The Best from the North West CHANA

South African born and Mmabatho bred, Khuli Chana is a talented musician who practices the skill of rhyming in vernacular rap, Motswako. Motswako encompasses various elements from various musical backgrounds. It involves street-talk and highly influential messages in Setswana, English; and other South African languages, yet largely comprehended lingo. Khuli Chana brings a different flavor and sound, not only to this type of music but also to the Hip-Hop scene. One of his objectives is to encourage and inspire an international appeal into South African music.

Khuli Chana is not new to the music industry; in the early 90s he formed a duet with Kay-G called  Jazzadaz, he then joined forces with Towdee to form the group, Morafe. Morafe has released two albums to date, namely Maru a pula and A ene which was nominated for Best Urban Pop at the 2007 South African Music Awards.

The Motswakoriginator is the album title of Khuli Chana’s first offering and was released in 2009. On this album, he brings through a distinctive sound and formula. The concept is about bringing back the show; the energy; creativity; stage; lights; and quality performance that is out of the ordinary. This project is already receiving a very positive and overwhelming response and is already a success with Khuli Chana working with some of the hottest producers in the game. He worked with the likes of: TowdeeMac and Kay-G of Morafe fame; IV League; Octave Couplet and Jazz Worx.

His two singles; Tswak Sticke’m and Sthandwa Sam featuring Towdee are already dominating the airwaves. A remix of the song, No More Hunger, has also been requested by ActionAid South Africa to be featured on the Hunger Free Campaign music compilation which features artist from around the continent and will be distributed to over 50 countries in Africa alone.

Khuli Chana – is fast becoming one of South Africa’s hip hop elite – having previously took home the best new comer award at the 2009 Channel O music awards and has just recently scooped the award for best song of the year for his hit song Tswak Sticke’m at the Hype music awards. He was also nominated for  the best rapper of the year for the South African Music Awards.

NEVER2HIP2SKATE

Skateboarding was popularized by the 1986 skateboarding cult classic Thrashin', also known as Skate Gang directed by David Winters. It has appearances from many famous skaters such as Tony Alva, Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi and Steve Caballero. The film starred Josh Brolin, who would go on to win acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.^[7][8] Thrashin' also had a direct impact on Lords Of Dogtown as Catherine Hardwicke, who directed Lords Of Dogtown was hired by Winters to work on Thrashin' as a production designer where she met, worked with and befriended many famous skaters including the real Tony Alva, Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi and Steve Caballero.^[9]

Skateboarding was, at first, tied to the culture of surfing. As skateboarding spread across the United States to places unfamiliar with surfing or surfing culture, it developed an image of its own. For example, the classic film short Video Days (1991) portrayed skateboarders as reckless rebels.

The image of the skateboarder as a rebellious, non-conforming youth has faded in recent years.^{[citation needed]} Certain cities still oppose the building of skateparks in their neighborhoods, for fear of increased crime and drugs in the area. The rift between the old image of skateboarding and a newer one is quite visible: magazines such as Thrasher portray skateboarding as dirty, rebellious, and still firmly tied to punk, while other publications, Transworld Skateboarding as an example, paint a more diverse and controlled picture of skateboarding. Furthermore, as more professional skaters use hip hop, reggae, or hard rock music accompaniment in their videos, many urban youths, hip-hop fans, reggae fans, and hard rock fans are also drawn to skateboarding, further diluting the sport's punk image.^[10][11]

Films such as the 1986 Thrashin', Grind and Lords Of Dogtown, have helped improve the reputation of skateboarding youth,^{[citation needed]} depicting individuals of this subculture as having a positive outlook on life, prone to poking harmless fun at each other, and engaging in healthy sportsman's competition. According to the film, lack of respect, egotism and hostility towards fellow skateboarders is generally frowned upon, albeit each of the characters (and as such, proxies of the "stereotypical" skateboarder) have a firm disrespect for authority and for rules in general. Group spirit is supposed to heavily influence the members of this community. In presentations of this sort, showcasing of criminal tendencies is absent, and no attempt is made to tie extreme sports to any kind of illegal activity.^{[citation needed]}

Gleaming the Cube, a 1989 movie starring Christian Slater as a skateboarding teen investigating the death of his adopted Vietnamese brother was somewhat of an iconic landmark to the skateboarding genre of the era.^{[citation needed]} Many well-known skaters had cameos in the film, including Tony Hawk.

Skateboarding video games have also become very popular in skateboarding culture.^{[citation needed]} Some of the most popular are the Tony Hawk series, and Skate series for various consoles (Including hand-held) and personal computer.

Skateboarding is now a big part of the Hip-Hop Culture we have went from wearing Jordan's to rocking DC's we have completely adopted a skaters swag to the point where the is nothing different its all one big part of "Street Culture" with artist like Pharrell who have broken down the barriers between Hip-Hop and skateboarding now Lil'wayne is also on the band wagon and with him being the MEGA SUPER STAR he is I foresee skateboarding becoming much bigger than it already is.

ROYCE da 59 N EMINEM BACK IN HELL

Bad Meets Evil is an American hip hop duo from Detroit, Michigan that consists of rappers Royce da 5'9" (Bad) and Eminem (Evil). They are best known for collaborating on a self-titled song that appeared on Eminem's major-label debut album The Slim Shady LP in 1999, their early association with Dr. Dre and his label Aftermath Entertainment, and their hit EP Hell: The Sequel.

The duo recorded numerous well received underground songs including the popular song "Renegade" which would later be used on Jay-Z's The Blueprint album with Royce's verses replaced by Jay-Z. They have also recorded numerous freestyles together, including a 12-minute long battle. Footage of a Bad Meets Evil concert filmed in September 1998 in Boston at the Lyricist Lounge has also been leaked onto the Internet.

Bad Meets Evil split up in early 2000s, after Royce fell out with Eminem's group, D12. They have since reunited and released their EP Hell: The Sequel on June 14, 2011, which debuted at number 1 in the Billboard 200 charts. Final numbers for the first week sales of the EP were 171,000 via Sound Scan.

Royce da 5'9" and Eminem both grew up in Detroit and were mutual friends of late rapper Proof. Royce's then manager introduced him to Eminem at an Usher concert in 1997. Their chemistry encouraged them to form a group in which Royce covers the "Bad" part and Eminem the "Evil" part. They recorded and released several tracks together, including their debut group single "Nuttin' to Do" and its B-side, "Scary Movies".^[1] Eminem would later sign a solo deal with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. On his major-label debut album, The Slim Shady LP, he featured Royce on the song "Bad Meets Evil".

While working on Dr. Dre's album 2001, Eminem introduced Royce to Dr. Dre and secured him a ghostwriting position on the album. Royce wrote and appeared on the first and original version of "Xxplosive" (entitled "Way I Be Pimping"), he also wrote "The Message".^[2] Royce wrote several tracks such as "The Throne Is Mine" and "Stay In Your Place" which were later cut from the final track list. The tracks have been leaked later on several mixtapes, including Pretox.^[3] Royce's then manager revealed that Royce was involved in writing for Dr. Dre, he then requested that Royce cut ties with his manager. Royce refused to fire his manager and his relationship with Dre ended resulting in Bad Meets Evil group work to dissolve.

In 2010, it was announced that Eminem was in the process of signing Slaughterhouse, a rap group of which Royce is a member. The group together with Royce later appeared on a bonus track for Eminem's Recovery album titled "Session One". The deal was finalized in 2011. The two rappers started rapping together and two of their songs, "Living Proof" and "Echo", were leaked. They later appeared on another song together, this time with the new Shady Records team, Slaughterhouse and Yelawolf, on "2.0 Boys", which is also titled "Game Over". Most recently a song titled "Fast Lane"^[4] was leaked to the internet, though it became the lead single on their latest EP while becoming their first top 40 hit as a group. The album was released on June 14, 2011.^[5]
Eminem:

"Royce and I started hanging out again and inevitably that led us back into the studio. At first we were just seeing where it went without any real goal in mind, but the songs started to come together crazy, so here we are."^[6]

Royce da 5'9":

"I'm excited to see this project come to fruition considering the long lapse in time between when we worked before and now. We had a blast doing it and we just hope everyone enjoys it while we're working on the 'Monster' that will be the Slaughterhouse album

A DEEP IN A FRANK OCEAN

Ocean was evacuated from the University of New Orleans to Los Angeles California just as Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005, and stayed to pursue a music career. In 2008 through his former manager Touch, Ocean got introduced to The MIDI Mafia while working on a record called "Overload". At that point in time, Ocean created a catalog of music and placed numerous records (Justin Bieber, John Legend, Brandy) with the producer duo The MIDI Mafia. Ocean joined Los Angeles based hip hop collective OFWGKTA, who he met through his connections, at the end of 2009.^[2][3] In late 2009, he met Tricky Stewart, who helped Ocean sign a contract with Def Jam Recordings as a solo artist, however, he was initially unable to build a relationship with the company.^[3][4][5] In 2010, he changed his name from Christopher Breaux to Christopher Francis Ocean via a legal website.

 Ocean appeared in Tyler, the Creator's music video for the single "She", from Tyler's 2011 studio album Goblin.^[13][14] Ocean first performed with Odd Future at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in April of 2011, then later joined his OFWGKTA bandmates for the first time on tour from May 12 to May 19, 2011. They toured the eastern seaboard of the United States.^[15] On May 19, 2011 Ocean's record label Def Jam announced its plans to re-release Nostalgia, Ultra as an EP.^[16] The single "Novacane" was released to iTunes on May 31, 2011, and the EP originally was set to be released on July 26, 2011, but through his Tumblr blog on July 24th, he stated that it would not be released on that date.^[17][18] In June 2011, Ocean revealed on his Tumblr that he would be working on the upcoming Kanye West and Jay-Z collaborative album, Watch the Throne.^[19] Ocean was ultimately a writer and featured artist on the tracks "No Church in the Wild" and "Made in America".^[20][21] On July 28th, 2011 a song titled "Thinking About You"^[22] was leaked on the internet. It was later revealed the song was a reference track and written for Roc Nation artist Bridget Kelly for her first studio album.^[23] Kelly who has performed an acoustic version of the song, has renamed it "Thinking About Forever".^[24] On September 15, 2011 a music video titled "Thinking of You" was released and were the visuals for Frank Ocean's version of the song, so it is currently unknown on which project the song will end up on