Authenticity. It sometimes seems almost a forgotten concept in this age of most things plastic. To achieve it, one needs both credentials and validation. The artist known as Elan heads into his Interscope debut release, Together As One, with both items already firmly in place. The album is executive produced by No Doubt’s Tony Kanal and features some of the most amazing musicians and producers in Jamaican reggae culture: Sly & Robbie, Fatis, Steve “Lenky” Marsden, Tony Kelly and DJ legend Cutty Ranks among them. The album was recorded between Jamaica, Miami and Kanal’s Los Angeles studio.

While the South has kicked down the door and had a strong foothold on Hip Hop’s overall direction, there is still fresh talent brewing in the region. Perion is a multi-talented musician who has been grinding behind the scenes for over 17 years, and he is ready to let the world know his name. As summer approaches, Perion is returning to the spotlight with “Way I Be Leanin”, the third single from Juvenile’s Reality Check album, which features Paul Wall, Mike Jones, Skip and Wacko. He also has tracks coming up with Fat Al, G.T.M. and Trick Daddy.

Edgars, 5fm, Metro FM and Goodhope FM join their powerful forces with Big Concerts to bring you the cream of the hip-hop crop! The truly unique, talented Kanye West will be jetting into South Africa for two performances this July, performing at the Coca-Cola Dome on the 11th and at the Bellville Velodrome on the 14th. Read on for more info…

Ten Percent is a Hip Hop Event that will be taking place on Saturday the 20th May, 2006. That’s this Saturday! Godessa will be performing live, as well as Eastern Robotics. There will be an open-mic session as well as live graf art by wealz130…

Mzansi hip-hop network is a central network that provides platforms to unsigned artists.We provide platforms to unsigned artists with limited resources,thus providing the public with the opportunity to access massive collection of local hip hop joints.Mzansi hip hop main focus is to create channels from grass root level to allow unsigned artists to showcase their talents globally.

Award winning Afrikaans rap group KALLITZ have dropped their long awaited second album, entitled “Dukgesuip”, featuring fellow artists Carla Diamonde, Duane Norman and David Johnson, as well as a collaboration with South Africa’s best selling recording artist Steve Hofmeyr. “Suikerbossie”, the first single release off “Dukgesuip”, has been featured on SABC 2’s Pasella and topped the Mweb Download Charts for four consecutive weeks. The album was written and composed by Dokter and Boere, produced by Dokter at Xzekutiv Records and executive produced by Dokter and Sir Alex for Mothermix Records…

The festival has grown from a 3 day to a 4-day event, and it’s travelling. This year it will be held in Joburg from 30th Nov- 3rd Dec. The festival is open to all new and emerging artists. Imbawula Trust, which organises the festival, will be having pre-festival gigs to fundraise and select artists who want to perform at this year’s festival. The first gig is happening at Kingston Dancehall, Azalea Street, Chicago, Paarl on 3rd June. There will also be gigs happening in Cape Town soon. For more information, or if you wish to perform at the gigs and thus are willing to be selected for the upcoming festival, contact: Kato (C.T.) 073 317 4588 or email kato.97@gmail.com Gmax (Paarl) 076 212 3661 Jah-Logo (Paarl) 073 602 6886

D-Roc, of the Ying Yang Twins, and his younger brothers, Mr. Ball, 23 and Da Birthday Boy, 19 are Da Muzicianz. Having pursued their obsessive love for music – southern hip-hop particularly – with songs like “The Walk,” which appears on the YYT’s platinum-selling (U.S.A.) United State of Atlanta and “Get Yern,” the hard-hitting crunkadelic groove featured on Still United, the Twins’ U.S.A. bridge release CD/DVD combo, these East Atlantans are on a quest to keep people dancing and having fun while simultaneously morphing the hip-hop game into its next phase…

South African Hip Hop Pioneer, Emile Jansen, founder member of Black Noise Hip Hop Group, creator of African Hip Hop Indaba, Battle of the Year, African Battle Cry, Shut Up Just Dance, Our Hip Hop and the Heal the Hood Project will be heading to San Francisco, California on the 13th May 2006 to expand the Heal the Hood network for exchange between young hip hoppers, youth and families globally…

This kid from Houston, Texas has some nerve. That’s what came to mind as you watched an MTV special in early 2005 showcasing H-Town’s commercial and artistic re-emergence on the rap scene. Following his brazen freestyle, the focused and much-heralded MC known as Chamillionaire faced a national audience and launched a swagger-filled proclamation on camera: “I’m the truth from Texas…” While such boasting may seem par-for-the-course in the prideful 25-year-plus history of hip-hop, the latter ambitious statement aptly describes Chamillionaire. It’s the reason why he earned the lofty alias “The Mixtape Messiah,” a title Cham was crowned after independently selling over 100,000 copies of the Get Ya Mind Correct album, and by selling thousands of his numerous mix tapes…

Miss Controversy recently returned from New York and had the privilege of meeting loads of heads and got the chance to interview Metaphysic.  In case you don’t know he has produced for Jay Z, Dead Prez and many others.  In this interview he talks a bit about the New York scene, inspirations, thoughts on the hip hop culture, touches a bit on sampling in Hip Hop productions plus he talks about his upcoming projects.  Read on to check out the entire interview…

Uncut Poerty at Cape Technikon Friday the 12 May 2006. Hip hop and Spoken word are sisters of the same mother and father. This spoken word session embraces that to the fullest. Artist such as Sakhile Moleshe, Qhama, Lerato, Vusi, Unic, Driemanskaap and many more who take their music seriously. Entrance is R10.00. For more info contact Blqseed@yahoo.com.

Battleground Sessions on the 21st of this month at Protea North Park in Protea North – Soweto from 13:00pm.   Guyz… a new REVOLUTION has been born called Battleground, it’s a show dedicated to real Hip Hop with live battles by some of J-sections finest Mc`s like Hooligan, Black Therapy, Master spliff aka Noise, Eucoluptus and performances by the likes of Dot com, Snubz, Landmynz, Devious D and many more.  Some of the biggest Dj`s & crews will be there like Deep Soweto, Unidentified, GS, Exodus, Asylum Tribe, Landmynz, Sypher Nerdz, Focus Crew, Battlecamp and even some crews we’ve never even heard of , so come through you wont regret it.  Read here for more details.

First and the foremost, would like to take this opportunity to thank all hip hop and non hip hop cats, who have been supporting us from the beginning of the sessions, the only Pretoria hip hop platform. We have been going a lot of trial and tribulations from so called the veterans of the art form around Pretoria, but we have been put our heads above the water, this lead us on staging the best ever hip hop event on the 2nd of May 2006, which attracted a number of heads from Pretoria, Johannesburg as well as Cape Town, much luv for that…

Gravediggaz Invented the horrorcore Genre in Hip-Hop and no group has to date matched their contribution, While The RZA (Wu-Tang Clan) and Prince Paul have been to busy in other ventures, Poetic The Grym Reaper sadly passed away some years back leaving Fruwkan aka Gate Keeper to carry the Gravediggaz touch, Wu-International sat down and interviewed Fruwkan on everything and anything.