The Fresh Prince, aka Will Smith, and DJ Jazzy Jeff reunite! At the Hancock premiere party in Hollywood, the duo peformed Summertime and Brand New Funk. This is a hip-hop reunion I never thought would happen and I can’t lie.. I’m a little excited because I spent hours singing the Fresh Prince theme song in the good ol days growing up in the 90’s. Get ready for the summer summertime! Ha.

Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff reunite… from MickBoogie on Vimeo.

SF hip-hop scion and Boss of the Internet Thug E. Fresh also moonlight’s as a ghetto Emeril. Give him $10 and a corner store and he can whip up enough delicious food to kill a horse or at least feed a bunch of broke ass rappers (or DJs). His latest recipe, is the Garlic Pizza Bread of Death and if you don’t think that shit will taste like a million bucks, but create epic mud butt in about 2 hours time, you should just try it out for yourself. It gets the thumbs up from G-Pek, so you know its real. 

JoeX2 is an awesome graffiti artist that has been a major player in the Los Angeles graffiti movement since it emerged in the 1980’s. JoeX2 started out in the graffiti art subculture and recently moved his artwork out of the community and into mainstream popular culture. He teamed up with JanSport for its Spring 2008 Artist Series in New York City.

His collections for the Artist Series are titled “JoeX2″ and “Seeing Red.” JoeX2 or “Joe Joe” is from Philadelphia and his graffiti is a mix of old school style and underground art. He focuses on issues like cultural materialism and has some badass portraits. Here’s an example of his work & the new JanSport line he collaborated with artist Julie West on. You can check out TONS more here at his Web site!

British and Sri Lankan lady rapper M.I.A. (Maya Arulpragasam) is makin’ money. Besides her recent engagement to Warner Music Group (WMG) big-wig Edgar Bronfman’s son, rocker Benjamin Brewer, she is getting paid by some notorious sponsors. M.I.A. collected $100k for performing at an MTV Movie Awards after-party and she only had to be on stage for half an hour! The party was in West Hollywood and sponsored by Converse One Star and Target.

After performing, M.I.A. jumped on top of a photo booth and told the audience how much money she’d be making. She is very politically active and told the crowd she would use the money to build schools in Liberia. She said it cost $52,000 to build a school meant for 1,000 kids. A rapper using her insane paychecks to do good, who would’ve thought?

R. Kelly might be an alright guy. There’s a distinct possibility that all the charges levied against him in the past 15 or so years have been false. But the sheer number of charges kinda makes me thing that the smoove R&B crooner is into some inappropriate shit. Looking at his Lawsuits on Wikipedia is a very entertaining read. The latest trial news is always entertaining.

Before Kelly’s trial began on May 9 2008, the case had dragged on for five years without a trial and had originated with 21 counts of child pornography filed against him in 2002 for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with an allegedly underage girl. Seven of the charges were dropped due to misuse of the exact language in the law, though the singer still faced 14 of the charges. Kelly, 41, has pleaded not guilty to the charges and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. [14]

The infamous tape was played in court yesterday, and according to the NY Daily News, it’s all going to come down to the mole on R. Kelly’s back. Purportedly, the man on the tape had no such marking.

The body of evidence in the R.Kelly kiddie-porn case could come down to this: a mole on the R&B raunchmeister’s back.
During opening arguments in his sex-tape trial Tuesday, the defense said the singer couldn’t possibly be the man who cavorted with a girl as young as 13.
Kelly, 41, has a “significant” mole on his lower middle back, one that’s been there since childhood, said lawyer Sam Adam Jr.
And the man seen performing a variety of explicit sex acts on the raw video made between 1998 and 2000?
“There is no mole on his back,” Adam told jurors in a packed Chicago courtroom.
“Robert Kelly is not on that tape. … Not a single witness can tell you that is him on the tape.”

When the tape was played for the jury, it showed a man handing a female money at the beginning of their encounter and leaving more at the end.
In between, there are sex acts on a bearskin rug. The young woman dances for the man, and he urges her, “Dance faster, baby.” She calls him “Daddy.”
A rapt jury watched the tape in dim light on a 4-foot screen while Kelly sat grim-faced a few feet away. Kelly was indicted on child porn charges six years ago after the tape - now “People’s Exhibit No. 1″ - was sent to a Chicago Sun-Times reporter.
A prosecutor told the jury the tape was an R. Kelly production from start to finish, one that the Grammy winner “created, staged, produced and starred in.”

Nothing like 21 counts of child pornography to make you create the most compelling video/movie/soap opera in history. The next 20 minutes of your life will never be returned to you:

Joining the ranks of other recently folded music mags No Depression and Harp, Mass Appeal has decided to gtfo of the magazine game:

In a refrain that’s becoming all-too-familiar for niche music magazine publishers, Mass Appeal, the 12-year-old Brooklyn-based hip-hop and lifestyle magazine, is calling it quits. The 100,000-circulation title had recently published its 50th issue.