R&B/Hip-Hop

16 Jun 2025

Linkin Park Shares the Rappers They Still Want to Work With

Linkin Park‘s Mike Shinoda has shouted out Doechii as one of his dream collaborators.

In a sit-down with Drink Champs, Linkin Park’s Shinoda and Joe Hahn rattled off a few of the biggest hip-hop figures they’d love to make music with. On Shinoda’s list was Wu-Tang Clan, Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator and André 3000. He then added Ms. Lauryn Hill and gave a special shout out to Queen Latifah. “She’s so confident and she’s not like selling sex,” Shinoda said around the 1:30 mark, adding, “She felt like a role model.”

Shinoda then realized the error of his ways and quickly added Doechii to the top of the roster. “Oh, Doechii. Why didn’t I say Doechii? … I should’ve said Doechii earlier.” After scrolling through his phone to jog his memory of female rappers, he then also added: “Doja [Cat]’s dope.”

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If any of these collaborations do happen, it would hardly mark the first time LP teamed up with a hip-hop star. The band most notably linked with Jay-Z for a hit mash-up of “Numb / Encore” from their joint 2004 Collision Course EP. Linkin Park also later collaborated with Rakim for their 2014 single “Guilty All the Same” and Pusha T and Stormzy on 2017’s “Good Goodbye.”

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Hayley Williams recently celebrated Doechii’s impact in a heartfelt tribute penned for Them. In the piece, the Paramore singer praised the Swamp Princess in part for her memorable performance at the 2022 BET Awards.

“Watching her on that stage, I had the same feeling I did the first time I saw Missy Elliott on MTV as a kid,” Williams said. “It was raw, bold, unmistakable talent — the kind that doesn’t wait for permission. She came out swinging, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, she’s taking it. This is hers.’”

Watch the full Drink Champs episode below.

16 Jun 2025

Here’s Why Will Smith Turned Down Christopher Nolan’s Offer to Star in ‘Inception’

Will Smith has been open about his regrets over turning down The Matrix, but there’s another blockbuster that got away about 15 years ago.

Smith sat down with Kiss Xtra over the weekend, where he revealed that Christopher Nolan offered him the lead role in 2010’s Inception, but he “didn’t get it” and passed on the sci-fi/thriller.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said it publicly before, but I am going to say it now because we are opening up to one another,” he said after revisiting the pain of overlooking The Matrix. “Chris Nolan brought me Inception first and I didn’t get it. I’ve never said that out loud.”

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The Oscar winner continued to peel back the layers behind his reasoning: “Now that I think about it, it’s those movies that go into those alternate realities; they don’t pitch well. But I am hurt by those two. It hurts too bad to talk about.”

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan also brought Inception to Brad Pitt, who turned down the offer after only having a 48-hour window to take it. The role eventually landed in Leonardo DiCaprio’s lap, and he capitalized on the blockbuster, which grossed over $800 million at the global box office.

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Nolan’s next film, The Odyssey, is slated to arrive in July 2026. He’s assembled a star-studded cast that includes Matt Damon, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Charlize Theron, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson and Lupita Nyong’o to retell the ancient Greek saga.

As for Will Smith, he actually mocked his decision to pass up on The Matrix as part of the music video for “Beautiful Scars” featuring Big Sean, where he played the role of Neo.

Building off his Based On a True Story album, Smith returned on Friday (June 13) with his “Pretty Girls” single, which finds him celebrating beautiful women across the globe in all shapes and sizes.

Watch Will Smith talk about Inception below.

16 Jun 2025

Drake Calls Canadian Politician Jagmeet Singh ‘a Goof,’ Receives Public Apology

The Canadians are beefin’.

Drake wasn’t happy with the former leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party for attending one of the Kendrick Lamar and SZA Grand National Tour stops in Toronto last week. The Toronto rapper posted a screenshot on his Instagram Story of his DMs with Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh where he said to him, “You’re a goof,” after Singh was spotted at the show.

After facing some backlash from Toronto natives and Drake fans on social media, Singh seemingly saw the error in his ways and took to his own Instagram Story to issue an apology. “I went for SZA, not Kendrick,” he tried to clarify. “I was born in this city. I love this city. But real talk, I get it. I shouldn’t have gone at all. OVO and Drake have lifted up this city and [Canada]. For me it’ll always be Drake over Kendrick.”

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A lot went down during the first Toronto tour stop that could easily have gotten under Drizzy’s skin. Lamar performed “Not Like Us” during the first date in Toronto and was asked by the crowd to perform the hit diss song again in its first live performance in Drake’s backyard. Footage also surfaced of fans rapping “Not Like Us” while visiting Chinese restaurant New Ho King amid rumors of heightened security surrounding the concert.

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In other Drake related news, he dropped a new verse on his OVO signee Smiley’s recent single “2 Mazza” from his album Don’t Box Me In. And he had to reschedule a stream with Kai Cenat twice to finish going through submissions for their “Somebody Love’s Me” video treatment cash giveaway, with one of the streaming dates scheduled during K-Dot and SZA’s first Grand National Toronto date.

Add this to the latest chapter of the Kendrick vs. Drake saga.

13 Jun 2025

Drake Returns With New Verse on Smiley’s ‘2 Mazza’

Drake and Smiley have joined forces once again for the latter’s “2 Mazza,” from the Toronto artist’s new project Don’t Box Me In.

Smiley dropped off the project Friday (June 13), and in his verse, Drizzy reminds Canada of his dominance, proclaiming “I”m the 6 God” and rapping “f— Hollywood and the Hamptons.”

The pair also dropped off a music video for the single, which was shot at Marham’s Go Place day spa. “Shoutout my f—ing big bro [Drake] for being such a GOAT,” Smiley wrote on Instagram when celebrating the album launch.

This marks Drake’s first feature since dropping off his PARTYNEXTDOOR-assisted tape $ome $exy $ongs 4 U back in February. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, with the Drizzy standalone track “Nokia” still sitting firm at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Drake is rumored to be hard at work on a new album allegedly titled Iceman, which many are expecting to drop before the end of 2025. Drake hasn’t confirmed nor denied anything related to a new project, but Smiley did recently reveal that Drizzy has been hard at work on crafting some sort of new project.

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“We’re at a party and he was in the other room by himself eating pasta with wired headphones writing music while we have a whole f—ing party going on,” Smiley said in a video shared on social media. “He’s on a different mode right now.”

Check out the video for “2 Mazza” below.

13 Jun 2025

Young Thug Jokes About Quitting Rap to Become a Streamer: ‘I Gotta Learn How to Do This Sh–‘

The money streamers make these days may be calling Young Thug‘s name

The Atlanta rapper stopped by Adin Ross‘ Kick stream and he was impressed with the way Ross lives his day-to-day life, telling the popular streamer that he wants to start streaming. “I gotta learn how to do this sh–,” he told Adin and fellow streamer Neon, who was also at Ross’ streaming warehouse. “I’ma stop doing music and start streaming. I think I’m gonna stop. I’m telling ya, I’m done rapping and gonna start streaming.”

He added: “Y’all live a cool life. Y’all go everywhere every day. Y’all got cats wondering around this bi—. Y’all n—as got all types of crazy stuff.”

Both streamers pushed back and pleaded for him to not quit rapping because they didn’t want to be blamed and then tried to get him to tell them when his upcoming album UY SCUTI, but Thug wouldn’t take the bait, answering that it’ll be dropping on June 37.

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Adin then showed Thug that he made $300,000 in the month of June already by streaming only nine times. In the month prior, Ross showed him that he took home close to $600,000 over the course of 16 streams in May and suggested that they do a subathon whenever he decides to start livestreaming, to which Thug answered simply, “Let’s do it,” before dipping out.

Thugger was recently announced as the headliner of ComplexCon’s second day later this year in October in Las Vegas and is set to co-headline Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash Festival next weekend (June 20-22) and will be heading to Belgium to perform at Les Ardentes on July 5.

On the legal side of things, the RICO case he spent the last three years fighting is finally over.

Miami Heat player Tyler Herro and Lil Baby also make appearances during the eight-hour stream. You can watch it in its entirety here, with the Young Thug portion showing up around the 6:58:00 mark.

13 Jun 2025

Will Smith Celebrates All the ‘Pretty Girls’ With New Single and Music Video

Will Smith has returned with his new song “Pretty Girls,” as well as an accompanying music video released on Friday (June 13).

The video opens with Smith in the therapist’s office, describing an ongoing issue he’s having and how he feels like he’s losing control. The problem then reveals itself to be enjoying beautiful women, as he raps celebratory bars about pretty girls and “BBLs.”

“All the pretty girls, put your drink up / I’ll get you anything you think of / I like BBLs / That stand for ‘Bad b—es link up,’” Will Smith spits.

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The new track comes after Smith returned with his new album Based on a True Story on March 28. He also dropped off a Lyrical Lemonade freestyle where he proclaimed himself the “Lionel Messi” of hip-hop. While it’s clear music is his main focus at the moment, the Oscar winner recently said on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast he might squeeze in another Men in Black soon.

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“I told myself I was done with sequels. I was like, ‘I’ve made enough sequels. I got some new things I want to make,’” he said. “Literally this morning, an hour before I came down here, they just threw the bag for another Men in Black. I was like, ‘Ah, I’m supposed to be going on tour this summer.’”

Smith said he’d likely shoot the film once he’s done with his European tour, which kicks off on June 25.

Check out the new video for Will Smith’s “Pretty Girls” below.

13 Jun 2025

Young Thug & Yeat to Headline ComplexCon 2025

Fans will be able to catch Young Thug live later this year in Las Vegas.

The lineup for this year’s ComplexCon was announced on Friday (June 13) and it features two days of performances. Yeat & Friends will headline day one on Saturday, Oct. 25, with Peso Pluma and Central Cee also set to perform. Thug will headline the second day Sunday, Oct. 26, which also features sets from Ken Carson and 2hollis.

Acclaimed visual artist Daniel Arsham serves as the event’s global artistic director this year, overseeing the one million square foot Las Vegas Convention Center that will feature over 300 top streetwear brands. He’ll also feature immersive art experiences and limited-edition merch of his own. Last year, Complex partnered with Travis Scott for his “CactusCon” takeover where the event experienced record attendance and more that $20 million in sales in its Vegas debut.

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Young Thug is set to have a busy summer. On June 22, he’ll perform live for the first time in the U.S. since his release from prison. The Atlanta rapper headlines Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash Festival alongside Future, Don Toliver and Yeat again during the weekend of June 20 at SeatGeek Stadium in the Chicago area. For his first international show since being released from jail, Thugger will headline the third day of Belgian music festival Les Ardentes on July 5.

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In other Thug news, his new album UY SCUTI is set to drop anytime now and the RICO case he and his YSL label have been embroiled in for three years is officially over.

He released the single “Money on Money” featuring Future in April.

13 Jun 2025

Rodney Brown, Pioneering ‘Funky Broadway’ Drummer, Dead at 78

Rodney Brown, drummer on 1967’s “Funky Broadway,” a Dyke & the Blazers classic and one of the first hit songs to use a variation on the word “funk” in its title, died May 17 of unknown causes in an unknown location. The lifelong Phoenix resident, who’d been the last surviving member of the band’s original lineup, was 78.

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Brown’s distinctive skipped-beat syncopation on “Funky Broadway,” a track covered by many artists, most notably Wilson Pickett with a Billboard Hot 100 No. 8 hit later that year, turned out to be influential. Clyde Stubblefield employed a similar technique on James Brown’s “Funky Drummer,” released in 1970, which became a widely sampled breakbeat on numerous hip-hop classics.

“‘Funky Broadway’ started the funk beat that was heard around the world,” says Lucius Parr, a veteran Phoenix guitarist whose ’70s band, the Soul Keepers, featured Brown on drums. “‘Funky Broadway’ had a break where they gave Rodney this drumbeat solo — ‘wiggle your waist, baby, shake, shake, shake,’ all that stuff. It was just Dyke and the drummer.”

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The original “Funky Broadway” single, split into two pieces, with “Part 1” on the A-side of the single and “Part 2” on the B-side, peaked at No. 65 on the Hot 100 in August 1967, as well as No. 17 on the R&B chart (now the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart). The band’s independent label, Artco, struggled to break the song on the radio because programmers responded, “You can’t say ‘funk’ on the radio,” according to John P. Dixon, an Arizona music historian who helped found the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. DJs at white stations, at the time, associated the word with Black culture and avoided it: “It was just one of those words, they felt, as a rock ‘n’ roll radio station, they would have a hard time,” Dixon says. “People would get turned off by it.”

(Jazz tracks had used the word several times before “Funky Broadway,” including Horace Silver’s “Opus de Funk” in 1953, but these songs were never chart hits. Also, country singer and comedian Ray Stevens, who is white, had a No. 91 Hot 100 hit in 1966 with “Freddie Feelgood (And His Funky Little Five Piece Band).”)

Pickett’s version had the effect of desegregating the word, but tragically, the Blazers were never able to fully capitalize on the song’s success: Frontman Arlester “Dyke” Christian was shot to death in Phoenix in 1971. 

Influenced by James Brown and the Temptations, Rodney Brown first picked up drums after he was playing basketball in a park and happened to see a band playing nearby. His mother bought him a drum kit. Dyke & the Blazers’ saxophonist, Bernard Williams, invited him into the band, and his first gig with them was at a local Elks Club. “When we made the record, they gave me a drum solo,” Brown said in a 2004 interview for the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. “I’d only been playing six months when we made ‘Funky Broadway.’” 

After performing before large crowds on a 1967 tour — including a run at New York’s Apollo Theatre, where James Brown was in attendance, according to interviews with band members — the original lineup broke up. Christian convened a new version of the Blazers, which at one point included James Gadson, a prolific session drummer who appeared on songs by the Jackson 5, Paul McCartney, Herbie Hancock, Bill Withers and many others.

This Blazers iteration, including musicians who would go on to play with the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band and Earth, Wind & Fire, hit No. 4 on the R&B chart with “Let a Woman Be a Woman – Let a Man Be a Man” and No. 7 with “We Got More Soul,” both in 1969.

Rodney Brown played in bands sporadically after his Dyke & the Blazers experience. At the time of his death, he was working in real estate. “Funk started right here in the desert,” he said in 2004, “and we were part of the group that started it.”

13 Jun 2025

Shannon Sharpe Apologies to Nicki Minaj After She Disses Him: ‘Hopefully We Can Move Forward’

Nicki Minaj has received a formal apology from Shannon Sharpe after the rapper dissed him on Lil Wayne‘s “Banned From NO (Remix).”

In the latest episode of Sharpe’s Nightcap podcast, the NFL legend said he was sorry to Minaj, and explained how their misunderstanding led to him being name dropped on Weezy’s new track.

“Bout to cop you slides, all you do is flip-flop / If I send a pic of Shannon, you ain’t that Sharpe,” Minaj rapped. The line appeared to be a jab about Sharpe commenting “Nicki who?” after a fan asked him on social media to get her on his Club Shay Shay program.

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“I used to go back and forth with people. I was talking about Nikki Haley,” Sharpe clarified on Nightcap. “Nikki Haley said it’s really great for everybody of Black America, and I was like … ‘When has it ever been great?’”

He went on to say: “Nicki, I was not trying to be disrespectful. Of course I know who you are. I would be remiss to say that I thought you knew who I was, or that you knew anything about Club Shay Shay. I’m not that arrogant. Nicki, I apologize. I meant no disrespect. You’ll always have an open invitation if you ever want to come sit down and have a conversation. Even if you just want to have a private conversation on the phone or something. It won’t go any further between you and I.”

Of the perceived slight, Sharpe concluded, “That was not my intent, but intent only matters to me because clearly you’re still offended. So I apologize sincerely and hopefully we can move forward.”

On “Banned From NO (Remix),” Minaj also spit some bars many believed were aimed at Jay-Z. “NFL, fire some n—s and then call us,” she spit. Minaj was one of the most vocal critics of the NFL’s decision to overlook Wayne in favor of Kendrick Lamar for the Super Bowl Halftime Show earlier this year.

Check out the full episode of Nightcap below.

13 Jun 2025

Kanye West Pulls Up to Diddy’s Sex-Trafficking Trial in New York City

Ye — the rapper formerly known as Kanye West — has shown up to Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal trial in New York City, pulling up to the courthouse in an all-white outfit Friday (June 13).

In footage shared by TMZ, the Yeezy founder steps out of the backseat of a car and walks inside, shaking a couple hands and throwing up a small wave on his way. In addition to a matching white denim jacket-and-jeans set, he sports a pair of sunglasses.

According to Variety, Ye told one journalist that he had come to show support for the disgraced Bad Boy Records founder. The publication also reports that West’s name had been included in a questionnaire for potential jurors to test whether they were familiar with any of the “hundreds of celebrities and people in Combs’ orbit.”

Combs has been on trial since May on allegations of sex trafficking and racketeering, with federal prosecutors accusing him of running an elaborate criminal enterprise aimed at facilitating his so-called freak-offs — drug-fueled events wherein he allegedly forced people, including his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, to have sex with male escorts while he allegedly watched and masturbated. His legal team has denied all of the charges, with Combs’ attorney Teny Geragos telling the jury in opening statements a few weeks ago: “Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case. We take full responsibility that there was domestic violence. Domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”

If convicted, Combs faces life in prison.

A few days prior to Ye’s appearance at the trial, Combs’ legal team’s motion for a mistrial was denied. The defense had tried to claim that the prosecution had knowingly introduced false testimony by Bryana Bongolan – a witness who last week alleged that Combs had dangled her from a 17-story balcony in 2016 — but Judge Arun Subramanian ultimately ruled: “This is not fodder for a mistrial. This is the adversarial process at work.”

Ye has previously shown support for Combs amid the latter’s legal issues, with the former asking President Donald Trump to “please free my brother Puff” on X in February. Combs had already spent months in custody at that point following his September arrest.

In March, Ye dropped a song titled “Lonely Roads Still Go to Sunshine” that appeared to feature Combs’ voice on a phone-call recording. “I just want to thank you so much for just taking care of my kids, man,” the voice seemingly belonging to Diddy said in the snippet. “Ain’t nobody reach out to them, ain’t nobody call them.”

Ye replies on the track: “Absolutely, I love you so much, man. You raised me. Even when I ain’t know you, know what I’m saying?”

The two hip-hop titans also worked together in the past, both appearing on Ty Dolla $ign’s “Guard Down” in 2015. In 2022, Ye presented Combs with the Lifetime Achievement honors at that year’s BET Awards.