John N. Mitchell - "The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire."

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OH SNAP! THIS GUY'S FUTURE IS DEAD. KILLED BY JAMIE FOXX ONE TIME!



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HA HA HA HA HA HA HA:



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THEY SAY LUPE IS GOOD IN CONCERT... I'VE SEEN BETTER. HE'S A NICE GUY THOUGH.



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WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?



THEN THIS?



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DIDDY RUN NOO YAWK CITY:



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THE 50 CENT OF NEW ZEALAND? SON P? PEEP HIM OUT:



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SELF-MADE VIDEO FOR FOXY BROWN'S 'SONG CRY' ANTHEM:



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JAY ELECTRONICA, YO:

“If you ask me about my day I’m going to tell you about the weather, my job, my financial condition etc., but when you get up under that, that’s where the real expression is. I just make sure whatever I’m experiencing I just try to get to that point of myself to experience it.” Jay Electronica

There has been so much a said about this individual that without sounding like a broken record this will be brief. Jay Electronica is not your average emcee. His methods are different and with the sounds of Madlib, the late Jay Dee and Mr. Porter, the New Orleans nomadic wordsmith who tends to move which ever way the wind moves him has arrived. With ancestral lyricism that is hypnotic, simple and complex simultaneously, the immediate acceptance from the people is a testament that good music is still sought after by the true hip-hop heads and fans of good music alike.

Scheme: What do you remember most about your childhood growing up in New Orleans?
Jay Electronica: I can’t really pinpoint the first thing that I remember. The first things I can remember was school or some type of event like the Mardi gras or something like that but I really can’t pinpoint the exact experience. I haven’t went that far back into my head yet.

Scheme: There’s been so many stories about you, it’s almost like Jay Electronica is an old wise man’s tale, you are clearly real but you know how kids make up stories of people like, “This kid beat this dude up and he was eight feet ten inches tall!” That’s what I feel like your image is and to me that’s bigger than having a “buzz”. So what’s that like to have people on the edge of their seats waiting for another track to drop?
Jay Electronica: Really, I guess it’s kind of different for me to look at too, but at the end of the day I’m just a guy born in New Orleans Louisiana raised by my mom and my grandmother. So it’s kind of weird and kind of exciting at the same time but one thing I do know is that it’s a good thing and a blessing that people are ready to anticipate an album but just a song, that’s an indication that in terms of music we’re getting to a good place. We come from a time when we would anticipate a song but now because of internet and accessibility to get things quicker and the rapid mass production of things on a large scale and we kind of lost our niche of taking a thing in and just appreciating it for what it is. I think it’s a good indication, I don’t think it’s people responding to me necessarily we just want to experience things as they are in the rapid gluttonous time we live in.

Scheme: Describe what it was like growing up with your mother and grandmother, what things stick out for you during that time?
Jay Electronica: The things that stick out in hindsight are really the sacrifices my mother and my grandmother made. I was born in New Orleans in hospital and when my mom was pregnant with me she left home for a hot second and she stayed at a nun convent called St. Vincent. When I was born I went from the hospital to the projects and I grew up back and forth from the Magnolia Projects with my mom who moved from the 17th Ward, I basically lived between those two places and I think in hindsight I just think about those sacrifices that my mom and my grandmother were making. My grandmother right now is seventy-eight years old and it was only a few years ago she stopped working twelve hour shifts and that’s all she did was work constantly non-stop. She really sacrificed her whole life so that she could provide things for me and my cousins, we all lived together.

My mom, it was the same thing because of the environment we were living in and her being a young mom herself, she had me when she was twenty-years old, she worked hard hours and I can remember her being very stressed and doing everything in her power to provide opportunities to be able to have me to go to a better school and those are the things that stand out for me. Those are the lessons to be able to sacrifice yourself for the sake of others and for loved ones.

Scheme: Talk about when you first met hip-hop and music in general and what the scene was like growing up for in New Orleans regarding that.
Jay Electronica: Well musically that was my moms, on the weekend I would spend time with my mom because during the week she was working hard and on the weekends my mom would wake up every morning and clean and she would play Steely Dan and Bob James, Prince, Teena Marie just everything and that’s my earliest memory of music. In terms of hip-hop, the first time that I knew that I wanted to be a rapper was when I heard LL Cool J’s Radio and that was the spark of it and from that day forth I had been writing and I used to break-dance as well and I had my little crew but it was really LL that made me say this is what I want to do.

Scheme: You started writing when you were ten years old, do you still keep any parts of that process and continue to use that in your writing now?
Jay Electronica: That’s an interesting question because of course when I was younger I was talking about Mickey Mouse meeting Mini [Mouse] at the store but that’s because I was coming from a comic book, television, cartoon and rap music time period so that’s what I was dealing. So my rhymes would be like that, super hero type of thing and I think today I still do because even as an adult I’m still heavily influenced by the idea and the principle type of thing. Not necessarily like the television show Heroes with the special human beings and special powers and that type of thing, but as humans in our lifetime we never really achieve our full potential. However, we have glimpses of it through our lifetime where we do extraordinary things in terms of somebody affecting a neighborhood or in terms of somebody affecting somebody’s life, so I think I still do keep it in my rhymes the superhero aspect.

“…when I’m rhyming it’s the same thing it’s like decorating a room, you can go into a room and say let me put the curtains here, the coffee table here, this and that here and then when somebody walks into that room they get the clear picture. That’s how it is with me rhyming because more time and care goes into it.”

Scheme: You’re a practicing Muslim…
Jay Electronica: Yes, Islam is a word and it means Longing, Striving and Submitting to the will of Allah. Allah is just a term for God or Supreme Deity so in the true definition of what the word is, yes I’m practicing it, in the true definition of Judaism I practice it, you understand what I’m saying? I’m not necessarily a subscriber to ritual and organized ideology that is not rooted in the principles of what the thing really is.

Scheme: So are you more of a spiritual person versus a religious person?
Jay Electronica: I don’t know those are all heavy adjectives, I’m just a person, I’m learning, growing, I’m striving to be a better person and to build with everyone come into contact with and I fail a lot of times, so at this stage of my life I’m just a person striving. Am I a Muslim? Yes I’m a Muslim, also am I a Christian? Yes, I’m a Christian.

Scheme: You mentioned your slight stutter when you speak, but when you get behind a mic everything flows freely, why do you think that is?
Jay Electronica: That’s an interesting thing because I stutter but it’s not where I’m struggling to get a word out, I’m talking really fast and I’m fishing for the words that I’m trying to say at the same time. It’s kind of like driving with two feet, brakes and gas all at the same time and moving the clutch shift and gears all at the same time, but when I’m rhyming it’s the same thing it’s like decorating a room. You can go into a room and say let me put the curtains here, the coffee table here, this and that here and then when somebody walks into that room they get the clear picture. That’s how it is with me rhyming because more time and care goes into it.

Scheme: You went through a rough stint during your senior year of high school and freshmen year of college is that what lead you to leave New Orleans?
Jay Electronica: I got a bus ticket to go to New York, but when we got to Atlanta on the layover it was the year of the Olympics and there was a lot of now hiring signs, so I decided to get off the bus and get a job. When I got off in Atlanta I met a lot of different people that were like angels to me that would help me in my growth and development. At that time period if my life if this was a book this would be chapter two and it would be a short six month period in Atlanta.

Scheme: Today for youth of color faith is a hard thing to come by. For you, after everything you witnessed in New Orleans at the tender age of eighteen or nineteen where did you gain the faith and will to decide to get on a bus and believe that you were going to change your life living a very nomadic lifestyle at that time?
Jay Electronica: It comes from my grandmother and my mother. My grandmother made her place in New Orleans like the command post and that’s where my whole family sprung from and she was like the rock. She always would listen to gospel music and church was like the mainstay in her life and that kind of got rooted in my life. Now my mother was the type to get the Bible and define all of the Word. So my faith that if I continue to move forward things are always going to work out for the better if that’s what I’m striving for I… I get it from my mom and my grandmother.

Scheme: So what happened when you finally got to New York?
Jay Electronica: I came to New York and I was homeless but it was at a time when cats were on the corner and you could rhyme in ciphers with them. I was working little odd jobs here and there. It was more of like a learning experience and it really didn’t bare any fruit musically at that point of my life. Even though I was striving for music at that point of my life I was young and I was battling a lot of different things.

Scheme: Throughout your constant transitioning how did you find the space and time to hone your emceeing?
Jay Electronica: Along the way, I’m always writing and I’m always rhyming but the rhythms and the cadences that I use, all of that stuff is really home all that stuff plus the sounds I seek for are all rooted in New Orleans culture.

Scheme: Your tracks are very clip heavy, you usually have a clip introducing the song or ending it. Correct me if I’m wrong but is your purpose for doing that for the people who may have missed your message in the lyrics?
Jay Electronica: Usually I’ll have a clip from a song or a clip from a movie because when I’m writing that’s usually the tone that I’m in and I’m adding little bits to keep the tone consistent. In my rhyming I could be dealing with something but in MY way but the clips are like foot-notes that means there are further explanations at the bottom.

Scheme: Your delivery is unconventional in that you’re not the sixteen bar eight hook type of emcee, similar to your travels you kind of go where you go with a verse and stop where you want and let it breathe. Where did that style develop?
Jay Electronica: How I used to write, I used to just write and I would say my rhymes but when I started meeting people and going to the studio people would ask for the sixteen and eight but you can’t confine my communication to that but if what I’m trying to express I’ll give it to you that way. If it’s just thirty-two bars of me rhyming and a quote from Willy Wonka it that’s how I felt that’s how I want you to get it.

“We’re totally disconnected from that and in my mind I think with the governing of a people government is supposed to help us sustain a peaceful environment to live in and that we as human beings have the basic necessities of life, and at the very basic level experiencing life. I think that politics and government fail in those areas and I think that that’s one of the major flaws of modern government.”

Scheme: People like to categorize things, when it comes to your music, you have music floating out there and at times it can be a little confusing as to what goes with what or was this just a track. We’re aware of Act I and Act II but if you can where is all the music in between?
Jay Electronica: All of the Dilla [R.I.P. Jay Dee], Madib stuff, that is more recent and when I say recent I mean like the last eight years. What I’ll do is write out songs and then I’ll just do some songs to the beats and then I’ll get tracks that touch me in a certain way and I just want to write to the mood of that track. So if I have a collage of songs and I don’t feel like they fit into an album I’ll just let them circulate any kind of way that they can circulate. Act I is me sitting down writing a complete project and when Act II: Patents of Nobility comes out it’s going to be the same way one file and there’s going to be a video along with it as well. You can hear songs and tell what time periods there from. Like the some of the Dilla tracks you can hear when you hear the tone of my voice and the cadences being used.

Scheme: How did you meet and work with Madlib, Jay Dee and Erykah Badu?
Jay Electronica: I met Madlib through Erykah and the Jaylib poject. I went to LA with Guilty [Simpson] and Denaun “Mr. Porter” and Guilty was telling me he had some beats he needed me to check out and get on and use and that was my first introduction to Madlb’s music in depth to get into the mind of Madlib and the feel of what Madlib is doing. I feel very comfortable over Dilla’s beats and I felt like they were good conveyers of the energy I was trying to get out and after Dilla had passed I revisited a lot of those tracks over and over again and Madlib’s music gives me that same type of energy. In terms of Erykah everyone knows the story now, I met her during the weekend of the Dave Chappelle’s Block Party and I met with her later that week and she drop some jewels on me about the industry.

Scheme: Talk about the other things that you do outside of the music regarding photography and graphic design, Ms. Erykah referred to you as a Renaissance man.
Jay Electronica: I’ve always loved photography, I actually learned photography from some brothers of mine Sadiq and Understanding Allah. I learned about lighting and framing and different things like that but I’ve always been fascinated with film, photography and visual arts. I’m a see it and hear it kind of person. At some point I would like to have a coffee table book of something where I’ll have photos but little short stories under each one.

Scheme: You have many clips on your tracks that refer to Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. What is your opinion on the Presidential campaigns that are occurring and politics in general?
Jay Electronica: All you can really hope for is at the end the day the people you vote for are looking out for the best interest of the people. As far as politics in general I think we need to look politically how we approach things. I understand structure and understand how certain things must be in place for policies to stay in place but I think at the same time all across the world we’re missing out on the human experience and missing out on everyday life. We’re totally disconnected from that and in my mind I think with the governing of a people government is supposed to help us sustain a peaceful environment to live in and that we as human beings have the basic necessities of life, and at the very basic level experiencing life. I think that politics and government fail in those areas and I think that that’s one of the major flaws of modern government.

Scheme: What’s your opinion on the term Nigger and the re-appropriation of the word?
Jay Electronica: My grandmother still uses the word to this day. My mom might hear me use the word outside and I might get a whoopin for that, I understand that past and the history of the word and the significance of it but at the same time it’s a word. If you want to bury the word, that’s fine but that’s not addressing the problem because when the cab-driver sees me holding my hand up and but chooses to drive past me the principle is still there and I think we have to worry about those things.

Scheme: Finally on the song Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, you talk about infiltrating the machine i.e. MTV, BET etc… I’ve talked to a lot of artists who have said as long as there heard whether it’s the preacher’s choir or not, they just want to be heard. You are the last artist to challenge that notion and what to be heard by all.
Jay Electronica: I’m not a member of conscious society, I’m not a member of ignorant society and I’m not a member of Christian society or religious society I’m a member of the human family and if I’m doing something that I want to express to the human family and if TRL and MTV and VH-1 and BET and these are the avenues and to me I want to reach as many people as I can and experience the human family on a larger scale.

http://schememag.com/hip-hop/jay-electronica-watch-closely/

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DAMN, HOMIE:

50 Cent Denies That He Booted Paris Hilton Offstage On Her Birthday; Releases New

'He ain't that heartless to throw Paris Hilton [offstage],' DJ Whoo Kid adds.

By Shaheem Reid

NEW YORK — 50 Cent is working as if he were broke and partying like a billionaire. And while, for the record, he didn't dis Paris Hilton at her own birthday party, as far as some of his peers go, the G-Unit general isn't being as generous.

"There's no way they gonna survive me," 50 said Monday (February 4) at his G-Unit offices.

50 is back in New York after taking care of a full palette of activities outside the city: He was at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah a couple of weeks ago and at Super Bowl festivities — he was betting on his hometown team, who wound up becoming the champs — over the weekend in Arizona. On Monday, he and G-Unit released their mixtape Return of the Body Snatchers Vol. 1 via Fif's new networking Web site, ThisIs50.com. (There's no way you could have missed him wearing his "ThisIs50" T-shirts.) The Web site acts as part blog and part social-networking outlet, where you'll find all things 50 and G-Unit, as well as news and music concerning other artists.

"You should always expect me to be better than the guys you consider to be average artists," 50 — who is on the next cover of Vibe with Robert De Niro promoting his next film, "Righteous Kill" — said about his Web site, comparing it to others. "I don't think there's nothing average about me as far as the opportunities or how far I would go. You see when I do G-Unit sneakers, I don't wear anything but G-Unit sneakers. When I do G-Unit clothes, I don't wear anything but G-Unit clothes. [With] VitaminWater, I don't commit to anything that's not a part of my lifestyle. I practice what I preach. That's not just my style. Trust me, I've had opportunities to do business ventures that I have turned down. I'm averaging 10,000 a people a week [on my Web site]."

50 is especially excited about the prospect of people across the globe getting his mixtapes as soon as his U.S. fans do, via ThisIs50.com.

"I gotta be able to come up with something contextually that's bigger and better as far as distributing the mixtape for marketing and promotional purposes," he said. "ThisIs50 was the perfect outlet for that. The traditional way of releasing a mixtape has been great. Whoo Kid is the biggest mixtape DJ in existence. But to reinvent it and to get [the fans' mouths] wet by [having] them downloading it, is Web news. People receive it. In Germany, Kosovo, based on our last tour, they became members of the social network, so they had the opportunity or option to download it immediately. It makes it a lot more effective. It gives me the world instead of just America."

While Body Snatchers is a prelude of what's to come on such future releases as 50's solo LP Before I Self Destruct and the G-Unit family album Lock and Load, it also has a throwback feel to the very first G-Unit mixtapes, because it only features the first three Unit members: Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and 50.

"The G-Unit album is gonna be a lot better than that," 50 said of the older mixtapes. The General wasn't interested in speaking about the rumored friction between him and Young Buck, who has been focusing on building up his Cashville Records the past few months. "I already know what I'm doing. I'm back, I got my finger on the pulse. You see how they responded to just a mixtape."

"He's getting back to hunger mode," 50's show DJ, Whoo Kid, added. "He told everybody in the crew, 'We're gonna act like we ain't got no deal.' We're getting more creative with the original beats. The covers [of the mixtapes] are getting more creative. We're changing the whole aspect. It's marketing. Some people hate 50's success so bad, they don't wanna give him his props. I guess he's assuming now he has to bust his ass in 2008 to get it cracking. A lot of these rappers better get their dis raps ready. On the next mixtape, he's going in. I'm telling you right now, I'm moving to Hawaii."

"Some people do this because they actually make money off it," 50 said about making music. "I did this when I didn't have any money. It makes me feel better. I love what I do."

Over the weekend, rumors broke that during one of 50's Super Bowl weekend performances, he had shouted out Paris Hilton — who's certainly no stranger to 50, and who was at the show as part of her birthday celebration — and then promptly told her to "get the f--- off the stage" when she jumped up under the spotlight with the Unit. As rumor had it, the incident caused Hilton to burst into tears, and a photo of the heiress crying at a 50 Cent show on PageSix.com seemed to support the claim. 50 and Whoo Kid scoffed at the idea, though, saying the only part of the story that was factual was that they did give Paris a birthday shout-out onstage.

"It's no way we would kick Paris Hilton off the stage on her birthday," Whoo Kid said. "We ain't that heartless. I know 50 hates Ja Rule and Fat Joe, but he ain't that heartless to throw Paris Hilton ... off the stage. ... Somebody called me and asked me if Paris got kicked off. I was like, 'Huh?' She was dancing the whole time. She was having a good time. We hung with her afterwards. ... We kick her off her own stage and she's hanging with us? I guess people wanna hear, '50 threw Paris Hilton off the stage.' "

On Monday, footage of 50 kicking somebody — it's not clear who — offstage during one of his shows surfaced. The footage also shows a woman who appears to be Hilton in the front row of the concert partying at the time somebody is supposed to have gotten rudely dismissed.

Whoo Kid explained that the footage was actually taken during the Sundance Film Festival, not Super Bowl weekend, and that 50 did boot someone from the stage: a security guard.

"Paris was there too," Whoo Kid explained. "She was at the front of the stage also. But nah, we kicked a security n---a off. That's some security guy that kept jumping on the stage, picking sh-- up off the stage, pushing people back while we're performing. This di--head, we didn't even know him. Either he's security or works for the club, he keeps getting on the stage. ... But the video looks so generic, you can't tell. He got on the stage three, four times while we were performing. 50 got so pissed off, he said, 'Get the f--- off my stage.' Then I played 'Wanksta.' The guys was acting like a di---head."

"They are infatuated with me so much," 50 said about some of the false rumors and misreporting concerning him. "Whether I'm there or not or did it or not, they make it me to make it news.

"I'm in Croatia sniffing cocaine, did you hear?" he added sarcastically about a recent international headline. "I deal with this so often it doesn't make sense in me responding. Just like they go, 'Hip-Hop Scandals: Steroids.' The sh-- lasts for two days. Why? They put 50 Cent, who's the hottest [artist] in rap. They picked Mary J. Blige, who's the hottest [artist] in R&B. Tyler Perry, who's hot as hell in Hollywood right now. Timbaland, one of the hottest producers, and Wyclef, who's international, worldwide. Everybody they picked is somebody who has an international draw. You've seen all kinds of negative press on me that wasn't effective, that came and went because people know 'that ain't him.' "

As for the rumors that don't deal with the personal side of things, there's talk of 50 doing a U.S. tour sometime in the spring, but next on his itinerary is a run of Canada and Australia. There are no release dates on his or the G-Unit's next official projects, but expect constant mixtape material.

"Look at it right now: If you owned a publication, who would you put on the cover?" 50 asked. "Everybody's album is pushed back, [the people] need new music, they need new energy. We're giving it to them."

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Peace to Gigz. Peace to Gracie. Peace to Hip Hop and Diane.
Stop driving me crazy, everybody. I have a world to save.
Love, Mindbender