New Hip Hop News

Will Smith says that his mother once walked in on him having sex with his high school girlfriend, Melanie Parker, in his family’s kitchen. Smith discussed the awkward memory in his new self-titled new memoir.

Smith says he was just 16 years old and living in Philadelphia with his mother at the time. He explains that she came downstairs to make herself a cup of coffee and the two lovebirds hadn’t noticed her.

“And wearing slippers far too quiet to defend her delicate sensibilities, she approached the threshold of the family kitchen,” Smith writes in the book. “Still innocent, she flipped the light switch as she had done tens of thousands of times before. But this time, her eyes landed upon her eldest son and his girlfriend deep in throes of reckless lovemaking.”

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Smith says that he still doesn’t understand his decision-making that night: “I’m still not exactly sure why I did what I did that night,” he wrote. “To this day, I have no idea what I was thinking. Of all the experiences I am sharing in this book, this is the individual moment of personal behavior that makes the least sense to me.”

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star also revealed how important his relationship with Parker was to him.

“From the day I met her, Melanie had been the center of my life,” he adds in the memoir. “Healing the pain of her trauma became my constant preoccupation. The look in Melanie’s eyes became the substitute for Gigi’s approval. I’ve always needed a woman to achieve for.”

Will is available for purchase on Friday.

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Rapper Travis Scott and his immediate team have shared a new statement via email on Thursday following the tragic crowd surge at Astroworld Festival last weekend in Houston, Texas, which left eight people dead and hundreds more injured. The statement, which can be found below, communicates Travis’ current emotional state several days after the tragedy, and also includes a means for families of the victims to reach out to his camp.

“Over the last week, Travis Scott and his team have been actively exploring routes of connection with each and every family affected by the tragedy through the appropriate liaisons. He is distraught by the situation and desperately wishes to share his condolences and provide aid to them as soon as possible, but wants to remain respectful of each family’s wishes on how they’d best like to be connected. 

To those families who would like to reach out directly to his team, please send an email to the below address where we will have a team on hand to assist.

[email protected].” 

Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images

This comes following a statement made from Travis Scott’s attorney Edwin F. McPherson earlier on Thursday, which reads:

“There has been multiple finger-pointing, much of which has been by city officials, who have sent inconsistent messages and have backtracked from original statements. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner was quoted in the New York Times as saying ‘You cannot just close when you got 50,000 and over 50,000 individuals. We have to worry about rioting, riots, when you have a group that’s that young.’ Yet, just a short time later, Chief Finner states the responsibility to stop the show falls on Travis.  

It was reported that the Operations Plan designated that only the festival director and executive producers have authority to stop the show, neither of which is part of Travis’s crew. This also runs afoul of HPD’s own previous actions when it shut down the power and sound at this very festival when the performance ran over 5 minutes back in 2019. 

Investigations should start proceeding over finger-pointing so that together, we can identify exactly what transpired and how we can prevent anything like this from happening again.”

More than forty-six lawsuits have been filed against Travis Scott and the festival’s organizers in the direct aftermath of the tragedy. Scott announced that he was going to refund every Astroworld ticket, as well as provide free mental health support for anybody affected by partnering with BetterHelp. He also canceled his upcoming performances in Las Vegas and Saudi Arabia.

Erika Goldring/Getty Images

We will continue to keep you up-to-date on the latest news surrounding the tragedy at Astroworld Festival.

Perhaps the biggest shoe of the year so far has been the Nike Dunk Low. It constantly feels like a plethora of new colorways are making their way to the market, and fans are eager to cop as many as possible for their collections. Nike has also made sure to come through for all of the female sneakerheads out there, as they have a ton of great exclusives that have come out so far. In fact, Nike is also expanding upon its exclusives as they recently showed off a women’s colorway called “Bronze Eclipse.”

As you can see in the official photos below, the shoe has a white base all while the upper is covered in two different tones of brown. The overlays themselves have an orange glow to the brown, while the Nike swoosh carries forth a more traditional brown tone. These are certainly great kicks for the fall as the neutral tones will go with any similarly-colored outfits.

In terms of the release date, these are slated to hit the market on Wednesday, November 24th for a price of $100 USD. Let us know what you think of the shoes, in the comments below, and stay tuned to HNHH for all of the latest updates from the sneaker world.

Instagram model Johanna Leia received more attention than she ever had before in July when it was discovered she was dating Drake. Although they split a few months later, it appears Leis and Drizzy still get along.

On Wednesday (Nov. 10), Johanna posted a video of herself alongside her son Amari Bailey signing his letter of intent to play basketball at UCLA. As a five-star recruit, Bailey received other offers from Kansas, DePaul and Alabama.

Drake liked the photo, as he has always been a fan of Bailey. When Drake and Johnna’s dating rumors first began, it was because they sat by each other at one of Amari’s high school basketball games at Sierra Canyon High School.

Drake was attending the game with Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, as his son Bronny James was Amari’s teammate at Sierra Canyon. In the following weeks, Drake was spotted having dinner with Leia inside Dodger Stadium in LA which he rented out.

In August, Drake built his relationship with Amari by gifting him with a custom “10” chain necklace, which is his basketball number. However, Drake and Johanna did not last long, presumably breaking up in the following months.

In the last week of October, Drake reportedly began dating a new girl, who was relatively unknown. She is allegedly from Miami, but was born in Canada like the Champagne Papi.

So, although Drake and Johanna Leia have seemingly moved on from each other, they both show their support for Amari Bailey as he gears up to take his basketball career to the next level.

Check out Johanna’s post below. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Johanna Leia (@johannaleia)

Former Las Vegas Raiders’ wide receiver Henry Ruggs III did not appear at his case hearing Wednesday though his lawyers were present, as prosecutors officially levied the five charges against him. Afterwards, prosecutors said if convicted on all counts, Ruggs could be facing more than 50 years in prison. 

This, a potential lengthy sentence behind bars for Ruggs, who is accused of driving at high speeds while intoxicated with his girlfriend in the vehicle, striking and killing a young woman and her dog in a devastating car accident last Tuesday morning. 

However, Defense Attorney David Chesnoff asks the public to hold their judgement on Ruggs until the official sentence is handed down, telling reporters after the hearing that:

“I have been doing this for 40 years, and I can tell each and every one of you, that I have had multiple experiences where the facts that were presented at the outset of the case, turned out not to be the facts.

So that is why I keep saying ‘Please don’t prejudge’. Let us do our work in the courtroom. The state, the prosecutor will do theirs. And that’s when the facts will be determined.”

Steve Marcus-Pool/Getty Images

Ruggs hasn’t been seen publicly since appearing in court on a wheelchair, last Wednesday, following his crash. However, he now is scheduled to make his second public appearance in court, where prosecutors are expected to formally announce the five charges against the former Raiders receiver.

Steve Marcus-Pool/Getty Images

Four felonies and one misdemeanor are expected to compile the five charges against Ruggs, who could also potentially enter a plea afterwards, according to TMZ.

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