Music

Corey Taylor Of Slipknot Thinks Kanye West Is A ‘F*cking Moron’ For His ‘Donda 2’ Stem Player Release

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Kanye West is one of the more outspoken artists in music today, but he’s far from the only one. One of his peers who has developed a bit of a reputation for picking fights with other musicians is Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, who has never been known to hold his tongue. He’s never been a fan of some of Kanye’s more outrageous stunts, either, vehemently refusing Kanye’s claim of being the world’s “greatest living rock star” in 2015. More recently, it seems Kanye has once again got Taylor’s goat, prompting him to thrash the recently-divorced rapper in an interview with Metro UK.

This time, he’s taking issue with Kanye’s Donda 2 release tactic of selling the album exclusively through his $200 stem player, which Taylor characterized as “pompous and ridiculous,” going so far as calling Kanye a “f*cking moron” over it. The stem player, which separates the music into four separate tracks or “stems,” allows fans to transform the music as it plays, controlling the volume on each track and allowing some degree of speed and sound reversing. To Taylor, this is akin to “releasing all the parts for a car and sending them to people’s houses and going there, you got a free car, now you’ve got to figure out how to build the goddamn thing.”

Contrary to Taylor’s comments, the album is pre-downloaded in full and the touch controls merely allow fans to play around with how each song plays — i.e., lowering drums or vocals (my personal favorite use for it so far). Although his words suggest a slight misunderstanding of how the stem player works, Taylor’s got another point as well. “You’re assuming that the audience has the access and same technology that you have but you’re a f**king moron for doing that. Are you serious? It doesn’t work that way. The thinking that that’s a smart thing to do just shows you how convoluted and off the f**king property Kanye West really is.”

“When you’ve got that much money and that much people around you telling you exactly what you want to hear, your concept of reality just goes right out the f*cking window,” he continued. “People can’t afford their f*cking apartments for f*ck’s sake. It’s not right. It’s just so pompous and ridiculous.” He’s kind of got a point there; as fans have already programmed emulators to get around having to buy the players. Even Nipsey Hussle still kept his $100 mixtape, Crenshaw, free to stream while also running his “proud to pay” campaign, and he offered value besides periodic patches of an unfinished project. And while Kanye claims that the stem player returns profits and control back to artists, he has yet to demonstrate how the $200 devices really benefit anyone other than himself.

Pete Davidson Reportedly Found Kanye West’s ‘Eazy’ Video ‘Hysterical’ And ‘Ridiculous’

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Although Kanye West’s macabre, stop-motion animation video for his and the Game’s new song “Eazy” has ruffled a lot of feathers on the internet, even prompting a response from the artist himself arguing for his right to express himself artistically, at least person — arguably, the person who should be most offended by it — reportedly found it pretty darn amusing.

Pete Davidson, whom Kanye targeted in the video with a claymation effigy that gets kidnapped, buried, and turned into a planter, found Kanye’s video “hysterical,” according to Entertainment Tonight Online. A source told ET that not is Pete “not threatened by Kanye in any way, shape or form,” but that he also “finds the fact that Kanye included a cartoon version of him in his music video hysterical. He is almost flattered by it all because it is so ridiculous to him.”

Kanye’s anger at the comedian stems from the fact that Davidson has been dating Kim Kardashian, Kanye’s ex-wife, for the past several months as the couple takes opposing views on their ongoing divorce. While West wants to reconcile, Kardashian has expressed repeatedly she has no desire to do so, even going so far as to request the court expedite the legal status of their split — which was granted last week, on the same day Kanye shared the “Eazy” video on Instagram.

Kanye’s since taken down the video, replacing it with his post denying that it was a legitimate threat to Davidson. Meanwhile, ETOnline reports that Pete and Kim have decided that the video is an obvious bid to cause friction between them but say it’s done just the opposite, bringing them closer together as Kanye keeps attacking both via social media.

The Weeknd Will Cross Off A Bucket List Item By Guest-Starring On ‘The Simpsons’

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2020 was major year for The Weeknd’s foray into animation. First he got to appear in an episode of one of his favorite shows, American Dad, and just months later, he voiced some characters on Robot Chicken. Here in 2022, he’s getting back into the saddle, as he is set to make an appearance on the cartoon: The Simpsons.

According to The Futon Critic, The Weeknd is set to voice a couple characters, Orion Hughes and Darius Hughes, on the March 20 episode, titled “Bart The Cool Kid.” An episode synopsis reads, “When Bart befriends a famous kid influencer who owns an ultra-cool skate wear brand, Homer leads a rebellion of loser dads against them.” Michael Rapaport is also set to guest star as as Mike Wegman.

The Weeknd himself confirmed the news by shared a report from a fan account on Twitter and writing, “proud of this one.”

Shortly before the premiere of his American Dad episode, The Weeknd indicated that getting to appear on The Simpsons would be a dream come true, saying in a Variety interview, “American Dad was everything I wanted. It’s going to be hard to beat this in the TV cartoon world, but an obvious bucket list would be to work on The Simpsons. That would be a dream — and if they’re reading this, I actually have a pretty cool idea if they’re down.”

DaBaby Defends His Controversial Call To Action At Rolling Loud: ‘I Didn’t Mean What You Think I Meant’

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DaBaby’s career may never fully recover from his controversial statements on the Rolling Loud stage in Miami last year, but apparently, that won’t stop him from continuing to defend himself from accusations of homophobia. During a recent appearance on New York’s The Breakfast Club, he once again addressed the backlash sparked by his awkwardly-worded call to action, pointing out how social media can warp perceptions, and refusing to make apologies for himself.

“I didn’t mean what you think I meant,” he said. “What you want me to do? Go look myself in the mirror and say, ‘You don’t like gay people?’ Nah. I’m not trippin’ on gay people at all. If I said what I said to get people to raise they cell phones and it was misinterpreted by people who watch a five-second clip at home. You not supposed to understand what’s going on. You could raise your cell phone if you wanted to. You ain’t supposed to be able to digest a clip that’s been altered and shortened with a narrative to go along with it, with enough people driving it, it gonna do what it do.”

However, he’s still failed to address how and why his comment was taken so poorly, or successfully explain what he really meant. During his set, as he hyped up the Rolling Loud crowd, he said, “If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDS, or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases, that’ll make you die in two to three weeks, then put your cellphone lighter up… Fellas, if you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot, put your cellphone lighter up.”

Since it’s easy to see how such a statement could be interpreted as homophobic — to say nothing of the misinformation about people living with HIV and/or AIDS — the least he could do is acknowledge as much while providing an alternative translation. And while he did issue two separate quasi-apologies on Instagram, he later deleted both and has since argued that the people who took offense were being too sensitive and twisting his words.

Watch the clip above.

Vince Staples Gets Jumped At A House Party In His ‘Magic’ Video

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Vince Staples runs into some trouble during a house party in his new video for “Magic.” The video opens with Vince buying a bag of frozen vegetables at the liquor store, only revealing that he’s in a bad state as he reaches the counter. When the clerk asks if everything is okay, Vince stoically (but vaguely) replies, “Party down the street. You should have seen me.”

That’s when the video cuts back to watching Vince entering the party in a clever callback to his entrance to the liquor store. Things go left for Vince when he bumps into the wrong guy while trying to have a good time, resulting in him leaving the party with a different set of souvenirs than the ones he came for. The song’s producer, Mustard, also makes a cameo, shaking his head at the overt displays of machismo that ultimately result in Vince’s injuries.

“Magic” is the first single from Vince’s upcoming album, Ramona Park Broke My Heart, which he first began teasing even before releasing its predecessor, the self-titled Vince Staples, last year. The single was first teased in a Beats By Dre commercial featuring Naomi Osaka. This year, he suggested that the album might finally be ready to go once he secured a beat from DJ Quik, which seemingly manifested the outcome he wanted; days later, he’d posted a photo from the studio with the iconic Compton producer. That would suggest (along with the tweet below) that Ramona Broke My Heart is complete and ready for release sometime this year.

Until then, enjoy the “Magic” video above.

Post Malone Asks A Federal Court To Dismiss The Lawsuit Against Him Over ‘Circles’ Songwriting Credit

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Post Malone wants a lawsuit against him over a songwriting credit on his hit song “Circles” dismissed, according to Rolling Stone. Post is being sued by Canadian musician Tyler Armes, who demands a share of the authorship on the song, saying he played a guitar tune that was eventually worked into the final composition. Armes says that Post’s management offered a five percent share of the publishing royalties but withdrew the offer when he tried to negotiate for a larger cut.

However, Post has countered with a new filing saying that Armes did not contribute anything significant or original to the recording or the composition of the song in the one recording session he was present for in August 2018. According to Post’s lawyers, Armes only played an “admittedly extremely commonplace guitar chord progression,” while also possibly singing a “fragment of guitar melody” that went unrecorded.

The documents filed in federal court split absolutely no hairs about it, reading, “Armes does not have a shred of affirmative evidence with which to meet his burden of proof that his alleged contribution to the guitar melody is original. Armes admitted that his contributions did not even rise to the level of originality, which is also required in addition to the fixation requirement. He either conceded that his ideas were commonplace musical devices or failed to meet his burden to demonstrate any originality otherwise. Armes thus cannot even establish the threshold requirement that he made a copyrightable contribution.”

Post and his co-producer/co-defendant Frank Dukes have requested that the case be summarily dismissed in an April 4 hearing. Meanwhile, Post’s manager has suggested that the singer’s follow-up album is being held back by his label.

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Nicki Minaj Says Drake May Have A Unique Contribution To Her Upcoming Album

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Nicki Minaj and Drake have collaborated numerous times, especially during their time as artists on Lil Wayne’s Young Money imprint. Their records together include “Moment 4 Life,” “Make Me Proud,” “Up All Night,” “Only,” “No Frauds,” “Seeing Green,” and more. Their most recent collaboration came when Minaj made a brief appearance on Drake’s “Papi’s Home,” off his sixth album, Certified Lover Boy. If another collaboration were to come soon, it would probably be housed on Nicki’s upcoming fifth album. During a quick Q&A with fans on Twitter, Minaj hinted at what a reconnection with Drake might look like.

“We getting a champagne papi collab on this new album?” one person asked Nicki on Twitter. “We actually discussed him EP’ing this new album,” she replied. “That was b4 Seeing Green even came out.”

It remains to be seen whether or not Drake will executive produce Nicki’s next album, but considering that “Seeing Green” was released in May 2020, it appears that the rappers have given the idea some thought. If it does happen, it would be the first album, outside of his own, that Drake’s executive produced in his career.

As for Nicki’s upcoming album, so far she’s given us two tracks that could appear on it: “Do We Have A Problem?” and “Bussin.” Both songs include a guest appearance from Lil Baby.

Megan Thee Stallion And Dua Lipa Are Teasing A Sweet New Song That Drops Soon

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Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa both had strong albums back in 2020. For Megan, it was her debut album, Good News, which peaked at No. 2 on the albums chart. Earlier that year, Dua Lipa released her sophomore album, Future Nostalgia, and while that peaked at No. 4, it did spawn a pair of top-two singles: “Don’t Start Now” and “Levitating.” As of today, the two artists have yet to work on a song together (though fans did pair them for an unofficial remix of “Levitating”), but now Megan and Dua have collaborated ona new track that’s coming soon.

In a post to her Instagram page, Lipa shared a brief preview of the song. In it, Megan says, “Hot girl sh*t, me and Dua Lipa finna get the party lit”, while Lipa sings softly in the background. On Megan’s Instagram, she shared what could be the cover art for the song. A title for the upcoming song has yet to be revealed, but they did confirm that it will arrive on March 11. Additionally, singer and Grammy-winning songwriter Nija has a contribution on it, as she revealed on Instagram.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.