R&B/Hip-Hop

22 Aug 2023

Flo Rida Dances Onstage With Crowd-Surfing Baby in Viral Video

Babies get wild at concerts too!

Flo Rida was performing CelebrateErie festival in Pennsylvania over the weekend, where he’s seen in a viral video posted by TMZ motioning a parent to send their baby over to the stage. Within seconds, the infant is crowd-surfing to the front, with fans gently moving the baby up over the crowd over to the rapper. Flo Rida then holds the baby as he performs “Low,” dancing around and even putting the mic up to the baby’s mouth in case he wanted to get a few bars in.

The child somehow eventually made his way onto the main stage, where Flo Rida’s crew held him up Lion King style while the rapper performed “GDFR.”

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It’s been a lucrative year for Flo Rida, who was awards $82 million back in January following a legal battle with energy drink maker Celcius, claiming the company violated an endorsement deal with the rapper. Flo Rida’s lawsuit, filed in 2021, claimed he was owed millions in additional stock and ongoing royalties under the terms of the deals. Broward County jury found that Celsius breached two contracts it had signed with the rapper.

“They understood all these complicated legal issues and, in our view, came to the right conclusion,” the rapper’s attorney John J. Uustal told Billboard at the time. “After our client finished testifying, there was no doubt that this was not a greedy individual.”

22 Aug 2023

Diddy Announces ‘The Love Album: Off The Grid’: Here’s When It Arrives

Leave it to Diddy to reassure fans that “R&B is alive.” On Tuesday (Aug. 22), the Grammy-winning producer and rapper announced his latest record, The Love Album: Off the Grid. The new album is slated for a Sept. 15 release.

The Love Album marks Diddy’s first solo studio LP since 2006’s Press Play, which spawned the hit singles “Tell Me” (with Christina Aguilera) and “Last Night” (with Keyshia Cole). Diddy, who currently goes by Love, announced the news with a lavish trailer posted to his social media accounts. “Why am I doing this? Especially with the success that I’ve had, especially where my life, how stressful and treacherous this music business is,” he ponders. “My heart has been broken. I still have that question of, like, ‘Will I ever love again?’”

Based on the rest of the nearly four-minute trailer, it appears that The Love Album: Off the Grid is Diddy’s way of finding answers to those questions. Throughout the teaser, clips of him dancing with his late longtime partner Kim Porter and bonding with the newest addition to his family, daughter Love Sean Combs (10 months, with cyber security specialist Dana Tran), are interspersed with a healthy dose of behind-the-scene footage of the album’s recording process and some doe-eyed R&R with Yung Miami of City Girls. On Instagram, Diddy tagged a number of artists, some of which appear in the trailer, including Justin Bieber, Swae Lee, Mary J. Blige, Babyface, Jozzy, Yung Miami, French Montana, DJ Khaled, Teyana Taylor and 21 Savage.

As much as the trailer provides some glimpses into the creation of The Love Album, the new clip also finds Diddy navigating the pressures of fame and his overwhelming world of entertainment and business. From isolating on a private island without his phone to hitting exercises wherever and whenever he can, themes of health and wellness across the physical, mental and emotional realms loom over the Love Album trailer.

The announcement of The Love Album: Off the Grid comes on the heels of a string of recent singles from Diddy. Last year, he released the Bryson Tiller-assisted “Gotta Move On,” which peaked at No. 79 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the PARTYNEXTDOOR-featuring “Sex in the Porsche.” This year, he teamed up with City Girls and Fabolous for “Act Bad,” and guested on the official remix of Metro Boomin’s “Creepin’” (with The Weeknd and 21 Savage). Both “Creepin’” (best collaboration and best R&B) and “Gotta Move On” (best collaboration and best hip-hop) received nominations at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards.

Watch the trailer for The Love Album: Off the Grid above.

22 Aug 2023

Drake Shouts Out LeBron James During L.A. Show: ‘It’s An Honor to be Inside His Building’

Normally, when Drake pulls up to a venue the room belongs solely to him for the night. But on Monday (Aug. 21) when the Six God’s It’s All a Blur tour touched down at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, he was more than happy to share the spotlight with the venue’s resident big dog: LeBron James.

According to ET, the Lakers superstar and his son, Bronny James, 18, walked into the venue behind Drake, who escorted them through the crowd to their VIP seats and hugged both men before starting the show. And then, during the concert, Drake paid homage to the NBA legend who has had his back from day one.

“In 2009, when nobody believed in anything I had going on, that same guy showed up to a release party for a mixtape that was called So Far Gone,” Drake said of the four-time NBA champ. “He came all the way to Toronto, Canada, to support me when I was trying to figure out how I could live my dreams. And so tonight, however many years later, it’s an honor to be inside his building while we’re both still on this earth. I gotta do this building justice tonight. So I came to L.A. and I’m about to give you everything I got, I promise you that.”

ET also reported that LeBron later shared some footage from the show’s after-party on his Instagram Story, which appeared to show that the celebration went late into the night, or morning, based on the 5:17 a.m. timestamp and the message, “No excuses. Just work. Say less.”

Drake even rocked the Lakers’ colors for the show in a nod to the home team, strolling out of the locker room in yellow sneakers and shirt and a purple jacket/pants combo. The show also marked Bronny James’ first major public appearance since the University of Southern California Trojans freshman guard suffered cardiac arrest during a practice last month.

Also on Monday night, Drake revealed the too-cute cover art for his upcoming For All the Dogs album, which he said was created by his five-year-old son, Adonis.

22 Aug 2023

Cheryl ‘Salt’ James and Chuck D Bring Hip-Hop History to Guild of Music Supervisors Conference

As Southern California braced for its first tropical storm in 84 years, Salt-N-Pepa’s Cheryl “Salt” James made history as the first female keynoter at the Guild of Music Supervisors’ (GMS) ninth annual State of Music in Media Conference (Aug. 19). Her invigorating speech fittingly kicked off the daylong event at The Los Angeles Film School in Hollywood.

In addition to a suite of panels celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, the conference schedule — a collaboration between GMS and L.A. Film School — was packed with sessions ranging from “Music Clearance 101” and “The Global Craft of Music Supervision: We Are Worldwide!” to “AI and the Art of Music Supervision: Finding Harmony in the Age of Automation” and “The Ethics of Music Supervising Projects That Tell Diverse Stories.” Among the host of industry participants and guests: rap pioneer/Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, Joel C. High of Creative Control Entertainment (a GMS founder and its outgoing president), Stax Records icon/Songwriter Hall of Famer David Porter, Format Entertainment’s Julia Michels, producer Steve Schnur (Star Wars Jedi: Survivor), Singularity Songs founder/president Andre Marsh and Cue the Creatives founder Qiana Conley Akinro.

Lindsay Wolfington and Joel C. High

Lindsay Wolfington and Joel C. High

Khalid Farqharson

Just before the keynote speech, the ongoing challenges facing music supervisors during the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike were addressed by incoming GMS president Lindsay Wolfington and High. Speaking to the attendees, the pair referenced a page in the conference booklet featuring a list of resources for strike-impacted workers. The intro to the page said in part, “Music supervisors do not have a union and the AMPTP and Netflix continue to refuse to recognize a Music Supervisior union. We continue in our fight … and GMS fully supports this mission.”

It was also announced that Heather Guibert is the GMS board’s new vp.

Here are a few more highlights from GMS’ 2023 State of Music in Media Conference:

‘The Showstopper’

Walking onstage to rousing applause, James riffed on a phrase from the Salt-N-Pepa classic “Shoop” (“Here I go, here I go …”) then asked the audience a question. “Can we not call me the keynote speaker?” said a smiling James. “That makes me nervous. I just came here to talk to you.”

And that she did, taking the audience back to her growing up on Motown and jazz in Brooklyn. Then she heard The Sugarhill Gang on the radio in 1979. Before segueing into an impromptu audience rap-along to that group’s “Rapper’s Delight,” James said, “I fell in love even more [with the fledgling genre]. There was something about it that just grabbed me deep in my heart.”

After sharing milestones that the Grammy Award-winning group has achieved during its barrier-breaking 38-year career, starting with 1986 debut single “The Showstopper,” James noted, “I remember the question journalists used to ask in the beginning, ‘Will hip-hop last?’ Now we’re here 50 years later, growing from a novelty genre into a whole entire culture. Hip-hop started a whole movement from fashion, movies, politics and beyond to becoming the music of a generation. I would go so far as to say it’s actually shaping generations.”

Drawing a through line between hip-hop’s evolution and that of music supervision, James concluded her keynote by adding, “I know we all can relate to having good intentions and then possibly becoming jaded in our different vocations or callings. But when something is our calling and it gets hard, we have to just put one foot in front of the other and keep going because this is what we’re called to do.”

The Next 50 

“The Global Impact of Hip-Hop: Passing the Torch for the Next 50 Years” was the first in the day’s quartet of sessions dedicated to the genre and the fact — as noted in the conference booklet — that “hip-hop has proven itself to be a soundscape for any genre of music and can be used to tell any story.” Kobalt Music Publishing’s senior vp of global creative Chris Lakey moderated this panel, orchestrating a conversation between artist Igmar Thomas, Peermusic Publishing vp of A&R Tuff Morgan, En Homage artist/producer Camille “Ill Camille” Davis and artist/educator Medusa aka The Gangsta Goddess.

Lakey questioned the panelists on a variety of subjects from their first inkling of hip-hop’s international reach beyond its Bronx birth to trends/hybrid sounds they’re seeing on the horizon. Asked to share some of the hottest areas they’re most excited about in terms of hip-hop’s evolving sound, the panelists shouted out locales such as Ghana, Nigeria, Johannesburg, London, Mexico City and Jamaica. “Every single piece of music that’s out today has undertones of hip-hop,” said Morgan. “It’s influenced every genre at this point.”

Global Impact of Hip Hop

Global Impact of Hip Hop

Jay Farber

Medusa and Davis also advocated for more female presence in the hip-hop arena. “I definitely want there to be more reverence for female producers and MCs,” said Davis. “I want more women to experiment with the music. There are women that I revere, the same way that I revere [late hip-hop producer] J Dilla, who are constantly making music but you don’t hear about them. I would like more women to make DJ and MC collectives. I just want more of that energy where we take more ownership, and autonomy over the sound, the brand, the look; you feel us and see us in everything. I want more women in hip-hop to put their flag down.”

Lorrie Boula, Chuck D and Carol Dunn

Lorrie Boula, Chuck D and Carol Dunn

Jay Farber

Rounding out the day’s quartet of hip-hop sessions: “Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World” featuring Channel Zero.net co-founders Chuck D and Lorrie Boula with Human Worldwide’s Carol Dunn as moderator; “The Origins of Hip-Hop” featuring James, Berklee College of Music’s John Paul McGee, artist/Likwit Radio’s King T, Salamani Music’s Amani “Burt Blackarach” Smith and composer Jae Deal; and “The Golden Age of Hip-Hop: A Cultural Phenomena” with moderator/Moonbaby Media’s Angela “Moonbaby” Jollivette, television host/activist Ananda Lewis, veteran A&R executive Dante Ross, Universal Hip-Hop Museum OM/curator SenYon Kelly, DJESQ’s Paul Stewart and Rich + Tone Productions’ Rich & Tone Talauega.

Close-Up on Daisy Jones

One of the afternoon’s popular offerings was the session spotlighting the hit television series Daisy Jones & the Six, adapted from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel of the same name about a ‘70s band. The session centered on what’s involved in “preparing for successful on-camera performances” as outlined in the conference program. Moderator/music supervisor Amanda Krieg Thomas of Yay Team Inc. was joined by Daisy Jones’ music supervisor Frankie Pine of Whirly Girl Music and Lauren Neustadter, president of film & TV for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company. Among the show’s nine 2023 Emmy Awards nominations are nods for outstanding limited or anthology series, outstanding music supervision and outstanding sound mixing.

Neustadter spoke first about the show’s origin and the challenge of doing on-camera performances. “My husband read the book and created the show. But we had no idea really of how to do a project that was music driven in the way that this is. But we also knew that we had carte blanche from Taylor. She said, ‘I’m excited for you guys to work with experts in the music field to actually bring the soundtrack and the different albums in the book to life on screen.” 

So the next move was to bring in showrunner Will Graham. “We chose him for a bunch of reasons,” said Neustadter. “But one of them was he had worked on Mozart in the Jungle, so he knew how to do a show that had a huge music component. And the first person that Will introduced us to was Frankie.”

Picking up the story, Pine said, “The first thing that I did was put together a list of executive music producers that I thought would be right for the time period; to be able to give us that ‘70s vibe, but also not pigeonhole us too much into that world where these songs [can] kind of live outside of the ‘70s. After reading the book, the one thing I wanted … was for this to feel organic and real. I wanted everybody that watched it to think literally in their minds, ‘This band was in the ‘70s? I swear I missed this band.’”

Pine also shared a major lesson from her experience. “The sooner you can get [started] with an on-camera project the better. Because that gives you all kinds of time to curate and work not only on the music but to also take your time in assembling the right music team and giving your actors [enough] time. That really is the key to a successful run.”

Hired in March 2019, Pine initially wanted to spend four months with the actors. Then she and Neustadter received an unexpected extension when their April 2020 shoot start was delayed by the pandemic. So music lessons were done instead over Zoom. In addition to explaining the genesis of the on-camera performances in two show clips that were shown, Pine and Neustadter touched on several other topics such as Pine collaborating in the casting and writing process as well, mic tips and why trust is an important factor.

“What we witnessed was these actors becoming musicians and these musicians becoming a band,” said Neustadter. “It was totally awesome.” She also noted that Pine will be working with Hello Sunshine on two more productions, one of which is Run, Rose, Run. Starring Dolly Parton, the upcoming show is an adaption of the same-titled book by Parton and James Patterson. Parton also released a companion album to the book in 2022.

22 Aug 2023

Jaboukie Didn’t Start Making Music to Become a Star — But He May as Well Shake Things Up While He’s Here

Music wasn’t part of Jaboukie Young-White‘s plan. “It just kind of happened,” he tells Billboard with a laugh.

The 29-year-old performer spent the last few years carefully building his profile as a comedian, writer, actor and professional Twitter (err, X) troll. Between standup, writing for Big Mouth, working as a correspondent on The Daily Show, getting banned from the social media platform for impersonating CNN and starring in Disney’s Strange World alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Gabrielle Union, Young-White has seen his star rise immensely over the last five years.

As he tells it, music was a hobby that kept him occupied throughout the pandemic. “I had been making instrumental music since college, and it was mostly something that I kept to myself,” he says. “Fast forward, pandemic hits, and I was working on some animated stuff during that time. I had a vocal setup in my apartment, so I was like, ‘You know what, let me just do this.’”

Three years later, those quarantine sessions have transformed into All Who Can’t Hear Must Feel, the star’s debut album out Friday (August 25) via Interscope. On the expansive project, Young-White (performing under his first name, Jaboukie) hops into the nebulous spaces between genres like industrial hip-hop, bedroom rock and hyperpop to deliver immediately catchy insights on his life and his occasionally intrusive thoughts. And yes, the album is also very funny.



The album also nearly didn’t happen. Young-White says that he never had any intention of releasing music until he began working on a script for an upcoming animated film inspired by Juice WRLD’s music. When pitching himself to Interscope Films as a writer-director for the project, he was asked if he had any experience with music that he could share.

“I sent a few little songs along, thinking that they were just gonna be like, ‘OK, this man is competent. He can write, he has taste,’” Young-White says. “Then [John Janick] offered me a record deal, and there just wasn’t a good enough reason to for me not to do it. I knew I would regret not doing this”

With a major label’s resources now at his disposal, Young-White could have worked with high-level producers and songwriters to put his first project together. The album does have plenty of assists — Grammy-winners Alex Tumay, Neal Pogue and Mike Bozzi mixed and mastered All Who Can’t Hear, respectively.

But in terms of production and songwriting, Young-White knew that creating an album that felt authentic meant doing it all solo, with the occasional help from his brothers Javaughn and Javeigh. “Because I’m so new to releasing music, if I got in the studio with somebody, I would want to be like, ‘Whatever you want to do is good by me, because you’re so great!’ I needed to put my stake in the ground first before I start inviting more people into the process,” he says.

After a beat, he can’t help but go for the punchline. “Listen, [Jack Antonoff] was so desperate to get in the studio with me,” he says, smirking. “I was like, ‘Hey, I’m so sorry, but it’s a no, Jack.’”

That urge to go for the joke is still present on Young-White’s album, but not in the same way that fans of his comedy would expect. While bars declaring himself a “midwest hoe, churning out magnum opes” on songs like “BBC” certainly land with laughs, All Who Can’t Hear is not a comedy album; it just so happens that hip-hop has always been naturally funny, Young-White says.

“Rappers have been some of my favorite comedians,” he says. “Young Thug is one of the most f–king hilarious surrealist comics alive. Wayne is so funny. There’s a Nicki song on the radio right now [‘Red Ruby Da Sleaze’] where she says ‘I don’t f–k with horses since Christopher Reeves,’ which is insane … for me, it’s not difficult to hold something as being sincere and funny at the same time.”



Even the album’s title is a play on words — All Who Can’t Hear Must Feel, taken in its most literal sense, states what listeners can expect from the album’s sonics. “I was putting so much weight in the low end of these songs. I wanted you to really, truly feel this, and let it be a physical experience,” he says. “I was just alone in my apartment and my neighbors were probably mad as hell, but I was like, ‘I need to feel something, I gotta dance.’ That was the conversation that I was having with myself — I was trying to wake something up.”

But the phrase is also a Jamaican proverb — Young-White was raised by Jamaican parents in Harvey, Ill. — about learning from consequences after not heeding warnings. With his Saturn return in full effect while penning his album (“You could start and stop with that explanation alone depending on how good your astrological understanding is”), the comic says he couldn’t stop thinking about the oft-cited expression.

“There are so many lessons where no one can tell you what it means; you really do have to experience it for yourself,” he says. “That’s what life is like — you can be given so much advice and be told so many things, but there’s so much that will not be real to you until you feel it.”

One of those lessons Young-White simply had to experience was what it meant to have a career in the music industry. Despite his rapidly-building profile in film and television, he says that trying to figure out how to be a signed recording artist came with a significant learning curve.

Some of the lessons have been more positive than others — Young-White found creative output came much easier to him when writing songs. “I wish I could be as prolific with writing jokes as I was with music — I probably had 40 or 50 songs written for this album,” he says. “You really gotta go up in front of a bunch of audiences to work out a good joke. With songs, so many of them will suck, but every once in a while you hit on something and just say ‘OK, let’s run with this.’”

Other lessons have been harder to explain, like showing up on time to meetings when no one was expecting him to. “There have been people who were like, ‘Wow, you showed up? I didn’t think you would!’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean? We had a meeting, I said I was gonna be here!’” he recalls, laughing. “You feel like such a goody two shoes in music just for being punctual.”

With his lessons learned, Young-White is now confident that a career in music can officially join his growing list of professions in entertainment; he’s already started planning out where he wants to go next. “I did industrial, I did experimental, now I want to do something that’s really pop, catchy, clean and glossy — kind of in the Charlie XCX blueprint,” he says. “Honestly, my ideal pop song kind of sounds like Animal Collective. Structurally and lyrically, it’s like, ‘This is a pop song,’ but then the sounds are absolutely wild, like kitchen appliances fighting each other.”

The rising star is quick to temper his ambitions; he knows that “everything is so a la carte” when it comes to music consumption nowadays, which makes marketing an entire album that much harder. “I know damn well you could be listening to any-the-f–k-thing after you listen to this project,” he says.

But that inherent understanding keeps Young-White’s music — and for that matter, his point of view — as fresh as it is. “Why would I stay in one lane when I can just give you everything right here?”

22 Aug 2023

16 People Hospitalized for Heat-Related Illness at Snoop Dogg Show in Houston

The sweltering summer concert season sent more than two dozen people to the med tent on Saturday at Snoop Dogg‘s show at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion outside of Houston. According to USA Today, in addition to the 35 people who showed signs of “heat-related illness” who were examined at the venue, another dozen-plus were hospitalized at the show where temperatures reached 104 during the day.

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“Out of these, MCHD EMS transported 16 adults to nearby hospitals in stable condition,” said Montgomery County Hospital District public information officer Misti Willingham. In the midst of one of the hottest summers in the planet’s history due to the effect of global climate change, the local fire department was dispatched to the venue as a precaution during the show in case the patient number continued to rise.

“This is a common practice and very effective if done early on,” Atascocita Fire Department public information officer Jerry Dilliard told the paper. During the show, the Fire Dept. tweeted that they were “headed to the Woodlands Pavilion to assist with overheated concert attendees at the @SnoopDogg concert.”

Snoop is on the road with Too $hort and Wiz Khalifa on their High School Reunion tour, which is slated to hit the Isleta Amphitheater in Albuquerque, NM on Tuesday night (Aug. 22).

The incident was just the latest heat-related bump in the road this summer, following an Ed Sheeran show in Pittsburgh on July 8 during which 17 people were hospitalized due to “heat-related” illnesses and Jason Aldean’s scratched kick-off of his Highway Desperado Tour on July 15 in Hartford, CT, which he had to exit early due to dehydration and heat exhaustion.

22 Aug 2023

Drake’s Son Adonis Drew the Cover of His ‘For All the Dogs’ Album and It’s Exactly as Cute as You Think

Drake has long kept his inner circle pretty tight and when it came to the cover art for his upcoming For All the Dogs album he didn’t have to look very far at all. In a truly “awww” moment, the rapper revealed on Monday night (Aug. 21) that his five-year-old son, Adonis, drew the album’s cover image.

The result is a truly adorable, rough sketch of a red-eyed pooch with tall ears and a white body that had one commenter saying, “ADONIS COMING THRU WITH THE PICASSO.” The news about the cover art appeared to be confirmed in a post from OVO Sound, which featured the same image.

At press time there is no official release date for his follow-up to last year’s surprise-release Honestly, Nevermind, which featured the singles “Sticky” and Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single “Jimmy Cooks” with 21 Savage.

It’s been a busy few weeks for Drake on stage lately on his It’s All a Blur tour, with the rapper dodging things tossed at him on stage as part of the disturbing trend of fans hurling random objects — including bras and vapes to cell phones — at musicians. Over the weekend, Drizzy showed off his quick reflexes at a show in San Francisco when he avoided getting beaned by a copy of his new poetry book, Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Consciousness when he caught the paperback with one hand.

“You lucky I’m quick. Would’ve had to beat your a– if that hit me in the face,” Drake sternly warned the fan.

Last week, the rapper teased a new collaboration with Bad Bunny during a show in L.A. when he brought Bunny up to announce the pair’s first joint song since 2018’s “Mía”; at press time the title of the song had not yet been announced.

Check out the For All the Dogs cover art below.

21 Aug 2023

Ciara Claps Back at Women’s Basketball Coach for Saying She Makes ‘TikTok Music’

Ciara is standing up to the haters.

The “1, 2 Step” singer took to Twitter on Sunday (Aug. 20) to reply to a tweet accusing her of making “TikTok music.” The user is an assistant coach at William & Mary Tribe Women’s Basketball in Virginia, according to her Twitter profile.

“And.. ..you’re watching…:) taking time to comment. Gotta love it,” Ciara replied with a laughing emoji, before following up with another tweet: “Not the assistant coach of a women’s basketball team taking time to hate.. that makes no sense.”

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Despite the trolls, it’s been an incredible month for Ciara, who revealed that she’s expecting her third baby with husband Russell Wilson, and her fourth child altogether. “’You look at me like that again, we make another kid…,” she captioned the Instagram post, quoting lyrics from her new song “How We Roll” with Chris Brown. “You my heart I’m your rib.”

The “One, Two Step” singer is already mom to three kids, including 9-year-old son Future Zahir Wilburn, whom she shares with ex-fiancé Future. After marrying Wilson in 2016, she and the Denver Broncos quarterback welcomed daughter Sienna Princess in 2017 followed by son Win Harrison in 2020.

The announcement also came just four days after “How We Roll” dropped, which follows previous 2023 singles from Ciara “Da Girls,” “Slow” with Jackson Wang and “Get Loose” with AGNEZ MO.

21 Aug 2023

50 Cent Questions Nick Cannon Having 12 Kids: ‘I Don’t Know What the F—k Is Wrong With’ Him

As 50 Cent considers expanding his family, he’s made it abundantly clear who he will not be seeking advice from. In a new Forbes interview with contributor Brian Roberts, the “Many Men” rapper questioned Nick Cannon’s decision to father 12 kids with six different women over the past 12 years, a choice that has garnered endless controversy and discourse across social media.

“If I had Nick Cannon’s 12 kids or s—t like that, you could put them all in a bedroom. Everybody’s here. If it means putting everybody together, then it would make sense,” the Queens rapper said when discussing why he prefers a more modest home to having a huge house. “But I’m not going to have kids like that. I don’t want the responsibility of that many women that you got to deal with emotionally, especially after they don’t feel like your friend anymore. That’s too much. I don’t know what the f—k is wrong with Nick Cannon.”

Cannon shares 12-year-old twins Moroccan and Monroe with ex-wife Mariah Carey. He also shares 11-month-old Rise, 2-year-old Powerful Queen and 6-year-old Golden with model Brittany Bell. With radio personality Abby De La Rosa, Cannon shares 9-month-old Beautiful and 2-year-old twins Zion and Zillion. The youngest of the multihyphenate’s kids are 8-month-old Halo with model Alyssa Scott (she is also mother to their late son Zen), 1-year-old Legendary with Selling Sunset star Bre Tiesi, and 11-month-old Onyx with model LaNisha Cole.

50 Cent, on the other hand, currently shares 10-year-old son Sire with actress-model Daphne Joy, and 26-year-old son Marquise Jackson with former partner Shaniqua Tompkins. 

After clowning Cannon, Fiddy quickly corrected himself, saying that the “old 50 Cent” slipped out. He further elaborated that he took the opportunity to make fun of Cannon because the media personality commented on him during one of his shows.

50 Cent has earned four No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 including the nine-week chart-toppers “In Da Club” and “Candy Shop” (with Olivia). On the Billboard 200, the “21 Questions” rapper has a pair of titles that have reached the summit: 2003’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ and 2005’s The Massacre, both of which spent six weeks atop the ranking.

Watch 50 Cent’s in-depth interview with Forbes above.

21 Aug 2023

Quavo Pays Tribute to Takeoff With Touching New ‘Hold Me’ Music Video: Watch

Quavo has unleashed the official music video for “Hold Me,” a heartfelt BNYX-helmed track off new solo album Rocket Power that grapples with the intricacies of grief and mourning. In the visual, which he uploaded to YouTube on Saturday (Aug. 19), Quavo shares footage from a memorial for Takeoff in Atlanta. Attendees convene and foster community with one another while wearing shirts adorned with the late artist’s face as they come together to honor him. The second half of the music video finds Quavo in Paris flaunting merch, greeting fans and performing for crowds.

Takeoff (né Kirshnik Khari Ball) was shot and killed during a private party he attended in downtown Houston with his uncle and Migos bandmate, Quavo, on Nov. 1, 2022, something that still weighs heavy on the rapper and looms over much of Rocket Power. The album, Quavo’s second solo studio effort, marks his first full-length release since Takeoff’s untimely death. From its somber themes to its title — Takeoff’s only solo studio album was titled The Last Rocket — Rocket Power functions as a touching tribute to the late star. Takeoff even appears on a pair of the album’s tracks: “Patty Cake” and “Back Where It Begins.” Other features that appear on Rocket Power include Future, Young Thug, Hunxho and BabyDrill.

Rocket Power follows Quavo Huncho as Quavo’s sophomore studio album. In 2018, Quavo Huncho peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 — the highest ranking for a solo LP from a Migos member. In 2022, Quavo and Takeoff teamed up for a joint album under the name Unc & Phew. Titled Only Built for Infinity Links, the album peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. On the Billboard Hot 100, Quavo has earned six top 10 hits, including the No. 1 single “I’m the One” (with DJ Khaled, Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper and Lil Wayne).