Kendrick Lamar’s third album, To Pimp A Butterfly, was a big change in direction from his 2012 sophomore album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. It found the rapper ditching his previous West Coast influences for a sound based on jazz, soul, funk, and more. The change wasn’t easy for him, requiring plenty of experimentation and trial and error to get it right. During an episode of Alex Pappademas’ Spotify podcast The Big Hit Show, which is studying the seminal album for its second season, Kendrick dove into how he made it work.
“Yeah I’m just trying stuff, throwing the paint on the wall and writing as these incredible musicians rock out,” he said. “I like that for eight bars. I like that. I like that. So… prior to the album actually coming out the sh*t actually sounded way more complex.”
Kendrick then explained how his longtime friend and producer Terrace Martin taught him about jazz. “Miles [Davis] is playing and you know he’s doing these skats and these rhythms. And man I said to myself, ‘I wanna be able to do that, but I wanna rap that way.’ And you know, be on that cadence and it’s super out of pocket, but you know it’s very jazz, it’s very Miles Davis influenced,” Kendrick said. “It was what I was inspired by what Terrace was telling me. He was like, ‘Man, you gotta be unapologetic. If you’re going to go there, you gotta go there.’”
Kanye West has always had an offbeat and kind of juvenile sense of humor — just check out the video for “Famous” — but in his new video for “Eazy,” that humor takes a sharp left turn into the world of the macabre. Filmed in grainy black and white stop-motion animation, the “Eazy” video finds Kanye sending The Game and Eazy-E after his imagined romantic rival Pete Davidson — whose ass, remember, he threatens to beat in the lyrics of the song — to kidnap and bury the comedian up to his neck, turning him into an unorthodox planter.
The timing of Kanye sharing the video is uncanny; earlier today, a judge granted Kardashian single status, effectively ending the couple’s near-seven-year marriage. While Kanye has said that he wants to reconcile — the “Eazy” video even ends with a tongue-in-cheek declaration of his belief that they’ll live happily ever after once Davidson is out of the picture — Kardashian has adamantly and repeatedly said that she has no desire to do so. Something tells me that this video won’t help Kanye’s case much.
Last night, Rolling Loud announced the lineup for its impending return to Miami this summer with headliners Future, Kanye West (billed as “Ye”), and Kendrick Lamar, but one name, in particular, jumped out at fans. The mysterious “AB” listed in the second line of the Friday section was intriguing, prompting some fans to wonder whether it was NFL wide receiver (and Miami native), Antonio Brown, most recently of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As it turns out, it was!
Rolling Loud confirmed that “Yes, that’s Antonio Brown on our lineup,” with a tweet earlier today coinciding with the former Buccaneer’s own announcement that he would be performing, which he shared on his Instagram Story alongside a snippet of his debut single, “Pit Not The Palace.” He also tweeted the Rolling Loud flyer with the song’s title, generating even more buzz for his stage debut.
Brown’s exit from the Tampa Bay team was controversial; during a January 2 game against the Jets in New York, he stormed off the field, peeling off his uniform as he went. Later it was revealed that he had a serious injury when he left the game and he claimed that he was cut from the team for not playing hurt after helping the Bucs win the Super Bowl just a year prior.
It looks like he’ll have a soft landing if he chooses not to return to the NFL, joining the ranks of rapper athletes such as Damian Lillard and Miles Bridges of the NBA as he prepares for his festival debut. Rolling Loud’s Miami event is July 22-24, with tickets going on sale Monday, March 7 at 12 pm ET.
With the third and final episode of the Netflix Kanye West documentary Jeen-Yuhs finally available for streaming, the time has come to take stock and determine what lessons can be gleaned from its nearly five hours of behind-the-scenes footage. Did we learn anything we didn’t already know? I don’t think so, but for viewers of a certain age, who maybe didn’t get to watch all this go down in real-time or who were late aboard the Kanye West bandwagon, there is certainly value in watching the come-up, seeing that he always had an oversized ego and the ambition to match. The first two episodes of the documentary also show that the Kanye we know today came from humble beginnings, that he didn’t always have pop culture in the palm of his hands the way he does now.
But by the time the third episode comes around, we see the result of what that level of dominance has ultimately come to. And while director Coodie Simmons, who shot the documentary alongside longtime partner Chike Ozah, refrains from passing judgment on his friend Kanye, the documentary comes across as more mythmaking than insightful. While Coodie and Chike are far from yes-men, they’re maybe a tad bit too sympathetic considering how close they were to Kanye when he was just a guy from Chicago. The problem is, that no one should be as big as Kanye has gotten and do the problematic things Kanye has done without criticism. In Kanye’s own words, “no one man should have all that power.”
I can see how it would be interesting for outsiders to learn how some of the industry works, or to catch a glimpse at the sort of impromptu in-studio listening sessions and recording magic that can happen during the creation of a beloved classic. I’ve always found documentaries to be kind of misleading in that respect because it’s easy to cherry-pick those moments from hours and hours of footage of what in my experience are mostly boring and tedious processes (for a taste of that, just put those 2-minute clips on repeat for about 10 hours). And they can certainly tailor a perspective regarding artists’ relationships, conversations, and personalities for the benefit of the narrative being told rather than the truth of the events being recorded.
jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy Act 2 is now streaming and features footage of Kanye and Jamie Foxx recording Slow Jamz pic.twitter.com/fuQFkYLDjn
But it’s hard for even a grouch like me to deny the tenderness of Kanye’s relationship with his mother, of watching her ease his agitation when he believes he should be signed already, be a star already, be there — in whatever far-flung future he imagined for himself — already. She reminds him not to get ahead of himself, she beams with pride at his accomplishments, she admires his new jewelry, even when you can kind of tell she wants to admonish him for making irresponsible purchases. Her influence on him is undeniable and indelible, and it’s easy to see how her loss could cause such a disturbance for him. She grounded him when his ego threatened to turn him into a hip-hop Icarus; without her, he’s flown too close to the sun and crashed multiple times.
That’s cool, but as endearing as it is to watch Kanye interact with his biggest cheerleader, his mom, it’s heart-wrenching to see him in his current state because watching this documentary feels like joining the crowd watching a train wreck. It almost feels like we’ve so reduced this man’s humanity that he can’t even see it in himself. He’s a commodity, he’s an event, he’s entertainment — and in constantly trying to live up to his own capacity for spectacle, he’s lost sight of the kid from Chicago who dreamed of all this before making it come true. He’s become miserly, focused on his money and accomplishments to the exclusion of the people with whom he should be sharing them, he’s become paranoid, lost in the dark twisted fantasy of his persecution complex, and failing to see the beauty of his position. He’s lost his sense of humor and wonderment and humility, the possibility of failure, because he’s now surrounded by exactly the yes-men who don’t mind seeing him set himself on fire (sometimes literally) as long as there’s the potential of entertainment in watching him burn.
Jeen-Yuhs feels like watching him burn. It starts off with a slow spark, a wisp of smoke as he does everything he can to fan the flames, but by the end of episode three, we’re watching a full-on conflagration, the hero that Jeen-Yuhs has spent three hours building up crumble to ash in front of our eyes. At the beginning of the third episode, Coodie mentions being ready to release the documentary at the end of Kanye’s College Dropout era, ahead of the release of Late Registration. To hear him say that explains the first two parts of the doc — and makes you wish that he really had done so, to preserve the old Kanye instead of trying to explain the one we’re stuck with now.
Summer Walker earned herself a lot of new fans last year when her second album, Still Over It, became her first to top the Billboard 200 chart, making it the first No. 1 album by a female R&B singer in over five years. Now, she’s going to spend some time on the road in 2022, as she has announced a limited run of shows for this spring, dubbed The Summer Walker Series.
There are just three scheduled performances: at Houston’s 713 Music Hall on March 20, Chicago’s Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom on March 31, and Dallas’ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory on April 16. Beyond that, though, she has a good handful of festival appearances ahead, too: In May and June, she’ll take the stage at Sol Blume, Broccoli City, Roots Picnic, Wireless Festival Birmingham, and Wireless Festival London.
Check out the full list of dates below.
03/20 – Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall *
03/31 – Chicago, IL @ Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom ^
04/16 – Dallas, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory *
05/01 – Sacramento, CA @ Sol Blume Festival
05/08 – Washington, DC @ Broccoli City Festival
06/05 – Philadelphia, PA @ Roots Picnic Festival
06/08 – Birmingham, UK @ Wireless Festival Birmingham
06/09 – London, UK @ Wireless Festival London
^ with NO1-NOAH and MARVXXL
* with NO1-NOAH, MARVXXL, and Erica Banks
Still Over It is out now via LVRN/Interscope. Get it here.
Before Run The Jewels changed his life, vaulting him to indie hip-hop super stardom with his partner Killer Mike, El-P was making future-forward hip-hop on his own. An OG of the independent hip-hop movement, El-P first name a made for himself as a producer with Company Flow in the late 90s, but built even deeper cult fan bases with his three studio albums.
This year, Fantastic Damage, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, and Cancer For Cure are celebrating their 20th, 15th, and 10th anniversaries, respectively. Always one to cater to his rabid fan base, El-P is reissuing all three via 2LP deluxe vinyl editions with Fat Possum Records. It’ll also mark the first time since 2010 that Fantastic Damage is being pressed on vinyl.
Never one to mince words, El-P shared a statement on the reissues:
“this is a thank you letter to everyone who has helped and allowed me to live my life doing the music and art i love. to everyone who has been moved in some way by what i do, to everyone who has been listening from the beginning, to those that stuck with me as i changed and grew and to everybody who’s just discovered the music.
i’ve always focused on the next piece. i’ve always only run to my future. but despite my habit of not looking back much, this year marks the 20th (FANTASTIC DAMAGE), 15th (I’LL SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE DEAD) and 10th (CANCER 4 CURE) anniversaries of the major records in my solo career and it feels good to get them back on vinyl and into whomever’s hands might want them.
but most of all it feels good to just be here. still allowed to do what i love, still thrilled about it in every way.
so again, thank you.
love,
el-p”
Watch a trailer for the reissue series above and pre-order the releases, which are now on sale here.
Getty Image / Alex Livesey – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images
A new festival celebrating women in music, food, and comedy will launch this summer in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. Versa Festival boasts a line-up of women artists, chefs, and comedians across five different stages over the course of two days. Festivities kick off Saturday, June 11th and continue into Sunday, June 12th.
In the musical line-up are Ellie Goulding, Kim Petras, Young MA, Big Freedia, Liz Phair, and Kali Uchis. Meanwhile, delivering laughs are Chelsea Handler, Ilana Glazer, Aida Rodriguez, and Sydnee Washington. Chefs will be announced at a later date, however, the line-up and dishes are set to be curated by Top Chef judge Gail Simmons.
“Versa is a one-of-a-kind live experience that will bring people together for a purpose – to remind women of their value and their voice,” said Shelley Phillips, Executive Producer and Partner of Four Leaf Productions, in a statement. “It’s exciting to build something that offers people a chance to have a good time and fight the good fight, all at once.”
In addition to music, comedy, and food, Versa Festival will also feature lectures from the likes of Gloria Steinem and Alok Vaid-Menon. A Versa Ball, inspired by ballroom culture, hosted by ballroom icon Leggoh JohVera, will also take place at the festival on a to be announced date.
Tickets are available for purchase here. Check out the line-up poster below.
However, Kanye’s lawyers did have some conditions for agreeing to Kim Kardashian’s newly single status, although only one was granted. The right to any money that is supposed to be divided up will be preserved if either of them dies, but a request to prevent Kim from transferring assets she has in trust was denied, as was the final condition that Kim would waive her privilege to withhold any communications with a new spouse should she get remarried.
The two celebrities are now officially single, but it remains to be seen whether that stops Kanye from making overtures to reconcile via social media or haranguing Pete Davidson, Kim’s new beau.
Kanye West allegedly may not want to divorce Kim Kardashian but it looks like he doesn’t mind enjoying himself while the two are going through their separation. After spending much of the early part of the year publicly dating actress Julia Fox, it looks like he’s found — well, not a replacement for Kim, but certainly a companion who fits a type. Kanye’s recently been seen out with a model named Chaney Jones, who some have described as a Kim Kardashian lookalike, and judging from a new social media post, it looks like they are more than friends.
After Kanye reposted a Shade Room photo of himself and Jones walking through a shopping center in Miami, Jones appeared in the comments to call Kanye “my love.” According to Complex, Jones also previously shared a selfie of the two together on her Instagram Story, adding fuel to the rumors that the two have been growing closer.
Prior to being linked with Jones, Kanye’s whirlwind fling with Julia Fox generated some truly bonkers headlines, including ones about their extravagant dates, and over the top gifts for her and her friends. When rumors began to circulate about the short-lived couples’ possible breakup, she confirmed them on no more auspicious an occasion than Valentine’s Day. It looks like some of Kanye’s theatricality may have rubbed off on her. Meanwhile, Kanye and Jones have yet to confirm that they’re dating, but if their social media activity is to believed, it looks like Kanye has met his match — at least for now.
At just the age of 23 years old, Nija Charles is undoubtedly one of the music industry’s most sought-after songwriters. Her list of collaborators is a dream cast of names that any songwriter, or any artist at that, would love to have at her age. Cardi B, Meek Mill, The Carters, 21 Savage, Beyonce, Chris Brown, Drake, and Summer Walker are all people she’s worked to great success. Between chart-topping albums and top-20 Billboard Hot 100 songs, Nija’s resume shines on its one.
In 2020, Nija hit the jackpot — twice. She scored two No. 1s, the first being Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande’s “Rain On Me” and the second being Grande’s “Positions.” Her elevated success as a songwriter earned her recognition on various platforms. In 2020, she appeared on Rolling Stone’s Future 25, BET’s Future 40, and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 lists. Two years after she topped the charts as a songwriter, Nija is aiming for that same success as a singer.
Fresh off the release of her debut project, Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You, we caught up with Nija to discuss her success as a songwriter, her goals for her own artistry, and how she’s able to do it all.
As a songwriter, 2020 proved to be your biggest year after you landed No. 1s with Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. Ahead of your next chapter as an overall artist, how do you look at those moments when you reflect on them now?
Yeah, back in 2020, I didn’t realize how hard I was working and I’m just appreciative of my drive during that time. Getting two No. 1s, especially in pop, is not something you see every day, so it just proves to me that I could do anything. Working hard comes naturally to mean and I was able to put that into my artistry, that type of drive. Working during the pandemic, I got to be able to go back to how I usually work before I really got into writing professionally. I was in my room and just doing what felt good to me. That was really dope that I got to go back to my old self and I feel like that played a big part in my success during that year.
Even though you had success as a songwriter, were you concerned that these No. 1s would box you in as a writer and make it harder for you to be your own artist?
No, I never had a fear because I’m the type of person where it’s like if I want something, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it happens. I know the music I make is good because I just love listening to music and making music for myself. So as long as I like it, that’s really all that matters to me. I’m glad that everyone else likes it. But no, there was never really a fear because I do it for my own enjoyment.
What’s one of two things that factor heavily into your success as a songwriter, as in, without them, you wouldn’t be as consistent as you are at the moment?
Humbleness and being grounded for sure. I would say that because I feel like a lot of people chase hits and success, but for me from the beginning, I make music because I want to make what I want to hear on the radio. I’m a fan of music so that’s how I always approach every song. I make it so that I can listen to it in the car and listen to my friends. I’m not chasing success and I feel like that plays out in the results. Two, I would say drive and just being a go-getter. I’m always on call, I’m always gonna finish something, [and] I never half-ass things. I feel like that’s definitely played a part in my consistency and it’s also why a lot of people trust me and call on me because they know that I’ll get the job done and I’m going to see things through.
Since these pair of No. 1 singles, how have you grown in your art and what’s contributed to this growth?
Yeah, I’ve grown a lot because one, I feel like I’ve actually been able to experience life more. When I stepped foot in the industry, I was still a teenager and just entering my 20s. So now, I’m learning life like before I really had anything to go off of, I was just writing about what I saw or things that I just heard about, but now I have my own life experiences to draw from through talking with friends and just maturing, that definitely played a big part. Creatively, music progresses and I’m inspired by other artists that I’m listening to and just broadening my music library and just taking inspiration from all types of genres. So yeah, maturing and expanding.
I remember a post you shared in early 2021 where you celebrated your signing to Capitol Music Group. What made that the perfect time and the perfect place to lock in a deal?
It was the perfect time because the three years prior, I just kept leveling up and I’ve worked with about 99% of the people that I looked up to. My first year, I worked with Beyonce and Jay-Z, my second year, I was a big Chris Brown fan growing up and I was able to score one of the biggest cultural records with him. Then, the year after that, I got the biggest pop songs, so it was just like, where do I go from here? I definitely wanted to try something new, and having so much success so early and so quickly, I just felt like that was the right next step. Also, the year before that, Beyonce featured me on “My Power.” So it was really the best timing for me. The reason why I chose Capitol was I was signed by Jeff Vaugh (Chairman/CEO of CMG). Me and Jeff, we’ve known each other over the years because he used to work at Artist Partner Group, so we’ve worked a lot especially at the beginning of my career because he was Kehlani’s A&R and I’ve worked a lot with her — my first hit was “Ring” with Cardi and her. My main thing was I wanted to go somewhere where they were passionate about me, and you know, he was the chairman. He really, really saw my vision as well as Amber Grimes (former SVP and Global Creative of CMG), so that was the perfect place for me.
Now that you’re forging your path as an artist, how has it been balancing creating work for yourself and other artists?
I feel like I’ve had to be more focused add more structure to my schedule. I ended up carving two or three days for me and/or two to three days writing for other people. So it’d be one and off three and two and separate them for each, so that was a big thing. I had to take like a month and a half off just to solely focus on me. I wasn’t doing writing sessions, which was different for me because that’s my everyday life, going to sessions and working with other artists, but I was locked in with myself. Creatively, I had to approach songs differently than I would when working with another artist because I had no boundaries. I was able to use my whole range, I was able to experiment with different melodies and flows, and not be scared or have to limit myself for it to work for multiple people. So it was definitely a lot of change.
The title of your debut project, Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You, and the music within it presents a double entendre to listeners which is your arrival and impact in the music industry and the energy and qualities you bring to the table in a relationship. Was this intentional, if so, how did you fit them together?
Yeah, it was definitely intention because there are two sides to me, right? Everyone knows that I’m a songwriter and it’s hard to break out of that stigma of songwriters making it out and transferring into an artist and into the spotlight. But, I would never box myself in and I would never let anybody box me into one thing. It’s me telling the music industry and just telling the world, don’t say I didn’t warn you about how I’m coming and in the music that I’m creating, and I’m gonna beat the odds. Then, the story that I’m telling is about my past relationships. It was toxic, it was up and down, and you know, it was me saying “don’t say I didn’t want you” to him. So definitely, it was very intentional with the double entendre.
What were some of the sources of inspiration for this project?
The sources of inspiration were definitely Pop Smoke because I wanted to experiment with the New York drill scene. One of my main things was definitely combining R&B and drill. I’d been saying for months that I wanted to hear an actual singing song on top of a drill beat, so that was one of the inspirations. Also, I was listening to a lot of rap, a lot of pop, and a lot of R&B, and I just really wanted to combine all of those while using freeform melodies, flows, and structures on the records. Content-wise, where I drew inspiration from was just the past three years of my life being in my past relationship and the ups and downs of what we were going through and the feelings after a breakup. Also, me going through my 20s, maturing, becoming an adult, and just being young and successful and dealing with all of that. Achieving so many of those things while also learning how to be an adult at the same time. It definitely gave me a lot to talk about.
Another notable thing about this project is that you’re always in control on these songs, like “You Don’t Love Her” for example. What was your thought process with this direction?
For me, I always want to come from a position of power. I feel like a lot of the R&B that we listened to today is very — I don’t want to say, in the victim realm — but it’s always like, “Oh, you hurt me. Oh it’s me, I’m so sad.” We’ve seen a change within the female rap genre and they’re always in a position of power. I love listening to female rap and the power that they stand for and just always having such confidence. I want to hear that in R&B music. That’s the energy that I carry in general. I always want to make sure that I never feel like the victim or like I’m taking the L. I always want to come out on top because pride is a big thing as well. I never want to feel like I’m losing or just being a victim.
Was there more pressure for you behind writing and create creating content for this specific project as opposed to writing creative content for other people?
Definitely, I feel in the beginning there wasn’t a lot of pressure. I was just doing my own thing and really taking time for ourselves. But when it came down to the wire and it was like, okay, we have 75% of this and we see where this going and see how good this could be, that’s when the pressure was on. I just had to make sure that my mind music matched up to what people know me for. I have a lot of hits under my belt and there’s oftentimes where people feel like the songwriter gave their best songs away. I never want it to feel like that about me, especially because I feel like this is some of the best work that I’ve done. These are my stories, these are my sounds, I feel like I can’t hear other artists singing these records. That’s what’s most important to me. So the pressure was definitely on towards the end of it.
For those who are hearing you in front of the mic for the first time, what do you want them to keep in mind as they listen to your debut project?
One thing I one thing to keep in mind is that I am not the other records that you’ve heard me pen on, they were meant for other people. I want everyone to listen to this with an open mind and a clean slate and not compare this album, or this project, to my past work, that’s one thing. Two, I want everyone listening to this with expecting to heal, especially if they’re going through a toxic relationship. I feel like this is one of those projects where it’ll help you overcome those feelings. It’s definitely not something I’d be down in the dumps with. So those are definitely two things that I want them to keep in mind.
Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You is out now via Capitol Music Group. You can stream it here.
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