R&B/Hip-Hop
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On Saturday (Oct. 19), A Tribe Called Quest will join the ranks of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame during the 2024 induction ceremony in Cleveland. And for a group who rose to prominence as part of the Native Tongues collective, which valued communal creativity over winner-takes-all competition, it’s fitting that they won’t be alone.
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The surviving members of the group (Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White; Phife Dawg died in 2016 at age 45) will be joined in their performance by Busta Rhymes, The Roots, Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Common and Spliff Star.
Rhymes’ inclusion is a no-brainer: Busta’s chest-rattling verse on Tribe’s 1992 Billboard Hot 100 hit “Scenario” helped launch his career. Similarly, Q-Tip and Phife Dawg’s appearance on De La Soul’s 1989 posse cut “Buddy (Native Tongues Remix)” helped boost their pre-debut album profile. Also featured on that classic remix? Queen Latifah, a key force in the Native Tongues collective.
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Aside from ATCQ being a clear inspiration for The Roots’ thoughtful, Afrocentric rhymes and jazz-inflected rhythms, drummer Questlove chose his name as an homage to the trailblazing group — plus, Q-Tip guested on their 1996 album Illadelph Halflife. Tip also featured on Common’s 1997 album One Day It’ll All Make Sense, and Common returned the favor on a track from the Abstract’s shelved 2004 album, Open. As for Spliff Star, he’s known as one of hip-hop’s most energetic hype men and has performed “Scenario” onstage with Rhymes and Q-Tip. Got all that?
A Tribe Called Quest enters the Rock Hall on its third nomination. Along with Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang and Ozzy Osbourne, they make up the Rock Hall’s Class of 2024 in the performers category.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 2024 ceremony will stream live on Disney+ on Oct. 19 starting at 7 p.m. ET. An edited primetime special featuring highlights will broadcast on ABC on Jan. 1, 2025, at 8 p.m. ET.
A Tribe Called Quest
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Bloomberg reports Jay-Z and the NFL plan on continuing their partnership. During the NFL’s owner’s meeting in Atlanta on Tuesday (Oct. 15), commissioner Roger Goodell said, “It’s been a mutually positive relationship, I’m not sure either one of us really spend much time talking about contracts. Jay is happy. Desiree Perez is happy. I’m happy, […]
Chris Brown has responded to a petition looking to ban him from performing a pair of concerts in South Africa later this year.
A women’s rights advocacy group launched a petition that had nearly 40,000 signatures as of press time on Wednesday (Oct. 16), and C. Breezy hopped into the Women for Change Instagram comments with an unfazed reply to their efforts.
“Can’t wait to come,” Brown wrote with a heart emoji.
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The comment was left under a post detailing Women for Change’s battle to stop gender-based violence. “Thanks to @darrencampher.com_ and everyone standing with us. This goes beyond Chris Brown – it’s about standing up for millions of survivors of Gender-Based Violence,” the caption reads. “Join us in demanding accountability, Sign the Petition!”
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The embattled R&B superstar’s comment has over 6,000 likes as fans had plenty to say while chiming in to support Brown’s cheeky response. “Tickets are secured, lessss goo,” one excited fan wrote.
Women for Change initially launched the petition on Oct. 2 on Change.org. The BBC reports that South Africa has a long history of abuse and one of the “highest rates of femicide and gender-based violence in the world.”
According to the petition, the group wants the concert’s promoters and South African government to “reconsider” having Brown perform a pair of shows at Johannesburg’s FNB Stadium in mid-December.
“When I saw the news that Chris Brown was coming to South Africa, I was shocked and deeply disappointed,” Women for Change executive director Sabina Walter said to the BBC. “The petition was started to send a strong message that we will not tolerate the celebration of individuals with a history of violence against women.”
Walter added: “When someone like Chris Brown is given a platform in a country where GBV is at crisis levels, it sends a damaging message — that fame and power outweigh accountability.”
Even with the backlash, there remains an overwhelming demand for tickets to see Brown at his Dec. 14 and Dec. 15 shows. He reportedly sold out the 94,000-capacity venue in less than two hours, causing show organizers to add a second FNB Stadium date.
In 2016, the conservative-leaning New York Post outed Kaseem Ryan‘s career as a New York City firefighter, in which he was a 9/11 first responder and rose to the rank of captain. You see, the Post took umbrage with the “anti-cop” rhetoric in his raps and felt the need to lift the veil of the rapper known as Ka, one of the genre’s most mysterious figures.
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Ka approached rap music differently than his peers. He produced most of his songs and music videos, often during his off time from saving lives as a fireman. His words came across as brutal, humble, calm, and wise all at once. His beats evoked a cold winter night when the only people outside were the hustlers and the late-night stragglers looking for that last fix before the sun comes up and the block gets hot again. He would host pop-ups to sell his latest albums and meet his fans. Most of the time the only way to hear his music was to go to his website and buy it directly from him. And he would handle every online order himself. He was truly a man of and for the people, and he believed in the sanctity of hip-hop to his core.
In 2012, while sitting down with Out Da Box TV, Ka explained his creative process and how he felt about the state of hip-hop at the time. “I’m a purist. To me hip-hop is a beautiful artform that I feel isn’t being respected as such now,” he said before going on a minor rant about the trend of not writing rhymes popularized by acts Jay-Z and Lil Wayne. “I was taking offense to all that shit,” he added. “Ayo, B, it takes time to sculpt. [The] Sistine Chapel wasn’t done [on] how fast you could do it; the shit was done over years. David wasn’t sculpted in, you know, ‘Yo, I did that in a day.’ There’s no time on art. When I’m doing a verse, it takes me a long time to do the verse, and as far as doing the verse, I’m speaking from a lifetime of experiences. It took a lifetime to write that.”
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His approach was just as profound as his music. There are lines from his work that stick to you. On the song “I’m Ready” from his 2013 album The Knight’s Gambit, towards the end of the chorus he raps, “If judged by a scale I pray my righteousness is heavy/ I’m ready, I’m ready” in his raspy voice as if he was already grappling with the prospect of what awaits him beyond this life. I would say that his righteousness was indeed heavy, judging by the outpouring of kind words from his peers and fans alike. Frequent collaborator and one half of their group Metal Clergy, Roc Marciano called Ka his “big brother” and “guardian angel.” The Alchemist called him “a living prophet.” Fans posted pictures of themselves with him at his pop-ups and mentioned how accessible and friendly he was.
His art resonated with people because they felt the effort he put in and the pain he was holding inside. Sure, he was a captain for the FDNY, but he grew up in Brownsville during the crack era, and seemed to be working through survivor’s remorse in his music. “I wanted them to know this is personal what I’m giving you,” he said in that same Out Da Box interview. “This is blood I’m giving you. I’m not spittin’ this s–t, this is blood. I needed them to know that, to appreciate it, that if you don’t hear a lot from me, it’s because I’m pulling a lot from me and I’m actually expending a lot of energy to give you these songs. So, I just want you to appreciate it.”
And we did.An artist like Ka wasn’t defined by numbers or trophies — he was defined by the art, by the culture, by the people. In an interview with Passion of the Weiss, he spoke on living two lives and what he wanted his legacy to be. “I’m living two lives, man. I’m trying to be who I am in the day and then trying to feed my soul at night with being the artist that I want to be,” he told the outlet. “I want to respect the culture and give back what it gave to me. The reason I’m alive right now is because of hip-hop.
He continued about the music that saved his life: “It made me want to be a smarter person. It made me want to read, so I would write better rhymes. It was that important to me. It gave me drive; I wanted to be the best MC there ever was. Hip-hop don’t have a museum like this yet but if we have, I want to be a wing. I want to be my own f–king room, the Ka chamber right here. ‘At the time he was doing it, there wasn’t a lot of light on it, but yo, we went back and checked it, that s–t was incredible’ — that’s what I want. Van Gogh, he wasn’t revered, he cut his ear off and killed himself later on. That man wasn’t known until years after his death – he needed to have known what he was during the time he was alive.”
Ka leaves this life behind as being one of the best rappers of his era and as an even better man. It’s our duty now to continue to tell his story and put people on to his music, so that he can live forever.
Sound the alarms, the next chapter of Tyler, The Creator‘s career is here. It’s been over three years since his Grammy Award-winning Call Me If You Get Lost was released, and it appears a new Tyler era is upon us.
Tyler took to social media on Wednesday (Oct. 16) to kick off his next chapter with the eerie “St. Chroma” video. The clip finds a person rocking a mask with a group of mesmerized soldiers marching to some whispered rapping through a barren desert.
The clip follows the group as they walk into a container emblazoned with the word “Chromakopia” on its side, before someone hits a detonator to blow up the box and splatter some color onto the screen. It’s unclear if this is the opening track of Tyler’s next era, but plenty of the rapper’s peers think so.
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Solange Knowles, Lil Yachty, Gunner Stahl, IDK, Lil Dicky, Wolfacejoeyy, Laila!, Swizz Beatz, Doechii, Wynne, Montell Fish and more excitedly commented under his new clip. Some fans speculated that Chromakopia could even be the title of the next LP.
Since releasing his Goblin debut in 2011, Tyler has released an album every other year through 2021’s Call Me If You Get Lost. However, he broke the streak when 2023 came and went without an album. Although he essentially released a Call Me If You Get Lost deluxe with The Estate Sale in March 2023.
While he notched his first feature film role in an upcoming A24 movie alongside Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler has been quiet for much of 2024 on the music side.
With this teaser now out to the masses, the timing of rolling out his next project could make sense with his Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival set to take over Dodger Stadium for the weekend of Nov. 16 and Nov. 17 where he’ll be headlining.
Call Me If You Get Lost arrived in June 2021 and debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 169,000 total album units sold in the first week. The LP went on to win best rap album honors at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
Watch the clip below:
10/16/2024
The musical luminary took over New York’s Madison Square Garden as part of his short arena tour.
10/16/2024
Rising rapper Real Boston Richey completes a career milestone by earning his first top 10 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with “Help Me.” The single ascends 12-10 on the list dated Oct. 19 thanks to gains in radio airplay while maintaining its steady streaming results on the multimetric chart, which combines streaming, radio airplay and sales data for its rankings.
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For the tracking week of Oct. 4-10, “Help Me,” released through Freebandz/Epic Records, generated 7.9 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate, down 1% from the previous week. Despite the decline, “Help Me” climbs 14-12 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs chart, where it achieved a No. 7 best in late September. The track sold a negligible number of downloads in the week and does not appear on the R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Song Sales list.
In the airplay sector, “Help Me” registered 7.1 million audience impressions in the tracking period, a 12% improvement over the previous week. The increase aligns with the single’s 19-17 advance on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, sparked by a 16% boost for the week in format plays. “Help Me” repeats at its No. 23 best on Rhythmic Airplay, though it added 1% more plays.
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Elsewhere, “Help Me” drives 9-7 on the Hot Rap Songs chart and 56-53 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. As on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, the song marks the debut appearance for the 27-year-old rapper, who, despite his stage name, hails from Tallahassee, Fla.
Although “Help Me” secures Real Boston Richey’s breakthrough on the singles’ charts, the rapper has made inroads with prior mixtapes. His Public Housing mixtape debuted at No. 22 on the Top Rap Albums chart in 2022, while Public Housing 2 improved upon its predecessor and landed a No. 15 showing in January 2023. Later that year, his debut studio album, Welcome to Bubba Land, reached No. 42 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Megan Thee Stallion is ready to tell her story on her own terms and In Her Words. Amazon’s Prime Video gave fans a first glimpse at the candid Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words documentary when the revealing trailer was released on Wednesday (Oct. 16). Hotties have another reason to celebrate Hottieween, as its shaping […]
Just a week after debuting, NLE Choppa and 41’s collaboration “Or What?” rockets into the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with a 24-9 surge on the list dated Oct. 19. The track, released through NLE Choppa/Warner, continues to turn its viral momentum from TikTok clips into huge gains on streaming services.
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In the Oct. 4-10 tracking week for Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, which blends streaming, radio airplay and sales data for its ranks, “Or What?” registered 8.5 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate. The count is a 49% explosion from the prior week’s 5.7 million clicks. Thanks to the surge, “Or What?” launches at No. 6 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs chart.
Streaming contributes virtually all the song’s activity for Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, with a negligible number of digital downloads sold in the tracking week and 158,000 total audience impressions. (For comparison, the threshold title on this week’s 50-position R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart drew 1.3 million impressions.)
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With “Or What?,” Memphis rapper NLE Choppa earns his second top 10 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and ties for his best rank among 21 career entries. “Slut Me Out” also reached No. 9, in April 2023.
Hip-hop collective 41, comprised of Brooklyn rappers Kyle Richh, Jenn Carter and TaTa, picks up its first Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs hit under the combined artist billing. The three previously charted individually on breakthrough hit “Bent,” which reached a No. 37 high in December 2023.
Social media users have pushed “Or What?” into viral territory in the last weeks, largely due to TikTok clips in which users play off the track’s “Is we f–kin’ or not?” lyric. The tune has been used in more than 170,000 clips to date on the social platform, with the recent surge pushing the track to a new peak of No. 2 on this week’s TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart.
Elsewhere, “Or What?” shoots 21-6 on the Hot Rap Songs chart and 91-52 in its second week on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100.
10/15/2024
Kendrick Lamar took home eight victories while Megan Thee Stallion left empty-handed.
10/15/2024