Lil Baby has multiple chart-topping projects and songs, and he’s apparently working on something else that will generate some attention: a collaboration with Drake. He and Drake have linked up on some tracks before, and this time, Baby says he’s actually going to put effort into his lyrics, which he admits he tends not to do.
In a video of him chatting with a jewelry store associate, he said:
“I ain’t gonna lie, I got a song for him right now. I done went to the studio like two times. I ain’t feel it yet. But it’s like a slow song. All the slow songs, they really — and then it takes me longer to rap ’cause like, I don’t really care what I say on a song, you feel me? I just freestyle. But with Drake, I be trying to think about it. And that’s what makes it harder for me ’cause like, I’m thinking. When I don’t even think, I just rap. So then like, ’cause it’s Drake, I get kind of like, damn… So I gotta make sure. Now it’s kind of like, eh. But my next album, I’m writing it. Every song, I’m writing it. So it’s gonna be more detailed. Right now, I freestyle, only the top of my brain comes out.”
That’s not the only collaboration Baby has coming: he and The Weeknd seem set to appear on Kanye West’s first Donda single, and he seems to be working on something with Andre 3000 as well.
It’s been five years since Beyonce released her groundbreaking album Lemonade. While the singer has been hard at work on other projects since, like recording the soundtrack to The Lion King and making cameos in projects for other artists, fans have been patiently awaiting her new era of music. The Beyhive can finally rejoice as she has confirmed her music is coming sooner rather than later.
The last we heard about the possibility of new music from Beyonce, the singer had revealed she was cooking up some tunes when talking with her former Destiny’s Child crew. But the singer has now sat down with Harper’s Bazaar for a rare interview where she chatted about her career and the status of her impending release. Beyonce spoke to the difficulties we as a society have faced over this past year, saying that she hopes to offer escapism through song:
“With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again. I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible. I’ve been in the studio for a year and a half. Sometimes it takes a year for me to personally search through thousands of sounds to find just the right kick or snare. One chorus can have up to 200 stacked harmonies. Still, there’s nothing like the amount of love, passion, and healing that I feel in the recording studio. After 31 years, it feels just as exciting as it did when I was nine years old. Yes, the music is coming!”
Among other things, Kanye West has a reputation for not releasing albums on time. His upcoming LP Donda, named after his late mother, was delayed until last Friday but has still yet to be released. The rapper is currently holed up at a stadium as he finishes the album and a collaborator seemingly gave an update on its delay, saying they planned on moving arenas. But it now looks like that may not actually be the case.
West hosted a first Donda listening party at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium last month before he decided to make it his temporary home while putting the finishing touches on his release. But shortly after Donda didn’t arrive as planned last Friday, West’s collaborator KayCyy took to Twitter to say, “We moving to another stadium.”
The tweet was swiftly deleted, but not before it made the rounds on the internet. KayCyy has now issued an update, saying the original tweet was posted by hackers. “4 of my tweets were hacks … I will not be on twitter anymore for the rest of the week,” he wrote.
The exact date that fans can finally expect to hear Donda still remains unclear, though streaming services now report that it can be heard on August 13. The rapper did seem to have an excuse as to why it didn’t drop on Friday, however. Apparently, West had noticed a mistake in the album’s mixing during his last listening party, which may have contributed to yet another delay.
Days after dropping DaBaby from its 2021 lineup, Austin City Limits Music Festival announced today that it would be adding a set from Tyler The Creator. Set times haven’t been announced yet, but the fest said they were imminent.
DaBaby was dropped by ACL earlier in August after the rapper delivered a bizarre rant during his Rolling Loud set that included homophobic comments and attacks towards those with HIV/AIDS. DaBaby then issued — and subsequently deleted — an apology for his words on social media. “I want to apologize to the LGBTQ+ community for the hurtful and triggering comments I made,” he wrote. “Again, I apologize for my misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS and I know education on this is important.” His (now-deleted) apology was swiftly deemed insincere, with a number of high-profile artists such as Madonna, Elton John, Questlove, and Dua Lipa condemning him for the rant.
In addition to ACL, DaBaby has been dropped by a handful of prominent music festivals; Lollapalooza, Governors Ball, Day N Vegas, and more have all removed him from the lineups to their festivals this year.
As for Tyler, the Call Me If You Get Lost rapper recently offered his thoughts around what it means to be “canceled” (around 2014-2015, Tyler was banned from Australia, the UK, and New Zealand for his lyrics that were deemed to be promoting violence and homophobia). In a particularly relevant-seeming conversation, he told Hot 97’s Ebro In The Morning crew:
“People just go back to stuff and go ‘look what he used to do.’ And it’s like yeah, but I’m not on that no more. So what’s your end goal? When people go back and dig up old stuff from someone who’s here now, it’s like hey, what’s your end goal? Accountable… what does that mean? Is the goal, you shouldn’t do that, you should change and be a better person? Not even me, but to whoever they’re saying it to… I’ve been a better person for the last nine years. That was ten years ago. But I think people like doing that to make themselves feel better about themselves.”
The 2021 Austin City Limits Music Festival takes place October 1-3 and 8-10 at Zilker Park. Get more info here.
Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Beyonce has been a successful and busy artist for a long time: Destiny’s Child formed (as Girl’s Tyme) before Beyonce was even a teenager. Not long after things started to take off, though, Beyonce suffered an injury that she thought would derail her singing career.
Beyonce is the subject of a new Harper’s Bazaar feature, and in it, after speaking about her introversion during her early childhood, she continued:
“I started taking voice lessons from an opera singer at nine. By 10, I had already recorded at least 50 or 60 songs in the recording studio. This was before Pro Tools, when you recorded to tape. I had my first vocal injury at 13 from singing in the studio for too many hours. We had just gotten our first record deal, and I was afraid I had developed nodules and destroyed my voice and that my career could be over. The doctors put me on vocal rest all summer and I was silent once again.”
She also talked about how seriously she took her music career as a teenager, saying, “I committed to always being a student and always being open to growth. No one in my school knew that I could sing because I barely spoke. My energy went into Destiny’s Child and the dream of us getting a record deal and becoming musicians. If something wasn’t helping me reach my goal, I decided to invest no time in it. I didn’t feel like I had time to ‘kiki’ or hang out. I sacrificed a lot of things and ran from any possible distraction. […] I knew I was given this amazing opportunity and felt like I had one shot. I refused to mess it up, but I had to give up a lot.”
After his first Donda listening event at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Kanye West confirmed the rumors that he was temporarily living in the venue while he finished work on the album. Now, it appears he’s moving out, but not back into a more traditional sort of home. Instead, it appear he’s relocating to another stadium.
This news comes via West collaborator KayCyy, who noted in a now-deleted tweet (as XXL reports), “We moving to another stadium.”
As the publication notes, other stadiums in the Atlanta area to which West could move include State Farm Arena, Truist Park, and Russ Chandler Stadium. Of course, there’s also the possibility that West will land in a stadium in a different part of the world entirely.
As for when Donda will be released, that remains unclear. West apparently noticed a mixing mistake during his second Donda listening event, so there’s still work to be done. As it stands now, streaming platforms like Apple Music say the album is set for this week, August 13, although neither West nor anybody from his team have made that announcement. Even if there was a confirmed release date, though, West has proven, with this album and previous efforts, that these deadlines can’t necessarily be treated as gospel.
Machine Gun Kelly fully solidified his pop-punk pivot with his 2020 album Tickets To My Downfall. Travis Barker played a major role in bringing that project to life, and now the two are linking up once again for Kelly’s next project, the title of which the pair got creative with announcing today.
In a tweet from this afternoon, he wrote, “i’m gonna announce the album title today i’m tired of hiding it.” Then he followed that with a photo of himself and Travis Barker sporting matching forearm tattoos that reveal the album title and captioned it, “‘born with horns’ the album. back for round two…”
i’m gonna announce the album title today i’m tired of hiding it
So, the album is called Born With Horns, and presumably, it will feature more of the pop-punk sound that Kelly settled into on Tickets To My Downfall. So far, the title of Born With Horns is the only confirmed info about it, so we don’t yet have album art, a tracklist, or a release date.
Adopting his new pop-punk aesthetic has certainly been a successful endeavor for Kelly, as Tickets To My Downfallbecame his first No. 1 album after its release. The album also got great TV exposure, as Kelly performed on Saturday Night Liveand he and Barker guested on The Late Late Show.
Legendary hip-hop trio De La Soul — Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo — have been locked in a battle with Tommy Boy Music for years to regain control of their masters. Now, according to Talib Kweli, it’s mission accomplished for The Plugs.
“After years of being taken advantage by the recording industry in the worst possible ways, De La Soul now owns all the rights to their masters and is in full control of the amazing music they have created,” Kweli wrote in an Instagram post over the weekend, writing that Maseo had confirmed the news. “Let’s salute Plugs 1, 2 and 3 for sticking to their guns and showing us that we can all beat the system if we come together as a community. Let’s hear it for black ownership of black art! Congratulations fellas.”
The news may not come as a huge surprise, since just two months ago, Reservoir Media acquired the Tommy Boy for close to $100 million. They also gained ownership of Tommy Boy’s catalog, which includes six De La Soul albums: 3 Feet High And Rising (1989), De La Soul Is Dead (1991), and Buhloone Mindstate (1993), Stakes Is High (1996), Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump (2000), and AOI: Bionix (2001). A spokesperson for Reservoir also confirmed that the new label ownership would mean that De La Soul’s catalog would at last come to streaming platforms. “We have already reached out to De La Soul and will work together to the bring the catalog and the music back to the fans,” a Reservoir rep told Variety.
As Uproxx’s Aaron Williams pointed out recently, the only two De La albums currently available to stream are 2004’s The Grind Date, released under Sanctuary Records, and their crowdfunded 2016 album And The Anonymous Nobody.
When last week’s Billboard charts were released, the publication noted that Dua Lipa’sDaBaby-featuring remix of “Levitating” saw a decrease in radio plays following the rapper’s recent controversy. The publication noted, “On July 25, 71% of its plays was via the remix; on July 29, the last day of the tracking week, the share dropped to 59%.” Now, it appears that share has fallen even further, as DaBaby is no longer credited on the song as it appears on Billboard‘s airplay charts this week (dated August 14).
DaBaby’s credit has officially been removed from @DuaLipa‘s “Levitating” on Billboard airplay charts this week.
A similar credit change happened last year when Nicki Minaj was removed from the Hot 100 listing for Doja Cat’s “Say So.” At the time, Billboard explained, “After two weeks of Minaj showing as a featured artist on ‘Say So’ on the Hot 100 and other charts that utilize the same methodology, only Doja Cat is now listed, as the original version, without Minaj, is now driving the majority of overall activity for the song; the change does not affect any of Minaj’s achievements on those charts the past two weeks, and she continues not to be credited on the song on any airplay charts, as the vast majority of the song’s airplay is still for the original version.”
The DaBaby version of the song is still doing on other charts, though: On this week’s Hot 100, it rose from No. 4 to No. 3, just one spot away from its all-time peak.
Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
“We can talk, but money talks, so talk mo’ bucks,” Jay-Z spits on 2001’s “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”, indicating just how mammoth his empire would become. Not only was The Blueprint single his first Top 10 hit (signaling his growing rap domination), but it also marked Kanye West’s mainstream introduction. Then solely an in-house producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, he made his place known with the jovial “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” production and later his rollercoaster ride as a solo rap superstar.
In the decade following “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”, both artists’ pockets got even heavier as they skyrocketed as the Kings of Rap. Being the boastful men they are, their untouchable stature was celebrated on Watch The Throne. The joint project, which turns 10 this month, was a natural progression of the buddies’ careers. West was still on a high from 2010’s magnum opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a prog-rap feast that was released eight months prior. As for Jay-Z, he dropped his 11th album The Blueprint 3 in 2009. Albeit insipid compared to the triptych’s previous albums, it gifted him his first No. 1 hit with the ubiquitous, Grammy-winning “Empire State Of Mind”.
So they kept the momentum going, combining years of friendship, equal love for the finer things in life, and sh*t-talking together on a handful of collaborations on Watch The Throne. The packaging alone was dripping in luxe: the pair called on Riccardo Tisci, Givenchy’s creative director at the time, to design the gold-plated artwork as well as their tour outfits that ignited the idea of concert merch being presented as high-fashion.
Even the album’s creation was an event. They recorded in extravagant hotels and villas all around the world, from New York City, Paris, Sydney (where Russell Crowe, whom West shouts out on “Illest Motherf*cker Alive” made a cameo), England, Los Angeles, and Hawaii (the same place West hunkered down for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy). It was a lifestyle that only the rich and famous could acquire, which they made clear throughout the album.
“It’s just protecting the music and the culture. It’s people that’s in the forefront of the music. ‘Watch the Throne,’ like protect it. You just watch how popular music shift, and how hip-hop basically replaced rock & roll as the youth music,” Jay-Z explained during the album’s promo run. “The same thing can happen to hip-hop. It can be replaced by other forms of music. So it’s making sure that we put the effort into making the best product so we can contend with all this other music, with dance music that’s dominating the charts right now and indie music that’s dominating the festivals.”
That idea of reclaiming rap as a youth genre was best seen on “H•A•M,” the album’s first single and the most arrogant track on Watch The Throne. The pair’s braggadocio lyrics (see Jay-Z’s Birdman subliminal “I’m like, ‘Really, half a billi,’ n****, really?’ You got baby money / Keep it real with n****s, n****s ain’t got my lady money) was anchored by Lex Luger’s intense, spooky, and operatic production — his signature sound that ruled hip-hop for a wink of time. Yet “H•A•M” wasn’t the best reflection of the album, and the rappers seemingly agreed, ultimately placing it as a bonus track on the deluxe edition.
Watch The Throne’s true landmark was “Otis.” Diehard fans remember exactly where they were when it premiered on Hot 97, with Funkmaster Flex dropping infinite bombs on the single. It’s one of West and Jigga’s most jubilant moments that highlight their innate chemistry, as they trade grandiose bars atop a fervently chopped sample of Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness” that could only be executed by West himself. The Spike Jonze-directed video doubled-down on the rappers’ blatant flexes (“Luxury rap, the Hermès of verses / Sophisticated ignorance, write my curses in cursive”) by deconstructing a Maybach 57 like kids playing with a toy car just for the hell of it.
The decadence continued on The Neptunes co-produced “Gotta Have It” that gave us timely references like “planking on a million” and “Maybachs on ‘Bachs on ‘Bachs on ‘Bachs on ‘Bachs”, as well as the “No Church In The Wild” opener. Featuring Frank Ocean (who just became a critical darling with his debut mixtape nostalgia,ULTRA), it is an ominous, cinematic masterpiece. The artists discuss Greek philosophy, the constructs of religion and monogamy (“Jesus was a carpenter, Yeezy laid beats / Hova flow the Holy Ghost”), and misogynistic power (“You will not control the threesome”)
Then there’s “N****s In Paris.” The Grammy-winning track put producer Hit-Boy on the map, thanks to its bonkers blend of thumping basslines, ear-piercing synths, and that incredibly random Blades Of Glory dialogue that best summates the song: “No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative!” It’s weird, anthemtic nature is best displayed in a live setting, with West and Jay-Z showing just how wonderfully obnoxious it is by performing it a record of 11 times during their Paris tour stop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG_dA32oH44
But the luxury rap and trendy sounds (the dubstep-driven “Who Gon Stop Me” and the bombastic electronics of “Why I Love You”) were balanced with messages that gave an insight into what it means to be successful and Black in America.
The pair call upon RZA, who funnels Nina Simone’s ”Feeling Good” through Auto-tune as they somberly ruminate over the lessons they want to teach their future sons. It was an interesting foreshadow, as both rappers first had daughters before adding their male heirs to their throne. While West mostly harbored the album’s viral moments, “Welcome To The Jungle” belongs to Jay-Z. Here, he reveals pain, grief, and depression he’s faced while describing himself as a “tortured soul,” flipping the Guns N’ Roses debaucherous reference to represent the rugged streets. Yes, the rappers were rich beyond measure, but they also grappled with the average Black American struggle that contrasted with Black excellence (“Murder To Excellence”) and if the American Dream is even achievable (“Made In America”).
Jay-Z and West already launched their careers into music’s stratosphere by the time of Watch The Throne’s release, but they solidified themselves as rap visionaries shrouded by wealth in an untouchable tax bracket. Jay-Z continued to flaunt his riches, releasing the designer Magna Carta Holy Grail in 2013 before breaking his facade with 2017’s 4:44 and later becoming rap’s first billionaire in 2019. West had a vastly different trajectory: in the midst of releasing five more albums (including this year’s DONDA), he became even more known for controversy, from supporting President Trump, having very public mental breakdowns that targeted then-wife Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner and his daughter North, harmfully declaring “Slavery is dead” and later divorcing the Kardashian.
There have been many cries for a Watch The Throne sequel, and the teasers and false starts didn’t help the cause. It was unclear if the reunion was ever going to happen, especially as Jay-Z continued to distance himself from his once-close ally. Interim joint projects, from Drake and Future’s What A Time To Be Alive to 21 Savage and Offset’s Without Warning and even West’s Kids See Ghosts with Kid Cudi, helped satiate millennial rap fans.
The pair seem to be on better terms, though, with the former recently making an unexpected appearance on West’s DONDA. But the opulent spectacle that made Watch The Throne so fun cannot be replicated. “How many people you know can take it this far?” Beyoncé mused on “Lift Off.” Jay-Z and Kanye West exceeded far beyond their pinnacles at the time, and it’s hard to guesstimate how much further they could possibly go. But we’re fine not knowing the answer for now.
: Campbell Addy 
