Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign have been teasing VULTURES 2 for months. It’s getting hard to keep track of all the release dates that have come and gone since March. The duo promised to drop the anticipated sequel on August 2, but the day came and went with nothing. Or so we thought, late on Friday night, the duo shocked the world by dropping “SLIDE.” The purported lead single from VULTURES 2, the song was uploaded to Yeezy.com before making its way onto Tidal. After all the hype and build up, we’re happy to say the new single is actually pretty good.
“SLIDE” has much sharper production than was showcased on VULTURES 1. The creeping strings that open the song are cinematic in scope. Especially when they contort and eventually transform into the main part of the beat. Ty Dolla Sign kicks things off with a slick verse and chorus before handing things off to Kanye West. Ye is charismatic as ever, with bizarre bars about Eyes Wide Shut and how much the industry hates him. The drums get a little loud during the verse, which leads to a little bit of clipping, but the overall vibe remains untarnished. Then, out of nowhere, James Blake enters the fold. Blake and Ty Dolla Sign harmonize to bring the song to an appropriately dramatic close. Kanye West delivered with flow and production. Here’s hoping he delivers the rest of the album.
Let us know what you think of this brand-new track, in the comments section down below. Additionally, stay tuned to HNHH for the latest news and updates from around the music world. We will continue to keep you informed on all of your favorite artists and their upcoming projects.
Kanye West And Ty Dolla Sign Give Fans What They Want
Quotable Lyrics:
She know what I like, got me in a twilight Headed to the high-rise, cruisin’ like Eyes Wide Shut But I slide in it like a drive-by The industry don’t like me, tell them p**sy n**gas likewise (Wise, wise, wise, wise, wise)
Just over four months ago, Lil Yachty shared an interview clip on Instagram talking about James Blake. The key quotables from it were these: “I think James is working with a quite substantial amount of hip-hop artists, but this project is just… so left. For both of us”. “It’s just gonna be like ‘what the f***?! When they do this?!’”. After that fairly vague soundbite, the trailer-like post made things a little clearer. “CMYK PRESENTS ‘BAD CAMEO’ A FULL LENGTH ALBUM BY JAMES BLAKE & LIL YACHTY”. Fans were undoubtedly excited and intrigued, but no one was sure when we would receive it. Thankfully, on June 6, both artists shared the album cover, as well as the release date.
We are happy to say that Bad Cameo is here today, June 28, and it is quite tremendous. That may be a surprise to some, but perhaps why this album works is all thanks to Let’s Start Here.That LP by Yachty opened the versatility floodgates and most likely gave James Blake and the rapper belief that this would be possible. Honestly, though, it does more than just get by it passes with flying colors. Sure, there are some moments where it feels like one artist is in more control than the other. But the number of times that they mesh far outweighs the moments where they clash. In fact, that is so minimal that we would argue the album nearly flawless.
While that might be recency bias kicking in, hear us out. The instrumentals, which are handled by Lil Yachty, James Blake, BNYX, Dom Maker, and SADPONY, are all so unique from each other. Like the beats, the vocals are also extremely captivating and feel futuristic at times. Furthermore, the lyrical content is deep, self-reflective, and emotional, and they almost always complement the moods of the sonics. This is far from a traditional R&B/hip-hop album. Bad Cameo is something truly extraordinary and needs to be explored again and again.
Lil Yachty and James Blake are one of the most fascinating collaborations in recent memory. The rapper and electronic balladeer couldn’t be further apart, and yet, they’ve found a way to make their disparate sounds for an entire album. Bad Cameo, their debut release as a duo, is out June 28. They’ve been doing lots of promotion in the lead up to its release. That being said, the most surprising anecdote they’ve said thus far has to be their shared fascination with Young Thug.
Lil Yachty and Blake were asked about their wildest studio experiences during an appearance on the Safe Space Podcast. Incredibly, both artists picked sessions with Young Thug as their answer. “Probably Young Thug, during COVID,” Blake quipped. Lil Yachty instantly co-signed his collaborator. “I was just about to say the same thing,” he claimed. “Young Thug, for me, was definitely the craziest session ever.” What makes their shared answer so interesting is that Lil Boat and Blake recorded with Thugger during completely different times.
Lil Yachty elaborated on Young Thug’s unorthodox process. “It’s 60 people in a room, the mic’s in the room, he’s recording in the room,” he explained. “No one stops talking, it’s weed smoke, there’s nowhere to sit, the lights are low.” James Blake confirmed that he was brought into a similarly packed situation. The singer/producer did assert that Thug was very professional in terms of work ethic, however. He told the Safe Space host that the YSL boss was “very supportive” and focused when it came time to lay down vocals.
James Blake and Young Thug have only collaborated on one song, “Kisses Make Sure.” The former claimed that he worked with Thugger during COVID, however, so it remains to be seen whether they have more songs in the vault. Lil Yachty and Young Thug, meanwhile, have multiple collabs dating back to 2016. The two rappers are so close, in fact, that Yachty scrapped an entire album on Thug’s advice. “One time I played [Lil Boat 3] for Young Thug,” he told Pheno Bars in 2023. “He said it was dog sh*t, so I just started over.” It’s this brutal honesty that has led Lil Yachty to dub Thugger one of the “greatest” of his generation. Here’s hoping more collabs are around the corner.
Some collaborations often catch fans off guard, and Lil Yachty and James Blake’s upcoming joint album, Bad Cameo, can fall into that category. Yet, it hasn’t been uncommon for Blake to partner with Hip Hop artists throughout his prolific career. He has worked with artists like Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Vince Staples, Chance The Rapper, and Frank Ocean, and was featured on the Black Panther soundtrack. Yachty’s catalog of hits speaks for itself, and these two decided to band their skills together for what they hope is an unforgettable project that both say inspired their best songwriting.
“As soon as we started making songs, and I think partly it was to do with this conversation we had pretty early on where Yachty was like, ‘James, you’ve made enough,’” Blake told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. “‘You’ve worked on enough Rap records. Let’s make something completely different.’ And I was like, ‘Totally, what do you feel like working on?’ And I just started playing him….it’s not that I assumed we’d make a Rap vocal collab record. I just didn’t know what he wanted to do.”
“So when he said that, I was like, ‘Great, obviously the door’s open for any type of thing I’m going to play him,” Blake added. “So, I just started playing him ambient things. Things I’d been working on actually from a similar era to the Robots‘ era stuff. If you look around here, this is all just since that. I’ve made all that stuff on and I was playing him some stuff like that. Then, he had a couple of things that he brought in that kind of matched that mood.”
Both Blake and Yachty expounded on Bad Cameo, detailing why they were drawn to work with one another in the first place. Read through a few highlights below, including lessons Yachty learned from Blake and why Blake almost swore off collaborations altogether before this partnership arose. Additionally, make sure to stream Bad Cameo when it arrives this Friday, June 28.
James Blake On Why He Wanted To Work With Lil Yachty
The thing that I think it was for me—because I already respected you as an artist in the genre you started in. To me, the music you were making already was amazing. And I think lyrically you stood out energetically. You stood out, and I just felt like every time your voice came on something, it was like, oh, I just knew there was going to be a level of quality to it. I also got a sense early on that some of the kinds of genre associations and the kinds of ways that some people felt about that genre were reflecting on you unfairly. And I could see that there was someone unbelievably special who just happened to make this kind of music. And it’s also music that I love.
Lil Yachty On What He Learned From Working With James Blake
Lil Yachty: I think I have a better understanding of quality and I feel like he pushed me to—he didn’t push me physically. Like, told me, ‘Do better.’ But just being around and experiencing him work pushed me to try to have reason in my songwriting and to just live up to the quality of James’s catalog. I didn’t want to put a project out and then his fans be upset with me. Kind of slaughtering all of the—
James Blake: That could never happen.
Zane Lowe: No, but I do understand what you’re saying. Pushing yourself to connect to the music in a way where—
Yachty: Just to be as great as everything that he has done. No, seriously, I wanted to make sure he knew how serious I was. Because I, myself, have worked with so many artists who are just so unserious. They don’t understand true effort or just don’t apply themselves. It’s so easy to say, ‘Yeah, man, let’s make a project, man, let’s work. Let’s do an album. Let’s do a mixtape.’ But to genuinely apply yourself, show up, and devote time because it’s my time and his time that we spent to create this child. [I] just really wanted to show that I was there and this was as important to me as it was to him.
Lowe: It says less about the value it creates after the fact and more with actually just being completely present in the process.
Yachty: Well, we just never once had a conversation about what happens after. It was always just what we liked and what we felt was right. We never was like, ‘Oh man, we going to go number one, or…’ We never had that conversation. It’s just like we went with it.
Blake: We knew that wasn’t going to happen because I’m involved. But we definitely had conversations about the ideas of the—
Lowe: The British humility at play here.
Yachty: Well, I think he’s going to possibly help me get my Grammy.
James Blake Swore Off Any More Collabs Before Working With Yachty
Blake: I’d say before even before we even met, I decided not to do many more collaborations.
Lowe: What was the purpose behind it? What was the thinking?
Blake: Well, my thinking was in most sessions, I don’t enjoy it that much. I think, there’s a lot of great artists, but are they going to make you laugh? Are you going to actually have a good time? Are you actually going to form a friendship that is like, you actually want to see them come into the studio? I mean, there’s a certain point in your career where you’re like, ‘Well, I don’t have to do this.’ I’m not trying to cross-pollinate fan bases and get—there’s no A&R moves anymore. I’m just making music. Not that there really ever was, but now I’m like, ‘How can I preserve my space? How can I be only have fun?’ And we just, I mean, our sessions are 99 percent unserious. This is probably the most serious conversation we’ve ever had, I think.
Remember the episode of Lil Dicky’s Dave when he visited iconic music producer Rick Rubin, and the whole experience was this mystical, surreal waking dream? That’s not far off from how a lot of people see Rubin, who has long been the kind of person to do his own thing and think in his own ways.
Well, he was at it again recently: As Variety reports, this past weekend, he hosted Festival Of The Sun, an essentially secret music festival that took place primarily in an Italian church. The event was celebrated as the summer solstice took place.
Featured at the event was an eclectic lineup including Kirtan musician Krishna Das (who has been called yoga’s “rock star”), Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, James Blake, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne of Arcade Fire, and Rhye, among others. There was also a screening of the Nick Cave documentary This Much I Know To Be True.
Rubin welcomed about 150 invitees into the church, although there was another stage that was open to the public for free. Those in attendance included Måneskin’s Thomas Raggi and Ethan Torchio, actors Riccardo Scamarcio and Benedetta Porcaroli (the latter of whom stars alongside Sydney Sweeney in Immaculate), and Italian rapper Ghali.
Some photos of the event were posted on the Festival Of The Sun Instagram account, so check them out below.
It’s really happening, guys. Normani will release Dopamine, her long (long)-awaited debut full-length studio album, in mere days after years of contradicting updates.
On Wednesday night, June 12, Normani revealed the album’s full tracklist, so there’s truly no going back now. Cardi B and James Blake are joining Gunna as featured artists.
“This moment symbolizes so much more than any photo could ever capture,” Normani captioned an Instagram carousel earlier this week. “There has been so much resistance and many adversities throughout this process for me. Thank you to my fans for always keeping me encouraged and for being my reason to continue to endure and push through. This chapter is dedicated to you. ily guys more than you know.”
The sultry, slow-burning “1:59” and the playful, more upbeat “Candy Paint” showcased different sides of the former Fifth Harmony member, so the full Dopamine palette figures to have at least one song to satisfy everyone’s taste.
FORM Festival is making its long-awaited return. In its special 10th anniversary iteration — and its first iteration since 2019 — the festival will come back to Arcosanti, Arizona this fall, and fans can look forward to performances from several game-changing artists.
On the FORM Festival line-up are Skrillex, Four Tet, Jamie xx, Floating Points, James Blake, Thundercat, Erika De Casier, Mustafa, PinkPantheress, Angel Olsen and many others.
FORM Festival 2024, which takes place over the course of three days (October 4-6), was first announced this past March. Upon the announcement, over 2,500 tickets were sold, maxing out the festival’s capacity.
But it’s not too late for fans to try and get tickets. FORM Festival is partnering with Headcount to give one pair of sold-out tickets to the festival to those who enter for a chance to win. Entrants can enter here, and must offer proof of voter registration.
FORM festival has also partnered with Hope Solutions in an effort to reduce the festival’s ecological impact and educate attendees about emission- reducing strategies within the touring industry.
Arizona For Abortion Access will also be on-site, educating attendees about an amendment to Arizona’s constitution restoring and protecting abortion access, in which, residents can vote in November.
After announcing their collaborative album, Bad Cameo, in February, Lil Yachty and James Blake have finally given fans a release date to look forward to. Bad Cameo is slated for release June 28th via Quality Control Music/Motown Records and Republic Records. Back when they announced the project, Yachty said of the work that “it’s so left — for both of us.”
In a new feature in Complex, the two artists shared their views on each other’s songs, which helped prompt their collaboration, and the similarities in their work styles. “Before we got this close, I thought all musicians were like me and music was all day every day,” said Yachty. Blake pointed out how this helped their process, saying, “I know a lot of people who just don’t really want to consume that much outside of what they make. And actually I’m a bit like that. I make music for myself. I say I don’t listen to music. Obviously I do. There’s loads of albums I love. And if I’m driving and we’re going on a road trip or something, I’ll play music in the car. But I really value peace.”
Lil Yachty/James Blake
Bad Cameo is due on 6/28 via Quality Control Music/Motown Records and Republic Records. You can find more information here.
James Blake and Lil Yachty are about as different as two artists can be on the surface. One broke through making glitchy, sad boy electronica, while the other burst onto the scene making happy and colorful pop-rap. The notion that they would collaborate on a single song, much less an entire album, would have been baffling a decade ago. Yet, that’s exactly what Blake and Yachty are gearing up for. These eclectic artists are going to be dropping the album Bad Cameo, and have been hyping it up in interviews.
Blake talked about the sound and overall aesthetic of the album during a recent Complex feature. The artist is going for a vulnerable feel, which tracks for anyone who’s heard a second of a James Blake song, but he noted how shockingly different it will be for Lil Yachty. “We got a really vulnerable side of Yachty in some of those sessions,” he explained. Blake told the outlet that he’d been a fan of Lil Boat for years, but he didn’t feel as though their styles were complimentary until the rapper dropped his latest album, Let’s Start Here. In Blake’s estimation, that was a pivotal turning point.
James Blake claimed he was completely blindsided by the album. “When I heard his last record, I was like, this is really a turn,” he recalled. “Not many artists are brave enough to do something that’s kind of opposite of the last thing they did.” The rest of the Complex piece took the form of a conversation with Blake and Yachty. Once more, however, the electronic artist pointed out Yachty’s propensity for happy music. Lil Yachty cited Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Let ‘Em In” as one of the first songs he remembers singing as a child, and Blake was quick to draw parallels to Yachty’s own music.
“This, to be honest, explains a lot just from your musical sensibilities,” Blake told the rapper. “[It’s] happy music. I noticed that that runs through your music.” He then explained the ways in which his and Yachty’s styles blended on Bad Cameo. “I mean, on this record you were talking about so many different things. There’s pain, there’s happiness, there’s everything in between. But that vibe is so sunny and it’s kind of what your disposition is in your music.” Sounds like a fascinating blend.
Drake puts out lots of music. The rapper’s biggest detractors have concede that he’s a hard worker who has dropped nearly every year for a decade. Given his tireless recording, and his versatility within genres, one might assume that Drake is listening to music nonstop. The rapper’s buddy, Lil Yachty set the record straight, however, during a recent Complex interview. Lil Yachty claimed that Drake takes a very different approach to recording than he does, in that Drake rarely listens to music when he isn’t making it.
This revelation came about during a conversation between Yachty and James Blake. The two artists are working on a collab album together, and discussing the ways in which they create. Lil Yachty is probably the most famous Drake fan in the world (sorry Akademiks), so it makes sense that he would bring up the 6 God in the discussion. “When I started hanging with him a lot, he rarely listens to music,” Yachty noted. “Except for like, when he’s recording.” The rapper uses himself as a counterpoint, claiming that he wakes up and plays music throughout the majority of his day. “Driving, music,” he asserted. “Showering, music. Eating, music.”
Drake, on the other hand, prefers conversation to music. “He’s more, like a, talking type of person,” Lil Yachty posited. “Music when it’s time to record. Sometimes he plays music in the car, but sometimes he’ll ride in silence.” The last point is especially interesting, given the proliferation of Drake’s music as “driving music.” It’s how the “Drake and drive” meme from the 2010s originated. Lil Yachty went on to say that the 6 God’s unique approach made him realize that each artist has a different process. “Before we got as close, I thought all musicians were like me,” he admitted. “And music was just like, everyday, everything.”
James Blake, who mostly listens in the clip, shares Drake’s musical methodology. He told Yachty that he doesn’t listen to music all day, and prefers to save his musical attention for the recording studio. Fittingly, James Blake and Drake have worked exceptionally well together over the years. Blake sang the outro on the beloved 2014 Drake loosie “0 to 100 / The Catch Up,” and Blake remixed Drizzy’s “Come Thru” back in 2013. The latter was released on the official OVO Soundcloud.
