New Hip Hop News

By now, it’s no secret that DONDA’s vast list of creators is almost comedically large in scope, and the mere fact that Yeezy was able to compile a thematically cohesive project is an impressive feat unto itself. And though Kanye West’s smorgasbord approach to album creation can ruffle a few feathers, it can also lead to some genuinely interesting moments of collaboration.

Take “Come To Life,” for example. The album’s twenty-second track and one of the final songs before a slew of sequels kicks off, the track features a beautiful instrumental with a prominent piano presence. Today, the Kaufman Music Center revealed that one of their students — a sixth-grader named Zen Micheline Hung, actually played piano on the emotional DONDA track. 

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“How cool is this? 6th grader Zen Micheline Hung (far right), a student at #SpecialMusicSchool, our K-12 NYC public school that teaches music as a core subject, plays piano on a song called “Come to Life” on @kanyewest ‘s new album, “Donda”!” tweets the Kaufman Music Center, sharing a picture of Kanye West and several students. 

There’s also a clip of Hung performing the piano part of “Come To Life,” showcasing her impressive musical talent at an early age. No matter how you might feel about Kanye West, it’s cool to see him actively looking to collaborate with young creatives; one has to wonder if he’ll continue down that road on future releases. 

Check out the footage of Hung’s “Come To Life” piano performance below, and much respect to Kanye West for allowing such a cool opportunity to begin with. 

It’s well documented that Kanye West’s current album creation process is collaborative, arguably to a fault. Featuring contributions from what can only be described as a Noah’s Ark’s worth of rappers, singers, and instrumentalists, DONDA’s liner notes are almost biblical in scope.

Yet not everyone is in favor of such a practice. Todd Rundgren, the legendary multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, producer, and recent Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame inductee found the experience of working on DONDA to be a frustrating experience. Rundgren recently vented about working with Kanye during an interview with UCR, revealing that none of his contributions ended up making the final cut.
 

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“I’m one of the few artists not on Kanye’s album,” Rundgren tells UCR. “I have three albums worth of Kanye stems on my computer. Because I kept getting called by Kanye to add vocals onto the record. When it got into the homestretch in July, I just said, ‘That’s enough for me. I have no idea whether any of this is being used.’ You don’t get much feedback from him regarding what it is.”

Having been brought into the fold by producer 88 Keys, Rundgren quickly learned that his own approach to production differed from Kanye’s. “I’m still a producer, and I don’t just want to be like driftwood in the process,” he explains. “If I can contribute something, fine. If I can’t, just let me know. I’m out of here. There is a possibility that I’m actually in there somewhere. There’s so much junk in that record!”

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He goes so far as to call Yeezy a “shoe designer,” writing him off as a “dilettante.” “Nobody would regularly make records like that unless they had stupid money to throw around,” says Rundgren. “Nobody rents a stadium to make a record in. Nobody flies in the entire world of hip-hop just to croak one syllable, just so you can say that everybody was on it.

“My involvement went on for a year, and in the end I realized why they hurriedly wrapped the whole thing up and put out what is obviously really raw, unprocessed stuff,” he concludes. It’s because Drake was running the whole process. He was too afraid that Drake would one-up him, so he hurried up and released the album the weekend before Drake could get his out. And in the end, Drake ate his lunch anyway.”

Clearly, not everybody seems to hold Kanye in high regard, and Rundgren’s “dilettante” diagnosis is particularly scathing. In spite of the critics, however, many have responded favorably to DONDA; some have even declared the project to be a masterpiece. It’s interesting to hear Rundgren speculate that Kanye rushed his album release to avoid a Drake takeover, a claim that will likely stir the pot even further. 

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Nicki Minaj is looking for a new management team before we enter the post-Queen era of her career. As fans anticipate a new album from Nicki, the rapper has reportedly parted ways with Irving Azoff, her former manager at Full Stop Management, which includes Lizzo and Roddy Ricch on their roster. Sources close to Variety confirmed the news of Nicki’s departure from the management team which reportedly occurred earlier this year.

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It looks like Nicki’s currently in talks with SALXCO, led by Wassim “Sal” Slaiby, to join their star-studded roster of artists including The Weeknd, Doja Cat, and recent additions of Diddy and Swedish House Mafia (which explains the recently teased collab with The Weeknd).

Nicki and Irving Azoff linked up following a public spat in 2018 during the Queen Radio show where she accused Azoff of contacting people in media “to spread negative things about my tour.” She also called Azoff a “cocksucker.” Despite this, they worked through their differences and teamed up.

Nicki Minaj hasn’t released an album since 2018’s Queen but she did re-release her breakout mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty earlier this year. The version released to DSPs featured three new songs including the Drake and Weezy-assisted “Seeing Green.” 

In related news, Nicki Minaj was recently accused of being an anti-vaxxer after claiming that her cousin’s friend became impotent after getting the vaccine. As a result, her cousin’s friend is no longer getting married, she claimed. 

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When most artists announce world tours, they often only mean that they’re performing the majority of their shows in the United States before visiting a couple of Canadian cities, and maybe stopping once or twice in Europe. Music fans have complained that artists generally skip out on South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia on their world tours. The Kid LAROI made sure to bless many of his fans across the globe with the official announcement of his End Of The World Tour, which will run for the first half of 2022.

The Australian artist is keeping himself busy for the start of next year, announcing his tour dates from January to June. The recently-announced leg of concert dates will start off with a North American run, which starts in Phoenix before dates in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, New York City, Miami, and more. 

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At the end of March, LAROI will head to Europe to perform in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Munich, Cologne, Paris, London, and many other cities.

Then, he’s heading back home in May and June for shows in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, and more.

“I am beyond excited to share this experience with you all,” said The Kid LAROI in his announcement. “It’s always been a dream of mine to headline a global tour. I cannot wait to see my fans all around the world and give them something that they won’t ever forget. It’s been a long time coming.”

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Tickets go on sale on Friday, September 17th at 10 AM local time. Will you be scooping one up?