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.

Thank you Internet for teaching me about rap music.

Although Bob Odenkirk can throw it down too.

His science is too tight.

“I got my momma playin very hard / I’m flirtin’ with sin but I’m married to god…”

When you flip through my CD books you’ll find a lot of indie rock and metal, but not too much hip-hop. It’s not that I don’t have an appreciation for the music, it’s just I hate the braggadocio aesthetic that sets the tone for the majority of hip-hop artists of the last few years.
You also won’t find much in terms of Christian music in my collection…my people get blamed for the crucifixion and I hate getting preached at by the misguided and unlearned. So it might strike some as strange that for today’s Synthesis Artist You’ve Never Heard Of Artist Of The Day, I’ve chosen Virginia Beach Christian rap artist El Prezidino.

I like El Prezbecause he’s working through his issues of spirituality and faith in a way that isn’t preaching as much as telling - his missteps handled with the same thoughtfulness as his strides along a righteous path. There’s a bit of bragging in there, but it’s more focused on his wealth of character, not wealth of material goods. And when he does rap about money, it’s almost more as a self-criticism, in that he should be paying more attention to God and self. I can get behind that, you know. Plus, his beats SLUMP. Check out his music on his Space, and you can find his EP The Warning here.

Check his live dates after the jump: (more…)

The boys of The Pharcyde will be hitting up the stage @ Rock The Bells Tour 2008, marking a rather unexpected reunion. For the first time in 10 years all the original members will be performing together…

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