Last week, fans of the Quavo and Saweetie couple were devastated to learn that the pair had broken up. Although both artists shared claims that the other was at fault, many fans speculated that Quavo’s infidelity was the reason behind the split. However, today, TMZ surfaced a new video that shows the two had a lot more problems than it appeared on the surface.
In the video, Quavo and Saweetie have an altercation in an elevator, caught by the elevator’s security camera. Saweetie takes a swing at Quavo, and the two scuffle over an orange suitcase with Quavo ultimately grabbing Saweetie and flinging her to the floor of the elevator. There is no sound, so we can’t hear what the two say to each other, but there’s some discussion before Saweetie gets up and walks past Quavo, who stays behind after propping open the door with the suitcase.
The former couple was a fan favorite before their breakup, with the story of Quavo’s DM icebreaker becoming a meme and sweet, behind-the-scenes stories filtering into their interviews. Fans fawned over the couple’s luxurious gifts to each other, but in her tweet confirming their breakup, Saweetie admitted that gifts weren’t enough to “band aid scars.” While those scars were initially thought to be emotional, this new revelation prompts the question of whether some were physical as well.
It’s been over a year since the last in-person music festival took place in the US. However, with the roll-out of vaccines taking place across the country, festival organizers are confident that large-scale live music events will be able to return in the coming months. Hard Summer Music Festival is especially optimistic, as they’ve unveiled their lineup for this summer’s event.
The hip-hop focused festival has invited big-names to perform at their event. Headliners include Future, 2 Chainz, Lil Durk, Don Toliver, and Iann Dior. Other musicians have also been tapped to take the stage like Mario Judah, Snot, Rubi Rose, Dillon Francis, and Jauz.
The festival is usually held in Fontana, California, but this year, Hard Summer is headed to NOS Event Center in the city of San Bernardino the weekend of July 31 to August 1. The new location makes it possible to have a more spread-out event, taking place across five different stages. Organizers are making efforts to have COVID precautions in place for the event as well. In press materials, the festival claims, “Hard will be working closely with local officials to implement necessary safety precautions and will follow state and local health guidelines in place at the time of the event.”
Hard Summer tickets go on sale 4/2 at 10 am PST. Get them here.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Over the past few days, Lil Nas X has proven yet again that he knows how to get all sorts of reactions out of all sorts of people. With his “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” video and his controversial sneakers (both of which are Satan-themed), he has delighted some onlookers while making others irate. Now, he is hoping that his story will inspire an episode from a show that gets similar reactions out of its fans and haters: South Park.
This afternoon, Nas seemingly tried to will an episode of the show into existence by tweeting, “this gone be a good ass south park episode lmao.”
A South Park episode about Nas’ new controversy certainly isn’t outside of the realm of possibility. The show is made quickly, which allows Trey Parker and Matt Stone to tackle specific contemporary topics: Just this month, they released a special episode about the coronavirus vaccine. Meanwhile, Satan is actually a recurring character on South Park, so it’s not like an appearance from the devil would be out of the ordinary.
There’s certainly a lot of source material to work with: The maker of the “Satan shoes” is reportedly being sued by Nike and the Church Of Satan is on board with what Nas has been up to.
Snot’s streaming of videos from Beautiful Havoc continues with one of his most personal tracks from the Florida rapper’s sophomore album, “Life.” Contemplating the difficulties of living with himself, Snot admits, “I just wanna chill by myself ’cause I’m not okay.”
In the video, Snot stares out a bedroom window during a storm, watching his child doppelganger drive off in a station wagon. Elsewhere, Snot wanders through a field alone holding a pistol, which he points at another double of himself in a surreal, self-destructive murder-suicide. At the end of the video, though, his dark thoughts are interrupted by his child self embracing him, prompting a smile and a friendly wave out the window.
“Life” brings the total of videos from the project to seven. Snot kicked off the deluge in September with “Revenge,” then followed up a month later with the Flo Milli-featuring “Mean.” Although his next single, “Sangria” featuring Denzel Curry, was released ahead of the album drop, Snot’s frantic video for the track didn’t arrive until February this year.
Between then and now, Snot pushed out three more videos: The violent “Who Do I Trust,” the antisocial “Watch Out,” and the Iann Dior-featuring romp, “Like Me.”
Watch Snot’s ‘Life’ video above.
Snot is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Cardi B gets pulled into conversations about cultural appropriation so often, that she feels as though she has to give a history lesson every few months. The rapper is Dominican and has long embraced her Afro-Latina roots, continually noting that nationality is different from race. Now, the singer aims to take the conversation off Twitter and into the beauty market with her own line of hair products that will educate consumers on various hair types.
Cardi has long been open about her hair care methods, which oftentimes involve natural DIY hair masks. But after being pulled into yet another Twitter conversation about race and nationality, Cardi wants to take her beauty secrets to the public while also educating people about Afro-Latina culture. “Hair texture def don’t make you a race however I am Afro Latina,” she responded to someone on Twitter earlier this week.
Hair texture def don’t make you a race however I am Afro Latina .Being Afro Latina don’t mean you have to amara la Negra color https://t.co/Y3ygkak7sW grandmother from my mom side is not Latina at all & her father is light ass fuck so my mommy is light but her sibling are dark https://t.co/kOROVPt2pO
Detailing her new endeavor in an Instagram post, the rapper wrote that she has been working on at-home haircare for her and her daughter for some time now:
“This year I will be coming out with a hairline that I been working on at home for my hair and my daughters however,I think is time for people to educate themselves on nationality,race and ethnicity.Being Hispanic/Latina don’t make your hair long , don’t make your skin light or don’t make your face features slim specially Latin countries from the Caribbean islands. Dna have something to do with your hair not your nationality but guess what you can always maintain your hair …..and one more things not everyone that speaks Spanish is Mexican.”
Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
“Coconut Oil,” Lizzo’s 2016 self-love anthem, is the subject of a lawsuit recently filed by a church elder who claims his voice was sampled on the song without his permission, causing him “anguish, embarrassment, and outrage,” according to The Detroit News (Lizzo was born in the Motor City). Detroit resident Orlandus Dunning demands $750,000, saying that Lizzo sampled him singing a hymn at a mutual relative’s private funeral.
The lawsuit reads, “(Dunning) had a reasonable expectation of privacy and that his voice would not be heard publicly, as the funeral where he sang was held privately and open only to family and close friends… When Plaintiff sang the devotional, it was at a private funeral and done for the specific purpose of uplifting his family and friends during their time of bereavement.” Dunning says that he wouldn’t have consented to the use of his voice because of his beliefs; he’s an ordained elder in the Church of God In Christ and feels that the song’s messaging runs counter to his position — although he doesn’t say exactly how. The song’s mostly about Lizzo learning self-care, although she does say “sh*t” once on the record.
You can hear the song for yourself below.
Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
When asked about how he’s been handling the last year of pandemic, Sacramento rapper Caleborate paraphrases Bruce Lee: “What I’ve been doing to keep things all together is just being like water.” The quote, which implores the listener to be flexible, malleable, and to go with the flow, aptly describes Caleborate’s music style as well. Although his new album, Light Hit My Skin, is ostensibly a hip-hop album, it’s also a genre-fluid affair that allows Caleborate to transform according to his whims and needs of the lush production. And yet, while water can fill a container or run like a river, it remains water — that’s a lesson Caleborate puts into practice here, as well.
So, while he tackles straightforward, storytelling rap on “Contact” with fellow indie rap stalwart Kota The Friend, he also spends several of the interludes — titled “Light 001,” “Light 002,” and “Light 003” — vocalizing like a praise leader on Sunday morning. He calls these his favorite tracks on the album. He demonstrates his versatility throughout; there’s the house-inspired, synth-pop experiment “Homecoming” with Duckwrth, the soft-rock ballad “Untitled (Hit Record),” and the post-hyphy intro “Cliquot Shower.” Each emanates authenticity — there’s no major label-mandated push for algorithmic ambivalence. Instead, Caleborate is like the titular light on his skin — a full spectrum of wavelengths and colors — all of them are not always visible, but they are the same beam of light.
Over the phone with Uproxx, Caleborate reflects on his unique artistic philosophy, other lessons he’s learned over the past year, and questions why, with such a multifaceted array of lights to choose from, mainstream hip-hop continues to constrain itself to just a few shades of red.
What have you been doing over the last year of quarantine?
I’ve been doing some Caleb work, some Caleborate work, some Mr. Parker work, you know what I mean. All different facets of me. Some work as a brother, as a son, as a businessman.
I’ve had a lot of time to reconnect with my family because before COVID and everything popped off, I was really planning to move to LA. My manager and I were about to move in together, he had found an apartment. We literally had gone to go see it the day before I came back to live in the Bay with my mom.
COVID kicked off right in March, so I ended up staying in the Bay. My manager ended up staying where he was located out in Pennsylvania. My workflow changed drastically. My plans changed drastically. Performances: Gone. And certain things that I had going in process for the album shifted up. So, I just kind of had to adjust my workflow and sort of catch my rhythm in the water. I just had to catch my rhythm.
That’s really what we’re here for is for the album, which has a very interesting title, Light Hit My Skin. Obviously, there’s probably a lot of layers to that. Why don’t you kind of give me a little bit of an overview of what inspired this title and the concept of the album?
It’s so many different types of light. We were listening to “The Madness” and we just keyed in on that line. We’re driving in the car and everybody keyed in on that line. It’s so multi-layered, it has so many different meanings. And I have a lot of different versions of the light that hit my skin, whether it’s on stage or out in the street or whether it’s cop lights cascading over our car or it’s phone flashlights taking pictures with people.
Or even the light in me if you want to get metaphorical. The light that I can shine is who I am and enlightening people. All the different forms of that word really hit me at that moment and it’s something that I referenced a few times in the album. So to me, it’s just all the different situations in which light hits my skin. I’m about to go into the grocery store right now and lights are about to hit my skin, they got fluorescent light in there, and that’s a setting for a story, a moment of life.
I love that you can find so many different ways of looking at such a simple phrase, that really speaks to your gift as a writer, which is one of the things that drew me to you as an artist. Speaking of lines that jump out, one that hit me was about how you used to wear hoop shorts under your jeans on “We Make.” It just sent me right back to my own high school experience.
Oh man, bro, man, that was a thing that we did back in middle school and high school, we stopped sophomore year of high school because we got real lockers. We would hoop before school, you would literally come to school dripped out, shorts on underneath your jeans, come to school a little bit early, take your jeans off.
You might put hoop shoes in your backpack or over your shoulder, the next thing, you’re hooping. And then we hoop for 15 minutes, put your jeans on. We had to buy our jeans a couple of sizes higher. You have to buy thinner shorts.
Those moments help teach you a little bit about who people are. And when you have a confrontation on the court and disagreements or you’re picking teams or you have to take initiative or share with teammates. It was just kind of these young man moments that I had reminisced on that I sometimes see the matured version of them in our culture.
So as an independent artist, you have a lot more control over what you put out and how you put it out. But because it’s coming out of your pocket, you don’t have the budget of a bigger artist. How do you go about executing without really having the same resources as major label artists?
Well, for me, it’s relationships. Keeping those relationships is invaluable because we’re the artists and whether you’re signed to a label or not, real artists can see each other. And so I’m blessed. There are other people that I meet that are blessed to do it that way, musically, whether it’s production or writing or singing or whatever, for the sake of music, I’m keeping them relationships.
I have a very strong core of artists that I’ve been working with and people that support me. And it’s definitely all based on music. Money is secondary, but money has come because of that. As far as reaching out to newer artists like Deante Hitchcock or working with Cantrell or working with Tone Sinatra or working with Duckwrth… I make sure that they’re compensated and make sure that their time is valued.
But first comes first, do they like to record? Do they want to be in this thing? Are they down for the ride of this record? And everybody featured on the project, man, they’re real artists. And so it’s just an honor to work with other people like that.
How have you adapted to not having a tour life over the last year? What’s something that you miss about touring and what something you don’t miss about touring?
Man, touring is this very bittersweet thing, absolutely love and miss traveling in general. The number one aspect of touring is being out with friends — three, four like-minded individuals — experiencing life together at a new point in time. And then when you compound making money and having a reason to be here, it’s amazing.
Traveling is great, but it’s also not great, it’s tiring. Also, “traveling while Black” is a thing, just like “traveling while a woman” is a thing — especially international travel. People look at you, look at what you’re wearing… That could be kind of draining, so that part of travel I don’t miss.
God took it away from all of these artists, all of us for a reason. So we’ll never forget it. That’s how I feel. But, yeah, I miss that and what I’ve been doing to keep things all together is just being like water and learning more to be like water.
The change in sort of workflow for the whole world really has sort of allowed for, I think, me and people like me maybe to focus on what’s in the now. “What can I actually do? What do I need to do? What’s something I need to be doing, what stuff I want to be doing? And how can I get what I need to get done in spite of what’s going on in the world?” And I’ve been learning a lot of stuff through just approaching stuff with that mentality.
As we wrap things up, I always like to ask artists this question because you have to get asked the same questions over and over again. What’s something that you want to talk about that you wish somebody had asked you?
That’s a really good question. I almost want the right person to ask. I want somebody to ask me, or even once someone to have a real, everything-on-the-table conversation about the history of hip-hop and rap music and its impact on the Black community, as far as things that are promoted in the music and how they correlate to health, violence as promoted in the music and how it correlates to crime rates, and trends that occur in the music industry as far as artists who perpetuate certain themes in their music.
Because I believe over time, hip-hop has gotten bloodier and bloodier and there’s been more money put into bloodier and bloodier music. And I don’t have anything against bloody music. It’s not my preferred genre. It’s not my preferred experience. But when something has been systematically controlled by capitalistic entities like major corporations that do billions of dollars in revenue every year and can invest hundreds of millions or 20 to 50 million into the specific genre of music… Maybe you can have conversations. I would just be interested in having that conversation.
Light Hit My Skin is out now on TBKTR. Get it here.
It’s been just a few months since Jazmine Sullivan returned to release her critically acclaimed album Heaux Tales, which detailed all that the singer learned about herself in the six years since her last record. Continuing to share her new music, Sullivan brought her soulful track “Pick Up Your Feelings” to a captivating performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
Joined by a full band, Sullivan belted out each lyric with candor while showcasing her powerful vocal range. Her performance follows a busy couple of months for the singer. Not only is she on the heels of her Heaux Tales release, but Sullivan was also invited to deliver the National Anthem at this year’s Super Bowl game.
Ahead of her late-night performance, Sullivan sat down with Uproxx for a conversation about all she learned while recording Heaux Tales. Sullivan said the process helped her understand that she doesn’t have to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders as a woman:
“Especially as a woman, because we feel like we have to do everything perfectly and just be perfect. We have the world on our shoulders normally anyway so we feel like we have to live up to a certain standard and, as a woman growing up, I always felt that way. This process and making the project helped me to do that by listening to the tales of other women, my girlfriends, and older women. And, just knowing that we’re human and we don’t have to be perfect and just allow ourselves to figure things out.”
Watch Sullivan perform “Pick Up Your Feelings” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! above.
Just when you thought “Whoopty” mania had reached its peak, Staten Island rapper CJ comes out of nowhere with a surprising new remix to extend the shelf life of his breakout hit. This time around, he offers a “Latin Mix” of his runaway drill smash featuring two of Latin music’s hottest stars in Anuel AA and Ozuna.
Rather than write a new verse for this version, CJ talks a little smack in Spanish then steps back to let his guest stars hold the limelight. Both Anuel and Ozuna go on extended, rapid-fire, bruising lyrical runs, with Anuel name-dropping Kobe Bryant and claiming he’s a real son of a gun while Ozuna flexes his watch collection and delivers a fatalistic outlook on life. The video, meanwhile, takes place at an underground fight club, which apparently has both male and female divisions for its brutal, bare-knuckle brawls.
The Latin mix is the second remix of CJ’s popular hit after the New Yorker shared a Big Apple-centric remix earlier this month featuring French Montana and Rowdy Rebel. The infectious beat for “Whoopty” has also provided the backdrop for a wide-spanning array of colorful freestyles from the likes of Compton’s Westside Boogie, Chicago’s Polo G, and Philadelphia’s Tierra Whack.
Watch the video for CJ’s “Whoopty Latin Mix” featuring Anuel AA and Ozuna above.
Over the past few days, Lil Nas X has gone all-in on Satan, going as far as to give him a lap dance in the “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” video and to sell controversial “Satan shoes” themed after him. Reactions have been predictably mixed, but through it all, it turns out the Church Of Satan is on board with with Nas is up to and they’re a fan of the new sneakers.
TMZ spoke with David Harris — magister for the Church Of Satan, a high-ranking position — and notes the shoes “are getting a ton of love from the Church because they embrace the essence of Satanism” and that “Satanists are digging the way Lil Nas X is turning against religion to market” the shoes.
Harris also spoke about the “Montero” video with Rolling Stone for a recent feature and said, “He obviously did his homework. Whether he consulted with us directly or did his own research, he clearly put a lot of effort into this video.” He also describes the end of the clip, when Nas kills Satan and wears his horns as a crown, as “the most Satanic part of the video” and added, “We view ourselves as the most powerful beings in the world. The fact that he crowned himself as Satan — now, that’s Satanic.”
(@LilNasX) 
