Though he’s signed to Loud Records founder Steve Rifkind’s SRC, shares a label with David Banner and features Styles P on his hit single, “Locked Up,” Akon is an R&B singer. “Me and Steve Rifkind have seen eye to eye the whole time. If anything, we didn’t get as much support from the label as we thought. So Steve and I had to take our record to the streets.” Check out his album, Trouble and soon-to-be released autobiography coming soon.
July 15 marks the date 108 Records will make history with The Human
Element, the first collection of human beatbox music, featuring Original Jazzy Jay, Wise Born, Scratch, DJ Q Bert, Click tha Supah Latin, Akil, more. On August 10, Kool Keith (a.k.a. the funniest MC in hip-hop) and beat maker Kutmasta Kurt drop The Diesel Truckers on Funky Ass/Threshold/DMAFT Records.
Brand Nubian are back — on Babygrande. One of the few enduring groups of hip-hop’s golden era consisting of its core original members (Grand Puba, Lord Jamar, Sadat X), Brand Nu delivers its fifth album, Fire In The Hole this August. Also from Babygrande is Jean Grae’s September 7 release This Week. Her second full-length album features production by Midi Mafia (50 Cent) and 9th Wonder (Jay-Z).
Plus look out for DJ Drez’ latest The Capture Of Sound on
Battle Axe and Phonte of Little Brother works with Nicolay on The Foreign Exchange: Connected (BBE Records), a project conceptualized, conceived and completed by means of instant messenger and the world wide web.
