14-Year-Old Boy Sues 50 Cent

(NEWSER) - What does the burgeoning beef between rappers Jay-Z and The Game have in common with US foreign policy? Plenty, writes Marc Lynch in Foreign Policy. Like America, Jay-Z is a hegemon: “Nobody, but nobody, in the hip-hop world has his combination of hard power and soft power.” But like America, it’s debatable how much of that power Jay-Z should actually use against lesser threats. More»

'Queen of NY' is heading upstate for shooting friend

(NEWSER) - Rapper Remy Ma was sentenced to eight years in prison yesterday, following her conviction on two counts of assault for shooting her friend in the stomach. The self-proclaimed "Queen of New York" broke down in tears at the sentencing, which was somewhat more lenient than expected, reports MTV. The judge may have been swayed by an emotional statement Ma made, in which she apologized to her victim. More»

Follow-up to 'Bulletproof' has the rapper traveling far and wide

(NEWSER) - 50 Cent has a new video game coming out in the fall in which he battles international gangsters in desert warfare, MTV News reports. "Blood in the Sand" follows the hop-hop star's “Bulletproof” of 2005, though it's not being pitched as a sequel. Details of the game’s plot are on tight lockdown, but Vivendi says that unlike “Bulletproof”—a fictional extension of 50’s criminal past—“Blood" will have the rapper fighting crime syndicates. More»

Class takes sociological view of rapper's work

(NEWSER) - He’s already a hip-hop superstar, a big-shot exec, and married to Beyonce; now, Jay-Z is also the subject of elite academic discourse. Georgetown students are flocking to a sociology course on hip-hop and Jay-Z’s rise, taught by author and radio host Michael Eric Dyson. “Sociology of Hip-Hop—Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z,” as the class is called, seeks “the intellectual, theological, philosophical predicate for Jay-Z’s argument.” More»

He says US foreign policy helps foster terror

(NEWSER) - Conservatives slammed President Obama for hosting Chicago rapper Common at the White House. Now Obama is taking criticism from a different Chicago rapper. "To me, the biggest terrorist is Obama, and the United States of America,” Lupe Fiasco told CBS in an interview noted by the Huffington Post . “I'm trying to fight the terrorism that's actually causing the other forms of terrorism.” He said “the root cause of terrorism” includes “the foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists.” More»