Rest in peace to Baatin from Slum Village. He’s long been rumoured to have health and other problems but his death is still a sad shock. 35 year old Titus Glover was an original and integral member of Slum and his off the wall rhymes were an important part of original Slum hits like I Don’t Know, Players and Fall In Love from Fantastic Vol II. The remaining members of Slum are continuing to represent his memory on the Rock The Bells tour.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad have mercy. Talk about taking things to the next level. Em's diss of Mariah and Nick - aptly titled Warning - is so scathing he's obviously forgotten about Bruno at the MTV Awards. That Obsessed video must have got his back up in the worst way 'cos not only does he use the 'c' word, he actually uses snippets of Mariah's own voice towards the end of the song to suggest that he might have some dirt on her. The question is: how much? He has also pre-empted any attacks Mariah may have ready for him by admitting to some too much information type sexual exploits. It's weird how it came to this. Celebrities have behind the scenes romances all the time and rarely does their dirty laundry spill out into the public like this. Not even Lauryn and Wyclef went to this level. It remains to be seen whether Nick will go as hard as he warned. We ain't talking about Twitter. He can't have survived in Hollywood all those years without being at least a little bit, shall we say, resilient. But can - as he calls himself - 'corny ass Nick Cannon' go up against one of the best emcess of all time? Maybe with the honour of his good lady wife at stake he can. Then again, we have to return to the dirt. Only Mariah knows how dirty it is. So maybe she's gonna tell Nick to chill. Maybe she won't be able to make him chill. This one will get interesting. Of course this isn't the first time Em's made disrespectful comments about another man's girl - remember when J-Lo was with Puff? But that never got anything like this.

So Cam'ron's got a new crew. He's not merely a Diplomat anymore. He's in the U.N. But he's not completely left the Dipset brand that he owns behind. Dipset West takes care of that. Some fans found Crime Pays a little underwhelming but they should be placated by the Gangsta Grillz mixtape he's currently preparing with DJ Drama (let's leave that Jeezy stuff alone!). It will feature the new crew, of which Vado and Begetz are probably the most well known names so far. They've popped up on mixtapes here and there. The new company will also make moves into film, and DVD. Cam proved he can act a long time ago. He should have done way more films than the impressive Dash-produced Paid In Full by now. That said, it could be that The Bakery, one of their upcoming flicks, will be more keenly anticipated than Killa Season II.

Ludacris is back in effect. His last album Theater Of The Mind, despite being massive and large was his first long player that wasn't an all conquering triumph. Once again, it was definitely ill. But for whatever reason it failed to have the impact his previous work comfortably enjoyed.  Longterm Luda fans (like myself) loved it. Maybe it was 'cos it arrived at roughly the same time as record sales really began to plummet. And if no one's buying,  some people feel like there's no point listening. Strange but true. Look for Shawnna collabo Battle Of The Sexes to drop before Ludaversal.

Falling over on stage must be the worst nightmare of even the most experienced artists. But Drake’s onstage drop in New Jersey was due to an injury and not anything embarrassing like tripping while trying to moonwalk. The situation was quickly and smoothly covered by Lil Wayne asking if any girls in the crowd wanted to play his nurse... Like any good hustler, Drake is diversifying his young money. Look for his increasingly ubiquitous mug on forthcoming sitcom Us And Them, about two dudes looking to make it in the music industry. Could he be the new Fresh Prince?

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