The Grammy Awards go live in less than 20 minutes but already the winners have been announced, check out the official link here.

Let’s review…

Best Rap Album: Eminem – Relapse

Best Rap Solo Performance: Jay-Z – D.O.A. Death of Autotune

Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group: Eminem, Dr. Dre & 50 Cent – Crack A Bottle

…and Best Rap Song: Jay-Z, Rihanna, & Kayne West – Run This Town

It’s no life altering discovery but I just want to draw a quick comparison:

to…

and…

to…

Cannot take either one of these dudes seriously! You can’t do the most hilarious stand-up ever and then bust out the pop/ R&B expecting us to switch over like that. I keep watching the video expecting a laugh track to come in at the end. I guess I better warm up to it, Jamie Foxx has been in the music game for a minute now. Eight years to be exact and he’s stockpiling awards. This year he’s up for three Grammy nominations. Let’s see how he does tomorrow.

Jamie’s newest album Body is set to drop May 25th, 2010.

Still cold?

Think back to A Long Hot Summer in 2004 and run out to grab this by Masta Ace. The highly acclaimed concept/ follow up album to 2001’s Disposable Arts. Pump this under your hat and instead of walking through a snow storm you’ll be following Ace and Fats Belvedere through Brooklyn in the heat.

Or you can stay in where it’s warm and buy it here.

image: amazon.com

Hey what’s Brand Nubian been up to lately? It’s been a minute since their classic One For All album dropped. Puba went solo after that, I’m kind of glad he did. Lord Jamar did something, Sadat did Wild Cowboys, I know all this. I mean recently where have they been… Well I know what Sadat X is doing! Drinking lots of wine and sounding like ODB! Sadat’s True Wine Connoisseur is a Youtube series, where he rates wines that are under twenty dollars. In this episode, our favorite Five Percenter rapper opens up a bottle of Castle Rock ($12.99) and lets his sophisticated palate explore the flavors.  Yo X just open that shit up!

Just want to shine a spotlight on 90’s rapper Apache who died last Friday of an unknown protracted illness. Apache is best know for his banging hit single Gansta Bitch off the debut album Apache Ain’t Shit. His first appearance was in 1990 as the front man of Queen Latifah’s Flavor Unit on The 45 King Presents The Flavor Unit album. Apache worked with Fat Joe, Naughty By Nature and A Tribe Called Quest among others. He will be missed.

The Hope For Haiti Telethon featuring Jay-Z, Wyclef Jean, Rihanna and others aired on January 22nd on most major broadcast networks. The totals are in and the event is said to have raised over $61 million in relief efforts. Check out the clip below.

I’ve got the leak off the The Damian Marley and Nas project here for you. From the upcoming Distant Relatives album the track is called Strong Will Continue, listen to it here. The official word on the leak from Dan Dalton of Red Light Management, Marley’s Manager.

“We are extremely happy with the response that we have been receiving from the leaked version of Strong Will Continue, while it is not the initial single we planned to release these things happen. The first track we really want everyone to sink their teeth into is ‘As We Enter.’ This is it, the ball rolling, we are really excited about the project.”

Listen to As We Enter here.

image: Distant Relatives

Whaaat?! Is Snoop trading in his navy blue chucks for Adidas?

Check him out in the new Star Wars Adidas commercial below.

I was listening to more Juan Epstein podcasts yesterday, a second one with Pete Rock. I really like nerding out to these because it makes me go back and listen to tunes I haven’t pulled out in a while. I forgot that Heavy D was Pete Rock’s cousin, and how Pete produced a lot of the songs on the Blue Funk album. Pete also talks about songs he produced, but never got credit for. He talks about how back in 1993 he was chilling with Biggie when he put on the beat for Juicy. Biggie tripped and was like “yo is this for CL?”, Pete was like, “nah man, you want it?”. Anyway, long story short, Puffy bought the beat for Big, changed the drums a bit, and took production credit for it. I always thought it was weird how similar the original Juicy beat was compared to the Pete Rock remix. I guess business is business, and Puff Daddy is definitely a business man.

I learned something new today, it’s a thing called Youtube Doubler. It allows you to do your own personal mashup of two Youtube videos. I’m sure I’ll be going nuts in the future with this, but my first attempt was inspired by my current winter blahs. So please sit back in a comfy chair, close your eyes, and let the  ocean waves and Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince carry you somewhere care-free and warm… At least for four minutes.

Click here for my mashup…

As a bonus, here is the original break by Kool & the Gang; Summer Madness.