GALLERY
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Ahmad Jamal, a legendary Jazz pianist who released a bevy of songs heavily sampled in the Hip-Hop sphere, has died after combating prostate cancer according to reports. Ahmad Jamal remained an active and curious musician well into his 80s, including a Kennedy Center set he expertly performed two years ago.
Ahmad Jamal (formerly Frederick Russell Jones) was born on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pa. According to biographical accounts, Jamal began playing piano at the age of 3 and became a professional player at 14. Shortly after high school, Jamal’s touring career began and his travels led him to Islam, thus changing his name to Ahmad Jamal and keeping with the Muslim traditions of prayer.
In 1951, Jamal’s recording career would officially begin, culminating in his touring nationally and around the world behind the success of the At the Pershing: But Not for Me album. Jamal was also known as a prudent investor and used his fortunes to make investments across Africa. In 1962, Jamal stepped away from music for more than two years, returning to recording with the release of three albums in 1965, including the acclaimed Extensions album.
In 1973, Jamal released an instrumental version of the theme song for the 1970 film M*A*S*H*, a song originally known as “Suicide Is Painless” by The Mash and featured on the film’s original soundtrack.
The American Jazz Masters award, National Endowment for the Arts gave Jamal an American Jazz Masters award in 1994. In 2007, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named Jamal a Living Jazz Legend. In 2017, Jamal was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by The Recording Academy.
Jamal’s music was famously sampled by Hip-Hop acts such as De La Soul, Pete Rock, Nas, 9th Wonder, Earl Sweatshirt, and countless others over the past two decades and more. Jamal’s last official recording was 2019’s Ballades album.
According to a report from the Washington Post, Jamal’s daughter, Sumayah Jamal, confirmed the passing of her father.
Ahmad Jamal was 92.
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Netflix, already skating on thin ice with some subscribers for its increased pricing and other issues, found themselves trending on Sunday (April 16) for less than favorable reasons. The popular unscripted series Love Is Blind was expected to air a live reunion episode on Netflix, but technical difficulties held up the show with folks on Twitter frying the streamer for wasting their time.
For those who live away from modern technology or just simply don’t care, Love Is Blind is the brainchild of Nick and Vanessa Lachey and puts together a collective of individuals who go on dates inside pods that obscure what they look like in order to foster a connection of the mind between two people. The social experiment is wildly popular and one of the top series on Netflix due to not only the premise of the show but the participants themselves.
The episodic drama of Love Is Blind built to a fever pitch this past Friday (April 14) with the airing of the wedding episode. We won’t offer spoilers here but a lot of the drama played out much as many expected with the usual twists and turns that the program is known for.
On Sunday, Netflix was supposed to air at 8 PM ET but the hiccups were evident from the start. This prompted the streamer to issue a statement and share that the episode will air today (April 17) at 3 PM ET.
To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon… we are incredibly sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not turn out as we had planned. We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry.
The statement sparked a ferocious and often hilarious wave of snark and slander that we’ve captured below. Keep scrolling for those tweets.
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Frank Ocean remains one of the music industry’s most beloved acts as evidenced by the stir he causes on social media at even a mere mention of music or a performance. The singer and songwriter graced the Coachella stages over the weekend but fans on Twitter were miffed because of the lacking livestream options.
Frank Ocean was the headlining act on Coachella’s mainstage on Sunday (April 16) but unlike every other performance before it, the event would not be aired on YouTube or any other streaming platform. The announcement of an actual livestream was teased on Twitter by YouTube but that tweet was deleted and replaced with the tweet below.
On Twitter, disappointed fans aired out their grievances and questioned why Coachella or Ocean would make a decision given that he is rarely seen onstage these days.
Fans in attendance did attempt to capture footage of the performance but some were shut down by security guards and the like. Further, a security guard working the front of the stage ended up becoming a social media hit due to his energetic dancing.
Reports on the ground also revealed that Ocean gave a loving tribute to his late brother, Ryan Breaux, who died of injuries after an automobile accident in 2020 at the age of 18.
Adding to the issues with the livestream, some fans who did catch glimpses of the set were left underwhelmed while others hailed the performance as Ocean’s big return to the masses.
Frank Ocean will headline Coachella again for its upcoming second weekend. No word yet if the performance will be streamed or not.
Keep scrolling to see the reactions from Twitter below.
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1. Hit the quote tweets. People were upset.
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Bow Wow, a former Hip-Hop prodigy and child actor, has taken lumps over the course of his career to the point some believe the Snoop Dogg and Jermaine Dupri protege to be a struggle rapper. A Twitter user posted a meme this week featuring fellow alleged struggle rappers, prompting some on Twitter to come to the defense of Bow Wow.
In a tweet merely designed to throw not-so-subtle shade at rappers not known for their lyrical ability, Twitter user @polo_man404 shared a meme featuring the images of Ice Spice, Bow Wow, Blueface, and Lil Yachty among others, and captioned the image with, “You got a 8-hour trip & can only listen to 1.”
It should be noted that RaphouseTV took a swipe out of @polo_man404’s playbook and retweeted the same meme to millions of views, which is actually kind of foul but whatever.
These types of Twitter memes typically garner a lot of engagement because everyone rushes to pile on with jokes or terrible takes. However, something happened that the user probably didn’t intend. In some of the responses, fans of the rapper born Shad Moss began to shoot down Bow Wow being lumped together with rappers who haven’t achieved as much as he has.
In all fairness, Bow Wow definitely earned the right to be distanced from the rappers on the aforementioned meme considering he has a number of gold and platinum plaques on his walls. The 36-year-old star and father of one didn’t exactly help himself after some ill-advised social media choices but what can’t be stricken from the record is the fact this man has made hit tracks.
Check out Twitter standing up for Bow Wow below.
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Ice Spice already has a number of TikTok-ready hits that landed her on the charts and she’s still cooking up more joints for the masses in her still-growing career. After getting a strong salute from Nicki Minaj, the hit-making Queens native hopped on the remix for Ice Spice’s buzzing “Princess Diana” track, and the fans are loving the collaboration.
The original “Princess Diana” appears on Ice Spice’s Like…? EP and features the Bronx star talking heavy as she’s known to do over bouncy, club-ready production. Many may try to front, but Nicki Minaj is back in top form using all of her vocal dexterity to full effect on the remix, even dropping her voice to lower registers and adopting Spice’s Drill flow.
We’re not exactly sure of the timeline but Minaj showed her support of Spice by retweeting the “In Ha Mood” star’s cover shoot for Dazed magazine, writing in the caption, “Gag. The People’s PRINCESS [crown emoji]. catch it!!!” which Spice retweeted writing back, “ya heard da QUEEN [crown emoji] [red heart emoji].”
Fans speculated that a collaboration would be in development and those wishes were answered with the drop of the remix on Friday (April 14).
Below, we’ve captured reactions to the “Princess Diana” remix and listed them out below.
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Ticketmaster is once again suffering the wrath of Twitter much as they did at the tail end of 2022 over Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny ticket issues. This time, fans of SZA are taking to Twitter to complain that the automated queue system Ticketmaster uses prevented some from obtaining pre-sale tickets for the TDE vocalist’s upcoming European leg of her “SOS” tour.
Ticketmaster was trending on Twitter Thursday morning (April 13) with fans sharing similar tales of waiting in long queue lines via the web and subsequently being booted out. One user said that they were next in line to buy but was sent to the back of the line. Others have been waiting overnight to get SZA tickets to no avail.
As it stands, this has put Ticketmaster back in the hot seat after the Taylor Swift pre-sale ticket debacle, and the cloned tickets from Bad Bunny in November and December of last year respectively. Drake also filed a lawsuit against the ticket-selling company alleging that Ticketmaster misled buyers regarding the Canadian superstar’s It’s A Blur tour dates alongside 21 Savage.
Further, the company was investigated at the top of the year by the U.S. Senate judiciary committee in a hearing titled “That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment.”
On Twitter, Ticketmaster is getting grilled and fried for making fans miss out on SZA tickets. Check out those reactions below.
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Daniel Caesar was riding the wave of fame in 2019 but it all came crashing down when he rushed to the defense of influencer YesJulz and demanded that Black people stop insulting her. In a new interview, the R&B singer walked back his defense YesJulz and apologized to the Black community.
Daniel Caesar sat down with Apple Music and was questioned about his defense of YesJulz, who caught the wrath of Black Twitter and beyond for wearing a shirt featuring the N-word. Caesar stepped in the line of fire for reasons unexplained at the time and was largely written off by many.
After some reflection, Caesar says he understands the backlash now.
“I completely understand the response. And in time, after taking time to get over myself and to really honestly look at myself and everything that was happening, I was wrong. I was wrong, and I’m sorry about that. For a long time, I was like, ‘You can’t do anything, you can’t say anything without whatever. You can do and say whatever you want, but it’s like for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. And that’s physics. That’s science.”
The apology comes at a convenient time considering the Canadian singer just released his first project in almost four years, Never Enough, which dropped on April 7.
On Twitter, the reaction to the apology has been bubbling after the interview aired and we’ve got that portion of the clip plus the entire Apple Music chat below for your viewing pleasure.
Keep scrolling to see the Twitter reactions to Daniel Caesar and his apology.
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1. It Do Be Facts
2. Some Will Never Forget
5. Receipts
7. It’s Getting Spooky
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Joe Budden was recently named the top media personality in Complex’s Hip Hop Media Power Ranking list, causing some to come out of the woodwork with critiques as expected. Budden’s former co-hosts Rory Farrell and Jamil “Mal” Clay threw not-so-subtle shots in response to the list announcement, but Budden fired back in his usual impassioned fashion.
Over the weekend, fans uploaded audio of the New Rory & Mal podcast and the segment air reveals the hosts discussing the Complex list where Joe Budden landed at the top of the rankings. Mal can be heard on the clip calling Budden a “cat burglar,” adding to their ongoing feud over alleged misappropriated funds and a lack of financial transparency when the trio was working together.
Budden caught wind of the chatter and took to his eponymously-named podcast this weekend to hit back at Rory and Mal. Without naming them, it was clear who Budden’s targets were and the rant included some shots thrown in the direction of The Breakfast Club too. Budden has been on record saying that he and Charlamagne Tha God have a long-simmering beef but it never escalated to the point that it has with his former pod partners.
New Rory & Mal, like The Joe Budden Podcast, airs two episodes a week along with an accompanying video, and both shows offer exclusive content behind a Patreon paywall. Currently, Budden’s podcast is hosted by the retired rapper, and longtime friends Ice and Ish, along with Melyssa Ford and QueenzFlip recently joining the program in recent months.
The audio of the exchanges can be heard below.
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Freaknik, one of the premier gathering events of the 1990s, will be examined in grand detail via an upcoming documentary on Hulu. Since the announcement of the Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told doc, folks from Generation X realize that there may be some explaining to do after this never-before-seen footage arrives on the airways.
Freaknik began in 1983 as an annual spring break party primarily for HBCU students in the Atlanta area. It occurred every third week of April each year after, growing in size and infamy after each gathering. In the mid-1990s, the event became less about celebrating Black college life and was a reported scene of sex, booze, drugs, and even assaults.
The actions that occurred at Freaknik were so out of control that elected officials, law enforcement, and business owners who frowned upon what the event morphed into collaborated on getting heavy police presence at the gathering. By 1999, the annual event was no more although attempts in recent times to revive Freaknik have occurred.
Past Freaknik participant and special guest Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell of 2 Live Crew fame serves as an executive producer for the documentary along with Jermaine Dupri.
A date for the airing of the documentary has not yet been revealed by Hulu.
Check out the reactions below.
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Drake earned the reputation of being a calculated thinker in his music rollouts, and his latest single is causing a stir because of a famous voice that was sampled. In the new song “Search & Rescue,” Kim Kardashian’s voice is heard during the bridge of the track which has some on Twitter believing there is still some beef between Drake and Ye aka Kanye West.
Drake, fresh from rocking the Dreamville Festival stages in a standout performance packed with surprise guests, previously teased “Search & Rescue” on OVO Sound Radio which sparked a flurry of speculation among observers because of the Kardashian voice sample.
Now that the song is released in full, “Search & Rescue” is produced by Sad Pony and BYNX and sees Drizzy in a lovelorn state trying to make amends with a woman crooning sweet nothing such as “Take me off the map” and “I need someone to be patient with me” along with similar missives spread throughout.
Causing further discussion is the single’s cover art, which features Drake and a woman who curiously looks like Kardashian in motorcycle helmets largely obscuring their faces.
As most things are with the Canadian superstar, this could be either an amazing coincidence or another sly attempt of him showcasing his petty powers to the maximum. It was thought that whatever beef existed between Ye and Drake was settled after the pair rocked the “Free Larry Hoover” concert together and that still could be true. Still, Twitter has other ideas and we’ve got reactions from all sides below.
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