SIGT HIP HOP STOP W/ RON GRANT I J. Cole Releases Forest Hills Drive Live Album, A Weird Week For Hip Hop Beef, Straight Outta Compton Snubbed…Again, New A$AP Rocky Track Feat. Pharrell, Former Roots Member Suing Questlove and Black Thought, Hip Hop Invades Fashion

by Ron Grant • January 29, 2016

Nothing like a nice, heaping helping of Hip Hop news to end your week! That’s right: here we are again. This week had a ton of big Hip Hop music news from album releases to downright odd beefs involving Hip Hop artists. Here’s a peek at some of the most talked about news items to wrap January.

J. **COLE RELEASES FOREST HILLS DRIVE LIVE ALBUM**

Cole seems to be putting in his bid for Hip Hop’s man of the year for 2016. The latest move comes with the surprise release of the album Forest Hills Drive: Live from Fayetteville, NC. Which coincides with his birthday and is a follow up to the successful concert and HBO documentary. Very smooth, Jermaine! Click the image below to stream the entire album on Spotify.

THIS WEEK IN STRANGE HIP HOP BEEFS

Kanye vs. Wiz Khalifa… Martin Shkreli vs. Ghostface Killah… B.o.B. vs. Neil DeGrasse Tyson??? This has arguably been the weirdest week of Hip Hop beef ever. Honestly, when was the last time an astrophysicist had to school a Hip Hop star about the earth NOT being flat? And Shkreli’s beef with RZA spilling over into heated words with Ghostface? We couldn’t say WTF fast enough! Check out Shkreli’s attempt at a dis of Ghostface below:

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON CAST NOT INVITED TO THE OSCARS

Nor was Ice Cube, the film’s producer, for that matter. But hey, Cube can probably take solace in the fact that he is invited to both the NAACP Image Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Regardless of Academy recognition, Straight Outta Compton was quite possibly the most important film of 2015.

A$AP ROCKY’S NEW TRACK “HEAR ME” FEAT. PHARRELL

The face of the A$AP crew continues to steamroll his way to a prominent 2016 with this smooth, Blaxploitation music-inspired track “Hear Me”. And that’s in addition to dropping the new video for “JD.” Rocky goes in over the staccato beat, to the point where we almost forgot that Pharrell is even on the song. This week showed A$AP Rocky at his artistic best.

FORMER ROOTS BAND MEMBER SUING QUESTLOVE AND BLACK THOUGHT

A sad one here: Leonard ‘Hub’ Hubbard, former bassist for The Roots and an original member, is reportedly suing founders Questlove and Black Thought. He alleges that he was told in 2014 that he would no longer receive health insurance or revenue as co-owner of The Roots. Here’s hoping that this one can be resolved peacefully. For anyone not familiar, here’s a little bit of Hub on the bass.

HIP HOP ARTISTS TO APPEAR IN CALVIN KLEIN ADS

Along with FKA Twigs, emcees Kendrick Lamar, Fetty Wap and Joey Bada$$ are set to appear in a series of ads for Calvin Klein for the brands’ Spring 2016 collection. Ads were rolled out by the clothing company on Instagram.