Crib Notes

Back in ’06, when NY hip-hop critics began hailing the arrival of Atlanta-based rapper Young Jeezy, it left a lot of southern rap aficionados a little mystified. It wasn’t so much that we weren’t feeling Jeezy’s trap-or-die flow, we just didn’t expect those East Coast hip-hop snobs to jump on the Snowman’s jock so quick.

Well, looks like it’s about to snow again. Another Atlanta trap-rapper OJ da Juiceman (coincidentally affiliated with one-time Jeezy rival, Gucci Mane) has been creating quite a buzz with such mixtapes as Culinary Art School and I Got the Juice. And Fader, for one, has taken notice. The music mag typically favors alternative progressives (Kanye West and No Age cover reversible sides of its December issue — argue amongst yourselves), so the interest in OJ is suspect.

Call me a paranoid Southerner, but their praise of the artist seems like a joke everyone is in on but da Juiceman, himself.

You make the call. Check out the video interview above that Fader filmed over lunch with OJ in NY.

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It’s been a busy week for T.I. It started inauspiciously with a confrontation with Chaka Zula, co-CEO at Disturbing tha Peace Records (Ludacris, Chingy). According to an MTV News story, the two faced off during a luncheon in Los Angeles hosted by Warner Music exec Kevin Liles. They began arguing — no one knows what it was about — and then T.I. punched Chaka in the face. A lot of people (mainly bloggers) opined that it was a continuation of the years-old rivalry between DTP co-CEO Ludacris and T.I.

By Tuesday, however, T.I. bounced back with a win at the BET Awards for Best Hip-Hop Artist. (He apologized for the fight during his acceptance speech, and said, “There’s a fine line between brilliance and insanity.”) His fifth album, T.I. vs. T.I.P., comes out Tuesday, July 3, and while reviews of it have been decidedly lukewarm, it will probably sell a butt-load of copies when it first hits stores. In this week’s issue of CL, I weighed in on Tip’s latest would-be trap-sterpiece. You can read it here.

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