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Frank Ocean has been all over the news lately. The Odd Future alum released his long awaited project, Blonde, last week to critical acclaim and dropped the visual album, Endless, a few days before. 

According to Music Business Worldwide, as of Thursday, August 25, Blonde has already been illegally downloaded almost a million times—753,849 times to be exact. MUSO, a global tech company that provides content protection, data analytics and piracy audience reconnection solutions made the tedious calculations. 

Similarly, Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo project was downloaded half a million times on BitTorrent while he tinkered with perfecting the final product as it sat exclusiv

 Multinational recording artist Akon did well in kindling dance floor lights through his music. In recent years, R&B’s Konvict stepped away from stage lights and began a movement to light up Africa—in a very different way.

Through the combined efforts of Akon, Malian entrepreneur Samba Bathily, and political activist Thione Niang, the Akon Lighting Africa movement was launched in 2014, and since then the ALA have managed systems in 11 nations, including Senegal, Mali, Niger, Benin, and Sierra Leone.

With two years of constant work expansion, the company is still currently concentrated on achieving its goal of providing solar power to over 600 million African homesteads lacking access to electricity. Progressively, the ALA also

 Ever heard of Horrorcore Hip-hop? Nope, it isn’t the latest slasher flick—it’s actually its own subgenre which has in fact been stalking about in the Hip-hop scene for over 30 years. Today just happens to be birthdate—or to appease the horror-esque theme, spawn-date—of one of its biggest co-founders.

Lewayne Williams, better known as Ganksta N-I-P, was born August 28^th 1969. Hailing from South Park, Houston, Texas, Williams cofounded the South Park Coalition along with another Houston-native, K-Rino. The Coalition reached nationwide recognition in William’s 1992 debut record South Park Psycho, which he distributed under Rap-a-Lot.

Produced by The Terrorists, Doug King, John Bido, an

 Young artist Wash enjoyed a breakout season last year with his video “Can’t Trust These Thots” going viral, which also won recognition from Billboard. Paving the way to his well-earned spot in mainstream R&B and Hip-hop, “Thots” gathered several peak-level rankings and the attention of many through the track’s contagious vibe, which actually flaunts taking cues from TLC classic “No Scrubs”.

With all that hype going around, fans and followers have perceived much pressure weighed down on the rising star. The built-up anticipation, however, reaches its cathartic end as Wash releases his latest track video “Where You Been”.

Directed by Edward Tran (who worked with several artists inc

2 out of 3 Hip-hop fans will hear the name Ma$e and remember the several hits he offered as the Florida-born, Harlem-raised rapper. On the other hand, many others also respect his identity as simply Mason Durell Betha, the talented rapper-turned-pastor and motivational speaker.

August 27 (tracing back to 1977), Betha was born in Jacksonville, Florida, then migrating to Harlem when he was three; His ties with certain notorious crowds, however, brought him back to his hometown at age 13. His journey into the realm of Hip-hop began when he returned to New York as a teenage Betha began dabbling into rap as a simple hobby.

On the contrary, his partial pursuit led him to a certain Cudda Love (manager of the iconic Biggie Smalls), who then led Betha down to Atlanta, where h

On Friday, August 26, starting at 6 a.m. PDT, Seattle radio station KEXP dedicates twelve hours to De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, the groundbreaking hip-hop classic. KEXP DJs will play the entire album, plus related B-sides and rarities, and all the original recording. They will also sample sources, including songs by Johnny Cash, the Turtles, Hall & Oates, Funkadelic, and James Brown. New interviews with members of De La Soul and producer Prince Paul, conducted by Street Sounds host Larry Mizell, Jr., are also included. 

According to poducer Prince Paul, he and De La Soul weren’t intentionally seeking out strange samples for the album. “It wasn’t looking for things that were, ‘man this is just bizarre!&rs