Instead Lupe Fiasco explained that his team reached out to Rock to get his blessing, quoted to saying: “That was a little unexpected, seeing as we already reached out to him to get his blessing and all that. We went and did it, especially because of what it means to him and what it represents to him and how deep, how personal the record is for him. At the same time, too, with Heavy D passing and all that stuff, we tried to be as sensitive as possible with it and make sure that we represent it correctly. But there are so many remakes of ‘T.R.O.Y.’ out there. That’s what was surprising.”

He went on to discuss that he will not get personally involved with the situation, pointing to the fact his manager Chill was the one who decided it to be okay to sample “T.R.O.Y.”.

“Nah. The friends and family is dealing with that. They’re the ones who put that together, so I’m kind of like a third party in it. But the people who initially reached out to him from my camp to his camp, I guess they was on the phone last night trying to figure out what was going on. It was a shock to me and it’s best for me to fall back.”

Checkout the full interview below in video-form:

Personal opinion, I do understand Pete Rock’s anger & disappointment. At the same time this is publicity for Lupe Fiasco via the record labels/music industry, whether it is right or wrong this will be taken and featured for more public pleasure. End of the day we are all talking about it as well as for a proper Lupe fan: enjoy the songs for the lyrics, message and flow which are on point and attractive in meaning.

But let us know your thoughts on how you perceive this situation: does it bother you? And is Chill not in jail still??

Original article

Take a listen and let us know what you think, and be sure to purchase the game as it drops tomorrow (in North America).

Tracklist:

01 Intro (Mr. Kennedy Mix)
02 DJ Premier & Bumpy Knuckles – P.A.I.N.E. (Pressure at Industry Expense)
03 Sheek Louch (ft. Jadakiss) – Pain (Mr. Kennedy Mix)
04 Styles P. – All I Know Is Pain
05 Jadakiss – Pain & Torture
06 Here Comes The Pain (Interlude) (Mr. Kennedy Mix)
07 Method Man – Bring The Pain
08 Gangstarr (ft. Fat Joe & M.O.P) – Who Got Gunz (Mr. Kennedy Mix)
09 Nipsey Hussle – Bullets
10 Nas – They Shootin’ (Ain’t Nuttin Changed) (Mr. Kennedy Mix)
11 Tony Yayo – Bullets Whistle
12 Jay-Z (ft. Eminem) – Renegade
13 2Pac (ft. Stretch) – Pain
14 Saigon (ft. Trey Songz) – Pain In My Life
15 Jack Lupino (Interlude) (Mr. Kennedy Mix)
16 Jay-Z – Lucifer (Mr. Kennedy Mix)
17 Fat Joe (ft. Busta Rhymes) – At Last Supremacy
18 Prodigy – Stronger
19 The Notorious B.I.G. (ft. 2Pac, Nas & Mary J. Blige) – Living In Pain
20 Joe Budden – Black Cloud

Life Is Good is set to be released on July 17.

I feel like Crooked I should take a miss when it comes to radio friendly records (Cee-lo’s ‘motherfucking’ can easily be rubbed out), as it’s very difficult to get to terms with hearing him on such a watered down record. On this track in particular I think Joe Budden stood out the most. Overall though, I can only hope that the rest of the album wont sound so forced.

I have to say though, Cee-lo went in on that hook.

welcome to: Our House drops June 12.

Not one to let a little thing life death stop him, Pac rapped alongside fellow vets Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre performing hits such as “Hail Mary” and “2 Of Americaz Most Wanted”. Rumors suggest that this new (slightly see-through) 2pac may be going on tour sometime soon where hopefully he’ll share a stage with Notorious B.I.G. and/or Nate Dogg.

*Note: The 2pac depicted in the above video may or may not be a hologram, I’m waiting on official verification from Captain Kirk.

Whilst this is not the official download version (as the track was in fact released last night), there is a certain “boring” feel to the track. Either it is Big Sean’s voice, or the fact I get bored of Kanye West here and there. Or it could possibly be that rather irritating beat. Compared to “Theraflu”, which made its way on the internet a day before, “Mercy” seems to make itself like a club banger when it has clearly failed on that sense.

Once again, there are people who speak differently, so let us know your thoughts in the comments and checkout the track below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F3a9bRvVTXQ

I do empathize with Nicki as its almost impossible for her to keep all of her fans happy with one album. She now has to choose between the thousands of people who supported her during her Come Up DVD phase or the 4 million “Barbz” who bought Super Bass on iTunes. However in a misguided attempt to satisfy both audiences, Nicki decided to release a multi-genre mess of an album that only her more recent fans could appreciate. By the way the album is structured there’s no mistaking the fact that Roman Reloaded in 50% rap and 50% pop. Since you’re reading this review on The Koalition, chances are you’re only interested in the rapping portion of the album so I’ll quickly gloss latter half in single paragraph.

Starships is for Katy Perry fans, Pound the Alarm is for the Taio Cruz crowd, Whip It will appeal to those who still think Pitbull is cool and Marilyn Monroe is a typical Rihanna ballad with Nicki Minaj starring as Rihanna. Other songs such as Automatic, Beautiful Sinner and Young Forever are so generic and unmemorable that they aren’t even worth writing about. The album’s closer and first single Stupid Hoe has to be one of the worst songs in recorded history and as a person of Jamaican descent, I found Gun Shot (featuring Beanie Man) almost insulting.

On a majority of the rap songs Nicki embodies her alter ego Roman and takes her gimmick to a whole new level of mediocrity. The album kicks off with Roman Holiday which is downright annoying but it does a good job mentally preparing you for next 70 minutes of torture.  The following track Come On A Cone is even more infuriating thanks to an awful-awful hook that instantly makes the song unlistenable. Nicki is clearly drunk off her own success and the boastful Beez In The Trap has her bragging about it over a beat which is as lazy and uninspired as her lyrics are.

Speaking of terrible production and lyrics, the album’s title track Roman Roloaded (featuring Lil’ Wayne) is incredibly weak and contains unfathomably bad lines such as “Bite Me… Apple sign” and “The weed’s purple like a black girls p*****”.

As per ‘every-rap-album-ever’, Roman Reloaded also features a pair of Rap/R&B crossover tracks, one featuring Chris Brown and the other featuring Bobby Valentino. Neither of these songs are terrible but I doubt I’ll ever give them a second listen. On a more positive note, I wasn’t completely repelled by the album’s fourth track HOV Lane which also has Nicki bragging about how great she thinks she is. Half of her lyrics are corny, as is the chorus, but there’s no denying that Nicki know how to command a beat and make it hers.

After glossing over the album’s track list when it was first revealed a few weeks ago, there were two songs which instantly leaped out at me. Namely; I Am Your Leader (featuring Cam’ron & Rick Ross) and Champion (featuring Nas, Drake & Young Jeezy). I jokingly predicted these would be the only tracks worth listening to on the entire album and unfortunately I was right. I Am Your Leader is slightly ruined by Nicki’s presence but both Cam and Ross somewhat compensate for her lacklustre performance. Likewise, Champion could have done without Jeezy (who sounds painfully hoarse) and Nicki’s disappointing chorus attempt but other than that the song is pretty ill.

Of the 19 tracks that make up Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, Champion and I Am Your Leader are the only two which have managed to secure a place on my iPhone and even those two songs aren’t as good as many of the songs found on the original Pink Friday. We’ve known for a while that Nicki isn’t the same rapper she was back in 2005 but now she’s not even the same Nicki that she was in 2010. The purpose of this review isn’t the bash her but to help her hip-hop fans come to terms with the fact that she no longer makes music for us. She has since found a whole new legion of supporters who love her more than we ever did or ever will so it’s time for us to let her go.

Instead of being a rapper who occasionally makes pop tunes, Nicki Minaj is now a pop artist who occasionally raps. If you’re one of the 9 million people who follow her on twitter you’ll probably like the majority of this album but for lifelong hip-hop fans like myself, it’s time to move on…

Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded drops next week.

The project will feature the likes of ASAP Rocky, Lil’ Wayne, Chris Brown, Snoop Dogg, Game, Nipsey Hussle, 2 Chainz, Big K.R.I.T., Bun B and more.

David Banner is a fellow gamer, so be sure to support the project. Check out the Let Me In track above, or download below.

SUPPORT THE MOVEMENT

This is a short from the LiFEcrew (Internal Quest & CraftBeatz), the message conveyed in this video was basically Hip-Hop and video games which is mostly what we do every day or every other day. The song at the end is a song teaser called “Youth” from our LiFE EP series that is coming out later this spring called L.

Check out the tape for free below and if you like it, be sure to send good vibes to Gill via Facebook and/or Twitter.