Born a prince, Ibrahima Abdul Rahman was captured by African tribal rivals and sold into slavery at age 26. It was 1788, and the United States’ expanding plantation system had made the market exceedingly lucrative. Even as Abdul Rahman had been raised to lead men—he was commanding some 2,000 of them at the time he was ambushed—he found himself shackled and loaded onto a ship, the Africa, en route from Timbuktu to a “new world.”
See the trailer below, check out the official website and be sure to watch it tonight on PBS at 10 p.m. EST.
P Diddy’s MTV show Making the Band 4 is coming back for another season on January 28 at 10 pm. This season the show will feature last season’s ‘man band’ and solo artist Donnie with Season 2’s Danity Kane girl group. They will be sharing the same house in Miami, which I’m sure will lead to shenanigans never seen before on MTV (joking of course).
Look, Diddy is a smart businessman and I’m sure this will help boost sells of both groups, but we’ll see if people are really still interested in following these groups around as they make their respective albums. I’ll catch a few episodes when they run the inevitable Saturday MTB4 marathon.
Check out a preview of the upcoming season after the jump. (more…)
Yo, the full video (or short film) for Common’s “Testify” from his 2005 release Be has been leaked and is available on youtube.
The film stars Taraji Henson, Wood Harris, Steve Harris, Kenny Burns and Kevin Black and was directed Anthony Mandler for Boxfresh Pictures.
The film was nicely done, following the story of a manipulative woman (Henson), who sets her husband (Harris) up for a murder that she committed. Halfway in to it, the song starts u and follows the story into the court room as the woman testifies against her husband.
Very dope concept. Props to Common for some creativity, even if it’s just getting out to the masses two years and one album later. Tell us what you think about it.
Allhiphop is reporting that Kanye West and legendary stuntman Craig “Evel” Knievel have amicably resolved and dismissed a lawsuit over West’s hit video “Touch The Sky.” Knievel took offense to the “Touch The Sky” video, which featured West as a fictional stuntman named “Evel Kanyevel” and sued the rapper in December of 2006. The single was featured on West’s Grammy Award winning 2005 album Late Registration.
The two entered into mediation in July of 2007 and recently met at Knievel’s home in Tampa, Florida, where they put the lawsuit to rest.
I found it pretty interesting that Knievel would sue for this in the first place. The video likely opened Evel up to a whole new, younger audience, especially since nobody probably mentioned his name in the previous 25 years. But oh well, people will find anything to sue about these days.
Incase you haven’t seen it, the “Touch the Sky” video, featuring Lupe Fiasco and co-starring Pamela Anderson, Nia Long and Tracee Ellis Ross, is following the break.
Well, as soon as I post the youtubery of Jay-Z performing “Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)” on David Letterman, I find out that the actual video to the song is on the net (courtesy of some young youtubery bandits and BET).
The video has several cameos (Mariah Carey, Diddy, Nas, Beanie Siegel, Freeway, Jadakiss, and Tristan Wilds from the Wire). It looks like Jay is following along with themes from the film American Gangster and word is, some of the shots from the video may be used in his American Gangster film.
Check it out, “Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)”, directed by Chris Robinson.
Jay-Z performed “Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)” on the Late Show with David Letterman last week. “Roc Boys” is a joint off of his latest (concept) CD American Gangster which is in stores today. Expect to see big numbers off of this.
Jay’s performance was pretty flawless. He was his usual self, rockin’ the mic with ease. But the ear-catcher is the performance by the band, especially those dudes on the horns. They tore it up! I’m assuming these are the same cats that will go on tour with Jay later this month? If so, that’s what’s up.
Lupe Fiasco has released a video for the first single off of his upcoming sophomore CD, The Cool, due out later this year. The video for “Superstar” is directed by Hype Williams and the song features Matt Santos.
I think the song is dope and the video is a great fit. Lupe has a concept for the The Cool and supposedly three of the CD’s characters are being introduced in the video:
The Cool = dude in the suit
The Game = dude in the chair
The Streets = girl standing with The Cool
This should be a strong one for Lupe. What do you think?
He just put up a video on the “Making of The Choice is Yours” the 1991 hit off of A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing by the rap group Black Sheep. Dres of the Black Sheep gives us some insight as to how the song came about.
Black Sheep was one of my favorite groups back when I was is college (I still listen to Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing on my iPod to this day!). Check it out and tell me what you think.
Ludacris is co-starring in the upcoming film Fred Claus, a comedy starring Paul Giamatti as Santa Claus and Vince Vaughn as Santa’s brother, Fred.
In the film, Ludacris plays an elf DJ. Yup, an elf DJ, who spins music to help motivate the other toy-making elves at the North Pole.
Luda hasn’t had a lot of chances to play comedic roles in comedy films (outside of some of his music videos). I like to see rappers step outside of themselves and give us another perspective. A lot of times they are typecast and probably only go after roles that will ‘increase their street-cred’ (whatever that is). Shout out to Luda for trying something different.
Ludacris is currently filming the Guy Ritchie directed RocknRolla which stars Gerard Butler (300), Jeremy Piven (Entourage), and Thandie Newton (Crash). Be sure to check out Fred Clause when it hits theaters on November 9 (check the tralier after the break). (more…)
Yo, the full video (or short film) for Common’s “Testify” from his 2005 release 
