R&B/Hip-Hop
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Drake made an appearance on Canadian streamer xQc’s livestream on Sunday night (Nov. 24), and the 6 God didn’t hold back on a multitude of topics. At one point in the stream, Steve Lacy’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Bad Habit” was playing, and Drake seemingly shaded the artist. “This guy’s like a fragile […]
Lizzo is the latest star to weigh in on the always heated debate over the top MCs of all-time. In a post on Bluesky on Friday (Nov. 22) the “About Damn Time” singer offered up her top three rappers, in no particular order she said, and the first two on the list happen to be freshly at odds.
Lizzo’s trifecta includes Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar and Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott, a fine roster of world-class mic technicians by any account. The post came just hours after K-Dot shocked the world with the surprise release on Friday of his sixth studio album, GNX. The 12-song R&B-inflected lyrical barrage includes an opening track, “wacced out murals,” which takes on Wayne’s publicly aired frustration over being passed over to perform during the halftime show at next year’s 2025 Super Bowl in his home town of New Orleans.
“Used to bump Tha Carter III, I held my Rollie chain proud/ Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down,” Kendrick raps on the song in reference to Weezy posting a video about how hurt he was about not being tapped to pay the plumb gig at the Caesars Superdome in February.
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“Won the Super Bowl and Nas the only one congratulate me/ All these n—-s agitated, I’m just glad they showin’ they faces,” Lamar continued. Wayne did appear to take kindly to the shout-out, responding on Saturday morning, “Man wtf I do?! I just be chillin & dey still kome 4 my head,” he wrote. “Let’s not take kindness for weakness. Let this giant sleep. I beg u all. No one really wants destruction,not even me but I shall destroy if disturbed. On me. Love.”
Lizzo’s list is also interesting because it appears to continue the storyline of the explosive Drake/Kendrick feud, which was kicked off in 2023 with the Drizzy/J. Cole song “First Person Shooter,” on which Cole claimed the “big three” of modern hip-hop are himself, Drake and Lamar. That song set off a flurry of back-and-forth diss tracks between Drake and Lamar earlier this year that culminated with what most consider the final nail: K-Dot’s lacerating “Not Like Us.”
Comments on Lizzo’s Bluesky top three list included many fans rubber stamping the inclusion of Elliott, with one person writing, “Missy is Goated. Like golden statue goated. Like rename her childhood street goated” while another said, “I almost got into a fist fight with someone at a New Year’s Eve party when they said Missy Elliott wasn’t impactful to music.”
Two out of three of Lizzo’s picks made it into the mix for Billboard’s Best Pop Stars of the 21st Century, with Elliott gaining an honorable mention and Lil Wayne grabbing the 21st slot. For the record, Drake took the No. 4 spot while the top two pop icons have not yet been revealed.
Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Toni Braxton and award-winning actor/comedian Cedric the Entertainer are expanding their Love & Laughter limited Las Vegas engagement. Six more dates are being added to the pair’s residency at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Beginning in February 2025, the extended run’s dates are: Feb. 14-15, May 9-10 and July 11-12. […]
Father John Misty saw all the jokes and the conspiracy theories on Friday (Nov. 22) about how his album release schedule has eerily been synched up with Kendrick Lamar‘s music drops over the past 12 years and he responded in the only way he knows how: with a diss track and jokes.
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Okay, not a diss track in the Drake sense, but rather the first wide release of the shaggy folk rocker “God’s Plan,” which he originally issued on Bandcamp last month and which fans gleefully suggested was a soft rock shot fired at the Pulitzer Prize-winning MC. FJM uploaded it to his Instagram on Saturday with no commentary and lyrics that didn’t provide much direct linkage to Lamar. “A man’s life, God’s trash/ There’s no law but the old law, baby/ Pettiful, nothing dies/ Said by ass-drawn kamikaze/ Year zero in the summertime,” FJM sings on the track; he reposted it on X, adding three coffin emoji.
The comments did the heavy lifting: “the heart part 7,” wrote one fan in a joking reference to Lamar’s new track “Heart Pt. 6” (itself a response to rival Drake’s “The Heart Pt. 6” diss track about Lamar), with another adding, “Kendrick diss track?,” and a third admitting, “A Kendrick FJM beef is something I would’ve said could’ve only come to my imagination in a fever dream and yet here we are. Life is beautiful folks.” Leaning into the fake beef, commenters also wondered why Lamar was “real quiet since this post,” warning “u have 24 hours to respond” and asking “@kendricklamar you’ll let this slide???”
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Fans immediately heaped meaning on the post, considering that sleuths did the math and figured out that Father John and K.Dot have released new albums in the same year for more than a decade, including in 2012, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022 — though not on the same day — until now.
On Friday, Lamar dropped the instant classic GNX with no advance notice, stealing some thunder from FJM’s new LP, Mahashmashana. Misty got the joke, writing on X on Friday, “Not now I’m furiously scribbling my seeming response” to the odd coincidence, adding, “It’s okay only other times it’s happened was 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2022.” He also showed he had a good sense of humor about the unbalanced chart competition, writing, “Hm how do I tell em my albums don’t chart.”
In addition to the tweets and song, FJM had some more fun with the Freaky Friday release date action, reposting DJ Bean’s mash-up cover featuring the artwork from both men’s LPs and a second in which he was PhotoShopped into Kendrick’s car. Even Misty’s label, Sub Pop Records, got into the action, uploading an edit of the cover to the singer’s album with the Lamar DAMN. font.
The eternally arch, laconic Misty took the whole thing in stride, though Lil Wayne appeared to respond to a lyrical reference on the opening GNX track “wacced out murals” with a bit of heat. On the song, Lamar references his love for Wayne’s classic Tha Carter III album and wonders if his hard work — which includes landing the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show slot in Weezy’s hometown of New Orleans next year — had “let down” the fellow MC.
“Man wtf I do?!” Wayne wrote in his response on X. “I just be chillin & dey still kome 4 my head. Let’s not take kindness for weakness. Let this giant sleep. I beg u all. No one really wants destruction,not even me but I shall destroy if disturbed. On me. Love.”
Listen to FJM’s “God’s Trash” below.
Drake has officially announced his return to Australia for the Anita Max Wynn Tour, marking his first visit to the country in eight years.
The Canadian rap icon casually dropped the news during a livestream with gaming streamer xQc on Sunday night (Nov. 24), revealing that the tour will kick off on Feb. 9 and run through early March.
“February 9th for anybody that’s watching from Australia, I’m coming back to Australia for the first time in eight years. Coming back to Australia on tour,” Drake shared during the livestream. “Melbourne, Sydney, Gold Coast… February 9 ’til like… March something.”
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While specific dates and venues have yet to be confirmed, Drake teased appearances in key cities like Melbourne, Sydney, and the Gold Coast. However, the OVO rapper seemed to rule out visits to “other places.”
The announcement comes as a major moment for Drake’s Australian fans, who last saw him perform live during the Boy Meets World Tour in 2017. “Funny enough, it’s actually called the Anita Max Wynn Tour,” Drake told XQC during the stream.
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The timing of the tour’s launch is particularly noteworthy, as it coincides with Kendrick Lamar’s highly anticipated Super Bowl halftime show performance on the same day. The two artists have been engaged in a well-documented musical feud throughout the year, with the artists slinging diss tracks at one another, like Lamar’s “Not Like Us” and Drake’s “Push Ups”. Lamar recently also surprised-released his latest album, GNX.
Anita Max Wynn is a nod to a viral moment from Drake’s December 2023 livestream on Kick. During the stream, he introduced an “alter ego” with the same name, a pun on the gambling phrase “I need a max win,” which refers to hitting the maximum payout on a slot machine.
The phrase, popularized by streamer Adin Ross, quickly became an internet sensation, inspiring memes, TikTok edits, and exaggerated depictions of Drake’s character. Now, the joke has come full circle, lending its name to Drake’s 2025 Australian tour.
Drake had previously hinted at a turn return to the country earlier this month, posting an old photo of himself in front of Sydney’s Opera House to his Instagram Story, writing, “It’s been like 7 years.”
In addition to the tour announcement, Drake also provided an update on his forthcoming collaborative album with PARTYNEXTDOOR, revealing, “Me and Party’s album is 75 percent done shout out to PX cooking right now. Album sounds incredible…This album is good; it’s the sound that people know and love us for.”
Drake and Party announced their joint album back in August while on stage performing together in Toronto.
Earlier this month, PND hopped on his Instagram Live as he wrapped up the European leg of his Sorry I’m Outside Tour and revealed his project with Drake is nearing the finish line. “Guys, I have one more show on this tour,” he told his followers. “Then the album is getting finished. That’s all I gotta say.”
SZA season is upon us, according to the artist herself. The four-time Grammy Award-winner has confirmed that fans will be hearing new music before the year is out, sharing the news as part of a recent appearance on Kai Cenat’s livestream alongside fellow guest Lizzo. Letting slip that a “whole new project” was up her […]
J. Cole’s packing on the nostalgia for fans before 2024’s out. The Dreamville boss followed The Come Up‘s DSP arrival with the release of his sacred The Warm Up mixtape to streaming services for the first time on Friday (Nov. 22). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news […]
Playboi Carti continues to drop music on social media instead of streaming services. On Friday (Nov. 22), the Atlanta rapper released “Play This” on his @opium_00pium Instagram account to follow up his recent ComplexCon performance in Las Vegas. The strategy is an interesting one, as he’s dropped a bunch of songs this year, but most […]
Kendrick Lamar still has a couple axes to grind. The Compton rapper surprised everyone by dropping his sixth studio album, GNX, and he addressed a bunch of things. A couple of the most notable topics he broached were that of Lil Wayne and his friends being upset that Lamar was chosen by Jay-Z and the […]
11/22/2024
K. Dot surprised the rap world with his latest offering on Friday (Nov. 22).
11/22/2024