Rihanna’s new album “Rated R” is scheduled to be released on November 23rd and already, there are lots of speculation and excitement about it. In this album, she is portraying herself in a tougher image, unlike her previous glamorous self. On the music video of her single “Wait Your Turn” shows a grainy, sexy clip of Rihanna that shows her as a tough renegade. This is the type of image she and her music-video collaborator, Anthony Mandler, were going for. The video was shot in the middle of October on a cold day in the Big Apple. The first video is just a preview of what’s to come. The two talked about creating something that’s a bit more raw and gritty, so they decided to create a more “Street” video than a classic beauty piece.

They reviewed early hip hop videos and liked how they weren’t created with few resources — they mostly used their environment and surroundings; the textures and shapes. In the video Rihanna is wearing an eye patch and heels, giving a hard-edge feel to he usual glam self. Some of the videos that inspired her featured artists like Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep and Nas. The words behind the song were carefully thought up in order to create the same image audio-wise: aggressive bravado. Rihanna is a young artist that is always pushing boundaries. She has changed her identity so many times, so you never know what she’ll come up with next. She is a true artist, someone that knows how to transform the picture and make it into anything she wants to portray.

Hip hop has long since been related to the violence in African American communities and artists like Lupe Fiasco has been tooting the same note. Not sure if you heard about the Derrion Albert murder in Chicago — he was a teen walking home from school and got caught up in a gang fight and was beaten to death.The young man was not a gang member and he was a good student in school. Lupe Fiasco was on the Chicago radio station WGCI saying that it was a possibility that hip hop influenced that incident. Lupe is from the Windy City and says that it has to take some credit for it. He claims that there is a lot of violence in hip hop itself and it attributes much of the negativity that is found in the hood.

But this isn’t the only hip hop artist that thinks this way. Others like Nas, Twista and Common have the same views. They all condemn the “culture of violence” hip hop has established and is believed to have led the group of teenage gang members to commit that horrendous crime that day. Lupe also argues that the artists themselves are partially responsible for inciting various influences, from poverty to violent films. It’s true that hip hop does have some positive songs and messages out there, but the negative far outweigh the good. And the negativity in hip hop is a lot more popular because it is considered more “hard” or “gansta”. The communities are too at fault for taking hip hop too seriously and trying to implement them into their own lives.

The NAACP, or National Association of the Advancement of Colored People, is beginning to focus more on the younger crowds(or hip hop generation). If you notice most of the meetings today are few in number and mostly contain older, gray-haired individuals. Last week, the largest convention in history was held for youngsters — approximately 1,000 young African Americans attended the seminar that was held in Manhattan, New York. There were hopes that the crowd would boost even greater when Obama spoke to the organization. The NAACP is aiming to close the gap between generations of the pre-civil rights movement and post-civil rights movement. The organization would like to fight the age old reincarnation of racial inequities for the young and old today.

Many of the young people that attended the Centennial were eager for the event, but didn’t really hold plans for the future events involving the NAACP. One young lady in particular said that she appreciated what the past generations had done for the Black community, but there was a need to focus on today’s problems, such as teen drop-outs, pregnancy rates, gun violence, STIs and education. More young people today are beginning to take notice and concern for their communities and are looking to take action. The NAACP could take advantage of this by holding more events for the youth. Last year, there was a controversial election held for the NACCP’s next president. The young and old were divided, but eventually the youngest president in the history of the NAACP was chosen — a 30-something year old scholar from Rhodes, named Benjamin Todd Jealous.

If you’re not doing anything this weekend, you might want to check out the three day festival poppin’ off at the Jazz & Rib Fest in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. It will feature dancing by the Philadelphia group. They will be showing and teaching dance routines to the youth — which is pretty ideal, since these past years dancing has been a huge part of the hip hop industry. The event will take place on W. Long Street located just past the North Bank Park pavilion. If you won’t be able to attend this particular hip hop festival, you may be able to catch them near your hometown. It will continue touring across the country with the Sunny D Summer 4Ever Road Trip. The purpose of this tour is for entertainment and to promote health and exercise.

Some of the dances you will find there include poppin and lockin and break dancing. If you aren’t familiar with the dance group, you may have seen them on the 106 & Park’s Wild Out Wednesday dance competitions back in 2006. You can call that episode their lucky break because since then they have been quite busy dancing all over the place. This event sounds like it’ll be a lot of fun, so it’s definitely something you should try to get to. It’s a family event — kids, adults and teens can all enjoy this hip hop festival. You can check in your area to see if and when they will be coming to a town near you.

This past weekend was an intense one while we all waited to finally hear who the NFL draft picks would be. The first pick of the draft was Matt Stafford by the Detroit Lions. They were the worse team on the list and gravely needed to pick the top players on the draft list. Word has it that they were leaning towards him from the get go, so there wasn’t too much element of surprise there. But what was surprising was the amount they offered, $41.75 million — this is more than any player ever. Guess they wanted to ensure that he would sign well in advance of the draft picks. Although he is one of the top picks this year of the NFL drafts (some even think he is fantasy worthy), the Lions will still need another draft to fill in the pot holes they left on their team — especially on the offense and defense lines.

The Raiders, on the other end, picked Darius Heyward-Bey as their number 7 pick. DHB is a slim guy, but boy is he fast. Owner Al Davis loves fast runners and would likely take his chances on any guy with a quick sprint. Then the New York Jets made bold moves by trading up to 12 spots and picked USC quarterback Mark Sanchez. The Raiders are really banking on Sanchez to bring them up in the leagues.

The last pick of the drafts, winner of Mr. Irrelevant title and prior South Carolina kicker, was Ryan Succop, who was selected by Kansas City.

Well…aren’t we all? Okay, maybe not all, but most of us are. In case you haven’t been following along, here is a quick overview of what’s been happening:

So far, Cleveland destroyed Detroit, which is a bit odd since Detroit made the conference finals six years in a row. This year, they were sent home during the first round of the series. Now, we just have to sit and wonder if this city will ever re-establish their winning ways…

Atlanta vs. Miami, this is a tie with each winning 2 games in the series so far. Superstar D. Wade was injured last season, but now he is shining ever so brightly with his notable defense skills. He’s runner up for MVP and personally, I think he should win — not only because I’m a Floridian, but because he really deserves it. If you compare D Wade to Lebron James, you’ll take notice that Wade carries his team. Without Wade, the Heat wouldn’t have made it to the playoffs. Cleveland on the other hand can make it to the play offs without Lebron James.

On the other end, you find the Bulls giving the Celtics a run for their money and I don’t blame them! Last year the Celtics was last year’s champions at the playoffs. The bulls had a great advantage because of the Celtics’ star player, Kevin Garnett, being out on injury. Since Jordan left the scene, Chicago hasn’t really had any home name stars, but there is potential in Derrick Rose. He’s young and he’s hip…but will he live up to the hype?

Yet, another hip hop beef in the industry. Seems like a new trend indeed, but this time it’s between Trick Daddy and Rick Ross. It all began when Trick Daddy tried to call out Rick Ross as a snitch — claiming that he worked as a guard in the prison system. Rick Ross denied ever working with the police and then had a few — well , a lot of words for the Trickster. Not only did he try to say Trick Daddy was broke — or not as ballin’ as he was, but he also called him out as a hater. Rick pointed out his ice and jewelry pieces, showing that he was a multi-millionaire — he must be doing something right to be as popular and well-liked as he is. Maybe the beef is about turf — they are both from south Florida and lately Rick Ross has been making a lot of noise, possibly a little bit too much for the likes of Trick Daddy.

Back in the 90s and early Millennial years, Trick Daddy was the Miami King, throwing out hot tracks that echoed in clubs all over the nation. He fell out for a while and now maybe he’s trying to make a comeback by downing the newly crowned South Florida King. Who knows? Now, we’ll just have to wait and see who will come out on top. We’ll keep an eye and ear out for news about the beef between the two — so make sure to check back and stay tuned.

Yeah, you’ve heard of her. The new hip-hop sensation Keri Hilson is hitting the radio and video channels by storm. But many are already criticizing her ways of accomplishing this. Some even think that her fame will fizzle before it can even truly shine. A “lazy” album they call it. If you take a listen to her debut album, “In a Perfect World”, you will hear a lot of generic songs that were “over-produced” and actually hides her personality. Ms. Hilson claims the album is supposed to send a message for women empowerment, but is that what you hear? What you do hear is a lot of Timberland and a lot of reworked beats; you will notice that the song “How Does it Feel”, is a recycling of the Timberland production, “4 Minutes”. Then there is “Return the Favor”, which sounds similar to “The Way I Are”.

Keri Hilson’s top producers on this album are Timberland, of course, and Polow da Don — maker of “In this Club” by Usher and “Forever”. A lot of cliches were found in songs like “Make Love” and “Get Your Money Up”, but you can find some reasonable tracks like “Turnin’ Me On”, featuring Lil Wayne, “Change Me”, produced by Akon and “Slow Dance”, which was co-written with Justin Timberlake. The latter two are pretty decent songs — maybe because they didn’t feature the usual Timberland, who happens to have his voice in all or most of the songs, and Polow. She let a few others produce some of the other songs, as mentioned above, and they turned out to be more original and had a lot of personality.

Fifty cent is well-known for his controversial style — he’s had beef with popular rap stars like Ja Rule and Fat Joe. The beef between Ja Rule and 50 cent spread quickly when it hit the streets. Everyone kept a close ear and eye on what was going on between the two and wondered who would win the rap war. Each came out with serious lyrics in songs towards one another, but the one that came out on top was Fifty Cent. He clowned Ja Rule enough to make everyone turn against him and then infamously shutting down his career. This was only the beginning for the conquest of Fifty. Next on his list were a few others, including the recent Fat Joe. After his popular song, “Lean Back”, Fifty Cent came out with a song that dissed Fat Joe and shut down his career. He tried coming back out with another album, but people just weren’t buying his album like they used to.

There is talk that Fifty Cent is looking to shut down even more careers — and has a focus on Lil’ Wayne. This may seem a bit impossible to do. The whole swagger and rap style of Lil’ Wayne has gotten him to where he is today. He’s known for wearing extra baggy jeans, iced out medallions with long chains and long dreadlocs. Many are waiting to see what dirt Fifty has to dish on Wayne, but guess we’ll have to wait and see what he comes out with.

There’s a somewhat funny joke passing around that women should stay away from the Browns; i.e. Bobby Brown, James Brown and now Chris Brown because of their violent streak. You may have already heard about the incident between Rihanna and Chris Brown that occurred the night before the Grammys. According to reports, Rihanna and Chris were sitting in the car when he received a text message from a female — supposedly this female was someone Chris had a booty call with. Now, Rihanna sees this and tries to get out of the car, but Chris won’t let her. He grabs her and then they get into an altercation that leaves her with bite marks on her arms and hands, swollen eyes, bloody nose, bruises on her face and a busted lip. Not sure, if you seen the photo of her yet, but she looks really bad. He was arrested that night, but got out on a $50,000 bail.

I heard on a radio station that he is wanted for attempted murder, but I think that is quite extreme for a couple quarrel. Not sure if that is true. I also heard that Chris Brown showered Rihanna with gifts like a diamond necklace, flowers and other things for her birthday. There have been some speculation that the R&B princess might take Chris Brown back, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. What do you think about the whole ordeal? Does Chris deserve to be forgiven or should Rihanna press heavy charges that will continue to ruin his career? Most of his ad campaigns have already been pulled (Double Mint gum commercials) and some radio stations aren’t playing his songs anymore.