Home Page

Roddy Ricch Shares The Wisdom He Learned From Meeting Kanye West

by
Getty Image

Roddy Ricch may be best known for his music thanks to his low-profile approach to fame, but he certainly has an interesting philosophy about music as his legacy. That’s thanks to his meeting with Kanye West in Calabasas, according to Roddy himself in a new profile in Complex. Revealing his pick for greatest album of all time, he grants that distinction to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and recounts the wisdom Kanye shared when they finally got to meet.

“The main thing I learned from Kanye was expansion,” Roddy says.

“I pulled up on him in Calabasas. He showed me there’s more to life than just music. He taught me [about] really building empires. The empire you build with music, you could build it in other areas, like fashion, too. You’ve got clothes, or you’ve got a drink, or you’ve got this or that, and it’s all attached to you. He was building things that don’t got nothing to do with music, with different rooms having different ideas. Even building up a community or a civilization that can start and become something else. That’s a crazy thing to do. Just growing your own produce, and all these different things… It opened my mind.”

Roddy also reveals the best thing that’s happened to him in the two years since he blew up thanks to his Grammy-nominated hits “Racks In The Middle” and “The Box”: Becoming a father. “Having my son,” he tells Complex. “That was the most important.”

You can read the full profile here.

Lil Tjay, Fivio Foreign, And Polo G Have A Field Day In The Luxurious ‘Headshot’ Video

by

After releasing his new song on Friday Lil Tjay returns today with an irreverent video for the propulsive “Headshot” featuring fellow New Yorker Fivio Foreign and friend Polo G. The three drill influenced rappers play William Tell at an opulent mansion, firing old-fashioned pistols at a group of butlers with apples on their heads. All three display much better marksmanship than most rappers do in real life, turning their targets to applesauce and leaving the domestic help unscathed. Tjay also communes with a giraffe, while the fountain outside is filled with models lying on pool floats.

Tjay’s year got off to a bumpy start after getting a video shoot searched and eventually getting arrested shortly after Christmas last year. After being booked on possession of guns and marijuana, he was released on bond. Getting back to work on his upcoming follow-up to 2020’s State Of Emergency, he released his video for “Calling My Phone” featuring Atlanta singer 6lack before apparently hunkering down to complete his album.

Meanwhile, each of his “Headshot” co-stars have also kept busy. Polo G just released his “For My Fans (Freestyle)” video in which he raps to the instrumental tracks for “Beat Box,” “Whoopty,” and “No More Parties,” while Fivio Foreign is a few months removed from his “Trust” video with the late King Von.

Watch the “Headshot” video above.

Polo G Mixes Things Up With His ‘Beat Box’ Freestyle, Adding ‘Whoopty’ And More

by

Now that seemingly everyone and their momma has rapped over SpotemGottem’s “Beat Box” beat, you could argue the trend has reached its peak and it’s all downhill from here. However, it looks like Polo G has found a way to mix it up and keep the party going for just a little bit longer. The Chicago journeyman’s “For My Fans (Freestyle)” video, in which he goes in on “Beat Box,” also includes beats from more contemporary hits like CJ’s “Whoopty” and Coi Leray’s “No More Parties.”

The three-part video, directed by Ryan Lynch, follows Polo and his crew as they roam the city, doing the dances from the songs’ various viral challenges — i.e. the Junebug on “Beat Box” — and has Polo switching up his delivery to match the respective beats. On the first, he’s got an aggressive, yell-rap style that plays with the aggressive 808s of “Beat Box,” then a mellower flow over “Whoopty,” until finally, he shows off his hum-rap on “No More Parties.”

Polo is just the latest rapper to try his hand at rapping over the “Beat Box” instrumental. Previously, DaBaby, Deante’ Hitchcock, and Mulatto all rapped to the track, with DaBaby’s and Mulatto’s videos causing minor controversies. DaBaby was censured by JoJo Siwa fans for name-checking the teen pop star, while Mulatto sparked a back-and-forth with Renni Rucci that had fans buzzing on Twitter.

Watch Polo G’s “For My Fans (Freestyle)” video above.

Big Sean Introduced His Mom To Goku’s Voice Actor From ‘Dragon Ball’

by
Getty Image

For years, rappers have voiced their appreciation for anime through their rhymes, their album art, and even their fashion choices. Lately, though, the folks who work in anime have been returning that attention, from giving rappers shout outs in their work to meeting with some of their biggest fans in hip-hop. Over the weekend, one such meet-and-greet went down with one of the standout artists of the past decade and another special guest.

Big Sean posted a video to Instagram on Sunday in which he introduces his mom to Seán Schemmel, the voice actor who famously plays the character Goku in the Dragon Ball franchise of series. As excited as the Detroit native must be as a child of the Dragon Ball generation, his mom seems just as enthused about the moment, telling Schemmel how much her Sean “loved, loved, loved, and still loves” the massively popular franchise that Schemmel has been part of for decades.

“I didn’t know Big Sean,” Schemmel says of his mentality when recording lines. “But in my head I’m thinking, ‘That little kid needs to be flipping out. I gotta make him believe this guy is real… To hear it come back after all these years is astounding.’” The video finishes out, naturally, with the elder Seán throwing on that familiar voice and doing the signature “powering up” yell from so, so many epiosdes that the younger Sean undoubtedly grew up enjoying.

A few weeks ago, another well-noted anime fan in hip-hop got a nod from a voice actor as well. Jujutsu Kaisen voice actor Adam McArthur took a fan’s challenge to update a very specific reference in the show to name-check Megan Thee Stallion, delighting fans of both the rapper and the show. At this rate, it’s probably only a matter of time before the rappers and the voice actors are one and the same.

Watch Big Sean’s big moment with Goku above.

Post Malone And Kacey Musgraves Busted Out Country Covers For A Virtual Benefit Concert

by

Post Malone hasn’t shied away from busting out a cover in recent years. Most famously, he raised millions of dollars for charity with a full set of Nirvana covers around this time last year. Now he’s gotten back in the saddle, which is appropriate phrasing because he covered two contemporary country music icons during Matthew and Camila McConaughey’s We’re Texas virtual benefit concert over the weekend.

Joined by Dwight Yoakam’s band, Malone busted out a rendition of Brad Paisley’s “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” which he didn’t try to genre-shift and kept faithful to the original version. To conclude the two-hour broadcast, Malone and Yoakam’s band gave a rollicking performance of Sturgill Simpson’s “You Can Have The Crown.”

Elsewhere during the show, Kacey Musgraves also popped up, sitting in her bedroom and armed with an acoustic guitar to cover Willie Nelson’s classic “On The Road Again.” Musgraves also spoke about how she came to be involved with the event, saying it started with the sort of phone call she doesn’t usually answer: “I don’t answer unknown numbers, but for some reason I did and it was Matthew. Obviously it was a hell yes for me.”

Watch the full concert above. Malone’s cover of “I’m Gonna Miss Her” begins at 2:03:54 into the video, his cover of “You Can Have The Crown” begins at 2:10:34, and Musgraves’ rendition of “On The Road Again” begins at 1:26:23.

Lil Baby Seeks A Basketball Rematch Against Jack Harlow And Quavo: ‘Give Me Three Months’

by
Getty Image

Earlier this month, Lil Baby was the talk of Twitter and it wasn’t because of his music. During the NBA’s All-Star Weekend, the rapper joined 2 Chainz for a pickup basketball game against Jack Harlow and Quavo as a part of Bleacher Report’s “Open Run.” Despite Lil Baby’s claims that a “guy like Jack Harlow” would be unable to beat him in the game, the matchup turned out to be an easy one for Quavo and Harlow, as they took home the win by a score of 21-7. Lil Baby had quite the underwhelming performance, from a pretty bad free throw attempt to a few air-balled shots. Despite this, he’s calling for a second chance.

The rapper shared a video of him practicing some shots before the pickup game earlier this month. “Give me three months Im setting one of [these] up,” he captioned the video. “Y’all got [me] f*cced up.” In it, viewers can see the rapper making a couple of baskets, so it’s completely possible that his performance in the “Open Run” game was just a case of bad luck.

Until the rematch is confirmed, the next thing fans of Lil Baby can expect from him is one of two projects: his Lamborghini Boys tape, which will only feature rappers who own a Lamborghini, and The Voice Of The Hero, his joint tape with Lil Durk.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Fat Joe Responds To Criticism About Anti-Asian Remarks He Made In A Song

by
Getty Image

Fat Joe found himself in a bit of controversy following a verse he did on Benny The Butcher’s new project, The Plugs I Met 2. On a song titled “Talkin’ Back,” the rapper said, “Track me in and out of court, Harvey Weinstein / Threw that white up in the pot, gave ’em pipe dreams / And watch it spread like the Wuhan virus / Do ’em dirty for the low like Wu-Tang ’Sirus.”

In the less than two days that passed since the song’s release, a number of listeners have hopped on Twitter to share their displeasures with the song. On Sunday, Fat Joe explained the verse in a tweet.

“I’ll adress the Benny verse i did that verse a year ago when the news was calling it the wuhan virus before they called it COVID i support and love all my asian brothers and sisters never hate,” he said in the post. The mention of the “Wuhan virus” is a poor and insensitive coronavirus reference, and with the song dropping amid the recent rise in anti-Asian attacks, it’s no surprise that fans were not happy with Fat Joe’s verse. The Harvey Weinstein name-drop was another reason the song faced criticism as he is currently serving a 23-year sentence on sexual assault and rape charges.

You can read his response above.

The Plugs I Met 2 is out now via Black Soprano Family. Get it here.

Chika Roasts Perez Hilton For Intentionally Misgendering Her: ‘You Wanted To Defeminize A Black Woman’

by
Leeor Wild

Chika is enjoying a fairly good start to her 2021 year. She attended this year’s Grammy Awards in addition to being a nominated act in the Best New Artist category. She’s also a little over a week removed from the release of her Once Upon A Time EP. Despite this, she still faces disrespect from others on social media, and the latest example came from well-known blogger Perez Hilton.

It began when Chika shared a tweet about a past interaction with Hilton. “i distinctly remember perez hilton purposely misgendering me on here a couple years ago, but now his b*tch ass is playing cinderella (pt. 2) on his IG story without crediting me,” she said.

Hilton would respond in a now-deleted tweet writing, “Misgendering someone is assigning or referring the wrong gender to a person. I never gendered you. So the stupid one is you.” He added, “Hey, at least you’re stupid and making some money now. Xoxo.”

The rather tasteless response caused Chika to give the blogger a piece of her mind through a lengthy thread on Twitter. “1.) Saying he/she, even to someone whose gender you don’t know is wrong. Esp bc nonbinary and agender people exist. Which is why the majority of the intelligent population says ‘they,’” she said. “You adhered to the binary because you wanted to offend me, and that’s clear, doofus.” She added, “2.) You, yourself, as the f*ckin anal polyp you are have admitted that you know who I was PRIOR to ‘not gendering me.’ It was clear that I am a woman. But you trying to be cute actually showed your transphobia live and in stereo. You wanted to defeminize a black woman.”

In a third tweet, she continued, “3.) Even now, 3 years later, you’ve refused to acknowledge your sh*tty behavior — instead you’ve doubled down after using MYYY content on YOUUUR dead Instagram. You don’t have [the] decency to apologize for that, you tw*t.” In additional posts, she called Hilton the “cancer of an industry that will make my family wealthy forever,” a “waste of an existence,” and a “vile human being.”

You can watch the interaction in the post above, which Chika reposted on Instagram with the caption, “wanna see a ded bawdy?”

Chika is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Joey Badass Criticized Disney World After His Autistic Cousin Was Blocked From Entering Without A Mask

by
Getty Image

Back in July, Florida’s Disney World reopened despite a coronavirus surge in the state. The park opened with a mask mandate that applied for all guests “ages 2 and up and Cast Members, including those who have received a COVID-19 vaccine.” These official guidelines came into play for Joey Badass when he and his family, which included his autistic cousin, took a trip to the theme park. Unfortunately for them, they were all turned away after they said Badass’ cousin could not enter without a mask.

The rapper criticized Disney World for the incident on Instagram in a video that captured some of the ordeal. In it, Badass can be seen approaching a security guard and two vacation planners at the park and questioning their decision to turn away his cousin. The video’s caption added more context to the situation.

“Here’s Luis, Cameron, and Kaitlyn and they just turned away an autistic child at Disney World because he didn’t want to wear his mask,” he said. “The child thinks the mask is suffocating, the child also has no idea why it is even a requirement. Not to mention that, kids under 2, doesn’t have to wear a mask. These guys have completely ruined my family’s trip.” He added, “We came out here 30+ for my daughters bday and they turned my lil cousin away, can’t even enjoy this experience anymore.”

It’s unclear how old the rapper’s little cousin is as it would factor into whether or not the mask guidelines would have applied. Disney has not issued a statement about the matter as well. You can watch the Badass’ video above.

Earth, Wind & Fire, The Isley Brothers, Method Man, And Redman Are Among The Next ‘Verzuz’ Contestants

by
Getty Image

On Saturday, Verzuz made its return with a hip-hop focused battle between Wu-Tang Clan members, Raekwon and Ghostface Killah. The matchup saw fans head on a trip down memory lane through the artists’ respective catalogs, both as solo acts and with their Wu-Tang cohorts.

From Ghostface’s Supreme Clientele and Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx to Wu Tang’s 36 Chambers, viewers enjoyed the battle, which proved to be more of a collaborative affair if anything. Once the night came to an end, Verzuz returned with exciting announcements for the future.

Shortly after Raekwon and Ghostface Killah’s battle concluded, Verzuz announced a string of matchups folks can expect to see over the next couple of months. First, the platform will welcome The Isley Brothers and Earth, Wind & Fire for an exciting Easter Sunday competition on April 4.

“Time to SHOUT for the #IsleyBrothers!” Verzuz said on Instagram, referencing their 1959 debut album, Shout! Less than three weeks later, the Timbaland and Swizz Beatz-led platform will return with a battle between Redman and Method Man for a “How High” special on April 20.

As if the pair of announcements weren’t enough, Verzuz also confirmed an untitled battle on May 8, a “Mother’s Day Special” on May 9, and a “Rematch” during Memorial Day weekend. A “Ladies Night” and two additional untitled battles were also revealed, but their dates were not shared. Participants for these matchups were also withheld in the announcement.

You can read the flyer for the upcoming Verzuz nights above.