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It’s been several years since Meek Mill dropped off his last studio album Championships, a project that was arguably his strongest body of work to date. And while he hasn’t been entirely inactive, delivering holdover singles like the recent “Flamerz Flow,” the wait for his fifth studio album is beginning to take a toll on fans.

Luckily, Meek has been hard at work in the studio, taking to Instagram to showcase some of his upcoming handiwork. “I been on some shit lately,” he teases. “Give me 30 days. Had to go east to get back.” 

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Joined by an entourage of well over a dozen, Meek showcases some bars on an as-of-yet-unreleased track, presumably drawn from his untitled new album. “Shit, I been goin’ a long time, I know they sick of me ya’ll,” he spits, over a low-key instrumental. “Got me switching up my flow again, switching up my ho again / Everybody been changing got me switching up my bro again / my dog did his bid, he got back home and switched his pole again / And I didn’t even tell him to slide, he tried to go again / Once he got active, I said ‘go again.'” 

While we have yet to have any concrete word on a potential release for Meek’s anticipated drop, his “30 day” teaser could mean we’re looking at a potential July release. Furthering that narrative is a prior warning from Meek, who previously expressed his desire to “terrorize this rap shit” in the summer of 2021.

Check out the snippet and be sure to sound off if you’re excited for Meek Mill’s next studio album. 

Disney is well-known for its critically acclaimed animated films. To this day, The Hunchback of Notre Dame stands as one of the most unique and unforgettable animated movies they’ve debuted to date. The company relied solely on its vision for the film, one that could have included Michael Jackson’s participation had they approved it. 

The film, based on Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, was released at the height of Disney’s “Renaissance” period, marking a departure from the Princess archetype films produced by the company. In a new oral history of the film by SlashFilm, the directors, animators, actors, and other filmmakers discuss the making of the film, revealing that Disney had rejected Michael Jackson’s proposal for involvement in the film. 

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Composer Alan Menken revealed in the film that Jackson had displayed a strong interest in the film. Films like Aladdin had experienced chart success for its score with pop star covers of their songs, and Jackson wanted to do the same with Hunchback. 

 
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Menken showed Jackson three songs, “Out There,” “God Help the Outcasts,” and “Someday.” Menken then went on to run it by Disney, who allegedly told him “‘Uh, we’ll get back to you about that.'”

He continued, “finally, predictably, the word came back, ‘Disney doesn’t want to do this with Michael Jackson.’ I go, ‘OK, could someone tell him this?’ You can hear a pin drop, no response, and nobody did [tell him]. It fell to my late manager, Scott Shukat, to tell Michael or Michael’s attorney. In retrospect, it was the right decision. [But] Quasimodo is a character… if you look at his relationships with his family and his father, I would think there’s a lot of identification there.” Check out the full oral history here. 

Jackson has apparently always been a huge fan of Hunchback of Notre Dame, expressing interest in playing Quasimodo in a possible remake of the 1939 film adaption before the Disney animated version materialized. Neither Disney nor Jackson’s estate have commented on the newly surfaced details. 

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Nearly ten years ago, Wale released his eighth mixtape Folarin with features from Nipsey Hussle, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Jhené Aiko, and more. This summer, he plans on officially following up the project with the sequel, announcing that his new album Folarin 2 will be out in the coming months.

Wale has been promoting his brand new single “Angles” with Chris Brown, dropping the music video today and reminding people on social media that he’s one of the greatest ever. His consistency is astounding and he remains one of the strongest wordsmiths in the game. On Tuesday, he announced his upcoming album release with a loud statement, telling the world that he’s sick of being underlooked.

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“I understand you may feel how you feel for whatever soembody [sic] told you … but I just wanna reiterate that I’m one of the greatest of all time,” wrote Wale on Twitter. “Catalog. Consistency. Influence. Longevity. DMV. With that said #Folarin2 this summer.”

Wale has never lacked confidence. Over the years, he’s spoken out on a few separate occasions to challenge the world’s view of him, arguing that he deserves to be mentioned with the greats. He’s giving himself another chance to convince the critics this summer, so maybe the narrative will turn around soon. 

Are you excited for more new music from Wale?

Dame Dash and Jay-Z’s relationship has been non-existent in the past decade but whatever issues they’ve had with each other have been exasperated further. Reports claimed that Dame Dash was attempting to sell Reasonable Doubt as an NFT which the Roc-A-Fella co-founder deemed untrue. He said that he was trying to sell his stake in the company. 

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Jay and Roc-A-Fella have taken a brief win in their case against Dame Dash. According to TMZ, a judge has ruled that Dame Dash is prohibited from moving forward with the sale of Reasonable Doubt as an NFT. Any of the auctions planned has also been barred, per the judge’s ruling. It’s a temporary prohibition on the NFT sale of Hov’s debut album and Dash likely won’t be going down without a fight. However, the judge said Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella’s arguments were “deemed credible and correct.”

Alex Spiro, the attorney representing Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella, accused Dash of trying to make quick bank off of the rising NFT trend. A lawsuit was filed to prevent the rights of Reasonable Doubt from being sold and demanded that any NFT’s that were created were turned over.

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Dash previously stated that Jay-Z attempted to purchase his third of the company’s share for “a price I deemed unacceptable.”

“When another black man calls another black man a thief, just to make him look bad, and so that they can devalue an asset that that other man owns, just because he won’t sell it to him at a low price — I don’t think the culture needs that,” Dash told Rolling Stone. “I just think it’s disappointing to also have a white lawyer calling me a thief on Juneteenth. It’s very representative of what they do to someone when they try to make a good guy look like a bad guy, just because he’s doing good business.”

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