Houston rapper and frequent object of Synthesis love, Devin the Dude has signed with Razor and Tie Entertainment. Here’s the shit

(New York, NY) – Razor & Tie Entertainment has announced the signing of veteran urban lyricist Devin The Dude to an exclusive worldwide multi-album recording contract.  With a knack for humorous rhymes and light-hearted storytelling, Devin possesses a strong fanbase garnered from four previous studio releases.  Complex Magazine has dubbed Devin, “the Richard Pryor of rap”, while Slate refers to him as “one of hip-hop’s best-loved underdogs among both fans and peers”.  The Florida-born, Houston-raised Devin has indeed earned his reputation as “the rappers’ rapper”, guesting on the albums of such high-profile artists as Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, De La Soul and Jay Z.

Devin The Dude is currently in the studio recording his fifth album, LANDING GEAR.  The album, Devin’s first for Razor & Tie, is scheduled for release in the early fall via his own Coughee Brothers imprint.  Razor & Tie’s opportunity to work with Devin was facilitated by Jon Shapiro and Jen McDaniels of Cinematic Music Group.  Shapiro and McDaniels will continue to be involved in the completion and set-up of LANDING GEAR, with Razor & Tie responsible for the marketing and distribution of the album.  Cinematic Music Group was founded in 2005 by Jon Shapiro. Based in New York City, it is a full service entertainment company that focuses on its record label, artist development, artist relations, management, production and film.  Cinematic is home to Sean Kingston, Yung Berg, and others.

But if you do, at least they’ll dance around in your blood and fuck with your corpse for awhile. At least that’s what seems to be the theme of their new video for “Inside the Fire” which opens with a suicide prevention PSA by frontman David Draiman, but then moves directly to a scene of some broad hanging herself, complete with sound effects. He then takes a minute to kick it with the corpse for awhile, while the rest of his band dances around in the blood, before Draiman himself gives becoming an hero a good college try, being saved at the last second by magically transporting himself into a looney bin. Kind of a fucked up concept but at they’re trying, I guess. I interviewed the band a few years ago and when guitarist Dan Donegan mentioned that the band was seeing “four and five-year old kids singing the lyrics to their songs at the shows” I asked him if he was ever worried that some of their subject matter, such as a video with people killing themselves, might be a little bit much for fans of that age to comprehend and he, needless to say, a little nonchalant:

“Like I said, everybody may have a different point of view, they may get the wrong message. We can’t really do anything about that”

Ha! And our parents thought it was bad when we listened to too much Dr. Dre and started calling each other “niggas” and our classmates “bitches.” Let’s see how kids raised on a steady diet of Disturbed end up during their teen years.

A book signing turned deadly. Apparently signing a book is not gangsta enough for some people.

All hell broke loose late last night, April 13, at a release party for the new exposé book on super producer Dr. Dre. “Rolling With Dre” is a tell-all book written by former Dre business associate Bruce Williams, in which he details his supposed tumultuous time spent with the producer. The party was held in Tukwila, Washington at Gordon’s on the Green, a restaurant owned by the city. It is not known what exactly started the fighting but by 2AM shots rang out and people started dropping. Two unnamed men were hit, one pronounced dead.

There must be something in the water in Chicago because those cats are outspoken. It’s like someone decided that the mouthiest rappers should all come from one place. What the hell is going on over there?

Exhibit A: The “Fiascogate”: Lupe gets asked to cover a couple Tribe Called Quest songs for the VH1 Hip Hop Honors Show where he proceeds to mess up a couple of the lyrics. He then posts a couple blogs about how he never grew up listening to ATCQ, but did it because Q-tip is his friend and he asked him to do it. He goes on to say that it kinda pisses him off because he has to “pretend” he listened to their albums, when he never really did. He claims Westcoast gangsta rap was what he grew up on. Weird, because pretty much everyone agrees that Lupe Fiasco’s music runs in the same vein as backpack rap, with a style so similar to ATCQ that Q-Tip and VH1 thought it appropriate to ask Lupe if he’d cover their songs during the show.

This triggers a mess of response from the rap community. One from Q-Tip himself:

“All that stuff he said about never listening to a Tribe album before and having no interest in doing so, it doesn’t make sense to me. As I said on the show itself, it was listening to N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton that inspired us to make [1991's] The Low End Theory, and years later I spoke to Dr. Dre and he told me that hearing The Low End Theory inspired him to make The Chronic. That’s what music does. That’s what artists do, they seek out information of all kinds.”

Served.

Exhibit B: Kanye West is also known for being on the mouthy side. Like when he got all mad about not winning the Video of the Year for “Touch The Sky” at the 2006 MTV Europe Awards:

In a tirade riddled with expletives, West said he should have won the prize for his video “Touch The Sky,” because it “cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons.” -MSNBC

Don’t get me wrong, Kanye puts out some bumpin’ albums. I listened to The College Dropout on repeat for probably about a month, but damn, that guy talks a lot of shit. Here’s his backstage meltdown. It’s also interesting that he took on the cartoonish gangsta 50 Cent, and challenged him to album-sales duel. More fuel to the fire.

Exhibit C: Shala of Qualo (another Chicago rap group) sits somewhere in the grey area between gangsta and backpack. But even in the middle, there’s room to run your mouth. This guy has enough balls to come-with-it in a CNN interview like blaaaow:

SHALA: What I’m saying is I refer to hos as hos, bitches as bitches, women as women, queens and queens, racist as racist, black men as black men, niggas as niggas. People are — you refer to people as they represent themselves and that is America and that is the world and that’s what people do.
MARTIN: So, if somebody said…
SHALA: So, you’re kind of putting words in my mouth.

In truth, they’re all just trying to keep it gully, mayne. Chicago is blowing up in terms of real talk. Those rappers are loud, but honest. And even if the dialogue isn’t exactly well thought-out, it brings attention to the new things happening in the rap scene. And besides, it’s a free country. You will be heard, Chicago.

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