S. Samuel
West Coast rap veteran Ice Cube recently offered his thoughts on the state of hip-hop and said artists like Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco are keeping the genre alive.
Cube believes Yeezy and Fiasco’s ability to offer fans a fresh perspective with their music has maintained hip-hop’s pulse.
“I like what Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco are doing and where they are taking hip-hop,” Cube said in an interview with Hustler Magazine. “Those are good styles that are making hip-hop grow. It’s not dying as people say just because the mainstream is not paying attention anymore. It’s just back to where it came from–underground. In the ’90s, mainstream took hip-hop and tried to play it out. Rap is something that can’t die because it’s the voice of the youth. There is always something to be said by somebody somewhere, and there’s so many ways to say it now.” (Karen Civil)
G.O.O.D Music’s Pusha T recently talked to SOHH about Yeezy’s untouchable rap skills.
“Kanye is well-deserving of an XXL rating, whether he got it or not,” Pusha told SOHH referencing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. “Rapping? People aren’t f*cking with him rapping. Musically? People aren’t f*cking with him. This is like he’s pushing the bar. He’s doing all of this awesome sh*t and at the same time he’s keeping [a straight] face about it. That within itself says ‘I win.’ He wins, with the XXL rating and all of that, he wins.” (SOHH)
As of today, Yeezy’s new LP is en route to sell over 500,000 copies in its first week on store shelves.
The Roc-A-Fella/IDJ renaissance hip-hop icon and awards show provocateur lives up to his own lofty ambitions with a chart-topping debut for his latest rap opus, on target for between 525-575K, surpassing all pre-release forecasts. (HITS Daily Double)
Last month, Lupe Fiasco announced plans to drop his next solo album in March.
In his lone tweet yesterday, Lupe simply stated “Victory!” to go along with a picture of him (sporting a thumps up), and unidentified woman, and an Atlantic Records sign. Atlantic Records later tweeted that Lasers will be released on March 8, 2011. (The Source)
Check out some recent Kanye West footage below:
