The official Pop In A Box Instagram account announced the release on July 26 with a photo of both the Funko Pop and the cover art for Tupac’s 1991 LP. People will notice that the outfit the figurine is wearing is the exact same one the rapper sported on the album’s cover. The special edition Tupac Funko Pop! figurine will be available for purchase on November 28, 2022 for $19.99.
2Pacalypse is a beloved record in Tupac Shakur’s discography, boasting the songs “Brenda’s Got A Baby,” “Trapped,” and “I Don’t Give A F***.” The album was released while he was signed to Interscope Records and TNT Recordings, in addition to being a member of Digital Underground. It would serve as the launchpad for a legendary, albeit short solo career.
Check out the Tupac special edition Funko Pop! above.
Five days ago, fans got a sneak preview of what to expect in a promotional clip posted to the Official Nocta Instagram page. The video displayed Nike Elite Youth Basketball players showing off their skill on the court while sporting Nocta on-court gear. There was also a banner that read “Nocta Expands The Culture Of Basketball For A New Generation” true to Drake’s affinity for the sport.
This Nocta capsule includes arm sleeves, one-legged compression tights, a reversible Dri-FIT headband, finger sleeves, fleece sweatpants, socks, a basketball, and much more. If that isn’t enough to draw in new buyers, the slogan certainly will as it sounds like a Drake lyric: “Sometimes you. Sometimes me. Always us.”
The third Nocta capsule collection is now available for purchase here and here. Check out the promotional video above and close-ups of the pieces below.
Jacksonville, Florida rapper Nardo Wick is on a roll after following up his appearance in the 2022 XXL Freshman Class with the deluxe version of his breakout mixtape, Who Is Nardo Wick? Adding 12 new tracks to the fan-favorite debut, Nardo only includes two new features; one is Latto, who joins Lakeyah on the “Baby Wyd” remix, and the other is fellow fast-rising neophyte The Kid Laroi, who appears on “Burning Up.” Today, Nardo and Laroi shared the video for “Burning Up,” which was directed by Lyrical Lemonade’s Cole Bennett.
Bennett, who has become a go-to for Gen Z artists looking for colorful and creative visual companions to their biggest hits, is a wise choice. Since both artists on the track are a couple of years away from drinking age, the old standby of shooting the video in a nightclub is out of the question. Instead, Bennett decks them out in matching black suits and straps a pair of proton pack-bearing blasters to their backs, turning them into a (much younger) version of the titular characters from the 1997 sci-fi action film, Men In Black (a movie older than both artists). The clip turns out to be short but effective, and they look like they’re having a blast running around in the forest playing alien cops and boating on a serene lake.
You can watch the video for “Burning Up” above. Who Is Nardo Wick? (Deluxe) is available here.
While Post Malone is getting ready to not only headline summer music festivals like Outside Lands in San Francisco and Brazil’s Rock In Rio, on September 10th, hisTwelve Carat Toothache headlining tour gets underway. So what better way to hype up one of the most anticipated tours of the fall season than by dropping a tour documentary from 2019’s massive Runaway Tour? That’s exactly what the “Rockstar” singer is doing with Runaway, which will be coming out on August 12th for free on Amazon’s Freevee streaming platform and the new trailer is electric.
“I’m gonna be myself, and if you don’t like it, I don’t give a f*ck,” Posty says in the trailer, where we see a ton of behind the scenes footage of his sold out arena tour stops with Swae Lee in 2019. There are explosions, there are fan interactions, there are appearances from Drake, Travis Barker, Alicia Keys, and Ozzy Osbourne, there are candid moments and then there’s Post Malone on stage, alone with tens of thousands of people hanging on his every word as he drops his head back and screams, “I love y’all more than life itseeeelllllllffff!”
Watch the trailer for Runaway above.
Post Malone’s Runaway tour documentary comes out on 08/12 via Amazon Freevee.
A little under nine months ago, Houston rapper Maxo Kream released his third studio album, Weight Of The World, which included appearances from fellow standout rappers such as ASAP Rocky (“Streets Alone“), Don Toliver, Freddie Gibbs, and Tyler The Creator (“Big Persona“), as well as the singles “Greener Knots” and “Cripstian.” Talking about this album in interviews, he said, “With this one, you’ll understand what’s going on from Brandon Banks, like where I left off.” It looks like he’s got a little more explaining to do; today, he released the deluxe edition of Weight Of The World with six new tracks.
Included among them: new tracks “Jigga Dame,” “Football Heads” featuring Benny The Butcher, “The Vision” featuring Anderson .Paak, and “Mixin Juices” with Detroit rapper Babyface Ray. Maxo has been carefully rolling out the new songs over the past month, leaving an enticing trail of breadcrumbs to follow up to the new release. To commemorate its release, Maxo also dropped the video for “Mixin Juices.” The frenetically-edited clip is simple and stripped down, depicting the two rappers posted up with some high-end cars, bottles of cough syrup, and a few of their closest friends.
You can watch the “Mixin Juices” video above and get the Weight Of The World deluxe edition here.
Over the past year, Detroit native Zelooperz has drawn attention as a member of Danny Brown’s Bruiser Brigade, popping up in places like The Alchemist’s This Thing Of Ours 2 (on the track “Wildstyle”), Arizona rap trio Injury Reserve’s By The Time I Get To Phoenix (on “SS San Francisco”), and on LA iconoclast Earl Sweatshirt’s Sick! (on “Vision”). He also featured on UPROXX Sessions performer Na-Kel Smith’s A Dream No Longer Deferred in 2020.
So, it’s only right that he follows in Smith’s footsteps, making his own debut on UPROXX Sessions to perform “Who U Love” from his March project, Get WeT.Radio. The song is a semi-tender ode to a lover, with Z insisting, “Being without you a dealbreaker, I’d rather rot.” It’s a short but sweet track that shows the Motor City rapper isn’t afraid to bare his heart.
Watch Zelooperz perform “Who U Love” on UPROXX Sessions above.
UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.
Robert Glasper is doing it all these days. He’s just come off a European Tour in support of his latest album, Black Radio III, performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival earlier this month (where he received the prestigious Miles Davis Award), and is in the midst of scoring not one, but three TV and film projects. But the biggest and most personal undertaking of them all for the four-time Grammy Award-winning pianist, producer, and composer, is the inaugural Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa, CA.
Going down at the Charles Krug Winery from July 29th – 31st, Glasper is the festival’s artist in residence and curator. The lineup is an eclectic representation of jazz, hip-hop, and R&B’s inextricable ties. Where Chaka Khan, Maxwell, and Black Star are playing rare headlining sets, the lineup is as eye-popping for the creative collaboration performances like Snoop Dogg with Dinner Party (Glasper, Kamasi Washington, and Terrace Martin), The Soul Rebels with GZA & Talib Kweli, and Glasper alongside Erykah Badu, BJ The Chicago Kid, Ledisi and D Smoke — oh, and Dave Chappelle is also the weekend’s host.
We caught up with Glasper by phone to talk about the vision behind the festival, how the legacy of Miles Davis has inspired him, and how his career sees him tracing the evolution of Black music in incredible ways.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
AS: You just got back from Europe and I saw you first tour stop at Montreal Jazz Festival a couple weeks ago. Considering your work on the Everything’s Beautiful tribute album of sorts to Miles Davis, and scoring Miles Ahead, what was it like be honored with the Miles Davis Award as someone pushing jazz music forward into new realms the way Miles did?
It’s so funny how Miles Davis pops up in my life. Miles Davis is the first jazz musician that I ever heard cover pop songs. I was in junior high school and I got that record Miles Around The World where he covered Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and he also covered Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” That opened my eyes a lot. It’s part of the thread of who I am in just being open and being modern and not forgetting the history, but not being held back by the history. And then you fast forward and Don Cheadle asked me to score the Miles Davis movie he did, Miles Ahead, and that was the first thing I ever scored. Then in the middle of scoring that, Sony hits me and asks me to produce a record on Miles Davis because it was going to be his 90th birthday. So they asked me to do this remix record and I told them that I would love to, but I explained to them how I wanted to do it: It can’t just be that I put some hip-hop drums under a muted trumpet and call it a day. I wanted to really dive in. That’s why it’s [Everything’s Beautiful] also one of my favorite projects too, cause the way I did it, and the way I captured more of Miles than just his trumpet. I think he’s on two songs on the whole album as far as the trumpet goes. ‘Cause the other stuff, I literally have his breath tied in with the bass drum on a song, I have him talking, clapping, whistling. I’m trying to get the elements of the whole person. You can’t narrow him down to just the trumpet. So me getting that award, it just fell into place that with Miles, he is who he is, but he’s the reason that jazz started being so open to begin with. He’s a trailblazer.
He’s always looked to blur the definition of jazz, which is kind of what you’re pushing forward now.
Exactly, it was such an honor and I’ve been playing Montreal Jazz Festival for years, so it was an honor to get that. It was also the heaviest award I’ve ever gotten [laughs] I might’ve gotten knocked over by the trophy, it’s so heavy.
Oh yeah, I saw that thing, it was like as big as your torso!
And since that was the first day of my tour, I was gone for three weeks, so I had to have them mail it to me.
Victor Diaz Lamich/Montreal Jazz Fest
Well speaking of festivals, you’ve got Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa coming up. I think it really speaks to so much amazing collaboration between jazz and hip-hop and R&B artists. What’s been the vision behind the way you guys curated this and brought everything together?
The idea literally came from my residency at the Blue Note [in New York] every October. I’ve done it three times so far and this last October, Steve [Bensusan] and Alex [Kurland] from Blue Note, the owner and the booker, came to me and started talking about doing something outside of the residency, maybe doing a festival. They approached me and I was like, “That makes all the sense in the world.” We kept talking about it here and there and then literally this past April, we pulled the trigger on it and said, “Let’s actually do it and make it happen.” The festival is cool cause it feels like a family reunion. Everyone performing at the fest, I know them. I kinda got to handpick my own f*cking festival. It doesn’t get better than that. They’re all amazing artists and I got to handpick them and put them all together. That’s not a typical thing that an artist or musician gets to do.
Yeah, and for the more high-profile collab sets like Dinner Party and Snoop, there’s also one like Amber from Moonchild and Kiefer. Like, where the hell else can I see that?
Yeah, Amber’s my homie cause she was on my R+R=Now record. We’re all friends. And really, it’s like a pick-up game. Like when Michael Jordan did Space Jam and he got to invite all his NBA basketball player friends to play pick-up games with him while he was recording the movie. This is like my Space Jam [laughs]
It definitely feels like a version of your residency on steroids.
For sure. That’s literally where the idea burst from. We even got going with some guests that we’d had on the residency before and some that we wanted to have. I think it started with me making a list of people that I wanted at my next residency and then was like, “We should do a festival and have all these people.”
Something that struck me in Montreal and now looking at the lineup of this festival, and then looking at Black Radio — Black Radio III specifically — is that you’re really trying to tell the story of the evolution of Black music and where everything is at now. Talk a little about that and how everything is connected with the artists you’ve got playing at this festival that has your name at the very top.
A lot of people have put jazz in this box of exclusivity. Where it’s this exclusive thing that doesn’t f*ck with anybody else, any other genres. And that’s just not the case. In its conception, it’s already amuck. Jazz is mixed with classical music, blues, gospel… And later on, when you listen to certain jazz standards, they weren’t even standards, they were show tunes. They were songs people got from musicals. Like “My Favorite Things” or “All The Things You Are,” these important jazz standards, these weren’t jazz tunes. These were jazz artists reaching out into the world and bringing worldly things into the music and then they became standards. That’s kind of where I come from it. Black music is a big house and it has many genres under that roof, blues, gospel, jazz, hip-hop, R&B, you name it. I like to go room to room in this big house of Black music. Like I have a key to it all, because it’s in my DNA. I studied this music, I went on tours with some of the greatest in each genre, so I feel like I’m one of the people that can represent this thing that we call Black music. There are so many amazing artists and trailblazers, and to have them all in one festival represents so much and represents how free the music can be.
I’m hard-pressed to think if I’ve ever seen a festival lineup quite like this. What’s your hope for this weekend?
I’m hoping that this turns into an annual thing. But also, with the kinds of musicians and artists that we have, it lends itself to probably a lot of things we’ve never seen before. People sitting in with other people, cross-pollination on the stage. Most of the time on the festival stage, you go see that one artist and that’s what you see, thats what the festival is. But this one’s gonna be more cross-pollination, with a family-oriented kind of vibe. It’s smaller than most festivals on purpose. We’re trying to mirror the Blue Note residency so we wanted to keep it intimate (in festival terms) and try to mimic that feeling that you get when you’re in a small club; like the residency, with unexpected pop-up guests. I’m getting all kinds of calls from all kinds of artists on it. I’m really looking forward to it.
There’s no denying Cordae’s success in music. At just 25 years old, the DMV rapper packed plenty of accomplishments on his resume. He’s a Grammy-nominated rapper thanks to his debut album, The Lost Boy. He’s worked with celebrated artists like Eminem, Chance The Rapper, HER, Robert Glasper, Common, Nas, and more. He also has two top-15 albums to his name thanks to The Lost Boy and From A Birds Eye View. All of these accomplishments and more are at the center of his new single, “Multi-Platinum.”
Cordae’s latest release is quite the celebratory effort as he takes a moment to relish in his success, something he has every right to do especially at his young age. Thanks to production from Kid Culture, Cordae uses the track to narrate this very success from start to now. The track also stands as his first official release since sharing From A Birds Eye View earlier this year.
Months after releasing From A Birds Eye View, Cordae admitted that the project was not better than his debut. “Yo so l just drove on a lil 4 hour road trip and listened to both my albums front to back,” he wrote. “And f*ck I must say it’s most definitely “The Lost Boy > FABEV lmaooo. My bad y’all. Ima do better next time. I got sumn to prove.”
You can listen to “Multi-Platinum” in the video above.
Cordae is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
In the less than 12 months since Young Dolph was gunned down in his native Memphis, his Paper Route Empire cohorts have made a point of honoring their fallen brother. In January, the Paper Route Empire Presents: Long Live Dolphcompilation album dropped featuring PRE rappers Key Glock, Big Moochie Grape, and others. And today, PRE has leveled up with “Hall Of Fame,” the first track from Young Dolph to be released following his death.
“Hall Of Fame” is accompanied by an animated video, which is a loop of a boy admiring a shrine to the late rapper. A Dolphin logo/Paper Route Empire branded sports car rolls down Memphis’ Adolph “Young Dolph” Thornton Jr. Avenue to a hall where Dolph’s legacy is honored. The iced-out doors open and the boy looks upon a wall of Dolph’s records, framed in jewel-encrusted borders. A bust of Dolph with his diamond-studded PPE necklace around it sits in the center.
Produced by Bandplay, Dolph floats on the track, rapping swiftly like he always did, spitting: “They say I’m showing out, they say I should be ashamed, I don’t do it for the clout, b*tch, I do it for the gang. You can walk in any trap and I bet they know my name, Frank Matthews of the South, put me in the hall of fame.”
It took French Montana all of seven months to give the world a brand new project. That was the case with Montega, his fifth album which doubled as a joint project with producer Harry Fraud. Montega arrived with 14 songs and guest appearances from Babyface Ray, Benny the Butcher, Chinx, EST Gee, Fleurie, Jadakiss, Quavo, and Rick Ross. In French’s continued effort to promote his latest body of work, he returns with a visual for “Keep It Real” alongside EST Gee.
French and EST find themselves in city streets in their video for “Keep It Real.” Dark and bright skies sit behind the two rappers as they stand proudly with their crew on street corners and on top of buildings all in a successful attempt to show off their fearless demeanor.
The new video for “Keep It Real” joins others that French has released for songs from Montega. They include “Blue Chills,” “Bricks & Bags,” and “Rushmore Pack.” Recently, French Montana collaborated with DreamDoll for her “Ice Cream Dream” collaboration while also having a hand in Drake winning and losing over $25 million through a game of roulette that they played together.
You can watch the video for “Keep It Real” above.
Montega is out now via Coke Boys Records. You can stream it here.
