That delightful female rapper, Lil’ Kim is apparently being sued by her record company. Brookland Media are claiming that Kim has failed to deliver on her contract, and have filed a $2.5 million lawsuit in an attempt to get her back in the studio.

However, Lil’ Kim apparently wanted to change the terms of the contract, after originally agreeing to it. A stalemate seems to have occurred, and Kim has only recorded a few songs as of September, before refusing to continue.

Apparently Brookland are hoping to have the court validate the agreement and presumably force Kim to work under the original terms. According to reports they also want to prevent her from working for other record companies while she’s still under contract to them.

Seems like a fair enough request, but how long before Kim starts walking around with the word ’slave’ tattooed into her boobs and insists on changing her name to TAFKAK?

Nas has chosen Hero as the lead single from his new album, Untitled. And for the ride, he’s bringing along Timbaland’s chum, Keri Hilson.

Initially hollering like Busta Rhymes with a sore throat, Nas immediately slips into a smooth but bland verse. Sounds a lot like old-fashioned homie posturing rather than any real conviction that he’s the ‘hero’ of the title.

Keri Hilson is criminally underused in this song. For a lady of her talents, both vocal and otherwise ;), to be reduced to backing vocals on the chorus is a bit of an insult really.

OK, so rappers aren’t known for their ability to avoid cliches, but Hero is so out of touch, it seems Nas needs a little reality check.

Well, here it is people, the album artwork for the new The Streets album, Everything Is Borrowed. It’s due to be in an online store near you on 15th September.

The lead single from Everything Is Borrowed is The Escapist, which is currently available as a free download from their official site. The second single is the album title track, Everything Is Borrowed.

From what we’re hearing, the new album should be a much more positive affair than the previous release, The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living. Some of the official blurb says:

From its uplifting title-track - a euphoric meditation on how to make the best of life’s infinite possibilities – to the almost mystical finale, “The Escapist” (wherein Mike Skinner happily ponders the insignificance of “little, fleeting, momentary me” in the dappled sunlight of his “favourite tree”), Everything Is Borrowed seems to be lit from within by a healing flame of optimism. Freed from celebrity hang-ups and savouring a thrilling rush of new-found perspective, Mike Skinner has made a record to console the lonely and bring a smile to the saddest visage. Warm-hearted, witty and utterly distinctive, this is music to help Britain through the credit-crunch.

Almost sounds a bit Zen, doesn’t it?

Track Listing

1. Everything Is Borrowed
2. Heaven For The Weather
3. I Love You More (Than You Like Me)
4. Just Thought Of Something
5. On The Flip Of A Coin
6. The Sherry End
7. Alleged Legends
8. What Are Chances Of That Like?
9. When That Day Will Be
10. Further Away
11. Strongest Person I Know
12. The Escapist

The excitement of big name album releases this year continues, with Dr. Dre’s latest project, Detox being considered for release in “November or December”.

Dre hasn’t released a full solo album since 1999’s 2001 (confused?), but considering it took him 7 years between The Chronic and 2001, you can be fairly sure that the Doc has been putting his heart and soul into the production of this album.

However, we can’t help thinking that things just ain’t the same for gangsters these days. You know, time’s are changing, young niggaz is aging. But it’s not as if Dre’s been in deep freeze since 2001 came out. He’s been behind some major music acts in the last few years, acting as producer. No, it’s not like we forgot about Dre.

Ahem.

If you can’t tell, we were massive fans of Dr. Dre’s last album here at Unreality Music. To say we’re stoked about a full new album from him is an understatement.

Anyway, Dre recently spoke to USA Today about the new album -

I’m just now - over the last couple of months - starting to feel that it’s going to be right and it’s something I can be proud of, and everybody is going to love it.

In a perfect world I’m shooting for a November or December release. I’m going to put this record out, promote it, tour and then become a hermit. I’m going to stay in the studio and produce.

And what Dre release would be complete without cameos from the best and brightest in Hip-Hop? Big names rumoured to be on this album are Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Nas. No word on Snoop, but that’s almost a given, isn’t it?

It sounds like Slim Shady might be coming out of his self-imposed retirement for a fifth album if reports from Entertainment Weekly are correct.

It’s been four years since Eminem’s last album Encore, and recently rumours have suggested that his health was suffering and that he may have had a minor heart attack due to becoming overweight.

Em’s apparently got some stuff on his mind, the kind of deep thoughts only an album full of scathing rap tracks would do justice to. In fairness, we thought he’d originally retired because all the dough from his record sales had taken away his bitterness and the bite that attracted us to Eminem in the first place!

What we need is plenty of anger and Shady’s unique ability to offend every demographic while selling stacks of records to their kids. It is said, when the charts are in danger of plumbing the very depths of blandness, a true hero will return to lead us out of the darkness.

Welcome back, Slim…

Linkin Park are no strangers to hooking up with heavy-hitting rap acts, so this collaboration with Busta Rhymes had us pretty excited. At first.

Don’t take this the wrong way guys, but after a few listens you realise you’re waiting for one of those massive Chester Bennington choruses that the LP do so well. We Made It bubbles under with tension all the way through, all sinister piano lines and gruff lyrics, but there’s no real ‘high point’ to the song and you walk away slightly disappointed.

Busta phones in a slightly mumbled performance, to the point where he’s unintelligible in places. Bennington and the brilliant Mike Shinoda get their fair share of vocal time, but there’s not much for either act to be proud of throughout this.

Alex Lai considers it a bit of a cash-in, and it’s certainly bringing home the bacon in the charts, but we can’t help wondering if this is the absolute best these guys could come up with…

Estelle’s been moaning to Celebs On Sunday about being misquoted by The Guardian - if you remember the story, she apparently dissed both Duffy and Adele for not being soulful enough. Run that through the headline-o-meter and the context seemed to imply that she was saying that them there white folks had no business singing soul songs.

She says in her missive that people

have created feuds between me and other artists. Adele and me, we have no beef, and I’ve never met Duffy.

But I think ‘Mercy‘ and ‘Chasing Pavements‘ are pop songs, not soul songs, and people have translated that as me saying, ‘White girls can’t sing’.

It strikes us as a little bit ironic using the traditional press to contradict how the media twisted her message. And so long after the interview was originally published back in March.

Let’s face it, if the media mangled her message the first time around, why should she trust them to get it right this time? Maybe the mini-controversy that the news generated at the time helped sales of American Boy? No, we mustn’t be too cynical, must we?

Estelle, if you want a direct line to your fans - to tell them about your music and to correct nasty headlines - maybe consider taking a leaf out of Lily’s book and starting herself a wee blog. Heck, even her American Boy collaborator - Kanye West - has a pretty cool blog going where he likes to share his interests and occasionally rant about things that are bugging him.

Get yourself a blog, Estelle.

It’s always been a mystery why Amerie hasn’t been more successful. With tunes like One Thing, Gotta Work, and Take Control, she’s an R&B artist who should be swimming in record sales right now.

Good times might be on the horizon though - after splitting with her former label, Columbia, earlier in the year, Amerie has recently signed with Def Jam.

Word on the street is that she’s already hard at work in the studio, although there is the small matter of her 2007 album Because I Love It, which was never actually released in the USA.

We can’t help but wonder if Amerie will get better support and promotion from Def Jam. She’s already released some great tunes in her career, but seems to have suffered from being marketed as a Beyonce clone rather than a pretty hot (in both senses of the word) R&B artist in her own right.

Of course, we won’t complain too much if she continues to run around in her pants in the music videos…

It’s about time we talked about Usher’s latest single, Love In This Club. Long terms readers of this blog will know my thoughts on Usher and how much I resent his existence in the pop charts.

However, no-one can deny the greatness of this track. Not only is this a great track, I’m going as far as to call it an epic track, and you don’t get many of those in R&B these days.

Originally titled Lust At First Sight, they obviously came to their senses and gave the song a less cheesy name, allowed awkwardly-named rapper Young Jeezy to do a verse and roped in hot-babe-for-hire Keri Hilson for the video.

The video itself features an all-star cast with Diddy, Nelly and Kanye all showing up in support of possibly one of the best R&B tracks of 2008. The only weak point is a lame bit of acting at the start as they try to establish Hilson’s character as some kind of ethereal hot chick who teases Usher by appearing and disappearing in the club of the title.

A spectacular turnaround from the guy, as I never ever expected to be writing a positive review of an Usher song. Even a jaded music hack like me can be surprised from time to time…

Do you think Kanye West takes himself too seriously? He’s well known for blowing up at award shows when he gets stiffed by the establishment in favour of other acts.

Anyway, he took exception to a review of his Seattle gig by Entertainment Weekly where they rated the show a B+.

The review is actually full of praise for Kanye’s performance, but calls into question the ‘conceptual hokeyness’ of the show, evidenced by a talking spaceship:

So, his only companion, the disembodied voice of his talking spaceship, Jane, tried some brownnosing: “We need the brightest star in the universe-you, Kanye! Only you can bring us home. You can glow in the dark.”

To which, Kanye got a little emotional and responded in a fiery blog post:

Ya’ll rated my album shitty and now ya’ll come to the show and give it a B+. What’s a B+ mean? I’m an extremist. It’s either pass or fail! A+ or F-!…I make art. You can’t rate this. I’m a real person. I’m not a pop star. I don’t care about anything but making great art. Never come 2 one of my shows ever again, you’re not invited and if you see me…BOW!!

I don’t know how serious these outbursts are, but they are entertaining! For my part, I think West’s one of the most gifted performers of his generation. Yes, he has an ego to match his abilities, but you’ve gotta love the dude for his sheer brilliance.