Going on tour with Lil Wayne and Drake would be a career boost for just about any artist, but YG has been grounded just a week after it was announced that he would join the Young Money stars on the road.

“Irvine/Hollywood , the LAPD ain’t letting me perform at the #DrakeVsWayne dates today and Monday,” the My Krazy Life rapper tweeted on Friday (September 19). “All that giving bak must don’t matter.”

The Drake Vs. Lil Wayne Tour is scheduled to hit the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, California tonight, the Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, California tomorrow and then it’s off to Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Monday.

YG, a Compton native, says he won’t be performing at two out of the three dates.

MTV News reached out to a media relations representative for the Los Angeles Police Department and was told that the department had no information regarding the matter. We were also told that the LAPD has no jurisdiction in Irvine.

Rob Markman

Mentally been many places, but I'm Brooklyn's own. Hip-hop gives me life!

@RobMarkman

Young Thug makes no secret about his admiration for Lil Wayne, and these days the “Stoner” rapper has been getting pretty comfortable around the Cash Money clique.

First up is his Rich Gang collaboration with Rich Homie Quan and Birdman, but by the time Thugger gets to his proper solo debut, he just may decide to pay homage to Weezy and title the project Tha Carter VI. Maybe.

“I dunno, ’cause Wayne’s coming out with more albums,” Thug told MTV News while on set for a Rich Gang video in Atlanta on September 11. “I don’t know if he’s gonna name one of them Carter VI. It depends on what he names his album.”

Wayne’s Tha Carter V is scheduled to drop on October 28. Originally, Weezy said C5 would be his last solo project, but later revealed that he would be dropping another LP titled Da Other Album a few months after.

In March, Wayne also told us that Tha Carter V would definitely be his last entry into his flagship series, which just may leave the lane wide open for Thug. A lane that Thugger plans to capitalize off if possible. “Carter VI to X, he did one to five, I’m gonna do six to 10,” he said.

Rob Markman

Mentally been many places, but I'm Brooklyn's own. Hip-hop gives me life!

@RobMarkman

Freeway and the Jacka released their joint-LP Highway Robbery on Tuesday, it was an album that was six-years in the making. It’s not that Free, a former solider on Jay Z’s now defunct Roc-A-Fella Records, or the Jacka, a Bay Area rap veteran, were just sitting around doing nothing — actually they’ve been quite busy.

“It’s crazy because the kinda music we were making, it wasn’t made for a time,” Free told MTV News on Monday during a telephone interview. “We were just trying to be creative and talk about stuff that most time people don’t get a chance to talk about because the label wants you to be in the moment when you drop an album.”

There is a certain timeless element to Highway Robbery. Songs like “Cherry Pie,” with Freddie Gibbs, deal with universal struggle, while “On My Toes” teaches how to stay true to your hood while still reaching for worldwide goals.

The truth is, Highway Robbery probably won’t resonate with average rap consumers who march to the beat of Drake’s drums or Nicki Minaj’s super bass, but as an independent release, it’s a significant marker as to where the business of hip-hop is today. The album was released as a joint collaboration between Free’s Team Early Entertainment and the Jacka’s The Artist Records; and it is distributed by InGrooves Fontana.

It’s a far cry from Freeway’s Roc-A-Fella days, where he released just one album while the company was under Hov’s watch. The independent ...

50 Cent’s grandmother Beluah Jackson has died, MTV News learned on Wednesday (September 17).

Initially, popular blog site Hiphop-N-More picked up on the story after the rapper’s cousin posted a dedication on Instagram, and we were able to confirm the news through a source. The exact time and cause of death is unknown.

It is no secret that the G-Unit founder had a rough upbringing, but the star rapper has always cherished his relationship with his grandmother and consistently spoke lovingly of her. In June, Fif revealed to New York radio host Angie Martinez that his grandmother was recently sick on her former show on Hot 97.

“Her actually being sick, for me this is the only person who took care of me,” he said. “It’s really uncomfortable for me.

“If I had one person in the world that I could give everything that I have to and I’d be comfortable with it, it’ll be my grandmother,” he continued.

In 2012, Fif sat down with Oprah Winfrey and filmed the interview in his grandparents’ home. “I’ve always had to be two people. I’ve had to be my grandmother’s baby in the house and be more like what people perceive 50 Cent as outside. I’m not even allowed to curse around her.”

50 has also referenced Mrs. Jackson on song’s like Game’s “Hate It or Love It” and on “Talk About Me,” where he wrote an entire verse from his grandmother’s perspective.

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Longtime Common fans know the voice of his father, Lonnie “Pops” Lynn, all too well, as he’s appeared on several of the rapper’s albums. But on Monday, the Com confirmed that his dad passed away. Lynn was 71.

Common gave no details, but praised his dad’s work. “He was truly a natural poet and master of words. His personality and soul shined through his work,” the AP reported on Monday. “The way he said things made me look at life and the world in a new way, in a different way. They always sparked a thought in my head. His words would always make me strive to achieve higher, to write better, to be more truthful with my words.”

Pops first appeared on Common’s 1994 album Resurrection LP on “Pop’s Rap” and not only taught his son, but passed on many lessons to those of us who were listening as well. Here are some of the biggest lessons we learned from Lonnie “Pops” Lynn.

Peace Grows From Love

On the original “Pop’s Rap,” Mr. Lynn told us what it was like back in his day and all about the hope he had for this hip-hop generation. “I see harmony, understanding and they’re working on that love thing, too,” he said optimistically.

Being A Father Isn’t A One-Way Street

On “Pop’s Rap, Part 2/ Fatherhood,” Lynn was so proud of his son, who had grown to a certified rap star and was also expecting his first child. Pops went on to tell ...

Chris Brown is a perpetual underdog, constantly on a comeback from something, and his latest album, X, is the breadcrumb trail that he hopes will lead him back to the pop pedestal he once stood on.

Breezy’s X was originally scheduled for a 2013 release, off the back of his Michael Jackson-inspired sing-along “Fine China,” but after mounting legal trouble and mandated anger management treatment, the album was pushed back. Brown was then arrested in March on a probation violation and locked up until June, putting the LP in limbo for the first half of the year.

Luckily for Chris, his music reigned and the album was finally released on Tuesday (September 16). Project lead-ups like the aforementioned “Fine China” and the Nicki Minaj-assisted “Love More” proved that Brown had legitimate heat to offer, but it was his December single “Loyal” that burned up the the Billboard charts.

X feels like it exists in two parts. There’s the standard edition album with sure-fire winners like the love-in-the-club tune “New Flame,” with Usher and Rick Ross. Then there’s the deluxe edition, which tacks on the older 2013 offerings at the end. While there’s surely some label-backed marketing reason that explains the division, X is best when digested as an entire body of work.

“Don’t Think They Know” features a posthumous performance from Aaliyah and a vocal throw to Jon B.’s 1998 hit “They Don’t Know”; and honestly, the track is too good ...

Things got pretty tense between Wale and Meek Mill after a social media tit-for-tat in back in July, but now the Ambition MC says things are all good.

Wale called into D.C.’s The Russ Par Morning Show on Monday and spoke about Meek after he was asked if his Maybach Music boss Rick Ross played peacemaker.

“He was high,” Wale said of Ross. “Rozay was on though. He gon’ come in that joint smelling like a tree trunk. But that’s how he is though. He was just like, ‘Man, what? We ain’t talking ‘bout this right now.’”

On July 8, Meek tweeted ill of Wale because he claimed his MMG partner-in-rhyme didn’t properly help promote the release date for his upcoming Dreams Worth More Than Money LP. Wale responded with an Instagram post of his own and fans were left wondering about Maybach’s internal strife.

Rather than have Ross intervene, Wale alluded that the two rappers worked things out by themselves, but what really put things in perspective for the “Lotus Flower Bomb” spitter is when Meek was thrown in jail for a probation violation just days after their tiff on July 11.

“The crazy thing about it is, Meek ended up going to jail like two days later. So it’s bad. You have an argument with somebody and then something bad happen and you like, ‘Damn.’ So it was bad for me in that regard,”” he said.

Wale admits that he hasn’t ...

Just about everything Kanye West does these days makes headlines. Not only is the Chicago rapper one of the most accomplished musicians around, his level of celebrity and the fascination surrounding his life continues to grow. But the most recent story surrounding Yeezy has him making a plea to the media: “Pick a new target.”

“I’m a married Christian man with a family. At my concerts, I make sure everybody has good of a time as possible, so all this demonizing me it ain’t going to work after a while,” West said to fans at the Brisbane, Australia, stop on his Yeezus Tour Sunday night.

‘Ye was irked by the coverage of a concert over the weekend where he asked all audience members to stand-up — including a couple of handicapped concertgoers. West sent a security guard into the crowd, confirmed that one of his fans was in a wheelchair and continued with his show.

“Pick a new target. Pick a new target ’cause I’m not one of these dumb-ass artists that you’re used to,” he continued. “You come at me and I’m gonna take my platform and break this shit down for real intelligent people every night so they can understand, then we get back to the music.”

During his speech, West called out NBC’s Matt Lauer and asked that the “Today” show anchor not force him into a “fake-ass apology,” referring to the time he went on the show and backtracked on his 2005 “George Bush ...

Shortly after September 13, 1994, hit and the Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die sunk in with hip-hop fans, it was clear the Brooklyn rap don could do no wrong.

The deep baritone in his voice, the perfect syncopation in his flow and the lyrics, God, how the lyrics resonated. But it wasn’t until after Biggie died on March 9, 1997, that hip-hop widely crowned him the Greatest MC of All Time (unfortunate timing but it’s rare anyone gets the flowers while they can still smell them).

Still, after Ready to Die it was clear that Big was a lyrical titan with a wit and musical might that few, if any, could match. But there were a few close calls.

Enter: “The What,” Biggie’s collaboration with Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man. It was the sole rap feature on Big’s classic and perhaps his most evenly matched duet.

Most rap fans didn’t know what to expect from a Biggie Smalls album, but in 1994 Meth was a rap-savior-in-the-making, the Chosen One that many picked to take pole position in the 1990s. There was more weight placed on Meth’s shoulders than Nas, Jay Z or Big. He was, after all, the breakout star in the Wu-Tang Clan, the only one in the nine-man group to earn his own solo single on their 1993 classic, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

Meth’s solo debut, Tical, wouldn’t come until two months later, but he set expectations even higher, going toe-to-toe with Big on “The What.” Some would ...

The Notorious B.I.G. changed the game on September 13, 1994, when he released his multiplatinum debut Ready to Die. Under the guidance of Bad Boy CEO Sean “Diddy” Combs, Big was able to take dark and grim tales from his native Brooklyn and make them relatable to the world, spitting over smoothed-out hip-hop beats.

There isn’t an MC worth listening to that the late-Biggie hasn’t influenced, and there are few albums that you can even mention in the same breath as his debut; that’s why we’re still celebrating it 20 years later.

The way we see it, listeners have had two full decades to absorb every nuance of Ready to Die, and if you’re a real B.I.G. fan then you know the LP front to back — so our Ready to Die quiz should be a breeze. If Guerilla Black is more your thing, maybe you’re better off sitting this one out.

Rob Markman

Mentally been many places, but I'm Brooklyn's own. Hip-hop gives me life!

@RobMarkman