Jay-Z Recruits Diddy, Lil Uzi Vert, Bobby Shmurda, And Others To Celebrate The 40/40 Club’s Anniversary

Later this month, Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club will celebrate its 18th anniversary. The venue is one the Roc Nation founder opened back in 2003 with Roc Nation Sports chief Juan Perez and Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez. In addition to being attached to the rapper, the 40/40 Club gained additional popularity thanks to multiple references in rap songs from the likes of Jay and more.

The venue flaunts itself as a space that combined “the lavish warmth of a New York City penthouse with the vivacity and glamour of court-side seats at a championship game,” as a press release reads.

Image From Complex

In a little over a week, the 40/40 Club will commemorate its 18th anniversary with a celebratory event at the venue. The club reopened back in August after it was shut down in early 2013. Guests who received an invite to the celebration, which takes place on August 28 at 8 p.m., were gifted a special black and white hourglass that represents the time that went by between the club’s closing and reopening. Some of the names of the guest list include Diddy, Lil Uzi Vert, Bobby Shmurda, Rapsody, Remy Ma and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

The news comes after Jay-Z hired Tory Datcher, the former senior vice president and chief customer officer of Clorox, as the CEO of his Monogram cannabis company. This made Datcher the first Black CEO to lead a major public cannabis company in the United States.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

BREAKING: Diddy Producer + Mary J. Blige Hitmaker Chucky Thompson Has Died

The music industry is suffering another major loss just weeks after losing rap icon Biz Markie. Hitmaker Chucky Thompson – most known for his work as a part of Bad Boy Records’ Hitman production team – has reportedly died. BREAKING: Diddy Producer Chucky Thompson Has Passed Away Fellow music heavyweight and producer Young Guru went […]

Fans Speculate About Diddy And City Girls’ Yung Miami After She Posts And Deletes A Video Of The Two Getting Close

Back in early June, fans of Miami rap duo City Girls were delighted and bemused when Yung Miami — known affectionately as “Caresha” to her followers — was seen holding hands with 53-year-old rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs at Quality Control CEO Pierre “P” Thomas’ elegant birthday party. “Caresha” trended for nearly a full day as fans expressed their excitement and amusement at the potential pairing, pondering whether or not the two were really a couple.

Today, something similar is simmering as online sleuths work to get to the bottom of another post of the two rap stars hanging out — this one even more suggestive. Adding to the intrigue, Miami deleted the photo after just a few minutes, leading to increased speculation that the Miami-born rapper meant to share it exclusively with her “Close Friends” list on Instagram rather than her public Instagram Story.

Meanwhile, Diddy — who recently renamed himself to “Love” — has looked about as happy as a clam in recent months, including in a Vanity Fair cover story where he explained the meaning behind his newest moniker and revealed he’s working on starting an all-R&B label where he’ll split the profits with artists 50-50. As fans question whether there might be another hidden meaning behind the name, you can check out their responses below.

Diddy Explains His 15 Roaches Story After Skeptics Doubt His Digits

Diddy‘s told some outlandish tall tales over the years, but recently, fans expressed skepticism over one of those stories when he claimed that he once woke up motivated to escape the hood because there were “15 roaches” on his face. Fans on Twitter doubted the digits, taking the rap mogul to task for exaggerating the numbers. However, in a new video for Vanity Fair to accompany his cover story, the man who nicknamed himself “Love” tries to set the record straight.

“One day, I woke up with, like, 15 roaches on my face,” he reiterates in the video, addressing the skeptics and reinforcing his narrative at the same time. ” “People were like, ‘How did you know it was 15?’ and I was like, ‘If you had 15 roaches on your face, you would know there was around 15 roaches on your face.’”

Diddy initially shared the story in the caption of a video of himself eating mango by a pool. In the video, he gives one of his signature motivational speeches: “You could do it,” he implores viewers. “You could be whoever you want. You could be eating mango too, with the ocean as your backdrop. I ain’t special. I just want it. I want it bad, you feel me? I won’t allow myself to not have mango. I hustle hard.”

You can watch the Vanity Fair video above and read the full profile here.

Diddy Is Starting A New, ‘All R&B’ Record Label But Isn’t Signing Any Artists

Before he was a world-renowned hip-hop impresario and multi-hyphenate businessman with designs on starting a political movement, Sean “Puff Daddy/Diddy/Love” Combs got his start A&Ring R&B acts like Jodeci and Mary J. Blige at Uptown Records. For his next endeavor, he’s getting back to those roots, as he told Vanity Fair in the magazine’s upcoming September issue. Although he did previously announce he was putting out an R&B album, here he goes a step further, announcing that he’ll be starting a new, R&B-centric record label as well.

And before any of his many critics could point out that his previous label, Bad Boy, has a less-than-stellar record in how it treated its artists, Combs explained that he’s doing things differently this time, explaining that he wants to get back to R&B because “I feel like R&B was abandoned and it’s a part of our African American culture,” he says. “And I’m not signing any artists. Because if you know better, you do better. I’m doing 50–50 partnerships with pure transparency.”

He also elaborates that his purpose in launching such a label is so “we can own the genre; we don’t own hip-hop right now. We have a chance to — and I’m going to make sure that — we own R&B.” Although he hasn’t announced any projects or even a name just yet, it may be interesting to find out whether or not he can be the person to drive innovation in the music business.

You can read the full profile here.

BTS Cover Diddy And Faith Evans’ ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ In The BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge

BTS has been achieving milestone after milestone lately, and now they’ve just tallied another one: The group had their first BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge performance today. They performed two of their own songs — “Dynamite” and “Permission To Dance” — and as is tradition, they also did a cover. The group chose “I’ll Be Missing You,” the classic single from Puff Daddy (now known as Diddy) and Faith Evans.

According to BBC Radio 1 presenter Adele Roberts (via Metro), Suga’s Korean rap on the song translates to:

“We’re now used to our routines taken away
But still can’t give up living on
We’re more worn out because we don’t know where this ends
We’re an island we made ourselves because we couldn’t trust each other
Hope an end comes for this tiring pandemic virus
Negative thoughts can sometimes be a minus
I knew it wasn’t the end so I couldn’t say bye
When that day comes, will say ‘hi’ like nothing happened. […]
I hate this world, our traces became memories
I just empty my mind, trust without conditions
I fill it every day with just loneliness
Not like the longing that encircles me
We miss you, baby
Whenever it may be
Here’s hoping we meet again, I promise.”

The group said of the performance, “It’s been almost two years we haven’t seen the ARMYs. It’s like 700 days and it’s the first time ever because sometimes we meet them three times, twice a day, and now it’s been a year or so. We miss all of you, BBC, Armys, everyone abroad
and in Korea, too. It’s kind of like a message to all of you.”

Ahead of the performance, Roberts said in a press release (as Consequence notes), “[BTS] have been so passionate, so supportive, and have hoped for a Radio 1 Live Lounge since the first time we played the band. Four years later, BTS have broken records, barriers, and boundaries. That dream is now going to be a reality. I’m beyond excited for us to finally be hosting the biggest boy band in the world!”

Watch BTS cover “I’ll Be Missing You” above and find their “Dynamite” and “Permission To Dance” performances below.