Rap
Song of the Week: boygenius Reunite on Julien Baker’s Confessional “Favor”
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. While several stories over the past few weeks have reminded us that the entertainment world can still be very much a boys’ club in the worst ways imaginable, on the artistic side of matters, we’ve seen an undeniable shift in the recognition women are finally beginning to receive within the music industry, especially in the rock genre. Studies have shown that young women are not only picking up guitars at the highest rates ever, but they’re actually learning to play them in larger numbers than their male counterparts. No doubt it’s been partl...
R.I.P. Ricky Powell, Iconic Hip-Hop Photographer and Honorary Beastie Boy Dead at 59
Ricky Powell, the celebrated hip-hop photographer who was known as the honorary fourth member of the Beastie Boys, has died at age 59. Powell’s manager and business partner Tono Radvany confirmed that his client had passed away on the night of February 1st. No cause of death has yet to be revealed. “I just want to let everyone know he was a very special man, and he will be sorely missed,” Radvany told Complex. A New York City native through and through, the Brooklyn-born Powell entered photography mainly to stick it to an ex-girlfriend. He discovered a camera she’d left behind and determined to use it to make a name for himself. After photographing art galleries in Greenwich Village and hip-hop shows in downtown Manhattan for a year, he was able to quit his job selling lemon ices to head o...
“Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” Rapper Silento Arrested for Murder
Silento, the Atlanta rapper best known for the viral hit “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)”, has been charged with murdering his cousin. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Silento (born Ricky Lamar Hawk) was arrested by DeKalb police on Monday. Hawk’s cousin, Frederick Rooks, was shot and killed on the morning of January 21st. “After a thorough investigation, DKPD detectives identified Hawk as Rooks’ cousin, and the person responsible for Rooks’ murder,” according police spokeswoman Michaela Vincent. Detectives are still working to establish a motive. The 23-year-old Hawk has had several previous run-ins with the law. In August, he was arrested twice on domestic violence and gun charges. Then in October, he was booked after being clocked speeding at more than 140 mph. Hawk achieved ...
Tha God Fahim and Your Old Droog Uncork New Album Tha Wolf on Wall St.: Stream
Mixtape masters Tha God Fahim and Your Old Droog have linked up for the new collaborative album Tha Wolf on Wall St. Stream it below via Apple Music or Spotify. The pair have been prolific both separately and together, most recently teaming up on Droog’s December drop Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition. That LP was executive produced by Mach-Hommy, who also lays down some guest work here. But Tha Wolf on Wall St. owes it’s jazzy, laid-back soundscapes entirely to Tha God Fahim. As a rapper-producer, Fahim favors atmospheric beats that can accommodate a wide variety of flows, often allowing his vocal phrases to unspool across several bars. His higher voice provides an airy contrast to Droog’s earthy rumble, and together they put on a masterclass in lyric-forward hip-hop. Previously, TG...
Fredo Releases New Album Money Can’t Buy Happiness: Stream
British rapper Fredo has dropped his star-studded new album, Money Can’t Buy Happiness. Stream it below via Apple Music or Spotify. Money Can’t Buy Happiness is the second studio album of Fredo’s career, following 2019’s Third Avenue. On his new effort, he links up with Summer Walker for The Fugees-sampling song “Ready” and collaborates with both Pop Smoke and Young Adz for the uptempo number “Burner on Deck”. He also reunites with Dave, his longtime friend and fellow British rapper, for “Money Talks”, which serves as a follow-up single of sorts to their 2018 smash hit “Funky Friday”. In a statement, Fredo explained that he scrapped his original version of Money Can’t Buy Happiness before settling on this current version, in part to portray a more realistic version of himself and his belie...
Song of the Week: FKA twigs and Headie One Unite Social Movements in “Don’t Judge Me”
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. The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements may have different origins, but they share certain goals: among them, making certain that those who suffer sexual abuse and racial injustice, respectively, are acknowledged, listened to, and believed. Only when those things happen can healing begin, changes be implemented, and true justice attained. In this week’s Top Song, British artists FKA twigs and Headie One bring their own survival stories together and, in doing so, unite these movements under a common anthem. This collaboration, which ...
Death Grips’ Gmail and the Restraining Orders EP, “More Than the Fairy” Finally Added to Spotify, Apple: Stream
It’s been two years and counting since we last got a proper album from Death Grips, but today’s surprise drop should keep fans preoccupied in the meantime. The group’s experimental EP Gmail and the Restraining Orders and one-off single “More Than the Fairy” have finally been added to streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple. Gmail and the Restraining Orders is a 30-minute collection of noise rock that was played prior to Death Grips’ live shows in 2015. The project was then featured in Warp Records’ WXAXRXP radio festival in 2019, before subsequently being released onto YouTube. As for “More Than the Fairy”, this track was initially put out on YouTube in 2016. It notably features bass from special (and very unexpected) guest Les Claypool of Primus. The collaboration is consider...
T.I. and Wife Tiny Issue Statement Denying Accusations of Sexual Abuse
T.I. and Tameka “Tiny” Harris, image via Instagram/@majorgirl Rapper T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris have both been accused of horrendous sexual abuses by former family friend Sabrina Peterson, who says she has anonymously collected dozens of women’s stories. Now, the Atlanta MC and his partner have released a statement “emphatically” denying the claims. Peterson, who runs the Instagram account @TheGlamUniversity, posted a statement earlier this week accusing the Atlanta MC of putting “A GUN TO MY HEAD IN FRONT OF CHILDREN.” While she herself has not accused T.I. of sexual misconduct, she alleges that dozens of women have since anonymously reached out to her. Their stories, which she has collected on her Instagram stories as screenshots of DMs, include being pressur...
Dave East Unveils New Song “Mercedes Talk”: Stream
Dave East has elevated hustle to a religion. Since 2010 he’s dropped something like 16 mixtapes and albums, most recently 2020’s Karma 3. The veteran MC shows no signs of slowing down, opening 2021 with the new song “Mercedes Talk”. The track was produced by AraabMuzik. His beat eschews internal movement, building tension out of the contrast between a high chime and rumbling bass. East works over the top with a laid back flow, mixing the personal (“I still don’t feel like I’m famous/ Had to move up out the projects just to feel like I made it,”) with punchlines (“Headshot turn your thoughts into liquor.”) “Mercedes Talk” comes with a music video directed by WillC. It shows East on the street with his bros, outside a corner store, and behind the counter of a fast food joint. Oh, and th...
HDBeenDope Drops New Song “21 Bags”: Stream
HDBeenDope is building on the buzz from his 2020 album BrokeN Dreams with an arresting music video for his new song “21 Bags”. “21 Bags” quietly dropped on December 31st, at a time when the world was preoccupied with burning 2020 in effigy. The odd timing disguised a banging self-produced beat, over which HD unleashed half-a-dozen head-spinning flows. One of the things that makes him such an interesting MC is ability to switch between humility and braggadocio, hard truths and going hard. “21 Bags” is here to slap you upside the eardrums. He spits, “Parlayed all the hard days/ To the soirée with a ‘Yonce/ I need all lays for the bolognese/I got octane and they all blaze.” The new video was directed by Erikson Corneil. It shows HDBeenDope in what appears to be an enormous dance studio, ...
Eminem Premieres New Music Video for “Higher”: Watch
Eminem is in #SurvivalMode in his new music video for “Higher”. The clip for the Music to Be Murdered By single debuted Saturday afternoon ahead of the rematch between Justin Poirier and Conor McGregor at UFC 257. Watch it down below. As The Detroit Times points out, “Higher” has become something of an anthem in the sports world as of late, recently appearing in an ESPN advertisement for the College Football Playoffs national championship game. Of course, Eminem is no stranger to the ring; 2015 boxing drama Southpaw was inspired by Marshall Mathers and featured original music from the rapper. In related news, Eminem released a Side B (Deluxe Edition) of Music to Be Murdered By, featuring 16 additional songs, just last month. [embedded content] #SURVIVALMODE &#...
Pa Salieu Makes US TV Debut Performing “Frontline” on Fallon: Watch
British-Gambian rapper Pa Salieu has crossed the Atlantic to make his US TV debut with a performance of “Frontline” on Fallon. The 23-year-old MC gained international attention for his 2020 mixtape Send Them to Coventry, which built a musical bridge between UK drill and Afrobeats. He’s got a fresh take on two genres on the rise, and as his Tonight Show appearance revealed, he sells his music with a wonderfully theatrical presentation. He began “Frontline” with a recreation of his Send Them to Coventry cover art, which shows him as a kind of felled Godzilla, lying in city streets and using a building as a pillow. From there, he treated the Tonight Show stage as a set for a one-shot music video, strolling through a Gambian market, leaning through the windows of...
