Yesterday Diesel hosted a 24 hour party in 18 cities around the globe; the party sparked in Tokyo and blazed like a California brush fire in Beijing, Dubai, Athens, Amsterdam, Milan, Zurich, Munich, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Oslo, Helsinki, London and Sao Paulo. The grand finale aka the night cap was on Pier 3 in Brooklyn, NY. Dubbed the "Rock and Roll Circus" T.I., Pharrell, M.I.A., Hot Chip and Chaka Khan performed for 5000 'friends' and 'trendsetters.' Altsounds can fill you in with additional info. Let's Flickerazzi. more..

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T.I.'s first video "No Matter What" off the upcoming Paper Trail dropped this week. One thing not readily apparent, on the first listen, is the lack of any curses. Could it be the influence of Andrew Young? The 76-year-old Andrew Young is the former mayor of Atlanta; has marched with Martin Luther King Jr.; and despite T.I. being caught stockpiling machine guns, believes T.I. has the ability to touch the youth in a better way. Talking to the Macon Telegraph, Young said, "He's bright enough, sensitive enough, vulnerable enough and intellectual enough that he might be able to help the society deal with the problem of violence." more..

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T.I. is in the studio cooking up Paper Trails, his new album, due August 12. Through his time on house arrest (he currently has a curfew; free to work as he completes a year of house arrest and then has to report to jail for the year he was sentenced to.) making music in his home studio was his only escape valve. Paper Trails is said to be chocked full of some of the best T.I. material we've heard thus far. As he said.. Tip is "back on like a toupee." T.I. talked about a song called "Turn My Beat Down" that MTV compared to LL Cool J's "Boomin System,".. "The bass is turned all the way up and the synths inject a futuristic feel to it. Meanwhile, Tip experiments with his voice, but his message is clear: His sounds shake up the city." more..

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T.I. is on house arrest until he clears up this whole misunderstanding about machine guns and silencers. One thing being confined to your home provides is access to the world through the wonders of the internet. He linked up with the folks behind Streetcred.com to post a video thanking his fans for their support, gave shouts to his lawyers, the judge for allowing him to be at home, and said, once again, that he's innocent of all charges against him. T.I. is spending his time on houselock writing songs for his next album "Paper Trail." more..

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T.I. is on the cover of the new Complex magazine. Everyone can appreciate the "Home for the Holidays with the American Gangster!" line, after all this is time for the big movie push that T.I. should be on the streets doing face to camera, mouth to MTV/106 and Park microphone. Circumstances don't make that possible. Magazines are generally prepared two, sometimes three months in advance. I'm thinking that only applies to interviews and stories, went it comes to covers, there can be some tinkering til the last minute. "Crimes and Hard Times"? << Not even about him, but tell me your eyes don't go there first. more..

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If you thought the music award season was over we're in the same frame of mind. On Oct.13 BET will hold the second annual hip-hop awards at Atlanta's Civic Center; because anything is bound to happen when rappers and wannabes start bumping shoulders the show won't be broadcast until October 17. That gives them plenty of time to edit out the album shout-outs and thanks to the Lord. Well.. maybe not that last one. T.I. figures to be a big winner this year with nine nominations including Lyricist of the Year. Which I find extremely funny as in huh? The running joke in my conversations is that T.I. is a great artist, good dude, (I interviewed him for Trap Muzik. He was kind enough to play me his album which I hadn't heard. Wasn't might fault. That's a napping publicist) but look.. who runs off a T.I. quotable? Like Lil Wayne gets cut and pasted all the time for his clever lines, but you don't hear that with T.I. By his own admission he's not trying to be lyrical. It's the K.I.S.S. rule on the road to millions. As always when criticism of the popular guy comes.. I'm not hating or dislike him. I'm just saying. When I'm hating it's strictly middle finger. Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Common and Kanye West are nominated in the lyrics category too. That's gonna be a great shake out. more..

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Conjure up an image of a Screamfest concert and it's hard not to imagine Bow Wow's fans from the front row to the cheap seats. It could be free backstage tickets and I'd find something else to do. There is this thing called a hunch - remind me to listen to it more often. Last night I had a feeling I should check out this little show, just for the hell of it. It didn't happen, burgers and fries happened. So what occurs? A f*ckin hip-hop chorus line.. excuse me, a historic, once in a lifetime gathering of hip-hop's fucking finest.. chorus line popped off in the Garden. The folks over at MTV have the best play by play on this. There were close to 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, and it's pretty much a given that none of them believe what they saw. Just imagine how much they've been calling, texting and MySpacing since the show. Heck, you might not even believe this when you read it, but as wrestling legend Kurt Angle would say, "It's true. It's damn true." more..

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I'm smiling like T.I. on the cover of VIBE magazine, finally able to kick this Expression Engine hard enough so it's at least spitting out the blurbs. Still a few problems with old comments not being counted, new comments slide in and print fine, but the ones I salvaged from the blowout skip the count algorithm. They do print on the page. I save daily from here on in. Enough with that.. Last night during a break I stopped by the newsstand and Habib was getting the latest copies of Vibe magazine. T.I. was on the cover and inside a really good interview to go with it. He talks about Tiny, rapping for money vs. rapping for skill, and gives some insight behind his feelings during that shoootout in Cincinnati a year ago and his friend's death. That's too complex to pull one quote from, got to grab the magazine for that. more..

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