New Hip Hop News

Saweetie has been the topic of conversation several times over the past few weeks involving men crushing on her. Most recently, fans suspected handsome British actor Damson Idris of courting the “My Type” rapper.

After Idris posted a video to his Instagram story of Saweetie playing the piano for him, fans could not get enough. Already envisioning. potential power couple, Twitter offered many opinions on the video. One fan was suspicious that Saweetie was faking her piano skills to impress Damson: “I know damn well she wasn’t playing any damn piano. ole typewriting faceass.”

Saweetie did not take kindly to those accusations, and soon rebutted with a new video of her showing off her piano-playing. She captioned the video with a kissing face emoji, just to season a little pettiness on the reply.

While there has been no other confirmation as to whether or not Idris and Saweetie are dating, many other celebrity men have coveted Saweetie.

First, in mid-October, Soulja Boy threw a diss at NBA Youngboy, and capitalized on that attention by shooting his shot at Saweetie, unfortunately not garnering a response from her.

The next week, Saweetie had to squash dating rumors with Roddy Ricch after they were seen sitting with each other at a Lakers game.

Nick Cannon also decided to inquire about Saweetie’s interest in him after tweeting about her baby fever. Saweetie never issued a response, but her fans were not happy about Cannon trying to have a kid with her.

Perhaps Idris will be the closest of all the recent candidates to achieving romance with Saweetie, but one thing is for sure: her piano skills are not up for debate.

Watch her response below.

The family of Rudy Peña, one of the eight concertgoers to be killed at Travis Scott’s 2021 Astroworld Festival during a crowd surge, is setting up a scholarship in his honor. Their attorney, Rosendo Almaraz, also says that the Peña family will be putting together Rudy’s funeral without Scott’s help, despite his offering to cover the funeral expenses of any victims.

Rudy, 23-years-old at the time of his death, had been studying criminal justice at Laredo College with the hope of becoming a Border Patrol agent. They’ve raised over $34k on GoFundMe, which will go into funding the scholarship, in addition to Rudy’s funeral.

Brandon Bell / Getty Images

Almaraz says the family is also suing Scott directly, alleging negligence and gross negligence directly contributed to Rudy’s death.

Thomas J. Henry, a San Antonio attorney representing dozens of other victims from the festival, claims that he expects his clients to receive billions in damages.

“More and more injured victims are contacting my firm by the hour,” Henry recently said in a press statement. “While we are all still working to understand the full scope of the Astroworld tragedy, I believe the damages suffered by its victims could total in the billions.”

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Artists and their collaborators are known for hyping up their new projects with lofty remarks. This year alone, we’ve heard people like Ebro Darden teasing Certified Lover Boy as a “straight-up rap album” and Justin LaBoy claiming that Donda‘s production was “light years ahead of its time.” Over time, fans have learned to just wait for an album’s release to form their own opinion, but with all of the updates coming from Lupe Fiasco lately, it’s hard not to feel like he’s about to drop one of the most important rap albums of this decade.

Back in August, Lupe announced that he would be making an album within the time frame of 24 hours, and shortly after doing so, he revealed that he and producer Soundtrakk had just created their Illmatic. With a statement like that, it was only natural for Lupe fans to get excited for his forthcoming eighth studio album, tentatively titled Drill Music In Zion, and several months later, it appears that fans are one step closer to hearing it.

Posting a screenshot of his text messages to Instagram, Lupe Fiasco has confirmed that his next album has exited the mixing stage, and for the post’s caption, he simply writes, “‘Life’s work.'” In the screenshot, much of Soundtrakk’s message was rescinded, but below his text, another message from an unknown sender reads, “Lupe… this album is absolutely mind blowing. Utter genius. Honored to have to have been apart of it.”

According to HipHop-N-More, that message came from industry renowned engineer Craig Bauer. Bauer also hopped in the comment section of Lupe’s new post to offer additional praise for the Chicago artist’s forthcoming album, saying, “Honestly… it’s the best rap album I’ve ever mixed. ‘Album of the lifetime’ Grammy.” 

Coming from an engineer who has mixed Kanye West’s Late Registration as well as Lu’s first two albums, Food & Liquor and The Cool, Bauer’s words hold serious weight.

Now that mixing is officially done for Lupe Fiasco’s next album, hopefully fans will be able to listen to Drill Music In Zion sooner than later.

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Rico Nasty previously revealed exclusively to HotNewHipHop that she had six songs finished for her upcoming post-Nightmare Vacation album, but during an interview backstage at Rolling Loud NYC last month, she corrected her previous statements, joking with us that she was actually lying and isn’t thinking much about dropping a new full-length.

One of the most unique artists in the world right now, Rico is presently on tour with Playboi Carti, where she has faced disrespectful fans booing her while she performs. She has taken to her social media channels to vent about the unwarranted hate she’s been receiving, but she continues to be pestered by rowdy fans who simply want to watch Carti, and no one else.

While some Carti fans clearly aren’t in-tune with Rico’s rage-friendly bangers, millions of other people are. We caught up with the DMV-raised rapper at Rolling Loud NYC where she told us about her upcoming album, claiming that she was being untruthful when she previously revealed she had finished six songs for it.

Image via HNHH/@iamzjb

“Oh god, I was lying,” she said when asked about the status of her album. “Was that Nightmare Vacation or am I lying? Oh yeah, I was lying. I have so many songs done. I get so excited after a recording trip. I’m like, ‘Look at all this music,’ and then I don’t drop none of it. Right now, we’re touring. No music.”

She also spoke about the chaotic energy during her set at Rolling Loud, loving every minute of it.

“I’m not gonna lie, every time I perform ‘IPHONE’, I get a lump in my throat,” she said about getting back on stage after the lockdown. “I do. I do. I don’t want to remind them, obviously, because they’re out there, and they’re surrounded by a bunch of people— I don’t want to remind them during a fucking show, and it’s COVID. I try not to zone in on that, but every time I look at all of them having a great time, remembering what it was like meeting some of them on Zoom, or just having to do shows on Zoom, the looks on their faces jumping around, reunited with their friends— it’s priceless and it’s timeless. 

My favorite shit right now [about the festival] is the pyrotechnics. What the fuck was that? When did they start doing that for me? Like, okay! They took hot girl summer to a new level, bro! That shit was scary, but it was lit. That’s my new favorite part of Rolling Loud. They brought out the fire.“

Image via HNHH/@iamzjb

While there may not be an album coming in the near future, Rico does have a new single coming out on November 18 with Flo Milli called “Money,” so you’ll want to check that out when it drops to see which possible direction she heads for the next eventual full-length project.

What are you expecting from her next release? For more of our Rolling Loud interviews, check out, “Fivio Foreign Provides Album Update & Speaks On Working With Kanye West At Rolling Loud NYC,” “SpotemGottem Declares DaBaby Had Best ‘Beat Box’ Remix,” and “Coi Leray On Why She Picked DaBaby For ‘TWINNEM’ Remix & Justin Bieber Studio Session.”

In the aftermath of the horrors of Astroworld, many of those involved are set to lose millions. As the investigations into the devastating amount of people affected by the dangerous crowd continue, Travis Scott, Live Nation and many others look to owe large sums of money in settlements.

However, some of the performers in the festival have responded with compassion, helping to support the families that were affected. Toro y Moi is the latest to do so, announcing on Instagram story that he and his entire band and crew will donate their Astroworld earnings to the families of those lost: “I’d like to send my condolences to the families of those who were killed at AstroWorld last week. The loss of life at a concert is unbelievably sad and discouraging as an entertainer. It’s taken me a few days to process and understand what all has happened. To show support, my business/management teams, my band and crew, and I are all donating our entire fees and any profit to the families of the victims from the event. Profiting from this event feels completely off and I’d like to encourage other performers to consider helping in someway as well.”

Toro y Moi’s set at Astroworld was from 3:30pm-4pm CT on Friday, Nov. 5, but there were no reported injuries during his performance. 

Before his announcement, Roddy Ricch was the first to donate all of his earnings to the victims, which he announced on Nov. 6, the day after the tragedy. His set was about three and a half hours before Travis Scott’s that day at 5:30pm CT, and there were no reported injuries during his performance.

Megan Thee Stallion also pledged yesterday (Nov. 10) that she would support the victims’ families, although her contributions are unknown at this point. Meg is from Houston, so this issue hit very close to home for her.

Perhaps we will see more of the artists involved pitch in their earnings in the coming days.

Check out Toro y Moi’s story below.

Image via Toro y Moi

Soulja Boy says that Young Dolph is lying about how much money he makes and his claim about being independent. The Memphis rapper recently said that he earns $100,000 per show as an independent artist.

“This n***a mad because he’s signed to a motherfucking record deal and his whole thing is ‘I’m independent. I’m independent.’ N***a did I lie? You signed to Empire,” Soulja exclaimed on Instagram live. “Stupid ass n***a. Why the fuck you mad?”

“N****s broke as hell,” he continued. “Fuck wrong with y’all broke-ass, bitch-ass n****s? I’ve been making $100K a day, n***a. I’m the n***a with the bands. I’m the n***a that made like $2-3 million in a month.”

Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Soulja also says that their beef began because Dolph has allegedly been copying him for some time now.

Earlier this week, Dolph wrote on his Instagram story “How da fuk im a independent artist and gettin 100rax plus for a show?” and  “How da fuck @keyglock got more cars & ice than you & your ceo?”

In response to a re-post by DJ Akademiks, Soulja replied: “That’s big cap. They signed to @empire. I’m really 100% Independent no cap.”

Soulja also referenced making amends with Kanye West after being upset he was left off of Donda.

Check out Soulja’s Instagram live stream below.

When Teyana Taylor was approached by TMZ photographers at the airport this week, she didn’t seem too enthused to be answering questions about Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival tragedy, especially considering she was not involved with the event in any capacity. She politely took time to answer the paparazzi’s questions though, speaking about how she will always stop shows when she notices a fan in distress, and pointing out that she has personally seen videos of Travis also halting his performances to help fans. However, when TMZ ran the story, Teyana called them out for publishing a “misleading” headline about her comments.

The 30-year-old artist tweeted back at TMZ, calling them out and reacting to them twisting up her words.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

“Teyana Taylor defends Travis Scott, says artists alone can’t be responsible for fan safety,” tweeted TMZ on Wednesday evening.

“R U serious for this headline???,” responded Teyana. “1: i made it clear that I always stopped my shows to help my fans. 2: I made clear BOTH ARTIST & STAFF SHOULD TAKE PROPER PRECAUTION to make sure everyone’s safe. 3: I barely even wanted to talk to you motha fuckahs. Always MISLEADING headlines.

Most importantly I mind my business. ALWAYS. It’s not my job to judge something I don’t have the full details on. This whole situation is a very sad and unfortunate, and my heart and prayers go out to ALL of the parties involved. But stop being fuckin mess TMZ. Messy asses.“

The singer was asked about a concert she held two days after the Astroworld tragedy, where she stopped her show to address a fan’s medical situation. After determining that the fan was alright, she continued the show and made headlines because of the proximity between this situation and Astroworld, where eight people were killed in a crowd surge. 

Check out Teyana Taylor’s tweets below.

Thomas J. Henry, an attorney based out of San Antonio, Texas, currently representing 68 victims from the tragedy at Travis Scott’s 2021 Astroworld Festival, says that he anticipates his clients to receive billions in damages.

“More and more injured victims are contacting my firm by the hour,” Thomas J. Henry said in a press statement. “While we are all still working to understand the full scope of the Astroworld tragedy, I believe the damages suffered by its victims could total in the billions.”

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Eight people, including teenagers as young as 14 and 16, were killed at the festival and hundreds more were injured following a massive crowd surge as Scott took the stage. 22-year-old attendee Bharti Shahani was declared brain dead, earlier this week.

Henry explained that he believes the tragedy was preventable, and negligence on the part of the “performers, organizers, and venue” is to blame.

“There is every indication that the performers, organizers, and venue were not only aware of the hectic crowd but also that injuries and potential deaths may have occurred. Still, they decided to put profits over their attendees and allowed the deadly show to go on,” he said in a statement to the Daily Mail.

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Larry Hoover Jr. has been working hard lately to see his father released from prison, where he has been held for nearly 50 years for his role in leading Chicago’s Gangster Disciples. Kanye West has been part of that effort for the past few years, and along with that have come a wave of headlines.

After Ye and J. Prince, who has also been working to free Hoover, recently linked up in hopes to end Ye’s beef with Drake, Drake met up with Hoover Jr. yesterday (Nov. 10) along with J. Prince. Hoover Jr. posted the photo of them three on Instagram, captioning it: “@jprincerespect @champagnepapi appreciate you #freemyfather #freelarryhoover #larryhoover”

In West’s effort to squash the beef, he posted a video to Instagram standing alongside J. Prince in which he recited a prepared statement asking Drake to reconcile with him for a concert on Dec. 7 in Los Angeles in honor of Larry Hoover. 

This was a major change of tone from over the past few months, where the pettiness of Drake and Kanye’s feud had reached an all-time high, with Kanye sharing shots at Drake via group text, and Drake playing unreleased Kanye songs on his radio station.

However, much of Kanye’s August Donda release was devoted to Hoover’s cause, as repped Chicago’s Gangster Disciples, as well as having Hoover Jr. thank Ye and advocate for his father’s release at the end of the album’s seventeenth song “Jesus Lord.”

Kanye first began saying “Free Larry Hoover” in his controversial visits to the White House in 2018, as he felt he sacrificed his image for that cause.

Now, Ye looks to settle his feud with Drake that also began in 2018, as they both could potentially share a stage in Hoover’s honor.

Check out Hoover Jr.’s post with Drake and J. Prince below.