New Hip Hop News

Diversifying one’s portfolio is the norm among artists and athletes as many invest in businesses or launch their own companies, but Snoop Dogg believes the sports isn’t as inclusive as it could be. The Rap mogul sat down with The New York Times and discussed his business moves from cannabis to food companies to liquor brands, and he spoke openly about athletes investing in star-ups, as well.

“Right, because they understand that they got to get it,” said Snoop. “I mean, you would think that those businesspeople up top would say: ‘You know what? It’s time to change the world. We’ve got to stop treating Black people like they’re less. They’re always the ones who do the hard work, the groundwork, but we never cut them in.'”

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Snoop them questioned why in the NFL, a league where the majority of players are Black, doesn’t have a team with a Black owner. “That’s just racist. Period, point-blank,” said Snoop. “We need to own an NFL team. We got one half-owner in the NBA, Michael Jordan. But the whole league is 90 percent Black. So we still the slaves and they still the masters.”

Jordan is the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets, and while there are other Black members in organizations, they don’t hold the same power. “That’s why in the music game, we took the initiative to say, [expletive] that. We’re the masters, and we own our masters. We’re going to negotiate with you the way we think it should be. We changed that industry years ago, with our mentality of having our own labels.”

Do you think it’s racist that there should be more owners of teams in the NBA and NFL who are Black?

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His meteoric rise in recent years has made Lil Durk and his OTF clique leading forces in the Rap industry, but with great power comes great responsibility—or so the saying goes. Between boasting about his romance with longtime girlfriend India Royale and touring the world as a No. 1-selling artist, Lil Durk has repeatedly suffered losses of loved ones.

There has been a call from Hip Hop artists to celebrate those you love while they’re still here, and the sentiment has been widely accepted, especially during a time where we’ve grieved the deaths of artists who have passed away from overdoses, illnesses, and gun violence.

“Why every time somebody die they love you but when you here they don’t care …… love me now not later [smiling with tear emoji],” Durk tweeted this evening (August 3). “Von left us Dthang left us and I was lost.” His messages seemed to have stopped there and fans have responded that the rapper must have been having a difficult moment as he relived some harrowing moments.

Both King Von, Durk’s protegé, and DThang, the rapper’s brother, lost their lives to gun violence. Von was outside of an Atlanta hookah lounge in November 2020 when he reportedly got into a scuffle with Quando Rondo’s entourage, resulting in a shooting that took the lives of three people. Months ago, DThang, real name Dontay Banks, was murdered when gunfire rang out while he was outside of a nightclub.

Check out his tweets below.

Twitter

As critics like Piers Morgan used their platforms to condemn Simone Biles for opting out of four Olympic events, it was recently revealed that the champion’s aunt died while she was in Tokyo. Biles has been at the top of her game for years and was a frontrunner for the Tokyo Olympics, so it came as a shock when she decided not to compete in several finals for mental health reasons.

Millions of Americans took to social media to vocalize their support through the difficult time, and while most didn’t understand the reasoning why Biles pulled back, her coach recently gave insight. Biles jumped back into the competition for the beam final where she earned the U.S. a bronze medal.

“We’ve had a lot of tears combined because as much as we’re happy for Team USA, in the back, it was a little heartbreaking to know that she could’ve been out there and she could’ve, hopefully, earned some medals as well,” Biles’ coach Cecile Canqueteau-Landi said. “But, she was the best cheerleader. She wanted to be here, she wasn’t forced. That was her own will to be here and she was really proud of all of them.”

Biles revealed that during the Olympics, she learned that her aunt had “unexpectedly passed” away. Landi said she asked Biles “what do you need,” and the award-winning gymnast requested “some time.” This came after Biles complained of feeling the “twisties,” a condition that causes disorientation for gymnasts in mid-air. It can cause great injury as athletes with “twisties” often don’t know where they are during flips, resulting in dangerous landings.

“I don’t think I would have had the guts to say I’m not okay,” said Landi. “I think I would have probably just crashed somewhere, and probably injured myself. I think for me, she’s the first one at a meet at the biggest stage, to say ‘I’m not okay.’ A lot of people don’t understand it, but we do.”

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Tattooists often clamor to have celebrity clients who come in for exclusive work, but the Stygian Gallery didn’t seem interested in accomodating Summer Walker. It is not uncommon to see entertainers from almost every facet of the industry show off their ink while tagging the tattooist in an effort to help boost the artist’s skills, but Summer shared a rejection letter of sorts after reaching out to a shop in Atlanta.

It is unclear what the chart-topping songbird wanted to get, but the Stygian Gallery told her the tattooist she requested “is not able to take on this project and we don’t have another artist who would be a good fit to work with.”

The studio manager added that because of their schedule, Stygian “aren’t able to take on every request that comes in” and couldn’t guarantee they would be available in the future, either. She was encouraged to try again “at a later time,” but Summer wasn’t convinced that availability was the issue.

“I should of known what was up when I seen out of 1000 something pics not one black person had been tatted & it’s Atlanta,” she penned over a screenshot of the shop’s email. A quick browsing of their Instagram page confirms Summer’s complaint, and social media users have concluded that Stygian Gallery either doesn’t want to work with Black clients or they aren’t proficient in tattooing on dark skin. Still, some say it’s plausible that they’re just overbooked.

Check out a few posts below.

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Instagram

Instagram

Instagram

If you’ve been curious as to why you haven’t heard T.I. continue to defend DaBaby in recent days, it’s because he has been in Amsterdam living the good life. Following the rise of DaBaby’s Rolling Loud scandal, T.I. immediately jumped in to defend the North Carolina rapper and issued videos where he questioned why DaBaby couldn’t share his views the way Lil Nas X expresses his sexuality creatively. The backlash was swift, but suddenly, T.I. was no longer to be heard.

On Tuesday (August 3), T.I. resurfaced on his Instagram with a video where he told his followers he was arrested in Amsterdam. “So, I’m locked up now,” he said with a laugh. “I’m obviously not supposed to have my phone as I’m biking and because the policeman ran into me and broke his rearview, you know.”

Robin L Marshall / Stringer / Getty Images

“And because I didn’t have my passport on me, I don’t know. It’ll be fine,” he added. T.I. said the officer was “extremely upset” while the rapper was “having a great time.” He was even reportedly arrested without even being handcuffed. “They just opened the door and invited me to the backseat. I obliged,” T.I. said with a laugh.

Because he couldn’t post his bond with cash, T.I. had to make some moves in order to get out of jail.  He laughed throughout his video and stated, “This is great, this is actually experiencing the culture.”

Check it out below.

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Hip Hop has been a driving force in shifting cannabis culture into becoming mainstream, and in recent years, we’re seeing more artists either build their own brands or partner with others to develop strains. Kehlani has been a long supporter of cannabis and even would partake herself, but she recently explained why, back in 2018, she decided to part ways with marijuana.

For many artists, weed can help with focus and creativity, but Kehlani revealed that she was smoking so often that it was having an adverse effect. “I used to smoke a lot of weed and now I speak on it in a past tense perspective,” she said in a TikTok video. “People think I’m sh*tting on weed, I’m not.”

Rich Fury / Staff / Getty Images

“I loved weed when I was involved with it,” said the singer. “It’s a beautiful plant with very nice properties when used correctly. I don’t think that I was using it correctly. I think I was overusing it. I wasn’t the most productive pothead.”

“It really really messed with my vocal cords and it really took a lot of energy from my day. I stopped to regulate my body and myself,” she continued. “I got to a point where I couldn’t eat, sleep, or be at a social gathering. I couldn’t kick it without smoking weed and I just didn’t want it to have that hold on my life anymore.”

“And also my throat and lungs were tired of me,” she added. “But I’m not judging the weed smokers!” Kehlani has previously spoken about quitting smoking after her doctor alerted her that if she stayed on the path she was on, she would only have a few more years in her singing career. The singer reportedly quit that day.

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