New Hip Hop News

Backyard barbecues, fireworks, and having a good time is what this summer holiday is all about. After missing out on large gatherings with last year’s fourth of July in the thick of the pandemic, this holiday was bound to be one to remember.

Check out our round-up to see what the hip-hop community and beyond we’re up to during yesterday’s festivities. 

Jay-Z & Beyonce

Jay and Bey attended an extravagant affair on Sunday, although it was first reported to be a bash in lieu of their annual Roc Nation brunch, Page Six reports that it was actually Michael Rubin’s party; a house-warming celebration for his new Hamptons mansion. Whatever the case, the biggest names and music came to the Hamptons for this event, dressed in all-white outfits, for a night with waterfront views and fireworks. Meek Mill, Travis Scott, Lil Baby, and Kid Cudi and were among those in attendance. The star who stole the show was Lil Uzi Vert, who decided to light up the dance floor on his own. The rapper brought out his unexpected impressive break dancing moves while being hyped up by his girl, City Girl’s JT, who herself had quite the special night, thanks to Queen Bey.

Michael Rubin also shared a photo gallery from the all-white event, which you can click through below. Attendees reportedly included Kid Cudi, Megan Thee Stallion, Tinashe, Lil Baby, Travis Scott, Meek Mill, James Harden and more.

 

Diddy

On the opposite coast, Diddy threw a star-studded bash at his house in L.A. His Instagram story rolls like one long ad for Ciroc and DeLeon, starting with professionally-shot footage highlighting his new summer watermelon Ciroc flavor. Drake, London on da Track, French Montana, Teyana Taylor, Keke Palmer, all danced the night away at the “Summer of Love” party.

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The Game

The Game’s annual pool party was a full affair, with the top caterers in Calabasas and even masseuses on deck. LA’s Power 106’s famous DJ Carisma had everyone lit — and the number of twerk videos on the rapper’s IG story serves to prove it. We’re sure more content from his backyard extravaganza will spill out through out the day.

@losangelesconfidential / Instagram Story 

Lori Harvey & Michael B. Jordan

Lori and Michael preferred to dip out of the celebrity party scene for the holiday weekend. Lori shared small snippets of her vacation with friends on her Instagram story yesterday. Possibly intentional, it is unclear exactly where they are in the videos, but the crystal clear water and waving palm trees are certainly in full view.

Cardi B

Some stars chose to keep it more low-key, such as Cardi B who proclaimed, “California, I’m coming to one of yall barbecues today, I ain’t stay home today. I’m not with them vegan burgers…” in a fit-check video posted to her ‘Gram. The mom-to-be opted out of the red, white, and blue dress code for head-to-toe glam in a sheer cheetah print dress. 

Saweetie

Saweetie was partying again after her Freaknik themed birthday event on Saturday, with an intimate cookout with friends at her home. But before all that, you know she had to snap a bomb pic for the ‘Gram showing off her ice and brand new Rolls Royce truck in a bikini matching her car’s interior (and her nails).

 

Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart shared a photo of where he looked how many of us felt at the end of yesterday — ready for bed. The comedian posed cutely cuddled up with his son on the couch captioning the picture, “Good night ….hope u all had a blessed and beautiful 4th of July!!!! #Harts.”

DaBaby

Unfortunately, it looks like DaBaby fielded the police during his day-off. Nonetheless he kept it cruising, and it seems there was zero incident.

There was once a time where XXL Freshman Class members used their opportunities in the spotlight to spit bars, though we’re beginning to see that less as time goes on. In reality, many of today’s most popular rising artists tend to use a more melodic flow, having shifted into new stylistic territory altogether.

It’s reached the point where some of the inductees can hardly be classified as rappers at all. While that isn’t inherently problematic, it’s certainly curious to see XXL uphold the cypher and freestyle traditions for such artists, who are often forced to perform well outside of their comfort zones as a result. Luckily, many of the selected artists are adaptable in the face of a challenge, as today’s new XXL Freestyle from Coi Leray has indicated.

 Rich Fury/Getty Images

Bathed in mood-setting blue light, Coi opts to keep true to her established style, delivering an acapella and largely melodic verse. Based on the structure and various cadential shifts, it sounds as if Leray is drawing from a yet-to-be-released song for this one. “Parasitic, these n***as want to eat off me,” she sing-raps. “I don’t really trust n***as, shout out to Lil Reese.” 

Be sure to check out Coi Leray’s full XXL Freshman Freestyle below, and sound off in the comments if you’re feeling what she brought to the table with this one. Look for more of these to drop in the coming days. 

WATCH: Coi Leray’s XXL Freshman Freestyle

In the middle of the regular season, the Atlanta Hawks looked like a team that had no realistic shot at making it far in the postseason. They fired their head coach and with players like Trae Young struggling, it was looking like another year of despair for the Hawks. However, once the team elevated Nate McMillan to interim head coach, the team started to play inspired basketball and they even made it to the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference.

After knocking off the New York Knicks in five games, the Hawks were able to upset the Philadelphia 76ers en route to the Eastern Conference Finals. While the Milwaukee Bucks eventually beat them in six games, it was clear to everyone that a new era in Hawks basketball had arrived, and much of the success was due in part thanks to McMillan. Now, McMillan has been rewarded for his efforts with a new deal that makes him the official head coach of the team.

This is a huge deal for the Hawks as they will now have some stability on the bench for the next few years. Making the ECF again will prove to be a tough task although with this young core, anything is possible.

Stay tuned to HNHH as we will continue to bring you updates from around the NBA.

Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

Coming off former rapper Joe Budden’s distaste for Andrew Schulz in regards to working with political commentator Alex Jones, the (latter) podcast host had about as much to complain about as always. 

Rehashing a quote from Jones slamming Budden, he said, “Just because you are this black person paid by the corporate media to spew racism to divide this country in the world. I didn’t do anything to you. I don’t owe you anything. And you are despicable lying about me.” On top of all that, he starts everything off by saying, “You don’t even know who the hell I am!” when, in all reality, there’s not much more we need to know to judge the man’s character. 

In response to the very strange collection of people involved, Twitter reacted as they usually do in situations like these: sharing their distaste for Alex Jones.

Twitter’s disdain for the beyond-conservative talk-show host has been apparent for years now, and every time a new spat like this pops up, the app’s majority is more than happy to hypothetically spit on whatever he has to say. Hell, he was already banned from a handful of platforms like YouTube and FaceBook over three years ago. Joe Budden is yet to respond to Jones’s rant, though it seems that saving his breath is preferable to debating with this brick wall of a human.

Rachel Nichols of ESPN is in the news for all of the wrong reasons right now as a video of her disparaging fellow host Maria Taylor made its way to the internet. In the clip, Nichols speaks about Taylor and how she feels like ESPN only hired her for certain shows because they needed to add diversity to the network. These comments angered many fans as they felt like Nichols was making racially charged comments that show she isn’t a real ally.

In the aftermath of this, former NBA player Stephen Jackson took to Instagram where he defended Nichols against the attacks. In fact, Jackson believes Taylor was given a “sympathy job” and that everyone needs to leave Rachel alone. 

“We all ramble and we say things when we’re frustrated, and Rachel did deserve that job, it’s just plain and simple, I’ve talked to Rachel and I know a lot of things she was saying out of frustrations because ESPN put her in a bad position and they even put Maria in a bad position by trying to give Maria a sympathy job, they were trying to make themselves look good because of the Black lives Matt and the George Floyd stuff was going on,” Jackson said.

These comments from Jackson were met with vitriol on social media as some felt like he shouldn’t be rushing to the defense of a white woman, especially considering the fact that he is an activist. In typical Twitter fashion, the criticism of Jackson ended up snowballing into memes, and for now, Jackson isn’t in good standing with the rest of NBA Twitter.

You can see what people had to say about the ordeal, below.

As Cupid’s Arrow might strike at any given moment, so too might Drake’s upcoming album Certified Lover Boy. Though the anticipated drop was originally meant to land at the beginning of 2021, Drake opted to pull back and delay his project indefinitely, though he recently hinted that it would land “before the end of summer.” 

Right on cue, it would appear that the wheels have once again begun to spin. A recent report from On Thin Ice confirms that Drake has been working on a new music video, presumably for his project’s next single. If that wasn’t reason enough for excitement, the untitled track appears to be featuring his longtime collaborator and What A Time To Be Alive wingman Future. 

 Paras Griffin/Getty Images 

Last we heard from the pair, they were reminding fans that “Life Is Good,” culminating in one of the biggest tracks both parties have ever released. And while it’s not going to be easy to pick up where such a monumental single left off, it wouldn’t be surprising for Drizzy and Future to be pulling out all the stops for this one. After all, it’s reached the point where the two could probably enter cruise control and still see success on the commercial front.

If you’re curious to see what the pair have been cooking up, check out the brief snippet below. Though there isn’t exactly much to unpack, it would appear that this one will find Future channeling his inner Right Said Fred with an “I’m Too Sexy” rhyme scheme. We’ll be sure to keep you posted with more news on this upcoming Certified Lover Boy track as it surfaces. 

Lil Duval and Erica Mena went at it on Twitter, Monday, after the comedian called Mena out for criticizing Safaree for being unfaithful.

“How u go from ‘I’m filing for divorce’ ‘why u trying to fuck a married man’ crazy tail self,” Duval began a series of tweets. “You shouldn’t care what somebody do if you really don’t care about them no more… Women refuse to believe they are wired to they emotions more than they mind. Shit we all are. Y’all just fight it more.”

“You always in some woman’s business,” Mena replied to his first tweet. “Shut up Lil bitch.”

“Calm down queen. Your postpartum acting up,” Duval clapped back with laughing emojis.

Carmen Mandato / Getty Images

The back-and-forth comes after Mena went on a lengthy rant calling out Safaree for being unfaithful with Kaylin Garcia, Joe Budden’s ex-girlfriend. Mena claimed that she’s going to cut off her entire family from her allegedly unfaithful ex.

Garcia denied the accusation, saying that she and Safaree are just friends: The fact that I have been called out for absolutely nothing, to me is insane. Me and Safaree are friends and nothing more.”

Check out Duval and Mena’s heated exchange below.

Atlanta lyricist Grip recently joined the ranks of Eminem’s Shady Records, which currently houses Boogie, Conway The Machine, and Bad Meets Evil. Grip celebrated the deal with the release of his new single “Gutter,” a distorted display of clever bars and visceral intensity. Should you be interested in seeing what Grip is about, check that out right here. 

Given that the Shady partnership was announced alongside a picture of himself and Em in the studio, many were quick to flood the rapper with questions surrounding a potential collaboration. Evidently, it would appear that one is on the way, as confirmed by Grip himself. The Shady Records-centric website Southpawers actually shared a screenshot of an exchange between Grip and a fan, in which the former confirms an upcoming duet between himself and Slim.

When the fan asks if he plans on dropping the Em-assisted track anytime soon, Grip reveals that he’s saving it for the album. It’s unclear as to whether or not the pair have already whipped up the song in question, but it will be interesting to see what the pair manage to cook up. It’s certainly not the first time Em has worked with an Atlanta artist, having appeared alongside T.I. on “Touch Down” and “That’s All She Wrote.” 

Keep an eye out for more news on Grip’s upcoming Shady Records album, which should presumably drop after Boogie and Conway The Machine fire off their anticipated releases. To learn more about Em’s new signee, check out our complete guide to Grip right here. Are you excited for Grip’s Shady Records debut? 

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