Hip Hop News

The unexpected July 2020 death of Naya Rivera is playing out in court. The Glee actress drowned in California’s Lake Piru after reportedly pushing her son on a boat to safety before losing her life. There have been varying reports regarding Rivera’s death and her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Ventura County Parks and Recreation Management. According to them, the boat Rivera and her son Josey rented was unsafe because there weren’t life vests available. However, the County has responded by stating that isn’t true.

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According to Parks and Rec, Rivera was allegedly offered a life vest but ultimately decided not to wear it. It’s reported that when Josey was found floating alone on the rented boat, he was wearing a vest, but when Rivera’s remains were located days later, she wasn’t. The Blast reports that court documents from the County state, “Ms. Rivera was offered a life vest by Parks Management Company’s boat rental agent, which Ms. Rivera declined to wear, after which the rental agent ‘put the vest in the rental boat’.”

“Regardless of whether the (The Family) allege that the boat was not equipped with flotation devices, a life vest was present in the boat at the time of the incident.” Meanwhile, Ryan Dorsey, Naya’s ex-husband, issued a complaint against Ventura County Parks and Recreation, accusing them of renting out a boat “not equipped with a safely accessible ladder, adequate rope, an anchor, a radio, or any security mechanisms to prevent swimmers from being separated from their boats.”

Parks and Rec reportedly responded to Dorsey by saying he is mistaken. “Other than the lack of an anchor, no facts are alleged demonstrating how a lack of any of these things caused (Naya’s) death. The pleading does not allege that Ms. Rivera died while attempting to climb back into the boat, and therefore a lack of a safety ladder did not cause her death.” The County believes Rivera simply separated from her boat and struggled to return. They don’t believe it is of any fault of thier own that the actress sadly passed away.

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A song from YG’s debut album is at the center of debate at YouTube’s headquarters over the song’s anti-Asian sentiment in the wake of the Atlanta shooting last week. According to Bloomberg, YouTube refused to pull “Meet The Flockers” from its platform after staff members cautioned over the song’s offensive content towards Asian-Americans. 

In “Meet The Flockers,” YG details the ins-and-outs of performing a robbery in which he targets a Chinese neighborhood specifically. “You find a house and scope it out/ Find a Chinese neighborhood ’cause they don’t believe in bank accounts,” he raps on the My Krazy Life song. Employees posted on internal message boards where they railed against the executives who decided against removing the song from their platform.

“We find this video to be highly offensive and understand it is painful for many to watch, including many in Trust & Safety and especially given the ongoing violence against the Asian community,” the executives wrote in an email to staff members. They acknowledge that the lyrics could violate their hate speech policy but they said there are exceptions to be made for video clips that have an Educational, Documentary, Scientific or Artistic (EDSA) context.

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“While we debated this decision at length amongst our policy experts, we made the difficult decision to leave the video up to enforce our policy consistently and avoid setting a precedent that may lead to us having to remove a lot of other music on YouTube,” the email concluded.

An employee at the company fired back at the company’s response to the complaint on an internal message board that earned over 400 upvotes. “This is your perfect opportunity to demonstrate your leadership as a lead for ‘Racial Justice Initiative.’ Which side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge do you want to be on?” the response reads. 

Check out the full email from YouTube on Bloomberg.

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He’s previously been critical of Saweetie and her relationship with Quavo, and it doesn’t look as if Akademiks is letting up. Recently, Akademiks gave his opinions on the Migos’s next season, and according to him, it will be lucrative. “The Post Saweetie era for Quavo finna be legendary.. I’m calling it. She was dead weight holding mans back. He already rapping different,” he tweeted. “Offset been rapping like cardi in the next room going thru his phone.. he snapping like a mf.”

Following the release of the latest ‘fight in an elevator video’ to take over Hip Hop headlines, Akademiks claims that Saweetie and Quavo were “fighting over the birkins” as the bag seen in the clip resembles the Hermès brand’s shopping tote. “They finna do Quavo like Ray Rice…” the blogger tweeted. “That elevator video w/ Quavo and Saweetie …….. wild. Glad they aint together no more. Clearly their relationship only look good on the gram.. it was toxic and abusive asf.”

Once his comments went viral, Akademiks returned to say, “Black twitter stay having me trend lol I swear I’m just the placeholder for y’all to take out y’all hate. I’m the only n*gga I seen that can unite black twitter on any issue lol… they unite to hate me . Somebody gotta be the sacrificial lamb.” 

Neither Quavo nor Saweetie has spoken out about this altercation. Check out Akademiks’s posts below.

Drake’s mansion is damn-near a tourist attraction at this point. Located in the affluent Bridle Path area in Toronto, his $100M was the star of 2020’s “Toosie Slide” music video, as well as his rare interview with RapRadar. On top of that, his basketball court inside of his home is often spotted on OVO-affiliate Instagram accounts during their rec. league.

Unfortunately, it seems that the amount of attention that his home has received has brought a superfan to his doorsteps who was allegedly wielding a knife. According to The Sun, police arrested a woman outside of Drake’s Toronto home who was allegedly carrying a large blade. Police said, “A female adult that was carrying a knife has been arrested.”

“She did not gain any kind of entry into the property and there were no injuries,” police said, confirming that she does not know the Toronto rapper personally. “It is not clear what she was doing at the residence but she had no communication whatsoever with the homeowner.”

There was heavy police presence surrounding Drake’s home prior to the arrest. It’s unclear if Drake was at his home at the time that the intruder attempted to get onto his property.

Police said there were not any injuries. We’ll keep you posted on anymore updates surrounding the information at Drake’s mansion in Toronto. 

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His unfiltered commentary often causes friction, but no one expected Michael Rapaport to engage in a heated back and forth with Kevin Durant. The actor decided to air out the NBA star on social media by sharing a set of screenshots of a DM conversation. It seems that the beginning exchange occurred a few days before Christmas 2020. Durant sent Rapaport a screenshot of a tweet where the actor says Durant was “deeply in his feelings” during an interview after a game and added that the ball player is “super sensitive about everything.” Durant replied, “U a b*tch.”

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Rapaport defended his statement before Durant explained why he acted the way he did during the interview, and later, Rapaport took aim at the Brooklyn Nets baller once again in his Instagram Story. Durant noticed the tag and was about that life. “I swear ima spit in your face when I see your dirty ass,” Durant allegedly wrote. “Bet your life on it.” Then, Durant dropped off locations where they could meet face-to-face.

when he noticed that the tension was going beyond a conversation, Rapaport deviates to telling Durant to help children in Brooklyn. Durant wasn’t moved. “You a b*tch for even caring how I do an interview,” he wrote. “All u do is c*ck suck other men for attention. Trump didn’t pay attention to your sorry ass so now u wanna use everybody else to get views and laughs. Your life is a joke u F*ckin pale c*ck sucker.”

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There were more screenshots that showed a stream of messages allegedly from Durant as he teased Rapaport for suing someone for defamation of character. “How p*ssy are you. Your wife doesn’t even respect your b*tch ass.” In the caption, Rapaport claimed that Durant threatened his life. Viewers have speculated that Rapaport may have delted his responses before posting the screenshots, but that hasn’t been proven.

“As most of you know, I receive threats and disgusting messages DAILY, but never in my wildest dreams did I think @easymoneysniper would be among them,” Rapaport wrote in the caption. “The [snake emoji] himself is now threatening me, bringing up my wife and wants to fight. This is supposed to be America’s sweetheart right? KD didn’t get ‘hacked’ either. Hold this L champ.”

As expected, the internet didn’t disappoint with its reactions. Check out a few posts below.

It looks like Jeezy and Jeannie Mai might soon be getting ready to tie the knot. We’re nearing the one-year mark since the couple announced their engagement and it seems like their wedding day could be coming soon.

According to the Fulton County Court Clerk in Georgia, the couple applied for a marriage license on Monday, per TMZ. However, there is a window of time for when getting married once the license is issued. In George, there’s a six-month timeframe which would mean that they might officially be Mr. & Mrs. Jenkins before 2021 comes to an end.

Jeannie Mai and Jeezy first revealed that they were a couple in fall 2019 and have since been open about their relationship on both social media and interviews. Shortly after their engagement, Jeezy detailed why he decided to propose to her during an appearance on The Fat Joe Show. “When you get the one, you can’t even play with it,” he explained. “When you locked in mentally, that’s the battle right there. You want to build, you want to grow.” 

Though the two haven’t announced a wedding date, Jeannie Mai previously revealed that she and Jeezy will be having two ceremonies to honor and celebrate both of their cultural traditions. 

We’ll keep you posted on any more updates on the couple’s wedding plans. 

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