Hip-Hop
Nandi Bushell Covers Eminem’s “Rap God”: Watch
It’s been a minute since Nandi Bushell has shared one of her viral drum covers, but she resumed the practice this weekend by playing along to Eminem’s “Rap God.” Watch the video below. In the video’s caption, Bushell said she’s been “working on my speed and consistency,” so it makes sense that she chose Eminem’s rapid fire 2013 track. As always, the kid drummer handles the song with ease and confidence, twirling and throwing one drum stick while playing the other and never losing her footing on the kick drum. Elsewhere in her caption, she shouted out HAL, the drummer for the Japanese rock band CVLTE who has also enjoyed some Internet fame in recent years. Beyond performing songs by Rush and John Coltrane, Bushell has moved beyond simple covers and has begun writing her first album of origi...
Megan Thee Stallion Responds to Drake’s Apparent Diss Over Tory Lanez Shooting
Megan Thee Stallion heard Drake’s line about a “stallion” lying about “getting shots” — a thinly-veiled reference to the 2020 incident in which Tory Lanez was charged with allegedly shooting her — loud and clear. Without naming names, she tore into the hip-hop community as a whole for continuing to “dog pile on a black woman when she say one of y’all homeboys abused her.” “This bitch lie ’bout getting shots, but she still a stallion,” Drake raps on “Circo Loco,” a track from Drake’s collaborative album with 21 Savage. “She don’t even get the joke, but she still smiling.” “I know I’m very popular but y’all gotta stop attaching weak ass conspiracy theories in bars to my name lol,” Megan wrote in response. “N****s nor hoes EVER address me or @ me WITH a fact or receipts. I AM C...
Rap Song of the Week: BROCKHAMPTON Celebrate the End on “Big Pussy”
Rap Song of the Week breaks down all the hip-hop tracks you need to hear every Friday. Check out the full playlist here. Today, BROCKHAMPTON return with their new single, “Big Pussy.” BROCKHAMPTON have announced their final album, The Family, and on lead single “Big Pussy,” Kevin Abstract builds a funeral pyre and sets the band on fire. The track begins with a sample containing the words, “Fuck you,” and while it doesn’t appear to be directed at anyone in particular, if there were any doubt about Kevin’s feelings, he opens his first verse the same way: “Fuck you to anyone that claim that they got me/ When my heart was low, it turn to kami-kami-kamikaze.” With those words ringing in your ear, “Big Pussy” starts to feel like a final suicide mission. It’s one of the few BROCKHA...
Diddy Makes a Big Move Into Cannabis Game With $185 Million Purchase of Major Pot Players
Sean “P. Diddy” Combs never does anything halfway. On Friday (Nov. 4) the music/fashion/sprits/media mogul announced that he plans to make a major investment in the legal marijuana game with a $185 million deal to buy licensed weed operations in three states. If approved, the deal would create the nation’s largest Black-owned and licensed cannabis company, a platform Diddy said he wants to use to increase Black participation in the field. “It’s diabolical,” Combs, 53, told the Wall Street Journal about his desire to get into the pot business to help address long-running inequities that have seen Black people disproportionately arrested and jailed for marijuana crimes even as they make up a “tiny” percentage of the market for legal weed. “How do you lock up communities of people, break down...
BROCKHAMPTON Drop Fiery New Single “Big Pussy”: Stream
BROCKHAMPTON are dropping their purported final album in a few weeks, and today they’ve unleashed the new single “Big Pussy,” which solely features vocals from the group’s leader Kevin Abstract. The beat from bearface and Nick Velez opens with a jazz sample before kicking into gear with a rumbling bassline and hard-hitting drums. Abstract seems to have a lot to get off his chest on the track, going “kamikaze” about topics like owning his masters, being a “faggot n***a out of Houston,” and setting off moshpits at shows. Mostly though, “Big Pussy” is about BROCKHAMPTON as a group: “I don’t roll solo, need the crew to maneuver/ Through the loose and dark and stupid kinda movements.” Watch the Harrison Fisherman-directed music video for “Big Pussy” below. In January, BROCKHAMPTON announced the...
Drake and 21 Savage Team Up for Collaborative Album Her Loss: Stream
Drake and 21 Savage have released their new collaborative album Her Loss. Stream it via Apple Music or Spotify below. The duo announced the project with a teaser at the end of the video for “Jimmy Cooks,” the sole hip-hop track on Drake’s dance album Honestly, Nevermind. The LP was originally slated for release on October 28th, but was pushed back a week after Noah “40” Shebib got COVID in the middle of putting the finishing touches on it. Her Loss spans 16 tracks in total and includes a collaboration with Travis Scott called “Pussy & Millions.” Advertisement Related Video During the lead-up to Her Loss, Drake and 21 mocked traditional album rollouts by putting out a fake Vogue cover, recreating an NPR Tiny Desk that never actually happened, and sharing clips from an “in...
Kanye West Can’t Sell “White Lives Matter” Shirts Because Two Black Men Own the Trademark
There’s a lot of reasons to worry about Kanye West right now, but at least we can cross those White Lives Matter shirts off the list: Should he ever decide to sell the fascist garb he donned with Candace Owens at an October Yeezy fashion show, he won’t be able to legally, because two Black men (brilliantly) own the legal trademark. As Capital B reports, an anonymous longtime listener of the Phoenix-based radio show Civic Cipher applied for ownership of the phrase “White Lives Matter” in an effort to keep it out of the wrong hands. The listener offered to gift it to Civic Cipher hosts Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward, giving them sole ownership of the phrase and the ability to sue anyone who tries to use it for financial gain. “The way the law works is either you’re owning phrases, or it’s u...
Kanye West Gets Into Argument at Kid’s Soccer Game, Storms Off
Kanye West stormed off the field of his son’s soccer game over the weekend after getting into an argument with a woman. According to TMZ, the woman Ye argued with was a Kardashian-West family friend, though it’s unclear what caused the disagreement. Kim Kardashian was also at the game, but she was surrounded by security and didn’t appear to interact with West at the event. A witness told the publication that West came back to the game a few minutes later after cooling off, and the rest of the match continued without incident. Watch a clip of the altercation below. West has been a constant media fixture in recent months as he continues to espouse antisemitic beliefs — and lose a ton of money and brand deals as a consequence. As he falls from grace, the rapper has been the subject of a mocki...
Nostalgix Drops Gritty Hip-House Track, “Options”
Nostalgix has dropped the latest record from her forthcoming Supah Fly EP, a hip-house collab with Lano Bandz. Out now on Thrive Music, “Options” is a gritty fusion of hip-hop and house music. The track, which features energetic bars courtesy of Bandz, finds Nostalgix producing a rowdy bass house beat. A sinister electric guitar riff kicks things off before the arrangement erupts into a frenzy of menacing bass and metallic synths. “The writing of ‘Options’ was such a fun process,” explains Nostalgix. “It was the first record I made when I moved to Los Angeles. I met Lano Bandz through my friend Wraith, and we immediately had a vibe together. I got Lano to hop in the vocal booth and start freestyling over a fun instrumental I had.” Fans c...
Diddy Absolutely Nails Heath Ledger’s Joker For Halloween
Sean “P. Diddy” Combs went super-method for his Halloween costume over the weekend. The hip-hop impresario slipped into a frighteningly accurate version of Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning portrayal of the Joker from the Dark Knight series, swooning around town in his purple suit with green vest, green hair, white face paint and the character’s bloody Glasgow Smile. In classic Diddy fashion, he chronicled his transformation in a video in which he sat in a chair getting his look together and wished everyone a happy, safe Halloween followed by one in which he laughs maniacally in character while brandishing a giant fake gun as a hand grenade falls out of his pocket. “Hello my friends, I’m the Joker,” he wrote in the caption. “I’m highjacking Halloween! Hahahaha.” The fun continued in another cli...
M.I.A. Posted a ‘Scary’ Halloween Picture With Conservative Commentator Candace Owens
M.I.A. didn’t dress up over the weekend, but on Sunday afternoon (Oct. 30) the “Paper Planes” rapper posted what she said was a “scary picture for Halloween” in which she casually posed with controversial conservative commentator Candace Owens. “#FreeSpeech,” M.I.A. captioned the post — which Owens re-posted — in which she stands with a neutral look next to a smiling Owens. The outspoken conservative talker’s name was in headlines earlier this month when she appeared at Kanye West’s Paris Fashion Week show modeling one of Ye’s provocative “White Lives Matter” t-shirts. The stunt was met with widespread backlash from the supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, especially given phrase’s ties to white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in their response to BLM. After getting temporarily b...
Jack Harlow as ‘SNL’ Host: Watch His Monologue & All His Sketches
Jack Harlow pulled double duty as host and musical guest of SNL and was part of an episode with some of the most memorable sketches of this season of Saturday Night Live, so far. As host of Oct. 29’s Saturday Night Live, he set the scene for the night ahead with a laid-back monologue that showed he has no problem playing around and making fun of himself. Bringing up some of the top jokes about himself he’s seen on the internet, Harlow said, “One guy said, ‘I don’t know why y’all think Jack Harlow is so special. You can find somebody who looks like him at any local gas station.” “I’ve heard them say I look like ‘If you tried to draw Justin Timberlake from memory,’” he recalled. The rapper added, “I think my favorite one might be ‘Jack Harlow looks like the guy who rips the tickets in ...
