The Kid Laroi saw his career reach new heights after he released a third deluxe reissue of his debut mixtape F*ck Love. The release was highlighted by “Stay,” his collaboration with Justin Bieber, which went on to spend multiple weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. While that song is still very much enjoying the height of its success, Laroi is ready to start the latest chapter of his career with the impending release of his debut album Kids Are Growing Up and he kicks it off with his new single, “Thousand Miles.”
The track arrives with a music video that watches Laroi battle against himself to successfully win at love. Self-sabotage arrives as one of Laroi’s alter egos and it goes to great lengths to ruin his chances with a new girl. It ties him to a car and drives him for miles, drops a piano on his head, electrocutes him, and more, all of which take place in the song’s comedic video. Unfortunately, his destructive ways prove to be superior in the end.
“Thousand Miles” arrives after Laroi went to great lengths to promote the song, even tricking some into thinking that he was at odds with his former manager Scooter Braun. It came after Laroi posted a TikTok which insinuated that Braun was his “last mistake.” However, just a day later, Braun showed text messages between him and Laroi that proved the TikTok was nothing more than a well-planned prank.
You can listen to “Thousand Miles” in the video above.
Towards the end of last year, Ed Sheeran arrived with his fifth album =. The project was his first full-length release since 2019’s No. 6 Collaborations Project, and with =, Sheeran successfully secured his fifth straight No. 1 album. Unlike most of his past albums, = was an entirely solo release which might have come as a disappointment to some who hoped to hear Sheeran work with some of his peers. Thankfully, has been Sheeran making up for that with his past releases including his latest one.
Nearly six months after he dropped =, Sheeran returns with Lil Baby beside him for a remix of “2Step.” On it, Lil Baby arrives for the song’s second half and provides a verse that compliments Sheeran’s warm invitation to dance to a significant other. The remix also arrives with a music video, which Sheeran revealed was shot in Ukraine through a message at that video’s start. He noted that the visual was done before Russia invaded Ukraine, but moved by a stay in which he “felt so welcomed,” Sheeran revealed that he would donate “record royalties from YouTube streams of the video to DEC’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.”
Last summer, Megan Thee Stallion announced a break from social media and it came a little over six months after she released her debut album Good News. Two months later, Megan announced her return as Tina Show with a cryptic tweet. Nearly a year after that return, we’ve received Megan’s first offering from her latest era as Tina Snow. The Houston native arrives with “Plan B” and it’s a feisty and cut-throat record that her Hotties will love. Megan uses the track to declare that no man will tie her down as she’ll pop a Plan B pill to make sure she stays on track in life.
The new track is one that Megan premiered during her thrilling set at Coachella last weekend. Prior to that, she shared her excitement to perform it in a tweet before the performance. “I got this song that I recorded and every time I play it for a woman they start jumping and clapping,” she said. “I think I wanna perform it at Coachella for the first time before I actually drop it.” Megan did just that and her fans absolutely loved the record. Thankfully, she didn’t make them wait too long to get their hands on it.
You can check out “Plan B” in the video above.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The notion of a “jazz music” festival has become about a lot more than just jazz. Like the storied Montreal Jazz Festival and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival that came before it, the brand new Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa Valley presents the best in jazz music and the hip-hop and R&B artists who are inextricably tied to the genre’s roots. Blue Note’s first outdoor, multi-stage festival will be hosted by Dave Chappelle and features Robert Glasper as the artist-in-residence. Glasper will be performing onstage alongside Erykah Badu, Ledisi, D Smoke, Terrace Martin, and BJ The Chicago Kid. It all goes down at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, CA on July 30th and 31st and the loaded lineup just keeps getting better from there.
Also performing at Blue Note Jazz Festival will be Maxwell, the newly reunited Black Star, Thundercat, and Flying Lotus. But the most intriguing part of the lineup is the jazz and hip-hop collaboration sets: Maurice Brown featuring Anderson .Paak?! The Soul Rebels featuring GZA & Talib Kweli?! Now this is unique curation. Not to mention appearances from Chief Adjuah (fka Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah), Butcher Brown, Keyon Harrold, and late-night DJ sets from Dj Jazzy Jeff and Badu’s DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown alter ego.
Peep the full lineup poster below and stay tuned for tickets which go on sale on 04/26 here.
Snoop Dogg just did a very revealing interview on the Full Send Podcast. Heck, the “Gin & Juice” rapper has a lot to promote right now. The list of current Snoop Dogg endeavors includes but is not limited to: Acquiring the rights to the Death Row Records catalog, the Mount Westmore supergroup, his recent appearance on the Super Bowl Halftime show, and his American Song Contest with Kelly Clarkson. At this rate, the Snoop Dogg promotion tour might never end, and in between revealing the alarmingly high amount of money he charges for a guest verse, he also reeled off a list of his favorite rappers in the game right now.
“What’s like three people, or one or two people you like?” host Kyle Forgeard asks. Snoop thinks for a second and gives a far more thorough response than Forgeard was likely anticipating: “Uhh… who do I f****** really like? I like NBA YoungBoy. I like DaBaby, Lil Baby, 42 Dugg. I like Future. I like Gunna. Young Thug, Jack Harlow, Benny The Butcher… there’s a lot of motherf*ckers I like.”
He’s eclectic, we’ll give him that. Watch the full episode of Snoop Dogg’s appearance on the Full Send Podcasthere.
Some of the artists mentioned here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Those Snoop Dogg guest verses make the rounds and turns out they ain’t cheap either. Snoop Dogg, who most recently teased a collaboration with BTS, appeared on the Full Send Podcast this week and in a more than hour-long conversation. He talked about everything from Jackass and lacing blunts, to favorite rappers and Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. But when he revealed what his standard rate is for a guest verse on a track, listeners’ jaws were surely dropping.
“How much would it cost to get on a song?,” co-host Bob Menery asks the rapper. To which he answers point blank, “$250,000.” He then adds that for that rate, “You’ll get about 16 bars.” He also elaborated that the fee gets doubled if and when he appears in the music video for the song, “And when it’s time to do the video, I need to get another $250,000 up out of you. And you only got an hour so get to filming.”
The man is all business. And let’s face it, you don’t get to a point in your career where you’ve acquired the rights to the legendary Death Row Records catalog by not capitalizing on every appearance. It makes you wonder whether he’ll charge BTS $250,000 to appear on what will surely be a mutually beneficial collaboration?
Watch the full episode of Snoop Dogg’s appearance on the Full Send Podcasthere.
In 2016, Kid Cudi found himself in a tough place, as he made the decision to enter rehab for “depression and suicidal urges.” Since he left, though, he’s been doing a lot better. Now, Cudi has reflected on the experience in a new interview, saying that recent years have been “game-changing” for him.
In an interview for T: The New York Times Style Magazine‘s 2022 culture issue, Cudi says:
“In 2016, I was in rehab. I was at the bottom. I didn’t see anything positive happening for me. I thought that maybe it was the end of my career. After so many years of feeling miserable, it’s hard to imagine anything brighter on the horizon. But the last five years have been truly game-changing for me. Ever since I left rehab, it’s been nothing but me climbing up the mountain, getting higher and higher and achieving more, doing more, seeing more, learning more.”
He also offered a message for kids, saying, “Still, I never want kids to think there’s a quick fix, and that every time people see me now, I’m going to be happy and upbeat. I like to let kids know, ‘Right now, your favorite artist, who you think is the strongest man in the world, is having a bad day — and that’s OK. So if you have a bad day, that’s OK, too.’ I know the kids think I’m superhuman. And I am superhuman in a lot of ways, like with my music. But at my core, I’m very sensitive. I’m fragile at times. And I’m always trying to write my pain.”
30 years ago today, the Beastie Boys released their monumental third album, Check Your Head. It marked the group’s first major release to feature largely full instrumentation, with Mike D on drums, Ad-Rock on guitar, MCA on bass, as well as Mario C on drums and Money Mark on keys; a hallmark of the group that set them apart in the hip-hop canon forever. First released in 1992, the Beasties settled into their new G-Son studios in Southern California for the album’s recording.
In 2009, the Beastie Boys released an artist store 4LP box set that proved to be the definitive edition of Check Your Head. As with all collector’s items of this sort, it has become rare and out of print for over a decade. Now to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album, the group is putting out the set again, featuring the remastered 20-track album on the first two records, and then two additional records of live recordings, remixes, B-sides, etc. It’s presented in a fabric-wrapped, stamped, hardcover case.
Peep the tracklist and photo of the four LP Check Your Head vinyl below. While the official release isn’t until June 24th, you can pre-order the Check Your Head box set now, here.
Beastie Boys
Side A
“Jimmy James”
“Funky Boss”
“Pass The Mic”
“Gratitude”
“Lighten Up”
Side B
“Finger Lickin’ Good”
“So What’ Cha Want”
“The Biz Vs The Nuge”
“Time For Livin’”
“Something’s Got To Give”
Side C
“The Blue Nun”
“Stand Together”
“Pow”
“The Maestro”
“Groove Holmes”
Side D
“Live At P. J.’s”
“Mark On The Bus”
“Professor Booty”
“In 3’s”
“Namaste”
Side E
“Dub The Mic (Instrumental)”
“Pass The Mic (Pt. 2, Skills To Pay The Bills)”
“Drunken Praying Mantis Style”
“Netty’s Girl”
Side F
“The Skills To Pay The Bills (Original Version)”
“So What’ Cha Want (Soul Assassin Remix Version)”
“So What’ Cha Want (Butt Naked Version)”
“Groove Holmes (Live Vs. The Biz)”
Side G
“Stand Together (Live At French’s Tavern, Sydney Australia)”
“Finger Lickin’ Good (Government Cheese Remix)”
“Gratitude (Live At Budokan)”
“Honky Rink”
Side H
“Jimmy James (Original Original Version)”
“Boomin’ Granny”
“Drinkin’ Wine”
“So What’ Cha Want (All The Way Live Freestyle Version)”
The Check Your Head 30th Anniversary vinyl edition is out 6/24 via Universal. Pre-order it here.
In 2020, it looked like Janelle Monáe had come out as non-binary after tweeting “#IAmNonBinary.” They later clarified in an interview, though, “I tweeted the #IAmNonbinary hashtag in support of Nonbinary Day and to bring more awareness to the community. I retweeted the Steven Universe meme, ‘Are you a boy or a girl? I’m an experience,’ because it resonated with me, especially as someone who has pushed boundaries of gender since the beginning of my career. I feel my feminine energy, my masculine energy, and energy I can’t even explain.”
However, now, Monáe has gone ahead and declared as directly as possible that they are in fact non-binary: In a new Red Table Talk interview (as Billboard notes), Monáe told Jada Pinkett Smith, “I’m non-binary, so I just don’t see myself as a woman, solely. I feel like God is so much bigger than the ‘he’ or the ‘she,’ and if I am from God, I am everything.”
Monáe continued, “I will always, always stand with women. I will always stand with Black women, but I just see everything that I am, beyond the binary.”
Monáe also discussed why they decided to come out now, saying, “Somebody said, ‘If you don’t work out the things that you need to work out first before sharing it with the world, then you’re going to be working it out with the world.’ That’s what I didn’t want to do.”
In recent years, it has seemed that musical content in hip-hop and R&B has been firmly divided by genre – and gender. Hip-hop gets to be the sole domain of men with toxic narratives driven by rappers like Drake and Future. They play aloof and apathetic toward the women in their lives, gaslighting them for being hoes while loudly proclaiming they’ll never settle down themselves. Meanwhile, it’s the women in R&B, like Grammy winner Jazmine Sullivan and Summer Walker, who have to play the fed-up victims of men’s mind games. Seemingly every song sounds wounded — or barring that, encouraging women to recover from the wounds inflicted on them by destructive relationships.
Kali, the 21-year-old Atlanta rapper who won viral fame thanks to beloved clips of her songs on TikTok, is dead set on upending this particular convention in Black music. In March, she unleashed her major-label debut EP, Toxic Chocolate, pointedly reversing the dynamic and staking a claim on space for women in the toxicity conversation in hip-hop. “If somebody think they going to play games with me,” she explains of the EP’s contrarian philosophy, “I’m going to show you, look, I’m competitive, and you’re going to lose this game, sir, ma’am, anybody. It’s just, like, put your foot down. The girls need to get their power back.”
That’s what she does on the EP with songs like “UonU,” a role reversal anthem that would make Michael Scott proud – oh, how the turntables… etc. There’s also “Standards,” which finds the young rapper drawing her line in the sand and demanding consistency from the men she deals with. And on the EP’s title track, she offers the following flippant missive: “I’m really in love, I ain’t really toxic / Just playin’, I’m lying / Fuck on the side, oh he throwing up crying.” Kali’s debut is what would happen if Megan Thee Stallion got stuck in the Brundle teleporter with Future while Destiny’s Child’s “Independent Women” played in the background.
Of course, she doesn’t see it that way. For her, it’s just about flipping those sad songs into veritable bangers, slathered with a greasy layer of Southern crunk. “I always hear girls, even myself… We’d be like, ‘Oh, I would never, I wouldn’t do him like that.’ But, we got enough music telling us that, enough sad music to cry about. It’s time to just be like, ‘You know what? He did it to you, why you can’t do it to him?’ Summer Walker’s stuff had just came out. Everybody sliding down walls, and crying. It was just like, ‘No, that’s not the vibes anymore.’ Do that man how he did you. Let’s see who can really take it.”
If this seems like a prescient outlook for someone who just reached drinking age, well, it is. But Kali has always been precocious, starting her rap career at the age of just 12 years old after writing down her pre-teen feelings in a journal and earning the right to her own bedroom by meeting her father’s challenge of writing a full album’s worth of rap songs to the beats he made at home. Through high school, she pursued soccer to avoid her parents’ scrutiny over her subject matter, but upon graduation returned to her first love: rapping. After a brush with early stardom thanks to an audition on Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow, Kali overcame a few more early career setbacks to achieve viral fame when she uploaded her song “Do A Bitch” to TikTok in late 2020.
That song, which she later remixed with Rico Nasty, laid the groundwork for her next viral single, “MMM MMM,” to truly take off. “My first reaction [to the song going viral] was, ‘I did it again,’” she recalls. “‘I’m doing it again, y’all.’ I can say, ‘I got the plan, I just need the platform.’” The platform came just a few weeks later when fellow Atlanta rapper Latto reached out to her to jump on the remix. There likely couldn’t be a better candidate; aside from sharing a hometown, the two rappers both started their rap careers young, both garnered a bit of initial attention thanks to a reality TV rap competition, and both were given the co-sign of an older, more established artist – the very epitome of paying it forward.
Latto continued to pay it forward, recruiting Kali to her first-ever headlining tour. At the stop in Los Angeles, I got to see the impact of Kali’s music firsthand as the sold-out crowd at the Novo recited back her lyrics bar-for-impressively-witty-bar. “A lot of people have been telling me, ‘Kali, your tape is no-skips, straight through,’” she humblebrags. “‘I’ve listened to this every day straight through.’ Even being on tour, people knowing the words already – and it hasn’t even been that long, and I’ve only had like five shows – is super crazy to me, it makes me so happy. Every show, I see that one person that knows every song, word for word, and even a crowd singing along by the second hook, I’m like, ‘Oh, well y’all really is tuned in.’”
Kali admits that there’s been an adjustment to the newfound fame, but she’s already ready for more. “I want to do my own tour,” she muses. “I would love to do that. That’s why I’m putting in so much work on this one… I leave the show with a goal every day: Hopefully, someone left the show like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know Kali, but I’m going to look up more of her music.’ I just want to be super big. So whatever I got to do to be big, that’s what I’m going to do.” When I ask whether or not she accepts the claims that she’s rap’s women’s answer to Future, she demures.
“No, no, this is a toxic phase,” she laughs. “I’m just letting you all know, I don’t play games. This is not that. So, if you ever trying to shoot your shot, just make sure you listen to the tape first. Before you show me your A-S-S, I got you. But as soon as you do that, Toxic Chocolate will appear. And I would throw a toxic tantrum.”
Kali is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
