According to Brooklyn rapper Troy Ave, he was the first independent artist from his borough to have his music bootlegged. Troy Ave shared that particular piece of information during an interview with Conspiracy Worldwide Radio. The radio show’s host brought up Brownsville, Brooklyn rapper Ka, who sold vinyl and CD copies of his The Night’s…

“This choice of historic and solemn audio is inappropriate in the extreme,” a former NASA employee told ABC News. Former NASA astronauts and their family members are calling Beyonce “insensitive” for using audio from the space shuttle Challenger explosion in her new song, “XO,” off her surprise, self-titled album….

With tax filing season set to begin on January 31, 2014, Compton rapper Game took some time to share a few tax tips while speaking with TMZ. When asked to reveal the craziest thing a rapper can write off on their taxes, Game went on to list Jordans, medical marijuana, and “making it rain” at…

Gregory Johnson beautifully reinterprets the theme song from Back to the Future on an acoustic baritone guitar….

1. Triad Orbit Mic Stands: Mic stand technology has remained pretty stagnant for 50 years or so until the Triad Orbit articulating mic stands were introduced. What makes the Triad-Orbit stands different is that each leg of the base has four ratcheted positions that provide up to 65 degrees of pitch. The Orbital boom is…

On Sunday, the smoke began to clear after a round of clarifications by Judge Louis Stanton’s on his Dec. 18 ruling against Pandora in the BMI rate court. The immediate upshot is that Pandora–which is still petitioning the Judge to reconsider his ruling, according to sources–is in a difficult situation. By Jan. 1, the digital…

Singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco was working with a group to put together a songwriting retreat near New Orleans and managed to find a venue at the Nottoway Plantation and Resort. Everything seemed like a good idea until the announcement was made and all hell broke loose on the Internet. From The LA Times: After posting on…

Madlib sat down with Radio France recently to grant a rare interview at the company’s vinyl record archives. Curating selections of Jazz, Hip Hop and other genres, the producer/emcee spoke to Laura Leishman about his own production background and his relationships with other artists. “My uncle is John Faddis who came under Dizzy Galespie,” he…

Name Game.Rapper Rick Ross was allowed to keep his alias after successfully defeating former drug lord, Freeway Rick Ross in a California appeals court. Freeway filed a lawsuit in 2010 claiming infringement on his namesake. According to Judge Roger Boren however, Rozay was protected under the first amendment. “We recognize that Roberts’ work — his music…

Bruno Mars edged out Rihanna as the most pirated artist of 2013, according to figures released by data analysis firm Musicmetric. Mars finished the year with nearly 5.8 million downloads to Rihanna’s 5.4 million. Daft Punk was a distant third with 4.2 million downloads. Justin Timberlake with 3.9 million downloads and Flo Rida with 3.5…