Hip Hop News

People are really loving Rod Wave’s sophomore studio album SoulFly. According to the first-week sales projections, the 22-year-old Florida rapper is set to debut at #1 with the album, moving over a hundred thousand copies of the project.

Rod Wave’s new album SoulFly was released via Alamo Records and it’s proven to be a huge success already for the rising star. Including only one feature from Polo G, Rod Wave goes it alone for the most part on this new album, dropping nineteen new songs and capturing his fanbase’s attention by securing a #1 debut. According to Hits Daily Double, Rod Wave will have the strongest debut of the week, moving anywhere from 125,000 to 150,000 units in the first week.

This is a tremendous improvement from the first week numbers for Pray 4 Love, which still overperformed expectations. Rod’s debut album sold 72,000 copies in the first week. 

“I ain’t gon’ lie. I ain’t had no features on my album, but I was going to the jewelry store and I bumped into Polo G,” said Rod about featuring Polo G on the album. “When I seen him, I was like, ‘Oh sh*t, another rapper.’ I was kinda like, I don’t wanna say avoiding bro… and he kinda walked up to me like, ‘Bro, I f*ck with you’ type sh*t. I’m like, damn that’s crazy. I didn’t know bro was like that.”

Among the other debuts of the week, NF is on pace to move anywhere between 70,000 and 85,000 units of his new mixtape CLOUDS.

What do you think of Rod Wave’s new album?

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Nicki Minaj is a legend in the game, though for whatever reason, it can sometimes feel like she doesn’t always get the credit she deserves. Yet one rapper who has always held it down for Minaj is Russ, who has frequently stressed the importance of celebrating her legacy while she’s still around to see it.

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“I understand you might not like certain things they’re saying, but you can’t just dismiss a whole career,” he previously stated, speaking on the Rap Radar podcast in December of 2019. “You can’t dismiss the fact that Nicki was the biggest female rapper for a whole fucking decade straight. Y’all can’t even last a fucking summertime. This girl was the biggest, most successful female rapper for 10 years. You know how hard that is? Motherfuckers struggle to last two months.”

Now, the Diemon has returned with a reminder of how dominant Minaj’s reign truly was, offering up an alternative timeline in order to emphasize his argument. “Imagine if TikTok was out during Nicki Minaj blowin up era…numbers woulda been astronomical lmao,” he reflects. “did it on em, only, anaconda, twerk it, FEELING MYSELF Man, soooo many like bruh lmao shit was already outta here but that woulda been insane lol.”

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A fair point, and it’s unlikely that many would argue his claim with much conviction. Though Minaj hardly needed TikTok to dominate the charts — she currently holds thirty-eight gold and platinum songs, with many having gone multi-plat — it does make you wonder how much of a boost she might have received under different circumstances. Check out Russ’ co-sign of the legendary rapper below. 

Steph Curry is currently out with an injury and as any NBA fan could expect, this is not going very well for the Golden State Warriors. They are already without the likes of Klay Thompson, and without Steph, the team is just a shell of itself. As a result of Curry’s absence, the team is on a four-game losing streak and they don’t seem to be close to snapping out of it. It’s the harsh reality of the NBA, which is a league driven by superstars and superteams. 

While speaking to reporters, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr spoke about Curry’s injury and how it has negatively affected the team. As he explained, the team just needs to dig deep right now and there are plenty of areas where the team can improve and remain successful.

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“When Steph is on the floor, we just have confidence and swagger that’s missing when he’s not. And that helps our defense. If you go back over the last eight or nine games, we’ve had a lot of stuff. Whether it’s injuries, [COVID-19] protocol … [these] are all reasons — not excuses, they’re just reasons — that we’ve struggled. But nobody really cares. It’s just what it is. Every team’s dealing with all kinds of adversity this year,” Kerr said. “So this is a moment where we gotta sit back and take stock, and understand what’s next. And that’s what today was about, and as I said, we have a great opportunity to improve our defense and get back to playing at a much higher level and win some games.”

As of today, the Warriors are tenth in the Western Conference standings which means they are outside of the playoffs. This is a crucial time in the season and if they don’t get it together, they could be looking at a second-straight season outside of the playoffs.

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Jayda Cheaves seemingly couldn’t offload the hot pink Jeep that her ex-boyfriend Lil Baby customized for her as an extravagant gift after she tried selling it because of concerns for her safety. According to Jayda, she said that people knew she was rolling in the whip, which posed an immediate danger to herself and her loved ones. She decided to sell the vehicle after her breakup with the rapper but, as noticed by The Shade Room, she was seemingly unsuccessful in getting rid of it, posting up in the car this weekend.

Sharing videos of herself and a friend inside of the customized vehicle, Jayda made no reference to the car, which she tried to sell earlier this year. Considering the whip was customized for her with “Jayda Wayda” written on the leather seats, it’s possible that this was too unique for anyone to feel comfortable inside of it. 

Despite her splitting up with Lil Baby, Jayda has still been supporting her ex-boyfriend with sporadic social media posts. At the top of this month, she showed off her collection of Birkin bags while playing one of his songs in the background.

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Do you think she wasn’t able to sell the car or did she just have a change of heart at the last minute?

The Weeknd has never been afraid to push the boundaries, and from the sound of it, he’s ready and willing to embrace new technological advances in the music industry. With NFTs — an acronym for Non Fungible Tokens — having emerged as a sweeping craze in the cryptocurrency sphere, many artists have been experimenting with the unique format. And while it’s unclear as to whether or not we’ll see any lasting shifts to the existing model, The Weeknd appears to be gearing up to incorporate NFTs into his next song release.

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“New song living in NFT space,” wrote The Weeknd, on Friday, March 26th. “Coming soon.” In the same Twitter update spree, he hinted that “this chapter isn’t quite done yet,” with the implication that said chapter centers around After Hours and the songs that emerged from those sessions. 

At this moment, The Weeknd has yet to elaborate on his forthcoming song release, leaving questions surrounding the track’s exclusivity. As NFTs are still a relatively new development, many are still in the learning process — though several artists in the hip-hop sphere have already started implementing them into their marketing strategies. Ja Rule recently auctioned an original Fyre Festival painting for an NFT worth an approximated $122,000, while Azealia Banks offered up an NFT sex tape with her fiancé Ryder Ripps. Outside of hip-hop, Kings Of Leon became the first band to release an album as an NFT, allegedly generating over two million dollars in sales. 

Keep an eye out for further news on The Weeknd’s foray into the strange and exciting world of NFTs as it develops. 

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