Hip Hop News

Collaborative albums are generally exciting upon announcement, though whether or not they live up to the hype is another story altogether. Ever since Lil Baby and Lil Durk announced that they would be joining forces with their own upcoming joint effort Voice Of Heroes, many have been cautiously optimistic about how the project will turn out. 

With the album officially slated for release on June 4th, Lil Baby took to Instagram to build up a little bit of hype, switching things up by spotlighting one of the tracks that didn’t ultimately make the final cut. The implication of course being that those that did end up on Voice Of Heroes will be of the highest quality, as this untitled track has already started to gain acclaim from fans. 

 Prince Williams/ Wireimage/Getty Images

“This one of the ones that didn’t make it,” captions Baby, alongside a clip of him and Durk previewing their handiwork in the studio. As for the song itself, it’s unsurprisingly melodic, with Baby setting things off over the melancholic instrumental. “This lil bitch say that she through with me and this her last time,” he raps. “Got an older chick she love to suck the dick, give great advice / she start licking me in the car and she blame it on the ice / could have been rich a long time ago, I blame it on the dice.”

Check out the snippet below, and while this one might not make the final cut of Voice Of Heroes, don’t be surprised to see it surface by some other means — perhaps even on the inevitable Deluxe Edition. Are you excited to hear Baby and Durk’s collaboration album? 

The 2021 Billboard Music Awards took place over the weekend. Of the many notable moments from the show, The Weeknd led the nominations with 16 and walked away with ten BBMAs. Drake was awarded the Artist of the Decade Award at the show also, while Pop Smoke posthumously won a few of his own, including the award for Top 200 Album.

Other famous names that attended the festivities include Lil Baby, who presented the award for Top Hot 100 song. He shared a promotional video announcing the news, which caught many fans off-guard. The wholesome footage led to fans trolling the rapper on social media. 

Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Ahead of the ceremony, Baby took to Instagram to tell fans he would be presenting the award. While a simple message, fans couldn’t help but notice his usual Atlanta accent was heavily masked to deliver the message. “What’s up! It’s Lil Baby here,” began the rapper in the promo. 

He continued, “Tune in to the Billboard Music Awards to see me present the award for Top Hot 100 song presented by Rockstar Energy. See you there,” he finished before throwing up a peace sign.  

Many pointed out how this was a rare and pure portrayal of the trap star, while some clowned him for the wholesome code-switching. “They done gentrified Lil Baby,” said one user.

Check out more reactions to the promotional footage below. 

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Kim Kardashian is being sued by her maintenance and cleaning staff over claims that she allegedly did not pay them fair wages or provide meal breaks.

Seven people on the billionaire reality television star’s staff have filed a lawsuit against the businesswoman for allegedly stiffing them but representatives for Kim K state that the vendor is actually to blame for short-changing her employees. 

According to a report by TMZ, the staffers worked at Kim’s mansion in Hidden Hills. They claim that they were told upon being hired that they were full-time employees, yet they were treated as independent contractors and missed out on benefits. They also claim that they were denied meal breaks, did not have expenses covered, and weren’t paid proper wages. 

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A representative for Kim says that she hired the staffers through a vendor for maintenance and cleaning services and they’re the ones to blame for stiffing the employees. “[Kim] is not responsible for how the vendor manages their business and the agreements they have made directly with their staff,” said the rep. “Kim has never not paid a vendor for their services and hopes that the issue between these workers and the vendor who hired them can be amicably resolved soon.”

One staffer claims that they were fired after inquiring about his rights and those of his son, who also worked at the home. His son was 16-years-old but he worked more than the maximum number of hours for a minor under California law. 

We will keep you updated on the outcome of this lawsuit.

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There are some who might argue that healthy competition has all but faded from hip-hop, citing the posse cuts of the nineties and early two-thousands as the gold standard. Yet many of today’s active artists are genuine students of the game, taking pride in their ability to hold it down with a highlight-reel verse.

For Polo G, that opportunity arose with the release of “Gang Gang,” a collaboration that found him linking up with one of his idols — Lil Wayne. Alas, by his own admission he fell slightly short, taking to Twitter to reflect on his experience being “outshone” by the legendary lyricist. 

“Lol Wayne The Only Ni*ga Eva Walked Me Down On a Song,” wrote Polo, a few days back. “But I definitely need my rematch or sum. It’s crazy tho cuz I take the approach I do in this shit cuz of him…goin From Tryna study The lyrics to actually bein on a song w Em.”

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To be fair, Lil Wayne tends to outshine the majority of his collaborators, whether a veteran or a newcomer. Even Nicki Minaj, no stranger to stealing the spotlight, recently admitted to being “washed” by Weezy and Drizzy on their recent “Seeing Green” collab. Luckily, Polo G doesn’t appear to be sweating it in the slightest — in fact, he likely knew the risks upon securing the Weezy feature to begin with. Perhaps, should a “rematch” indeed occur, Polo G will put in that extra work to ensure he comes out on top — difficult though such a task may be.

After all, Wayne is a competitor to the core, as evidenced by his own perspective on collaboration. Lest we forget, this is a man who refused to be one-upped by Eminem, who has a habit of outshining his guests at every opportunity. We wish Polo G the best of luck in his new challenge — do you think the young emcee has it in him?

Nicki Minaj is back and she’s just as influential as she’s ever been. The superstar rapper returned to the spotlight a few weeks ago before the re-release of her debut mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty, which included three new songs. With the way Nicki has been moving, it looks like she may be planning on taking over with even more new music before the end of the year, plotting on keeping attention glued to her for the coming months.

On social media, the rapper has held an impressive command over her fanbase of over 137 million on Instagram, keeping the Barbz fed with plenty of recent content. She pretty much single-handedly revived the Crocs brand by boosting sales by thousands of percentage points on numerous styles and now, she’s threatening to surge stocks even higher by bringing her pink Crocs back out.

“You guys asked me to post the looks from my bts video so I’ll start with this one,” wrote Nicki on IG, sharing her latest photo dump and teasing fans that she has even more pictures ready to unload. She posed by her pool and stuck out her booty in an all-pink athletic outfit that hugged her body tightly. In the second photo, she really wanted people to see the full range of her curves, bending over in the shot. Finally, she dropped it to the floor and wiggled around, setting pulses racing with a third video.

This is solely one of the many stunning looks that Nicki Minaj has brought out in recent weeks. Check out the looks below and be sure to scroll through below for even more.

Soulja Boy has no problem reminding the world of all the times he was ahead of the game. While it may seem to be just jokes, Draco has come through with proof of his various trailblazing accomplishments. Earlier in the month, the Atlanta native took credit for being the first rapper at famed jewelry and diamond store Icebox. 

Additionally, he’s claimed credit for Nicki Minaj’s memorable cut “Itty Biggy Piggy” and for being the first rapper to have Fanta Jello. Perhaps his most well-known of firsts is being the first rapper to upload videos on YouTube (it’s even in his Twitter bio). Just as he did with his Icebox claim, Draco is coming through with the receipts proving he was in fact the first rapper on YouTube. 

Paras Griffin/Getty Images for BET

“I was the first rapper on YouTube,” tweeted the “She Make It Clap” artist. He then attached a screenshot of text confirming the claim. “For starters, consider this fact: After a months-long beta period, YouTube officially launched on December 15, 2005 with a daily traffic around eight million views,” reads the statement written in March of 2016.

“Soulja Boy uploaded his first video just three months afterward, solidly characterizing him as an early adopter,” it finished. Considering that YouTube serves as the main platform rappers and other artists use to share their music videos and other content, this is a pretty monumental “first” for Soulja. 

We recently sat down with him and he discussed finally getting his credit, Drake, Elon Musk, and more. “Yeah, man. People definitely get my flowers. I just say it now, like, I gotta let the people know. That’s just me,” he said in the interview.

“When I say I started this, when I say I started that, it’s no cap. I really did start it but it’s like I’m just having fun, just letting people know what it is. But I get my credit, I see the tweets, they give me my credit. They know I started it,” he finished. Read the full thing here. 

AS Sale guard Terrell Stoglin became the first player to score 40 points in a Basketball Africa League game last week, becoming the league’s top scorer. As one of the biggest names in the league, the former Maryland baller used his voice to speak out against J. Cole’s presence in the BAL, stating that the rapper has taken a deserving player’s job away.

There has been a media circus surrounding J. Cole’s professional basketball career overseas. Following the release of his latest studio album The Off-Season, the North Carolina-bred superstar rapper made his on-court debut as a member of the Patriots BBC. Cole’s highlights have been going viral on social media, including a clean pull-up jumper from his most recent game, but some people believe that with his subpar stat line, he should be focusing on music. 

Terrell Stoglin spoke to the press and said that Cole’s presence in the BAL is “disrespectful” to other players that have been shut out by the pandemic and are still at home, training hard and hoping to get picked up by a team.

“I think there’s a negative and a positive [to J. Cole’s presence],” said Stoglin to ESPN. “The negative part of it is: I think he took someone’s job that deserves it. I live in a basketball world. I don’t live in a fan world. I know a lot of guys that had their careers stopped by COVID and they’re still home working out and training for an opportunity like this. For a guy who has so much money and has another career to just come here and average, like, one point a game and still get glorified is very disrespectful to the game. It’s disrespectful to the ones who sacrificed their whole lives for this.

 
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The positive side of it is: it brings a lot of attention, and, I guess, money. I don’t really pay attention to that type of stuff. I’m more [concerned that] he took someone’s job that deserved it.”

What do you think about Stoglin’s comments? Do you agree?

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