Do crime rates and rap lyrics about crime rates rise and fall in tandem?

Rapper Cakes da Killa appeared on The Hot 97 Morning Show last week, despite not having a song on the New York hip-hop station's playlist. The reason hosts Ebro Darden and Peter Rosenberg invited Cakes on is because Cakes is gay and skilled. And not only is he gay and a rapper, but he's the kind of gay rapper who will correct you if you call him a gay rapper, as Ebro did early on in their interview. Cakes told Ebro that he considers himself not a gay rapper, but "a rapper that happens to be gay. There's no gay mailmen, but there are mailmen that are gay." Feisty.

There is no "take"; there are only butts.

"Yeah, I'd fuck Diddy," says Los Angeles-based battle rapper Daylyt in this new VladTV interview. "I'm not gonna front, I'd fuck the shit out of Diddy...Like, why not? Diddy's attractive. Get him off, like, a bottle of Ciroc, a shot of Ciroc, he got plenty of Ciroc. I'll fuck...Like, pause, no homo, let's really be honest, Diddy thick, yo."

Childish Gambino, the rapper formerly known as Community star Donald Glover, is really feeling himself these days. Freestyling at a show in Australia, where he's living while he records his new EP, Gambino bragged about being better than every rapper living, including better rappers Drake, ScHoolboy Q, and Kendrick Lamar.

Is platinum-certified, platinum-haired Australian rapper Iggy Azalea a racist, or a harmless drag queen? Is she a racist drag queen? Are all drag queens racists? Are all racists drag queens? Who knows! Well, one man does, certainly: Roots drummer/author/curator Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson. Questlove is just about the wisest music expert pop culture currently has, and in an interview with TIME, he weighs in on the woman who has set so many social-justice-inclined fingers aflutter this summer.

This video of a pre-College Dropout—and even pre-college enrollment—Kanye West was recently excavated from the archives of an iconic record store. A then-unknown Kanye performed at the 1996 opening of Fat Beats' 6th Avenue location, but his verse was stuck on an old 8mm tape until this week.

Nicki Minaj has taken to Twitter to explain her side of her Best Female Hip Hop Artist acceptance speech from Sunday's BET Awards...or something. In case you need reminding, she seemed to be referring to her fellow nominee Iggy Azalea, when she said, "What I want the world to know about Nicki Minaj is when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it." And then, just in case that didn't sound shady enough (Iggy is said to rely on ghostwriters), Minaj said, "No shade," repeatedly while posing and grinning.

Looking back, it kinda reminds me of this '80s movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, in which some dimwit inadvertently drops a Coca-Cola bottle from an airplane flying over a remote Indigenous African community.

While accepting her BET Award for Best Female Hip Hop Artist tonight, Nicki Minaj made a none too subtle jab at one of her fellow nominees in the category, Iggy Azalea. You can see why: This is the first year since Nicki Minaj became a household name that she conceivably could have lost in the category, thanks to the obscene success of Iggy Azalea and her single, "Fancy." Nicki was looking to take home the category's trophy for the fifth year in a row. Would the BET powers that be who arbitrarily re-reward the rich, famous, and talented allow her to win again? That's about as close to suspense as you'll find on one of these shows.

We’re 35 floors high above midtown Manhattan and Lee O’Denat occupies the seat across from me. His is a physically-commanding presence—a bull of a man—and I begin to think everything I have read about him up until this point is true. The designer shades. The diamond-encrusted chain. The deceptively knowing smile that spreads across his round face from time to time. He knows something that you don’t.

Last week, Mariah Carey released her 14^th studio album, Me. I Am Mariah…The Elusive Chanteuse. Here are some things to consider when considering Mariah Carey, especially at this juncture in her 24-year career.

An insane half-hour interview transpired recently when rapper Charles Hamilton walked by a spot on Harlem's 125th Street where someone was filming for the YouTube channel SaNeter.TV. Hamilton was apparently flagged down and had a lot to say about Sonic the Hedgehog, Interscope president Jimmy Iovine, Kanye West, Drake, and homosexuality.

Iggy Azalea ascends to No. 1 with "Fancy" on the latest Billboard Hot 100. She also sits at No. 2 with "Problem," her song with Ariana Grande. This makes Iggy Azalea the first act to occupy numbers 1 and 2 with her first two Hot 100 charting singles since the Beatles. Isn't the world a crazy place?

"The last words of rapper Tupac Shakur were, 'F**k you,' according to the cop on the scene of the 1996 Las Vegas drive-by shooting."

Over the past month, I've watched several people freak out when I've mentioned 19-year-old Chicago singer/rapper Tink's recent song "Don't Tell Nobody." The duet with Jeremih ("Birthday Sex") is compulsively listenable. It's intricately laid out melodrama told in the filthiest of terms. Switching meter nearly every four bars, with more deftness than even Beyoncé in "Drunk in Love," Tink rap-sings the verses, detailing her man's cheating, her thirst for revenge, and her weakness for being unable to let the whole thing go. It's an aural soap opera made by a prodigious talent.

Before performing her Top 5 hit "Fancy" on last night's Jimmy Kimmel Live, Australian rapper/drag queen Iggy Azalea helped prep the squares in Kimmel's audience by rephrasing the lyrics of the song's first verse and hook. Her in-between accent as she recites (but doesn't quite rap) her lyrics is utterly bizarre, and Kimmel's translations are for the most part hilarious.

If you like 2Pac, you'll love 2Pac with jazz hands: Behind-the-scenes footage of the upcoming Broadway musical that sources the (possibly) dead rapper's catalog, Holler If Ya Hear Me, has been released. It's not exactly hip-hop, but it is very hip-hop rappin'.

"Wu-Tang, baby! They rock the world!" Mmm, yeah, that sounds about right coming from a 67-year-old.

I didn't fully appreciate the 23-year-old white rapper from Australia who goes by the name of Iggy Azalea until I realized earlier this week that she's a drag queen.