On “Cobra,” Meg calls out her opps — the ones who left her at her lowest, and kicked her while she was down. Sonically, “Cobra” is indicative of fresh new sounds in the Megan Thee Stallion hottieverse, as the song is jampacked with rock-influence, particularly an intoxicating guitar riff near the end of the song. As a newly independent artist, Meg is confident as she is fully in control of her sound, and it is worth nothing that she is a co-producer on this new single.
“How I still kinda feel like you plottin’, watchin’? / Why is you speakin’ on me at my lowest, when you acted like you ain’t noticed / Hoe shit then, go crazy, and made lowkey hatin’, so they ain’t gon’ say sh*t,” raps Meg on one of the song’s verses.
In the song’s accompanying video, Megan emerges from the mouth of a snake, while making a treacherous journey through the forest, dancing her way through the pain.
Over the past decade, Sky Rompiendo has solidified his position as one of the world’s premier music producers. His talent has shaped global anthems for Latin superstars, including Bad Bunny, J. Balvin, Karol G, Rosalía, Maluma, Anitta, Rauw Alejandro, Nicky Jam, Ozuna, and dynamic crossover collaborations with U.S. powerhouses like The Weeknd and Travis Scott.
Recently, this Colombian native successfully transitioned into a solo musician, partnering with Feid and Myke Towers to release “El Cielo” in June 2023. His pivot into a front-facing artist began with the hit collaboration “Karma” alongside J. Balvin and Ozuna.
SKY Rompiendo’s journey began as a teenage prodigy. Still, it took a significant turn in 2012 when he teamed up with J. Balvin, producing several hits for Balvin’s debut studio album, “La Familia.” Since then, SKY has produced over 60 chart-topping songs on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, including three No. 1 hits and 16 additional Top-10 entries. Notable tracks include “Con Altura,” “Downtown,” “Ay Vamos,” and “GATITA GANGSTER,” solidifying his status as a music industry powerhouse.
In conversation with The Source, Sky Rompiendo details working with J. Balvin, his transition into a solo artist, and more.
The SOURCE:Your collaboration with J. Balvin in 2012 was a turning point in your career. Could you share the story of how that connection happened and how it led to producing several hits for J. Balvin’s debut studio album, La Familia?
Sky Rompiendo: The collaboration was very organic and easy. One day we hit the studio, I played him some beats and had a couple of beers and that was it. We instantly locked in and five days later we were working on the first song which was “En Lo Oscuro.” From there we started writing more, working on some hits and songs started coming in like “6 AM (feat. Farruko),” “Sola,” “Yo Te Lo Dije.” We just continued working on a bunch of albums and songs that came with that friendship and collaboration.
You’ve produced over 60 songs that have charted on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, including three No. 1 hits. What do you believe sets your production style apart and contributes to your consistent success on the charts?
Every song is special for me. When it’s an album it’s a whole journey, I go with the artist to work on the sound that they want. Even the songs that don’t make the charts, they all have something special they came from an artist who is feeling something or wanting to share something. I’m blessed to be around artists that have that responsibility to keep pushing the Latin culture. They trust me and I trust them with my songs and it’s just a strong connection I have with each of them.
In recent years, you’ve transitioned to a solo musician. Can you tell us about your decision to pivot into a solo artist and how that journey has been for you?
It’s been very interesting and exciting to be able to show people how I imagine songs, not only sonically but the concept of it. I always loved artists that have that narrative and that concept on them. Even the way they look or their lifestyle, I think now people want that too. People want to be a part of that, too even with the way social media shows that, everyone is trying to identify with somebody, so I think right now is the right time to do it.
As a solo artist, what do you want to bring to fans and how would you measure your level of success?
I want to bring fans the songs that they want to hear and the features they always wanted like what I did in “El Cielo.” Fans wanted something between Myke Towers and Feid and I threw in Mora in there because fans are the ones that run this. They are the ones that tell you who’s hot and who’s not and every artist fan base is important to me. My level of success I don’t really measure that I just enjoy what I do and I see success in other aspects of my life. I just love making music.
“El Cielo,” your collaboration with Feid and Myke Towers, was released in June 2023. Could you share the inspiration behind this song and what it means to you as a solo musician?
The inspiration was the fans because the song we wrote it two years ago. The song was a pretty dope song, and I wrote it with Feid and we didn’t really do anything with it. After two albums the song was just there, and this song just really kept catching my ears. I started seeing that fans kept asking when we’re going to have the Feid and Myke Towers collab and I played the song for Myke which he was hype about too and it was just an easy song to do.
Can you tell us about Crush, how this collaboration came about? What was the inspiration behind it?
The inspiration behind “Crush” is all these friends that I have now that are superstars now. I saw something in them, and I started making music with them. I like the vibe and see something in them that people probably haven’t seen yet. I have this platform that I have now that I’m trying to grow, and I have a strong channel for someone like Dei V who is super hype right now in Puerto Rico. He’s someone that everyone is talking about in the streets and all the big artists want to collab with him. So, I wanted to put him in my world and make a different sound for him. This song is not trap and it’s not something we are used to hearing from him and showing the world he can make a commercial song and can make a hit. That’s the inspiration and message I’m trying to give.
With your extensive experience and accolades, including three Producer of the Year nominations at the Billboard Latin Music Awards, what advice would you give to aspiring producers and artists looking to make their mark in the music industry?
It takes a lot of work, dedication, and patience. Patience is key and not think a lot about the money. Follow your dreams and instincts. Get around people who have the same vision as you or bigger.
A group of renowned hip-hop artists, including Fat Joe, Rick Ross, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, French Montana, and Chuck D, have joined forces with the national nonprofit organization Power to the Patients. This collaboration, led by filmmaker Kevin Morra, aims to advocate for transparency in the American healthcare system.
Power to the Patients, co-founded by Kevin Morra, entrepreneur Cynthia Fisher, and filmmaker Paul J. Morra, has been dedicated to achieving systemwide price transparency in healthcare. Their mission supports legislative efforts at all levels of government, holds healthcare institutions and insurers accountable for complying with federal transparency rules, and educates Americans about their right to know actual healthcare prices.
The current federal transparency rules are often disregarded by hospitals and insurers without facing the consequences, raising concerns about the effectiveness of these regulations in ensuring transparency in healthcare pricing.
In the newly released PSA, the hip-hop legends urge elected officials to commit to a healthcare system characterized by transparency, echoing Kevin Morra’s commitment to driving change.
In conversation with The Source, Morra details how the PSA campaign came together, the goal of the PSA, and more.
THE SOURCE: Can you tell us more about the recent PSA campaign where Power To The Patients collaborated with hip-hop legends like Fat Joe, Rick Ross, and others? What was the inspiration behind this collaboration?
Kevin Morra: As Hip Hop turned 50, some of the culture’s most legendary icons joined Power to the Patients to fight for price transparency in healthcare, which is an absolutely critical issue for every single person and community across the country. Their support for this issue brings so much gravitas. Hospitals and Insurance companies have egregiously rigged our healthcare system for their enormous profits at the expense of our paychecks and financial stability, putting at risk both our health and our lives. Because we are dealing with people’s well-being, this is not just an economic issue, it’s also a humanitarian one. The combined effort from Fat Joe, Method Man, Chuck D, Busta Rhymes, Rick Ross and French Montana to step up and lend their voices, their platform, and their passion against this healthcare injustice only proves the maturity, responsibility, and the continued resistance so engrained into the fabric of Hip Hop culture. As discussed with Chuck D on-set, the early roots of our activism, including the very spark for Power to the Patients, is prominently bred from rebellious art and culture, protest music, and key influences like Public Enemy. To challenge an enormous system like healthcare, we do need powerful inspiration and so it’s very apropos to have these types of legendary voices joining a movement of this nature. This series of Hip Hop PSAs fighting for healthcare price transparency showcases the commitment Hip Hop maintains and possesses for meaningful political, social, and economic improvements. This entire movement is for the people.
Kevin Morra and Fat Joe with Hakeem Jeffries
How did you manage to get all these hip-hop icons together?
My brother Paul and I are filmmakers and Fat Joe and Terror Squad member Raul have been friends of ours for over twenty years now, originally meeting through a television show we Produced for MTV. The Terror Squad has always been the real deal and always willing to stand on principle and fight the good fight. So, when we shared with them the mission for “Power to the Patients,” they immediately jumped on board and, together, we filmed a very poignant PSA (Public Service Announcement) on a rooftop in the South Bronx, which is an area especially devastated by out of control healthcare costs and overcharges at hospitals. In fact, the Bronx is one of the many communities where people often refuse to enter a hospital, no matter what, out of a justified fear that the resulting hospital bill could destroy the financial security for themselves and their family. It’s all so tragic. We love our nurses and we need our doctors, but the big business of American healthcare is a totally corrupt and unconscionable system rigged by the venture capitalists and healthcare profiteers who run our hospitals and insurance companies and hide their prices in order to create historic corporate profits. As a result of this greed, they are quite literally destroying people’s lives.
In April of this year, Busta Rhymes, French Montana, Rick Ross, and Fat Joe joined us for a performance at what became one of the most incredible live musical performance events Washington, D.C. has ever seen. This Power to the Patients event kicked off the beginning of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner week and our audience was largely made up of Members of Congress and Capitol Hill staffers as well as leaders and staff from the White House. It was a truly remarkable night to behold and each artist passionately advocated for the transparency effort in between performing hit after hit after hit. We have since been blessed to add Chuck D and Method Man to this advocacy mix and each are featured through this current PSA series. Suffice to say, the Power to the Patients movement is growing!
Could you explain the specific issues related to healthcare transparency that the campaign addresses, such as hospitals and insurance companies providing “estimates” rather than “actual prices”? How does this affect patients and the healthcare industry? <combined> Power To The Patients has been advocating for healthcare transparency for some time now. Could you share some of the challenges you’ve faced in this journey and the progress you’ve made so far?
The American healthcare system is not just broken, but it’s intentionally rigged for tremendous profits at the heavy cost and potential devastation of every single person who relies on its services and procedures, which is all of us. Hospitals and Insurance companies have been getting away with hiding their prices so they can prevent consumerism, stifle competition, and completely deflect all accountability for their overcharges and inconsistent billing. We founded Power to the Patients, a non-profit, non-commercial advocacy group, to fight this corporate greed and corruption in order to create a more equitable, accessible, and affordable healthcare system, which will benefit everyone across the nation. In order to achieve this, healthcare price transparency is mandatory across the entire industry. Basically, for healthcare to work fairly in America, hospitals and insurance companies must show us their prices. Without seeing prices up front, hospitals and insurers will continue to charge us whatever they want and there will never be a competitive market to keep prices affordable, honest, or equitable. As Fat Joe has stated, “They’re robbing us.” When you dissect the egregious behavior of hospitals and insurers, including the non-profit and tax-exempt ones, you easily recognize just how deliberately they have created a profit model totally void of decency, responsibility, and ethics for their patients and their communities. It’s impossible to not understand the severity and urgency for price transparency when you realize that medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in this country and you hear the countless stories, like we do, from patient after patient fighting for their lives while being issued liens on their homes from hospitals, or the real life impact that rising healthcare costs has on reducing take home pay, the continuous increase of union fees, or people’s outright refusal to seek medical care in the first place. Healthcare in this country is quite literally stomping out the American dream. Demanding prices in healthcare is an effort we all should insist upon because it’s absolutely essential that citizens are provided fair, equitable, and affordable healthcare. Without access and affordability, people suffer immensely, both financially and from deferring necessary procedures associated with health disorders, injuries, and preventative check-ups. Even for those that advocate for Universal healthcare, without price transparency first, healthcare costs will continue to be out of control, irrespective of whether it’s paid by individuals, by employers, or by the government.
When hospitals avoid transparency, they perpetuate a rigged system that eliminates consumerism and competition for patients and their families and stifles fair planning and negotiations for unions, employers and even local, state and federal governments. We need transparency so that we all have the opportunity to compare the prices of services and procedures in order to make logical decisions on where we seek our care. Essentially, we are fighting for decency and basic economic principles for healthcare in America. It, of course, should be totally illegal for hospitals and insurance companies to hide their prices or obfuscate actual prices by using gimmicky terms like “estimates,” or “average prices,” or “percentages of prices.” Those are just meaningless terms to substitute for providing actual prices.
Your efforts in New York City led to the signing of the Healthcare Accountability and Consumer Protection Act. Can you tell us more about the impact of this act and how it serves as a model for other cities or states to improve healthcare transparency?
In June of this year, with Fat Joe in attendance, New York City Mayor Adams, alongside City Council Members, labor union representatives and activists from Power to the Patients, signed into law a hospital price transparency bill, which will require all New York City hospitals to post all of their prices so that people, patients, employers, unions, and even the government itself can finally see and understand hospital prices upfront. This is an incredible development that will absolutely protect New Yorkers from overcharges and price gouging and it will create, for the first time ever, a free market economy like every other industry, where people will be able to decide which hospitals they enter based on prices of services and procedures. The result of this will be lower medical bills, more trust and accountability in the New York healthcare system, and more equitable care across every borough and neighborhood in the city. It’s an enormously positive development and a model we are pushing to replicate in other major metropolitan areas and states across the country. Of course, the most effective development will be to codify consumer protections and price transparency laws in healthcare at the federal level, so we can protect everyone, all at once. And we will accomplish this!
The joint advocacy by Power To The Patients and the hip-hop icons comes after several meetings with lawmakers and visits to The White House. What has been the response from policymakers and elected officials regarding your efforts and concerns about the healthcare system?
Meeting with dozens of Congressional Members at the U.S. Capitol and various leaders at the White House, all the way up to Vice President Harris, has been an unbelievable experience and we have been largely encouraged with the response. Without a doubt, the politicians also enjoyed meeting with such a dynamic personality as Fat Joe and hearing his genuine enthusiasm for price transparency warmed many-a-room. It’s quite clear that there is a groundswell of support for this issue, but the reality is, we are fighting the American healthcare cartel, which currently generates over $4 trillion annually and is very slick at buying the support of many of our elected officials to maintain the existing crooked system. That part is deeply concerning because we have put these officials in place to represent us, and yet, many are so easily compromised. Despite this, we are indeed winning this battle. When Power to the Patients first began in early 2021, only 4% of hospitals in this country complied with the current federal price transparency rules. Today, roughly two years later, thanks to the relentless work by a number of advocacy groups, spirited activists, uncompromised elected officials and an army of concerned citizens including our Hip Hop participants, we are now at 36% of U.S. hospitals complying with the current federal transparency rule. In other words, 36% of hospitals are now posting their prices (data published by Patient Rights Advocate semi-annual report). While we certainly still have a long way to go, that percentage will continue to grow and we won’t stop until we have real price transparency for a more equitable, accessible and affordable healthcare system across the country.
Logic celebrated his recent partnership with Rubik’s Cube by dropping a new song and video that serves as a double entendre about the game and his life.
It’s no secret that Sexyy Red only continues to rise to the top. She’s worked alongside Nicki Minaj, Drake, Summer Walker and more, and now has yet another exciting collab in her future. The “Pound Town” performer recently took to Twitter, where she responded to some fans suggesting that she work alongside Kevin Gates. The controversial rapper is known for his antics, and some social media users think the two of them would make a great team.
Luckily for them, she appears to agree, as Kevin Gates teased a collab they have in the works on TikTok recently. She responded to one fan who wrote “Sexyy Red and Kevin Gates” with some cheeky emojis, tagging Gates in the process. She also reposted another fan’s Tweet saying something similar, and adding that the pair-up would be as raunchy as one could imagine. “We need a song with Kevin gates & Sexyy red,” they wrote. “Cause ik they both gon be saying the most unprovoked freakiest sh*t.”
It doesn’t sound like listeners looking for something explicit will be disappointed. In Gates’ TikTok, he’s seen meditating in a peaceful garden while the racy bars wash over him. “Im Beyond Turnt,” he also revealed. It’s unclear when the collab will drop, however, it’s safe to say that it’ll be wild. Fans in his comments section can’t wait for the full version to be released.
Kevin Gates also has a new album on the way, The Ceremony. He dropped off the first single from it last week, “God Slippers.” Gates has yet to announce an official release date for the LP. What do you think of Sexyy Red and Kevin gates teaming up for a new collab? How do you think the track is sounding so far? Who else do you think Sexyy Red should collaborate with? Share your thoughts in the comments section down below, and keep an eye on HNHH for more upates.
Queen Latifah has co-signed Mysonne’s sentiments after he called out Akademiks for expressing his fear to diss a gay man despite fearlessly dissing Black women.
Joyner Lucas has informed fans that he will be returning to the drawing board after aborting an experimental album he had been working on for two years.
At long last, we finally have an answer about the mysterious collab album by J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar. Cole made an appearance on Lil Yachty’s A Safe Place podcast, where he explained the origins of the album.
Rumors of the collab album have circulated for over a decade, and Cole confirmed that the two did, in fact, meet around the time Lamar was working on his 2011 independent album, Section.80.
“Closer to the album, I get into all of this,” said Cole of his earliest meetings with Lamar, “so in-depth it’s crazy.”
Cole remembered meeting Lamar at No ID’s home studio. Cole had a collection of beats at the time, including the track for “HiiiPower,” which ended up as a solo Lamar song on Section.80.
“In that moment, we talked about ‘Yo bro, we should do a project,” said Cole. “At that time, he not on like that, but I’m f*cking with him…Him being so excited — because that’s a look for him at that point — so I think he went to Twitter, like ‘Me and J. Cole got something crazy coming’ and he put up a picture of us together.”
The two did end up recording material together, however, as both of their stars were on the rise, and they never found time to complete the project.
“At one point it was a real thing… but time and life, we ain’t never got a chance to like really go in,” Cole said.
While the two still have love and admiration for each other, it doesn’t seem like the album will see the light of day anytime soon.
“We put it to bed years ago,” said Cole, “but at one point in time, it was a conversation for sure.”
You can see the full episode of A Safe Place above.
It’s been two years since J. Cole dropped his last album, The Off-Season. Since then, he’s been hard at work on his upcoming album, The Fall Off. But he’s been keeping fans fed with incredible feature verses through collaborations with artists like Young Thug, Summer Walker, Lil Durk, and Drake — the lattermost helping him earn his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1.
As Cole has shown to be the one to call to add a little spark to your track, listeners are wondering how much he charges for a guest verse.
Does J. Cole charge for rap features?
In 2019, Young Thug released “The London,” a song featuring Travis Scott and J. Cole. On Cole’s verse, he seemingly implies that his guest spots come with a hefty price tag.
“I left a flock of rappers dead and buried / A verse from me is like eleven birds / Just did the math, that’s like two thousand dollars every word,” he raps on his verse.
On an episode of Lil Yachty’s A Safe Place podcast, Cole clarified that despite this particular line, he actually does not charge artists for features.
“It’s just a bar, bro,” said Cole. “A lot of my bars be really on point, but man that’s just a flex. I’m not gonna charge [artists] $2000 a word. I don’t even charge [artists] for the verse. I’m doing this sh*t because I’m inspired to do it.”
You can see the full episode of A Safe Place above.
