Next week, various artists are scheduled to get together for a benefit concert in London. Proceeds from the performance will go to the people of Gaza and Sudan, regions currently experiencing crises. Yasiin Bey and Earl Sweatshirt are two of the artists currently on the lineup, along with Daniel Caesar, Blood Orange, King Krule, Clairo, Ramy Youssef, and several others. The concert will take place at London’s Troxy on July 4, and tickets are available for purchase now.
Poet and performer Mustafa shared a heartfelt message about the upcoming event on Instagram earlier this week, urging his followers to attend. “London! Sudan is calling. Gaza is calling. Every artist here is a hero of empathy, thank you for answering our call. Tickets are on sale at artistsforaid.org at 5pm today. There is a war, strike a chord, cry an answer,” he wrote.
As expected, the post has sparked a bit of a debate in his comments section, though most are praising him for supporting a good cause. This isn’t the first time fans have seen one of their favorite artists trying to help out, however. Earlier this month, Kehlanidonated a whopping $550K in merch sales to the people of Palestine, Sudan, and Congo. She expressed immense gratitude for those who contributed to her fundraiser as she shared the news.
“555k. no words. thank you, to you. thank you @operationolivebranch thank you @nolcollective thank you @simsim.jpeg thank you God, thank YOU,” she captioned her Instagram post. “Free Palestine. free Congo free Sudan. land back. land back. land back.” What do you think of various artists getting together to host a benefit concert for the people of Gaza and Sudan? Will you be in attendance? Share your thoughts in the comments section down below, and keep an eye on HNHH for more updates.
Next week, various artists are scheduled to get together for a benefit concert in London. Proceeds from the performance will go to the people of Gaza and Sudan, regions currently experiencing crises. Yasiin Bey and Earl Sweatshirt are two of the artists currently on the lineup, along with Daniel Caesar, Blood Orange, King Krule, Clairo, Ramy Youssef, and several others. The concert will take place at London’s Troxy on July 4, and tickets are available for purchase now.
Poet and performer Mustafa shared a heartfelt message about the upcoming event on Instagram earlier this week, urging his followers to attend. “London! Sudan is calling. Gaza is calling. Every artist here is a hero of empathy, thank you for answering our call. Tickets are on sale at artistsforaid.org at 5pm today. There is a war, strike a chord, cry an answer,” he wrote.
As expected, the post has sparked a bit of a debate in his comments section, though most are praising him for supporting a good cause. This isn’t the first time fans have seen one of their favorite artists trying to help out, however. Earlier this month, Kehlanidonated a whopping $550K in merch sales to the people of Palestine, Sudan, and Congo. She expressed immense gratitude for those who contributed to her fundraiser as she shared the news.
“555k. no words. thank you, to you. thank you @operationolivebranch thank you @nolcollective thank you @simsim.jpeg thank you God, thank YOU,” she captioned her Instagram post. “Free Palestine. free Congo free Sudan. land back. land back. land back.” What do you think of various artists getting together to host a benefit concert for the people of Gaza and Sudan? Will you be in attendance? Share your thoughts in the comments section down below, and keep an eye on HNHH for more updates.
For years, Miami fans have gotten heat (pun intended) for not exactly being the most punctual fan base in the NBA. A combination of some heavy traffic and living in a city with beaches and restaurants and plenty to do means a lot of Heat games start with a sparsely filled arena, eventually reaching capacity well after the opening tip.
Miami fans will defend themselves with a variety of excuses, including some very legitimate ones, but it is noticeable and it’s not just fans of other teams or the media that see it. In a new video with Complex, Jimmy Butler sat down with pop star Camila Cabello to talk about their shared home city, and while Butler made clear he loves the people of Miami, he also couldn’t help but complain about the tardiness of the fans, calling it the worst thing about the city.
Butler wants to have the building “rocking” from the jump, but it tends to be a slow build to the energy at home games for the Heat. It’ll be interesting to see how this goes over with Heat fans. Butler, for his part, has one more year left on his deal with the Heat and extension talks with the organization have seemingly not gotten far. That said, while there was reporting earlier this summer that could lead to Butler pushing his way out via trade, more recently the indication has been he’ll play out the year with the Heat whether he’s got a long-term deal or not. Either way, he’d like to see the Kaseya Center fill up a bit earlier than usual next season.
Drake’s viral lyrical battle with Kendrick Lamar had nearly everyone chiming in and continues to have fans talking to this day. According to Tony Yayo, however, there could have been even more peers who wanted to share their opinions on the feud. During a recent interview with VladTV, he explained that some people may have chosen to keep their takes to themselves to not ruin their ability to travel to Canada.
“You can’t really give your opinion because n*ggas still wanna go to Canada,” he began, “You don’t wanna say something about Drake and now you can’t go to Canada. You got wild n***as in Canada like Pressa, Bun, and Top5.” While Tony Yayo’s claims are still up for debate, he appears to be on to something, at least when it comes to Top5.
Tony Yayo Discusses Drake & Kendrick Lamar’s Viral Feud
Tony Yayo talks about Drake vs Kendrick Lamar beef
“You can’t really give your opinion because n*ggas still wanna go to Canada, you don’t wanna say something about Drake and now you can’t go to Canada. You got wild n*ggas in Canada like Pressa, Bun, and Top5” pic.twitter.com/RgvSN3Mwv7
Earlier this month, Kendrick Lamar hosted his eagerly anticipated “Pop Out” event at the Forum in LA, and countless fans and fellow artists were in attendance. The Weeknd was even spotted in the crowd after he seemingly took shots at the Toronto-born performer on a collab with Future and Metro Boomin. Top5 made it clear that he felt some type of way about his appearance, and was quick to air his thoughts on social media.
“@theweeknd you started doing coke now [you’re] from Compton?” he wrote on his Instagram Story. “Wait till my GGs see you.” The Weeknd has yet to respond to the apparent threat, though social media users have. they immediately clowned him for going after The Weeknd, who didn’t seem to want any smoke. What do you think of Tony Yayo claiming that Drake critics can’t travel to Canada? Do you agree with him or not? What about his take on Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s beef? Share your thoughts in the comments section down below, and keep an eye on HNHH for more updates.
It’s no secret that Kendrick Lamar is the center of attention following his viral feud with Drake, leaving fans eager to know what his next move will be. Rumors that he plans to drop a new album sometime soon have been floating around for months, and supporters have high hopes, particularly after some of his collaborators’ hints. Late last month, for example, Terrace Martin Tweeted that Kendrick is “locked in.” This left some followers convinced that a new project is in the works, though this has yet to be confirmed.
Now, DJ Hed has shared his predictions with Bootleg Kev during a recent interview, claiming that he wouldn’t be shocked if the rumors were true. He added that he can’t be sure, as he hasn’t been a part of any conversations about a new album. Either way, his revelation has fans excited to see what’s to come.
DJ Hed & Bootleg Kev Discuss Kendrick Lamar’s Next Move
“I guess so, I mean I don’t know you tell me,” DJ Hed said when asked if Kendrick plans to drop a new album soon. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we got something soon, but I don’t know. That’s not me, I don’t know for sure.” The album talk stopped there. It’s far from the first time fans have gotten hints that he could have something on the way, however.
In April of this year, Rory & Mal were discussing Kendrick’s response to Drake before it arrived, and Mal claimed that a “little bird” told him Kendrick was taking so long because he was saving it for his new album. What do you think of DJ Hed speculating that Kendrick Lamar could drop a new album sometime soon? Do you hope he’s right? Are you looking forward to hearing whatever it is Kendrick Lamar is working on at the moment? Share your thoughts in the comments section down below, and keep an eye on HNHH for more updates.
In April, Donald Glover confirmed he planned to release “the final Childish Gambino album” after Atavista, which arrived on May 13. The final album is believed to be called Bando Stone And The New World, and it’s supposed to release sometime this summer.
“‘Lithonia’ coming out July 2,” he said of an upcoming single during an Instagram Live session on Wednesday, June 26, as per Billboard. “That got leaked — kinda pissed me off to be honest. That’s another reason why y’all don’t get good sh*t. For what? It’s not valuable enough. It’s just a single. And I know who did it. Audiomack, f*cking no soup for you. You’re not getting the album now. That’s what time I’m on.”
An unnamed Audiomack representative provided a statement to Billboard, which reads, “This morning, we learned that an Audiomack user correctly guessed the URL for Childish Gambino’s already-announced new single, revealing a July 2 release date. The music itself was never playable. We already have a fix in place, which we are rolling out now.”
A YouTube user named Childish Brandino captured the entire five-minute Live. Despite his negative emotions toward Audiomack, Glover was mostly in a good mood, saying, “The problem is we’re not having enough fun. OK, so, this rollout that’s coming, it’s like, mostly about fun. I’m trying to have fun because I feel like there’s just people not having enough fun.”
This loss of news and entertainment history is a bummer, but it’s not surprising. There’s actually already a name for what’s going on here: We’re in the Digital Dark Age.
To be clear, Paramount isn’t the only offender, and this is far from a new problem: The term “digital dark age” was used as far back as 1999, and it refers to the loss of information and resources due to outdated digital file formats, lack of preservation, and other reasons.
Pew Research Center shared some startling data last month. Their analysis found that 38 percent of webpages that existed in 2013 are gone today. Furthermore, 23 percent of online news articles contain at least one broken link.
The MTV News archives were full of original journalistic work that’s an important part of its era. This 2005 interview with Gerard Way as My Chemical Romance was achieving mainstream success? Gone! (“But you put a link!” Yes, more on that in a second.) This 2014 Jay-Z interview about tensions with Nas and Cam’ron? Zapped! This 2003 feature written shortly after the death of Elliott Smith, providing fascinating historical context about how the world reacted to the loss? Bye-bye!
Then there’s the TV side of things. As Consequence notes, the Comedy Central website hosted the entire Colbert Report series and clips from every Daily Show episode since 1999. Welp, not anymore. That content isn’t otherwise available to stream, either: The Colbert Report isn’t streaming anywhere, and only Seasons 28 and 29 of The Daily Show are on Paramount+.
Not directly related to the issue that sparked this conversation, but preservation is a major issue in the video game space, too. If, for example, you want to play Pokémon Platinum today, a used copy of the game will cost over $100 (per PriceCharting data), and then there’s the matter of getting a working Nintendo DS. So, many have turned to piracy for playing retro games. Valve president Gabe Newell has a relevant, oft-cited quote: “Piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue. The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting anti-piracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
I don’t want to bring potentially unwanted attention to certain preservation efforts, but there are active online communities dedicated to the preservation of large amounts of data. Again, I’m not going to point you in the right direction, but (illegal copies of) retro video games can be easily found online. If you look hard enough, you can find a ton of Colbert Report episodes for free. Less secretively, The Internet Archive has long championed preservation of online resources, and that’s how I was able to link to (archived versions of) those MTV News stories above.
These solutions, though, are imperfect and relatively niche. Most people aren’t going past the second page of Google results in a deep-dive search, or check the Internet Archive when they find a dead link. To the average consumer, this information is just gone. It’s ultimately on those with resources to do their part for cultural preservation, even if it costs them a redirect to PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie.
I won’t pretend to know what it takes to maintain a website network as sizeable as Paramount’s, but surely, it can’t be significantly resource heavy for a company of its scale. (I don’t know if it can, but don’t call me Shirley.) It’s OK, they have an excuse: In a statement, Paramount explained (as The Hollywood Reporter notes), “As part of broader website changes across Paramount, we have introduced more streamlined versions of our sites, driving fans to Paramount+ to watch their favorite shows.”
What they’ve also introduced (or, in acknowledgement of the fact that they’re far from the sole perpetrator here, helped propagate) is a more streamlined version of cultural history, one in which important details have been sanded away, and less glorified but still-valuable information is lost to time.
Complaining is fun, but often pointless. Is there anything we can actually do? On a small scale, yes. The main thing you can start doing today is to use the Internet Archive to back up news stories or any other valuable webpages you can think to preserve. It’s a quick process and an easy way to help yourself and others maintain access to the world’s knowledge.
This is also an opportunity to consider your own personal data. If your phone or laptop died today, how screwed would you be? Would you lose irreplaceable childhood photos, old creative projects, or vital personal information? I personally subscribe to the “3-2-1 Rule“: Maintain three copies of your data (the original and two backups), use at least two different media types for storage (like a hard drive and cloud storage), and keep one copy of the data offsite (again, cloud storage).
Given the variety of forces and interests involved, the Digital Dark Age is probably not a problem that can be fixed. But, there are things we can do to shine a light during these dark times and stop losing recipes.
Fredo Bang is on tour right now, and while there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to his performances, his extracurricular offerings are the main topic this time around. Moreover, he recently went viral for a meet and greet picture with a fan couple, the female parter of which asked both him and her male partner to kiss her on the cheek at the same time. “She living out her fantasy,” the “You Hate Me” rapper wrote on his Instagram Story alongside laughing emojis and a repost of his IG post with the picture. At least she let her boo take a picture with Fredo afterwards, so it seems like there were no cuck-related hard feelings as many social media users speculated.
Still, we know that Fredo Bang would much rather deal with fans who want to get weird with their meet and greet photos rather than disrespectful ones. Recently, he called out an unknown individual or a mystery group of people online who vandalized his friend’s gravesite. “I want one of you tuff a** n***as to claim this,” the Baton Rouge MC wrote along with some snapshots of the desecrated resting place. Even with all the animosity that could result from being a famous artist, this took things way farther than they should’ve gone.
Elsewhere, though, we know that Fredo Bang is by no means immune to some lewd or romantically juicy headlines every once in a while. As such, maybe this meet and greet picture should come as little surprise, but this was probably just an artist making their fans’ day no matter how bizarre the request may be at face value. But along this scandalous line, he recently addressed a rumor that he paid $35,000 for sex with Jada Kingdom. It didn’t really go anywhere, but it flooded both of their social media coverages for a quick second.
Also, we know that Fredo Bang is a big crusher (see his infatuation with Coi Leray as a prime example), so we’re not ruling out that he may have had his own jokes for this couple’s male partner. But as odd as fans may be in person, celebrities always carry that burden of playing nice and making their supporters happy. Maybe he was taken aback at first, or maybe nobody made a big deal out of this at all. Looking back, that’s probably the right and reasonable decision here; it’s just a photo, after all.
Can I be honest with you real quick? I sort of hate how much I’ve been loving Common and Pete Rock’s rollout for their album The Auditorium, Vol. 1. As a rap journalist, I’ve tried my best to excise the term “real hip-hop” from my personal lexicon, for reasons both professional and personal that basically boil down to the same goal: Not getting stuck in my ways and succumbing to the salty old head stereotype, yelling at the kids to get off my lawn.
But with the release of the video for the third single, “All Kind Of Ideas,” I realize I may never beat the old-man allegations. This is, for lack of any and every other better term, what elder millennials and gen-Xers call “real hip-hop.” Beginning with a verse from Pete Rock in which he decries top five lists and calls himself “God’s favorite producer” and featuring a neck-twisting bassline over a crackling kick-snare combination, the song hearkens back to the Golden Era in a way that makes those vinyls feel vital rather than dusty and antediluvian.
Of note is that Common, who had become a bit of a punchline over the course of the past decade, sounds as rejuvenated and focused here as he did on previously released singles “Wise Up” and “Move Your Spirit.” Contrary to Questlove’s dire proclamations, it looks like hip-hop is far from dead yet.
Watch Common and Pete Rock’s “All Kind Of Ideas” video above.
The Auditorium, Vol. 1 is due on July 12 via Loma Vista Recordings. You can find more info here.
Some people are very tired of the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef, but others are just getting around to commenting on it. Of course, debate over this clash of the titans has raged heavily online even before things really took a turn with the “Like That” verse and the ensuing lyrical chaos. Moreover, fans continue to argue for their winner across different metrics, and one of the Internet’s most controversial and incendiary cultural commentators threw his hat into the ring. During a recent interview with Say Cheese!, Charleston White explained why he thinks the 6ix God is a more worthy MC than Mr. Morale.
“They ain’t going nowhere,” Charleston White said of the Los Angeles artists that Kendrick Lamar brought out at his “Pop Out” concert. “Ain’t nobody finna listen to no bunch of up-and-coming L.A. artists but L.A. people in their neighborhood. Don’t nobody want to hear that s**t. N***a, Kendrick, n***a, listen. Let me just say this: Drake way better. N***a, Drake way better rapping.
“N***a, I know Drake songs,” Charleston White continued. “I ain’t never heard a n***a in Texas pull up bumping Kendrick’s s**t, nothing! N***a, we like -– as much as I don’t like that n***a. N***a, you heard me who I -– come on, my n***a. I was just going against the grain. But come on, let’s be fair and clear. Man, Kendrick can’t compare. Unless you like twisting your fingers up like the r***rded people. That’s the only way you gon’ like Kendrick. You got to be r***rded [mocking gang signs]. Sensible people don’t gravitate to that bulls**t.
“So so what he gave these up-and-coming artists a spotlight for the day?” Charleston White concluded. “Most of them will be dead by tomorrow, due to the gang politics. California, Compton, or whatever you want to call it. Homie, it’s not vibrant. So why would you go shoot something where… N***a, nothing grows here, everything dies.” It’s clear that there are still many angles through which to analyze this Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef. But to outright diminish either artist’s efforts in this battle or their career achievements seems like a short-sighted endeavor.
(@nojumper)