I don’t follow Rick Ross from week to week. Last I heard from him was Vlad’s $4million lawsuit. So imagine my suprsise when I found this picture of Mr. Ross while browsing an internet party photo website.

To give you some context for this photo it is Fashion Week here in New York and fashion designer Alexander Wang had a party to celebrate his show last Saturday and he hired Foxy Brown to perform. Now I don’t if there was any doubt that Foxy and Rick Ross are together but this should put the nail in that coffin. It appears Rick Ross is still in hiding about the whole thing or maybe it’s just his neck is so fat that he can’t rock the bandana around the neck look like Kanye.

Now here is a photo of Alexander Wang dancing with Foxy

Cuff your dame Ross. He’s pressing up on your girl.

Here is another one of Alexander Wang

Looks kind of sweet to me.

Moral of this story is don’t try and hide out at your girlfriend’s fashion party Rick Ross. We have eyes all over the internet and we will air you out.

So at different times every year magazines and websites like to ask what rapper’s are you looking forward too? I guess this is no different except I feel that with each year this question gets harder and harder to answer. Every day I log onto these hip hop websites I see new songs from new artists I have never heard of and few months later it’s a whole new batch of new artists and I end up not hearing from the previous batch of new artists. Point being it’s hard to standout in this crowded hip hop landscape these days especially when the hip hop market share is decreasing.

So everyday I go on the Internet I see a few new names popping up consistently over the past whatever amount of months and then I see a few old names. Below is a list of the artist’s I am seeing pop up all over the Internet these days. Let me know which one’s you are actually looking forward too and also where you are from. Write-ins are allowed but not encouraged. Unless you are getting crazy placements on the internet (nah-right, hiphhopgame, worldstar, etc.) don’t tell us to look out for you. I am talking real buzz.

Charles Hamilton
Mickey Factz
Maino
Max B
Cory Gunz
Joell Ortiz
Glasses Malone
Asher Roth
Wale
Crooked I
Termanology
Skyzoo
Torae

I know I missed some people on this one but seriously let me know. Who’s music do you really like that is new? What does it take for these artist’s to rise above the rest?

Are you aware of this song and video?   I was initially lured in by the fact he added DJ Khaled to the lineup.  I am sucker for any Khaled visual. (Pause) (Do I really have to write that?) The video starts off with Khaled on a private jet sitting next to Shawty Lo, who is dissing T.I..  Did you know that if you sell 138,986 albums you can fly private? Good for Shawty Lo though. Private is the only way to travel.

Seriously though who is the A&R genius who thought it would be a good idea to have Jim Jones, Rick Ross, and Birdman on the song with an incompetent rapper like Shawty Lo. (Is that Joey IE handing off a duffle bag in the video?) I am not writing to say hip hop is dead or anything but come on guys Ross is the only one on the song who can hardly rap. The best part of this video occurs when we see Birdman, who at this point must be pushing 45, and he is using a vocoder.  As he if wasn’t bad enough at rapping already he blesses the track with one of the worst vocoder verses ever.  Birdman you are probably old enough to have known Roger Troutman. But in all seriousness if Birdman is using the vocoder then can we all agree that it is time to put it away? Any artistic value this instrument once had is done for the time being Shawty Lo, take all your money and invest it something other than music. At least don’t invest in your own.