In recognition of Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary, BET Digital, in partnership with Ambrosia For Heads, is celebrating the culture by hosting a bracket-style competition that allows you to determine Hip-Hop’s greatest crew. Rather than having “experts” tell you who is the greatest of all-time, this is your opportunity to collectively make that... Read more

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Priority Records' distribution delivered some of the finest Hip-Hop and Gangsta Rap albums to the masses, even if fans might not have realized it. Bryan Turner's company, which historically found its first pivotal success backing the California Raisins claymation act, would go on... Read more

This coming September marks a decade since Mack 10 released a solo album. The Inglewood, California veteran and Westside Connection co-founder made 2009's Soft White, which involved Rick Ross, Anthony Hamilton, and former Cash Money Records label-mate. Since then, the founder of Hoo-Bangin' Records self-released a joint-effort with Glasses Malone,... Read more

It's been nearly a decade since Cypress Hill released a group studio album, but that changed late last month with their new LP Elephants On Acid. That effort restores the production to DJ Muggs, a welcomed shift both for the group and its legions of fans. In honor of the project,... Read more

A dozen years before Slaughterhouse formed, Westside Connection was one of Hip-Hop's super-groups. Following a run of acclaimed solo albums and hit movie success, Ice Cube merged with longtime associate WC and protege, Mack 10. The Connect-Gang formed, with The M.A.A.D. Circle's DJ Crazy Toones (Dub's brother) coming along behind... Read more

During the late 1990s, Hip-Hop was a seismic force that garnered mainstream recognition as a billion-dollar industry. The culture had invalidated scores of critics who dismissed it as a fad during the previous two decades. Hip-Hop achieved this while rewriting the rules of the music business and redefining the American... Read more

In the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s, record labels could largely control what fans heard. Music was recorded, and the best of it...according to artist, producer, or label A&R, anyway... is what the public received in stores or online. Even if a project was promoted through an interview, advertised in... Read more

News today has broken that DJ Crazy Toones (born Lamar Dupré Calhoun) has passed away. An accomplished DJ and producer, Toones joined Coolio as a member of WC & The Maad Circle for much of the 1990s. The real-life brother of WC, Crazy Toones worked closely with Westside Connection and... Read more

Last week, Ice Cube and Common released "Real People." The Barbershop: The Next Cut soundtrack inclusion may be promotional for the film both MC/actors star in, but the lyrics and theme of the song suggest much more. The collaboration follows a mid-1990s beef that saw both parties release dis' records... Read more

In 2015, N.W.A.'s story was told through the F. Gary Gray-directed film, Straight Outta Compton. With that, the group that has been in factions since 1989 made steps towards reunion. Although the platinum group's founder, Eazy-E, died in 1995, the surviving four members appeared together through the film's summer '15... Read more

1998 was a critical turning point for Fat Joe. Two albums deep, the Bronx, New Yorker had made Represent and Jealous Ones Envy with the hardcore Hip-Hop Head in mind and in spirit. With Joe's brazen delivery, sharp cadence, and keen ear for intricate sample-based production, he had risen the... Read more

YG's My Krazy Life, in many ways, feels like a mid-1990s Gangsta Rap album. The CTE/Def Jam Records experience (which YG felt was Grammy-snubbed), combines strong Compton neighborhood talk with storytelling, sex-centric tracks, and honest revelations of an early twenty-something just trying to live. "Bicken Back Bein Bool" is one... Read more

Heads need to be up on DJ Crazy Toones. A former member of WC & The M.a.a.d Circle, this South Central, Los Angeles-based DJ is nice on the turntables. Still touring with Dub (his blood brother) and Ice Cube to this day, Toones became an in-house producer at Mack 10's... Read more

DJ Quik's album The Midnight Life will be in stores on 10/14. The album, Quik's 9th solo, is full of the rich Funk and Soul his fans have come to love over the last couple of decades. And, with features from El Debarge, Suga Free, Dom Kennedy, Mack 10, Joi... Read more

One of the feuds that people tend to forget is the 1996 battle between Westside Connection and Cypress Hill. In the wake of 2Pac's murder, Eazy-E's death, and all the subliminals happening between The Notorious B.I.G., Nas, and Wu-Tang Clan, it's easy to forget. However, a clever interviewer briefly asked... Read more