Kevin Gates has always been very transparent about his mental health issues. During an interview on Big Facts,, he disclosed that he just passed the one-year anniversary of almost dying by suicide. The Baton Rouge rapper said he wrote a suicide note in December 2020. Kevin Gates’ Fan Convinces Him Not To Take His Life […]
Big Sean and Jhene Aiko were recently spotted in the studio. Big Sean posted a clip of him lounging around in the studio and then turned the camera to Aiko who was reading something off her phone. Aiko and Sean have been dating since 2016 and despite the rumors of a split in 2018, the […]
A recently proposed New York state bill to prohibit rap lyrics from being used in criminal trials has support from some of the biggest names in the music business, including Jay-Z, Big Sean, Fat Joe, Killer Mike, Meek Mill, Yo Gotti, and more. Proposed in November, Bill S.7527/A.8681 — “Rap Music on Trial” — passed through a Senate Codes committee today, according to Rolling Stone, clearing the way for a vote in the bicameral state legislature. Should it pass Senate and Assembly votes, it’ll go to Governor Kathy Hochul, who Jay and his fellow signatories urged to sign the bill into law in a letter from Jay-Z’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, who co-wrote the letter along with University of Richmond Professor Erik Nielson.
Professor Nielson is the author of Rap On Trial, which examines and criticizes the use of rap lyrics to paint rappers as violent individuals, biasing juries against them in trials that often have little to do with the contents of their music.
“This reform is urgently needed,” reads the letter. “Rather than acknowledge rap music as a form of artistic expression, police and prosecutors argue that the lyrics should be interpreted literally – in the words of one prosecutor, as ‘autobiographical journals’ – even though the genre is rooted in a long tradition of storytelling that privileges figurative language, is steeped in hyperbole, and employs all of the same poetic devices we find in more traditional works of poetry.”
The timing of the bill is especially poignant in light of the recent death of Drakeo The Ruler, who spent two years in jail in Los Angeles as the city’s District Attorney prosecuted a case against him built largely around the lyrics of his music rather than hard evidence. Drakeo was later released after a new District Attorney was voted in, but had lost two valuable years of freedom, a case made all the more tragic by his death in December.
In a statement, Senator Jamaal Bailey of the Bronx, who co-authored the bill alongside Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblymember Catalina Cruz, said, “Presuming a defendant’s guilt based solely on musical genre or creative expression is antithetical to our foundational rights and perpetuates the systemic racism that is embedded into the criminal justice system through discriminatory conflations of hip-hop and rap with criminality.” In short, don’t believe the hype; all rappers aren’t “thugs” and none should be considered guilty just because they rap about their conditions.
Big Sean showed he has a big heart as he appears to have squashed his beef with former boss Kanye West. The beef started after Kanye insulted him during an Interview with Drink Champs. The multi-hyphenate told the podcast host, Noreaga, Big Sean is “the worst artist he has ever signed.” Shortly after, Big Sean […]
In his recent interview with Drink Champs, Big Sean didn’t hold back about how he felt about the disrespectful comment Kanye made about him, calling it “some bitch ass shit.” Big Sean Calls Kanye Out For Owing Millions First, the Detroit rapper called out Kanye’s recent interview with Drink Champs in which Kanye claims Big […]
Last month, Ye caused a big rift in his relationship with Big Sean after he claimed the “worst thing” he’s ever done was sign him to his GOOD Music imprint. During his appearance on N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN’s Drink Champs podcast last month, Ye said, “I know this man mama bro, you know what I’m saying? I’ve changed this man’s family and both John Legend and Big Sean, when I ran for office, got used quick by the Democrats to come at their boy that actually changed their life and that’s some sellout sh*t.” He also requested “apologies” from Sean for his actions.
Sean responded to Ye’s comments during his own appearance on Drink Champs earlier this week, revealing that Ye texted him with the hope of meeting with him and his mother to “begin the healing on both sides.” However, Sean reveals it never happened because he was “angry” at the time. “I took it too personally, because it’s like, you publicly humiliated me when I’ve been down for you,” he said before diving into the political aspect of Ye’s comments. “Now peep this out: while he was running for president, I didn’t have his contact. I purposely didn’t endorse anyone publicly, politically, because my mans was running. I didn’t even have his contact at the time.”
He continued, “I’m the No. 1-earning artist on G.O.O.D. Music, and I didn’t come out and support no Democratic party because my man’s was running, and he wasn’t even on the ballot in 30-something states. You see what I’m saying? So when he said all that, it just had no—that’s why it was funny, because it just was not true.” Sean added, “I didn’t come out and support no Democratic party, bro what the f*ck? Maybe John Legend did, I don’t know. I didn’t.”
Sean also responded to Ye’s regrets about signing him. “At first I thought it was hilarious, I thought the sh*t was funny,” Sean said. “Then I took it personal. I took it personal because, I’m the only artist who’s put out five albums under G.O.O.D. Music. … I’m the only one who put out back-to-back-to-back No. 1’s, platinum albums, double platinum albums.
“But every time Kanye has called on me, every single time no matter what I was doing, within one day’s notice I’m wherever he’s at bro, whether it’s to contribute to him in the studio, whether it’s to contribute a line, write a verse for him,” he added. “I’ve traveled around the world for this man, every time he’s called. And I’ve done this and not asked for publishing a lot of the times. Why? Because he gave me a golden opportunity of signing to G.O.O.D. Music.”
You can watch Big Sean’s full Drink Champs episode in the video above.
Big Sean recently made an appearance on N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN’s podcast Drink Champs not long after comments that Ye made on the show. Ye said signing Big Sean was the “worst thing I’ve ever done,” and in response, Sean called the remark “some b*tch-ass sh*t,” adding, “I’ve traveled around the world for this man, every time he’s called. And I’ve done this and not asked for publishing a lot of the times.” Sean continued to speak about Ye, including something that occurred during studio sessions for Ye’s 2011 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
According to Sean, he was forced to fire a friend that he brought to one of the sessions after they posted a “sneak picture” of Ye, Jay-Z, and Beyonce working on songs. “He was gonna help hold me down,” Sean said about the friend. “It’s good to just have a support system, it’s good to have one of your homies there when you tryna contribute.” However, after the picture was posted and it made its way around the internet, Ye and Jay-Z confronted him about it and expressed their frustrations with him.
“They came at me and they thought it was me,” said. “It didn’t even make sense because I wasn’t even on at that time and it was like Kanye, JAY-Z, Beyoncé, Big Sean… People were like, ‘Who the f*ck is Big Sean?’ It looked like I planted this shit.” Ye told Sean to fire his friend because it made him look “thirsty.” “I explained to him who it was and he was like, ‘You gotta fu*kin’ fire him.’ He was like, ‘We’ve all done this. We’ve hired the people that we love,’” Sean recalled.
In the end, Sean was forced to have a tough conversation with his friend. “I’m sorry, bro, we gotta figure out something else,” Sean said to that friend. However, according to him, everything eventually turned out for the best. “It ended up being a blessing in disguise,” Sean said. “He ended up transforming his life and being probably way more successful than he would have been just in the position he was in.”
You can listen to Sean recall this moment around the 40:00 mark in the video above.
Kanye West (aka Ye) has said plenty of inflammatory things over the years — especially within the last five or so — but during his recent appearance on NORE’s Drink Champs podcast, he turned his ire against a new target. Where he usually rails against institutions, systems, politicians, and critics, this time he highlighted his long-running business relationship with Detroit rapper Big Sean, saying signing Sean to his GOOD Music label in 2006 was the “worst thing” he ever did.
Obviously, that comment got a lot of attention, as Sean had by then helped turn GOOD Music into a pop-culture juggernaut before leaving earlier this year — and not coincidentally, made Kanye a lot of money, something Sean himself pointed out on Twitter. Sean said at the time that he couldn’t wait until his own appearance on Drink Champs, and many fans agreed, eagerly anticipating news of his eventual response. That news arrived today with the usual Drink Champs episode preview shared to Instagram.
In it, Big Sean references Kanye’s assertion, and while he’s measured in telling the hosts, “I love Kanye, bro. I love him for the opportunity he gave me and all these things.” However, he says, “I thought what he said was some bitch-ass sh*t.” We’ll have to wait for the full episode for the full quotes, but you can check out the preview — in which he addresses his early hits all being freestyles and Dave Chappelle getting his dad high — below.
