Month: July 2022

Her industry journey has been a wave of experiences that have now eased her into her era of being an independent artist, but that wasn’t what Tinashe had on the horizon when she was mapping out her career. She once thought that signing a deal with RCA Records would spell out the success she always dreamed of, but after nearly 10 years with the label, Tinashe decided to part ways. Many of her fans believe that she deserved more praise than she has received, especially as a Pop artist, and the singer seems to agree with the sentiment.

“I never wanted to be an independent artist,” she told Pitchfork. “I always wanted to be mainstream…I wanted to be top of the charts…When I first got in the game, I feel like my label viewed me very much as an R&B act, which was confusing because I felt that my music was more in the Pop space.”

Amy Sussman / Staff / Getty Images

“There’s a lot of negative connotation associated with being a Pop artist: It’s cheesy, simple, basic,” she added. “It can be those things, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be…What pop means to me is strong melodies, strong performance, strong persona, catchiness, relatability. A lot of people made me feel that if I went in that direction, I would be watering down my artistry. I feel like, for many years, people were like, ‘Tinashe is corny,’ and it felt like a very lazy critique. Still, to this day, I’m like, what do you mean by that?”

“I try not to dwell on the fact that I feel so underrated, but it depends on the day,” Tinashe stated “There’s times I’ll question my worth because I don’t see the numbers or stats. It’s so easy to compare yourself when there are physical markers like that…I try to zoom out more and respect the space I’m in because it’s not a bad place at all.”

Check out a few still from her feature below. Also, make sure to check out our March 2022 Ladies First interviewwith Tinashe.

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The truth about what Wendy Williams has been going through in the last few years has been shrouded in mystery as the hosting giant has been plagued with rumors. There was the time she was in a Sober Living facility during the fallout of her marriage—a scandal that revealed her then-husband Kevin Hunter fathered a child with his mistress. More recently, there have been ongoing concerns regarding Williams’s health; so much so that she was allegedly blocked from accessing her finances with Wells Fargo.

Then, her famed, long-running talk show began using guest hosts to keep things running in Williams’s absence, but that recently came to a screeching halt. An announcement of the end of The Wendy Williams Show came and went, as did its final episode, and for Williams, it was an abrupt end of an era.

Williams and Charlamagne Tha God once worked together many years ago, and the ups and downs of their friendship have been well-documented. These day, the pair are on good terms, and while speaking with E! News’s Daily Pop, he was asked whether or not he believed Williams could one day rise again.

“Can she make a comeback? I mean yeah, God willing,” The Breakfast Club host said today (July 27). “Will she? I don’t know. I would hate to see her go out this way, only because she’s been so great for so long.”

Moving forward, Sherri Shepherd will reportedly take over Williams’s television time slot with her new talk show. During Williams’s absence, Shepherd was one of several entertainers who stepped in as a guest host. Meanwhile, Wendy has surfaced on social media with updates, stating that she is doing just fine as she continues to battle against her bank. She also revealed that she was working on a new podcast.

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Lil Baby’s been busy. The Atlanta rapper’s dropped singles left and right this year, including “Frozen,” “In A Minute,” and “Right On.” He also recently performed at Rolling Loud Miami, and is on a new track DJ Khaled teased off his upcoming album God Did. 

With all the success he’s been seeing, it’s no wonder that fans are trying to get close to him. At Rolling Loud, crowds tried to stream backstage only to be stopped by the rapper himself, who personally vetted each person trying to get past him.

 Aaron J. Thornton/WireImage/Getty Images

In the video uploaded to Instagram, Lil Baby physically pushes people back who are trying to sneak by him as the security guard next to him repeats, “He ain’t with you. He ain’t with you.” Some people’s excuses to get in were pretty lackluster. Lil Baby asked one fan who he was with, and the fan responded, “Rolling Loud.” Needless to say, this did not fool the rapper.

Eventually, Lil Baby let a couple people he recognizes in, and then walked away. The guard was then left to hold back the hoards himself, yelling, “Nobody else. No, no, no!” It’s an unenviable job.

Apparently, Lil Baby wasn’t just acting as his own security at Rolling Loud. It was rumored that he also went on a $100,000 shopping spree at the festival. Saweetie seemingly confirmed the claims during her performance, apparently rapping, “Why n*ggas always speaking on who I’m f*cking on/He must have got excited when I FaceTimed him with nothing on/Same h*es that’s talking be the same ones I nutted on/100k? You know much paper I be touching on?/That’s light, baby check my net worth.”

Check out the video of security guard Baby below.

Boosie Badazz can always be relied on for some hot takes. He recently stated that the music industry is moving away from gangbanging rappers, and at another point he took aim at Mark Zuckerberg after Instagram took down one of his posts, saying, “I wake up every morning hoping your jet crash.”

Boosie is also known to frequent the VladTV studio to drop off some controversial remarks, and that’s what he did recently. DJ Vlad asked Boosie about his opinion on male Brazilian Butt Lifts, and Boosie said he had never heard of the procedure. He continued to say that he had never paid for a BBL for a woman, but he had paid for a breast implant surgery, as well as a surgery to take them out.

 Prince Williams/Wireimage

“I don’t like BBL’s,” Boosie told DJ Vlad. He said that women have asked him for the money to get the procedure done, but he never acted on the request. He then shifted to breast implants, which is a whole other story for the rapper. “I bought some titties,” Boosie said. “Then one of my b***hes, my new b***h, we had broke up, she went and got her titties done and when we got back together, I made her go back and take them out.”

Boosie explained his reasoning, saying that the breast implants were done to push his buttons. “I think it was to get back at me,” he said. “She knew I didn’t want that. She had got like some… I don’t know. They wasn’t much bigger because I didn’t notice ’em. I didn’t notice ’em at first. She had fell and I noticed them… But she did it out of spite.”

Boosie coughed up 10K to have them removed, and claims it was worth every cent. “Those muthaf**kas so soft now,” he said. “Those muthaf**kas like gummy bears. And I never touched them when she got ’em done, like I never sucked them. I never touched them ’cause I love her naturality. Now they like gummy bears.”

Check out the video below.

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The Biden administration has reportedly proposed a deal to swap prisoners with Russia in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who has been detained in the country for months after being found with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil at an airport in Moscow.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed on Wednesday that the United States has proposed exchanging prisoners to bring home Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan.

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

“We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release,” Blinken said. “Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and, I hope, to move us toward a resolution.”

As for who the United States would offer up, CNN reports that three sources have confirmed that Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is on the table. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 on charges that he planned to illegally sell millions of dollars in weapons.

If convicted, and the US is unable to reach an agreement with Russia, Griner faces up to 10 years in prison. Her legal team hopes that her medical excuse and lack of criminal intent would at least bring her sentence down.

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