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The only thing more Detroit than hometown heroes the Lions is D-town legend Eminem. So it was fitting that on the first night of the 2024 NFL Draft at an absolutely jam-packed Hart Plaza on Thursday (April 25), Slim Shady was on hand to help kick off the proceedings. The reclusive hip-hop icon took the […]
Past, present and future stars of the football world were in Detroit on Thursday (April 25) for the 89th annual NFL Draft. But some of the city’s music superstars — specifically rappers Eminem and Big Sean and Motown legend Smokey Robinson — made sure the throngs of fans attending the festivities didn’t forget the Motor City’s rich musical heritage.
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And Eminem added to the celebration by announcing his next album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace), for summer release via an ad during the draft broadcast.
Big Sean was charged with opening the nightly NFL Draft Concert Series, delivering parts of 11 songs during a half-hour long set. Backed by a DJ, drummer and keyboard player, Sean prowled the opulent Draft Theater stage sporting a bandana and a Detroit Lions jersey with the number 97, worn on game days by popular homegrown defensive lineman Aiden Hutchinson. “If you’re excited about the NFL Draft. let me hear you,” he called to a sea of super fans inside the theater and tens of thousands gathered in a public area just beyond – a record-setting crowd of more than 275,000 that forced the NFL to close gates early in the evening.
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Playing his first home town show in nearly two years, Sean — who now resides in Beverly Hills — marveled at “the fact I went to school right around the corner from here… I used to record right around the corner at my homie’s studio, and this was all I ever wanted to do, man. So I just gotta say thank you for anybody who’s ever heard a song of mine, sang it at a bar, purchased a song.”
Sean reached all the way back to his first album, 2011’s Finally Famous, for “My Last” and dotted the set with career-spanning hits including “Paradise,” “Blessings” and “Bounce Back.” He also touched on collaborations with Kanye West (“Mercy” and “Clique”) and Drake (“All Me”) and dedicated a rendition of YG’s “Big Bank” to Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who signed a four-year contract extension with the team on Thursday.
Sean also featured his latest single, “Precision,” and told the crowd he was working on his sixth album, the follow-up to 2020’s Detroit 2. In addition, he shouted out his nearly year-and-a-half year old son with Jhene Aiko, saluted this year’s draft prospects — who he called “all my future multi-millionaires” — and gave props to fans from other teams. But Sean made his own rooting interest clear. “I know the Lions are gonna get their shot, you feel me?” he said. “Sooner or later… I can feel it, though.”
The Lions won the NFC’s North division last season, but lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the conference finals, one game shy of reaching the Super Bowl. Ironically some fans held up a “You’re in 49ers” banner in front of Sean throughout the performance.
Robinson was not at the draft in person, but provided a voice-over for the prime time broadcast on ESPN and the NFL Network, with a new mix of the Temptations’ “Get Ready” — which Robinson wrote and produced — playing behind him.
Devout Lions fan Eminem then helped to kick off the draft itself with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, first taking part in a filmed segment in which Goodell proposed a rap battle — to Eminem’s obvious bewilderment. Then, he joined Goodell on stage to turn the crowd’s boos (a ritual when it comes to the commissioner) to cheers. “Detroit, what up! It’s here!” Eminem shouted. “Make some noise for the Detroit Lions,” he added before ushering on current team stars Hutchinson, St. Brown and quarterback Jared Goff and Hall of Fame veterans Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson to more rapturous cheers.
The NFL Draft, as well as the Concert Series, continues through Saturday. The celebrated Detroit Youth Choir performs on Friday, while “Mine” hitmaker Andrew Bazzi, who hails from nearby Canton, Mich. wraps things up on Saturday.
A day after Tupac Shakur‘s estate threatened to sue over the use of AI-generated vocals from the late rapper, Drake has pulled his “Taylor Made Freestyle” down from social media. Last Friday, Drake posted the Kendrick Lamar diss track — which also includes AI Snoop Dogg vocals — to his social accounts. The song made […]
Gucci Mane has returned and he’s throwing haymakers in Diddy’s direction with his latest single trolling the embattled Bad Boy mogul’s signature phrase “TakeDat.”
Guwop delivered the buzzworthy track along with the Omar The Director-helmed video on Wednesday, which finds Gucci uttering “No Diddy” 119 times throughout the song to be exact, as counted up by Complex.
“No Diddy” is a phrase that has gone viral on social media since the myriad of sexual assault and misconduct allegations have been levied against Diddy, particularly one by producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr., who accused Sean Combs of groping him, grooming and forcing to take part in sexual acts.
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“The CEO in the video but no Diddy/ ‘Cause I ain’t dancin’ like a ho, no Diddy/ Can’t go out like Pac, no kizzy,” he raps while seemingly attaching a “No Diddy” to every bar.
Gucci Mane also references Cassie’s lawsuit against Diddy, in which she accused him of blowing up Kid Cudi’s car out of jealousy because of their brief fling.
“But I blow a n—a car up like Kid Cudi’s/ I’m on the yacht, takin’ shots, no Diddy,” Gucci spews.
Back in December, Diddy denied all of the allegations against him. “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,” he wrote to social media. “For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
In the lavish clip, Gucci Mane and his wife Keyshia Ka’Oir recreate a champagne toast bubble bath scene from The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Big Poppa” video, which arrived in 1994 courtesy of Hype Williams (The “Big Poppa” visual starred Diddy with his girlfriend Misa Hylton at the time).
Diddy isn’t the only person name-dropped by Gucci as he pokes at Drake, 50 Cent, 2Pac, Yung Miami, Biggie and more throughout “TakeDat.”
“Some n—-s wanna boss me, I’m not 50/ But get a nigga ass touched like Biggie, no Diddy,” Guwop rhymes. The jab didn’t seem to bother 50 as he reposted the clip looking to antagonize his enemy Diddy even further.
“Oh s–t WOP TOOK DA HIT this Diddy POPPED That’s what you get,” 50 wrote.
Watch the “TakeDat” video below.
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The third annual Gold Gala event will take place at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles on May 11 and feature appearances from Saweetie, Lucy Liu, Cynthia Erivo, Padma Lakshmi and the cast of Beef.
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The definitive annual gathering of top Asian Pacific and multicultural leaders will bring together more than 600 guests to celebrate the 2024 A100 list — which will be announced on May 1 — which counts down the 100 most impactful Asian Pacific changemakers in culture and society over the past year.
With 2024’s theme of A Gold New World, the event will imagine “a tomorrow for all, built by all,” according to a release announcing the event’s details, with award-winning fashion designer Prabal Gurung bringing the theme to life as the event’s first-ever creative director. Guests will dine on a Michelin-level three-course dinner from OpenTable, with a menu designed by Lakshmi and Gold Gala executive chief Vijay Kumar and his team from the Michelin-starred New York restaurant Semma.
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The night will close out with a performance from 2023 A100 honoree Saweetie, who will receive the first-ever Billboard Gold Music Honor recognizing her boundary-pushing musical accomplishments at the event. In addition, the cast and creators of Emmy-winning Beef will receive the Gold Icon Honor for their groundbreaking representation of the Asian American experience, while Wicked star Erivo will be given the Gold Ally Honor for her work to advance inclusive representation in front of and behind the camera.
“Gold House and Gold Gala have become a beacon for the Asian Pacific community to unite, invest in, and celebrate our inventiveness and impact. This year, I’ve focused on making Gold Gala look truly global while feeling local, balancing the breadth of our expansive diaspora with its bold, unified heart,” said Gurung in a statement. “From the organic and towering arboreal growths to our centerpiece spheres that shape us — the sun, the moon, our Earth — we envisage a new, more holistic, more centered world that enables all of us to bloom.”
HYBE founder and chairman bang Si-Hyuk will be bestowed with the lifetime achievement Gold Legend Honor and Hello Kitty’s 50th anniversary will be celebrated with the Gold Generation Award.
The Gold Gala will be followed by the inaugural Billboard x Gold House Founders Party, which will feature a headlining set from producer/DJ Steve Aoki, as well as a special performance from RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16 winner Nymphia Wind, a karaoke room presented by Rakuten Viki and an additional set from DJ Hu Dat.
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Arguably the mad scientist behind this Rap Civil War, Metro Boomin’s skirmish with Drake first began when the producer chose not to include the rapper on his song “Trance” from 2022’s Heroes and Villians album. In an interview with DJ Drama’s Streetz Is Watchin Radio, Metro claimed the song, which ultimately featured Travis Scott and Young Thug, was already done and didn’t need an additional verse.
“He really wanted to get on it, but I was letting him know that it was really just done for real. I was really just set on how it was,” Metro said. “I was like, ‘Bro, I ain’t trying to sell you no dream. I’m locked in where it was.’ He had hit me and was just like, ‘Let me see if there’s anything you could add to it.’ He was like, ‘If you don’t like it, then whatever.’”
Despite the misunderstanding, Metro appeared on Drake and 21’s album Her Loss as a co-producer alongside DAVID x ELI for their song “More Ms.” Hower, things got rocky when Metro tweeted and deleted the following when speaking on award shows honoring Her Loss over his album:
“Yet her loss still keeps winning rap album of the year over H&V. proof that award shows are just politics and not for me,” Metro wrote in the deleted tweet. “Idc about awards honestly, the true award and REWARD is knowing that the music I spend so much time on brings joy to people’s everyday lives.”
Shortly after, while appearing on Kick, Drake issued a message that some believed to be aimed at Metro. “And to the rest of you: The non-believers, the underachievers, the tweet-and-deleters, you guys make me sick to my stomach, fam,” he said during the live stream.
Metro seemed unbothered initially, saying there wasn’t any real issue between him and Drake. Still, that didn’t stop Metro from taking potshots at Drake on Instagram and Twitter the last few weeks, resulting in Drake ultimately calling him out on “Push Ups,” rapping: “Metro, shut your ho ass up and make some drums, n–a.” He also clowned him on social media, using clips from the film Drumline to punctuate his points about him focusing on his production.
When Snoop Dogg was announced as part of the NBC broadcast team covering this summer’s Olympic games in Paris you might be forgiven for saying “tu quoi?” But in proof that you can teach an old Dogg new tricks, the Doggfather posted an adorable video on Monday in which his granddaughter Cordoba — daughter of Snoop’s son, Cordell — helped him brush up on his French in a promo video that is cuter than all those kids dropping endless f-bombs in The Underdoggs.
“What’s going on, everybody? It’s big Snoop Dogg, coming at you live and direct,” Snoop says in the clip in which he’s dressed in a pink jacket embroidered with the phrase “Daddy’s Lil Girl” and a colorful flower head scarf. “As you know, I’m doing the Olympics this year live from Paris, so I wanted to get some lessons in French. So I went out and hired me a French teacher to teach me some words. Say hello to my French teacher, Cordoba.”
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As the camera pans out to reveal the all-pink room and a colorful tea party set-up on the table in front of him we get our first glimpse of his adorable tutor, rocking a matching pink jacket and the biggest smile you can imagine. As a fancy baroque piano soundtrack bubbles up, Snoop straps in for his lesson, which begins with Cordoba shuffling through her flash cards and pouring some imaginary tea.
“The word is ‘ice cream,’” Snoop says in teeing up the obviously most important phrase he’s going to need to know for his steamy sojourn in the French capital this summer. “I think how you say it is ‘cream le ice?’,” the Long Beach native suggests. Wrong. “‘Glace,’” Cordoba corrects him.
“How do I say ‘Eiffel Tower?’” wonders Snoop, who previously reported for NBC during the Tokyo Olympics four years ago. Cordoba shoots a perfectly quizzical look at the camera and flashes the correct card, which Snoop reads back as “Tour Eiffel.” Growing weary pretty quickly — or maybe just suffering from the munchies — Snoop gripes, “I thought we was gonna be eating ice cream and cake and stuff,” as he cues up the correct way to say “goodbye.”
After a few snacks Snoop bids au revior, saying, “there you have it, I got me some French lessons, learned a couple of words, little bit of etiquette, how to pour some tea and how to eat some candy. Be sure to check me out at the Olympics 2024.”
Snoop will be part of NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Summer Olympics in Paris this summer during the Olympic primetime show beginning July 26 on NBC and Peacock; the games will last through August 11. In addition to offering his unique takes alongside veteran NBC Olympics host Mike Tirico, Snoop will also explore the City of Light’s most iconic landmarks, attend some events and visit with athletes, according to NBC.
Check out Snoops French tutorial below.
Following an impressive run in 2023, producer BYNX officially partners with Zack Bia‘s label Field Trip Recordings and Capitol Records. In addition, BYNX will work with Yeat’s Lyfestyle Corporation, who will work with him on the marketing side.
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“BNYX is an exceptional musician, a true artist with a specific vision but, above all, an incredible human,” says Bia, founder of Field Trip. “Yeat brought him into our lives, and he’s turned into family. It is only right we would all partner to bring his music to the world as the first official signee to Lyfestyle Corporation / Field Trip / Capitol Records. We couldn’t be more honored and excited.”
Capitol Music Group chairman and CEO Tom March echoes Bia’s sentiments and is eager to see the Philly producer blossom under their tutelage. “As a producer, BNYX®️ has had a profound impact on both music and culture,” he says. “We’re thrilled to partner with him, his manager Ness, the brilliant Zack Bia, and Field Trip Recordings on the launch of BNYX®’s solo career. It’s a privilege to enter this new era together, continuing our longtime relationship with Zack and the Field Trip team.”
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BYNX expressed his gratitude, telling Billboard: “I’d like to thank God, my manager, and Rick Owens.”
BYNX carved out a formidable lane for himself on the hip-hop side, working with the likes of Drake, Travis Scott, Nicki Minaj and his running mate, Yeat. BYNX produced four records from Yeat’s 2023 album AftërLyfe and Drake’s “Search & Rescue,” which debuted at No. 2 on the Hot 100 last year.
The partnership with Field Trip and Capitol will enable BYNX to release his debut album and single soon. Fans of the BYNX and Yeat tandem can rejoice, as the producer will join the “IDGAF” rapper on a soon-to-be-announced run of special shows this summer.
Donald Glover continued to tease out the next Childish Gambino era on Monday night (April 23) on the latest episode of his Gilga Radio show, during which he premiered fresh tracks with Ye and Kid Cudi.
About 40 minutes into the 70-minute episode, following a spin of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed,” a voice came on proclaiming, “If Childish Gambino wants to do something in the hood, you let him do it,” before the premiere of the track, which appears to be titled “Say Less.”
Over a frenetic beat, Glover as Gambino raps, “Uh, I got the bands, the rover/ Reddiest Octobers, the Goku comeback/ I thought I told you/ The flow viral, brain is like pyro/ My phone on silent, how the f–k would I know?/ The aviators got me lookin’ like Five-0/ You ain’t even touched a GQ best dressed/ Sty got ’em cheatin’ on a taste test/ They like rap more, I’m like ‘Say less.’”
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Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), drops in on the second verse of the song that bounces along on a video game-like bed of synths and drums. “Now rule number one, ‘Thou shalt not steal’/ The flow, the clothes, the sex appeal, yeah/ Now this is my commandment, died and rebrand it/ Three days later, walk in the Louis sandals/ Duckin’ paparazzi, they would call it a scandal,” Ye spits. “But n—as would love to watch me, really, I’m like Randall/ I’d rather have no regrets, but, yo/ My agent just called and said ‘Yo, say less.’”
Ye goes on to note that fans have been waiting for the sequel to his Watch the Throne joint album with Jay-Z as well as a passing reference to the meltdown of his lucrative deal with Adidas, which dropped West in 2022 after he went on a monthslong antisemitic spree of interviews and statements denigrating the Jewish people in the midst of a historic rise in antisemitic incidents in the United States.
“N—as waiting on the throne, like ‘Hov, say, ‘Yes,’” he continues. “I took my shoes out the store, they the new Payless/ That’s the new God flow, but I don’t pray less.” The rappers trade lines in the third verse, with Gambino dropping references to disgraced former Empire star Jussie Smollett’s false racist attack claims (“Got this rope ’round my neck like I’m J. Smollett”), Warriors forward Draymond Green’s choking of Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert in November as well as the line, “You talk too much, you need a therapist” before Ye humbly proclaims, “I’m more like John Lennon, he more like Don Lemon.”
The second new song, featuring Cudi, appears to be called “Warlords,” and debuted an hour into the show, as well as a week after Cudi seemed to diss Gambino. That prompted the rapper/actor to make a plea for peace on last week’s Gilga Radio episode, on which he said, “Kid Cudi, if you got a problem, I’m not here for the beef. Just talk to me.”
Over a staticky beat, Gambino’s AutoTuned voice whisper raps, “You don’t get it, we gon’ kill you, I don’t f–k with you/ God of the universe, cream of the planеt Earth/ F–k love, f–k your life/ F–k a siren, I hеar screams every night no light/ Tell me the edge, I’m on the edge, I need a million/ Ain’t nobody better flip it to a billion/ Tell me the edge, I’m on the edge, I need a million.”
Cudi’s verse is similarly buried under the hand-clap rhythm, as he raps the chorus, “Make way for the warriors/ Here it comes, here it comes, ain’t used to runnin’/ Can’t hide from the warriors/ Make way for the warriors/ Here it comes, here it comes, ain’t used to runnin’/ Can’t hide from the warriors.”
Glover, who made a surprise appearance in Tyler, the Creator’s set during the first weekend of this year’s Coachella, recently announced that he’s prepping two albums, Atavista and Bando Stone & the New World soundtrack, which he said will be his final Gambino projects.
Listen to the “Say Less” and “Warlords” previews below.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of when Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen” was released independently on streaming services.
I remember where I was the first time I heard the song on the radio. I was sitting in the parking lot of the Plaza 46 Shopping Center in Woodland Park, N.J., in my mother’s car picking up some Chinese food at Imperial 46. It had to be around 8 p.m. because I had Hot 97 on and Flex was spinning. The next thing I know, he starts talking about one of the most requested songs right now and dropping bombs. He then played the song I had been hearing for weeks whenever I would come back to my hometown of Paterson, N.J.
By this time, the record had already racked up close to 1 million streams on SoundCloud due to Fetty and his label, RGF Productions, pushing it via Facebook and word of mouth. “Instagram was just pictures back then. [On] Facebook we would get three or four shares a pop,” says RGF owner Nitt Da Gritt. “Instagram was the new kid on the block, so we promoted on there eventually. We pulled up to schools and we did free parties, printed up merch. That was basically the plan.”
Before “Trap Queen” took over pop radio, RGF Productions worked the song on the road, performing shows at small bars and clubs, baby showers, birthday parties and sweet sixteens, making real money in the process. “What independent artist you know making $10,000 to $16,000 a week?” Nitt asks after running down a laundry list of ways they were able to generate revenue while the song was going crazy locally. RGF member Monty confirmed this to Complex in 2015, saying, “From Paterson to New York, we were doing shows. We were already traveling and grinding off our mixtapes — we went everywhere. ‘Trap Queen’ didn’t go crazy yet, but Jersey and New York knew it.”
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Fetty Wap (born Willie Junior Maxwell II) and Monty met around 2005 when they were just teenagers. They hung out, smoked weed all the time, and eventually started making music together. “I was rapping, but he really wasn’t making music back then. I influenced him to rap around 2010,” Monty told Complex. “I used to go to the studios all the time, so he’d just be with me.” (Fetty and Monty were unable to respond in time when contacted to speak for this piece.) During the early months of 2014, Fetty found a beat on YouTube and made a rough draft of a song called “What’s Up Hello.” He then played the song for Nitt while they were hanging out and smoking in Paterson’s Eastside Park — a collection of ballfields where locals hotbox in their cars while taking in some high school or little league baseball.
The RGF label boss was immediately grabbed by the song and made sure to buy the beat. The YouTube page where Fetty found the original beat was owned by a producer by the name of Tony Fadd who happened to be based in Belarus. Nitt went to Fadd’s YouTube, found his SoundClick store, and tried to buy the exclusive rights to the beat. “I tried to buy him out, but he wouldn’t let me. He sold me the limited rights instead,” Nitt tells Billboard over the phone. (Billboard reached out to Tony Fadd via email for this piece but didn’t get a response.)
This would become a headache for the newly successful independent label, because the Belarusian producer already sold the exclusive rights to the beat to someone else. So when “Trap Queen” took off, the beat’s original owner, Danish artist Lazar Lakic, took them all to court in 2015. What followed was a court case that dragged on for several years until a settlement was finally reached.
The other producer credited on the song is Brian “Peoples” Garcia, a local engineer Monty knew from his early studio sessions. Peoples is the guy behind the official version of the song that is now certified diamond by the RIAA. “Monty played it for me, and I was like, ‘Yo, you should let him re-record it with me,” he tells Billboard. “I rearranged the original beat, and I gave Fetty some direction. He was kinda rapping it and I kept telling him to sing it.”
According to Peoples, it took them about two hours to record and they uploaded the finished product on SoundCloud the same day in March 2014. Everyone in the studio felt like they had a hit record on their hands. “He was just hitting that sh– on the money,” Nitt said in 2015. “Everybody was in the studio, and we knew we had something on our hands.” Peoples felt the same way, telling Billboard, “I knew it was a hit from the door. I said, ‘This is a smash, bro.’”
There were rappers who were singing in 2014, but none of them sounded like Fetty. The production from Peoples automatically piques your interest before Fetty’s unique voice draws you in like a hood siren leading you to the stove. Within a couple of weeks of being posted on SoundCloud, the “hood love story,” as Fetty described it, was inescapable locally, and by August it was everywhere, landing RGF a deal with Warner Music Group’s 300 Entertainment and suddenly catapulting Fetty Wap into superstardom. “Trap Queen” was so big at the time, Fetty was invited to perform at Clive Davis’ famous Pre-Grammy Party in 2016 — a party with all the biggest celebrities every year that this time also featured an unknown kid from Paterson, N.J. I was there covering the Grammys; seeing Fetty and RGF at that event was when I knew it was for real. Their lives changed dramatically in less than 18 months.
“I started noticing it was a huge hit when it hit Billboard,” Peoples says of the song climbing the Billboard Hot 100. “I was like, ‘Yo, we’re about to have a No. 1 record.’ And then that Charlie Puth and Wiz Khalifa song about Paul Walker came out [“See You Again”] and we were stuck at No. 2.”
The song stayed on the chart for 52 weeks. Fetty managed to get 12 other songs on the Hot 100 since then, proving he wasn’t a one-hit wonder. And while his debut album, Fetty Wap, went platinum and he scored multiple platinum and gold singles, Fetty and RGF were never able to make another hit on the same level of “Trap Queen” — a near-impossible task in the first place, but after setting the bar that high out of the gate, the pressure was on the rapper to catch lightning in a bottle over and over again.
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Part of the reason Fetty cooled off was his team’s insistence on chasing the formula they believed made “Trap Queen” a success. Peoples said he brought up these concerns, but they fell on deaf ears, and eventually RBF stopped working with him. “There was tension with everybody, bro,” he says with a tinge of disappointment. “They were trying to re-create the same thing; they weren’t letting it be genuine.”
He doesn’t regret anything, though. Fetty changed his life. “I worked on the whole album, so I’m doing pretty well,” he says referring to Fetty’s major-label debut. “I’ve worked with Selena Gomez, I’ve worked with Tori Kelly, I had a No. 1 out in London with Little Mix, ‘Sweet Melody.’ I do a lot of pop music.”
Nitt and Fetty also fell out, but due to money management issues and creative differences. Following the Paterson rapper’s arrest on Oct. 29, 2021, for his involvement in drug trafficking, the two traded jabs over social media and did high-profile interviews with industry insiders: Fetty with Fat Joe and Nitt with Akademiks. Both blamed the other for the soured relationship. “He’s bad with money,” the RGF label head says. “Since 2014, I would tell him, ‘Save your money, Wap. Save your money, Wap.’”
Despite all his success, by 2018, Fetty started having money issues. Since he became a rap star, he told Akademiks, he bought 72 cars for friends and family and, due to a dislike of hotels, had multiple apartments in cities around the country including LA and Miami. The Paterson rapper also admitted in the same 2018 interview that he went to the bank to withdraw $100,000 but couldn’t. He flew out to California and upon landing, went to the bank to take the money out but was told it was on hold. “I think for like six months, I was broke,” he admitted to Akademiks.
Once the music and show money slowed down, Fetty shifted his focus to illegal activities. According to the indictment, he — along with five others — ran a bicoastal drug trafficking ring, which used the United States Postal Service and cars with hidden compartments to ship drugs from the West Coast to Long Island, N.Y. “Desperate to keep up with his financial obligations, Mr. Maxwell became involved in the instant offense for a few months in the spring of 2020,” Fetty’s lawyers wrote in a letter to the judge asking for a lenient sentence. Fetty plead guilty and was sentenced to six years for helping to distribute heroin, cocaine and fentanyl across state lines.
The ride was officially over.
Looking back at it all now, Nitt says he’s still “always happy to talk about it — we made history.” The lives of everyone involved in the song changed for the better in April 2014. “Trap Queen” is one of only 129 songs that have been certified diamond, and RGF still has its deal with 300 Entertainment. And while they’re not on the best of terms, Nitt and Fetty are still in business together: “Wap is still signed to me, and I still have the partnership with 300.”
For now, Fetty has to pay his debt to society while plotting his comeback. And Nitt knows he has to make another hit.
