Pusha T

Here’s Where Kanye West Stands With All His Former GOOD Music Artists

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kanye west good artists john legend kid cudi
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

In a new profile in Esquire, former GOOD Music artist Kid Cudi says it would take nothing short of a miracle to repair his fractured relationship with his erstwhile mentor Kanye West. Once upon a timeline, the two seemed inseparable; as recently as 2018, they had collaborated together on a joint album titled Kids See Ghosts and were even said to be working on an animated project based on the album. But apparently, Cudi has had his fill of Kanye’s antics in the intervening years and said “enough is enough.”

Sadly, he’s not the only artist formerly signed to West’s label whose relationship with the mercurial producer has soured since leaving the label. In fact, Kanye seems to have made it a point to alienate practically everyone who ever shared the stage with him prior to his first public show of support for Donald Trump in 2016. It makes a certain kind of sense; of course, those artists who teamed up with him after that wouldn’t have minded, but many of those who worked with him early on must feel a sense of betrayal.

Kanye certainly does. In interviews he’s given throughout the year, he’s identified his support of Trump — and his own disastrous presidential bid — as the major breaking point in nearly all of his relationships. He’s apparently felt hurt by what he perceived as a lack of support during that tumultuous time. Whether they were truly disloyal or he caused the schisms himself with his erratic behavior is debatable. But either way, it’s clear that things have gone bad at GOOD Music. Here’s where Kanye stands with his former artists.

Big Sean

During Kanye’s appearance on the Drink Champs podcast in November, he proclaimed that the worst thing he ever did was sign Big Sean. Sean himself said that he was baffled by Kanye’s comment, pointing out that he “was just wit this man, he ain’t say none of that!” After revealing that Kanye still owes him royalties from his time on the label — he completed his contract with Detroit 2 in 2020 — Sean went on Drink Champs himself a month later, calling Kanye’s assertion “some bitch-ass sh*t.” He also shot down Ye’s complaint that he was unsupportive of his presidential campaign, saying that he isn’t interested in politics one way or the other (which is something of a political position in itself). However, they were seen together at a studio in Los Angeles, leaving the ultimate fate of their relationship a big question mark.

Common

It could be argued that Kanye’s intervention revitalized Common’s musical career in the late 2000s after Com misstepped with the experimental (and misunderstood) Electric Circus. Com’s Kanye-produced follow-up, Be, is widely considered one of the Chicago rapper’s best and earned him enough goodwill to renew interest in his music. Fittingly, Com’s been reluctant to talk about the status of his relationship with the younger rapper, maintaining that he still feels a kinship with him and that he wishes they’d made just one more album together.

Desiigner

Of the former GOOD Music artists who released more than one record on the label, Desiigner’s the one whose friction with Kanye stems most from his treatment while signed there. In 2019, he admitted that he felt ignored by GOOD Music’s leadership, asking for the label to release him on Twitter after saying “I’ve been doing this sh*t myself” on Instagram earlier that year. In 2021, Desiigner released “Letter To Ye,” a nostalgic reflection on his time with the label in which he relishes the highs but also deplores the way Kanye treated him.

John Legend

Along with Kid Cudi, John Legend is one of the handful of artists who makes no bones about his standing with Kanye. Earlier this year, he told CNN’s David Axelrod, “We aren’t friends as much as we used to be.” He attributes the change in their relationship to his refusal to support Kanye’s 2020 presidential campaign, something Ye himself alluded to on Drink Champs. As Legend puts it, “I honestly think because we publicly disagreed on his running for office, his supporting Trump. I think it became too much for us to sustain our friendship, honestly.”

Kid Cudi

The fracture between Cudi and Kanye seems to stem as much from Cudi’s continued friendship with Pete Davidson as anything else. Considering how Kanye felt about those who distanced themselves from his support of Donald Trump, it makes sense he’d want his friends to side with him in his one-man war against his ex’s new (now ex-) boo. However, Cudi and Davidson had formed a bond stemming from their shared affinity for comedy and mutual struggles with mental health — something you’d think Kanye would relate to. Unfortunately, as he’s told us repeatedly in the past, he’s insecure and immature, cutting Cudi off and even cruelly mocking his old friend for being pelted with objects during his Rolling Loud set.

Teyana Taylor

It’s difficult to get a read on just where Teyana Taylor stands with Kanye these days, but when you consider her declaring her retirement from music over label frustrations in 2020, you have to imagine that at least some of that stems from Kanye. When collaborator Mykki Blanco said that they weren’t paid for their contributions to Taylor’s 2018 album KTSE, Teyana deferred the complaints to Kanye, GOOD, and Def Jam. While it is generally the label’s job to handle those sorts of disputes, it’s telling that she included Kanye in her response. After feeling underappreciated at GOOD Music, there’s no wonder that some of that disappointment would be pointed at Kanye, but Teyana has remained mum as to whether the two remain on speaking terms.

Calvin Harris’ ‘Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2’ Shows How Hip-Hop And Dance Can Work (Or Not)

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calvin harris funk wav 2 review
Calvin Harris

When Calvin Harris released the first Funk Wav Bounces in 2017, that album felt groundbreaking. By attaching ostensibly hardcore rappers such as Schoolboy Q and Young Thug to glittering, post-disco dance-pop, the producer threw both sides of the equation into stark relief, accentuating the best qualities of each. The rappers were able to display new sides of their personalities; the groovy beats felt more urgent and immediate. Songs like “Slide” and “Feels” made bodies want to move.

Now, Harris is on the second volume of the Funk Wav Bounces experiment, his first full-length release since 2017. He’s expanded the scope of his feature pool with rappers like 21 Savage, Busta Rhymes, and Pusha T lending their blunt-edged rhymes to his production. However, that production has seemingly contracted in equivalent measure, resulting in something more constrained and abrasive. Instead of the breezy listen the first offered, this one provides something that goes a step too far and ends up feeling just disposable.

I don’t think it’s a result of just the music choices Harris makes here. Sure, the monotonous drone with which Savage usually raps is ill-suited to the post-funk two-step of “New Money.” And yes, the Dua Lipa and Young Thug-featuring “Potion” is more of a retread of what has gone before. But when you zoom out a bit and take in the whole of the context into which Funk Wav Vol. 2 was released, the picture becomes much clearer. Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 seems less essential because honestly, it just might be.

I wrote earlier this year about what appears to be a concerted effort by ostensible hip-hop and R&B artists to reclaim dance music as a Black artform. This is a huge part of the reason that Calvin Harris’ efforts might feel less welcome. The landscape has shifted. More Black artists than ever are delving (back) into genres that their forebears pioneered in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and there’s more interest in doing so in a way that feels authentic to the roots of the dance scene. Back then, folks had not only a reason to dance, they had a desperate need to, as well.

Those early records, spun by Black DJs in warehouses packed with Black and queer people, were often raw, constructed under the weight of systems designed to oppress their audience, and created with the specific intent of pushing back against them, both subtly and loudly. By contrast, pairing punchline punishers like Busta and Pusha T with inoffensive, polished grooves and neatly packaged pop stars like Charlie Puth and Justin Timberlake seems to work counter to the transgressive vibes dance music used to give.

Now, look around. You see rights under attack, open racism, viral epidemics and pandemics seemingly targeted at the most vulnerable communities, police brutality, a mental health crisis, a tidal wave of evictions, and growing economic inequality across nearly every quarter of society. People aren’t just anxious; they’re angry, they’re depressed, they’re hurting, and they’re desperate for a release. There’s just too much pressure and it needs to be released. Dance music has always offered that, but it can’t be watered down.

When you look around, you see that artists like Doechii, Kaytranada, and Leikeli47 are making exactly the sort of raw, defiant dance music that people need to hear. When Doechii performs her songs “Persuasive” and “Crazy,” she doesn’t do so with a coquettish smile – she snarls. Leikeli’s collection of ski masks and face-covering bandanas aren’t just meant to hide her identity and focus attention on her music – they also evoke the menace of an armed robbery, the rebellion of an uprising. Beyonce’s new album Renaissance is a dance history lesson, yes. But it’s also a sermon, with Bey calling on ancestors, highlighting their struggles, and likening them to the struggles we face today.

Calvin Harris isn’t wrong to try to capitalize on the growing interest in Black dance; it’s his job, and for the most part, he’s good at it. But this is day party music, when what the world and the audience need is warehouse, Stonewall uprising, Paris Is Burning music. There’s a lot of talk about how the modern dance wave offers audiences escapism. I’ll argue with that; Calvin Harris’ dance-pop is escapist, fantastic stuff. In another time, it’d be perfect to put on and drift away on its hazy, frictionless groove. But what people want, what people need now is defiance. When the world is doing its damndest to crush you, there is nothing more powerful than to stand up and dance.

Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 is out now via Columbia. Get it here.

Outside Lands 2022 Showed An Ever-Evolving Mega Festival In Its Prime

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Outside lands 2022 Post Malone Green Day SZA
Justin Yee/Ralph Ordaz

There’s an architectural adage that explains how the sign of a healthy city is an ever-evolving skyline. In San Francisco, the colorfully reflective Salesforce Tower replacing the iconic Transamerica Pyramid as the most prominent pillar in Downtown’s lineup of buildings is a prime example of this concept. A permanent fixture signifying a period of growth.

Lasting music festivals are similar in their nature. The sign of a healthy festival is one that also flashes an ever-evolving landscape and more importantly, one that continues to reflect the city where it takes place in new and exciting ways. Outside Lands, San Francisco’s most significant pop music festival, operates like a city within a city, one that welcomed 225,000 people to an unusually sunny Golden Gate Park this past weekend for its 14th edition. But unlike a skyline, a lot of those changes — besides the new light-up windmill which replaced the double wooden mills of old — can’t be seen from a distance and are only fully appreciated when traversing the festival’s bountiful paths and walkways to “Lands” within Golden Gate Park, one of America’s quintessential music festival venues.

Outside Lands 2022
Justin Yee

It’s nothing short of a privilege to be coursing through Golden Gate Park’s meadows and fields for the weekend. It’s an easy walk to the end of the Polo Field to catch Green Day, Post Malone, or SZA’s headlining sets, but walk beneath the cypress tree-coverings of McLaren Pass, and you might just stumble into DJ’s Q-Bert and Shortkut of the famed Invisbl Skratch Piklz turntablist crew throwing down a world-class display at a pop-up stage in a cocktail-themed corner of the fest. Stroll through the festival’s outer edge along the North entrance and you can cross the street into Marx Meadow for the electronic music-focused SOMA Tent. While last year’s 1,000 capacity area was an overpopulated mess, this year’s tent had double the capacity for DJs ranging up to Tokimonsta and Claude VonStroke. Pull open the door to Outside Lands’ only indoor stage and you’re transported into a strikingly large space akin to one of San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood underground clubs, complete with LED cubes encrusting the stage. Fine-tuning an indoor electronic music component to the festival was long overdue for Outside Lands and for the club kids and ravers who want to dance in a warehouse-like setting all weekend, it’s a swell function that also funnels away traffic from the rest of the fest.

Outside Lands 2022 SOMA Tent
Justin Yee

You see, every corner of the footprint is built to showcase the beauty of the grounds. At the sweeping, sunken meadow of the Sutro Stage — where Faye Webster dazzled, Wet Leg roused, and Robert Glasper proved once again that he’s one of this summer’s must-see festival acts — unsightly porta potties that lined the outer edge were removed this year in favor of a more concealed and functional facility on the opposite side of the field. To say it improved aesthetics is an understatement and it was one of many functional improvements that Outside Lands is beginning to deploy as it becomes increasingly well-oiled.

Outside Lands 2022 Faye Webster
Justin Yee

Walk through a tunnel beneath the Polo Field bleachers and you slide into the flowering Grasslands, a legal cannabis wonderland with dispensary booths selling every variant of cannabis product imaginable. Over the last handful of years as cannabis laws have become relaxed, Outside Lands has worked to perfect this unique music festival experience. There are newly expanded “consumption areas” where folks can lounge and puff. A stoner jam band played on Sunday while carving up tiki idols as dispensary hacks hucked “buy one get one” deals like your typical pot shop experience. One dispensary even offered a “FREE GUNNA” t-shirt with the purchase of an eighth (I support this, #FreeYSL).

And for as much of a marketing-palooza as any music festival experience can be, Outside Lands’ corporate interests blended seamlessly into the background, with the exception of the new Music Den by Toyota stage. But to be fair, this was hands down the best addition to the festival’s overall music offerings. Acts who played earlier in the festival got an opportunity to appear again in a natural amphitheater-like setting. If you didn’t get in between noon and 2pm, you could still catch indie acts like The Beths, L’Rain, and Cassandra Jenkins later in the day. It proved a welcome respite to lay on the grassy slope looking at the obscure reflections of ourselves on oversized ornaments perched above on the cypress branches, while the artists played intentionally lowered volume sets.

Outside Lands 2022
Justin Yee

And while the transformation of Golden Gate Park into this colorful community is always the star of the show, the music was better than I anticipated compared to last year’s sublime lineup over Halloween Weekend. Green Day broke through across the Bay as an Oakland punk trio in the ’90s and here they were, closing down Saturday night’s slate with the #hits that got them here. “I remember one time we tried to play in Dolores Park. There were a lot of punk bands and then the cops came and shut it down,” singer Billie Joe Armstrong said to the crowd. “Well, they didn’t shut this one down!” The set was also a reminder of how under-appreciated Mike Dirnt is as a bassist. His grooves on “Longview” and “Welcome To Paradise” belong in whatever the equivalent of the punk rock Louvre is.

Outside Lands 2022 Green Day Mike Dirnt
Justin Yee

Green Day as a local headliner was part of a bigger theme for Outside Lands 2022, one that saw a bigger commitment to Bay Area artists than ever. San Francisco rapper Larry June put down the best party set of the weekend with a prime 5:30 pm slot on the Twin Peaks Stage — the festival’s second largest. The chill, weird, lit Bay Area ethos was blowing through the diverse crowd in clouds of smoke all the way to June rapping “Bitch I feel like I’m dreaminnng…” on set closer “Smoothies In 1991.”

Outside Lands 2022 Larry June
Justin Yee

EDM producer Illenium, who went to St. Ignatius High School in the nearby Sunset district, closed down Twin Peaks Stage on Sunday. But the weekend felt like a true showcase for emerging Bay Area talent too; a “risk” that Outside Lands wasn’t always willing to take. In building this true ecosystem that reflects its locale, sets from Bay Area-bred acts like rising pop singer Thuy, Atlantic Records rapper Symba, flamboyant empowerment pop group Planet Booty, indie stalwart Spellling, and the biggest surprise of the weekend, Odie, bridge the great divide of the stratification of festival crowds. In effect, it hits different when we can all score more than one for the home team.

And then there’s the big ticket stars. the artists most people end up remembering the most. And it’s hard to begin this conversation without bringing up Pusha T first. King Push is bar none of the best lyricists in the game and he proves it every time on stage. Incredible energy, no bells and whistles, just a non-stop flow and series of poised death stares delivered while standing in the cleanest pair of coke white Yeezy Boost 350s you’ve ever seen. He’s the type of dude who can shout sweeping statements to the crowd like, “It’s Almost Dry! Rap album of the muthaf*ckin year. Easy!” And then perform with such conviction that you can’t help but think how right he is when it’s over.

Outside Lands 2022 Pusha T
Justin Yee

SZA’s Friday night headlining set was evidence of Outside Lands’ growing continuity in booking. The singer, who came out standing on an elaborate lighthouse erected on stage, first graced the noon slot at Twin Peaks stage in 2015. And even without that long-awaited new album in tow, the crowd was still wrapped around her finger on all of the Ctrl jams, a Doja Cat-less rendition of “Kiss Me More,” and an explosive set-opening “All The Stars.”

The largest crowds of the weekend felt like they were (weirdly) for Weezer and Jack Harlow, but largely a function of people preparing for headliners Post Malone and Green Day, who played right after them, respectively. On Saturday, Harlow made a rare performance backed by a live band, commanding the youngest crowd of the weekend that gradually became older as folks started positioning themselves for Green Day. Weezer playing a sing-along set on the main stage’s penultimate slot of the entire festival Sunday night was a masterstroke of understanding what works and what doesn’t at a music festival in 2022. Organizers Another Planet Entertainment learned from 2016’s debacle of a Lionel Richie closing set that was very sparsely attended. Sure, it’s the legacy act, but look, you can’t please everyone and acting as such is important. So send the aging hipsters home early along with Rivers Cuomo and the Microsoft ball cap he took off (facts only, you can’t make this stuff up) so they can make it to work on time on Monday, and let the rest of the crowd vibe out to Post Malone.

Outside Lands 2022 SZA
Justin Yee

For those who stayed, they’d have seen an artist on top of the music world showing the crowd exactly why he belongs there. You might’ve not known it right off the bat though. “I’m here to play some shitty music and get f*cked up!” Malone told the crowd at the beginning of his set; red cup in hand. Make no mistake about it, this was a galvanizing performance for easily the most diverse crowd of the weekend and Posty kept us guessing the entire time.

At one point, he straddled a mic with his mouth on the ground to sing “I Fall Apart” (surely making Karen O proud) then got up to take a seat, grabbed an acoustic guitar to play “Stay” and “Go Flex” while never putting his cigarette down. “The world has been such a shitty place and it just feels so beautiful to be out here with you to have a good time,” Malone said, radiating a message of love that was a resounding theme for just about every artist on stage over the weekend. And you know what? This is music to get f*cked up to. And this day and age, when we have no clue what virus is floating in the air around us when we’re surrounded by tens of thousands of people, surrendering to the music is the only way to enjoy ourselves in this environment. And nobody did surrender better than the guy who set his guitar on fire and smashed it, after performing alone on stage for the last hour and a half of an unforgettable weekend.

Outside Lands 2022 Post Malone
Justin Yee

Check out some photos from this year’s festival below.

Outside Lands 2022 The Marias
Justin Yee
Outside lands 2022 Jack Harlow
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 SZA
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Outside Lands 2022
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Outside Lands 2022 Weezer Rivers Cuomo
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Outside Lands 2022 Larry June
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Outside Lands 2022 Post Malone
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Outside Lands 2022
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Outside Lands 2022 Pussy Riot
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Outside Lands 2022 Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong
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Outside Lands 2022 Hiatus Kaiyote
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Outside Lands 2022 Amber Mark
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Outside Lands 2022 Sampa The Great
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Outside Lands 2022
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Outside Lands 2022 Odie
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Outside Lands 2022 Planet Booty
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Outside Lands 2022 Spelling
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Outside Lands 2022 The Marias
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Outside Lands 2022 Q-Bert Shortkut
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Outside Lands 2022 Post Malone
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Some of the artists mentioned here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Best Rap Verses of 2022 (So Far)

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Image via Complex Original

  • Lil Baby, “In A Minute”


  • Reason, “1st Quarter”


  • Ransom, “Circumstances”


  • Young Dro, “Here On In”


  • Dom Kennedy, “CORSA”


  • Leikeli47, “Carry Anne”


  • Nick Grant, LA Leakers Freestyle


  • Chance the Rapper, “The Highs & The Lows”


  • Denzel Curry, “The Ills”


  • Omeretta the Great, “Sorry Not Sorry”


  • Vince Staples, “The Beach”


  • BabyTron, “Manute Bol”


  • billy woods, “Remorseless”


  • Nicki Minaj, “Blick Blick”


  • Quelle Chris, “Nynex”


  • Lupe Fiasco, “Ms Mural”


  • 21 Savage, “Jimmy Cooks”


  • Navy Blue, “So Tired You Can’t Stop Dreaming”


  • Conway the Machine, “Tyson vs Ali”


  • JID, “Home (Remix)”


  • Benny the Butcher, “10 More Commandments”


  • Jay-Z, “Neck & Wrist”


  • Pusha-T, “Just So You Remember”


  • Cardi B, “Shake It”


  • Tyler, the Creator, “Cash In Cash Out”


  • J. Cole, “Johnny P’s Caddy”


  • Che Noir, “Communion”


  • Kendrick Lamar, “Mother I Sober”


  • Malice, “I Pray For You”


  • Drake, “Churchill Downs”

Pusha T Is A Fan Of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ And Considers It ‘Great Competition’

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Pusha T 2022 SITW
Getty Image

Pusha T has spent most of 2022 promoting his fourth album It’s Almost Dry. The 12-track project is his first full-length effort since 2018’s Daytona, and it’s a body of work that Pusha thinks very highly of. He’s billed the project as 2022’s rap album of the year, something Tom Brady agrees with, and he’s made sure to remind fans about that at every chance he gets. One of those moments came during a recent interview with HotNewHipHop where he spoke about a number of topics regarding It’s Almost Dry. Pusha also took a second to speak about a recent album from one of his rap competitors, that being Kendrick Lamar.

During the interview, Pusha was asked for his opinion on Kendrick Lamar’s fifth album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. “I think he made a strong album,” Pusha replied. “I think his album is definitely a conversation piece, for sure. I think that Kendrick does what he does lyrically. I think… man, it was impressive. I think it was impressive, for sure.”

He continued, “I think it’s great competition. It’s a matter of what you want to hear. I feel like for what it is that I do and what I was going for, and like I said, this is rap album of the year to me. It’s Almost Dry. That is the mood and that is the energy. I think I put out that type of energy. I don’t think me and Kendrick made the same type of album, at all. It’s two different listens.”

Both Pusha and Kendrick are responsible for big moments in hip-hop this year thanks to their respective 2022 albums. Another big moment came last weekend when Pusha T and his brother Malice — a duo better known as Clipse — reunited to perform together for the first time since 2010.

You can read Pusha T’s full interview with HotNewHipHop here.