rhythm + Flow. After jumping into Cardi's love for history, the topic turned to politics and both Chance and Cardi agreed that it's likely Trump will be leading the country for another four years. "The reason that we keep getting Presidents that we don't want is because we keep getting tricked into thinking we have a choice," Chance said on...

Cardi B predicted, with dismay, that Donald Trump will not only not get impeached, but win the 2020 election. She explains why in a new interview on T.I.’s podcast. Cardi B is an enthusiastic Democrat who once interviewed Senator Bernie Sanders, but she doesn’t believe any Democratic candidate can win the 2020 presidential election. Cardi, 27, said during her October 15 appearance on T.I.‘s podcast expediTIously With Tip that Donald Trump‘s bigger pool of supporters is going to land him a second term in the Oval Office. “I really hate to say it, but sometimes I do believe that Trump...

Succeed Phly Guy, a rapper and former associate of Hip Hop collective Jet Life was shot dead, according to a local news report. Succeed, whose real name is Ronnie Cravens, 40, was reportedly killed in the city of Henderson, Nevada. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to CBS affiliate KLAS 8NewsNow. Jenna Ivory, a former adult entertainer and Succeed’s girlfriend, confirmed his death in an Instagram statement. “I can’t even fu**in think right now or breathe. I just got the phone call. My love, I don’t wanna be here without you. They took you away too soon. It...

Police near Minneapolis shot and killed a driver following a chase after he apparently emerged from his car holding a knife and refused their commands to drop it. The chase started late Saturday night in Edina and ended in Richfield with officers shooting the man, Brian J. Quinones, who had streamed himself live on Facebook during the chase. Police responded after Quinones ran a red light and wouldn't pull over, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. According to emergency dispatch audio, Quinones continued running through red lights in Richfield. After police forced the car to stop, Quinones got out holding what...

A Penn Township couple alleges that a porch party was disrupted Saturday by a neighbor hitting their backyard fence with an aluminum baseball bat as she yelled threatening racial epithets toward the gathering, township police said. Beth D. Knapp, 50, of Nancy Drive was charged with ethnic intimidation, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct by township police after the 10:54 p.m. incident. The complaints were served on Knapp via mailed summons by Harrison City District Judge Helen Kistler’s office. Patrolman Thomas Seefeld said the male victim who hosted the porch party is black. Seefeld reported in court documents that the couple...

For four years, Joe Robinson and Lance Woods ran the streets of Detroit. Robinson took the east side where he resided, and Woods had the west side. But they never ran together. They didn’t know each other. Though both lifelong Detroiters, their paths never crossed. Not in running, and not in their careers. Woods worked in youth development in the local school system while Robinson operated as a young, hip hip entrepreneur with his company APX Management, which works with up-and-coming rappers in the city. Yet both had a similar vision for their home and the African-American community: a running...

Not exactly new but I'd never heard this before. This guy says what CANNOT be said. There's many "reaction" videos to this, by black people - not taking offense. Exposes liberal "identity politics" and fake outrage.

FULL TITLE: Tiny Jag pulls out of AfroFuture Fest after learning white people would be charged a different price to attend Jillian Graham, aka Detroit-based rapper Tiny Jag, pulled out of a local music festival this week because she disagreed with its pay model, in which people of color would pay less for tickets than white festivalgoers. Graham said she only found out about AfroFuture Fest's pay model when a white friend reached out to her and sent her a screenshot via Instagram that outlined the pay difference. The early bird POC ("people of color") ticket was $10 while the...

here seems to be an air of pretension among aficionados of jazz and classical music, psychological research is giving them good reason. A new study published in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences suggests that those who prefer instrumental music tend to be more intelligent. Study author Elena Racevska, a PhD student at Oxford Brookes University, became interested in how musical preference is tied to personality traits as she learned about the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, which presumes that more intelligent individuals seek more novel experiences compared to less intelligent people. “After reading Kanazawa’s papers, one of which was on the relationship between intelligence...

5:24 AM PT -- Cops say Kodak and 2 others attempted to enter the U.S. at the Lewiston-Queenston International Bridge in a Cadillac Escalade with a temporary California registration. They say Kodak was the driver, and officers discovered weed on him ... after further inspection of the vehicle they also found a Glock 9mm pistol which was undeclared by everyone in the Escalade. There was also a Porsche traveling with Kodak's team with three other individuals. The driver of the Porsche stated he had two loaded handguns and a third was found in the trunk as well as more marijuana....

the music video for Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" uses language of the Wild Wild West with a hip hop spin. The genre-blending tune was a breakout hit ... debuted on three Billboard charts at the same time: the Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs and Hot Country Songs.But Billboard quietly removed the song from the country chart the following week,...

UPDATED AT 8PM WITH DETAILS ON SHOOTING: Los Angeles police are reporting one person was killed and three others sustained injuries during a shooting incident at today’s funeral procession for slain rapper/entrepreneur Nipsey Hussle.

One person has been stabbed and 19 were injured after violence broke out at a memorial for rapper Nipsey Hussle outside the Los Angeles store where he was shot dead a day earlier. Scores of fans were holding a vigil at the Marathon Clothing store in the South Los Angeles neighborhood on Monday night when the disturbance occurred. A Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman said they had received a report of a possible shooting or stabbing. Dramatic footage showed the moment a stampede broke out as terrified fans fled across the parking lot where the memorial was being held.

LOS ANGELES -- Cardi B is trying to clarify herself after a video resurfaced online where the rapper said she drugged and robbed men for money. The Grammy winner posted a statement Tuesday on Instagram that she had "very limited options" and needed to do anything to "survive." The former stripper says she wasn't trying to glorify her actions, but felt it was necessary at the time. **SNIP** Cardi says the men she spoke about in the video were ones she dated and they were "conscious, willing and aware."

50 Cent was on The Late Late Show Tuesday and while sitting next to Massachusetts Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, he revealed how he could have made more money thanks to President Donald Trump. The rapper, actor, executive producer and all-around media mogul told host James Corden that Trump offered him “half a million dollars” just to attend his inauguration in January 2017. “I didn’t do it because I didn’t know if I could fix the damage,” 50 Cent said. 50 Cent told a similar story to Hot 97 back in 2017, only then the $500,000 offer was...

R KELLY is facing possible charges after he was allegedly filmed having sex with a 14-year-old girl in a video tape now in the hands of US prosecutors, it's been claimed. A grand jury has reportedly been convened in Chicago to look at potential criminal charges that could now be filed against the fallen star for sexual misconduct.

A failure to grasp how technology and social media is being used to coerce, control, blackmail and track the movements of children as young as 11 by “county lines” drug gangs has seen an epidemic of child criminal exploitation spiral out of control in the UK. “For the past seven or eight years we have been warning the government, the authorities, teachers, anyone who would listen, that technology is the central organising feature of the county lines business model,” said Sheldon Thomas, a consultant on gang behaviour through his organisation Gangsline. (snip) ...Snapchat is used heavily as a recruitment channel,...