RapStation

News

Winners of the BET Awards

On the 26th of June the Los Angeles Microsoft Theatre was full with an abundance of stars from the black entertain industry.  The show was hosted by Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross from the American Sitcom “Black-ish”.  The awards ceremony opened up with a surprise performance from the night’s nominees - Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar. There were several reoccurring artists winning multiple awards that night, Beyoncé added four to her collection, Drake took home three and the “best new artist” Bryson Tiller won two. The best movie of the year was awarded to Straight Outta Compton and the best music video went to Director X. Throughout the night tribute performances to the late Prince became reoccurring from various artist includin

Read more

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony are back with "Coming Home"

Cleveland natives Bone Thugs-N-Harmony have released a new track to celebrate Cavaliers' recent NBA championship win.

The new track, "Coming Home," features Bone Thugs' trademark impossibly smooth flows and harmonies with lyrics about the feeling of coming home after a lifetime of hardship -- an apt theme for the Cavaliers, who just took home their first NBA championship in 46 years.

Listen to "Coming Home" here.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony are currently preparing for the group's final world tour, which will conclude with the release of what will supposedly be the band's final album, E. 1999 Legends.

Read more

Gift of Gab and Wake Self Track - "Change The World"

New Mexico hip-hop staple Wake Self and the legendary Gift of Gab from the Oakland duo, Blackalicious, have released one of Wake’s most important songs yet, “Change the World.” Produced by SmokeM2D6 of Oldominion, “Change the World” is a track that’s been in the making for a long time, one he’s dreamt about coming to fruition. Thankfully, the timing was finally right. With Gab on tour with Blackalicious and Wake in the studio, it surprisingly didn’t take long to record.

"This was actually the first beat I sent Gab from Smoke and he immediately said he wanted to use it,” Wake explains. "

Read more

Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell passes away at 72

Bernie Worrell, P-Funk's "Wizard of Woo" and a pioneering musician, has passed away at the age of 72.

Worrell is best known for being the keyboardist for George Clinton's funk/soul collective Parliament-Funkadelic, a band that would later inspire a future generation of hip hop and pop artists, including De La Soul, LL Cool J, Prince, and Snoop Dogg. Worrell is also known for popularizing the use of the famous Moog synthesizer and paving the way for future generations of electronic music. Worrell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

Worrell announced that he had late stage lung cancer last January. News of his sickness was met with an outpouring of love from the music industry, who rallied to help Worrell and his family pay his m

Read more

Aesop Rock Release New Video Feature Himself as a Puppet

These past few months have seen several fascinating artistic developments from Aesop Rock.  On April 29th, he released The Impossible Kid, his seventh studio album, and a few weeks ago, he even made his Tonight Show debut.  Aesop Rock seems to be showing now signs of putting the brakes on his momentum, as he just released the music video for Kirby, the next single from his new album.

The video features Aesop Rock, imagined as puppet, playing with a kitten, apparently named Kirby.  The titular kitten upon whom the song seems to be based can be observed engaging in feline antics while the puppet version of Aesop Rock looks on and raps lines such as, “15 years

Read more

RZA Announces Album Inspired by Atari Games

The RZA has been a busy man as of late.  Not only has the producer been hard at work on the Banks and Steelz album, an aptly titled collaboration with Paul Banks from Interpol, but he also just recently announced his intention to make an album of songs inspired by classic Atari video games such as Asteroids and Centipedes.  

“I’m so excited to work on these iconic games to deliver what I believe will be one of my best albums. I am going to invite some of my friends to join me and it will be Game On with the first beat,” RZA recently announced in a statement to Billboard.  This will mark the second time RZA has collaborated with Atari, as RZA paired up with the company in 2006 when he lent his voice over talents to Getting Up: Contents Under Pre

Read more