music blog
DJ Drama & Dreamville Drop Power-Packed ‘D-DAY: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape’
HipHopWired Featured Video CLOSE Source: Dreamville / Dreamville Records I normally don’t write posts on Hip-Hop Wired in my own voice because, well, who cares about what I have to say nine times out of 10, right? However, I want to be honest and say that I’m just eight songs on DJ Drama & Dreamville Presents D-DAY: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape and it’s definitely going to blow some minds due to its high quality and variety. The genius of J. Cole’s squad releasing this project on the eve of the revived Dreamville Festival this weekend can’t be understated and every member of the roster came to show the absolute best of their abilities. Without laboring through each track, we’ll just say that J.I.D., EarthGang, Ari Lennox, Lute, Cozz, Bas, Omen, and J. Cole show and prove across the 15 trac...
Will Packer Sheds More Light On The Oscars Slap, Reveals Police Were Ready To Arrest Will Smith
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Handout / Getty FINALLY, we are getting more clarity on The Oscars slap and hearing from people who directly know what happened after the now-infamous moment. Will Packer, who produced this year’s Oscars, spoke exclusively with Good Morning America on April 1 and shared what he experienced during and after the moment Will Smith decided to smack fire out of Chris Rock. In the interview with T.J. Holmes, Packer revealed that Rock was freestyling and “did not get to one joke” pre-written and displayed on the teleprompter. “He did not tell one of the planned jokes. He was immediately freestyling,” Packer said. Related Stories Like many of us who saw it all go down live, Packer didn’t think something serious was going to go down when Smith stepped on the stage...
Chris Rock Shuts Down Fan Who Yelled “F*ck Will Smith”
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Boston Globe / Getty Will Smith may not be Chris Rock’s favorite person these days due to obvious reasons, but that doesn’t mean he wants anyone else to hate on the Hollywood heavyweight. According to People, a fan attempted to curse out Will Smith at Chris Rock’s live comedy show at The Wilbur in Boston yesterday after the comedian took the stage, but Rock continued to take the high road and shut down the Smith slander. During his set an audience member yelled out “F*ck Will Smith!” but Rock quickly killed that noise by saying “”No, no, no, no, no…” Real talk, a lesser man probably would’ve encouraged that kind of hate and anger at his show, but Chris Rock didn’t want to take it there regardless of how “mean spirited” some people may think he is. Related...
HHW Gaming: The Extremely Hard To Get Xbox Series X Is Readily Available… For Now
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Bernard Smalls / @BeanzGotGamez Is this a sign that the world is beginning to heal? The once elusive Xbox Series X is now readily available. No, we’re not kidding. Since its launch, the Xbox Series X has been extremely hard to get, immediately selling out when stock hits websites like Walmart, GameStop, Best Buy, or Amazon. That was until Friday (Apr.1). If you head over to Amazon or Walmart, you will be surprised to see the console is still IN STOCK, and yes, at its retail price of $499 (Amazon) and $646.25 (Walmart). Related Stories We have hit the refresh button many times to see if the “in stock” changes to “out of stock,” and much to our surprise, it has not yet changed. This is a huge development, being that the system has been very difficult ...
Universal Follows Sony and Warner in Waiving Unrecouped Advances for Some Legacy Artists
Universal Music Group has followed Sony Music and Warner in announcing a program for certain legacy artists to receive royalties without having recouped their advance payments, Billboard reports. Unveiling the plan in its environmental, social and governance report yesterday (March 31), Universal, the world’s largest music company, became the last of the big three label groups to propose such a scheme. Eligible artists will receive royalties backdated to the start of 2022, but Universal did not explain who would qualify or why. Beggars Group kickstarted the trend in 2020, aiming to correct old-fashioned label deals, particularly with Black artists, which locked signees into exploitative contracts with low royalty rates. Back in 2001, UMG launched a similar scheme on a smaller scale through...
Jai Paul Makes Cameo in New Episode of Atlanta
Jai Paul made a cameo last night (March 31) on Donald Glover’s FX show Atlanta in a scene with LaKeith Stanfield. In the third episode of the show’s third season (“The Old Man and the Tree”) the two discuss racism’s symbiotic relationship with capitalism, with Paul quipping “Anywhere you can buy a can of Coke, some type of racism is going down there.” Watch the clip on Reddit, or stream the episode on Hulu and FXNOW. In February, FX chairman John Landgraf announced that season four of Atlanta will be its last. Season three, which had been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, premiered last month. Last April, Paul celebrated the 10th anniversary of his debut single “BTSTU” by recreating the Myspace page where he originally released his music, as well as sharing two new remixes and the rare...
Join Pitchfork’s Live Blog of the 2022 Grammys
The 2022 Grammys—previously scheduled to take place in January in L.A.—will finally proceed this Sunday night at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena. And since practically anything can happen at awards shows these days, you’ll definitely want to join us right here, where Pitchfork staffers will provide minute-by-minute analysis of all the action on the red carpet and on stage, plus first-person updates from inside the building. Will Japanese Breakfast beat Finneas and Olivia Rodrigo for Best New Artist? Will the seven-times-nominated Rodrigo sweep the major categories? Will Taylor Swift become the first artist to win four Album of the Year Grammys? And if so, what will her fellow Album of the Year nominee Kanye West have to say about it? For the answers to all of these questions and more, me...
Jerrod Carmichael Shares Personal Coming-Out Story on HBO Special ‘Rothaniel’
Comedian Jerrod Carmichael publicly shares that he is gay in his new HBO special Rothaniel, premiering Friday night (April 1). In Rothaniel, the comedian, who is set to host Saturday Night Live this weekend, details coming out while sharing stories about his family history, including one that recalled the moment he caught his father cheating on his mother and the feelings that came with holding on to that secret. “I don’t know if I would’ve said anything if I had the courage because I only saw this secret as something that could’ve torn our family apart,” he says, adding that he later made his father tell his mother the truth. Reflecting on the event made Carmichael share the internal conflicts he was left to confront. “Once that was done, I was...
The 25 Best Songs About Family
All artists have muses, and who better to inspire a song than those closest to you? From songs spotlighting brothers (like BTS’ “Begin”), sisters (like Mickey Guyton’s “Sister”), mothers (like 2Pac’s “Dear Mama” and Taylor Swift’s “The Best Day [Taylor’s Version]”), fathers (like Avicii’s “The Nights”), sons (like Adele’s “My Little Love”), daughters (like Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” and John Mayer’s “Daughters”) and beyond, there are hundreds of tracks out there that pay tribute to the people you love. Even if it’s your friendships you cherish most, artists from Kanye West to Kenny Chesney have got you covered. Whether you need some tunes to bust out at your next family reunion or want to show a loved one just how much you care, Billboard has rounded up the top 25 tracks that lay o...
Inside Track: NFT LA Brings Web3 Networking IRL; Miami Music Week’s Big Return
The NFT | LA conference brought web3 networking into real life this week, taking over the Los Angeles Convention Center and surrounding downtown restaurants, bars and venue spaces with the city’s first-ever blockchain-focused gathering of this size. From March 29-31, official programming at the convention center included panels and keynotes covering music, gaming, art, fashion, cryptocurrency and more intersections of culture, commerce and emerging blockchain technology. Mark Cuban, Sandbox CEO Mathieu Nouzareth, Andrew Yang and Baron Davis were some of the big names speaking, as startups showcased their new products, patrons sported shirts with their own Bored Ape characters on them and frames for displaying those virtual non fungible tokens in your IRL living room took up a considerable ...
The Ledger: Inside Universal Music’s 2021 Annual Report
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. Universal Music Group’s first-ever annual report, released Thursday, offers an exhaustive look at the company’s finances and operations as well as environmental, social and governance initiatives. If you want to know how many metric tons of paper was purchased for internal use (24) or the number of megawatt hours of electricity from renewable sources (7,982), it’s in there. In terms of dollars and cents behind investments and catalogs, the annual report has a few things worth highlighting. UMG sold Alamo Records for 102 million euros ($112.7 million) for a gain of 98 million euros ($108.3 million). Sony Music reportedly...
City Girls and Fivio Foreign Are “Top Notch” on New Single: Stream
City Girls return today with the new single “Top Notch,” a team-up with New York rapper Fivio Foreign. On the track, the duo of Yung Miami and JT blend their classic Southern hip-hop charm with the thundering grit of New York City drill rap. Like all good things City Girls, “Top Notch” is unapologetically braggadocious, as Yung Miami and JT flaunt their wealth and high status: “I’m the baddest bitch on your newsfeed,” JT spits over a track by British producer AXL Beats. “Y’all gossiping, but who the news feed?/ I’m in the sky box, you in the nose bleeds/ Fly bitches need privacy.” Meanwhile, Fivio doubles-down on his own rags-to-riches story: “When I was down, I was broke but I told ’em I knew I’d be rich by the top of the week,” he raps. Though Fivio claims “this is not a movie,” the...
