Hip-Hop

The Washington Post has backed off a story that erroneously accused the recording industry of trying to criminalize ripping CDs to a computer.

The Post issued a correction Saturday, more than a week after the paper triggered a wave of media coverage by claiming that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was trying to outlaw the very common practice of copying music from a CD onto a computer or iPod.

"A Dec. 30 Style and Arts column incorrectly said that the recording industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer … Read more

Call it a mix-and-match approach to music retailing.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment, one of the top four music labels, is the latest to meld an offline-online sales strategy. The record company said in a press release it will soon offer gift cards through brick-and-mortar stores that can be used to redeem music from the Web.

The best part of the offering is that the music is available in unprotected MP3s, more proof that Sony BMG is easing away from copy-protection software. Citing unnamed sources, BusinessWeek reported last week that the label is preparing to strip digital rights management software from … Read more

Just received a preview from next week's CES show in Las Vegas--Wadia Digital, a high-end audio company will be demonstrating the first digital player dock to retrieve a direct digital signal from iPods. As a result, the iTransport will provide CD-quality resolution from full-resolution file formats such as .WAV and AppleLossless.

The iTransport (SRP: $349) will turn any currently available iPod player into a high-end media server by providing a bit-perfect digital audio output to an audio/video system. The really cool thing about the device is that it can bypass the player's internal D/A conversion and … Read more

I own 3,000 CDs and 4,000 LPs. They take up a lot of space in my apartment, and that's OK with me. They're lined up in metal racks, wood shelving, and stacked up in piles on the floor. But a lot of my friends with just a few hundred CDs are in a big hurry to dump them into their computers and get rid of the discs. I just had lunch yesterday with an audiophile friend who is in the midst of transferring all of his CDs as WAV files to his new HD. As always … Read more

As if the original tracks weren't dope enough, Scion Audio Visual has released Scion CD Sampler - Volume 19: Daptone Records Remixed, featuring all-star producers like DJ Spinna, Large Professor, Mark Ronson, Kenny Dope, Ticklah, and Hank Shocklee reworking classic tracks from Daptone artists Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, The Sugarman Three & Co., The Budos Band, and The Daktaris.… Read more

Are you ready for the holidays? We realize that for some people that's a heavy-duty question. Of course, many find Christmastime to be the jolly, feel-good season of sharing and caring so many of us read about in storybooks and maybe even experienced during childhood. (And to those who do, we raise a toast.) For others, however, the mere mention of words like "Santa," "sleigh," "snow," and "drummer boy" just might cause a stroke.… Read more

Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Vice empire has cooked up some snarky rhymes, headphone-wrecking, apocalyptic beats from some of the label's best and most recent reworkings for you to devour. Courtesy of Vice Records, all the remixes you see below were sliced and diced from hipster favorites Justice, Spankrock, The Streets, and Bloc Party. Download it, pass it around, play it at your parties. This music is meant to be heard (and danced to). Happy gobble gobble!

Britney Spears "Me Against the Music" Justice remix

Britney can sound listenable with the right producer--in this case, Justice implements a C&C Music Factory-reminiscent synth stab to spice things up. You'll wish they'd all met a long time ago. … Read more

Most PC speakers are afterthoughts--the computer equivalent of those awful earbud headphones that come bundled "for free" with portable media players. But Canada's Axiom Audio is offering a high-end alternative with its new Audiobyte PC speakers. At 6.5 inches high by 5.5 inches wide by 4 inches deep, the stereo speakers aren't too much larger than standard computer audio offerings, but they're effectively miniaturized versions of high-quality bookshelf speakers, sporting two-way designs with a 1-inch titanium dome tweeter and 3-inch aluminum cone woofer.

The Audiobyte is now available in a variety of finishes … Read more

Can the combined power of Vibe magazine, MySpace, and KickApps' social multimedia platform uncover the next great MC? That's the plan, and they're all hoping three is the magic number.

Vibe Verses 3, an online rap battle that lets aspiring MCs upload videos of themselves spitting rhymes, launches today.

The viral contest, promoted on both Vibe.com and MySpace, is using KickApps video widgets to let rappers and their fans embed the clips in MySpace profiles and other Web pages.

Participants in the contest select from one of 23 beats, then make a video of themselves performing their … Read more