Archive for the 'XXL' Category
17
Sep
Ludacris Covers XXL
21
Aug
Weezy F. Astronaut
please say the Astronaut
17
Jul
Jeezy Covers XXL
17
Jul
Foxy Covers XXL
19
Jun
XXL T.I. Cover
Cube & Game grace the dual covers
14
Mar
DMX Is Crazy…
From XXL:
I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black…
Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
Nope.
29
Feb
XXL’s New EIC Speaks
From King’s website:XXL’s New HNIC Speaks
Datwon Thomas, KING’s Editorial Director, talks about the new hat he wears - Editor-in-chief of XXL.
So what have we here? I’ve been appointed the new EIC of XXL. Was gonna wait until my first in mag editorial to give my view of the recent good news, but will break my code of silence for you loyal KING-MAG readers of my blog (yep, all 7 of you. Ha!). Just something short and sweet to say that I’m ready and willing, chillin like a villian, the meaning of my position, is to dead all competition…pardon, I had a Big Daddy Kane moment.
Taking on the reigns at Hip-Hop’s most important print information center is serious biz. I was there from the beginning of the mag’s formation. The first generation of editors that founded XXL were true blue hip-hop journalists who pioneered the genre all us “hip-hop writers” live off of. The mag was created in the wake of their dissention from The Source magazine a few years earlier. To see my favorite writers/editors rock a new mag and for them to deem me talented enough to join them was a dream come true. However, the dream was short lived. After a fallout with the publishers, the original team broke out, leaving me with the choice of “stay or bounce, it’s on you.” I stayed. Worked my butt off and among a whole bunch of other shit the sun has risen to find me in the hot seat of manning “Hip-Hop on a Higher Level”.
I won’t take the job lightly. The game is in a tough spot. Lagging sales, declining buzz, warring factions, creative slump and various other factors make the details of my job tougher than expected. I’m here though, ready to grip up and bust some for a culture that’s slipping into uncharted territory that looks a little grim. The fact that a lot of good hip-hop is still out there helps make my job that much easier. I, with your help, will find that hip-hop and give it the platform that it rightly deserves. Wish me luck, I’m going in… Datwon
[Random Fun Fact: SNICKA & Datwon both interned for VIBE back in '96 ]
21
Feb
Snoop XXL Article
Here are some snippets from the Snoop XXL article preview:
“Sensual Seduction” took people by surprise. Why release what’s basically an R&B record as your first single?
There was no strategy. My boy Shawty Redd wrote the song, and once I sent it back, he started playing it in the clubs in Atlanta. He’s like, “This muthafucka is a big record.” When I played it for my peoples, they didn’t feel it at first—not my immediate people, my record-label people. They were like, “Eh.” I was like, “Fuck what y’all talking about, I’m putting this shit out. This is some fly shit. It’s my career, anyway.”
Do you ever worry about what effects it might have? Ozzy’s son went to rehab. Nick and Jessica divorced. Britney and K-Fed. Any concern over putting your family on camera?
Have you seen Run’s House? They doing just fine. [Pause] ’Cause they Black. Black families don’t do all that bullshit like the White families do. This is bonding time, because this is helping us out. Somebody in the family wants to be a star. Someone wants to do this. So we’re looking at it like capitalizing off the moment. We’re not going to blow this moment and have a fallout.
Suge Knight has said that you and Tupac got into it right before he died.
He told you that?
He didn’t tell me that. But it’s been printed. He told XXL.
He said me and ’Pac got into it?
You’ve heard that before, c’mon.
We had a misunderstanding. Our thing was, if someone is on you, they on me. He had a problem with Biggie and Puffy, and I did an interview with Angie Martinez when we was in New York, and she asked me how I felt about Biggie and Puffy, and I said I was cool. That triggered an emotion in him, because he wanted me to say, ‘Fuck Biggie and fuck Puffy.’ But I didn’t feel like that about them, for the simple fact that they didn’t really even want to fight him. He was fighting some guys that didn’t even want to fight him. It’s like, if I act and step in, we’re going to kill these niggas. And it don’t even matter. I’d gotten to the point in my life where I just beat my murder case, and I was more forgiving and humble and sympathetic, and the gangster in me just turned down. And he was so used to me being Snoop Dogg the muthafuckin’ killer that, when he heard that, it just fucked him up, like, “These niggas tried to kill me, and you ain’t riding with me.”
But it wasn’t like that. We didn’t even talk about it. We went to the plane, and them niggas didn’t say nothing to me all the way home, five and a half hours. My Rolls was there. His Rolls was there. I got out the plane. I was like, “Cuz, you going to the fight?” [Mike Tyson vs. Bruce Seldon, Sept. 7, 1996, Las Vegas] He looked at me like, “I don’t know.” I jumped in my car and rolled out. Next time I seen him, he’s laying in the bed, half-dead.
Previously: Snoop Covers XXL
13
Feb
Snoop Covers XXL
07
Jan
YN Fired???
Elliot Wilson aka YN, editor of XXL has reportedly been fired. No reason given.
This is very strange to me given the fact that YN made XXL into the best hip hop mag out, i could even say one of the best music mags out. It’s shame, I respeced homey’s swag.
04
Dec
Remy Ma In Upcoming XXL
On women:
“I don’t like bitches. And I say ‘bitches,’ becasue if you have a p****, you’re a bitch. Even if you’re two-years-old. Like, look at this little bitch on the slide! Look at this little bitch with her Barbie in the playground!”
On how her life has changed since the attempted-murder charges:
“One of the first shows after it happened, I’m in the bathroom and this girl kept bumping into me. I’m like, normally this is when her face would go through the mirror. And if I put her face through the mirro, it’s like, ‘See, I told you she’s violent!’”
50 called you an industry whore because of all your guest verses. Is there anybody you would turn down doing a record with?
Hell no. Whores get paid. I don’t care. It’s music, let’s make it. I’ll only turn you down if you ain’t got the price. I’ll turn you down and away.Some people think you’re oversaturating the market, though. Have you ever thought about that?
Listen. [Leans in, speaking directly into the recorder] Darling, I don’t care what nobody think. Talk to me like you talking to Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. You’re not about to ask him about what he think about what somebody said about him. You ’bout to ask him about his greatness, and his greatness only. I don’t care what nobody think. If I did, you wouldn’t be sitting on my muthafuckin’ million-dollar bus in my 15th year at the same muthafuckin’ company and business. I’m a role model. You should get like me. Get like you? No. Get like me. Ya understand me? I’m not hot. Hot dies out. Baby, I’m me. Who the fuck done this? Nobody. Compare me to people that’s not even living, baby. And they didn’t even do it—what they comparing me to. No disrespect to them. You found songs on those people after they died. I’m still living.
Check out the entire preview at XXL
When you look at the last project, you had an incredible marketing promotion campaign behind it. I guess—
I love when people talk about the marketing campaign of the last album. They talk about it as if I spent the money. I’ve been watching this for a year, like, what’s wrong with you? No one’s figured this out? I didn’t pay Budweiser. They paid me. They shot my video and put it on TV and paid me. They paid me to do that. I don’t pay HP. They paid me. I didn’t pay AT&T to run them clips. They paid me. Yeah, so when people go and talk about the marketing of the last album, I find it very funny. You think I put all that on TV? I paid for that? I didn’t pay for none of that. Budweiser paid me. HP paid me. AT&T paid me. All the things that ran, they paid me. I received money. I didn’t spend it. Def Jam was happy as shit. And then I didn’t shoot no more videos. I shot two videos, and I shut it down. I was the president. I shut it down, big man.
