LimeWire Music Blog

It’s been a minute since Aerosmith and Run-DMC first came together to reinvent “Walk This Way,” but apparently the love affair between hip-hop and rock still lives on, with the two genres continuing to make cozy bedfellows. It seems like a few of the big dogs in hip-hop are getting their Fidelity on and diversifying their portfolios. This has nothing to do with your 401(k), but rather with the fact that a few of hip-hop’s heavyweights are putting stock in rock music these days.

Last week news broke that Jay-Z had inked British rockers The Ting Tings to his Live Nation-backed imprint, Roc Nation, making the group the first non-urban act to become part of the new Roc familia. While this isn’t a complete surprise, seeing as Jay did a live mashup album with Linkin Park a few years back, he has expressed his appreciation for other acts, like Grizzly Bear and Coldplay, as of late. (He even recently joined Bono and the boys of U2 for a rendition of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” at this year’s MTV Europe Awards.) But for all intents and purposes, this is Jay’s first real foray into the business of rock.

Meanwhile, both Lil Wayne and Jermaine Dupri have hitched their horses to the Weezer bandwagon, as both men appear on their new album, Raditude. Wayne guests on the Dupri-produced track “Can’t Stop Partying” and, according to Hip Hop Wired, Dupri became a fan immediately after he heard a track by the band.

“When I heard Rivers saying, ‘What’s with the homies dissin’ my girl/Why do they got to front,’ I became a big fan,” Dupri said in a recent interview. “He was talking my type of language in a rock record, and it always stayed with me. They talk like I do, but to a different crowd — we’re basically speaking the same words.”

But I guess you can’t win them all, as sometimes you have a miss in the midst of all the hits. When fans found out that former Audioslave/Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell was eyeing legendary hip-hop producer Timbaland to produce his third solo record, there was a buzz of confusion from the gallery, as the pairing seemed a little odd. True enough, when Scream came out, Cornell’s fans, as well as critics, ripped the work to shreds and even caused Trent Reznor to call it “embarrasing.” Cornell defended the record, saying that he listens to it far more than any of his older stuff, but fans still proceeded to throw the proverbial rotten tomatoes at him for it.

So what have we learned here today, boys and girls? I guess you can be both hyped and stoked at the same time, as long as you do it right.