Music, Rap | featured news

Jay-Z has finally broken his silence over the controversy about his trip to Cuba -- and of course he did it in rap. In a new song, "Open Letter," released via his Web site Thursday, the superstar is defiant, self-pitying -- and eager to let you know how cool his vacation was.

The rapper says he is "100%" now, but he also reveals some "bad news." Lil Wayne gets help from 2 Chainz, Drake, Big Sean and Nicki Minaj on his new album.

Stevie Wonder is not happy with Lil Wayne's vulgar lyrics that reference Emmett Till, a black teen who was killed in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The R&B legend says the rapper's disturbing verse should not have made it beyond the recording studio for the world to hear.

The Korean pop star, who rose to recent fame with his video "Gangnam Style," rapped out these lyrics in 2004: "Kill those f--ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives ...

"Listen to my story! Listen to my pain and suffering!" Afghanistan's first female rapper Sosan Firooz pleads into her microphone. With her first rap song, the outspoken 23-year-old singer is making history in her homeland where society frowns on women who take the stage. She is already shunned by some of her relatives.

It's official: Nicki Minaj did not endorse Mitt Romney in a recent rap. The flamboyant rapper confirmed Monday on Twitter that she was taking literary license when she referenced the Republican nominee for president. Some took her words to mean she was backing President Barack Obama's opponent. Not Obama, though, who told radio station WPYO-FM in Orlando, Fla., that he didn't think it was a Romney plug, adding: "She likes to play different characters."

In her tweet, Minaj thanked Obama for understanding "my creative humor and sarcasm," then noted: "the smart ones always do ... (asterisk)sends love & support."

Snoop Dogg wants you to know that he's tired of hip-hop, is Bob Marley reincarnated and is embracing reggae instead of the culture of guns he once rapped about. Also, he's got a new name: Snoop Lion.

Jay-Z and Kanye West's recent hit "Niggas in Paris" is about them. They rap about being so phenomenally rich, about how they "ball so hard," buy Rolexes and cars, pop gold bottles with models in Paris nightclubs, that the rest of us slobs couldn't fathom their lives.

Rapper Tupac Shakur, who was shot to death 16 years ago at the age of 25, was resurrected on stage Sunday for an eerie posthumous performance with former creative collaborator and hip-hop icon, Snoop Dogg.

An agent for Heavy D says the 44-year-old rapper has died. Andrew Weitz of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment confirmed the rapper's death in an email Tuesday, without giving a cause of death or saying where he died.