Drake Album 'Compulsively Listenable'

Amy Winehouse and Blink-182 are back, plus more hot releases

(NEWSER) - Forget Susan Boyle and Taylor Swift: This year promises to be a great one for music, with comebacks by big names and exciting follow-ups from breakthrough artists. MTV takes a look at the most anticipated albums of 2010:

• Amy Winehouse : The troubled singer will, supposedly, finally complete the sequel to her Grammy-winning Back to Black.
• Katy Perry : She’s worked with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer as well as a Rihanna collaborator on her follow-up to One of the Boys.

Rapper can't quite nail a return to his glory days on new album

(NEWSER) - 50 Cent, once at the forefront of rap music, returns with Before I Self Destruct—but his fourth solo effort isn’t impressing the critics. “Though packed with tough beats, dense production and 50's most ferocious delivery in years, the gloats about shootings, drugs and bloody 'hoods feel about as fresh as a Saw sequel,” writes Edna Gundersen in USA Today . The album “isn't likely to renew 50 Cent's currency.” More»

Rap Genius breaks down Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, and more

(NEWSER) - Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ song “Empire State of Mind” is everywhere, even at the World Series. But do you know what the lyrics mean? If not, Rap Genius (formerly Rap Exegesis) can clue you in the way it educated Nick Antosca of the Huffington Post. Some of the explanations the site offers:

• Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”: “Catch me in the kitchen like a Simmons whipping pastry” refers first to cooking up crack, second to fellow rapper Rev. Run’s daughters and their clothing line.

Jay Sean finds a home on Lil Wayne's Cash Money label

(NEWSER) - “It doesn't matter if we're from a little place called Hounslow,” Jay Sean tells the BBC. “If you have some good music, you can make it anywhere.” That’s how the British R&B singer found himself collaborating with Lil Wayne, and climbing to No. 2 on the US charts—making him more successful abroad than he is at home in the UK. More»

Sure, her life wasn't all hard, but don't write her off as a rapper

(NEWSER) - “Even in a ‘post-race’ world, street sells,” writes Amy Granzin for Pitchfork. That would explain why some looked at Speech Debelle—the once-homeless UK rapper turned Mercury Prize nominee and "hip-hop's next big thing"—and spun “a tiny bit of flash into blinding bling.” The truth is, Debelle had a middle-class, “girl-next-door” upbringing—but don’t write her off. Her debut, Speech Therapy, is “fine, fresh, serious (yet never dour),” and it “speaks for itself.” More»