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In This Issue Of The FNV 8-16-99 *RAKIM RETURNS WITH A NEW ALBUM *DANYEL SMITH LEAVES VIBE *JERMAINE DUPRIS BLOWS UP *MC HAMMER TURNS OUT KMEL ALLSTAR SUMMER JAM *SWAY & KING TECH CELEBRATE 9 YEARS *PUFFY WALKS OUT OF RADIO STATION INTERVIEW
Send comments, questions and concerns to mailto:kingdave@sirius.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------
WITH A NEW ALBUM Looks like the 'R' [Rakim] is about to make a come back. As we speak he's hard at work putting the finishing touches to his new album which is thus far untitled. His first single is a track done with Lauryn Hill and produced by DJ Premier. Rakim has also employed the production services of Clark Kent, Ron Lawrence and T-Love of the Ultramagnetic MCs. Look for the album to drop sometime in November.
Bad News and Good News for Danyel Smith who is now the 'former' editor at Vibe Magazine. Unlike some of her fellow Hip Hop editors i.e Jesse Washington [Blaze], Sheena Lester [XXL], Keith Clinkscale [Vibe], she won't be leaving in a storm of controversy. In fact Ms Smith has landed a new gig with Time Magazine. Does this mean we'll see more Hip Hop within the pages of the nation's most respected news magazine? In any case props to Danyel. Now let's see what happens with Vibe.
SPORTS MANAGEMENT COMPANY Congratulations are in order for Jermaine Dupri. He's borrowing a page from Master P by opening up his own sports management company. Damn! JD has come a long ways. I remember when he used to dance for Whodini, now look at the young brotha! In any case, his new agency is called 'Def Sports Management Company'. JD has joined forces with Premier Sports Management and thus far he has a roster of 15 athletes including Green Bay Packer running back Dorsey Levens, Indianapolis Colts cornerback Tyrone Poole and Pittsburg Steelers saftey Lethon Flowers to name a few. Jermaine Dupris joins an increasing growing list of rap stars who have made it a point to open up other businesses aside from rapping. It appears that many artists are coming to understand the importance of having something to fall back on. Hopefully JD's management skills which have netted him so much success with his record company, will translate over onto the sports arena.
KMEL ALLSTAR SUMMER JAM
 While everyone did their best to throw down, the man of the hour was MC Hammer. Lately the man has been making major moves. He has a new album ready to drop. We've been playing a couple of tracks off it already. He just landed a job as a sports commentator for local talk station KGO. He does the pre-game announcements for the SF 49ers. His first bit was this past Thursday and I will have to be honest, Hammer sounded really good and refreshing. On a side note, I'm a bit puzzled as to how he can stomach doing 49er commentaries when he's die hard Oakland Raider fan. Everyone here in the Bay knows you can't hang with both teams. It's either one or the other. But that's another story.Anyway, during his set at Allstar Summer Jam, Hammer absolutely turned the place upside down. From the moment he hit the stage he had the place rocking. He started off with a couple of his new songs to warm up the crowd and then he launched into his classic jams like ' Let's Get It Started', 'Its All Good', 2 Legit To Quit', and Can't Touch This'. The crowd went bananas. So hyped was Hammer's show, that Mr Sean Puffy Combs emerged from his dressing room and stood on the side lines to 'peep game'. I don't care what anyone says.. Puffy is the Hammer of the late 90s. It was a remarkable comeback for MC Hammer.
CELEBRATE 9 YEARS September 2 is the day all headz wanna mark down on their calenders. The world famous Sway & King Tech Wake Up Show will be celebrating their 9th anniversary. A star studded concert for all ages will take place at Valley Racido Country Club in LA. Some of the confirmed performers include Rahzel and Inspector Deck. No doubt many others will be added to the bill when you consider the type of pull Sway & Tech have in this industry. There will be a 5 thousand dollar emcee battle between Super Natural and Juice. That should be off the hook.
Congratulations to 'East-808' out of Hawaii. Him and his partner have just launched a new Hip Hop show on commercial radio giant I-94 [KIKI 93.9 FM]. Entitled Mind Tactics, this Hawaiian Hip Hop crew did their first show this weekend where they blessed the island paradise with simmering joints from Memphis Bleek, Common, High & Mighty, Dilated Peoples and KRS to name a few. They want all respective record labels and artists to know that they're about to set things off in the Aloha State and thus if you have some records that need to be played they want you to reach out. Hit them up at mailto:suya@lava.net.
RADIO STATION INTERVIEW Sean Puffy Combs aka Puff Daddy aka P-Diddy ran into some slight problems this weekend when he visited the Bay Area to promote his new lp 'Forever' Here's a letter from a regular reader breaking down what happened... {MsShonda...writes} "Just when the PhD holders had ceased fire on Puffy, the unexpected occurred here in the Bay Area. This morning on local station Wild 94.9, dj JV asked Puffy about his thoughts on how you don't see west coast rappers on the nationwide circuit like MTV or Hot97 (in NY). Well, that question just set it off. Puffy initially (although obviously annoyed) tried to brush it off with the fact that he doesn't run MTV or Hot97 and has no control over their play list. Apparently the more he thought about it the more it angered him. Over and over JV (the dj) tried to explain that he realized that Puffy wasn't responsible, but he wanted his opinion on the subject. During the break (they replayed later), Puff began insulting the dj by calling him a "clown". That was the end of the interview and JV (along with other radio personalities) said Puff Daddy got up and left after cursing the dj out and according to the staff threatening him. Maybe anger management classes are needed??? Now most of this true but here's the other side of the story. I spoke with Puff and his people and he maintains that there were no threats ever made. He was indeed annoyed with the radio jocks who he felt were attempting get a cheap rise out of him by some how implying that he was the reason more Bay Area artist weren't getting nationwide love. The attacks on him were totally unfair and off color. What really set things off was the fact that Puffy had visited our radio station prior to coming to KYLD which is the number #1 station in the market. Their morning show decided to take some live callers on air and one of their listeners gave Puffy a lot of love and told him that she would be attending KMEL Allstar Jam concert to see him perform. This got the KYLD deejays pissed who then turned around and started badgering Puff about the East/West coast conflict. The conversation as I heard it tried to paint a picture as if Puffy was the reason West Coast artist weren't getting played on MTV and Hot 97 in NY. It wasn't until Puff got annoyed that the KYLD jocks began to 'cleanup' and re-clarify their statements. The conversation was totally ridiculous and in many ways irresponsible when you consider all the drama that has taken place over the past couple of years. There are still a lot of people who see Bad Boy as somehow responsible for 2Pac's death and hence Bad Boy artist have to always take special precautions when comeing to The West Coast especially Cali. Rather then engage in anymore downhill conversation, Puff got up and left the studio. The KYLD deejays then came back and maintained that they were trying to represent West Coast artists and that Puffy had threatened to 'kick their asses'. The whole scenario seemed like a publicity stunt which would be in line with the type of things KYLD is known for doing.
 Puff gets props for rolling through the Bay Area and attempting to promote his new lp 'Forever'. He been attempting to to 'keep it real' by making himself accessible. He's been making public appearances and unannounced calls to local mix show djs to both thank them and talk to them about music. He also got busy on stage with Nas during this weekend's Allstar Summer Jam and ripped the song 'Hate Me Now'. His new lp is pretty cool as he has tracks with Jay-Z, Lil Kim & Biggie, Redman,Cee-Lo of the Goodie Mob, Sauce Money, Busta Rhymes and R.Kelly. The R.Kelly song was interesting and will raise quite a few eyebrows due to the fact that it samples from the popular song 'I Got Five' on it by the Luniz. I will admit I was a little taken back when I heard the song due to the blatant 'bite', however, Puff noted privately that he was trying to get a hold of the Luniz for something special. No doubt it has something to do with this new song. Perhaps the Luniz will be in the video or added to on a remix.. We'll have to wait and see. Lastly Puff mentioned that he just launched his new website http://www.puffdaddy.com . He noted that he ran into problems obtaining his name due to the fact that some unscrupulous person brought his domain name and later wanted to sell it back. That seems to be the new hustle these days.. find a superstar or celebrity and buy up their website name and make them buy it back.. This recently happened to SF Mayor Willie Brown. One of his political opponents brought up the domain name 'williebrown.com' and 'damayor.com' name.. This also happened to Sway & King Tech for the Wake Up Show. Folks beware-protect your domain names. Send comments, questions and concerns to mailto:kingdave@sirius.com The FNV Newsletter written by Davey D c1999 All Rights Reserved Go To FNV Directory Go Back To Hip Hop News Directory
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