Louisville rapper EST Gee released his new mixtape Bigger Than Life Or Death today after teasing its release with the singles “Capitol 1” and “Bigger Than Life Or Death.” To celebrate the anticipated project coming out, EST Gee shared a new video for the mixtape’s standout track “Price Tag” which finds him enjoying the fruits of his labor and shrugging off the light cost of keeping his female companions happy.
With a hook that brags that “good box come with a price tag on it,” it’s probably no surprise to see the Kentucky native surrounded by women twerking in the skimpiest swimsuits they can find. CGI price tags adorn the women as they bend over and shake for Gee’s amusement (and the viewer’s, presumably), highlighting a devilish sense of sophomoric humor on the CMG rapper’s part.
In addition to the previously released singles, the new mixtape also boasts appearances from some big-name co-signers. Future and Young Thug both appear on “Lick Back Remix,” while Lil Durk assists on “In Town,” and Memphis upstart Pooh Shiesty claims a verse on “All I Know.” Fellow CMG-ers 42 Dugg and Yo Gotti make two appearances apiece, while Lil Baby, one of Gee’s first big benefactors shows up with his Quality Control Music compadre Rylo Rodriguez on “5500 Degrees.”
Watch EST Gee’s “Price Tag” video above.
Bigger Than Life Or Death is out now CMG/Interscope Records. Get it here.
Lil Yachty and Bhad Bhabie have worked together on music in the past, but they’ve recently taken their working relationship one step by investing in an exclusive dating app for Jewish people called Lox Club. Though they may be business partners, the two rappers don’t always see eye to eye — especially when it comes to cultural appropriation. The two got in a heated discussion on the topic on Instagram Live, with Yachty trying to explain that Bhabie doesn’t quite have the correct definition.
Since appearing on The Dr. Phil Show and starting her career in rap music, Bhabie, born Danielle Bregoli, has been consistently called out for cultural appropriation. Though Bhabie is white, she has been accused of building her brand on emulating Black culture. She’s had her hair in box braids, used slang terms in her music, and simply refused when Black women have asked her to stop. Though the definition of cultural appropriation tends to be malleable, it’s generally understood as the act of a person adopting aspects of a minority culture they don’t belong to and profiting from it. However, Bhabie doesn’t agree with that definition.
Bhabie hopped on an Instagram Live session with Yachty where she went off on her critics. “The one thing I’m really, really sick of is the ‘Bhad Bhabie is a cultural appropriator,’” she said. “No. Y’all make these words have different terms to what they even mean. Cultural appropriation is if I was to sit up and say, ‘Oh. A certain race looks ugly with that.’ And then I go do that on myself. Take braids for example. If I say a Black girl look ugly with braids and then I go get them, that’s culturally appropriating. Or when girls put chopsticks in their hair, that’s cultural appropriation. That’s doing something negative with someone’s culture.”
Yachty cut in with, “Bro. What the f*ck is you talking about? That’s not the argument.” Bhabie then proceeded to yell about people criticizing her “hood accent” as Yachty sighs and groans in the background. “This ain’t got nothing to do with nothing,” Yachty said before Bhabie cuts him off again.
Before hanging up, Yacthy was able to get in a final word. “On the real, you understand right now that in the room it’s you yelling at a phone screen. For what though?” To which Bhabie replied: “It makes me feel better.”
As Kanye West is getting ready to release his album Donda, the rapper has made his return to social media. On Instagram yesterday, he shared some photos of himself wearing chains that feature the names of his children. While hip-hop fans are excited (or at least curious) about what Kanye has coming next, that post seems to have rubbed Azealia Banks the wrong way, as she thinks West ripped her off.
Today, she took to Instagram and shared the cover art for her 2019 song “Billionaire Bully,” which is definitely visually similar to West’s new images. She then shared one of the West photos and captioned the post with an insult: “Should have exfoliated before trying to bite me. @kanyewest”
However, she seemed to contradict the insult with a follow-up photo, which features her hand sporting fake nails that read “YEEZY.”
The accusation and insult also come after a stretch of apparent fascination about West from Banks. She recently insisted that her new single “F*ck Him All Night” is about West, saying, “This is about f*ckin him all day and f*cking him all night. This is about the throbbing black billionaire c*ck. Get into it.” In April, she also said she wants to have a kid with West, writing, “The powerful black demon entity awaiting in my ovaries and kanyes testicle is finally about to be unleashed upon the world.”
Banks fans know that all of this comes after years of beef between her and West, so at this point, it’s hard to say how Banks truly feels about West.
Multi-Platinum singer Khalid has been serving up non-stop hits since his 2017 debut album American Teen. At 23-years-old, the singer boasts several chart-topping singles and a handful of Grammy nominations, so it makes sense that fans are anxiously awaiting news of his third studio album. The wait is officially over this week as Khalid has finally shared details about his third studio album, titled Everything Is Changing.
Khalid officially announced Everything Is Changing with the brooding track “New Normal,” which the singer actually debuted last week at Virgin Galactic’s “Unity 22” Spaceflight launch. Khalid hasn’t given an exact release date for Everything Is Changing, but press materials note it’s slated for a fall release.
The singer dropped “New Normal” alongside a video directed by Andy Hines, which sees him making his way through a futuristic city. About the song, Khalid said it was inspired by the difficulties of the pandemic and coping with the emotions surrounding the world reopening:
“‘New Normal’ was inspired by how I was feeling during the pandemic and the emotional toll that quarantine took on me and my friends. Everything Is Changing as an album really takes that a step further with all of the songs centering around trying to find a purpose and a sense of self in a world where everything is digitally connect but emotionally disconnected. As we all come out of quarantine and venture more into the world and try to reconnect with people we haven’t seen in over a year, I hope the messages explored within the album open up conversations and allow people to access their feelings in a new way.”
Listen to “New Normal” above.
Everything Is Changing is out this fall via Right Hand Music Group/RCA Records.
Over the past few weeks, Ariana Grande has been sharing a handful of Vevo live performance videos, like one she did with Ty Dolla Sign earlier this month. Today brings another, and this time, she has linked up with The Weeknd for their Positions collaboration “Off The Table.” The pair is joined by a band on a verdant stage, dramatically lit by blue light from a giant oval light fixture above.
Grande previously said of making the song, “I didn’t know anyone was ever going to hear it. I just kind of was sitting in my room during quarantine, towards the very beginning and I just had set up my little home situation and a friend of Matt Bennett’s, Shintaro, had sent me a little folder of beats. He’s a really brilliant producer and he sent me a pack of beats and I pulled it up and I wrote a verse and a chorus, and I sent it over to Abel and I said, ‘Is this OK?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna write the second verse.’ It was a very intimate moment and writing process between two friends.”
Watch Grande and The Weeknd perform “Off The Table” above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The rollout of Metallica‘s fascinating covers compilation albumThe Metallica Blacklist continues, this time with J Balvin’s Latin take on the band’s 1991 single “Wherever I May Roam.” While the original is a driving saga about a drifter who redefines anywhere he lays his head as “home,” Balvin’s cover snatches the saucy sitar loop from the beginning of the song, adds rumbling 808s, and Balvin’s own swaggering review of his impact on the music game.
“Ya son más de diez años metiéndole y todavía sueno como nuevo,” he boasts, roughly translating to, “It’s been more than ten years and I still sound like new.” The hook brings back the wailing guitars, with the buzzsaw ax-work and chorus of the original forming an aggressive bridge.
The previously released singles from the band’s cover album have included Miley Cyrus’s take on “Nothing Else Matters,” which also includes Chad Smith, Elton John, Robert Trujillo, Watt, and Yo-Yo Ma, and two wildly different covers of “Sad But True,” one from St. Vincent and one from Jason Isbell. Other artists expected to appear on the 53-track album include Cage The Elephant, Darius Rucker, Kamasi Washington, Phoebe Bridgers, Pup, Rina Sawayama, and Weezer.
Watch J Balvin’s “Wherever I May Roam” cover video above.
The Metallica Blacklist is out 9/10 via Blackened Recordings. Pre-order it here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Rap gets compared to basketball a lot, but I think it’s probably because the sport provides some of the aptest one-to-one comparisons to the art form. For instance, a lot of practice goes into both, and the most skilled practitioners make each look easy, even though the average person might find what they do incredibly hard. For another, fans of both love to debate who the “best” of each is, even though we all use different criteria to determine what “best” means.
For me, the best rappers aren’t the ones who rap the fastest or drop the most explosive, tongue-tying cadences, although that’s part of it. Nor am always impressed by the cleverest punchlines, which are in essence just dad jokes that rhyme. They can be pretty amusing though. I like rappers I can relate to, but I also like the ones who give listeners something to aspire to. Storytelling and concepts are important, too.
Overall, though, the best raps give some sort of insight into the person reciting them, then use that insight to reflect something true about the world, something universal. It’s a quality that’s a little difficult to explain, but it’s a little like Ted Lasso’s description of the offsides rule in association football: You know it when you see it. Each verse here has that quality, that thing that makes your ears prick up, that sets off sparklers in your brain, that makes you reach for the rewind button because you know something special just happened. These are the best verses of the year so far.
21 Savage on J. Cole’s “My Life”
21 Savage returns the favor J. Cole once paid him on his own hit single “A Lot,” popping in with a verse that shatters the myth that he only has one mode. Sure, he starts out there, justifying his homicidal tendencies with the trauma of watching his friends lost to street life, but then he slings some wicked wordplay (“I disrespect you respectfully”) and juxtaposes his menace with a mean sense of humor (“I got a good heart, so I send teddy bears every time we make they mommas cry”).
Chika on “Save You”
The Alabama rapper’s March EP Once Upon A Time was shamefully overlooked, especially as a document that explains exactly why she is who she is. While the first verse is a masterclass in petty, it’s the second verse that impresses, summing up Chika’s sense of betrayal at one-way relationships and the dangers of her anxiety and workaholism. Yet, she still ends on a positive note, reflecting the steely optimism that sustains her — and setting the example for listeners to snap their own metaphorical chains.
Guapdad 4000 on “Stoop Kid”
This might be cheating, but from the extended “porch” conceit that extends throughout the song, I’m going to consider both verses here as one verse that was broken in half for song construction purposes. Taken in this way, it may very well be the best verse of the year — or at least my favorite kind, one that sets a scene in vivid, glowing detail. It’s a concept that is fully written through and contains every spectrum of emotion, from warm nostalgia to brokenhearted paranoia.
Jay-Z on “Sorry Not Sorry”
Maybe it just sounds cooler in contrast to Nas’s nerdy Bitcoin boss talk, but Jay’s verse is a study in casual intricacy as he weaves multiple meanings throughout its repeated opening lines, juxtaposes his rags to riches, compares himself to a Messiah figure, and advocates fad diets all over a glittering Street Runner production that evokes the luxuries settings and items he describes. I know we’re all supposed to frown at such materialistic delights (pandemic’s still on, y’all) but damn if he doesn’t make them sound cool.
J. Cole on “Applying Pressure”
Here’s a controversial take: I really like when J. Cole raps over old-school beats about regular-guy things. The character he describes here isn’t just a straw man; it’s him, it’s me, it’s every disgruntled late-’90s backpacker who thumbed their noses at the popular kids and the Hot 100 hits, thinking his condescension made him cool. Here, Cole subtly admonishes that jerk we all used to be (or still are), reminding him/them/us that hating is bad for their/your/our health.
Lil Baby on “Pride Is The Devil”
I know a lot of these verses are coming from the same album but when the whole point of that album was getting bars off… I mean, mission accomplished, right? Here’s where I make a concession to the mainstream; Lil Baby’s verse here provides a strong argument toward defending his current placement in the upper echelons of hip-hop royalty, which I frankly never really understood. But I got an inkling here. Anyone who can make “schedule” rhyme with “forever” and “negative” is thinking on a different level.
Megan Thee Stallion on “Thot Sh*t”
In a song full of gems (“I walk around the house butt-naked / And I stop at every mirror just to stare at my own posterior,” “I’m the shit per the Recording Academy”), it’s the third verse that really unloads and showcases all the traits that have endeared Meg to her legions of loyal supporters. There are the unsubtle boasts, the clever punchlines, the unabashed self-confidence, the assured sex appeal, and the sort-of wholesome kernel at the center (Meg’s kind of a good-girl geek, what with her collegiate ambition), and that’s just in the first eight bars.
Nas on DMX’s “Bath Salts”
The Queensbridge veteran redeems himself on this gritty cut from DMX’s posthumous album, switching from his Escobar persona (which has always been kind of corny) back to Nasty Nas (a mode he should find himself in more often) for a braggadocious, pseudo-intellectual spin through some of the slickest sh*t talk he’s delivered in a decade. “I’d still be this fly if I worked at Popeyes,” he boasts and for once, he sounds — and I cannot stress this enough — utterly, completely believable.
Skyzoo on “I Was Supposed To Be A Trap Rapper”
For the past decade, Skyzoo has been one of the most consistent, creative, and criminally overlooked rappers in hip-hop. Even so, longtime fans can’t help but hold out hope for a breakthrough, when music listeners at large realize there isn’t that much of a difference between supposedly high-minded lyricists like Skyzoo and the more straightforward appeal of the dominant trap rap genre. Sky makes as much plain on this standout from his latest, All The Brilliant Things.
Tyler The Creator on “Lumberjack”
Sometimes, it’s more the context than the content that makes a verse stand out. Ty is more confessional on “Massa,” more observant on “Manifiesto,” and more unhinged on “Corso,” but “Lumberjack” was the first indication of what his new album Call Me If You Get Lost would be and it was a world-stopper. It’s Tyler in his bag, utterly confident, totally self-possessed, swaggering, cool. Plus Jasper and DJ Drama’s ad-libs just accentuate some top-notch, traditional “look at me”-ass rap.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Chance The Rapper hasn’t performed live in quite some time, both as a result of him taking a break after releasing his debut album The Big Day and due to the global pandemic that shut down festivals and tours for over a year. However, in August, he’ll premiere his concert film Magnificent Coloring World in select AMC Theatres across the country, which will give his fans a chance to see him again, and he’ll return to the stage this September at Summerfest in Milwaukee.
In a new interview about the film with Billboard, Chance says the process of editing the film “made me super thirsty” to perform live again. “Watching a performance of mine from four years ago, I’m like ‘I would have done this’ or ‘I would have done that,’” he says. “I’m saying to myself ’I can’t wait to perform this particular song now. I’m looking at it as a performer, but also as a filmmaker.”
Magnificent Coloring Worldcelebrates the five-year anniversary of Coloring Book, Chance’s critically-acclaimed, Grammy-winning third mixtape, and he’s putting it in theaters because “there’s just something different about going to see something in theaters, instead of watching it in your bed or whatever,” he says. “I always knew that I wanted this to be experienced in a group and on a huge screen with crazy surround sound.”
You can catch Magnificent Coloring World in select cities 8/13. Find out more here.
Megan recently sat down for a conversation with Tyra Banks as part of her Sports Illustrated cover interview. Banks, who was the first-ever Black woman featured on the magazine’s cover, asked Megan how she knew she wanted to make music.
“I don’t know what I wanna do when I grow up, but I know I want to entertain everybody,” Megan said about her younger self. “I like to see people smile genuinely, I like to see people having a good time. When I finally figured out what it was I wanted to do, I figured out I wanted to rap because my mom was a rapper. She didn’t know I wanted to be a rapper, but I would literally watch her be in the studio all day be like, ‘This lady is just everything.’”
The rapper continued to say she hid her rapping abilities from her mom until her early twenties because she wanted “to be perfect” first:
“I didn’t want to tell her I could rap until I was 18 because I wanted to be perfect to her. I was practicing since I was like seven. When I got to high school, I was like, ‘I’m not going to tell her yet.’ But she’d have these CDs laying around the house, instrumentals. I would take them in my room and I’d write to them. She’d be like, ‘Megan have you seen my CDs?’ and I’d be like, ‘No. What are you talking about?’ So finally I went to college and I was like, I’ve probably held this secret for long enough. I’d start going to the studio by myself, which was probably kind of dangerous because I was like 19, bopping around trying to it out. I didn’t want her to shut me down. I wanted to show her, ‘Look how I’ve been practicing this whole time and look where I am.’ I finally came to her, I might have been 20, and I was like, ‘I can rap.’ She was like, ‘No you can’t.’ And I was like, ‘Yes I can. […] Momma don’t whoop me, but I’m going to curse.’ So I started going off and I started cursing and she was like, ‘Where did you learn all those words?’ I’m grown too, my momma was always treating me like I was a baby. So she was like, ‘You’re not coming on until you’re 21.’ But there was never anything I was passionate about besides music.”
Watch Megan’s full interview with Banks for Sports Illustratedhere.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Tyler The Creator is a longtime fan of Converse and has collaborated with the brand on a number of fascinating releases, including his Golf Le Fleur line. It’s likely his love of the brand stems from his roots as a skater in LA, where the kicks are a symbol of multiple different subcultures — and often, a connector of those cultures, bringing together punks, skaters, and gangbangers over their shared love of the Chuck Taylor All Star shoe.
When the brand tapped Tyler to create a short film (a commercial, really) highlighting this connection, they say they had no idea what they were going to get. Knowing Tyler, though, they were sure it’d be a reflection of his off-the-wall sense of humor and unique worldview and it’s probably safe to say they weren’t disappointed in the result, a minute-long spot titled “The Really Cool Converse Club.”
The hilarious ad depicts a group meeting of various subcultures tied to the shoe full of members of Tyler’s own wildly diverse friend group and Converse’s longtime brand partners like NBA legends Bill Walton and Marques Johnson, stand-up comic Josh Johnson, actor Tim Meadows, rapper Vince Staples, punk icon Henry Rollins, and Odd Future member Jasper. Converse skaters Milton Martinez and Louie Lopez and actors Errol Chatham, Arsenio Castellanos, and Jackson Randall also make appearances.
Tyler explained his vision in a press release: “I instantly thought about the many pockets of people that wear Chucks – like skateboarders, soccer moms, kids down the street, guys in the neighborhood I grew up with – and I wanted to put them in one place, that was important to me. Everyone wears Chucks…including pirates.” I won’t spoil it for you here but I will say The Really Cool Converse Club has some pretty strict rules.
Watch Converse’s Tyler The Creator-directed “The Really Cool Converse Club” ad here.
