In a move that should interest those of us who grew-up with a Sony Megabass Walkman, “New York’s Inmate Superstore” Send A Package are now stocking new rap and R&B tapes, as well as two models of portable tape players (I’d go for the one with “Bass Boost”). This means that Nas’ Life Is Good, Cam’Ron‘s Purple Haze and most of Jay-Z‘s discography can be ordered for $12.99 a pop. So far, Jadakiss’ The Last Kiss is the best selling tape over there. Before you get too excited about the prospect of playing Lil’ Wayne‘s The Carter III at your next hipster douchebag party, you should note that you can only ship orders to their list of approved prisons, so unless you have some pals in the bing who can forward a package back to you, this isn’t a lot of use. But since Universal Records are having these tapes made, will they be available through Amazon and the like for those of us who haven’t been caught yet? While we’re on the topic, what recent rap album would you be willing to pay $13 to own on tape?

Spotted at Hip-Hop Wired

During my interview with production duo Sid Roams on Friday, Bravo dropped this little gem about how Prodigy has been using his time while he’s been incarcerated:

“Right now – behind bars, in prison – what he’s focusing on is crafting verses that are just gonna blow people’s mind. He’s really going in now. Because in retrospect, he feels like he didn’t give enough [on the last three albums]…he’s ready to attack. We have a song that we did with P over the phone and we’re just finishing it up right now. It’s an epic song, and it’s a conversation between him and Twin on phone time. The name of the song is called ‘Phone Tap’, and essentially it’s seven minutes of P just kinda recapping everything that’s happened behind bars and on the outside. It’s a pretty incredible song just unto itself, and you’ll hear some of what P is doing as far as writing. You should hear it within the next month. We’ve sent him beats while he’s been in there, and honestly, he wrote a song to every beat – and we sent him twenty-something beats – and we’re not the only ones. Al sent him joints and everybody’s been sending him stuff, so he’s definitely getting it done.”

More on Sid Roams next week. In the meantime, cop that Big Twins album and check back here to hear ‘Phone Tap’ when it drops…

It seems that after HipHopDX did a post about the Prodigy Top 40 Letter that a certain comment about Slaughterhouse member Crooked I seems to have gotten back to him and as you might expect, he’s pissed. And wouldn’t you know it – he just happens to do a blog over at…yep – HipHopDX:

I read your letter and you disrespectfully mentioned my name. If you don’t know why Vibe magazine chose to put me in the Best Rapper Alive issue maybe you should have researched me before you wrote what you wrote. Since you have time on your hands, you should check out week 1 thru 52 of my historical Hip Hop Weekly series. Week 33 was a freestyle over your song ‘Get Away’ (one of my favorite Mobb Deep songs). All things considered, there is a price for speaking on a real nigga sideways. Out west we call this price a ‘fade’. I need you to catch my fade, in other words, fight me 1 on 1. Nobody else, just you and me. I’ll wait for your release date since I don’t forget about shit.

P.S. Do some push ups.

The fact that P doesn’t have internets access kinda makes this whole thing pointless unless one of his loyal Stans prints out Crook’s blog and mails it P in the bing, but let’s not get bogged down in the minor details.

On the plus side, this whole thing has given me a reason to listen to something by dude:
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