Dom Kennedy Not Managed by HHS78

Last week, rumors hit the ’net that West Coast rapper Dom Kennedy was signed to the all-star management company, Hip Hop Since 1978, the same firm responsible for the careers of Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Drake, Young Jeezy and Just Blaze. XXLMag.com reached out to Al Branch, the general manager of the company to find out if all the interweb chatter was true.

According to Branch, Dom is not a client, but he considers the young Los Angeles MC, who appeared in XXL's Show and Prove column in June 2010, to be the next big star in the rap business. “HHS78 doesn't manage Dom,” he said. “His manager/label partner Archie Davis is a great young businessman. Dom makes a living touring and putting out top quality mixtapes and music videos. This is a great thing for hip-hop artists. So I help them anyway I can. I believe they deserve a label deal and I'm gonna support their vision with all my might. Dom will easily be one of the next bidding wars in the music industry.”

Dom recently dropped his latest mixtape, The Original Dom Kennedy, last month. —Elan Mancini with additional reporting by Mariel Concepcion