PG 1

Bigg Jigg has been known for one of the best up and coming artist to hit the hip hop music industry. Bigg Jigg has collaborated with many top industry artists we all know of today, and he continues to keep making his mark. Univer-sal Records picked up rapper Bigg Jigg for his lyrical status and style, and was the nominated win-ner on B.E.T Freestyle Friday. Since his last appearance on B.E.T Bigg Jigg been putting in work; now the Florida juggernaut Bigg Jigg releasing his new mix-tape and planning to hit 2012 like a rocket. Read more about recording artist Bigg Jigg BREAKING THE CORE and the love for the hip hop game.

As a youngster Bigg Jigg became a product of the Chicago streets known as the New Jack. He then involved his surroundings deal-ing with drugs making fast money and getting heavy into the lifestyle. With a few run in with the law and near death experi-ences, to seeing some of his homies losing there lives to Chi-cago streets dealing with drugs and gang related activities. Bigg Jigg decided to change his life around. He started to look at life differently all he knew he wanted something dif-ferent, and he knew there was something else better than run-ning the streets getting into trou-ble. Bigg Jigg was always influ-enced by music from a very young age. Growing up under his older siblings he listen to a lot of leg-ends like KRS-1 and Rakim, LL Cool J, and Kool G Rap. Attending Eggers Middle School Bigg Jigg al-ways been in hip hop and he loved to perform. Music became a escape for Bigg Jigg, music became his bride and a instrument for him to use to express his thoughts

Growing up in Chicago Illi-nois it was a struggle for Bigg Jigg as a young boy. Being the youngest and baby in the family. Bigg Jigg grew up with his 2 other bothers and sisters in a sin-gle parent home without his fa-ther. As a very young boy Bigg Jigg was influenced by what was going on in the thug life.

and feelings thru music. Bigg Jigg created such a flare in school he begin to use his skills in rap battles, going against older free stylist making a statement and be-ing that popular guy in school. Not only was Bigg Jigg was into his music he was an active athlete during his school years. He played basketball, football and he ran track in junior high school and high school. Con-tending to a double live style gang banging reppen ur set or who you ran with was the most popular thing going on

When rapper Bigg Jigg graduated from Hammond High School he started to take music more serious he felt he had a talent so Bigg Jigg decided to pursue his music career. He started hanging around the stu-dio with some of his friends that they had. Uniting his self with his fellow friends they pushed Bigg Jigg to collaborate with them on records to see what he sounds like; and that’s when everything started to take course for the recording artist Bigg Jigg. In 2003 Bigg Jigg dropped his first mixtape called “ THE BREADWINNER”. Shortly after the recording artist was mak-ing waves climbing up the charts. In 2005 the artist got on B.E.T and was the nominated winner on Freestyle Friday. Five years later Bigg Jigg was signed to Universal Music Group Distribution drop-ping his first hit single “ IMMA KING” FT THE GAME OF BLACK WALL STREET. Through out Bigg Jigg’s career he has worked with YUNG JOC, T-PAIN,

J-SHIN, THE GAME, RICK ROSS, BUN-B, T.I , and many others. A few months back in 2011 Bigg Jigg dropped mix-tape called “ FLOSS LIK A DENNISS” with the support from Dj Flaco reppen Ohio gaining over 30 thousand viewers and downloads. We asked Bigg Jigg how he rate his self as a real artist or fake in the industry and he replied. “ I RATE MY SELF AS BE-ING ME AND ANYTIME U JUST BE U AND STAY IN UR LANE THAT’S WHAT MAKES U REAL TO ME AND THE INDUSTRY” We also asked the artist how hip hop has change his life? “ HIP HOP HAS CHANGE MY LIFE AND I HAVE SEEN IT CHANGE OTHERS TOO. Bigg Jigg Added “ME BEING A POPULAR ICON FOR THE HIP HOP INDUSTRY SHOWS ME THAT I’M BEING A ROLE MODEL , AND NOW KNOWING THAT SOME OF THE THINGS I SAY ITS MY FANS THAT LIVES BY WAT I SAY”. Bigg Jigg ends 2011 with his latest

hit single “ GUCCI GIRL “. In 2012 Bigg Jigg talks about dropping his new album “ YES U WILL”, plus pushing his new mixtape hosted by Ace Hood “ 2 JOBS 1 HUS-TLE” and working with DRUMMABOY on the fol-lowing mixtape coming up. Being in the game for 12 years recording artist Bigg Jigg started his own label called GO 2 MAN MUSIC GROUP (G2-MMG). Starting a new adventure in his career now the 12 year veteran is a CEO/ Recording Artist of his own Record label. We asked the CEO and founder of G2-MMG being an independent artist what

is his goals and future becoming a successful hip hop artist in this industry ? “ JUST BEING A VOICE FOR PEOPLE WHO AR-ENT BEING HEARD OR WILL NEVER BE HEARD . ALSO I WANT TO BE A OUTLET FOR ARTISTS WITH TALENT WHO DON’T HAVE MONEY OR THE CONNECTIONS OR THE KNOW HOW TO GET THEM TO THE NEXT LEVEL IN THE CAREER”. Bigg Jigg planes to stay relevant and not make the same type of mu-sic with the same topic and being me. He states I’m not here to do what others are doing in the indus-try I do what works for me. Define your own identity, know who you are to your self and the business. Now we have experience the real man behind it all. CEO Bigg Jigg has been working hard over the past years, and he continues to put his time in the business. Bigg Jigg have a lot planned for 2012 be sure to follow up recording artist Bigg Jigg and you will be hearing more about rapper Bigg Jigg www.biggjigg.com

PG 2 GRAPHICS BY EBM GRAPHICS DE-SIGNS

by Salima Koroma

PG 3

When Common makes a puzzling or outright bad album, there’s no reason for upset. For nearly 20 years now, his pattern has been clear: A misstep is always followed by a spectacular return to form. The head-scratching acid jazz experiment of “Electric Circus” (2002) blew a fuse, for instance, but “Be” (2005) was a refreshing reboot of this two-time Grammy winner’s Chicago street cred. Like-wise, after the clubtastic nonsense of “Universal Mind Control” (2008), Common now U-turns to reconnect with his South Side roots and deliver “The Dreamer/The Believer,” his spirited and soul-ful ninth album.

Just as the Roots were able to duck behind their TV day job to produce one of their most meaning-ful records (“undun,” released earlier this month), Common’s ambition finds its outlet in his acting career. As co-star of the cable series “Hell on Wheels,” Lonnie Rashid Lynn is free to be himself in the recording studio. He goes one better by teaming with childhood friend and producer of his first three albums No I.D. (Dion Wilson, newly a VP at the Def Jam label). The two work together so seamlessly, the rapper opens the record with a fused introduction, “My name is Common, No I.D.” — as if the two names belong to one entity.

“Bring the beat back!” Common shouts in “The Dreamer,” but the rhythms No I.D. applies to these tracks are much more supple than “Universal Mind Control’s” dance-floor thumpers. We’re back to the ’70s bins for inspiration, as Common quotes Curtis Mayfield’s “I Loved and I Lost” on “Lovin’ I Lost”; he builds other tracks on pop (ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” on the inspirational “Blue Sky”) and even yacht rock (Kenny Loggins’ “Celebrate Me Home” underneath the good-times party song “Celebrate”) samples. No I.D. swaddles the tracks in static and sliding EQ, also bathing “The Dreamer” in echo as if the song were broadcasting from a pirate radio station. “No I [D] said give ’em that ’80s cocaine / something raw, something pure, so I stayed in that vein,” Common explains during “Sweet,” acknowledging not the drug itself but the complementary smooth vocal contribu-tions from James Fauntleroy of the Common/No I.D. project Cocaine 80s.

Given his reputation as a bohemian spiritualist, Common is mostly back on message. He’s tough-ened up, correcting someone in “Raw (How You Like It)”: “‘You Hol-ly-wood’ / No, n----, I’m Chi-cago” — but he doesn’t leave it at that, continuing, “So I cracked his head with a motherf---ing bot-tle.” (Please, Common, don’t hurt ’em!) He reacts against the “violent culture” in “The Believer,” backed with gospel fervor by singer John Legend (and on a song that reimagines lyrics Common infamously delivered at a White House poetry slam in May that became Fox News fodder), but he’s vicious in “Sweet,” again poking an unnamed foe in the chest and asserting his I.D. (“Yeah, man, motherf---er, you know where I’m from.”) His analysis of “Ghetto Dreams,” with guest Nas, turns their cross purposes inside out, deriding the idea of having and eating one’s cake. (“I want a bitch that look good and cook good / Cinderella fancy but she still look hood.”) Poet Maya Angelou preaches about the struggle in the opening track — though this week she’s disavowed her participa-tion, saying she was disappointed that Common’s raps on the rest of the song were so heavy with n-word slang — and Common’s dad delivers a stirring homily at the album’s end (“Pops Belief”), es-pecially poignant after the publication of Common’s memoir earlier this year

PG 4

Othello Gooden Jr. was born on January 13, 1985 in Cincinnati, Ohio. At an early age he learned the basics of reading, speaking, and writing while attending ministry school. Throughout his school years till now, he expressed those abilities in multiple online communities. Upon graduating from the School for Creative and Performing Arts, majoring in in-strumental music, Othello enrolled in University of Cincinnati Raymond Walters Col-lege's Computer Support Technology program. While there, he learned the basics of MS Office, Object Programming, and the fundamentals of animation. Yet his passion for writing continued as Othello entertained his peers and teachers with his short stories. After graduating from RWC, Othello had the desire to make videos and wanted to share his video making and music composing skills to the world. In April 2009, he created his first YouTube account under the channel name, "2kReturner", specializing in video game music videos, game plays and commentaries of games he played during his college and high school years. Yet this wasn't enough. Othello felt that he was limited on what he wanted to do and uploading it all on his 2kReturner chan-nel would make things too cluttered. Therefore, in January of 2010 Othello created a new channel, "JGTraveler", for his non-video game related works. Othello is most famous for his one of a kind Sci-Fi Vlog Series "Memoire de Rayloria", where he talks about the elements within the MDR Universe. It is based on his novel, “Raylorian Dawn” now available on Amazon.com via Kindle and barnesandnoble.com via Nook. Then there is the Stop Mo-tion/Animation Comedy, "the Super Mecha Madness Show" (or simply, "Super Mecha Madness”). The Super Mecha Madness Show is a story within the MDR Universe about the world of Cyber-space. The main protagonists are known as the "Super Mecha Team" who fight against an evil robot known as Spike Cole, and his army of mechas, who plot to take over Cyberspace. Each episode ex-periments with different scenarios, mainly a parody/spoof of something in pop and/or internet cul-ture. Currently, SMM and MDR combined have reached over 100,000 people.

Othello's notable non-MDR works include the Cellar Stop Motion "Car Show", where an anima-tion of model car collections tell a story. Each "type" of car in a group as a different story to tell. (I.E: A set of race cars would race each other only to be chased by a group of law enforcement vehi-cles.) For over 3 years, Othello has entertained over a half a million people (Combined channel and video views of across both channels). In December 2011, he was invited into Machinima’s Director Pro-gram. Now as a YouTube Partner through Machinima Inc., Othello’s audience has increased through their promotion and as well as his dream in producing videos for a living has come true

PG 5

PG 6

PG 7

GUNPLAY JUMPING OFF THE NEW YEAR WITH GUNPLAY AKA DON LOGAN We all know the former hip hop Triple C’s showed his self as one of top self made independent artist to break the vaults in the hip hop industry. The rug-ged street tone, natty-dred PHENOMENON is now teaming up with Rick Ross signing to Maybach Music Group. Starting out his career with Triple C’s to signing to Maybach Music to venturing off solo forming his own label called Bilderberg Group which is powered by Maybach. At this moment Gun-play is the only one signed to his own label Bilderberg Group. Rick Ross sup-ported the hungry artist showing him the way in the music industry and GUNPLAY shows his gratitude, and now Mr. Don Logan is taking lift off be-coming his own BOSS. The hard working artist shows his self being a Pis-sarro in his work but engineered in a unique way. Gunplay fans are global and there are some that will like his music and there others that won’t like his music or what he represents, but all in all quote un-quote “I MAKE MUSIC FOR THE STREETZ, FOR THE DOPE DEALERS THE PIMPS AND THE HUSTLERS I TALK ABOUT THE STREETZ AND WHATS GOING ON IN THE HOOD THAT’S WHAT MY MUSIC RELATES TO . MY MU-SIC IS NOT FOR KIDS…. HELL….. I DON’T LET MY OWN CHILD LISTEN TO MY MUSIC” QUOTED FROM VLAD TV VIDEO INTERVIEW.

Look forward to hearing GUNPLAY making noise for 2012 the Miami HefE dropping his album Bogota coming soon, And his venture on Bilderberg Group AND UP COM-ING PROJECTS THAT ARE AHEAD . PG 8

CIROC 2012

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