Music

Lil Nas X Tries To Prevent ‘Industry Baby’ Video Complaints By Declaring It’s ‘Not For Your Kids’

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Thanks to the universal success of “Old Town Road,” Lil Nas X began his career perceived as a kid-friendly artist. That’s despite the fact the song boasts lyrics about lean, adultery, and breasts. This misconception is part of the reason why “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and its Hell-set video drew a lot of backlash from parents. Now, the rapper is getting ready to release a new video for “Industry Baby,” so he’s trying to get ahead of the inevitable criticism and nip it in the bud.

On Twitter today, he offered a disclaimer about the clip, writing, “saying this in advance so y’all won’t blame me. THE INDUSTRY BABY VIDEO IS NOT FOR YOUR KIDS!” A Twitter user responded, “My 2 year old loves your music how can you not make it appropriate for everyone,” to which Nas replied, “bless ur 2 year olds heart but i need to be a slut sometimes sir.”

Lil Nas X has gotten used to dealing with haters at this point, and he’s gotten quite good at it. There were complaints about his on-stage kiss at this year’s BET Awards, so he fired back by joking (probably, anyway) that his next step is to have sex on stage.

J. Cole Teams Up With NBA Superstar Carmelo Anthony To Dominate Their Pickup Game

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Even though he finally fulfilled his dream of playing basketball professionally earlier this year with the Basketball Africa League, J. Cole has still been keeping up his skills practice. He recently worked out with NBA trainer Phil Handy and the Lakers’ Talen Horton-Tucker, and it looks like he’s still playing pickup ball pretty regularly. At a recent run with even more NBA trainers, he picked up a teammate who knows a little bit about playing with pros: Carmelo Anthony.

Footage from the session was posted to social media depicting Cole and Melo teaming up at a run that also featured the Houston Rockets’ Kevin Porter Jr. Cole appears to be keeping up, sinking a pull-up jumper in transition and feeding Melo for an easy top-of-the-key, catch-and-shoot three. Of course, Melo’s highlights dominate the clip as he pours in bucket after bucket from seemingly everywhere on the floor.

Judging from the fact that Cole has been popping up with NBA trainers, it doesn’t look like he totally satisfied just with playing overseas. He’s certainly received some positive feedback from many of the players he played with for Rwanda, although he received his share of criticism too. Whether he’s still pursuing the NBA or just working on improving his skills, the work ethic he spoke about leading into the release of his new album The Off-Season looks to be intact as he prepares to go on tour with 21 Savage and Morray to promote the new project.

Ty Dolla Sign And 070 Shake Join Swedish House Mafia’s Moody ‘Lifetime’ Performance On ‘The Tonight Show’

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Just hours after debuting their new single “Lifetime,” Swedish House Mafia appeared on The Tonight Show to deliver a moody performance of the new track with Ty Dolla Sign and 070 Shake, as well as their prior single “It Gets Better.”

All of the performers appear in silhouette in a darkened room. During the Swedish House Mafia parts, each of the three members appears in one of three orange-tinged “portholes” playing their respective instruments. During Ty and Shake’s appearances, the two R&B futurists are tripled to appear in all three of the circles of light.

“It Gets Better” and “Lifetime” are the lead and second single from Swedish House Mafia’s upcoming debut album Paradise Again, respectively, while Paradise Again is the Stockholm trio’s first full-length project since the 2012 compilation Until Now.

070 Shake, who the band said they would put “on every single record we did” if they could, made her splashy debut last year with Modus Vivendi after writing for Kanye West on his GOOD Music albums in 2018. Meanwhile, Ty Dolla Sign is also closing in on a year removed from his own 2020 album, Featuring Ty Dolla Sign.

Watch Swedish House Mafia’s Tonight Show performance of their new single “Lifetime” above.

Ty Dolla Sign is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Ty Dolla Sign And 070 Shake Join Swedish House Mafia’s Moody ‘Lifetime’ Performance On ‘The Tonight Show’

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Just hours after debuting their new single “Lifetime,” Swedish House Mafia appeared on The Tonight Show to deliver a moody performance of the new track with Ty Dolla Sign and 070 Shake, as well as their prior single “It Gets Better.”

All of the performers appear in silhouette in a darkened room. During the Swedish House Mafia parts, each of the three members appears in one of three orange-tinged “portholes” playing their respective instruments. During Ty and Shake’s appearances, the two R&B futurists are tripled to appear in all three of the circles of light.

“It Gets Better” and “Lifetime” are the lead and second single from Swedish House Mafia’s upcoming debut album Paradise Again, respectively, while Paradise Again is the Stockholm trio’s first full-length project since the 2012 compilation Until Now.

070 Shake, who the band said they would put “on every single record we did” if they could, made her splashy debut last year with Modus Vivendi after writing for Kanye West on his GOOD Music albums in 2018. Meanwhile, Ty Dolla Sign is also closing in on a year removed from his own 2020 album, Featuring Ty Dolla Sign.

Watch Swedish House Mafia’s Tonight Show performance of their new single “Lifetime” above.

Ty Dolla Sign is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Childish Gambino Turns In An Optimistic Cover Of Brittany Howard’s ‘Stay High’

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This week will bring Jaime Reimagined, for which Brittany Howard recruited some of her musical peers to put their own spin on songs from her 2019 debut solo album, Jaime. She rounded up quite the cast for the project, as it features folks like Bon Iver, Earthgang, BadBadNotGood, Syd, and Common.

Also appearing is Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover), whose cover of “Stay High” was shared today. Gambino’s rendition of the song starts with a string into before he sings in falsetto over jaunty keyboards, synths, and electronic drums. Howard’s original version of the song has more of an organic sound, but Gambino’s rendition retains the optimistic spirit of the original and doesn’t come across as too much of a departure despite the vastly different instrumentation.

Brittany Howard previously said of the project, “Making Jaime was so much fun for me because I was able to explore so many different genres of music. There were no rules. This reimagination project has been no different. I have been honored to have so many incredible artists from all musical worlds interpret my songs in such interesting and different ways.”

Listen to Gambino’s rendition of “Stay High” above.

Jaime Reimagined is out 7/23 via ATO Records. Pre-order it here.

Cardi B Dons A Leather Bikini To Show Off Her Baby Bump And Rap ‘Wild Side’

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The past month has been busy for Cardi B. Towards the end of June, she popped up at the BET Awards and revealed that she is pregnant again. Then, a few days ago, she hopped on Normani’s new single, “Wild Side.” Now she has brought those two events together in a new Twitter video.

Cardi begins the clip lip-syncing Normani’s hook while wearing a green mesh outfit. When it comes time for Cardi’s verse, everything changes. The scene shifts to Cardi sitting on a black box and wearing a leather bikini, which offers a good look at her baby bump.

After the original “Wild Side” video dropped, Cardi declared that had she not been pregnant, the visual would have looked a lot different. She tweeted, “If I wasn’t pregnant I would of done a lit ass pole video to wildside ….but I am so imma just have to do a video rolling on the floor like peppa pig.”

Also recently, Cardi showed off how she was able to hide her baby bump for so long by demonstrating with a video that made clever use of angles.

Check out the “Wild Side” clip above.

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

Doja Cat Thinks Fans Look At Female Rappers Like They’re ‘Less Than Smart’

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As female rappers continue to gain in popularity, more of them have spoken out about the unfair perceptions facing women in hip-hop. Cardi B recently addressed the double standard that follows them, saying in essence that they must work twice as hard for half the respect, a sentiment that up-and-coming rapper Latto co-signed a few weeks later.

In a new interview for Nick Cannon’s show on LA’s Power 106, Doja Cat also fielded questions about why she believes women face these obstacles. “When you dress up like you are going on a night out in Miami… People will put you in a category and for them to be comfortable, they’ll make it seem like you are not very smart, you are just a girl who is just a rapper,” she said. “You don’t have a great sense of humor maybe, or you’re stuck up… like female rappers are vapid or less than smart, I feel that’s how they’re looked at.”

Incidentally, it seemed that the interview itself simply affirmed her outlook, as she later tweeted, “If you’re gonna interview musicians try to ask them about their music,” highlighting how Cannon’s line of questioning apparently ignored the fact she has a new album, Planet Her, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the singles “Kiss Me More” with SZA and “You Right” with The Weeknd, as well as a deluxe edition featuring Eve’s first rapping appearance since Missy Elliott’s 2017 “I’m Better” remix.

Watch Doja Cat’s interview with Nick Cannon above.

Rising Detroit Rapper Bruiser Wolf Explains How He Separated Himself From The Pack

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Danny Brown is a unique, head-turning rapper. He seems to have a keen eye for other idiosyncratic artists as well: Bruiser Wolf, an artist on Brown’s Bruiser Brigade Records label, has drawn critical praise for standing out on his new album, Dope Game Stupid. As Wolf makes his ascent, a new Magnum Scenes video (presented by Uproxx in partnership with Magnum) looks at where Wolf has been and where he’s going.

The Detroit rapper was once known as Big Wolf, but he says he tweaked his name to show his appreciation for his label and his fellow artists on it: “I used to be Big Wolf. Changed it when I got with the Bruiser Brigade. All fire MC’s, fire producers. […] To let them know that this forever, I put ‘Bruiser’ in front of my name, like a badge of honor for me, to express my loyalty.”

Between footage of Wolf showing off his home and life, his Bruiser Brigade compatriots share praise for his unique style. “He’s a poet and a comedian at the same time,” ZelooperZ noted. J.U.S. also declared, “I ain’t heard nobody rap like that in so long.” Meanwhile, Brown praised his “very distinctive voice that’s going to separate him from the pack.”

Elsewhere in the video, Wolf and his peers tell the story of his career so far, and it’s full of terrific anecdotes, including some avian coincidences that tie in to the distinctive Dope Game Stupid cover art. Check out the full video above.

DDG Explains Why He Added Blueface To ‘Moonwalking In Calabasas’ For ‘How I Blew Up’

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After profiling Pooh Shiesty and Blxst in the last two episodes of How I Blew Up, this week, Uproxx dives into the background of their fellow 2021 XXL Freshman from Pontiac, Michigan, DDG, who experienced his career peak this year with “Moonwalking In Calabasas” from his collaborative mixtape with Atlanta producer OG Parker.

In this episode, DDG explains how “there’s nothing to do in Pontiac but bullsh*t” and what led him to pursue creating YouTube videos as a career. He then explains why he made the transition from YouTube to recording his first handful of mixtapes and faced skepticism from fans who thought that he wasn’t taking music seriously — an obstacle he confronted by releasing a song literally titled “Take Me Serious.” Naturally, he also addresses the moment he knew “Moonwalking In Calabasas” was his biggest hit yet, and he ends the episode reflecting on his plans for the future, which include retirement by the age of 33.

In addition to appearing on How I Blew Up and the latest episode of UPROXX Sessions (performing his Die 4 Respect single “Hood Melody“), DDG is also the focus of Uproxx’s latest digital cover story, which you can check out here.

Watch the latest episode of How I Blew Up above.

The Crossover Between Rap And Basketball Showcases Dual Threats On Both Sides

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Basketball players and rappers occasionally crossing into one another’s worlds is by no means a new trend. For years, some hoopers have viewed music as an interest to pursue when they’re not out on the hardwood, while rappers have viewed the basketball court as a place to go have some fun in between recording sessions.

In today’s Dime Breakdown, we decided to look at both sides of the coin. We start by highlighting a pair of NBA players who are two of the best on the mic right now. Of course, Damian Lillard is at the top of the NBA’s rap game right now, but there are plenty of other dudes on the come up. One of them, Sacramento Kings youngster Marvin Bagley III, has actually gotten into it with Dame (and, if we can be honest, came up short), but can still hold his own in the booth.

On the other side of things, we highlighted a pair of rappers who have game for days. J. Cole was an easy mention here, as he’s coming off of a spell as a professional basketball player in the Basketball Africa League earlier this year, while NLE Choppa is as bright a star on the court as he is in the studio.