Music

HER Knows You Think She’s An Industry Plant

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In an excellent new interview in Vulture, mysterious EGOT contender HER (real name Gabi Wilson) has opened up a lot — like, a lot — about her seemingly rapid career ascent and the fact that you might think she’s an industry plant. Wilson has won four Grammys (out of 13 nominations), an Oscar for Best Original Song, she opened this year’s Super Bowl, and she is set to appear in the upcoming Color Purple movie musical, among other things. But the 24-year-old is famously unknowable, wearing sunglasses to every public event and rarely addressing anything to do with her personal life, claiming that she wants fans’ focus to be on the music.

“We live in a world where it’s full package — how do you look, who are you dating, who is she?” Wilson told Vulture. “We’ve lost sight of what’s important, which is the music.”

HER, who has also curated the lineup for the bi-costal Lights On Festival, had this to say about that whole “industry plant” thing. “With social media, people think they know everything about success. People see my success now, and they don’t understand the sacrifices, the 15-hour days in the studio, the pressure from my parents to go to college.”

She adds: “Most of the time, people think success is followers and crazy BTS popularity, like if you’re not Beyonce, you’re not famous. ‘Oh, you’ll get there one day.’ Like, everybody doesn’t want to be Beyonce! For me, I grinded it out kinda like a rapper: I dropped a mixtape, nobody knew who I was, it was a very slow build, and here we are now. The awards shows and all that stuff, that was surprising to me. But I realized, Oh my gosh, I’ve arrived, and in a different way. You don’t need some No. 1 radio single — even though I got that!”

There you have it! Check out the full interview here.

Drake’s ‘Way 2 Sexy’ Video With Future And Young Thug Hilariously Lampoons Pop Fantasies

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In the “Way 2 Sexy” video, Drake lampoons pop culture’s ideals of sex appeal through the decades, transforming himself into such archetypes as a harlequin romance hero, an action movie star, and even giving himself a dad bod. Drake loves superimposing his head onto other peoples’ bodies in his videos, but this time, he actually uses this proclivity to great, hilarious effect, as the video concept ties nicely into the overall goofy vibe of the Right Said Fred sample on the beat and his, Future, and Young Thug‘s playful lyrics. There’s even a mid-video break for a fake ad for a Drake fragrance called “Wet,” which is such a perfect distillation of everything Drake represents.

The “Way 2 Sexy” video caps the triumphant rollout for Certified Lover Boy, which appears to be a success despite being pushed back over eight months from its initial projected release date in January. The album, which contains features from 21 Savage, Giveon, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Project Pat, and Travis Scott (among many, many others), has been a hot topic on Twitter as fans speculate on whether Drake takes more shots at Kanye, express confusion at some of his more questionable rhymes, and joke around about Jay-Z appearing on both Drake and his rival Kanye’s albums.

Watch Drake, Future, And Young Thug’s hilarious ‘Way 2 Sexy’ video above.

Certified Lover Boy is out now via OVO and Republic. You can stream it here.

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

NBA Players Couldn’t Get Enough Of Drake’s ‘Certified Lover Boy’

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Drake dropped his first full-length album since Scorpion in the early hours of Friday morning. Despite being in the works since 2019 and an original release date of January 2021 that had to get pushed back, Certified Lover Boy hit streaming services at 2 a.m., and in the hours after its release, NBA players made clear that they loves the latest project from the world’s most famous Toronto Raptors fan.

Some players were actually a bit annoyed about the timing of the release, with Donovan Mitchell and Mikal Bridges making clear they were expecting it to drop right at midnight.

While this was a pretty common sentiment among those who wanted to listen to the record right when the calendar turned to Sept. 3, there was plenty of excitement over Certified Lover Boy, and once people got to listen, NBA players were unified in thinking Drake released one of the albums of the year.

One player seemed to enjoy it so much that he stirred up a little controversy, as Trae Young antagonized the city of New York for the first time since the 2021 playoffs by asking the Twitterverse whether or not Drake has passed Jay-Z.

Young eventually made clear he was just asking as someone whose all-time favorite rapper is Hov.

Little Simz And Obongjayar Play Bonnie And Clyde In Their Groovy ‘Point And Kill’ Video

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Little Simz’s album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, arrived last night after a months-long rollout. That rollout included videos for “Introvert,” “Woman,” and “I Love You, I Hate You,” as well as her US television debut on The Tonight Show to perform “Woman” and her NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert debut, where she premiered the Afropop-inflected single “Point And Kill featuring London-based Nigerian artist Obongjayar. Today, along with the album, she released a groovy video for “Point And Kill” to accompany the album.

In the video, Simz takes a trip to Nigeria, her parents’ homeland, to tour the countryside, encountering a diverse cast of characters, including weightlifting macho men and church-going aunties. The video culminates in a very stylish club scene, seeing Simz and Obongjayar grooving in a small club full of people dressed in retro-chic ensembles. The overall vibe is very Queen & Slim, especially in the closing scene, which finds Simz and Obongjayar surrounded by armed police officers all pointing their guns at him as she defends him with a machete. The video ends on this ambiguous note, giving viewers plenty to ponder — much like many of Simz’s other videos.

Watch Little Simz’s “Point And Kill” video featuring Obongjayar above. You can catch Simz live at End Of The Road in Dorset this Sunday.

Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is out now via AWAL Digital Limited. You can check it out here.

Nicki Minaj Loses It After Her Baby Says His First Word In An Adorable Video

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It’s been almost exactly three years since Nicki Minaj told her fans she would be retiring from music to focus on starting a family. While Nicki’s retirement wasn’t exactly permanent, the rapper still took time off of music to focus on having her first child with her husband Kenneth Petty. Ever since, rapper has clearly been loving watching her baby reach all of his developmental milestones, like his first-ever words.

Nicki has yet to tell her fans what her baby’s real name is, but she affectionately refers to him as “Papa Bear.” The rapper took to Instagram to give some updates about the 11-month-old, revealing that he just said some of his first words. Thankfully, the whole thing was caught on camera — and it’s about as adorable as it gets.

The video shows Papa Bear sitting on Nicki’s lap next to his father. Nicki keeps coaxing Papa Bear to speak, waving his arms at the camera. The baby then clearly says the word, “Hi,” which sends Nicki over the moon as she gasps in excitement.

In other Nicki news, the rapper briefly appears on a track from Drake’s anticipated Certified Lover Boy album. Nicki’s voice sample is featured on the track “Papi’s Home,” a collaboration fans had been looking forward to since Nicki hinted that Drake was in her studio a few months ago.

Boosie Imagines An Unlikely Worst-Case Scenario In Response To Lil Nas X’s Latest ‘Montero’ Stunt

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At this point, people reacting to Lil Nas X’s provocations are doing more work to promote him and his music than he is. Every time he comes up with a colorful troll, they react loudly on the internet, drawing more attention to his stunts and the work behind them. He responds with another promotional prank and they lose it all over again. At this point, it’d probably be best for them if they stopped reacting, which is exactly what Nas wants.

But then we wouldn’t get gems like watching Twitter relentlessly roasting Boosie for his borderline obsession with the 22-year-old rapper turned pop star. Certainly, it’s a lot of fun to just imagine Boosie sitting around thinking about Nas’ latest antics and getting very … ahem … piqued about it. In this case, the antic in question is Nas’ recently released “pregnancy” photoshoot (with his album Montero, his baby — get it?), which was published by no less an outlet than People magazine — a subversive, historical act in itself.

Lil Nas seems to have long since decided that since he’ll be made a public spectacle anyway, he’s going to control the narrative and wring every advantage for himself out of the media’s invasive coverage, lightly satirizing the public fascination with the lives of celebrities along the way. And Boosie can’t stand it. “NAS X WTF U JUST DONT STOP,” he tweet at three o’clock in the morning. “I THINK HES GOING TO TURN AROUND N SUCK ONE OF HIS BACK GROUND DANCERS DICK ON NATIONAL TV.”

While that’s … well, not something that you even can do because the FCC is a thing, it’s very interesting that that’s where Boosie’s mind goes. The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks — or at least, fans Twitter do. It didn’t take long for folks to question why Boosie seems to spend so much time thinking about Lil Nas X when he could be doing, y’know, literally anything else. When Montero does come out, it’s easy to wonder whether the Louisiana rap legend will be one of the first to hit “play” while pondering what Nas’ next move will be.

Fans Have All The Jokes For Jay-Z After Appearing On Both Drake And Kanye’s Albums

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It’s no secret that Drake and Kanye West haven’t been on the best of terms in the last few years. Both men released albums just a week apart whose primary rollout strategies seemed to consist mostly of the two trying to out-troll each other (which kinda worked, considering the streaming numbers and Twitter chatter both have generated so far). Meanwhile, it’s also pretty widely accepted that Jay-Z is one of if not the greatest of all time in rap, so scoring an appearance from him is tantamount to having Michael Jordan bless your hoop career.

So it’s pretty funny that both Donda, which dropped last week, and Certified Lover Boy, which came out earlier this morning, both prominently feature verses from the Brooklyn business mogul, despite Kanye and Drake fighting like two cats in a sack for the past several months (or rather, sniping at each other like Love & Hip-Hop cast members at a reunion special, take your pick). At least, the denizens of Rap Twitter seem to think so, breaking out the jokes and the memes to point out Hov’s split loyalties.

Interestingly enough, the situation is somewhat similar to one involving two of these personalities nearly 20 years ago. Kanye once found himself bridging the gap between Jay-Z and his erstwhile rival Nas at the height of their feud over the “King Of New York” title, producing beats for both men’s albums including the infamous “Takeover” diss from Jay to Nas. Perhaps Jay sees himself playing the vital role Kanye played back then, having the age and experience to make amends with Nas in the meantime (although you could argue things haven’t always been exactly peaceful between them). Who knows? Until then, have a laugh at some of the many, many Twitter jokes about the situation below.

R. Kelly Has A Writing Credit On Drake’s New Album ‘Certified Lover Boy’

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Drake’s new album Certified Lover Boy has been out for a few hours now, and between its release and now, fans have been carefully examining the project. That sleuthing has led to an eyebrow-raising discovery: R. Kelly has a writing credit on the album.

Along with Drake, the artists credited as writers on the song “TSU” include Harley Arsenault, Noel Cadastre, F. Hills, Timothy Mosley (aka Timbaland), Ronald Coleman (aka OG Ron C), Christopher Cross, Justin Timberlake, and Robert Kelly (aka R. Kelly).

As Genius notes, the song samples NSYNC’s 1997 song “Sailing,” a cover of Cross’ 1980 single. Furthermore, others have pointed out the song also samples Timberlake’s “Until The End Of Time,” which Timbaland co-wrote. According to WhoSampled, the song also samples Kelly’s 1998 song “Half On A Baby,” which is where his writing credit comes from.

It was reported recently that Kelly is attempting to sell the publishing rights to his back catalog. If somebody purchased the rights, Kelly would not profit from his song being sampled on “TSU.” However, it appears Kelly is struggling to find a buyer, so as it stands now, Kelly still owns his publishing rights and will therefore profit from “TSU,” which is becoming a much-discussed song on one of the year’s biggest albums.

Of course, Kelly has faced many allegations of sexual misconduct in recent years. Most recently, an alleged male victim of sexual exploitation by Kelly testified in court.

Certified Lover Boy is out now via OVO Sound/Republic. Get it here.

Fans Think Drake Slams Kanye West On The ‘Certified Lover Boy’ Song ‘7am On Bridle Path’

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It was reported recently that Kanye West was ready to fire back at Drake if Drake dissed him on his new album, Certified Lover Boy. Well, the album is out now, and it appears West may have some feuding to do, as fans think Drake addresses him on “7am On Bridle Path.”

First, there’s this lyric:

“You over there in denial, we not neck and neck
It’s been a lot of years since we seen you comin’ correct
Man, f*ck a ‘Respectfully,’ I just want my respect
They tried to label me mean, I say what I mean
People that could’ve stayed on the team
They played in-between.”

If those lines are about West, the first two could be interpreted as Drake alleging that West has fallen off in terms of the quality of his musical output. Furthermore, “Respectfully” may be a reference to Justin Laboy (aka Respectfully Justin), whose name popped up during the Donda rollout.

The song later continues:

“Give that address to your driver, make it your destination
‘Stead of just a post out of desperation
This me reachin’ the deepest state of my meditation
While you over there tryna impress the nation
Mind’s runnin’ wild with the speculation.”

The “address” line is an apparent reference to when West recently shared Drake’s address on Instagram. Bridle Path, by the way, is the name of the Toronto neighborhood where Drake lives.

Drake then seems to address his and West’s repeated reconciliations over the years and how their cease fires haven’t lasted for long: “Why the f*ck we peacemakin’, doin’ the explanations / If we just gon’ be right back in that b*tch without hesitation?”

Listen to “7am On Bridle Path” above and check out some reactions to the song below.

Certified Lover Boy is out now via OVO Sound/Republic. Get it here.