Month: July 2022

It has been about two decades of animosity between Trina and Khia, but it seems as if the latter is the one carrying the beef along all these years. It isn’t difficult to come across the scathing remarks Khia has said about Trina, often hitting below the belt and speaking on sensitive topics related to the “Da Baddest B*tch” icon. Trina has seemingly taken it all in stride, but with each unanswered prod from the “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)” rapper, things only intensify. Khia has even challenged her to a Verzuz—something Trina rejected while later appearing on the series with Eve.

The Rap star recently made a triumphant appearance on Drink Champs and during the expansive discussion, this rift with Khia was addressed without necessarily mentioning anyone by name. Noreaga recalled that Khia demanding a battle with Trina was the first time he’d ever seen the latter angry.

John Parra / Stringer / Getty Images

“That’s not the first time she said something to or about me,” said Trina. “It’s not about that. Like I said, I would battle anybody. It is what it is. I have records, I get on stage and do what I do and if you another female artist… I’m ready.”

“But when it comes to this particular person, the level of disrespect is beyond. I don’t know you. If I don’t know you, I’m not entertaining or feeding into you, that’s just me,” she added. “Now, it’s two sides of me. It’s this side that’s this polished side but then I’m from Liberty City, Miami, Florida. That’s the real part. Yes.”

“For me, I just feel like, I learned a lot of stuff in this game. I didn’t come up off the internet… I’m like, in the real world, real streets. So, when I came up, it’s more so about like—you really see me with the female artists in the game, I’m always saluting them, showing them love. Whatever you do, do your thing. I like you, I support you. If I don’t like you, I don’t have to support you.”

Trina added that she never had any ill feelings toward Khia, “but then you attacked me and slandered my name all these times. For what? Were you looking for attention?” She refused to acknowledge Khia’s vitriol because Trina claimed Khia didn’t deserve space on her platform.

“If I have nothing to do, I wasn’t traveling, if I was sitting at home with my feet up, bored, not booked…oh it’s a war! We could go at it. But I don’t really have the time for that. I don’t really care about social media, you feel me? I’m so busy making sure my bag is good and making sure everything around me is good and buying property and doing stuff that makes sense. Please explain to me why I am going on the internet with another girl that I don’t know, like never said hi to. What for? That’s not even my vibe.”

“I’m from the streets and in the streets, when I see you, it’s on sight. That’s what it is.”

She may have been hesitant about putting this track on her debut album, but “Baby” has gone on to become an unforgettable Ashanti classic. The former Murder Inc. hitmaker is celebrating the 20th anniversary of her self-titled debut that brought us favorites including “Happy,” “Foolish,” and “Unfoolish” featuring Biggie Smalls. Two decades later and Ashanti continues to tour the world and sing songs from the project, and in a chat with Vibe, she revealed that “Baby” was an inclusion that she was not fond of when crafting her tracklist.

“I didn’t like ‘Baby.’ Yeah, that was an argument (laughs). It was crazy,” she told the outlet.

Bennett Raglin / Stringer / Getty Images

“I don’t know. I felt like, I liked what I wrote, but it was a different vibe because it’s such a low register, you know, slow,” Ashanti added. “But it was a vibe and I was a little nervous. To be released as a single is something different than an album cut, you know? So [when] making the album, I didn’t know which ones were gonna go and be picked as a single, but I remember fighting with everybody in the studio. They was just like, ‘No, shut up! You’re doing it.’ (Laughs) I’ll give them that!” 

Thankfully, the song grew on her and she now says she “absolutely” loves the record.

“I love just conceptually how I flipped it and going back and forth with the ad-libs and the verse and the metaphors. I love the record. But I was just nervous about it because it was different.”

Revisit “Baby” below to take a walk down R&B memory lane.

[via]

If there is a genre of music that has blurred crossover lines, it’s Hip Hop. From those days of Run-DMC rocking the stage with Aerosmith on “Walk This Way” to current artists defining themselves as “Alternative Hip Hop” or “Afro Punk” (not to be confused with the publication), more artists are fusing Rock and Rap, but Denzel Curry wants people to stop asking him to jump into Punk feet first.

The Florida rapper is known for stepping outside of the box when it comes to his productions, and back in 2019, he covered a Rage Against The Machine favorite for Like a Version. During his NME cover feature interview, he was asked about whether or not he would make a punk album as some of his fans have requested.

“There are people who were super big rock-heads who said, ‘When I heard a rapper was going to cover this, I was very skeptical until I heard it. And you bodied it’,” he shared with NME. “Nobody’s ever bodied a Rage Against The Machine cover… I got a lot of praise for it and some people are even asking me to make a punk album, and I’m just not with that. Not now; hell no! A punk album? F*ck no!”

“If anything, I’m more so big on flexibility, because when you call me a ‘Pop-Punk prince’, that’s like you’re putting me in a box – that’s not what I want you to do. I make sure every album sounds different,” he said before mentioning his latest record, MELT MY EYEZ SEE YOUR FUTURE. “On this album, do you hear it sound like punk?”

“You might hear it on TA13OO, maybe even on Imperial – but Nostalgic 64 didn’t sound like Punk. You can’t call me that: I did one cover and now everyone thinks I’m punk!”

Check out a few stills from Curry’s NME feature below.

[via]

After facing off against Tupac Shakur fans over his remarks about the late Rap icon, T-Pain is in the news for less controversial reasons. The autotune hitmaker has been finding success outside of the music industry thanks to gaming, even recently sharing that he makes more money on Twitch than in the studio. The lucrative business move was something he happened to stumble upon, and after seeing that his fans loved tuning in, it became his new cash cow.

When T-Pain chatted with AfroTech, he revisited a time in his career when he realized that he was broke and wasn’t aware that he didn’t have any money. “It was such a surprise. That one day where I was like, ‘Yeah, somebody just moved out of the house in front of me, I want to go buy that house.’ And someone on my team was like, ‘You ain’t got no money dude.'”

 
Nicholas Hunt / Staff / Getty Images

“I was like, ‘What?’ It was a surprise because I wasn’t watching [my money].” Now, Pain said he “always asks questions” about his cash and business moves, and he doesn’t hesitate to interject his opinions on deals. Branding has been an intricate part of his career including his Lipton Iced Tea partnership.

Pain also draws inspiration from his fellow Hip Hop peers who have established themselves independently in industries that aren’t directly related to entertainment.

“David Banner, Killer Mike, you know people that look like me that have done this on their own and succeeded, those are my biggest inspirations,” he said. “David Banner came from music, went to speaking, started his own production company and he just went down all these routes on his own. Those are the people I admire, especially if they look like me.”

[via]

Although Kendrick Lamar has delivered an album that fans are still feasting on, this revelation from DJ Premier has everyone already anticipating new heat from K.Dot. Last week, the legendary DJ shared Hip Hop 50 Volume 1, a partnership with Nas’s Mass Appeal to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the genre. The project hosts features from Nas, Remy Ma, Slick Rick, Lil Wayne, Rapsody, and Joey Bada$$, and it is just the first in a series that breathes new life into Hip Hop’s current culture.

Meanwhile, DJ Premier has been promoting the effort, and recently, he sat down with Ebro in the Morning to chat about the record as well as his other works. It was then that Premier revealed he has something cooking with Lamar.

D Dipasupil / Stringer / Getty Images

“Kendrick had come to see me, we had sat together to work on some stuff,” said Premier. “t didn’t materialize, but just the fact that he even showed up and came in the room.” He added that as musicians they were in sync in the studio. “We had a great time, just hanging. I made like, ten joints for him, and he took them all.”

“Even when I’m like, ‘Which one you want me to give?’ He’s like, ‘All of ’em in order from the way you played ’em.”

In related DJ Premier news, during his recent visit to The Breakfast Club, he shared that he had a collaboration with 50 Cent locked and loaded but it didn’t get released because of Dr. Dre. Check out his interview with Ebro in the Morning below.

[via]

At this point, we all know that there isn’t any love lost between DJ Akademiks and Peter Rosenberg. The pair have traded jabs and insults for years, often causing viral moments from the back and forths that don’t seem to lead to any real resolution. Earlier this year, Akademiks went off on Rosenberg and offered a chance to take their grievances to the ring, but it didn’t come as a surprise when that bout never materialized. 

All these months later, it looks as if Akademiks has returned with more to say to and about Rosenberg, and to call it vicious is an understatement. According to Akademiks, the Hot 97 DJ retweeted some less than favorable posts about him that he didn’t appreciate. 

John Sciulli / Stringer / Getty Images

“Don’t mention my name again, p*ssy. I saw you retweeted some sh*t when you thought n*ggas had me down,” said Akademiks. Then, he went off on Rosenberg about his alleged ex who was reportedly filmed giving oral sex to another man.

“Don’t you retweet nothing about me, you a b*tch as n*gga,” Akademiks continued. “Remember when I told you that we could’ve boxed properly, wasn’t with the smoke… Don’t hit up no mutual friend of ours talkin’ ’bout, ‘Oh, why is Ak going crazy on me?’ B*tch ass n*gga, I cross lines… You obsessed with a Black man’s business, but you gotta focus on the Black man that’s f*ckin’ your b*tch.”

There was much more from Akademiks, not only about Rosenberg but regarding Gillie Da Kid and Rick Ross‘s current tit-for-tat that has been unraveling in real time over the last week or two. Check out Akademiks’s rant below.