This fall will mark three years since Mac Miller’s untimely death. Since then fans have received a decent amount of posthumously released music from the Pittsburgh rapper, but the next one involves one of his most-celebrated mixtapes: The rapper’s 2014 project Faces is set to arrive on streaming services soon. The news was shared by Mac’s longtime friend and producer ID Labs, who confirmed the news on Reddit.
Mac Miller’s longtime friend & producer E. Dan (ID Labs) has confirmed Mac’s classic ‘Faces’ mixtape will be coming to streaming services soon pic.twitter.com/TPNpYcVhEU
In a screenshot that was shared on Twitter, a fan wrote, “I think ID Labs said on this sub a few months ago that they were working on getting faces cleared for streaming platforms but it was going to take time due to clearing samples, maybe it’s finally getting done… hopefully.” ID Labs, who produced “It Just Doesn’t Matter” and “Therapy” from the mixtape, caught wind of the comment and wrote, “This is correct and currently happening.”
If the project arrives on DSPs later this year, it will be Mac’s second mixtape to be placed on streaming platforms. Last year, his breakout K.I.D.S. was added to the platforms in April to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The re-release came with two new songs, “Ayye” and “Back In The Day.”
Mac Miller is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
On March 1 legendary activist, singer, and actor Harry Belafonte will celebrate his 94th birthday. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a fundraising event through his organization Gathering For Justice will be held on February 28 to commemorate the big day, featuring a healthy collection of celebrity friends and fans. Among the names on the guest list are Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jay-Z, the latter who will accept the Gatekeeper Of Truth Award.
Belafonte’s event is sponsored by philanthropist and investor Robert F. Smith and his wife, Hope. There will also be performances, video tributes, and testimonials by civil rights and racial justice leaders, artists, athletes, and more. In addition to Jay-Z and Miranda, viewers can also catch appearances from Common, Danny Glover, Alfre Woodard, Chuck D, Bernie and Jane Sanders, Stacey Abrams, Aloe Blacc, Tamika D. Mallory, Rev. Al Sharpton, Tiffany Haddish, Usher, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and more.
Belafonte founded the organization in 2005 after learning of a 5-year-old Black girl who was cuffed and arrested in a Florida classroom for being unruly. Altogether, their goal is to build a movement to end child incarceration while working to irradicate racial inequities.
The virtual event will be held on 2/28 at 7 PM EST. You can read more information about it here.
Although the 2020 coronavirus pandemic has changed the way fans consume live music, Travis Scott still plans on seeing through his plans to bring the Astroworld Festival back to his hometown in 2021. The Houston rapper revealed as much to director Robert Rodriguez in an interview published on Vice.
In response to Rodriguez’s question about his post-pandemic plans for the festival, Travis confirmed, “Hopefully, we can bring it back at the end of this year. Around November.” While that may be the most optimistic outlook for the festival’s return, it’s in-line with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s prediction that some venues will be able to re-open in the fall, provided the vaccine rollout goes well enough to lower the levels of infection nationwide.
Unfortunately, despite the 2018 and 2019 festivals selling out and going well for Travis, the 2020 edition of the festival had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Travis also explained the effect that becoming a father has had on his art, saying, “Fatherhood influences my job. It has a huge impact. It’s a major inspiration… Storm, she’s just acting like a kid. She’s always interested, she catches on and learns things and adapts to things so fast. It’s so crazy, Stormi’s generation is way different from mine, and she’s way different from my younger brother and sister. Kids show you a different outlook on life, how they view things, the type of pressures they have and what makes them happy, what makes them move… You’ve got to use that properly.”
Drakeo The Ruler’s fortunes have changed a whole lot in a very short amount of time. After spending much of 2018, 2019, and 2020 in prison awaiting trial on gang charges, Drakeo was released in November, then released his mixtape We Know The Truth to general acclaim. Now, he’s secured the biggest look of his career to date, collaborating with Drake on “Talk To Me” from his upcoming album The Truth Hurts, due later tonight/first thing tomorrow morning.
On “Talk To Me,” Drake provides the hooks while Drakeo — yes, this as confusing to type as it is to read — raps, with both addressing the song’s theme of infatuation with a woman. There’s also some light tough talk, as Drake warns the potential love interest that he and his crew might have to get gully in the club. “We might slide on a n**** inside this club, girl, close your eyes,” he croons, somewhat paradoxically. Meanwhile, Drakeo plays aloof, reminding his sex buddy that “You can’t control me, why you acting like the police?”
Premiering the song on Apple Radio, Drakeo told Zane Lowe, “When I was in jail, I was supposed to do something [with Drake] already,” explaining how he actually forgot the song was in the works before he was arrested. “It was kind of crazy to me,” he observed. “I never thought none of this stuff would happen.”
Listen to Drakeo The Ruler’s Drake collaboration “Talk To Me” above.
For obvious reasons, today is a great day for Bobby Shmurda: After being behind bars for six years, the rapper was released from prison this morning. He actually has even more than that to celebrate right now: Today, the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) has given him four new certifications, including a pair of Platinum ones.
His breakout single “Hot N****” (sometimes also known as “Hot Boy”) is now certified 5-times Platinum, indicating sales of at least 5 million units. It was previously certified Gold and then Platinum in 2014. His only other officially released single as a lead artist, “Bobby B*tch,” also earned itself a Platinum certification today. Meanwhile, Rowdy Rebel’s “Computers,” on which Shmurda features, earned a Gold certification today, as did Shmurda’s EP Shmurda She Wrote.
So far, Shmurda has had a big day since his release. Quavo made good on his word to pick Shmurda up from prison and did so with a private jet, sharing a video of them landing on Instagram. He also had a video call with his mother and had 50 pounds of oxtail cooked by her, per his request. After all this celebration, the rapper’s plan is apparently to focus his efforts on his music, as his mother has said.
Bobby Shmurda’s first meal back is 50 pounds of oxtail home cooked by his mom pic.twitter.com/IaQ4LorZJw
Rap pioneer Ice-T, on the other hand, made his opinion known a long time ago and chose instead to remind fans of his old tweet telling them exactly what he thought of Rush Limbaugh. Quote-tweeting his own post from July of 2012, Ice-T recalled a backhanded slight he once received from Rush and what he believed it said about the outspoken host. “Rush Limbaugh said he was impressed I knew the word ‘tyranny,’” reads the old tweet. “He’s a racist piece of sh*t.” Judging by the fact that he exhumed this five-year-old tweet just days after the man’s death, it’s probably safe to assume Ice’s opinion hasn’t changed much since.
Ice-T has found something of a third life (after his second one as the perpetually befuddled sergeant Fin Tutuola on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) thanks to his witty political commentary on Twitter. Recently, his comments about Trump’s second impeachment trial amused fans while his empathetic response to his father-in-law contracting COVID-19 suggests he’d be a more than respectable replacement for the departed Rush, should he ever decide to pursue punditry full time.
While many view Black History Month as a time to celebrate the accomplishments of Black Americans, JID wants to call a little attention to America’s history of institutional abuse of its Black citizens. His new single, “Skegee,” is named for the city of Tuskegee, Alabama, a city central to both Black achievement and where the US conducted the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study from 1932-1972.
In the first verse, JID addresses the conflicting choices with which many Black Americans are faced: “You peep all the karma that come with makin’ the cream,” he rhymes, posing the dichotomy before pulling back the curtain to reveal the game behind the game. “Get your eyes cleaned for something you have never not, not seen.” An interview with former mayor of Tuskegee, Ronald D. Williams, also reveals insight into the city’s history.
In the second verse, he shows how these forced choices are the results of policy, not just tough situations that cropped up out of nowhere. Although JID says he was recruited to Tuskegee University, a prestigious historically Black institution, the name only calls to mind the 40-year experiment in which Black citizens of Tuskegee were involuntarily studied for the effects of untreated syphilis and denied treatment (or even information about the existence of treatment once it had been developed). While JID’s recollection isn’t entirely accurate (there’s no evidence that the unethical study deliberately infected its subjects), his song may very well be many fans’ first-ever introduction to the existence of such a study — and why it remains important to this day.
With so many Americans currently refusing COVID-19 vaccination, it’s important to understand why some of them might mistrust the government, knowing this history, as well as acknowledging how much work is left to be done to repair that broken trust if true progress is to be made.
Cardi B and Mariah Carey may soon have some new music featuring both on the way, according to their recent conversation in Interview Magazine. In the midst of a discussion about the differences between being a civilian and a celebrity, prejudice in the music industry, and the sexual awakening in pop culture since Carey’s heyday, the two made plans to collaborate on a song together — and on a bra line, after Cardi admits that she couldn’t find one that gave her the right mix of coverage and exposure.
After Carey asks Cardi “Do you have a favorite bra?” Cardi replies, “I don’t know because I’m not really a bra person. These titties be hanging. Even when I wear a certain bra, I have really big nipples, so I need a bra that shows my cleavage but could really tuck my nipples in. There ain’t none yet.” That prompts Mariah to suggest, “We need to do a bra line. We need that specialty line.”
The two then briefly discuss the music industry’s inherent prejudice against Black women, which is something Carey believes she and Cardi can fix. “We’re going to do that,” she vows. “We’re going to do our bra line, and one of these days, can we do a song together?” Cardi agrees, “I would love that. I would love to do a record that touches souls. You had me heartbroken when I was 11 years old and I didn’t even have a boyfriend.”
The last time Bobby Shmurda had an inescapable hit was the summer of 2014 — nearly seven years ago. That was the summer of “Hot N****,” which climbed to No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 — before the rules changed that allowed the publication to count streams — launched the “Shmoney Dance” meme, and spawned seemingly dozens of freestyles and remixes featuring everyone from Chicago drill upstarts to New York ’90s legends. There’s even a reggae remix featuring Junior Reid and Popcaan.
But then his GS9 crew was scooped up by the NYPD on a truly dizzying array of crimes all bundled into a racketeering charge that claimed GS9 was a drug-dealing, war-waging gang. Bobby’s own words were used against him as the prosecution used clips of “Hot N****” to bolster its accusations. “I been selling crack since like the fifth grade,” Bobby boasts on the song. Despite the Supreme Court’s previous decision that lyrics can’t count as evidence, Bobby’s case lawyer felt strongly enough that Bobby — and his GS9 cohorts, including fellow rapper Rowdy Rebel — would lose that the rapper pled guilty to one count of third-degree conspiracy and one count of weapons possession, receiving five years in prison, after time already served.
Those five years ended this week, to the jubilation of “Hot N****” fans and Bobby’s friends in the rap game, including Rowdy and Migos member Quavo, who vowed to pick him up from Clinton Correctional Facility upon his release. He emerges to exuberant celebrations on social media and tempered excitement for new music, but that begs the question: Can he recover the momentum he lost during his six-year stint behind bars, especially in a music world that has so thoroughly moved on from the specific moment in time that he could rightfully say he owned?
For one thing, the driving force behind the success of “Hot N****” was Vine, the now-defunct social app that turned six-second video clips into pop culture meme fodder. A snippet of Bobby’s “Hot N****” video, in which he removes his ball cap and flings it into the air before beginning a hip-gyrating “Shmoney Dance,” amused users who jokingly pondered the hat’s whereabouts and shared the clip widely on other services, making Shmurda as close to ubiquitous as a character can be in today’s dearth of monoculture.
Vine has largely been replaced by TikTok, an app that plays by its own unique set of rules, mostly populated by and driven by users who may not even remember the days of “Hot N****” or the circumstances of Bobby’s disappearance from the public eye. The sounds that attract TikTok users are goofier than the menacing, booming Jahlil Beats production that backed “Hot N****.” The dances are mostly performed by the users themselves, in complicated choreography reminiscent of the Japanese “Para Para” synchronized dance style.
For another thing, that “Jahlil Beats, holla at me” tag hasn’t been heard on a Billboard hit since 2016. The prevalent sound of Bobby’s Brooklyn stomping grounds is Drill, inspired and produced mainly by London beatmakers like Axl Beats and Melo808. These producers craft sparse compositions with skittering drums and airy, haunting samples, similar to Jahlil’s cavernous cacophonies but stripped back, almost all low-end with few bells and whistles. Fortunately for Bobby, he seems suited to this style and has a toehold in the scene thanks to Rowdy Rebel’s appearance on the posthumous 2020 Pop Smoke song “Make It Rain,” so the GS9 boys might not be total strangers to Drill fans.
However, the intervening six years of Bobby’s sentence has seen changes to distribution models, an increase in streaming, cultural changes in the usage of social media, and of course, several new artists who have cropped up to fill the already saturated hip-hop market. There are even more voices to fight through for exposure, with even more avenues for those voices to be heard, and tastes that have changed drastically from the days when Bobby graced the cover of XXL’s2015 Freshman issue. Half the rappers who joined him on that cover have since faded from public favor, while in the intervening years, the SoundCloud rap scene popped off, women have come to dominate the charts, and fans have gravitated to ever more melodic-sounding artists.
That said, there’s precedent to believe in a comeback. Artists going away as publicly as Bobby did often builds myth and mystique. When artists are plucked away in their prime, music fans often feel a sense of loss that can drive anticipation for a comeback. Tupac’s All Eyez On Me is one example of an artist’s triumphant return from prison; while more recent examples are less stark, artists like Gucci Mane, Lil Wayne, and T.I. returned from shorter stints to respectable careers driven by each artist’s prolific output and cult status, even if their mainstream acceptance was somewhat dulled by the time away.
It’s possible that Bobby can adapt to all these changes to reclaim his grip on the playlist-based Billboard charts, reassert his social media presence, and pick up right where he left off. However, it’s equally possible that the world continues to pass him by, save for a loyal niche following that sees him as more than a meme and contributed to the plays of his meager discography past “Hot N****” and “Bobby Bitch.” The wide-open nature of this new frontier is both a blessing and a curse, but at least Bobby Shmurda has the freedom to explore its possibilities.
Kanye West may have been the second-highest paid celebrity of 2020, but he wasn’t always successful. In fact, Kanye faced a few major setbacks when he was coming up in his rap career, including being told by a label executive that his rap game wasn’t good enough.
On an episode of Story To Tell with Andrew Barber for The Coda Collection, Lupe Fiasco joined to discuss his early career. Touching on his relationship with Kanye, Fiasco recalled one instance when Kanye had his ego bruised in a major way by LA Reid, a label head who was recently forced to step down from his position at Epic Records following a sexual harassment case:
“We brought Ye into Arista to showcase for LA Reid before Roc-A-Fella. Stack Bundles was sitting there. Imagine it’s me, Stack Bundles, Kanye, and LA Reid in the office. When we stopped, LA was like, ‘Yo you should stick to making music, you stick to making beats.’ Real sh*t. So that’s why I always honor Ye, no matter how crazy he goes. I’ve seen that man struggle and him just working through it.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Fiasco discussed how he and Kanye have always had a working relationship. “I’ve been knowing Ye for a long ass time. I remember first meeting Ye when he first did ‘The Truth.’ We did a little speaking thing, I think at Columbia College. That’s when n**** had a ‘fro or some sh*t, it was weird. But I was working with Ye for years. I got Ye joints. I remember Ye used to come up to the crib and be like, ‘Hey man, what you think about this verse?’”
Watch Barber’s full conversation with Lupe Fiasco on The Coda Collectionhere.
pic.twitter.com/TPNpYcVhEU
