Meghann Cuniff Talks Tory Lanez & Megan Thee Stallion, Her Origins In Journalism, And Rising Above Social Media Narratives

Meghann Cuniff is a name that has gained quite a bit of prominence in the hip-hop world over the last year or so. In fact, you may now know her as Meghann The Reporter. This nickname came about thanks to her diligent work on the Tory Lanez trial. Overall, Cuniff was the leading source for all things related to the case. She was in the courtroom every single day of the trial and her up-to-the-minute updates were extremely valuable to those looking to follow along.

As it pertains to the Megan Thee Stallion and Tory Lanez trial, there was a lot of disinformation out there. Furthermore, you had blogs looking to tout specific agendas. Predominantly, you had those who wanted to make Megan look like a liar, while painting Tory as someone who had been wronged. However, Cuniff didn’t care about narratives. The seasoned court reporter wanted to make sure only facts were being brought to the public. Anyone who listened to those facts would have known a conviction was inevitable. Those who ignored her, are still trying to do the mental gymnastics necessary to arrive at a “Free Tory” conclusion.

In this HotNewHipHop exclusive, we got to speak to Meghann Cuniff about her incredible work throughout the case. For instance, we got to speak at length about just how important it is to vet sources when following a case. Additionally, we discussed the vibe inside of the courtroom and all of the things that were going on during and after the trial. It was easily the biggest trial in hip-hop over the past year, and Cuniff helped document all of it.

We also dive into her career and how she got started with court reporting. Her story is incredible, and if you are interested in law, then she has great insights. Not to mention, you will be curious about what she has to say in regard to the future of court reporting. This includes, how to get seen while also keeping tabs on social media.

The following interview has been edited for clarity

Meghann Cuniff
Image via Meghann Cuniff

HNHH: Maybe just tell me about your starting journalism and how you got into court reporting specifically.

Meghann Cuniff: Yeah, I was interested in journalism in high school and worked for the high school paper in Corvallis, Oregon, and then went to college at the University of Oregon and got into the student newspaper there the Daily Emerald, and really felt like I found my niche reporting on things the administration was doing the stuff regarding their efforts to build a new basketball arena that kind of thing. A friend and I who were both reporters there did an investigation into how the student government had used a bunch of student money to go to Sunriver and have a big party. So that really got me interested in journalism, and I ended up doing an internship in Bend, Oregon, and then Spokane Washington with the Spokesman Review covering the legislature. And then that turned into a job with the Spokesman Review where first I was covering schools in North Idaho, but then I went over to Spokane and was covering the day side cops. So that’s what got me into court reporting first just going to the courthouse and looking at search warrants and going to arraignments and different proceedings and we covered a little bit of federal stuff then but it really picked up when I moved to California and I worked at the register at first, but then I started working at the Los Angeles Daily Journal which is like a newspaper for lawyers.

In California, it covers the California Judiciary closely. So I spent four years there and really got specialized training on legal issues and then went to ALM and law.com after that which is another pretty prominent news agency in the legal industry if you ever hear about law firms rank themselves as in the top ALM 100 or top ALM 200. ALM is the one that does those rankings through the American lawyers. So it’s pretty kind of hoity-toity, but I wanted to get back into court reporting for a mainstream crowd. So I went to Law & Crime and that’s when I started covering the Tory Lanez case when I was at the LA superior court because ALM and the Daily Journal weren’t really into celebrity trials like that. They were really interested in civil litigation and the stuff the big law firms were doing but they didn’t really cover Superior Court cases too much like that. So I wanted to get back into that.

What would you say is the most enticing thing about court reporting?

I think all the personalities involved and when you get into the complex cases really trying to figure out the case strategy that the lawyers are doing. I mean, it’s not so much the exact questions. it’s like why are they asking the questions and just kind of like the Dynamics at play in all the cases and then just the human drama that goes on I think what you said about, the assignment where you just go to court and you just write about whatever happens that’s a good example of how interesting Court can be and maybe also how boring but I mean, that’s how I got into it a lot and some of my best stories would be going to the courthouse for a specific case, but then funning into another hearing or another case that was going on and realizing it was a more interesting story. I mean, I remember going to Spokane the Eastern District of Washington the federal courthouse in Spokane for some kind of arraignment or something, but before that, they were doing a bail hearing for a guy. He’d already pleaded guilty to Federal cocaine charges and he was facing a prison sentence and he was allowed out for Thanksgiving. And the hearing was about how he was going to be given an ankle monitor and be allowed out to see his family and spend Thanksgiving with them before he went off to prison so that became the story and it ran on the front page and when I went over the courthouse the next day all the TV stations were over there trying to get his criminal history because he had a big long criminal history. So it was just an example of the news that you can find over there and how they don’t send out press releases on all the cases that happened so you got to be over there and find it.

What are some of the harsh lessons that you kind of learned early on getting into court reporting?

Probably the harshest lessons are just about how unpredictable it can be and how much it can affect your kind of day-to-day existence. Judges and lawyers especially judges run the courtroom and it’s not a beat or a job. That’s good for people who just want to set hours and don’t want to work a lot of extra hours here and there and want to know, day in and day out what you’re gonna do because you’ll just find out how unpredictable Court proceedings can be and how if you have something to do that night or if you think that a corporate seating is only going to be a couple hours or an hour and it turns into a two-day thing how that can really, affect just your day-to-day existence like that. I think the Tory Lanez case is a good example for that because I figured that sentencing was gonna be a couple of days but a lot of those news agencies send people to high profile kind of finality events like that who haven’t covered the case at all and don’t have any idea what to expect and think that it’s gonna be like a half an hour. So a lot of reporters have gone in there thinking it was going to be like a half an hour and they’re trapped in there for two days. And I think that contributes to newspapers, and traditional news agencies, especially in LA not covering trials day in and day out because it’s just frankly a burden for the reporters who have to sit there on the hard benches all day and be there until 5:30 at night or something.

Yeah, and that’s actually one of the questions that I had later on, but I’ll bring it up now since you mentioned it because I was gonna say that, looking at your work on the Megan Thee Stallion and Tory Lanez case and then another big court case that we followed back in 2019 would have been 6ix9ine…the journalist who was following that story in New York was Inner City Press, which I know you’ve interacted a few times on Twitter and the internet was basically the source for that trial just like you were the source for Tory Lanez. and it made me think about how a lot of the court reporting we see now is done by independent journalists on independent platforms. Where do you think that shift happened? Is it a question of newspapers not having the budget anymore?

I think part of it is budget constraints and then a lot of people wanting to write for the newspaper and write long-term stuff and not do the minute-by-minute Twitter stuff which ends up giving people like Matthew (Inner City Press) a huge advantage because in high-profile cases like that people are so interested in the minute by minute and I think a lot of newspapers think that they can survive and do the coverage through, end of day stuff, but it becomes important to people to have updates like that that it’s really an opportunity for guys like Matthew to shine. The reason cases in the southern district of New York get such good coverage is because he’s actually in the media room. He has credentials in a spot in the media room. And a lot of the judges in the southern district of New York, especially for high profile cases, and the reporters can petition that they do this. They turn on an audio feed from the courtroom to the media room. And I’m not quite sure how it works. I went there for the Michael Avenatti Stormy Daniels case because he was a California guy and I felt it had California connections, but I couldn’t get credentials for the media room. It’s like you need to show that you covered cases in the southern district of New York for a certain period of time and so on and so forth. So they don’t just give it to out-of-state reporters for one case, but the federal court in LA doesn’t have… There’s a media room technically, but they don’t have audio feeds like that and reporters are restricted from live tweeting from Court. We can’t even have our phones out and it’s like that in the southern district of New York too. So most of the reporters like Matthew go to the courtroom for big moments or to see things outside, but most of the time he’s sitting at his desk in the media room, and there just isn’t that capability in LA so part of it is just like Logistics. […]

One thing I’m really wishing I had covered was Youngboy Never Broke Again his gun case that he had a year ago or so he got acquitted but I’ve heard just within the US attorney’s office that I mean those felon in possession of a firearm cases, the federal prosecutors they have on it aren’t usually the most experienced prosecutors, but for that case, it was like they were just pushed into a buzz saw nobody really realized or knew much about him and people didn’t really take him seriously. They didn’t know that he would have such a stacked legal representation, but that’s just an example of a case that had been tried in this other District of New York. It probably would have gotten a lot more coverage than LA so I might have gotten a little off track there, but it is kind of an example of just the differences and how much Court proceedings can matter in coverage.

Would you say the recent lack of court coverage has a lot to do with courthouses being less forthcoming with documents and access as a whole?

You definitely see that in LA Superior Court. I’m not sure about the documents situation. I bet the document situation has always been pretty terrible for criminal cases, but at least in terms of cameras in court and filming they were able to have cameras in film a lot more back in the 80s than they do. Now. I mean cameras are completely restricted in the courthouse where the Tory Lanez trial was, but if you look at trials that happen, they’re back in the 80s. They had boom mics in the hallway and cameras getting people as they went in. So there was definitely a huge. change for Less access in the last 20 30 years which is interesting and part of that was just maybe OJ turned into such a media circus and I think there were a lot of Judges who were kind of wary of the circus atmosphere that accompanied some of those trials, but I mean, it’s just the consequences a lot of trials just don’t get more coverage but part of that is also Legacy Media just not having big enough roots on the west coast to fight stuff like that in LA Superior Court. Where is they have such established access in New York the southern district of New York in the media room and the audio feeds and then LA Times doesn’t really step up when I think they should to kind of advocate for stuff like that and there’s just isn’t the media institution and longtime. Institutions out here to fight for that kind of stuff.

Transitioning to the Tory Lanez and Megan Thee Stallion trial, were you aware of the story going into it or did you just stumble upon the trial while doing your usual reporting?

So I was not aware of the story previously, but I was on the LA Superior Court mailing list and they sent out something saying the trials coming up and if you want credentials, email us by this date. So I was already up at the courthouse anyway for Danny Masterson and Harvey Weinstein’s trial and I knew who Megan Thee Stallion was. I hadn’t heard of Tory Lanez or the case, but I knew who she was and figured that would be a fun one to cover but frankly we’d all been going up there you’re going to court for the trials for the last almost it’s been a month and a half or two months. We’re all pretty tired and it was like getting into Christmas time and everything and no one was super excited about covering another trial but I definitely liked to cover her testimony. So I got a press credential for it. That email was probably sent out maybe two weeks before it happened and they had a press pool for jury selection that I got tuned into I didn’t sign up for the Press wall, but I started getting the reports on that and then started following it that way and then Nancy from Rolling Stone had been covering it since the beginning and I was talking to her because she was kind of watching the Weinstein case too. So she had kind of filled me in on it, but I definitely did not know I went in there not expecting anything.

I mean, I’ve been tweeting about Harvey Weinstein here and there I’m getting some attention, but just any tweet about Megan Thee Stallion and the Tory case seemed to do better, but I think it was a couple of days before I really went viral. I think the opening statements where she testified Tuesday and then Wednesday was Kelsey and by Wednesday, I think that’s when things were really jumping. I think that was the day that I got 3,000 followers in an hour. That was when it really first happened I noticed all the interactions all day, but then something happened and I looked at my followers and then an hour later. I looked at him again. I’m like, holy s***. I just gained 3,000 followers, but I ended up gaining 60,000 followers during the two-week trial. It was kind of crazy.

The case itself had a lot of narratives about it circulating on social media. A lot of people had their minds made up already. Obviously, as a seasoned journalist, you can see past that stuff. But did you do any sort of research or were you aware of those narratives on social media beforehand?

I did do a previous story for Law & Crime where I actually called George Mgdesyan and I think I maybe emailed them first and set up a time or he called me. And I remember he was talking about his case strategy and he was telling me that a big part of his case was gonna be he thought the case really depended on him establishing for the jury. What happened at Kylie’s house? And I remember just thinking who is this guy? What happened at Kylie’s house? because I knew that there was some kind of party at Kylie Jenner’s house and I’m like, I don’t think so. Is this gonna be some kind of self-defense thing where Megan was just so out of control? It just seemed kind of funny that he was focused on that but I didn’t know anything about him blaming the friend or saying that she wasn’t shot but going into opening statements, I think it was the second day or the third day where I realized that the fact that Mgdesyan admitted in the opening statement that she was shot was actually really big news because people were saying that she wasn’t shot. I mean, I just thought the dialogue on it was just kind of silly.

When I look back at the two weeks in the trial coverage, it was probably just the purest time in the case before I had just been inundated with all the stupid internet stuff that accompanied it because I think that’s kind of the one big storyline in this case. It’s just a huge disconnect between all the dialogue and The Shade Room Instagram comments versus what actually happened there and I would say because I definitely hear why we would say, what popular opinion is about the Tory Lanez case and then when you look it up on the internet, you’re like, the popular opinion would be that I guess it just depends on where you’re looking but who thinks that the popular opinion is, the people who have the YouTube Lives who defend Tory all the time and the TMZ post that kind of pump them up. I’m not sure if that’s really widespread popular opinion and I think popular opinion. I’m not sure really even takes Tory Lanez seriously. But it just kind of depends on who you’re talking to.

During the trial, there were a couple of bloggers who were around the courtroom who were online delivering half-truths on IG Lives. Essentially making it seem like Tory was innocent or at least making people think that. How frustrating was it to watch that unfold while you were trying to deliver the facts?

I didn’t see too much of it because I was frankly so busy just like doing my own things but it always just struck me as kind of silly. I mean in the end, it’s freedom of speech and people’s perception is always interesting to hear but I was always kind of baffled. I’m like is this genuine do they really think this and I think maybe they do but especially there was one guy. I don’t want to like name names, but he would run out into the hallway and do these breathless updates and stuff and one was their whole thing about Kelsey recanting on the stand because it definitely wasn’t good for prosecutors that Kelsey got up there and wouldn’t say that Lanez was the shooter.

Some acted like it just shattered the prosecution’s entire case and it’s like, the jury can take into account demeanor, right, and the idea that Kelsey was being believable which was recanting on the stand, is something that they didn’t seem to grasp that this was actually a lot more common in gun cases or domestic violence. Prosecutors would kind of know how to deal with it by questioning about her previous statements. And one thing that really seemed to be missed and all the kind of breathless coverage of this is the prosecutors, staring at the shambles of their cases. That’s all over the witness stand for Kelsey’s recant it’s like did you hear the judge say that he thinks the questioning of Kelsey by Tory’s lawyer opened the door for the next day all of us just coming in and just sitting there for an hour. I think it was 80. How many minutes was it her interview with prosecutors from December or September two months before trial where she just tells them everything and totally clearly identifies Lanez as the shooter the fact that that just played all in full to me that became the bigger story because she testified over two days. So the first day was about her recant on the stand and then of course the second day of testimony she was doing the same thing still recanting.

But at the end of the day when the judge has the tape of her talking to prosecutors. We’re gonna be able to just play that for the jury in full tomorrow. It’s like, that’s a really big story. That’s not good for Tory Lanez that they would be able to play that and all that seemed to be a little bit missed on them, but it’s not so much frustrating. It’s just kind of amusing and fascinating.

With the rise of Andrew Tate, there seems to be this trend of trying to get young teenage men thinking that women are inherently untrustworthy and that they are always lying. This is something that felt front and center with the Megan Thee Stallion case. People wanted to make it seem like she was lying and there were these heavy misogynistic undertones. Did you ever catch glimpses of that, especially from the blogs?

Yeah. I remember the first day of opening statements. When a lot of the coverage was focused on this one throwaway line that George kind of almost mumbled under his breath about Megan doing this before with DaBaby and someone else where I mean, he’s like talking about the victim’s sex life and his opening statement almost like dude. I don’t know if that’s gonna go very well with the jury and it was just like where did that even come from kind of thing? And especially for me coming from my background working at the LA Daily Journal doing judge profiles and working at ALM my earlier background. I mean, I’m not like a prude or some sheltered kid in any way. I mean I grew up in Corvallis, Oregon and I worked at McDonald’s for four years and we used to go to a lot of raves. I mean, I’ve seen some crazy stuff but this whole just denigrating of women. I mean some of these people who I won’t even give the dignity of naming the rants that they’ve gone on including about me. It’s just disqualifying to me. It’s like dude. I don’t take anything that you say seriously because of this huge rant that you just went on about whatever. 

Absolutely, and as for the conviction, was that in line with what you thought was going to happen based on the two-week trial?

Yeah, I mean most of the time in cases. I mean the jury likes to convict and some people are like, prosecutors shouldn’t brag about their conviction rate. It’s like prosecutors would say that they can brag about their conviction rate because they don’t charge innocent people. There’s a whole system that goes into place in charging somebody so if they charge them they think he’s guilty but just overall juries like to convict and for a simple kind of first-degree assault case like that where the victim is identifying them. I thought it was pretty likely that he would be convicted and in a full acquittal I think would just be really unlikely but you just don’t know there could be a juror there’s always a possibility of a hung jury, even in cases where I thought that there was gonna be a fast conviction like Michael Avenotti’s fraud case for Stormy Daniels. 

The jury went over two days. They deliberated seven hours over two days and the 22nd they were out for three hours and what was interesting was they asked questions really fast within an hour and they had asked to hear back a few testimonies. They also asked for Megan’s testimony, part of it, but then didn’t end up hearing it. But then the second day they were deliberating and that’s the most stressful time waiting for it because you just don’t know what they’re gonna do. But I remember the second we heard that there was a verdict not a question like there is a verdict I was like he’s guilty because if there’s no verdict we’re a hung jury. It’s not going to be an acquittal like it’s gonna be guilty. I was like, God guys, they’re gonna convict them on all counts and his family’s gonna freak out.

That leads into my next question which was about Lanez’s father. When the verdict was in, we all had your tweet notifications on, waiting to hear what happened. We get the guilty verdict and then you tweet that his dad is unhinged in the court. Walk us through that scene.

Yeah, I mean we were all sitting in there and I think he did wait as the jury was walking out. They just convicted him but then the jury is leaving the courtroom and Lanez, his father, stands up and just starts screaming and it was just so loud because he’s a preacher and people have seen the video of him outside the courthouse where he was actually crazier than that in the courtroom, but then there’s also a clip that I don’t see repeated as much but he’s not standing right in front of the cameras, but he goes over to his car and it’s like right before he gets in his car. He lets out another scream and I’m like, okay that is comparable to what it was like in the courtroom. But yeah, he is screaming in the courtroom and the deputies don’t have enough people there because they had more people there on December 22nd, but December 23rd, it’s like this two days before Christmas, a bunch of them have time off and I remarked to one of the reporters that they didn’t have enough deputies in there because if Lanez gets convicted he’s out of custody. So they’re gonna have to remand them and that’s going to be kind of a s*** show but I was sitting in reporter row and the reporter next to me started really freaking out when Lanez’s father started freaking out because it was scary how he was yelling and then just the unpredictability of it and I mean, I’ve talked to judges I know or retired judges that the verdict is always the craziest part because they get convicted all hell can break loose like somebody was telling me that her husband who is a judge was once ordered by the bailiffs to duck under his desk because all the families were freaking out and everything.

So there was the woman sitting in front of us who turned around and said Jay Z is a b**** and then she saw it was me and she was like report that Jay Z is a b**** and then Lanez’s father freaked out. I think after that and then a woman behind us put her hand up in the air and was like and Jesus’s name in Jesus’s name and I was like, this is f****** crazy.

Tory’s team did seem to have a very defeatist attitude in terms of their defense. And eventually, he hired Jose Baez who has a pretty lengthy history in terms of getting people off high-profile cases. However, he didn’t seem to even care about Lanez. During a hearing, he was on vacation and just issued an Instagram story post saying “Good luck.” What do you make of that whole scenario?

Yeah, he did have post-sentencing. He was pretty much done with the case. But I mean the big thing with Baez was there just wasn’t much that he could do post-conviction because it’s like the motion for new trial and then prepare for sentencing and him not being involved in the first trial and not knowing all that much about California criminal law just simply because he’s doesn’t practice in California kind of put him at a disadvantage for really doing anything great like that. But motions for new trial are just Dead on Arrival the vast majority of time, even when really well put together. He doesn’t have very big issues that would drive it. So for anyone who really knew anything about the court system, it was obvious. He was never gonna get a new trial but I think what tripped people up was the way that judge Herriford let it go on for so long and all the delays that he did and everything.

But yeah, it was just that the post-conviction process was looking back just kind of really silly because none of that stuff ever had a chance of happening and I think Baez was there, the whole time once he took over and was doing the motion for new trial and sentencing but then he was so offended by my tweet where I shared his Instagram story, but he wouldn’t just admit that. He wasn’t Tory’s lawyer anymore and he wasn’t gonna be doing the bail hearing the appeal thing and I mean he just acts like the reason that he wasn’t at the motion for new bail is because he just had a prior commitment but I’m like, he’s pretty clearly not Tory’s lawyer for the appeal.

I guess that kind of leads into my next question which it kind of also ties into the letters, right? Because I think it must have been within a week of one another you had the letter from Azalea and Mario. Those went viral, but then also with the Danny Masterson trial you had the Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis letters go viral. For a lot of young people, these were the first trials they ever followed closely. That being said, for yourself, the letters were something that is a common practice, however, many were kind of shocked of their existence. Have you been surprised by some of the lack of knowledge from the general public when it comes to court reporting and just these legal matters in general?

Yeah, I mean I wasn’t surprised at the huge outcry. I figured we’d have that but one thing I did just notice lacking in the coverage was the context for how common they are. And then I also thought there was some disingenuous reactions to it from people who basically really don’t like the fact that Ashton and Mila wrote those letters and just don’t want to hear any kind of explanation about how those are common or anything like that because they feel like it’s like defending them or something. And one thing it reminded me is, I got a ton of attention from the Tory Lanez stuff, but the reaction to the Mila Kunis Ashton Kutcher’s letters was way bigger like I had never gotten that much attention for just one kind of story. There were so many big international news agencies that linked to me and I did a story later on about we were talking about how common those are and just kind of the process And for the most part it was well received because there were even people who said, they don’t agree with those letters at all, but they appreciated the background on it, but there was a small group of people who basically harassed me over the fact that I had written an article that they thought was somehow defending these letters or insulting their intelligence or something like that.

I would always look for original sources. There’s so much aggregation and the people who aggregate according to this TV station…this is going to happen in the Young Thug trial. When I read articles like that or click on an article that is saying ‘according to this news agency,’ I always make a point of clicking out of that and going to the news agency that they’re citing because I’m like you should go with the primary sources because I think we’re gonna be seeing a lot of that with the Young Thug trial.

I think that there’s such a tendency in YouTube to just kind of do the shock jock commentary and offer opinions, where as if you can offer context and compare things like the judges doing this and it’s similar to what I saw judges do in another case. I’m hoping that that can be kind of a niche that is filled for those cases, especially the Young Thug Rico trial. I think that’ll be just because I mean that’s like the same county that Trump is charged with RICO. And so that’s an interesting thing to look at. But that’s just one thing. I’ve been thinking about with my coverage of this stuff because obviously people want to hear from me and they trust my insight on these cases. So I’m kind of like what do I do with that? And how do I, try to connect with those people on other cases?

Now that you have all of this notoriety. I’m sure there has been an increased pressure to cover stories related to hip-hop. Whether that be the Rocky trial or the Cesar Pina/DJ Envy case. Would you say that pressure exists and if so, how is it affecting your reporting moving forward?

I think identity crisis is way too strong and dramatic of a term but it’s like that. I’m just trying to figure out what do I do with all this new following that I have because one thing I really like about my job and what I do is actually getting to go to court and cover trials that the central district of California the Los Angeles federal court system is doing because that’s my original base. This newsletter that I have this subject that I have most of my paid subscribers. A lot of them come from the LA Legal community and they like the fact that I know about the judges and cover the big trials that the US attorney’s office is doing so I definitely don’t want to give that up but they also do enjoy the celebrity reporting and some of them really get a kick out of the fact that I’ve gotten so well known and I have such a big following so they are encouraging me to find a way to do both right now.

That answers quite a few my questions but where do you see the future of court reporting going from here on out? Because social media’s changed the game completely in terms of everybody wanting up to the second updates but then also with the video access kind of being limited in certain areas. So what do you think is gonna be the future of court reporting? Do you see maybe newspapers sort of going back to it or do you think it’s just gonna continue to be more independent?

I think it’s gonna be more and more independent. You might see local papers still covering the courthouses here and there but the big National trials and the cases that are ongoing especially, stuff that Law & Crime Network streams. I think the more it’s just turning to streaming and independence and I kind of wonder if journalism is going that route anyway with just the rise of YouTube and how much money you can make off a successful YouTube channel compared to the salaries that you make, even at big papers like the Los Angeles Times. I mean a YouTuber who’s really doing it right and getting big can make a lot more money than people of those papers make so I feel like that’s kind of where everything’s going.

For everybody at home who’s reading this, where can people continue to find your work beyond just your Twitter?

Yeah, legalaffairsandtrials.com. I couldn’t believe that URL was actually available when I looked for it, but I bought it on Google domains for 12 bucks or something and have it set up through Substack. And I really want to focus everything on there: the print articles and using the Subtack notes, but then also my YouTube channel because even some attorneys some of the federal prosecutors I know have said that they like the YouTube lives that I do because they’ll just listen to it on background because it’s like a podcast because as much as I like to think that everybody is reading every single word that I send out especially for some of the people in some of the trial attorneys are frankly just too busy to read everything like that. So they like hearing me talk about the articles to get that so I need to find I’m still looking for my YouTube identity, but hopefully people can tune in to me there and check out all the videos. I’m gonna be posting on there. Substack and YouTube are the big ones.

The post Meghann Cuniff Talks Tory Lanez & Megan Thee Stallion, Her Origins In Journalism, And Rising Above Social Media Narratives appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Westside Gunn Will Release “Michelle Records” Under One Condition

There are very few artists in the world who’ve produced as much art as Westside Gunn. Though the output slowed down in recent years, there was a time when Griselda fans were really eating out here. Numerous projects per year, including albums, mixtapes, and EPs, stellar guest appearances, and a slew of singles kept the growing fanbase fed. However, in the wake of his recent album, And Then You Pray For Me, he revealed that it would be his final studio album. Of course, this led to the assumption that he was retiring completely. 

The rumors picked up instantaneously, leading to dismay among the die-hard Griselda fans who’ve been rallying behind the Buffalo-based collective for over 10 years. Fortunately, Gunn quickly dispelled the rumors surrounding retirement during an interview with Rolling Stone. In fact, he stated that fans could expect even more music now that he isn’t tethered to the idea of traditional studio albums. Still, there’s one particular album that fans hope to see surface, Michelle Records.

Read More: Westside Gunn Commends Drake & Tyler, The Creator: “I’m Always Going To Respect Both Of Them”

Westside Gunn Plans To Be In The MoMA

westside gunn
Via Prolifickid

If there’s ever an instance where Westside Gunn loses everything to his name, he plans on banking on Michelle Records to lift him out of financial hardships. During our latest cover story with Westside Gunn, he explains that he has the album tucked away with no immediate plans to release it. However, in the vein of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, the infamous body of work that has yet to be heard by the public, Gunn plans to turn it into an art piece “Whenever I get broke, I’m saying, lookin’ like Franklin [Saint] in the last episode [of Snowfall], I know I can cash in that Michelle Records,” he says.

“I might be sittin’ in the f*ckin’ MoMA with a tuxedo on,” he continues. Start the highest bidder at… let me start it at… we’ll start it at $5 million,” Gunn says. Interestingly enough, Westside Gunn isn’t rapping on the album at all. He teased snippets of the production from the album on social media but he confirmed that he leans into his role as a curator even more so on Michelle Records. “I could play that shit right now,” he adds, revealing that the album is complete. “I was already curating ahead of its time. I’m not on one song, but it already [has] your favorites on it.”

Read our latest cover story, Westside Gunn’s Pledge To The Culture.

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The post Westside Gunn Will Release “Michelle Records” Under One Condition appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Westside Gunn Commends Drake & Tyler, The Creator: “I’m Always Going To Respect Both Of Them”

Westside Gunn might not have ever reached the top of the Billboard 200 – nor has any member of Griselda, really – but their impact can not be overstated. Their catalog runs deep with dozens of celebrated albums deemed classics in their own right. However, before Gunn released his final album, And Then You Pray For Me, the Griselda mastermind received his rightful flowers from the culture. On the outro to “Flygod 2x,” a familiar voice emerges and utters high praise for Westside Gunn. “To JAY-Z, to André, to Westside Gunn for makin’ me just wanna rap again,” Tyler, The Creator says in a sample pulled from Instagram Live. “I f**kin’ love it, I love rap, it changed n***as lives.”

Tyler’s never limited his praise for Westside Gunn to an Instagram shout-out. On “Sir Baudelaire,” the intro of the Grammy-award-winning album, Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler used a sample of Conductor Williams’ production from “Michael Irvin” by Westside Gunn. The recognition alone further proved that his influence has reached well beyond the underground. Drake’s recent collaborations with Conductor Williams on “8 AM In Charlotte” and “Stories About My Brother” further showcase Gunn’s unmatched influence on the culture.

Read More: Westside Gunn Says “WWCD 2” Is Coming, Proclaims 2024 Will Be A Great Griselda Year

Westside Gunn Just Wants To Push The Culture Forward

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Gunn expresses nothing short of gratitude for these moments, where his peers honor the work that he put in. When we spoke to Westside Gunn for the latest HotNewHipHop cover story, he explained that these gestures from Tyler and Drake capture his goal of pushing the culture forward. “To inspire my peers is everything,” he says. “It’s respect, you know what I’m sayin’? I like when someone’s confident enough to give somebody their flowers. Like I said, Tyler don’t have to do that ever again. He already did that. Drake don’t have to do it again, he did it. I’m gonna always respect both of them for doing that.” 

During the past few years, Gunn, alongside Benny The Butcher and Conway, have pushed this vintage sound from the depths of the underground onto the highest placements of the Billboard charts. “Tyler doing that is everything because I hope it shows that people don’t have to – you know, so many people just want to be the man, you know what I’m sayin’? And then don’t want to actually give credit where credit’s due. It’s no need for that. We all in this to push the art, and push the culture, and let’s just keep doing that man.”

Check out HotNewHipHop’s latest cover story, Westside Gunn’s Pledge To The Culture

The post Westside Gunn Commends Drake & Tyler, The Creator: “I’m Always Going To Respect Both Of Them” appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Westside Gunn’s Pledge To The Culture 

“Before [I was incarcerated, the sound of hip-hop] was more East Coast grimy,” recalls Westside Gunn, “when I came out, it was leaning towards the trap. That’s when everybody was going South for a little bit.” The transition from the East Coast’s dominance to the South’s reign is vivid for the East Side Buffalo native. When Jeezy’s Trap Or Die and Gangsta Grillz mixtapes punctuated hip-hop’s soundscape, Gunn sat in a cell in Atlanta. “It was the soundtrack of what we were doing,” he describes fondly of the South’s surge.

Those days of hustling embody the same grit that Griselda conveys in their art. And while we’ve heard Conway, Benny The Butcher, and Westside Gunn lean into the rolling hi-hats and pulsating 808s in recent years, the sound of trap music is deeply ingrained in Griselda’s DNA. “At the same time, I was hustlin’ in the A. I was in that time in real-time. That was my life,” he adds. “My route was going back and forth from Atlanta to Buffalo.”

And Then You Pray For Me concretizes this chapter of Westside Gunn’s life, where these routine trips to Atlanta exposed him to a lifestyle that encapsulates the Fly God’s aura. From frequenting clubs to shopping for designer brands that weren’t readily available in Buffalo, it’s no secret that Atlanta captures Fly God’s ethos to some degree — the often bleak descriptions of the streets and his upbringing, juxtaposed with the flamboyance of Atlanta’s dope boy chic. 

It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon in Los Angeles, days after the release of Westside Gunn’s latest studio album, And Then You Pray For Me. It’s an album he’s described as his final full-length body of work that also serves as the successor of Pray For Paris. Gunn appears on Zoom, diamonds dancing across his teeth and chest with a jovial spirit that shines as brightly as jewels. After a hearty meal at Los Angeles’ revered Bossa Nova (chicken, fries, rice, and some grilled shrimp, he tells me), Gunn is en route to a quick shopping trip. His tone is relaxed, sounding equally as satisfied with his plate of chicken and shrimp as he is with the reception of his latest album. “It’s super dope that I could make another classic project that don’t sound like none of my other projects,” he states confidently. “I was really just trying to have fun. Just being in a different space in life and living life, but it wasn’t like I was trying to outdo anything. It was really one of those projects.”

Read More: Westside Gunn Enters GOAT Beat Selection Discussion

Long Live Virgil 

Everything about 2020’s Pray For Paris — a masterclass in curation that juxtaposes opulence with Buffalo’s grimy essence —  laid the foundation for And Then You Pray For Me. COVID-19 struck a month before Pray For Paris, and Westside Gunn suffered a serious bout with the respiratory illness as the death toll started to rise. Then tragedy struck again with the death of Virgil Abloh. Pray For Paris was birthed after Abloh invited Gunn to the Off-White fashion show at Paris Fashion Week. Similarly, the 2023 Paris Fashion Week planted the seed for And Then You Pray For Me, down to the cover art, another Virgil Abloh design. 

Hip-hop, as a whole, suffered greatly from Virgil’s death. As a visionary, Virgil understood the importance of Griselda back in 2016, the year before they inked a deal with Shady Records, and his bond with Westside Gunn was fortified in the following years as the rapper’s profile grew. Admittedly, the stream of inspiration Gunn captured on Pray For Paris was hard to find after Virgil’s passing. “[Virgil] made me get the passport and everything. You know, I owe a lot to that man,” he says emphatically. “He’s one of the illest architects of all time. The GOAT. I’m just privileged to be able to keep the legacy alive, keep the art alive, and give the world what me and him cooked.”

His worldly travels this year helped rekindle that musical breath of life. And Then You Pray For Me captured Gunn’s energy over the summer — the spur of creativity that allowed him to travel to the UK to record with Giggs or head to Champagne, France, to “build with the builders.” “Fashion week ended on Sunday. On Monday, I was taking a road trip with Kid Super and Mike Amiri out to Champagne, France, to meet Just Don. Like, it was just like fly shit.”

In the same way that songs like “Kitchen Lights” and “Mamas Primetime” intend to bring us into the alleys of East Side Buffalo, a large portion of And Then You Pray For Me describes this summer journey. Visiting the pyramids in Egypt, overseeing the waters of Athens, Greece, while eating Wagyu steak. “A lot of [this album] will go over people’s heads because they have never been to London, they’ve never been to Athens, Greece, they have never been to Paris. So a lot of this sh*t might sound like I’m talkin’ sh*t, but if you’ve been there before, then I’m speaking your language,” he says.

Westside Gunn’s Obligation

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Image via Prolifickid

The Griselda fanbase is far from monolithic these days. Still, the expectation for a 10+ song body of work with songs that lean closer to “Flygod 2X” rather than “Kostas” is evident. Many of these fans followed the ascent of Griselda for over a decade, others discovered Gunn’s nasally flow on Kanye’s Donda or, most recently, Travis Scotts Utopia. “I can be their favorite rapper at 12 years old, but then you got OG that just came home from doing 15 years [in prison],” he says, “he’s 50 years old, like, ‘Yo, bruh, man, I miss this sound. I thought the sound changed, but y’all brought it back. I’ve been listening to bullsh*t on the radio for 15 years. This is what I miss.’”

As a hip-hop historian, the sonic palette of the 90s has been well-explored with the voices of a number of pioneers (Slick Rick, AZ, etc.) echoing through his catalog. “I done gave the boom-bap community a decade straight of their language,” he states.

That’s why And You Pray For Me stands out in Westside Gunn’s catalog. Although previous collaborators, such as DJ Drama, appear on the record, along with the usual cast of Griselda mainstays, Westside Gunn felt an obligation to ensure that the fans he’s procured in recent years — both old and young — have a comprehensive understanding of what’s shaped him and hip-hop at large. Much of it stems from his own personal tastes. Take Drama, for instance. Gunn recalls tuning into the Grammy-award-winning Gangsta Grillz maestro through the radio on Saturday nights when he was locked up in Atlanta. You could imagine he feels a sense of vindication when Drama’s voice emerges on songs like “Suicide In Selfridges.”

As such, exploring the textures and frequencies of trap music on his latest project felt necessary not solely in paying homage to artists like Jeezy and Rick Ross but integrating what they’ve done with the voices of the new generation, such as J.I.D., Denzel Curry, EST Gee, and Peezy. “It’s my responsibility, now, man, to keep doing exactly what I’ve been doing,” he adds. 

It’s a pledge he took for the culture, an unofficial oath to push it forward and preserve the legacies of those whose roles in the culture have been celebrated to various degrees. “The youngins, we just got to educate them and show them the history, teach them the history. People scared to learn. Ain’t that sad?” he asks rhetorically after emphasizing the importance of Jeezy rapping the way he does on “Mr. Everything” alongside DJ Swamp Izzo. 

Even beyond his lyrical aptitude and the ability to stand next to everyone, from Rick Ross to MF DOOM comfortably, Westside Gunn’s ear transformed him into a cultural pillar. He admits that he skims through roughly 1,000 beats to find the perfect selection for each project, whether for his own catalog or the artists he works with, like Estee Nack. “Just imagine starting with a blank canvas and actually have production cater to that artist 12 to 15 times to bring the best out of them,” he says. That’s exactly what soundtracked his summer travels — finding the right beats for his latest album. However, he admits he’d often press play on Young Nudy’s Gumbo during his off-time.

Read More: Why Griselda Is One Of Hip Hop’s Hardest-Working Collectives

Changing The Status Quo

“My whole goal was to turn it around… bring this sound and this style to the mainstream,” he says of the signature Griselda production style. The influence is discernable, especially considering the number of Billboard chart-toppers who’ve sought a similar sound in recent releases. The ultimate goal is to ensure that he can shed light on the talent that surrounds him. For example, Gunn reflects on working with Jay Versace on Pray For Paris. Fast forward a few years, and Versace contributed his production to R&B’s brightest talents, like SZA and Summer Walker

Gunn’s approach to introducing talent to the world has ushered in a new 90s renaissance of sorts. Drake, for instance, tapped Griselda’s in-house producer, Conductor Williams, for two songs on his latest album, “8 AM In Charlotte,” and “Stories About My Brother,” which appears on For All The Dogs Scary Hours Edition. Then, there’s Call Me If You Get Lost by Tyler, The Creator, an artist who has openly credited Westside Gunn for revitalizing his passion for rapping. “Sir Baudelaire,” off of the Grammy award-winning album, contains an uncredited sample of Westside Gunn’s “Michael Irvin,” produced by Williams. 

“To inspire my peers is everything,” he states calmly. “It’s respect, you know what I’m sayin’? I like when someone’s confident enough to give somebody their flowers. Like I said, Tyler don’t have to do that ever again. He already did that. Drake don’t have to do it again, he did it. I’m gonna always respect both of them for doing that.” 

Westside Gunn’s Plans For Michelle Records

Image via Prolifickid

Gunn makes it clear that everything he accomplished was done on his own terms. “I earned my respect. There wasn’t nothing given to me in this shit,” he states. As an avid wrestling fan, Westside Gunn parallels this chapter of his life to Roman Reign’s WWE career. He reflects on Roman Reign’s journey from The Shield, alongside Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, to overcoming hardships and eventually, becoming a leader of his own team. 

“When’s the last time Roman lost?” he asks. The similarities are uncanny — The Shield could be compared to the original Griselda trifecta, alongside Benny and Conway. Gunn faced personal adversities when he lost his cousin, Machine Gunn Blakk in 2006, and then in 2020, close Griselda affiliate DJ Shay passed away. “Roman Reign came back stronger than ever. Like, he hasn’t lost since,” he says.

Gunn’s comfortable with his position right now and looking forward to another unrelenting run. However, it’s a moment that he feels should’ve come three years ago. The roll-out for Pray For Paris was hindered by a bout with COVID-19 in the midst of the devastating death counts. Without the ability to touch the people and travel, the album wasn’t able to reach its maximum potential on a commercial scale. Vowing to deliver even more music at higher quality, he’s alleviated himself from the pressures of producing high-quality bodies of work for himself now that he’s released his final album. However, there is one particular album stashed away: Michelle Records. “That’s my baby that’s tucked under,” he says. An album that we may never hear unless — as Westside Gunn describes it — he mirrors Damson Idris in the tragic final scene of the Snowfall series finale.

“Whenever I get broke, I’m saying, lookin’ like Franklin in the last episode, I know I can cash in that Michelle Records. I might be sittin’ in the f*ckin’ MOMA with a tuxedo on. Start the highest bidder at… let me start it at,” he thinks, “we’ll start it at $5 million.” It’s a plan inspired by Wu-Tang Clan’s infamous one-of-one seventh studio album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, that made the rounds between the hands of incarcerated pharma bro Martin Shkreli and the FBI. “I might do that for the art of it.”

Michelle Records, an album shrouded with mystery ever since he began teasing beat snippets of it on Instagram, already has songs fully recorded. “I could play that shit right now,” he adds, revealing that he’s not even rapping on the album. “I was already curating ahead of its time. I’m not on one song, but it already [has] your favorites on it.”

It’s Still Buffalo To The World 

The next chapter of Gunn’s career will continue to carve out and magnify his legacy. His children, of course, will inherit his legacy, carving their own artistic avenues (future fashion icons and hip-hop connoisseurs, no doubt). Four out of his five kids already have credits on the album. More music remains in the pipeline, too in the form of singles and EPs, along with more movies and visual content that centers around Buffalo. Then, there’s the next chapter of Griselda. As the original trio, Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine, and Benny The Butcher — establish themselves as forces, Gunn is putting his golden touch on a number of projects, including Jay Worthy’s, that he describes as influenced heavily by the early 90s West Coast sounds. Before jumping on the Zoom call, he was on the phone with Benny The Butcher, who was filming a video with Stove God Cooks, to discuss plans for his Def Jam debut. 

From building Griselda from a clothing line to one of the most respected labels in the game, Westside Gunn has kept Buffalo at the forefront of his plans. “It’s still East Side Buffalo, don’t let the bougie sh*t fool you,” he asserts. His efforts have earned him the honor of having a Westside Gunn Day in the city. Next, he plans on opening another art gallery in Buffalo inspired, in part, inspired by Nipsey Hussle. The art space will be located on the corner of Kensington Ave and Bailey Ave in East Side Buffalo, an intersection he describes as Buffalo’s equivalent to Crenshaw and Slauson in Los Angeles. It’ll be a cultural hot spot that will only open four days out of the month but will focus on bringing the community together through events like paint and sips. 

But what’s most important to him is ensuring that the legacy of Buffalo is conveyed with balance. Yes, the Buffalo Bills have also been doing well in recent years, but it’s the stories of local legends like the late Claire Melendez, whose image graced the cover of Griselda’s WWCD and Eastside Flip, who appears on And Then Pray For Me, that he hopes reaches beyond the city.

“Just the stories of these people are crazy, you know what I’m sayin’? This is really the harsh reality,” he says. “These are very important people to my city,” he adds, citing a billboard of Claire that he put up on the highway near his stomping grounds to ensure that her story, like other local figures and rap legends to whom he pays homage, isn’t forgotten. “I like to give it to people raw, you know what I’m saying? And sometimes, it might be a little too rough… We could rap about it all day but, you know, people are scared to show it. It’s like, nah, you got to put it out there.”

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Ladies First: Queen Naija Talks “After The Butterflies,” Rough Patches, & Finding Joy In Herself

With a decade of her life imprinted on the internet, one could search “Queen Naija” and find just about anything concerning the beloved R&B maven. She launched her career when she first took to the American Idol stage for the show’s 13th season. However, she connected with an even wider audience on YouTube, and it didn’t take long for her infectious personality to resonate with other young women.

The familiarity further aided in bolstering Queen’s music career. Since 2017, she has delivered several hit singles, including the RIAA-certified Double Platinum tracks “Medicine,” “Karma,” and “Butterflies.” In 2020, fans were blessed with Queen’s official debut offering, Misunderstood, and a little over a week ago, she returned with her first mixtape, After the Butterflies.

In our exclusive interview with Queen Naija, she told us this project marked a significant shift in her artistic narrative. She revisits the subject of love and romance, but this time, she’s opening up about the chaotic waves in her current relationship with Clarence White. Anyone known to be chronically online is familiar with Queen’s ex-husband, Chris Sails, and the turbulent breakdown of their marriage. Yet, she has kept her rifts with White closer to the chest—that is, until After the Butterflies‘s arrival. It’s a new era for the royalty-named talent.

Read through our expansive conversation with the songbird as Queen chats with us about her new mixtape, its inspiration, working with her star-studded list of collaborators on the project, why her collaboration with Monica is one of her favorites, wanting to link in the studio with Pharrell Williams, and realizing no matter where her future takes her, she can survive anything, even if it had to be alone.

Photo provided by Queen Naija, Publicist

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.

HotNewHipHop: Thank you so much for speaking with us! We’re excited about the project. Let’s jump right in: tell us about the inspiration behind After the Butterflies and what led you to this point. This one isn’t an album?

Queen Naija: At the time of recording the music for an EP, I was recording music from the way I felt in those moments. And I was pretty much in a moment where like, it was a dark place. Like, in my current relationship—everybody knows that I was in a relationship before, and I came out of it. It was abusive, and it was not healthy. I came out of it, and I was happy. And then, when I met my current partner, there was a beginning thing, that fresh new feeling. When you get those butterflies—which is why I made those songs “Butterflies, Pt. 1” and “Butterflies, Pt. 2.”

But then there comes a point where that always dies down in every relationship, where you’re still in love with the person, it could still be a healthy relationship, but you still go through things. So, I was at a very dark—in a rough patch in my current relationship. And of course, I’m an artist, so I’m gonna write about it [laughs].

In those moments, I pretty much was like, a little scared. I was actually very scared because the public saw one failed relationship. And I was fearful that it would be embarrassing to see another publicly failed relationship, which would probably make me kind of crawl into a hole and not share anything else with anyone. So, I kind of was bracing myself and prepping myself for that.

But I’m also an overthinker sometimes. I was trying to explore the idea of being alone. I’m embracing it and embracing myself while being alone. So that’s pretty much what the music is about.

You have been so vulnerable about both of your relationships. In this new era, what lessons did you learn about yourself in this process of putting everything in your music once again?

I’ve learned that you got to really just, you really need to rely on your own self and heal your own traumas. You can’t expect someone else—not that I expected it. But no matter how good a person makes you feel, you still have to be responsible for giving love for loving yourself.

I have to be okay with loving myself without the help of a man and be okay with being alone if it had to be that way. And really doing it myself. It did give me a new strength of like, okay, this is what I want. I want a family, and I want everlasting marriage and love, and I’m all about that. But at the same time on the other side, if life happened to go a different way, I think I would be okay. I think I would be okay with doing it with the help of prayer. Just really blossoming into like, I don’t know how to really say. Just with doing things on my own, discovering new things on my own, and finding joy in those things.

Read More: Queen Naija Responds To Backlash: “I Don’t Want Nor Need Y’all’s Validation”

That’s beautiful. Returning gently to the mixtape, you’ve called on a handful of people to help you round out those features: the legendary Monica, Ella Mai, NBA YoungBoy, and the one and only Eric Bellinger. Talk to us about those collaborations and the essence of those tracks.

Well, you know “No Fake Love” with YoungBoy was already released. To be transparent with you…you don’t have to put this down, or you can word it however you want. But that was the song that I kind of wasn’t excited to put out at first because I was supposed to been put that out in 2022. That was supposed to be like, a fresh record for the summer of 2022. I’m a person that when things get old to me, I’m ready to move on to the next.

The reason why it had got so old and didn’t drop in 2022 is because I was waiting on a feature from a rapper who told me he would get around to it, but he never did. And then, while waiting on him, a couple of other people that I reached out to responded, and one of them was YoungBoy. I thought about it and asked people around me, and they said I should definitely do it.

Because you know, it would be a great way to bring out this different side of YoungBoy. And also, it’s just good, too. He has a big fan base, I have our fan base, it’s going to be good. So, I dropped that this year already. But he was very pleasant to work with. I judged him. I judged him before…because of the persona that he gives, I judged him before working with him. But he was actually a gentleman, and people liked the song. It was just very fun. And it was a sample record from a movie. So, that’s one of the things I liked about it.

The reason why I did “All or Nothing” with Ella Mai, or what happened behind that, is that we toured together for Mary J. Blige. And I thought it would have been perfect just to do a song with her. We been supposed to have done a song together, like a while back. But yeah, this happened to be the vibe that she felt most comfortable with. And she loved it, she hopped on it. And that vibe is just pretty much like a West Coast kind of feel. I wanted to come into her world a little bit because people know my world. The boppy, kind of West Coast cadence and beat or whatever, I wanted to kind of merge our vibe together.

And so, we brought our worlds together on that record. Just pretty much saying how we want all or nothing. You don’t want to have half of someone’s heart, you want the whole thing. It’s like, you really want to be serious. You want the person to be serious about you just as much as you are with them, or it’s nothing at all. So, that’s what that’s about.

The song with Monica, “One Of Them Days,” is actually my favorite. I’ve always wanted to work with someone before me who passed the torch down, and that’s definitely Monica. She’s a legend to me and the R&B world. I was able to bring back out that old-school vibe with her in a song—she has a song called “Don’t Take It Personal.” And we’re just in the song talking about wanting to be selfish. Because I never really got a chance to be selfish. I always worry about how my man feels or how my kids are, I never really got a chance to do me and only think about myself.

I was just exploring that idea and that song and that those are real emotions. And I was feeling like a lot of times, I would pull up in my parking lot late at night or after a studio session, and I wouldn’t want to go and house. I just want to be with myself, you know. So, that’s pretty much like what that was about.

The song with Eric Bellinger, he came in real clutch [laughs]. Man, I ain’t gon’ lie. I went through a few features, and he was the one that really suited the song. He went perfectly with it. It’s called “Taboo.” And this song, he helped me—he pretty much brought out the spicier side. It’s about me exploring the idea of having a sneaky link. Although I’m always too scared to do something like that, I’ve always thought about it, because I’ve always been the one to get cheated on.

So, I wanted to think about, like, dang, what would it be like, if I was the one doing the cheating? What is it like? Is it a good feeling? Like, even though it’s probably—I don’t know, in that moment, it probably is. But I was just exploring that. And that’s taboo to me. I’m big on just being a loyal partner. But if it had to be that way, and I had to have a sneaky link, I feel like “Taboo” is the thing that you’re not supposed to want to do. But it feels good. You get what I’m saying? So, that song was a little bit…it was a real, kind of a little spicy kind of song. Are we missing anyone? No one else is right. I think we got everybody. I hope I didn’t overshare!

You’re just fine! I appreciate the details, trust me [laughs]. And all of the features were a great balance—I also have to say I love that collab you did with Ari Lennox.

Aw, thank you!

Read More: Queen Naija Shares Some Gorgeous Vocals On Her New EP “After The Butterflies”

ATLANTA, GEORGIA – MAY 07: Jesseca Harris-Dupart, DaBrat, Baby Tate, Queen Naija, and Dionne Farris attend the Strength Of A Woman Festival & Summit State Farm Arena Concert at State Farm Arena on May 07, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Strength Of A Woman Festival & Summit)

You’re a heavy-hitter in R&B, and you’ve obviously partnered with incredible talent. Who is a dream collaborator of any genre? People expect you to link with a certain type of artist, but who are your picks for someone you’d like to work with?

Hm, I can’t think of anybody right now in production-wise. I mean—well, actually, I’ve always thought it’d be super dope to see what me and Pharrell could create. I just love all his music. And then, artist-wise, I would like to start doing some records with people on the edgier side [laughs]. On the toxic side, a little bit more.

I’ve always mentioned Brent Faiyaz, I think we would sound super dope together. I think SZA is super edgy. I would love to see how that is. Because I’m more, I feel like, maybe I could be wrong. But I feel like I’m more on the sweet side of things. Like, sometimes I talk my stuff, but most times, I keep it really sweet and glittery and stuff like that.

Who else who else can I see? I’ve always—there are some new artists coming up that I think are super dope on the rapping side, like female rap. I really think that Doechii is super fire. I really like Lady London. She’s cool. I like really lyrical people. I’ve always wanted to work with J. Cole, speaking of lyrical. So, I mean, I could give you a rundown on people, but that’s just a few.

Ooh, a Queen Naija and Doechii link would be fire! For this Ladies First series, I always like to highlight women in the industry supporting women. Who are some ladies who have reached out with kind words or just encouragement when you needed it?

I would definitely say Ella Mai has been one of those people who check on me even when it’s nothing business-related. She’ll check on me and just ask how I’m doing. I can say that H.E.R. has—Gabby has checked on me a couple of times. Without me even thinking that she was thinking about me, she’s always sweet. SZA has always been supportive. She’ll comment under my Instagram posts and buy songs or whatever.

And who else? Who’s really been solid? Latto, too. She’s always been super positive. Who else? I’m sorry [laughs], this is my first interview of the morning so my mind is all over!

It’s all good, I completely understand. Well, we made it to the end because this is my last question. It’s harmless; I ask this to everyone I interview. So, we know that celebrity in and of itself is an illusion. People have these expectations of who you are or what your relationship is like, because of a parasocial relationship with you through social media. When that veil of celebrity is removed, what is something about the heart of Queen Naija that doesn’t always translate to the public because they are fooled by the illusion of the industry?

I feel like a lot of people who are not in my core fan base, they don’t take the time to get to—they don’t take the time to go and do their research on me. I can’t say “get to know me” because they don’t know me personally. But if you really take the time to do some research, and go watch my videos from where it all started, you could pretty much see my personality and my spirit through there. That’s why a lot of people fell in love with me.

Also, [people can’t see] how down to earth I am and how I’m really not superficial. I’m just really a regular person, just like everybody else. I guess sometimes I could say…the industry will like…it includes trolls and people digging up very negative things about you that may not be true. I just, I just feel like, I don’t know. That’s hard to say because a lot of people say that I come off as who I am.

But I’m just a normal person. Like, a super duper normal person [laughs]. I don’t even—I still go to the nail salon, and I don’t care. I still walk into Walmart, I really do not care. And people be like, “Queen, why are you without security?” Maybe I still think that I’m still just unknown? I’m like, “Oh, for real? You see me under this mask? You can tell who I am?” [laughs] Just, if people really just take off the lenses of what social media puts on me, I guess. Then, you can see that I’m just a regular-degular-schmegular girl.

Make sure to stream After the Butterflies on all major platforms, and let us know what you think of Queen Naija’s mixtape.

The post Ladies First: Queen Naija Talks “After The Butterflies,” Rough Patches, & Finding Joy In Herself appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Nonso Amadi On “When It Blooms,” The Future Of Afrobeats & Burna Boy & Fela Kuti Influence

Afrobeats has dominated the globe and it’s only getting bigger, thanks to artists like Nonso Amadi. The Nigerian-born artist first emerged in 2016 with the success of his single, “Tonight.” It was a record that blew up by chance but his subsequent releases proved Nonso Amadi had staying power. However, maintaining that sort of success independently can be taxing. For Nonso Amadi, it led to a three-year hiatus that came to an end in 2022 as he began to roll out the campaign for his debut album When It Blooms.

His latest album, which boasts the Majid Jordan-assisted “Different,” is a full portrayal of Nonso Amadi, shedding insight into his upbringing, aspirations, and influences. He cites Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, and Bob Marley as inspiration to use his platform to speak out. It’s important, especially when he sees the struggles that many face across the globe, including in Nigeria. Beyond crafting hit records, he strived to create a complete body of work that tells his story.

“As a young Nigerian, I’ve experienced how tough it could be, you know?” Nonso Amadi told HotNewHipHop, citing different political and social struggles that young Nigerians face daily. “So I just thought, like, it’d be right to highlight some things on this album, just to make it completely holistic, because I wanted to speak about my story, my experience, and that is a part of my story and is a part of every a lot of young Nigerians stories as well.”

These experiences undoubtedly shaped how When It Blooms turned out. This Friday, November 3rd, he’ll be bringing his latest album to Toronto for his first headlining show at El Mocombo. We recently caught up with Nonso Amadi in October ahead of his performance in Montreal on Adekunle Gold’s Tequila Ever After tour. Amadi dishes on the making of When It Blooms, tour life, and the future of Afrobeats. 

It’s been a big year for you. You dropped the album and now, you’re back on the road. I know you took a bit of a hiatus. I assume this is one of the first times you’re performing again. How’s that been?

Nonso Amadi: Well, it’s been good. So far, we’ve done like four or five cities but it’s been really good. Like, just seeing people come out for Adekunle Gold. I’m also like, using this as an opportunity to learn how touring works. It’s my first tour ever. So it’s been really, really good.

What’s the biggest takeaway from this tour so far? 

So initially, I was trying to do a setlist that was more theatrical, where I had a lot of spoken word and made it more performance-based. But then I realized – I’m adjusting my set with time to make it more of like a turn-up party-type vibe. Because, with the crowd, a lot of the crowd members are just new to the music. So if it’s too slow-paced, I might lose some people. I might want to save that for the headline instead. So right now I’m just going to turn up like throughout. And like, obviously have key moments in there where I tell my story.

What’s been your favorite song to perform so far? 

Wow, I think “Paper” and “Tonight.” Between those two – they’re just two different energies but whenever those songs are coming on, it’s proper lit. 

Paper by Nonso Amadi via YouTube

As we discussed, you took a three-year hiatus prior to the release of When It Blooms. What was happening during that time? 

Honestly, I was just burnt out. Like, I was doing a lot of heavy lifting myself, you know, mixing, producing, writing and everything was on me. So I had to like take a step back, get a proper team behind me. I obviously started working with Universal Music Canada and Def Jam during the hiatus, and that like really just gave me enough of the resources I needed to create this album. Like, it wouldn’t have been possible without the label and everyone – the management. So yeah, I had to I had to like do that to make sure I came back.

Read More: Zacari Brings A “Touch of God” To Our Weekly “R&B Season” Playlist Update

Besides having to regroup, why was it important to take a step back from the limelight?

I guess the main thing for me with the hiatus was just to focus on personal growth. Prior to making this album, most of my songs were about love, purely about love. But like with this album, because of the growth and how much I’ve learned, I was able to write songs that actually told stories. Stories about my life and what’s going on around me and stuff like that. And that’s why that was such a big deal to me because it isn’t just like a bunch of songs that I just randomly put together. It tells a story.

Having released the album in May, I was wondering how season changes impact your creative process. This album definitely felt like one for the summer, especially songs like “Cali Was The Mission” and “NASA.” 

I’m less about seasons and more about moods. I was in a space where, like I said, I just wanted to express certain things. Like, California has been like a huge thing for me since I was a kid. Growing up seeing all the major acts based out there in LA. I always knew on my first album I was gonna have a song called “Cali Was The Mission” because it was the mission for me. And then like, yeah, “Ease Up” tells the story of my struggles in Nigeria, the huge struggles. That’s just how we were trying to put together to like, make sure we were being true to whatever my story was. 

What was your first time in California like? 

My first time in Cali, I was actually brought up by Emotional Oranges and they took real good care of me. I had tacos for the first time. You know, it was just really, really good. Yeah, I enjoyed that experience.

The album covers a lot of ground, even diving into political issues in Nigeria. Why is it important for you to use your platform to speak up? 

I’m just learning that, as an artist, we have certain responsibilities to use our voice, our platform to shed light on certain key social issues. It’s an uncomfortable area for a lot of artists because some artists just want to like enjoy the music and make music they vibe with. But like, when you have a platform where there’s like thousands of people keeping paying attention to you, if you can speak about certain things, it will be helpful. 

With this album, it’s the first time I’ve ever done it. I’m definitely going to try doing more of it and just learn more about how it’s done. I think the greats – Bob Marley, Fela Kuti – they were really good and not just thinking about, you know, whatever. They sang about things that matter to not just them but their country. 

Nonso Amadi. Photo by TSE.

On “Lock Up,” you say, “I never see Port Harcourt for twelve years/ Based on some complications/ Pray say I go do show for New Years.” A lot of the issues out there have made international headlines but could you talk to me about taking these risks as an artist to speak out against these problems? How do you think that impacts your ability to create freely? 

Oh, that’s a really tough one. Yeah, it’s like the country itself is like – Nigeria is going through a state where the young people are pushing to like be excellent in their fields but like, the government isn’t up to par with us. And that’s affected a lot of creatives in terms of having to leave the country to go get certain opportunities which is not really good. Like, even being having a Nigerian passport limits me to traveling and doing shows in certain parts of the world. So yeah, man, we can only just pray and hope for the best but also like, we have to use our platform to like speak on these issues and let people know what’s going on, you know?

I have been inspired by the artists who have done the same thing before me. The likes of Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Burna Boy. These are artists who haven’t been scared to use their voices to highlight certain things. Myself, as a young Nigerian, I’ve experienced how tough it could be, you know? As a young Nigerian trying to just like live your daily life and have all these hustles and have all these, like things that pop out of nowhere, and make things a little bit more difficult than the average North American or you know, just to compare.

So I just thought, like, it’d be right to highlight some things on this album, just to make it completely holistic, because I wanted to speak about my story, my experience, and that is a part of my story and is a part of every a lot of young Nigerians stories as well. So I just felt it was only right to speak about that, you know?

You were born in Nigeria and moved to the UK, and then you came out to Hamilton. How would you describe the sound and wave of Afrobeats, especially in the way they’ve evolved in these three places where you’ve lived?

When I first came to Canada, I think the Toronto scene was what I was first exposed to. The Toronto African music scene. And it was still very underground, still growing, and it is still growing right now. I find that the young people out here who are making Afrobeats in Toronto have a lot of cohesiveness about them. So they work with each other, and they’re open to collaboration, and that was really nice to see.

Right now, because of how much African music has taken off, a lot of things have changed, for sure. We can see that in the shows, we had Cultureland recently. We have so many more events popping up. WizKid’s been here doing a couple of shows. I personally have a dream to take it further with my own events that I’m going to put together that highlight African music and Afrobeats artists within the city. It’s going to be a festival that I’m going to be throwing every year. But yeah, it’s been a lot of growth, man, like hard work. Just people really pushing the scene. There are a lot of key figures who have been advocating for African music being played on radio and African music being, you know, supported. And they really deserve a lot of credit for that.

Do you think there’s a difference in the sound between Nigeria vs. UK vs. Canada? 

At the end of the day, I think they’re mostly very similar. So then an Afrobeats song made in the UK or made in Canada or made in – Nigeria is always going to be a sauce and is going to always have a bit more rawness to it. But they’re mostly similar, especially with the younger artists making the music.

The difference will be mostly in the production because Afrobeats in the UK, I find that the instruments they use have a “drill” type vibe to it, where it’s more hi-hats and hard knocking kicks and all that. Meanwhile, the rest of the world making Afrobeats, it’s a little bit different. I think Toronto-type Afrobeats will have a bit more like trap, darker vibe, you know? Maybe they’ll use pads instead to give it this cold feeling inspired by Drake and The Weeknd and all that. But overall, Afrobeat still sounds amazing.

Nonso Amadi. Photo by Wade Hudson. Provided by Universal Music Canada

There was a recent report that major labels are beginning to prioritize Latin and Afrobeats artists over hip-hop acts. You just discussed it but how would you describe the growth of Afrobeats in the Western world? Do you think the prioritization and general commercialization of the genre will help or hurt in the long run?

I just think that the artists need to be wise with the attention because it’s good. Generally, it’s a good thing. That’s my own feeling. Like, whoever’s jumping on Afrobeats, whoever’s trying to hop on the wave, it’s good. But for the artists and for the culture, and for Africans, we need to be really smart about how we are working with people in developing the business side of it.

I’ve always said this and I’ve been a huge advocate for this – I think we need togetherness. I think a big example will be Latin music. If you take a look at J Balvin, Bad Bunny and Rosália. They do tours together, they discuss business and ideas together. Like if anything’s happened, I’m sure they discuss like, “Oh, this is what I’ve seen. What are you seeing on your end?” You know, I think we need that type of unity in this space for us to be on the same wavelength and learn from each other’s mistakes. That will be the only way that we can like truly progress without being cheated or something wrong happening along the way.

Final question: after discussing the festival and the impact you hope to have, where do you see things going in how you impact the world?

For me personally, I’m trying to approach things from more of a charity perspective, which is a little different. But I find that’s what gives me the most sense of accomplishment and purpose in the music game. Because it is a kind of a rough game, and everyone’s just trying to hit the charts and make the most money in the streams.

Just for me, personally, I feel like if we’re able to pool our resources, and just help like people who are really in need, that really just gives me a sense of like, “Yeah, we’re doing something really beneficial to not just ourselves.” So I do want to do the annual festival. I want to make it really, really fun. Like, I want young people to come out, you know, Montreal, Toronto but the show’s going to be in Toronto. I want the whole country, Canada, to be aware of it.

This is an Afrobeats-themed event and an African event that pulls people from Africa and from within Canada to come together and perform and have a good time. But then, like, I want a date to be set aside for just like community work and charity, where we come together after the show, and we do something really cool, make some money, and then send that over to a not-for-profit. So that’s just how I am trying to do it. And I feel like that we like it’s fun. We’re having a good time but like, at the same time we’re doing we’re doing some really cool stuff that helps other people.

The post Nonso Amadi On “When It Blooms,” The Future Of Afrobeats & Burna Boy & Fela Kuti Influence appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Ladies First: Mehgan James Refuses To Be The Mean Girl On “Basketball Wives Orlando”

One could say Mehgan James is a born leader. As the eldest of seven children, the reality star-turned-podcast maven was familiar with taking the reigns and ensuring business was handled. Although many were first introduced to Mehgan as the no-nonsense go-getter from Bad Girls Club, that wasn’t the Houston native’s first reality television rodeo. Mehgan was first introduced to unscripted TV in 2008 when she starred in 50 Cent: The Money & The Power.

However, it was Mehgan James’s clapbacks that earned her viral fame courtesy of BGC—yet, when she added her name to the Basketball Wives L.A. roster, it only amplified her reputation. It was a rough time as she faced off against a cast of women who weren’t kind to the then-newcomer. Still, Mehgan made the best of her appearance on the show and continued to push through the negativity and naysayers.

These days, James boasts 1.2 million followers on Instagram alone and is ready for a new chapter. It’s been some time since those early TV times, and she’s now a podcast host of The Hollywood Group Chat with a manifestation book who dabbles in the music industry. It may seem as if Mehgan is biting off more than she can chew, but according to her, it’s an exploration of the self.

In our exclusive interview with the TV star, Mehgan James speaks openly about her ventures, continued career in the reality sphere, and why she doesn’t want to be the bully she’s faced in the industry. She also names her craziest podcast interview (take a wild guess!) and explains what she’d ask Cardi B if she ever got the chance.

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.
Vh1 + IG @mehganjames

HotNewHipHop: You’re back on Basketball Wives, this time in Orlando. From your first appearance with the L.A. cast to making your mark here, how has that been?

Mehgan James: I was the new girl coming into [Basketball Wives L.A.] Season 4. So, I kind of got hazed. Everyone was super mean to me, they weren’t welcoming. And I had to—it was like an uphill battle in every scene during Season 4. So, coming into Basketball Wives Orlando as an OG, it feels really good.

I remember that. They seemed to be at odds with you from the jump. How have you used that experience and applied the lessons to Basketball Wives Orlando?

It just made me not want to be a mean girl to the other cast members. I welcomed all of them with open arms. They would always call me off-camera to get advice on their scenes and stuff like that. And I was always, you know, willing to help because I didn’t have anyone to help me.

I love that sort of support. And you’re also introducing more of your personal life, your romance, into the storyline.

Yes.

I know a lot of people in reality television keep that aspect of themselves under wraps. Why did you want to bring that to the forefront?

I honestly just wanted people to see the real Megan. I feel like a lot of people over the years, they have only seen one side of me. And that’s the angry, fighting messy side of myself, which everyone I feel has an angry side. But this season on the show, I wanted it to be who I really was. Me, my man being my real boyfriend at the time. I felt like it wouldn’t be the whole me if he didn’t make an appearance.

Read More: Soulja Boy Spits Game At Mehgan James: “You Balenciaga Beautiful”

That’s understandable. And I also know that people are getting to know more about who you are and your personality on your podcast. How did that transition come? Why did you want to step into this podcast space in addition to unscripted TV?

I just feel like living in L.A. and working in the industry, there’s always a struggle to stay relevant. And it’s like, if you don’t use it, you lose it. You kind of disappear. So, I just wanted to explore. I went like on a “me” month where I just wanted to explore different parts of myself that I liked, things that I like to do and things that made me happy.

And I just feel like I’m naturally funny. I enjoy entertaining people. So, I was like, maybe I should just start a podcast. I feel like people like to hear me talk, and they like to hear my opinions and views on certain things. I started reaching out to my celebrity friends to ask to come on, or people that I knew that had interesting stories, to ask to be guests for my podcast. It ended up working out.

Was there any moment with your guests, whether a friend or a stranger, that even shocked you beyond what you could think? Have you been thrown off?

Oh, my entire video interview with Tokyo Toni threw me off the entire interview.

[Laughs] I saw that!

Everything that came rolled off of her tongue…I was in shock, literally. She lied about a lot of stuff. She’s so vulgar! But one thing I can respect about Tokyo is that she’s herself. Have you ever watched reality TV and you’re like, “Are these people really this crazy?” You know? Like the Tiffany Pollards and Jackie Christies. You always wonder: “Are people really this insane?” And I must say that Tokyo Toni is very much that.

Well, I mean, like you said, at least you know what you’re getting at all times.

Yeah, yeah. She’s no different from how she appears online at all.

You made it look easy. I also know that you have a lot of stuff going on with music, working on something for the Keyshia Cole biopic and having a song used for Basketball Wives Orlando. How are you able to balance creating music with everything else that’s going on between reality TV, your manifestation workbook, and the podcast?

Um, well, I do music for fun, and it doesn’t feel like work to me. Like, whenever I have spare days—I have a studio setup in my house. I’ll just go in and just make music, and I don’t really consider myself a real artist. I’m not going to perform the songs on stage or anything like that.

Ah, okay.

So, it just helped me broaden my creativity because I don’t have to appeal to the masses, because the music that I do make is for television, video games, and commercial stuff like that. I can be more goofy; it doesn’t have to be like bar for bar. It could be kind of corny, just whatever I want to do.

How did you tap into that space?

I’m really good friends with this super-producer named Streetrunner, who worked on DJ Khaled’s album God Did, worked with Lil Wayne and Meek Mill. His wife is one of my best friends, and she also does synch music. So, I let her hear some of my stuff. She actually worked on my project with Soulja Boy, my very first single that I put out. And she’s like, “You should do synch.” She introduced me to her people over at Artists Publishing Group, and they signed me literally this same day.

That’s amazing. Especially when you can be creative and not have that pressure that is all-encompassing of your career and still succeed. I want to ask about your manifestation book as well. When I first read the title, I was like, excuse me? [laughs] What inspired you to do that? I know you mentioned exploring yourself creatively and seeing what other things you can tap into.

I named it Good Head because I know it will be catchy, and people will be like, wait, what is this? But it’s all about aligning your thoughts and actions for success. I’m a super firm believer in the law of attraction and thinking positive affirmations. What you think about the most is what you bring into your life. So, I actually wrote a book on my experiences through manifesting, and I have a couple of workbook pages within the book to help others manifest their goals.

As far as, let’s say, sisterhood in the industry goes…we touched on you having some tension in those early Basketball Wives days, and especially during the time on Bad Girls Club. Who are some women that, in your rise and come up, were also supportive? We see the wars, but was there anyone who kind of reached out and gave you a pat on the back or encouraging words?

Honestly, I did it all by myself. There’s not one woman in the industry that I can say she has actually helped me. Through my process, it’s a lot of trial and error. I’m in my 30s now, and I’ve been on TV since I was 18. My very first show was one called The Money & The Power. 50 Cent was basically Donald Trump in his show. It’s like it was like The Apprentice, but if 50 Cent was the Donald Trump. I’ve been in the entertainment industry for a really long time, and I’ve literally—everything that I’ve gotten—I’ve done it myself. But I do want to be a person to help others. I don’t want it to have to be as hard as it was for me, for other people.

That eases into my next question. What wisdom do you have for a young lady who thinks she can just jump on social media and become famous tomorrow?

Honestly, you could. And that’s the crazy part. Because when I first started getting on TV, Instagram wasn’t even a thing. Instagram didn’t come out until after I was off of Bad Girls Club. And that was in 2012, maybe, or something like that, maybe even later than that. But Instagram, and social media, wasn’t even a thing. We just had Facebook and MySpace. But I would just tell people to keep going because, in the industry, you will get a lot of nos. I’ve gotten a lot of nos, a ton of nos. And at some point, somebody’s going to give you a yes.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Mehgan James (@mehganjames)

Your dream guest for your podcast?

I would love to have Cardi B on my podcast.

Ohh, nice. What angle would you spin on an interview with Cardi?

I just want to know her. I feel like Cardi doesn’t really talk much about her struggles and her backstory. Everyone knows that she came from Love and Hip Hop and she used to be a dancer. But I just wanted to know like, what motivated her personally to keep going through everything she’s been through.

I can see that. Is there anyone else you want to chat with?

Not really that I can think of that I would just love to have on the podcast. I’m super into the girl Rap scene. Like, I love the girls. I love—oh, Sexyy Red would be an awesome guest to have on my podcast. I’m just so happy for the girls. So, any of the females in Rap would be great guests for my podcast.

Sexyy Red is definitely dominating right now. It’s her time. Okay, this is my last question that I ask everyone. You know more than most that celebrity in and of itself is an illusion. People think they know who you are. They know Mehgan based on all of these shows she’s been on, her podcast, and social media. In reality, they’re just projecting these expectations of you or who they think you are. What is something about the heart of Mehgan James that doesn’t always translate to audiences because of that veil of celebrity?

I’m actually a very soft and sensitive person. I feel like I appear to come off as aggressive and very strong, but my feelings get hurt easily. I do read all the comments. I’m not one of those people that don’t care what people think about me. I actually do care. So, I feel like that would be a shock for people to know.

I actually read every single Instagram comment, I don’t care if it’s 20,000. I’ll go through my entire picture to see all the people who liked it or, you know, the comments. I read every single one, even if it’s not on my personal Instagram. Say, like, The Hollywood Unlocked posts something about me. I’m going through each comment, literally. I feel like people don’t know that side of me.

Keep up with Mehgan James and the ladies of Basketball Wives Orlando every Monday On VH1.

The post Ladies First: Mehgan James Refuses To Be The Mean Girl On “Basketball Wives Orlando” appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Tyrese Responds To Samantha Lee’s Recent Divorce Statements, Makes His Stance Clear

In a recent Instagram Live video, Tyrese Gibson, the multi-talented artist known for his music and roles in the Fast and Furious franchise, made his feelings known about his ex-wife, Samantha Lee. Samantha had recently claimed that certain people influenced her decision to divorce Tyrese. During an interview, Samantha Lee discussed her decision to divorce the singer, revealing that had she received guidance from a nurturing “pro-marriage community,” she would not have initiated the legal process to terminate her marital relationship. Furthermore, she openly confessed that she would consider reuniting with Tyrese. On the condition that both parties were mutually committed to putting in the effort to mend their relationship. In response, Tyrese expressed his thoughts and made it clear that he’s been loyal, faithful, and a “good man,” to his ex-wife.

“The lawyers are on my back every day. Go sell this sh*t to somebody else,” Tyrese said on live in response. “Look at every interview I’ve done, from Sway In The Morning to Breakfast Club. If you don’t like me n***a I don’t like you. I dont need none of you women in my comments saying they like me.” He continued. “I don’t care to be liked, I never cheated, I got more access to p***y to most n***as I know. I was a good man, a good husband, I was very, very focused on my family and children.”

Read More: Tyrese Accused Of Lying In Home Depot Racial Discrimination Lawsuit

Tyrese Calls Out Samantha

 
 
 
 
 
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Tyrese and Samantha’s divorce was finalized in 2020, after four years of marriage. The couple, who shares a daughter, had once seemed like the picture-perfect pair. However, as in many celebrity relationships, the pressures of fame, coupled with personal and emotional differences, led them to part ways. Samantha Lee’s recent revelation about her divorce has raised eyebrows and sparked curiosity. In her own Instagram Live session, she stated she wouldn’t have divorced Tyrese if it wasn’t for some people “in [her] ear.” She also mentioned wanting to possibly rekindle things if “both parties were to put in the work.”

Tyrese, however, was quick to address Samantha’s claims in a subsequent Instagram Live session of his own. In a candid and heartfelt response, he made it clear that he was not interested in revisiting the past. The public response to Tyrese’s comments has been mixed. Some fans and followers supported his decision to move forward independently, while others expressed their curiosity about the circumstances surrounding their divorce. “I agree with Tyrese on this one, wholeheartedly,” one person wrote. “And his ex wife is fully aware that he is in a relationship now, so why even speak on potentially reconciling. She is definitely gaslighting.” “One thing about it his story never changed,” another wrote.

Read More: Tyrese, Ginuwine & Tank Set The Past Aside To Bring TGT Back

The post Tyrese Responds To Samantha Lee’s Recent Divorce Statements, Makes His Stance Clear appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Tupac Was Extremely Close To Signing With Bad Boy Records According To His Brother

Tupac’s mystique will never die and this recent news drop is another reason why. More and more information about the murder of the legendary artist continues to come out. We finally have more headway on who committed the crime and we are sure more will be unearthed. This latest bit of information circles back to Tupac’s musical career. As most people know, he was a part of Death Row Records. It is the label that associates itself with names like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Suge Knight, Nate Dogg, and so many other legends. However, Tupac had a chance to join another iconic music group.

According to HipHopDX, the brother of the late rapper, Mopreme Shakur recently spoke with The Art of Dialogue. In the interview, Mopreme revealed some interesting news. When ‘Pac was released from jail in 1995, he was seriously considering joining Bad Boy Records. Mopreme said, “There was a point ‘Pac was considering going to Bad Boy before his relationship with Death Row. He wanted to be on a Black label… He wanted to be with the brothers.”

Read More: Nas’ Mass Appeal Faces Racial Discrimination Lawsuit From Former Employee

Mopreme Shakur Explains What Went Down With Tupac

However, it never worked out that way, obviously. What ultimately led to Tupac inking the contract with Death Row, was some battle of powers. Namely, Diddy had more say and control, according to Mopreme. “Over time, things happened, and ‘Pac started seeing things. Biggie was on Puffy’s label so with them two, it was Puffy calling the shots. There was some legitimate problems there.” It would have been incredible to see both of the biggest rappers in the world be on the same label. Who knows what material we could have gotten.

What are your initial thoughts on Mopreme Shakur saying that Tupac was really close to signing with Bad Boy Records? Do you think that he should have inked the deal? Would this have changed the landscape for hip-hop labels going forward? We would like to hear what you have to say about all of this. With that in mind, be sure to leave all of your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. Additionally, always keep it locked in with HNHH for all of the latest breaking news around Tupac, as well as everything else going on around the music world.

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Killer Mike Reveals How He Got Young Nudy On The Deluxe Version Of “MICHAEL”

Just last week, Atlanta’s very own, Killer Mike put out a deluxe version of his first album in over 10 years. MICHAEL originally came out on June 16, 2023, and it did not let down many people. There are stellar cuts all over this record. Some of them include, “SCIENTISTS & ENGINEERS,” which was the second lead single to the LP. The song features the likes of André 3000, Future, and Eryn Allen Kane.

Tracks like this one have a very uplifting and gospel inspired theme to it. According to Genius, Mike sat down with Zane Lowe, to discuss the inspiration behind it. The annotation says, “Killer Mike called the album both his “come home moment musically,” due to it being influenced by gospel, soul, funk and hip hop, and his “submission to God, like, ‘Okay, you got me.’” It goes on, “He also characterized it as his way of honoring “the civil rights movement, the abolitionist movement, which gave us some of the most beautiful music ever.”

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Killer Mike Details How He Got Young Nudy On MICHAEL (Deluxe)

While that is a deep and profound explanation of the record, Mike also sat down for another interview to discuss some of the deluxe. Fader found some footage from Rough Trade N.Y.C. and how he was able to track down Young Nudy for, “ACT UP.” It was a funny and wholesome story as he got a hold of his mom, whom he also went to school with. Mike hilariously retells the story, “So I’m chasing Nudy. Nudy’s a street kid, right? He ain’t got time to sit still for no 40-something-year-old rapper to be calling him, talking about, ‘Will you feature on something that’s gonna be on my deluxe?’” He then calls Nudy’s mom and she said, “‘Yeah, you’re gonna do that and you’re not even gonna charge him.’” Mike was grateful for her and he even said he would repay the favor with a nice purse.

What are your initial thoughts on this interview with Killer Mike saying how he got Young Nudy on his record? Is this song the best one on the album? Is MICHAEL one of the best LPs of 2023? We want to hear what you have to say about all of this. With that in mind, be sure to leave all of your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. Additionally, always keep it locked in with HNHH for all of the latest breaking news around Killer Mike, as well as the rest of the music world.

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