Music 5 O’Clock Shuffle: Lupe Fiasco, Mariah Carey, Akon & More

Left To Right: Lupe Fiasco, Theophilus London, Mariah Carey, Walls, Akon

Each day Complex scours the music blogs for 5 fresh songs that you should listen to in our 5 O’Clock Shuffle post. Instead of going crazy trying to keep up with your RSS feeds everyday, just head over to Complex.com to stay up-to-date on important leaks and releases.

Everyone has different musical tastes, but we’re pretty sure we’ve covered them all with today’s Shuffle playlist. Lupe brings the lyricism. Mariah gets a few Southern rappers to help her out. Akon applies his pop formula to a NYC tribute. And there’s more to look forward to from a couple lesser known artists. The mix is all over the place, but satisfying nonetheless. Press play after the jump…

Music Pants On Fire: Hip-Hop’s Most Exposed Liars

You’ve heard the news by now: Slate has found that rapper Roxanne Shante was not nearly the business-savvy teen that she bragged about being–and that rather than holding her label accountable for her college costs as she went on to get her doctorate degree, she actually didn’t ever get a degree at all, let alone make her label pay for it.

But more on that later! Hip-hop (and R&B) is as full of self-mythologizing bluster as the next genre (you ain’t no killa, Kenny Chesney!), but sometimes we’re amazed at what people try to get away with..which is why we rounded up the biggest fibbers in the biznass. Dear bad liars: try to stay away from polygraphs in the future…

The Complex 7 The Complex 7: DJ Skee

Fresh off a residency in Macau (that’s China, suckas!), DJ Skee is back in the U.S. to continue his various endeavors—a popular online channel called SKEE.TV, a series of award-winning mixtapes and a radio show on L.A.’s KIIS-FM (102.7). Even with that full plate, Skee is still adding new hustles: Next week marks the debut of Skee’s new “Skeetox” show on XM/Sirius (Tuesdays, 10 p.m.) as well as the release of his latest project, a R. Kelly mixtape hosted by himself and DJ Drama. At only 25, Skee is clearly ahead of the game.

The NYC-born, Minnesota-raised DJ got his first break as a teenager when Stretch Armstrong introduced him to Steve Rifkind. The SRC owner liked young Skee’s ideas, and eventually brought him on as a consultant. Since then, Skee has helped launch the careers of Akon and The Game. Recently we got a chance to chat with Skee for another round of The Complex 7 in which he professed his love for Jordans and discussed how he put Chris Cornell on to Twitter. To read Skee’s answers and hear a snippet from his new tape, see below…

Music Tami Chynn Talks Akon Collabos & Jamaican Tabloids

If Shaggy and Sean Paul were the pinnacle of the dancehall’s cross-over success in the mid-to-late ’90s, singer Tami Chynn has the potential to become the female equivalent today. With the exception of Rihanna, singers from the Caribbean have largely been unable to break out of the dancehall mold to achieve lasting success.

One thing’s for sure, it helps to have a major label backing the effort, which Universal did in 2006 when they released Tami Chynn’s debut Out Of Many One. While the rhythms were catchy and sexy to match Tami’s drop-dead-gorgeous looks, they catered to the raw, traditional riddim format of dancehall tracks. But for her sophomore follow-up, she’s going pop under the guidance of Akon and with the support of Steve Rifkin’s SRC label. Last week, Complex chopped it up with Tami about her new album Prima Donna, cat-calling in ATL, and becoming fodder for Jamaican tabloids…

Music Five Black Country Singers Before Akon

In a recent interview, Akon revealed that he has secretely released a new country western song under an alias. His plan? To become “the first” black country music star before people realize that he’s, you know…black.

While a few other rap and R&B artists have been dabbling in country sounds lately (see: Nelly’s duet with Tim McGraw and Snoop Dogg’s Johnny Cash-esque “My Medicine”), none of them are exactly Jackie Robinson-ing the game. In truth, black artists have occasionally popped up in the lily-white country world for decades. Before he moves to Nashville, 'Kon might want to check out these 5 well-known black country singers, after the jump.