R&B/Hip-Hop
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As Billboard Japan unveiled its 2024 year-end charts, the hip-hop duo Creepy Nuts — rapper R-Shitei (also known as R-rated) and DJ Matsunaga — land the No. 1 song of the year for the country, with their mega-hit “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” taking the top spot on the all-genre Japan Hot 100 chart (which applies six metrics to songs: physical sales, downloads, streaming, airplay, video views and karaoke). The high-octane track also tops the year-end Global Japan Songs Excl. Japan ranking by a huge margin after holding the No. 1 position for 24 weeks, the longest ever in the history of the chart that ranks songs from Japan that are listened to internationally. In total, “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” has dominated 12 year-end Billboard Japan roundups.
Amid the song’s success, Creepy Nuts have stayed extremely busy, traveling the world for festival performance dates while working on their new album. Billboard Japan caught up with the two artists as they wrapped their whirlwind year.
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How do you feel about the success of “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” on the year-end charts?
DJ Matsunaga: It kind of hasn’t really sunk in yet.
R-Shitei: Yeah, it’s like my brain hasn’t been able to keep up at this stage. I’m like, “Oh… Awesome…” (Laughs.) … Compared to the first half of the year, the reaction to our shows [helps bring it into perspective]… But I think we’re a lot more confused about it all than people might think.
DJ Matsunaga: It’s still hard to believe we’re at the top of any kind of ranking. (Looks at R-Shitei.) Right?
Still, after “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” became a global hit, your follow-up track, “Otonoke,” continues to do well: On Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales chart, it reached No. 1 five times (on the charts dated Oct. 19, Nov. 2, Nov. 16, Nov. 23 and Dec. 14). You’ve been on a roll in 2024.
DJ Matsunaga: Wow…
R-Shitei: That’s amazing. Both “Otonoke” and “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” were written around the same time. We were working on the former when we had no idea that the latter would become such a hit. “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” is a work we’re really proud of, but when we were making those songs, “Otonoke” was the one we felt the most confidence in. So when the year started and “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” became pretty popular, I was like, “So people seem to like this a lot,” and “Well, we’re really proud of ‘Otonoke,’ too” when we released it. So I’m genuinely happy to see that people seem to accept “Otonoke” as well.
DJ Matsunaga: [The chart results are] too much of a blessing, so I don’t think it’s right to use it as a precedent…
R-Shitei: That’s true. It’s hard, isn’t it? Rankings can be both a source of encouragement and poison for artists.
DJ Matsunaga: For real.
R-Shitei: We’re happy and grateful, but don’t want to focus too much on that… Our goal isn’t to do well on the charts. It’s to keep updating our own definition of “good.” We’re making new songs with that in mind, too.
“How do you interpret chart rankings?” is a question we often ask various artists. In a recent interview, Ayase from YOASOBI said he’s now working with “a really fresh feeling” after becoming the No. 1 Artist of the Year on Billboard Japan’s Artist 100 ranking in 2023 with “Idol,” because a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.
R-Shitei and DJ Matsunaga: What?!
DJ Matsunaga: The way he approaches music is completely different. When I first started out, it felt like the notion of making enough money to get by by doing hip-hop was just a pipe dream, so being able to make a living from hip-hop and quitting my part-time job was a huge weight off my shoulders. (Laughs.) Like, I don’t have to be chasing my dream while working part-time in my 30s, you know?
R-Shitei: That’s normal, and I’d still like it regardless, so I was vaguely thinking that I’d be doing hip-hop [like that in my 30s] when I first got started.
DJ Matsunaga: Yeah, we have proper respect for those who keep at it while working part-time jobs in their 30s.
R-Shitei: When I was able to make a living doing music, I thought I was really lucky… Now when you look around, [many hip-hop artists in Japan] are making a living and there are even hit songs… all of this, including the fact that hip-hop is so popular in Japan, makes me really happy.
DJ Matsunaga: I really agree.
R-Shitei: We never planned to make songs that would be listened to around the world. It’s really just about expressing what we want to get out and releasing the pent-up [feelings] we’ve been holding in, basically.
Tell us a bit more about “Otonoke.” How did you go about making it?
R-Shitei: Usually, I get the beat from Matsunaga and add my rap to it, but this time, because we made it around the same time as “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born,” I was like, “I’ll go to a completely different place by extension of the same mindset.” I was in a period where I wanted to make songs using a fundamental rhythm as the key, rather than language. And I thought that a non-verbal rhythm like “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” would be good. It was going to be the theme song for [the anime series] Dandadan, so I thought I’d try making it by using “Dandadan” as the starting rhythm, and decided to use the same rhyme as “Dandadan Dandadan” [in the intro] for the verse. I recorded something like scat that wasn’t really a language, sent it to Matsunaga and had him flesh out the track.
I see! So the rhyme came first.
R-Shitei: Right. So the sound that was going “Dandadan Dandadan” a cappella became more and more like language, and then it became a slightly slower melody, and then a more bouncy melody, and so on. The rhythm stays the same, but the flavor changes. I’d only imagined it as a straight line climbing up, but Matsunaga expanded it horizontally with the track. The scenery changes suddenly when you get to the bridge that goes “Haireta Haireta,” and it’s because he really opened it up there during the scat stage, adding that completely different development. And the lyrics changed to “Haireta” (“I’m in”) at that point. I thought, “This feels like I’ve ‘gone in.’ ” Like, if I were a “specter of sound (oto no ke),” a music monster, I’d probably enter people’s brains through their ears at the moment when the scenery changes suddenly. So, words also appear during our back-and-forth.
DJ Matsunaga: What was good about this time was that I had the a cappella version, where R had already gone the distance with the same rhymes and prosody, so I was able to add crazy development to the track. No matter how much I changed it, the rap maintains the same groove as it develops, so the song doesn’t fall apart at all. He’d given me that kind of guarantee first, so I was able to make bold developments that wouldn’t ordinarily have been possible. I mean, it’s possible to make [tracks like that] at any time, but it’s not easy to make something that works beautifully after it’s done, even if you intend to make it that way.
You appeared at festivals in the United States, South Korea and Taiwan this year. What was the response like?
R-Shitei: There were moments when I could tell people knew our songs and were responding to them, and that made me really happy. And of course I feel it when people are really grooving and partying. But I think we’re only starting to understand how people really feel about us.
DJ Matsunaga: The main reason is that we haven’t done any tours. We’ve only appeared in events so far. Each country is completely different, and the audience in each country is also completely different, so it’s not like we can compare them…
R-Shitei: We don’t have enough data yet inside ourselves, right?
DJ Matsunaga: It feels like we’re still at the entry level. Even if we were talking about Japan, festivals that you’re invited to perform in are irregular spaces.
R-Shitei: Yeah.
DJ Matsunaga: So we can only get a real feel for it by doing our own tours while performing in those invited events, then adding up and dividing them.
What is your vision for the future?
R-Shitei: To make things feel good to me from the end of this year and on to the next, I need to focus on the things that are right in front of me… I’m in the middle of making an album, so my mind’s still on that. Rather than any kind of vision, I’m thinking about what I should do with the next bar or the next line, you know? I mean, just now…
DJ Matsunaga: Yeah, we were talking about it for a long time just now [before the interview].
R-Shitei: Yeah! We were coming up with themes and ideas nonstop, so I guess that’s the biggest thing occupying my mind right now. That’s exactly my vision for the future.
DJ Matsunaga: Me too. Ninety percent of my private life is like that. (Laughs.)
R-Shitei: Also, my way of thinking might have reverted to the way it was before. While the content of our songs has evolved a lot and we’ve grown from around 2013 to 2014 when Creepy Nuts began, it’s like… I can’t find the right words to describe it. But if you listen to the album, you might understand.
DJ Matsunaga: It’s like we’ve gone back a decade. We’ll lose our social position.
Lose your what?
R-Shitei: (Laughs.)
DJ Matsunaga: Our social position will go down. (Laughs.) I mean, when you do work and stand in front of people and appear in the media and advertising… When you branch out from just making music and become involved with people in companies, you inevitably have to take on social responsibilities. Now that we’ve returned to a lifestyle focusing on music, it feels like the irresponsibleness that I had before is back.
R-Shitei: If the stages in our career had continued to visibly rise in an easy-to-understand way like from 2020 to 2022, and we’d kept busy, constantly appearing in the media and so on, I probably would have felt that I should only say proper things. I might have just ended up trying to say good things in my songs. But we stopped doing that and just focused on the music and our expression and the things we like. As a result, I figured I might be able to express the bad and ugly parts of myself in an irresponsible way, which is something I used to think about when I first started rapping. Because the thing that makes hip-hop interesting to me is how it allows you to express the dirty stuff in its raw form.
DJ Matsunaga: That’s true. Express bad stuff like it is.
R-Shitei: As a listener you go, “Dude shouldn’t be saying that!” but the way it’s so bad and crazy makes it exciting as hip-hop. And then there’s “Dude says some good stuff once in a while, doesn’t he?” (Laughs.) So it’s a balance. It’s hard to express succinctly, but we’ve evolved in certain ways while still being like, “No way, we’re no good at all to begin with as human beings.” It’s about being able to go, “So what?” and expressing that as well next time.
DJ Matsunaga: It feels like we’ve regained the courage to do that.
R-Shitei: Feels like we got it back, doesn’t it?
DJ Matsunaga: That’s so true! We got it back and somehow… I’ve found a balance. It’s more natural and I actually feel more level-headed now.
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A 67-year-old billionaire adopting a pop culture catchphrase should be cringe-worthy — but for Drake, it was a reminder of the ubiquity of Kendrick Lamar.
After Drake disparaged NBA star DeMar DeRozan, who had previously played for his beloved Toronto Raptors, Vivek Ranadivé (the owner of DeRozan’s current team, the Sacramento Kings) fired back at Drake in defense of his forward. While sitting courtside for a November contest between the Kings and the Raptors, Ranadivé donned a black T-shirt with four words emblazoned across his chest: “They Not Like Us.”
Count Ranadivé among the Lamar fans who have puffed out their chests since the Compton, Calif., rapper served up “Not Like Us,” the game-winning shot in his feud with Drake, on May 6. And while hip-hop purists would’ve bet on Drake as the one to walk away from a battle with a hit record, it was K. Dot who flipped the script on the Toronto rap deity.
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The OVO honcho attempted to land a direct hit of his own with the three-part blitz “Family Matters,” but Lamar didn’t even give the track a chance to breathe as he followed up 30 minutes later with the diabolical “Meet the Grahams.” Smothering “Family Matters” shrewdly allowed K. Dot to clear the lane and counter with “Not Like Us.” On the latter track, Lamar used producer Mustard’s Cali bounce to peel back the layers of Drake’s cultural identity while repeatedly accusing him of pedophilia.
In response, Drake could only muster up an addition to Lamar’s “The Heart” song series with “The Heart Pt. 6,” which found him losing his footing and backpedaling to the defensive. And when the dust settled, the consensus was clear: Lamar had emerged as the champ. Not only was “Not Like Us” a knockout blow, but a pro-Black Los Angeles anthem that is now cemented into rap battle lore alongside classic West Coast dis tracks like Ice Cube’s “No Vaseline” and 2Pac’s “Hit Em Up.”
“When I was growing up, I watched 2Pac, ‘California Love,’ Dr. Dre, Snoop [Dogg], the Death Row days,” Mustard told Billboard in October. “It’s like being a part of that again, but in this day and age.”
While Drake has been one of pop music’s architects — collecting 338 Billboard Hot 100 entries to Lamar’s 87 — K. Dot won the rap charts battle when “Euphoria” (No. 3) and “Not Like Us” (No. 1) became the only dis tracks in the feud to reach the Hot 100’s top five. “Not Like Us” not only debuted atop the chart but also set a record on Hot Rap Songs: 25 weeks at No. 1 through Nov. 23.
“That’s hard to ignore, especially when you’re evaluating an artist who’s taken pride in being so much bigger than everyone else based on his numbers,” Spotify head of urban music/creative director Carl Chery says of Lamar besting Drake. “There were moments where it felt like Drake had the advantage, but in hindsight, Kendrick was ahead every step of the way and his win feels more decisive every day.”
In retrospect, March 29, 2024, was a seminal date in rap history. Lamar chose violence with a show-stealing assist on “Like That,” the centerpiece of Future and Metro Boomin’s collaborative album We Don’t Trust You. On the track, Lamar responds to a line from J. Cole and Drake’s 2023 collaboration, “First Person Shooter,” on which Cole questions who’s leading rap’s “Big Three”: “Is it K. Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?” On “Like That,” Lamar defiantly replies: “Motherf–k the Big Three, n—a, it’s just big me.”
“Like That” launched at No. 1 on the Hot 100, and Lamar’s guest verse shook the tectonic plates of hip-hop. Cole dipped his toes into the feud before bowing out with a public apology onstage at his Dreamville Festival in May — leaving Drake to fight for himself.
Far before Lamar and Drake were ever dubbed part of rap’s Big Three, their paths were intertwined near the start of their careers. The titans traded verses on each other’s Take Care and good kid, m.A.A.d city albums, and Drizzy brought Lamar on the road as an opener on his 2012 Club Paradise Tour. Things turned icy the next year when Lamar put the entire rap game on blast with his maniacal verse on Big Sean’s “Control.” And while their feud was mostly dormant ever since, “First Person Shooter” poked the bear — and Lamar returned battle-ready.
Through the first weekend of May alone, Drake and Lamar exchanged haymakers at a relentless pace, dropping a collective eight dis tracks in total — all of which highlight their opposite backgrounds. Drake, who is biracial and from Toronto, was a child actor before becoming rap’s pop-leaning hit-maker. K. Dot, a Compton native with a Dr. Dre co-sign, quickly emerged as one of rap’s storytelling savants, with a penchant for illustrating the distressing Black experience in America.
“A lot of fans assumed that Kendrick is a slow writer because he took a five-year break between [2017 album] DAMN. and [2022’s] Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, so I think people were shocked to see him release four songs in five days,” Chery says. “I don’t think we’ll ever see such a high-stakes battle unfold this way ever again.”
50 Cent, an artist well-versed in rap beef, thinks the back-and-forth was “good for hip-hop” by forcing both artists to become more prolific. “It was about the lyrics, but that s–t was on a different level,” he said in an October Billboard interview. “The f–king [good kid, m.A.A.d city] car in the [“Family Matters”] video — that shit was a mystery. Everything was tied to something.”
Chery also credits Lamar’s shrewd strategy and instincts as what got the better of Drake. “I think Kendrick won because his strategy was arguably better than his music,” he says. “[Lamar] predicted the way the battle was going to play out on ‘Euphoria’ and ‘6:16 in L.A.’ He also gave Drake a taste of his own medicine [by releasing] back-to-back dis songs twice.”
And not only was his strategy better, but it was built to last. Lamar’s music zeitgeist has carried momentum all year long: In September, it was announced that he would headline the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in February 2025. By November, “Not Like Us” had yet to depart the Hot 100’s top 20 since its release, Lamar scored five Grammy nominations for the upcoming 67th annual awards ceremony and he capped off his banner campaign with the surprise release of his GNX album on Nov. 22. Just days later, Billboard reported that Drake filed legal documents alleging Universal Music Group and Spotify had conspired to “artificially inflate the popularity” of “Not Like Us.”
But consumption aside, “Not Like Us” has transcended traditional popularity: Snoop credited Lamar with unifying the West Coast during Lamar’s The Pop Out: Ken & Friends concert on Juneteenth at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif. The hit even permeated different alleys of pop culture, adopted by the Los Angeles Dodgers on their journey to winning the 2024 World Series.
“The song took on a life of its own beyond the battle,” Chery says. “You saw viral clips of kids dancing to it at bat mitzvahs. The U.S. basketball team played it after every win during the Summer Olympics. It’s weirdly become universal. Almost everyone can identify with representing a specific idea and feeling like someone else represents the antithesis of who they are.”
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.
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On Thursday (Dec. 12), Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) hosted its annual charity concert and toy drive in Watts, California, marking the 11th year of this heartwarming tradition at the Nickerson Gardens Public Housing Projects.
This event takes place in the very neighborhood where TDE founder Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith and other label members, including Grammy-winning artist Jay Rock, grew up. The evening brought together some of TDE’s biggest stars, like Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Doechii, and more, for a celebration of music, community, and giving back. With the event taking place in the heart of Watts, it also highlighted TDE’s ongoing commitment to its roots and the neighborhood that helped shape its success.
The buzz around the event was heightened by the recent success of Kendrick Lamar’s album GNX, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. As a result, this year’s concert drew thousands of fans from across Los Angeles, many of whom lined the block with unwrapped toys and donations in hand to gain admission. These contributions were collected to support families in need within the Nickerson Gardens and surrounding areas, cementing the event’s importance as a charitable staple for the local community.
With his GNX album continuing to dominate the charts, Lamar’s involvement in this year’s concert felt even more special, as it marked a moment of connection and giving back to the community.
However, the giving doesn’t stop on day one. Day two of the event, held on Friday, (Dec. 13), shifts focus to TDE’s annual Community Giveback. This part of the event includes a toy giveaway, raffles, youth sports programming, barbering services, and a family holiday photo opportunity — all free to attendees.
Here are the 7 best moments from the 11th annual TDE Christmas concert.
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Billboard Unfiltered returned with a brand new episode on Friday (Dec. 13), and some new faces joined the fellas for the 25th installment of the series.
Vibe‘s Regina Cho and Amber Corrine make their Unfiltered debut alongside co-hosts Carl Lamarre and Kyle Denis for the final episode of 2024, during which they also discuss predictions for 2025.
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Billboard‘s Top 10 Hottest Female Rappers of 2024 list created some waves around the culture, and the foursome debated what they liked and didn’t, as well as who they hope to see make a leap next year.
“Any list that does not include GloRilla at No. 1 I feel like causes an uproar because it is undeniable the year she has had,” Cho said. “It is so remarkable how in June, Doechii was not on the list, and now she’s at No. 6. The ascension she’s had in the last few months is so amazing to see … My year was defined in Latto, Megan Thee Stallion and Glo.”
As a resident of Gag City, Corrine wanted to see Nicki Minaj get the nod over Megan Thee Stallion at No. 2. “I’m very happy to see Nicki Minaj in the top five, but I would maybe make her No. 2,” she said. “I’d like to see Tierra Whack too.”
Denis is very happy with how the list turned out, as JT moved up a slot compared to June’s iteration. “I’m happy to see my girl JT move up a spot. I’m incredibly proud of the year she’s had,” he shared. “Latto was another defining artist regardless of genre or gender for me … If I had to champion one person who didn’t make the list, it would probably Little Simz.”
Lamarre, who spearheaded the list, enjoyed the reception to it, but especially the humility displayed by Cardi B at No. 10, as he sees a dominant 2025 in her future. “To be quite frank, there were discussions about her being off the list altogether,” he admitted. “We’re used to seeing Cardi in superstar form and she has not been that … She took it with grace … I think Cardi is going to put herself in position to have an explosive 2025, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her go from 10 to one.”
Also discussed during the episode was Jay-Z, who in a civil lawsuit filed Dec. 8 was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl at a 2000 MTV Video Music Awards afterparty with Diddy. A Jane Doe made the assault allegations against the two men in the suit filed by Texas attorney Tony Buzbee. Hov has vehemently denied all allegations against him, calling the suit “extortionate.”
“I wasn’t shocked because it felt like they were coming for Jay-Z next,” Corrine said. With Jay-Z being a fixture in his life as his favorite rapper, Denis shared that his “stomach sank” after hearing the shocking lawsuit’s details. “That was pretty heavy to sit with. I’m gonna wait to see how this plays out,” he said. “My heart broke for Blue [Ivy].”
Watch the episode below.