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Tyler, The Creator is fulfilling one of his childhood dreams with the debut of his own Louis Vuitton collection. After revealing he was tapped to head his own capsule by mentor Pharrell Williams (who is the men’s creative director at LV), last month, the colorful men’s spring 2024 collection officially arrived on Thursday (March 21). […]
Cardi B manifested one day working with Shakira, and the chance to collaborate with the Colombian icon came earlier this year after meeting at Paris Fashion Week. “Punteria” is set to arrive on Friday (March 22) as part of Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran album.
Cardi and the Queen of Latin Music sat down to interview each other while taking a break on set for the collab’s music video, where they gushed about being fans of one another and detailed how “Punteria” came about.
“When I first met Shakira, it was in Paris at the Fendi show, and I was very, very nervous,” Cardi B admitted. “I was nervous because I wanted to get next to her, but I was like, ‘I’m not gonna get next to her until they call me.’ I manifested it, but I didn’t know when it was coming.”
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Shakira returned the favor and waxed poetic about Cardi B’s work ethic while championing 2021’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Up” as her favorite track from the Bronx bombshell. “‘Up,’ I love that song. Such a good writer — she’s such a pro and an amazing lyricist and performer,” she said.
The “Hips Don’t Lie” singer explained how she’s “always wanted to” work with Cardi, and the timing was finally right for “Punteria.”
“I wanted to do something with Cardi. We were always discussing internally if it was a good idea to put someone on this song. I always pictured Cardi on this song. I reached out, and here we are,” she added. “It’s been so fun to work with you. It’s so easy, honestly. She’s like, ‘I’ll do everything.’ I’m like, ‘Are you ready to work long hours? Because I work long hours.’ She’s like, ‘I’ll be there from 6 to 6 a.m.’”
Cardi was ecstatic to get the call from Shakira, which she dubbed a “dream.”
“I knew it. I knew this day would come. It came. God is good, Jesus,” Cardi B gushed. “I don’t care if she wants me to meow — I’m doing it. I cannot wait. Seriously, that is my dream.”
“I always look at your videos,” she added, “and it’s so crazy doing a video with you because all of your videos, you could just tell you take your time from the angle, to the dancing, to the things that pop.”
Shak’s new album follows the Colombian hitmaker’s 2017 set El Dorado, which spent five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Latin Albums chart, and included hit songs such as “Chantaje” with Maluma, “La Bicicleta” with Carlos Vives and the Prince Royce-assisted “Deja vu.
Watch the full interview between Cardi and Shakira below. “Punteria” arrives on Friday (March 22).
Call it the “braids and beads beef.” A sartorial scuffle erupted on Wednesday (March 20) after it appeared that Erykah Badu called out Beyoncé for borrowing her signature look for the cover of the upcoming Act II: Cowboy Carter album. Badu, long known for her intergalactic Afro-futuristic look, took the most subtle of shots at […]
Machine Gun Kelly and Trippie Redd are no strangers to collaborating, but they’ve decided to flesh out their thoughts into a full-length joint project. MGK revealed on Wednesday (March 23) that he’s teaming up with his fellow Ohio native for Genre:Sadboy. The collab effort is slated to arrive next Friday (March 29), which is already […]
The cover art for Beyoncé‘s upcoming album Cowboy Carter has stirred up some interesting discussions, most recently and notably from Harlem rapper Azealia Banks. The opinionated MC took to Instagram Stories on Tuesday to give us all a little lesson in cultural criticism.
First, Banks takes aim at the album’s title, writing, “Wow we didn’t even try to put even a little effort into a more artistic title?” Now, to be fair, we don’t know what Beyonce‘s thinking is as it pertains to the title. Some fans believe it’s a play on words. Obviously, Carter is her last name through marriage to rapper/businessman Sean Carter, aka Jay-Z, but it’s also the last name of the family widely seen as the first family of country music. It could be anything or nothing at all. The only person who knows is Cowboy Carter herself.
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Banks then takes issue with the cover’s overall aesthetic, asking, “how u switch from baobab trees and black parade to this literal pick me stuff,” referring to the Grammy Award-winning single from The Lion King: The Gift soundtrack Beyoncé executive produced back in 2019. It seems all the Americana imagery is too on the nose for Banks and misses the mark, as she accuses Beyonce of being in “white woman cosplay” and “reinforcing the false rhetoric that country music is a post civil war white art form. And subsequently reinforcing the idea that there is no racism, segregation, slavery, violence, theft, massacres, plagues, manifest destiny craziness that form the bedrock of epithets like ‘proud to be an American,’ or ‘god bless the usa.’”
As if that weren’t enough, Banks also brought up the 2016 CMA Awards performance Beyoncé did with The Chicks (then called The Dixie Chicks), writing, “u do lame stuff like bring out some black listed white women (Dixie Chicks) at the country music awards and they would never ever do the same for you.”
It’s all…a lot. You can check out all of what she wrote below. But it’s interesting to see Banks read so much into the album title and cover when Beyoncé herself took to Instagram on Tuesday to explain to fans why she decided to make Cowboy Carter.
Beyoncé didn’t mention the 2016 CMA Awards specifically, but she did write that the album “was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed.” And while Banks believes Beyoncé is unaware of the genre’s history, Bey explained that after the experience of not feeling welcomed she did “a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive.” Similar to 2022’s Renaissance, on which she worked to reclaim Dance music, many feel she will be doing the same with country on this project. But hey, like she said in her IG post, “This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.”
Quavo is looking to give back to his local Atlanta community through The Rocket Foundation. Huncho announced the launch of the Spark Grants initiative on Wednesday (March 20), which will award 10 different organizations with $10,000 to help minimize gun violence and spread awareness around the ATL.
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The grants will be handed out to recipients on June 18, which is also the birthday of Quavo’s late nephew and Migos bandmate Takeoff and lands in National Gun Violence Awareness Month.
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Takeoff (born Kirshnik Khari Ball), 28, was shot and killed early in the morning of Nov. 1, 2022 while attending a private party with Quavo at 810 Billiards & Bowling in downtown Houston.
Last year, Quavo headed to Washington, D.C., to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss gun violence and what could be done to help reduce the amount of weapons on the streets. Twenty-four hours later, the White House revealed plans for the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
“I am honored to launch this grant program to honor Take and the countless families that have been affected by gun violence,” said Quavo in a statement. “The Rocket Foundation will be giving out $100,000 in Spark grants to local organizations dedicated to reducing community violence in Atlanta.”
He continued: “There is a lot of important work going on in ATL right now, and part of our mission is to uplift these organizations and support them to help save more lives.”
Applications from nonprofit organizations are due by April 21 and then the $100,000 in total will be awarded on June 18. The 10th winner will be selected by the public with voting taking place on The Rocket Foundation’s website.
Investigators said shots rang out during the an afterparty attended by several dozen people, with TakeOff pronounced dead at the scene of what the Harris County coroner’s office said was “penetrating gunshot wounds of head and torso into arm.”
Less than a month before TakeOff’s murder, Quavo and Take teamed up to form the Unc & Phew duo (TakeOff is Quavo’s nephew) and unleash their Only Built For Infinity Links album. The LP debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200.
The challenger defeats the champion on Billboard’s Hot R&B Songs chart this week as rookie singer 4Batz’s “Act II: Date @ 8,” now featuring Drake, rockets 7-1 to crown the list dated March 23. The buzzy single’s rise comes after the release of a remix, which added the heavyweight, on March 8. In taking the summit, the new leader ends a historic run for SZA, who had reigned atop the chart for the last 53 weeks through four songs – “Kill Bill,” “Snooze,” a featured turn on Drake’s “Slime You Out” and “Saturn.”
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“Act II: Date @ 8” debuted on the chart dated Jan. 6 and spent its first 11 weeks on the list (including nine in the top 10) billed solely to 4Batz. With the majority of the song’s activity in the latest tracking week coming from the Drake-assisted remix, the song’s chart listing undergoes two key changes: The artist billing switches to “4Batz featuring Drake” and the servicing label, previously just 4Batz, is updated to 4Batz/OVO Sound. From a business perspective, 4Batz and Drake will be partners again soon, as Billboard reported the budding singer signed with OVO Sound — which Drake co-founded — for a one-EP deal.
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In the tracking week of March 8-14 for the multimetric Hot R&B Songs chart — which combines streaming, radio airplay and sales data — “Act II: Date @ 8” generated 19.9 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate, a 187% burst from the week prior. The nearly tripled improvement shoots the track 6-1 on the R&B Streaming Songs chart, where it becomes 4Batz’s first champ on the list and Drake’s ninth. It also nabs the week’s Greatest Gainer honor, as the song with the largest streaming increase.
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“Act II: Date @ 8” sold 1,000 digital downloads in the same period, sparking a No. 5 debut on R&B Digital Song Sales. The track also registered 8.4 million audience impressions, helped by gains on multiple radio charts: It climbs 19-16 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay (up 21% in plays during the tracking week) and 28-24 on Rhythmic Airplay (a 33% increase).
Elsewhere, “Act II: Date @ 8” powers 26-3 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, where it captures both the Sales Gainer and Streaming Gainer honors, and 61-7 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, with the Streaming Gainer prize to boot.
Though “Act II: Date @ 8” gets most of the shine, two other 4Batz installments also occupy spots on the Hot R&B Songs chart: “Act I: Stickerz 99” rebounds 24-19 in its seventh week on the list, while “Act III: On God (She Like)” slips 10-11 in its second frame.
Ye — the artist formerly known as Kanye West — and Ty Dolla $ign are taking their talents to Egypt next month.
The rapper announced on Wednesday (March 20) that the next Vultures listening experience will be taking place at the Step Pyramid of Djoser on April 20. The show is set for a tentative start time of 8 p.m. locally in the desert of Saqqara, Egypt. There aren’t any other details regarding the show available at this time, but tickets are currently on sale. If the pair go through with it, Ye and Ty will be some of the first in rap to perform at the pyramids.
Travis Scott attempted to put together a show at Egypt’s nearby Great Pyramid of Giza last summer, but plans were eventually scrapped due to “production issues” after the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate reportedly revoked La Flame’s license to perform, citing “rituals” surrounding his artistic values that they believed contradicted Middle Eastern culture.
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“After examining social media opinions and feedback, as well as the news circulating on search engines and social media platforms, which included authenticated images and information about peculiar rituals performed by the star during his performance, contradicting our authentic societal values and traditions, the Syndicate’s president and board of directors have decided to cancel the license issued for hosting this type of concert, which goes against the cultural identity of the Egyptian people,” the Syndicate said at the time.
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Scott pushed back against the notion and voiced that his music is meant to “unite” his fans around the globe. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he replied in a statement last year. “My only intent with live performances is to unite people around the world over a shared bond in music.”
Only a few American artists have ever had the chance to perform at the pyramids, including the Grateful Dead in 1978 and Mariah Carey, who brought her five-octave vocal range to the Middle East in 2010.
On the rap side, Russ performed at the Pyramids of Giza in 2022. He’s also been spotted with Ye at various stops throughout the Vultures rollout.
After Ye and Ty Dolla earned a No. 1 album atop the Billboard 200 and “Carnival” topped the Billboard Hot 100, the Vultures duo is rolling into the sequel. However, Vultures 2‘s arrival remains murky after earlier tentative release date in March came and went.
Find Ye’s announcement below.
PartyNextDoor’s relationships with women over the years have inspired his moody tunes, but his latest visual flips the script depicting how some females might take advantage of men. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news It isn’t a scene out of the Jennifer Lopez-starring Hustlers, but it could […]
Chief Keef opens up about working with Sexyy Red and Mike Will Made-It, his upcoming album Almighty So 2 and more backstage at Rolling Loud 2024.Chief Keef:Saying she wants to come through and I said, “hell f–king yeah.”
Oh s–t. I’ve been working on that s–t man. It’s actually dope, man.
Man, you know, but when I do go on tour, I mean, I’d be ready to go home.
Tetris Kelly:Chief Keef is the epitome of a mood, and from following him to his juiced set at Rolling Loud and heading backstage with him and Mike Will Made-It. It was down with the man Sosa and Billboard News. Arriving just before his set, everybody — and I mean everybody — was excited for Chief Keef at Rolling Loud, and he ran to the stage to give the people what they want.
And right afterwards, he was in high demand, as he doesn’t do press often, but Billboard was able to hop in the van with the legend for some hilarious shenanigans.
Unknown Speaker:He hit that bih like Tom Cruise.
Tetris Kelly:To cruise backstage and chat all about the show and his new project. Hanging out backstage with Chief Keef at Rolling Loud. Man, the festival has been such a vibe. The fans was loving your set. How was it up there, man?
Chief Keef:Always dope. It’s always loud. Rolling Loud.
Tetris Kelly:I mean, you had Sexyy Red up there, man. How did you guys start working together? It was so good.
Chief Keef:S–t.I just know she f–k with me real heavy. I f–k with her too. Saying she wants to come through and I said “hell f–king yeah.”
Tetris Kelly:And I mean what do you think it is about her that has like made people go so crazy for Sexyy Red?
Chief Keef:She just … you could tell she really just come from where we come from.
Tetris Kelly:I feel you on that, man. Then also you know you just dropped “Dirty Nachos” with Mike Will Made-It, so what made y’all decide to collaborate on a project together?
Chief Keef:That’s my dog. He right up there. Where he at? That’s my boy.
Tetris Kelly:And the fan reaction has been great. How’s it feel to finally have the project out there?
Chief Keef:Man, it ain’t even just … that ain’t even what we suppose to been drop. That just what he decided, you know what I’m saying? Let’s just drop something before we do what we suppose to drop. Yeah, man, like I said, that my mans and we always got together and we always working too.
Tetris Kelly:And then you got Almighty So like the sequel, to part two coming out, man. So tell me what the fans gonna expect from that.
Chief Keef:Oh s–t. I’ve been working on that s–t, man. It’s actually dope, man. Got some different stuff on it.
Tetris Kelly:Got some features you can tease us with a little bit?
Chief Keef:Yeah, I got some features on there, but I just want to, you know, keep it a surprise if they don’t know already.Watch the full interview above!