Hip-Hop artist Lupe Fiasco said that emcess and radio stations must do more to curb violence in urban communities.

Speaking about the death of Derrion Albert during an interview on 107.5 WGCI in Chicago, Fiasco said that some of the lyrics in rap music is influencing youth to do negative things.

From HipHopWired.com

“Hip-Hop has to take some fault for that. Just in the fact that the amount of violence and the amount of negativity that’s in Hip-Hop and the music, it attributes to so much that goes on, negatively, in the hood,” said Fiasco who added that radio stations need to be more selective on what music plays on air.

Lupe added that another overlying issue is the fact that positivity is not endorsed as heavily in outlets such as the radio. Oddly enough, people must not want to be lifted and told that there is a better way.

“It lacks entertainment value. It lacks a certain kind of hype around it. A certain “coolness” about it. So it doesn’t fit on the radio.”

The political right wing hates President Obama because he’s Black, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said, according to conservative FOX News commentator Sean Hannity, who’s all too happy to make a link between the Communist leader and the U.S. president.  “President Obama has acquired a new and unexpected ally,” said Hannity in his FOX column. “Cuba’s ex-president Fidel Castro is sticking up for Obama, blaming the right wing for sabotaging the president’s agenda!” Hannity cites an editorial in Cuba’s state-run newspaper, in which Castro writes, “The extreme right hates him for being African-American and fights what the president does to improve the deteriorated image of that country. …I don’t have the slightest doubt that the racist right will do everything possible to wear him down, blocking his program to get him out of the game, one way or the other.”

A number of activists and artists, including Dionne Warwick, have joined forces to attack entrepreneur, television personality and Radio One founder, Cathy Hughes. They say she is guilty of not paying artists for their recordings played on her AM and FM radio stations.  Hughes has been firmly pressing against what is known as the Performance Rights Act or Civil Rights for Musicians Act (sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus’ John Conyers (D-Mich.). The activists say the radio business should be equated to all other music platforms, in which the artists receive some fraction of royalties produced when their music is featured on the airwaves. The Act also secures the survival of smaller Black-owned radio stations up against the heavy reign of massive corporations like Radio One, Clear Channel or the National Association of Broadcasters. Hughes, the owner of 52 out of the 209 Black-owned radio stations in the nation, is intensely opposed to the act.  In a strongly worded editorial in the Huffington Post, Warwick wrote, “In defending her refusal to fairly compensate the artists on whose back she earns her living, Ms. Hughes now claims poverty, which is pretty amazing considering Radio One owns 54 radio stations and reaped $316 million last year alone. She even paid her own son, Radio One CEO Alfred Liggins, a $10 million bonus. Far from a struggling company, Radio One sounds more like one of those Wall Street rip off firms where executives pay themselves big bonuses while they rip us off and throw their workers in the street.” But insisting she’s doing the right thing, Hughes explains her side to ESSENCE magazine saying that this Act would do more damage to Black radio than anything else by immediately “putting a third of Black radio stations out of business.” Hughes also claims that due to the act “about $1 million a month” would be coming out of her pocket during one of the “worst times in our country’s history to impose a tax on the radio industry.”

Read Dionne Warwick’s Editorial at the Huffington Post.

Should Radio One and other stations compensate artists for playing their music on the radio?

Both listeners and owners of Black radio took to the streets and airwaves Wednesday, protesting a bill sponsored by one of the nation’s most respected Black congressmen. A long-time champion of civil rights, Democrat John Conyers has angered many communities that value Black-owned broadcast outlets by sponsoring a bill that some say will require stations to pay millions to record companies for the right to play music. Read the rest.

Critics say N.C.’s death penalty is racially wrong

The state of North Carolina might have to start executing people again before lawmakers agree to allow an examination of the lopsided way the death penalty is administered to Blacks and Whites. The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP has been enlisting the help of Democrats in the state legislature to get a measure passed that would force judges and juries to pay attention to statistics showing that far more African Americans are put to death than Whites. Ever since last year, when the state Medical Board adopted ethics rules barring doctors from participating in executions, North Carolina has put all executions on hold. But in a strange twist, many political observers believe that the only way to get the Republican members of the legislature to agree that the racial disparity should be addressed, Democrats must first agree to adopt a measure that would override the ethics rules banning executions. That idea is not sitting too well with William Barber, president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, who believes that the statistics bill “should stand alone. This is about people dying simply because of their race.”

B.B. King gets his own radio show

The man widely recognized as “King of the Blues” – B.B. King – will get a long-deserved forum to spread his brand of music and stories about artists and his life as a musician. The 82-year-old Mississippi native, who spent many years in Memphis, will begin hosting his own show on XM Radio in September, the satellite station announced Monday. “I love the blues and am looking forward to sharing my passion, stories and my favorite music with all the folks who listen to XM, one of the few places where the vibrant sounds of the blues still thrive,” King said in a statement. XM also noted that it will change the name of its blues channel from “Bluesville” to “B.B. King’s Bluesville.”

Gunmen blast man in FEMA trailer
Somebody rolled up on the trailer of a Hurricane Katrina victim Tuesday morning and blasted it with automatic weapons, killing the 39-year-old man who lay asleep inside, according to New Orleans Police. The Times Picayune reported that “unknown gunmen toting AK-47 opened fire on the exterior of a FEMA trailer in Gentilly … murdering a man….” The deceased man was idenfited as Terrence Vine, who “was in bed when the gunmen sprayed his trailer with bullets, several of which struck his body.” Garry Flot, an NOPD spokesman, told the newspaper that a dispatcher received a “shots fired” call and emergency workers arrived later, finding the exterior of Vine’s trailer riddled with bullet holes.

Mr. Get Silly, aka V.I.C., shows us his spiritual side

Known for his silly antics, V.I.C. opens up about his spiritual side as well as his serious side. More at BET.com/Music.

Shawn Carter hops on Estelle’s “American Boy” track.

President Carter takes time out from his UK excursion to hop on Estelle’s smash hit, “American Boy.” Listen right here.

Atlanta’s No. 1 Radio personality preps movie project and album
Greg Street speaks to the people! With the No. 1 radio show in Atlanta, Greg Street is ready to take his success to different platforms. Check out what he had to say about his new album and movie project here.