The ever-popular multiplayer shooter Fortnite got a new, rap-related facelift today, as Shark Island was turned into Ice Isle in celebration of the addition of rapper Ice Spice as a playable character. Two Rap Princess skins are now available for purchase in the game’s store, inspired by her looks in the videos for “Deli” and Cash Cobain’s “Fisherrr (Remix).” She’s also got a themed Grappler and Rifle.
In an interview with Billboard about the new additions, Ice said she earned some “big sister cool points” from her younger siblings who play the game and said she’s “grateful to stand next to icons,” including Eminem and Snoop Dogg, who are also in the game. Also included in Chapter 2 Remix is the long-awaited debut of Juice WRLD. The rappers were included as part of the Chapter 2 Remix rollout, which kicked off with an event in New York City earlier this month and the initiative will continue through the month of November. You can see a recap video of the performance below.
Earlier this year, the game partnered with Don Toliver for a game mode inspired by his new album HardStone Psycho.
You can check out the gameplay trailer for Ice Spice’s Fortnite takeover above.
A Google search of Reddit posts mentioning both Nintendo and Spotify yields over 24 million results. On at least the first couple pages, many of the posts are by people wondering why the heck Nintendo hasn’t made its music library, its decades of classic video game soundtracks, available on Spotify or other streaming platforms: They already have the music, it’d be easy money!
Now, there’s a new option, and it’s direct from Nintendo: Last night (October 30), the company announced Nintendo Music, a new app for phones and smart devices that’s available right now. It’s cheap, too: It’s only available to users with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, which might be Thwomp groan-inducing at first. But, that’s less than $2 a month if you’re on an annual plan, and anybody who would be interested in Nintendo Music likely already has NSO anyway.
Nintendo Music is what it sounds like: an app for listening to Nintendo music. At first glance, the user interface looks essentially like a direct copy of Spotify (albeit with more Yoshi). So, here’s a question: Why did Nintendo take the time to create their own Spotify, instead of just putting their music on existing streaming platforms? Instead of speculating about the thoughts of people I don’t know, here’s a better question: What are the evident appeals of each approach?
Let’s start with Nintendo just putting its years of Mario and Zelda music up on Spotify. That would have certainly been the easier, low-lift approach from Nintendo: Just click the “upload” button and wait for the pennies of royalties to start rolling in. From a user’s perspective, this would have meant one less app to juggle, and it would have been effortless to integrate the Splatoon soundtrack with their existing music library.
On top of that, having Nintendo music on Spotify would mean it’d be part of the platform’s ecosystem of intricacies. It could participate in the AI playlist feature, so users could find non-game music that’s similar in nature. Users could get game-inclusive “daylists.” Animal Crossing could dominate your Spotify Wrapped!
Now, onto the pros of Nintendo doing its own thing, and this is the time to highlight how Nintendo Music is setting itself apart from Spotify: with bespoke features that are specific to game music.
Perhaps the most notable feature is the ability to extend the length of some songs. It’s not just playing the same three-minute track on a loop, but it actually makes a longer version of the song, so it sounds like how it would if you just stayed in a game level for an extended time and just listened to the music. I know I’ve lingered on a game screen for an extra beat because I was digging the music, and this feature speaks to that part of me.
As I write this, I’m playing “Aquatic Ambiance” from Donkey Kong Country: not the default 3-minute-27-second version, but the hour-long version. A few minutes in, I forgot I was listening to it, which illustrates the value of video game music as background music. Especially in its extended form, these songs are perfect for setting a mood and keeping you in them without distraction, for essentially as long as you’d like, without moving on to a new song or the current song noticeably looping. It’s a seamless and unobtrusive experience.
(Important to note, though, is that not all songs have extended versions: I was really hoping the upbeat “Becoming Stronger” from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet did, but it sure doesn’t.)
Another unique, gamer-focused feature is spoiler prevention, which allows users to filter out music from certain games, such as ones they haven’t played yet and therefore don’t want to hear from. This and the extended songs are examples of things Nintendo couldn’t have done, or at least couldn’t have had as much control over as they’d like, had they gone the traditional streaming route.
This is also just a very Nintendo thing to do: Fans have been clamoring for news of a Switch successor, so naturally, Nintendo… released an alarm clock and then a music app. It’s another classic example of Nintendo’s signature unpredictability and whimsy.
Nintendo is keen on keeping tight control over its intellectual property. Never again would they be burned by third parties after the questionable live-action Mario movie from 1993, or the laughable Zelda CD-i games, which also first arrived in 1993. So, if Nintendo was going to officially release its music, it was inevitable that it would be via a mechanism like this. There are some drawbacks to the walled garden approach, yes, but ultimately, Nintendo Music is a perfect fit for its target audience.
Apparently, no owls were harmed in the making of Kendrick Lamar’s hilarious video game version of “Not Like Us,” but fans are having a blast bopping the birds in the Whac-A-Mole-esque browser game for the past few days. For what it’s worth, the little “Wop”s that pop out when you make contact is an adorable touch.
Kendrick isn’t the only rapper whose had their music turned into a memorable digital mayhem, though; he’s actually the latest in a long line of rappers with games tied to their songs — a list that includes superstars like Future, Kanye West, and more. Sadly, some of the simple, browser-based games have gone offline after their initial releases, since they were timed to help promote specific projects.
But over the years, there have been big studio-produced games that put fans in the shoes of their favorite MCs to do everything from shooting hoops to brawling in the streets. Here’s a list of 10 more rapper-approved video games to feed your fix for beats, rhyme, and extra lives.
50 Cent: Bulletproof
A third-person action shooter in the vein of genre classics like Max Payne, this PlayStation 2-era revenge story was widely panned for having bad gameplay. While it proved 50’s early interest in expanding his G-Unit empire, it also betrayed a lack of care in how it did so.
Chance The Rapper: SuperMe
The story behind this game’s creation is more endearing than the game itself, thanks to its simple gameplay. However basic it is, though, it’s cool that Chance worked with Chicago’s public school system to encourage kids to learn to code.
Doja Cat Website for Planet Her
Excited to finally reveal that I created all the pixel art with RCA Records to revamp @dojacat ‘s website into a whole top-down pixel adventure. It was a lot of fun and I had lots of freedom in creating the city and the style. (1/3)#dojacat#rcarecords#pixelartpic.twitter.com/aFtxZNjDvJ
While not technically a game, per se, the 16-bit pixel art style for the interactive redesign of Doja’s website circa Planet Her made it very game-like. That you also navigated a tiny avatar of Doja through the titular world makes it all the more a shame it’s not accessible anymore.
Earthgang: Mirrorland
Pixel artist Ali Graham has had a lot of fun turning popular hip-hop moments into cute, 8- and 16-bit animations on Instagram. Atlanta rap duo Earthgang tapped him to make a full-blown side-scrolling adventure platformer for the release of their 2019 album, Mirrorland.
Future: I Won
Probably the grossest game on the list (although its attitude toward women isn’t exactly an outlier in either games design or hip-hop), this basic game is a bit like a ring toss, only the targets are scantily clad digital women, and the rings are chain necklaces. Yeesh.
Kanye West: Lil Ye Adventures
Although technically not officially endorsed by Kanye himself, this one’s almost too good not to include. Another of Graham’s creations, this one is based on Graham’s first cartoon avatar, a child-like version of Kanye from when he was way less problematic.
Aside from the games no longer in circulation, this one may very well be one of the hardest to obtain. A promotional product hyping his 2022 album Heroes & Villains, this dungeon crawler was released in limited quantities as a physical Game Boy game. I can’t exactly speak to its quality — despite having a copy, I haven’t actually owned a Game Boy since like 2003.
Nicki Minaj: The Empire
A lifestyle simulator might have seemed like a home run for Ms. Minaj’s first foray into mobile gaming, but its dated format is a relic of several outdated ideas about women in gaming (and its developers’ lazy assumptions that Nicki’s audience would be primarily women).
Def Jam Vendetta, Fight For NY, and Icon
Like a video game version of a posse cut, these games collect a roster of rapper to beat the hell out of each other in martial competition. The first one was a groundbreaking delight, the second is a damn classic, and the third tossed out a winning formula, effectively killing interest in the format. This is my semi-annual request for someone to figure out a way to do a new one of these with contemporary rappers (in the style of Fight for NY, not Icon).
Rap Jam Volume One
An utterly legendary release, likely thrown together to compete with the popularity of the NBA Jam franchise, Rap Jam has the distinction of being the first game to bring together a collective of real-life rappers — ’90s staples like Coolio, House of Pain, LL Cool J, Queen Latifah, and Yo-Yo — for an unhinged basketball game that flouted the rules. It was developed by Motown during another one of the label’s ill-fated attempts at branching out, and while its name might suggest that there were more of these, its unimpressive quality meant that it was also the last of its kind.
Militarie Gun is taking their signature “ooh ooh” to the ring.
The Los Angeles-based punk band, who released one of the best albums of 2023, provided a new lyric-free song as Post Malone‘s entrance music for the WWE 2K24 video game. “Gun Under The Gun (MFG)” has the trademarks of a Militarie Gun stomper, including a killer riff and, yes, a “ooh ooh.”
You can listen to the song above, and watch Post Malone’s entrance video below.
“I focused on finding iconic elements and figuring out how to make it my own. A wrestling intro needs to start big and iconic, get more aggressive, and then go heavier. That’s how the song ended up — starting big and spacey, then more aggressive, and finally half-time for a total beatdown,” he said. “It’s such a strange crossover and an even stranger song to accompany such a crossover. It’s a very fun thing to put out into the world and see what people think.”
As for why Malone didn’t use one of his own songs as his entrance music, Shelton thinks it’s because “he wanted something that sounded like a wrestling intro, something aggressive, which his own catalog doesn’t necessarily have. He gave us the shot because he believes in us.” Maybe Militarie Gun can join him on the F-1 Trillion Tour?
Recently, Chains Of Hades, a new Greek-inspired weapon, was added to Fortnite. Doja Cat has made it abundantly clear that she absolutely hates it.
In now-deleted tweets (as Eurogamer reports), Doja wrote, “If you’re horrible and garbage at Fortnite make sure you grab a Chains of Hades whip to pass the time. Dumb c*nts,” and, “If Fortnite knew what was good for them they’d get rid of Chains of Hades.”
In other non-deleted tweets, Doja wrote, “FORTNITE WOULDN’T BE SO F*CKING EMBARRASSING IF THEY MADE LOBBIES WHERE PEOPLE WITH ACTUAL AIM SKILLS AND FPS EXPERIENCE DIDN’T DEAL WITH LOSERS USING F*CKING WATER BENDING AND CHAINS OF HADES. *,” and, “WATER BENDING IS A F*CKING CRUTCH YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT THE GAME BECAUSE OF WATER BENDING, I WOULD BECOME SEVERELY DEPRESSED IF I HAD TO RELY ON ANY OF THESE STUPID NON F*CKING WEAPONS*.”
FORTNITE WOULDN’T BE SO FUCKING EMBARRASSING IF THEY MADE LOBBIES WHERE PEOPLE WITH ACTUAL AIM SKILLS AND FPS EXPERIENCE DIDN’T DEAL WITH LOSERS USING FUCKING WATER BENDING AND CHAINS OF HADES. *
WATER BENDING IS A FUCKING CRUTCH YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT THE GAME BECAUSE OF WATER BENDING, I WOULD BECOME SEVERELY DEPRESSED IF I HAD TO RELY ON ANY OF THESE STUPID NON FUCKING WEAPONS*
After Doja’s tweets, Fortnite makers Epic Games actually did remove the weapon from the game’s tournament mode. As NME notes, Epic says this was due to a bug (and not necessarily in response to Doja’s complaints), but the weapon can still be found in other game modes.
Doja was less bothered when her album leaked ahead of its release date. In April, Doja wrote, “its definitely messed up cuz i wanted to put it out myself but theres nothing i can do about it!! thats just how its gonna be but at least i can just keep being creative and look forward to the awesome things i have coming up!!”
Coachella 2024 is just a few days away, and to celebrate, the video game Fortnite is getting in on the festivities. Players will get to experience a virtual rendering of the festival in the game, allowing them to participate even if they can’t physically go.
This year, Fortnite is introducing some new outfit options as well for players. Here’s what to know.
What Are The New Fortnite Coachella Skins?
Two new outfits, Horizon and Cosma, will be available in the Fortnite shop starting Thursday, April 11 at 8 p.m. ET until Saturday, April 20 at the same time. Both are astronaut suits — a reference to Coachella’s mascot. The Fortnite site also notes that players can get an Interstellar Butterfly Back Bling, a Coachella Pulse Pickaxe, and a Soft Synth Wrap. These items are all reactive to music. (Fortnite is also offering LEGO versions, but these would not be music-connected.)
Doja Cat and Sabrina Carpenter’s songs will be joining Fortnite, which fans can use as danceable emotes.
Last, but certainly not least, J Balvin will be back on Fortnite. In honor of his Coachella performance, his Inferno Skeleton Balvin Outfit will be available on the game’s store starting on Thursday, April 18 at 8 p.m. ET.
More information about the Coachella 2024 items on Fortnite can be found here.
In a relatively short time, 39-year-old Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson has become a favorite of both hip-hop fans and geek fandoms online thanks to his expansive oeuvre. Since 2011, he’s garnered attention from the former for his production work alongside Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar, and more. Meanwhile, fans of sci-fi epics and superhero movies know him for his contributions to scores for massive multimedia franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars.
However, there’s one group that isn’t too happy with him this week: Gamers. A search for his name on social media outlets today would surface a roiling debate over Göransson’s comments on Sunday during his Oscars acceptance speech. After receiving the award for Best Original Score for Oppenhaimer (his second win after receiving one in 2018 for Black Panther), he thanked his parents “for giving me guitars and drum machines instead of video games.”
Last night, 39-year-old composer Ludwig Göransson won his second Academy Award for his score to ‘Oppenheimer’. In a heartfelt speech, he thanked his parents for giving him his foundation in music. pic.twitter.com/hVSDqp0gEw
This has obviously riled the gaming community, who view themselves as oft-put-upon despite the gaming industry’s record worldwide profits and popularity. There’s probably a whole 2000-word article to be written about why they feel this way, but in general, they seem salty that Göransson appeared to deride their hobby in his thanks to his parents. Since I started off talking about hip-hop, there’s no better example to use here than the homie Mega Ran, a stalwart of the so-called “nerdcore” subgenre of rap, who called the comments “an unnecessary bit of shade.”
Over on Twitter, the discourse has gotten heated, with many gamers rightly pointing out that video games have featured or inspired some of the most recognizable music in pop culture, from the Mario theme to the chiptune subgenre that reproduces the 8- and 16-bit sounds of millennial nostalgia for original works.
No offense, but @David_Wise has created some of the greatest pieces of music ever written for….GASP….
Funny, I had videogames AND keyboards AND drum machines.
When I accepted my lifetime achievement award for making videogames, I didn’t realize I was supposed to take a cheap shot at something I clearly didn’t understand #LudwigGoranssonhttps://t.co/Q7LE6HT54o
Least favorite parts of the Oscars: Ludwig Goransson implying video games are not art Ariana Grande & Al Pacino skipping naming nominees Jimmy Kimmel implying animation is for kids Jimmy Kimmel making John Cena present nude Jimmy Kimmel taking a jab at Miyazaki for being absent
Of course, there’s no speaking for Mr. Göransson either way, but whether he was legitimately putting games down or just joking about his parents’ refusal to let him have something many, many other ’90s kids begged their parents to have (many to no avail), one positive to take away from this whole kerfuffle is an appreciation of the wide range of musical styles in video game music. Maybe as a mea culpa, he can compose the music for a triple-A game or two, just to prove he can.
Last June, The Weeknd had a big moment, linking up with Madonna (and Playboi Carti) on The Idol soundtrack cut “Popular.” The song now has an official video, but you’ll need to head into the world of Fortnite to watch it.
How To Watch The Weeknd, Madonna, And Playboi Carti’s “Popular” Video In Fortnite Festival
The video made its exclusive debut on Fortnite Festival on February 15 at 7 p.m. ET, and is set to play repeatedly until February 18 at 7 p.m. ET. To watch, it’s simple: log into Fortnite on your preferred platform (PlayStation, Switch, PC, etc.) and find the Discover screen. Then, enter the Festival Jam Stage, and there, there will be a dedicated viewing area, featuring a giant screen showing the video. The video is currently not officially available on any other platform, so find more details here.
It’s just about time for curtain call, but we’ve got one last surprise for #FNFestival Season 1.
The music video for hit single, Popular by @theweeknd, Madonna & Playboi Carti, will be debuting exclusively on the Jam Stage… starting tonight
The Weeknd previously said of the song, “I’m proud of it. I’m definitely proud of it. Me and Carti had this… I mean, we’ve jammed out before. We’ve had a different version of this song prior. So I’ve had these vocals for a while and I’ve kind of just worked around it, and then kind of kept it in the tuck. But now it felt like it was time. It was time. And it felt right and it felt cohesive with this album that I’m working on right now. Or that I just actually finished. The Idol soundtrack, yeah. And so I’ve been producing the song for a while. And then Madonna, Madge. She’s the ultimate co-sign for this song, for this album, and for this TV show. And you’ll hear more of her in the show as well, too. She is the ultimate pop star.”
Madonna is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
2023 saw Travis Scott make a triumphant return to the spotlight after taking a year off in the wake of the tragedy at his 2021 Astroworld Festival. While the fallout still hasn’t settled (and neither have the families of the victims currently suing Travis and Live Nation over the 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries), Scott was able to roll out his new album Utopia and its accompanying Circus Maximus tour without incident, and by all accounts both have done extremely well.
However, one place he’s yet to return is Epic Games’ massively popular shooter Fortnite. The nearly unbiquitous game had a pretty year of its own, expanding its game modes and incorporating even more celebrity partnerships into the game, including appearances from Eminem and The Weeknd. While Travis Scott and Fortnite are two of the biggest brands around, fans of both have been disappointed that the rapper’s highly coveted character skin has not returned to the game since its debut in 2020 as part of Fortnite‘s first-ever virtual concert event.
The concert, which broke several Fortnite records, was accompanied by the skin for a limited time. Since the skin has not een made available since, it’s become one of the rarest in-game skins. Fans who missed out the first time around have wondered online whether the rapper had been blacklisted due to the Astroworld tragedy, but Epic CEO Tim Sweeney refuted those claims earlier this year.
“Travis Scott is welcome in Fortnite,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m just not in the loop on item shop rotations so I don’t know what’s coming when, or what specific agreements with celebrities and brands affect the timing of those decisions.” Considering how much work goes into these things, it’s no surprise that the limited-edition release hasn’t come back; besides, Travis’ prior brand collabs have proven that he’s protective of his own brand and he may not even be interested in diluting the hype around his Fortnite skin by bringing it back.
Meanwhile, Dot Esports reported that a prominent leaker datamined assets from the game’s Test Item Shop, suggesting that it might return sometime in the future. For now, all fans can do is keep their fingers crossed and hope he headlines another in-game event. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about his own stage props attacking him there.
In recent years, Epic Games has really ramped up its efforts to strengthen Fortnite‘s chokehold on pop culture, in part through the use of music stars appearing in the game as playable skins or performers in special events and virtual concerts. Most recently, Ed Sheeran, Kid Cudi, and Eminem have all found their way to the island, and soon, they’ll be joined by The Weeknd, who’ll also perform in the upcoming Fortnite Festival game mode.
When Does The Weeknd Come To Fortnite?
In a new trailer released this week, the skin for Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, can be seen as the star performs in a virtual concert — as well gameplay for the rhythm-based Fortnite Festival mode a la Rock Band (whose developers also made the new game) or Guitar Hero — in two different incarnation. While his After Hours persona is quickly highlighted, it looks like the big feature is Abel’s more recent, MF DOOM-inspired tour look, complete with a glimmering chrome mask and a white, robe-like hoodie.
The trailer also reveals when he’ll be available in the game: December 9. Fortnite Festival launches the same day, allowing players to play in a band for and with their friends. It sounds like a cool expansion on the core gameplay, especially as Fortnite attracts a larger and larger audience (who may not all want to shoot each other all the time).
Check out the trailer for Fortnite Festival above.
(@OnlineAlmond) 
