Love him or hate him, Lil Wayne (aka Weezy) is the man of the moment with his anticipated new album, Tha Carter III (Cash Money/Universal) released earlier this week which broke sales records - selling close to half a million units on the day of its release. And with an approximated million copies sold within the first week - it is guaranteed to be the number one Billboard pop chart  topper. Undoubtedly the album will also go on to become one of the top selling releases of 2008. 

"It's doing really well here. It got a whole bunch of hype of course. But what is interesting to me is the diversity of Lil Wayne fans," reports Marques Newson from the hip-hop department at the Amoeba Music Hollywood store. "I was on the register Tuesday, the release date of the new CD, and there was literally every type of person buying it, every race and age you can think of.  Not just young guys like you might think...but like 40 or 50 year old white women or 60 year old black women."  

Speaking of age, what is most significant about Lil Wayne, a long established rap star  who just recently scored his first pop hit with "Lollipop," is that he is only 25 years old but has been putting it down in the rap game since he hooked up with the Cash Money Records crew when just a teenager.  Besides Lil Wayne's regular full length releases (it's three years since his last official album Tha Carter II) and the countless cameos he makes on other projects, there are a ton of mix CDs featuring his music, including DJ EFX (not to be confused with Raul "DJ EFX" Recinos -- veteran Bay Area hip-hop/house/ tribal/electronic DJ/producer), who recently dropped the popular Before The Carter Vol. 2.  The mixtape only helped fuel interest in the artist's official June 10th release that is clearly geared for crossover pop success with such high-profile collaborators as Jay-Z.

On top of all this, Lil Wayne recently wrapped up filming a part as a student-athlete in the forthcoming movie The Patriots with Forest Whitaker. So Dwayne Michael Carter (his real name) looks set to be a huge, huge star. Of course, the far-from-humble Dwayne has been calling himself "the best rapper alive" for quite a while already which, note, is one of the reasons he causes so much ire in others. Another reason he gets hated on in hip-hop circles is that the often clearly buzzed Weezy (cough syrup is one of his favorite poisons, as well as weed and E) will utter, or rather slur, some of the dumbest, most unprofessional things at the most inappropriate times (i.e, in recorded interviews), like when he recently told Foundation magazine that mix-tape DJs suck ("Fuck you if you are a mix tape DJ" and "I created the mix tape game" were two of his quotes).

Washington DC hip-hop organization Words Beats & Life (WBL) are preparing to present their third annual Bum Rush the Boards hip-hop chess tournament. 

The competition, which is open to players of all ages and skill levels, is happening on May 17th in DC. There will also be chess classes for newbies plus classes in how to DJ, emcee, b-boy/b-girl, and a how-to create graffiti art class.

Inspired in part by the Wu Tang Clan and other hip-hop artists and fans' keen interest in the stimulating board game of chess, and taking its name from Public Enemy's classic album Yo! Bum Rush the Show, Bum Rush the Boards, was created to promote the idea of strategic struggle within the hip-hop generation.   The event's organizers say their hope is to "harness the power of hip-hop culture and the science of chess to open the minds of a generation to a host of new options the world has available to them."

Last year in San Jose, a gathering of martial arts, chess, and hip-hop enthusiasts convened for a free hip hop chess exhibition/ grudge match -- also geared for all ages. That event had similar positive goals of wanting to teach hip-hop generation youth the mental benefits of the age old game of chess. The NorCal event, organized by the the International Hip Hop Chess Federation's Leo Libiran and Adisa Banjoko (pictured left), featured on the boards that day Banjoko, DJ QBert, Casual, Davey D, and Boots Riley of The Coup, among others. It was RZA who won the Hip-Hop Chess Federation belt at last year's tournament.