New York rapper Cardi B is big happy right now. The hip-hop star has hit up her Instagram Story to let the world know it’s time for them to be reintroduced to the greatness of singer Normani. The rap heavyweight can’t keep in her excitement and explains just how special this collaboration actually is. While […]
New York rapper J.I. is back with a new single and music video titled “Morning.”
The video for the song, directed by Austin McCracken, sees J.I. traveling throughout his home city with a girlfriend as he sings about the difficulties of turbulent relationships.
“We’ve all been in this position before,” J.I. said of the song, in a press release. “I wanted to speak from my perspective about how I’m being played and manipulated and wanted to make a catchy song out of something painful. I feel like I was able to execute what I wanted to do.”
J.I.’s last track, “No Hook,” was released back in June.
If you want to catch J.I. live, he’ll be going on tour this Fall. Check out the dates below.
July 24 Miami, FL Rolling Loud Miami
Sep 14 Pittsburgh, PA Mr. Small’s Theater
Sep 15 Philadelphia, PA TLA
Sep 16 New York, NY Irving Plaza
Sep 18 Washington, DC Union Stage
Sep 19 Charlotte, NC The Underground
Sep 22 Fort Lauderdale, FL Revolution
Sept 23 TBD TBD
Sep 24 Atlanta, GA The Loft
Sep 26 Houston, TX Warehouse Live
Sep 27 Dallas, TX Trees
Sep 29 Phoenix , AZ Rebel Lounge
Sep 30 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex
Oct 02 Santa Ana, CA Constellation Room
Oct 03 Berkeley, CA Cornerstone
Oct 04 Sacramento, CA Harlow’s SOLD OUT
Oct 06 Seattle, WA Neumos
Oct 10 Denver, CO Cervante’s Other Side
Oct 11 Lincoln, NB Bourbon Theater
Oct 13 Minneapolis, MN Fine Line Music Café
Oct 14 Milwaukee, WI The Rave II
Oct 15 Chicago, IL Avondale Music Hall
Oct 17 Detroit, MI Shelter
Oct 18 Toronto, ON Opera House
Oct 19 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
Oct 21 Buffalo, NY TBD
Oct 22 Providence, RI The Strand
Oct 23 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club
Oct 24 New Haven, CT Toad’s Place
Oct 30 Sayreville, NJ Starland Ballroom
Since countless people spend their days on social media, popular platforms like Instagram and Twitter are constantly looking to innovate their apps and improve the user experience. As a result, there have been updates like Twitter’s infamous — and racially biased — crop feature as well as Instagram’s polarizing decision to allow users to hide like counts. Naturally, every new social media feature isn’t going to be immediately met with open arms, but some horrible updates have actually caused a social media platform to go back to the drawing board entirely.
Now, in one of the most noticeable social media flubs in recent memory, Twitter has ironically decided to make its “Fleet” feature disappear in an astounding eight months after its launch in 2020. According to The Verge, the disappearing tweet format is shutting down due to low usage starting on August 3.
Instead of “Fleets,” the blatant ripoff of Instagram’s story feature that HNHH once predicted could be a massive success, Twitter’s new “Spaces” feature will now occupy the top section of the Twitter timeline. According to The Verge, Twitter also sees the failure of the “Fleet” feature as a failure to welcome more users onto the social media platform altogether.
Ilya Brown, Twitter’s vice president of product, spoke on the decision to end “Fleets” in a statement, saying, “We hoped Fleets would help more people feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter. But, in the time since we introduced Fleets to everyone, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets like we hoped.”
“If we’re not evolving our approach and winding down features every once in a while – we’re not taking big enough chances,” Brown continued. “We’ll continue to build new ways to participate in conversations, listening to feedback and changing direction when there may be a better way to serve people using Twitter.”
However, the beloved social media platform doesn’t appear to feel too defeated by the setback. Twitter’s official Twitter account even joked about the mixed reception of the feature in a tweet that confirmed that “Fleets” were a done deal, saying, “we’re removing Fleets on August 3, working on some new stuff…we’re sorry or you’re welcome.”
Are you sad to see “Fleets” disappear so soon? And do you think that Twitter’s Clubhouse-esque “Spaces” feature is any better?
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Memphis rap don Yo Gotti’s Collective Music Group (CMG) is set for a rap takeover this year. Not only has the label’s other Memphis artist Moneybagg Yo dominated the Billboard albums chart (A Gangsta’s Pain went No. 1 for two weeks upon release and is currently outpacing both mainstays like J. Cole and upstart fan favorites like Rod Wave and Pooh Shiesty) but its rising stars 42 Dugg and EST Gee are receiving increased attention for their work with hitmakers like Roddy Ricch and Jack Harlow.
While Dugg’s Free Dem Boyz tape earned him a top 10 debut and presaged his appearance in the 2021 XXL Freshman class, EST Gee — who signed in January this year, just announced his own highly anticipated mixtape Bigger Than Life Or Death, sharing its tracklist and release date (July 20) on social media, a little over a month after releasing the title track.
The tape is a clear bid for greater mainstream recognition, boasting feature appearances from big-name artists like Future, Lil Baby (who helped spotlight both Dugg and Gee on his last album), Lil Durk, Pooh Shiesty, and Young Thug. Naturally, fellow CMG-ers Dugg and Gotti also appear on multiple tracks, as well. Provided the tape receives the level of response it’s primed to, EST Gee could very well be the next member of the fast-rising rap crew to see his name near the top of the charts and one step closer to claiming a Freshman spot of his own.
Bigger Than Life Or Death is due 7/20 via CMG and Interscope. Pre-save it here.
You may have never imagined “zaddy” to be at the back of a dictionary, but now it is.
Dictionary.com has added over 300 new words ranging from terms created as a result of COVID-19, to updating basic slang.
John Kelly, the managing editor of Dictionary.com, understands the need to keep the online dictionary an ever-evolving document of information. “It’s a complicated and challenging society we live in, language changes to help us grapple with it,” he said in an interview with CNN.
COVID-19 influenced the addition of “long COVID”: a condition characterized by symptoms or health problems that linger or first appear after supposed recovery from an acute phase of COVID-19 infection and “long hauler” : a person who experiences symptoms or health problems that linger or first appear after supposed recovery from an associated acute illness or active infection. amongst the medical terms added.
A shift in cultural awareness created the need to define terms such as “Cultural Appropriation”: the adoption, usually without acknowledgment, of cultural identity markers from subcultures or minority communities into mainstream culture by people with a relatively privileged status. On that same token, we see the inclusion of “deplatforming”: to prohibit (a person or people) from sharing their views in a public forum, especially by banning a user from posting on a social media website or application.
Among the lighter definitions– slang words such as “snack,” (a sexy and physically attractive person; hottie), “zaddy” (an attractive man who is also stylish, charming, and self-confident), and “yeet” (an exclamation of enthusiasm, approval, triumph, pleasure, joy, etc) all joined the Dictionary.com ranks.
Any surprises here?
Coi Leray declared herself to be the best dressed XXL Freshman on Twitter, Thursday. She added that she’s not the “best” but instead the “greatest.”
“Well it’s safe to say I was the best dressed,” she wrote.
She added in another tweet: “I might not be the best but I am the greatest.”
As for her competition, other XXL Freshmen included Pooh Shiesty, Morray, Iann Dior, Layekah, DDG, 42 Dugg, Rubi Rose, Blxst, Toosii, and Flo Milli.
After her freestyle was released, Leray said on IG live that she had the best performance.
“You thought I was about to spit the hottest fire flame,” she said. “Let me tell y’all something…I feel like, personally, I had the best XXL freestyle. Me and Lakeyah fa sho had the best XXL freestyle. Especially my whole class of the cyphers. I haven’t even heard the cyphers, other cyphers yet. And I know we had the best cypher. Especially me.”
Earlier in the day, Leray was added to the lineup for Jay-Z’s Made In America festival which will be held on Saturday, September 4, and Sunday, September 5 at Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, PA.
Check out Leray’s tweets below.
Previous reports from sources like DJ Akademiks revealed that a swarm of police had surrounded Lil Durk’s Atlanta home on Sunday, but at the time, more details surrounding the situation weren’t yet available. According to a new report from TMZ, the heavy police presence at the Chicago rapper’s home was the result of a home invasion and violent shootout, which apparently caused the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into the incident.
The report reveals that around 5 a.m. on Sunday, Lil Durk and his fiancée, India Royale, were caught off guard by several unidentified individuals bursting into their home.
Although it wasn’t confirmed who fired the first shots, TMZ reports that Durk and India reacted to the home invasion and aggravated assault by shooting their assailants. The report, courtesy of the GBI, further clarifies that both the rapper and his baby mother allegedly discharged their firearms during the altercation, and thankfully, neither of them were hurt.
At the time of publishing, it has not yet been revealed who the home invaders were, and according to TMZ, Lil Durk’s attorney Nicole Moorman has so far declined to comment on the situation publicly.
While this new information definitely adds context to the heavy police presence at Lil Durk’s Atlanta home earlier this week, there will still likely be more updates in the near future, so stay tuned.
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The list of collaborations set to be included on Summer Walker’s new album is looking more and more stacked by the minute. The new mom is getting back to her craft after the birth of “Bubbles” in March, sharing snaps of studio days with SZA and Omarion. Other studio photo ops on Summer’s feed include sessions with Pharrell and Sean Garret, so clearly, the girl is working hard.
On Thursday, Summer couldn’t hold in her excitement about her newest collab with Lil Durk. The singer shared a video to her Instagram story while she was enthusiastically running around her home yelling out, “Durk vocals came in and it’s crazy, tell em bubbles, it’s crazyyy.”
She tagged the “Laugh Now Cry Later” rapper in the share, saying “lmao I love it thanks.”
Lil Durk reposted the story share in response but has yet to reveal any more information about the song.
While Summer has not dropped a date for her upcoming release, she has begun to release more details about the content. Earlier this week, Summer told a fan on Twitter she would expose her famous producer ex, London On Da Track, for being a deadbeat dad on her next project.
Fans are getting hyped about all the possible collaborations, with thousands of tweets about the pair working together emerging already.
Do you think the track will turn out to be a collaboration we never knew we needed? Let us know in the comments.
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