Mobb Deep and Lil Kim – Quiet Storm – Best Buy Theater – NYC from Brook Bobbins on Vimeo.

Mobb Deep and Raekwon – Eye For An Eye – NYC- Best Buy Theater from Brook Bobbins on Vimeo.

Whilst that was done both Prodigy and Havoc revealed that they are set to release a new album since 2006′s “Blood Money”. Both were interviewed by AllHipHop.com, with Prodigy quoted: “We working on it, me and Hav in the studio everyday going hard. We are not going to put nothing out there that is not crazy, because right now it is not a game, you know what I mean? We understand the importance of putting something that is going to stand the test of time right now.”

Regards to what Havoc has been up to during Prodigy’s absence: “I did that thing for Eminem and he won the Grammy and all, so you know I got the Grammy on the mantle. Got a new one on the new project he [Eminem] is doing with Royce Da 5’9. I just did something for Ludacris. And you know I am going to be hitting 50 [Cent] off because he is coming out with a new joint.”

Simple. Let us know what you think about Mobb Deep returning – Good for Hip Hop? Or way behind on times?

Also checkout this quick interview below which Prodigy talks to Vlad TV revisiting his first days in prison, where he was spending his few years for gun charges and explains how ‘mentally prepared’ he was going in and the reaction from inmates regards to his appearance in the cell. Didn’t seem too bad for him at the start:

Speaking with Moronic Tedious Views (MTV, yeah I took a dig at them), the Atlanta, Georgia-born rapper claims to have said of his agency – William Morris Agency – were the ones who reached out to him for the role. Quoted: “I got an email from William Morris Agency — that’s my agency that I’m with — they reached out to me to play the part. I’m just still thinking about it right now.

“Even with the whole Juice movie, I’m playing a part that Tupac played, but I’m not actually playin’ ‘Pac. When it comes to this, I’m actually gonna be playin’ ‘Pac, so I’m really still just thinkin’ about it. But I’m just honored that they would reach out to me and ask me anyway.”

Slow claps for him. While this does seem to be Soulja Boy grabbing attention I would not be surprised if this could actually be the go ahead choice. Society became irritating when people bought into this ringtone rapper, and crazier things have happened so who knows. This is however another lie in my opinion and seemingly a decent actor will step up to play Tupac.

Let us know your thoughts however – Really? Soulja Boy? Who do you think is worthy of playing Tupac (musician or actor wise)?

In recent months people had rumoured Epic Network favourite Joseph Gordon-Levitt for numerous roles, first he was wanted as the Riddler only for Nolan to then shunt the idea of Riddler anyways. Though still in Christopher Nolan’s plans it was then rumoured of a pathetically excuse of a “leaked” script that JGL was to play Alberto Falcone. But all that was silenced when finally director Christopher Nolan revealed he is in fact set to play John Blake: a Gotham City beat cop assigned to special duty under the command of Commissioner Gordon. Simple enough, nothing extreme, nothing crazy. Just a plain old protege-like cop.

As for the lovely Marion Cotillard? Rumours of her playing Talia Al Ghul, daughter of Batman Begins villain Ra’s Al Ghul played by Liam Neeson, was everybody’s set-in-stone bid to happen. Instead, different plans have been made for her in which she is now Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father’s philanthropic endeavors for Gotham. Again, plain and simple, but possible new love interest? Who knows…

Nonetheless, the two worked previously with Christopher Nolan on hit film “Inception” which working once again in a group of already built up talent would all but satisfy our eyes whatever the roles.

In a statement confirming their roles, Nolan says: “When you collaborate with people as talented as Marion and Joe, it comes as no surprise that you would want to repeat the experience. I immediately thought of them for the roles of Miranda and Blake, and I am looking forward to working with both of them again.”

The film will see the return of Christian Bale donning the Dark Knight once again, along with favourites of Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. Anne Hathaway is to play Selina Kyle/Catwoman as well as Tom Hardy is to be Bane. The film is soon in production around Pittsburgh and is set for a 20th July 2012 release.

Let us know your thoughts on the given roles? Interesting? Pointless?

“Misery” hits that gritty New York feel once again, with a heavy beat and words that people believe make real Hip Hop what it is, Lloyd Banks sets another track from his ‘Cold Corner 2′ mixtape. It’s not bad, to me a bit similar to “Getting To It Mandatory” but that is just my take.

Let us know what you think, check it out below:

According to Collider, and other sites which read the same stuff, the synopsis follows “a young reporter named Clark Kent roaming the world covering various news stories.

“The plot involves Clark getting involved in some sort of battle between two tribes in West Africa. When he is compelled to use his secret powers to intervene in such crisis, he returns to Smallville to learn more about his origins and the hero he was born to be.”

It does have a unique take on an Origins story, in fact this replicates the 12-issue comics of ‘Superman: Birthright’, the last reboot of Superman in comic form to which it also starts with Clark Kent roaming around West Africa as well as returning to Smallville and discovering his past.

However the comic does not feature anything about General Zod, who actor Michael Shannon recently received the role for, but instead builds the rivalry between Superman plus Lex Luthor himself. Also, this leak of the plot is not really 100% confirmed, so guarantee of authenticity is still a mystery.

Still, it makes for good news and speculation of seeing Superman especially taking on problems at a global scale. If this does tend to be the case of relating to ‘Birthright’ then it would be interesting to see how General Zod is actually played into this, whether they intend to kill him off from the get go or perhaps we may see more of Zod including Lex Luthor in planned sequels.

Whatever the case, we’ve got till December next year to find out. Let us know your thoughts and possible take on what you’d like to see.

Not much else I can say from this, it is quite a straightforward approach: D12 are back, their mixtape album…is out now which we at the Epic Network will soon have up for downloading pleasures. Let us know what you think of the track.

Check it out:

Quoted in the book, she says: “Along with other performers, YouthAIDS was supported by Rap and Hip Hop artists like Snoop Dogg and P. Diddy to spread the message…um, who? Those names were a red flag.”

Regards to the genre/culture as a whole, she wrote: “As far as I’m concerned, most Rap and Hip Hop music–with its rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as ‘ho’s'–is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny. I believe that the social construction of gender–the cultural beliefs and practices that divide the sexes and institutionalize and normalize the unequal treatment of girls and women, privilege the interest of boys and men, and, most nefariously, incessantly sexualize girls and women–is the root cause of poverty and suffering around the world.”

Clearly this is not looking good towards some, and clearly Ashley Judd has not come across the likes of ?uestlove plus ‘The Roots’, whose paths came together when Ashley was interviewed by Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show promoting the book, which features the hip hop group phenomenon as the house band.

Addressing Ashley Judd’s comments via Twitter, ?uestlove went to say: “hmmm. at least i got my answer as to why ash judd didn’t give us so much as a nod on her last visit,” he wrote on Monday. “im a criminal [sic].”

“EVERY genre of music has elements of violence. It speaks MORE volumes that in rap only a certain side gets promoted.”

This is an interesting topic to think upon, so we at Epic Network want to know your opinions on what you think: Is Ashley Judd in the right to blame Hip Hop as a part-reason for poverty? Would you call it “rape culture”?

Personal opinion I would say it is easy to judge certain areas of Hip Hop, but the keywords right there are ‘certain areas’. Ashley Judd I don’t believe listens to the likes of The Roots, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, and so on. Artists that really bring a Hip Hop meaning are undermined for the fact they are not on TV like what you normally see. For Ashley, it seems she has just seen videos, the girls lacking clothes, and heard the words “drugs”, “bitches”, and whatever else to let her claim it is a foul thing upon the world. Whilst I do agree on some cases of what she means to say (especially on the sheer fact I do not like P. Diddy), I do not agree with her thoughts that Hip Hop is “rape culture”. People in rock genre can do ten times as worse, and the way pop artists seemingly have to get when you look at the likes of Lady Gaga as your number one source of entertainment, or even her “predecessor” Madonna and what she brought upon to music, it is an unfair statement made by a lady who is merely showing signs of being cranky. Mainstream Hip Hop is filled with greed in majority cases, but the origins of Hip Hop is unfortunately not what many understand, this includes Ashley Judd and her remarks.

As Talib Kweli said during his response: “Someone as educated as her should know better. Too much school, not enough education.”

Let us know your thoughts.

Where he made his mark in 2004, Lloyd is seemingly gonna go at it all over in 2011. This track is definitely raw and with his success over “Hunger For More Pt. 2″, Lloyd can only keep moving forward with this. He’s showing even without feature’s he can go in. It will be interesting to see what else he can do, Epic Network will be following.

Let us know your thoughts however whilst checking out the track below:

A track which really makes you open your ears more, think a line from the hook simply does it for me: “I got Gucci’s on my feet, diamonds on my neck, diamonds on wrist, b*tches on my d**k but y’all already said that.” Repetitive standards need to change up in some rappers, Royce indeed is setting standards.

My opinion, now yours. Set to be released on Royce Da 5’9′s “Success Is Certain” project, let us know what you think.

Check it out below:

Rightly so as well, just like Lupe’s version of “Nothing On You” this track never really fitted him well. Whilst I feel the verses he delivers are special and great, the add on voices of shouting “LASERS” everywhere does not really help. Plus with Lupe passing on these tracks a star in B.o.B would not have been made.

Still, let us know what you think, checkout the track below:

Taking us back to the beginning before there were the names of Professor X plus Magneto, the story follows the build of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnserr, two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Not archenemies, they were instead at first the closest of friends, working together with other Mutants to prevent nuclear Armageddon. In the process, a grave rift between them opens, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.

Checkout the trailer below:

Directed by Matthew Vaughn and (Co?) Produced by Bryan Singer, the film stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Kevin Bacon, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Edi Gathegi, Jason Flemyng, Oliver Platt, Morgan Lily, Zoe Kravitz and Bill Bilner. Set to release 3rd June this year.

Let us know what you think.

I mean really, if Wale has signed to something like this then in my opinion its a downplay on his part. He’s better than this, and it was fairly a shocker to see him signing to Maybach. Whatever the hustle, to me this track does not feel right – it is too basic, the fact in the last year the type of rhyming they’re doing here was done at least 500 times, making this not as special as they could proclaim it to be. Rick Ross is basic, Jadakiss makes his stupid sound, and Wale in my opinion doesn’t really suit the flow.

But I could be wrong, there’s many fans out there of the rapper from D.C. and of Maybach Music. So let us know your thoughts on the track:

In Stan Lee’s words: “The Governator is going to be a great superhero, but he’ll also be Arnold Schwarzenegger. We’re using all the personal elements of Arnold’s life. We’re using his wife [Maria Shriver]. We’re using his kids. We’re using the fact that he used to be governor. Only after he leaves the governor’s office, Arnold decides to become a crime fighter and builds a secret high-tech crime-fighting center under his house in Brentwood.”

Despite it coming out for 2012, it seems some people are over excited about the project, thus releasing a three minute trailer for the animated series now, which you can checkout below:

I dunno about you but why do robots need money? Also there’s something that needs to be said when a cartoon as such involving Arnold Schwarzenegger has Black Eyed Peas – Pump It playing as your trailer song. While the animation seems nice, sort of, I think this really is for the die-hard fans to appreciate of the Governor of California.

Course this could be the most elaborated April Fools Joke I’ve seen.

Let us know your thoughts however – think this is a good idea? Or something really pointless?

The clip lasts 52 seconds, and it plays on a humorous moment. Judging the film on 52 seconds of a clip would be pretty harsh, for I still have belief this movie is gonna do awesome. Though check it out for yourself and let us know your thoughts:

The film is set for 27th April apparently, despite what that image says. Starring Chris Helmsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba and more.