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Beyond the Boys’ Club: Dorothy
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself and recently released a new single, “Scars,” with Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with singer Dorothy. Dorothy (full name Dorothy Martin) has crafted the album she always wanted to create with Gifts from the Holy Ghost. The set highlights Dorothy’s powerful, emotive vocals, as she sings about breaking free from oppression, saying farewell to demons and maintaining power in an uncertain world. The name of the new album is inspired in part from a wild experience Dorothy had on a tour bus three years ago. Aft...
Song of the Week: Summer Walker, SZA and Cardi B Sizzle on Extended Version of “No Love”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Summer Walker, SZA, and Cardi B heat things up with an extended version of “No Love.” We still have a ways to go before Season 2 of Hot Vaxxed Summer is officially here, but it’s never too early to start planning. Summer Walker, SZA, and Cardi B are thankfully here to provide some inspo and light the path in the meantime with their simmering new extended version of Walker’s “No Love.” The original version of the song, which also features SZA, has already proven itself to be a hit, racking up more than 70 millio...
Paul Pogba on Dealing With Pressure and His Desire to Always Succeed
When Paul Pogba first moved to England and joined Manchester United in 2009, he was just 16. By this point, he was already touted as one of the most promising young footballers in the world, with the move only increasing the pressure on his shoulders. Pogba joined from the under-16 academy of French side Le Havre, where he had garnered a reputation for his demanding and direct style of play, and had already established himself as a French youth international. Despite these accolades at such a young age, Pogba insists he didn’t feel the heat. “To me at the time, it wasn’t pressure, it was good,” he explains to HYPEBEAST. “I had big ambitions and it really gave me strength to be in England and to have people talking about me. For me it was a great opportunity to leave France and be at a club...
Grammy-Nominated Artists Take Us Behind the Scenes of Their Albums
It’s bracket season, baby, and with the 64th annual Grammy Awards falling on April 3rd—just one day before the men’s March Madness championship game—it’s time to get your picks in order. Luckily (for the culture) and unluckily (for the odds), the field runs deep. The Best Dance/Electronic Album category is home to a host of legends all on its own: Black Coffee (Subconsciously), ILLENIUM (Fallen Embers), Major Lazer (Music Is The Weapon (Reloaded)), Marshmello (Shockwave), Sylvan Esso (Free Love) and Ten City (Judgement). From their most inspired moments to their favorite lyrics, to even the walk-up song they’d play if they win the award, we’ve got the inside scoop on all things albums from ILLENIUM, Sylvan Esso and Ten City. Read the...
Rap Song of the Week: Tyler, the Creator and A$AP Rocky Reunite on “Lost and Found Freestyle 2019”
Rap Song of the Week breaks down the new hip-hop tracks you need to hear every Friday. Check out the full playlist here. This week, Nigo reunites Tyler, the Creator and A$AP Rocky on “Lost & Found Freestyle 2019.” Back in July 2018, longtime friends Tyler, the Creator and A$AP Rocky teased an impending project called WANG$AP in the video for their freestyle “Potato Salad.” Since the duo had name-dropped the collaboration twice before, fans were understandably excited to hear a full album from the sartorial rappers. However, Tyler immediately splashed cold water on the idea, tweeting he was going to “kill Rocky” for getting people’s hopes up. According to the LA native, all he wanted to do was rap over Monica’s 2003 classic, “Knock Knock.” Since then, Tyler and Rocky have linked up...
Gunna Talks Grammy Ambitions and Rising to the Top
Sergio Kitchens – better known as his stage name Gunna – has amassed a solid list of industry achievements since he began making music as a teen. The Grammy-nominated rapper, singer, and songwriter has topped the Billboard 200 chart, earned platinum plaques and was even immortalized through a Spotify “Rap Caviar” sculpture erected at the Brooklyn Museum. Signed to Young Thug‘s YSL record label, Gunna’s spit-fire lyricism and high-profile collabs have solidified his rap dominance alongside artists like Lil Baby and Future. His songs consistently stream well into the millions and with his latest effort – DS4Ever – he’s again claimed the number one Billboard spot. The 28-year-old has also achieved social media stardom through the popularization of his “Pushin’ P” catchphrase — a true metric o...
Every Quentin Tarantino Movie Ranked from Worst to Best
Welcome to Dissected, where we disassemble a band’s catalog, a director’s filmography, or some other critical pop-culture collection in the abstract. It’s exact science by way of a few beers. The time, we enter the quirky, warmhearted world of Wes Anderson. This article was originally published in 2018 and has been updated. It’s fun to look back at Quentin Tarantino’s trajectory over the course of 20-plus years helming films. Once hailed as the video store punk with a proclivity for pop culture, Tarantino was the darling of Sundance in 1992 and quickly made a name for himself. He was the motor-mouth with a subversive wit, killer soundtracks, and a love for comics, rockabilly, and creative uses of camp, and he spawned a whole lot of junky crime capers, not to mention a ton of snarky banter ...
Best New Tracks: Nigo, Phife Dawg, Chance The Rapper and More
HYPEBEAST has returned with a new installment of Best New Tracks to round off the last weekend of March. This week’s lineup features the highly-anticipated album of HUMAN MADE designer Nigo and the posthumous Forever LP from A Tribe Called Quest rapper Phife Dawg. Also in this lineup are Swedish singer Lykke Li melancholy single “NO HOTEL” and the Bree Runway’s 80s pop-infused “Somebody Like You.” Nigo – I Know NIGO! [embedded content] Following a two-decade hiatus from putting out new music, Nigo has returned with a new album stocked with appearances from hip-hop’s leading names. I Know NIGO! features Kid Cudi, Pusha T, Tyler, the Creator, A$AP Rocky and Lil Uzi Vert, among others. Right before the project’s debut, the designer shared a music video for his Tyler, the Creator collaboration...
NIGO and Steven Victor’s Shared Vision and Energy Paved the Way for ‘I Know NIGO’
The dream team of NIGO and Steven Victor was always written in the stars. The fashion luminary and veteran record executive had built a solid friendship over the years, and it only seemed instinctive that the creative energy that reverberated between them would kickstart a working relationship. It was a dinner at NOBU Tokyo in 2018 that triggered the shift; Steven had flown to Japan to ask NIGO to design the logo of Victor Victor Worldwide, his record label that went on to become the home of the late Pop Smoke. The pair’s interest in each other’s work was instant. “As far as working with Steven,” NIGO states, “the switch was on.” But as is the case with many powerhouse collaborations, the duo shared an eagerness to pursue more than just their original plans. Victor and NIGO’s enthusiasm to...
Aunjanue Ellis: 5 Things to Know About the King Richard Star
Boasting a career spanning multiple decades, Aunjanue Ellis is on the cusp of Oscar glory for her turn in the Will Smith-led King Richard, portraying Oracene “Brandy” Price, the mother of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams. While King Richard primarily follows the life story of the sisters’ father, Richard, the film highlights the wide scope of Oracene Price’s work and the important role she held in making her daughters the greatest tennis players of all time. Ellis delivers a dynamic, moving, and multifaceted performance that transcends mere biopic impersonation; instead, it taps into something deeper and rawer. Ahead of the Oscars on Sunday, where King Richard is up for Best Picture, Best Actor (Smith), Best Supporting Actress (Ellis), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, a...
Everything Everywhere All At Once Is A Lot, and That’s a Good Thing: Review
The Pitch: Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) has lived a life of quiet, overwhelmed lament. There are so many things she could have done, so many hers she could have been. Instead, she’s a middle-aged owner of a failing laundromat, with a miserable husband gunning for divorce (Ke Huy Quan’s Weymond), a withdrawn daughter (Stephanie Hsu’s Joy), and an increasingly frail father (James Hong’s Gong Gong) who doesn’t yet know that his granddaughter is gay. It gets worse: It’s tax season, and their unsympathetic IRS auditor (Jamie Lee Curtis‘ Deirdre) is breathing down their necks. As if that weren’t complicated enough, the IRS office becomes a battleground for the fate of the multiverse as Evelyn learns that she’s the only one who can stop a multi-dimensional agent of chaos named Jobu Tupaki fro...
‘We Just Know Where All the Bodies Are Buried’
Once upon a New York theatre dream, Kevin Kane and Amy Schumer met at the renowned William Esper Studio’s two-year intensive acting program. “That first year, they break you down,” Kevin tells me. I personally cast him in one of my plays in the early 2000’s. “I feel like…Going through that with somebody, you bare yourself pretty quick. We had a sensibility about each other that we were attracted to in acting class, of like, ‘I like their sensibilities. Let’s talk about doing stuff. I respect what they think more than anyone, so they’ll give me insight that no one else will or tell me the truth like no one else will.’ We really became family like that.” Close friends and creative partners ever since, they make success look so easy. All of their collaborations turn to gold: their theatre com...
