State Champ Radio Hip-Hop
Page: 60
Offset returns to the top tier of Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart as his new album, Set It Off, debuts at No. 2 on the list dated Oct. 28. The album, released Oct. 13 via Motown/Capitol Records, starts with 70,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the tracking week ending Oct. 19, according to Luminate.
Of Set It Off’s first-week sum, streaming activity provides 44,000 units, a figure equal to 59.1 million official U.S. audio and video streams of the album’s songs. Traditional album sales contribute 25,000 units, with the remaining balance owed to 1,000 track-equivalent album units. (One unit equals the following levels of consumption: one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.)
With Set It Off’s No. 2 entrance, Offset matches his career-best rank on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums as a solo act. His first solo venture, the collaborative Without Warning album with 21 Savage and Metro Boomin, also began in the runner-up rank in 2017, as did his own Father of 4 album in 2019. As a member of the Migos, Offset charted an additional seven albums with the group, including two No. 1s: Culture (2017) and Culture II (2018).
Elsewhere, Set It Off begins at No. 2 on the Top Rap Albums chart and at No. 5 on the all-genre Billboard 200.
[embedded content]
As Set It Off arrives, three of its tracks launch on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, led by “Say My Grace,” featuring Travis Scott, at No. 13. With that debut, Offset nabs his highest start on the list as a lead artist among 34 total solo appearances; only Kodak Black’s “ZEZE,” which featured Offset and Scott and debuted at No. 1, posted a better beginning. Beyond “Say My Grace,” Set It Off cuts “Worth It,” with Don Toliver (No. 32) and “Broad Day,” with Future (No. 49) also land on the list.
Thanks to the new album and some standout cuts, Offset re-enters at No. 9 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart, which measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption- album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming – to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity. The rally gives the rapper his first week in the top 10 and his first appearance on the list at any rank since September 2019.
Defunct dance duo LMFAO hit a hard-partying high mark this week when the video for their 2011 electropop anthem “Sexy and I Know It” hit the one billion views mark on YouTube. The song that ran up to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in January 2012 is the […]
Drake‘s blowout 37th birthday party on Monday night (Oct. 23) was a typical low-key affair for the 6 God. Except, of course, for the celebrity bartenders, who appeared to trade in their signature fictional blue meth for real white Russians at the party. According to photos and videos of the event, former Breaking Bad co-stars […]
Kodak Black has not forgotten the kindness showed to him by Donald Trump during the one-term president’s way out of office when he pardoned the “ZEZE” rapper (as well as Lil Wayne).
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
In a preview of his upcoming appearance on the Drink Champs show on Tuesday (Oct. 24), the rapper born Bill Kahan Kapri said he had a lot in common with the quadruple-indicted Republican party figurehead. “I f–k with that boy,” Black said after N.O.R.E. brought up the 11th hour pardon for the MC who was in federal prison after pleading guilty to a firearms possession charge after getting detained at the Canadian border in March 2020.
“He a Gemini like me — his birthday two days after my s–t,” Black added of his similarity to the 77-year-old fellow Floridian. “And that boy, like, he be vibin’ out here too.” Self-professed billionaire Trump is currently in court in a civil fraud trial in New York over allegations that he arbitrarily inflated the prices of his family company’s properties in a suit that could dismantle his real estate empire. The Donald also recently dropped off Forbes’ list of the 400 richest Americans (for the second time), which led host N.O.R.E. to wonder if Kodak would slide Trump $1 million if he asked for it, not that he needs it.
“Of course, n—a,” Black, 26, said without hesitation. Trump’s pardon resulted in Black getting freed from prison after serving a year for falsifying information on federal forms to buy four guns from a Miami firearms shop. In one of his frequent efforts to convince Trump to pardon him before his last-minute reprieve, Black said he’d donate $1 million to charity. Last year, Black doubled-down on his endorsement of the twice-impeached former commander-in-chief, writing, “We need Trump in office forever, man. Just like how them Chinese and Russian and Korean motherf—ers have their president. Trump the best thing for America.”
In January 2021, Black released a new song called “Last Day In,” a week after the pardon, rapping, “Trump just freed me, but my favorite president is on the money/ All they hatin’ presidents has become evident to me.”
Kodak isn’t the only MC who is stumping for Trump, who currently holds a commanding lead over the rest of the Republican field in the 2024 presidential race. Sexxy Red recently said she is on Team Trump, too.
“I like Trump,” Red told comedian Theo Von on his This Past Weekend podcast. “Yeah, they support him in the hood. At first I don’t think people was f–king with him. They thought he was racist, saying little s–t against women. But once he started getting Black people out of jail and giving people that free money. Aww baby, we love Trump. We need him back in office. We need him back because, baby, them checks. Them stimulus checks. Trump, we miss you… I love Trump. He funny to me,” she continued. “I used to be watching him talking to people. He used to be calling people fat. He just bold. He funny. We need people like him.”
Watch the preview of the interview below.
The widow of late hip-hop legend MF DOOM, Jasmine Dumile Thompson, filed a lawsuit, claiming that his manager, Eothen “Egon” Alapatt, stole 31 of the rapper’s notebooks that were used to write down many of his beloved songs. This included the tracks from Operation Doomsday (1999), Madvillainy (2004), and MM…FOOD (2004) as well as unreleased songs ideas, musings and “other creative ideations.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The case, filed in California federal court Tuesday, is not the first time DOOM’s fans have heard about these notebooks. Back in March, Thompson posted emails between her late husband and Alapatt to the @MFDOOM instagram account with the caption “Egon, Give the Notebooks Back,” sending fans to rally around the rapper’s estate and its struggle to repossess his writing material. Alapatt, who first started working with DOOM as general manager and a&r of Stones Throw Records, has admitted to having the notebooks in the past, according to the complaint, but the estate says he refuses to return them.
Instead, Alapatt is allegedly demanding that the notebooks be “donated to a university or government archive” or a “museum or other institution of [Alapatt’s] choosing,” even though doing so is contrary to his estate’s wishes. “[The notebooks] were intended by DOOM to be secret and confidential,” the lawsuit reads.
It all started in 2010, when the metal-masked rapper travelled to the U.K. to perform but was prohibited from returning to the U.S. due to immigration issues. (He remained in the U.K. until his death on October 31, 2020 at the age of 49). During his absence, the 31 notebooks of lyrical material were left behind in his Los Angeles studio, according to the lawsuit, and Alapatt “took unlawful possession” of the books about six years later.
“Alapatt never consulted with DOOM about his acquisition of the notebooks and took advantage of DOOM’s being out the country to obtain them,” the lawsuit says, but when first confronted by DOOM about the whereabouts of his books, Alapatt allegedly lied at first, saying he didn’t have them. After the landlord of DOOM’s studio allegedly told DOOM that Alapatt did, in fact, have the notebooks, DOOM confronted the manager again.
Alapatt allegedly then told DOOM he got the notebooks because DOOM owed $12,500 in past-due rent, and if someone did not pay it off, the landlord was going to destroy the possessions he left behind. Because Alapatt claims to have paid that rent on DOOM’s behalf, he said that the physical notebooks themselves were legally his property, according the complaint. (Earlier this year, Thompson has come to suspect that DOOM owed no additional rent, and Alapatt simply paid $12,500 to the landlord to buy the books.)
In Summer 2020, Alapatt apparently offered to send DOOM and his family photocopies of the contents of the notebooks for the “sole purpose” of allowing DOOM access but would not give back the physical books themselves. DOOM refused this proposal. In October 2020, shortly before the rapper’s death, the estate says Alapatt sent DOOM a hard drive with large format scans of every notebook he lost, all of which were time stamped between 2018 and March 2020. The lawsuit claims that this proves Alapatt was infringing on his estate’s intellectual property, which is now held by his business entity, Gas Drawls, by creating and disseminating unlawful copies of DOOM’s lyrics.
It is unclear who Alapatt sent these scans to, if anyone, but the lawsuit claims Alapatt was talking to potential buyers, including hip-hop archivists, to sell the notebooks or its copies.
“Although Alapatt has professed that he ‘does not intend to publish’ the unauthorized digital copies he made, he does not have to ‘publish’ the copies of his infringing copies to be liable,” argues the complaint. “Regardless, [DOOM’s estate] alleges that Alapatt actually shared the copies of the notebook he made with others.”
Now, after DOOM’s death, Thompson is intent on getting the notebooks returned to the family, the photo copies destroyed, and “significant compensation” for the damage Alapatt has caused. Along with copyright infringement, the lawsuit alleges “fraud, conversion, unjust enrichment, constructive trust and declaratory relief” and requests a jury trial.
Thompson and Gas Drawls are represented by Miles M. Cooley of Freedman and Taitelman. Alapatt is represented by Kenneth Freundlich of Freundlich Law. Both parties did not immediately return requests for comment on the complaint.
Eminem is dropping a hot new joint on Thursday (Oct. 26). It is not, however, the one his fans were looking for. The MC revealed on Tuesday that he’s taking the “Lose Yourself” brand extension beyond the Mom’s Spaghetti restaurants he’s opened in his hometown of Detroit and New York.
“From the D 2 ur kitchen [spaghetti emoji] #momsspaghetti sauce is droppin 10/26,” he tweeted alongside a video cued to “Drop the Bomb On ‘Em” from his 2009 Relapse:Refill album. The clip featured jars of the spaghetti sauce falling through the sky and smashing on a traditional red-and-white checkered tablecloth accompanied by the message, “The sauce is dropping.”
Fans love anything Shady does, but the comments on the tweet said it all, with one writing, “DROP THE ALBUMMMMMMM,” with another seconding that emotion, “You drop album, I guy the sauce, deal” and a third lamenting, “This is not what we meant when we said drop the album.”
Mom’s Spaghetti is, of course, an homage to the iconic first verse of Em’s Oscar-winning 2002 song “Lose Yourself” from his film debut, 8 Mile, in which he raps, “His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy/ There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti.”
After opening the first Mom’s in D-Town in Sept. 2021, Em brought the chain to L.A. for a Super Bowl pop-up in Feb. 2022, then set down roots in New York in November of that year. The sauce news was sweet (or spicy, we don’t know the recipe yet), but what commenters really seemed to want was news on the follow up to 2020’s Music To Be Murdered By, which featured collabs with Ed Sheeran, Juice WRLD, Don Toliver, Q-Tip, Anderson .Paak, Young M.A. and many more.
Em’s sauce
Check out the Mom’s Spaghetti sauce ad below.
Nicki Minaj shared some good news/bad news with Barbz on Tuesday (Oct. 24). The good news is that her anticipated Pink Friday 2 album has a new release date that is super special to the rapper and her fans. The bad news is that instead of next month it’s now Dec. 8.
Minaj originally scheduled the album for Oct. 20, then re-scheduled it for Nov. 17, but in a message to fans she explained why she’s re-shuffled the deck again. “I have never in my life been so in love with something that I’m working on,” she said of the album that has been five years in the making, but which she explained had been delayed because she had writer’s block during her pregnancy and didn’t want to say “freaky” stuff.
“So this entire album will be the biggest gift I have ever given humanity thus far,” she promised of the LP that will make people “fall in love immediately.” First off, she said, the date change was because her longtime consigliere, Lil Wayne, is releasing a joint album with his pal 2 Chainz, Welcome 2 Collegrove, on Nov. 17, and just like he would never drop on the same day as Nicki, she is doing the same. “The new album date for this incredible body of work that I am so proud of is on a very special day to me and to the Barbz,” she said in a lengthy Instagram live video.
“It will come out on my birthday,” she added. “Pink Friday 2 I am so happy to announce will be out on my birthday, Dec 8th.” She had two other announcements as well, revealing that she has a new fragrance (also called Pink Friday 2) coming out on Dec. 13 and Dec. 26 through Amazon and J.C. Penny, respectively.
In September, while hosting the 2023 MTV VMAs, Nick previewed a new, untitled song from PF2 after previously teasing the sci-fi cover of the album.
The last time Minaj pushed the album she didn’t explain the reason, though at the time she promised on X (formerly known as Twitter) that the delay was because of “some really exciting news that I’ll share with you guys @ a later time.”
Pink Friday 2 is the follow-up to Minaj’s 2018 sophomore album, Queen.
See Minaj’s announcement below.
With new albums from City Girls and Sampha and a pair of big announcements from Megan Thee Stallion and Ty Dolla $ign & Kanye West, it’s been a characteristically busy week for hip-hop and R&B. New Music Friday (Oct. 20) unleashed a fresh batch of new R&B and hip-hop tracks to sort through as we count down to the announcement of the 2024 Grammy nominations on Nov. 10.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
With Fresh Picks, Billboard aims to highlight some of the best and most interesting new sounds across R&B and hip-hop — from Yuna’s bilingual rumination on a relationship’s demise to Rick Ross & Meek Mill’s latest taste of their forthcoming collaborative project. Be sure to check out this week’s Fresh Picks in our Spotify playlist below.
Freshest Find: Wu-Tang Clan feat. Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Nicole Bus & Mathematics, “Claudine”
[embedded content]
The 30th anniversary of Wu-Tang Clan’s landmark debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), is less than a month away, and the hip-hop legends are ringing in the celebration with a gorgeous new track. Featuring a pair of emotive, nuanced verses from Meth and Ghostface, “Claudine” recalls the chugging, introspective relationship-minded songs that peppered the tracklists of Wu-Tang’s classic records. A weighty hook from Billboard chart-topping R&B singer Nicole Bus brings things full circle; her soulful, raspy vocal evokes the Southern R&B records RZA used to sample to create some of the most intricate Wu-Tang beats.
Yuna, “Bad Intentions”
[embedded content]
With this smooth combination of dembow, soul, and bossa nova influences, Malaysian R&B crooner Yuna delivers a bilingual ode to the all-consuming vengeance, hurt, confusion, and attachment that linger at the end of a relationship. The sparse production effortlessly embodies the emptiness that permeates the lyrics — from the devastatingly lush post-chorus to the hook, where she sings, “I know you love her/ Your new lover/ Will be the end of me/ It’s a cruel world.”
Q, “Hello”
[embedded content]
Earlier this year, Q dropped off one of R&B’s best 2023 offerings with his stunning Soul, Present project. For his first single release since that set, Q has released “Hello” — a delightfully funky track about choosing to be your best and most authentic itself no matter what seemingly insurmountable challenges are thrown at you. “Feels like a million years since I got out of bed/ My brain’s fried from the lies I’ve been tellin’ myself,” he sings over an instrumental arrangement that further explores his penchant for Prince’s amalgamation of soul, rock, and funk.
Arin Ray, “Moonlight”
[embedded content]
It’s been a banner year for raucous, sexually explicit music, but Arin Ray opts for a softer, more sensual angle for this cut from his new Phases III EP. With light vocal layering and an alluring tone, he’s able to bypass the innate raunch in lyrics like, “Put that a– on me, it’s ’bout to go/ I wanna see a f–kin’ show/ Baby been a freak/ See she came here in with no panties on.” It’s nice to hear Arin holding it down for R&B’s bachelors in a sea of toxic lovers and sad boys.
Rick Ross & Meek Mill, “Lyrical Eazy”
[embedded content]
With a new joint project on the way, it’s only right that these two rap titans put their best foot forward. Enter: “Lyrical Eazy.” The follow-up to last month’s “Shaq & Kobe,” “Lyrical Eazy” finds Ross and Meek trading verses that flaunt their wealth and success while also reiterating why they believe they are at the very top of the hip-hop ecosystem. “N—a diss, I ain’t respondin’, I’m like, “Y’all ain’t even poppin’/ ‘Cause we’ve been mobbin’, flyin’ private, different hours/ And I ain’t lyin’, I got this money shit to a science/ Got your baby momma in the Bahamas actin’ different and she wildin’,” Meek raps over a beat that reimagines the same sample (Stanley Clarke’s “Got to Find My Own Place”) from Jay-Z’s “Breathe Easy (Lyrical Exercise).”
Lola Brooke & French Montana, “Pit Stop”
[embedded content]
As she readies the release of her forthcoming Dennis Daughter project, Brooklyn rapper Lola Brooke has unveiled her new French Montana collab “Pit Stop.” Featuring her trademark playful intonation — which pulls from both Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown on this track, with a healthy dose of Lola’s own humor — “Pit Stop” is flirty back-and-forth between the two New Yorkers, one that plays on the city’s unique courting dynamics. “Ask me where my man at, n—a, I don’t know/ Say you wanna risk it all, I hope/ Could never play with ‘nani, mm, no-no-no/ Said he like me more than his b–ch, ooh, oh, no,” Lola spits.
Terrace Martin & Alex Isley, “2 Step in the Living Room”
[embedded content]
Every week R&B’s brightest stars continue to prove that the genre is unquestionably alive and well. In this mid-set cut from the pair’s new joint I Left My Heart in Ladera project, this duo perfectly captures the lightweight, love-drunk mood of grooving in the living room to the soulful soundtrack of your life alongside the people you love the most. With a dash of vocoder towards the outro, the song pulls from Parliament’s most subtle funk-indebted tracks to create something a bit more subdued and hazy, all anchored by Alex Isley’s warm tone.
You already knew that Jay-Z doesn’t write down any of his rhymes. But in a preview of his upcoming two-part interview with Gayle King for CBS Mornings slated to air on Thursday and Friday (Oct. 26 and 27), the morning anchor takes a walk through the Brooklyn Public Library’s smash “Book of HOV” exhibit honoring […]
Megan Thee Stallion is ready for her next act. After recently reaching a settlement with her former label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, following three years of litigation over a record deal the rapper called “unconscionable,” the Houston MC teased “ACT ONE” of her new era in a social post on Monday night (Oct. 23).
The caption also featured a snake emoji, the latest in a recent string of teases that has employed slithery language and imagery. With the camera zeroed in on Meg’s lips floating in a black void, she says, “Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past, over and over again” with what sounds like bits of an ominous new track in the background.
As the focus pulls back to reveal Meg’s face — complete with vertical snake eyeballs — the short clip ends with a shot of a pair of dripping fangs. The title card reads: “A story by Megan Thee Stallion” and “Directed by Douglas Bernardt.” The Brazilian director is best known for his work on videos by Arlo Park, Masego and Gregory Porter, as well as the 2019 Cannes Lions Grand Prix-winning short film Bluesman.
Though she hasn’t announced her new project, the “Bongos” MC has been leaning into snake imagery lately, including a tweet earlier this month with serious Hottieween vibes in which she appeared to bear her vampire fangs. The post featured a cryptic message, “Let’s begin…,” accompanied by a sliver of a picture with a slime green filter that animated into a 3-second video in which Meg bared her sharp teeth. The clip did not have any sound, but Megan followed it with a series of Instagram posts with additional scary scenes.
The trio of posts dubbed “Act One” featured an O made up of a red snake swallowing its own tail. The captions on the slides also spotlighted the snake emoji, accompanied by a video of a white snake coiled on someone’s hand, a close-up of Megan’s face and a third of her wrists covered in thorny bracelets. The second slide added the caption “Begin [snake emoji],” and a glimpse of a green-skinned Megan reclining on a dark red divan, her long nails sharpened to sharp points.
The tease also seemed to preview what looked like a music video, with a shot in which Meg bared her vamp fangs again, as well as an image of a bowl of fruit and other totems on an altar. At press time Megan had not officially announced any new music as she eases her way back into the game following the end of the trial of Tory Lanez, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in August for shooting Megan in the feet in July 2020. Since then she’s released her hit Cardi B collab “Bongos” and “Out Alpha the Alpha,” the lead single from the A24 move Dicks: The Musical, in which she also co-stars.
Either way, it seems like she’s going to go it alone this time, after revealing in an Instagram Live earlier this month that she’s not signed to a label and will be funding her own music projects moving forward “This part of my album is very much so funded by Megan Thee Stallion because we’re trying to get off… Y’all know what’s the tea. But I have no label right now,” she said at the time. “We’re doing everything funded straight out of Megan Thee Stallion’s pockets. So, the budget is coming from me. Motherf—ing Hot Girl Productions! The next s— y’all about to see is all straight from Megan Thee Stallion’s brain and Megan Thee Stallion’s wallet. We are in my pockets, hotties, so let’s do our big one.”
Check out Megan’s latest snake-themed tease below.
