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Priority Records & Mitchell & Ness Contest: Press Releases
Closing Date - January 31st, 2008

Twelve years after his death at the age of 31, the music world continues to celebrate N.W.A's hardcore rap pioneer Eazy-E. On December 4, Capitol/Priority will release Featuring… Eazy-E, a new 16-track collection of his best collaborations and rare solo recordings. The compilation includes four previously out of print tracks, which are exclusively available on this release, and collaborations with his N.W.A co-conspirators Ice Cube, MC Ren and Dr. Dre, as well as with Mack 10, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and others.

Born Eric Wright on September 7, 1964, Eazy-E rocketed Straight Outta Compton to gangsta rap superstardom with Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and Yella in N.W.A, as the owner of his own Ruthless Records label and as a solo artist. Between 1987 and 1991, Eazy-E released four albums with N.W.A and one solo full-length album, the double-Platinum Eazy-Duz-It. He became "a bona fide hip-hop icon" (Peter Relic, Rolling Stone Album Guide), and the most hardcore of gangsta rap's pioneers.

Since 1995, four posthumous releases have been issued, including the album Eazy-E was recording before his death, Str8 off Tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton, Eternal E, The Impact of a Legend and 2005's commemorative Eternal E: Gangsta Memorial Edition.

More than five million copies of Eazy-E's albums have been sold in the U.S. alone, and his influence on rap music continues today.

Featuring... Eazy-E

1. Luv 4 Dem Gangsta'z* Beverly Hill Cop III soundtrack
2. 2 Hard Muthas w/MC Ren
3. Trust No Bitch* w/Penthouse Player's Clique, DJ Quik & AMG
4. L.A. Is The Place w/Ron-De-Vu
5. Findum, F**kum & Flee w/N.W.A
6. Get Yo Ride On w/Mack 10 and M.C. Eiht
7. Black Nigga Killa Ruthless Records Tenth Anniversary compilation
8. We Want Eazy (12" remix)* Eazy-Duz-It
9. Foe Tha Love Of $ w/Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
10. I'd Rather F*** You N.W.A
11. 24 Hrs To Live Ruthless Records Tenth Anniversary compilation
12. Boyz In Tha Hood (G Mix) w/ Dr. Dre It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa
13. Fat Girl w/Ron-De-Vu
14. Automobile w/N.W.A
15. P.S. Phuk U 2* w/Penthouse Player's Clique & DJ Quik
16.Ruthless Villain w/MC Ren

For more than a decade, Mack 10 has been on the front lines of the West
Coast rap scene, as a solo artist and as a member of the gangsta rap
supergroup Westside Connection. Mack 10's top solo hits and best album
cuts have been compiled for the first time in a career and label-spanning 19-track CD and digital collection to be released by Capitol/Priority on December 4: The Best Of Mack 10: Foe Life.

Mack 10's ability to infuse his gritty lyrics with wit, insight and realism makes him one of the best hard-core rappers the genre has ever seen.

Titled for his 1995 breakthrough hit, The Best Of Mack 10: Foe Life features the title track and other standouts culled from six solo albums released between 1995 and 2005: Mack 10 (1995, Gold-certified), Based On A True Story (1997, Gold-certified), The Recipe (1998), The Paper Route (2000, Gold-certified), Bang Or Ball (2001), and Hustla's Handbook (2005).

Key tracks on the new collection include "On Them Thangs," "From Tha Streetz," "Money's Just A Touch Away" (with Gerald Levert), and "Nothin' But The Cavi Hit," Mack 10's collaboration with Tha Dogg Pound for the soundtrack to 1997's Rhyme & Reason hip-hop documentary.

The Best Of Mack 10: Foe Life

1. Foe Life
2. Hate In Yo Eyes
3. Nothin' But The Cavi Hit (with Tha Dogg Pound)
4. Like This (with Nate Dogg)
5. From Tha Streetz
6. Only In California (with Ice Cube & Snoop Doggy Dogg)
7. Money's Just A Touch Away (with Gerald Levert)
8. On Them Thangs
9. Do The Damn Thing
10. Hoo Bangin'
11. The Testimony(with Young Soprano & Pastor Steven Hamilton)
12. Hustle Game
13. The Letter
14. Chicken Hawk
15. My Chucks
16. Tha Weekend (featuring Ice Cube & Techniec)
17. W/S Foe Life
18. Get Yo Ride On (featuring Eazy E & M.C. Eiht)
19. Mozi-Wozi

The gangsta rap super group Westside Connection was formed in 1993 by West Coast rappers Ice Cube, WC and Mack 10. 18 of the platinum-selling group's best tracks have been collected for the first time for The
Best Of Westside Connection: The Gangsta, The Killa And The Dope Dealer, to be released December 4 by Capitol/Priority. Released in 1996, Westside Connection's first album, Bow Down, reached #2 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart and #1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop chart, fueled by the massive, chart-crossing radio and club success of the album's title track and its second single, "Gangstas Make The World Go Round."

"Bow Down, the first one, was a record out of necessity," Ice Cube recalled in a 2003 biography. "The industry needed somebody to stick up for the West Coast because we were starting to get disrespected on every level. So, in '96 we started a movement that swept all across the world, really, with the 'W,' the Westside, people finally having something to identify with on the West Coast. Then, people all over the country started to respect the Westside. It's a beautiful thing. We've got Westsiders in Japan, South Africa and they're pumping it. It was a big deal."

Following a seven-year hiatus, 2003's gold-certified Terrorist Threats debuted at #16 as the week's highest new rap entry on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart, and also hit #3 on the Rap/Hip-Hop Albums chart.

The album's lead single, "Gangsta Nation" (with Nate Dogg), made the Top 10 on both the Rap and Rhythmic Top 40 charts. "It's a salute to what I call the 'Gangsta Nation,' which is people who like it hard-core who do it in their own way," Ice Cube said of the track. "Everybody knows what gangsta represents out here. It ain't always a criminal thing. It's just somebody that won't conform, somebody that doesn't want to do it the way the plan is laid out. They want to do it
their own way, so we're saluting them."

The Best of Westside Connection: The Gangsta, The Killa, And The DopeDealer

1. Potential Victims
2. The Gangsta, The Killa And The Dope Dealer
3. Bow Down
4. Cheddar
5. Gangsta Nation (with Nate Dogg)
6. Lights Out
7. Connected For Life (with Butch Cassidy)
8. Gangstas Make the World Go Round
9. West Up!
10. Let It Reign
11. Hoo-Bangin' (WSCG style)
12. Walk
13. So Many Rappers in Love
14. Bangin' (with Master P) [previously out-of-print track]
15. Nobody (with Timbaland)
16. All The Critics in NY
17. Westside Slaughterhouse
18. Terrorist Threats

It has been 20 years since N.W.A rocketed Straight Outta Compton to double platinum success and worldwide acclaim and notoriety as rap music's most powerful force, redefining forever the trajectory of popular
music. On December 4, Capitol/Priority will release an expanded 20th
Anniversary Edition of the landmark album in CD, vinyl and digital formats. The commemorative release adds five bonus tracks, including a
live version of "Compton's N The House," covers of Straight Outta Compton tracks by Snoop Dogg and C-Murder, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Mack 10, and WC, and a new package essay by music writer and author Soren Baker.

"You are about to witness the strength of street knowledge..."

In the course of little more than three years, N.W.A's Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren and Yella reached unprecedented gangsta superstardom with their no-holds-barred missives from Los Angeles' toughest streets. Defining the style that came to be known as "gangsta rap," N.W.A propelled the genre into an expanded musical realm and topped the charts with their own challenging and illuminating style of rhymes unprecedented in their brutal reality over complex, funk-fueled tracks. "The World's Most Dangerous Group" spawned three of the most
important figures in gangsta rap's evolution: the late rapper and entrepreneur Eazy-E, street lyricist extraordinaire Ice Cube and mega-producer Dr. Dre.

N.W.A.'s first album, N.W.A and the Posse, was released in 1987, but it is 1988's Straight Outta Compton that has endured as the group's genre-defining masterpiece. From the propulsive groove of "Express Yourself" to the title track's battering statement of purpose, nothing had prepared listeners for this album's uncompromising power.

"The listening experience," Cheo Coker wrote in The Vibe History of Hip-Hop, "was akin to being wired into a sensory camera, where you could smell the room, sense the bullets whizzing by your head, and feel your adrenaline pump as the police raced you around the block."

Along with Run-D.M.C.'s self-titled debut album and Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton stands, 20 years after its incendiary debut, as one of the pivotal recordings in the history of popular music.

N.W.A: Straight Outta Compton (20th Anniversary Edition) [CD, Vinyl, Digital]

1. Straight Outta Compton
2. F*ck Tha Police
3. Gangsta Gangsta
4. If It Ain't Ruff
5. Parental Discretion Iz Advised
6. 8 Ball (remix)
7. Something Like That
8. Express Yourself
9. Compton's N The House (remix)
10. I Ain't Tha 1
11. Dopeman (remix)
12. Quiet On Tha Set
13. Something 2 Dance 2

20th Anniversary Edition bonus tracks:
14. F*ck Tha Police (Bone Thugs-N-Harmony)
15. Gangsta Gangsta (Snoop Dogg/C-Murder)
16. Dopeman (Mack 10)
17. If It Ain't Ruff (WC)
18. Compton's N The House (live) (Dr. Dre/M.C. Ren)

In the late 1990s, Fiend was a vital member of Master P's notorious No Limit army, releasing two solo albums with the label and frequently
collaborating with its founder and other artists.

For the first time, 18 of Fiend's top No Limit tracks, including standout solo recordings and collaborations for soundtracks and the label's compilations, are presented in one collection, The Best Of Fiend: Mr. Whomp Whomp, to be released December 4 by Capitol/Priority.

In 1997, Master P signed the up and coming New Orleans rapper Fiend to his local No Limit Records. Fiend's first single for the label was that year's "Don't Mess Around," a track featured on the I'm 'Bout It soundtrack. Fiend's collaboration on Master P's major hit, "Make Em Say Ugh" set the stage for two successful No Limit solo albums that followed: 1998's There's One In Every Family, which hit #1 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and #8 on the Billboard Top 200, and 1999's Street Life, which also took the top slot on the Top R&B/Rap Albums chart and reached #15 on the Billboard Top 200.

The Best of Fiend: Mr. Whomp Whomp

1. Mr. Whomp Whomp
2. Big Timer (with Mia X)
3. Woof! (with Snoop Dogg, Mystikal)
4. Talk It How I Bring It
5. For The N.O.
6. Don't Mess Around
7. Get In 2 It (with Mia X)
8. What Cha Mean (with Soulja Slim, Kane & Abel, Mac)
9. They Don't Hear Me
10. We (with Mac)
11. Cold Wit It
12. Tryin' 2 Do Something (with Master P, Mac)
13. Who Got The Fire (with Master P, Snoop Dogg)
14. Greens, Cornbread & Cabbage (with Master P, Mac)
15. Break Something
16. No Limit Soldiers II (with Master P, C-Murder, Magic, Mister
Serv-On, Mia X, Big Ed, Silkk The Shocker, Mystikal)
17. We Got It (with Mister Serv-On, Big Ed, Magic)
18. Take My Pain (with Master P, Silkk The Shocker, Sons Of Funk)

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