When hip-hop fans first heard Kendrick Lamar's electric verse on Big Sean's there was a collective gasp. Eager rappers hit the studio in response, but not Drake.

"[I] went about my day, went and got dinner and kept it moving," Drizzy told Billboard magazine in their latest issue of the verse in which K-Dot took Drake and a number of his other rap friends to task, stating that he will figuratively murder them with raps.

"I'm usually homeboys with the same n----s I'm rhymin with/ But this is hip-hop and them n----s should know what time it is/ And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big K.R.I.T., Wale/ Pusha T, Meek Mill, A$AP Rocky, Drake/ Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller/ I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you n----s/ Tryna make sure your core fans never heard of you n----s/ They don't wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you n---as," the Black Hippy MC rapped to the amazement of the rap world at large.

A number of MCs issued responses of different kinds, through the media, Twitter and through song — though none of the MC's named in the verse have released any rebuttal songs yet.

"I didn't really have anything to say about it," Drake said. "It just sounded like an ambitious thought to me. That's all it was. I know good and well that Kendrick's not murdering me, at all, in any platform. So when that day presents itself, I guess we can revisit the topic."

On Thursday, Lamar spoke to ...

Mark Ronson, who has produced for musicians like Adele, Lil Wayne, Nas, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, lent his producing talents to Paul McCartney's new, very Beatles-esque single "New," which dropped late Wednesday ahead of the October 15 album by the same name. In a funny twist of fate, however, one missed phone call could have rewritten history.

Ronson told MTV News that he first started working with McCartney after DJing his wedding to Nancy Shevell two years ago. "He called me to ask me to do it and it was the same weekend of my own wedding and I completely spaced, because I kind of had other sh-- like my own wedding on my mind," Ronson said. "Then on my honeymoon 10 days later, I was like, 'F---! I forgot to call Paul McCartney back, which just sounds like a pretty ridiculous sentence."

Ronson called McCartney back to accept the gig and later went on to DJ another event for the former Beatle in New York. "I think I may subliminally planted an idea in his head that I would love to work together some time and I think he was into the idea, too," Ronson said of the budding relationship. "Then a few months later I got a call and he was like, 'Hey, do you want to come out to the studio?'"

From there, the two started messing around with ideas, including a track called "Secret Life of a Party Girl," which does not appear on McCartney's upcoming album, New. When Ronson heard the track "New," he was ...

Rico Love is a master at putting himself in other people's shoes. The producer/songwriter has made a lasting impression penning hits for Beyoncé, Usher, Trey Songz and Diddy, but now Rico is ready to embark on a new mission as he sings, raps, writes and produces on his debut EP Discrete Luxury.

With a gift for banging beats, a fine-tuned ear for melody and a surprising knack for rapping, Rico crafts a thought-out five-track ride that offers a little of everything. One of the project's most joyful takeaways is its witty look into the male/female dynamic, which is most exemplified on "Everybody's Girl."

On the song, which details the exploits of a very promiscuous woman, Love injects a light-hearted humor similar to Ma$e and a The College Dropout-era Kanye West. "First of all, a lot of people may not know that Ma$e kind of raised me. Ma$e taught me so much, I sat under him for so long, and he showed me a lot about the game and a lot about music, and I was always a fan," Rico told MTV News on Wednesday. "Me and Puff were always close friends and I grew up admiring the Bad Boy era, looking up to him. It's a natural thing for me to borrow from that sound."

"I bet she/ Got two phones, you be like, 'Do you smile like that when you text me'," he raps before singing: "yeah you love her, but she loves everyone."

"With 'Everybody's Girl,' the bounce that I wanted to use is not consistent with what's going ...

From the opening frames of Jay Z's "Holy Grail" video, you notice something is amiss.

Rather than seeing Justin Timberlake belt out his A cappella intro, the viewer instead gets Hov delivering a verse. His performance plays out over a series of nightmarish images — serpents, shadows, silhouettes shafts of light — that make the viewer feel cold, claustrophobic. Jay looks pensive, weary, almost trapped by the, uh, trappings of his success. And then, without notice, the entire video slows down, sags beneath its visual heft, then stops completely. The screen goes black.

Needless to say, it's unlike anything Jay or JT have done before. And it's all courtesy of director Anthony Mandler, who took Jay's #newrules mantra to heart, and set out to reinvent the very idea of a big-budget music video ... beginning with the music itself.

"Jay's committed to turning the rules upside down. He's willing to push the boundaries, flip the concepts, and allowed me the ability to be really disrespectful to the track, to re-cut it and change the order," Mandler told MTV News. "When we started the video, the idea wasn't to re-arrange the track; that came along the process of discovery, during the edit, when we had this idea of 'How do we turn the medium again?'

"Yes, I could craft a nine-minute, cinematic video, or Jay and I could step back, put some footage on the chopping block, put a chorus on the chopping block, surprise people and make this an experience," he continued. "It's a revision of the song ... I loved the ...

Juicy J knows how to party, but not every waking moment in the electric rapper's life is a turnt-up twerk-a-thon. Take, for instance, the time Juice worked with Katy Perry on an upcoming song from her Prism album.

"I just did something with Katy Perry, man. That song is amazing," Juicy said of the track, which will be released early on September 17 after a fan-voted contest.

Though we haven't heard Juice's verse yet — we've only heard a snippet of the track — a determined Katy appears to have her sights set on a certain lover, and she won't take no for an answer. "So you wanna play with magic/ Boy, you should know whatcha fallin' for," she sings in a breathy tone.

"Dr. Luke called me up and was like, 'Hey man, Katy Perry wants you to do a song with her'," J said of the "Roar" producer.

Juice says that the recording session with Perry went smooth, so when "RapFix Live" host Sway Calloway inquired as to whether or not there was any twerking in between vocal takes, the rapper was very clear in his response.

"No, no, no, no. She's very professional, everything went smooth and she's a great person," he said. "My verse I did on that song, she was singing it. She's really a genius, she was by the mixing board and telling the guy what to take in and take out. She's really hands-on with her music, she knows music."

Though he's been in the industry for over 20 years, Juice is having a resurgence ...

You would think, given the seemingly unending conversation surrounding her VMA performance, Miley Cyrus would be fine to spend Labor Day weekend lying low.

But you'd be wrong ... after all, like the lyrics to her recent hit suggest, she can't stop -- and she won't stop.

Check out the promo images for Bangerz here!

She took little time to rest after Sunday night, getting right back to work making a cameo in Mike Will Made It's "23" video, which came on the heels of releasing the second single off her Bangerz album, the intense ballad

So on Thursday, we got our first glimpse at promotional pics for Miley's album, and while they're nowhere near as talked about as her twerk-tastic Video Music Awards performance, they should be enough to keep the conversation going through the long weekend.

Take, for example, one image, where Miley, clad in checkered leather pants and a cropped top, defiantly grabs her crotch. In another — which recalls the Bangerz album cover — she's photographed with her back to the camera, a black dress barely covering her backside.

There are, of course, more demure images too: Miley clutching a bouquet of flowers, Miley holding balloons and striking a confident pose, a pensive portrait where she momentarily shows us her soft side ... but based on early coverage, it seems (not surprisingly), that folks are focusing on the more salacious photos.

It's been a while since we last saw an installment in Vin Diesel's other franchise on the big screen, but all that changes when "Riddick" opens in theaters on September 6.

In the film, Diesel reprises the role he originated in 2000's "Pitch Black." It's the first appearance of the fearless mercenary Riddick since his appearance in the decidedly more epic "Chronicles of Riddick" from 2004. But nine years away from theaters is a long time; Diesel's made three "Fast and the Furious" films starring his character Dom Toretto in that gap. What kept the ferocious Furyan out of theaters for so long?

"The trick was to service both the audience from 'Pitch Black' and the audience from 'Chronicles of Riddick,' and do that all while maintaining a rated-R feel," Diesel revealed to MTV at San Diego Comic-Con. "And as you know, when you're doing the really, really big budget movies, it's difficult to get a studio to sign off on a rated-R movie. And yet, they did — or they finally did."

"Finally" is definitely the key word there. The modestly budgeted and R-rated "Pitch Black" was a surprise hit when it was released, finding a cult audience that craved more of the antiheroes antics, but the big-budget follow-up "Chronicles of Riddick" came up short at the box office. Diesel hypothesized that that may be due to the difference in the R-rated original and the less successful sequel's softer PG-13 rating.

"['Riddick'] is an intense film," explained Diesel. "Being a rated-R film sets it apart from the other stuff that you see, so ...

Lately, Lady Gaga has been getting her rocks off.

Earlier this week, she posted rehearsal footage of a new ARTPOP track called which features a driving, industrial groove, some classic-rock inspired guitars and, of course, Gaga smashing and bashing away on a stripped-down drum kit. Needless to say, it rocked way harder than anything else in her arsenal.

But now, she's released another rehearsal clip — she's set to perform at London's iconic Roundhouse on Sunday as part of iTunes Music Festival (her performance will also be streamed live to fans around the world) — this one for a song called "Manicure," and, with its booming, bad-ass backbeat and crunching chords, it rocks pretty hard too (it also sounds a lot like Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" ... or Grace Potter's "Paris," for that matter).

And based on the rehearsal footage, Gaga is channeling their swagger too. First, her dancers strap a pair of towering, sparkly heels on her feet, and then, as her band kicks in behind her, LG struts and pouts, thrusts her first in the air, and clutches the mic like she's trying to choke the life out of it. To be honest, we're not entirely sure what she's singing ... though that's precisely the point, as Gaga took to Twitter to let fans know the sound quality of the rehearsal clips "has been obstructed to give you a taste of ARTPOP but ultimately confuse you until Sunday."

Consider us confused then. Of course, Gaga also tweeted the lyrics to "Manicure," which with lines like "You're the medicine I ...

Put your hands up! Lady Gaga's November 11 album release, ARTPOP is getting closer and closer to its release. And this weekend she's slated to preview tracks during the iTunes Festival.

Before she takes the stage on September 1, she's already teased the track in addition to dropping the latest single (which she also performed at the VMAs last Sunday).

Ahead of Gaga's performance at the iTunes Fest, MTV News spoke to ARTPOP producer, DJ White Shadow, who revealed what it's been like to work on this release, her follow-up to 2011's Born This Way.

"We didn't make 15 trees; we made a forest. She's writing every single song, so they're coming from her," he said, sharing, "It was less than a week that she had hit me [after Born This Way]... and she literally sent me [the note] 'The next album's called ARTPOP.' She had the name and the general concept for the record a week after Born This Way came out."

In the two years-plus since that album's release, Gaga has been through a lot, including having to cancel her Born This Way tour to recover from hip surgery. And if fans are wondering how Gaga has grown on this next album release, White Shadow explained, "It's just another step on the ladder, it's another step forward. It's different, it's a different record. We didn't sit down and say 'ARTPOP has to be this.' It's like that's how she's feeling at the time. I think it's a really fun album. There's really fun stuff on ...

"Saving Mr. Banks" tells the tale of how Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) courted original "Mary Poppins" author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) for the film rights to her beloved children's book, eventually turning it into the classic 1964 film. With the film set in the ultra-fashionable 1960s, actor B.J. Novak made sure that his time spent on the "Saving Mr. Banks" set was well-documented.

"I loved the ['Saving Mr. Banks'] wardrobe," Novak revealed to MTV News during our recent Fall Movie Preview interview. "['The Office' wardrobe] was anything you could buy at Sears. On 'Saving Mr. Banks' even the socks are like 1962 vintage socks. The hair is all crusted over. I loved it. I'm not one to take selfies, but I broke my rule for this project because it was so fun and cool to play dress up like that. I turned into a 16-year-old girl."

Novak plays Robert Sherman, one half of the legendary songwriting duo the Sherman brothers, who were responsible for penning the film's memorable tunes. Novak is best known for his seven years as a writer and actor on the hit NBC sitcom, "The Office," a show that featured a slightly different aesthetic from "Saving Mr. Banks."

In addition to the upgraded wardrobe, Novak got to work alongside multiple Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks, whose living-legend status made him the perfect choice to play Walt Disney. "It feels like movie history in and of itself," said Novak of Hanks' casting as the imaginative innovator. "He's perfect casting. Walt Disney was sort of an all-American optimist, a symbol of upbeat ...