Music

Cardi B Withdraws From ‘Assisted Living’ Just Days Before The Film Was Set To Begin Shooting

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It looks like Cardi B is ready to take a break after “overextending” herself while expanding her brand. Unfortunately, that apparently means stepping away from her starring role in the Paramount comedy Assisted Living — just days before the movie was set to begin filming in New York. The movie would have been Cardi’s first-ever lead role after making her debut in Hustlers and featuring in Fast 9 in 2019 and 2021, respectively.

Deadline reports Assisted Living, which would have starred Cardi in old lady prosthetics as a low-level criminal hiding out at her grandmother’s retirement home after being wrongly accused, was set to start shooting next week. As such, the set has been shut down and the crew was told the film was temporarily canceled. However, Deadline says that, rather than pursuing legal action against Cardi for dropping out so late in the process, the studio, Paramount Players, hopes to try again later this year.

Meanwhile, Cardi’s “overextended” rationale makes a lot of sense as the “Up” rapper is just coming off winning her defamation lawsuit against Tasha K, is consulting with Playboy on the newly-launched Centerfold platform, shooting her Facebook Watch show, Cardi Tries, and is still recording her highly-anticipated second album, all while caring for a six-month old infant. If anyone deserves a break…

Hopefully, things can come together for a second pass and Cardi can show off those comedic chops in earnest whenever Assisted Living returns to Paramount Players’ docket. As for now, let’s also hope Cardi can get her work-life balance together, because the person comes first.

Nicki Minaj Says Lil Kim Deserves Recognition For Her Influence, Despite Their Past Friction

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Earlier this week, Nicki Minaj sat down for a nearly two-hour-long interview with Joe Budden on Instagram Live. During the interview, she talked about her fourth album, Queen, which she admitted wasn’t “presented correctly,” a label and management company she’s working on founding, and her overall influence on hip-hop.

When Minaj first stepped onto the scene, she donned a pink wig, which made up her signature look, and is now part of many female rappers’ repertoires.

“I would never see any female rapper wearing pink hair, pink hair became a part of that starter kit,” Minaj said in the interview. “Every female rapper will put on a pink wig at some point.”

Still, despite the influence of Minaj’s aesthetic, the “Do We Have A Problem?” rapper admitted she’s frustrated at the fact that she’s never been on the cover of Vogue. She also noted that the influence of white artists is regarded differently than that of Black artists.

“When Billie Eilish comes out and sets a trend with her green hair, she’s immediately put on American Vogue,” Minaj said, before later recalling pleasant encounters with Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

Minaj later said, “The same way I feel like I should have been on the cover of American Vogue, so should have Lil Kim, if we being all the way a thousand.” She continued, saying, “When myself or Lil Kim goes on the internet, every day we see our influence. I’m not gonna say it’s about me only and not give that woman her just due about what she did.”

Early Minaj songs, including “Roman’s Revenge” and “Stupid Hoe” are thought to be about Kim. While Minaj has never confirmed the subject of these songs, Kim has slammed Minaj several times, including in a Hot 97 interview with Ebro and Peter Rosenberg, where she called Minaj “a snake,” but said she’d be willing to collaborate with her.

Check out the full interview above.

Key Glock Walks A Goat In His ‘Painkillers’ Video To Announce The Deluxe Edition Of ‘Yellow Tape 2’

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Does anyone else feel like rappers are taking this GOAT thing a little too far? Not only have a bunch of rappers gone around calling themselves the GOAT (an acronym meaning “Greatest Of All Time” as first coined by LL Cool J on his 2000 eighth studio album, The G.O.A.T.), but they’ve actually taken to throwing images of actual goats all over their videos and album covers.

Lil Durk added a couple of extra heads to the goat in his, Lil Baby, and Polo G’s “3 Headed Goat” video in 2020, which made it look like something out of Greek mythology. That same year, Rylo Rodriguez turned himself into a photoshopped faun on his Goat In Human Form cover, drawing amused reactions from rap fans on Twitter. And last year, Young Dolph and Key Glock called themselves “A Goat & A Dolphin” for single from their joint album, Dum & Dummer.

Now, Key Glock is keeping that theme going with his new video for “Painkillers,” in which he walks a goat on a leash through a snowy mountaintop scene, which also continues a motif from his and Dolph’s Dum & Dummer sequel last year. He also cruises through the snow in his custom yellow Rolls Royce Phantom, which picks up a thread from his Yellow Tape cover — which is apropos, considering “Painkillers” is one of 10 new tracks that will appear on the deluxe edition of Yellow Tape 2, also announced today. The deluxe reissue will land at DSPs on March 25 via Paper Route Empire, Glock’s first solo release since the death of Young Dolph in a shooting late last year. You can pre-save the album here and check out the video above.

The ‘Metal Lords’ Trailer Gives A Shred-Worthy Look At The Netflix Film From D.B. Weiss And Tom Morello

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While preparing to make Game of Thrones, a project he never expected to get off the ground, D.B. Weiss wrote a script called Metal Lords that hit the backburner as Thrones became a mammoth juggernaut for HBO. However, once the dragon series concluded its eight season run, Weiss quickly returned to his film about a high school metal band and retooled the script that hadn’t been touched since 2006.

Along the way, he became friends with Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello. Morello came aboard the Netflix film as an executive producer, but the musician quickly took on the role of a hard rocking advisor as he pushed the actors to fully embrace the metal genre.

“It doesn’t matter the accuracy of your cymbal hits. You just have to go fucking berserk the entire time,” Morello told Billboard. “That’s metal! Don’t worry about the rest. Kick my ass with your facial expressions, which should be, at a minimum, Neanderthal-like and at a maximum, like you’re just in some sort of roiling pain and never stop doing that.”

Here’s the official synopsis for Metal Lords:

Two kids want to start a heavy metal band in a high school where exactly two kids care about heavy metal. Hunter (Adrian Greensmith) is a diehard metal fan —is there any other kind?— who knows his history and can shred. His dream in life is to win at the upcoming Battle of the Bands. He enlists his best friend Kevin (Jaeden Martell) to man the drums. But with schoolmates more interested in Bieber than Black Sabbath, finding a bassist is a struggle.

Metal Lords starts shredding April 8 on Netflix.

(Via Billboard)

Drake And Jack Harlow Link Up And Bro Down In Turks And Caicos

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Ever since coming into the rap game, Jack Harlow has been pretty open about idolizing Drake. While on tour in November last year, he stopped his Toronto show upon realizing that Drake was watching from the balcony, and his new single “Nail Tech” sounds a lot like something Drake would have put on his own last album, Certified Lover Boy. The two rappers have drawn comparisons before, with fans noting the similarities in their laid-back but confident styles and regular-guy postures as Jack’s profile has increased over the past two years.

All of that is to say that watching the two of them link up and bro down in Turks and Caicos via their various social media posts seems about as inevitable as it has been amusing. The two definitely share a sense of humor, lending their posts the air of a buddy comedy like Step Brothers or Superbad, if one of the characters was the “older brother” archetype. Witness Drake’s bemused reaction to Harlow hovering over him as he Googles exotic beverages:

Complex even captured Drake’s laugh-filled response to Harlow’s post, in which he explains he was looking up the ingredients for a “weng weng drink” (vodka, tequila, rum, bourbon, brandy, and scotch in a collins glass — yikes).

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All of this begs the question: If Jack Harlow is going to play the Billy Hoyle counterpart in the upcoming White Men Can’t Jump Remake… Does that make Drake his Sidney Deane?!?

Please, universe. Make it happen.

Check out more of the boys’ hilarious vacation antics below.

Chris Brown’s Rape Accuser’s Testimony Is Called Into Question As Her Text History Contradicts Her Claims

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In what could quite possibly be one of the worst outcomes for this situation, the anonymous woman who accused Chris Brown of drugging and raping her on Diddy’s yacht has apparently been dropped by her lawyers after new evidence complicated her case, according to Rolling Stone. During the investigation and discovery process, the Miami Police Department found text messages between the alleged victim and Brown that lawyers George Vrabeck and Ariel Mitchell feel “precluded” them from proceeding with the case.

Gossip site Radar Online was apparently able to procure excerpts of a text conversation (apparently provided by Brown) between the Jane Doe and Chris Brown in which the two exchanged flirtatious missives, with the woman sending nude photos and expressing disappointment after their exchanges became one-sided. And while that’s not a sign that her claims aren’t true, it is something that apparently made her legal team take pause and reconsider the case.

The outcome sucks because if Jane Doe is really telling the truth, that Chris Brown drugged and raped her in 2020 as she claims, then it means intrinsic biases on the parts of the police and her lawyers (you know, because it’s believed that false claims are filed against famous men out of spite or greed) combined with her own text history have undermined her case. However, if she lied as Brown claims and is only shaking him down for money, suing him for $20 million, then her case could potentially undermine hundreds, if not thousands of legitimate future claims made by women who just need help (because of the same reason for the above parenthetical).

This certainly doesn’t mean that the case is dead, but Jane Doe will need to find a new lawyer willing to take on the case with this new information at hand. If not the case will be dismissed for lack of service on Brown. Either way, plenty of damage could have already been done, both to Brown’s tarnished reputation and to women’s safety. Meanwhile, Brown is still facing another case of battery at a Miami Beach hotel.

Kanye West Is Pumped That ‘Donda 2’ Isn’t Eligible For ‘Billboard’ Chart Placement: ‘Big Win’

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Earlier this week, Billboard reported that Kanye West’s new album Donda 2 is not currently eligible to appear on their charts. So, while Ye’s past nine solo albums have topped the Billboard 200, Donda 2, at least for the time being, won’t even get the chance to. Billboard explained, “[T]he album is being sold with a device that can be used for other means besides the playing of the album. As such, the Stem [Player]/Donda package would fall within Billboard‘s latest merch bundle policy, where albums sold with merchandise are not chart-eligible.”

Some may see that as a bad thing, but West, who has long had a unique perspective, does not.

In fact, he celebrated the news on Instagram yesterday. Sharing a screenshot of a post about Donda 2‘s chart ineligibility, Ye wrote, “Big win for the kid We can no longer be counted or judged We won we won we won we won We make my own systems We set our own value aaaand yesterdays price is not todays price baaaaabeeeee!!!!!”

Meanwhile, Ye is fresh off yesterday’s release of another new video for “Eazy” which, like the previous “Eazy” video, depicts Pete Davidson getting beaten up.

Read our hands-on review of the Stem Player here.

Kendrick Lamar’s PgLang Signs Tanna Leone And Shares His First Single, ‘With The Villains’

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Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free’s new endeavor PgLang is rolling after the company’s initial launch was met with mostly confusion about what the company is and what it does. As it turns out, the answer is: “a little bit of everything.” Early last year, PgLang produced a Calvin Klein campaign, then released Kendrick’s cousin Baby Keem’s debut album, The Melodic Blue. This year, it was reported that PgLang would be teaming up with the creators of South Park to produce a comedy film, although that news was met with skepticism from fans due to its questionable premise.

However, the company’s next move may end up being more well-received as it returns to Kendrick’s area of expertise, music, in signing its third rapper, LA native Tanna Leone. To introduce the newcomer, PgLang posted a video interview covering some of the basics about the 24-year-old, like his birthday, favorite color, and favorite quote. The promising young rapper also dropped his first single with the label, “With The Villains,” along with his first music video. Check it out below. Tanna Leone is currently supporting Baby Keem’s tour, which runs through April 18 in San Francisco.

While Baby Keem’s debut was released in partnership with Columbia, Tanna’s will apparently be supported by Def Jam, instead. In a statement, new Def Jam CEO Tunji Balogun said, “We’re excited to welcome Tanna Leone and pgLang to the Def Jam family as valued partners. I’m lucky to have been able to connect with Kendrick and Dave during the early stages of my career as friends and collaborators, and I’m thrilled to be able to extend that relationship here at Def Jam. Tanna is a dynamic and multi-talented new voice and we’re honored to be a part of his development and success.”