From the Microsoft press release Microsoft’s Zune Delivers Connected Music and Entertainment Experience we learn

The Zune Experience

Available this holiday season inthe United States, Zune includes a 30GB digital media player, the ZuneMarketplace music service and a foundation for an online community thatwill enable music fans to discover new music. The Zune device featureswireless technology, a built-in FM tuner and a bright, 3-inch screenthat allows users to not only show off music, pictures and video, butalso to customize the experience with personal pictures or themes totruly make the device their own. Zune comes in three colors: black,brown and white.

Every Zune device creates an opportunity forconnection. Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets consumers spontaneouslyshare full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings,playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices. Listen to thefull track of any song you receive up to three times over three days.If you like a song you hear and want to buy it, you can flag it righton your device and easily purchase it from the Zune Marketplace.

Zunemakes it easy to find music you love — whether it’s songs in yourexisting library or new music from the Zune Marketplace. Easily importyour existing music, pictures and videos in many popular formats andbrowse millions of songs on Zune Marketplace, where you can choose topurchase tracks individually or to buy a Zune Pass subscription todownload as many songs as you want for a flat fee.

To getstarted with great music and videos out of the box, every Zune deviceis preloaded with content from record labels such as DTS, EMI Music’sAstralwerks Records and Virgin Records, Ninja Tune,Playlouderecordings, Quango Music Group, Sub Pop Records, andV2/Artemis Records.

Nice. The ability to share songs with friends so they can try before they buy is quite nice. I don't know about coming preloaded with music if it's going to be the kind of stuff you see pimped in the blogs of Zune insiders like Cesar Menendez and Richard Winn. What would be sweet, would be getting themed preloaded music (e.g. hip hop, heavy metal, or pretentious emo music preloads). I'd prefer that to a one size fits all approach to preloading music on the devices.

You can also find more information about Zune devices including pictures in Cesar Menendez's blog post entitled Zune Details Revealed.

I've probably mentioned that in my teenage years I was in a rap group with some friends from high school. Eventually, I became a computer geek and now work at Microsoft. However some of my friends kept at it and some of their friends have as well. Thanks to YouTube, I can now share their music with you

1. My name is... by Ikechukwu

2. Delicious by BigLo feat. 2shotz

It's great to see some of my friends living their dream. It's definitely made my day.

By the way, uploading videos to YouTube is ridiculously easy. Any Microsoft competitor in this space will have a hard act to follow. It will be interesting to see if YouTube ends up getting usurped from the #1 spot.

An artist's transition from gangsta rapper to pop star is always a weird one for fans. For example, there was a joke on this week's episode of the Boondocks about how Ice Cube "the guy who makes family movies" used to be a hard core gangsta rapper. I've personally been amused by how the subject matter of their songs changes as they realize that their fan base is dominated by prepubescent and teenage suburbanites as opposed to hip hop heads from the 'hood. 

On the album Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse Jay-Z has a song called Poppin' Tags which is about going to the mall and shopping. The subject matter of the song is the kind of thing you'd expect from Hilary Duff not Jigga. 

However 50 Cent has Jay-Z beat when it comes to songs targetted at the teenage mallrat crowd. On the soundtrack to his movie Get Rich or Die Tryin' 50 has two songs that belie his status as a gangsta rapper. There's the poorly crooned Window Shopper about how 50 Cent gets to go to the mall to buy stuff you can't afford. Then there's Best Friend where he begs to be some girl's "best friend" if the other guy in her life is "just a friend". 

But it gets worse.

Mike Torres sent me a link to a post entitled 50 Cent Caught Red Handed which is excerpted below

Remember that story about 50 Cent performing at some little girl's bat mitzvah? Yeah, you wish it didn't really happen. Nothing says hardcore gangster rapper like a teenie-bop white girl dancing to your music with two hundred of her closest white teenie-bop friends.

More pictures from the $500,000 bat mitzvah after the jump.

UPDATE: You can see all the photos from the bat mitzvah here.

Keep it real, Fiddy.

The time has come again for me to share the top five crunk tracks getting heavy rotation on my iPod. If you like Lil' Jon or the Ying Yang Twinz but don't know what else from the dirty south might tickle your fancy, try some of these tracks.

1. Grillz - Nelly feat. Paul Wall & St. Lunatics
2. What U Drankin' On - Jim Jones feat. P.Diddy, Paul Wall & Jha' Jha
3. Stay Fly - Three Six Mafia feat. Young Buck, Eightball & MJG
4. Stay Fly (Still Fly Remix) - Three Six Mafia feat. Slim Thug, Trick Daddy & Project Pat
5. Turn It Up - Chamillionaire feat. Lil Flip

During the intro for Three Six Mafia's Most Known Unknown, they complain that they influenced a lot of what is popular in hip hop today but don't get the credit. These seems very true to me. I remember listening to tracks like Tear the Club Up and Hit a Muthafucka back in the late '90s in Atlanta before any of the ATL rappers really became hot down south. I'd definitely recommend the Most Known Unknown Hits to any fan of the genre.

PS: I don't like D4L's Laffy Taffy but it is the first song that I've seen have about a dozen people doing synchronized dance steps in a club. So it gets an honorary mention.

Can't write lyrics worth a damn, can't rap to save his life but can make phat beats and has an ego the size of a small planet. I guess we now know what it takes to be a successful rapper and it has nothing to do with rapping.

I was at the Anger Management 3 concert last night and it was quite the show. Lil' Jon & The Eastside Boyz were a welcome surprise as the opening act. They cycled through the BME clique hits from "Get Low" to "Salt Shaker" for the 30 minutes they were on stage. The problem with Lil' Jon is that most of the hits you associate him with are collaborations so at concerts you end up getting half the performance not being live for songs such as "Yeah!" or "Lovers & Friends".

The next set had the entire G-Unit record label including newly signed acts like Mobb Deep & M.O.P. performing for just over an hour. The first part of the G-Unit set sucked because we had to sit through the crap singles from Tony Yayo, Young Buck and Lloyd Banks solo efforts as well as some of the crud from The Massacre. Halfway through it picked up with the better songs from The Massacre (Disco Inferno, Candy Shop), old hits from Get Rich or Die Tryin' (P.I.M.P., In Da Club, Wanksta) and G-Unit's Beg for Mercy (I Wanna Get To Know Ya). M.O.P. did their hit from a few years ago, "Ante Up", and Mobb Deep hit the crowd with "Quiet Storm" without Lil' Kim. There was a momentary infusion of crap when a lot of time was devoted to a new 50 Cent & Mobb Deep song but the show got back on track after that. The G-Unit set was OK but I'd have loved t hear some of their mix tape cuts instead of just mainstream tracks.

Eminem killed. He made the concert go from OK to fantastic with almost an hour and a half of performances from himself and D12. Even 50 Cent got in on the act when they performed "Patiently Waiting" and "Gatman & Robin". The parts of the show where Eminem riffed with the audience about tabloids, Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson were also golden.

If this show is going to hit your town you should definitely check it out.

A few years ago I decided to relocate to Seattle and take a job with Microsoft. One of the things I knew I was going to miss was the Atlanta night life and all the various clubs that played crunk music. As luck would have it, I moved here around the same time that music from the Dirty South started to gain national prominence. I'm still taken aback sometimes when I hear Lil Jon played at the average yuppie infested club or bar in downtown Seattle when back in my college days you had to go to clubs outside downtown Atlanta if you wanted to hear Oomp Camp, Lil Jon, Pastor Troy, Ying Yang Twins or any other crunk local acts.

Of course, not all the good crunk stuff gets radio airplay despite how much Lil Jon is being played these days. Below are some of the songs that have been getting regular play as part of my daily routine. Depending on where you live some of it is mainstream while some of it isn't. Enjoy.

1. Give Me That - Lil Boosie & Webbie (Featuring Bun B)
2. I Smoke I Drank (remix) - Body Head Bangerz (Featuring Youngbloodz)
3. Still Tippin' - Mike Jones (Featuring Slim Thug And Paul Wall)
4. Girlfight - Brooke Valentine (Featuring Lil Jon & Big Boi)
5. Some Cut - Trillville (Featuring Cutty)

If you have some suggestions for new tracks I should check out, post a comment below.

After several months of waiting for The Game's new album, The Documentary is finally out. I knew subscribing to Amazon's RSS feeds would come in handy.

G-G-G-G-G-Unit!!!

Before Jay-Z: Independent Women & Bills Bills Bills

After Jay-Z: Cater 2 U

Thanks to my sister coming over for Thanksgiving I find out that G-Unit will be performing in concert in Nigeria. The interesting bit for me is that since my mom works for a TV station back home she'll get to meet 50 Cent and crew personally. While talking to her on the phone this morning it took all my restraint to not ask her to get an autograph for me.

I felt like I was twelve years old. :)