There’s no telling where things will go next, but according to Master P, the blame doesn’t lie with Drake and Kanye. “I think it’s the people around them,” he said during an interview with Allison Interviews. “You have to have people giving you better advice, and you have to hold yourself accountable. I’ve always had self-accountability. And start thinking about what you say or what you do, and how it affects and hurts other people, and how you wouldn’t want that to be happening to you and your family. [There’s] a lot of self-hate.”
“I would rather sit in the sewer and eat cheese with rats than sit at a nice restaurant and drink champagne and eat lobster and steak with a snake, and I think that’s what a lot of us are doing,” Master P added. “When you get to that level of the game like some of these artists, why lose what you have? Once you get killed or go to jail there’s no turning back.”
You can listen to Mater P’s full interview on Allison Interviewshere.
It’s been well over two years since Baby Keem dropped a full-length project, namely Die For My B*tch, which was responsible for his breakout hit song, “Orange Soda.” Now, Keem is just days away from releasing The Melodic Blue, his major-label debut, and ahead of its release, the rapper unveiled its official tracklist.
The Melodic Blue is locked in at 16 tracks, with guest appearances from Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, and Don Toliver. Kendrick and Travis were previously heard on the album’s respective singles, “Family Ties” and “Durag Activity.” This makes Don Toliver, who appears on “Cocoa,” the lone collaboration that fans have yet to hear.
During an interview with i-D earlier this year, Keem said Die For My B*tch gave him “a chance to play with my sounds and open up the lane to grow in confidence.” We’ll see if that’s so.
You can take a second look at the artwork above and view the album’s tracklist below.
Gorillaz help introduce British rapper AJ Tracey in one of the most fitting song choices for a US debut as they drop by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform the song “Jimmy Jimmy” from their new EP, Meanwhile.
“Jimmy Jimmy” is built around a sample of the 1979 punk hit by Northern Ireland band The Undertones, with Gorillaz’s low-fi interpolation making the song song eerie and ominous. The pre-recorded performance reproduces the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of the EP’s visual components, taking place at an apartment building in front of a brooding sky. Tracey appears throughout, delivering his raps directly to the camera as the saturation levels wobble in and out of control.
Gorillaz, meanwhile, are set to appear on an upcoming collaborative album from Elton John titled The Lockdown Sessions, while Damon Albarn has said that he’s working on a scripted film featuring his cartoon band. “We signed contracts, we’ve begun scripts and stuff,” he explained. ” I see a lot of people doing animated videos these days but I don’t think they really touch the quality of ours. We’re more in the world of Studio Ghibli.”
Watch the Gorillaz perform “Jimmy Jimmy” with AJ Tracey on The Tonight Show above.
Gorillaz are a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
As the female rap renaissance continues, much of the discussion around the burgeoning explosion in female talent in rap has revolved around their reception by hip-hop’s perceived majority male fanbase. In July, Doja Cat pointed out how female rappers are viewed as “less than smart,” while Cardi B, Latto, and Megan Thee Stallion have all addressed a feeling that they’re disrespected more than men while being expected to do twice as much. Now, from another corner of hip-hop world, Noname joins the growing chorus of voices speaking out against this negative perception while defending her contemporaries’ content.
Noname’s comments came as she refuted a fan’s assertion that “most of the female rappers out now sucks [sic].” “We are currently in the most commercialized era of rap,” she began. “lyrical content + brand presentation will usually reflect what the consumer (majority white) finds the most titillating, violence and sex. most rappers regardless of gender (which is a construct) rap about the same things.”
She continued in a separate tweet in the thread, “this is what mainstream black art looks like under capitalism. either way most women rapping are technically just as skilled as their male contemporaries, if not better. and i would argue all of them are better entertainers.”
we are currently in the most commercialized era of rap. lyrical content + brand presentation will usually reflect what the consumer (majority white) finds the most titillating, violence and sex. most rappers regardless of gender (which is a construct ) rap about the same things https://t.co/ueEy5IyEzz
this is what mainstream black art looks like under capitalism. either way most women rapping are technically just as skilled as their male contemporaries, if not better. and i would argue all of them are better entertainers.
She was also forced to circle back on an old talking point when one fan pointed out their misunderstanding of Noname’s assertion that most rap consumers are white. “White consumption of black art and black bodies is largely why mainstream rap exists as it does, “she explained. “You all are the largest consumers of rap in this country. beyond that, white label executives and radio owners ultimately decide which rappers the masses are exposed to.” Noname previously made similar points when she said she didn’t want to perform for mostly white audiences anymore.
white consumption of black art and black bodies is largely why mainstream rap exists as it does. you all are the largest consumers of rap in this country. beyond that, white label executives and radio owners ultimately decide which rappers the masses are exposed to. https://t.co/3959OGxjHI
Ever since Drake first exploded onto the mainstream stage in 2009 with his groundbreaking EP So Far Gone, he’s been a magnet for capital-D Discourse, as fans struggle to hash out his place in the rap world and whether or not there’s any deeper meaning behind his existence.
To those people, I say: “Give it a rest.”
Pardon me for getting meta for a bit, but the album cycle for Drake’s new album, Certified Lover Boy, has just been exhausting — and for me, it has only highlighted the many, many shortcomings of the way we talk about albums in the social media/streaming era.
As for the album itself, it’s, well, a Drake album. It’s by turns boastful and maudlin, filled to the brim with vapid, faux soul-searching and spite for exes, and features all the exuberance and sonic scene sampling you’ve come to expect from The Boy. The standouts highlight his self-awareness (“I’m Too Sexy” featuring Future and Young Thug features a Right Said Fred interpolation so on-the-nose, you wonder how any of them can draw breath to utter their tongue-in-cheek rhymes), Drake offers up a plethora (nay, an entire encyclopedia) of caption-able, petty, passive-aggressive Drake-isms (“Girls Want Girls” and its infamous “lesbian” line), and the producers craft the inescapably catchy, murky soundscapes that have been his signature since ’09 (“TSU” is a favorite).
Either this stuff works for you or it doesn’t. No amount of flowery language or bullying will cajole you into changing your opinion — and maybe that’s the problem. It’s more of the disposable, pleasant, middle-of-the-road pop-rap of the type Drake perhaps had the biggest hand in popularizing — why can’t that be enough?
Because it hasn’t seemed to be enough to just enjoy the biggest rap albums of the day lately. No, having a Take has become paramount to having an opinion and you absolutely must have a Take about everything all at once. So much of the initial response to Drake’s release has focused on its relation to another album that came out recently: Kanye West’s much-hyped Donda. From the respective rollouts to speculative “beef” between the two former collaborators to comparing their streaming numbers less than a week since the release of Certified Lover Boy, so little of the discussion focuses on the music that it almost feels like the music itself is just an afterthought.
Within moments of CLB dropping on streaming services (shortly after an announcement that it would arrive later than usual — a seemingly pointed jab at Kanye’s inevitable tardiness), fans were already calling it album of the year, a classic, trash, or comparing it to Kendrick Lamar’s as-yet-unannounced follow-up to DAMN. Mind you, these were people who couldn’t possibly have listened to much more than the first song or two before making such pronouncements. Hyperbolic or facetious as they may have been, they added more fuel to the dumpster fire that is rap discourse.
Picking a side and adamantly defending it is the stuff of Stan wars on Twitter but it is utterly bonkers behavior to me. I’ve always thought that if people needed competition so badly they could join an adult league. They have those for just about any sport, game, or hobby you can think of, and it would be infinitely healthier than arguing with strangers on the internet about something that is just supposed to be entertaining.
Meanwhile, there are so many tweets and essays and reviews and think pieces about why Drake needs to talk about something else other than women who’ve hurt him. Why? That’s like, the overwhelming majority of what pop music has focused on for the last fifty years. I’d rather see some acknowledgment given to Drake’s nods to the breadth of that history, his efforts to preserve and highlight regional heroes like Project Pat and OG Ron C (sampled on “TSU,” prompting an outcry because of the prosaic ways copyright law forced an R. Kelly songwriting credit into a song that doesn’t feature R. Kelly in any significant way). That’s needed; just see the way “Who is Project Pat?” inflamed and informed the discussion for a few hours after the album’s release.
Drake’s songwriting is staid? Okay. “Race My Mind” is about a booty call, absolutely, but the song is constructed around a deft Rick James reference. “Give It To Me Baby” is as old as Drake himself; this subject isn’t new or unique to him. If anything, it’s timeless, and has been relatable since before drunk texting was even a possibility — a possibility Drake uses his songwriting to reflect, because songwriters talk about the world around them. It doesn’t even have to be recent or even Drake talking about himself at all! The assumption that it is shows how much we limit writers, especially those in rap, to autobiography. It’s also pretty telling that when it comes to rap, we default to “beef” and “keeping it real” — constructs that are intrinsic to hip-hop culture, yes, but seemingly exaggerated and constraining when applied to every single major release. These storylines keep popping up in relation to rap and rappers and I think that says a lot about how we see the people most associated with the music.
A friend pointed out on Twitter that at some point, analysis became punditry, and nothing has backed up that argument like the way the Discourse surrounding major releases has devolved into a repetition of the same tired Twitter tropes. There’s no digging, there’s little appreciation, and we seemingly can’t even agree to disagree without things getting contentious. When everybody is competing to have the “most woke” outlook, you can’t help but have these ostensibly progressive debates about representation of women on these albums that actually flatten and denigrate much-needed discussions. (Why are we counting? What’s the correct quota of female features? Why do the women need the approval of or cosigns from these overgrown manchildren in the first place?).
It’d be great if music was just fun again. Or if, instead of feeling like we all have to weigh in on the biggest names, we could plug our favorite alternatives. Little Simz dropped a truly fantastic project the same day as Certified Lover Boy. What if all those people who want to hear more women’s voices in rap supported that album instead of arguing all day about whether Certified Lover Boy was “better” than Donda or insisting that Kendrick Lamar would blow both out of the water? The most frustrating part is that, in reading Drake’s Apple Music description of his latest album, it became really obvious (if it wasn’t already from the ridiculous album cover and the month of back-and-forth trolling between him and Kanye) that he’s been in on the joke the entire time. We should be laughing along, not getting mad because he gave us exactly what we want.
Certified Lover Boy is out now via OVO/Republic Records. Get it here.
In the wake of Nipsey Hussle’s death, merchandise from his store, Marathon, became such a hot commodity that it sold out all of the available stock in the weeks immediately afterward. In the years since, it’s remained popular due to the late rapper’s beloved status and elevated visibility thanks to things like his Grammy wins and massive televised memorial service in which Nipsey received praise for his community building efforts from the likes of President Obama and Jay-Z.
However, the drawback to that increased popularity is that it has allegedly attracted unscrupulous businesses looking to cash in. According to TMZ, Nipsey’s estate, led by his older brother Samiel Asghedom (aka Blacc Sam), has taken issue with a number of e-commerce sites that have begun selling knockoff merch bearing the distinctive Crenshaw logo sold at Marathon Clothing Store, as well as other trademarked properties like one reading “South Central State of Mind.” To curb the spread, Sam has filed lawsuit in the state of Illinois, where the sites appear to be doing most of their marketing, to get all the profits from the sales or $2 million per trademark violation.
The sites appear to be operating from China, and although they appear to be different sites, the lawsuit makes clear they believe that the sites could be working in concert, due to shared marketing practices, similar misspellings, and other telltale signs.
Nipsey Hussle is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Today saw Netflix share the first teaser of the upcoming movie Don’t Look Up, which has a stacked cast and follows two astronomers trying to warn the world of impending doom. Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardi DiCaprio play the lead roles, and also getting some screen time are Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi, whose appearances are previewed in the teaser.
Both of their appearances in the clip are super brief: A photo of Cudi’s character is displayed on screen during a broadcast of an in-movie show called The Daily Rip, while we get just a quick shot of Grande shifting her focus from one thing to another. There’s not much to go on there, but we can determine that Cudi and Grande’s characters appear to have some level of familiarity with each other: EW shared some photos from the film today, and in one of them, Cudi and Grande snuggle up together, smiling with drinks in hand.
First look at Kid Cudi and Ariana Grande in Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ film. pic.twitter.com/nPFtTKTjWW
It’s not too surprising to see Grande and Cudi here, as they’re two of music’s most experienced actors: Grande’s first brush with fame was her role in the Nickelodeon show Victorious and its spin-off series Sam & Cat, while Cudi had starring roles in How to Make It In America and Comedy Bang! Bang!.
Aside from the aforementioned, the movie also stars Jonah Hill, Meryl Streep, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Matthew Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, and Cate Blanchett.
In the wake of Nipsey Hussle’s death, merchandise from his store, Marathon, became such a hot commodity that it sold out all of the available stock in the weeks immediately afterward. In the years since, it’s remained popular due to the late rapper’s beloved status and elevated visibility thanks to things like his Grammy wins and massive televised memorial service in which Nipsey received praise for his community building efforts from the likes of President Obama and Jay-Z.
However, the drawback to that increased popularity is that it has allegedly attracted unscrupulous businesses looking to cash in. According to TMZ, Nipsey’s estate, led by his older brother Samiel Asghedom (aka Blacc Sam), has taken issue with a number of e-commerce sites that have begun selling knockoff merch bearing the distinctive Crenshaw logo sold at Marathon Clothing Store, as well as other trademarked properties like one reading “South Central State of Mind.” To curb the spread, Sam has filed lawsuit in the state of Illinois, where the sites appear to be doing most of their marketing, to get all the profits from the sales or $2 million per trademark violation.
The sites appear to be operating from China, and although they appear to be different sites, the lawsuit makes clear they believe that the sites could be working in concert, due to shared marketing practices, similar misspellings, and other telltale signs.
Nipsey Hussle is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Today saw Netflix share the first teaser of the upcoming movie Don’t Look Up, which has a stacked cast and follows two astronomers trying to warn the world of impending doom. Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardi DiCaprio play the lead roles, and also getting some screen time are Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi, whose appearances are previewed in the teaser.
Both of their appearances in the clip are super brief: A photo of Cudi’s character is displayed on screen during a broadcast of an in-movie show called The Daily Rip, while we get just a quick shot of Grande shifting her focus from one thing to another. There’s not much to go on there, but we can determine that Cudi and Grande’s characters appear to have some level of familiarity with each other: EW shared some photos from the film today, and in one of them, Cudi and Grande snuggle up together, smiling with drinks in hand.
First look at Kid Cudi and Ariana Grande in Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ film. pic.twitter.com/nPFtTKTjWW
It’s not too surprising to see Grande and Cudi here, as they’re two of music’s most experienced actors: Grande’s first brush with fame was her role in the Nickelodeon show Victorious and its spin-off series Sam & Cat, while Cudi had starring roles in How to Make It In America and Comedy Bang! Bang!.
Aside from the aforementioned, the movie also stars Jonah Hill, Meryl Streep, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Matthew Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, and Cate Blanchett.
Drake and Kanye West have a history of longstanding beef that was at one point squashed, but has seemingly intensified around their respective albums. Kanye West dropped his buzz-worthy album Donda just a week before Drake’s equally-anticipated LP Certified Lover Boy. While Donda dominated streaming services upon its release, it looks as though Drake’s album reportedly out-performed Kanye’s.
It’s no secret that both Donda and Certified Lover Boy saw massive debut weeks. According to Kanye’s team, Donda had over 180 million streams in 24 hours, breaking both Spotify and Apple Music’s single-day streaming record for 2021. But a week later, Drake’s Certified Lover Boy took the top streaming slot in just a few days, per a report from Rolling Stone. According to Alpha Data, the analytics provider Rolling Stone uses to calculate their charts, Certified Lover Boy saw 430 million in the three days following its release. By comparison, Donda received under 423 million streams in its first eight days.
Even though Certified Lover Boy saw more streams than Donda, Kanye’s album was still a success by all accounts. The LP debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, selling 309,000 units in its first week and leaving Kanye tied with Eminem for the most-consecutive No. 1 albums.
) rap about the same things 
(@noname) 
