Music

Drakeo The Ruler’s Brother Files His Expected Lawsuit Against Live Nation For Drakeo’s Murder

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It’s been a while, but LA rapper Devante Caldwell — aka Ralfy The Plug — has filed his expected lawsuit against Live Nation for the wrongful death of his brother Drakeo The Ruler, according to TMZ. This is a separate lawsuit from the one filed by the two rappers’ mother, Tianna Purtue, on behalf of Drakeo’s son, Caiden Caldwell. Ralfy’s suit — which also includes members of his and Drakeo’s Stinc Team crew — provides additional details about the attack at Once Upon A Time In LA that ended with Drakeo being fatally stabbed in the neck.

Describing the assault as a “violent mob attack” that lasted for as much as 15 minutes, the suit alleges that Drakeo was attacked within minutes of arriving, which they did through two separate checkpoints Caldwell’s legal team calls “lackadaisical.” Two staffers at the first waved in anyone with an all-access pass, while the second had only a metal detector and a small group of security guards who did not search all of the vehicles. The suit names Live Nation, Snoop Dogg’s LLC, C3 Presents, Bobby Dee Presents, and the Los Angeles Football Club, owners of the Banc Of California Stadium where the festival took place, as defendants. While no dollar amount has yet been reported, Purtue’s suit demands up to $60 million in damages.

Joshua Bassett’s Doppelgänger’ Video Co-Star Bears An Uncanny Resemblance To A Certain Pop Star

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Well, Joshua Bassett has been having a strange one lately! The rising pop star and High School Musical: The Musical: The Show star was caught up in a rumored love triangle last year when his alleged ex-girlfriend Olivia Rodrigo became one of the biggest pop stars in the world with a trifecta of searing breakup songs. As Sour took over the world, Joshua’s profile as her co-star on High School Musical was pretty impacted by her newfound fame. And from the sound of Olivia’s album — which, to be clear, could’ve been about anyone or completely fictional! — Bassett would’ve been the one who ended the relationship.

Since then, Bassett has been pretty mum about the subject, releasing plenty of songs about love and loss on his own, but perhaps today’s is the most direct update he’s given on the subject for a while. In a video for a new song called “Doppelgänger,” Bassett falls for a girl who looks very similar to Olivia. It’s like all the drama of early 2021, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Skin,” and Bassett’s own “Lie Lie Lie” is starting back up all over again. As for the video, Bassett co-directed it with Elle Mills. Check out the clip above and see if you notice any similarities, and you will, because they’re basically impossible to miss.

Famous Arthur Lookalike John Legend Could Actually Star In An ‘Arthur’ Movie

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An era came to an end recently when after 25 years on the air, the series finale of beloved children’s show Arthur aired last week. The long-running cartoon has been a major part of meme culture in recent years, including the idea that John Legend bears a striking resemblance to the animated titular aardvark. Now, that situation could actually come full circle: In a new interview, Marc Brown, who created the Arthur show and wrote the books it’s based on, noted an Arthur movie “might” be the in the works, and furthermore, it seems he’d really like Legend to be involved.

Brown said:

“My son Tolon has been a producer on the show almost since it started, and he’s working with me, as Peter Hirsch is, on this new show Hop. But he had this idea several years ago about wouldn’t it be interesting to do a live-action version of Arthur. I couldn’t wrap my head around it completely, but it’s an intriguing thought. There might be a feature film in the works soon, too, about Arthur. I’m so excited [laughs]. There was one maybe 15 years ago, and the right people weren’t coming together, so I pulled the plug on it. But now, we’ve got a great idea. I think it’s going to be intriguing for kids. It’s going to be helpful to kids. The subject matter is very timely, and maybe there is even a really interesting person involved… I mean, if I could pick one person I would love to be a part of this project, it might be John Legend.”

He also referenced Legend earlier in the interview when answering a question about the series finale being for both kids today and the now-adults who grew up with Arthur, saying, “I was really happy because I mean, I see myself as Arthur a lot. Sorry, John Legend. We’re going to have to share him here [laughs]. You know, he’s a lot of me when I was in third grade. And I think if I were in third grade now and I was thinking about a career, a graphic novelist made sense. It put my loves together: telling stories, being an artist, and using pictures. So I was really happy that Peter [Hirsch, a writer on Arthur] came up with that idea. It felt right to me.”

Legend hasn’t shied away from the Arthur comparisons and has in fact embraced them, like in a 2018 Google ad when he donned a full Arthur outfit and even re-created the Arthur’s fist meme.

Check out the full interview here.

Kanye West Fans Reportedly Created A Stem Player Emulator To Get ‘Donda 2’ Without Paying $200

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It looks like the price tag of Kanye West’s album may have been too much for even his most hardcore fans to stomach. According to Digital Music News, fans are finding alternative methods of securing Donda 2 to avoid paying $200 for the stem player on which it currently exclusively available, writing an emulator program to allow fans to download the album without the device. DNN took the below screenshot of a Reddit post in which the poster says they stayed up all night to write the tool, which allows users to both download the stems and manipulate them in the same way.

Whether this affects the overall fervor for Donda 2 remains to be seen, but it was a risk Kanye was willing to take to maintain as much control over his music revenue as possible. When he announced that his new album would be exclusive to the stem player, he explained, “Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own.” To that end, he also claimed to have turned down a $100 million deal with Apple Music.

After previewing the album at a Miami listening event, Kanye released first four songs, then another 16 to the stem player site. Because of the nature of being able to release his music in this way, there’s no telling whether he’s even done with it, but then, giving fans the option of remixing the tracks to their hearts’ desires largely takes the onus off of the rapper to do that part. We’ll see if his gamble pays off, but with fans finding ways to circumvent the exclusivity and novelty of his stem player, it’s possible that he loses out on at least some of that potential extra profit.

Snoop Dogg Requests To Have The Sexual Assault Case Against Him Dismissed

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Snoop Dogg, who was sued for sexual assault by an anonymous woman claiming to be a former employee earlier this month, has asked the court to dismiss the case, saying both that the details in the suit are false and that the alleged assault is outside of the statute of limitations for prosecution.

“Nothing remotely resembling plaintiff’s story about defendant Calvin Broadus ever happened,” his defense wrote in a filing obtained by Rolling Stone. “He vehemently denies ever engaging in any sex act with plaintiff or assaulting or battering her. She provides no allegations of any statement by defendant that he would help her career, and no allegations of any statement about how defendant might advance her career. Instead, the only allegation plaintiff makes is that [co-defendant Donald] Campbell — not defendant — said going to the studio where defendant was would be ‘a career move.”

Snoop’s lawyers characterized the lawsuit as “a thinly veiled attempt to extort defendant for money,” as it was filed just days before his Super Bowl halftime performance with Dr. Dre. The co-defendant in the lawsuit is Bishop Don Magic Juan, the personality and fashion designer who popped up in Snoop’s videos in the late 2000s.

The accuser, going by Jane Doe, said that while working for Snoop as a dancer in 2013, Snoop and Juan assaulted her after a concert at Club Heat Ultra Lounge in Anaheim, California.

Dominic Fike Discusses A ‘Euphoria’ Fan Theory He Might Actually Believe And Performs On ‘The Tonight Show’

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Dominic Fike is in the midst of a major moment: His music career is going swimmingly and he’s a star of one of the biggest shows of the moment, Euphoria. He brought both those sides of himself to The Tonight Show yesterday, where he performed and sat down for a chat with Jimmy Fallon.

Fallon presented a few Euphoria fan theories to Fike, and the first of them is one that Fike said had him really thinking about it. Regarding the idea that Fike’s character Elliot is actually Nate’s estranged brother, Fike said, “I’m not even going to lie: I saw this one online, and I looked at it for a while and there were so many things connecting and so many people were talking about it all through these Reddit threads, and at the end of it, I was like, ‘Am I Nate’s brother?’ I almost called him up and asked him.”

He wasn’t as convinced by the idea that Elliot doesn’t actually exist and he skirted a question about whether Tom Holland, Zendaya’s Spider-Man co-star, would appear on the current Euphoria season.

Fike also spoke about working with Paul McCartney on his McCartney III Imagined album and said that he initially blocked McCartney’s phone number, telling Fallon, “Naturally, when you get a call from anything that you think is spam, you block the number, you delete it, you know what I mean?” Fallon asked, “You blocked Paul McCartney’s number,” and Fike responded, “Immediately, yeah.”

He also performed “Babydoll” on the show and smoothly found his way through a minor mishap. About a minute into the performance, he accidentally knocked down a microphone stand while turning around. When he realized what happened, he slipped a quick “Oh, that fell” into his lyrics and didn’t miss a beat as Fallon helped out by picking the stand up.

Check out the interview and performance above.

Leikeli47 Announces Her New Album ‘Shape Up’ And Releases The Assertive Single ‘BITM’

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Masked Brooklyn-native rapper Leikeli47 is showing off her love for New York in the video for her new single “BITM,” which comes from her just-announced album Shape Up out this spring. It’s her third LP overall but will serve as the finale to her trilogy, following 2017’s Wash Set and 2018’s Acrylic.

The song has a daunting, pulsating beat and assertive, whisper-like vocals as she repeats the confident hook, “B*tch, I’m the man.” The eerie atmosphere is full of echoes and reverberations, and the bridge features a kind of chant about rent being due. It’s idiosyncratic and hypnotic, like her previous single “Chitty Bang,” which was released earlier this year after being on the Madden ’22 soundtrack and then mysteriously disappearing late last year. It has been confirmed as a track on this new album. Earlier in the pandemic, she also unleashed the aptly-titled “Zoom,” whose creative video borrowed its aesthetic from the 16-bit video games of yesteryear, featuring an animated version of Leikeli.

Watch the video for “BITM” above, which features footage from a recent performance of hers at a sold-out show at Elsewhere. Find the album artwork for Shape Up below.

Leikeli47 Shape Up
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Shape Up is out 4/14 via Hardcover/RCA Records.

Polo G And Lil Baby Are Strictly Business In Their Rugged Video For ‘Don’t Play’

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Nearly six months after he released his third album Hall Of Fame, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard albums charts, Polo G returned with more music for fans to enjoy with Hall Of Fame 2.0. The project is a deluxe reissue of his third album which presents 14 additional songs and features from NLE Choppa, Lil Baby, Moneybagg Yo, Lil Tjay, and YungLiv. In a continued effort to promote the project, Polo G returns with a new video for “Don’t Play.”

The visual sees Polo G paired with Lil Baby, who also has a verse on the song, as the two rappers show that they’re strictly about their business. Their militant approach to life has earned them the many things they show off in the video: jewelry, luxury cars, and a crew that’s ready to support them at any moment. “Don’t Play” joins a number of tracks from Hall Of Fame 2.0 that have received the visual treatment. They include “Fortnight,” “Young N Dumb,” “Unapologetic,” Heatin Up,” and “Start Up Again.”

You can watch the video for “Don’t Play” above.

Hall Of Fame 2.0 is out now via Columbia Records. Get it here.

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

Rubi Rose Gets Freaky At A Family Dinner In Her Scandelous Video For ‘I Like’

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Rubi Rose has forged a path of her own in the music world after she began her career back in 2019. Prior to that, she initially gained fame for being the main model in Migos’ music video for “Bad And Boujee.” Over the years, Rose has grown her fan base and legitimized her position as a female rapper through solid releases like her debut project, 2020’s For The Streets which presented songs with PartyNextDoor, Future, and Cardi B. After a quiet 2021, Rubi is back in action with her brand new single, “I Like.”

On the new track, Rubi lists the things she enjoys in a man, whether it be their appearance, personality, or the way they treat her. The song also arrives with a matching visual. In it, Rubi is sitting at the dinner table with her family when they ask her what she likes in a man. Initially reluctant to answer the question, Rubi offers a raunchy response that also finds her twerking on the table and showing off her assets.

Rubi’s latest release comes after she appeared on “Nasty,” a raunchy collaboration between herself, Latto, Rich The Kid, and Flo Milli. Last year, she was also selected to the 2021 XXL Freshman Class list alongside names like 42 Dugg, Blxst, Pooh Shiesty, and more.

You can watch the video for “I Like” above.

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

Flo Milli Makes It Clear That Her Beauty Isn’t Up For Debate On ‘PBC’

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This summer will mark two years since Flo Milli made her splash in the rap world with her debut project Ho, Why Is You Here? The 12-song effort came with no features and saw the Alabama rapper shine brightly thanks to her infectious attitude and her impressive lyricism. We’ve yet to receive a follow-up project from Flo Milli, but she has continued to impress with singles and guest features. Today marks an example of the former as she returns with her new song “PBC.”

Flo Milli’s new record, which stands as an abbreviation for “Pretty Black Cute,” finds setting the record straight on her beauty. She makes it clear that there are no asterisks or footnotes to her looks and everything should be taken as is. “Pretty for what? / Pretty for who?” she raps. “I’m really like that / Who are you?” The song was initially previewed during Tia Adeola’s fashion show during this month’s New York Fashion Week. According to OkayPlayer, Flo Milli said the song is about “Black women finding their power, wearing their natural hair, everything that makes you pretty, Black and cute.”

The new song comes after Flo Milli and Rico Nasty joined forces for “Money” last year. During 2021, she also dropped solo singles like “Roaring 20s” and “Ice Baby” during a year that also saw her get selected to the 2021 XXL Freshman Class.

You can listen to “PBC” and enjoy a skit from Flo Milli that strikes as a hilarious flip of a viral clip from America’s Next Top Model in the videos above.