In a new interview with MTV News, Lil Baby revealed the title of his and Lil Durk‘s hotly-anticipated joint mixtape. While there was some doubt that such a project even really existed, Baby insisted that “Me and Durk dropping an album for sure” before revealing that the album in question is titled The Voice Of The Heroes. Baby explained the title as well, saying, “When it comes to that street sh*t, that ‘hood sh*t, we like the heroes. The kids look at us as heroes.”
Further detailing the contents of the album, Baby promised a variety of different song styles. “We got songs with bars, we got songs with vibes,” he said. “It’s gonna be one of the craziest albums to ever come out… We got more than one album recorded. We been locked in with each other. That sh*t easy.”
The two rappers first teased the potential crossover project in the wake of their “Finesse Out The Gang Way” video from Durk’s 2020 album The Voice. A few weeks later, they went into full promo mode, posting about the mixtape all over their social channels. With Lil Baby revealing the tape’s title, perhaps the release date will follow. Until then, fans will just have to wait for more details and run back “3 Headed Goat” on repeat.
Every so often, Saturday Night Live unveils their next lineup of hosts and performers by sharing the names unceremoniously scribbled on Post-it Notes. The brightly-colored sticky notes have once again returned to disclose which musical acts have been booked for the first two episodes in April, revealing that St. Vincent and Kid Cudi are set to take the late-night stage. Jack Harlow is also featured in the announcement, although his upcoming appearance was revealed last month.
St. Vincent has been booked for SNL on April 3, almost exactly a month after the singer announced her anticipated album Daddy’s Home, which is slated for a May release. She’ll be appearing alongside host Daniel Kaluuya, who recently starred in the Oscar-nominated film Judas And The Black Messiah. St. Vincent’s performance will mark the second time the singer has been invited to play her music on the SNL stage since 2014.
Following St. Vincent’s episode, Kid Cudi will take the SNL stage on April 10, hosted by Carey Mulligan. Kid Cudi previously appeared on the show back in 2018 to make a cameo in a sketch with Kanye West, but April’s episode will be the rapper’s musical debut on the program.
Sharing the news on social media, St. Vincent expressed her excitement: “Saturday Night Live has been my favorite show since I was a kid and I can’t believe I get to play it AGAIN,” she wrote.
Saturday Night Live has been my favorite show since I was a kid and I can’t believe I get to play it AGAIN! #SNLhttps://t.co/7smXhKbm8V
Although Rich Brian had some breakout singles in 2020, including his “Tokyo Drift” freestyle and the Guapdad 4000-featuring “Bali,” and released a seven-song EP, 1999, the Indonesian rapper has been relatively quiet over the past year, soaking up the success of his 2019 full-length, The Sailor.
Today, he released his first single of 2021, “Sydney.” Featuring a video-gamey, constantly evolving beat, the bouncy song finds Brian filling up the pages of his rhyme book with abstract, multi-syllabic thoughts about his growth as an artist. One fun example: “I show my love to legends, that’s why I like my own pictures.”
Speaking with Uproxx last year about his time social distancing during LA’s pandemic quarantine, Brian revealed how intentional his artistic growth has been. “I’ve been getting back to producing more,” he shared. “I’ve always produced and I started learning how to produce when I was like 16, 17. So, that’s always been a nice little skill to have just because it makes it easier for me to make songs and I don’t have to talk to people about what I want all the time. It just makes songwriting a lot better, and being able to learn arrangements and what these little languages are.”
“And it’s been a lot of different kinds of music,” he continued. “A lot of hip-hop stuff, then a lot of really melodic stuff, and that’s what comes out when I produce. I can’t really just do one thing because it gets really boring for me. So I try to switch it up.
Over the course of his career, Anderson .Paak has been gradually climbing his way up the Billboard charts. His four albums — Venice, Malibu, Oxnard, and Ventura — have performed progressively better on the Billboard 200: .Paak’s debut didn’t chart, then the other three records peaked respectively at Nos. 79, 11, and 4. This hasn’t translated to success on the Hot 100 chart for .Paak, though, as prior to this week, he never had a song appear on the chart.
That changed this week, however, thanks to his new supergroup with Bruno Mars, Silk Sonic. The band’s debut single, “Leave The Door Open,” debuted at No. 4 on the Hot 100 chart dated March 20. Getting on the Hot 100 is a major milestone, so naturally, .Paak is pretty excited.
.Paak shared an image of the top ten spots of the chart and wrote on Instagram, “Ima stretch this goose neck to The moooon!! All I can say is thank you!!!! To have a song like this debut in the hot 100 ( my first song to ever make it up there ) is truly amazing. It can’t happen without hard work and yalls support. Thanks for pushing everyone to greatness @brunomars and showing us new heights! I’ll never come down!! let’s keep rising! We love you for this!!! Y’all gonna have me faded all damn week!!”
Revisit Mars and .Paak’s recent debut performance of the song at the 2021 Grammys here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
It has been a few years since Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins released a full-length project. Although he released an EP, The Circus, in January of last year, the critical and cult favorite has laid low since 2018, when he shared Pieces Of A Man. However, one exception to that trend was his appearance on Kaytranada‘s late 2019 album Bubba, on which Mick contributed a verse on the song “Gray Area.” Now, two days after that album won a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album, the two iconoclastic artists reunite on “Designer Frames.”
Given dance music’s roots in 1980s Chicago House music and Mick’s deep ties to his hometown’s musical history, his chemistry with Kaytranada should come as no surprise and requires little adjustment from either artist to fit into an easygoing groove. The mid-tempo beat Kaytranada provides takes cues from traditional African drum rhythms with a mellow synthesizer rounding things out. Meanwhile, Mick boasts of his “$1,000 Cazals” and coolly delivers a trademark, dense-packed vocal performance with some truly impressive wordplay.
On Twitter, Mick was coy about whether or not the new track would preface a full collection of music in the near future, although he did that he was shooting a video. He’s also getting into the crypto art game as well, sharing a new song as an NFT. Listen to “Designer Frames” below.
It’s only been a few weeks since “NFT” became the new buzzword, and many people have already capitalized on them. These non-fungible tokens are being used to sell digital artwork at a steep price. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is selling the first-ever tweet as an NFT and Grimes made $6 million in one day by selling her artwork on an NFT marketplace. Now following in Grimes’ footsteps, Elon Musk is breaking into the NFT industry through music.
The Tesla CEO and billionaire released an EDM track this week about NFTs, which he’s selling as an NFT. It’s only fitting that the track is techno, as Musk recently officially dubbed himself the “Technoking of Tesla.” The song itself mostly instrumental, but it does have a few NFT-related lyrics: “NFT for your vanity / Computers never sleep / It’s verified / It’s guaranteed.” Just hours after the song was posted for sale on Valuables, a website hosted by Cent, the highest bid was already for $1.1 million.
While the billionaire is trying to capitalize on the NFT craze, some of his followers are joining him. “I’m selling this screenshot of Elon’s song he’s selling about NFTs as an NFT as an NFT,” one user jokingly wrote underneath the song.
I’m selling this screenshot of Elon’s song he’s selling about NFTs as an NFT as an NFT pic.twitter.com/NcQK7N1jdf
Surprisingly, Musk is no stranger to music-making. Of course, it’d be hard not to be if your partner was Grimes. In early 2020, Musk made his EDM debut with the rhythmic track “Don’t Doubt Ur Vibe,” a follow-up to his heavily-AutoTuned rap single “RIP Harambe.”
While King Von‘s posthumous appearance on the new video for “Jump” is an obvious highlight, the clip also displays the chemistry that runs throughout Lil Durk‘s OTF crew. Fellow Only The Family members Booka600 and Memo600 set things off with a give-and-go verse showing off their complementary mindsets, then Von and Durk bat cleanup. In the video, Booka and Memo hold down a gangsta house party, while Von and Durk’s half of the song soundtracks an apparent midnight meeting between two twitchy gangs.
“Jump” is the latest posthumous appearance of the late King Von, who was killed in Atlanta after being shot in a nightclub parking lot during a fistfight. While Durk has put forth a heroic effort to keep his friend’s music at the forefront of pop culture, releasing the “Still Trappin” video as one of the singles from his album The Voice, Von verses became a hot commodity shortly after his death even without Durk. Fivio Foreign and PNB Rock both included appearances from Von on recent releases, while Von’s album Welcome To O-Block spawned the posthumous single “Armed & Dangerous.”
“Jump” also constitutes one of Von’s three appearances on the new OTF compilation, Loyal Bros, which was released earlier this month. The project also features cameos from some of rap’s biggest names, including Lil Uzi Vert, Tee Grizzley, and rising star Foogiano. You can listen to it here. ‘
Charm La’Donna is a woman of many talents and she’s ready to let them all unleash. She’s an all-in-one creative outfit who can write a good song and a choreographed routine to go with it. Looking for visual creative direction? Charm can handle that too.
In fact, some of the biggest names in the industry have put their faith in her abilities such as Selena Gomez, Rosalía, Madonna, and even once opened up for fellow Compton native Kendrick Lamar. The greatness only gets greater, though. More recently, Charm choreographed Dua Lipa’s electrifying Grammy performance with DaBaby and she also was the woman behind The Weeknd’s prodigious half-time performance at this year’s Super Bowl.
In between all of that, somehow she also has found time to create for herself in the midst of the pandemic. Her track “So & So” is one of the first songs she’s released and the video features cameos from some of her closest friends including Selena Gomez (of course), Meghan Trainor, and Fulani, among others, lip-syncing the words to the catchy number.
Following the release of her track “Queen” and its captivating video, Charm talks to Uproxx about her barrier-breaking music career and what it was like once being a dancer during a Super Bowl half-time show with Black Eyed Peas to choreographing The Weeknd’s for this year’s performance.
Philip Cosores
Tell me about the single and the creativity behind your video for “Queen.”
“Queen” stems from me wanting to have a song that felt empowering, that embodied strength and everything of where I’m from. The visuals as well. It’s literally being taken a journey through all of my endeavors, everything that I love. I threw it all in “Queen.” The culture, my culture, where I’m from, how I feel now, how I felt growing up, it’s all in there.
What are some things to you that maybe you included in the video that represents being a queen? What’s a queen to you?
A queen is someone who is powerful in their own right, who is strong, who is also vulnerable, who exudes greatness and follows whatever that is for themselves. One thing for me, I could even say in the video, I love gold. I’ve always loved gold and I love bamboo. So I decided to do something and play with that in the visual and the video. It’s how I rock my bamboos in a way. You see the gold on the dresses and the bamboo and how I rock them and just me being in a swap meet top type of situation. It shows where I’m from and how I grew up, to how I live now. Also, getting my hair braided is very important.
How would you say a queen moves in life and in this industry?
A queen… It’s about being yourself. Being yourself and not compromising your morale and who you are and going after everything you want. Going out to everything you want and people say wearing many hats, I just say wearing many crowns.
That’s kind of my next question because you do so many things. I know you did the Super Bowl choreography for The Weeknd. You’ve done choreography for so many people. You’ve opened up for Kendrick Lamar and all of that. I noticed this industry is dominated by men. It’s so much testosterone. How do you maintain your crown in a room full of men?
Myself, knowing where I come from, knowing who I am as a woman and not compromising that and believing that I can do anything that anyone else can do.
Do you ever feel intimidated or were there ever times where you did feel intimidated and had to make yourself come out of that or evolve out of that?
I don’t think I’ve ever felt intimidated. I felt more-so nervous. When you embark on something new or you try something that people are not known, they don’t know you for trying. You get a sense of maybe nervousness. There was never any form of intimidation though because I come through. I feel like I’m a strong woman and I’m raised by a bunch of women. I don’t think I’ve ever felt intimidated.
How involved are you with your visuals and the creative?
I’m heavily involved in my business. I do my creative. I do my choreography. I’m hands-on with styling. I’m hands-on.
How do you find time? How do you balance it all?
Oh, with a great team. Very great. To be honest, as I am now putting out music I’m still choreographing, I’m still creative directing for different artists as well as myself. It’s just balance; it’s just balance and structure in the best way, but my team has been amazing in helping me do that.
Now, how many more singles do you have coming before you drop a full-length project?
I think I have one more single coming and then I’m going to drop a project.
Philip Cosores
During this journey of you creating your project, creating the visuals for it, and also in between doing choreography for other people, how has that been while making it a priority because I’m pretty sure you have had to do some readjusting, right?
It organically happened for me in the past year. Due to staying at home and with COVID, I kind of took a pause with the world as well. Then when I took that fall, I had my music. It was a time for me to continue being creative and put my stuff out. To not be nervous, not be afraid, even in a time of the unsure, put my stuff out. That was the beginning of the push. As of right now, I have a great balance. I’m able to help others when I can, and there hasn’t been any controversy or any stipulations with it. It’s been cool.
What artists did you grow up listening to that inspire you?
My inspiration of course are a lot of the artists I work with and I’ve been able to collaborate with. I also find inspiration like my mom and my family, friends. I’m inspired… It sounds super cliche to say but I’m inspired by literally just… I intake a lot of energy from different places. I’m inspired by multiple things.
You said that you were raised by mostly women. Who were those women?
My mom, my god-mom my aunt, my grandma, women, all my past teachers, my mentor Fatima Robinson. All these women have played a role in my life.
What could you say is something that… In what way do they support you? Maybe when you need encouragement or if you need somebody to talk to. In what way and how do they support you?
My mom has encouraged me always to follow and follow my dreams. Hard work, push yourself and you’ll be able to conquer whatever it is that you want. Each woman, I think, played a different role. I’ve learned in the industry from Fatima Robinson. My aunt has always been there to encourage me to continue on because I’ve missed growing up, so many family things.
They never made me feel as if though one thing was more important than the other. They were always supportive of me and my dreams and what I wanted. I think that’s important because my grandma is just always been my rock, always been my rock. Even hearing stories of how she grew up and my grandmother’s 95. Those stories have also inspired me and pushed me to be the best I can be.
Is anybody in your family into music, that you looked up to as well?
My brother, he was a writer and a rapper back in the day. That’s where I kind of got my music. That’s where I got the itch to start rapping and getting in the studio with him when I was younger.
What was that like? Were you like little sister following big brother around or just watching him?
Yeah, it really was. Exactly. He would pick me up from school because my mom was working and I would go to the studio with him before dance class or after dance class until it was time for me to go home. It started off just me doing my homework in the studio and then me getting in the booth and rapping. Now here we are.
I did kind of want to talk about just Super Bowl a little bit, because that’s huge. You choreographed The Weeknd’s half-time performance.
Well, that, from that experience, if you want me to be honest, what I don’t think people know is that we did this literally in the middle of the pandemic. I don’t think people know that. So I say this to say, it’s like the journey, and what it took for us to get this was beyond. I was having Zoom rehearsals because safety is always a priority. I’m trying to keep people away for as long as possible, but the overall experience, I wouldn’t change for anything. I got to choreograph the Super Bowl with amazing people.
It’s crazy, because for me, I danced at a Super Bowl. Fatima choreographed it and I was a dancer, so then you fast forward now I’m choreographing.
Wow, that’s huge. Which Super Bowl was that?
I danced with the Black Eyed Peas at their Super Bowl. I danced at that Super Bowl and then I choreographed this one. It was just a surreal situation. Even with everything going on, all the preparation we had to do. It still is an amazing accomplishment, I think for everybody. I think we delivered a great show in the time and the space that we were allowed to.
Then also I want to talk about the “So & So” video. I thought it was so cute. I know you had some of your friends in there. Tell me how you put that video together.
I dropped something, actually on my birthday last year and at the beginning of a pandemic. They’re trying to figure out what was going on. What I did was I’m calling all my friends asking can you guys sing some of the lyrics to my song, I want to put it in a video. I thought about doing it with my friends because of the songs, a lot of them… actually everybody in the video had already heard it and they loved it anyway.
It was such a girl-empowering kind of a song. It just made sense. Everyone was still everywhere and was trying to adjust to what’s happening in the world. I was very grateful that they, still came through and did it for me because it just was such a difficult time for everyone.
What is it that you love the most about being a music artist?
I think what I love the most is the different form of expression. Me being able to tell my story with words. Me being able to create visuals to go along with my story. Me being… I basically perform this music. I think that’s what means the most to me.
It was revealed yesterday that Drake has done something that no other artist before him ever has: He had three songs — “What’s Next,” “Wants And Needs” featuring Lil Baby, and “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” with Rick Ross, aka the entirety of the Scary Hours 2 EP — simultaneously debut in the top three spots of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That’s cause for celebration and Drake did so by shouting out another rapper who he credits as a major inspiration: Bow Wow.
After receiving the news, Drake decided to have a “1 2 3” party, which had everything from 1-, 2-, and 3-shaped balloons to a cake that had the top 10 of the Hot 100 chart printed on it. He shared some videos of the shindig on his Instagram Stories, including a clip of him and Bow Wow playfully chatting with each other and the camera. In another clip, he said of Bow Wow, “I had to link with Wizzle. Everybody wants to have drinks and everybody wants to celebrate and turn up and, you know, I just had to see Wizzle. I had to see Wizzle in person. If it wasn’t for you, there wouldn’t be no me. That’s why I’mma rock with y’all forever.”
Check out some clips of Drake’s celebration below.
Instead of responding to John Oliver calling him a “performatively outraged wedge salad,” Tucker Carlson returned to one of his favorite subjects during Monday’s episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight: “WAP” (it does not stand for “white angry pundit”). He’s just concerned for the children! Carlson first covered the Billboard-topping Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion single back in August, calling it “garbage” and “crap,” but he railed against it again following the Grammys. This time, he tied it back to “cancel culture.”
After showing a clip from the Grammys performance, Carlson sneered, “No more Dumbo. It’s too filthy. We get that instead.” (I’m not sure the issue with Dumbo is that it’s “filthy”…) After bring in Candace Owens, he added, “It is hard not to conclude that they are actively trying to degrade our culture and hurt our children.” Owens, who has a history with Cardi B, agreed with Carlson, calling “what we were looking at last night… a lesbian sex scene being simulated on television, and this is considered feminist.”
“I agree with you 100 percent in the assessment that this feels more sinister. This is starting to me to seem like it’s not even left or right, it’s not a political issue. This seems like an attack on American values, American traditions, and you’re actually actively trying to make children aspire to things that are grotesque,” Owens said, adding: “We are celebrating perversity in America.”
The best part of the segment, outside of Owens’ faux outage over Mr. Potato Head, is that despite the conservative commenters calling “WAP” the “destruction of American values,” footage from Cardi and Megan’s performance played over and over again. It’s objectively very funny to see Carlson’s befuddled face next to this:
Carlson summed up his thesis with: “Totally degrading. And the same people who make it will lecture you about ‘you hate women’ or something. Who hates women, really?” You can watch the segment here.
