Atlanta-based rapper, Scotty ATL&#39;s had a tremendously rough season. Over the last year, the rapper&#39;s endured the loss of nine loved ones, including the tragic passing of a close friend, Bankroll Fresh. Despite his losses, Scotty ATL dropped his latest album just a few days ago, and the finished product is pure magnum opus.

&ldquo;It feels wonderful to get this project out of my body, mind, and spirit,&rdquo; Scotty explained in an interview with&nbsp;XXL, &ldquo;I had to overcome a lot just to get it out. With this particular project, I wanted for people to see my growth as an artist and as a lyricist.&rdquo;

There&#39;s an unmistakable feeling of pain and despair, but that feeling loses its weight at the amount of inspiration and positivity Scotty somehow stirs within each verse and hook. Vivid narration as well as a rigorous work ethic have always been a constant for Scotty, but his latest album takes it to a whole new level:

&ldquo;The greatest rappers tell their life stories. That&#39;s why I&#39;m doing. I&#39;m giving people my real life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I focus on lyrics, focus on content and subject manner. I&#39;m branding myself as a lyricist from ATL, like a TI or an Outkast, who can give some game on a track. I talk about both sides of the streets, meaning sometimes people can only glorify the streets, but not warn about the dangers. I live that freestyle but I&#39;d also advise you to save money. If you&#39;re risking your life every day, make it count.&rdquo;

Daily Bread&nbsp;consists of eleven tracks, all of which intricately-woven with such passionate lyricism and sung through the lips of a master storyteller. The record comes with featured appearances, including Jaydot Rain on &ldquo;So High&rdquo;, and Ty Dolla $ign on &ldquo;Bye Bye&rdquo;.

It&#39;s amazing how someone can channel his internal pain into an outward expression of encouragement&mdash;that&#39;s pure artistry at its finest. Be sure to check it out on iTunes.

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By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com

Atlanta-based rapper, Scotty ATL&#39;s had a tremendously rough season. Over the last year, the rapper&#39;s endured the loss of nine loved ones, including the tragic passing of a close friend, Bankroll Fresh. Despite his losses, Scotty ATL dropped his latest album just a few days ago, and the finis...

Scotty ATL Expressing Pain and Encouraging Life with “Daily Bread”

In 2014, a young East Harlem rapper by the name of Dave East earned top draft pick under Mass Appeal Records, chosen by the man, Nas, himself. In less than a week, East is scheduled to release his latest mixtape, which he boasts as his &ldquo;best work to date&rdquo;.

September 30th&nbsp;marks the debut of his&nbsp;Kairi Chanel. Named after East&#39;s own daughter, the proud Harlem artist describes it as a lyrical translation of his greatest and most defining moments in life, which he aspires to utilize in sparking a modern Hip-hop renaissance:

&ldquo;I want my Freshman year to be remembered as when New York City woke the f&mdash;k back up again,&rdquo; East explained to&nbsp;XXL&nbsp;during the Freshman cover session, &ldquo;Legends always do what they do, Jadakiss Fabolous, Styles, they got New York etched in stone, but I want to be remembered that it was a breath of fresh air that came in the game from Harlem.&rdquo;

With his forthcoming mixtape closing in on its release, East also hinted at an interesting proposition pertaining to his Mass Appeal boss&#39; latest project: &ldquo;It&#39;s fire,&rdquo; mentioned East at the 2016 BET Hip Hop Awards, &ldquo;I might be on it,&rdquo; snickering while saying so.

Although East&#39;s statement is currently just matter of speculation, Nas met fans with confidence pertaining to his 12th&nbsp;studio album:

&ldquo;I&#39;m in my zone. And that&#39;s just what it is,&rdquo; Nas reported to&nbsp;DX, &ldquo;I always stuck to my message and my way, and that might not work for anybody else. I wouldn&#39;t suggest that people follow me, but I feel like the ones that can see where I&#39;m going and they see some good in it, and if I can make somebody happy with the moves and inspire somebody over there, then I inspire a generation.&rdquo;

Despite being shrouded in rumors, both the young East Harlem rapper and the Mass Appeal Mogul seemingly share a common goal with both their respective forthcoming projects. Furthermore, the speculations prove an interesting notion to the Hip-hop industry.

Make sure to keep sync with Dave East&#39;s&nbsp;Kairi Chanel, which launches onto the charts this Friday, September 30th, and keep alert with further news regarding his rumored appearance on Nas&#39; new album.

By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com

In 2014, a young East Harlem rapper by the name of Dave East earned top draft pick under Mass Appeal Records, chosen by the man, Nas, himself. In less than a week, East is scheduled to release his latest mixtape, which he boasts as his &ldquo;best work to date&rdquo;.

September 30th&nbsp;marks th...

Dave East's Forthcoming Mixtape, and Appearance on Nas' New Album?

Love is a pretty cliche trend, don&rsquo;t you think? We&rsquo;ve seen love with its petty face, misused and abused by those unversed in its true beauty. We&rsquo;ve seen love at its finest, unconditional and often times irrational. Love&hellip; cliche, yet absolute, and the definitive goal.

&nbsp;

With so much hate televised and publicized in the modern-world, one simply must raise the question: Where and HOW does love weave into all this? Can love still flourish with so much hate? Chicago-based rapper Mick Jenkins would have a word to say, with his debut album&nbsp;The Healing Component.

&nbsp;

&ldquo;Love is a conversation that we don&rsquo;t really have at all. Especially not in rap,&rdquo; explained Jenkins to&nbsp;The Fader. But pertaining to his new record, Jenkins breaks the silence, and opens listeners to a heartfelt dialogue, wherein Mick explores love in its numerous personas, such as self-love, romantic love, sibling love, love for you neighbors, family, and your culture.

&ldquo;Just pray for me/ Holla at me, I can pray for you/ Try to make a play for you, why don&rsquo;t you show me, love/ They said it ain&rsquo;t no love here, but I do see blood, tears, and sweat, Moet/ We pour it up at gatherings that we&rsquo;ll soon forget/ Because the day-by-day negatives be consumed, and hate is booming&rsquo; and love is what flowers and finished blooms we get/ Show me your plot and I&rsquo;ll do the dirt &rsquo;till my wounds cement&rdquo;

Captured in &ldquo;Daniel&rsquo;s Bloom&rdquo;&rsquo;s refrain, Jenkins conveys the dilemma while showcasing his clever wordplay and passionate poetry. The Chicago word-smith may be the first ever to begin a Hip-hop revolution, focusing solely on the concept of love&mdash;but its a movement nonetheless, and that&rsquo;s Hip-hop in its pure essence.

The album succeeds at exploring love&rsquo;s different facets. &ldquo;Daniel&rsquo;s Bloom&rdquo; pertains to neighborly love, while &ldquo;Communicate&rdquo; conveys it through the romantic persona. Still, Jenkins focuses his message towards love as &ldquo;an extension of the truth&rdquo; very much relevant and needed considering today&rsquo;s current tumults:

&ldquo;And they be asking, &lsquo;What do love got to do with the point?&rsquo;/ It&rsquo;s the sooth in your water, it&rsquo;s the truth in your joint,&rdquo; Jenkins advocates in the track, &ldquo;Spread Love&rdquo;.

Throughout the record, he often alludes love to the image of plain water, and I think that&rsquo;s what&nbsp;The Healing Component&nbsp;metaphorically translates to: water, water that sustains, water that cleanses, water, pure and organic. It&rsquo;s basic, but everyone needs it&mdash;kind of like today&rsquo;s reality.

Mick Jenkins&rsquo; debut album isn&rsquo;t just a showcase of his well-versed rhymes and cutting-edge wordplay, it&rsquo;s a movement rallying masses to a substance we&rsquo;ve neglected these past years: Love&mdash;it&rsquo;s&nbsp;The Healing Component.

&nbsp;

By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com

Love is a pretty cliche trend, don&rsquo;t you think? We&rsquo;ve seen love with its petty face, misused and abused by those unversed in its true beauty. We&rsquo;ve seen love at its finest, unconditional and often times irrational. Love&hellip; cliche, yet absolute, and the definitive goal.

&nbs...

Love According to Mick Jenkins’ “The Healing Component”

We&rsquo;re living in an age with technology and social media so high, artists don&rsquo;t even have to see the light of day to produce good music. Hip-hop&rsquo;s Kendrick Lamar, on the other hand, seemingly disagrees with this method. Top Dawg Entertainment&rsquo;s producer, Sounwave, affirms Lamar&rsquo;s beliefs: &ldquo;The whole process of this album [To Pimp A Butterfly] is you literally had to be in the studio with us to get the sound we&rsquo;re trying to portray.&rdquo;

On a similar note, prominent jazz artist Kamasi Washington sat down with Marc Maron on a segment featured on his popular&nbsp;WTF with Marc Maron podcast, and narrated an interesting anecdote pertaining to Washington&rsquo;s work with the the Top Dawg star.

&ldquo;Day one, he was like, &lsquo;Okay, Kamasi, write some stuff to this&rsquo;,&rdquo; mentioned Washington, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m like, &lsquo;Okay, do you want to give me the files and I&rsquo;ll go home and come back?&rsquo; He&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;No, you&rsquo;ve got to write this here. You don&rsquo;t get to leave with anything.&rdquo;

&ldquo;So I&rsquo;m just sitting there listening to the music, and I have a little piano set up, and Kendrick&rsquo;s just sitting there on the couch watching,&rdquo; laughed Washington, &ldquo;But wasn&rsquo;t a vibe of like, &lsquo;Let me make sure you don&rsquo;t do anything I don&rsquo;t want you to do.&rsquo; It was more like, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m just curious to see how this process works.&rsquo;&rdquo;

The jazzer resonated to the current trend of internet sessions, as well as attesting to the unique experience you get with them, but on this bit, Washington expressed a different narration which led to a long-lasting impression over Lamar.

&ldquo;I would see him do superhuman stuff,&rdquo; Washington remarked, &ldquo;One day, Terrace [Martin] brought a new beat, and I saw Kendrick just create a whole song while he was hearing it for the first time. And it felt like a complete song. I was like, &lsquo;Did you just create that right now while I was sitting here as you were listening to it for the first time? Wow. That&rsquo;s amazing.&rdquo;

You can listen to the full podcast with the link below. The conversation with Kamasi Washington-To Pimp a Butterfly&nbsp;begins at 54:00.

<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-744-kamasi-washington/id329875043?i%3D1000375634102%26mt%3D2&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1474925261776000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFHv7MctM7Avvpm75tuz5szu-Q0cg" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-744-kamasi-washington/id329875043?i=1000375634102&amp;mt=2" target="_blank">https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-744-kamasi-washington/id329875043?i=1000375634102&amp;mt=2</a>

&nbsp;

By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com&nbsp;

We&rsquo;re living in an age with technology and social media so high, artists don&rsquo;t even have to see the light of day to produce good music. Hip-hop&rsquo;s Kendrick Lamar, on the other hand, seemingly disagrees with this method. Top Dawg Entertainment&rsquo;s producer, Sounwave, affirms Lama...

Jazz Artist Kamasi Washington Calls Kendrick Lamar, “Superhuman”

Slaine&rsquo;s accomplished a pretty decorated career. As an entertainer, he&rsquo;s moved from young Boston rapper, to sharing screens with Top-grade stars like Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, and most recently, Kevin Hart, and Dwayne &ldquo;The Rock&rdquo; Johnson.

As an emcee, Slaine&rsquo;s catalog includes collaborative records with several titans of the Hip-hop world; Snoop Dogg, Cypress Hill, Raekwon, and Wu-Tang&rsquo;s U-God to list a few&mdash;not to mention founding the rap supergroup, La Coka Nostra, along with Everest, DJ Lethal, Danny Boy, and Non-Phixion&rsquo;s Ill Bill.

Underneath his success, fans came to know Slaine for his introspect storytelling rhymes, each story seemingly sucking you into a dark world of drugs, violence, love and loss, dreams and nightmares, and pain. In the midst of it all, Slaine somehow infuses hope, faith, and an impenetrable light, and the output is a brilliant collision between light and dark.

But perhaps what made his storytelling so tangible and authentic, was that Slaine has literally lived through it, much of his tales revolving around the emcee&rsquo;s drug epidemic that would have made the emcee&rsquo;s new album&rsquo;s title an actual newsprint. For along with the rapper&rsquo;s rising success, came the familiar feeling of pressure, and, according to many, the feeling as if walls are closing in on you as the world comes crashing down. The walls did close for Slaine on March 2nd, 2014 after an ugly bender.&nbsp;

On the next day,&nbsp;March 3rd, the Boston emcee took to make a stand out of the murk and mire, and just yesterday, September 23, 2016, Slaine returns with rhymes about how the life of intoxication can burn one to the ground, and stories of how Slaine himself, rose into new life out of the ashes. To this day, the Boston emcee has attested to a life of sobriety, totally liberated from drugs and alcohol.

Slaine Is Dead&nbsp;features the Slaine story through eight brand-new tracks, all of which featuring the Boston emcee keeping true to his introspect lyricism as he narrates his darkest moments, standing face to face against the demons plaguing his life.

Once again, fans will familiarize with the master storyteller, exploring despair and imminent hope through numerous personas, such as a conflicted drug dealer in the song &ldquo;Pusher&rdquo;, a man struggling with a addiction on songs like &ldquo;Nobody Prays for Me&rdquo; and &ldquo;Slaine is Dead&rdquo;, to perhaps the same man defying its grips with &ldquo;Knocked Down&rdquo; and &ldquo;Legendary&rdquo;. The record concludes with man&rsquo;s ultimate pursuit towards liberation with the song &ldquo;Coming Home&rdquo;.

The album also showcases appearances from longtime collaborators, Vinnie Paz, Ill Bill, Statik Selektah, Termanology, Demrick DJ Eclipse, and Rite Hook, and also features vocal support from Jared Evan. Under the production of The Arcitype,&nbsp;Slaine Is Dead, accomplishes the emcee&rsquo;s iconic design of a fabricated dark world fabled with stories of those groping and battling for the light. And though the title tells otherwise, Slaine is both reborn and advocating life with his latest album.

&nbsp;

By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com

<center><iframe src="http://www.rapstation.com/videos/embed/270" width="670" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" ></iframe></center>

Slaine&rsquo;s accomplished a pretty decorated career. As an entertainer, he&rsquo;s moved from young Boston rapper, to sharing screens with Top-grade stars like Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, and most recently, Kevin Hart, and Dwayne &ldquo;The Rock&rdquo; Johnson.

As an emcee, Slaine&rsquo;s catalog i...

Slaine Returns… and Dead on Arrival?

A few weeks ago, Bad Boy Records founder, Puff Daddy, announced the official opening of a Capital Prep School structured in his East Harlem, New York.

Just yesterday, September 22, the Bad Boy caravan made stop in Washington D.C.&rsquo;s Verizon Center, where Diddy donated one million dollars directed to Howard University&rsquo;s School of Business, which will launch The Sean Combs Scholarship Fund.

On an interesting note, the transaction falls a just a few days ahead of the historic Afro-school&rsquo;s 150th&nbsp;anniversary, which takes place March of next year.

Scholarships will begin during the fall of 2017, catering to Business majors with an upkeep of 3.0 in GPA as well as attesting to provisional aid from the program.

Diddy himself attended the university, but was unable to attain a degree, after leaving before the start of his third year. The school granted him an honorary doctorate in 2014.

&ldquo;I was blessed to receive a great education from Howard University&mdash;one of the best schools in the world,&rdquo; expressed Diddy, &ldquo;This scholarship will make it possible for the next generation of leaders to pursue their dreams and achieve greatness. When I delivered the commencement address at Howard, I asked the students &lsquo;Do you know how powerful you are?&rsquo; I know that Howard students are intelligent, talented, passionate, and their hard work will shape the future.&rdquo;

Complimentary to this, Howard University President Wayne Frederick reported that &ldquo;the scholarship fund that mr. Combs (Diddy) has established&hellip; will provide life-altering opportunities for our students, particularly at a time when many come to Howard struggling to meet ever-increasing financial needs.&rdquo;

Wayne continued by extending thanks on behalf of the school, commending Diddy for his &ldquo;ongoing efforts to open doors for talented, hard-working individuals and improve their chances of navigating the way to personal and professional fulfillment.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com

A few weeks ago, Bad Boy Records founder, Puff Daddy, announced the official opening of a Capital Prep School structured in his East Harlem, New York.

Just yesterday, September 22, the Bad Boy caravan made stop in Washington D.C.&rsquo;s Verizon Center, where Diddy donated one million dollars dir...

Scotty ATL Expressing Pain and Encouraging Life with “Daily Bread”

Dave East's Forthcoming Mixtape, and Appearance on Nas' New Album?

Love According to Mick Jenkins’ “The Healing Component”

Jazz Artist Kamasi Washington Calls Kendrick Lamar, “Superhuman”

Slaine Returns… and Dead on Arrival?

Diddy Donates 1M to Howard University

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