Christopher Lee Carlos Rios (November 10, 1971 – February 7, 2000), better known by his stage name Big Pun (short for Big Punisher), was a Puerto Rican rapper who emerged from the underground rap scene in The Bronx in the late 1990s.

During the 1980s, he formed the Full a Clips Crew with Triple Seis (rapper), Prospect and Cuban Link who was at the time named “Lyrical Assassin”. At this point Big Pun was operating under the alias Big Moon Dawg. Rios met fellow Puerto Rican and Bronx rapper Fat Joe in 1995 and made his commercial debut on Joe’s second album, Jealous Ones Envy, in addition to appearing on a b-side to Joe’s “Envy” single, “Fire Water” and “Watch Out.”

Big Punisher’s debut album Capital Punishment and the single “Still Not a Player” were big hits in 1998, making him the first solo Latin rapper ever to go platinum. He later joined other Latin rappers in the group Terror Squad, which released a self-titled album in 1999. Big Punisher was also yet another member of the hip-hop community to fall victim to an early death — though in his case, it was due to health problems, not violence. In contrast to his large frame, Big Pun was a surprisingly graceful and nimble rapper, delivering his often clever, tongue-twisting rhymes at a torrential pace.

Excluding his adolescence, Big Pun struggled with his weight for most of his life; his weight fluctuated in the early 1990s between obese and morbidly obese. Big Pun enrolled in a weight-loss program in North Carolina, in which he lost 80 pounds, but he eventually quit the program before completing it, returning to New York and gaining back the weight he had lost. On February 7, 2000, Big Pun suffered a fatal heart attack.

Rest in peace Big Pun, you always be remembered through your music!

Check out Big Pun’s “Still Not a Player”.

John Legend seeks to release yet another hit album, but this time he has enlisted the Roots to produce the entire album. John Legends 4th album will get a major assist from the Roots. The followup to 2008’s chart-topper ‘Evolver’, ‘Wake Up Sessions’ will not be the soul crooner’s first huge collaboration — after all, he has a history of acclaimed producers, with the likes of will.i.am, The Neptunes, and of course, Kanye West.

Originally, ‘The Wake Up Sessions’ was a series of politically-charged cover songs featuring the Roots as the backing band. The recordings were to be included as a bonus disc to Legend’s 2008 album, ‘Evolver.’ Among the reworked tracks were Terence Trent D’arby’s ‘I Have Faith In These Desolate Times,’ Arcade Fire’s ‘Wake Up,’ Donny Hathaway’s ‘Little Ghetto Boy,’ Mike James Kirkland’s ‘Hang On in There’ and Bill Withers’ ‘I Can’t Write Left-Handed,’ which Legend covered at the Roots Jam. No word on which will make the final tracklist, but ‘The Wake Up Sessions’ is scheduled to drop later this year.

Today a reader of my blog sent me a link to a wonderful mixtape featuring Jay Z and Hall & Oates. The mixtape is dope!!! Very worth checking out…. beats by Hawaii’s own Bad News and mixed by Durtie Rice. Looks like this mixtape was dropped in early 2009 so don’t expect to hear any of Hov’s new material on here.

It is no secret that I think Hall and Oates is probably one of the most under rated R&B inspired groups from back in the day. Much of their soul influence came from known African-American soul, and blues artists who helped develop a significant amount of their music, as well as often touring and performing with them. So a Rock band with a touch of soul, can it get any better than that!

CHECK OUT THE MIXTAPE!!! DOWNLOAD HERE

To an old Hip Hop head like me the gold chain and bling has been a staple accessory throughout the years. We have all seen it in Hip Hop, that exclusive bling that hangs around your favorite rappers neck! Old school or new that bling has always been sort of a status symbol. Today’s artist can be found rocking not only gold but platinum and diamonds on and off stage. For years the chain has been that status symbol. Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, Lil Wayne and numerous artist both new and old continue to rock chains today. This popular fad did fade a bit in the early 90’s when groups such as PE and De La Soul pushed an Afrocentric agenda and taught us that you did not have to rock the bling. They wore black medallions made out of leather that often had a symbol of Africa in it. Today we see rappers like Raekwon and Paul Wall expose the Sierra Leone diamond trade and how much blood and evil it takes to put the bling in your favorite rapper’s chain. To some it does not bother you any on what another person or entertainer is wearing. I too think that if you can afford it and it is what you want then by all means you should be able to get it. But to a lot of kids who do not have the means to afford this type of jewelry or who are so small minded into what it takes to get such items, this bling can ultimately led them down the wrong path mentally, financially and physically.

Today I was surfing the net and ran across something that caught my attention. Like the black medallions rocked by De La and PE another type of necklace is popping up to counter all that bling. From what I read this is nothing new, actually all the blogs and articles I read seemed to be at least a few months old, but never the less I was impressed so this is why I have it on my blog today. A company in NYC has created and has been selling wooden Jesus pieces. These crafted wooden Jesus pieces with the necklace to match seem to have been made popular by Kanye West. Kanye rocked a wooden Jesus piece and just like a wild fire that style spread quickly throughout. So here’s a look at Good Wood NYC and your opportunity to get the wooden Jesus piece online!

To see more products and order CLICK HERE

In the past few days we all got the chance to check out the new Apple iPad. Hell, even on the Grammy’s they joked about it. I have read post after post of people trashing the new iPad. So I did some thinking and it hit me. Apple may just really be changing the game with this new device. Let’s see Apple single handedly changed the music game right under our noses. With the inventions of iTunes and the iPod, Apple snuck into the music industry and strong armed digital distribution. Where is the go to place now to download (legitimately) new albums and new singles? Why is that so many artist now make sure their work is up on iTunes? It’s because Apple found a crack in the music industry, analyzed the game and then moved in for the kill.

So now when I see this new device a lot of questions come up. What are you doing Apple? Obliviously, we all see the device and how it can change the digital book game that’s a gimme. I honestly see the end of regular print newspapers and magazines happening if this device catches on fire and the public goes out to purchase it. Yes it may take years but the seed has been planted. But what about the music industry, could this device effect it? Could artist and labels take advantage of this device? Here are some of my concepts that I can see happening with the iPad and the music industry:

None of these ideas are in the works, they are just wild thoughts I had after a few shots of Vodka the other night!

1.New digital enhanced downloads. What if your favorite artist dropped a new mix tape for digital distribution? For example you downloaded the mixtape, the cover art, concert footage, interviews, 2 or 3 videos from the mixtape, and then have access to the artist website. What if this was obtained easily as just purchasing the mixtape on iTunes and having everything in less than 5 minutes? What if the only way to access this was through the iPad?

2.Death of the MPC. The MPC has long been a staple in Hip Hop music production. This might be a stretch but what if the iPad had a program that loaded a digital MPC to your iPad? Your screen soon becomes a MPC with 16 touch pads and a limitless virtual sample collection. Not only that your iPad MPC ties in wirelessly to your favorite music program, arranger or cakewalk. Could be a game changer in the production world.

3.Could the iPad be used as a digital mixer that integrates with DJ programs such as Serato? Imagine that physical fader now made digital. Simply touch the fader with your finger and it slides seemlesly and interacts with Serato or your favorite DJ program. What if you add two additional iPads as your turntables.

4.Instant recording booth. Hmm, wireless board that connects to a professional wireless mic, unlimited tracks to bounce down to, quality digital recordings and all you need is an iPad and a booth (or in some cases a closet with recording foam placed on the walls).

Maybe this iPad fail movement is a bit premature. Lets see cloud computing is the next level of computers. The IPad will be the door into this next level. No more hard drives, no more memory sticks, they will all be a thing of the past. Adobe Flash is pretty much going to be phased out as well, the new HTML 5 protocol will eliminate that.

So to all my music industry heads, what if you had a part of the Itunes machine when it first began. What if you were the first artist to tie in the iPad to your music? What if you figured out that million dollar concept before the other guys did?

SO I GUESS THE APPLE iPAD MAY NOT HAVE HIT THE FAIL STATUS YET!

DOWNLOAD HERE

UrbanEstablished.com

Okay so how many of us have had this thrown in your face, who is the hottest MC of all time. I don’t know about you, but I have had this question asked to me at least a thousand times. Actually this question in my opinion really started to have a real movement back in umm, 1994! If I am not mistaken that year Biggie, Nas, Tupac, Wu and Redman all dropped albums that really started this debate. I could be wrong and maybe it’s the generation I am from, but no matter your age or where you hail from, this question has been asked over and over. So with that said I am sure each and every reader of this article can drop a top 5 greatest mc’s off the top of their dome with ease.

So now really dig into your Hip Hop knowledge and tell me, who are the most top 5 influential rap artist to date. By this I mean besides lyrical skills, how many artist do you know that push the envelope for a cause that they believe in? Not all things evolve around a tight beat and 16 bars, there are other causes in this world that we must face, be it a cause for the preservation of Hip Hop or a cause for the preservation of mankind.

Ahh, so I guess now you really have to think. It is not as easy as spitting out your top 5 greatest MC list is it? Finally a question to my Hip Hop heads that is gonna make you really do some real soul searching.

Nevertheless here is my top 5 most influential rap artist to date. This is not in any particular order.

Chuck D: Rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the late 1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.
Chuck D is extremely politically active; he co-hosted Unfiltered on Air America Radio, testified before Congress in support of peer-to-peer MP3 sharing, and was involved in a 2004 rap political convention. He continues to be an activist, publisher, lecturer, and producer. Addressing the negative views associated with rap music.

Wyclef Jean: Jean’s musical breakthrough was as part of The Refugee Camp (The Fugees), a three-member group that included Lauryn Hill and Prakazrel “Pras” Michel. Jean is Pras’s cousin and a fellow Haitian immigrant. The Fugees signed to Ruffhouse Records, which released the group’s debut album, Blunted on Reality. In 2005, Jean established the Yéle Haiti Foundation. In its first year of operation, the foundation, with funding by Comcel, provided scholarships to 3,600 children in Gonaïves, Haiti, after the devastation by Hurricane Jeanne. In its second year of operation, it is almost doubling the amount of the scholarships and spreading them throughout Haiti, providing tuition in 5 regions. The foundation aims to provide 6,800 scholarships to children in Port-au-Prince, Gonaïves, Les Cayes, Port-de-Paix, and Cap-Haïtien. In January 2010, along with his uncle Raymond Joseph, Haitian ambassador to the US, Wyclef issued an appeal for international aid following the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Tupac Shakur: An American rapper. He has sold 75 million albums to date and is one of the best-selling music artists in the world. In addition to his status as a top-selling recording artist; Shakur was a promising actor and a social activist. Shakur’s music and philosophy is rooted in many American, African-American, and World entities, including the Black Panther Party, Black nationalism, egalitarianism, and liberty. His debut album, 2Pacalypse Now, revealed the socially conscious side of Shakur. On this album, Shakur attacked social injustice, poverty and police brutality on songs “Brenda’s Got a Baby”, “Trapped” and “Part Time Mutha”.

KRS-1: Over his career, he has been known by several pseudonyms including “Kris Parker”, “The Blastmaster”, “The Teacha”, and “The Philosopher” At the 2008 BET Awards, KRS-One was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for all his work and effort towards the Stop the Violence Movement as well as the overall pioneering of hip-hop music and culture. The Stop the Violence Movement was formed by KRS-One in 1988/1989 in response to violence in the hip hop and black communities.

Dead Prez: An underground political hip hop duo composed of Stic.man and M-1. They are known for their confrontational style combined with socialist and pan-Africanist lyrics. These lyrics tend to focus on revolution, institutional racism, critical pedagogy, police,capitalism, education, prison systems, religion, activism against governmental repression, and corporate control over the media, especially hip-hop record labels.

By Mercury
mercurymixtapes.blogspot.com

I was listening to a Lupe Fiasco interview, and he said he’s cancelling some mixtapes that he had scheduled to come out because he feels that his music is getting leaked too rapidly and he doesn’t want too much music out at one time.

If the majority of music is of high quality, do you think that there is a such thing as too much music? People applaud Lupe for being stingy with his releases and only releasing his best work, so I guess that approach works for him.

Then I see somebody like 50 Cent and Gucci Mane, they released so much music at one time that even if you didn’t like them, they released music to the point where you were bound to find a joint that you liked. People forget that before Get Rich 50 Cent was dropping mixtapes like cats change clothes LOL.

To refute that though, you get somebody like Wayne who released music to the point where you had to sit thru 4-5 bad songs to get to 1 good song. And Jay-Z NEVER does extra music and people eagerly await his releases.

So is there too much music on a case by case basis? What is your opinions on that?

In the legendary company of D&D, Can-Am, The Hit Factory, Quad Studios and Chung King, there has long been Baseline Studios in New York. The historic recording studio will be closing today. Baseline Studios, longtime home to Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella Records will say goodbye to the public. Originally owned by Jay and O.G. Juan, the studio has spent the last years in the possession of one of its biggest hit-makers, Just Blaze.

From 4pm to 10pm today, the Midtown Manhattan studio will be open to artists, media and friends. Fans are welcome to take photos, video and see the place used by Jay-Z, Kanye West, Saigon and others.

No official word has been given on new ownership or the future for one of ’00s Hip Hop’s landmarks.