Category: R&B/Hip Hop

This past weekend, DJ Khaled dropped his twelfth studio album KHALED KHALED with guest appearances from Drake, JAY-Z, Lil Wayne, Nas, Cardi B, Lil Baby and many more of the biggest names in Hip-Hop. It’s sort of receiving the same reviews that all of Khaled’s albums tend to get these days. Fans like some of the songs here and there and appreciate the collaborations, but are critical of how it sounds from start to finish along with some of the production. You can stream it here.

Nonetheless, it’s poised to hit #1 on the charts and Khaled is pressing on with the visuals. Following ‘Sorry Not Sorry‘, next up is the music video for the album’s opener, ‘THANKFUL’ with Lil Wayne and Jeremih.

You can check out the visual below.

Pandemic or not, Rob Markman will continue to serve new music to the masses every 1st and 15th of the month.

Following regular schedule, the journalist-rapper spits some vintage bars over production from Termanology and Melks on his new song ‘Do You Believe?’

“Got a beat pack from Termanology and opened it / Reminded me of Preem, some ol’ Vol 1 Hova shit,” Rob raps on the classic sounding instrumental. Stream it below or on your favorite service here. In case you missed it, peep his previous drop ‘CDAT’ here.

The backlash against Tory Lanez’ alleged attack on Megan Thee Stallion is not stopping the artist from continuing to work his music.

Tory recently did a live stream concert called Playboy and right after it, hopped on Instagram Live for an interview with DJ Carisma. During the conversation, he revealed that he has a joint project with Chris Brown on the way.

“Me and Chris.. we gonna come out with another project too. We gon drop a little capsule together. Me and Chris gon’ do a capsule too,” he said before revealing some other collaborations he has coming, including one each with DaBaby and Yung Bleu.

The two friends recently joined forces on the song ‘F.E.E.L.S.‘ which appeared on his latest “capsule” PLAYBOY. This is not the first time that he has talked about doing a project with Chris. He first hinted at the same back in 2018.

The video for the DaBaby collaboration ‘Skat’ has already been shot and should be releasing soon.

Pop Smoke’s legacy lives on.

Another posthumous album from the late Brooklyn rapper is in the works. One of his managers, Rico Beats, posted a photo to Instagram over the weekend and in his caption, he revealed plans for a new project.

“I see and hear everything kept it cool tho no worries pay back around the corner Popsmoke new album loading….” wrote Rico Beats.

Pop Smoke’s posthumous debut Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon was released last July. The album, which was co-executive produced by 50 Cent, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and became the longest-running No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart since M.C. Hammer’s Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt Em in 1990.

The album spawned a trio of platinum tracks (“Hello,” “Got It On Me,” and “Something Special”), three 2x platinum songs (“Mood Swings,” “The Woo,” and “What You Know About Love”), one 3x platinum (“Dior”), and the 4x platinum “For the Night.”

Pop, who was shot and killed in February 2020, continues to earn accolades after his death. He was recently nominated for 10 Billboard Music Awards including Top Billboard 200 Album, Top Artist, and Top New Artist.

Lil Wayne is paying his respect to the late great DMX.

Almost a month after the rapper’s death, Lil Wayne shared a heartfelt tribute to the Yonkers legend at Trillerfest in Miami on Saturday (May 1). While on stage, Weezy reflected on touring with X on the “Cash Money Ruff Ryders Tour” back in 2000, which featured top acts from two of the hottest hip-hop labels at the time including Eve, Swizz Beatz, The LOX, and Juvenile.

“When I was a younger kid, we used to be on tour a lot, like six months out the year,” Wayne told the crowd at Miami Marine Stadium. “And we used to go on tour with another record label because we used to have so many artists. We didn’t have to have no opening acts because we just needed another record label and it was just us and them. So back then, we went on this tour called the ‘Cash Money Ruff Ryders Tour.’ See, being from New Orleans, it’s so far away from New York and Cali and shit like that, we didn’t know if it was real when we seen it on TV, the New York guys, the L.A. people. So when we saw DMX, we all fell in love.”

Once he met X in-person, he was instantly taken. “But when I got on tour with him, now you in the hotel lobby, you in the backstage, you run across the ni**a and he actually say something to you,” Wayne continued. “And when you see this ni**a talk like how he rap and you see this ni**a is what he is, and you see this ni**a got a zillion dogs with him, then a zillion dogs with him, it’s impossible not to be obsessed, infatuated, motherfu**in’ impressed, whatever.”

Added Wayne, “Ladies and gentlemen, please make some noise for the late great DMX!”

He then launched into his Carter V hit “Uproar,” produced by one of DMX’s closest friends, Swizz Beatz. “It hit my brother real hard–real, real, real hard. My brother’s name is Swizz Beatz,” said Wayne. “He would never let a Lil Wayne album come out without a beat on that motherfu**er from him.”

DMX died on April 9 after suffering a heart attack. He was 50. In the wake of his death, his peers including Nas, Eve, Jadakiss, and Swizz honored him during a memorial service in Brooklyn last weekend.

Back in March, we had reported that YG and Mozzy are working on a joint album, as per information revealed by Mozzy’s manager DaveO on Twitter.

Today, the two artists have confirmed the development and the project’s title: Perfect Timing. According to the press release, the album will be released later this month so stay tuned. To kick start the campaign, the duo has dropped the first single, the title track, which features one of our favorites, Blxst.

A music video has arrived along with the Summer ready song as well, shot in the beautiful locals of Cabo San Lucas. Watch it below

Hip-hop’s reciprocal relationship with anime has been bumping and slashing along for years now, collaborating on a number of seminal projects and cutting a swathe across multimedia platforms before wiping the blade off and flicking an errant strand of hair away in slow-motion. A clear evolution of Wu Tang’s Shaolin style, it marks a continuation of the culture clash that keeps on giving. A high point of this union so far was the recent release of Yasuke, a new anime series on Netflix which tells the tale of the real historical figure of the same name, the first and only Black Samurai. Naturally, they have added robots, demons and magic, all topped off by eye-popping gore and a world-building soundtrack from experimental hip-hop pioneer Flying Lotus. Barely a day after the release of the series, the soundtrack was released to much anticipation and fanfare. Having directed his own horror film in 2017, the shall we say “visceral” Kuso, and picking up a writing credit for Yasuke, FlyLo is clearly becoming the renaissance man he was destined to be.

The music of the series is integral to setting every masterful scene, and it holds up as a beautiful piece of work when enjoyed separately. It did feel like a musical journey, even though I could never bring myself to say something like that. It is psychedelic, immersive, bombastic, unsettling, and a million other commonly used descriptors for Flying Lotus’ output. In the introduction alone, tribal drums underpin rapid fire hi-hats while mournful saxophone notes melt into neon synth lines, adding a powerful sense of drama without needing to refer to the source material to elaborate.

The theme tune to the series, “Black Gold”, features frequent FlyLo collaborator Thundercat. Usually known for more playful tones, some may have wondered how this would meld with the typically intense and serious world of samurai. Those people were of course exposed as fools. There is no facet of culture which could not be improved by that vibrating falsetto. The track dreamily recalls the unbridled emotion of classic anime themes, giving them the modern funk reboot. Thundercat’s allusions to the metaphorical possibilities on the sun took me back to the classic 80s anime The Mysterious Cities of Gold, and this is one minor example of what makes the soundtrack work as a whole. While Flying Lotus indulges his more esoteric impulses gleefully, he always manages to circle back to the classic anime music which serves as inspiration, keeping the sense of authenticity demanded from the legions of Anime-niacs.

As the album progresses, the style expertly switches from heartbreak to euphoria to beats Kill Bill would have killed for, Japanese percussion and Miami bass sharing the stage like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Flying Lotus’ well documented love of retro Japanese video games also shines through in some of the crunchy 8-bit melodies he deploys throughout. It’s a glorious mess overall, one I would describe as akin to floating in an isolation tank concealed within a 3D hologram of a Basquiat painting.

Denzel Curry steps into the fray for the track “African Samurai” and delivers a verse the famously anime-obsessed rapper seems to have been waiting his whole life to drop. The tone and references suggest a love and encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject, which is lucky as anything else would have been extremely jarring and detrimental to the soundscape.

“Blood-stained katanas, black man from Ghana

I battle over my honour and guided by Nobunaga

The power in every Kada has channelled most of my Oni

Years later, ended up scarred, broken and lonely”

As the album builds ominously to the inevitable crescendo, the darkness envelopes the listener and the astral plane becomes a very real consideration. Flying Lotus uses huge bass drops and Eastern samples in his audio collage to escalate the tension and disorientate the listener, to ensure they don’t get too comfortable bathing in the lush textures and realise that honour is at stake here. The drums of war get the adrenaline flowing and the ascending chord patterns let you know that this is a winnable fight. I feel like even explaining the rest of the album from this point might inadvertently provide spoilers for the series, so I will refrain. Suffice to say, it is a musical journey.

I recommend watching the series to attain the initial high, then using the soundtrack as a kind of daily application to maintain the high. This is the most efficient way to consume this content, although this may vary from person to person. The soundtrack is phenomenal on so many levels: as an indicator of the peerless talents of Flying Lotus, a celebration of this benchmark series, an example of the undeniable synergy and symmetry of anime and hip-hop and, incidentally, an awe-inspiring piece of music. Time to re-watch Samurai Champloo for the twelfth time.

Get the album here.

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