what Kendrick's done in the past week substantially upped his stature in hip-hop history.
he was already solidified but he really may have achieved the boogeyman badge. its like him&Nas
Gregg Doyel has reportedly been suspended following an interaction with Caitlin Clark and won't cover Indiana Fever games in person this season
(h/t
@awfulannouncing
)
he didnt say "lets bring some groceries, bookbags, clothes, throw a free show." he said lets go to the chicken spot &flex on a hood we have no ties to 😵💫
WOW: Leaked email shows legal correspondents from Republic Records (Drake’s label) trying to block ‘Like That’ from getting radio play 🤯
The email was sent to Epic Records (Future’s label) saying: “We are not granting radio rights for ‘Like That’…Epic does not have the right
if hip-hop journalism was where it was supposed to be there'd be space to clean this narrative up, cause ive been seeing it too much
Drake also benefited imagewise from standing next to the hottest "street rapper" of the early 2010s. yall gotta get out of that billboard haze
Drake Mostly Made Himself Look Bad on His Latest Diss
The use of AI-generated Snoop and Tupac vocals sets a terrible precedent for the music industry.
🔗
yeah i think my favorite jay-z archetype is between like 98-01 when he rapped like he just had a conversation with someone who asked stupid questions &showed him a fake watch
his arrogance &annoyance with the rest of the game was palpable in his delivery
The Results Are In: Kendrick Lamar Won the Great Rap War
There may be more shots to come, but the bulk of the war has been fought, and the results are clear: Kendrick Lamar simply hit harder than Drake could.
🔗
producers should release instrumental albums, the beats shouldn’t be the generic beats for artist to rap on, but like expressing yourself thru the beat type shit.
i’d stream.
this is
@rocmarci
, this is
@WESTSIDEGUNN
, this is an entire wing of indie rap
people talk about their influence &you might think theyre talking to talk...
but then the two biggest rappers in the world lead off their albums with soulful beats with sparse drums
solid diss. the split stuff makes sense, the taylor swift/maroon 5 stuff is smart&funny.
but at the same time "youre Top Dawg's lil man" doesnt hit after Kendrick left TDE
esp when JPrince said "drop down give me 50 &make me some money with someone you hate." idk
this is, iirc, the 5th video of an incarcerated chicago rapper leaked in the past couple weeks
+ the interrogation room videos that pop up from all over the country. who is releasing these videos, who is seeking them, how do they just randomly show up on rap IG accounts?
Shaq doesn't understand why kids used to get roasted for wearing his shoes, given that they were made in the same factory and used the same leather as other popular shoes 😅
(🎥
@bigpodwithshaq
/ )
"“Not Like Us” isn’t just a Drake diss, it’s a rally against perpetrators who shifted hip-hop from a Black and Brown community with culturally understood modes of being into an at-times parodic circus."
Read
@andrejgee
:
hip-hop is feeling the dual burden of losing era defining acts, &having too many potential era defining acts who've alienated large swathes of potential fans with their conduct &actions
REPORT: A source tells
@RollingStone
that Gunna will not be called to testify in the YSL case, meaning that his plea statement can’t be used against any defendants in the indictment.
+ spoke with lawyers who clarified the nature of an Alford Plea
DJ Akademiks rode his core base of cultural outsiders to become a cultural voice.
His platform is a reflection of what suburban teenagers and corporations think of Black culture.
my latest for the more fire newsletter
the beef is/was mostly fun, but the way women were used as pawns in the latter stages (by men with weird allegiances with alleged abusers) was not
@RollingStone
the disrespect here is in part a byproduct of entitled consumers seeing artists as something other than human beings
more specifically white consumers &Black artists
my pushback would be how is hip-hop dead if mudslinging during rap beef has always been an element of the genre, for better or worse. this isnt a poisonous new development
Former Bad Boy employees are telling stories about Diddy’s misdeeds, but they only have them because they stuck around the alleged misconduct.
@RollingStone
I’m lame but the first week after
#LikeThat
you tried to block it at radio
I been sitting on this email for a month now but was just sparing you
oh u aint
#LikeThat
record???
a comedian exposing hollywood to an ex football player on a youtube show sponsored by a sports betting platform sounds like a madlib yet its completely of the times
i think he has a knack for making a feature an event
hes not rapping over every newbie's shit to big bro them, he's discerning &treats these moments like a state of the union
Megan Thee Stallion’s New York stop on her tour made the first independent woman rapper to headline at the world’s greatest arena.
Rolling Stone's
@theestallion
and
@GloTheofficial
Hot Girl Summer Tour review:
People should reject the construct of “socially conscious music,” because their perception of Black music’s “political” value has been cultivated by the white gaze.
my latest for my morefire newsletter
COMMENTARY: J. Cole’s apologized for dissing Kendrick Lamar in "7 Minute Drill," but not for his transphobic lyrics — in a pattern of using gender and sexuality to ridicule
More:
thinking about these Vince Staples quotes in light of today's (justified) "he's on a crazy run 🔥" sentiment.
it honestly makes me uncomfortable to see so many cultural voyeurs raving as if these arent traumatic depictions of real places that need help
DatPiff uploaded its extensive free mixtape catalog to the Internet Archive to protect it for the foreseeable future — ensuring that a valuable reserve of rap history won’t be lost to the 404 gods.
More:
Wrote about how Dame Dash was right about Weinstein, Lee Daniels, music industry "culture vultures" as well as the importance of advocating for Black ownership years before they became hot-button issues. That's why it's time to view him differently.
went to the Gunna show last night
he performed A LOT of songs
NO backing vocals
had a lot of energy
did a lot of cool stuff with the set from song-to-song
im really happy for him, i cant imagine how it felt for him to sell out nyc after the year he just had
the big media ppl who 👎🏿 to "euphoria" yesterday:
a white man who thinks Black nihilism is a safari
a Black guy who called Chicago a “cesspool of coons that live and breathe like cockroaches”
a Black guy signed to bar stool
do we think any of them get the racial element?
The cemetery where Megan Thee Stallion’s mother was laid to rest has notified local authorities and increased security at their facility after their location was leaked,
@TMZ
reports.
i mean its gonna be funny for a couple weeks but lets relax.
bc we dont ever have these "im deleting everything" diatribes about the multitudes of abusers &coons out here
i think we talk about this every couple months but its NUTs how much history there is in print mags that's essentially forgotten
i find myself trying to find quotes/info i remember reading in the 2000s &theyre just completely not online. if youre lucky you might find an old pdf
the coalescence of hip-hop, voyeurism of Blackness &our true crime fetish is strangling us
theyll release these sensational videos but wont release clips like when Kodak said he was abused by guards
Songs like "Montero" and "WAP" aren't merely about shock value. They have social and political value by putting up a mirror to bigotry and moralists.
latest for
@ComplexMusic
if youre a music writer, especially in a place with a lot of night life, you gotta take your ass outside.
some stuff you just have to feel outside with the people
just turned in my last piece...im no longer writing for Complex. grateful for the past 21 months. i started as an essayist wondering if i was more, but now i feel empowered as a journalist. a public thanks to everyone there who helped me grow
more to come on whats next very soon
im completely fine with the majors relinquishing their grasp on rap
there's still plenty of great music from artists unconcerned with being greenlit by execs who are thinking about mass appeal &profit first
real heads know rap's survival is not dependent on its corporate ties
Joe Budden GOES OFF on Hip Hop and the music industry being in bad shape
"there's 7 rappers they focus on... this music sh*t is a wrap! the musicians are broke!"
its just bugged out to me that he went from a massacre &"will a company ever insure his live show again?"
to almost performing at one of the most sacred spots on earth
DETAILS: Kanye West's run for president is in shambles as campaign staffers are turning on each other
"He’s not focusing on any of the political stuff right now..."
sadly, this verdict wont stop the hysteria occurring at Megan's expense. the people who refuse to believe already have their talking points for why he was innocent
Tory Lanez’s father stood up guest and screamed. “This is a wicked system!” He screamed at the prosecutors that they are evil and they know exactly what they did here. His stepmother stood up screaming and yelling. Father was yelling about “Roc Nation.”
that said Kendrick's been waiting on this for almost a decade, he better have some shit
id put everything in one song. i wouldnt be on some "saving some for later" shit, give us a pantheon diss
kodak is the token rap antihero for a lot of artists. kendrick, drake, cole cosign him because he symbolizes young Black men navigating through the turmoil of oppression.
but as i wrote here last year ppl tend to ignore the turmoil hes accused of causing
Sean "Diddy" Combs has attempted to rebrand himself as "Brother Love," but he has a prolonged history of violence dating back to the '90s.
Here's a brief look at Diddy’s history of controversies and allegations: