Music

Chika Slams A Promoter For ‘Disrespecting’ Her During A Club Event She Hosted

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Chika has faced disrespect one too many times in the music industry and unfortunately for the Grammy-nominated rapper, she was forced to deal with another instance of it over the weekend. In a lengthy string of tweets, Chika shared a recent encounter with a club promoter that she deemed disrespectful for a number of reasons. On Friday June 2, the rapper was asked to host a club event in Los Angeles, but the night turned out to be extremely disappointing and unsatisfying as she revealed through her posts to Twitter.

“This is why I don’t f*ck with the industry,” she wrote. “Keep disrespecting me, it’s gonna get physical. I’m from Alabama, b*tch don’t play with me.” She added, “Offered me 2k, no complimentary bottles, I paid $1600 for the tab, they didn’t play ONE song of mine, but played like 5 of guest’s (kehlani.)”

Chika later clarified that her comments had “nothing to do with lani,” but rather “the n**** running the event.” She also revealed the promoter’s name to be Brandon Anthony before explaining that an incident like the one at the club makes her specifically targeted.

“Let’s not even try to make this a solidarity moment cuz they would never do this to Cardi, Meg, Saweetie, Latto, Lizzo, Coi Leray, Rapsody, etc,” she added. “This is specific to ME. And a lot of those black women actually never say sh*t. We not in this together.” A few moments later, she shared screenshots of a text message exchange with who appeared to be Anthony. In it, the promoter offers $2,000 as well as car and bottle service for Chika and an invited guest, adding that “no speaking” was needed at the event.

A couple of hours later, Anthony arrived on Twitter to defend his side of things, but Chika wasn’t having it. In a tweet, Anthony wrote in part, “I am not going to allow certain individuals tarnish my name because of a simple miscommunication,” and in response, she said, “Miscommunication, boy shut your lying ass up,” with a screenshot of the promoter telling her, “the people was not there to see yo ass anyway. I promise you.”

Chika also revealed accused Anthony of assaulting another woman the same night of the event. “This was in response to me bringing up him putting his hands on Amiyah last night,” she wrote with a screenshot of a message from the promoter. “PLS report his page.” As her lengthy messages slowly came to an end, Chika shared plans to seek legal action against the rapper. “And since I didn’t sign the contract, I can sue,” she tweeted. “And if he wants to say there was a verbal contract, that “verbal contract” included car service & bottle service which I spent $2k+ on. Boy, I’m bout to collect everything you made last night.” She added, “The lord works in mysterious ways.”

You can see additional tweets from Chika about the club event below.

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

Pop Smoke Delivers A Motivational Speech For The Outro Of His Upcoming Posthumous Album

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The music world is just a day removed from the one-year anniversary of Pop Smoke’s first posthumous album, Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon. The 19-track effort, which extended to 34 songs after a deluxe reissue, stood as one of last year’s most popular albums. In fact, at this year’s Billboard Music Awards, the project won Top Billboard 200 Album and Top Rap Album. Now, the late rapper’s team is preparing to release a second posthumous album as its impending arrival was confirmed at the end of last month.

At the time of the announcement, a title for the project had not been revealed. That changed when the pre-order for the album went live on streaming services Saturday night. The late rapper’s second posthumous album will be titled Pop Smoke and it will deliver 17 songs to listeners. Fans will have to wait a bit longer to view the album’s official tracklist and possible guest features, but in the meantime, they can press play on the outro for Pop Smoke which finds the Brooklyn native giving a motivational speech to listeners.

Along with the announcement of Pop Smoke, the late rapper’s team shared an album trailer that portrayed interviews and behind-the-scenes footage with the Brooklyn native. “Never let anybody get in between you and your creations,” the rapper says in the trailer. “Why you just trying to be cool? You gotta make history.”

You can listen to the outro from Pop Smoke in the video above.

Pop Smoke is out 7/16 via Victor Victor Worldwide/Republic. Pre-order it here.

Britney Spears Reportedly Called 911 About Her Conservatorship Just A Day Before Her Explosive Hearing

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Despite its 13-year existence, the public continues to learn more and more about Britney Spears’ conservatorship, and more specifically, how the singer herself feels about it. During a court hearing last month, she labeled the court arrangement as “abusive” and pleaded for a judge to terminate it. While the conservatorship was not removed, the singer’s desire for its end was not hidden at all in the days leading up to the hearing.

According to an investigation conducted by The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino, Britney made a 911 call on the eve of the June 23 hearing to “report herself as a victim of conservatorship abuse.”

The publication confirmed the call thanks to a person close to the singer and law enforcement in Ventura County, California. Normally, emergency calls in California are accessible to the public, but the county sealed the records of the call citing an ongoing investigation. They added that the singer’s team began “texting one another frantically” as they were all worried about what Spears could say in court the following day.

The same report from The New Yorker also revealed that the conservatorship controls Spears so tightly that she was often forced to borrow phones from strangers at gyms and grocery stores.

“Last time she called me, she was at Ralphs, in Calabasas,” her former manager Sam Lufti said in the article. “After she hung up, I got a call from the same number — it’s an Asian doctor, who says, ‘Wow, this is surreal, Britney just borrowed my phone.’ Five years ago, she borrowed a phone at the gym and just made off with it.”

You can read the full piece on The New Yorker here.

Lana Del Rey Updates Her ‘Blue Banisters’ Album Artwork And Teases A New Single

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Less than three months ago, Lana Del Rey shared Chemtrails Over The Country Club, the singer’s seventh album. It’s a project that arrived less than two years after her sixth effort, Norman F*cking Rockwell. The way the singer tells it, however, fans won’t have to wait nearly as long for her upcoming eighth album.

In fact, the full-length effort titled Blue Banisters was supposed to arrive in time for the Fourth Of July holiday, but it’s been pushed back to an unspecified release date. While the delay might be disappointing to fans, Del Rey shared a new cover art and teased an upcoming single to keep the excitement alive for Blue Banisters.

The new cover art for Blue Banisters now features an image of the singer sitting in between two dogs on a wooden deck over a white background with her name and the album’s title in black lettering. This replaces the previous cover that was much simpler compared to the more professional album artworks that could be found within her catalog. She also teased an upcoming song through a video of her singing in a room as the sun shined brightly behind her. “Album out later later… Single out soonish,” she captioned the video. “Have a good fourth x.”

As for when Blue Bannisters will arrive, that remains to be seen but for now, you can check out the new artwork and video of Del Rey singing the unreleased track above.

Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ Is Now Spotify’s Most-Streamed Album Of 2021

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Between “Drivers License” and her official debut album, Sour, Olivia Rodrigo has seen a large amount of success in 2021. The young singer earned the respect of her newfound music industry peers like Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, and Cardi B, but that’s not all. The singer also became extremely beloved by her fans and her latest accolade is proof of that.

A little over a month after releasing Sour, Rodrigo’s debut officially become Spotify’s most-streamed album of 2021 according to Pop Crave. The project posted 2.69 billion streams on the streaming platform, surpassing Justin Bieber’s Justice for the top spot this year to date.

The achievement comes after Sour spent its second nonconsecutive week atop the Billboard albums chart last week. After posting a total of 105,000 units sold, Rodrigo’s debut joined Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album as the only projects in 2021 to sell more than 100,000 units in each of its first five weeks on the Billboard 200.

On a more recent note, Sour becoming 2021’s most-streamed album on Spotify comes days after the singer released her Sour Prom concert film. The artsy visual captured the singer preparing for an elegant prom night with friends as records from Sour, which includes “Deja Vu” and “Good 4 U,” play at different points in the film.

You can revisit our review of Sour here. Sour is out now via Geffen. Get it here.

Ice Cube Is Reportedly At Odds With Warner Bros. Over A ‘Friday’ Sequel

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Ice Cube‘s Friday series is a classic, but the chances of getting another film in the series is apparently in doubt due to a dispute between the multi-hyphenate and the studio behind the series.

According to a Wall Street Journal story detailing the dispute, Ice Cube apparently wants Warners to surrender the rights to the Friday series as well as All About The Benjamins and The Players Club, two other films he made with the studio.

According to letters between the parties, Warner Bros. doesn’t intend to do this, instead blaming Ice Cube for dragging his feet on a new movie with the studio.

Warner Bros. replied, calling the demand “extortionate” and saying it won’t release rights to the valuable franchise or any other Ice Cube movies, according to the correspondence.

One letter from Ice Cube’s lawyer said the studio has been excessive in its feedback notes on the scripts Ice Cube wrote for the latest “Friday” and contends Warner Bros. has been a “poor steward” for the franchise. “These guys don’t get me, and I don’t get them,” Ice Cube said in an interview.

The report indicates that Cube’s other projects, such as the Big 3 basketball league, is distracting him from the next installment in the series, titled Last Friday. Meanwhile, the rapper and actor says potential discrimination in allocating resources is part of his issues with Warners.

In one letter, Ice Cube’s representative wrote that movies he has done for the studio “are habitually underfunded in comparison with projects featuring white casts and creative teams.” The correspondence points to other Ice Cube films he says weren’t well supported; it doesn’t offer specific comparisons to projects from other filmmakers.

Warner Bros. denies it has discriminated against Ice Cube or that it gave short shrift to any of his projects. In a letter sent in May to Ice Cube’s lawyer Bryan Freedman, the studio said the complaints are “grounded in a libelous set of knowing falsehoods.”

The disagreement between the two sides seems serious, and also doesn’t seem likely to be resolved anytime soon. Which means a sequel to Friday, which came out in 1995, isn’t on the horizon anytime soon. As the report noted, an agreement to make a new Friday movie was first signed in 2012. The story details some plot details the studio objected to, and the pushback that Cube gave about the film’s direction.

It’s all certainly been a long time coming, but fans are likely to have to wait even longer before any real progress is made on on Last Friday.

[via Wall Street Journal]

Kevin Huerter Disgusts Hawks Fans By Picking Rich The Kid Over Outkast

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Fans of the Atlanta Hawks turned on one of their own players on Saturday night … well, kind of. As is oftentimes the case in NBA arenas, the Hawks tried to pass some time in between timeouts by running little segments involving players. One appeared to have some sort of bracket element with Atlanta-based rappers, and Kevin Huerter, bless his heart, earned himself a whole lot of boos.

Huerter was asked to choose between Rich the Kid and Outkast. Now, you and I know that regardless of your thoughts on Rich the Kid, you should say Outkast every single time when asked this question, especially if you are doing this in a large venue in Atlanta.

And yet Huerter decided to give his honest answer, and thanks to a video from Taylor Rooks, we learned that the crowd at State Farm Arena showered him with boos.

The video is great because you can hear the crowd react to “RICH THE KID OR OUTKAST” by making a noise as if to say, “Oh, this one is obvious.” Huerter then zags where everyone expects him to zig, which gets the crowd all riled up. We can’t totally make out what is said on the video, but whatever it is, Huerter chuckles at it. Anyway, Kevin, if you read this during halftime, know you’re gonna need to score like 40 in a win to make up for this.

Vince Staples Shares The Tracklist For His Upcoming Self-Titled Album As Its Release Date Nears

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After nearly three years, Vince Staples is finally releasing a new project. The Long Beach rapper will share his third album, a self-titled effort, at the end of next week. It’s a project that will feature heavy production by Kenny Beats, something he revealed in an interview with W magazine.

“[Kenny] sent me a beat that I recorded on, and it just went from there,” he said. “We didn’t go into it intentionally thinking that we would end up with as much as we had. We ended up working two days a week for a month, from after Thanksgiving until before Christmas in 2020. A couple of weeks in, we looked up, and we had some stuff.”

As the release for Vince Staples nears, the rapper shared the tracklist for the upcoming effort on Saturday.

Vince’s third album is comprised of 10 tracks with a lone feature from rising singer Foushee. It also features his previously released single, “Law Of Averages,” which he released for fans last month. A quick glance at the album’s Apple Music pre-save page shows that Vince Staples clocks in at just 22 minutes, which happens to be the exact length of his last project, 2018’s FM!.

Blacksmith/Motown

You can check out the album’s artwork above and its tracklist below.

1. “Are You With That?”
2. “Law Of Averages”
3. “Sundown Town”
4. “The Shining”
5. “Taking Trips”
6. “The Apple & The Tree”
7. “Take Me Home” Feat. Foushee
8. “Lil Fade”
9. “Lakewood Mall”
10. “Mhm”

Vince Staples is out 7/9 via Blacksmith Recordings/Motown Records. Pre-order it here.

G Herbo Is Deep In Introspection As He Travels Through Chicago In His Video For ‘I Don’t Wanna Die’

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It’s barely been a year since G Herbo dropped his third album, PTSD, an effort many called the best and most well-rounded project of his career. Now, he’s back with his fourth effort, titled 25, after the age he’ll turn later this fall. With the new project comes a brand new video for “I Don’t Wanna Die.”

The visual captures the Chicago native standing on top of a bus as it rides through his hometown. Clips of children playing in the street are displayed in the first half of the video before things take a turn for the worst as Herbo shows the darker side of the city that raised him.

25 arrives as a 19-track effort with guest appearances from Polo G, Lil Tjay, 21 Savage, The Kid Laroi, Gunna, Yosohn, and Rowdy Rebel. Prior to the album’s release, Herbo detailed the road that led to his fourth album in an Instagram post.

“I LOST MORE THAN I EVER GAINED BEING IN THE STREETS & STILL NEVER COMPLAINED,” he wrote in part. “NOW THAT I TURNED #25 I JUST GREW A LIL WISER BUT IM STILL JUST AS PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS SH*T & EVERYTHING I BELIEVE IN! I COULD GO ON & ON ABOUT THIS SH*T BUT IM NOT!”

Scroll up to watch the video for “I Don’t Wanna Die.”

25 is out now via Machine/Epic. Get it here.

Gunna is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Cordae Takes A Shot At Capitalism And The Greedy People Of The World On ‘Taxes’

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After staying quiet for the better part of a year following the release of his Grammy-nominated debut album, The Lost Boy, Cordae has returned to active duty. Now we have his latest single, “Taxes,” a song that first appeared in the Barack and Michelle Obama-produced Netflix series We The People. The lyrics take direct aim at the capitalists in the world, questioning whether or not taxes are actually used towards improving communities.

The track comes after he dropped his EP Just Until earlier this year, which featured features from Young Thug and Q-Tip, as well as videos for “Wassup,” “Dream In Color,” and “More Life,” also from the same project. Prior to that, he dropped his single “Parables” and teamed up with Roddy Ricch for their collaboration”Gifted.”

On a more recent note, he stood beside Freddie Gibbs to guest appear on an official version of Nas’ “Life Is Like A Dice Game.” He also teamed with Common for “What’s Life” and funded scholarships for HBCU students in a partnership with Disney and ESPN.

You can listen to Cordae’s “Taxes” in the video above.

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