Hip Hop News

This year is shaping up to be a huge one for Polo G. The Chicago emcee is on pace to debut at the summit of the Billboard 200 album charts, marking his first #1 album on the chart. Its lead single “Rapstar” debuted at the top spot on the Hot 100, a telltale sign of the impending success of the project. 

Littered with appearances from the likes of DaBaby, Young Thug, Roddy Ricch, Lil Wayne, and more, early chart projections estimate the project will push a healthy 145k album-equivalent units. Nicki Minaj, who appeared on the “Martin & Gina” rapper’s summertime-ready track “For the Love of New York,” took to Twitter to give the 22-year-old his flowers. 

“CONGRATULATIONS POLO,” wrote the Young Money alum with tons of celebratory emojis. “SOOOOOO FN HAPPY FOR YOU. first #1 album. Chicago, stand TF UP. Talented & humble. Stay on ya grind boo. Make sure y’all check out the video he just dropped w|Da Baby too. Dope,” finished the rapper, giving a plug for Polo’s new video for “Party Lyfe” with DaBaby. 

Polo’s girlfriend recently revealed exactly how the rapper was able to score a coveted feature from the Queen. 

“Im not saying this to brag or for cool points,” Crystal tweeted last week (June 10). “But when I heard for the love of New York Polo asked me who should he put on there and I immediately said ‘nicki’ he gave me that look like ‘naw I don’t think she’ll do it’ I kept saying yes she will! He asked everybody for days and my answer stayed at yes she will.” 

A few weeks later, Polo got word that Nicki did end up recording the verse, and the rest is history. Congrats to Polo on securing his first #1 project. 

The summer is here and two albums that are absolutely sure to stay on rotation are Migos’ Culture III and Polo G’s Hall Of Fame. Both albums have been facing off this week in the race for the #1 album in the country but according to Hits Daily Double, it seems that Migos missed the mark by a small margin.

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The initial first-week sales projections for Migos and Polo G indicated that they’ve both be moving six figures each with their respective projects. Polo G’s Hall Of Fame was aiming towards doing 165K and 175K in its first week but those numbers decreased by about 40K. Meanwhile, Migos were expected to move 135K upon initial projections before those numbers ultimately dropped to 126K. 

The numbers are officially in and it seems that both artists sold above what they were expected to do. Polo G’s Hall Of Fame secures the top spot on the Billboard 200 this week with 146K units while Migos moved less than 138K. It’s unclear whether Migos sales were boosted by the release of the deluxe edition on Thursday which included 5 additional tracks.

Despite the victory for Polo G, he recently explained to Elliot Wilson that he isn’t focused on his album sales. “I’m only competitive talent-wise. I’m never competitive when it comes to numbers because that’s moreso a perception type of thing,” he said. “I’m only ever competitive as far as how hard I’mma go or how good that I am at doing what I do. But I never get competitive number-wise.”

As for Migos, this marks the first installment in the Culture series that hasn’t debuted at the top of the charts. However, there’s always a chance that it could claim that spot in the future. 

Which album did you prefer? Migos Culture III or Polo G’s Hall Of Fame? Sound off in the comments below. 

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Mike Tyson is known as one of the most powerful punchers in the history of boxing, and when people got into the ring with him, they feared for their lives. Interestingly enough, this fear extends well past the world of boxing, as actor Donnie Yen recently spoke about his experiences with Tyson, and how shooting a film with him was like a life or death situation. 

During the Shanghai International Film Festival, Yen spoke about the film Ip Man 3 which just so happened to feature Tyson. As Yen explained, he had some fight scenes with the star, and while he wasn’t going to get hit for real, he had this fear that Tyson could kill him with a single punch.

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“I had to treat it as a real fight in a boxing ring with him and it was a matter of life and death,” Yen said. “I couldn’t afford to be distracted in any way, otherwise it wouldn’t have been a KO, it would have cost me my life.”

At 54 years old, Tyson still has the touch when it comes to his punch, and there is no denying that he’s a legend. As for Yen, he came out of the shoot unscathed although it’s an experience he will remember for the rest of his life.

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Anderson Silva is a legend of the MMA world and at 46 years old, he remains active in the fight game. While he has lost the majority of his latest UFC matches, Silva is now looking to conquer the world of boxing. In fact, on Saturday, he will be stepping into the boxing ring against former professional boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in what should prove to be a very interesting exhibition match.

Ahead of this fight, Silva spoke to TMZ where he got to talk about his foray into boxing and what could be on the horizon for him. As Silva explains in the video below, he would actually be very interested in a fight against Jake or Logan Paul, as they are two men who seem to garner a lot of attention. The fighter knows just how important it is to attract an audience, and he has no issue with the YouTubers turned boxers.

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“In the future, everything’s possible. The Paul brothers, I respect both. There are good boys,” Silva said. “Everything’s changing in the world. People like to see the big shows, entertaining shows.”

For now, a fight against the Pauls remains unlikely although, at this point, you never know. The boxing world has felt like a simulation over the last couple of years, and this would only strengthen that claim.

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50 Cent has been on his TV-buff grind for quite some time now. While he’s always had a storied acting history, his wildly successful Starz series Power propelled him deeper into the world of television. Back in 2018, the rap mogul landed a deal with the network to serve as executive producer for an upcoming series Black Mafia Family. 

The series is based on the true-life story of Detroit street legends Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory and Terry “Southwest” Flenory and their drug operations. Starz officially gave the show the green light in April of 2020. Ahead of the show’s release, which stars Demetrius “Lil Meech” Flenory Jr. as his father, he went on social media to properly co-sign the series.  

He took to Instagram late Friday night (June 19) to share a clip highlighting behind-the-scenes content from the highly-anticipated series. “WHAT ZIPPO SAY? THIS AINT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT. BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS. WE NOT PLAYING FAIR @50cent BMF ON THE WAY AND WE COMING FOR EMMYS REMEMBER I SAID IT #FREEZIPPO,” wrote Lil Meech in the caption. 

If that wasn’t enough to get you excited about the upcoming series, Big Meech’s return home might. 

Fif recently sent out a celebratory post in reaction to Big Meech landing a deal with prosecutors allowing him to return home an entire three years before his sentence was scheduled to end. Reposting a screenshot of the article’s title he added in the caption, “YES [grin emoji] Now you know this BMF show is gonna [bomb emoji][smoke emoji]Blow everything off the f*cking TV, the real sh*t different ! [stoplight emoji] Green Light Gang.”

Let us know if you’re looking forward to the upcoming series down below. 

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Rudy Gobert has won three Defensive Player of the Year awards throughout his career, including this season. Gobert is one of the toughest players to score on while in the paint, although many fans have noticed that he struggles when defending on the interior. He struggles to defend three-point shots and teams have taken notice. In fact, the Clippers were ready to take full advantage of that last night as they defeated the Jazz to propel themselves into the Western Conference Finals.

Throughout the entire game, Gobert was exposed by Terance Mann, who played the game of his life and scored a whopping 39 points. Gobert simply had no way of stopping Mann and there were moments in which he was dunked on pretty hard. It was a shocking display of incompetence by the reigning defensive player of the year, and fans took notice.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

In true NBA Twitter fashion, Gobert was roasted online for his performance as many claimed that he is a bit of a fraud. While Gobert is always lights out in the regular season, his playoff performances have been questionable, and Friday night was yet another example of that. Needless to say, some fans have had enough.

You can see what people had to say about the game, below.

On Friday, June 11th, super producer and artist Pi’erre Bourne dropped his new album The Life of Pi’erre 5. The album featured guest appearances from frequent collaborators Lil’ Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti, but for the most part, the vocals were handled entirely by Bourne. 

Multiple publications and figures within the music industry have weighed their opinion and gave their reviews of Bourne’s latest project. Also weighing in is DJ Akademiks, who tends to keep an eye on the charts. On Friday, June 18th, Akademiks made a post in relation to The Life of Pi’erre 5, reporting the numbers for Pi’erre Bourne’s latest LP.

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The tweet reads “Pi’erre Bourne ‘The Life of Pi’erre 5’ sells 16K first week.” He captioned the post, “He’s projected to do 16K currently. Final numbers come out on Sunday. Big W or Big L for #PierreBourne?”

Pi’erre Bourne’s first installment of The Life Of Pi’erre was originally released as a mixtape in September of 2016. His solo studio debut, The Life Of Pi’erre 4, was released on June 21st, 2019; it also had a deluxe release the following year. Despite his many credits as a producer, the project actually had no features, surprising given how many talented artists he’s connected with throughout the years. In addition to his own solo material, Bourne has produced tracks for other artists such as Travis Scott, Young Thug, Young Nudy, and Juice WRLD.

What did you think of Pi’erre Bourne’s latest offering? Weigh in below!