Vince Staples is matter-of-fact: about his music, about his upbringing in Long Beach and about his sobriety. If anything, the FM!rapper has become more direct and slightly prickly explaining his choice to avoid alcohol and drugs over his career — an understandable decision, considering how quickly outside observers tend pigeonhole …
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The very first line on Hoodie SZN, the new album from 23-year-old Bronx rapper A Boogie wit da Hoodie, is “All she ever wanted was my heart to hurt.” Few rappers mine their torrid affairs for lyrical inspiration with the fervor of A Boogie, who presents romance as a highly …
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Dummy Boy, the latest full-length project from rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine, was positioned as a potential breakthrough project for the controversial artist. After narrowly escaping prison last month on a charge of using a child in a sexual performance that had been hanging over his entire career, his new album wrangled …
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A kaiju-sized Scorpion is chasing Drake. Wait — why is that yellow Lamborghini flying? Is Aubrey Graham is now performing on top of a great white shark, like OVO got a contract to design a new SeaWorld? These are some of the questions you might have watching Gibson Hazard‘s latest …
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Run the Jewels released a rugged new single titled “Let’s Go (The Royal We)” on Thursday. The song appears in the new Marvel film Venom. The beat is the star here — the instrumental is nasty, patient and buzzing. Run the Jewels’ El-P and Killer Mike take turns rapping tightly …
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Eminem and Joyner Lucas attract an army of imitators in the new video for “Lucky You.” No, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The two rappers stroll through an empty post-industrial wasteland delivering their lines in double-time. As they walk, they’re stalked by an ever-growing number of figures wearing …
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In his final interview, published on Vulture just a day before his death, Mac Miller gave unwitting advice on how best to honor him: “The people that have the best chance of knowing me, that would like to” the late 26-year-old rapper said, “would just be by listening to my …
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Like nearly every modern pop star, Ariana Grande has flitted from genre to genre over the course of her career, easily collapsing the distance between the steroidal EDM of “Break Free” and the relaxed reggae of “Side to Side,” the clipped Eighties pop of “Love Me Harder” and the storming …
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Late Monday night, Lil Yachty and Valee dropped off their first collaboration to date, the curiously titled “Wombo,” on SoundCloud. It’s an incongruous pairing. Yachty’s best known for his sheer force of personality and red braids – his technical approach to rapping can generally be described as lackadaisical. Valee, a …
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Kid Cudi has two platinum albums and dozens of stylistic children. He has credits on (and plaques from) some of the most beloved rap records of the millennium; he starred in an HBO show that people were excited about, stopped watching, then gravitated to as a post-cancellation cult classic. He’s …
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