Ashley Judd is a...

Ashley Judd just released a new book. Who cares, right? Well, in that book, she condemned the YouthAIDS organization for including Hip-Hop performers such as Snoop Dogg and Diddy in their AIDS fundraising and awareness campaigns, calling Hip-Hop “rape culture” and “the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny,” and stating her belief that the “social construction of gender… is the root cause of poverty and suffering around the world.” Because this is a Hip-Hop blog, we will forgo our much bigger point of contention that the cultural classifications of gender, while undeniably a huge problem, is a distant second to that of race with respect to poverty and suffering in the world. Instead, we will focus on the seemingly endless scapegoating of Hip-Hop music in the fight for gender equality.

An Open Letter to Lupe Fiasco...

Dear Lupe,

How are you? How’s your deen? How’s your pet robot? Does it still have an outbreak of hoes on its toes? Gross.

So, your new album, Lasers, sold over 200,000 units in its first week of release (those are Nikki Minaj numbers!), debuted at the number 1 spot on the US Billboard 200 chart, and has held down the number 1 spot on the Rap Album chart for 3 weeks now. The single, “Show Goes On” has been certified Gold and is currently at number 9 on the Billboard Rap chart and climbing. These are huge numbers for you, record-breaking numbers in most cases, and while we are happy for you, we just wanted to make sure that you don’t make the mistake of believing that the album’s performance means that it is actually good. It’s not.

Kanye's new album this summer, Detox in 2002...

On Sunday, in between his usual ridiculous tweets thanking Julius Caesar for his haircut, explaining why he wouldn’t be successful doing stand-up comedy, and commenting on the Bears and Packers game, Kanye West casually made some exciting (possibly alcohol induced) announcements regarding his multiple upcoming releases. Apparently, a video for “All of the Lights” will drop in a week, Watch the Throne, his collaborative album with Jay-Z, will drop in 2 months, and, most surprisingly of all, an entirely new Yeezy solo album will be dropping this summer. We know ‘Ye is a machine when he gets into work mode, but this seems a bit overzealous. We will, therefore, believe it when we see it.

Gucci Mane's stupid face

Gucci Mane just got out of jail, and he is in no hurry to go back. So when he was arrested in November for driving the same way he raps (terribly), he knew he needed to do something bold to avoid more prison time. After watching half of a Law & Order rerun, he decided a plea of insanity would be his best hope and Gucci promptly started getting his crazy on! He checked himself into a mental health facility and entered a plea of incompetency but his legal team warned him that it may not be enough and that Gucci should build up a stronger crazy case before his hearing later this month. So Gucci, being the ingenious individual that he is, decided to go get a huge ice cream cone tattooed on his face (which was his second choice, but this was already taken). Gucci is no fool, though. He saw Game get a similarly ridiculous butterfly tattoo on his face only to receive so much ridicule that he eventually had it covered up by an “LA” and then a star tattoo. Therefore, Gucci decided to make the ice cream cone tougher looking by having lightning bolts shoot out of it.

Sidebar: does anyone else think of Tyrone Biggums when they look at Gucci Mane’s lips?