Kwamé comes full circle as he reemerges as an artist with his single, “Ms Mary Mack.” The rhymes are set off with creative name-calling and he says the music is juke joint vibes over hip-hop beats. It’s a surprise from the man who came on the scene as the Boy Genius in the late ’80s and became a very busy producer in the 2000s. “Ms Mary Mack” is the first song from his album, The Different Kids. A conversation with DJ Tat Money while listening to the theme from Diff’rent Strokes inspired Kwamé to start rapping again. The result was “Stroke Dif’Rent” and feedback he received from the song encouraged him to complete an album. It’s clear from the visual for “Ms Mary Mack” that Kwamé is having fun again as a rapper and he even wears his trademark polka dots. In regard to the album title, he says, “The album title explains how I always felt as a person. I didn’t necessarily align with mainstream life. I’ve always felt different. Putting the “Kids” part of the title as plural, it’s a double thing. It speaks to the people who used to get into my music. I would refer to them as The Different Kids.”

The Different Kids is scheduled for an August 29th release date. It will be Kwamé’s first album in three decades and he will be the latest Gen X rapper to come out with a full-length project. Watch the visual for “Ms Mary Mack,” and if you weren’t around then or if it’s been a while, listen to Kwamé the Boy Genius: Featuring a New Beginning. 

Slick Rick’s visual album Victory will screen at the HollyShorts Film Festival at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood on Thursday, August 7, 2025. The film is the companion to the audio album that has a scenario for each song. Slick Rick recorded the album with inspiration from his life of ups and downs as a Golden Era hip-hop icon and his love for hip-hop. Idris Elba partnered with Rick to release the project on his 7Wallace label with the Mass Appeal imprint and he is the executive producer. Victory had its first screening on Christmas Day in 2024 at Rikers Island and was hosted by Rick and his wife and business partner Mandy Aragones through their Victory Patch Foundation. Meji Alabi, who directed Beyoncé’s Black is King, also directed Victory, and Rick summed it up: “VICTORY is named with purpose. This is more than a body of work — it’s where sound meets vision, where resilience meets rhythm. A global love letter to hip-hop, to creativity, and to the overlooked, told through the lens of imagination and truth.” Victory will start at 8 PM and tickets are still available. 

Golden era hip-hop producer Hitman Howie Tee passed on August 2nd at the age of 61. Tee was responsible for some of the most remembered songs of the ’80s and ’90s. Special Ed’s “I Got It Made,” “The Magnificent,” Chubb Rock (who is his first cousin)’s “Treat Em Right,” and Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up” are some of the songs from Tee’s catalog. He was born in England but raised in Brooklyn. It was 1985 when he collaborated with the late Kangol Kid of UTFO to write and produce “(Nothing Serious ) Just Buggin” for the R&B group Whistle. This connection to Select Records because of Whistle expanded, and Tee became the in-house producer for the label and went on to produce music for The Real Roxanne, Little Shawn, and E.S.P. Howie Tee’s output went beyond Select, and he worked with Father MC, Kashif, Full Force, Heavy D, Patra, Maxi Priest, and Madonna. He was another creative architect known more for his sound than his name. Tee was also an innovative DJ who created the Joe Cooley scratch. 

Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” is the second single from his third album, Mack Daddy. The rapper and his friend, voice actress Amylia Dorsey, were inspired to make a song celebrating curvy women after watching a Budweiser commercial with very skinny women. Sir Mix-a-Lot thought about how hard so many women worked to look like the models in that beer ad and wanted to let them know their figures did not need to change. He has also stated in other interviews how he was also tipped off by Parliament’s Motor Booty Affair and how so many Black men like women with bigger than average butts. 

Sir Mix-a-Lot and Rick Rubin produced “Baby Got Back” with heavy sampling of the Detroit techno classic, “Technicolor” by Channel One. The song made Sir Mix-a-Lot famous, as it shot to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was the second best-selling song of 1992. He also won a Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance. MTV could only play the video after 9 PM because they received so many complaints. Some people saw the intention to uplift women with big butts as nothing more than objectification, which caused controversy.

 Sir Mix-a-Lot revealed in interviews that lots of Black women approached him with gratitude because they felt finally seen. He and Dorsey saw the future because “Baby Got Back” put the spotlight on women reminiscent of Sarah Baartman 20 years before the BBL surgery went mainstream in America. Nicki Minaj sampled “Baby Got Back” for her hit “Anaconda,” which also gave accolades to the derriere but as a tool of personal empowerment. “Baby Got Back” still entertains and has been sampled by artists across genres 33 years after its release. Sir Mix-a-Lot released his sixth album, Daddy’s Home, in 2003. He still tours regularly and did some voice acting for the adult cartoon The Family Guy in 2025.