Every week as part of our Saturday night hip hop show The Breaks, hosts Confucius and Fresh present facts about the culture of hip hop and R&B that you might not have known.
Disclaimer: None of these facts have been fact-checked so might in fact be false. Read at your own risk.
#1 – Bone Crusher’s hit single, “Never Scared” was originally recorded by Mississippi’s Reece and Biggalo.
- What do the Rolling Stones and Bone Crusher have in common? They “borrowed” their first hit singles.
# 2 – The plot thickens on the 50 Cent/French Montana beef.
- Remember when 50 cent posted this video and dragged DJ Khalid’s mom into his beef with French Montana? Now 50 claims French, who once accused 50 of being a snitch for the FBI, was the person who leaked the video to G-Unit.
# 3 – Before Benny the Butcher made it big, he wrote a song for the adult film star, Pinky.
- Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
# 4 – T.I. had to put Lil’ Bow Wow in his place.
- Before we knew who T.I. was, he wrote for Lil’ Bow Wow. But the teenage superstar’s head got a little too big for the ATL native.
# 5 – The unsung facilitator of Wu-Tang Clan’s industry takeover, Loud Records, celebrates its 30th anniversary.
- Wu-Tang’s plan from the beginning was to leverage their debut, Enter the 36 Chambers, to launch the solo careers of each individual member. Each member signing to different labels was no accident, and Loud Records was the first to allow its artists to go elsewhere.
# 6 – Def Jam passed on signing future Houston superstars before Houston and Southern rap exploded in the early 2000s.
- Def Jam South head, Scarface tried to sign Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Bun B, as well as others outside of Houston like Ludacris. But the NYC HQ didn’t believe any of them were worth a legitimate record deal. Doubters!
