For his fourth CD, and the follow-up to 2001's three-million-plus-selling Word of Mouf, Ludacris has drafted several unknown producers, including Ice Dre and DJ Nasty, to fulfill his party hip-hop vision. "If I keep getting hit songs with new guys it just shows that I'm the one who knows how to make the hit," he says. New tracks include the pro-pot-smoking "Too Much," and "Teamwork," an ode to menage a trois.

In other Ludacris news, he has contributed a pair of new songs to the 2 Fast 2 Furious soundtrack, including "Act a Fool," the soundtrack's first single, and "Pick Up the Phone," a collaboration with R. Kelly and Tyrese. The album is due May 27th.

Source: Rolling Stone

“Its not coming back next year,” a rep for UPN said, “The ratings were the same as ‘Haunted’ was when we cancelled it last year.”

"Platinum" was a hip-hop family saga based on two brothers, Jackson and Grady Ellis (Jason George and rapper Sticky Fingaz of Onyx), who ran an independent record company.

The Sophia Coppola-produced show was a huge success initially, garnering it extremely high reviews and generated significant controversy for its content. Even mogul Russell Simmons spoke out in support of the realism of the plot.

The show delved primarily into the seedy underbelly of the music industry, something that Naji Ali of Project Islamic H.O.P.E. said was the curse of the show.

“If they were true to making a real hip-hop show, they wouldn’t have focused on the negative,” Ali told AllHipHop.com. “We are vindicated.” When the show debuted Ali and his organization proposed a boycott of the show if the creators didn’t attempt to change the content.

While the boycott never happened, Ali said he followed the Nielson ratings closely and watched the show’s viewership decline steadily. But, he maintains that he isn’t pleased ‘Platinum’ is off the air.

“Hip-Hop loses. We had a chance to have a national voice with ‘Platinum,’” he said. “I am disappointed but we are vindicated.”

While many may not be aware of “Platinum’s” passing, there are some fans of the show that are saddened at the cancellation.

“They just left us hanging with the ending. The should have pushed it like they did in the beginning instead of leaving it out there,” one fan said. “It needs to get put on cable anyway. It was too raw for primetime. I still watched it every week.”

Rapper Eve will pop up next season with her sitcom “Opposite Sex,” but the Ruff Ryder isn’t a replacement for ‘Platinum,’ the rep stated.

Source: Allhiphop.com

Why wouldnt we release a mixtape? We run the urban music scene on the internet, so ask your self why not? We said the exact samething when we started this project. Sure we could have put artists signed to labels but why when theyre is a massive ammount of Mc's with just as much talent surfing the web everyday dying for a chance like this. We compiled the dopest tracks we could find from a large community of Mc's and a few skits from your favorite Mc's like 50 Cent , Royce Da 5'9", Joe Budden and Bubba Sparxxx.

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Ol' Dirty Bastard, or Dirt McGirt, who was released from a mental hospital on May 2 after serving two years in prison for felony drug possession charges, has released two new songs to radio. ODB, who now goes by the name Dirt McGirt, released "Welcome Home" featuring Nicole Wray and a remake of KRS-One's "Sound Of Da Police" featuring Beanie Sigel and Peedi Crakk.

The rapper has not set a release date for his upcoming, Roc-A-Fella yet-to-be-titled, new album--but he discussed with whom he would like to work. "Everybody hot man," Dirt said. "I'm looking forward to my man 50 (50 Cent), you know what I'm sayin', and Jay-Z, Ghostface, you know, Mariah Carey."

Source: Launch

Snoop will play a pilot in MGM's upcoming urban version of the 1980 satirical farce starring Robert Hays ("Dr. T & the Women") and featuring Leslie Nielsen ("The Naked Gun"), with Meth onboard as his best friend Muggsy. A spokesperson for Snoop said the rapper will begin work on the flick in June. Jessy Terrero, who helmed the clip for Snoop's "Tell It Like It Is" as well as 50 Cent's "Wanksta," will direct.

Snoop is playing Huggy Bear in "Starsky & Hutch," which reunites the "Zoolander" duo of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson as the hip cops with the cool car from the '70s TV show. The project was written and is being directed by Todd Phillips ("Old School").

Method Man has a number of projects lined up with his pal Redman, including one in which they'll play a couple of DEA agents and another that's a fish-out-of-water comedy from "Barbershop" co-writer Don Scott.

The original "Airplane!" spawned a sequel in 1982, but without writer/directors Jim Abrahams and David Zucker's direct involvement. Abrahams, who directed Nielsen's "Police Squad!" TV series, went on to make the similarly over-the-top and exclamation-point-titled comedies "Top Secret!," "Hot Shots!," "Hot Shots! Part Deux" and "Jane Austen's Mafia!" as well as the "Naked Gun" series.