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This past Wednesday, Shyne conducted a live Ustream conference call with XXLMag.com from the comfort of his native country of Belize [Watch here]. During the 45-minute broadcast, presented by Gangland Records, Def Jam Records and Best of Both Offices, the deported rap star touched on topics ranging from his new XXL cover—currently on stands now—politics, music and of course his nearly decade-long bid behind bars on assault, reckless endangerment and weapons charges, stemming from a 1999 shooting incident.

Surprisingly, 50 Cent called in to the open call with DJs and industry folks for his fans to witness in real-time. The G-Unit leader, who Shyne has been throwing jabs at on record as of late, taped his own video of him prank calling the Def Jam artist. Actually unaware he was peaking directly to 50 at the time before the call was cut, Shyne now responds with his reaction to the sneak attack [watch below].

Stay tuned to XXLMag.com to as this story develops. —Anslem Samuel

When Young Jeezy announced that his song “Death Before Dishonor” wasn’t a Rick Ross dis, I assumed the TIs put him up to it, because Rawse is high priority these days, while Jeezy has somehow managed to get even worse than he was a few years ago.

Wasn’t TM 103 supposed to come out like a year ago? The TIs probably don’t want to put it out, so he can’t run the risk of pissing them off. He could end up the next Young Buck, having to explain to his kids that they can’t have a PlayStation anymore, because daddy got into an argument with his boss. Nelly at least got a job as a drive-time radio DJ here in St. Louis, and a gig down in Branson, MO, home of Silver Dollar City, opening up for a puppet show or some shit. Someone should explain to that weed carrier with the mask that Nelly probably couldn’t give him any money now if he wanted to.

Or could it be that Young Jeezy is afraid to beef with Rick Ross, because he could be outed as a fake drug dealer? Def Jam didn’t seem to mind Rawse putting out this new Young Jeezy dis, “The Summa’s Mine,” in which he suggests that Jeezy is just as much of a fraud as he is. It’s not like Rawse has anything to lose. It’s already been proven that no one gives a shit that he used to be a cop. The fact that he supposedly used to be a drug dealer is all that Young Jeezy has left.

I read that feature in the Atlanta alt-weekly earlier this year, or last year, or whenever, about Black Mafia Family, the infamous drug-trafficking organization Rawse’s “B.M.F.” is named after. It said Young Jeezy was affiliated with BMF, but he didn’t get busted when the rest of them did, because the Feds looked into it, and they couldn’t find any evidence of him being involved in any drug dealing.

Aww dang…

You know good and well that if Young Jeezy had a hand in moving kilos for $17,500 or whatever, his ass would be in jail right now with the rest of them. There were hundreds of people who got busted when BMF went down, and Young Jeezy is a famous rapper. All it would have taken was for one of them to say they saw Young Jeezy with some cocaine, T.I.-style (LOL), in exchange for their own freedom. Snitching is supposedly verboten in the hip-hop community, and, by extension, the black community in general, but I read somewhere once that it’s way more widespread than you’d think. Pretty much everyone does it, or else they’d get buried underneath the jail.

Didn’t the late, great Pimp C once get on Young Jeezy for being a fake drug dealer? That could be why the Illuminati had him killed. I know Professor Griff has some sort of theory having to do with Def Jam signing well known drug dealers, or people who appear to be well known drug dealers, in order to promote drug dealing in the black community, to help feed the prison-industrial complex. They can’t have people suggesting that the likes of Rawse and Young Jeezy haven’t sold any more drugs than I have - possibly less, since I’ve sold a dime bag or two in my time, though not to make money (fuck ambition), just because I happened to have it, and some kid wanted it. (I wonder where those kids are today.) That may have been what happened to that guy from one of those ghetto crime magazines who got shot and killed on the highway, supposedly in retaliation for outing Rawse. I remember one of you clowns asked Bun B whether or not the Illuminati was involved in Pimp C’s death, during XXL’s Ustream show, and he got all weird about it. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t because he was concerned that Pimp C’s kids might be watching. There’s hardly an aspect of Pimp C’s life that would be appropriate to discuss with a child. The guy’s name is Pimp C, fer chrissakes.

So far, the Illuminati doesn’t seem to mind Rawse trying to out (nullus) Young Jeezy. He might be too important to kill just yet, but they could probably have him tossed in jail for six months to a year for having some of his jism turn up on an unlicensed firearm. (If he got busted for an actual crime, people would wonder how he got out so soon.) That is, if they gave a shit. This isn’t 2005. People don’t seem to like Young Jeezy anymore, and he can’t very well convince kids to deal drugs, if they aren’t listening to his music.

“I mean they don’t grade fathers, but if your daughter’s a stripper you fucked up.” - Chris Rock

I just found out I’m going to be an uncle for the first time in a few months. While I’m ecstatic for that opportunity, it’s also a sign I’ve long realized: I’m no longer a kid anymore, despite what the youthful appearance may suggest. In a way that’s a good thing; I’m at an age where I’m old enough to be allowed entrance into various 21-and-over venues across the city, but young enough to date someone five years my junior and it not being quasi-sexually debased. I know dating someone who just turned 18 is perfectly legal, but being closer to 30 than you are 20 while doing so is just a little suspect to me. Just saying.

While the child isn’t exactly mine I’m still going to be fiercely protective of the Udoh cub once it’s formally introduced into this world sometime next year, especially if it turns out to be a girl. With a family loaded with doctors and lawyers, the last thing I want is for my niece to end up getting phallically slapped around by some ‘roided out Lloyd Banks look-alike.

Unfortunately the shit’s easier said than done nowadays, with proverbially or literally whoring out for a dollar being as simple as breathing it seems. Legendary town bicycle Karrine Stephans has somehow become a New York Times-certified best-selling author for retelling her tales of being used as a celebrity bukkake rag to a national audience. Kat Stacks is… well, look at her; what more could be said that hasn’t been inflicted upon her face? Hell, just catch Twitter on “Titty Tuesday,” “Thong Thursday,” “Wet Wednesday” or any day women decide to flash the social networking collective their wares. Don’t they know that just saves us the trouble of having to take them out to eat to be able to see that? Just saying.

Thanks to the increase of the Coke bottle shape in popular culture, any woman whose measurements come in multiples of 12 is suddenly considered an “urban vixen.” Women already catch an enormous amount of flak in rap as is, so aspiring to have a bottle of expensive booze sprayed on you isn’t necessarily the best way to disprove the hypersexual theories their male compatriots have for women in hip hop. It’s to the point now where I’m personally scared to breed a woman into this world; I can’t imagine some random guy doing the things I used to do to other parents’ daughters when I was younger, or doing the things rapsters do to them when they’re older, without blacking out on some Wolverine-style berserker barrage.

Being a good parent (or in my case, uncle) can only do so much for the youth. I just hope that I do a good enough job to keep the future of my family away from those greased up poles and six-inch clear heels.

Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music has just added another talent to it’s already strong roster. XXLMag.com has learned that CyHi Da Prynce is the latest artist to sign with the label.

“I just affiliated with Kanye,” the September 2010 Show and Prove rapper told XXLMag.com. “It’s been a beautiful journey for me.”

That journey’s other big highlight came in February 2009, when the Atlanta-bred MC was signed to Def Jam. CyHi credits the vice president of Def Jam, Bu Thiam, as well as L.A. Reid, with helping him link up with Ye-who flew him out to Hawaii for three and a half weeks earlier this summer. While there, the two worked on roughly five songs together, says Cy, who recounts that Kanye first took notice of him on the remix to Yelawolf’s “I Wish.” “He heard my verse and loved it,” he says. “After that, he took his time out to look my name up and he liked the music that I had.”

Now with an even greater backing than what he had before, CyHi expects big things. “To me, [Kanye] is the most complete artist in hip-hop, and I feel like that’s what I want to be. To have him as a mentor is just a blessing. I’m learning.”

CyHi Da Prynce plans to release an EP, The Royal Flush, in late August or early September. —Adam Fleischer

Harlem’s Smoke Dza will be at the XXL’s offices this afternoon at 4 p.m. EST for our new live UStream show, Rhyme Time, to showcase his lyrical prowess.

Smoke follows last week’s Rhyme Time episode with Rochester, NY up-and-comer Emilio Rojas [watch here], During the real-time 30-minute broadcast, which will air on both XXLMag.com and Ustream, Dza will introduce himself to our audience and answer questions from viewers as well as spit a couple of bars to illustrate his talents on the mic. Fans can send all inquiries for Smoke to @XXLStaff on Twitter.

Dza, who’s signed to Cinematic Music Group (home to artists like Nipsey Hussle) most notably released the indie album Substance Abuse and has since been featured on “Skybourne” off Curren$y’s Pilot Talk. He recently linked up with Ski Beatz, Spitta and Big K.R.I.T. for a new solo album, George Kush Da Button, released for free online, just last week.

Be sure to tune in later today now. —XXL Staff

Though the music video medium isn’t as prolific as it once was, that doesn’t mean that all rap artists have thrown in the towel. Just last week, Eminem and director Joseph Kahn staged a visceral domestic drama for “Love the Way You Lie,” while Kanye West attempted to reinvent the format with his 90-second “portrait” for “Power.” Beneath hip-hop’s surface, though, NYC underground veteran Ill Bill has taken videos to a much more visual place with “Ill Bill TV,” from his upcoming collaboration LP with producer DJ Muggs, Kill Devil Hills (Fat Beats Records, out August 24). In the clip, which features neither Bill or Muggs themselves, guns blaze and overly bright red, fake-looking splatters—it’s pretty hardcore, and completely worth your attention.

Ill Bill & DJ Muggs – “Ill Bill TV”

After watching “Ill Bill TV,” XXL is in that “darkly cinematic” zone. Here are 10 of rap’s most intense narrative-driven music videos. If we’ve overlooked one or more of your favorites, let us know in the comments section. Lights, camera, action.

Cool Breeze feat. OutKast and Goodie Mob “Watch for the Hook”

N.W.A.  “100 Miles and Runnin’”

Foxy Brown’s brother is joining the rapstress in the newspaper headlines. On the same day that she testified in front of a grand jury for violating an order of protection against her neighbor, her 35-year-old sibling was handcuffed for possessing forged credit cards and racking up a pricey tab at the Madison Avenue Hermes store in Manhattan.

According to the New York Post, Gavin “Pretty Boy” Marchand was arrested yesterday (August 11) outside the pricey shop, after his associate racked up close to $8,000 in digs. He was busted by cops surveying the store, along with three of his pals—one of which, led authorities on a high-speed chase before eventually pulling his car over.

If convicted, Marchand faces up to 15 years behind bars.

Meanwhile, as previously reported, Foxy is currently facing jail time for her own legal trouble, over an alleged dispute with her neighbor. She has yet to be indicted on any charges as of yet. —Elan Mancini

I finally got a chance to see Inception, starring Leonardo Dicaprio. First off, let me say that this movie makes the whole theory of The Matrix look like something you would learn in an elementary school. It has all the elements of a great action movie, in-depth story line, and complex plot—I mean very deep; I loved it. In my opinion, Inception is an instant classic and everyone is talking about the ending.

Was that another dream within a dream? Was that his reality…?

I’m not here to give away the movie; this blog is only for people who’ve seen it, which should be quite a few of you because it’s been the No. 1 movie in the country for the past few weeks.

In order to properly understand Inception you have to know the actual definition of the word. Inception means the creation or beginning of something. So I believe the end of the movie was actually the inception or beginning of his dream, which he made into his reality.

Think about it, “Your dream can become your reality, which then makes your reality your dream,” therefore, the cycle never ends as long as you keep dreaming. If inception means the beginning or commencement of something then it can be the beginning of your dream life, which becomes your real life depending on the work you put in to make that happen. So at the end of the movie, Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Dominic Cobb was beginning his dream, which he actually made his reality.

You have heard people say before “I’m Living My Dream,” and they actually are because we all have dreams, ambitions and things we want to accomplish. When we actually do make our dreams a reality then we are living our dream. Just like the characters in the movie, we can live dreams within dreams.

Someone like Michael Jordan for example, I’m sure in high school he dreamed about being a star college player, he did that. Then, within that dream he dreamed of being a star NBA player, he did that. While in that dream he dreamed of winning championships, he did that. I’m sure he dreamed of owning an NBA franchise, he did that also. Michael Jordan is constantly making his dreams his reality.

Michael Jordan and other people who are highly successful never stop living the dream, and what I took from Inception was that none of us should ever stop dreaming. Make your dreams reality and when your reality becomes your dream create another dream within that dream.

Inception and success is a never-ending cycle as long as you keep dreaming. Author Brian Tracy said it best, “The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important and nothing that works faster for you then to cast off your own limitations and for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, things you can have, and things you can do.”

So, yes, Leonardo Dicaprio’s character was living his dream at the end of Inception. He was living the dream he always wanted therefore it became his reality. The question I pose to those of y’all who saw it is: When will you start the “initial inception” of your own dreams?

Peace and prosperity, Charlamagne Tha God

I’m actually pretty mad at myself. I’d known that one of my favorite albums ever was released in early August many years ago, but, for some reason I’m too ashamed to uncover, I forgot the exact date. All this self-loathing is to say that, in a perfect and flawlessly planned world, I would’ve dedicated this past Monday’s post to the Gravediggaz album 6 Feet Deep, not four days later.

Monday, which was August 9, marked the 16-year anniversary of the record’s release. Easily the best horrorcore LP of its era, and perhaps of all time, 6 Feet Deep has proven to be a seminal listening experience within my life’s so-far scale, a point I’ll further explore in a hot second. But first, for those not in the know, I should briefly explain just what Gravediggaz was: a supergroup consisting of “The Undertaker” Prince Paul (original Stetsasonic member and early De La Soul producer), “The Rzarector” The Rza (he of Wu-Tang infamy, of course), “The Gatekeeper” Frukwan (also of Stetsasonic) and “The Grym Reaper” Too Poetic (one-time Tommy Boy Records artist who broke through via Gravediggaz, and passed away from colon cancer in 2001).

Released on the now dead-and-gone record label Gee Street (1985-2001) in August 1994, 6 Feet Deep seemed like it was too good to be true when the project was first announced. By that time, I’d had over a year to absorb and dissect Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) debut, more than enough time for that album to basically amplify my rap fandom from passionate to obsessive. Simply put, 36 Chambers is the reason I work in the hip-hop industry today. Everything about that record, from the inventive use of kung-fu samples to its overall grit and lyrical assault from nine different angles, blew me away. At the time, I was third-grader in a private Catholic school, located in a reasonably wealthy New Jersey town, meaning that my classmates came from highfalutin families and listened to bands such as Nirvana and Spin Doctors. I, on the other hand, hid my love of rap music from my peers, due to an overwhelming sense of insecurity—I’ll save that for my inevitable trip to some therapist’s couch in the likely-near future, though.

Long story short, 36 Chambers was the first rap album that I loved to the point of pride; a feeling that I’d discovered a dangerous, rule-changing piece of musical work that was clearly a bit too mature for my 11-year-old ears, but I didn’t care. I was already watching blood-soaked, R-rated horror films by then, the result of my dad renting flicks like Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Creepshow for me behind my mom’s back. Frankly, the hip-hop-loving horror-hound that my friends, colleagues and family members see today owes his tastes in entertainment to Wu-Tang and Mr. Barone (my pops).

So imagine my delight when I found out that The Rza, the mastermind responsible for the brilliant production on 36 Chambers, was about to dabble in something coined “horrorcore.” My first thought was, I must work some extra chores to earn cash in order to buy the Gravediggaz album on release day. Second thought, however, was, How in the hell will my parents understand that my 12-year-old ass wants to buy an album called Niggamortis? (That was what 6 Feet Deep was originally called, before worries of controversy inspired a title swap. Fortunately for my Caucasian ’rents, that never presented itself outside of my daydreams.)

Then came the album’s first single, “Diary of a Madman,” featuring Wu-Tang affiliates Killah Priest and Shabazz the Disciple. Now, when I say, “That song sent my head into a tailspin,” I’m not trying to sound cute. From the courtroom scene-frame to the haunted house of a beat (produced by the three-headed monster of Prince Paul, The Rza and RNS)… “Diary of a Madman,” even down to its eerie video, had me open. Truthfully, if you put a gun to my head’s temple right now and asked me to name my five top songs ever, “Diary of a Madman” would make the cut. And I’m quite aware of the fact that I could be the only person alive who’d say that.

I remember buying the “Diary of a Madman” cassette single in this rinky-dink music store down in Wildwood, New Jersey, early that summer of 1994, on the boardwalk, next to the Ferris wheel; the B-side was “Constant Elevation,” aka track number two on 6 Feet Deep. Come August 9, I was armed with $10 cool cash as I eagerly stepped foot into the local Paramus, NJ-located (Nobody Beats) The Wiz. I popped the cassette into my trusty Walkman once I got back home, and the rest is history.

I have no bad memories of 6 Feet Deep, if you can’t tell already. Hell, they even went and made fourth-grade me ecstatic by shooting videos for my two other favorite songs, outside of “Diary of a Madman”—“Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide” and “1-800 Suicide” (though the latter’s video version is different verse-wise than what’s heard on the album.)

I could write about each of the album’s 16 cuts (three skits included) in exhaustive detail, but I’m trying to keep this tribute as short as possible (and clearly failing). I could talk about how the creeping, almost chopped-and-screwed organ notes heard on title track still remind me of the score used in this awesome Tales from the Crypt episode called “Television Terror,” starring Morton Downey Jr. (not Robert). I could express the minor frustration I felt over the too-short length of the one-minute, forty-four-second song “Mommy, What’s a Gravedigga?” and how happy I was when a full version of it surfaced some months later on white label. Or how perfectly the beat on “Defective Trip (Trippin’),” which sounds like a blues band playing while highly intoxicated off the hooch, provides a nice sonic alternative to the ghoulish instrumentals that dominate the rest of the album. But I’ll hold back.

The bottom-line: sometime this week, 16 years after 6 Feet Deep arrived and conquered, be a fine rap head and revisit the album if you’re familiar with it, or give it a long-overdue first listen if you’re not yet hip to the game. Sadly, they don’t make albums of its breed anymore—a straight-faced, well-executed and Clive Barker-friendly listening experience. Just the way I like it. —Matt Barone