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Snoop Dogg wants to see more originality in rap these days. The Doggfather said in a new interview that he believes there are too many copycats running around hip-hop and there needs to be more artists looking to stand out rather than following the trends.
Snoop and Dr. Dre stopped by The Stephen A. Smith Show on Friday (Oct. 18), where the legendary West Coast duo spoke candidly while giving their thoughts on today’s landscape of rap.
“Be original,” Snoop said when asked what he would tell an aspiring artist. “Right now there’s so much copycatting, mimicking, sounding alike and imitation. Find your production, your sound — find your ear for who you are and be original even if it ain’t hitting. Stay you.”
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Dr. Dre chimed in about wanting to see artists find their sound with a specific collaborator, as he isn’t a fan of songs or albums with a multitude of producers involved in the creative process.
“Find your collaborator. I don’t like the fact there’s nine different producers on one album. I like the idea of one producer on one album,” Dre added. “The continuity is everything for me. I don’t know [when that started], but I don’t like it. If you’re a producer, you should be able to produce the entire album. That’s what I thought it was supposed to be. That’s what I was doing at the beginning.”
Snoop Dogg chalked it up to there being a plethora of beatmakers in rap rather than traditional producers. “I think the fundamentals was taken out of it,” Snoop said of the industry. “Now it’s just a phone that makes you an artist. Something stupid gets you five minutes of fame, and you take that and make a record and you got a two-and-a-half-minute song saying the same thing somebody else just said and now you considered hot.”
He continued: “It used to be about creativity and understanding the musicianship, harmony, melodies and that don’t even matter anymore.”
However, Dre feels there’s a shift in the market from “mumble rap,” and he thinks there’s the next Prince or Michael Jackson out there coming up to change the game.
“I feel like it’s a change happening now from all this mumble rap that’s happening now,” the legendary producer predicted. “There’s somebody in somebody’s garage that’s gonna be the next Snoop or Dre or the next Prince or the next Michael Jackson that’s coming up with something that’s change the game.
“It’s gotta happen right now and it’s wide open because everything that’s happening right now in the music game — especially hip-hop — is weird as f–k,” Dre declared. “It’s gonna get back to the musicianship. I’m seeing it happen.”
Snoop and Dre are reuniting for their first album in more than three decades since 1993’s Doggystyle with their Missionary follow-up, which is expected to arrive in November.
Kendrick Lamar didn’t hold anything back in his vicious rap battle with Drake earlier this year, but he claims to not be an angry person at heart. In his first profile since the year-defining feud, K. Dot covered the Harper’s Bazaar 2024 November Voices Issue on Monday (Oct. 21), which had him in conversation with his former Top Dawg Entertainment teammate SZA.
Lamar explained during the chat how he doesn’t believe he’s an angry individual, but how the duality of love and war do pose a need to exist.
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“I don’t believe I’m an angry person,” Lamar declared. “But I do believe in love and war, and I believe they both need to exist. And my awareness of that allows me to react to things but not identify with them as who I am. Just allowing them to exist and allowing them to flow through me. That’s what I believe.”
While “Not Like Us” proved decisive in his feud with Drake, Kendrick defined what the phrase means to him culturally, and it’s much bigger than anything OVO-related.
“Not like us? Not like us is the energy of who I am, the type of man I represent,” he said. “Now, if you identify with the man that I represent . This man has morals, he has values, he believes in something, he stands on something. He’s not pandering.”
Lamar continued: “He’s a man who can recognize his mistakes and not be afraid to share the mistakes and can dig deep down into fear-based ideologies or experiences to be able to express them without feeling like he’s less of a man. If I’m thinking of ‘Not Like Us,’ I’m thinking of me and whoever identifies with that.”
“Not Like Us,” the scathing Drake diss mixed with Mustard’s Cali bounce, became the longest running No. 1 on the Hot Rap Songs chart earlier this month when it helmed a 21st week atop the chart to trot past Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.”
The “Not Like Us” train doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon, and the diss track could make its presence felt at the 2025 Grammy Awards when nominations are unveiled in November.
See Kendrick’s cover of Harper’s Bazaar below:
It’s an understatement to say that there’s no love lost between 50 Cent and Sean “Diddy” Combs. The two hip-hip moguls have been trading jabs in public for nearly 20 years, but lately 50 has appeared to ramp up the rhetoric in response to the avalanche of legal action against Combs. Over the weekend, the disgraced hip-hop mogul was hit with another six civil abuse lawsuits, adding to the half dozen similar cases filed last week, all alleging that the Bad Boy Records boss sexually and physically abused the anonymous victims; Combs has previously denied the allegations.
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In an interview with People, 50 (born Curtis Jackson), discussed his feelings about Diddy’s actions before the 54-year-old mogul was arrested in Manhattan on Sept. 17 and charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution, charges Combs has plead not guilty to.
“Look, it seems like I’m doing some extremely outrageous things, but I haven’t. It’s really me just saying what I’ve been saying for 10 years,” 50 said of his jabs at Combs over the past few months as more details have emerged about Diddy’s alleged sex-and-drug-fueled “fFreak Off” parties.
“Now it’s becoming more full-facing in the news with the Puffy stuff, but away from that, I’m like, ‘Yo, it’s just my perspective because I stayed away from that stuff the entire time, because this is not my style.’” 50 has said several times in recent months that he did not attend any freak offs, confirming in September that he’s prepping a documentary about Diddy’s alleged history of sexual abuse is coming to Netflix.
The untitled work will reportedly focus on claims about Combs’ alleged history of sexual assault and abuse, which investigators allege stretches back decades. “This is a story with significant human impact. It is a complex narrative spanning decades, not just the headlines or clips seen so far,” 50 and director Alexandria Stapleton said in a joint statement. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to give a voice to the voiceless and to present authentic and nuanced perspectives.”
Last month, 50 said in a podcast interview that he “didn’t participate” in Combs’ freak offs. “I also didn’t go to those parties. So a lot of the celebrity culture that you don’t hear saying anything is because they participated to a degree,” 50 said, adding, “I’m just not with all that freaky sh–. Like, all of the stuff he’s doing, I’m not into that type of stuff. I’m just a little more, maybe you could say, basic or normal.” 50 has said more than once this year that he’s practicing celibacy in order to focus on his business.
50, who has made a habit of trolling Diddy on X, originally announced plans for a doc about his rival in December, following a shocking lawsuit filed by Combs’ ex, singer Cassie, who settled with the Bad Boy founder one day after filing papers alleging more than a decade of physical and sexual abuse, including rape; Combs denied Cassie’s claims and the two both issued statement acknowledging the settlement without discussing its terms.
In September, 50 posted the latest in a long series of posts trolling Combs, uploading a picture of himself with Drew Barrymore, writing, “Here I am keeping good company with @DreBarrymoreTV and I don’t have 1,000 bottles of lube at the house,” 50 wrote, in seeming reference to what authorities said was the copious stash of baby oil and personal lubricant found at Diddy’s homes in Miami and Los Angeles during a federal raid in March.
Though Diddy’s reps have not commented on the latest civil suits, in a previous statement about the first six legal actions put forward by attorneys Tony Buzbee and Andrew Van Arsdale, they said that Combs “never sexually assaulted anyone” and that he has full confidence “in the facts, their legal defenses and the integrity of the judicial process.”
Combs, 54, is the subject of a dozen additional lawsuit alleging sexual and physical assault and rape, some dating back to the early 1990s. A judge has denied bail for Combs twice, which means the rapper/producer could stay locked up until his trail begins in May.
Warm and sincere: that’s how saxophonist Boney James describes his music. “It’s so hard for me to be objective,” says the four-time Grammy nominee. “But those are two things that describe my music. I’m only trying to make records that I love, so I just call it ‘Boney James music.’”
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Descriptions aside, James is still going strong after making his indie solo debut in 1992. Currently marking the 30thanniversary of his first major label signing in 1994, he just released his 19th album, Slow Burn, through Concord Records (Oct. 18). The follow-up to 2022’s Detour, Slow Burn features the sultry No. 12 Adult R&B hit/lead single “All I Want Is You” with newcomer October London. Additional guests include bassist Marcus Miller, pianist Cory Henry and trumpeter Rick Braun.
James also pays homage to two legends, reimagining Herbie Hancock’s “Butterfly” and Stanley Turrentine’s “Sugar.” And four of the album’s 10 selections, including its fittingly named title track, were co-written and co-produced by James and multi-instrumentalist Jairus Mozee (Anderson .Paak, Nicki Minaj).
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Earlier this year, James became the first artist to score 20 No. 1 singles on Billboard’s Smooth Jazz Airplay chart. He achieved the feat as a guest on “Cigar Lounge” by chart first-timer Big Mike Hart. And James recently checked off another accolade: surpassing the 1 billion stream mark on Pandora.
Currently on the road with his Slow Burn tour, an exuberant James tells Billboard, “I just turned 63, but I honestly feel 20 and healthier than ever. My enthusiasm for doing this job hasn’t waned at all. I’m still like a kid in a candy store.”
What’s the secret behind your career longevity?
I hope the first thing is the music itself. I spend most of my waking hours trying to improve myself as a musician, songwriter and producer. I really pour my whole heart and soul into every project. And it seems there are some people out there that appreciate and still love the kind of records that I do. At least that’s how I take it, and that makes me feel very grateful. I don’t know that it’s jazz that I’m making; my music has a lot of facets to it. It’s got the R&B side, the Latin side and whatever I personally bring to it with my voice, which some people seem to recognize on the horn and enjoy. Maybe those are the reasons.
What sparks you creatively when choosing which songs to cover and which guests to work with on your albums?
With singers, it’s just trying to match the song with the voice. When I sit down to write a song, I’m always trying to write a song for me as the featured artist playing the saxophone. But every now and then, I come up with a piece of music that I feel, through intuition, needs to be a vocal. Then I think about the guy or woman who can bring the song to life vocally. I have sort of a running list of people that I keep. And I thought right away that “All I Want Is You” would be so right for October. I’d only heard of him last year when his debut album, The Rebirth of Marvin, came out. Instrumentally, I knew I wanted to work with Marcus on this album. He and I have been co-hosting our jazz cruises for the last 15 years but hadn’t done any recording in all that time — since he played on my Ride album in 2001. We were in the ship’s dressing room one day and Marcus was jamming with the acoustic bass. I didn’t even know he played acoustic bass. So I filed that away and then actually put his acoustic bass solo on [album opener] “Arcadia.”
In covering Herbie’s “Butterfly,” every now and then you get an earworm, and “Butterfly” had become my earworm. Every time I’d pick up my soprano sax at soundcheck on the road, I’d start playing the “Butterfly” intro. So that was the very first thing I worked on for this record — seeing if I could come up with a Boney-esque arrangement. It’s a similar story with Stanley Turrentine’s “Sugar.” It’s a song from my past that I’ve always loved. I just shook up the groove a bit for more of a contemporary vibe with Rick Braun.
Speaking of newcomer London, what was it like working with him?
I was so impressed with his voice. And I also felt like we shared a musical sensibility. He’s a young cat, but he’s got a retro sensibility. So I was glad to hear that he agreed [to work together], coming up with this incredible vocal. People are bringing back R&B, so I’m always glad when it [my music] connects with a wider audience. And it’s not something I’m conspiring to do. This is just a natural offshoot of one facet of the music that I make. I mean, I came up on the R&B side. That was my entry into the music business: playing as a sideman with R&B acts. R&B was the first music that I really loved. And it was only when I heard Grover Washington Jr. playing the saxophone over that sound that I became excited about the saxophone. And since I can’t sing, I’ve got to hook up with singers. I joke onstage that I’m an R&B singer trapped in a sax player’s body. [laughs]
Your first professional sideman stint was with The Time’s Morris Day. How did that come about?
I was delivering pizzas to pay my bills, trying to figure out how to make it as a musician. This was about 1985, right after Purple Rain. Morris had just broken up with The Time. He’d moved to L.A. and putting a whole new band together. He was looking for a keyboard player, not a sax player. I played a little keyboard and had learned to play “The Bird” and “Jungle Love.” So I went to the cattle call, tried out and he hired me. I was in Morris’ band for five years. Then I was a sideman for several more years – working with the Isley Brothers, Bobby Caldwell, Sheena Easton, Teena Marie … I can’t even remember all the gigs that I did — before I was able to make my first album.
What one lesson did you internalize while working with Day?
Every single one of those gigs taught me something. I was always studying, you know. But with Morris, it was about how to deliver a good show. It wasn’t just about getting up there, closing your eyes and playing your horn. You want to entertain people. And I learned that from him. There’s another memory that I also still hold dear. After they hired me to play keyboards, I said I was really a sax player. They didn’t believe me. So I brought my horn to rehearsal and Morris later put a sax feature in the show. During “Gigolos Get Lonely Too,” he’d bring a woman onstage and essentially play out a scene from Purple Rain. Then he’d go off to change his costume. And Morris gave me that time to lead the band and do an extended sax solo. That was really when I thought, “Man, I could get used to this.”
Morgan Wallen has revealed the multi-genre lineup for his previously announced Sand in My Boots Festival, set for May 16-18, 2025 in Gulf Shores, Ala.
The stacked lineup includes Wallen, Brooks & Dunn, Post Malone and Hardy headlining the fest.
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AEG Presents and Wallen, a 15-time Billboard Music Awards winner, have put together the festival, with Wallen curating a lineup that also includes Riley Green, Chase Rice, Ernest, Ian Munsick, Nate Smith, Ella Langley, Paul Cauthen, Kameron Marlowe, Josh Ross, Morgan Wade, Hailey Whitters, Lauren Watkins, John Morgan and Laci Kaye Booth.
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Alongside country music hitmakers, the lineup also features hip-hop luminaries T-Pain, Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz, Three 6 Mafia, Moneybagg Yo and BigXthaPlug, as well as indie alternative bands including The War on Drugs, 3 Doors Down, Future Islands, Real Estate, Wild Nothing and more.
“Morgan Wallen here to share some exciting news me and my team have been working on for a while for y’all,” the country star previously said on social media when announcing the festival. “We’re heading south to the beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama and I’m bringing some good friends with me. Mark your calendars for May 16 – 18, 2025 for the Sand In My Boots Fest. Stay tuned and we’ll get you some more info soon!”
The Sand in My Boots festival will offer multiple pass types, including a three-day only general admission pass, Party Pit, VIP, Super VIP and “Livin’ the Dream” options. Amenities across the various pass tiers can include access to exclusive viewing areas and lounges, main stage in-ground swimming pools, complimentary bar and gourmet food options, private restrooms, dedicated festival entryways, and more.
Tickets go on sale Oct. 25 at 10 a.m. CT at the festival’s website.
See the full Sand in My Boots 2025 lineup below:
2 Chainz
3 Doors Down
49 Winchester
Bailey Zimmerman
BigXthaPlug
Brooks & Dunn
Chase Rice
Diplo
Ella Langley
Ernest
Future Islands
Hailey Whitters
Hardy
Ian Munsick
John Morgan
Josh Ross
Kameron Marlowe
Laci Kaye Booth
Lauren Watkins
Moneybagg Yo
Morgan Wade
Morgan Wallen
Nate Smith
Ole 60
Paul Cauthen
Post Malone
Real Estate
Riley Green
The War on Drugs
Three 6 Mafia
T-Pain
Treaty Oak Revival
Wild Nothing
Wiz Khalifa
“That’s my best friend, that’s my best friend,” Young Thug repeats on his 2015 Slime Season standout “Best Friend.” Even while behind bars, Thugger has kept up with the feuds in hip-hop this year and he’s looking to restore the peace.
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Thug took to X from jail on Friday (Oct. 18) hoping to play peacemaker and end the feud between Drake against Future and Metro Boomin. Thugger believes rap music as a whole will suffer without them teaming up again.
“@Drake @1future @MetroBoomin we all bruddas. Music aint the same without us collabin,” he wrote to X.
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The reclusive Future didn’t offer up a response, but he did retweet Thug’s message, which fans took as an olive branch that Pluto’s open to ending the beef with the 6 God.
“Future retweet????? Nah they gotta give Thug the Nobel Peace Prize,” A Thugger fan account replied.
“Young Thug just brought back a legendary duo,” one fan said. Another chimed in: “All along Thug was keeping everyone together.” Others pointed out that Kendrick Lamar was noticeably missing from Thug’s initial tweet.
Young Thug remains in prison while fighting for his life on the YSL RICO trial. There still doesn’t appear to be any end in sight as the case has strung out to become the longest in Georgia’s history.
Thugger saw an opportunity to squash the feud between Drake, Future and Metro as a neutral party in the battle. Drizzy, Pluto and Thug have teamed up plenty of times in the past including when they joined forces for Certified Lover Boy‘s “Way 2 Sexy,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2021.
Last week, Drake showed love to Young Thug when he posted to social media rocking Thugger’s Sp5der clothing brand and suggested he’s supporting Thug’s funds while fighting the case.
“I ain’t talking to talk man I really put up [bread emoji] on the [briefcase emoji] 3 Jeff,” Drake posted to his Instagram Story, per Complex.
Metro Boomin actually spoke on the Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud during an appearance at a Forbes Under 30 Summit in September.
“I feel like the competition is great for the game,” he said. “Hip-hop has always been a competitive genre. Even if just keeping it on music it’s not serious how everybody tries to make it,” he said. “Also with hip-hop, there’s a lot of ego involved. You’re supposed to feel like you’re the best.”
Metro continued: “When two of the top dogs in the game and you both feel like you’re the best, it’s like, ‘OK, now we gotta have a showdown.’ We saw it with Jay-Z and Nas before. I feel like more today it’s more stan culture makes it kind of weird. Back in the day, Jay-Z and Nas went at it, I was a fan of both of them. Most people were. It was like, ‘OK, it’s OK.’ It’s not like, ‘I had this side. I hate this side.’ The internet makes it a little too wild now.”
Cam’ron knows Ye (formally known as Kanye West) well.
The two go back to their Roc-A-Fella days in the early 2000s, when West was a producer on the come-up who was trying convince everybody that his raps were just as good as his beats, while Cam was on a maniacal run that put not only himself, but his crew The Diplomats at the top of the game with rap’s hottest record label co-owned by his childhood friend Dame Dash.
While discussing quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets with his co-hosts Mase and Treasure “Stat Baby” Wilson, Cam told an anecdote about meeting up with Ye at his office in Beverly Hills.
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“You know what’s crazy? I’ll give you an example,” Cam began. “This was probably three years ago. I went to see the n—a Kanye or whatever. His office in Beverly Hills at one time was a cave, it’s just fire in there and sh–,” he said as he couldn’t contain his laughter. “It’s just like four fires. It’s like a 10-15,000 square foot — it’s not an office, it’s a warehouse and it’s just fire going.”
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He then mentions that Marilyn Manson was there with some other people and references a photo that was taken of himself, Manson, Ye, actress Julia Fox and music producer Jack Donoghue before he says he tried to ask Ye about the weird vibes he was getting. “So, you know I know the n—a,” he tells his co-hosts. “I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’”
He added that the Chicago rapper started acting differently when he noticed his old friend. “He see me — you know how you can’t play these games with a n—a you know,” he said before bursting into laughter. “I’m lookin’ at the n—a like, ‘What the f— is going on in here, man?’”
Camron talks about the time he chilled with Kanye and Marilyn Manson during the DONDA era and said Kanye knows how to act a certain way with people 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/GmbnoiKd6a— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) October 17, 2024
During an appearance on the All the Smoke podcast hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson in December 2023, the Harlem rapper-turned-sports commentator said West plays “crazy when it’s convenient” and that Ye was “perfectly fine” whenever he ran into his former collaborator.
You can watch the full It Is What It Is episode below:
Snoop Dogg is a man of many talents — and that’s an understatement. The rap icon can do it all, and he completed yet another side mission this week when he took over Al Roker’s spot on TODAY to deliver the weather. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and […]
Rhythm + Flow will return to Netflix on Nov. 20 for season 2, and the rap competition show has some special guests slated to make appearances in Atlanta, including Eminem. Slim Shady will be popping out alongside his close friend Royce Da 5’9″ to lend his critique to artists’ auditions, as well as main judges […]
So, Tommy Richman is hip-hop now? The Virginia singer will be up for a couple rap Grammys this upcoming February, according to The Hollywood Reporter. His viral hit “Million Dollar Baby” was submitted for best rap song and best melodic rap performance, the publication reports. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest […]