Hip-Hop's New Wiz Kid: Wiz Khalifa Taking Over the Game

Even before he collected the Best New Artist trophy at the BET Awards last night (June 26), Wiz Khalifa had already pretty much cemented his place in the hip hop community.

It must have been a surreal moment for an artist to be named the best “new” artist when he has been steadily in the game for around six years now! His first real single, “Say Yeah”, was released way back in 2007, and he already had two albums under his belt before this year’s Rolling Papers. But the numbers (not to mention a major label studio album) can sometimes make all the difference – Rolling Papers hit Number 1 in both the R&B and Rap charts, and it peaked at Number Two on the overall Billboard 200.

And the fact that Wiz’s first two singles from Rolling Papers, the infectious “Black and Yellow” and the Euro-synthy “Roll Up”, both went platinum no doubt had a big influence on his victory at last night’s awards ceremony. 

Aligning himself with a nearly endless list of other award-winning artists doesn’t hurt either! The Pittsburgh-born Chuck Taylor enthusiast has been featured on a ton of other great tracks with equally gifted artists, such as Cee Lo Green, Far East Movement, Soulja Boy, Wale, Rick Ross, Chris Brown, Lil’ Kim, Tinie Tempah, Chiddy Bang, and… well, I could go on all day! Mix that kind of experience with nine mixtape releases, not to mention appearing in no less than 35 music videos, it was only a matter of time before the 23-year-old started collecting some serious hardware and recognition for his contributions to the industry. And how can you not love this guy’s easy-going attitude and contagious grin? He reminds me of Snoop in his prime.

I can’t wait to see what else this kid has in store for the genre. Now that he’s broken out of the background and into the spotlight, the sky’s the limit!

Check out his latest single, “On My Level” ft. Too Short (NSFW!).

Viddy App Allows You To Capture Life On Video

What has more than 450,000 downloads and just keeps growing and growing and growing? No surprises here that the answer is a great new phone app!

With a new way to pull the ‘viddy’ographer out in you, Viddy is a premier social mobile application presenting you with a unique way to create and share video. With the option to utilize multiple movie styles, the short films that you create will give you access to a cinematic aesthetic that you usually only see on the big screen... As you can imagine, it's all the rage here in Hollywood.

Once again, count on Paris Hilton to be at the cutting edge of another great new trend, as she gushed to me about how Viddy is her new favorite app, saying “You can make videos that look really old school... I love it.” But she isn’t the only one getting her film on. Lauren Conrad is a new fan; a friend of Pete Wentz’s actually helped create it; Snoop Dogg is down; and Charlie Sheen has announced that Viddy is winning! Considering the brand did very little to no advertising, they just turned it on and with the help of some very prestigious word-of-mouth, it became a hit!

Taking its rightful place amongst our virtual lives, Viddy is also described as being like Twitter with video updates instead of status updates; seems to me that using a video clip as a status update is a big step in a new and exciting direction. You can even follow other viddyographers in the community and see the world from their artistic point of view. The best part about it is that it costs nada -- you can make the same hot videos as the celebs for FREE!

If you're the type to always have a cell phone on you to capture those once in a lifetime moments, then you should most definitely consider checking out viddy.com, and be amazed at how awesome your videos can look and then share them with the world!

The Dr. is Back!

For ten years, we have been patiently waiting for “the one and only D-R-E” to make his solo return back to the forefront of the music scene. Though, he has being doing good by his fans and looking out for us by pairing up with Jimmy Iovine and, more recently, Lady Gaga, not to mention giving us music lovers a better way to listen to music through his high performance headphones and sound transmission company, Beats by Dr. Dre  (because “people aren’t hearing all the music”). But we still missed the creative lyricist that is Dr. Dre. Now the long wait is over.



The first single from his highly anticipated album, Detox, is a pulsating jam called "Kush", which gives us a taste of what to expect once the full album is released in early 2011. This track is destined to be a hit, not the least of which because it features long time friend and collaborator, Snoop Dogg, and singing sensation, Akon. Doing it up right with his legendary producing skills, this album will be anything but a detox and more like an addiction, and "Kush" is the gateway drug!



If you haven’t already, listen to “Kush” and see for yourself on Dre's Website.