Hip-Hop

Meek Mill dropped his fifth full-length studio album, Expensive Pain, on Friday (Oct. 1), and it includes cameos from Lil Baby, Kehlani, Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug and more. He’ll celebrate its release on Oct. 23 at a playback concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden, “Expensive Pain: Meek Mill & Friends,” where he will perform the whole project with a number of as-yet-unannounced special guests; tickets for the show can be purchased on Friday beginning at noon here. According to a release announcing the 18-song album — the follow-up to Meek’s Grammy-nominated 2018 collection Championships — it touches on a range of topics that are personally important to the rapper, including mental health and criminal justice reform. In addition to...

1. Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg, “Still D.R.E.”  No better introduction for Dre than those Scott Storch piano plinks — well, except for maybe the bellowing synths of “F–k Wit Dre Day,” but no way he’d be able to get through more than a couple lines of that before the NBC execs started lunging for the kill switch. And hey, 20-plus years later, leading Super Bowl halftime is pretty good evidence that Dre is indeed still representin’ for them gangstas all across the world. 2. Snoop Dogg, “Gin and Juice”  As classic as classic gets, you can’t have Snoop on the world’s biggest stage without him kicking a little something for the G’s and performing at least a verse and chorus of his signature Doggystyle smas...

The “Lose Yourself” rapper did, however, pose at the drive-through window with a carton of takeout, and in a room adorned with the famous local lad’s album artwork. A retail store called The Trailer is part of the operation, The Detroit Free Press reports. If you dig spaghetti — and let’s face it, who doesn’t — the Rap God’s joint has something for you. Its menu includes a round of spaghetti (for $9) spaghetti with balls (for $12) or vegan balls ($14), and spaghetti sandwiches ($11). The restaurant owes its name to the opening lyric from Eminem’s Oscar-winning motivational masterclass “Lose Yourself,” in which he raps, “His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy/ There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti.” The art became a reality as far back...

Still, advocates hope the criminal conviction brings a moral reckoning. Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement, understands how irresistible the music of R. Kelly can be for people who grooved to songs like “Ignition,” but said, “People should just have a second thought about the message that it sends.” “This generation is very clear about who R. Kelly is, right? These young people have come up with the information that this person is a perpetrator, right?” Burke said. “And if we can’t push past our personal likes and desires to dance to a song for the sake of sending a message to these little girls and little boys, at some point I’m just going to draw a line. “I don’t want to support somebody who will cause this kind of harm in my community. I just urge people to think about that,” ...