You probably know him as Wu-Tang&rsquo;s most prominent clansman. But with the 24 years in the business, many have come to see Method Man transcend beyond being &lsquo;just a musician&rsquo;.

The man we have today isn&rsquo;t just a Hip-hop artist, not just comic personality, nor an on-screen actor&mdash;In many aspects, Method man has earned the justice of becoming both a well-known and well-respected icon for pop-culture.

Although rather clich&eacute; to say, every artist has their share of applause and criticism, Method Man was by far no stranger to both. However, exactly ten years ago, August 29th&nbsp;2006, Meth dropped a controversial album that featured a struggling musician striving to rise above unmerited hate.

But perhaps the most profound ingenuity in Method Man&rsquo;s&nbsp;4:21&hellip; The Day After&nbsp;lies in his implicit allusions to the true essence of Hip-hop: Sending a message that deserves movement, and not merely an effort to appease audiences.

&ldquo;The national weed smoking day is 4/20, so I named my album 4/21,&rdquo; explained Meth, &ldquo;Because after that day, you have this moment of clarity when you&rsquo;re not high and you see things clearly&rdquo;.

The party&rsquo;s over, the lights are all out, the album speaks of Meth realizing that. But that image, along with Meth&rsquo;s satirical metaphor simply prove that intoxicating highs only last for as long as the night goes, and it takes clarity&mdash;a defining moment&mdash;to identify where the road goes from here. The album is Meth&rsquo;s answer to the latter question.

Despite numerous criticism, Meth&rsquo;s fourth studio album earned&nbsp;Billboard 200&rsquo;s #8 spot and held strong at # 4 for the Top R&amp;B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Although many esteem the applause to the myriad of artists involved in its production, it doesn&rsquo;t take excruciating observations to identify Meth&rsquo;s lack of desire nor sense of urgency to utilize them as props to overwhelm.

At the core, the album flaunts an unfamiliar more-serious persona as opposed to Wu-Tang&rsquo;s playful frontman, the seriousness perhaps implying Meth&rsquo;s vehement passion towards his craft and the message he seeks to send through it.

Perhaps every artist nods to Method Man&rsquo;s Parable of Weed Day, because truthfully, every individual (not literally of course) either has faced or will face the whole &ldquo;5 minutes of fame&rdquo; high, only to find themselves at a crossroads, and it takes a&nbsp;moment of clarity&nbsp;to perceive the path of true artistry.

It&rsquo;s been ten years since&nbsp;4:21&mdash;a decade since Meth&rsquo;s own moment of clarity. It doesn&rsquo;t take much research to see where &ldquo;the road less travelled&rdquo; has taken him. And that deserves recognition.

&nbsp;

By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com

You probably know him as Wu-Tang&rsquo;s most prominent clansman. But with the 24 years in the business, many have come to see Method Man transcend beyond being &lsquo;just a musician&rsquo;.

The man we have today isn&rsquo;t just a Hip-hop artist, not just comic personality, nor an on-screen act...

8:29, Ten Defining Years since Method Man’s 4:21…

It ain&rsquo;t common nowadays to come across organic story-based music. That being said, it&rsquo;s even more uncommon when the artist behind the craft is a well-perceived prodigy beginning at age 14.

One among a handful, Andre Levins, better known as A+, embodied that rare instance. Born August 29th&nbsp;1982, a young Levins entered the Hip-hop scene through a Def Jam-sponsored national talent competition, where he&mdash;you guessed it&mdash;won and gathered the attention of fans and fellow enthusiasts, many of which much older and advanced in years.

Levins would land first act to former Motown Records president William Massenburg&rsquo;s current Kedar Entertainment, where the renowned producer cited that the &ldquo;A+ moniker means that [Levins is] striving for perfection, and he&rsquo;s not really talking about the same things as other rappers&rdquo;.

The young rapper released his debuting&nbsp;The Latch-Key Child&nbsp;the following year at age 14, offering collaborative products donned by AZ, Mobb Deep, and Q-Tip. It&rsquo;s lead single &ldquo;All I See&rdquo; ranked #66 on the&nbsp;Billboard&nbsp;Hot 100, battling it out in the charts for 14 weeks.

After a three-year hiatus, A+ returned with&nbsp;Hempstead High, an album focusing on the young rapper&rsquo;s growth since his premier. The album rose to the Top R&amp;B/Hip-Hop Albums chart&rsquo;s #60 spot and won #19 on the Top Heatseekers. A+&rsquo;s biggest hit &ldquo;Enjoy Yourself&rdquo; was featured in this record.

Captivating Hip-hop fans with his provocative rantings and unfiltered prose, the prodigy would then abruptly vanish from the scene. He returned in 2009, roughly a decade&rsquo;s worth of disappearance. On the other hand, A+ reported his long-term silence wasn&rsquo;t in vain.

&ldquo;A+ got a story to tell,&rdquo; mentioned the young rapper in an interview with&nbsp;HipHopWired, &ldquo;Maybe my words can help influence them in the right and positive way. They can take my issues that I&rsquo;ve been through in life and help somebody else because that&rsquo;s what A+ has been about since he came out with&nbsp;The Latch-Key Child&rdquo;.

See that&rsquo;s the thing about musical prodigies and virtuosos, &lsquo;always needing the time to step back and seek out inspiration. But when they DO come back, the stories seamlessly overflow with sentimental, heart-piercing messages&hellip;. Oh, and they do tend to refer to themselves in 3rd&nbsp;person.

Greetings go out to Hip-hop&rsquo;s wayward prodigy Andre &ldquo;A+&rdquo; Levins!

&nbsp;

By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com

&nbsp;

It ain&rsquo;t common nowadays to come across organic story-based music. That being said, it&rsquo;s even more uncommon when the artist behind the craft is a well-perceived prodigy beginning at age 14.

One among a handful, Andre Levins, better known as A+, embodied that rare instance. Born August...

Hip-hop’s Enigmatic Prodigy Turns 34!

Frank Ocean has been all over the news lately. The Odd Future alum released his long awaited project,&nbsp;Blonde, last week to critical acclaim and dropped the visual album,&nbsp;Endless,&nbsp;a few days before.&nbsp;

According to Music Business Worldwide, as of Thursday, August 25,&nbsp;Blonde&nbsp;has already been illegally downloaded almost a million times&mdash;753,849 times to be exact. MUSO, a global tech company that provides content protection, data analytics and piracy audience reconnection solutions made the tedious calculations.&nbsp;

Similarly,&nbsp;Kanye West&rsquo;s&nbsp;The Life of Pablo&nbsp;project was downloaded half a million times&nbsp;on BitTorrent while he tinkered with perfecting the final product as it sat exclusively on TIDAL.&nbsp;Frank&rsquo;s release of&nbsp;Endless&nbsp;and&nbsp;Blonde&nbsp;has been shrouded in controversy and pettiness. After teasing fans for over a year with the promise to release his next album (presumed to be titled&nbsp;Boys Don&rsquo;t Cry), he finally dropped his&nbsp;Endless&nbsp;on Apple Music, August 19, marking&nbsp;the Los Angeles singer&rsquo;s last contractual album with his former label Def Jam. He planned on dropping&nbsp;Blonde&nbsp;the next day, independently on his own imprint Boys Don&rsquo;t Cry, which would prevent the label from getting a huge cut. &nbsp;Consequently, Universal Music Group, home to Def Jam,&nbsp;made a call to end all future exclusivity deals with music platforms such as Apple Music, TIDAL and Spotify.&nbsp;

In other news, Endless has also been deemed&nbsp;&ldquo;ineligible&rdquo; for the Billboard charts.&nbsp;Because fans can only stream&nbsp;Endless&nbsp;in its 45-minute entirety on Apple Music, it&rsquo;s impossible to listen to individual tracks or purchase the album. This becomes problematic based on the way music streaming is monitored. Album rankings are judged by how many times songs are streamed&mdash;1,500 streams equals one unit and albums are sorted by number of units. In addition, the industry takes album sales into consideration, which is something&nbsp;Endless&nbsp;obviously lacks. Based on the way Blonde is being received, Franky will be just fine. 
 
By Kyle Eustice for RAPstation.com

Frank Ocean has been all over the news lately. The Odd Future alum released his long awaited project,&nbsp;Blonde, last week to critical acclaim and dropped the visual album,&nbsp;Endless,&nbsp;a few days before.&nbsp;

According to Music Business Worldwide, as of Thursday, August 25,&nbsp;Blonde&...

Frank Ocean’s Blonde Has Been Illegally Downloaded Almost A Million Times

&nbsp;Multinational recording artist Akon did well in kindling dance floor lights through his music. In recent years, R&amp;B&rsquo;s Konvict stepped away from stage lights and began a movement to light up Africa&mdash;in a&nbsp;very&nbsp;different way.

Through the combined efforts of Akon, Malian entrepreneur Samba Bathily, and political activist Thione Niang, the Akon Lighting Africa movement was launched in 2014, and since then the ALA have managed systems in 11 nations, including Senegal, Mali, Niger, Benin, and Sierra Leone.

With two years of constant work expansion, the company is still currently concentrated on achieving its goal of providing solar power to over 600 million African homesteads lacking access to electricity. Progressively, the ALA also launched the construction of certain &ldquo;Solar Academies&rdquo; to solidify a sustained solar-powered energy system through African engineers.

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s growing really, really fast&rdquo; addressed Akon in a&nbsp;Huffington Post&nbsp;interview, &ldquo;I think we&rsquo;re gonna make the deadline to be in 48 countries by the year 2020.&rdquo;

Most recently, Akon attained partnership with a leading industry in China, granting the artist a credit line measuring 1 billion USD. Since then, electricity has now reached a staggering total of 16 million Africans and the ALA is adamant on increasing the number to 80 million in the span of 10 years.

&ldquo;I always had a passion for Africa because I am Africa and I always felt Africa was being taken advantage of&rdquo; spoke Akon in an interview with&nbsp;African Vibes. Raised in Kaolack, Senegal, Akon himself grew up in a town deprived of one of life&rsquo;s most essential necessities. Needless to say, many Africans homes are constantly being lit with the ALA working simultaneously to accomplish 600 million.

In a recent interview with DJ Vlad, Akon expressed his thoughts towards his undermanaged homeland. R&amp;B&rsquo;s Konvict-turned-philanthropist traveled back onto the lines of musicianship with a sentimental statement, &ldquo;I always felt that music was always that vehicle in life that God wanted me to become&hellip; I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be involved in energy&rdquo;.

&nbsp;

By Jods Arboleda for RAPstation.com

&nbsp;Multinational recording artist Akon did well in kindling dance floor lights through his music. In recent years, R&amp;B&rsquo;s Konvict stepped away from stage lights and began a movement to light up Africa&mdash;in a&nbsp;very&nbsp;different way.

Through the combined efforts of Akon, Malia...

R&B’s Iconic Konvict on his Mission to make Africa “Lit”

&nbsp;Ever heard of Horrorcore Hip-hop? Nope, it isn&rsquo;t the latest slasher flick&mdash;it&rsquo;s actually its own subgenre which has in fact been stalking about in the Hip-hop scene for over 30 years. Today just happens to be birthdate&mdash;or to appease the horror-esque theme,&nbsp;spawn-date&mdash;of one of its biggest co-founders.

Lewayne Williams, better known as Ganksta N-I-P, was born August 28th&nbsp;1969. Hailing from South Park, Houston, Texas, Williams cofounded the South Park Coalition along with another Houston-native, K-Rino. The Coalition reached nationwide recognition in William&rsquo;s 1992 debut record&nbsp;South Park Psycho, which he distributed under Rap-a-Lot.

Produced by The Terrorists, Doug King, John Bido, and Williams himself, the album came to be known as a classic collective born out of Hip-hop&rsquo;s southern brand; Moreover, many fans honor it as perhaps the earliest conceptions of a newer, more ferocious sect of Hip-hop.

In contrast traditional Hip-hop, Horrorcore digressed from its realistic lyrical approach, favoring the incorporation of supernatural elements into its music. And if you thought Hip-hop music was aggressive, the likes of Williams cranked them up to indeedsupernatural&nbsp;levels.

Despite its controversial themes and slasher-flick imagery, Williams&rsquo; premier album wrought stunning recognition, seated well among the ranks of the Top R&amp;B/Hip-hop albums chart, scoring 4 out of 5 from&nbsp;Allmusic,&nbsp;and selling well over 100,000 copies in South Park alone.

The newly-introduced style continued receiving astonishing applause as Williams released his second studio record&nbsp;Psychic Thoughts, which ranked the charts at #30 and #5 on the Top Heatseekers listings.

The well-acclaimed god of Horrorcore, however, took a big leap of faith in 2015 when he donned the new title &ldquo;Brother NIP&rdquo;. Nationwide homicides moved the Islamic rapper (NIP stands for Nation of Islam is Powerful, by the way), into organized movements against senseless violence, with Brother NIP taking to street music as a means of reaching out.

Earlier this year, Williams (under the new title) released his latest work&nbsp;Street Messiah, which, according to Williams, features a man notoriously regarded as gruesomely explicit somehow manages to produce an entire album free from profanity and cursing.&nbsp;That&rsquo;s breathtakingly-astonishing considering the hostile factors that led to its release.

Williams surfaces as one among quite a few faces who took the already considerably-dark lyrics and attitude of Hip-hop into a darker, more&nbsp;supernatural&nbsp;stage. Despite his enigmatic persona and dark concepts, one simply cannot dismiss the fact that Williams presents true artistry into the world of both Hip-hop and the real world.

By Jods Arboleda for RAPstation.com

&nbsp;Ever heard of Horrorcore Hip-hop? Nope, it isn&rsquo;t the latest slasher flick&mdash;it&rsquo;s actually its own subgenre which has in fact been stalking about in the Hip-hop scene for over 30 years. Today just happens to be birthdate&mdash;or to appease the horror-esque theme,&nbsp;spawn-dat...

The Notorious South Park Psycho, still Reaping… err, Rapping, at 47!

&nbsp;Young artist Wash enjoyed a breakout season last year with his video &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t Trust These Thots&rdquo; going viral, which also won recognition from&nbsp;Billboard.&nbsp;Paving the way to his well-earned spot in mainstream R&amp;B and Hip-hop, &ldquo;Thots&rdquo; gathered several peak-level rankings and the attention of many through the track&rsquo;s contagious vibe, which actually flaunts taking cues from TLC classic &ldquo;No Scrubs&rdquo;.

With all that hype going around, fans and followers have perceived much pressure weighed down on the rising star. The built-up anticipation, however, reaches its cathartic end as Wash releases his latest track video &ldquo;Where You Been&rdquo;.

Directed by Edward Tran (who worked with several artists including The Rangers, T-Pain, G-Eazy), the video captures Wash pursuing love in a sleekly-lit night club&mdash;launching its potential into the rapidly-escalating dance scenes.

Wash isn&rsquo;t the only one carousing down the aisle as the track features rapper/singer Kevin Gates. The tandem creates a cool blend of Wash&rsquo;s chill vocals and Gates&rsquo; smooth rapping. According the Wash, the team-up was formed by producer Chef Tone, who contributed much from his expertise in Wash&rsquo;s upcoming album.

&ldquo;The video is amazing,&rdquo; reports Wash, &ldquo;You get to see a bit of my character on how I act on certain elements and whatnot&rdquo;. Agreeably, the video displays Wash projecting suave moves both on the dancefloor as well as with the ladies. He continues by adding a firm &ldquo;I&rsquo;m aiming for that number one spot so I gave it all on the video&rdquo;.

By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com

<center><iframe src="http://www.rapstation.com/videos/embed/170" width="670" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" ></iframe></center>

&nbsp;Young artist Wash enjoyed a breakout season last year with his video &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t Trust These Thots&rdquo; going viral, which also won recognition from&nbsp;Billboard.&nbsp;Paving the way to his well-earned spot in mainstream R&amp;B and Hip-hop, &ldquo;Thots&rdquo; gathered several peak...

8:29, Ten Defining Years since Method Man’s 4:21…

Hip-hop’s Enigmatic Prodigy Turns 34!

Frank Ocean’s Blonde Has Been Illegally Downloaded Almost A Million Times

R&B’s Iconic Konvict on his Mission to make Africa “Lit”

The Notorious South Park Psycho, still Reaping… err, Rapping, at 47!

Rising Artist Wash Returns with New Video “Where You Been”

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