DaBaby may not understand why what he said at Rolling Loud was so harmful to so many people, but he’s certainly beginning to feel the consequences. His “Levitating” collaborator Dua Lipa said his words “surprised and horrified” her and a fan-made version of the song featuring Megan Thee Stallion is not only rapidly growing in popularity but fans are also calling for it to replace the official version. Today, things got really real for DaBaby, as his combative attitude toward the backlash has now begun to affect his pockets.
BoohooMan, the online retailer which has grown to be one of the most popular fast-fashion hubs thanks to its collaborations with rappers like DaBaby, Quavo, Swae Lee, cut ties with the North Carolina rapper, making a statement on Instagram. The full statement reads:
BoohooMan condemns the use of homophobic language and confirm we will no longer be working with DaBaby.
Diversity and inclusion are part of the boohoo Group’s DNA and we pride ourselves on representing the diverse customers we serve across the globe.
We stand by and support the LGBTQ+ community, and do not tolerate any hate speech or discrimination in any form.
For his part, DaBaby has repeatedly tried to address the comments but his defensive posture in both statements has tempered their reception among fans, who seem to believe that he’s been less than sincere. Maybe seeing consequences outside of a few sternly-worded tweets will recontextualize the backlash for him, helping him to reconsider his words’ impact past just his intent.
The music world was supposed to be enjoying Kanye West’s tenth album Donda last weekend, but the rapper did not release it as expected despite a huge listening event for it. He premiered what appeared to be an unfinished version of the project last Thursday at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. With Donda failing to arrive on the intended release date of July 23, Kanye decided to move into the stadium in order to complete it before its rumored arrival on August 6. As he continues to put the finishing touches on the project, the rapper took to Instagram to show off what appears to be a makeshift bedroom made for him inside the stadium where the bumbling Atlanta Falcons play.
Kanye shared an image of the room to his Instagram page, and in it, you can see a rather small bed, a few pairs of shoes, including the pair he wore to the Donda listening event, clothes hanging in a closet, and an opened luggage. The rapper shared the photo without a caption, but for what it’s worth, it’s interesting at the very least to see how he’s living as he continues work on Donda.
During his time at the stadium, Kanye took a break from working on Donda to hang out with the crowd that was in attendance at the stadium for the Atlanta United soccer game against Columbus Crew on July 24. Kanye was spotted in the stands with fans, who seemed surprised and delighted by his presence, before he decided to walk around and tour the stadium as the match continued.
You can view the post of Kanye’s living situation above.
In just a few days, Isaiah Rashad will share The House Is Burning, his first album in nearly five years. The project is one that fans of the TDE rapper have patiently waited for following the success of his critically-acclaimed debut album, 2015’s The Sun’s Tirade. While it was certainly a slow start on the road leading to The House Is Burning, Rashad picked things up in recent months. He dropped the album’s lead single, “Lay Wit Ya,” back in May and released “Headshots [4r Da Locals]” a short time later. The rapper recently shared the album’s third single “Wat U Sed” and now he’s unveiled a big tour in support of the upcoming project.
Rashed announced Lil Sunny’s Awesome Vacation, a tour that will put the rapper back on the road in just a couple of months. The string of shows begins on September 8 in Boston, Massachusetts, and continues for a little over two months before coming to an end in the rapper’s hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The flyer for the tour also promises special guests that will most likely join the rapper at various stops. Tickets for Lil Sunny’s Awesome Vacation are available on the rapper’s website here.
The tour announcement comes after Rashad shared the tracklist for The House Is Burning. Across 16 songs, listeners will hear guest appearances from fellow TDE acts Jay Rock and SZA as well as Lil Uzi Vert, Smino, Duke Deuce, Jay Worthy, Doechii, Kal Banx, YGTUT, and 6lack.
You can view the full list of tour dates in the post above.
The House Is Burning is out 7/30 via TDE/Warner. Pre-order it here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Before he received his break as a rapper, Kanye West made a name for himself in the early 2000s as a producer, crafting tracks for Jay-Z that included “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” “Takeover,: and “’03 Bonnie And Clyde” as well as other records by Alicia Keys, Ludacris, Beanie Siegel, and more. Kanye broke through as a rapper with his 2004 debut, College Dropout, and since then he hasn’t looked back. Despite this, he continued to produce for rappers like Common who recruited Kanye to heavily produce his 2005 and 2007 albums Be and Finding Forever.
During a recent interview with Andrew Barber for an episode of the Coda Collection’s “Story to Tell,” Common expressed his desire to work with Kanye for another album. “If there’s anything that I sometimes wish is I wished I would have did a third one with Kanye,” he said. “I will say that. It’s very rare that I’d be like, ‘Man, I should’ve did this or wish I did this.’ Because everything happens in this divine time. But I would’ve loved to have done a third album with ’Ye just … And maybe that’ll happen at some other point.”
During the interview, Common also revealed that he intended to work with Kanye for his 2008 album Universal Mind Control. Unfortunately, Kanye was unavailable to collaborate on the project because he was on tour at the time. In addition to that, Common also wanted to change his sound at the time which led to him working with The Neptunes for the 2008 effort.
You can listen to Common speak about a third album produced by Kanye in the video above.
Over the weekend, DaBaby took the stage at Rolling Loud’s Miami festival for what some hoped would be an exciting performance. Unfortunately, ill comments he made during the set took precedent over the music he performed. In between songs he said, “If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDS, any of them deadly sexual transmitted diseases that make you die in two or three weeks, then put your cell phone light in the air.” As if that wasn’t bizarre enough, he added, “Fellas, if you ain’t suck a n****’s d*ck in the parking lot, put your cell phone light in the air.”
After a video of his rant made its way to social media, fans made sure to let DaBaby know that his comments were insensitive, homophobic, and much more. Following an initial response on Instagram to those who took issue with his comments, the rapper this time hopped on Twitter to address his critics once again.
I tell fans to put a cellphone light in the air y’all start a million man March.
I told you y’all digested that wrong but I ain’t gone lie I’m impressed.
Now show this same amount of support when a racist cop kill one of our black ass…YA NOT
Anybody who done ever been effected by AIDS/HIV y’all got the right to be upset, what I said was insensitive even though I have no intentions on offending anybody. So my apologies
But the LGBT community… I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. y’all business is y’all business.
“I tell fans to put a cellphone light in the air y’all start a million man March,” he wrote. “I told you y’all digested that wrong [shoulder shrug emoji] but I ain’t gone lie I’m impressed. Now show this same amount of support when a racist cop kill one of our black ass…YA NOT.” In a second tweet, he added, “Anybody who done ever been effected by AIDS/HIV y’all got the right to be upset, what I said was insensitive even though I have no intentions [of] offending anybody. So my apologies. But the LGBT[Q] community… I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. y’all business is y’all business.”
& for any brands, networks, or artists that like to profit off of black rappers influence on the culture, without understanding it or having the patience to deal with what comes with the position we play in our culture.
Keep yo money next time us “NIGGAS” human too.#GodBless
For a third and final tweet on the topic, DaBaby shifted his attention to a new group of people, writing, “& for any brands, networks, or artists that like to profit off of black rappers influence on the culture, without understanding it or having the patience to deal with what comes with the position we play in our culture. Keep yo money next time.” He concluded, “Us ‘N****S” human too,” adding, “#GodBless.”
This comes after Dua Lipa, who collaborated with the rapper on a remix of “Levitating,” said his comments “surprised and horrified her.” She added, “We need to come together to fight the stigma and ignorance around HIV/AIDS.”
You can view DaBaby’s tweets above.
Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Now, Dua Lipa herself has weighed in on the situation, letting her fans know that she’s personally “surprised and horrified” by the rappers comments. “I’m surprised and horrified,” she wrote on her Instagram Stories today. “I know my fans know where my heart lies and that I stand 100 percent with the LGBTQ community. We need to come together to fight the stigma and ignorance around HIV/AIDS.”
Instagram
Listen, since there’s already been not one but two remixes of “Levitating” — the now defunct one with DaBaby, and the Club Future Nostalgia version with Madonna and Missy Elliott — it’s time to make a third. Give the fans what they want, replace DaBaby with a verse from Megan on a brand new version. And then all the proceeds to go the ACLU to help combat ignorance on the subject. It’s a perfect plan.
West coast rapper and weed legend Berner went from spitting on tracks with other California weed rap icons like Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, and B-Real to founding one of the world’s biggest cannabis brands and retail spaces, Cookies. Now, the rapper-turned-entrepreneur has his sights set on developing the best cannabis rolling papers that a stoner could ever long for. Developed over a three-year process, Berner “put a lot of shit in my lungs to find the right paper.” That dedication shows with his newly released VIBES.
Available in four varieties — including Organic Hemp, Hemp, Ultra-Thin, and Rice — VIBES presents different rolling papers geared towards specific needs. That level of care and attention to detail ensures your joint comes out a bit better than it would with your standard zags.
“It just compliments the herb,” Berner says, “and that’s what our whole mission is. We want to make the ultimate experience when it comes to blazing. We took our time to find the right resources, to find the right materials, to find the right paper… it’s stuff not in the market.”
You might not think all that’s totally necessary, and if you’re a casual smoker you’re unlikely to notice a major difference in the experience. But if your preferred smoking method is the classic joint, you’re going to want that fine attention to detail. I’ve tried out both the Rice and Organic Hemp VIBE papers and the Rice has quickly become my go-to, anytime I’m rolling a joint. I don’t use a roller, I grind up my weed and roll it myself and the texture of the Rice VIBE keeps the stickiest weed from becoming a hassle to roll. It’s a hack I didn’t know I needed!
This week, I linked up with Berner to talk about VIBES’ new products, how bud-tending has changed for the worse, and his secrets to rolling a perfect joint.
Cookies
Why do we need a better rolling paper at all?
I’ve been smoking cannabis for over 22 years, maybe as long as 25 years. In that time, people like Raw came to the table and brought quality rolling papers and educated the market on the difference between materials in the paper, what makes paper special, and what compliments the flavor of herb. All that time, being a connoisseur, understanding what was in the market gave me a chance to understand what wasn’t in the market.
When we came out with the Ultra-Thin VIBES and now with the Organic Hemp VIBES, that quality of paper is just next level. How thin it is, how clean it is, how pure it is. We took our time to find the right resources, to find the right materials, to find the right paper, and also come up with some innovative SKUs like the Cubano; the Cali, which we are dropping soon — it’s stuff not in the market and that’s what we’re working focusing on right now.
What makes a rolling paper perfect?
My thinking is it all starts with what you’re smoking. What makes a perfect paper to me is pairing it with the perfect herb. Certain bud I’ll get that’s extremely flavorful, it’s perfectly cured, I’ll put it in a Hemp VIBE knowing it’s not tough to roll. That’s the biggest thing, how is your rolling experience going to be? That’s why we have our different SKUs.
For instance, our rice paper is for that stickier, thicker, crazier herb that’s just gonna be a problematic roll. The paper is just a little thicker, it burns a little better with a stickier bud. And Ultra-Thin and the Organic Hemp is perfect for that connoisseur head sesh that you tuck away and hide for yourself. For me, it’s all about pairing.
COOKIES
I know you have your history as a Bay Area bud tender. Has bud tending changed for the better or worse? These days there is a lot less interaction because of prepackaged products.
For the most part, it’s changed for the worse — because everything is on a screen. You wait in line, you look on a menu, and pick what you want. But at the Cookies store we tried to implement some of that old school 215 vibe, that’s why when you come into our stores you have a dedicated budtender that sits with you through the whole experience, helps you look at things, that’s why we have the jars on top of the table, we’ve designed those custom for you to pick up and smell the bud and look at it. Fully transparent, not like some of those square jars out there.
When you’re done with the experience they send you to the cashier, and the cashier’s sole purpose is to ring you up, but that personal experience with the budtender, we try and keep that there. And its cool to be able to implement that in all our stores around the world because we don’t want that shit to go away.
As a budtender, you use to be able to open up a jar, let people smell it, even give them a bong hit if they weren’t sure they wanted to buy it and that’s missing big time. It’s changed for the worse but we’re trying to keep that vibe alive.
Walk us through the steps for how to roll the perfect joint
First step is you need the best bud possible. You need something you like and enjoy, if you’re gonna smoke you might as well do it right, start off with the best bud you can find that fits you and your body.
Second, you’ll need a tool like our Santa Cruz Shredder — the teeth are designed by a NASA engineer, it’s next level, it’s produced here in the US. I’ve been using our hemp shredders and that gives you the perfect fluff. You need to grind it right, you don’t want to be left with chunks or dust, there is a fine balance. You get the perfect bud, shred it to give it the perfect fluff.
I take a tip and put it in a cylinder, I take an Ultra-Thin VIBE or my Organic Hemp VIBE and I roll that bitch nice and loose. I like it nice and loose for air flow, I hate a pregnant joint. A tight joint that you have to hit hella hard is a bad joint. I want to pull on it softly and get nice rips, so a perfect joint is all about airflow!
Of all the standout performances at this year’s BET Awards, one of the most surprising and impressive was Tyler The Creator’s — not just because of the scale and production, but also because BET was the last place you’d catch Tyler The Creator during Odd Future’s precipitous rise. In fact, the crew used to rail against the network, among other outlets, as an example of the establishment that didn’t accept them.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, though. In a new interview with Complex, Tyler explained how the mockery was a “defensive mechanism” that allowed him to pre-emptively reject outlets that he thought might reject him. “I was so hype to perform at the BET Awards,” he admitted. “I just never felt like my style of music would ever have been, not even appreciated, but allowed on there. And because of that, I would mock it.”
He continued, “It was like a defense mechanism because I felt like I wasn’t accepted by that audience. But when they asked me this year, man I was enthralled. I was so happy.” He also explained the deeper meaning BET holds for him, recalling, “That channel taught me how to rap. It taught me about just all the stuff I know.”
He also breaks down why he hates making merch, why he just got into watches, and explains his creative process behind the hilarious Converse ad he just directed featuring Tim Meadows, Bill Walton, and Vince Staples.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
“I tell my fans we’re all alone in this together.” These words arrive from Dave towards the end of the intro track on his sophomore album. They’re delivered on a plate that presents equal parts blunt honesty and comforting, yet unorthodox reassurance. It’s a unique way for the British rapper to console those who wake up every morning to take a swing at life with the hope that they can return to bed with things less broken than they were at sunrise. “We’re all in this together” is already reassuring in itself, but the addition of “alone” uncovers something many of us hope to avoid amid life’s greatest qualms: reality.
On We’re All Alone In This Together, Dave reminds us that rap hasn’t exempted him from life struggles. The things that money can’t solve still affect the British rapper daily and he alludes to it on “We’re Alone.” “You can trust me, all the sh*t that you been feelin’, you’re feelin’ with me,” he candidly raps. “We all the took the wrong turns in different streets / We all cry the same tears on different cheeks.” There’s a fine line between sympathy and empathy and Dave is very much aware of it. He creates a middle ground between the two in order to support his fans and quite frankly, anyone who takes a moment to hear his words. Dave may not be able to walk in your shoes but he faintly recognizes them as they’re not too different from the pair that cover his feet.
Dave does so much with cut-throat intention. Not in the sense of placing the necessary piece into a puzzle he aims to solve. The London native is responsible for the landscape that the intricate pieces unveil when connected. He’s the puppetmaster and the puppet at the same time. Dave knows what he’s trying to tell his fans and exactly how to tell it. Take this for example: the first song on the album is titled “We’re All Alone” and the last words Dave utters on it are “in this together.” Through the various topics he touches on throughout We’re All Alone In This Together, it’s clear that the rapper wants to make sure the album title is understood to the fullest capacity by the last time he says it.
In a profile with Ciaran Thapar for GQ, Dave points out that as his 2019 debut Psychodrama was centered around the element of fire, We’re All Alone In This Together shifts its attention to water through the visual representation of the sea on it’s cover. “I’ll probably go wind and then earth and then I don’t know if I’ll go anywhere from there,” he says, speaking about future albums. This is Dave’s world, and while he knows what it looks like in his mind, we as listeners slowly watch it come together with the very things that make it move.
So what is it that Dave feels like we’re alone in together? Long story short, it’s a culmination of everything. There’s the destruction of love far beyond repair on “Both Sides Of A Smile” with James Blake or the frustration with a system that operates with a racist lens on “Three Rivers.” Brighter moments arrive on “System” with Wizkid, an afro-fusion effort that sees the acts showering their partners with equal amounts of love and expensive treatments. “Clash,” the laser-sharp lead single from We’re All Alone In This Together, finds Dave calling on good friend Stormzy to ride beside him and flaunt their top-notch confidence. Lastly, the recruitment of UK rappers Fredo, Meekz Manny, Ghetts (who tears through his verse), and Giggs for a captivating posse cut on “In The Fire” provides fiery raps that render the passion the quintet have while leaving their egos unchecked for a moment. All in all, the album presents emotions and feelings that — at their simplest levels — are relatable to us as listeners as we too have experienced them in our own lives.
The word “alone” presents a negative connotation more often than it does a positive one, but Dave successfully uses both on his second album. He acknowledges and accepts the idea of being a nomad on We’re All Alone In This Together. At the same time, the London native reminds us that while we all have our own nomadic experiences, the loneliness we feel isn’t because no one cares. More times than not it’s because we all have our issues to solve, with most requiring our full attention to complete. On “In The Fire,” Giggs raps, “Can’t walk in my shoes / You could be riskin’ a bunion.” Our shoes are only our shoes to walk in as no one else can live life for us. This is the solo expedition Dave speaks about on his second album, We’re All Alone In This Together. Our hardships may be unique, but the London native reminds us that we all have our own to deal with.
We’re All Alone In This Together is out 7/23 via Dave/Neighbourhood Recordings. Get it here.
A great adventure story? We’re sorry, but it just never begins on your couch. Yet, that’s where most of us have been stuck for more than a year, putting plans on hold and leaving us to dream about safe and smart travel when normal comes back around. Maybe that means reconnecting with family and friends or touching down in locales in the US and abroad that populate your personal bucket list and feed your sense of adventure.
For singer/songwriter Sofia Valdés, it’s those things and a chance to stoke creativity through the achingly missed act of meeting people as you explore their home cities and countries learning just a little bit about them in the process of being inspired. As Valdés says in the first episode of our new Creator Connections video series (made in partnership with Delta Air Lines), “There’s something magical about being able to find a home in people, so wherever you are, you feel at home.”
That’s the power of travel and exploration, essentially — a charge that comes from new experiences, new cultures, new destinations, new people, and a new perspective that promotes a larger, more informed view of the world. Even if you’re going somewhere familiar or just looking to relax, it’s going to change you for the better. Because it’s still a connection (to people, places, and things), and it’s what we’ve all been missing most.
Check out Sofia’s story (above) to learn more about how she finds a home and a community wherever she travels and how Delta is helping her reconnect with her career and musical life in this episode of Creator Connections.
but I ain’t gone lie I’m impressed. 
