anthony fantano

Anthony Fantano Compares Yeat To Kendrick Lamar

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Music reviewer Anthony Fantano’s long history of controversial takes makes each new review a must-watch. For his hip-hop album reviews in particular, it can be tough to predict how he’ll feel about a project until he releases his YouTube review. This is especially true in the case of Drake, whose albums Fantano is hardly ever super fond of. But, that is what captivates fans the most about Fantano. His insight, or at times lack thereof, can come off as grouchy or misunderstanding of the genre. This has led to many actual rappers disagreeing with his take on their albums or their peers’ albums.

In Fantano’s latest review, he spoke about Portland rapper Yeat’s new LP Aftërlyfe. Emerging from the underground with unique vocal inflections and experimental trap production, Yeat continues to ascend with each new project. In prior reviews, Fantano has not taken to Yeat’s style. Using his 1-10 scale for rating albums, Fantano previously gave Yeat two scores of 4 for his albums Lyfë and 2 Alivë, respectively. But, for Aftërlyfe, Anthony had a different tone. Along with praising the album with a score of 7, he also had a few noteworthy comparisons for Yeat’s approach.

Anthony Fantano’s Bizarre Analogies

At around the 7-minute mark (7:05) of Fantano’s Aftërlyfe review, he discusses how Yeat’s vocal inflections resemble Kendrick Lamar’s. “Not to mention all the times on this thing where Yeat is making all matter of weird, wild, out there sounds with his mouth, dousing them with effects and just filling the backgrounds of these tracks with them,” he said. “He’s a man of a dozen voices at this point, like Kendrick Lamar. Except instead of switching his style up for some kind of narrative point, Yeat is doing it just to be a silly goose seemingly.”

Yeat and Lamar share very little in common in terms of artistry. However, Fantano’s point of vocal manipulation is not necessarily wrong. Each of the two rappers certainly channels different characters in their music, but for very different purposes. Also throughout his review, Fantano said he prefers Aftërlyfe to Whole Lotta Red by Playboi Carti, in which he scored a 5 in 2020. In prior videos, Fantano always accused Yeat of being too influenced by Carti. But now, he alleges that the student has surpassed the teacher. What do you think of both of these opinions by Fantano? Watch his entire review of Yeat’s Aftërlyfe above.

Logic Reviews Anthony Fantano’s Review Of Chance The Rapper

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Reviewers can be pretty harsh, especially when they’re as notorious and well-known for their opinions as Anthony Fantano, also known as The Needle Drop on YouTube. However, he’s also shown an earnest and fun personality despite his blunt takes, something other artists appreciate beyond feeling criticized. For example, Logic just did a Fantano-style review of his own video about Chance the Rapper’s The Big Day. While this is one of the more negative reviews on his channel (I mean, he gave it a 0), it still has some pretty fun moments. As such, Logic had some fun of his own breaking down The Needle Drop’s opinions and video style.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA – AUGUST 12: Rapper Logic performs onstage during “Vinyl Verse Summer” tour at Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood on August 12, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images)

In fact, the two have a solid rapport and relationship, despite Fantano’s own negative reviews of some Logic albums. Moreover, the Internet’s busiest music nerd appeared on Logic’s album Vinyl Days, both in an interlude and in the MC’s lyrical content. As a pretty online person himself, Logic seems to have a similar sense of humor to the music reviewer. Also, the Maryland rapper isn’t a Chance hater, either. The two have an old SoundCloud song together titled “Upcoming” and nowhere in Logic’s video does he dig at the “No Problem” rapper himself.

Still, most of the video is dedicated to asking Fantano to chill out regarding his takes on The Big Day. For example, the YouTube star took issue with Chance’s lyrics on his 2019 album, whether for his punchlines or topics. One lyric he pointed out was “Pretty sure I need you in this season like a flu shot.” Logic had to step up to defend his fellow artist here. “Pause that,” he said in the middle of Fantano’s review. “That’s a bar. Okay, that’s dope. What the f**k? Hatin’ ass…”

Overall, the Under Pressure lyricist acknowledged how much passion and effort Fantano puts in, however negatively he may feel. Not only that, but between the funny edits and memes throughout his video, the MC balanced empathy as an artist and understanding that external opinions don’t matter for them. Maybe that’s reading to deep into it, but let us know what you thought of Logic and Anthony Fantano’s reviews. Also, if you haven’t seen it, check out Logic’s full review of The Big Day review above. Y’all know those are just their opinions, right?

Anthony Fantano Addresses ‘The Drake Situation’ And Hopes The Two Can ‘Bury The Hatchet’

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Drake and music critic Anthony Fantano appear to be having a war of the words. Earlier this week, Drake took to his Instagram story to share a series of messages he sent to Fantano, mocking the rating system he uses on his YouTube channel to rate and review albums.

“Your existence is a light 1,” said Drake in an Instagram DM to Fantano. “And the 1 is cause you are alive. And cause you somehow wifed a black girl. I’m feeling a light to decent 1 on your existence.”

Drake Anthony Fantano DM
@champagnepapi/Instagram

Fantano, who has been openly critical of Drake’s music for years, had taken to YouTube earlier to share a video called “Drake Slid In My DMs.” In the video, he shares screenshots of fake DMs of a vegan recipe. Drake’s actual messages seem to be a response to this.

Later this evening, Fantano shared a video called “The Drake Situation,” in which, he assures viewers that while he maintains his stances on Drake’s music, he has no animosity toward the rapper.

“I really do not have anything personal against Drake,” Fantano said. “Do I think he’s made some very mediocre records over the years? Yes. He’s made some really good and great ones as well. It’s always the negative [reviews] that stick out in people’s minds the most, I guess. But that’s kind of the nature of reviews, kind of the nature of criticism, I suppose.”

Fantano continues, reiterating that the fake recipe screenshots were meant as a lighthearted joke, and expressed hope that the two could “bury the hatchet in private.”

Toward the end, Fantano said he’s “looking forward to more Drake music in the future.”

Check out the full video above.

Drake Exposed His Own Salty DMs To Anthony Fantano, So Fantano Fired Back With Jabs And An Explanation

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Drake Phone Toronto Raptors 2019
Getty Image

Drake gets into some beef every now and again, and now his latest feud is with Anthony Fantano, the music critic best known for his popular YouTube channel The Needle Drop. How it all happened is a bit confusing, though.

Last night (September 15), on his personal YouTube channel, Fantano uploaded a video titled “Drake Slid Into My DMs,” in which he shares a nice-spirited and clearly fake series of Instagram messages from Drake, in which the rapper shares a vegan cookie recipe. Not long after the video went live, Drake took to his Instagram Story to share a screenshot of the real DMs he actually sent to Fantano, which read, “Your existence is a light 1. And the 1 is cause you are alive. And cause you somehow wifed a black girl. I’m feeling a light to decent 1 on your existence.”

Drake Anthony Fantano DM
@champagnepapi/Instagram

Fantano took to Twitter to celebrate, sharing an image of a W and writing, “That b*tch shared the salty ass DM to over 100 million people. [crying laughing emojis].” He added in another tweet, “I made that man leak his own DMs. [crying laughing emojis].”

It’s not clear what exactly prompted Drake’s messages, but Fantano has often given the rapper’s album negative reviews, most recently with this year’s Honestly, Nevermind, which he deemed “not good.”

Once the dust had settled, Fantano took to Instagram Live to break down the timeline of how this all happened. Fantano said this situation started with him receiving an Instagram message request from Drake late Wednesday (September 14) night. In his explainer, Fantano throws shade back at Drake throughout, saying at one point, “A couple of things were running through my head. One: Why is Drake messaging me? I’m not 18 years of age. That’s kind of weird.”

Fantano also wasn’t impressed by Drake’s insults, saying, “This is why he has ghostwriters. That is the quality of insult you get when that man is working solo-dolo. If I wanted a good insult in my inbox, he would have to have paid somebody else to come in and do it.”

As for the progression of events from there, Fantano said he decided to make his video with the fake DMs (a “silly sh*tpost,” as he called it), then Drake shared the DMs on Instagram. In the screenshot Drake shared, Fantano had left him on read, although Fantano did note he has since responded to Drake’s message, saying he asked him, “When is the interview?”

He later concluded, “He was so angry that he got left on read, he had to leak his own DMs. Leak his own DMs! That’s sad. That’s unfortunate. That is a sorry state of affairs. That is a sorry state of affairs, that you couldn’t bait me in the DMs, so you had to show the whole world, you had to show the whole… ‘Look, I messaged him…’ [laughs] What is he saying by sharing that? ‘Look look look, I messaged this man in the middle of the night yesterday to try to pick on him’ [laughs]. Like it’s the schoolyard. Like it’s school. This is not Degrassi [laughs]. […] We should both be adults, being adults, doing adult things. So, too funny. Silly. Silly, silly.”

Check out Fantano’s explanatory Instagram Live broadcast below.

The Alchemist Says Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘Incredible’ Next Album Is Done And Will Be 21 Minutes Long

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Earl Sweatshirt hasn’t dropped a new album since 2018’s Some Rap Songs but that may soon change according to his frequent collaborator The Alchemist. The producer told Anthony Fantano’s The Needle Drop that an album he and Earl have been working on was recently completed and sounds “incredible.”

“He has an album that is done and it’s incredible,” Alc reveals. “I’m excited about that and I do have some work on that… It’s insane. I think everybody will be happy. He’s in his bag.” When asked whether he had any additional details about the project, he said, “I couldn’t even describe it… that would be a disservice to it.”

Fans have no shortage of collaborative work between the producer and the rapper to judge by. Going back to last year, the duo has worked together extensively on tracks including “Whole World” with Maxo, “Nobles” with Navy Blue, and even an entire secret album hidden on YouTube under a fake name.

Whether or not this new album is the one Vince Staples recently hinted at working on with the duo remains to be seen, although The Alchemist did say, as he does in the interview above, that he’s waiting on Earl.

Watch The Alchemist’s full interview with Anthony Fantano above.

Earl Sweatshirt is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.