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Devin Scillian and Kimberly Gill are in the business of reporting the news, not making it. But the two broadcast journalists are getting as much attention as some of their leading stories as part of Eminem‘s new album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace).
The two anchors for WDIV, the Detroit NBC affiliate, are featured in the skit “Breaking News,” reporting on the hometown rapper’s supposed attempts to “cancel himself” with the release. Over background music composed by Eminem and regular collaborator Luis Resto, Scillian introduces the faux news segment and throws it to Gill, who is covering fan protests outside Eminem’s Mom’s Spaghetti restaurant in Detroit.
“It’s a lot more than either one of us expected,” Scillian, who’s an award-winning songwriter and performing musician himself, tells Billboard. He’s actually been on two Eminem tracks before — “Careful What You Wish For” from 2009’s Relapse and “Darkness” from 2020’s Music To Be Murdered By, which also includes Gill — but says there’s more excitement surrounding this appearance.
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“The other ones passed by with just a little bit of notice it seemed. This one has been kind of crazy,” Scillian notes. “I guess it speaks to the anticipation for this album in general.” Gill adds that, “especially since Devin said my name when he tossed it to me in the report, my whole name is on an Eminem album. That’s the difference.”
Gill and Scillian only learned they would be included on the album a couple of days before its release. “I think that’s part of the reason we didn’t get too excited about it,” Gill explains. “You never know if he’s going to use it or not. We do these things, they ask us not to talk about it, we leave there and forget about it. Months pass, and before you know it the album comes out, and there we are. We made the cut!”
Scillian adds that they’re well aware that, “The cloak and dagger world of music relies so much on secrecy. It’s a need to know basis, and apparently we didn’t need to know.”
The pair worked with Eminem in his studio over several sessions, as far back as two years ago and as recently as this past spring. They’ve found him to be “very collaborative” as well. “He gave us an idea of what he wanted but he also was very interested in knowing how we would do it as real journalists,” Gill says. “So that was a really cool thing; here we have Marshall Mathers asking us for advice on how to say something.”
“He’s very hands on,” Scillian says. “He knows what he’s looking for, but he’s also having you do a couple of different things. It’s almost like he’s using them as water colors; he’s just starts playing with them later and you never know whether you’re gonna be on a song. on the skit in this case, or not. And it’s really fun… After we were done (Eminem) was like, ‘Wow, that was just crazy you could do that in one shot.’ We look at each other and say, ‘If there’s one genius in this room, it’s probably not the two of us!”
Another thrill for Scillian came when the album’s full credits were finally revealed; “I looked on Wikipedia, and we are under Musicians on the list,” he says with a laugh. “My name is right below Steve Miller. That’s about as high on the horse as I can get.”
Scillian is about to head to Paris to cover the Summer Olympic Games for WDIV. So what’s bigger — winning a gold medal or being able to say “I’m on Eminem’s new album?” “I’m going to put it on a T-shirt,” he says with a laugh.
André 3000‘s appearance on The Shop continues to grab headlines.
First, he made news when he told the story about Pimp C originally being upset about the verse he turned for “Int’l Players Anthem.” Then, he and Sexyy Red had a cool moment as they bonded over people drinking haterade.
This time he’s in the news for responding to LL Cool J‘s disappointment in his instrumental flute album New Blue Sun.
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The 56-year-old Queens rapper, who himself is on the verge of releasing his 14th solo album, was a guest on The Shop a few weeks back when he expressed his feelings about 3000’s first solo album. While having a convo with filmmaker Lena Waithe about what inspires them, New Blue Sun was brought up to which the rap legend said, “Let’s not lie to ourselves: I don’t wanna hear him do the flute,” before asking the room, “You wanna hear me do a violin? You might not wanna hear me do sh–, but do you wanna hear me do a violin?”
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Adding, “I wanna hear him get with Big Boi, I want them to make an OutKast [album] or to do a solo album. Every time he does a verse, it’s enough material for an album! He’s so gifted. So it’s like, ‘Come on, B. Not the flute.’ That man needs to know the truth.”
LL also said he disagreed with the notion that older rappers don’t have anything to rap about. “When you were 14, you weren’t rapping about pubescent growth spurts. So, why you have to get older and talk about prostate?” He then continued by saying he loves André, but disagrees with the notion that you can run out of things to say. “With all due respect, I disagree with that because he has it in him.”
Stacks didn’t take what LL said to heart and responded in a measured way, saying, “To me, I feel like if it’s in you — ’cause I got homies my age and older than me that still rap — so if it’s in you, you should rap until you die. You should perform until you die.”
However, he reiterated why he’s not confident at the moment when it comes to making a full-fledged rap album. “But what I’m saying is, what it takes for me to do it, I’m always looking for the next. I’m not trying to uphold a thing that I’ve done before.”
Adding, “Of course, I have things to say now, but if I can’t say them in a fresh, innovative way, if I feel like I’m just hanging onto the same flow that I used to do, it’s not enough for me. So I can’t talk for another rapper about what they doing. I just say, ‘Man, go for it. If it’s in you.’”
You can watch the both episodes here.
Amber Rose is among the celebrity speakers slated to take the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which kicks off on Monday (July 15) and runs through Thursday (July 18). The 40-year-old model/influencer revealed she was gearing up for a trip to the Milwaukee RNC as a speaker on July 8. “It’s True! […]
As heat wave after heat wave continues to pummel the country, so does the world of politics, which feels suspiciously written by Shonda Rhimes at this point. With the attempted assassination of former President Trump thrusting debate over President Biden’s viability as a 2024 candidate out of the picture, naturally, 50 Cent has found himself in the eye of the storm. The Grammy-winner’s classic “Many Men” has emerged as a semi-ironic anthem of the assassination attempt, earning an acknowledgment from the man himself.
“Trump gets shot and now I’m trending,” he captioned a meme of Trump’s face superimposed over his iconic album artwork for 2003’s Billboard 200-topping Get Rich or Die Tryin’, which landed at No. 11 on Billboard’s Greatest Rap Albums of All Time ranking.
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In other major hip-hop and R&B news, Eminem‘s countless namedrops on his new The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) LP continue to stir up social media conversation, Ice Spice and Central Cee further stoked romance rumors with the release of their new “Did It First” single and Buju Banton performed his first U.S. shows in 13 years at New York’s UBS Arena.
With Fresh Picks, Billboard aims to highlight some of the best and most interesting new sounds across R&B and hip-hop — from 310babii’s latest banger to Veeze and Rylo Rodriguez’s grimy link-up. Be sure to check out this week’s Fresh Picks in our Spotify playlist below.
Freshest Find: Camper feat. Ari Lennox & Jeremih, “War”
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Last year, with Coco Jones’ “ICU” and Maeta & Free Nationals’ “Through the Night,” Darhyl “DJ” Camper scored a pair of chart-topping R&B hits that played to the genre’s traditional elements of evocative, soulful balladry. For “War,” his new single with Grammy-nominated R&B stars Ari Lennox and Jeremih, Camper continues to play on those fundamentals. “I ain’t got time to lose with you/ All I know is that I miss you/ Bring grenades to your door/ For your love I’ll go to/ For your love I’ll go to war,” Jeremih sings over Camper’s amalgamation of warbling, gospel-inflected chords and a ’70s soul-evoking bass section. With both singer’s verses playing on the classic benchmarks of romance (“Kept you past your curfew/ Bought you your first of Nikes/ Heard your Daddy don’t like me/ Brother wanna fight me”), these three R&B heavyweights have crafted a song whose reverence for the classics permeates both their lyrics and instrumentation, ultimately making for a song that harkens to the past while feeling distinctly modern by way of their stylish vocal deliveries.
Lexa Gates & Billy Lemos, “I Just Can’t Be Alone”
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Lexa Gates is one of the can’t-miss emerging artists coming out of NYC. With an aesthetic as refreshing as she is unique, the Queens-bred singer-rapper blends the adjacent worlds in poetic fashion. On her latest single, “I Just Can’t Be Alone,” Gates vulnerably grapples with a yearning for romance and isolation. “Should I really be a douchebag? I’m indifferent, ha, you mad,” she intones to start the jazzy tune. West Coast fans can hear the soulful track’s live debut when Lex takes the Echoplex stage in Los Angeles on Aug. 14.
310babii, “Pink Whitney”
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As the West Coast continues to bask in their summer on top, 310babii is keeping the hits coming. After scoring a topline breakthrough moment with “Soak City (Do It)” and a follow-up hit in “Rock Yo Hips,” the recent high school graduate is ready for a few sips of “Pink Whitney.” “Pink Whitney, said she don’t drink Casa’/ Baby bad, p—y good, put her in Prada/ Bae, I gotta buy you YSL, it’s only right/ She got designer p—y, only right I bought her flight,” he spits over Beatsbyturk’s bouncy production. Less focused on packing the dancefloor with bodies and more occupied with lauding the girl with the “bеst head in the city,” “Pink Whitney” marks a slightly different direction for the rising star — but it still hits.
SoFaygo feat. Don Toliver, “Precision”
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Don’t try to play games with SoFaygo because he’ll call out the “bulls–t with precision.” Lil Tecca hops behind the boards to serve up the blistering production that lives in the realm of Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red. “I never ate at Denny’s, I hate to shop at Lenox/ I’m picky with my women,” FayGo rambles. The Cactus Jack artist lets the ladies know anyone riding with him doesn’t need to turn to having an OnlyFans since he’s got the finances taken care of. Fellow Cactus Jack running mate Don Toliver invades the scene and gives a NSFW shout-out to his wifey. “Damn, she got a big booty/ Kali Uchis, I’ma stuff my face in her coochie,” he promises on the raunchy assist. Hopefully, it isn’t the last time this trio joins forces.
BLK ODYSSY, “Changes”
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Ahead of his third studio album — 1-800-FANTASY (due July 19) — BLK ODYSSY has unveiled another single from the project. “Changes,” a jaunty pop-rock-infused jam that evokes the freewheeling feel of Steve Lacy’s Gemini LP, finds BLK ODYSSY lamenting over the different ways love can warp your sense of routine and normalcy. “Can’t take all these changes, thought it would be painless,” he sing-chants, effortlessly capturing the emotional turbulence of heartbreak and how life-altering the end of a relationship can be. With percussion and guitars holding down the rock ‘n’ roll vibes, it’s his melancholy timbre that keeps the soul front and center.
Veeze feat. Rylo Rodriguez, “F****d A Fan”
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Someone could write a fascinating book about rappers and their romantic fan escapades. Rylo opens up about having a girl with him at a five-star hotel while Veeze leans on his designer addiction and letting his partner run up unlimited shopping spree tabs with ease. Although, the Detroit rapper knows his luxury taste and spending habits could catch up with him if he doesn’t continue to level up. “My jacket, my pants, it cost me a dime/ I need to go get an endorsement with Sprite,” he admits with some sound financial advice. As for the 4PF rhymer, Rylo doesn’t believe the ride-or-die women are out there for him. “If I had a dollar for every faithful b—h in the world, my account would be empty,” he raps before painting the bizarre visual of a girl wanting him to autograph a Trojan condom. Just press play and enjoy the journey.
Don Toliver will be hitting the road with his Hardstone Psycho album on his biggest North American headlining tour to date this fall, the Psycho Tour, Live Nation announced Monday (July 15). Teezo Touchdown will join as a special guest, while Monaleo will serve as the opening act. The 25-date jaunt will begin on Oct. […]
Lil Wayne remained quiet for much of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud, but appeared to break his silence and throw his support behind the 6 God over the weekend.
The Young Money family bond between Young Angel and Young Lion is still going strong. During his performance at Zouk Nightclub in Las Vegas on Saturday night (July 13), Wayne took the intro of “The Motto” and tweaked lyrics to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” while briefly flashing his OVO owl pendant chain.
“They don’t like us,” Wayne can be heard rapping to the T-Minus instrumental while dancing on stage. It appeared to draw some confusion from the audience, as some thought he was saying, “They not like us.”
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“Not Wayne being an instigator Him and Ab Soul are trying to reignite the beef, I guess lol,” one person tweeted.
Lil Wayne is actually name-dropped on “Not Like Us” when Kendrick raps, “F—-d on Wayne girl while he was in jail, that’s connivin’/ Then get his face tatted like a b—h apologizing.”
The lyric appears to reference when Weezy was behind bars on gun charges in NYC and Drake allegedly got romantically involved with Wayne’s then-girlfriend Tammy Torres. The New Orleans rapper addressed the rumored fling in his Gone’ Til November: A Journal of Rikers Island prison journal. “I woke up still feeling f–ked up about the f–ked-up day that I had. Hell is what it was! I’m used to arguing with my girl [daily], but finding out that she f–ked Drake was the absolute worst thing I could’ve found out,” he wrote.
Thanks to a boost from the release of the official music video on July 4, Lamar’s “Not Like Us” returned to the No. 1 slot on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart, and the Drake diss track’s momentum doesn’t appear to be slowing. Even though the dust is settling on the Drake and Lamar feud, “Not Like Us” continues to be a force in pop-culture and churns out headlines. Serena Williams even Crip walked to the song and mocked Drake while on stage at the ESPY Awards, which Wayne attended.
As for the Weezy and Kendrick Lamar relationship, the pair of hip-hop titans teamed up in the past on Tha Carter V‘s “Mona Lisa,” and fans have requested Weezy perform the 2018 record at concerts, but Wayne revealed in June he doesn’t remember the lyrics to it. “This is the second time I’ve seen this within my last three shows. Somebody had a sign that said, ‘Mona Lisa’… If y’all real Lil Wayne fans, you know I don’t know the lyrics to my s-t,” he said on stage.
The rapper continued: “You know how hard that f–king song is, girl… You know what I mean? I don’t like to rap the words, but I’m going to learn that s–t. I’m going to learn it. I got you.”
Watch Lil Wayne tweak the lyrics to “Not Like Us” during his concert below:
Kendrick Lamar‘s business partner and creative collaborator Dave Free sat down with Elephant last week and spoke on pgLang’s formula for success.
“Here’s the whole process,” the former TDE executive began. “Kendrick or I will dream something up, although the idea could come from staff members too, and we’ll come into the office, and we’ll figure out how to create a system around the idea to make it self-sufficient. We make sure it’s going to be impactful, influential, financially stable, it’s going to shake people up, and it’s going to tell a story.”
He added, “When it’s developed, we ask, ‘Does it move you?’ Eventually, after repeating that process enough times, we get to a place where we can’t poke any more holes. That’s what we call ‘break and repeat.’ Once there are no more holes to poke, I feel comfortable putting it into the universe. So that’s the process. We apply that to everything that we do.”
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Free also talked about the creative agency’s “No Yapping” policy. “We want to treat artists like they’re start-ups. We want them to take ownership of their brand, which is really taking ownership of themselves.”
He continued, “You always hear people talking about all these elements of the business that they don’t like, but it’s not like there are a lot of active participants putting their money where their mouth is. We were like, ‘Let’s not talk about what we want to see from the industry — let’s just do it.’”
When asked about the company’s website use of only “action words,” Dave Free answered simply, “That’s the ‘no-yapping’ rule we have around here. We don’t do the yapping. Ain’t got time for all that yapping.”
Dave Free found him in the center of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud that has dominated much of the conversation surrounding rap music this summer. The duo squashed any rumors of any rifts between them, with Free not only making a cameo, but also directing the “Not Like Us” video alongside Lamar.
As a music video director, Free has won three MTV Video Music awards, two BET Video Director of the Year awards, and has a Grammy for best music video.
pgLang was launched in March of 2020, with Lamar officially ending his tenure with longtime label TDE with his 2022 album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.
Eminem‘s long-awaited 12th studio album, The Death of Slim Shady, has been out for more than an entire weekend, meaning fans have had plenty of time to decide on their favorite songs from the album — and Billboard wants to know yours. Four years after 2020’s Billboard 200-topping Music to Be Murdered By, the Detroit rapper’s […]
Cardi B isn’t one to mince her thoughts when it comes to politics. Last week, she called the Democratic party “selfish” for continuing to let President Joe Biden seek re-election later this year.
A clip re-surfaced and Cardi doubled-down on her stance Thursday (July 11) when captioning the post with “Yeup Yeup Yeup” on X. She also voiced her belief that it was time for Vice President Kamala Harris to step in for Biden in the upcoming election.
“I feel like it was very selfish of Biden and the whole Democrat party that they allow Biden to continue to run for president,” she said. “I feel like they should have passed the torch to Kamala [Harris]. This was the perfect moment for her. Right now, I don’t feel like we have strong candidates.”
Cardi continued: “I feel like this would have been her perfect time to shine. We already know she’s sharp with the f–king mouth. Whatever value that Biden wants, she’s practically the same value. So I feel like it was a little bit selfish to not make that choice to give her this moment to run for presidency.”
In the replies, the Bronx native also tweaked her Bardi Gang fanbase’s name to the “Smarty gang.”
Cardi B has been critical of President Biden in the past, but calmed fans’ worries earlier in July when she assured them she’s never going to be a Republican. “I will never turn republican lol,” she replied to a fan on X.
Cardi has criticized the United States’ involvement in the Israel-Hamas war, and she was also critical of Biden’s inaction on the economy as part of her Rolling Stone cover story in May. “I feel like people got betrayed,” she said at the time. “It’s just like, ‘Damn, y’all not caring about nobody.’ Then, it really gets me upset that there is solutions to it. There is a solution. I know there’s a solution because you’re spending billions of dollars on any f–king thing.”
After interviewing and endorsing Biden in the 2020 election, Cardi isn’t supporting either party’s candidates right now. “I don’t f–k with both of y’all n—-s,” she said about Biden and Trump.
While reports emerged earlier in July about Democrats fielding interest in Harris going to the top of the ticket, Biden has said he has no plans to step aside. He addressed the public from the Oval Office on Sunday (July 14) in the wake of the apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump over the weekend in Pennsylvania.
“We can’t allow this violence to be normalized,” Biden said. “The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. We all have a responsibility to do that … Politics must never be a literal battlefield, God forbid, a killing field.”
Glass Animals would never look a gift hit in the mouth. After all, the group landed one of the biggest chart singles by a British group since the Spice Girls in 2021 when their slinky track “Heat Waves” went viral thanks to TikTok.
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Surely you remember it? The one with the hypnotizing chorus, “Sometimes, all I think about is you/ Late nights in the middle of June/ Heat waves been fakin’ me out/ Can’t make you happier now.” Though the single from the Oxford-bred band was released in June 2020 in the heat of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, it took an epic 59 weeks to make its way to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 2022, where it stayed for five weeks; the song also set a record by hanging around on the Hot 100 for a total of 91 weeks, making it the longest-charting hit in the Hot 100’s then-64-year history.
Now, four years later, the group is prepping their return with their fourth studio album, I Love You So F***ing Much (July 19), and in an interview with The Independent singer Dave Bayley revealed that the band’s signature smash almost went to another artist with much more chart-topping experience.
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“I had hoped it would be someone else’s song,” Bayley told the paper about an attempt to get Rihanna to record it. “It got so far that I was sitting in the Roc Nation offices, playing the song for her manager,” he explained. “I ended up sending them parts of the song, but I’m grateful it didn’t go further.”
Don’t get him wrong, either way would have been just fine with him. “But at the same time, obviously, I’m a huge fan – I would’ve loved it,” Bayley said of the possibility of RihRih taking a swing at “Heat Waves.”
After “Heat Waves” passed the 90-week Hot 100 run of The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” Bayley told Billboard he was blown away. “Wow, all I can say is wow,” he said at the time. “Many of you know when I wrote this song I was writing about missing someone I loved very dearly. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that it would lead to so much love and connection across the globe.”
Though she obviously didn’t take them up on the offer, the possibility that the song could have ended up in Rihanna’s hands would surely have thrilled her Navy. The mother of two toddlers and founder of the billion-dollar Fenty Beauty brand has not released a new album since 2016’s multi-platinum Anti and with the exception of a handful of features — as well as her 2022 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Oscar-nominated hit “Lift Me Up” — has kept a low musical profile for much of the past seven-plus years.
Watch the “Heat Waves” video below.
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