The Top 10 Most Popular Hip Hop Singles The Week Of 10/10/2011

Let’s face it. Fall will be over before we know it, and then the Winter arrives when everyone goes into hibernation. It didn’t take snowfall, though, for some of our favorite rappers to hibernate this year. However, this week proved that when you least expect it, anyone can come out of hiding. We saw Gang Starr affiliate Bumpy Knuckles (a/k/a Freddie Foxx) re-emerge with the DJ Premier-produced “Fake”, along with Nappy Roots (well, Nappy Dot Org just dropped too), and even DMX. While those appearances were exciting enough, they all took a back seat to Nas’ surprising collaboration with Rick Ross. He also brought some friends with him…

Jay Electronica and Mobb Deep Turn Gamers, Nas and Rick Ross Plan a Heist

Not really, but this week Jay Electronica came back into our lives with the track “Call Of Duty: MW3” (get the video game reference?). The song arrived on Monday, just in time to kick off the week properly. As expected, the track soared to the top of the Singles list through yesterday, and brought the return of slick lines like, “Electronic, niggas call my album Detox ’cause they know I’m finna bring the next Chronic.” The irony here is that the Roc Nation signee has former G-Unit residents Mobb Deep on the track. It’s good to know that beef doesn’t seep into the soldiers. Hopefully Jay Elec’s real debut won’t take as long as Detox has. In the second half of the work-week Nas bumped his Untitled producer for the crown of the charts. Mr. Jones linked with Rick Ross for “It’s a Tower Heist” with an electronic beat, compliments of Salaam Remi. With Nas’ “Nasty” video just dropping, it seems like the Queensbridge emcee will keep the momentum going through 2012.

BET Hip Hop Awards 2011 Cyphers Take Over

For the past few years, the BET Hip Hop Awards have provided us with some killer cyphers featuring burgeoning artists along with living legends. We watched Nicki Minaj in 2009 rip her verse to shreds, arguably kickstarting the next level of her career. Since then, the stock value of these cyphers has gone up, and this year continued that progression. As usual, we pulled the audio from these pow wows, and sure enough the audience responded, putting the Shady Records cypher in the first half of the Top list, along with B.o.B., Big K.R.I.T., Tech N9ne, Machine Gun Kelly, and Kendrick Lamar’s cypher in the second half of the list. The Shady 2.0 cypher was obviously closed out by Eminem, who spit like old school Shady, taking jabs at the room while shooting some utterly grotesque bars about fetuses. One thing is for certain, a small award show concept became a huge piece of Hip Hop iconography.