Jay-Z has sold half his Armand de Brignac champagne brand — aka Ace Of Spades — to LVMH’s Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, according to The Wall Street Journal. LVMH bought a 50% stake in the emerging brand to help grow Armand de Brignac with the help of LVMH’s global distribution network but no specific figures were given in the report.
Jay told The Wall Street Journal that his end of the move was motivated by the growth of his brand past the expectations and expertise it already had. “We were working really hard to maintain a brand that was growing faster than the staff we had and bigger than some of the expertise we had,” he said. “We’d been in this 15 years, not a hundred.”
He also noted that while global champagne sales are experiencing a downturn due to the pandemic, the timing is better now that luxury brands have become more comfortable working with artists whose roots are in hip-hop. The story specifically cites Rihanna’s Fenty brands with LVMH, which has plans to expand her Savage X Fenty line despite closing their joint luxury fashion house, and Gucci Mane, who recently worked with his namesake brand. As Jay said, “People have come to accept that these two worlds are a natural fit. In the beginning, it wasn’t a natural fit.”
Jay invested in Armand de Brignac in 2006 after an executive at Cristal’s parent company wondered whether the brand was being harmed by constant name-checking in hip-hop. It didn’t take long for hip-hop to turn on Cristal, and Jay eventually bought out his partners in 2014. Now, LVMH hopes that the association with hip-hop will provide a cool factor that’ll bring new consumers to the market and grow the segment as the market recovers.
Travis Barker does a ton of collaboration outside of Blink-182, but that doesn’t happen as frequently with the band. Barker has revealed, though, that for the next Blink album, they have been working on songs with Grimes, Lil Uzi Vert, and Pharrell.
On a recent episode of the Rock This With Allison Hagendorf podcast, Barker said the album is about “60 percent” done and added, “There’s a lot of cool stuff. There’s like a song with Grimes right now that’s really, really cool that I love. There’s a song with Uzi that’s really, really cool that we did with Pharrell.” He also said:
“I mean, it’s not like Blink’s making a rap song or anything. It’s like bringing Uzi over to our world. So it’s more of a punk kind of like reggae-feeling song. And yeah, I mean, I don’t think Blink will ever be anything but like a pop-punk band. I mean, that’s who we are. And I feel like our fans have kind of journeyed with us when we’ve done songs like ‘I Miss You’ or ballads like ‘Adam’s Song.’ But like we’re never going to veer too far off from what we are — like, I’m like a punk kid at heart, you know what I mean? Whether it’s like pop-punk with Blink or whatever with [Machine Gun Kelly] or whatever with Trippie [Redd], that’s where my heart’s at. Like, I was raised on rap music and punk rock music. It’s kind of all I know.”
Gucci Mane protege Foogiano lends an assist to burgeoning Quality Control star Duke Deuce on “Spin,” the latest single from the fancy footwork flaunting Memphis native. While both have largely come to be recognized for their love of thunderous, menacing production, on “Spin,” the beat is much more laid-back, with smooth piano chords and shimmying snares backing their boastful bars.
The two rappers are the latest in a long line of rappers from Atlanta and Memphis to team up over the years. Although Atlanta received much of the credit for the “crunk” movement in the early 2000s, in truth, the style originated 391 miles west of the ATL with groups like Three-6-Mafia and 8Ball & MJG. The stylistic similarities and relative close geography ensured strong chemistry between artists of both cities which continues today.
In fact, Duke Deuce first exploded onto the scene thanks to his insistence that “Crunk Ain’t Dead,” receiving big-name cosigns from pioneers of the subgenre like Juicy J, Lil Jon, and Project Pat on his song’s 2020 remix. Meanwhile, although Foogiano’s lineage stems from the trap movement propagated by his New 1017 bossman Gucci Mane, he fits right in on this lighter production, keeping the ATL-Memphis connection as strong as ever.
Foogiano is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw a Taylor Swift/Haim reunion and Ariana Grande expanding her latest beloved album. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
Haim — “Gasoline” Feat. Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift and Haim have a healthy professional relationship, which they extended last week with a Swift-featuring version of “Gasoline.” The collaboration was enough for Swift to proclaim herself the fourth Haim sister, so she has apparently snatched the title from Bernie Sanders.
Ariana Grande — Positions (Deluxe)
Deluxe editions of albums took on a new level of prominence in 2020 and Grande is keeping that going in 2021 with an expanded release of her own. Grande’s new deluxe version of Positions adds five new tracks, including her star-studded remix of “34+35” that features Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion.
Wild Pink — A Billion Little Lights
The band’s John Ross recently spoke with Uproxx about his new album, saying of the just-released effort, “I wanted to have something very lush and just bigger than anything that I’d done before. And I got to play with amazing players, that was my favorite part.”
The Hold Steady — Open Door Policy
The veteran indie rockers recently sat down with Uproxx to review all of their albums, and Craig Finn told us of his band’s latest, “I’m super excited about it, but I’ve struggled to tell people what’s different about it. I think there’s been a continuation of figuring out this six-piece line-up and where everything goes and I think that that’s a huge part of the story. It’s allowed us to be more expansive musically than maybe we have in the past. There’s maybe a little bit more of headphone moments. There’s this weird scraping of guitars, some weird little noises that brought something we haven’t done before.”
Another Michael — New Music And Big Pop
Another Michael’s Nick Sebastiano recently told Uproxx of the band’s free-wheeling new album, “I look back upon it as one work that’s like a big pizza: One song was like the cheese, another song was like the bread. And then we only saw it as that for a while.”
Kaytranada — “Caution”
Kaytranada and TikTok linked up to celebrate Black History Month with the groovy new single “Caution.” Elsewhere this month, TikTok is also set to drop a cover of 1971 gospel song “Like A Ship” by Leon Bridges, as well as a live concert featuring Saweetie, Snoop Dogg, and Tyga.
Curry and Beats highlighted 2020 with their collaborative project Unlocked, and now they’re getting ready to expand upon that effort for 2021. This year will bring a reworked version of the album titled Unlocked 1.5, which they previewed with a new version of “So.Incredible” with Smino and Robert Glasper.
CJ — Loyalty Over Royalty
Staten Island rapper CJ got a major taste of music industry success recently when his single “Whoopty” managed to crack the top ten of the Hot 100 chart. Now he’s dropped his debut project and he builds on his momentum by going at it totally feature-free save for a guest spot from French Montana.
Conan Gray — “Overdrive”
After a breakout 2020, Conan Gray has re-emerged in 2021 with “Overdrive.” Uproxx’s Caitlin White described the track well, calling it “classic, blockbuster pop with huge guitar riffs, soaring vocals, and the kind of chorus that makes you want to roll the windows down and scream it out into the night.”
Over the past couple months, it has seemed like Bobby Shmurda’s release from prison is imminent. He was originally scheduled to get out this December, but the prison staff’s Time Allowance Committee decided to potentially bump up his release date to February 23. Rowdy Rebel ramped up more excitement on that front last week by declaring that Shmurda would be free in a matter of days. Sure enough, it now appears that Shmurda will in fact be released from prison tomorrow.
This morning, journalist Jayson Rodriguez shared New York City records that indicate the rapper’s conditional release date is set for tomorrow, February 23. Last night, Shmurda also got fans buzzing by sharing a 5-minute clip from the film King Of New York, in which Christopher Walken’s character is released from prison and then celebrates his freedom. Shmurda captioned his post, “How the fuc y’all forget about me.”
Bobby Shmurda is scheduled to be released from prison tomorrow, per NYC records (see below). pic.twitter.com/p1Hs8RiAwQ
Shmurda has been in prison since 2014. In December of that year, he and multiple others were arrested on gun and drug trafficking charges. Naturally, his musical output his been limited since then, although not non-existent: In 2018, he featured on Tekashi 69’s “Stoopid,” recording his verse over the phone.
It appears music is where the rapper’s focus will be once his is free: His mother, Leslie Pollard, told TMZ that once Shmurda is out, he wants to enjoy an “intimate dinner” with his family. After that, he apparently intends to spend most of his time working on music.
Over the weekend, DaBaby and Jojo Siwa trended on Twitter as music fans were baffled by the rapper’s reference to the teen pop star in his freestyle over SpotEmGottem’s viral hit “Beat Box.” The lyric in question revived the once-popular hashtag punchline style — always a dangerous proposition, considering even Ludacris still hasn’t recovered from that same lyrical faux pas — to diss an imagined rival. However, the wording seemingly left his meaning ambiguous enough that some fans believed he was dissing the colorful young singer, prompting a flurry of dismayed memes and comparisons between the two entertainers.
Eventually, DaBaby himself entered the discussion to clear the air, calling the whole incident a misunderstanding by fans. “I love Twitter bruh,” he joked in a tweet responding to the frenzy. He further elaborated in a tweet directed to Siwa herself, “My 3-year-old princess is your number 1 fan. I bought her every product you have out. She think she you. Don’t let em trick you into thinking id ever have a problem with you. My word play just went over their heads. All love on my end shawty, Keep shining!”
He also leveraged “Siwa” into a homonym for another joke. “I don’t ‘Siwa’ they so mad,” DaBaby cracked. Now, that’s wordplay, even if it is cheesy. It probably won’t stop Twitter from coming after him again — after all, it’s become something of a pastime on the app, with users criticizing him for working with Tory Lanez (pre-Megan Thee Stallion shooting), performing during the pandemic, and even showing off his lunch (from Chick-Fil-A, after it was revealed that the chain’s owners had donated to some questionable organizations). It’s fortunate he seems to know how to take it all in stride.
The good news is it looks like Roddy Ricch and 42 Dugg have a new video on the way. The bad news is that during the production of that visual, things got dangerous and a shooting left three people injured.
According to WSB-TV Atlanta, on Sunday afternoon at a scrap yard in southwest Atlanta, Ricch and Dugg were filming a video when gunshots rang out. Two people, Antoine Blake, 25, and Vernon Moulder, 29, were shot but were able to take themselves to Grady Memorial Hospital. Atlanta police confirmed both Blake and Moulder are in stable condition. A third person, Peter Cook, 39, was hurt not by a gunshot, but by debris. Ricch and Dugg were reportedly unhurt, with Dugg himself later confirming on an Instagram Story, “Appreciate the concerns though I did not get SHOT!!!!!”
@42_dugggg/Instagram
Teresa Lakes, a medic who was on set for COVID screening purposes, said, “Everyone started running, trying to get out or take cover; lot of places to take cover in there. Anyone that was injured, I laid hands on ’em to make sure they were OK. Just glad it wasn’t a lot worse than it could have been… could have been worse.”
Roddy Ricch is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Tyler The Creator’s has been quiet since he took home a Grammy award for Best Rap Album last year. It’s not clear when he’ll release new music, though the rapper did land a pretty sweet gig with Coca-Cola recently. The beverage company shared an ad on Sunday that featured music by Tyler himself, in which a number of people are shown cracking open a bottle of Coca-Cola to drink. The first sip from the bottle causes them to dance uncontrollably and flaunt their moves in various locations, including a corner store and a soccer game.
Tyler took to Twitter to share the news. “Drums are f*cking hard the low end is shaking,” he wrote. He added, “Thats me playing the flute at the beginning,” revealing that his talents span multiple instruments. In addition to the production, Tyler’s vocals can also be heard in the ad. While the commercial is certainly a great moment for Tyler, he wasn’t all for it at first.
mannnn thanks coca cola for reallll big love for the opportunity i was like ehh idk but then i fucking ran with it. commercials need sounds like this, thanksssss
“Mannnn thanks coca cola for reallll big love for the opportunity,” he wrote. “I was like ehh idk but then i f*cking ran with it. commercials need sounds like this, thanksssss.”
Bad Bunny is an undeniable star at this point in his career, and it’s resulted in some pretty cool opportunities for the singer that don’t always pertain to his chart-topping Latin records. The latest example of this came when he landed a role in a recent Saturday Night Live episode as a talking plant.
In the sketch that also featured Ego Nwodim, Pete Davidson, and Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page, the group creates a song titled “Loco.” Basically, it’s about the odd feeling that nearly a year worth of social distancing in a pandemic has left them with.
Led by Nwodim, she took viewers on a journey through the odd post-quarantine interactions that take place with people, one of them being Regé-Jean. Davidson lays a verse that follows her sentiments and when the mic returns to Nwodim, she’s interrupted by her talking plant, played by Bad Bunny, who labels her as a “loco” for holding a conversation with him in the first place.
The sketch joined two performances Bad Bunny delivered on SNL, both being songs from his late-2020 album, El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo. The first was “La Noche De Anoche” with Rosalía, who performed beside the singer for the intimate set, and the second was a solo rendition of “Te Deseo Lo Mejor” which Bad Bunny performed with his WWE championship belt beside him.
DaBaby recently hopped on SpotEmGottem’s viral “Beat Box” with a braggadocios freestyle and an equally boastful video that found him showing off his own dance that accompanies the song’s TikTok trend. It was the mention of a young YouTube star on the song, however, that’s left listeners baffled as to why they were mentioned in the first place.
On the song, DaBaby raps, “Turn me up n**** / You gonna see why you a b*tch, Jojo Siwa.” The line confused many as the young influencer did not seem to do anything to warrant getting name-dropped in the song.
As a result, listeners took to Twitter to share their reactions to the song. One user joked that DaBaby may not fare well in a fight with Siwa because she stands two inches taller than him at 5’9.” Another called for a backstory on the diss because, just like the rest of us, they have no idea why DaBaby name-dropped the 17-year-old viral star.
The “Beat Box” freestyle is just one of a few contributions has made to the music world in 2021. The track joins his “Throat Baby” remix with BRS Kash and City Girls, his “Cry Baby” video with Megan Thee Stallion, and his “Masterpiece” single.
Scroll down for more reactions to the Jojo Siwa name-drop below.
no cause why did dababy call jojo siwa a bitch?? is it cause she taller than him? his daughter like her music better or sumn? pic.twitter.com/5lyQO7tW3M
Why did DaBaby include that Jojo Siwa line in his freestyle? Regardless of rhyme a 29 year old dissing a 17 year old doesn’t sit right with me pic.twitter.com/ZGzpYGbUQS
(@jaysonrodriguez) 
(@spirituallytyra) 
WHY HE OD ON HER LIKE THAT?
(@THEKIDMERO) 
(@emzzz_ldn) 
Regardless of rhyme a 29 year old dissing a 17 year old doesn’t sit right with me