Republican presidential candidate John McCain has the affectionate support of a man accused of buying several kilos of cocaine in Atlanta from the vicious Black Mafia Family gang! McCain "was seen embracing" his close friend and confidante Young Jeezy, a rapper also known as "Snowman." Because he loves dealing cocaine! The passionate meeting of like minds occurred on the set of Saturday Night Live last month, when McCain was hosting and Jeezy was the musical guest. Here's what the thug rapper has to say about his soul-stirring connection with the Arizona Republican, who greeted Jeezy "like a god":

A Brooklyn rap crew has started a movement against tight clothes in hip hop. Cool! Not so cool: "'It basically boils down to: You are in a homosexual attire, and you are claiming to be something else,' says 28-year-old TSF member Blanco the Don. 'That's what I have a problem with—not the homosexualism.'" [VV. And what about the TIGHT SAG?]

Pictured: Kanye West posing next to once-dignified boxing hero Muhammad Ali, who is wearing Kanye's shutter shades. We know this is Kanye's favorite pastime, but it should really be reserved for less noble fashion victims. Now we have to go cry. (Click to enlarge). [Consequence via Byron Crawford]

Assorted hippies at the Bonnaroo music festival booed Kanye West last week after his show started eight hours late, at 4:30 in the morning. YOU UNGRATEFUL HIPPIE BASTARDS. Did you think that Kanye West would stand by and allow negative articles about him to appear on Digg without STRIKING BACK on his blog with CAPITAL LETTERS AS WELL AS EXCLAMATION POINTS?!? Shows what you know, SQUID BRAINS!

Ring the alarm: the paper of record is treating rappers separately and unequally! In a surprisingly fresh piece of analysis, the Columbia Journalism Review unearths the NYT's sneaky tendency to "birth-name" rappers more than other musicians. (They also coin the term "birth-name," which I like, although for the sake of hip hop consistency they should say "government-name"). That means, for example, that RZA gets second-referenced as "Robert Diggs," but Marilyn Manson gets to keep his stage name throughout Times stories. That is so foul! Government names are nerdy. Plus, culture editor Sam Sifton gives a nonsense nilla explanation for the discrepancy:

Latest rap star Soulja Boy and ancient rap star Ice T are fighting on YouTube. The 17-year-old who got famous on the Internet (over 60 million views for his music video "Crank That") is using the site to demonstrate how fresh he is, and how irrelevant Ice T (age 49) is. The fight started when Ice T said that Soulja Boy "singlehandedly killed hip-hop." Soulja Boy answered by looking up Ice T on Wikipedia and mocking him on YouTube for being old. Ice T returned with an apology — and then trashed Soulja Boy even harder. All three clips below, along with Kanye West's commentary.

Kanye West was scheduled to play at the hippie-infested Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee last weekend at 8:15 p.m. Then he pushed it back to 2:45 a.m. to better take advantage of his fresh-ass neon stage set. Then he didn't show up until 4:30 a.m. This angered the assembled hippies, who took to booing, scrawling anti-Kanye graffiti, and waving signs protesting his insensitivity for hippie time management. One, he's a jerk. Two, why would anyone stay up all night waiting to see a Kanye West show? Three, every hip hop show starts two hours late. Get used to it, hippies. [via Animal NY]

Hip hop mogul Russell Simmons reportedly had a suitcase full of his jewelry stolen from a downtown apartment yesterday. Considering the fact that the case contained "three diamond rings, a pendant, three sets of earrings and two bracelets," from Simmons' own jewelry company, the reported total value—$15,000—is pretty meager. That's partly because Simmons is involved a much-derided effort to improve the reputation of the diamond industry, which somehow trickles down to his own company in the form of cheap jewelry that gives a cut of its (relatively small) profits to charity. Which is better: Charitable, uglier, cheaper jewelry, or much shinier jewelry that embraces nothing but out-and-out materialism? These questions are important to moguls. To help you decide, there's a collection after the jump; Simmons' company's jewelry versus some pieces from Jacob the Jeweler—hip hop's gaudiest diamond guy. Each is terrible in its own way:

You can look at Wendy Williams, the loud queen of hip hop talk radio, in two ways: she is popular, in the sense that her show is still one of the biggest things on the radio dial; but she's also not popular, in the sense that her crazy husband runs around her studio hiring hitmen, sexually harassing the female employees, and generally acting like a gangster, according to a new lawsuit from a traumatized publicist. Williams denies it all, including the claim that her husband slammed her up against the wall because she failed to stop smoking. But one thing she can't deny: she is mean. In 2006 she told everybody on air about how Wu-Tang rapper Method Man's wife had cancer—which was private. Method Man responded with one of the most sincere anti-gossip rants in recent history:

Are you one of the apologist types who argues that not all hip hop music is ignorant, antisocial filth? Please excuse New York Sun columnist and bizarre racial thinker John McWhorter as he shakes his head in exasperation at your foolish "fallacy." Did you know that the urban black demographic has problems with crime and education? Let's hear you defend your precious "conscious" rap now! How does the irredeemable evil of all rap music ever recorded logically follow from the existence of social problems? John McWhorter will tell you how: with some terrifying lyrics from The Roots, proving that hip hop will be our generation's downfall:

"If I was one of these hipster rappers, I'd be more concerned with the fact that that terrorist scarf around your neck shit makes you look like a fruit. Seriously. What kind of black man in his right mind wears the same shit around his neck as motherfucking Rachel Ray? Is this what the rampant lack of fathers in black households has led to? What's next, gold chains with EVOO medallions?" [Bol at XXL]

Sears is a company that has become almost entirely redundant, is outflanked by competitors on all sides, and stands ready to poison the reputation of the financial genius who last bought it, Eddie Lampert. The store is not as cheap as Wal-Mart, not as good as Macy's, and not as convenient as Amazon. It's an old retailer desperate for a revolutionary change to resurrect it from the grave. So how is Sears going to claw its way back into the competitive fashion market? By hiring LL Cool J to start a clothing line for it, of course! This is such an appropriately crappy idea:

Hip hop, as a business, is on the slow downward slope of its peak of several years ago. The traditional music industry as a whole is crumbling under assault from online distribution. And print magazines, of course, are one of the most perilous business ventures in all media. So the launch this month of the print-based Hip Hop Business Journal is truly an idea that takes after one of its cultural heroes; it combines Tupac Shakur's heedless, go-for-it bravery, his headstrong pride, and his inevitable tendency to die young.

In the wake of former entertainment industry exec Terrance Dean's gay-blind-item-filled book Hiding In Hip Hop, the hip hop community was split. Some reacted by saying, essentially, "Ew. That is so gay." But others basically yawned, and pointed out that of course there have always been gays in hip hop. Have you looked at some of these album covers lately?

Conscious intellectual hip hop star Common has announced the winner of his big "Lincoln Spotlight" lyricist competition with Lincoln—the car manufacturer that represents hip hop culture. The winner wrote a song based on "Lincoln's brand truths: advancing the American dream, exploring what it means to reach higher, daring to do more and taking pride in one's history." That is so exactly Lincoln. And hey, just last week Common landed a role in the next Terminator movie! My irrational haterade judgment of him as a tool continues to be confirmed and re-confirmed. For those of you curious about what it takes to succeed in hip hop in 2008, the lyrics of the winning Lincoln Spotlight entry are after the jump. Feel the brand truths:

How does one go about "menacing a neighbor with [a] cell phone," as the AP reports of Brooklyn rapper Foxy Brown? The AP does not explain. The fight started with Foxy "blasting her car stereo" outside the building. (This scuffle is not to be confused with last year's fight with a manicurist.)

So, have there been any updates in the prolonged daily rollout of salacious details about "Preston," the mystery professional athlete who allegedly had a fling with Terrance Dean, former closeted MTV producer and author of the upcoming book on the gay side of hip hop? Well yes there has been an update! Though we must say, he's really trickling this story out slowly. Today, Preston—who we now know is a pro basketball player—reveals his down-low status, and then takes Terrance home to meet his mom:

Terrance Dean, the former MTV producer who's about to release his hotly-anticipated-by-us book on the gay secrets of hip hop, has provided a few more details on "Preston," the mystery pro athlete who Dean says he had a fling with at an island resort. So all of you who guessed football players, baseball players, or Mike Tyson: wrong!:

Well now! Terrance Dean, the former MTV producer who's about to release a book about the secret gay secrets of the rap industry, is slowly unveiling some teaser stories on a blog (not to be confused with his own, vague blog). His first story concerns his sexy meeting and sexy rendezvous with a sexy male professional athlete, who proceeds to have sex with him! And is a closeted man! So who might this be:

Prodigy, the Mobb Deep rapper currently taking advantage of his incarceration to hone his blogging skills, is concerned about quite a few things: ritualistic murders, the 9/11 conspiracy, secret societies, missing children, and "NATURAL ENERGY LINES THAT CRISS-CROSS THE ENTIRE PLANET." How do these things all tie together? Allow Prodigy explain at length [Vibe], like a man with plenty of time to type and type and type and go crazier and crazier and crazier: