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Chris Redd opened up in a new interview on Tuesday (Nov. 8) about having a front row seat to Kanye West‘s pro-Trump diatribe on Saturday Night Live back in 2018.
In case you don’t remember, after performing “Ghost Town” as the episode’s musical guest, the rapper launched into a political rant once the cameras stopped rolling, telling the audience, “The Blacks want always Democrats… you know it’s like the plan they did, to take the fathers out the home and put them on welfare… does anybody know about that? That’s a Democratic plan. There’s so many times I talk to, like, a white person about this and they say, ‘How could you like Trump? He’s racist.’ Well, uh, if I was concerned about racism I would’ve moved out of America a long time ago,” while wearing a red MAGA hat.
However, Redd revealed to The Daily Beast that Ye’s speech wasn’t exactly off-the-cuff. “I remember the dress rehearsal where he tried his dress rehearsal version of that, and I heard it, but there was music playing still so people were like sitting there and vibing,” the comedian told the outlet. “But I was listening to his words, and I was like, bro, he’s about to pull some bulls–t. And I’m not about to be on stage for that. I’m not going to entertain this. Like, I’ve been a fan of Kanye my whole life. And I miss the old Kanye.
“He came in there wanting to shoot everybody — verbally — and I just felt that was disrespectful, because we’re all grown adults,” Redd continued. “And now all of us don’t like you. He just came in there with a chip on his shoulder, ready to talk s–t.”
Redd departed SNL at the close of the 2021-2022 season. West has not been invited back to the late-night sketch series since his rant on the Season 44 premiere.
The funeral for Migos member Takeoff will take place on Friday (Nov. 11) at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. According to a release announcing the Celebration of Life, it will take place at noon, with free tickets available to Georgia residents only beginning Tuesday (Nov. 8) at 2 p.m. through Ticketmaster: there is a two-ticket maximum, the tickets are non-transferrable and guests must enter the venue together. Takeoff ( born Kirshnik Khari Ball), 28, was gunned down at 810 Billiards & Bowling in Houston, Texas in the early hours of Nov. 1 at an afterparty he attended with his uncle and Migos bandmate, Quavo.
The Rev. Jesse Curney III, senior pastor of New Mercies Christian Church will deliver the eulogy at the service, according to ATL radio station V-103. Guests are encouraged to arrive early, with doors slated to open an hour before the funeral.
According to TMZ, in a statement, Curney said, “I was really sad to hear the news. Kirsnick has been a faithful member since he was ten years old. He and his family were active and avid supporters of the church and the community as a whole.” The public memorial will have a strict no photo/no video policy, with all devices subject to gate check in Yondr bags prior to entering the arena. The rapper’s family requested that in lieu of flower or gifts, donations should be made to The Rocket Foundation, recently established to support programs supporting community-based solutions to prevent gun violence.
Friend and collaborator Drake announced on Monday that he was postponing his planned show at Harlem’s Apollo theater to mourn Takeoff. “The Apollo show has been moved to allow us to pay respect to our dear friend this weekend,” the superstar wrote on his Instagram Stories beneath an updated poster announcing the new dates of Dec. 6 and 7. “We have added a second date for the fans.”
Last week, Drake memorialized the late Migos rapper — who was gunned down at a Houston bowling alley in the early morning hours of Nov. 1 — during the album release party for Her Loss, his new collaborative LP with 21 Savage.
“I’d just like to send our deepest condolences from the family to the entire QC, to our brother Quavo, to our brother Offset, to the friends and loved ones of the legendary, unprecedented Takeoff — a guy that I knew for a long, long time,” he said, adding, “I always talk about the fact that this was one family. My friends in the music industry are not friends, they’re family. So, our deepest condolences — tragic loss for all of us and, you know, a dark cloud over this business that we love so much.”
Takeoff was killed by “penetrating gunshot wounds of head and torso into arm” according to a report from the Harris County coroner’s office. He was hit when shots rang out during an early morning private afterparty attended by several dozen people, where he was pronounced dead at the scene.
In addition to the many heartfelt eulogies from fellow musicians, Takeoff was honored in a funeral service and afterparty in the Grand Theft Auto community that took place on Monday.
Check out images from the GTA funeral below.
GTA players held a private funeral for Takeoff today🕊 — “You must wear all white for the funeral and all black for the house party” pic.twitter.com/1tt5NRt0VC— 44vibe News (@44vibeTV) November 7, 2022
Post Malone is seriously stacking up the side hustles. After helping a couple with their gender reveal during a Tulsa tour stop on his Twelve Carat Tour last month, Posty was at it again over the weekend when he stepped in to officiate an onstage wedding during a Saturday tour stop in Seattle.
Couple Jana and Randy’s friend Heidi Lavon posted video of the blessed event that appeared to take place near the end of the show, with the couple nervously exchanging vows and then Malone pronouncing them universal partners in his own unique way: “You may kiss your partner right now… In the eyes of space, I declare these two lawfully wedded,” the rapper enthused while raising the newlyweds’ hands in triumph as audience members howled in the background.
“Dude, I am shook, Post Malone married my best friends yesterday,” Lavon said in a TikTok video that featured footage of the on-stage nuptials. “But it doesn’t end there,” Lavon added in her clip. “We need everybody’s help to see if we could get Posty to come to the wedding in March.”
During a meet-and-green last month, Malone helped a couple with the gender reveal for their baby after they asked him to open an envelope taped to one of his posters. “You want me to just tell you?” Post asked them, before confirming, “You didn’t see it? Y’all didn’t see it?” He then opened the envelope and his jaw dropped as he excitedly help up a piece of paper that read “It’s a girl!”
“You’re going to be a girl dad!” the star — who welcomed his first child, a daughter, earlier this year –sweetly told the father-to-be. Malone will wrap up the North American swing of his Twelve Carat Tour in Los Angeles at Crypto.com Arena on Nov. 16 before heading overseas in December for a run of shows in the Middle East.
Check out images from the wedding below.
WME has signed Snoop Dogg in all areas, the agency announced Tuesday (Nov. 8).
The multi-hyphenate rapper, who previously worked with agent Bobby Dee, recently acquired his original label home Death Row Records from Blackstone-controlled MNRK Music Group in February, with plans to turn it into an “NFT label.” According to a press release, Snoop is handling all label and catalog-related business in music, film, apparel and merchandise for Death Row as well as signing new artists and re-releasing music that was put out under the original Death Row regime. He is additionally developing a Death Row TV series.
“WME is the only place that can handle the career I’ve built and grow it even further,” Snoop said in a statement. “I look forward to gettin’ it with the WME team to continue innovating across music, film, TV, business, and digital and break barriers across entertainment.”
Snoop Dogg’s output extends far beyond music. Since breaking through with his multi-platinum 1993 debut album Doggystyle, his career has branched off into acting, producing for film and TV, esports, fashion, food and beverage, cannabis and Web3, among other ventures. Most recently, he starred in the Netflix original movie Day Shift opposite Jamie Foxx, launched the YouTube children’s show Doggyland and landed a spot on the board of directors at gaming and esports collective FaZe Clan. Earlier this year, he opened a storefront in Inglewood, Calif. called Snoop Dogg’s Clothing, with plans to open a Snoop-curated Funko store in the same plaza in early 2023. He also recently launched Broadus Foods, a family-owned food product company.
But the rapper has made some of his biggest splashes as of late in Web3. Over the past year, he’s launched multiple NFT collections, including Dr. Bombay (the name of his NFT character from Bored Ape Yacht Club) as well as his NFT album BODR (Bacc on Death Row) — a partnership with Death Row’s exclusive metaverse partner Gala Games — which reportedly grossed over $50 million. A recent trademark application suggests Snoop is planning a digital store that sells NFTs centered around cannabis, virtual clothing and more (with possible plans for a physical retail location as well). In April, he also partnered with metaverse platform Sandbox to create a virtual world called “Snoopverse.”
In the philanthropic space, Snoop has launched initiatives including the Snoop Youth Football League, which aims to provide opportunities for inner-city kids in football and cheer.
WME says it will leverage the Endeavor network to further Snoop’s work across a number of ventures.
Drake and 21 Savage kept their April Fools-like promo tour for joint album Her Loss by dropping a low-key video for the album’s “Privileged Rappers” in a studio faked-up to look like the one used in COLORS. It came on the heels of a deepfake Howard Stern “interview” that the legendary SiriusXM host raved about on his show, as well as a never-happened NPR Tiny Desk concert and a totally fictitious Vogue magazine cover.
The pair also didn’t appear on Saturday Night Live together, in a clip for “On BS” introduced by actor Michael B. Jordan. “Privileged Rappers on @colorsxstudios,” Drake captioned the his tease of the performance with the Colors Studio account commenting, “Wait…hold up” alongside a side-eye emoji. In the two-minute clip the rappers perform the low-key track from inside an all-gold room, with Drake rocking cornrows and a wheat-colored leather Duster.
On Monday (Nov. 7), Stern reacted to the deepfake interview during his show, joking, “Whenever I have to visit my mother, I wish I could do this… “Drake did such a good job that news outlets are reporting on it as if it’s real, and that’s sort of the weird thing about our lives now,” Stern said before playing a clip from Good Day Atlanta, in which the two reporters discussed Drizzy’s comments on settling down and marriage.
“We have enough material from all the shows we’ve done, we could do a whole show like that,” Stern said. “How great is that?” Drake postponed his planned show at Harlem’s Apollo — his first date since the release of Her Loss — to mourn the death of Migos’ Takeoff. “The Apollo show has been moved to allow us to pay respect to our dear friend this weekend,” the superstar wrote on his Instagram Stories beneath an updated poster announcing the new dates of Dec. 6 and 7. “We have added a second date for the fans.”
Check out the video below.
Tame One, veteran New Jersey rapper and member of hip-hop groups Artifacts and The Weathermen, has died. He was 52.
His death was confirmed by Pitchfork and on Facebook by the late rapper’s mother, Darlene Brown Harris. “What’s on my mind….I cant express this any other way. My son, Rahem Brown, Tamer Dizzle Is Dead,” she wrote on Sunday. “The medical examiner says the six pharmaceutical drugs … prescribed to him last Friday, combined with the weed he smoked over this weekend … his heart simply gave out. He will know better after the autopsy. I will not be responding to all the posts for a bit, but the hardest words I will ever post or say is, my son, my heart, is dead.”
Tame One, born Rahem Brown, expressed himself as a teenager by way of music and graffiti. Tame One’s 1994 debut alongside Artifacts groupmate El Da Sensei, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, was an ode to the influential art form and broke the duo into the mainstream. The album appeared on both the Billboard 200 and R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. Despite their collective success, Artifacts only went on to release one more album together, That’s Them, in 1997 before moving on to solo careers.
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After the group’s initial split, New York hip-hop group The Weathermen, founded by a handful of East Coast producers and rappers, was formed. Tame One rapped alongside a number of co-members, including Cage Kennylz, Masai Bey, Aesop Rock, Yak Ballz, El-P, Jakki Tha Motamouth, Vast Aire and Breeze Brewin. The group released one mixtape in 2003, titled Conspiracy.
After 25 years, El Da Sensei and Tame One came together with producer Buckwild for their third album as Artifacts, No Expiration Date, which released on Aug. 20. “[In 1979], we would walk miles with markers and cans, taggin’ up everywhere,” he said in his final interview before his death. “I was influenced by my surroundings, I’m a product of my environment, and I capitalized upon what I saw. It’s a blessing to transform that energy and give back.”
Drake and 21 Savage finally unleashed their joint album, HER LOSS, on Friday (Nov. 4) after a week’s delay, and the album did not disappoint.
The 16-track LP marks Drizzy’s second collaborative project, following his cult-favorite 2015 mixtape alongside Atlanta-made powerhouse Future, What a Time to Be Alive. HER LOSS is 21 Savage’s fourth collaborative project. He released three others alongside Metro Boomin, one of which included the Migos rapper, Offset.
The album features a mix of heated verses full of impressive bars, scathing disses and more. We want to know which of the project’s tracks tops the list for you. Let us know by voting below.
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Drake announced Monday (Nov. 7) that he’s pushing back his planned show at The Apollo to mourn the death of Takeoff.
“The Apollo show has been moved to allow us to pay respect to our dear friend this weekend,” the superstar wrote on his Instagram Stories beneath an updated poster announcing the new dates of Dec. 6 and 7. “We have added a second date for the fans.”
Sponsored by SiriusXM, the concert at the historic Harlem venue was originally meant to take place this Friday as a one-night-only event.
Last week, Drake memorialized the late Migos rapper — who was gunned down at a Houston bowling alley in the early morning hours of Nov. 1 — during the album release party for Her Loss, his new collaborative LP with 21 Savage.
“I’d just like to send our deepest condolences from the family to the entire QC, to our brother Quavo, to our brother Offset, to the friends and loved ones of the legendary, unprecedented Takeoff — a guy that I knew for a long, long time,” he said, adding, “I always talk about the fact that this was one family. My friends in the music industry are not friends, they’re family. So, our deepest condolences — tragic loss for all of us and, you know, a dark cloud over this business that we love so much.”
However, Drake’s new studio set also arrived with its own share of drama, with the rapper making digs at both Megan Thee Stallion and Serena Williams’ husband Alexis Ohanian in his lyrics.
Check out Drake’s new dates at The Apollo here.
Fat Joe stopped by Red Table Talk in an episode set to air Wednesday to reflect on his yearslong friendship with Lil Wayne.
“Lil Wayne is my brother, man,” the rapper tells hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Adrienne Banfield-Norris and Willow Smith in the preview clip. “One of the saddest things I ever did was go visit Lil Wayne in jail. And not only that, they had him, like, chained up. They had him, like, really chained up, like, Lil Wayne! This little, like, no, no, they had him in shackles and all that. They had him like he was the killer of all, right?
“So you know, I went to see him…He lives across the street from me in Miami,” Fat Joe continued, before telling the trio about getting a phone call from Wayne as he was preparing to turn himself into jail a few years after Wayne was released. “I was like, ‘Yo, Wayne, what’s up?’ And he was like, ‘Nah, man, I’m just telling you right now, be humble.’ I said, ‘How do you do it?’ He said, ‘Just be humble, bro. Don’t go in there on somethin’. Just go in there humble. You know, if you be humble, they’ll respect you.”
Lil Wayne served eight months in Rikers Island back in 2010 on charges related to a gun found on his tour bus in 2007. In 2013, Fat Joe served his own three-month sentence in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion.
This fall, Wayne was honored with an exhibit dedicated to his life and career at the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, which includes a handwritten letter from his time at Rikers.
Watch Fat Joe’s Red Table Talk preview here.
It’s been unusually warm in NYC in this past weekend, and it’s probably due to all the heat that’s been dropping in the R&B and hip-hop worlds. Regardless of where you’re located, this week, we’ve got 10 new songs to help you enjoy the nice weather or to help keep you warm. From the R&B rhythms of Q and Jahkoy, to boom-bap raps of Pivot Gang and Lakewude, this roundup has everything you need and more to power through the week.
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And of course, don’t forget to share the wealth with our Spotify playlist, linked below
Freshest Find: Q, “Today”
Q’s falsetto earns him this week’s Freshest Find. The Florida-raised singer’s new single “Today” has the ultimate build-up, starting slow and erupting into a funk-infused, R&B bop that’ll make anyone want to dance. Q, who is 23 years old and signed with Columbia Records back in 2020, has an old-soul vibe to his voice and artistry. “Today” is the latest addition to his musical arsenal.
Frsh Waters, “Pray n’ Repent”
Continuing their release streak leading up to the five-year anniversary of John Walt Day, Pivot Gang’s Frsh Waters released a new single called “Pray n’ Repent.” The Saba-produced track finds the Chicago rapper practicing self-forgiveness and repenting for his sins.
Huey Briss, “Warren G”
Huey Briss is no stranger to paying homage to city that made him. On “Warren G,” the Long Beach rapper salutes his fellow LB G-funk artist with the song’s title and many of its bars, rapping “All that s–t y’all talking, it be boring me/ And you know I keep it on me, act accordingly/ I gotta ball, I want it all/ I feel like Warren G.” The song appears on Briss’ new EP Wishing Out Loud.
Tempest, “Heathens”
On “Heathens,” Tempest is embracing her dark side. The alt-R&B/hyper-pop hybrid finds the Long Beach native vibrantly tapping into her villain era, as she sings about “trying to be a heathen.”
SEB, “loving u is harder”
On “loving u is harder,” SEB sings about his confusing relationship with ease. “Loving you is harder than I thought/ You got a reputation breaking hearts/ Guess I should’ve saw this from the start/ A pretty face, you such a work of art,” he laments over the alt-R&B beat. The Chicago-raised artist’s new single touches on codependency and “feeling blindsided by who someone actually is after falling in love with them,” he says in a statement.
Pivot Gang, “911”
Their second single this year, Pivot Gang is back with a new single called “911.” The Chicago collective’s chemistry is undeniable as the group’s vocalists effortlessly tag-team all over the daedaePIVOT-produced beat. The gang is releasing singles both together and individually — again, leading up to this year’s John Walt Day in Chicago on Nov. 26.
Eem Triplin feat. $not, “Let You Know”
Eem Triplin and $not team up for the new single, “Let You Know.” Produced by the former, the song marks the duo’s first collab with both artists on vocals, as they twirl gentle melodies and triplet flows over minor-key organ and finger snaps. “Let You Know” chronicles how pair’s hard-earned trust issues affect their romantic lives.
Lakewude, “Sunlight”
On “Sunlight,” Lakewude reflects on his life and rise as an artist. The Tennessee musician uses intricate wordplay to spit about how times have changed and channeling his “better side.” “N—as bug me, they said they spray like it’s pesticide/ They just wordsmith nerds, ’cause no one ever really dies/ We endorsing violence then parade because they kill our kind/ You see my contradiction?” he raps.
Jahkoy, “Bitter”
Jahkoy is, well, “Bitter.” “You ever get out of a situationship but that person still has some of your things and you lowkey want those things back so now you’re kinda bitter?? Yeah, this is that song,” the Toronto singer told Billboard about the song. The relatable new track is off his upcoming project Sex & Forgiveness.
Phony Ppl, “dialtone.”
With “dialtone.,” Phony Ppl is setting the tone for their new upcoming album. The eclectic funk track is two songs combined, explained the Brooklyn-based band. “‘dialtone.’ is actually two different songs at once! One song (the cause) is about a guy realizing space is only expanding between him and his lover. The other song (the effect) is about a relationship that only exists in the mind of said guy. Either way, there’s something wrong!,” they say in a press statement. “dialtone.” premiered on season five, episode four of Issa Rae’s Insecure. The song will also appear on their upcoming album, Euphonyus, due out Nov. 18.
