R&B/Hip-Hop
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Much has been made about Kendrick Lamar’s selection as the headlining performer at the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show, but 50 Cent thinks it’s K. Dot’s time to shine. 50 stopped by The Talk on Friday (Sept. 13), where he defended K. Dot being the right pick to take the Super Bowl LIX stage in […]
Cardi B is sharing her home movies. After announcing that she and estranged husband Offset welcomed their third baby together on Sept. 7, Cardi pulled the curtain back on her bundle of joy in a one-minute TikTok video on Sunday (Sept. 15). The clip from Cardi’s hospital room entitled “Babygirl” [followed by three pink flower […]
It’s a new era for Nicki Minaj. The Barbz leader announced over the weekend that instead of releasing the Pink Friday 2 deluxe, she’s decided to turn those songs into a completely new project with the third installment of the Pink Friday series.
Minaj was supposed to drop her PF2: Gag City Reloaded deluxe last Friday (Sept. 13), but the release date came and went without the set. Nicki clarified the album’s situation on Sunday (Sept. 15), when she revealed that Pink Friday 3 is on the way, and fans can expect another announcement regarding the project’s arrival in the coming weeks.
“Instead of doing a DELUXE to Pink Friday 2, I’ve decided to do a brand new album. I’ll still incorporate new songs like #Mamita & [The ‘anxiety’ song] for the remainder of the tour tho…and I’ll announce the new date within the next couple weeks,” she tweeted. “The new music is just too good to be thrown away on a deluxe album. Last night, the songs I recorded were just way too iconic. I love you guys so much. You know that. I know you do. I’ll still give you something leading up to the announcement, so no worries.”
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Nicki continued: “PF3 is about to do PRECISELY wtf BEEN needed to be done. TRUST ME BARBZ. IM SO EXCITED. BLESSED. LOVED (by the Barbz) & fortunately (for the Barbz & me), I’ve learned A LOT since 12/08/23. PF2 means so much to me. As my 1st album as #PapaBear mama, it’s just very special to me for so many reasons you guys aren’t aware of. I put every song on there in a specific order, etc. So to honor that, I’m going to give it the respect & integrity it deserves as a beautiful body of work & not add anything else to it.”
The Queens rapper explained that “1 or 2 songs is no big deal but 5-7 songs feels a little sloppy right now (In my humble opinion).” She added: “This era has just been so successful, rewarding, satisfying, etc. after much thought, I want to be for CERTAIN that I am being intentional about every single decision being made around both PF2 AND PF3.”
Dear Barbz, IMPORTANT #GagCity ANNOUNCEMENT:Instead of doing a DELUXE to Pink Friday 2, I’ve decided to do a brand new album. I’ll still incorporate new songs like #Mamita & [The “anxiety” song] for the remainder of the tour tho…and I’ll announce the new date within the next…— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 16, 2024
Nicki Minaj is currently on the road for the second leg of her North American Pink Friday 2 World Tour. She’ll be in Dallas on Tuesday (Sept. 17), and then makes stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Miami and Raleigh, and wraps up in Queens on Oct. 11.
Pink Friday 2 arrived on Dec. 8, 2023, and debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 228,000 album-equivalent units, according to Luminate. That sum is the largest week for a rap album by a woman in the 2020s decade, and the biggest for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman in 2023.
The Weeknd is turning down the heat. Just days after releasing his new electro pop single, “Dancing in the Flames,” the singer (who now goes by his birth name, Abel Tesfaye), switched things up and stripped things down on an unplugged version of the song. The acoustic take on the first single from Tesfaye’s upcoming […]
It won’t be hard for Kid Cudi to pursue happiness on Friday (Sept. 13) because his 2008 breakout debut hit “Day ‘N’ Nite” is now a diamond-certified record by the Recording Industry Association of America. The diamond certification is given to artists whose songs have moved 10 million units. Plus, Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness,” featuring […]
There was never a Plan B for Lil Tecca, who is gearing up to unleash his Plan A album next Friday (Sept. 20). Ahead of the LP’s arrival, the New York rapper stopped by Billboard News to discuss all things surrounding his new project and much more.
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Plan A serves as Tecca’s fourth studio album and boasts 18 tracks with a lone feature from Don Toliver and production from Taz Taylor and the Internet Money crew.
“I honestly got the name Plan A when I was about to finish Tec, my last album,” he said of the title’s inspiration. “I think it kind of summarizes where I was at in my life when I was probably 14 and I kind of decided that I wanted to rap and actually only rap. There would be people in class telling me, ‘Ay bruh, you know gotta have a backup plan and sh– like that.’ I’m like, ‘Not really, bro. I don’t really got no back-up plan.’”
Tecca added: “We recorded most of it in Miami. I was just in the studio every day with Internet Money, Taz [Taylor] and all of them. There were a couple songs I had did in New York and at the crib too. I didn’t produce a lot of it, but definitely my beat selection is what drives a lot of the production… The whole message is like decide what you want to do and do it.”
The 22-year-old also debunked the bizarre situation involving the Pennsylvania Army National Guard using his personal photo taken from his “Ransom” hit’s cover art as part of a recruitment flyer.
“That sh– is real,” he said. “I seen that sh– on Twitter — I’m like, ‘What is going on right now? … They got in contact with the people that was responsible and he’s like, ‘Sorry, we used the picture by accident.’ He used super-big words. Basically that’s what he was saying, ‘We didn’t know this was an artist.’ My thing is that picture doesn’t exist without ‘Ransom.’”
“Ransom” arrived in May 2019 as Tecca’s breakout smash when he was just 16 years old. It eventually reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 when it peaked at No. 4. The track’s currently 8x-platinum.
“That was my first time hopping on a beat that was not from YouTube,” Lil Tecca revealed. “That was my first time ever taking edibles in the studio. I had edibles and a drink from Starbucks.”
Juice WRLD eventually hopped on the official remix and Tecca reflected on being amazed watching a master at work in the studio with the late rapper.
“That right there was one of the craziest moments ever,” he said. “I remember when I first met him he was like, ‘Ay bro, this flow hard.’ That was my first time ever meeting someone that I seen online that was going crazy at the time and actually gave me an opinion on my music… It really meant a lot, bro.”
Tecca went on: “All the stuff he would say to me and actually seeing him work. Seeing it. Seeing it in person though — it was crazy… He did the verse. He did it in one take. It kind of fried me because I didn’t really know people were doing stuff like that at the time. I was really used to writing s–t and reading it off my phone.”
Plan A hits streaming services on Sept. 20. Watch the full interview below.
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In a new interview, LL Cool J admitted to being nervous about the response his 14th solo album The FORCE would get, saying that he had a hard time sleeping the night it dropped. However, when he checked social media, he was relieved by the positive response.
“When I told people, ‘Yo, I wanna do a culturally relevant album’ in the midst of all these [younger artists], people looked at me like I had nine heads,” the 56-year-old told Variety. “They looked at me like I was a hydra — a hydra! — looking at me crazy like that, not because of any ill will, but just ‘How can you do that?’”
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While the genre has welcomed older acts, their mainstream success has been hit-or-miss, unless you’re Jay-Z, Nas or Eminem. LL was up for the challenge, though, saying, “It’s like breaking the 4-minute mile. Nobody thought it could be broken until Roger Bannister did it, and then a lot of people started breaking it.”
Adding, “Now you’ll see, when [The FORCE] has success, you’ll see people believing that they can make it happen, and it’s gonna extend the life of hip-hop in general. But if somebody doesn’t do it, if I don’t do Rock the Bells and [other] festivals and show that guys without records in the marketplace still can be relevant, and then if I don’t tell you that a guy who’s been out for a long time can make a new record and be relevant — if nobody does it, it never happens.”
Also, before LL worked with Q-Tip on his latest release, he says he recorded a bunch of songs with Dr. Dre, but the Queens MC wasn’t confident in the raps he laid down, so he decided to start over. “That would have meant I would have more confidence in him than I have in myself when it needs to be equal,” he told the outlet. “He deserves a better LL than that. For me to go in there and not give Dr. Dre the best possible LL, it’s not fair to him and it’s definitely not fair to me, because it means I’m not taking advantage of the opportunity.” He continued by saying, “We both knew it wasn’t there. The sonics were there, but I gotta deliver on the writing. I’m not putting nothing out if I don’t feel it’s right.”
Later in the interview he revealed that he and the late Michael Jackson have unreleased songs stashed away and that the King of Pop was inspired by LL’s song “I’m Bad” to make his own “Bad” song. “Me and Michael Jackson went to the studio, man,” he said. “Mike showed a lot of love to me in general, and definitely to hip-hop. Let’s be clear: For me, he’s the king. I’m a Michael Jackson fan, B. His talent speaks for itself.” Adding, “[Former Def Jam chief] Russell [Simmons] played my record for him and Quincy [Jones], and they got inspired. That’s OK.”
There’s nothing in the water this year. Pharrell has announced that his Something in the Water festival in Virginia Beach will no longer be taking place in October and has been postponed to April 2025. While pre-sale tickets still went on sale on Friday (Sept. 13) and the festival’s lineup was set to be revealed […]
Lauren London sat down with Radhi Devlukia on the A Really Good Cry podcast and talked about how she’s been handling grief since her boyfriend Nipsey Hussle was murdered in 2019.
“I still feel like a mess, that’s the thing,” she said of how she’s been dealing with his death. “I guess I have to ask my friends how far I’ve come because I still genuinely feel like I have not arrived anywhere.” Adding, “I feel like I’m really heavy a lot, but again, I have to counter that to just, like, the grace of God, because if it was up to me, I would be sliding in here on my stomach, but I also don’t want to take away from the work that I’ve done from then until now. So, I don’t wanna do that, ’cause I’m good at doing that.”
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She credited her kids and her community for helping her “push through” the pain. “God just placed people in my life that can kinda just usher me in and teach me and guide me. I always say the prayer of strangers held me up.”
London also talked about how she’s been teaching her two sons about dealing with losing Nipsey. “It’s so different with both of them, because one’s 14, the other one’s 7, so you know. I’m always, like, a container for whatever emotion they have,” she explained. “I’m just like, ‘It’s OK to feel all these things, you know? I’m holding it for you, I feel you, I understand, I hear you.’” Adding, “But also, playing his music. I’m always telling them to journal as well, like, write him a letter, tell him how you feel.”
Earlier in the interview, London told Devlukia that their love was “intentional, pure and safe” and talked about what she learned from him. “All the things he was saying to me made more sense after he left,” she said. “I’m such in my cave and a homebody, that he would be like, ‘People really need to hear from you. You have a lot of truth you should share.’ He saw me like my kids see me.”
She added, “But when he was here, just the reliance on God. He really relied on God, he truly believed in himself, he really did not believe in ‘Somebody else has the keys to your destiny as much as you and your creator does.’ And authenticity is something you can’t buy, it’s something that you can’t fake, it’s something that you can’t put on.”
On the fifth anniversary of his death, London shared a tribute on Instagram. “If you know me You know March is always tough for me 31 days of holding my breath,” she wrote. “This day decided to fall on Easter Sunday this 2024 Interesting…. considering your name #GodWillRise Energy never dies…. I love you. Eternal.”
You can watch the full interview here.
Rick Ross sounds like he’s open to reconciling with Drake. During an appearance on Caresha Please with Yung Miami, Ross talked about the infamous incident in Vancouver and his relationship with Drake. When asked if all it would take is a phone call between the former collaborators, Ross said he would maybe consider it. “I […]