Hangin' With Ace Hood

There weren't a lot of celebrities on hand, but DJ Khaled was there broadcasting live for WEDR and Rick Ross stopped by for a bit to hang out along with Ball Greezy, and Grindmode.

Ace sat atop an elevated platform signing CDs for at least 300 fans and I was glad to see that he had his mother, who we've profiled in New Times before, sitting right next to him the whole time. A lot of rappers act like they're too cool to be seen with their mom so that was a nice touch.

There were some comical moments at the CD release party last night as well. Lot's of young girls swooned of course and there were random rapper standing outside of Best Buy trying to sell their mixtapes instead. You've got to love the hustlenomics of South Florida--it's one of few places where artists will show up to your CD signing trying to sell their own shit instead of buying yours.

By and large, the event was successful. Of course it should have been considering Ace's debut album, Gutta,was on retail for $6.99--a ridiculously low prices that's definitely geared at driving up first week sales numbers. The album release date was pushed back twice in the past 3 months alone and some people were wondering if the disc was going to come out at all. I asked Ace how he felt about finally having product on shelves.

"It feels real good man," he said as the in-store event was rapping up. "To see all these people come out and show love like this--it's just a real good feeling."

We'll see how the rest of the country feels about the album when his first week sales numbers come out next week. Below you can check out his latest video for the song, "Ride" which is one of the best cuts on the album by far.

--Jonathan Cunningham