Last December, Brazilian promoters booked Landover native Kev Brown to perform in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. What was originally scheduled to be a short trip would blossom into a two-month-long adventure: While Brown traveled across east Brazil, natives hipped him to the local tunes. He mined their suggestions for samples on his Brazil Dedication EP, which captures a Brazilian spirit without deviating too far from Low Budget’s boom-bap aesthetic.

Ever wanted to see an iconic rapper perform alongside an orchestra? If the answer to that question is a thunderous “YES!” followed by a succession of droning “Braaaveheaaart!” chants, then your prayers have finally been answered. This spring, the National Symphony Orchestra’s NSO Pops welcomes hip-hop titan Nas to the Kennedy Center to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his masterful debut album, Illmatic. Kicking off the center’s weeklong festival “One Mic: Hip-Hop Culture Worldwide,” Nas will be the first notable rapper to play the prestigious venue since Snoop Dogg’s tribute to Herbie Hancock back in December.

More than half of this years nominees are based on true events, but none were Based on a TRU Story . Max Bell, Matt Shea, Trey Kerby, Harold Stallworth, Doc Zeus, Tosten Burks, Brad Beatson, Abe Beame and Jonah Bromwich weigh in on this years nominees. And we’d love to hear what you think, too. Russell’s American Hustle is about the American dream of reinvention.

E1 Entertainment’s buddy-crime flick, Envy , stars the unlikely duo of rapper Anthony “AZ” Cruz and pop singer William “Ray J” Norwood. Before its unceremonious straight-to-DVD release in 2009, the film was shelved for the better half of a decade. This dates the original taping all the way back to the height of G-Unit fever, an era that wasn’t particularly hospitable to AZ’s enlightened brand of verbose street rap.

Kev Brown had one hell of a Christmas vacation. Last year, the hip-hop producer spent the better part of two months gallivanting around eastern Brazil, soaking up the warm tropical sun and programming beats featured on his latest instrumental album, Brazil Dedication . More than eight months removed from what Kev describes as the experience of a lifetime, he’s hunched over production consoles scattered about his childhood bedroom in Landover, Md., reminiscing over his wayward travels.

J Cole is Fayetteville, NC’s quintessential hip-hop success story. But a full decade before his raspy voice blared from black college dorms across the country, an obscure rap duo known as Bomm Sheltuh was projected to be his hometown’s vessel for national exposure on the music front. Although the group never achieved any substantial success beyond Cumberland County, they can still take comfort in knowing their tutelage played an instrumental role in Cole’s early artistic development.

When D.C. music retail was a bloodsport, Kemp Mill Records was king. Now all that's left are one store and a lot of memories.

DMV Beats is Washington City Paper's weekly local rap feature.

When Havoc and Prodigy first met one another in the halls of Manhattan’s esteemed High School of Art & Design, they probably never imagined one day entertaining a nationwide 20th anniversary tour. After all, by 1992 many of their biggest musical influences, like Run DMC and Jungle Brothers, were already remnants of a vital, yet bygone era.

The notion of “lost tapes” isn’t exclusive to rap music. Curating previously unreleased works of recorded media is a concept long adopted by everyone from John Lennon to Animal Planet to NASA scientists. But in hip-hop, the benchmark for such an endeavor will always be Nas’ 2004 retail compilation,The Lost Tapes.